Han't, An Exercise In Synonomy

By Jeffrey Pike

Han't, an employee at the Agricultural Association, appears, by any objective measure, to be content with his life. Appearances can deceive. A story of magic, bureaucracy, and self-realization, inspired by Sir Terry Pratchett and James Branch Cabell.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeffrey Pike
• Release date: May 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310216954

Jeffrey Pike

I live in Massachusetts where I am a librarian. I'm not very good at self-promotion, so I don't have a Web site, blog, or a Twitter account. I watch many movies, read many books, indulge an omnivorous taste in music, prepare many meals, love my children and my cats, enjoy tippling on the weekends, and write songs when I am not engaged in other activities.

Book preview

Han't, an exercise in synonomy,

as well as a tale of Câsi'zhéo

by Jeffrey Pike

Smashwords edition

Copyright 2015 Jeffrey Pike

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Table of Contents

Han't, the story

About the author

An excerpt from the next tale of Câsi'zhéo

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Han’t lived in a garret apartment, up under the eaves of a big stone building in a fashionable district down by the river. The stone was true, it was not magic stone. Han’t avoided magic constructs. They must have their attractions, he thought, as so many people chose them, but he worked closely beside magic, so he knew its character and the aberrations it was capable of. Perhaps that was why he preferred true stone.

The city in which he lived, the largest city in Câsi'zhéo, occupied a temperate zone. Every summer, a few days got hot, and his rooms, stuffy. For him, he has lucky. In the park across the street, the city maintained benches on which one was allowed to sleep if a refugee from a stuffy apartment. Outside, at night, the air would be cooler, and the city always gently breezy. Han’t could get a good night's sleep on one of those benches.

Winters were chilly and damp by the river, uncomfortable, but not life-threatening. Han’t paid rather more rent than he should relative to his wage from his employer, the Agricultural Association, leaving him with little left over for coal, and so he was frequently cold. On those chilly, damp evenings, he would bustle himself towards home after leaving his job, after the shower which washed the smell of dead chickens from his skin. He'd stop at the Library for a book, he liked the old and dusty ones. He'd warm a pot of soup over an enchanted candle, and then bundle himself off to bed to read his book and sip his soup.

Han’t composed his meals from the Agricultural Association's castoffs mostly, foodstuffs considered too blemished to meet the Association's standards of quality, not that the typical consumer would ever have noticed the product's taste or wholesomeness diminished in any way. Everything the Association