Praise for The Pen
“Once you open The Pen and start reading, you will be captivated. The thrilling adventures in chapter after chapter will have you reading until very late in the day. You won’t be able to put it down.”
— Patrick Snow, Publishing Coach and International Best-Selling Author of Creating Your Own Destiny and Boy Entrepreneur
“The story was very engaging, like watching a movie in my head as I read. I was always excited to see what the main character wrote and what would happen next! Strong work, Dennis Galloway! I love it!”
— Joanna Mitchell Lee, Mentor
“The Pen is spell-binding. It kept me on the edge of my seat. So enjoyable, and I learned many lessons along the way.”
— Corkie Mann, Best-Selling Author of The Art of Success
“The Pen is a fanciful, fun story with a hidden message that teaches us all how to improve our lives. I constantly cheered for Harold, and also his literary counterpart, as he discovers the power of the written word and the magical properties of the pen he writes with. A pleasure to read, and a book to think about long afterwards.”
— Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD and Award-Winning Author of The Children of Arthur historical fantasy series
“The Pen is a fascinating book that takes you on adventure after adventure. You won’t be able to put it down, and if you listen closely, you will find some wisdom for life buried in its pages.”
— Dr. Shaun A. Sullivan, Author of Head for Leading, Heart for Loving
“I liked the visual details in Galloway’s book. I felt the main character’s curiosity and excitement as he found the pen and went on his writing adventure. A fine imagination!”
— Moreah Vestan, Author of Diving Right In: Reflecting on Life’s Adventures
“Wow! I am so happy I read The Pen. It is not like anything ever written before. The story took me to places I have never been with such realism that I thought I was actually there. I got so much from it that I am telling all my friends to read this book!”
— JC Smith, Financial Consultant
“Dennis is…detail-oriented and meticulous in his work…. He is well respected.... He is a constant learner and always taking on new challenges to improve his skills and knowledge.”
— Michael Burgess, Account Manager, Paragon Technical
“I was so caught up in The Pen that time stood still. I wanted to know what was going to happen next. It kept me reading to the end. Don’t pass this one up.”
— Alison Fabricius Gardner, Literary Expert, Mentor, Life Coach
“The Pen captured me from the first sentence. I love the world Dennis Galloway is presenting. It is multiple things at once: cozy and intriguing, comfortable and full of adventure, magical and real. This book is a wonderful blend of adventure and wisdom. You will get more out of this book than just entertainment. You will get a life-changing experience.”
— Stephanie Ollerton, Filmmaker, TV Producer
“Captivating and dazzling from the very first sentence, The Pen is hard to put down. The author feeds any addiction you have for getting lost in other worlds. You can’t help falling in love with his fascinating and well-crafted characters. The storyline is so vivid it’s just made for the big screen.”
— Susan Friedmann, CSP, International Bestselling Author of Riches in Niches: How to Make it BIG in a Small Market
The Pen: Dream Traveler’s Tales Book I
Sultan's Wisdom
Copyright © 2020 Dennis Galloway
All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without the expressed written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in book reviews.
Aviva Publishing
Lake Placid, NY
518-523-1320
www.avivapubs.com
This book is a work of fiction.Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Address all inquiries to:
[email protected]
DennisLGalloway.com
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020904356
Editors: Larry Alexander and Tyler Tichelaar,Superior Book Productions
Cover Designer: BookBaby
Interior Book Layout: Meredith Lindsay MediaMercantile.com
Every attempt has been made to properly source all quotes.
Printed in the United States of America.
First Edition
My Wife, My Dream Traveler Companion, and My Best Friend
I have had a lot of help and support in writing this novel. Thanks are due to:
My wife, Corkie, for her unwavering support, suggestions, and advice.
My mother, Mickey Galloway, for her strong support of me doing what I love to do.
Patrick Snow, for his guidance in getting it done.
Larry Alexander and Tyler Tichelaar, my outstanding editors.
Susan Friedmann, CSP, my publicist.
Countless others who have supported me and wished me well on my journey of writing.
Table of Contents
Chapter One: The Pen
Chapter Two: The Duncan Home
Chapter Three: No Returns
Chapter Four: Al-Hamid Akbar
Chapter Five: Miss Priscilla Robertson, Principal Librarian
Chapter Six: On the Lamb
Chapter Seven: Freedom
Chapter Eight: Smiling, Translating, Learning
Chapter Nine: Driven
Chapter Ten: Fog and Clarity
Chapter Eleven: Average
Chapter Twelve: Hope for New Life
Chapter Thirteen: True Determination
Chapter Fourteen: Delivery
Chapter Fifteen: Ask and Ye Shall Receive—or Not
Chapter Sixteen: Helping Others Helps You
Chapter Seventeen: When Everyone Wins, You Win
Chapter Eighteen: Finding the Right Skills
Chapter Nineteen: Getting What You Want
Chapter Twenty: Harold Draws What He Wants
Chapter Twenty-one: Return of the Nubian
Chapter Twenty-two: Hidden Enemy
Chapter Twenty-three: Setting the Trap
Chapter Twenty-four: Abbas Mohammad Fattah
Chapter Twenty-five: Rescue
Chapter Twenty-six: Welcome to the Council
Chapter Twenty-seven: Glasgow
Chapter Twenty-eight: News
Chapter Twenty-nine: Work
Chapter Thirty: Tara
Chapter Thirty-one: A First Date
Chapter Thirty-two: Escape
Chapter Thirty-three: Justice
Chapter Thirty-four: Emeralds of Wisdome
Chapter Thirty-five: Passing the Torch
Chapter Thirty-six: The Master Returns
Chapter Thirty-seven: Karim's Legacy
Chapter Thirty-eight: Harold Makes Up His Mind
Chapter Thirty-nine: Al-Hamid, Merchant
Chapter Forty: Meet the Sultan
Chapter Forty-one: A New Sultan
Chapter Forty-two: The Exhalted One
Chapter Forty-three: Vindication
Chapter Forty-four: Dreams Do Come True
Chapter Forty-five: Tying the Knot
Chapter Forty-six: No More Ink
Epilogue
Emeralds of Wisdom
About the Author
Explore the World of Dennis Galloway
The Pen
Harold Duncan has been lost for a long time. He was a clerk in a large law firm in Edinburgh, Scotland. He had worked there for four years, si
nce 1918, although he detested the job and the lawyers. But he loved to write. He was fascinated by the imagination, the inner workings of the human mind, and capturing those thoughts on a piece of paper for posterity—opening one person’s mind so others could see their thoughts for all time. How marvelous it was. Almost magical.
Harold was lonely and bored with his real life. He needed to know there was something more. He took refuge in collecting old pens and writing with them. He loved the feel of a vintage pen, the sound as it scratched across the page, so he sought out obscure little antique shops, forgotten by the general populace—those that perhaps were on the edge of going out of business—looking for the odd, out of place, dust-covered box that held a mint condition Montblanc or even a first generation Macniven and Cameron Waverley.
In the cool evenings, Harold went out for long walks down narrow alleys, poking his head into shops that promised interesting finds. One night, he passed down a street he had not noticed before. Under a bridge, an old, dark, wooden storefront with an inviting door sat in the shadows of a dim street lamp. The door was closed, and it was hard to tell if the shop was open.
Harold squinted through the door window. He could barely make out a small room, with shelves reaching up into the shadows, covered with odd-looking old lamps, books, dishes, and trinkets of all sorts. He tried the door. It opened with a creak and the soft jingle of bells hanging above the door. The creak seemed very loud in the uninhabited space. He looked around at the jumble of treasures scattered over tables, shelves, and hooks hung about the small, dark, paneled room. There were lots of scattered antiques, dusty, pungent, colorful, oddly shaped—familiar, yet different—catnip to less specialized collectors than Harold. Each begging to be picked up, dusted off, examined.
Seeing no pens, Harold became impatient to get back to his apartment. He turned to the door and grabbed the doorknob—then he heard it. He stopped. Listened. The sound was soft at first. He wasn’t sure he had really heard anything. But yes, there it was, the soft shuffle of slippers on a wooden floor.
“Can I help you?” came a deep, soft, grizzled voice from behind him.
Startled, Harold swung about quickly to see a deep set of gray eyes gazing at him above a wide, friendly smile, which was buried in a small gray beard. The eyes were surrounded by an assortment of wrinkles, and the face was so old that it was almost mummified. The man’s head was bald and sported a red Moroccan fez. His body was bent with age and covered by a soft blue robe with large sleeves that dangled low about his body. His leggings were covered by an odd-looking cloth that seemed to shimmer in the room’s dim light when he moved.
“Can I help you?” he repeated with the same friendly smile.
“Ah, yes, I, um, was looking...for…” said Harold in a low, shaky tone.
“Yes?” said the man.
“Yes, of course. I’m looking for old pens, quills, writing instruments of some age,” Harold replied. “I am intensely interested in the art of writing and the accoutrements that go with it.”
“I see,” said the shopkeeper, gray eyes twinkling. “I think I may have something of interest to you.”
With that, the shopkeeper turned and shuffled slowly over to a ladder that leaned against a wall covered with shelves. He slowly climbed up the ladder, one step at a time, pausing between each effort, until he reached a particular shelf farther back in the shadows than the others. He pulled back the long sleeve of his robe and reached into the dark. He muttered a few indistinguishable words and coughed a little at the dust he had stirred up. When he retrieved his arm, clutched in his bony hand was a long, low, black velvet-covered box.
“Ah, yes, here it is; just where I had left it…long ago,” he muttered to himself.
Slowly, one step at a time, the shopkeeper descended the ladder until he was standing on the shop floor once again. He turned, and with a triumphant smile, slowly shuffled over to Harold, holding the box in front of him.
“Here it is. It’s been resting for a long time. But I think it’s time to wake it from its slumber.” Before Harold could comment or process the “wake it” comment, the man held the box out under Harold’s eyes and opened it.
When Harold saw the pen, he was immediately filled with a warm glow, as if he was seeing an old friend. He reached out, touching it lightly, and he felt the warmth and smoothness of its dark, ebony surface. It was longer than most pens he had, and the grip was curved to fit the hand. A slender stem climbed beyond the grip, giving the pen its long form. It was older than a fountain pen, but it was not a quill either. Harold marveled at the ingenuity of the instrument, knowing it had to pre-date even the oldest fountain pen, yet it still had an ink reservoir.
Before Harold could inquire as to its age, the pen’s beauty beckoned him to pick it up, to hold it, almost like a lover wanting to hold hands. Harold’s eyes grew wide as he plucked it from its box. He immediately felt joy in his heart—a happiness he had not felt in a long time.
He stared at the pen and asked, “How much?”
“I see the pen has chosen you, my friend. That is a good thing, for if it did not, then I could not sell it to you.”
“How much?” Harold repeated.
“Whatever you think is fair.”
“Will five pounds be enough?” asked Harold, his eyes still fixed on the pen.
“Why, yes, just the sum I had in mind,” said the man with a gentle smile. “Cash only, of course.”
“Great,” said Harold, almost shouting as he fumbled for his wallet and produced a five-pound note without taking his eyes off the pen.
He handed the note over.
“Thank you. Do you wish it wrapped, sir?”
“No, no thank you. I will just put it back in its box.”
Harold gently put the pen back in its box, closed the lid, and took it from the man’s hands, tucking it into his inside coat pocket, and giving it a gentle pat before returning his attention to the man.
“Is there anything else I can get you, sir?” asked the man, staring at Harold with his large, gray eyes and smiling face.
“No, this is all I want; thank you,” said Harold, turning on his heel and quickly leaving the store, gently closing the door behind him. He was so excited. He couldn’t wait to get home and use the pen—he would write such a wonderful story with it.
As the shopkeeper watched Harold go, he said to himself with a smile, “Well done, sir. Well done.”
The Duncan Home
Harold rushed down the dimly lit cobblestone street and up a foggy alley to his apartment door, which was set in the brown-brick wall of a two-story building from the 1600s. He fumbled with his keys, found the right one, and put it in the lock. With a quick twist of Harold’s wrist, the door clicked open. Harold swiftly stepped into the quiet. Closing the door behind him, he placed his hat and coat on the wall hook. Taking the pen from his coat pocket, he bounded up the stairs to his study.
The room was small, but cozy, not confining. It was warm and smelled of paper and books. One window, surrounded by heavy, dark drapes, attempted to throw light from the street lamps into the room, but it failed to illuminate anything, managing only to slightly lessen the dim. The walls were covered in a drab, faded, but pleasing floral pattern, mostly obscured by shelves filled with books and stacks of papers—all neatly stacked and numbered. On one special shelf, a number of pens were on display in an oak case that had glass doors and Victorian accents.
The lamps in the room were small, with faded shades controlling the spread of dim lights.
A large, dark-walnut roll-top desk of indeterminate age occupied a good portion of one of the walls. Thrown across the desktop’s limited surface were a number of handwritten papers in various stages of completion. A large, green, overstuffed chair, in which a small, crumpled up, dark blue blanket resided, was in one corner. Although the room was cluttered, there was not a speck of dust anywhere.
The room was quiet, almost suffocatingly so. The only sound was an old wall clock ticking away the time rhythmically, keeping time with the universe as it pulsed ever outward—tick, tock.
Harold entered the room quickly, walking across a soft Persian rug that covered part of the dark wood floor, and headed straight for his desk. He sat down in his barrel swivel chair, pushed aside the scattered papers that covered the desktop, and placed the pen case in an open space. He sat there for a moment, looking at and savoring the soft black velvet fabric that covered the box. He reached into a side drawer, took out a plain sheet of writing paper, and placed it on the desk next to the pen box. Biting his lower lip, he opened the box.
There it lay, the pen, looking up at him with a smile, or so he felt. He carefully lifted it out and held it with his right hand, feeling a flow of warmth rush up his arm, relaxing it in a soothing, caressing manner.
He smiled.
Harold brought the pen over to the paper and started to write the first few words that came to mind. The words were the beginning of a book he had been thinking about writing for some time, so they came easily. The pen scratched out the words, and the clock ticked.
Harold paused to gather his next thought, but the pen kept writing. Its straight stem bent, curling around his wrist, gently caressing and holding on to his forearm. His eyes grew wide as he watched the stem wrap about his arm. His hand moved, writing automatically. Overwhelmed, he let himself believe he was just completing his previous thought subconsciously. That is, until he saw what the pen was writing.
No Returns
The letters flowed out, swirling high and low as they raced across the page, but all in a form unknown to Harold. The writing streamed smoothly from the pen, cursive style, not hesitating, not stopping. Harold couldn’t stop his hand from moving. The pen dragged his hand with it as it wrote the swirly letters, all gibberish as far as he was concerned.
The Pen- Sultan's Wisdom Page 1