THE CHRONICLES OF DAGAD TRIKON
INTRODUCTION TO BOOK TWO
Two cousins, Lakshman Kharadvansin and Lakshmi Vani decipher Sanskrit manuscripts
and Egyptian hieroglyphs. They come across the traces of a vanished civilization
and locate, deep in the Nubian Desert, a rocky mountain complex that does not
appear on any map.
They uncover it sheltered a hidden fortress that responds to the name of
Dagad Trikon. The rock was the last refuge of the Avasthas, an enlightened race,
which, aware of its impending end, consigned the codes of its magic powers in
a number of caskets that were eventually entrusted to flying riders and scattered
around the planet.
Lakshman initiate the quest for the caskets in Reykjavik, Iceland, after
his encounter with a enigmatic figure responding to the name of Baldur van Jetzlar.
Soon Baldur identifies himself as the wizard Sanath, Grand Master of the secret
Order of the Hllidarendis. The wizard warns him that the enemies of the human
race, under the arch demon Thanatophor, are closing in. If man can find out
the legacy of the Avasthas, the plot of Thanatophor to enslave the earth will
fail. Lakshman feverishly digs up a first casket, the all important Casket of
the White Feather, under the Vatnajoekull glacier. He finishes deciphering its
content in Amsterdam with the wizard and shortly after, the wizard disappears
in the explosion of his house.
Gradually two families are involved in the search for the Avasthic lore.
The O'Lochan (three brothers and one sister: Jonathan, Joseph, Tracy and Michael)
belong to an Irish family established in Virginia, USA. The Jetzlar ( Philip,
his wife Laira and the two grand children Lorelei and Lothar) live in the family
home, the Jetzenstein castle high on a cliff near the Rhine River .
For the companions, unveiling the legend of the Avasthas becomes a matter
of urgency. Through the astonishing adventures of retrieving the caskets, they
uncover a mechanism for self empowerment hidden within man. They realize the
meaning of "the Gift" a key element of the Avasthic prophecy. The
Gift is the highest prize of the game of evolution that was evoked by the Middle
Age minstrels in the legend of the Holy Grail.
The Holy Grail is the unlocking of the higher potential for consciousness
and bliss, stored in the limbic area of the human brain. To obtain this prize,
called amrut or ambrosia, gods and demons fight their perennial battles. In
modern times the demons promote substance abuse to get there but to no avail.
During a stormy night at the castle of the Jetzlar, the wizard who has reappeared,
summons the demon kings, Belzebseth and Hangker, and calls on the heavenly powers
to defeat them. In the ensuing session of the Council of the Order of the Hllidarendis,
The master exposes the precarious condition of mankind, hanging between self
destruction and redemption. He then vanished again on one of his errands and
two years pass by.
Shortly before Jonathan and Lakshmi marry in New Delhi, the companions meet
in a sari shop a lady in the likeness of the High Lady of Dagad Trikon. The
feminine power which grants the Gift is, in fact, walking incognito on this
earth. Can She bestow the Gift to her human children if they are not ready to
accept it?
The Book of the Riddles narrates how the companions discover that receiving
the Gift is not enough if one does know how to make use of its properties. The
stealthstars, that is, the Avasthas who returned within the human race, must
discover the methods for moving inwards, backwards from the Outer World to the
Inner World. Only then shall Thanatophor be defeated and the Great Schism of
man's split identity shall be overcome.
In the second book of the Chronicles of Dagad Trikon, the curtain rises,
long time ago, on the day of the doom of the Avastha civilization. The mountain
fortress is falling, overrun by the legions of Thanatophor.
PRELUDE: FROM THE END TO THE BEGINNING
Lidholon of Anor felt he had reached the end of history but, as this was
the year 8111 BC, the sentiment was premature. The dark patches of coagulated
blood in his blond hair gave him a fearsome appearance. He vacillated and wiped
from his face the sweat mixed with the blood that had flown from the nasty wound
in his scalp.
The sun too was setting in bleeding splendor. The crimson walls of the canyon
cliff dwarfed the dejected silhouette of the son of the last Nizam of Dagad
Trikon. Despite the heat, Lidholon was shivering. Two days ago, the host of
Thanatophor had emerged from underground tunnels, like slime vomited from hell,
carrying filth and pollution. The dark horde had been guided to the precise
location of the central canyon of the Avasthic rock through the craft of some
untold treachery. The crack archers of the yuva platoon had pierced thousands
of assailants with their crystal arrows but the unequal battle was drawing to
its end. The foes were too many, carrying a hate that was too fierce. The scouts
of the first legion of Hangker, commander in chief of the demons, were heading
for the mountain where the son of the Nizam and his companions had sought refuge.
Like enraged ants, they were now speedily climbing the flanks of the gorge.
Hounds were sniffing the traces of blood left behind by the wounded fugitives.
The narrow cornice Lidholon had reached in his flight was a dead end. He
had nowhere to go. He bent over the crag. Shadows of the approaching night filled
the abyss but he could still see in the valley below waves of combatants, the
vanguard of the army of Hangker, the demon king, rushing towards Shambalpur,
the capital city of the Avasthas. They were progressing like a surging tide
through the gap of the Gundaldhar Fault, setting fire to the giant banyan trees
that had been homes to the gentle inhabitants of the lowland.
However these beautiful dwellings were now empty as most of the Avastha folk
had congregated a few days ago at the launching pad of the cylinders of fire
hidden in the crater of the Givupatlast volcano, on the southern edge of the
mountain complex. Following their leader, the high Nizam, they had left for
the stars as per the plan that Adivatar, the Omnisicient, had reserved for the
Avasthas on the completion of their earthly age cycle. But not all the earlier
born had been fated to access the higher worlds.
The limited garrison left in the deserted citadels of the Dagad Trikon mountain
was retreating. The regiment of the Blue Watch, the life guard of the Nizam
had taken defensive positions to protect the Cave of Wonders, the residence
of the Lady of the Rock. Units from the yuva platoon and a company of women
warriors from the now disbanded Sheravalian Guard were attached to the Blue
Watch. This small troop had been overwhelmed by the savagery of the onslaught.
The rangers of the house of Kalabham were keeping at a distance, patrolling
a few strategic passages in the highlands.
Despair gripped Lidholon as he sat back, exhausted, burying his head in his
arms. Before his closed eyes he could see again the scenes of doom of the last
hours. The sense of loss, of his personal failure was total. He spotted again
Hangker and his lieutenant Abuzinal, the Southern Titanosaur, emerging like
a living terror from the mistiness of the blessed woods in the canyon of the
High Lady. They were surrounded by foot soldiers and a pack of giant and awful
beasts; he recalled the valiant but helpless fight of the outnumbered yuva platoon;
tears swelled. It that fatal struggle, his friends Hanomkar and Aliskhan, pierced
by poisoned shafts, had fallen by the throne of stone before the entrance of
the sacred cave.
Lidholon had emptied his quiver of crystal arrows; he had only a few second
to decide: to die too or to flee. The fierce defense put up by their brothers
had given a few moments of respite to the surviving virgins of the disbanded
Sheravalian Guard. He decided to escape with them and a handful of warriors,
climbing through ascending tunnels and steep trekking paths carved in the cliff.
They destroyed behind them the hanging bridges made of ropes. The fugitives
then scattered in several directions to confuse the foes in hot pursuit. Lidholon,
Evenyl and Esitel were frantically seeking to reach the abode of the secretive
lord of the highlanders, the Sand Keeper. But the arch of stone over the ravine
leading to his base had disappeared. They were trapped.
"Why, why were we left behind by our elders? Why do we have to face
this horror?" Esitel was gasping, her face bathed in tears. Her right hand
was clasped on a injury to the left of her abdomen. The thin cloth covering
the armor on her left thigh was soaked in blood. She was leaning on Evenyl who
lied on the ground, panting. Esitel had fought furiously, killing countless
foes but now her energy was spent. She moaned, "I wish Erilie would be
here, she always knew what to do. But she left with the Casket of the White
Feather and never came back; they all left us to face alone this dreadful misery,
the very end of Dagad Trikon. They left us, we, the youngest of them all!"
The blaze of the valley below was gradually lighting up the lower walls of
the canyon. The three shaken warriors felt utterly abandoned and their helplessness
filled the purple skies of dusk. Lidholon opened his eyes. He knew he had no
strength left to protect the girls from the imminent assault. A dark smoke was
now billowing over the city of Shambalpur. He shook his head, as if to get over
the sense of loss, the unbearable grief. Places exist in us that we don't know,
until pain enters them to make them exist.
His two Sheravalian sisters were staring at him, a quiet fury blazing in
the dilated retina of their eyes. "Why didn't you let me die by the side
of Aliskhan? I am going to finish it off here".
Saying so, Esitel drew her dagger and pointed the weapon at her breast but
stopped her movement as a voice thundered behind her: "Not so hasty Maiden
of Eleksim. This moment is neither of your doing nor of your choice. Listen
first and then decide."
Lidholon got up as swiftly as he condition permitted. The girls turned around.
The three of them faced a tall elderly shape wrapped in an ample dark olive
mantle. The highlander Elkaim Ekamonon, lord wizard of Dagad Trikon known as
the Sand Keeper stood before them. He had stealthily exited from an invisible
door of stone carved in the side of a large boulder. Lidholon, immensely relieved,
addressed him in a shocked tone:
"Master? You here? I saw you heading for the crater of Givupatlast.
I thought you too had left this planet with my father and the rest of our people.
O how glad we are to see you. But it is all over now. Aliskhan and Hanomkar
are dead and without them I cannot exist."
Elkaim instantly measured the depth of the distress of the wounded warrior.
Aliskhan was skilled, Hanomkar was strong, Lidholon was a man of refined nuances
and insightful subtlety. For so many years, they had completed each others admirably
and had functioned as a single fighting machine at the core of a larger team.
Without his yuva brothers, Lidhholon felt he had become the shade of his former
self. The empathy in the voice of the elder brought little solace:
"Heir of Anor , it is not quite what it seems to you. Death is just
a change of clothes. By now you friends are being welcomed in full glory by
the angels. But when they'll be back you should be ready to join them. We have
some serious work to do and" - turning towards Esitel he added gravely
- "taking your own life now is the sure way never to meet him again. For
you shall win him if you do not succumb to the creeping folly of this evil that
is now sweeping our valleys. Be sure of one thing dear Esitel: when love is
pure, the power of fate yields to the power of love."
Esitel dropped her dagger and gaped in disbelief. No one knew, or so she
thought, about her love for Lidholon's cousin, Aliskhan, the handsome esquire
of Anor. Lidholon however spared her the need to reply as he asked: "Why
did you, the high wizard, stay behind with us in this wretched world when hope
itself has left. What is this work you possibly want us to perform as we witness
the unchallenged might of evil, the rise of the age of the demons?"
"Son of Aslerach , take heed . The plans of the High Lady of Dagad Trikon
are inscrutable. I know you think that her grace has subsided but those who
know will tell you otherwise. She never leaves, nor does she come or go. Mind
my words: when all that can be removed is no more, what is left shall be revealed.
The Deep Way shall be what is left. The power of Dagad Trikon does not simply
dwell in a mountain in the desert. It inhabits a place in your body, and finally,
a state of your being.
- A strange talk for this dire hour, revered master, a talk I cannot understand.
I see ghastly turmoil, I see the end of an age, wretched foes on our heels and
if I stay here a bit longer, a sure end to my sorry life. And you talk of beginning
a new state of mind?
- Yes I do. The time has come for us to discover the whiteness of the paper
on which we write this story. You and your friends shall solve a few riddles.
You shall break the innermost code of the Deep Way. You need to achieve this
for yourself and for the sake of the race that shall come after the Avasthas
otherwise…
This was an inconvenient hour to become philosophical, a temptation the good
wizard could rearely resist. He was interrupted. The deepening darkness of the
night in the trek below suddenly came alive with awful growling, the sounds
of many running steps and the dancing glow of torches. At the same time, Evenyl
shouted, "the birds, the accursed birds are coming". She had the gift
of far hearing and perceived the sound of flapping wings high in the sky above
their heads. Pterodactyls carrying the spies of Belzebseth, the necromancer
king, were rushing towards the cornice, equipped with weapons of sorcery. Elkaim
prompted the three youngsters with a pressing voice:
"Hurry, come with me, let us vanish in this corridor or less they shall
be upon us in a few moments. No use fighting. They are simply too many. This
is no longer our field and not yet our moment. We'll choose ourselves the place
and hour of the next contest. "
They disappeared in the boulder through the dark mouth of the secret passage
and the gate of stone closed on their steps as the first hounds, hyenas and
jackals, barking furiously, rushed forwards on the cornice.
episod 1