The New World (The Last Delar)

Copyright Matthew Cousineau 2012

This is a work of fiction.
All names, characters, places and incidents, other than those which are in the public domain, are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. 
First addition published in the United States June 2012
 

INTRODUCTION

Father Juan stares out into the ocean thumbing his rosary beads. His face carved by time, his dark eyes burdened with many secrets. He takes a calming breath letting the perfume of the sea relax him. Forty years of lessons, training and secrecy in the isolated monastery of his order all of it preparation for this moment. Now it has come.  Will he be ready? Will he, a Spanish orphan born with nothing and raised in a small Italian village, finally prove the truth in the gospels of his order? Their faith will be justified and his mentor freed from the dark, cold prison that will soon claim his life. He knows the importance of his mission, knows what the cost of failure is. But will he have the strength to do what must be done?

Footsteps creek against wood. "Patience Captain.  The Lord guides us, so have faith. It will not be long now.  The undiscovered lands filled with wealth beyond your imagination await you and your crew. Your name will be remembered by all learned men of the modern world. Just remember our trust: I show you the way to a New World and your men escort me to the ancient tower. Then you can return home a hero and with enough wealth to buy yourself a crown.” The captain stops his pacing and looks down at the pagan map in the hands of this insignificant priest. His patience exhausted; he knows only prison awaits him if he returns to the queen with nothing. He asks himself why he believed the words of a priest who follows a map with ungodly symbols. He opens his mouth ready to remind the priest of what failure will cost when a voice rings down from above.

"LAND HO!" shouts Rodrigo De Triana.

A tan skinned boy sits on the banks of an inlet his people call the gate to heaven. He wears pants made from animal skins and there are feathers in his rough, long black hair. He stares out into the rising mist of the morning lost in thought. Humiliated again by his older brother, Rising Grass asks the spirits to guide him on the next hunt. He prays for the sight to see like the birds and run like the deer. He is getting closer to becoming a man but he has not grown like other boys his age. His brother mocks and beats him, calling him a girl in front of the whole tribe. Rising Grass remembers the look in his father’s eyes, the look of disappointment -- it crushed him.  He could not hold back his tears and he ran away in shame. How will he face his father now, he thinks as he wipes more tears from his eyes. Rising Grass looks up at the rocks that rise from the waters and disappear into the low hanging clouds. He sees birds jump from the cliffs startled by something beyond the mist. Rising Grass’s heart begins to thunder and his body goes ridged. He begins to feel the presence of something beyond his understanding. Sitting up he puts his hands on the moist gravel and leans forward trying to pierce the fog with his eyes. His heart pounds louder, faster. His stomach turns on itself in anticipation. Then a great wind, silent but as if blown by the spirits themselves, reveal two great boats larger than anything he has ever seen. Rising Grass jumps to his feet and watches these vessels float closer.  Echoes of strange men bounce off the rocks. Branches crack, bushes sway, leaves twist and fall as Rising Grass runs into the forest. He goes to warn his tribe that Gods are coming and he has seen their great canoes.

Juan understands that the captain and his crew assume they have discovered a new world but he knows better. These lands have been hidden from the East for thousands of years. Hidden through time by a mystical race of man known as the Delar. It was a Delar that began Juan’s order. In 29 B.C. the Consul of Rome devised a plan to assassinate Cleopatra. Word had reached the Consul’s ears that the young empresses had bound herself with a dark relic and planned to use it against the empire.  She had become focused on the domination of Rome, not for its wealth or land but for Rome’s ships. She needed them to sail west across the ocean. An elite band of Roman soldiers were given the task to murder the queen. They were lead by Gnaeus Titus a talented soldier with a powerful secret. He was not Roman but a Delar in disguise.

At the footsteps of Alexandria they made their last stand against a horde of Egyptian warriors. Knowing defeat was close, Gnaeus sacrificed himself, but not before giving a young, Roman solider a map. This was the map Cleopatra and her bewitched Roman lover were obsessed with finding. Once the soldier touched the map he was shown a vision.  All the marking vanished save one, the symbol of the Delar. Knowing he must get the map out of Egypt he stripped off his armor and stowed away on a merchant ship to Africa and vanished. Centuries passed and the map surfaced again in the hands of a humble monk. This monk was part of a secret society that met in the catacombs under Rome. They passed the map down from generation to generation. Not until Juan touched it as a child did the markings reappear shaping his destiny.

Juan and the crew follow the map into the heart of the New World. They discover a wild and beautiful land filled with primitive men and fantastic creatures beyond anything in the East. There is magic in this New World and the men fear it. Juan weeps as he watches the men pillage the small tribes of native people they discover. Justifying their actions in the name of God, their rifles polluting this majestic land. The New World runs red with the blood of the innocent natives and Juan prays for the strength to continue through the horrors he witnesses. He knows there will be punishment for the atrocities committed in God’s name. But for now he cannot worry about God’s wrath. He has a mission and he must carry it out no matter the cost.

The men’s desires and greed grow as they move farther and farther inland. Juan questions himself:  he wonders what he has brought to this place he can only describe as paradise, perhaps the lost Eden,
and it is me, he thinks, a man of God that brought the sickness of the modern world to it
. It takes almost two months to reach the end of their journey. Their quest has led them to the base of a dark tower that rises over a windswept canyon. The men can feel the tower’s aura reach for them like the fingers of death as the sun begins to set. The weight of their crimes grows heavy and voices begin to creep into their souls. The Captain forms an alliance with the local people using them as guides, and they begin their journey into the belly of the tower.

After two days of descending into the depths of the tower they enter a deep stone chamber.  The explorers look out into the chamber and see a small wooden bridge. The bridge fades into darkness and the crew is crippled with fear. The native warriors kneel before the bridge and begin chanting. Their shadows flicker in the torchlight and the Conquistadors become anxious as the ceremony continues. The natives' praying gets louder and faster, and the chamber is getting hotter and hotter. The captain is holding a rifle tightly in his hands and nervously close to his chest. He follows Juan to the bridge that leads into the nothingness of the chamber. They cross the bridge and disappear into a dot of light. Juan steps off the bridge onto a small platform and raises his torch. It reveals a stone alter and he places the black map on it. In front of the alter is a gargoyle-like statue. To the captain the statue is like some demon or hellish creature described to him by the priests of his youth. Juan reaches into his pockets and dips his finger in a pouch of ashes and marks his forehead. A red mist rises from the abyss. The captain lowers his rifle and takes the torch from Juan, shining the light on the map never taking his eyes off the statue. All the navigation markings fade and new symbols begin to appear on the parchment. Juan begins to read the pagan symbols, and the chanting from the natives echoes louder and louder in the chamber. The rising mist thickens, and Juan's voice grows louder and deeper. His arms wave franticly as he nears the end of the symbols. The ground shakes, and the captain cautiously steps back. He looks to his side and sees a smaller alter. On the alter their is a black blade carved from a reflective stone. He stares at the blade, his breath disappears and his heart stops. He hears a voice speak to him in a language he does not understand. The words chill his spine and tears of black seep from his eyes. Corrupted with a malice of something dark and ancient the captain looks to Juan, to the statue, than back to the blade. The captain tosses the torch into the depths of the tower as Juan finishes his reading. The chamber goes quiet, and Juan looks back. A crimson light erupts from below, and through the chaos, Juan sees the captain with his black tears, holding the blade.

"No! You do not know what you are doing!  You will release him!" he shouts.

The blade lunges into Juan’s belly and exits through his back. The small blade growing as the blood of the priest drips from its side. The captain grabs Juan by his shoulder, pulling the priest closer. Juan's face convulses, and his veins contract as the blade sucks the life out of him. The captain looks at the marking on Juan's forehead. It is the symbol of the Delar, and it ignites in flames burning into Juan's flesh. The captain releases Juan, and he falls to the ground. He watches as Juan’s blood begins filling grooves carved in the stone that lead to the statue. He looks down at the blade and he hears the voice again. He begins to laugh as a wind from the darkness circles around him and the grotesque statue crumbles to pieces.  Two white eyes pierce the darkness and a roar echoes through the chamber.

CHAPTER ONE

Waking suddenly, Loeau grabs the amulet on her chest.  Between short gasps, she looks up and moonlight illuminates her silver eyes. She looks through the walls of animal skins, through the forest, and through the darkness she sees what is coming. She blinks and with a wave of her hand, candles ignite throughout the small hut.  An amber glow grows and illuminates her dark, quite home.  Loeau turns her head waving her long black hair and stares at her twin boys.  Her children are fast asleep and Loeau enjoys the moment of peace. Loeau gently caresses each of their small heads.  Never taking her eyes off her young, she reaches above their blankets and takes down her sword. It is an ancient weapon and in the days of her first fathers it was named the Namid.

Loeau rustles the furs of the bed, waking her man Noe.  He groggily wakes from his deep slumber, and Loeau ignores him while she gathers supplies from the hut.  He grabs her arm.  "Why are you awake? And why do you carry the Namid in your hand?" With a deep-seated sigh, Loeau tells Noe of her dream.  She tells him of a temple in the darkness, strange foreign men, and the eyes, white eyes that have haunted her dreams before.  She looks intensely at Noe and tries to hide her fear. 

"They will soon be at our door.  You must arm yourself, my love."

"And what of you? What of our children?"

"I will take our sons to a clearing where a stream crosses a tree whose roots have grown wild.  There I must try to find a way to save them from a fate we cannot escape."

From the day Noe saw Loeau roaming the forest he has been consumed by her.  She was naked and wild, but graceful and majestic like a forest doe.  Her mystical aura and unmatched beauty were like nothing he had ever witnessed, and when he looked into her eyes, his soul was hers.  He knew when he left his people, to live a nomad's life in the deepest parts of the Black Forest, a night like this could come.

Noe dresses, stringing together his loincloth.  He stares at Loeau with a heavy heart, knowing these moments will likely be their last.  Noe's eyes fill with sadness as he watches Loeau put on her traveling cloak.  A strange and powerful enchantment surrounds the cloak, hiding her in darkness, but it does little now to calm Noe's fears.  Loeau tightens her sword belt, and for this moment the Namid is quiet and at peace.