The Fantasy genre can be defined in many ways as it mixes in with Science Fiction or Horror-Occultic or Spiritual or even Dystopian genres. But The Prodigal Band Trilogy does not take place on some fantasy world in another galaxy or another planet or another time frame, but in the modern times mostly in the time frame of late 70s to early 2000s, mostly in the UK or the US, mostly in southeast England, NYC, LA area or the Bay Area or in the fictitious city of Walltown in northeast England where the band, Sound Unltd, is from, or the Bay Area fictitious city called Richmont. Yet that’s not the fantasy part.
Both the first chapter of Battle of the Band and the first chapter of The Prodigal Band begin in the “beforetime” realm of God in heaven with the fallen angels being cast into the Abyss, and on Earth in the 1130s in Walltown, which in the year 1136 is burning, having been cursed by an evil Duke calling forth Demons to burn the residences of rebellious serfs. Meanwhile angelic forces entering the city through a portal where a three-part angelic statue is being built, come to inhabit that statue where they sit in spirit as they put out the fire. Since the statue-figures have music horns, the statue is called The Tooters.
Another force for good–truly a fantasy character–an old woman considered a ‘witch’ by the locals, Morwenna being her name, is able to channel The Tooters for the cause of good. As she is given a song that will be passed down to future generations to save the town from evil, she suddenly by divine intervention becomes young again, and is able to mate with the man who will raise a son to pass down the song for over 800 years. What can be more fantasy than a woman who grows old and young and old and young for 800 years to assure the song is passed down to what would become a ‘prophesied’ band.
Unlike previous ‘snippet’ posts with two or three snippets from one book or all three, this post will only include one snippet, from Chapter One of The Prodigal Band.
In the Battle of the Beforetime
Before God created mankind, He created angels, the ‘Sons of God’ as told in the Book of Genesis. Administrators—Principalities and Powers—for His plans on Earth He created. They were given powers over the creatures of the Earth according to His Will. Except the ‘Light Bearer,’ Satan, didn’t want to serve God. He wanted to be God, and God simply wouldn’t allow it. So Satan, with the ‘fallen angels,’ fought against God and His angels, lost the battle, and was cast down as far as they could be into the Abyss.
Called Satan in many instances within the Bible, God’s chief adversary had other names, such as Lucifer, mentioned in Isaiah 14. But a tribe of cannibals conquered by the Romans in 50 AD known as the Crag-Dwellers, who lived in the Craggy Mountains of Wales, called him Corion, as referenced by a Roman historian. Corion was their god. The Druids were their enemies.
On Earth, 1136 A.D.; In Heaven, timelessness
Foreordained, it was time to send the message.
So it happened that three angels took up spirit-residence within an as-yet-to-be completed granite three-part statue of winged trumpeters called The Tooters, at the north gate of a green-grass marketplace in the midst of Wall Town.
But the grass and the marketplace and the surrounding wood-dwellings wore dancing flames in rhapsody fanned by Demon breath. For the fourth Duke of Effingchester had to burn a peasant army and their homes to the ground to preserve his power over them.
A dilapidated quarter due east of the statue, the Hovels, was spared the fire, but Corion bade the Demons hold sway there. The serfs Effingchester refused to emancipate must forever be in debt.
Within the smoky pall around her, Morwenna, called by some the Witch of the Hovels with her scars of great age and scraggly gray hair, stood before huts of twig and scrap wood. In an instant her arthritic hands glowed with supernatural cure. The Tooters had told her she would survive eight-hundred-plus years to warn the chosen minstrels of Demon destruction and guide them to the Way.
“A—rock band, you say?” She laughed a wizened laugh. “Imagine! Rocks playing music. What a wonder of God!”
Morwenna then looked up in the westward direction of the voice of The Tooters. “What be their names?”
Soft and mellow, Tooter Three answered, “The Creator has told us their name. Their name will be sound, unlimited. Their sound will be of The Creator. Yet the Demons will try their evil magic with them. It will be they will fall under Corion for a way. But Our Creator has decided. It is this sound, unlimited that will minister the youth to His Will. Only then can they and the youth be prepared.”
Still wondering over her now-youthful hands, Morwenna spoke. “Yes, but—” Her voice quivered. “How will they know?”
“You will tell them. You will give them their name.”
“So I will tell them in 800 years?”
“Yes. You will grow old, then young, then old, then young. For 800 years. You will not see death until the mission God has given you and we have imparted to you, has ended.”
“But—”
“Impossible, yes. But with the All Mighty God, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and all things seen and unseen, all things are possible.”
“So, I am doing the Will of God.”
“Yes. And we, His angels, are telling you this.”
“So it is true.”
“Yes. God does not lie.”
Tooter Three then spoke to the partners. “And at the appointed time, only they will see and hear her. Morwenna is now a spirit for Good. We have given her the power to know His chosen ones and to give them an unseen guiding hand.” The spirit turned away and laughed. “To use the parlance of those future times—they won’t even know Who hit them.”
Morwenna was now a young maiden.
Nearby, a dazed lute player, not realizing he had wandered that far eastward from his usual marketplace milieu, fell prostrate from smoke inhalation. Cough, cough. He laid his instrument on the dirty ground.
A voice called to his prone form. “Minstrel, we will now give you a song. You will play it and pass it on. It will one day save the young from evil. Your bloodline will perform it.”
He sat up instantly in vexation. His name was Mollock.
Soon Morwenna approached the musician.
“Eh, fair lass,” Mollock called to her, “that song. You hear it?”
She looked toward the statue. “I know the song you mean. You are to preserve it for your posterity.”
He sat up. “Are you the giver of the song, pretty maiden?”
“Well—” He’d never believe it if I told him it was the statue. “Yes,” she fibbed, “it was me who sang it. But you will pass it on. You will give it to your son to pass to your generations.”
Startled. “Son? Young lassie, I don’t have a son.”
So she gave him one.
And that son would turn out to be the one to pass down that song, the most important song in the entire trilogy. To find out why, you will just have to buy the book. Here are all the online bookstore links you would need.
The Prodigal Band Trilogy © 2019 by Deborah Lagarde, Battle of the Band © 1996 by Deborah Lagarde, The Prophesied Band © 1998 by Deborah Lagarde and The Prodigal Band © 2018 by Deborah Lagarde. Permission needed to copy any materials off this page.
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