In terms of what most would call a “climactic event” within a novel, this snippet scenario in this post might not classify as a climactic event in strict terms, but for the band members that witness this event, it should be, seeing as how they react when they find out a secret they had no knowledge about.
Note: I removed the “spoiler alerts” in these snippets.
The climactic event to finish Battle of the Band, where singer Erik and bassist Keith are in comas at a local private hospital in their home city of Walltown and encounter good vs. evil in their spiritual voids as their fellows watch over them and as the evil Swami Negran attempts to capture their souls for the satanic Corion (thwarted by God’s angels, the Tooters, and their agent, the ‘witch’ of the Hovels), gets recounted within Chapters Four and Five of The Prophesied Band.
In this snippet, it turns out that Swami couldn’t capture their souls, as hard as he tried. So Corion, the devil character, punished Negran by causing him to disappear from the hospital. Negran was in fact taken by Corion into Corion’s abyss where the Creator had placed him in Chapter One of Battle of the Band as punishment for Corion’s rebellion against God. But Negran wouldn’t be the only one Corion takes into the abyss. In 50 AD, Crynnwagg, high priest of the cannibal Crag-Dweller cult, was also done that way. Why? And then he escaped the abyss. Why? Hmmmm…. From Chapter Five of The Prophesied Band:
Swami Negran stood in a hospital room trying to imprison the souls of two of his most important followers. Two rock superstars among the six that his elitist associates, through his unholy alliance, wanted to control. By owning the band’s allegiance, his elite could rule the culture and the influence of all youth.
He and his cohorts could thus rule the world with impunity awaiting the arrival of their lord Lucifer.
That is, Corion.
But Rashnish Negran deluded himself into thinking he could deceive Corion, the arch-deceiver, forever.
Though he swore to serve his god as Druid priests drained his blood in 50 AD, Crynnwagg…saw his chance to swipe Corion’s red crystal sight while his lord rested in the Abyss. With this blood-red icon of godly power, the High Priest of the Crag-Dwellers returned to life and avenged his slaying by Druid priests. Fourteen Druid children burned on fourteen oak trees in the craggy wastes of the Welsh Craggy Mountains.
Then in the mid-eleventh century the first Duke of Effingchester stole the crystal from him. When Effingchester number four summoned Corion to defeat the Hovels peasants, he prayed to Corion to take back the crystal his ancestor had stolen from Crynnwagg.
But Corion, mired in darkness, missed his catch. Crynnwagg, poised as the Duke’s servant, stole it back.
Part of the Plan of The Creator, Who rules all schemes.
And it was Crynnwagg—as a lesser Duke in the late 1700s—who founded the secret Society of Luminaries. Its symbol was the Sun-Circle, the inner part of the Corionic Cross of the Crag-Dwellers.
Then it was Crynnwagg—as a socialistic philosopher in the late 1800s—who founded the secret Ring of Our Lord Lucifer. Its symbol was the Snake-Cross, the outer part of the Corionic Cross of the Crag-Dwellers.
It was Crynnwagg—as an agent of Baron Torquay-Lambourgeau in 1964—who founded the Novordo Club. Its symbol was the Corionic Cross. Its members prayed to their lord Lucifer, who would soon come to ensure that they ruled the world to his specifications.
For they believed their god would triumph over He Who would come at the end of time.
Luminaries? Ring of Our Lord Lucifer? Socialist? These names and philosophies and secret societies have a familiar ‘ring’ to them. A ‘ring’ that is a play in these perilous times…
Then, in Chapter Seven of The Prophesied Band, a seemingly random event, an earthquake in Wales—something extremely unlikely to ever happen with the worst type of quake that ever occurred there was about 3.5 on the Richter Scale—causes an archeological dig team to discover what they were looking for, a dig sponsored by band guitarist-producer Mick close to his ‘Craggy Mountains’ Holyhope estate in this mountain region in central Wales. And what Mick was looking for were Crynnwagg’s bones, for the guitarist was obsessed with the legends surrounding this occultic high priest. This snippet is narrated by the novel’s narrator, pop culture pundit Jay Elliot, who lives in the fictitious California coast city of Richmont. He turns on the radio and listens to a broadcast by a ‘folksy’ radio columnist whose name ought to sound familiar to folks of my generation, yet fictional of course…
I was driving home to my new place by the Pacific waters—a secluded home I bought in a high-rent area a couple of months ago to escape a Richmont nearing ravage—wanting to turn off the radio as Reverend Ike Lawson exhorted for the hundredth time that day that we should read our Bibles. But I’m glad I didn’t. Next on the radio was this amazing bit of news.
“Would you believe an earthquake in Wales?” folksy syndicated radio columnist Paul Harvard asked rhetorically. “It’s true, folks. A five-point-fiver hit today in the central Craggy Mountains of Wales not far from an archeological dig for the nineteen-hundred-and-fifty-year-old bones of Crynnwagg, one High Priest of the Druidic Crag-Dweller sect. Dig sponsor Mick Pordengreau had this to say, ‘We’d been having problems finding any evidence of his bones for months. But we knew he was buried in this area. I truly believe this earthquake is a sign that we’ll find them.’ Never mind that an entire village was levelled.”
Cute, Harvard, cute.
When I got home at seven that evening I couldn’t keep my hot little fingers from dialing Mick at Holyhope, a full nine hours of time ahead of me. I knew he hardly ever slept until just before daybreak.
“Is that earthquake for real, Mick?”
“Shit, Jay. Me phone’s been ringing off the hook for an hour. I just started to sleep, eh?” He sounded tired and irritated. “Yeh, it’s real. And it killed twelve people so far. I’ve gotten several calls from charities begging me to give ‘em a big load o’ bread for their earthquake funds. But I’ve already told the town leaders I’m donating whatever money they need. A lot of these folks helped out with the Crynnwagg dig, and with a couple o’ videos the band did earlier this year.”
“The two Crag-Dweller songs on Seccond Coming.”
“Yeh. These are good people here. You know they never hassled me about my lifestyle. We get along.”
Of course it’s not every day a remote Welsh village has a world-renowned musician-producer in their midst, even if a bit kinky. But his Crynnwagg dig very much put the town on the map, and money in their tiny gift shops.
“So,” I finally asked, “did the earthquake help you find the bones?”
“That they did. Or at least we’re speculating they’re his bones. Crynnwagg was known through legend to have had tibia bones much longer than they should have been.”
“Long-shanks.” Which reminded me of a long-ago English king.
“Yeh.” Snort. “And like Swami Negran, too. Little murdering bastard!”
By this time the word had gotten out that Negran was the one who did in Adam Bloodlove. Mick made sure of that. But no one could bring the Indian mystic to justice. The man supposedly had been killed by a Christian radical in a so-called car crash.
(Later, after discussion about the agenda of the elites Negran hung out with)
“You’ll have to tell me about it sometime.” Of course, I still wasn’t convinced that anti-new-order stuff wasn’t anything more than sheer paranoia. “So, what’s gonna happen to the bones?”
“They’ll be sent to the Archeological Society for carbon-dating. If the bones are about nineteen-hundred-fifty-years-old, we’ll be fairly sure they’re Crynnwagg’s.”
In Chapter Nine, the band and their former manager Billy Prestin who also helped raise guitarist-band leader Jack and drummer Tom, are meeting in Victoria Park in Walltown near the Tooters angelic statue. Mick was the last to arrive, and he arrived in gloom. His gloom concerned the results of the carbon dating of the bones from the archeological site. The meeting took place in early June, 2000, and it concerned a ‘mission of God’ that the ‘witch’ had told Tom about (as well as Jack in The Prodigal Band), part of which was to perform at the Walltown festival in mid-July, where their ‘missions’ would be given to them.
The five and Prestin didn’t have to wait much longer for Mick. When he showed up, the sun was heading down over the shadowy horizon of council houses and ship yards. A shadowy pall rose slowly up the south face of The Tooters, heightening the tall one’s mask of gloom.
After greetings, Tom asked, “So, Skinny, what’s up at the bone yard?”
Pordengreau, who once wore gaily colored robes to match is gay-ly lifestyle, now tended toward jeans and t-shirts with cartoon characters. Further, it was rumored he had started shunning other men. The horrifying fate of former lover Adam Bloodlove did a psychological number on the lanky one.
Who now began hyperventilating.
“What’s wrong, Mick?” Jack asked.
The lanky one composed himself. “Um, look, what I have to tell you scares the shit outta me. It’s too unbelievable.”
Tom asked, “Is this the reason you’ve had to wait so long to find out if the bones were Crynnwagg’s?”
Deep sigh. “They’re not Crynnwagg’s.” Another sigh along with a pounding heart. “They’re Swami Negran’s.”
As if ordained by God that this startling news should quiet all sound, the life of the park came to a standstill.
Six eye-popping faces on bodies taken aback, froze.
“The bones are not fourteen-hundred-or-so-years-old. The bones are so recent that carbon fourteen-dating can’t register them.” Mick spoke as if entranced to an audience of zombies. “I found that out several months ago. So then they began to narrow it down to dental records and the fact that both Crynnwagg and Swami had long-shanks.”
That last phrase awakened Jack. “Like that King.”
“Yeh. But having narrowed the candidates to people with long tibias, and me telling the university people that Swami had those kinda bones, they sent for Negran’s dental records, and voila! Match.”
By then everyone else had come out of his comatose state.
“But no one believed it at first. Not me or the team I sponsored. Swami was killed in a car crash, eh? Which would mean at least some of his bones would have been mutilated in the crash. News reports said the whole right side of his body was smashed. But these bones don’t show that. It’s as if he died a natural death with no bone deterioration. Like I said, no one could believe that. Negran was about middle-aged, when most people start losing bone calcium, or something. Not these bones. They’re almost perfect. But that’s not the scary part, eh?” He didn’t wait for anyone to respond to that. “The scary part is his crystal. The university people didn’t find his crystal with his bones, eh? But after all those months and then concluding the bones were Swami’s, that crystal showed up within his jawbones a day or so after I was contacted. Yesterday, in fact. I was busy in production—”
“You know,” Jack interrupted, “it’s funny that crystal showed up the very day the witch contacted me.”
“What witch?” Mick asked.
“The old lady who told us that Swami killed Adam. That witch, remember?”
“Oh yeh, that witch.”
(Later, that ‘witch’ shows up at the meeting)
Now that all six knew of the witch’s impending visit and their ‘mission,’ the ancient woman appeared before them without warning. “And now,” her voice crackled softly—startling the six—“you will know that I have come to tell you.”
“It’s you!” Tom said in wonder.
Only Billy Prestin couldn’t see or hear her. “It’s who? I don’t see any surprise person here!”
“The older man cannot see or hear me,” she said, “because he is not one I am to speak to.”
“The witch, Billy,” Jack said. “I guess you’re not supposed to see or hear her.”
“I understand, eh?” Disgruntled. “Guess I’m not on a mission of God.” So Prestin got off Jack’s arm rest and stood at a nearby lamp post to listen to whatever he could hear.
“You are right,” she told Jack. “There is a relationship between the finding of the red crystal of Corion—”
All spoke up. “Of Corion?”
“Yes, minstrel-troubadours, of Corion. Listen to what I have learned from The Tooters. Corion is the wayward son of The Creator of All Things, the One you call God. Corion is called Satan by most. Corion is the name given the Evil by a Druidic Age sect of cannibals called the Crag-Dwellers.” She looked at Mick. “You in particular have studied them.” To all she said, “None of you, however, knows the story you must know. In the year 50 AD, before the onslaught of the Romans, the Crag-Dweller High Priest Crynnwagg was killed by a group of Druid Priests called the Legion of the Twisted Oak, his blood drained and consumed by those priests in a cup of blood. You know this and wrote a song about this called ‘Crynnwagg’s Cup of Blood.’ In your other Crag-Dweller song, ‘The Rune of Seven-Crag Mountain,’ it is told how the Crag-Dwellers tied fourteen Druid children to oak trees and burned them in retribution. What you may not know is that Crynnwagg returned from the dead by the black magic of Corion’s Demons.”
“The demons?” Jack sat aghast. “The same demons who told me in 1986 that Sound Unltd would reach success. Only I thought they were my guardian angels.”
“The Tooters are your guardian angels, minstrel.”
Bry cut in. “Why do you keep calling us ‘troubadours’ or ‘minstrels’?”
Tom answered, “Because, man, that’s what they called musicians back in her day. You know, the twelfth century?”
The synthist laughed. “She’s still alive, Tom.” Snort as the others focused on him. Embarrassed now, he relented. “Okay, okay. Her days.”
“Please,” she admonished them. “What I have to say is much too important for your interruptions.”
She waited for them to nod their agreement.
“So Crynnwagg returned from the dead thanks to Corion’s Demons. But before he left the Abyss in which God exiled Corion, Crynnwagg stole Corion’s red crystal sight by which Corion could see his way in the black abyss. I do not know why Crynnwagg did this. Only God knows. But Crynnwagg did this thing and returned to the world using the crystal for godly power. The greatest of these powers is immortality. Crynnwagg would live forever, so he believed. That is, he would appear to die as anyone else, but then he would arise and take the form of another.
“Eventually, his Crag-Dweller sect was defeated by, first, Roman Legions, then by Christianity, various conquerors and the Normans under William the Conqueror. During this time in the late eleventh century, the bearer of the crystal was killed in battle by a young knight, who, of course, stole the crystal not knowing its powers at first. He learned, however, and used the powers to convince the king to make him a Duke. Thus the First Duke of Effingchester was created. Through succeeding generations, these Dukes became some of the kingdom’s most powerful landowners. Then came a moody madman, the Fourth Duke. He could be quite worthy, as in 1135 when he established throughout his land holdings—which of course included Walltown—new freedoms and less taxes. But he always had a dark side. He would not emancipate his serfs. He just couldn’t do it. I don’t know why. Serfdom was disappearing throughout Britain, and his serfs knew that, too. So these poor peasants, in July, 1136, tried in great vain to win their freedom. I know this because I was there. A few blocks from here in the old Hovels. The serfs were almost victorious because many freemen, called yeomen—themselves former serfs—aided their cause. So seeing himself being defeated in shame, the old Duke used the same crystal stolen by the First Duke to summon the Corion’s Demons. It took only three of them—Gold, Silver, and Bronze Demons—to burn Walltown to the ground. The rest has been revealed to you.”
It took a few seconds for that last to sink in.
“Revealed to us?” Tom asked. “How?”
“In your song, ‘Song of the Demons’.”
Erik was thunderstruck. “So that’s what that song is about! A history of Walltown after the Hovels revolt.”
“Yes. I am not going to recapitulate that here. You can now interpret that song for yourselves.”
“Now wait a minute!” Interruption or not, Erik spoke with determination. “Did you say that a song revealed Walltown’s secret history? And who revealed this? The Tooters?”
“No. The Demons. The Tooters have given you other songs.”
“Did they give us ‘Let the Night Down’?” Jack asked.
“Yes, and other songs. But ‘Let the Night Down’ is the most important to you.”
“Why?”
“I’ve already told you more than I intended,” she replied. “To go on. When Effingchester number four summoned those Demons, he also prayed Corion to take back the crystal. The Duke threw the crystal in the air as Corion had told him, but Crynnwagg—as the Duke’s manservant—not Corion, caught the crystal instead. This did not please Corion one bit! So Corion put a curse on the Effingchesters for eternity.” She looked at Tom. “And you, by your settlement of the Hovels debt in 1991, activated the curse. Effingchester today, and all his ancestors to the Fourth Duke, are condemned to eternal damnation. They, forever, belong to Corion.”
“So that’s why the Duke of Effingchester hates me.” Then the drummer remembered that other thing the witch told him in the hospital about Tina. “And why he stole Tina from me.”
“Yes. Now to go on. Crynnwagg survived the ages as various people of various walks of life. As a lesser duke in 1776, he formed the Society of Luminaries. In 1879, Crynnwagg, as a socialist philosopher, founded the Ring of Our Lord Lucifer, which, like the Luminaries, believed and strove for a one-world-order under Satan-Corion. Both groups used parts of the Corionic Cross. Then in 1964, Crynnwagg, as majordomo for Baron Torquay-Lambourgeau, founded the evil Novordo Club, which rules what some today call the new order.”
“So Tina is right!” Tom stood up to emphasize his knowledge of these facts that the other five seemed to ignore all along. “It’s not just a bunch of crazed right-wing radical weirdos. So that business about checkpoints and chained people being taken to detention centers isn’t just paranoia.”
“Yes. All the oppression happening now is by Corionic-Luciferian design.”
“But what’s this have to do with Negran?” Jack asked.
“Negran, of course, is Crynnwagg.”
Mick’s shoulders drooped, matching the hanging jaws of the others. “Naturally. It all fits now. Negran would be buried in Crynnwagg’s burial site!”
A third set of snippets will arrive next week out of the third trilogy novel, The Prodigal Band. The post after that one will arrive in January, 2022. Christmas, doncha know! Merry Christmas and Happy holidays!
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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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