by Carl Cupper
A whirlwind of lights filled the vault before the astonished eyes of all those assembled. Hayex spun quickly until his shape was lost within that brilliant light.
Califax, with the Grail still in his claws, backed away from that brilliance, and a few minutes later, the lights began to dissipate, slowly.
Once the lights had faded completely, a miracle appeared before the incredulous eyes of the witnesses: Hayex, who all his life had been but a simple and inoffensive forest creature, persecuted unjustly by men, was transformed into a human; a boy of about fifteen years old.
Hayex awoke from his deep sleep, and before him, he found Califax, amazed by the extraordinary event.
“What happened? Where are we, my friend?” he asked, still groggy, looking all around him with surprise.
“Hayex, my friend, is it really you?” inquired the dragon, still quite astonished.
“What? Do you not recognize me? Of course, it is I!” exclaimed Hayex, confused before such a peculiar question.
“Look at yourself!” said Califax.
Hayex had not yet noticed his profound transformation. Sheepishly, he complained bitterly about his new appearance.
“I have changed into a man!” Hayex stated, with horror.
“I thought, the power of the Chalice would, only resurrect you, my friend!” explained the alarmed and amazed dragon.
“It would have been better to leave me dead!” he protested.
The audience in the observatory could not explain or give credit to what their eyes had seen. Complaints from those opposed to Filox raised their voices demanding an explanation.
“Is this the chalice that will save us from perdition, Filox?” demanded a voice that came from the back of the building.
“The prophecies are a farce! Far from saving our people, the Chalice will cause our extinction!” cried yet another voice.
“Where is your savior wearing the four-pointed crown, Filox? Will this pup save Dragonia?” said Lusux, incredulous.
“Can you not see? You have him before your very eyes,” expressed Filox, pointing to Califax. “This young dragon left our land with one horn on his head and now he has returned with four. He is the one, the prophecies speak of.” he explained. “How many dragons like him do you know?”
“And what do you plan to do? Change us in to humans?” protested Rhudex. “If Califax drinks from the Chalice he will turn into one of them and we will lose him forever. Is that what his sweet mother wants? Is that what this Royal Court wants? The mission is a failure. We should destroy the Chalice. It is a threat to our race.” he stated.
“I should tell you, noble dragons, that part of what Filox has told you it is true, but, another part is not.” interrupted King Rasux, while the murmuring became louder after that statement. “The prophecies indeed speak of the things to come, but also they speak of things that have already happened, many centuries ago.” he said, to begin his story. “Before the Region of Fire existed, two twin cities were built in far away lands. The human inhabitants of these cities lived their lives under moral codes that would offend even the most savage of our species, and I will not speak of them in respect to our illustrious females that occupy a place in this building.” he said.
“The unbefitting moral conduct of these humans,” continued Rasux,” provoked the wrath of their God, who on repeated occasions reprimanded them and warned them against this kind of behavior. However, they did not take heed to the warnings. That God, who could not find even one just inhabitant in the town, destroyed those cities with fire and they disappeared. Nevertheless, the punishment those men would suffer was not over. According to very ancient texts, even older than any of our Sacred Papyruses, the souls of those men were damned to these lands to inhabit them forever under the skin of a ferocious dragon and other beings. This way, that God could be assured that those disobedient men would not forget the reason they had been destroyed, but it seems that we have forgotten. It is not your fault,” he exempted. “The truth has been carefully obscured for all these years, behind the walls of the palace,” he concluded.[100]
“Do you mean, Rasux, that we were humans before?” Lusux inquired in a state of bewilderment.
“That is truth, my friend.”
A shocked murmur spread throughout the chamber at the audacity of that statement. The king was even ridiculed and laughed at, labeling him senile and decrepit. However, with the patience that a sovereign must exhibit before his subjects, he signaled Filox to bring that mysterious document to him. A few minutes later, Filox returned with a papyrus, that as Rasux had anticipated, looked very ancient.
One by one, the dragons looked at that incredible document that proved their unexpected origins. Many questioned the authenticity of the parchment and left the observatory in a fury. Nevertheless, the indisputable evidence to the truth was clutch in Califax’s claws. Filox addressed the young dragon.
“That unknown God, the one we call Helion, gave us the opportunity to vindicate ourselves before His eyes. There will not be another Chalice that will return us to our original condition.” he warned. “And if you ask, why should we do it? I would tell you this: The Earth and its destiny are in the hands of men, and very soon, there will be so many of them that it will be impossible to contain them. Human nature is very strange and contradictory, and we will only be able to do something for ourselves if we mingle with them. Perhaps, they will let us tell our story and advise them on the terrible consequences of living an empty violent life without moral principles. And if they laugh at our story, we still have our own experience that, in one way or another, will be transmitted.” he concluded.
Califax looked at his teacher’s eyes that were full of sincerity and wisdom. He looked at his parents for an instant, and with their warm smiles allowed him to make the final decision.
Then, he filled the Grail with clear water and drank of it. Moments later, an aura surrounded his body overwhelming the cave with a golden brilliance, which in spite of being extremely radiant, did not hurt the eyes of the witnesses. When the light dissipated, a handsome young man revealed himself before the audience. The sovereign of the four-pointed crown had become a man.
Hayex ran to Califax to cover him with his royal cape, and every dragon, skeptical or not, ended up gave credit to those historic prophecies.
Eventually, all the dragons in the Region of Fire drank from that miraculous cup, and finally made up a community that lived in peace and prospered for a very long time.
After the death of King Rasux, Califax took up the scepter and renamed the Region of Fire into the Farox Islands, and Dragonia to Danmarx,[101]unifying all the tribes of the islands under his wise and just authority. However, the peace was not to last, the Vikings invaded those lands and the battles were inevitable.
Califax, who risked his life to avoid the destruction of his country, is now caught before the hostile presence of the invaders. Nevertheless, with the calm and patience which characterized his nature, he used every means to compromise with the barbarian. However, all his efforts were in vain.
In a valiant battle alongside his father, Califax finally died, overcome by the treacherous and indecipherable labyrinth of war.
After the death of his close friend, Hayex returned to Jerusalem, to fulfill his promise to the teacher Solomon, who was the first to hear his story. In spite of his skepticism, the teacher documented the story, but it was not disclosed, and it remained hidden for many years in the Sacred City of Jerusalem where Hayex died a natural death.
In the XII Century, Richard I, the Lion-Heart, led the Third Crusade to retake the Sacred City of Jerusalem from Saladin and his Saracens. This constituted a new and more brutal Dragonia that lasts to our times.
Isaiah who at the time was the disciple in charge of the Flavius Josephus School, to which Solomon belonged, took most of the documents that had been accumulated over the centuries at the academy for safe keeping. Even though the Muslim sovereign allowed free access to the city, Isaiah fled from J
erusalem crossing the desert and confronting many dangers. Tired and downhearted he arrived at Qumran[102] and managed to hide many documents in several caves close to the Dead Sea in Palestine.
The slaughter in Acre and the untiring siege of Richard I, the Lion-Heart, in the Sacred land, obligated Isaiah to flee again from his beloved country and travel to Egypt, taking with him some documents, among them, the papyruses that tell this very story.
He crossed the Red Sea in order to reach Naj’ Hammadí,[103] where he hid some other scrolls. From there, he went south, crossing the Nile, to the city of Tebas, into the Valley of Kings, where he was overtaken by a sand storm.
Looking for a refuge, Isaiah placed the last papyrus inside a small vase and found a small cavity to hide it. This storm and subsequent storms managed to seal the hiding place. A short time after having hidden the last scroll, thirst and hunger took the life of Isaiah without him ever knowing that the place where he hid the appreciable papyrus was the entrance to the tomb of the King Tutankhamen.
The Holy Grail was lost in the middle of the wars and nobody ever saw it again. Many people think that it was rescued by the Knights Templar, from the hands of the barbarians, and taken to France in the XIV Century. Later, the Knights Templars fled to Scotland to escape the torment of King Philip IV, whose intentions were to end the Order of the Knights Templars and to seize its treasure to finance wars. He persecuted them, even before the opposition of Pope Clement V, who had accused the Knights of heresy.
Carrying the legendary treasure, the famous heroic people crossed the River Seine and managed to reach the Atlantic Ocean to keep it hidden even to this day in some safe and secret places.
However, the legend of the Holy Grail goes beyond a mythical piece of olive wood. It reminds us that in our minds we have the foundations to discover our authentic and universal origins, and that in our hearts we hold a cup where love for ourselves and our fellow man grows, just as it was given to us by Jesus so we could achieve our own salvation and in this way converted all of us into Knights of His Holy Grail.
The incessant fires that we have breathed on one another over the centuries have been fed by small religious and cultural differences, that are but the colors of the rainbow that make up human creativity.
The message from the prophets is singular and universal, and dwells in the fact that all of us make up a single race created by a peculiar act of love by an all-powerful entity. Although people call him by different names, he has always been one and the same, guiding us at all times throughout our short existence.
The bloody battles that we have waged over time for sacred cities and places, in all reality constitute an insult against God, on pretending with them that He takes the side of one religion or another, as if He was not the creator of all men on Earth. The bonds between nations cannot continue to be based on the use of force without it pushing us, inevitably, to our own total destruction.
Releasing our true human essence and doing away with the indomitable dragon that each one of us carries in our hearts will lead us, one day, to the peace that we have all yearned for throughout our history.
My name is Charles Halifax, I hold a doctorate in History and I am a descendent in the ancestry of Califax.
The End
Author Bio
Carl Cupper, author of The Secret of the Dragon - The Revelation of the Sacred Papyruses, began his courtship of the literary world at the age of 40.
Carl Cupper weaves his love of History, Philosophy, Religion, Science, Arts, and Sociology into each of his novels.
To date, Cupper’s accomplishments include; Paul and the Cactus; To live dying, to die living;The siege, and ATale of Tyrannosauruses and sixty five million years later, this one is available at amazon.com
Carl Cupper consistently portrays, in all of his stories, the constant qualms to which all human beings are subjected, while inviting us to reflect in a simple and entertaining way about ourselves and our surroundings, always with the intention of finding alternate ways for a better living.
Carl´s e-mail
[email protected]
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[1] Son in law to Amenhotep IV or Akhenaton, who created worship of Aton as the only god, which was probably the reason he died at the hands of his opponents (Authors note).
[2] Started by Saint Patrick in 423 A.C. (Doctors note).
[3] In the beginning, the Celts, also known as the Gauls, asked for help from the Anglos and the Saxons (Germanic people from Anglia and Saxony regions) against the Picts and the Caledonians (Doctors note).
[4] The Celts of the south called them prytain and those from Ireland, cruthni. Both originating in the root word Britannia. Other Celt tribes also called them Picts, which means, painted people. This word is probably derived from the Iron Age people that used Indigo blue in their rituals and battles (Doctors note).
[5] Helion was the God of the Sun and Selion of the Moon. (Doctors note).
[6] Water-drain statues installed on the roofs of houses in the Middle Ages thought to come to life by night. (Doctors note).
[7] Greek God of Hell, Identified by the Romans as Pluto (Doctors note).
[8] Scandinavian mythological Gods. Thor: War God. Odin: Author of Universal life (Doctors note).
[9] Word of Celtic origin that means Green Glen (green valley) and latter became the city now known as Glasgow, in the south of Scotland, founded by Saint Ketigern also known as Saint Mungo, circa 550 A.C. (Doctors note).
[10] A place called Glastonbury, situated in the southwest part of England. According the legend, King Arthur went to Avalon to recover from the wounds of his last battle (Doctors note).
[11] An eight-pointed star in a circle, flanked by dragons and two bands with a motto that said: Ad Gloriam Pater Helion (To the glory of the father Helion) (Doctors note).
[12] ScottishIsland situated to the north of Great Britain (Doctors note).
[13] The Royal Pines were brought by the Romans to Great Britain and its pinecones were used as incense in many rituals (Doctors note).
[14] Loch Ness. (Doctors note).
[15] Unknown suborder of the dinosaurs (Doctors note).
[16] Isle of Man, in the Sea of Ireland, south of Scotland (Doctors note).
[17] In the Celtic language, it means Fort. The Irish took the island following Saint Patrick's instructions, co-inhabiting the land with the Celts (Doctors note).
[18] Now Tintagel, to the southwest of Great Britain, in Cornualles or Cornwall. (Doctors note).
[19] A tailless cat from the Isle of Man (Doctors note).
[20] Church dedicated to Saint Deiniol, who led the Christian Celtic community in the V century A.C. (Doctors note).
[21] Its source flows down from Snowdon and part of its tributary forms LakeBala. (Doctors note).
[22] In this story, Hayex seems to be referring to an ancestor of John Dee, alchemist, astrologer, and mathematician of the XVI Century, who was the advisor to Queen Mary Tudor. (Doctors note).
[23] Now Kidderminster, southeast of Birmingham (Doctors note).
[24] The Romans took a fort in the Iron Age that Saint Augustine called Sarum Chant (liturgical songs) during their trip to Canterbury. Salisbury’s actual name derives from the Latin word Sarisberia (Doctors note).
[25] Fort of Dagda. Dagda was a Celtic god of the elements and storms that often represented as Cernunnos, god of the horned red dear. The Romans identified him with Jupiter (Doctors note).
[26] Watch of the Sanctification. Precursor of the present Halloween (Doctors note).
[27] The Romans brought a melon from Greece which the Greeks brought it from Africa. The word “pumpkin” comes from the Greek “pepon” that it means “large melon”. In French as “pompon” and to English as “pompion”(Doctor’s note)
[28] High priests of the Celts. From the Gallic, root Dru-id (master of the science). The Greeks confused it with the root drus (oak) and they applied it to the word “druids” as knowledgeable in oak (Doctors note).
[29] In the Celtic language, Fort of Lugh, Druid God of the Sun, magician and wise man. God of Gods among the Celts. Identified by the Romans as Mercury and among the Egyptians as Anubis. The construction of Avebury precedes the one in Stonehenge by 500 years (Doctors note).
[30] Lug thoir an ceann dhe rud diomhor cuine coine bo-loids maighstir crann (Doctors note).
[31] In Gaelic, it means High plateau of stone, where the word dolmen (Monolith) is derived. A place known today as Silbury Hill. An earthen knoll, 40 meters high. The reason it was built is still unknown to this day (Doctors note).
[32] Close to Edinburgh, Scotland’s capital (Doctors note).
[33] Also called The Enchanter (Doctors note).
[34] In Greek, it means amber. Fossil resin found in some plants and trees. The mathematician and Greek philosopher Tales of Mileto discovered its electrical properties in the VII Century A.C. The word electricity is derived from the word electron. (Doctors note).