by Abhishek Roy
Father of the Gods
Copyright © 2017 Abhishek
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
First published in 2015 by Quill’s Ink
This edition published in 2017 by The Write Place
Print Book ISBN: 978-81-934299-5-2
Publishing Facilitation: AuthorsUpFront
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For Dada,
My grandfather, Nirmal Roy, who loves literature in all forms and passed his knowledge and passion down to my father and then me. At 95 and having lost his vision, he is the happiest to know that I have taken up writing.
God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination.
Paul A M Dirac, the famous British theoretical physicist and one of the founders of the field of quantum physics.
I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation and is but a reflection of human frailty.
Albert Einstein, the greatest theoretical physicist and mathematician the world has known.
Acknowledgments
Writing a novel isn’t an easy task. No, not at all. Especially not when it is a researched one. This novel took me two years to build, and the amount of thinking and imagining that has gone into this dwarfs the thinking that has gone into the hardest mathematical and scientific problems that I have tried to crack out of interest.
This novel has a complex plot and I have often struggled to convert my ideas into the story. I would therefore like to thank a lot of people, starting with family.
My father, Joydeep Roy, for helping me so much. He read the entire manuscript only after I finished writing the whole thing and helped me rectify many contradictions in the plot and in the grammar, but before that helped me search out loads of information about Japanese, Persian and Scandinavian folklore.
My mother, Baishali Roy, for encouraging me to write the book and for finding loopholes in my plot. She guided me along the way and gave her precious opinion about every aspect. She also made sure that I do not get carried away and manage time to give attention to my studies, sports and musical activities.
My grandfather, Nirmal Roy, to whom the book is dedicated. He is 95 years old, and the grand old man of the family. He patiently heard my story and inspired me to complete the book. He liked reading my essays from when I was in fourth grade and loves it when someone in the family reads out a few pages from my novel to him now as he has virtually lost his vision.
My maternal grandparents- Ashim K. Bhattacharya and Purabi Bhattacharya. Whenever they used to visit us, they used to stay awake till late each night, while I wrote my novel, just so that I do not feel alone.
My cousins- Antarleena and Atreyee for discussing the plot with me eagerly and being two of the few people to know about my novel’s existence in the early stages.
My cousins in London - Mayuk and Pritha Majumdar, for introducing Hounslow, London to me. I had just started writing my book a couple of months before I visited them in London. Hounslow was just like the place I had thought of as the location of Mathias’s orphanage.
I cannot finish thanking Subham Uncle, (better known in Canada as Author Sam Mukherjee). He has been more excited about my book than probably myself. He went through the manuscript at an early stage and when he said that he cannot wait to read further, I was thrilled. He gave me tons of useful advice. He is a busy man and yet found time to connect me to different literary agents and help me with my project whenever I asked.
Subhayu Uncle (Marketing and PR champion, Subhayu Mishra), for reading very early parts of my manuscript, sitting with me and giving me extremely useful tips for making my writing better.
Leticia Gomez, of Savvy Literary Services, for reading the first 200 pages of my raw novel and giving me valuable feedback to make my immature writing better.
Manisha Aunty (author, teacher and film critic Manisha Lakhe), for going through the manuscript and using her skills of professional editing to suggest appropriate improvements.
Deepali Aunty (Deepali Naair, Marketing & Digital Guru), for sitting with me patiently, listening to my story, and giving me valuable advice on how to go about promoting the book.
Rohan Vij, my Publisher, owner of Quills Ink Publications. I thank him for believing in me as a young writer and personally looking through the typesetting and formatting. Being a history buff himself, he used his knowledge to point out a few mistakes in my novel.
Suhail Mathur and his team of illustrators, for designing the beautiful cover picture and abiding by every small detail given to them.
I would also like to thank my English teachers from Maneckji Cooper Education Trust School, Ms Pooja Salian and Ms Tulika Jijja - and from Oberoi International School, Ms Diana Roy - for building a strong literary foundation for me. I would also like to thank my teachers in Oberoi International School - Ms. Jagruti Joshi for answering all my wild Physics queries without slightest irritation, Mr. Vivek Gandhi for making me excited about Higher Mathematics, Ms. Brinda Anandh for introducing me to wider perspectives in History and Mr. Parag Oltikar for making me think about linkages between Chemistry and other sciences.
My school bus Attendant Aarti Harayan and the Driver Mukund Gholap for allowing me to write on the long school bus ride home. I would not have been able to finish the book if not for that.
In fact, the numerous rejections with pointed feedback I have received from literary agents and publishers have also helped me improve my writing. The delay in getting the book to be published itself has helped me in re-reading the manuscript and improving the book as I learned a lot as an author in the journey from a 13 to a 15 year old.
I would like to mention some books that have influenced me to develop the scientific concepts mentioned in the book. Michio Kaku’s Beyond Einstein and Scientific American: Parallel Universes.
I love reading books on high level Physics and Mathematics. Often, people get bored while reading high school physics and math textbooks. However, when the level advances, when we venture into the quantum mechanical world, when we look at the membrane of the universe, when we think about four dimensional bodies and objects made up of energy, things start to turn magical and this is how I was inspired to write my book.
The Boston Tribune,
January 4, 2017
HOLY GRAIL OF ARCHEOLOGY GOES MISSING
The Chiemsee Cauldron, the holy grail of archaeology was reported missing on the 2nd of January. Officials at the Bavarian National Museum say that it was safely guarded behind twin six inch metallic doors in a top secret vault under the museum. This vault was guarded by five special officers, who along with the curator, were the only people who had the password to access the artifact.
Ever since the Chiemsee cauldron was found, it had an aura of enigma. Archeologists had various theories about its origin but no one could prove them.
The Chiemsee cauldron is a cauldron found at the bottom of Lake Chiemsee in 2001. It is made of pure gold and has severa
l different engravings on its body. It is believed that the cauldron was found by the Nazis during their great plunder in WWII. Some archaeologists believe that the cauldron is a sacred Celtic cauldron with Celtic and Indo-Germanic engravings. There are scholars who claim to have proof that it’s not as old but is merely an artefact from a Nazi ritual, being made by high Nazi officials.
After being kept in a Swiss safe for a long time, fanatical auctioneers wanted to pay huge sums for it, some believing that it wasn’t from our planet while some held that it had been influenced by ark magic.
Rigorous research was going on over it for the past few months, when suddenly, it disappeared from the vault.
“There isn’t any damage inflicted to the vault doors. Neither can we see any malfunction in the security systems. Everything seems fine. The only proof we have is our five guards falling unconscious. Even the CCTV footage appears to be very strange. As if it has been played with. The cauldron just seems to have vanished into thin air,” said the Chief of Security.
“We were just so close to finding about its past. The discovery would have been phenomenal and probably the most important in the past decade of archaeology. It is a sad thing that it had to disappear.” This statement of the curator, who is also the head of the research team, was released by the Swiss Government.
The Bavarian police are busy on the trail and will let us know of their progress.
The NEW YORK HERALD
January 17, 2017
OLD TESTAMENT CHRISTIAN CHURCH DISCOVERED
The Church of Hatay or the church at Antioch, South Turkey has been reported as the oldest church in the history of mankind.
The church at Hatay is probably not the oldest one used for worship but radio carbon dating says that the building had been there at least one thousand years before Christ was born, thus making it an Old Testament Church.
A faint, eroded away engraved statue of a winged angel facing sideways in one of the dark niches clearly suggests that the structure was made by the ancient Hittites.
Hittites are an ancient civilisation who were mainly Anatolian people. Their empire stretched from Asia Minor to Upper Mesopotamia. They are one of the few important ancient civilisations and were expert stonemasons. The building of the Church of Hatay seems a little too advanced for them, being carved into the rock face but their stone masonry nullifies the doubt.
After the Bronze Age collapse, they broke up into various other kingdoms and the Church was left abandoned for a long time until a thousand years later, Paul the Apostle and the early Christians started using it again.
Archeologists and scientists are still finding out many more things about the church, as they believe that there is more than meets the eye. Behind the broken mortar apses and recesses, there may lie something of incredible significance.
Prologue
August 6, 2015, Thursday, 0630 hours GMT
HUNTINGDON HOME FOR BOYS, ORPHANAGE, HOUNSLOW, LONDON
I saw the face of a lady who was presumably my mother. She had ebony black hair and fair skin. She appeared fit and healthy and was smiling warmly. To me, she seemed to be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.
Then my vision drifted off to a man by her side whom I understood to be my father. He stood just beside her and was also smiling. He had long auburn hair and an auburn beard. My father had brilliant blue eyes and also carried a rather intriguing bag with him.
Both my parents were wearing formal looking but unfamiliar clothes. Their smiles were warm and as fresh as a daisy.
My father said, “Mathias, don’t worry, we love you.”
My mother said, “Take care sweetie, for we will be back.”
My father smiled and nodded his head gently in assurance. Then, he slung around my neck an amulet in the form of a locket that was dangling loosely from a black thread. It was made up of metal, probably bronze for it had a gold tint to it. It was quite simple an amulet compared to its sheer weight.
The amulet comprised of a strip whose upper end was looped around the black thread and the lower end expanded into a rectangle, like a hammer. This apparently gave the amulet its weight. The rectangle also had a dazzling circular gem embedded on its side. The gem was bright blue in colour and was polished so smooth that it reflected a light that dazzled me.
As soon as my father slung the locket around my neck, the gem started to pulsate, giving off a brilliant light. Simultaneously my parents started to dematerialize.
I tried asking them to come back. However, no word came out of my mouth when I opened it!
I tried to shout but the same thing happened.
I slowly broke into a cry. As the first teardrop splattered on the ground, they completely disappeared and I woke up in a cold sweat.
Kapittel 1
Mathias’s story
NANDA DEVI BIOSPHERE RESERVE, INDIA
March 10, 2017, Friday, 1445 hours IST
The last thing I heard before jumping into the water amidst the magnificent mountains of the Nanda Devi Biosphere reserve 20,000 ft above sea level in the Himalayas, was Ram calling my name. “Mathias! Be careful!” and a loud splash almost simultaneously as he also hit the water.
We swam downwards, towards the forbidding hole with a lot of apprehension. I was glad that the flashlight wrapped by electrical duct tape was working properly. However, the powerful light of the Maglite was unable to permeate the darkness of the hole. So Ram switched it off.
The cliff face in front of us was like a ginormous wall, going fifteen feet above us and stretching down to the unseen depths of the lake. On reaching the entrance, Ram shone the flashlight again. Though our view underwater was cloudy, we could make out the jagged rocky walls of the cave but the light could not penetrate the further darkness. Gathering all our courage, we entered it.
By now, there was a slight tingle in my chest, indicating the first signs of depletion of oxygen.
We swam along the length of the cave. Suddenly, the light illuminated the solid stone wall about 10 feet ahead of us. It was a dead end, a cul-de-sac. This was disappointing indeed as this made the cave only about 15 to 20 feet long. On reaching the wall I felt it with my hands but found no lever, no niche or recess. The tingle in my chest had grown to a slight burning sensation but it was bearable. However, the fact that this was going to be another fiasco made me feel terrible for Ram. I knew that he won’t be able to climb the steep ridge up to the structure and every alternative we tried to find turned up to be a failure. However, this hole was very odd and was definitely man made. The people who made this could not have only bored a hole into solid rock which led nowhere. It had to lead somewhere.
After some more effort to find a portal I was just about to indicate to Ram to head back when I saw a different spot behind him. It seemed to be a crack, but totally in a straight line, unlike any natural fissure. I gestured to him to turn back and shine his flashlight at the crack. He did so and the light revealed a clearly artificial line. Feeling around it, we felt the piece slide back and suddenly we saw the opening of a tunnel bending upwards. This lifted me up a little bit and we proceeded to the alcove.
The tunnel was no different from the main entrance cave/ tunnel. Only difference was that it was like a slope with a gentle gradient, estimated to be around 3/5.
Since there was no space for us to swim side by side, we swam in a single file with Ram swimming ahead of me, illuminating the path. After 10 more seconds, the burning sensation had grown significantly and I decided to ignore the pain. I was pretty sure that Ram too was running out of breath.
Finally on the fifteenth second, the light revealed the crystal like surface of water. Ram craned his head back and looked at me. Though I could not see his face clearly, I smiled. We increased our speed and just before I was about to gulp in some water, we surfaced in a shallow water body.
Both of us gulped in huge amounts of air. We had been under water for over a minute. I had never acquired a lot of training in water than I had on land. I also ha
d the typical stress related breathing problem for which I had to carry an inhaler with me at all times. Actually Ram carried it for me. Hence, holding my breath for over a minute underwater was an achievement on its own.
When my heart and lungs were relieved again I noticed the place we were in.
Darkness.
Aside from Ram, whose face was lit by the incandescent Maglite, and the water which was glowing because of the submerged torch, nothing was comprehensible.
“Give me your torch, Ram,” I asked and he handed it over to me. I raised it and the entire place was bathed in a numinous white glow.
We were in a square, high ceilinged cavern. It was not very voluminous. The walls on either side were probably 10 feet across. However, the feature of the cavern that brightened our mood was the extraordinarily tall ladder. There was a small elevation which projected from the wall in front of us. The ladder, situated on top of it disappeared into a vertical shaft bored into the ceiling above.
The Maglite revealed the frail wooden rungs of the ladder. “I was right Ram. The hole does lead to somewhere.”
It was clear from Ram’s face that he was elated. “Do you think that this ladder leads to the structure?” he asked.
“There is only one way to find out.”
***
The shaft was really tall. Since the place was inside the ridge, it was really warm so there was no chance we could get hypothermia over here, with our wet attire.
Shortly after we left the cavern and entered the shaft, I looked down at Ram who was climbing close to my feet. I grasped the torch from the grip of my mouth and asked, “Are you okay?”
“Never been better!” he replied cheerfully.
The climb was a little tiring as we had to be careful with the frail and crumbly rungs. Yet, a quarter of the way up the ladder, I gripped the rung above and was about to grip the second when the first one gave away. Instinctively, I reached out my hand and gripped the next one and avoided falling down 30 feet. My feet were dangling for some time and I quickly planted them on the nearest rung and looked down at Ram.