Before They Awaken (eBook)

King David's Lost Crown

Robert S. Wright (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
484 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-3594-3 (ISBN)

Before They Awaken, King David's Lost Crown, details the journey of a man bound in the chains of religious superstition and dogma to the very threshold of enlightenment. It is also a geographical journey, from Israel to Parthia as a slave, then back to Israel as a prince, eventually becoming one of the twelve disciples of Christ.

Author Bio: Robert S Wright has been a student of history and comparative religion for all his life, beginning with his years at the University of Idaho in Electrical Engineering with a minor in Philosophy and Religion. It was there that he discovered that theology and science do not necessarily conflict with one another, if viewed through the proper lens. His research over the years has been exhaustive, and has included religious texts from modern to ancient, from Biblical to Far Eastern. Over the years he has been a youth group leader, a ski racer, and a journalist and newscaster, in a career that has spanned over five decades. He is currently a real estate broker and investor in Seattle and a private pilot.

Twenty years in the making, from the author of "e;Rugged Mercy, a Country Doctor in Idaho's Sun Valley,"e; comes a novel of the Christ Child, heavily researched for geographical, historical, and theological accuracy. Jason Richardson of Christian Books Today called it "e;brilliant stuff,"e; and referred to it as being in the top 1%. Surprises and twists and turns abound in this historical mystery about the search for the solid gold crown worn by King David, an artifact possessing the power of the ancients, power to grant the bearer ultimate supremacy, power to rule the world, if that be the wish. Before Thery Awaken is a novel depicting the journey we all make, knowing of it or not, from the chains of superstition and dogma to the very threshold of enlightenment.

CHAPTER 1

A Wolf Called Mithra

THE PARTHIAN EMPIRE – THE CITY OF ECBATANA

The Parthians call the sun Mithra

If you squint just right, you can see him up there with his white horses as they draw his chariot across the sky.

Mithra is more than just our source of heat and light. Mithra is a living thing; he is the all-seeing eye of Ahura Mazda.

And Ahura Mazda is the creator of all things, the Unknowable that fills all time and space, from whose bosom is formed the earth and all creatures thereon, and the sky and all that resides therein, in much the same way that ice is formed from water.

When the time is right, say the Parthians, the boundless Ahura Mazda will cause his seed to be deposited within the womb of a virgin, so that she might bear a son. She is Eredat Fedhri, called also Visap-tauravairi, which means the all-destroying, for no evil can stand before her. Her son shall be called Saoshyant, which means World Savior, and his birth will be heralded by great signs in the heavens, and he shall be king of all the earth below and of all the sky above. It is written in the Bundahishn and the Avesta. So it shall be.

On a certain day, when Mithra was bathing the earth with his brilliance in an especially splendid fashion, two brothers were walking in the forest, one older than the other, both sons of the king. The king had sent them on a quest. He had sent them out to hunt the great wolf. One of the sons was called Orodes. A handsome lad, but with an arrowhead birthmark over his left eye and a scar that ran the length of his torso chin to groin. Orodes was different than the other boys, preferring books and study to the rough courtyard games the other boys played, and this concerned his father. What will happen when he becomes a man, the father wondered. Will he be too weak and kindhearted to be a successor to a kingdom? The king consulted the Magi, and it was suggested that the boy be entrusted to his older brother, who was the diametric opposite. The older brother was growing tall and strong, and excelled in all the games of wrestling and weapons training in which the younger son was deficient. His name was Gotarzes. He was approaching his mid-teens and nearly ready to be given a commission in the Parthian army. “Watch over the boy,” the king instructed Gotarzes. “Teach him the ways of a man. Teach him how to hunt the wolf, for no animal is more cunning, and no prize is as valued as a wolf pelt. Such a great prize it would be, for a young boy, befitting a prince.” Orodes was the favored son, and the one to whom the throne would pass, this because the Magi recommended him to the king as the one who would rule in wisdom and moderation. One such Magus, Belteshazzar, loved Orodes as if he were his own son. Belteshazzar was wise in the mystic ways of things and had taken it upon himself to mentor the young prince.

Mithra is a great hunter. Carvings abound throughout the city. They all show Mithra thrusting a knife into the neck of a giant wolf. And so must his son be. Would any father do less?

“A wolf pelt will soon be mine, then we will see who the king favors,” joked Gotarzes, but he was not joking, because he was aware of his father’s favoritism, though his father never spoke it.

“Not if my arrow finds its heart first,” said Orodes. “I intend to hang its tail from my headband, so that all can see that I am the better hunter.”

“Well, for truth, you are not the better hunter, my little one-eyed brother,” put forth Gotarzes. He knew full well Orodes could see just fine out of that shaded-over eye. “That is why we are here,” he continued. They were approaching what could only be described as a playground for sylphs and fairies – green so green it hurt the eyes, as people so often say of the forests of Ecbatana, and a pool of water from a creek-sized waterfall that settled so calmly beneath its fall that its basin could be seen with complete clarity. The pool was formed by a collection of gray snags damming up the creek and transforming its banks into new creations as dozens of tiny sprigs sent their roots through moss, wood, even solid rock, in search of the water and fertile soil underneath, as if a superior intelligence might be guiding them. “We are here because Father wants me to teach you the things I know, which may not be possible. Father wants me to transform you into a prince. Father may have given me an impossible task.”

Without saying a further word, Gotarzes calmly raised his bow and let fly with an arrow, because he had seen something Orodes had not, in the movements of leaves and the flashes of light and shadow. The amberred of the wolf ’s body blended so well with the foliage that Orodes had not noticed the young pup. An expert eye was needed to observe it, as its muscles tensed to run. But it hesitated, being too young to realize how dangerous it was to stand even at a distance from this particular enemy. Unknown to the young pup, this enemy did not need massive jaws to kill, did not need muscled legs to close distances quickly. This enemy was one that could kill simply by standing there. This enemy needed no reason to kill. The pleasure of the act was reason enough.

The wolf yelped and cried in confusion as sudden pain ripped through its body, and it ran, as if it could outrun the thing that was causing the pain, and tripped over its four feet that had suddenly stopped working and fell helplessly into the deep part of the creek.

The young wolf wasn’t growling or snapping as the two predators ran toward it. All its strength was needed to keep its head above water. As the two-legged creatures approached, they did things the wolf could not understand. One of them slipped on the moss-covered rock and fell headlong into the water. The other waded in and gently lifted the little pup up and carried it to safety. The pup was not even half its full adult size. That was why young Orodes was able to carry it with such ease, and that was why it had not run when first receiving the scent of the two upright creatures its mother knew full well to fear.

“Fool!” yelled Gotarzes. “The mother is stalking you. She will rip you to pieces. Drop it and run. I speak what I know! Drop it and run!”

The reason the mother did not attack is one that can only be guessed at. Perhaps it knew that it could do nothing. Perhaps there were other cubs that needed to be protected. Or, with an intelligence beyond that of any other forest creature, perhaps the mother wolf knew her baby was in protective hands. Its eyes continued to follow and watch, as Orodes ran from Gotarzes. Gotarzes was slowed by an injury sustained in the fall into the creek, and limped as he ran, spewing his fury in words that resounded off the trees and cliffs of the dense forests that abutted the southern edge of Ecbatana, as the city rose upland from the shoreless Mazandaran Sea. And finally, as the forest came to an end and the king’s castle came into view, the mother wolf said goodbye with her eyes, and slowly took backward steps into the denseness of the trees, and stood there for the longest time, ears pasted back. Then, trusting, hoping she was right in what was really the only decision possible, she loped away to care for and protect the rest of her litter.

Her instincts were correct. The human predator who had her little baby would protect it. It was a part of the young human’s nature that even he had not known was there, until the moment it was tested.

“My son, my son, how can you wear a crown and become a warrior capable of defending a kingdom if you cannot kill even game?” said the king to young Orodes. Love seemed to be the measure of his words, as he looked upon his son. In a cage off to the left was the wolf cub, lying face between its paws. Its eyes were closed, except on occasion when it would open them to nervously look to and fro, with just the eyes moving. Its breathing was fast and unnatural. Its sides trembled with each quick breath, partly out of fear, partly pain. When touched it vomited and peed, so great was its terror. Tied around its midsection was a white cloth with a red stain marking the wound. Said the king, “But we will consider that matter at a later date. For now we must decide what to do with the matter of the wolf, and to whom it belongs.” He looked at Gotarzes, who stood on the left.

Gotarzes bent to one knee. “Your Majesty. The wolf is mine. My eyes marked it. My arrow brought it down. Orodes will not deny it.”

King Artabanus could have decided the matter on his own without the convening of a formal court, but he was a king resolved to treat all matters in a fair way, especially when it came to matters of his own family. He spent long moments stroking the furrows of his square beard. He looked at Orodes. “Orodes, my son, is this true? Was it in fact Gotarzes’ arrow?”

“The wolf should be mine, Father, because I am the one who saved it,” Orodes replied. “Gotarzes intends to kill it and make a pelt of it.”

“Answer my question. Was it in fact Gotarzes’ arrow?”

“Yes Father.”

“If I should decide in your favor, what do you intend to do with the animal?”

“I will care for it, and when it heals I will set it free so that it can go back to its mother and live among its own kind in the forest, as Ahura Mazda intended.”

“So that it can then become a predator to our own animals and livestock,...

Erscheint lt. Verlag	8.1.2024
Sprache	englisch
Themenwelt	Literatur ► Historische Romane
ISBN-13	979-8-3509-3594-3 / 9798350935943

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