CELTIC, the Prequel vol.1 E-Book

D. J. Highlanders

• Herausgeber: Youcanprint
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018

Beschreibung

Celtic, Il Prequel – Vol.1' è la prima di tre raccolte di racconti che ci introducono gradualmente al mondo di Celtic. In questo volume ci vengono presentati alcuni personaggi che incontreremo nel lungo cammino in compagnia dello scrittore D.J.Highlanders, cittadino del mondo e celtico per vocazione, che attraverso la sua opera cerca di risvegliare il pubblico ad una way of life più sostenibile e aperta alle differenze culturali, religiose, sociali che permeano il mondo moderno. I racconti sono narrati come fossero degli episodi di una serie televisiva. Si parte dal "racconto pilota" La Biblioteca del Villaggio, dove scopriamo che il sapere, contenuto nei libri antichi, è la vera anima del Villaggio stesso. Il primo racconto, "Herbarium", ci addentra in uno degli aspetti che si vive al Villaggio, ambientato nella splendida cornice del nord Irlanda, nel Donegal. In Convivium scopriamo uno dei tanti aspetti sociali del Villaggio, mentre con Amici, ci rendiamo conto dell'internazionalità del concetto espresso dall'autore in questa opera. Adele invece è una meravigliosa monografia, drammatica, che vi lascerà a bocca aperta.

Leseprobe

Tavola dei Contenuti - "TOC"

Cover

CELTIC, the Prequel vol.1

Punti di riferimento

Copertina

CELTIC, the Prequel

vol.1

by D. J. HIGHLANDER

PREFACE

‘Upyerockye’.

Charlie’s bagpipe precedes the roll of the three drums, played by his bandmates. A slow rhythm, suddenly building up. Then the bagpipe fades out, leaving room for the drums and the electric guitar in the background. Some time later, joining the rhythm of the cheers, Charlie comes back to the ensemble in a traditional Scottish apparel and full grey beard, to accompany his friends with his bagpipe until the very last moment, the last roll, the last breath, down to a sudden stop.

The audience, a hundred people or so, gave a huge round of applause at the band, shouting and singing. Saor Patrol, a Scottish band from Edinburgh, were so good the were intoxicating. I couldn’t but go to the stand and buy their new album.

Milan, first days of December. The craft fair is about to end, and the band has been here since day one, singing three of their hits on the stage of Spirit of the Planet, an association promoting the traditional and ethnic cultures of native peoples of the Earth.

Still lost in their beautiful music, after the concert I took the car and drove back to my native town. On the way I played the cd I bought at the fair. When the notes of ‘Upyerockye’ came out the amps of the car sound system, a picture shaped up in my head that would keep me company until I finally got home.

A boy in the woods, fleeing from other people. He runs, slides, falls, gets up and runs again, tailed by those people, those enemies. Until…

This was the spark that brought ‘Celtic’ to life.

Before I started writing some days passed. I’d never thought about writing a novel, but this scene, its image, the atmosphere, everything of it was so clear in my mind, that writing it all down came almost natural.

Of course I had no idea where to begin, what with such an intricate plot, but places, characters, events kept popping into my head one after the other.

When in the end I decided I couldn’t keep it in anymore, I burst into writing. Twenty days later I was writing the words ‘the End’ to the first book.

What is ‘Celtic’? I’ll let the readers find that out on their own.

It’s an adventure, a great adventure that allows the mind to go over the horizon and cross every bind. Sky’s the limit, and breaking that limit the reader can taste that particular freedom no one can really describe. The Celtic freedom.

It’s been seven years since I wrote the first novel. Meanwhile it was proofread by Prof. Andrea Vitali, human scientist, medieval historian, musicologist, world’s greatest expert in medieval iconography and symbolism and creator of the Cultural Association ‘Le Tarot’. After his proofread, encouraged by his great interest in my work, I tried to pitch it to a selection of Italian publishing houses with absolutely no success. In late 2017 I finally managed to find a way to self-publish it, but in all this time something had changed.

During these years of wait, it became clearer and clearer to me that what ‘Celtic’ lacked, and surely needs is an introduction of some sort. A preamble, introducing the answers to some issues the readers will come to face in the various volumes of the novel, that would otherwise be left unanswered for lack of space. To this purpose, before I release the first volume of ‘Celtic’, I have decided to collect some short side stories in the form of a prequel, which I hope will make the readers’ immersion into the atmosphere and universe of ‘Celtic’ much more gradual and comfortable.

Pilot

The LIBRARY

“When it all begun, you ask? It’s hard to say. I think the closest thing to the truth is to assume we always existed, ever since mankind walked the Earth for the very first time. You see, these lands always exuded our culture, our way of life, the force – or spirit, if you prefer – of our tradition. We were always here. No matter how many times other peoples tried to extirpate us, annihilate us or rob us of our lands. Even though today there isn’t in our blood the biological root of the primeval inhabitants of these lands, sooner or later our strength, our essence and spirit would permeate all of those who came here, and they would become one with us. We are this ground we live on, the strength of this region, the unity of a universe destined to survive the millennia, and though we endured destruction again and again, every time we have grown back greater and stronger. Nowadays, something in our world is changing, and we cannot remain oblivious to it nor observe the changes in silence.

We cannot hide in fear of a new Era of destruction. We want to come out of the shadows and live in the light again, and finally we have enough strength to get what we want for ourselves.”

The old man finished his monologue and turned his gaze towards his listener, a correspondent for the Irish Times, who had been walking behind him scribbling on his notepad trough the entire Village and was now following him into a traditional wooden house, end of the tour and home to the library.

“Of course I understand your fervor perfectly, when I asked you to begin from the start however, I didn’t mean that far back… it would take, like, literally an Era, and I only have a couple of columns for this piece, you know.”

The old man looked at the journalist, a young lad rather uninterestingly recording the interview on his smartphone, then moved his gaze to the floor. The wooden floorboards of a warm brown rosewood captured him as always with their alternate violet brown and purplish grains.

“All right, then. What would you like to know?”

“Eh, so. Well… I don’t know. Something – something like how you got where you got. The Village, the places where your people originally came from, the reasons why they came here, to… this.”

“I sincerely doubt two columns will be enough for you to cover all that. What you ask is huge, each of those questions deserves a properly developed answer. Your two columns won’t suffice.” answered the old man, beginning to lose his patience.

“You choose, then. Just let me do my job, alright?”

The white haired old man brought his right hand to his chin, stroking the long snow-white beard with thin, delicate fingers, lost in his thoughts. Suddenly he lit up.

“I might have just what you need. Why don’t you write about our library?”

“Your library. I’m sorry, but what would I write about it, exactly? ‘There were four bookcases in a room’…” teased the journalist. He really couldn’t believe the man.

“Four bookcases in a room? Oh, come on. You wouldn’t think this room we’re in is the whole library, wouldn’t you?” said the old man winking at the visitor. “This is but the entrance, the lobby, the place where books await to be registered and assigned to their rightful place in the library’s collection. Come with me, I’ll show you the library!”

The journalist followed the old man, still unconvinced of how a library, although kept by those weirdos on whom everybody seemed to have something to comment all the time, could become of any interest to the editor in chief of the most read newspaper in Dublin.

“Here we are!” exclaimed the old man showing the journalist to a chair at the long, dark red, solid wooden table dominating the centre of the room they had just entered.

Tens of thousands of books were crammed top to bottom along the four meters high walls, in a maniacally catalogued and sorted out chaos. The reporter sat heavily on the exquisitely chiseled wooden chair, decorated with the incision of a hundreds years old oak. He left the smartphone on the table and snapped at the old man:

“You have no shortages of books here, for sure!”

“You think? Actually, this is but the tip of the iceberg. We are in the smallest of twelve book storage chambers, all located in this very building, two floors above us and four floors below. And then we have an auditorium, twelve reading rooms…”

“Where do all these books come from? I mean, the money to build such a collection… How could you possibly get it?” asked the journalist, mesmerized.

Meanwhile, a weird-looking creature creeped up and hopped down the table and into the left pocket of the journalist’s green jacket, unseen.

“This, you see, is my passion, my personal project. This is who I am. We educate many young minds among these walls, and many old ones, too. In any normal day this place teems with people. Today however the library is empty and lifeless: everybody knew of your arrival, and people here don’t care much for being photographed or filmed. We like our privacy, you know. Have I told you about our reading rooms yet?”

“Yes. Ten. You said you have ten.”

“Actually, I said twelve. Come, come. I’ll show you around.”

The old man showed the reporter to the next room behind a glass door decorated with floral motifs.

“You really aren’t short on nothing here, are you.”

“Four and twenty work stations fully equipped with everything: computer, headphones, the whole shebang. And of course my favorite: pen, pencil and paper. I’m a nostalgic, you know. I couldn’t live without them. Moreover, many people still use them. Actually, more than you’d think.”

“And you’ve got ten reading rooms just like this one?”

“Well, no…”

“Ah-a! It was all too much already. Such valuable equipment in this place…”

“… it’s twelve reading rooms. And this is nothing to the others. In fact, it’s the smallest one. Don’t fret, though, the other are nothing really humongous. The largest is equipped with barely less than a hundred workstations. Ninety-six, to be exact.” said the old man with a huge smile on his face.

The reporter was dumbstruck. His mind couldn’t wrap around the idea of a treasure that huge in a place so lost to the world, so disconnected from society, and moreover, kept in such a trivial wooden barrack, not even the largest, or at least the most noticeable in the Village.

“Did I spark your interest, lad?”

“Er. Well, yeah. I mean… this is really impressive, considering. However I am not sure a piece on a library is what my editor in chief had in mind when he sent me here, that’s all.”

“Not ‘a library’, young man, ‘the’ library! I’m sorry, what newspaper did you say you wrote for? I am old, you know, I forget things…”

“The Irish Times. As I was saying…”

“I can see your piece on the cover of tomorrow’s issue already: ‘An invaluable cultural patrimony hidden in the North of the Country.’ How do you like it? Over two millions volumes, twelve fully equipped reading and studying rooms, and have I mentioned our collection of rare books, yet?”

“N-no, actually you haven’t…” stuttered the journalist.

“Come, come! I bet it’ll take your breath away.” went on the old man, approaching what looked like the door to another room, but actually proved to be an elevator.

“I’m right behind you. Although, I’d like to take some pictures first?”

“Pictures? Didn’t anybody tell you? We don’t like being photographed.”

“I didn’t mean a picture of you. Just the library, maybe?”

“Don’t worry about that. It’ll be my pleasure to send you a couple of pictures to spice up your meager piece.”

“M… meager? How dare you! It’s two full columns, and on The Irish Times, for crying out loud! I wouldn’t call it meager.” the young reporter was too proud of his job at the newspaper to let that ancient know-it-all diminish it.

Meanwhile, the elevator reached the lowest underground floor.

“Yes, yes, of course. Your perfectly decent article, then. However, we’re here now. Come. Come and see! Oh and I would like to point out for you readers that you, mr… mr… I’m sorry, it seems I’ve forgotten your name again. You, boy, are the first person to ever set foot in this room.”

“James, James O’Dail. I’m honored, really. But weren’t you just boasting about how this place is always ‘teeming with people’ at all hours?”

“I meant the first outsider. Usually only the villagers are allowed here. And now, look, how marvelous!” said the old man, dramatically opening the door to the room were the collection of rare and antique books was kept.

It was a dark room, the only illumination coming from a ceiling lamp projecting a low light on a stand, on top of which an old manuscript lay open. Its yellowy parchment pages were almost unreadable because of the old age and the advanced state of consumption of the paper. The reporter, speechless, advanced towards the stand, drawn in as from a magnet to the magnificent object showcasing in the middle of the room.

“Commendable acquisition, don’t you think?”

Whilst the old man admired his temple, the bizarre little animal creeped out of the journalist’s pocket, and begun it’s descent towards the pavement. After long plotting and scheming it’d finally managed to sneak into that particular room, eluding all the surveillance the old man had arranged to protect that place and the treasures stored in it.

“At a first glance, it would seem a very old artifact.”

“It is the Diarmait Book, a work dating back to the VII century of the modern Era.”

“Impossible! There’s no such thing as the Diarmait Book, and even if there was one, it could never have ended up in a place such as this…”

“You asked your question, I gave you the answer. Either you decide to accept it, or the time hasn’t come for us to come into the light yet.”

Meanwhile the raterpillar was already feasting on a very scruffy looking manuscript, unfortunately left out of place, out of its protective case, by a clumsy novice. A less valuable copy of a french psalter, sitting on the floor next to a small wooden table in the darkest part of the room.

“Look old man, I know ancient texts and manuscripts like the back of my hands. I travelled all around Europe to study and consult them. I wrote my thesis on ancient manuscripts for crying out loud! This is not… what… Wait. Let me take a closer look!”

“No! Don’t touch that. You can’t touch it. Don’t you see how delicate it is?”

“If that be the case, it would only deteriorate faster in a place like this. It needs a safe environment, constant temperature, absence of humidity…”

“You are absolutely correct. That is exactly the reason why this place is equipped with everything these babies need to ensure the best state of conservation.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, you couldn’t possibly have the know-how.”

The small creature curbing its appetite on the delicious page of the ancient french psalter was a pretty little thing, unknown to the outsiders but very well known and feared by the villagers, who worked really hard to keep the precious collection stored in the library out of its paws’ reach. Its worm-like shape, the big pointy ears on its head, the four very tiny and agile legs it used to swiftly overcome any obstacle big or small, the tail at the end of its body and the unmistakeable color of its fur, changing from a dark grayish tone to a brownish one, didn’t leave room for doubt. It was a raterpillar. And a very hungry one.

“Dear James, I regret to see that our interview has come to an end. I thought I was speaking to a mind truly open to knowledge, but I can see now how you suffer from the same disease affecting the rest of your people: that huge, throbbing vein, connecting your brain to other parts, carries in itself that disgusting, impalpable substance that’s narrow-mindedness.”

“Hold on a minute! Just who do you think you are, to talk to me like that! And I bet you don’t even know the half of it. Well then, what say you of… of the Book of Kells? That, that is an old manuscript. A truly commendable acquisition, in your own words.”

“James, you arrogant young man. From The Great Evangeliary of St. Columba, the original is currently part of the Trinity College’s collection in Dublin, but we have a marvelous handcrafted reproduction right here.

Fourth case from the left, on your right. It should be dating back to the XII century.”

“What? I never heard that a copy of that precious work was ever made… Ok then, let’s say it exists and you have it. What is it even worth, compared to the surely more important Cathach of St. Columba?”

After gobbling up one corner of the psalter the raterpillar, reassured by the hassle occurring between its noisy companions of its being still unseen, took another piece of the precious book with its small rat-like paws and gulped it down in a split second. The old librarian even in the heat of the moment, couldn’t ignore the tiny noise, and turned his gaze in search of the source. The raterpillar froze instantly, only recovering the use of its body and intellect after having made sure that the darkness and the parchment it was devouring were effectively hiding it from the old man’s stare.

The two men resumed their quarreling:

“The Insular psalter from the VII century of the Royal Irish Academy Collection in Dublin? We have a reproduction here which contains pages lost even to the original manuscript. Though, lamentably, it appears our copy, too, lacks some of the original pages.”

“You are a fool. There’s no such thing as a copy of that manuscript in the whole wide world.”

“If you believe so, I would encourage you to turn around and look. Third case on your left.”

As he said the words, the old man pressed a button on a remote controller he kept in his robe, directing a light on the said manuscript.

“It can’t be. What about Paulus Orosius, then?”

And it munched, and it crunched. The raterpillar had eaten so much by now, that it’d turned wobbly and sleepy. It was full, to the detriment of the psalter.

“We only have a XVI century copy of the Bobbio Orosius of the Ambrosian Library in Milan, also known as MS D 23 sup., written in VII century uncial.”

“The Book of Durrow!”

“On your right, third volume on the left, third level.” answered the old man, still worried about the noise he was sure he’d heard in the darkness. He could see it, the raterpillar, hidden in plain sight, attempting at the integrity of his treasure, now in terrible danger.

“The Northumbrian Gospel Book Fragment of Durahm.”

“We keep two copies of that, one is in front of you, third level, yes, there. The other is in our laboratory, being prepped for the online auction we are hosting in a couple of months. Perhaps you’d be interested?”

“The Echternach Gospels, the Book of Lindisfarne…”

“Of course we keep them in our collection. And the most rare and precious copy of the Lichfield Gospels, as of today more often referred to as the St Chad Gospels or the Book of Chad, and two copies of the Codex Ardmachanus and…”

“And?”

“A manuscript, contemporary of the Codex Sangallensis, the St. Gall Gospel Book. The original is in Switzerland, as you may know, and consists of 134 pages. Ours has 144.”

The young reporter, getting more frustrated and incredulous every minute, approached the impossibly rare book laying right in front of him. He could’t bring himself to touch it, but thanks to his studies he could see even from a distance that it was indubitably an original.

A terribly rare, absolutely invaluable manuscript which couldn’t possibly be left in such a place as that Village must be.

“What’s going on? What are you doing here?”

From the shadows by the door, emerged the High Priestess of the Elm. Her disappointment towards the old librarian was more than eloquent in her features.

“Nothing. Nothing. Nothing to worry about.” answered the old man.

“I believe we’ll agree to disagree on the matter, dear. Mr O’Dail, I believe your work is finished, now. You will be escorted out of the Village.”

“But. I. Actually…”

“I don’t see why…”

“Nothing more to see, here. Isn’t there, my dear? The interview is over. Mr O’Dail has all the information he needs to produce the groundbreaking piece of news I am confident he was sent here to write.”

“Hold your horses now, miss…”