Grail of the Secret Sun

Only the Vampire Priests understand the Blood Moon Prophecy: “A drop of His blood fills the cup and brings the Blood Moon Dawn.”

“Lots of cool action and drew me well in.” – AHF Magazine.

Introduction

I once asked Omacron what time seemed like for one who had survived for so long in a tumultuous world.
“Time is meaningless,” he said.
“Then, what does have meaning?” I asked.
“Memory.”
This, then, is the story, as recalled by me and those Rememberers, few in number, who survived the last war on Earth. I wasn’t there at the beginning, but I am here now in the tale that continues.

A cup wrought at Earth’s birth, the Holy Grail is brought to Atlantis but lost.

Take a sneak preview of a map of Atalan T’ea Llantu here

Memory is strangely affected, making people forget wisdom, forget history, forget their faith, even eventually forget to drink water, bringing man to the brink of extinction.

But two souls, Omacron (sometimes called Omah, Omaya, Om, O’Mally, Tom) and Subrisa, (sometimes called Sabrina, Bri, Brina), begin to remember and start their struggle through seven lives to find the Holy Grail and the Key that that can trigger the Grail’s terrible power, a power that can heal Earth.

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From the author:

This tale is not entirely linear. It can best be likened to a wheel; you can choose a spoke and travel inward to the hub (Volumes), or you can explore each spoke in turn (Colours; only available as eBooks, but you only need to read 2 parts plus Volume 15), travelling around the rim and moving gradually inward until you reach the hub.

Another way to view it is like a tree. You might choose one branch and travel toward the trunk, or you might jump gracefully from the tip of one branch to another, exploring the canopy of the tree, gradually spiralling inward. In either case, eventually you will reach the trunk and may even perceive its roots.

It has been my experience that people’s lives are not linear. Their journey is an inward one, to eventually meet other, sometimes the most unlikely, souls in a space that transcends time and space, indeed even lives.

Consequently, you can read The Hole Inside the Earth by colour stream (red, yellow etc.) or by volume (which includes every colour in order). Indeed, even if you chose to read only one colour, you will still understand the story, although I recommend including Blue, which recaps the main elements of the other colours. The colour streams loosely correspond to the following periods, genres and story starting points:

Green – Alternative History. About 3900 BC:Two Meso-American vampire princes seek the Holy Grail to save their race in Atlantis
Yellow – Alternative History. About 3850 BC: A vampire refugee from Ischian (alien) attack wanders from the desert in Ancient Egypt
Orange – Military. 1947 AD: 1947 race to recover the Nazi anti-gravity device ‘Die Glocke’ (The Bell) at the end of WW2
Violet – Romance and Sci-fi. About 2030 AD: A couple try to negotiate a world where contaminated water makes people forget to drink
Indigo – Romance and Alternative History. About 2200 AD: A slave fights to save a Princess on post-apocalyptic Earth, where books are currency and Floyd is god
Red – Sci-fi. About 5000 AD: A quantum AI and Grand Master vanish in a chess match held to avoid war, leaving a detective stumped
Blue – Sci-fi and Romance. About 7000 AD: The last human wakes up on a space ship travelling away from Earth, but where is it going?

Excerpts of Sci-fi, Romance and Military

Science Fiction (Red)

Omah’s head-up display on the visor of his helmet indicated to him the likelihood of criminal activity with a coloured halo around each citizen; blue for law-abiding, white for untouchables, red for Scum. He had always had a visceral tendency for violence, probably, he thought, because of an anger borne of his of his bad luck:
His mother thought he had a look like a, “Whipped dog.”
His father told him, “Bad luck follows you like a stray dog.”
The funny thing was that he had never seen a dog.
He took another look at the row of columns under the Hall on the far side of the street and suddenly couldn’t remember what he had just been thinking. Not only that, but he had the feeling something had changed irrevocably.
A puddle near his feet dragged his attention away from the display in his visor. The more he looked, the more he felt as if he were being sucked into the black water. It seemed endlessly deep, but a dim light, like a lantern lost at the bottom of the sea, seemed to beckon him down. Without thinking Omah stretched his gloved hand toward the puddle, but a boot stepped in the puddle, sending ripples out across its surface. It was only water. Omah looked up, feeling angry, and stared into the empty eye sockets of a man. Where his eyes should have been, only endless, dark emptiness could be seen. There was no light at the back of the eyes at all. It’s repulsiveness shocked Omah, making him jump back.
“Look out!” the man screamed.
A car’s horn blared, somewhere close behind Omah. He heard the screech of brakes as he leaped for the sidewalk. An instant later, the fender of a black car entered the space where his body had been. The car accelerated away before Omah could get its license plates.
“Thanks!” Omah said, scrambling to his feet and stretching out his hand to the stranger.
“No problem! You nearly got hit! I just wanted to ask the way to the Mayor’s Office?”
“Oh.” Omah couldn’t think for a moment, because the man’s eyes now looked completely normal. “Back that way, second left. It’s on your right, about two blocks down. You can’t miss it.”

Romance (Indigo)

“You may call me Mistress,” Princess Brina said. “Ha! Because I have a strange feeling; like we have met before.”
“I don’t think so Mistress,” Omaya replied.
“No, I don’t think so either, but I feel it.”
She stood up and strode to her library. Picking up a small book, she leafed its pages impatiently.
“You interest me. If I could find all the answers here, I wouldn’t need pleasure slaves.”
She threw the book on the bed and strode over to square up in front of Omaya. Wearing his chains, he could not lie down so had remained kneeling.
“Stand up!” she commanded.
He did so. She thrust her fists onto her hips and asked:
“What am I going to do with you?”
“You can’t make me do anything … in bed.”
“Ha! Ha! That’s a good place to start! What have you learned of women? In fact, how old are you?”
“Fifteen!”
“And I am seventeen. Not a good start, is it?”
Omaya cast his head down.
“So you do like me?” she teased.
Omaya shook his head slowly, still facing the floor.
“Do you know; you haven’t made me angry yet. You seem to instinctively know when to speak and when to remain silent. I can’t remember any slave doing that before!”
Omaya remained silent, but hope flickered in his gut.
“So what do you know of women?”
“Nothing much. My father never told me anything. And since he died I have just been trying to stay alive.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It was the King’s slavers that killed him.”
“Now that is insolence!” she snapped. “Don’t speak of it again!” After a moment’s pause she pouted and relented. “My father is not always wise. I don’t agree with some of the things he does. But he has a good heart.”
Omaya struggled not to laugh.
“You don’t agree. No, I can see why. I’m sorry Omaya. But since the Devastation there have been few, if any, who have done as much as my father to restore order. At least he has brought that!”
Omaya fidgeted. In his heart he knew there to be some truth to what the girl said.
“He only said one thing about women,” he ventured.
“Who? Oh, your father. Well?”
“Wait until they are desperate. That’s when they’re ready for sex.”
“Wow! He sounds like quite a man.”
“Was.”
“Sorry.”

Military (Orange)

The tank resounded with laughter.
“Move ’em out!” Tom ordered.
“What are you? Some kind of John Wayne?” Sprouts joked.
They caught up with Sweetwater and left the other companies behind within ten minutes, but Tom never stopped searching the surrounding country with his binoculars and naked eyes. He stuck a stick of gum between his lips without even blinking and chewed, a habit that calmed his nerves.
The road reached the valley bottom and the thick line of trees that lined its right side from there onward. Tom eyed a ditch to the left warily and peered up at the ridge, about 700 yards to the north, which followed the line of the road. He expected to see or hear something at any moment, but they drove on without anything unexpected happening. Passing a farmhouse, which looked deserted, they continued on, round a bend to the right and onto a straight stretch of road. Fifty yards ahead, a small bridge took the road across a stream that flowed down from the hills to the right, met the ditch and continued on beside the road, now hemmed in by trees and a river.
As Carla rumbled over the bridge Tom yelled:
“Stop!”
“What is it Tom?” Sprouts yelled back, when the tank had stopped.
“I don’t like it,” Tom replied. “It’s too quiet. No horses, no cows, no cars or wagons, no birds. Pull over Lucky! Get on the radi-…”
A flash of light caught his eye, straight ahead. He ducked, slamming the hatch closed and yelling, “Incomin- … !”
The tank rocked with the impact of an armour penetrating round. Everybody’s eyes closed, expecting their life to be snuffed out. A moment later they heard a ‘clang’ some way behind Carla, an explosion to their right, and the tank stopped rocking.
“What the fuck happened!” somebody yelled.
“Turn the tank Lucky!” Tom yelled.
The crew was as well-oiled as any crew in the US Army, so Lucky responded without thinking. The tank began to pirouette to the right, Lucky reversing one set of tracks and pushing the other forward as hard as he could.
“What the hell are you doin’?” Sprouts yelled.
Carla had almost turned round completely when they heard the whistle of another incoming round. An instant later, they were rocked again, but during that instant, Lucky had stamped on the throttle pedal, and the tank had lurched ahead about six feet. Something smashed into the rear, right corner of the tank and explode, sending hot shards of metal into the main compartment. None hit the men. Carla continued to roll forward.
“Engine’s still running,” Sprouts hollered, sounding surprised.
“Yeah but only one track!” Lucky replied.
Tom peered through his periscope, while grabbing his microphone:
“All tanks! Get off the road! You okay red two?”
“Okay red one.”
“Then back up! We need space! And what the hell was that explosion to the right?”
“Do you wanna fire on it?” Mickey said into his mike.
“Christ no! Save your ammo. Green one? This is red one. Do you read me?”
“Incoming!” Sprouts shouted, putting on his throat mike.
“Incoming, from the hill!” red two yelled over the radio.
The third shot whistled right past Carla and went straight through the side hull of the second as it turned, hitting the 76mm rounds stored inside. The tank blew up in a burst of red, yellow and blue flashes.
“This is red one. Can we get back behind these trees anyone?”
“I’m hit. Red six! I’m … .” The sound of another explosion rent the air.
“Red one, this is red four. It’s tight, but there is space this side of the river. Looks like there’s something big on the hill to the north. Probably Tiger. Red five following us.”
“This is red three. There’s somebody in front of me.”
“It’s red four, red three, you idiot. Wait for them!”
“Christ. Okay, we’ll follow you and red two. Get that red two?”
“Yep. Got you Tom. Red three’s gone.”
“This is green one. We’re pinned down red one. What’s your plan?”
“Plan! Fuck! I’ll get back in a moment. Move it Lucky.”
“Incoming!”
“Incoming!”