Although much of the story presented in Knight Eternal (Volume three of the Harbinger of Doom Saga) was only recently discovered and translated, the climactic duel between Claradon Eotrus and the Wild Pict, Kaledon of the Gray Waste, has long been known to scholars via Leonardo DaVinci’s rather dry translation in Of Prehistory, his weighty and long out-of-print tome of ancient stories, myths, and legends. Down through the centuries the final line of Knight Eternal, “Then Claradon Eotrus fell,” haunted scholars, for the immediate events of the battle’s aftermath were never known, save for brief references in later tales.
I am pleased to report that recent translations of several newly discovered ancient manuscripts have brought to light another point of view of that fateful battle and the exciting events that followed. Drawing heavily on those translations, this fourth volume of the Harbinger of Doom Saga reveals the fate of the young Eotrus and details the continued saga of his band’s epic pursuit of Gallis Korrgonn, son of Azathoth.
Dwellers of the Deep transforms the Saga into truly epic fantasy, action-packed, yet cerebral, reflective, and philosophical, as go most Thetian tales. Dweller's source material consists of four distinct documents each born of a different civilization. The chapters centering on Theta’s group were translated from the Fifth and Sixth Scrolls of Cumbria, which despite the similarity of their names hail from different eras, though both were discovered in the same region of northwestern England. The Fifth Scroll is some twelve hundred years old and likely the product of a Northumbrian scholar, while the Sixth’s Celtic origins extend back more than two thousand years to the Brigantes tribe of pre-Roman times. The chapters centering on Korrgonn’s group are more familiar to Thetian scholars as several sources that contain variations of those tales have survived the centuries, the most complete found in the writings of Ptolemy. Dweller's chapters that center on the happenings in Lomion were unknown to modern scholars until the recent translation of the “first chamber” Grenoble Tablets, which predate the oldest Cumbrian scrolls by some twenty-five hundred years. Numerous other Grenoble Tablets are in translation and promise to add significantly to the breadth and depth of Thetian lore. Written in various regions and languages and over so wide a timespan yet telling portions of the same tale, these sources demonstrate the enduring and widespread popularity of the Thetian stories. One must conclude that in ancient days these tales were as widely told and as much beloved as any stories known today.
Besides continuing the pulse-pounding action that the Thetian Saga is known for, Dwellers of the Deep drops us into the intricate web of political intrigue that swirls about the Kingdom of Lomion. The alert reader will note curious parallels to modern political ideology and the timeless concerns that nations and peoples struggle with today. The truths and philosophies explored in the saga offer lessons seemingly lost on nation after nation, since they fail to learn from and inevitably repeat the errors chronicled in the historical record.
An interviewer recently almost stumped me when she asked how I would characterize the Thetian world of Midgaard in a single word or sentence. Fantastical? Wondrous? Mythical? Epic? Imaginative? Though it is all of those, and more, my answer was one that I’m proud of because it crystallizes the Angle Theta saga for me. “In Midgaard,” I said, “nothing is at it seems.”
Glenn G. Thater
New York, USA