The Devil's Paradise Read online

  As troubling as this was for him, it was nowhere near as disturbing as the descriptions of the shrine contained in the scrolls. The “Blood Star”, or “Estrella De la Sangre”, as De Gallies most often referred to it, was an unusual eight-pointed star. According to his compilation of the references made to this shrine in all of the scrolls, the eight “Children of Elohim” once ruled the entire earth for their heavenly Father. The earth was created as a magnificent garden, but eventually these ‘deities’ learned to crave the blood of animals, and in particular the blood of mankind. Not long after this began, the deities erected this “Estrella De la Sangre” as an enormous monument to themselves.

  The star-shaped shrine was laid out horizontally, with its center being raised up at an incline as compared to the rest of the structure. The purpose for this was not so much esoteric as practical. A large sacrificial table sat within the very center of the monument, and when the blood poured out from the selected victim, or group of victims bound onto this table, it flowed through the eight spires until it collected as crimson pools at the tip of each spire. The entities then bathed themselves and drank freely of this life force; with hardly a concern for the beloved creatures their heavenly Father had appointed them to guard and nurture.

  Eventually, these entities incurred the wrath of Elohim. After first fashioning a powerful crystal from the very heavens he governed, Elohim descended upon his unsuspecting offspring, catching them off guard as they wallowed in their bloodlust. Elohim used the crystal, which De Gallies referred to as the “Cristal Del Sol”, to completely destroy their loathsome shrine to themselves. He banned his once beloved offspring from the earth, forlorn and destined to exist in a prison forged between this world and the next. Afterward, Elohim reached deep into the earth, depositing the powerful crystal far below the surface.

  When Ricardo De Gallies reminisced years later in his final diary entries, just weeks before his death from tuberculosis in 1873, he recalled how the ancient text of the scrolls reportedly told that Elohim’s sentence upon his children was to last ‘until the end of time’. The only reprieve each entity would receive were occasional and short-lived returns to our three-dimensional reality, if any.

  As you and I once discussed long ago, William, your awareness of Ricardo De Gallies was that of a scorned ‘amateur adventurer’ until you reviewed the findings in my dissertation. Surely, you remember much of what I have reiterated here. For the longest time, I could only imagine the sense of humiliation this man carried with him to his grave, having carelessly misplaced this wonderful find, these five ancient scrolls and the earthen vessels that contained them. Without any other proof for his wild theories and assertions, both the Roman Catholic and academic communities reviled him. Dr. Alexander Bradley, who once chaired our department in the early 1900’s, observed long ago, “If neither death nor the sanitarium claimed him, then surely an asylum would”.

  Unbeknownst to me at the time, a day would come when I personally sympathized with his tragedy. I may be getting ahead of myself, but a further irony can be found in the fact my own pursuit of his assertions were what led me to that point. Perhaps, if I did not enjoy a strong fascination for his ideas, then my life would have turned out differently, and you and I would enjoy brandy in your study instead of me spurning our latest appointment with this tragic tale.

  Shortly after I received my doctorate, I was offered the position I have gratefully held at our institution these past nineteen years. I did not immediately pursue De Gallies’ work, due to other departmental priorities. In the early spring of 1969, I finally had the opportunity to begin my search for the proof he lost so long ago. I moved carefully in my quest for the truth in all of this, and decided to begin my search in Madrid, Spain. Since this was where De Gallies died [as Portugal had become too hostile for his tolerance], I wondered why he chose Madrid, and if he still pursued his ideas on up to his death. If so, then perhaps I might happen upon evidence of this, such as a journal. It was not so hard to believe I would find something like this, for even his last diary in Oxford’s possession came from Madrid.

  I never found anything pertaining to De Gallies while I was in Spain. But, I did find something that turned out to be the catalyst behind much of my work that followed this trip. Near the southern outskirts of Madrid sits the ruins of a Moorish encampment dating from roughly the time of the crusades, at least eight hundred years ago. Much of the area has not been cared for as it should, and through the centuries, vandals have destroyed many of the encampment’s buildings. This is even more disconcerting in that the viaducts and a few other structures in the area date from Roman times.

  What I found there was strictly by chance; although I have since often wondered if it was some cruel twist of fate. While trying to get a better look at the wall of one building, I slipped and fell backward. Imagine my surprise when the ground below me gave way, and I tumbled down into a hidden room. Fortunately I was all right, and glad that I brought my duster and flashlight with me. Although I have never quite decided what this room was used for, since it was void of all furnishings and utensils, I did spend considerable time studying an unusual drawing on one of its walls. I would say from the appearance of the drawing, it strongly resembled other examples of art in the area from the crusades, with definite Moorish symbols and themes. It appeared to portray a burial scene, so perhaps the room was a tomb at one time. The main theme seemed to be a return to the holy land by this tribe of Moors, as it appeared that a structure similar to the Dome of The Rock was the central object of the drawing. Above this drawing was a hand holding a ball of fire, which seemed obvious enough to represent the hand of God, or in this case, Allah.

  As I scrutinized this portion of the drawing, I soon realized it might not be so easy to interpret. Mixed in with the Moorish imagery was an Aramaic phrase. It was faint and hard to tell if it was written on the wall before or after the drawing was complete. It was located just below the hand holding the fireball, and seemed to translate as ‘the terrible Light of God’. I thought at first that perhaps I had misinterpreted the words. It might be something like ‘the wonderful Light of God’ instead. Certainly, this would be consistent with the religious confusion that prevailed throughout the Mediterranean world during the crusades. Yet, every time I worked the phrase it said the same thing. There was no mistaking that it pointed to God’s wrath.

  William, I certainly would understand if you thought my next conclusion somewhat careless, but I found myself thinking about De Gallies’ Cristal Del Sol and his story surrounding it. I had already received the approval that spring to head up an excavation team to participate in an international dig site near Khirbet Qumran. I now felt compelled to visit that part of the world as quickly as possible, and would be lying to you now if I stated my hopes of finding further clues about the Cristal Del Sol and De Gallies’ fantastic beliefs from a hundred years before was not the driving force behind my zeal.

  In May that year, my team and I arrived at the site. Our dear friend, Dr. Norman Forsythe, who at the time was part of London University’s team, immediately greeted me. It was not until 1974 that he accepted a similar position at Oxford, as you are aware. From that summer on, with only a few exceptions, he and I joined investigative forces each year. For the first few years we met up at the Qumran site, and until the summer of 1973, I never found anything to corroborate Ricardo De Gallies’ work. But that summer something incredible happened, and I apologize for never telling you more about it until now.

  As you know, in 1947 eleven limestone caves above Khirbet Qumran produced the bulk of what is known as the Dead Sea Scrolls. Bedouin shepherds eventually discovered another cave nearby that was much smaller than the others. It contained a single clay jar, which in turn contained another scroll. Although it caused a brief furor among the members of the international team, it mysteriously disappeared before any of us had a real chance to examine it. Needless to say, we were all dismayed. But soon enough, the incident was forgotten. No mention of
this other scroll was made again to me until the spring of 1981.

  We were working another dig that year near Bethlehem. While there, a colleague of ours from Pakistan, Dr. Mohammed Quard-e-Lazim, purchased a scroll closely matching the description of the one that disappeared eight years earlier from a Bedouin with dealings in the region’s antiquities black market. Only Dr. Forsythe and myself took the purchase seriously, as our other comrades thought it was a fraud, though perhaps a clever one. I thought then that you would surely catch wind of this, but the fact you never mentioned it let me know that my colleagues from the Institute never deemed it worthy enough to tell you when we returned to England in early August.

  During the winter break that following school year, Dr. Quard-e-Lazim paid a visit to Dr. Forsythe and me. He brought the scroll with him, and after advising us of his own findings, the three of us examined the scroll in my study over the course of one weekend. I should have told you then of what we discovered, but when I thought of the ridicule De Gallies endured a century earlier, I decided to wait until I could further verify the scroll’s authenticity. Once Dr. Forsythe and I read the text for ourselves, we soon joined in Dr. Quard-e-Lazim’s excitement, scarcely believing our eyes. The scroll not only verified De Gallies’ Estrella De la Sangre and the Cristal Del Sol, it also gave the shrine’s location, which it said was by the Arabian Sea, near the ancient port of Karachi, Pakistan.

  Immediately, we made plans to meet as a trio, along with our research teams in Karachi the following spring, 1982. You may recall how my request to forego the annual trip to either Israel or Palestine in favor of this new destination surprised you. I still remember the puzzled look on your face when I told you we planned to investigate the Chaukundi Tombs, which are near Karachi. I hated myself for withholding the truth from you about our true purpose in the area, but I rationalized this with the fact none of the members from our three teams knew the real reason for our visit either. To face any ridicule or even the slightest tarnish to my reputation as a sure-minded pragmatist would have been more than I was ready to deal with at the time. In all honesty, who would not have laughed derisively at the thought of me seriously pursuing De Gallies’ theories?

  As it turned out, we should not have worried so, especially after receiving confirmation the scroll’s papyrus was even older than any of the other Dead Sea Scrolls. Also, as if the hand of fate guided our choice of a location to start our investigation, the Chaukundi Tombs turned out to be the right place to begin. Dr. Quard-e-Lazim’s suggestion to do this, he remembered hearing stories as a child about a ‘lost shrine of the gods’. It was even suggested that the Sind decision to build their unusual tombs in the area during the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries was influenced by this, that the dead resting there would be especially blessed.

  Despite the promising locale, it wasn’t until two years ago, in late July 1984 that we finally found what we came there for. Dr. Forsythe’s continued funding was in jeopardy due to recent budget cuts at Oxford, so it was critical that we produce something substantial in order to keep our project alive. Our latest dig site had proved fruitless, and we were not sure where to test next in the surrounding barren land. But an earthquake made that choice for us, when a sinkhole twenty meters wide opened up in the earth’s crust less than a kilometer away from where we were, just three kilometers to the east of the Chaukundi Tombs.

  At first, it was difficult to tell if it would be worth the danger to venture into the cavern exposed by the sinkhole, nearly fifteen meters below the surface. One of our assistants from the area, a thirteen-year-old boy named Omar Quadassi, scrambled down into the hole before we could stop him. We did not hear from this lad until twenty minutes later, when he reappeared in the middle of the chasm’s floor, calling up excitedly to us. Dr. Quard-e-Lazim smiled broadly, relaying to Dr. Forsythe and I that our young friend had located a room filled with rubble, but also appeared to be full of sparkling gems.

  We secured the site, and once we set up the ladders and walkways, Dr. Quard-e-Lazim, Dr. Forsythe, and I ventured into the room the boy Omar had told us about. The room was very large, perhaps one to two hundred meters along its width and length. The remains of the eight-pointed “Blood Star” lay in myriad pieces throughout the room; with the glistening gems Omar told us about spread amidst the rubble. If not for the detailed description of the star related in the work of Ricardo De Gallies, it would have been difficult to identify it as the very same object. Of course, if De Gallies’ journals were the only basis for identifying the Estrella De la Sangre, then the entire project would be questionable at best. As destiny would have it, though, our team soon made a discovery putting all such questions to rest.

  We determined the enormous room was part of an underground temple, and as such, other antechambers were located a short distance away from the main room. In one of these chambers, my own team of archaeologist-hopefuls discovered each wall was covered in cuneiform similar enough to Sumerian and Egyptian symbols to make their accurate translation possible. As an additional aid, along the bottom of these walls were other symbols, a version of ancient Sanskrit we readily understood. Most of the pertinent information, however, came from the cuneiform, as the Sanskrit simply helped us remain on the right path with our observations and deductions.

  The gems presented an immediate problem for us once we determined they were the real thing, which at first we did not believe given the enormous size of some of the pieces. In all, there were seven different kinds of gems, although you should see shortly that in order to understand the shrine’s structure correctly we need to consider that number as eight, since in the ancient world sapphires and rubies were not considered part of the same gem family. Regardless, all of these gems would be considered precious whether appraised today or several thousand years ago.

  For the most part, the Pakistani government gave us free reign in our research, and was less obtrusive than we expected them to be. In light of what we found, we knew we had no choice but to tell them about it. The only thing we determined not to tell them was the nature of the find. If this thing were truly the “Blood Star” described by De Gallies, then its revelation as such would surely bring about religious fury and dissent like the world has never seen.

  Since Dr. Quard-e-Lazim was originally from this area, he volunteered to speak on our behalf with the local magistrate, Makli Ali-Ferdossi. Before he did this, the shrewd professor made certain we placed a sizable portion of the gem fragments in eight separate crates, along with part of the star fragments located near each type of gem. This may have seemed like an arduous task, but it was much simpler than you might imagine. We had already deciphered enough of the cuneiform to determine that each spire of the star matched up with one of the eight gems. As long as we took the marble fragments nearest each gem and placed as many items as possible within each crate, then we would still procure a desirable collection for the world’s notable museums, both for further examination and eventual display.

  That was our goal, which we accomplished in the early hours of the same day we were to meet with the magistrate. My fellow professors and I, along with a few of our most trusted graduates worked quickly to do this, securing the last of the eight crates just before dawn in the far corner of one of the deepest antechambers at the site. We also determined while we did this, that a remnant of the sacrificial table was located near the middle of the star’s debris. We placed part of this in another crate and secured it as well. Then, we prepared to meet the magistrate.

  Makli Ali-Ferdossi seemed agreeable enough, although I sensed Dr. Quard-e-Lazim neither liked nor trusted him. Regardless, the magistrate seemed immensely pleased by the recently discovered treasure under the earth near Karachi. When he first visited the temple’s large room, he appeared truly amazed at the incalculable wealth lying before him. I could sense the man’s greediness as well as the soldiers with him. With that in mind, and the fact they were all heavily armed, none of us resisted the magistrate’s efforts to extract
the remaining gem fragments from the room. Extremely grateful for Dr. Quard-e-Lazim’s foresight, Dr. Forsythe and I were pleased with our own efforts to cover up the surgery we had performed on the shrine’s remnants. Neither Ali-Ferdossi nor his men, and not even the servants we hired from Karachi, could tell we removed a sizeable portion of the gems from the room. I only wish we stashed more of the marble fragments, as much of the star’s history and composition would be determined from these, and the Pakistanis’ blatant disregard for them was clearly evident as they carelessly tossed the fragments aside while removing the gems from the room.

  It was now time to return to England, as the school year would begin shortly. The magistrate placed armed guards around the site and promised us that we could return the next spring to continue our work there. Pleased by this, we were even more relieved when Dr. Quard-e-Lazim managed to transport our portion of the star remnants to a small warehouse in downtown Karachi that was owned by his great uncle. Such an arrangement I am sure would have made you and anyone else I know quite nervous, William. The obvious risk this man took by harboring such items was enough assurance for me that they would still be there the following year.