Scions of Eden

"Scions of Eden" (ISBN 85-906029-1-5; Portuguese title: Os Filhos de Éden, published by the Imprensa Official do Estado do Amazonas) is a novel by American author Martin Wright depicting the search for a lost kingdom (Eden (lost kingdom) and the scions that live there) in the Amazon Region of South America. The story is told through the eyes of its heroes, Spanish priest Father Francisco Alaves, American biologist Erin Morgan, Basque professor of archaeology Javier Bixente, and Brazilian federal marshal Manoel Pinto.

Plot summary

The adventure begins in Vergara, a small town in the rugged, hilly Basque Country of northern Spain, where Francisco Alaves is the priest of a church that time has long forgotten. On a cool spring morning he is visited by a poor elderly farmer who lives beyond the edge of the town and is as much a fixture there as the central plaza. The old man asks Francisco to hold onto a family heirloom, an old book, handwritten in the Basque language, which Francisco accepts. Soon thereafter Francisco returns to the church sanctuary and finds the old man dead, apparently of natural causes. He immediately becomes intrigued by the old man and decides to investigate the old book further, even though he does not understand a word of Basque. What the young priest has no way of knowing is that this simple, unremarkable beginning will lead him to an ultimate battle against the worst that Evil has to offer, an Evil to which he himself is linked directly, an Evil that is already taking form in remote forests on the other side of the world. Erin Morgan, an American on holiday with her husband in the Amazon Rainforest, decides to hike to a hill beyond the small town of Tabatinga, where they are lodged, in order to take some photographs. Once there the couple discovers that the mound they had seen on the horizon was not actually a hill at all, but an ancient pyramid. On top of the pyramid they uncover a mysterious gold medallion bearing a strange, undecipherable script. Knowing that the natives of the area had no system of writing, they decide to take the medallion back with them to the United States, where they hope that someone will be able to help them understand what the object might be. However, their plan soon falls tragically apart as the unthinkable happens on the return journey as Erin’s husband is captured by natives. Thus, both Francisco and Erin find themselves plunging into their own respective quests for answers, completely unaware of the dangers that lay ahead for them both at the hands of the strange adversary they are to encounter.

In Mexico City, a mysterious, dark haired man boards a flight bound for Spain. While Francisco visits the old man’s house to try to discover some other clues as to the contents of the mysterious hand-written book, and Erin Morgan gains the help of Brazilian Federal Marshal Manoel Pinto in order to try and rescue her missing husband, this man knows only too well that the events transpiring in both parts of the world are part of something much greater than anyone realises, save he himself, and thus he embarks on his own obsessive quest, one that began centuries before, the conclusion of which will radically alter the destiny of mankind forever. For what the book his distant relative passed on to the Spanish priest contains, he knows, is more than just old tales and legends; it is the key to discovering a period of history long buried in the past, a period that predates the rise of the so-called “ancient” civilisations of Egypt, Assyria, Persia, and Greece by thousands of years, and at the heart of which lies a secret that man should never uncover: The truth behind the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil and the men sworn to protect it. Sensing that his time is finally come, the dark-haired man enlists the help of other sinister characters to gain what he deems his birthright, and begins his relentless pursuit of Father Francisco and archaeologist Javier Bixente, who joins with Francisco after translating the old book for the priest. Following them from the wooded hills of the Basque countryside to the windswept, arid steppes of Kazakhstan, the dark-haired man, with the help of an insider, unleashes a daring plan. While Javier desperately tries to unravel the mysterious clues discovered in Kazakhstan, with the help of his new colleagues, English archaeologist Jonathan Moore and Russian anthropologist Svetlana Fyodorova, back in the Amazon, natives begin savagely attacking Christian missions and other settlements without warning. The press, while covering the worsening situation in the Amazon, speculate as to whether Erin and her missing husband might have provoked the Indians to take such extreme measures by trespassing on a religious site during their fateful trip three months prior, having no way of knowing that another, a servant of the dark-haired man, has ordered the attacks at his master’s request. Conditions for Erin become so awful at home that she immediately seeks to return to where she feels where she can remain focused on her personal search for answers, and where she might find an escape: back to Brazil and Manoel Pinto. After returning to the Amazon, Erin and Manoel travel with their new companions to the heart of the forest to face the dark-haired man and his evil henchmen. Though speculation has arisen in recent years among anthropological circles regarding the possibility of major population centres existing in the Amazon Region, "Scions of Eden", as a work of fiction, does not openly support any existing theories.

Source: Martin Wright, author of "Scions of Eden"; Academia de Letras (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)