THE LEGEND OF

GARGANCHUA

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The legend of Garganchua in the year of the Sacred Sound

Part I: The year of joy.

Many centuries ago, the earth was at peace under the reign of Junnus Lennus whom for many, many years fought for Peace and Understanding and the liberation of the Hippious people, the last known slaves on Hialeous.The society back then was very organized; people from all corners of the land would live together in total harmony, all equal under the law. Foreigners were always welcomed and accepted, free and with the same rights as everybody else. Carpenters, Painters, Blacksmiths, Taverns Entrepreneurs, and the Masters of the Flora (mostly people from the southern land of Mexious and Hitious) flourished on the land of gold, “The city that grows”, as was called Hialeous.The one thing the citizens of this rich land ignored was the existence of The Art of Combined Sounds, force capable of bestowing unimaginable powers upon whoever hold the secrets of the Sacred Sound.Musicians were then called the people that had for centuries tried unsuccessfully to unlock the Sacred Sound. Legend has it that a secret language was used among them to keep this society as secret as possible, when they talked about “unlocking the Sacred Sound” they would use the code “harmonize” and their gathering rituals were mysteriously called “rehearsals”. Scholars today cannot agree whether this group of people was a menace to society or an asset to it. THAT, WE MAY NEVER KNOW.These musical mongers were nomads by nature and were divided in various sub-groups like the string pluckers, the key-pressers, the wind-blowers, the thoracic diaphragm lords and queens, etc It is important to note (no pun intended) that the Musician people were peaceful by nature, but that was about to change……………

Part II: The year of Garganchua

Among the Musicians, a rumor had spread about the legend of a place far away were they could gather, worry free to play their trade and advance their studies on their specialties, a place where they could be free to express the art they were so fond of and most importantly, be understood. Such rumors have grown so big that a small group of carefully selected members of the Musician Union was about to embark on an adventure to see if the legend of the Sacred Sound was indeed true. Of course this action was to be kept secret so a number of new codes was created for the mission. The mission itself was called “tour” and the master of the organization and drawer of the plan to be followed was called “the tour manager”. Only three musicians were sent, the most representative of the Musicians people, Maximilius of Venezshoondo a key-presser, Guillius Stringus of Argentus Morpheo, a string-plucker and Dulcinea the Goddess of Vocaldriah born in the far away valley of Vocaldrium, where the mountains surround the abundant green valley with untold acoustic capabilities, daughter of Neophelia and Archiliou. She was a thoracic diaphragm queen.

They set on foot for the long journey to the Sacred Sound den, carrying only their musical instruments and a bag of magical cords.

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After many moons of walking, an incredible feat, later code named “moonwalk”, they encounter a traveling tavern entrepreneur by the name of Marccellinus, the musicians asked the man if he could help, for they were starving and tired, he said:” I like you pilgrims, but I don’t have any money” not taking his eyes off Dulcinea he added “But I can give you an advice, If you seek to unlock the mystery of the Sacred sound, or as it is know to the trade “harmonize”, you better find a fellow by the name of Miguelious he holds the key…… the key of “G”. And he swiftly left.“The key of “G”? Said Guillius “ What did he mean?”“There, there” softly spoke Dulcinea “Back in Vocaldriah I heard stories of a man/monster, GARGANCHUA The Sacred Sound Gate Keeper of Destiny “Maximilius and Guillius trembled in fear, but Dulcinea continued: “…sitting on his log in his dark, dreary cave; Garganchua is the funky gate keeper and he has a fantastic army of unemployed musicians. The greasy drummers all across the nation unite in the front line of battle against his enemy, the arch-villain Mediocrates of Pedestrium.Mediocrates has a strong army composed by Brass players which is his air force, singers that are learning to LASSO their mic chords to strangle the beasts, drummers that form the artillery, and 10.000 roadies and groupies which according to the Geneva convention at the time didn’t allow to be shot at. (You never know when you are going to need them!).The one thing that Garganchua has that nobody else does, is his pair of balls. It is believed that in the den he keeps his Crystal balls, gateway to all musical knowledge, indeed a powerful weapon.Now, because they did most of their traveling during daylight, our three heroes were christened the Day Trippers. At night they would pray to the Gods Cadenza and Sincopa, to be with them during battle, blessing the fearless warriors with good timing and accurate tuning, crucial for a war of the magnitude of the one to come.They’ve reached the Gates of Doom, in the kingdom of Garganchua one cold Thursday evening, Dulcinea arriving first, she checked her hour clock (sand seemed to sip through the time-hole slower than normal) while muttering silent curses towards Guillius and Maximilius, who were coming just a few specs of sand late. Once they were united they witnessed a vast number of warriors in the vicinity of the caves getting ready for battle, tuning their weapons, moving mysterious boxes in and out of the caves, and chatting about the weather and the state of the economy of the kingdom and it’s alarming rate of unemployment growth. (Garganchua was able to control most of them with a threat to foreclose their miserable little holes in the mountains were they resided).Witnessing all the action from a safe distance, the thoracic diaphragm queen said: “ It is believed that Garganchua does not himself posses the knowledge of the sacred sound, he is a mere buffoon of the Non-musical Dragon, under contract to keep the Sacred Sound away from the reach of the common musician. Furthermore, it is believed that Garganchua keeps it in the “Bob Marley “ next to the black cat from hell.Garganchua was always a sneaky little bastard, before he signed a deal with the Non-musical Dragon, he worked as a double booking agent for two armies, one army, “The Bohemians” defended the Arts, the other was the complete opposite, they were in it only for the money, they were “The Commercials”. The Commercials were the most evil of all the musician clans; they were the TOP 40 most hated musical mongers, referred by The Bohemians as “trend mongers” (“…because that’s not art, what they do” said one account).None of these two armies was aware that Garganchua was working for the other, double-booking battles all across the vast land, until rumors had grown stronger about his

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nastiness and so, sharp as always, he came up with the story that he was spying on the “competition”; he told that to both armies!! He is a creep like that. So he began a double life. One famous tale is about the year that a great war was scheduled on the outskirts of Hialeous, where two national acts were coming to fight and he was asked by The Commercials and The Bohemians to get them in as opening acts (fighting of course), so for the first time he found himself in a jam, because by now they expected him to stick it to the other army (in his role of spy), so now he has to pretend he is getting the job for one army while plotting against the other and vise versa. Never intimidated by such a challenge, he left The Bohemian headquarters sporting the traditional Bohemian’s tour armor, only they didn’t know he also had the traditional Commercial’s tour armor underneath, (skeptics say it was only a reversible poncho) and set out in the middle of the dark night to tend a trap on himself, knowing that the next day he would need to cross a long bridge to get to The Commercials’ headquarters to work for them, thinking to himself, “Bwa ha ha ha!! This’ll stop me!” (He took his job very seriously).Because he was such a gifted villain, everything went exactly as planned. The next day while riding his medieval beast towards The Commercials’ headquarters, he was halfway through the bridge when it started to collapse right under his feet!!! Realizing it was a trap he set out the night before he exclaimed, “Blast! I won’t get away with this, you bastard!!”There are countless stories as grand as this one about Garganchua. Like the one when he had tortured himself to get sensible information about The Bohemians or the time he came up with the slightly bigger chamber that sported a slightly bigger rent fee of 20 gold coins per session and many, many more, all giving clues to understanding the character of his persona (He was beaten as a child with a ancient baton that was once used to conduct the Hialeous Illegal Chamber Combo to the beat of a metronome set at 120!).Unlike other major metropolitan areas, Hialeous could only afford an Illegal Chamber Combo, whereas Bocus Ratus had an impressive All-Blonde Philharmonic Battalion.Still getting unnoticed on the cover of the night, the Day Trippers were observing in awe the fantastic display, in front of them, the infamous Illegal Chamber Combo itself getting ready to not only rock but also to roll.“This is it” firmly stated Guillius, “tomorrow morning it’s going to be show time!”Dulcinea asked “Does everybody have the written procedures?” .The written procedures was a war manual confectioned by Dulcinea herself on papyrus and later delivered to both the other colleagues as guide to a synchronized and attune crusade against the deaf people in essence, The Commercials type.“No” shyly replied Maximilius while getting a sinister glimpse from the corner of Guillius’ eye.Without making a sound they left the site. After about ten paces Maximilius turned his head back only to see fog and a barely visible sign that read: “Sacred Sound, since 200B.C.”

…………………To be continued

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