Rahan, Episode 1 The Secret of the Sun. By Roger Lecureux

Rahan, Episode 1 The Secret of the Sun. By Roger Lecureux.
Translate by Puke on a Plate.

Rahan.

Episode one.
The Secret of the Sun.

Page One:

Rahan is still.
His hand rests on his Ivory Knife that he stole two moons ago from the chief of the lake clan.
Rahan is not afraid of the “Man with the long legs”. If you do not get out of this copse, Rahan will find you!

You run long legs, but you will not escape Rahan! You will reveal the secret of the sun.

Rahan did not know that this being was not a man, but an animal which we would come to know as a kangaroo, dozens of thousands of years later.

Page Two:

He was so fast, that he caught up with this marsupial this morning…

Your long legs are not so valuable as Rahan’s.

Only the sun can escape Rahan.
But Rahan will join him soon!
I know he is hiding in your country longlegs!
Flac!

SPEAK!
Where is he hiding?
Rahan will be thankful if you take me to the lair of the Sun.
By the time an odor warns Rahan of a new presence, it is already too late.
He didn’t have time to avoid the great swirling butterfly that struck him in the head.
Vrang! Ah!
Why did he want to kill the Kaga?
Let us kill it!
We will kill it after we find out where it came from.

Page Three:

Robust, Rahan recovers his senses.

My name is Rahan, Son of Crao, the chief of the blue mountain tribe.
My tribe was devoured by the blue mountain many moons ago.
One night the blue mountain vomited its bowels of fire and all of my horde perished.

The visions of that terrible night assail him once again!
Again, he sees himself huddled under a flat rock that protected him from the torrent of lava.
The whole clan disappeared. “Crao”, “Raror”, even “Taa”, the dog. Only Rahan was spared by the wrath of the blue Mountain!
Rahan was small then, very small.

But the clans that he wanted to join have not wanted him! They always shunned him, and pushed him away.
Those who walk upright are beasts.
Rahan will be a beast.

Page Four:

And the sole survivor of the horde of the blue mountain was as dangerous as a wild beast.

Arh!

Killing for defense.
Killing for food.
Killing for survival.
And his clamor of victory erupted so often throughout the great forest.
Rah!

When these had turned green as many times as the digits of both hands, Rahan, who could have been the leader of the horde, knew nothing of other men, of other worlds…

Rahan wants to join the sun.
He wanted the long-legged man to lead him to the cave of the flaming god!

The kraga is not a man, but a beast!
And no one has ever been able to approach the realm of the Sun!
Rahan is even stupider than a kaga! Rahan will die!
You will not kill Rahan!

Page Five:

The boomerangs flew towards Rahan as he flew to the woods.
He knew how to avoid them, and even captured one in flight.
In the forest, Rahan knows how to track the most cunning beasts.
Rahan knows how to cover his tracks.
But Rahan knew not that "long legs" is an animal.
These men are right.
Rahan is stupid. Rahan knows nothing.
He does not even know how to use this wooden butterfly.
Enraged, he threw away the boomerang.
And:
Oh!
It returns!
It returns as the dog “Taa” used to return, at the call of his name!

Rahan tries ten times, and ten times the marvelous projectile returns to his feet!
There are men more ingenious than those of the Blue Mountain, of the river and the lake!
And Rahan is ignorant, ignorant of everything.

Page Six:

Maybe it is true that no one has ever discovered the lair of the Sun God!
May be it exists not!
His pursuers had been lost long ago, and Rahan, as every evening, was chastened by the Sun.
You hide again!
But Rahan knows your cave is at the bottom of this desert!
Rahan will soon be with you!
Since the night when the river of fire had carried away his brothers, Rahan had feared the darkness.

Rahan will beg you to shine endlessly.
There will be no more night, no more darkness.
I know you will court Rahan when he is near you.
From his infancy, the son of Crao has pursued the sun.
But he only discovers new horizons behind which the flamboyant God unceasingly evades him.

Page Seven:

Three more times the forests are bare.
The sun escapes Rahan, as Rahan escapes his enemies. But Rahan is relentless.
Rahan learns to handle his wooden butterfly with more dexterity than those of the river use their stones.
But those of the river know how to lie down on the water and glide like fish. Rahan knows this not!
In the pursuit of the sun, the rivers are formidable obstacles.
Rahan will not stop. Rahan will never stop.
Like all of his clan, he is ignorant of swimming.

And he wasted long days searching for a crossing. But one Morning.
If the trees glide on the water like those in the river, Rahan can use the trees!

Page Eight:

The trunk onto which he jumps spins on itself, precipitating him into the rapids.
Ah!
Rah!
But another stump, instinctively snatched as it passes, saves him.
Rahan moves on the water, like those of the River.
With knowledge of how to cross the largest rivers, his march to the sun accelerates.
Rahan will soon be near you.
What is your secret?
Why cannot Rahan, who catches that fastest prey, catch you?
Doubt grew within him.
The men of the kraga country, where they not right? Was not the cave of the sun god inaccessible to those who walked upright?

Page Nine:

One thing irritated Rahan:
The way in which the sun god mocked his efforts.
A hundred times he had the experience of falling asleep, facing the horizon where the sun was hiding.
And a hundred times the sun appeared behind him.

It is a trick to make me go back!
Rahan will not fall into this trap, he will surprise you where you are sleeping, while you are sleeping.

Other seasons pass.
Rahan crossed other deserts.
Other Jungles, facing beings he never knew existed.

One evening when he was running towards the red disc of the sun god, stupor and despair invaded him.
Is this you lair?

The river was so immense that the other side could not be seen. The sun god was slowly sinking into the desert of water.

Here ends the land of men and beasts!
Here begins the great territory of the Sun God.

Page Ten:

The sand caressed the shadows and Rahan glimpsed the most curious monsters he had ever seen.
They do not attack Rahan.
They are not dangerous to him.
Indeed, giant tortoises do not attack humans.
At dawn, some crawl to the great desert of water.
Since these beasts live in the realm of the sun god, they will lead me to him.
He straddled one of the monsters, who seemed indifferent to the burden.
Rah!
Ha-ha-ha!
For the first time in his life, Rahan can walk without his legs! Ha-ha-ha
Lead me to the Sun, “Round back”, Faster! Faster! Ha-ha-ha!
He was still laughing when the tortoise carried him out to sea.

Page Eleven:

But his laughter was strangled, when the monster suddenly sank beneath the water.

Ah!
Deprived of his usual raft, Rahan is lost. He flails wildly in the middle of the waves
Ah! Rahan does not want this!
Not to die without meeting the Sun.
His hands and feet first stir the water without order
Vlouf!
Vuf!
Rahan does not want to die!
Then in a manner more calm, as he had observed among the men of the river people.
Stroke, stroke.
And he howled with joy!
Rah!
Rahan floats on water! Rahan has defeated the water!

Page Twelve:

His joy of triumph over the hostile element was tarnished by the appearance of the sun.

As always, you show yourself on the other side from where I saw you disappear.

But Rahan knows part of your secret!
He saw you conceal yourself in the desert of water.
AND HE DID NOT SEE YOU COMING OUT!
It is that you take another trail!
The shore is therefore not the end of the land!
Beyond these waters exist other lands, and perhaps other men!
Rahan wants to know them!
For days Rahan was busy.
You will carry me to the other side of the desert of water.
He constructed a raft more solid than any he had made before.
The idea that unknown worlds existed in the depths of the water desert haunted him, now more than the Sun god. The new taunts surprised him.

Page Thirteen:

Shine where you want!
Disappear and reappear where you want!
Rahan has wasted too much time chasing you Sun!
Rahan, son of Crao, laughs at you!

The vengeance he feared did not happen.
And Rahan follows that one could defy the gods with impunity.
He no longer feared the darkness.
One morning, he let himself be taken by the currents.
Rahan arrives in unknown lands! Rahan will join you, unknown men!

For two days he was carried like this.
The men of the river have never seen such fish!
But Rahan sees it! Rahan knows more than them.
The flying fish that sometimes fell on the raft helped him overcome hunger.
And Rahan knows part of your course, Sun!

Page Fourteen:

He knows that you appear at the bottom of the desert of water and that you fly above to hide on the other side!
Indeed, from east to west Rahan can observe the voyage of the sun.
But part of this journey remained unknown.
But what happens to you beyond the desert of water?
Eh!
It is on dawn of the third day that land appears, and the current pushes the raft there.
It resembles the small mountain where the clan lived.
Distant cries arise from the other side of the island.
Only “Those who walk upright” make cries like this.
Rahan climbs the little mountain.
Black men?
But why do they pursue each other? Why do they want to kill each other?

Page Fifteen:

Mounted on rafts lighter and faster than his, the dark skinned men chased each other across the watery desert.
Ah!
From the ridge where he was in ambush, Rahan dominated the entire island around which the black men chased each other.
He was suddenly surprised.
The fugitives are now behind those that pursue them!
The fugitives are like the sun!
YES!
They are like the sun which disappears IN FRONT of me and reappears BEHIND Me!
The great territory of men and beasts therefore resembles this land.
IT IS ROUND, LIKE A FRUIT.
And the sun journeys around it and never lands on it.

Page Sixteen:

Thus at the dawn of humanity a being sketched a vague notion of the world in which he lived.
Rahan could not imagine of course that in reality the "Fruit" revolved around the sun.

But why don’t they fight?
Why do the fugitives in turn become the pursuers?
The ways of the black men astounded Rahan, who had never seen men chasing one another without killing each other.

They Saw Rahan!
They came ashore, but Rahan was not scared of the black men.
Rahan had dared launch himself onto the great water desert.
Rahan had discovered the secret of the sun.
He would face this horde, as Crao would have done.
His ivory knife in one hand, his wooden butterfly in the other, Rahan went down to the curious huts where the black men gathered.

Page Seventeen:

Arriving on the beach, he marched straight towards the enemy as would have his father before him.

How will they attack Rahan?

Do they not have stone tipped sticks?
Will they make Rahan face the strongest of them, as the lake clan did?
Or will they attack me all at once, like the cowardly horde of the wood?
Rahan was now only thirty paces from the black men.
As two of them rushed towards him, he raised his boomerang.
He did not have time to throw his returning butterfly before a kind of spiders web fell over him.

Page Eighteen:

He tries to stand up, but his limbs become entangled in the swarm of vines.
Rahan is captured like a fly.
And Rahan will die!
Black men crowd around him.
But their words have nothing in common with the sounds of humans ready to finish off captive game.
Free the white man!
The clan of fishers salute you, man from afar.
Uh?
Rahan did not comprehend these words.
But as they helped him to free himself, and offered him fruits, he knew he would see the sun again.

Page Nineteen:

He awoke and slept many times before he assimilated the language of the black men.
We would not have caught you like a fish if you did not brandish that thing.
Rahan was getting ready to fight.
For combat? My brothers never fight. Neither among themselves nor with the clans of the distant islands.

What you saw on the day of your arrival was only a game.
Our young men often race each other.
A GAME? A RACE?
Never before had it occurred to Rahan that skill and strength could be used for anything other than hunting and combat.
The clans can therefore do something other than kill each other?
Men can therefore live with other men like those of his own clan?
All of us together are formed into the great horde of “Those who walk upright”?

Page Twenty:

The revelation fills the heart of Rahan the savage with joy.

For the first time in his life, Rahan was welcomed as a brother.
Rahan is happy.
And then there is no longer clan, no longer horde.
Rahan will be the son of all clans, all hordes.
Rahan will go everywhere, see everything, and learn everything!
He will reveal what he possesses and teach the others.
So will live Rahan, in the first age of humanity.
In these times where everything is still unknown, dangerous and mysterious for the species of:
“Those who walk upright.”

SUCH WILL LIVE RAHAN.
SUCH WILL LIVE THE SON OF Crao.
SUCH WILL LIVE THE SON OF AGES.
FEARLESS.