Dayal, the First Ancestor

Dayal, the First Ancestor is the first issue of Castaka, a series that is part of the greater Metabarons franchise. It was written by Alejandro Jodorowsky, illustrated by Das Pastoras and published by Les Humanoïdes Associés in 2007.

This first issue offers background on the war between the Amakuras and the Castaka on Ahour, and introduces the struggle between Omezo and Divadal, and later Dayal.

The collected english edition Metabaron Genesis: Castaka adds a few extra panels at the end.

Plot
Before the arrival of enemy forces coming to Marmola to steal the ephypane, Berard gets his family together. He wants Othon to be his heir, and starts fighting him so that Othon can prove he’s able to defend himself. Othon pins down Berard, but Berard tricks Othon and defeats him. According to Bushitaka law Berard should kill him, however he recognizes that Othon fought fairly while he didn’t, so he doesn’t execute him. This is Berard way of teaching that “every law is subject to exception” and that it is only by knowing how to lose that one can win. Berard wants to impart more wisdom on Othon, so he starts telling him the story of his ancestors.

The story continues in a flashback: On Ahour-the-dwarf, a small planet in the reaches of the empire, there are two clans, the Amakuras in the southern hemisphere, brandishing white banners; and the Castaka in the north, branishing red, who for centuries have clashed at the borders. The two armies respect the same code of honor, known as the bushikara among the amakuras and the bushitaka among the Castaka.

One day queen Oriela of the Castaka, when she’s kidnapped, raped and taken to the Amakuras palace by Divadal, the enemy rival. To rescue Oriela the Castaka must cross the valley of Kalikara, according to the bushitaka and bushikara law the enemy will expect they come from the west to wage war on the plateau, but the Catakas plan to secretly encircle the plateau and take cover in the forests of the other side. Ten Castaka men will engage in hand-to-hand combat with the men of Genral Rodro of the Amakuras to buy time.

Next, Omezo the king of the Castaka launched an attack by setting fire to the tails of a herd of avidontes, creating a stampede and forcing the Amakuras to take refuge in the forests where the Castaka are waiting for them. Once the Castaka defeat the Amakuras they use their white banners to trick the Amkuras’ palace into letting them in. When Divadal discovers the ruse he orders to launch tangrath, a poisonous gas that makes men sterile.

Divadal who has impregnated Oriela, asks her to kill him now that he has managed to end the Castaka. Following the laws of the Bushitaka, king Omezo, after liberating the queen, should demand the immediate suicide of Oriela but because she’s the only woman pregnant with a fertile male, they wait for het to give birth. After several months, she does, and names the boy Dayal, leaving him with the scar of her teeth as a memento. When the child is eight years old, Oriela ritually commits suicide.

Dayal grows within the confines of the Castaka palace, cared by dozens of servants, and is educated by General Pakko. Eventually, he starts ritually inseminating three Castaka women every night, for a period of 12 years, so that the clan becomes fertile again. The forced sex, empty of love, makes him a cruel lover. At the age of 26 a ceremony takes place to grant Dayal the title of Baron, and all the women who he has impregnated and their kids are there. Omezo, who reminds Dayal too much of Divadal, hates the idea of making him a baron. However, if he kills him, Omezo would lose the throne, according to the bushitaka law.

Omezo nominates Dayal as the baron, but feels disgusted when he embraces him, and in a fit of rage tells Dayal to leave immediately. When Dayal learns the truth about his father from General Pakko he goes mad and decides to isolate himself in the palace. The General informs Dayal that he has daughter (birthed before the sterilization of the Castaka men), Antigrea, who’s a duchess of his same age and has been trained in combat by him. Dayal spends a whole year alone in the palace until Pakko arrives with Antigrea. Altough initially Dayal and Antigrea reject each other they eventually fall in love. Sometime after Antigrea has female twins, Myrtha and Narda with Dayal, but is left barren after that. General Pakko trains the twins in combat, in the same way he had done with Antigrea.

The next year, the Techno-techno sect begins constructing an artificial planet, the future secret home of the Techno-pope. Although Ahour is an insignificant small planet, the Techno-technos are afraid that it could be turned into a dangerous base by a potential enemy. The Techno-technos negotiate with Omezo, proposing the construction of a protonic shield as a system of defense for the planet, however Omezo considers that they don’t need it and that it would go against their ancestral customs.

Hoping that if the king of Ahour is replaced the Castaka would be more welcoming to the idea of the Techno-technos, the cult secretly infects Omezo with paleo-tuberculosis. Omezo knows he’s close to dead, so he orders to have Dayal assassinated so that the throne can go to someone else, probably another old guard soldier. General Pakko warns Dayal’s family that they’re coming to kill him and that they should hide. Dayal takes his family to his hunter’s den, where there’s food and water and storage. Pakko stays behind to delay their attack but is ultimately murdered by Omezo’s warriors. The Techno-technos realize that a more amicable person won’t replace Omezo, so they decide to blow up the planet.

Miraculously, Dayal’s family manages to survive the explosion, because the cave where they were hidden was incrusted in a piece of rock that remains intact, and are now drifting in space aimlessly. A determined Dayal decides that, now that they lost their home, they will become space pirates.