Cactus Moon Publications has recently bought all the rights to publish my latest book: The Dew of Heaven. It is a historical novel based on facts and set in Hong Kong, Macao, China and Mongolia.
The story unfolds with the sudden reappearance of a mysterious ancient relict possessing an irresistible power. It is Genghis Khan's Khara Sulde which had vanished in Mongolia after a Soviet military intervention mounted to dislodge a Czarist officer, Roman von Ungern-Stenberg - nicknamed the Mad Baron - and his ragtag army from Urga, Mongolia's capital.
Communist henchmen had the Mad Baron executed on September 15th, 1921 and after the death of the Bogd Khan, Mongolia's Dalai Lama, on 17 April 1924, the invaders took over the territory, holding it by proxy until 1990. Lamaseries were destroyed, ancient libraries burned and thousands of harmless lamas were shot, smashing their precious artworks and their sacred relics.
What the Soviets had in sight was Genghis Khan's spiritual banner, known as Khara Sulde - a steel trident with silvers rings carrying the black mane of his war horse - thought to hold his soul. Notwithstanding their fury they proved unable to find the sacred relict which had disappeared from the Shankh lamasery of Ovorkhangai Aimag, in Western Mongolia just before the Bogd Khan's death.
Knowing of their failure, also the Japanese army went looking for it during their botched attempt to invade Mongolia, just before WWII.
Adolf Hitler, through the Swedish explorer Sven Hedin, was well aware of its existence but also failed to locate it. Hitler's intention was to have it shown close to the spear of Longinus, believed to have pierced Jesus' heart on the cross, which Hitler had stolen in Vienna in 1938, hours after having entered the Austrian Capital at the head of the German army.
Surprisingly the Khara Sulde has resurfaced in our days, right here in modern Hong Kong in the hands of a strange Italian character - known as Mogul to the few who had met him - half godfather and half mystic, a descendent of an Italian officer who in 1900 was sent with the Italian army, along with other 7 nations, including the USA, to Beijing to liberate the Legations besieged by the Boxer.
