The Lost Years

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Episode 36 of The Trigan Empire

The Lost Years
aka De voorspelling van Narri (Dutch title)
Narri’s Prophecy (Dutch title, translated)

Written by Mike Butterworth
Illustrated by Don Lawrence

The Lost Years was originally published in 11 instalments in issues 568 (2 December 1972) to 578 (10 February 1973) of Look and Learn magazine.

It is reprinted in Volume 9 of The Trigan Empire—The Collection (the Don Lawrence Collection).

It is reprinted in Volume 3 of The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire (Rebellion).

Plot summary

Narri, a glebe-herd, takes his herd into the hills. In the evening he falls asleep and breathes in a strange gas. When he wakes up, his herd is gone and he returns home. His family is gone too, and Rocco is living in his house. In the city, he sees a statue of the mighty Ossan, who has massacred the imperial family. Three lunar years have passed. During a parade for Ossan, he asks a bystander why the people are not enthusiastic. The man immediately reports him to the police, who try to arrest him, but Narri flees into the hills and there meets Roffa, a former air fleet pilot and now the sole member of the armed resistance.

Roffa tells him that Ossan bombed the emperor’s summer palace and declared himself dictator of Trigan City the next day. Narri goes back to sleep in the same spot and breathes in the gas again. When he wakes up, his herd is back and his family is still there, but in his garden he sees the small tree that, in his dream, was a large tree.

A few months later Narri sees Ossan being appointed marshal by Trigo. He pretends to want to sell his house to Rocco, who is interested. Now he thinks he knows the future. He pulls the small tree out of the ground and realises that the future can be changed. He goes to Trigo and tells him that Ossan wants to kill him, but Trigo locks him up as a madman.

Janno and Roffa go to talk to Narri in prison. Narri recognises the scar on Roffa that he always keeps hidden. Now Janno believes him and helps him escape. Ossan wants to hold an air show over Trigo’s summer palace and has personally selected all the pilots. Janno and Roffa sabotage the planes, causing them all to crash. But Ossan has Janno and Roffa arrested for sabotaging the planes, and they are sentenced to lifelong labour in the mines.

After some time, Janno easily manages to escape and hurries to Trigo. There, during a dinner, Ossan is about to shoot Trigo, but Janno overpowers him. Ossan’s men are also overpowered by Trigo’s guards. Trigo says he always believed Narri, but the laws of Trigan City do not take fortune tellers into account. He had to catch Ossan in the act.

Peric knows that there are gases that cause someone to confuse the present, past, and future. Narri goes to work for Trigo, and Roffa asks why he doesn’t know the winning kreed in tomorrow’s Trigan Empire Handicap.