That chamber, mutilated by time but enhanced by its superb architecture, was a place of worship, where a handful of men preserved the means of communicating with God. It was strange to have had contact with Him after overcoming the ordeal of the ladder. And this was a crucial detail.
Without knowing how, the primordial foundation of Sufism came to mind — Monroe had mentioned that Hiram professed this religion — and he also recalled a poem by Husayn al-Hallâqq, a Sufi master who took Jesus Christ as his model and who, like the Messiah, was crucified for blasphemy and for wanting to compare himself to God. The poem read:
I, who saw my Lord with the eye of my heart...
I ask Him:
Who are you?
And he answers me:
You !
A feverish, disturbing sensation stirred his desire to respond and rescued his voice from its dungeon of silence. The words crowded in his throat. And finally, after accepting the philosopher's answer, he answered the question posed by that creature fallen from the sky.
— You are me, my Lord... And you are my God.
The woman smiled complacently. It was the answer she'd longed to hear. The sweet melody from before returned, and with it, the light. The stones of the walls lit up until they acquired the majestic power of the sun, reviving the dark inscriptions carved into the rock over millennia: thousands of alchemical formulas and divine equations, interspersed with magical numbers and grammatical characters, which her brain assimilated like a vast computer.
The hieroglyphic scribbles abandoned their stone cloister to regroup around a universe of planets that spun madly in the middle of the room, dancing in space to the music of the higher spheres.
His body was enveloped by a golden energy of a voltaic nature that adhered to him like a second skin.
In that instant, he was able to grasp the true meaning of life, the reason for humankind's versatile nature, the secret of the great mysteries, and the enigma of Creation. As incredible as it seemed to him, he could contemplate every corner of the Earth and hear the minds of all the beings who mourned the emptiness of their lives and who were united like links in an immense stone chain. It was as if he felt the pulse of the world in his own heart.
I was talking to God.
He looked beside him and saw that Geovanna was there again. She wore a strange headdress covering her ears, similar to the one worn by Iberian priestesses in their pagan rituals. She was radiant, more attractive and human than ever. Hers was a spiritual beauty that dispelled any obscene thoughts, bringing her closer to the mysticism of a protective virgin. And what's more, she smiled at him sweetly.
— Shall we go?
They held hands, but something felt very wrong there.
— I'm sorry, Candy... but I can't.
— But we've come this far.
— It was exactly where we needed to be.
Suddenly, the door opened before them and they saw an empty altar.
— It was so close...
— It's over, Candy...
— It only ends when I say it ends...