The iron lance

Gasping, gagging, somehow I keep chewing the awful stuff, and am at last able to swallow it down. A new fear overtakes me: I will be made to eat from the plate again… but no, Genotti replaces the plate, and takes up the chalice. This is offered without a word, and I accept. I drink; it seems to be a cordial of some kind. I can detect no particular aroma or taste, but instantly feel my tongue and teeth and lips and the soft tissues of my throat begin to throb with a tingling sensation. I know not whether this comes from the dried fruit I have ingested, or from the cordial, but the tingling does not abate.

I am suddenly taken with a curious desire to laugh. I feel as if a bubble is rising inside me, growing larger as it ascends, and that I must give birth to this bubble with a gale of laughter, otherwise I will burst. It is all I can do to keep from laughing out loud.

'Seeker,' says Genotti once more, 'imbibe the Incense of Heaven.'

The smoke calms me, and though my mouth still tingles I am no longer afflicted by the mad desire to laugh. Evans speaks next. 'Seeker, answer me: how sees a child of God?' he asks, his Welsh lilt falling easily on the ear.

'With the eyes of faith,' I reply. The question is a standard query posed to initiates at every degree.

'Then open your eyes, Seeker, and you shall see,' Evans commands. He takes up the folded cloth of black silk and, stepping around the table, raises the cloth to my face. He quickly binds my eyes, and, blindfolded, I am led by my right hand to another part of the room and made to lie down on my back on the floor.

I compose myself for whatever will happen next, and I hear a low scraping sound, like chalk dragging slowly across a blackboard. This goes on for a time, and then I feel cold air on the left side of my face-as if a door has opened to the draught. At the same time, ropes are attached to either side of the padded band around my waist, and then I am securely tied. The others are standing around me now, towering over me.

Suddenly, my feet are grasped and I am spun like a terrapin on my back. When my feet are released once more, I feel that there is nothing beneath them-my feet dangle over open space. I am allowed no time to reflect on this, for at almost the same instant I am gently pulled forward, allowing my feet, ankles, and legs to slide down into emptiness. My arms are taken up, the ropes pulled taut, and I feel myself slipping into the hole which has been opened in the floor.

Slowly, I descend into the void, dangling at the end of my ropes like a puppet.

The chamber into which I am lowered is immense. I cannot say how I know this-perhaps the size is suggested by the chill of the air and the sound of my breathing echoing back from unseen walls. My eyes are bound; I see nothing. Down and down I go.

At last, my feet touch solid ground once more; I gather my legs under me and stand. I cannot tell how far I have descended. The voice falling down to me from directly overhead reaches me as an echo merely: 'Seeker…' it is Pemberton, 'with the eyes of faith, I bid you seek… and may you truly find.'

At this, the ropes go slack as they are thrown in after me. This puppet's strings have been cut, as it were, and it is for me to find my own way, to seek. But what… what am I seeking? What am I meant to find? None of my previous experiences with the Brotherhood have prepared me for this test. I will stand or fall by my own efforts.

As I am a seeker, I decide, I will do as I am told. Although the object of my search remains a mystery, I will have faith enough to believe that I shall recognize the prize when I find it.

Thus resolved, I take my first faltering steps into the cave-for that is how I think of it, an immense subterranean cavern, a vast hollow chamber of stone deep under the earth. I take three steps into the clinging darkness, and I stop. I am no longer steady on my feet. I feel light-headed, as if I am floating.

Nevertheless, I take a deep breath and proceed.

I turn slowly, first left, then right. I seem to feel the faintest breath of air on my cheek when I face the right, and so I decide to pursue the search in this direction. It is a whim, nothing more, but it is rewarded by the fact that after a dozen or so measured paces, I reach a step.

I stoop and feel the edge of the step with my hands; it rises to others behind it. I mount the first three, then three more, then another, and I am arrived upon a platform, which I take to be cut into the cavern wall.

I speak a word and judge by the reverberation of the sound that I have entered a smaller chamber, open to the larger-a vestibule of sorts. Stretching my hands before me like a blind man-truly, I am a blind man-I shuffle forward to explore the chamber to which I have ascended.

My head is spinning now. I have passed giddy and am actually growing dizzy. My senses remain acute. I feel as if I am glowing in the dark, giving off sparks. My hearing is sharp, but there is nothing to hear, save my own breathing. Since I have not been instructed otherwise, I decide to remove the blindfold.

As expected, there is no light. The subterranean darkness is complete. It covers me like a second skin, so close as to be part of me. Though I am blind still, my senses are alive and tingling with anticipation – or, more probably, the strange substances I have imbibed are beginning to work in me somehow. I feel as if I am flying.

I continue with my inspection. The walls of the vestibule, I discover, are rounded and smooth, cut, as I have surmised, into the walls of the cave. There is no impediment to my movement as I work my way around what I perceive to be the back wall of the vestibule, feeling with my hands. And then…

I brush the edge of the opening with my fingers. I feel the curved lip of a ledge, and quickly trace the opening in the wall with my hands. It is a niche, wider than it is high, and with a slightly projecting shelf. I reach in. It is not deep. I feel the back of the niche, and then begin running my fingers along the shelf.

My fingertips brush something cold and hard.

The object has been placed in the niche precisely. Indeed, I presume the niche and shelf have been constructed especial to hold the object it contains. Could this be what I was meant to find?

I continue my investigation of the object. It is long and thin, with a hardness and coldness that can only be metal. I take it into my hand and carefully remove it from its resting place, holding it lengthwise across my palms to judge its heft. From the weight, I suspect bronze, or iron; and from the length and shape, I imagine a rake handle. But no, it is too thin-the circumference is too small for any common tool or implement of that sort-and it is too heavy. The surface is rough, pitted, and without marking or ornamentation that I can discern.

Running my hand along the length of the metal rod, I perceive that it is not entirely straight-the metal bows and turns slightly as it gradually thickens towards its blunt, rounded end. I turn my attention to the opposite end, and find that the cylindrical shaft thins as it nears what I imagine to be the top, its roundness squared beneath a short, triangular-shaped head. There are three-what shall I call them? protrusions?-on the head: small vanes, if you will. These vanes are thin, and…

As I stand puzzling over the nature of the object I have found, I hear the whoosh of air, great volumes of air moving, yet I feel not the slightest movement on my skin. Sweat breaks out on my forehead.

All at once, it seems as if the floor beneath me is tilting. I reel forwards, clutching the metal rod. With my free hand, I grab for the edge of the niche, miss, and lurch awkwardly into the wall. The cavern is booming now, and I realize the sound is in my head-it is the rush of blood through my ears. Bracing myself against the wall, I try to turn, but find I can no longer stand.

I am panting like a dog. My breath comes in quick bursts and gasps, as if I have run ten miles. Sweat is pouring from my face. I hold to the wall, leaning against it, afraid to move lest I fall from the raised vestibule to the floor. Instead, keeping my back to the wall, I slide down slowly into a sitting position, clutching the metal rod, and gulping air like a fish caught on dry land.

The floor beneath me trembles; I feel the vibration seeping up through the stone floor and into my bones. My mouth is dry and tastes of sour milk. The sweat is pouring from me now. I press my head back against the solid rock and feel my poor heart thumping away wildly in my chest.

This is how I will die, I think.

There are dancing spots before my eyes-like fireflies, these errant beams glint and fade, appearing and reappearing in the vast emptiness of the cavern. Unlike fireflies, however, they are swarming, growing larger, gathering more substance. I see colours: bold, vibrant, shocking in their intensity. The light is growing stronger, coalescing into spheres.

It must be the last eruption of a dying brain, but no… I can see some of the cavern chamber illuminated in the light of the ever-shifting spheres. One of them drifts close to me, shedding a gentle glow of light over me. What is more, I can see something moving inside the sphere: the dim shapes of human figures.