#heolagampa4
The two doors had closed on him without anyone pushing them. One moment the darkness was total. Only the echo of his footsteps ricocheted on the granite walls, and was lost in the infinite.
After a moment, Jean could see a pale, red light that timidly crossed a series of stained-glass windows into the thick walls of the temple. These openings to the outside were composed of three different crystals. Only the course of the sun varied the color of the light.
He remembered the dream he had made on the way to Heolagampa; as well as the words that were spoken by the messenger with rainbow eyes. Everything was in agreement; he went in search of that object which was to be in the center of the building and which was to give him important indications of the meaning of his future mission.
He crossed the room from side to side, thinking to find in it the fabulous crystal cube.
Nothing but nothingness. A temple raised to the glory of nothingness. That's what they kept for ages. And he who thought to discover the Great Secret ...
What was this new riddle? Had he not gone all this way only to find himself before the greatness of nothingness? And all these people, this people so proud of their treasure, that it came to annihilate other peoples, was it for this nothing, this icy emptiness? What demonic forces had decided the fate of these peoples?
All of these questions had to have clear answers. Nobody builds a temple so important to the glory of an infinite void.
The solution was to be there, hidden in one of the recesses of the temple.
Slowly, as the sun rose in the sky, the temple lit up slowly.
The walls revealed strange ornaments. Scriptures and drawings from another civilization. Jean did not know how to decrypt them. The dome which covered the whole edifice rested on enormous columns of white marble of a vertiginous height, and which in places were joined in marvelous arabesques. A detail marked him.
He had just realized that the columns had been designed in such a way that they formed one and the same block. This demonstrated the wonderful technique of these unknown builders. There was no one on this earth who could conceive such a work. His eyes were lost under the vault of the gigantic dome. He could identify what looked like points representing constellations. The only thing that intrigued him was the location of these constellations. They were different from those of the moment ... Everything was immensity. The sum of the knowledge had to be written on these stones, but there was no indication to understand the meaning of all this.
Time passed and Jean did not understand the riddle of this place. Night was starting to fall, and he hastened to find a solution so as not to be in the dark. What was his astonishment to see a light coming from one of the recesses of the temple. A sort of gallery, which had escaped its investigations, suddenly revealed itself. Could it be that the temple contains several halls of this kind? From the outside, it did not seem to him that it was so vast.
Always careful, looking at where his feet were, he noticed that the ground was covered with a red material, carved in the form of volutes spiraling from what he thought was the second room.
He began to follow this breadcrumb trail. All his senses were on alert. The thirst for discovery, to see what no one else before him had ever seen put him in a state of extreme excitement.
On reaching the threshold of the second room, he noticed that this one, more than the first, resembled that of his dream.
The same number of columns that were twelve in number; as well as windows that were the same number as those of the dream. From the edge of the walls descended a platform composed of plateaus, of which there were eight. Eighteen torchlights were lit and provided more than enough light for the lighting of the room. The flares rested on eighteen sinks of gold, which themselves rested on eighteen cubes of jade.
Jean paced this room for a long time, which contained in it the same mystery of design as the first. All this building was to be the image of the magnified number. How can you understand the meaning?
He did not know what to think. Certainly his teaching had not been completed.
Exhausted, he decided to stop there. He would resume his research the following days. In any case, he was to host these places for an indefinite time.
During the night, he had once again one of those strange dreams. Maybe the solution would finally be given to him.
The images of this dream showed him the translucent and green cube and nothing else seemed to mark his mind. Only this oppressive image of the cube, until its mind is saturated.
At that moment, the cube broke up into thousands of fragments, and of a perfect volume was transformed into a kind of line closing on itself until becoming a perfect circle.
When the circle was finished, Jean felt attracted to his center. Without being able to restrain himself to anything, he plunged into what looked like a kind of hourglass. The light around him had turned green. Nothing could stop the fall. He always fell.
Suddenly, the light became blinding, so much so that Jean thought he was going blind.
He no longer felt any sensation. His body did not want to respond to the stimuli of his brain. He thought that his mind and body had been dissociated by a force he did not conceive. Strangely, he felt no fear, as if this experience he had already experienced. We had to wait ...
His expectation and confidence in the events were rewarded.
The darkness was going away again, having failed to take precedence over his mind. The light reappeared, bringing with it the image of a form that did not seem to him to be foreign.
The messenger with rainbow eyes appeared to him again. She held in her arms a crystal vase which contained a sort of indefinable liquid. When she arrived with Jean, the first thing she did was to smile at him, as she was used to. She raised the vase above Jean's head and poured out the contents. The liquid trickled over his body, and began to radiate until a strong light filled the darkness of his soul. He regained possession of his body for a moment in nothingness. At his touch, the same process that had brought him into this universe sent him away from where he had come. When he reached the edge of the hourglass, the pressure he exerted on it made him burst into a thousand pieces. The door that had led him to an unknown world of men had closed forever.
This last sensation made him jump. Opening his eyes, he could see that everything around him was spinning. The forms of the temple also seemed to move in an incessant ballet. Pulling himself together, he managed to put all the pictures back in the right direction.
A voice that came from nowhere was heard:
"What you have received in your soul is the secret of the temple of numbers. Do not tell anyone, as in the past, see what surrounds you, and use wisdom. Keep learning, because the key you are looking for is now in your heart!"
Jean turned his head in all directions. He wanted to know who had just spoken these words.
Nothing. Nothing but foolish walls that only knew how to repeat the last words.
"In your heart ... In your heart ... In your heart ..."
The flares were extinguished. The interior of the temple had returned to the shadows.
Like an automaton, Jean went to the exit of the temple of numbers. The door was open, gaping on the city of Heolagampa, deserted by its inhabitants. This door and temple had nothing to hide from the eyes of the world. Moreover, of this world that could wait for it at the exit, there was none. Nobody had bet on his victory. They had lost a king, they had lost faith. Nothing held them back in Heolagampa anymore.
Once again, he was alone with his fate. But on that day, he also knew that somewhere in the depths of his heart was the key that would open all the other doors. He did not know what this bag of knowledge was about the temple of numbers, but he could feel his strength flowing through his veins.
The One Who knows gave him what he needed to know. Not to satisfy a thirst for power, but for the realization of this great work that these ancient alchemists sought to accomplish, those who lost themselves in the convoluted fields of temptation.
The realization of the great work is certainly a transmutation, but not the one they imagined.
It was for this reason that almost all these researchers went crazy or ruined their surroundings. Their initiation was often incomplete. They used stratagems for the realization of their ambitions contrary to the respect of the last fundamental law of transmutation.
Jean maintained a certain sympathy for these researchers of all time. The search for the philosopher's stone was to bring to its discoverer glory and power. In the end, only the misery remained, and forgetting ...
All this had to be part of a plan concocted by The One Who Knows.
Was it necessary to go through all these trials so that man could understand the purpose of his destiny, or was there something greater still?
What should they ignore, and only one should know, after a rigorous apprenticeship?
Perhaps with time, the nascent wisdom, they might have known that they were not allowed to satisfy their material desires.
It was not the time to find these answers. Jean felt that he was only a link in a big chain. He stood in the doorway still astonished at the nakedness of the city.
No longer did any soul haunt Heolagampa. With whom to share his discovery?
The hope of discovering another world had just been born in him. Never again would he be afraid of the unknown. He felt in him the strength to be able to explain all the mysteries of the universe. It was at this moment that he thought he saw the ultimate goal, the meaning of his destiny.
But before he can do that, he would have to go through other doors, also the last, the most difficult to reach. He should struggle against enormous temptations and the greatest would be to use his knowledge for personal purposes.
A last look at what was the temptation of the people, and Jean resumed his journey. The road led him to the shores of a great river, over which a bridge was thrown.
The river raised a great force; its waters were bubbling with white foam that flew into the moist air before falling back into the unfathomable and dark waters.
Jean was approaching the bridge. It was the only way to reach the other shore. He could not go back. His destiny was on the other side. When he was close enough, he could distinguish the pitiful state of the building. No one had felt the need to maintain this passage, as if it had been abandoned for many years. A path lost, no doubt, that only the destiny of the destiny had put on the path of Jean. We had to go at all costs ...
Arrived on the middle of the bridge, he dared to look over the parapet. What he could distinguish was even more terrible than he could have imagined. The strength of the river was greater than anything he had known. The speed of breaking waves was considerable, and this roar that came out gave the illusion of hearing the load of thousands of horses galloping.
The impetuous waves tightened at times, turning into gigantic maelstroms, burying in their bowels everything that passed on their flanks.
Subjugated by the beauty of the show, Jean was dizzy. His mind was caught by the hypnotic movement of the river. A magician river that sought to drag him to another world.
The more Jean concentrated not to succumb, the more the waves seemed to swell. They crashed against the parapet, and like immense tongues licked Jean's body. Then, on a last thrust, Jean was unbalanced and fell into a last wave of black foam. He managed to stay a moment on the surface of the waves, but their power was such that nothing could resist them. Not even the champion of The One Who Knows. The frothy monster wanted to chew it up a bit, no matter how digestible it was. Jean struggled with all his strength. Nothing helped. The monster had the upper hand. Jean lost consciousness, and the waves carried him, like a cork, to another destination.
For the first time since he was in this world, Jean had not been master of his path.
Another force than the one that led him to his goal so far, had made him deviate.
Was it still an idea of The One Who Knows?