The Golden Labyrinth - Francisco J. de Lys

Francisco J.
by Lys The Golden Labyrinth
1
Francisco J. by Lys The Golden Labyrinth
FRANCISCO J. DE LYS
HE
LABYRINTH
OF GOLD
2
To my brother Carlos Diego
3
ARGUMENT
On the night of All Saints' Day, during a gala dinner at the

Gran Teatro del Liceo, the architect Gabriel Grieg is ordered to
pay off a debt he had contracted with a decrepit old man. With
profound astonishment he realizes that the contract he signed
masked among its clauses a delirious pact with the devil. To try
to settle his debt, Grieg will ally himself with a mysterious
woman called Lorena, determined to find a valuable jewel
made of alchemical gold and related to the murders committed
by a bibliomaniac monk in 19th century Barcelona.
The novel takes place in a period of forty-three hours, and

takes place in modern-day Barcelona, transformed into a
gigantic labyrinth. In their fascinating adventure, the two
protagonists will enter the hermetic city in the footsteps of Evil.
The golden labyrinth hides a wonderful secret within its

pages and leads us to a place where myths and history, lead
and gold, life and death seem to merge in a territory as
unknown as it is fascinating.
4
Foreword
The Venetian banker, even before distinguishing the faint light of the torch that
illuminated the dark alley, already perceived a sulfurous effluvium in the air that
came out as if in a cloud.
It was said that that smell could transform beggars into knights and the
disinherited into powerful feudal lords. Turn servants into emperors, and change
subjects into kings.
The emanation spread in the air like an irritating breath, and emerged strongly
towards the heights from the chimneys of some crucibles located in each of those
small houses in the singular alley. Only in that alley, attached to the north wall of the
largest castle in Europe, did that unusual concentration of alchemical furnaces occur.
The Venetian banker, with a deliberately slow step and an excited expression, was
approaching the place that his ambitions pointed to.
It had been dusk for more than an hour, and the light of day was only a recent
memory in his mind, after having contemplated a wonderful sunset in that mythical
city. He had seen how the last lights of the sunset turned the roofs of Prague in
orange tones.
The shadows seemed to have completely taken over the city, only threatened by a
summer breeze that spread the scant light of the torch that was fixed to the castle
tower that overlooked the alley.
It was exciting to have arrived there to be able to contemplate what was forbidden
to so many inventors, artists and scientists around the world. In those times, these
jobs were subject to rigid restrictions, and were severely punished.
They were prohibited anywhere, except in that place in the heart of 17th century
Europe. A singularity that occurred when it was promoted by one of the strangest
kings that History had contributed: the eccentric monarch Rudolph II, emperor of the
Holy Empire, possessor of a capricious character. He had an extravagant court in
which magicians, acrobats, jesters, acrobats and irrepressible charlatans swarmed,
and he was the protector of countless great men, whether they were painters,
astrologers, astronomers or mathematicians, with whom he intended to have his
Cabinet of Wonders constantly active.
But Rudolph II would go down in history for a fascinating obsession: alchemy, the
transmutation of metals into gold.
That irrepressible impulse instigated him, even at the risk of emptying the
battered coffers of his Empire, to achieve at all costs what until then had only been a
chimera.
5
The banker, upon reaching the entrance to the alley, stopped and inhaled that
smoke forcefully again. He observed, helped by a weak light that emerged from the
crucibles located next to the windows, the interior of those houses on which they had
erected basements and which formed a compact mass that extended along the
walkway.
Towards the end of the alley, a brilliant reddish color seemed to go out and come
back on in the athanors as silhouettes passed before them, pretending to undertake
the most enigmatic and eminent task ever carried out by mere mortals.
The banker felt transported to a reality that he always wanted to have lived, and
he was moved to read, chiseled on a thick oak wood plank, the name of that mythical
alley:
ZLATÁ ULICKA
The Alley of Gold and Alchemists.
There, a select group of necromancers tried to achieve the chimerical task of

heating the matter of mercury or lead, until it was sublimated and transformed into
lapis and subsequently into the main purpose of their lives, the most desired of all
elements: gold. alchemical.
The banker knew perfectly well the hidden mystique of alchemy, its foundations
and transcriptions, but he had not made a long trip from luminous Venice to that
narrow, dark alley to return with empty pockets.
"This very night I will caress the alchemical gold," he told himself. I will have in
my hands what these poor devils, like others, stubbornly and fruitlessly sought. I
will achieve what so many alchemists, moon after moon, and generation after
generation since the dawn of time, have failed to achieve.
For him, this was a certainty based on rational knowledge, which departed from
the graphic symbolism enclosed in the hermetic books deciphered by alchemists,
who secretly conversed among themselves using an obscure language, and which,
according to ancient traditions, was the one that was had used in the very Garden of
Eden.
The banker, with an emotion not without some concern, entered one of those
silent laboratories. The door was open but there was no one inside, as if its enigmatic
occupant had sensed imminent danger or perhaps had discovered an unexpected
discovery.
The intruder did not notice the shelves full of dusty volumes and the
accumulation of objects that cluttered the room, such as tweezers, tongs, anvils,
alembics, glass flasks in which orange-hued fluids boiled, clay vessels with bulky
shapes... He headed straight for the alchemical melting furnace next to the glass
window: the crucible.
A light shone in its lower part, the combustion chamber, the place where,
according to the furnace-shaped scheme of the Cosmos of the Teathrum chemicum
6
britannicum, the ignis burned as a representation of hell and chaos, and the slag
resulting from its combustion. It symbolized evil: Infernalis, darkness and Satan.
The banker moved his hand closer to the oven door, but he limited himself to
leaving it a few centimeters from its surface without touching it. He did it to calculate
its temperature.
He raised his head and contemplated the highest piece of the athanor where the
upper chamber was located, which connected directly to the chimney and which,
according to alchemical symbology, constituted the Bonum infinitum of clear celestial
references. But he paid special attention to the most important part of the atanor, the
central part, divided into three compartments. In the upper compartment the
distillation was carried out, in the center the bathing or purification of the flasks was
carried out and in the lower one, and essential in the alchemical furnace, there was
an iron kettle to calcine the metals.
These three central parts made up the Bonum finitum, which symbolized water, the
earth and, above all, the human being, always at the mercy of earthly passions and
constantly stalked by Evil.
Upon seeing the athanor in its entirety, surrounded by those utensils from the
alchemical laboratory, the banker closed his eyes and felt for a moment transported
to another time. He felt his consciousness expand.
He opened his eyes again and, after looking at his hands, which appeared
illuminated by an intense reddish tone, he opened the oven door and placed them
inside.
His hands did not notice the fire nor did they suffer its scorching heat. For a
second he felt like a miracle worker who understood where the error of the
alchemists lay, and where the obstacle that prevented them from advancing along a
path full of pitfalls was hidden.
For a moment he felt like the devil himself when he saw that he was immune to
the flames of hell. In that athanor an invisible, dark fire shone, a false fire. An
incandescence that intensified the joy of his mind. It was a gift he had bestowed upon
himself for his tireless pursuit throughout a lifetime.
And then the Venetian banker knew that this was a crucial moment in his already
long existence.
Suddenly, a tremendous noise was heard, as if two metal objects had violently
collided. He saw the liquid in the flasks shake, felt the floor vibrate under his feet,
and watched as the door of the athanor before his eyes began to rattle.
The man believed, clouded by his own feelings, that a spell caused by his own
invocations had materialized.
The ground vibrated more and more strongly. The tremor was caused by three
very intense shocks, which were immediately accompanied by four shorter, but even
more serious shocks.
Quickly, the banker went out into the alley and felt the vibration transform into a
thunderous sound similar to that of a thousand drums in unison, carried by a legion
of soldiers heading towards the city to assault it mercilessly.
7
What he was hearing at that moment were screams that seemed to come from the
throat of a giant thirsty for blood, screams that could have frightened the most
warlike and brave soldiers of a powerful medieval army.
Then there was a powerful flash of very white light that completely illuminated
the alley while those atrocious screams continued to be heard.
The banker saw how a long, black silhouette was heading towards him with a
determined step. She was a very tall, blonde, thin woman with refined features, like a
Valkyrie.
She was about twenty-five years old and was elegantly dressed in a white men's-
style suit, a fitted beige shirt, and very high-heeled black shoes. He was carrying a
cell phone in one hand and what appeared to be a gold catalog in the other.
While the Venetian banker walked down the alley and visited the interior of the
alchemical laboratory, the public relations had remained at a safe distance so as not
to hinder the visit that the Prague city council had granted him so that he could tour
the historical recreation of the building alone. mythical Alley of Gold and
Alchemists, which had been able to take place thanks to the extraordinary event that
would take place that same night, and which would have the banker as its main
protagonist.
Then the screams uttered by the giant with the broken voice began to become
intelligible when the banker and the woman entered the large esplanade from where
that very amplified music came...
"All the sinners saints... As heads are tails... just call me Lucifer."
The attractive public relations woman, speaking very loudly over the music,
addressed the banker.
—Signore Lambordi, the world presentation of watches made with alchemical gold
is about to begin, which will take place in Prague Castle. - Very smiling, the elegant
blonde greeted a man who wore a Dopravní Policie badge on his uniform and who
was the head of the agents in charge of surveillance -. In the surrounding area, the
show has already begun. We must head towards the castle without further delay
because, shortly, the alley will be filled with guests.
Indeed, in a few minutes the town hall officials would allow access to the public
and the alley would be visited by masses of citizens of Prague and tourists, eager to
contemplate what Zlatá Ulicka, the Alley of Gold and Alchemists, was like in the 19th
century. XVII.
The banker and the public relations officer headed to the Rolls-Royce parked at
one end of the large square, where a large crowd was gathering to attend a musical
show with a pyrotechnic ending titled "The Devil in the Alley of Gold."
Next to a huge stage there were a large number of speakers and spotlights that
suddenly went off, and the gigantic face of Mick Jagger appeared projected on a huge
screen.
The Rolling Stones singer literally ate the wireless microphone and, although his
face was more wrinkled, he seemed to have signed a pact with the devil to maintain
the same energy and vitality that he displayed in the sixties.
8
The leader of their Satanic Majesties wriggled like a snake from one side of the
stage to the other and sang Sympathy for the Devil: "Please to meet you... hope you
guessed my name... um yeah..."
The public relations officer held a golden booklet in her hand, from which stood
out an invitation to access the restricted tender that was about to take place. On the
cover, you could see the Alchemists' Alley as the legend represented it in the 17th
century.
«But what's puzzling you… is the nature of my game…»
In the luxurious catalog an exceptional jewel stood out: the first watch that
included among its materials the coveted alchemical gold that alchemists tried to
obtain all their lives. Its world premiere would take place in one of the rooms in the
south wing of the new palace, in Prague Castle.
In an unprecedented effort, as detailed in the catalog carried by the Valkyrie, the
organization of the exclusive event had counted on "the magnificent collaboration of
the Most Excellent Prague City Council for the expensive recreation of the mythical
Zlatá Ulicka or Alley of Gold...".
«Tell me, baby, what's my name…»
The production of the exceptional watch, so that it could be considered a
collection, and not an exclusive model, would be five units per year, at a price that
had not been made public, which was established by contract and which would
reach an eight-digit figure.
Each of the watches was partially made with alchemical gold obtained at the
European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN), thanks to an intricate technological
process that consisted of traveling electrically charged atomic nuclei through a
twenty-seven kilometer linear particle accelerator. of perimeter, until they reached
99.9 percent of the speed of light.
At that precise moment, they were made to violently impact other nuclei until
they were transmuted. The same objective that the old alchemists longed to achieve
in their small crucibles.
«Tell me honey, can you guess my name?»
Through this complex process, the repulsive force of its nuclei was overcome,
causing the eighty-two protons, one hundred twenty-five neutrons and eighty-two
electrons of lead to be transmuted into another different element formed by seventy-
nine protons, one hundred eighteen neutrons and seventy and nine electrons; that is,
pure gold.
The pure gold long sought after by alchemists, after which, comfortably installed
in the back of a Rolls-Royce, the Venetian banker went to meet him.
«Tell you one time, you're the blame…»
"Just call me Lucifer..."
9
It was All Saints' Eve.

A fine, incessant rain had been falling in the city since dawn, and Barcelona looked
unexpectedly sparkling that early in the evening. It seemed that the squares and
streets were polished by a diaphanous and humid patina.
The streetlights that stretched out in endless rows on Gran Vía shone brightly, and
the entire city seemed to resist the sad breath of autumn that covered its walkways
with dead leaves, which had prematurely darkened the sunset and enveloped it with
an ash-colored sky.
That night, in the heart of Las Ramblas, the Gran Teatro del Liceo showed the
appearance of great occasions, and its elegant façade was completely illuminated
before the eyes of those who watched it from the busy promenade.
The architect Gabriel Grieg was inside the theater at that time. He was sitting
peacefully in a plush armchair in a luxurious living room, surrounded by exquisite
wall paintings that stood out on a white marble floor, Roman majolicas made in
polychrome tones, and delicate modernist-style mosaics.
His image, without him realizing it, was reflected in a mirror located next to an art
deco stained glass window, and showed the body of a man who had long brown hair
and who was tall and athletic in build. Very recently he had crossed the border of
forty and dark green eyes stood out in the outlined features of his face.
The stained glass window was at the top of a huge fireplace decorated with carved
wooden ribs and ceramic tiling, and formed a red and yellow shield, crowned by an
armored helmet under which the following epigraph appeared:
GREAT LYCEUM THEATER

LYCEUM CIRCLE
ANNO DOMINI MCMII
The room had the particularity that one of its walls, the one belonging to the
façade of the building and which barely rose a few meters above the ground, was
made up of two large windows that offered a formidable panoramic view of the
Ramblas and the comings and goings of their peoples. For that reason, in the Círculo
del Liceo, an exclusive private club in the purest English style, that room was known
as "the fishbowl."
Sitting opposite Grieg in another chair was a thirty-five-year-old woman wearing
a silk evening dress and very sharp stiletto shoes.
She had blue eyes, long hair, and lips painted in coral tones.
10
—Tomorrow I will believe that everything was a dream, but being at the Lyceum
dressed as Sissi Empress, in a room worthy of a palace, and sitting in an armchair
that looks like a throne is something that, no matter what happens, will never take
away from me. "Nobody," joked Laia, the woman, as she watched the people pass by
on the Ramblas.
"I feel like Duke Maximilian of Bavaria himself, because in here luxury is not
conspicuous by its absence," said Grieg, who was dressed in a black Armani silk suit
that he combined with a white linen shirt and a tie. grey silver.
—Do you think they will be punctual and the dinner time will be as announced?
—She asked with a smile on her lips as she held, along with an elegant handbag, an
invitation card in her left hand.
"I can't assure you because this is the first time I've entered the very private
Círculo del Liceo, and the truth is that I'm very curious to know," Grieg revealed.
That was one of the reasons why I accepted your invitation to dinner tonight, aside,
of course, from enjoying your always pleasant company.
"I'm glad it's like that," Laia stated, while she smiled mischievously and replaced
the pendant hanging from her neck.
—When I asked you the first time, you didn't want to clarify... who sent you the
invitation to dinner tonight? —Grieg asked, intrigued.
—Can't you imagine? —she responded with an enigmatic smile.
At that moment, the door to the theater opened wide and a theater employee
appeared dressed in a dark uniform, with the initials "C" on the breast pocket of his
jacket. L.» exquisitely embroidered in gold thread.
"I beg you to accompany me," he announced in a high-pitched tone of voice. Your
table is already set.
Laia and Gabriel, preceded by the orderly, crossed an elegant modernist hall, with
slender green marble columns topped by golden capitals and a mahogany ceiling,
and arrived at the foot of a staircase next to four wonderful stained glass windows
that represented various acts of Wagner's operas.
The majestic marble staircase was decorated with a thick and elaborate tapestry
carpet and led to the dining room, where a huge painting by Ramón Casas titled
Afternoon Dance stood out.
—I beg the gentlemen to please follow me.
The employee opened the door that led to a lavish dining room, which at that
moment offered the same lively and crowded appearance as the most excellent opera
premieres. The dining room, designed by Joan Bassegoda i Nonell, occupied the
entire balcony on the first floor of the Lyceum.
The tables were exquisitely set with embroidered tablecloths, majolica vases with
natural flowers, porcelain dinnerware and silver cutlery. And almost all of them
were occupied by illustrious guests, elegantly dressed for the occasion, among whom
were recognized authorities and prominent personalities of the city.
They crossed the dining room, illuminated by a huge crystal teardrop chandelier,
knowing that they were the object of numerous scrutinizing glances.
11
Laia looked at Grieg in disgust when she saw that the assistant seemed to be
heading towards a small round table located in a corner without a view of the
Ramblas. But unexpectedly he diverted his path and headed towards two white
doors with golden handles that were closed. The orderly took a key from the pocket
of his jacket and opened them with a pleased and at the same time solemn gesture.
Before them appeared one of the two private rooms located at each end of the
main dining room, in which a columnar lintel stood out.
The room offered a privileged view of the Ramblas and had a large rectangular
table set up with a porcelain vase filled with roses, gladioli, daisies and all kinds of
delicacies. But that was not what attracted his attention the most, but that on that
opulent table only the service and cutlery had been arranged for two diners.
The employee showed them where they should stand and invited them to take a
seat.
"I am at your entire disposal," he said. The maître will attend to you immediately.
Laia gazed, fascinated, at the large painting by Hénault that presided over the
dining room.
"You have to tell me who sent you the invitation to this exclusive evening," said
Grieg, raising his right index finger and with a wide smile on his lips.
—Someone left it for me on the table in my office. —Laia smiled mischievously
again as she observed with delight the variety of canapés on a silver tray—. Do you
really still not suspect who it could be?
"No," Grieg replied, shrugging his shoulders.
"Of course, the more I know men, the less I understand you," Laia stated, adjusting
her skirt. The invitation came with an envelope on which this phrase appeared:
"Invite Gabriel Grieg", and was signed with the initials "M. V.». Are you falling?
Grieg bit his knuckle and realized that those two initials were those of Mónica
Valentí, his ex-wife after their divorce became effective a little over half a year ago.
"Quite a detail," he said, smiling, although with disbelief on his face.
—But… how little you know us! —Laia exclaimed, shaking her head—.
Sometimes, I think you live on the Moon and you don't realize anything.
—And what is the reason? —Grieg asked slyly.
—Gabriel, we women tell each other everything. You understand? Monica and I
have been partners for many years… —Laia wrapped her words in an insinuating
warmth—. You know how it is…! I have gone with her to many bachelorette parties.
Perhaps, on this occasion, he wanted to invite the two of us to a wonderful divorced
farewell...
The doors to the private dining room opened and three waiters entered. They
were impeccably dressed in black, with cords in their livery, white shirts and a
narrow navy blue bowtie. The one who seemed to be of higher rank wore a maroon
velvet bow tie. And all three of them carried a tray high.
One of the waiters carried on his tray three Bohemian crystal glasses with gold
rims and the initials of the Lyceum Circle engraved on the surface, as well as a silver
12
ice bucket, decorated with motifs from classical Greece, which contained a bottle of
champagne.
The waiter offered the honors of the tasting to the woman. She gazed through the
beveled Bohemian crystal at the golden color and promising bouquet of the
champagne, tasted it, and instantly gave her enthusiastic approval. The waiter, after
filling the glasses, partially covered the bottle again and placed it in the ice bucket.
At that moment, the second waiter carefully placed a strange contraption on the
tablecloth. It was a spherical object, although slightly flattened at its base, black in
color, which was the size of a cannon ball.
The two waiters quickly left.
The maitre'd, who had never shown the surface of the small silver tray he was
carrying, then leaned next to Grieg, and he was able to see the contents of the tray
and verify that it was a card signed again by the initials. from his ex-wife: «M. V.»
After contemplating the smiling expression of his companion and the luxury that
surrounded them, he suspected that he was being the object of a very sibylline and
elaborate trap.
13
Only an enigmatic phrase appeared on the cardboard that was signed by his ex-
wife's initials.
The tsar's wine cellar ended up at the bottom of the sea.

M. v.
Laia seemed increasingly intrigued.

—Don't tell me that the card is also signed by Monica? -asked.
"Yes," Grieg answered as he put the card in the breast pocket of his jacket and
looked conspiratorially at his beautiful companion. We'll see where their ingenious
and very expensive footlights take us.
—Do you think Monica has placed something inside this black ball? —Laia asked,
raising her eyebrows.
The two observed with an attention not without suspicion that strange sphere,
next to which one of the waiters had placed two flat, elongated objects of mother-of-
pearl inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
Gabriel Grieg observed that a very fine line crossed the middle of the sphere. He
then pressed the top of the ball, which immediately split in two, revealing its
fascinating contents.
A golden can of brownish caviar appeared on a bed of ice.
Laia instantly looked surprised.
—I understood that caviar was black! —he exclaimed.
“This caviar is not just any caviar,” Grieg said while analyzing its texture. When
sturgeons age, the color of the eggs acquires that tone between whitish and ocher. I
don't think I'm wrong if I tell you that the female sturgeon from which this caviar
comes was more than a hundred years old.
Grieg took the can in his hands and lifted it to read the lid.
His surprise increased when he saw that between four wavy lines an engraving of
a sturgeon appeared on the product brand: "Caviar Almas."
"This caviar is Iranian," Grieg indicated, placing the can back inside the sphere. It
comes from the large beluga sturgeons of the Caspian Sea. It is the most expensive in
the world, and its annual production is so limited that a small can like this can only
be purchased by order and at an absolutely prohibitive price.
—Why is it called “Almas”? —Laia asked after a brief silence.
—It means "diamond" in Persian.
14
-I see! Being Monica's partner, I'm afraid that I will end up paying for all this
waste,” Laia deduced with a nervous smile.
"Since we entered this private dining room, I have been astonished," Grieg
muttered as he re-read, intrigued, the enigmatic phrase "The Tsar's cellar ended up at
the bottom of the sea."
—The champagne is delicious. Tonight I feel like I'm floating in a sea of bubbles
like Sharon Stone in the New Year's Eve cava commercial,” Laia stated,
enthusiastically.
That phrase made Grieg, after laughing at Laia's clever quip, have a disturbing
premonition and look more closely at the silver ice bucket.
—I already told you! —he exclaimed after observing the golden and aged paper
attached to the body of the bottle, where the year of the harvest appeared—. This
champagne is from 1907, and I believe it is the same one that several gourmets
alluded to during the after-dinner meal I attended. They were arguing about which
was the most expensive champagne in the world and I seem to remember that it was
related to a historical figure.
Laia, intrigued, looked at the bottle.
—I think they were referring to this one. Grieg pointed determinedly at the dark,
golden bottle. If it is the champagne I am talking about, its price is exorbitant, and, if
I remember correctly, it is related to a terrible tragedy...
—What kind of tragedy? —she asked in a melodramatic tone.
—It seems to me that this is a historical figure who could perfectly be…
Gabriel Grieg read the card that the maître d' had given him again, and put it back in
his jacket without stopping to reflect... Suddenly, his eyes lit up with flashes of
concern.
—This bottle could be related to the mysterious text on the card. That is, with the
tsar.
—Forget Sharon Stone! Now I'm a tsarina! —Laia joked as Grieg removed a very
rusty plate from the bottle's stopper.
—Do you know why it's so rusty? —asked Grieg, who already knew the reason.
"I do know that answer, Mr. Rasputin," she replied after taking a small sip of
champagne. Because it's very old.
—I'm afraid that this champagne was in the hold of a sunken ship at the bottom of
the sea, and it is also related to the tsar.
Grieg read aloud from a silver-colored label on the back of the bottle's neck:
… This bottle was part of the cargo that was destined for the General Staff of the
imperial navy of Tsar Nicholas II when a German submarine U-22 sank it on
November 3, 1916, during the First World War, near the Finnish coast and off the
coast of Finland. to the city of Rauma. This Heidsieck bottle amp; Co Monopole Goüt
Americain, Vintage 1907, was rescued from the Jónkóping cellar at a depth of sixty-
four meters by treasure hunters. They only recovered two thousand units, and this is
one of the few left in the world...
15
"Although it runs in the family, of course, Monica has spared no expense... This is
getting more and more exciting," Laia said as she swallowed a spoonful of caviar.
Gabriel Grieg thought that something very strange was happening there. He got
up and walked around the table to the place where his companion was sitting.
"Please come with me," he said.
-What happen? —She asked, somewhat bewildered. Grieg held out his hand and
the two walked towards a sturdy oak sofa covered in red silk, which stood in a
corner of the private dining room.
"Please answer me," Grieg asked. In the envelope containing the dinner invitation,
was there anything else?
—It's about time you asked me! I thought you wouldn't notice!
"What was I supposed to realize?" Grieg asked.
—I've been trying to get you to notice him all evening. Laia held in her hands the
oval gold brooch that she wore hanging from her neck.
Grieg carefully observed its shape, focusing especially on the schematic drawing
formed by several intersecting lines, which was engraved in the very center of one of
the faces of the pendant.
—Have you never seen this brooch before?
"No," she answered, looking into Grieg's eyes.
—And why haven't you told me anything?
—I thought the brooch complemented the invitation to the gala dinner, which is
why I have always had it in sight. I thought that when you saw it you would ask
me...
—Please let me touch it.
Laia, resting her elbows lightly on his shoulders and with great skill, undid the
chain and handed him the brooch. Grieg turned on a lamp next to the sofa and took
out from one of his pockets a small knife with pearly handles that, on one occasion
while mountaineering in Montblanc, had saved him from a more than probable
death, and which since then he always carried with him as a amulet.
After several unsuccessful attempts, the very sharp tip penetrated a tiny slit,
which when turning the knife ninety degrees caused the pendant to open into two
halves.
The interior of the jewel, designed and composed in the mid-19th century, showed
its hidden and disturbing motif on the right side. In a very shiny yellow gold on
which a dozen small diamonds and fire enamels of an unmistakable modernist style
stood out, two strange figures could be seen aboard a small boat, which was heading
towards a desolate destination: the doors of the hell.
Grieg's face changed completely as he looked at the inside left side of the brooch,
on which a name was engraved. Suddenly he knew that the mysterious invitation to
the gala dinner, the private dining room in the Lyceum Circle itself, the caviar, the
tsar's bottle of champagne... everything that happened that night was related to a
very serious matter, which had absolutely nothing to do with it. What to do with his
ex-wife.
16
On the inner surface of the jewel was engraved the name of a man whom Grieg
knew briefly, and who recorded the profession he practiced during the 19th century:
M.VlGUIER
ARCHITECT
That singular pendant caused him deep concern, and brought to mind the
memory of a mysterious old man with whom he had contracted an ominous debt
more than a decade ago. "It can't be..." he thought.
He immediately tried to get that disturbing thought out of his head by turning to
an unquestionable reason: that man must have already been dead.
Laia, after observing the interior of the pendant, asked what was, at that moment,
the most logical of questions.
—Who is that M. Viguier?
—At the outset, I will tell you that he is the person to whom the initials «M.»
belong. V.» which, unfortunately, have nothing to do with Mónica Valentí.
—And who the hell is this M. Viguier if it can be known? —she asked again, upset.
—He is an architect who, despite being related to the construction of the Gran
Teatro del Liceo, very few know.
The young lawyer was increasingly intrigued.
"I'm all ears," she said.
—Officially, the architects who were in charge of the construction of this theater in
1845 were Miquel Garriga i Roca and Josep Oriol Mestres, who succeeded him in
January 1846. But in reality, both followed to the letter the original plans that had
been designed by an enigmatic French architect named M. Viguier.
"Why did you say "he called" instead of "he called"?" Laia asked, feeling a chill
running down her spine.
Grieg smiled evilly.
—Out of respect for the legend.
—What legend?
—The character of the architect Viguier is shrouded in a veil of mystery very
similar to that of The Phantom of the Opera. He has been linked to the Count of Saint
Germain, the enigmatic archetypal character of immortality.
Gabriel Grieg fell into a disconcerting thought, provoked by the memory of the
old man with whom he contracted the sinister debt. He again took the card that the
maître d' had shown him and that he had put in his jacket pocket. After reading the
front again, he turned it over and read:
The most secretly feared thing always ends up happening...
"It's about him!" he exclaimed to himself.
"Excuse me, Laia," he said, looking straight into her eyes, "but you must leave
right now." Unfortunately, the evening has ended. Grab your bag and leave.
-But why? I guess you're joking. What is this about now? What have you found in
the jewel? —she asked, angry.
17
Gabriel Grieg immediately understood the embarrassment of the situation. He had
to get her out of there, before she found herself involved in a murky matter that she
was completely unaware of. And I had to do it without giving arguments that could
compromise her.
"Look, Laia..." Grieg chose the words he was going to say. I'm sorry, but you have
to go. I will accompany you to the entrance of the theater and we will wait together
for the first taxi to take you home. Another day I will call you and give you an
explanation at the place of your choice, but now, you must leave.
—Leave in a taxi? With the canapes, salmon, caviar and champagne on the table?
Imagine what dinner will be like! Do you perhaps forget that it was I who invited
you?
"Not at all," Grieg replied, sincerely regretting the unpleasant situation that had
arisen.
-I do not understand anything. “You don't need to accompany me anywhere, Mr.
Killjoy,” Laia exclaimed, feeling unfairly scorned. I'm old enough to know how to
move around the world alone. You can keep the finishing touch! I give it to you!
Although I suggest you sell it and with what they give you, sign up for an
accelerated course on how to treat women.
Laia went to the table, filled the glass to overflowing, raised it and uttered a
strange and prophetic toast.
—I wish you an adventurous night of the dead!
Then, instead of drinking the champagne, she poured it over the flowers in the
center of the table, and with a loud click of her heels left the private dining room.
As soon as Laia left, Gabriel headed towards one of the windows overlooking the
Ramblas. It didn't take him long to see how his companion crossed the promenade
and entered the entrance to the Liceo subway.
Then he sat down again at the table and, overwhelmed, reread the disturbing
message that was written on the back of the card. A text that I would never have
wanted to read:

Today is the day you must pay off the debt you incurred.
with me.
He slowly sank back into the chair with one hand resting on his temple, overcome
by disturbing thoughts. «By now, the man with whom I contracted the debt should
already be dead... When I saw him, he seemed like an old man in his nineties, and
more than ten years have passed since that event.» Another issue distressed him
even more: the commitment that linked him to the old man, a bizarre secret pact, had
nothing conventional about it.
«If it is related to the matter I suspect, it will be useless for me to get out of here
right now. Everything is perfectly calculated so that you can pay off the debt tonight.
I must immediately clarify the enigma contained in the gold pendant.
18
Grieg tried to analyze the complex psychology of the adversary he had to face in
just a few minutes, who, apart from being a millionaire, judging by the exorbitant
price of the delicacies displayed on the table, used damned sophisticated tactics to
achieve his outlandish objectives. and sibyllines.
He took the gold brooch and put it in one of the pockets of his jacket. Next, he put
away the two plates of the champagne bottle and walked out to the main dining
room with a determined step.
In the dining room was the head waiter, stationed and motionless next to one of the
doors. He looked at Grieg intently and opened the door to let him in. Gabriel entered
the most secret and private area of the Gran Teatro del Liceo with a strange
conviction: he was going to encounter the worst specter of his past.
19
After crossing the door of the dining room, Gabriel Grieg entered the private
rooms of the Círculo del Liceo.
The halls, although completely illuminated, were strangely empty, and a profound
silence reigned there. With a leisurely step, he headed towards a glass door through
which he could see the antechamber of the Conservatory of Music.
"He's waiting for me..." he thought.
The damaged clock seemed a metaphor for the decoration of the room: the
outdated luxury of enormous armchairs of worn leather, in which one could imagine
long and unspeakable conversations over a glass of cognac and a good Havana cigar.
Grieg headed towards the Rotunda, a modernist room with large green velvet
sofas, superbly decorated with twelve oil paintings by Ramón Casas. Grieg had been
able to see almost the entire ground floor, the noblest of the Circle. But that exclusive
and mythical private club had on the upper floors a billiards room, an egregious
library, a conference room and a hidden room reserved for card games, in which
mythical and clandestine games had been held.
Grieg then noticed a room protected by a thick mahogany door decorated with
marquetry filigree and on which a golden sign was displayed:
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENCE
He headed towards that door and opened it decisively. The room was dark; Only
a dim light penetrated, coming from the street, illuminating the Liceo's Book of
Honor - set with gold, silver and white ornaments -, inserted in a rectangular frame
of walnut wood and covered by glass.
Grieg decided, without ever crossing the threshold, that he was going to close that
door before a member of the club could surprise him in a private office; but a second
before the two parts of the lock joined together again, he heard someone calling his
name from inside.
The light of a heavy bronze lamp was turned on on a large office table,
illuminating the walls on which stood shelves full of original musical scores,
paintings, busts and photographs dedicated to excellent singers and opera divas of
all time. .
Sitting at the table, in a comfortable red velvet chair, was the person Grieg thought
of as soon as he read the name hidden inside the brooch.
"We meet again," said the man.
20
Gabriel Grieg shuddered. Before him was a bald man, with small, very black eyes,
large, bony hands, and as thin as a reed, who was dressed in a dark, impeccable suit
with very wide lapels.
He looked to be about ninety years old, exactly the same age he had looked a
decade earlier, when Grieg incurred the debt.
—I'm sure that as soon as he read the text that the gold pendant hid, he
immediately remembered me. Isn't that right, Mr. Grieg? —The old man smiled
caustically and sat up in his seat. He then languidly extended his left arm. Settle
down, please. The time has come to pay off the debt.
Gabriel Grieg thought about the day he last saw that old man.
"I suppose you are thinking," the latter continued, "...because I would do it too if I
were you..., why you must pay precisely now a debt that you already thought you
had settled, due to the death... of the guarantor."
Grieg remained silent and limited himself to taking a seat in the chair on the other
side of the table and looking askance at the eyes of his disturbing interlocutor.
—He thought I would already be raising hollyhocks, but now he sees that's not the
case.
-That I have to do? Grieg asked.
—I am satisfied with your predisposition.
The strange old man took a leather case from the breast pocket of his jacket and,
after opening it, chose one of the three Havana cigars that were inside. He then lit the
cigar with a large silver lighter that rested on the table.
—Excuse the little subterfuges that I had to use to make you come here...: the
artificial misunderstanding with the initials of the adorable Mónica Valentí... —A
large puff of smoke came out impetuously from his mouth before continuing—: I
don't care. will deny that matching the initials M. v. of his ex-wife with those of the
immortal architect M. Viguier, which was one of the numerous pseudonyms that the
Count of Saint Germain used, has its merit and its spark of grace.
The old man smiled enigmatically again and paused.
—Excuse me, but all I have left is these little pranks to amuse me... Believe me, it's
more creative and fun this way... Much better than sending you a burly emissary to
twist your arm... Besides, I already warned you that when I summoned you you
would come for him. on his own and without knowing that it was I who required
him. It was part of the deal, remember?
—How can I pay off the debt? —Grieg asked, scrutinizing each of the old man's
movements.
The decrepit creditor expelled the contents of his lungs and the thick tobacco
smoke enveloped his face, rejuvenating his features.
—I will briefly introduce you to the subject. —The old man extended his haggard
left index finger—. Do you know which character this exquisite statue represents?
On the table rested a disturbing ceramic figure that showed the shape of a woman
dressed in very loose clothing, holding a book in one hand, a golden branch in the
other and whose face was completely devoured by wrinkles and age. .
21
Grieg chose to remain silent. He tried to appear impassive, but he was nervous,
and he suspected that the direction that the conversation he was about to have with
the old man seemed to take would lead him to dark territories of which that
disturbing figure was his dark messenger.
—I know you have recognized the character. Why do you persist in being so
sparse in words? —For the first time, the old man's face darkened.
Indeed, Gabriel knew perfectly well the mythical character that that figure
represented: it was the Sibyl of Cumae. Legend said that Apollo granted her any
wish she wanted. He chose to live as many years as grains of sand could fit between
his two hands. The wish he requested was granted, but he forgot to ask the god for
the gift of eternal youth, through which he would retain the same appearance he had
when he was young. She grew so old that she became discarnate, and they had to
lock her in a cage that they hung from the walls of the temple of Apollo himself. The
very few mortals who sought to enter hell, while still alive, came to her. The golden
branch he held in his hand was the payment they had to make to Charon, the
ferryman of Hades, to allow them to cross the Styx and take them to the mouth of the
crater of hell.
There was a long pause.
—Believe me, my silent debtor, there are thoughts that can only be born from the
old, and I assure you that… —The old man caressed the sibyl's emaciated face—… if
people's lives ran backwards, that is, if we were born old and we would die
peacefully cradled in the maternal womb... wars would be fought to gain time... not
gold.
Gabriel Grieg watched the old man cautiously. He noticed in it the same aura of
mystery that he appreciated daily in his work as a restorer, in the old Romanesque
churches or in the dark underground crypts erected between the pillars of the
cathedrals.
—I insist, “architect Viguier.” What should I do to pay off the debt?
—First of all, give me the gold pendant for which, very shrewdly, you
remembered your debt to me and made you come here in the way I intended... —The
old man turned the cigar next to his left ear, listening to the crackling of the leaf.
Grieg did exactly as he was asked.
The old man very delicately picked up the oval-shaped gold pendant and placed it
on the book that held the statuette of the Sibyl of Cumae in his right hand. Then he
continued smoking slowly and enjoying the moment very intensely, as if he believed
that the smoke from that cigar was prolonging his life.
After that long pause, in which he seemed to relax in his thoughts, the smoker
resumed the conversation.
—I will not insult your intelligence. "You know perfectly well the origin of this
gold pendant," the nonagenarian assured, very slowly.
Grieg knew the old man was right. The jewel had been designed and made in the
Masriera goldsmith's workshops in the mid-19th century, but it incorporated a
completely atypical motif and far removed from the modernist designs that
22
characterized their extraordinary pieces. It did not represent a swallow, nor a heron,
nor two fish facing each other, nor even a nymph. It was a much more disturbing
reason: a boat was sailing through the stagnant waters of the Styx in the direction of
the gates of hell. The boat was guided by an extremely thin man who, despite having
his face partially hidden by a mask, Grieg recognized as Charon. Next to him was a
character with his face half hidden by a mask and carrying a spear, a banner and a
scepter in the shape of a snake.
The old man continued with his particular staging and picked up the pendant that
was resting on the book again, and then placed it on the table. He carefully tore off
the golden branch held by the Sibyl of Cumae, the only one that provided divine
gold, the one that allowed one to cross, even in life, the gates of hell, and placed it on
top of the pendant.
—One of the two argonauts is totally recognizable. This is Charon. —The old man
tapped the cigar lightly to deposit the accumulated ash—. Who would say that he
accompanies him?
Gabriel Grieg tried to think at full speed so that his ambiguous creditor would not
catch him on the wrong foot. «The character who carries the snake-shaped scepter is
Eligos. The grand duke of hell, the one who always has seventy legions of demons at
his disposal, he told himself. He can obtain, for himself or for whomever he chooses,
the benefit and help of the powerful, in addition to having the gift of discovering
secrets and predicting the future.
Grieg remembered these data thanks to the documentation he had to study when
he was commissioned to restore the image of a saint who, among toads and snakes,
had Eligos tempting her at the foot of the pedestal.
For the first time, the two men, with the low mechanical beat of the carillon in the
background, looked each other in the eyes.
"Eligos," Grieg responded tersely.
—That's right… Eligos, the grand duke of hell. I see that you know the subject, my
learned debtor. —The old man leaned back on the wide back of the chair and asked a
question that literally chilled the man sitting in front of him. Do you believe in the
devil?
Under other circumstances, upon hearing such a question, Gabriel Grieg would
have doubted the mental faculties of his interlocutor. But the type of debt owed to
the old man made the question terrifyingly appropriate.
"What the hell are you referring to?" —he answered immediately—. Whom
Orpheus went to look for because of his love for Eurydice? The dark master who
reigned in Homer's underworld? To the devil that Plato suggested and that lived in
the long tunnels inside the Earth? Perhaps the devil of the Egyptians who ruled in his
underground kingdom of eternal and very dark shadows? Or perhaps it is the most
perverse of the beings that lived in the intraterrestrial civilization in which Leonard
Euler firmly believed...? Which of them are you referring to? The devil, in the history
of human beings, is a very recurring figure... The old man shook his head and raised
his eyebrows. —It reminds me of the restless and disbelieving young man that one
23
day, long ago, I was... You have addressed the issue very well. He has not fallen into
the trap that the question contained and has only mentioned pagan demons,
including the playful and stubborn Eligos. But, very precisely, he has avoided
referring...
The old man paused, rested his forearms on the table again and took a deep drag
on his cigar, causing his face to hide behind the smoke again. —… to the physical
existence of the devil.
24
The monotonous ticking of the chime next to the door was the only sound that
could be heard inside the room. The decrepit old man remained motionless, and as
the cigar smoke disappeared, he condescendingly contemplated his debtor.
—Physical existence of the devil? Are you really talking to me about an
anthropomorphic devil who could calmly walk along Paseo de Gracia or Las
Ramblas in Barcelona? Do you really mean that? —Grieg was disturbed to see how
the old man drew a malicious smile while nodding his head.
«This old man is a dangerous madman. I have to reach an agreement as soon as
possible or it will get me into a mess that I won't be able to get out of, Grieg thought,
upset, and said:
—I am a man of my word. It is true that I contracted a significant debt with you,
and now it is about calibrating that debt in its fair terms... but without going, in any
case, further. Understands? You can't ask me for more than what I committed to.
Gabriel Grieg perceived a Mephistophelean gleam in the old man's glassy eyes.
—What prevents me from leaving this office right now and forgetting about this
crazy matter? Grieg continued. What would happen if I chose to leave immediately?
The old man then opened a drawer in the table and placed his tendinous hands on
the desk again.
—In that case, unfortunately, I would be forced to apply what you and I agreed
upon in the event of non-compliance on your part.
"Continue..." Grieg demanded. What are your plans?
—Let's delve into the always dangerous hiding places where the devil hides. Look
carefully at the box that I will show you right now.
From the same open drawer, the man took an old, battered cardboard box with all
eight corners crushed from use, and handed it to Grieg to examine. He took it
suspiciously, but quickly opened the lid and analyzed its unexpected contents under
the direct light of the lamp.
The small box was full of clippings of images taken from sheets of Catalan auques
and alleluias. There were many old vignettes and prints from children's decks and
lotteries that represented The World Upside Down, The Story of Atala, The King's
Shoemaker, Peter the Cruel, Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp, The Land of Jauja, etc. They
were images that children cut out and later used as children's currency, to throw
them from the balconies when the processions passed (hence the name "hallelujahs")
and, above all, to simply play with them, cupping their hands until they turned them
over in the air. air.
25
Gabriel Grieg observed the beautiful cutouts of typical German images such as the
Bilderbogen and the French Épinal vignettes among which the famous heroes Bertoldo
and Bertoldino often appeared. In addition, the old cardboard box contained paper
cutouts showing girls dressed in typical 19th century clothing. There were also
women with golden curls; nineteenth-century gentlemen with mustaches pointing
upwards; tamers, strongmen and circus clowns.
«What do all these old pictures have to do with the devil? This man is definitely
crazy. What will he want from me? Grieg lamented.
—Have you ever heard of the crimes committed by a Noucentista murderer whom
everyone in his time knew as Don Germán? —asked the old man, caressing the
golden branch of the Sibyl of Cumae.
-Yeah. —Grieg, who held some of those prints and cutouts in his hand, observed
with concern the sombre appearance that the old man's face showed as he moved
away from the light that reigned in the center of the table—. He was a Cistercian
monk who was a librarian in an abbey in Tarragona. After abandoning the habits, he
perpetrated half a dozen terrible homicides related to satanic themes in 19th century
Barcelona. I understand that he killed to get hold of esoteric books.
—There were exactly five murders that the bibliomaniac monk committed before
he was executed... —The old man looked at the wisps of smoke that the cigar gave
off, as if he were trying to remember something, and he continued—...at the gallows
that was in the very center of Plaza Nova. The last of the crimes, the most terrible,
was directly related to obtaining a cursed book.
The old man paused again for a long time before continuing: —The book kept a
secret: the process for obtaining alchemical gold from other metals. He stole it in
Barcelona more than one hundred and fifty years ago.
Grieg remained motionless and silent. He glanced at his interlocutor and then
looked at the pictures and vignettes that rested on the table, trying to understand
what relationship they had with the strange story that the old man was telling him.
Then he walked away from the table and said:
—Occasionally, the dark legends that are linked to the subject have also reached
my ears...: the achievement of alchemical gold or the philosopher's stone and even
pacts with the devil... In my opinion, they are simple gossip... Nobody with a
minimum of common sense could believe them.
The smoker smiled a mellifluous smile as he observed the disbelieving attitude of
his interlocutor. For him, that composure meant his triumph. He had to continue,
therefore, with his disturbing and infallible strategy.
—Have you ever heard of a medal called “the Stone”?
"That jewel never came to be," Grieg said, increasingly concerned about the
direction the matter was taking. It is nothing more than a legend that is nourished by
the same breed as that of alchemical gold, which allegedly materialized in Barcelona
in the mid-19th century. You know that, due to my work in the restoration of
chapels, hermitages and old listed buildings, I am in constant contact with all these
myths. I know very well what I'm talking about. They are just fabulous legends.
26
-Are you sure? I see him recklessly convinced of his own words.
The circumspect gaze with which the disturbing old man scrutinized him made
Gabriel Grieg turn the old box over until it was completely emptied and thoroughly
examine its interior, including the lid. But it was just an old empty box.
«What do these cutouts have to do with the devil and with the series of cruel
murders of Don Germán? Grieg wondered, intrigued. Perhaps it is an ingenious and
at the same time diabolical secret hiding place. "No one could ever think that a great
mystery is hidden inside." Then he began to flip through the images and vignettes
trying to look for something different. An image appeared before him that, although
it was camouflaged among the others, was radically different. It was a blank piece of
paper cut with scissors into a shape that distantly resembled a phylactery. On the
paper was the seal of the Masriera goldsmith's workshop and on it appeared the
disturbing name of a jewel full of reminiscences and popular legends: "The Tears of
Faust."
Grieg placed the paper on the table and continued examining the contents of the
box. It didn't take him long to find an image that was crossed out with a red cross,
under which an incisive phrase could be partially read in Catalan: «Projecte refutjat.
Mai farem aquesta joia.» «Project rejected. We will never make this gem.”
The print had dimensions of ten centimeters long by eight wide and showed the
design of a very strange jewel, illuminated in watercolor with great detail. It was the
design of a fermall, a brooch, made in the mid-19th century.
The jewel actually came into existence, thought Grieg. After the project was
rejected by the Masriera, perhaps a girl or boy collected it and transformed it into
children's currency; Or maybe someone hid it in this box so that no one would
suspect its existence.
Gabriel Grieg couldn't believe his eyes. It was the design of the mythical fermall
later known as "the Stone." Although it was part of the popular imagination of
Barcelona, its existence or its form had never been proven.
That mythical jewel represented in the sketch was related to the terrible serial
murders perpetrated in Barcelona by the bibliomaniac monk, and appeared wrapped
in dark legends and curses related to Occult Arts books. It was a piece of genuine
modernist style, with an intensely yellow gold setting in the shape of a fireball, which
ended up transforming into a bony claw with elongated nails that grabbed an oval
stone (of an impossible and extremely strange color for a gem). ), in which whitish
textures slept, and so cloudy that they did not allow us to clearly distinguish its
center, in which a dark shape could be sensed.
The vision of the very detailed project of the mythical medal disturbed Grieg,
because, although he knew its history, he never thought it was real. In that
mysterious design beat mythical and distant echoes of dark legends related to
alchemy, the search for the elixir of eternal youth and unspeakable pacts with the
devil that were part of the most secret and hermetic history of the city of Barcelona.
Grieg continued flipping through the old vignettes. Suddenly, he found one that
caught his attention. It was a claim that announced the typical annual masked ball
27
that was held at the Lyceum in the 19th century. It had metal brackets on the
shoulders, hips and neck, which allowed the articulated movement of the cardboard
figure.
Grieg recalled that, according to legend, the figure shown in the innocent image
was a being engendered by the demon Asmodeus when he illicitly united with a
woman. The figure had a very large nose and a haughty pose. He wore a wide, starry
navy blue tunic, and showed a white beard under his cone-shaped cap. It was Merlin
the Wizard. In one hand he brandished a magic wand, and in the other, a huge book
that had some words and a symbol written on its cover.
AU
AURUM
ALCHIMICUM
BARCINONENSIS
Vadam et affluam delicacies
Grieg read the text: «Alchemical gold discovered in Barcelona. Taste its delights,"
and suddenly the following phrase came to mind: "There will be no desire that you
do not see fulfilled, no will that you do not satisfy, no pleasure that you do not taste,
no sweetness that you do not taste."
Although even El Brusi , the old Barcelona newspaper, dedicated several journalistic
chronicles to the matter at the end of the 19th century, no one had ever found any
evidence that alchemical gold was manufactured in Barcelona. Without a doubt, that
small box was a perfect hiding place.
"I am pleased to see that you have located one of the many little stamps hidden in
this peculiar safe," said the old man with affected joy.
Gabriel Grieg reflected for a few seconds, trying to focus on the matter the old
man intended to introduce him to.
—What work must I do to definitively settle the debt I contracted with you? —he
urged him.
"This is a task that must be undertaken this very night of the dead," answered the
old man. He took a wallet from inside his jacket and, after removing a card from it,
carefully placed it on the table.
—You must go to the address noted at the top of the card. A person will be
waiting for you there. —As he spoke, the nonagenarian began to put the Bilderbogen
and the Épinal cartoons into the box—. Your job will be to accompany that person to
the second address and deliver the box there.
Gabriel Grieg raised his eyebrows upon hearing this unusual task.
—And that's it? Nothing else? -asked.
-Nothing else. If you do what I tell you, your debt will be settled permanently and
you will never hear from me again.
28
"Until now, both you and I have ignored where, how, and why we signed a pact,"
Grieg said, trying to contain the tone of his words. But the time has come to stop
playing with me. I want to know where the difficulty lies, and without a doubt the
danger that lies in this task.
—The danger is that, from now on—the old man put his wallet in his jacket and
crushed the cigar against the ashtray until it was completely extinguished—…this
box is his life, and he will have to calibrate, objectively and very seriously, whether it
whether or not to get rid of it.
“Please explain better…” Grieg demanded.
—Listen to me carefully. The person waiting for you at the first address is looking
for this beautiful modernist brooch. —The old man pointed with his twisted index
finger to the cutout where the jewel was represented, crossed out with a red cross,
and which was known as "the Stone." I assure you that he will try by all means to get
you to take him to the second address and give him this box as soon as possible.
—And what would happen if I do?
—If you make the fateful mistake of parting with this box at the wrong time,
giving it to the wrong person... believe me, you will get into a much bigger problem
than the one that, until now, the fact of having signed a pact is causing you. with me.
Grieg leaned against the back of the overstuffed chair.
"In that case, perhaps I should evaluate what problems breaking the contract I
signed with you could cause me before taking responsibility for this box," Grieg said.
"It's an option to consider..." the old man admitted, caressing the fleshless face of
the Sibyl of Cumae again.
-Tell me one thing. —Gabriel Grieg, for the first time since he was in that
luxurious room, looked condescending—. What does all this have to do with the
physical presence of the devil?
—The devil has to do with everything, Mr. Grieg. With you, with me and of
course with this box. Although yes, if one stands before Him due to life's chances, it
is very convenient to be, as I advise, properly prepared.
—Do you think I can take seriously someone who, after having lived so long, has
come to those kinds of conclusions? Do you really believe it?
The old man, hearing Grieg's questions, frowned.
"To my deep regret, I find that the passage of time has not managed to change
your obfuscated disbelief," he said, and took out of the table drawer a manuscript
that, at the first glimpse, chilled Grieg's blood. It was the document he had signed
one fateful day.
Grieg saw his own signature at the bottom right, next to that of the man in front of
him.
The old man took the gold pendant again and said:
—I deliberately omitted to tell you that the strange symbol engraved on the lid is
one of the ordinary signs. He smacked his lips and smiled. It is documented that it
was used in some demonic pacts. Pay attention.
29
The old man put out his cigar conscientiously in the ashtray. He reached out and
turned off the light of the brass lamp, and the room fell into darkness. After three
seconds, the gold brooch began to shine with its own light and in a spectral way,
with a mysterious intensely red light that acquired orange flashes at the intersections
of the lines that were engraved on the surface of the brooch.
The reddish reflections drew a triangle and then a very bright broken line, until it
could be clearly seen that the mysterious symbol that was engraved on the brooch
coincided exactly with the signature that was stamped on the contract.
Grieg then realized that the beam of red light illuminating the jewel came from
one end of the room. Specifically, a Glock pistol with trapezoidal sights of 17.9
millimeters in caliber and equipped with a Crimson laser device held by an escort
dressed in a dark suit, who at all times, and without Grieg noticing, had remained
motionless and attentive to the slightest indication from his boss.
When he lit the lamp again, a Mephistophelean smile had appeared on the old
man's face.
—Do you see how, my young and admired architect, you can never be excessively
disbelieving, nor should you let your guard down unduly?
Grieg realized that his creditor was too dangerous and convinced himself that he
must drastically deal with the debt he had contracted with him.
—Who is the person I have to drive to the other address that is written on the
card? -asked.
"He is waiting for you this very night with the intention of seizing this box, and to
do so he will not hesitate to use all kinds of tricks," the old man warned him again.
Grieg looked towards the bodyguard, still gun in hand, attentive to any indication
from his boss. Then he put his hands close to the box, knowing that from that
moment on his life depended on that cardboard chest.
He suspected he was in deep trouble.
30
—Is there a safe here?

The question was completely absurd, having been asked from inside what,
without a doubt, was one of the most secure vaults in the world, at the same level of
security and invulnerability as that of the Bank for International Settlements in
Switzerland or the from Fort Knox in Kentucky.
The inappropriate question had been asked by the man who was going to be the
new general director of the Treasury of the Institution, a bald and thin man, dressed
in a nondescript navy blue suit, white shirt and charcoal gray tie. Anyone would
have thought that he was not qualified enough for such a position.
However, that was not what the people around him thought at the time: the
outgoing general manager, the controller, a teller and the chief auditor, who
accompanied him on what was his first complete visit to all the bank's departments. .
They had toured the institution's offices for almost the entire day and had stopped at
the final enclave, the most inaccessible area of the bank, which in the entity's internal
jargon was known by the following euphemism: "the warehouse."
Nor did the question, "Is there a safe here?" surprise the three officials, two men
and a woman, who, duly uniformed in the Institution's regulatory attire, acted as key
holders. They were in charge of keeping secret the code numbers, the left and right
turns of the numbered buttons of that armored place, the secret routes of its
innumerable corridors and passages, as well as displaying sufficient skill to open
armored doors by applying various keys at the same time in the correct direction of
rotation. The three officials always carried with them an enormous number of keys of
different sizes and strange shapes, which jingling with each other as they walked in
silence through the corridors of that impregnable bunker. The officials were part,
along with their hierarchical superiors, of the small group that had access to those
invulnerable premises.
The new general director was struck by the fact that a Star 3260 safe, equipped
with a double door with steel plates measuring one meter on each side, was precisely
there, the most inaccessible place on the planet.
To get to the safe, they had had to walk down long, shiny hallways while hearing
the sound of their own footsteps bouncing off the cold marble walls. The procession
had passed several security checkpoints, made up of police officers who stood at
attention as they passed, until they reached an elevator installed inside an armored
space with thick iron and reinforced concrete walls. To start it, it was necessary for
one of the officials to enter a key and a secret code that only he knew.
The elevator descended forty-five meters to a colossal vault of four thousand five
hundred square meters whose first room had a door of cyclopean dimensions
31
installed. One could not help but think, in front of that gigantic door, of the fabulous
treasure it must contain.
To open the circular door, two meters in diameter, one meter thick, weighing
sixteen tons and made entirely of shiny pure steel, required almost a ritual in which
the outgoing director, the cashier and the controller turned it at the same time. your
keys. Then the official moved a large steel steering wheel and the formidable door
opened smoothly. They then crossed a dark corridor full of electronic circuits and
presence detectors, which led to another large steel hatch, weighing fourteen tons
and which shone, despite the darkness, in silver tones. That new obstacle was solved
by the official by introducing a key that only she was authorized to use.
At that moment we entered an area that seemed straight out of a Gothic horror
story: a gigantic cave, made of stone and black marble, which rose towards the dome
through elongated arches that formed stylized vaults. The new director marveled at
that fortified temple. There was a retractable bridge, which crossed the cave from end
to end, to cross an impressive moat. In the event of an alarm, the platform was
quickly retracted, the steel hatches were closed, the passageways were obstructed
and the hermetically sealed chamber was completely flooded with water in a matter
of minutes thanks to a complicated system of underground conduits.
The metal bridge led to another eight-ton steel door, which the third official
opened. Once the last obstacle had been overcome, one could access a chamber that
housed such a treasure within its walls that not even the most powerful of the
pharaohs in ancient Egypt would have dared to imagine. Thousands and thousands
of tons of gold in the form of bars, jewelry and coins.
The vault looked very similar to the Sparkasse in Vienna, divided into five sections,
and its walls were armored walls and high pointed vaults, filled with metal shelves
and glass cabinets. The gold was surrounded by stillness, gloom and silence. Time
seemed to have stopped between those icy walls, feeling powerless before that
powerful and enigmatic matter.
The new director general of the Treasury took one of the gold bars that an official
showed him. He felt the polished, cold surface and noted its numbering: S34781 and
BC543. It had a trapezoidal shape and its weight was exactly four hundred Troy
ounces by standard measurement. Twelve and a half kilos of gold in each ingot!
Then the new director saw a safe.
The outgoing director understood the question perfectly, because it was the same
one he and all the incoming directors had asked when they saw a safe inside the
armored subway. What treasure could that safe contain to be located in the very
center of that fabulous armored maze? Of the eight people who were there, only the
outgoing director knew its contents, and outside of there, you could count on the
fingers of one hand those who were aware of that exceptional information.
For this reason, both the controller, the cashier and the auditor as well as the three
officials were kindly invited to leave the small room.
32
—Please be so kind as to leave. The director general of the Treasury and I are
going to have a private conversation that is part of the institutional handover,”
ordered the outgoing director, breaking the overwhelming silence that reigned inside
the vault.
Once the six people had retired to one of the adjoining apartments, the two men
sat down at the austere table in front of the mysterious safe, which, in the internal
jargon of the three guardians of the treasure, was known as the "dark chamber."
—Well, Mr. Dutruel, here we are finally. This is the last ceremony that we must
carry out so that the transfer of powers is firm for all purposes. Here is the key that
you must use with your new position, and that until today I possessed. The outgoing
director held out a long, silver key. When we leave the vault, it will be you, and not
me, who will close the big hatch along with the auditor and the cashier. But first I
must reveal the little secret that the "warehouse" houses.
The new director showed a serious face, in contrast to the relaxed appearance
exhibited by his colleague.
—I'm truly intrigued.
—I'm not surprised... Excuse me if I give you a brief preamble, just like they did to
me, before opening that safe.
—I beg you earnestly. Continue…
—Tell me, what do you think could drastically depreciate the value of gold?
"I don't intend to teach an economics class here and now," Dutruel replied,
somewhat annoyed, "but you already know that the fluctuations or ups and downs
of the market are motivated by..."
"I'm not talking to you about that," the outgoing director interrupted.
Dutruel was silent for a few seconds. The two men looked carefully at the "dark
chamber" they were about to open.
—You have managed to attract my curiosity! —exclaimed Dutruel, who was
smiling vaguely, although he was disturbed to see that his predecessor in office did
not return his smile—. But let's not unnecessarily lengthen the relief. Tell me what's
in the box.
—Now I will give you, so that you can give your approval before signing it, the
document by which I transfer to you the key that opens the "dark room" and that
makes you responsible for its contents.
The outgoing director took out a contract from his briefcase and handed it to his
colleague. He took the key with some suspicion. He noticed the keychain: it was
made of gold and three human skeletons were represented on it, who maintained the
same posture as Kikazaru, Wazaru and Mizaru, the three wise and mystical
monkeys, who alternately covered their mouths, eyes and ears to not speak, nor see,
nor hear. Or perhaps, which was much more likely, they acquired the three primary
postures that human beings instinctively adopt when faced with a situation of
danger or terror.
The new director, after glancing at his colleague, slowly walked towards the safe.
Then he inserted the key and turned it four times to the left and pushed hard
33
towards him. The door opened silently. For almost a minute he analyzed, with a
serious face, the contents of the "dark chamber." He didn't make the slightest
comment at any time, he closed the door again, and turned the key four times in the
opposite direction.
He went, lost in thought, to the table where the outgoing director of the bank was
and, standing, without saying a word, he signed the document that committed him
to remain silent, for life, about the contents of the Star 3260 safe located in the interior
of what was perhaps the most secure vault in the world.
34
"A long and fateful night awaits me," thought Gabriel Grieg, who continued to
reflect on the somber conversation he had had barely an hour ago with the
reappeared old man in the Lyceum Circle.
"I must study the terrain before going to the one o'clock appointment," he said to
himself as he walked down the hallway of his house towards his study, holding the
mysterious box full of children's cut-outs that the old man had given him.
Grieg was enraged, but tried to calm himself. «I must turn the page on this whole
damn thing!» He turned on the office light, the computer and a small coffee machine.
He carefully placed the old box under the lamp on his work table and examined its
exterior.
A laughing devil, cut out from one of Épinal's French illustrations (Le diableé amp;
Polichine), was attached to one side of the box, with two grotesque horns, bat wings,
and holding a trident as he danced on the fire. She seemed to sarcastically watch his
every move, as if she were mocking him.
Gabriel Grieg sipped his cup of coffee as he waited for the computer to access a
data bank for architects. His intention was to analyze the internal layout of the
strange building he had to go to first.
«Why precisely here? —he asked himself, continuing to examine the layout of the
floors and premises, especially that of the floor where the apartment to which he
would go in a few minutes was located. Why precisely in this damn building?
Then he accessed a personal file called “Photography Depository III” and
analyzed the impressive façade of the building where he should take the stranger, to
hand him the box.
A chill ran down his spine. He went to the bookshelf and took out a small book
from one of the shelves located almost at floor level, finished his coffee and headed
towards the attic of the house.
There he came across his old architectural projects, already covered in dust, and
technical books that were often consulted when he was in charge of the restoration of
a Romanesque hermitage or other type of ancient construction. There he also stored
much of the material he used for one of his great hobbies, climbing. He had boxes
full of climbing guides, books specialized in winter mountaineering and maps of
towns with which he planned each trip. Several framed photographs hung next to
the window, where Grieg's teammates could be seen in extreme positions while
climbing.
In one of those photos, which had been taken from inside the cable car that left
Chamonix, you could see an impressive view of the top of Mont Blanc, and below the
35
Bossons glacier. Another photograph showed Grieg climbing a vertical ice waterfall
while covering the ascent route known as Trois Mont Blanc.
He moved aside the boxes containing crampons, ice axes, carabiners, harnesses
and ropes, and removed the three tools he assumed he would need that very night.
He grabbed a black backpack and put them in it. It was a hammer, a cold cutter and a
small shovel.
I know the feeling of extreme danger, he thought. I have faced death several times
surrounded by snow at high altitudes, and I always kept a cool head. I must do the
same tonight..."
He left the attic and headed towards the hallway where there was a large plaster
statue that reproduced in life size one of his favorite sculptures: the Venus de Milo.
Without wasting time, he removed it one meter from where it was and removed the
hammer and the cold cutter from the bag. He hit the slabs that had supported the
statue until he managed to reduce them to small pieces of stone. Then he bent down
in front of the cement hole that had been left and with the help of the shovel he
removed an inch of earth until he found an object that was buried at the bottom: a
black wooden chest.
Grieg opened the lid and examined its abundant contents, consisting of various
objects properly wrapped in black velvet and parchment, which were among two
dozen books that Grieg had studied in depth after his first meeting with the old man,
and then decided to bury them to try to forget about that unfortunate agreement. He
looked at the books, which were mostly crude collections of sheets glued or sewn
together and made up of old, yellowing photocopies. There were also some original
editions and some facsimile duplicates that reproduced the most secret books of
alchemy and witchcraft, among somber compendiums and manuals related to
Satanism and the invocation of the devil.
Inside that chest was a very rare edition, published in 1926, of the Compendium
maleficarum, a true manual of satanic practices and pacts with the devil where one
could follow, step by step and in a series of disturbing engravings, the Sabbat ritual,
written in 1608 by the Ambrosian monk Francisco María Guazzo.
Along with that copy was also the Malleus maleficarum, which would later be much
better known as The Hammer of Witches, which was the most atrocious treatise that
had ever been written about the persecution of sorceresses and witches. Published in
1486, it was a detailed manual for training inquisitors written by the Dominican
monks Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. It was later sent to Pope Innocent VIII
with the title of Advisory Report.
Grieg found the offprint he was looking for, a translucent and fragile sheet of
paper, between the pages of a facsimile reproduction of the Summis desiderantis
affectibus, written by Reginus of Prüm on behalf of the Archbishop of Trier in the year
906, and which was the first book which spread among the bishops, specifically those
of the Archdiocese of Trier. Later, the book would become sinisterly popular under
the name Canon episcopi, since it served as a guide for the hunt for the "servants of
36
Satan", of whom its pages said that "they flew mounted on domestic animals to meet
Diana, the Latin goddess of the pantheon of Rome..."
Gabriel Grieg read the sheet he was looking for; Without a doubt, it would be of
great use to him that night.
April 30 and October 31 are the two most significant days in the witchcraft
almanac. The first date is called Walpurgisnacht or Walpurgis night because it is
celebrated on the day of Saint Walburga, who was an English saint who died in
Germany in the year 777. The second date, and the most important of the year for us,
is October 31, and is called All Saints' Night and has its main tradition in Spain,
where it is widely celebrated by the aspiring and the advantaged... Also It is known
as Halloween, which means witches' night, and while darkness dominates, the door
that separates the world of the living from the afterlife opens...
Grieg did not need to go to the end of the text to realize that the date on which the
old man had contacted him was not an ordinary day and was darkly related to the
text he had just read.
He also noticed other books that he had hidden inside the chest, such as The
Restored Natural Philosophy by Jean d'Espagnet, The Twelve Keys of Philosophy by
Basilio Valentín, the Dogme et rituel de toute magie by Eliphas Lévi or Le temple de satan
of Estalisnao de Guaita. Finally he chose to keep in his bag the photocopies that
reproduced Daniel Stolcius's Viridarium chymicum , for many the most complete and
illuminating compendium of alchemy. The book included one hundred and seven
engravings commented by its author, which revealed all the phases of the Magnum
opus (the great work). Also kept was the facsimile reproduction of Altus's Mutus liber
in the original La Rochelle edition of 1677, which became "the book of books" for
alchemists, and the Malleus maleficarum.
He then took out from the bottom of the chest a package wrapped in a small piece
of black velvet. The package contained an inkwell filled with a thick, very dark liquid
and, tied to it by a black thread, two very ancient parchments. One of them was
blank, but on the other a disturbing text was written in red ink that explained how
the grimoire that was locked inside the container had been made:
… steal whole apricot stones and put them on the fire, charring them until they
adopt a texture similar to that of charcoal […] Crush them […] printing smoke […]
Put all this in a pot that will be filled with river water [… ] Let it boil on a full moon
night […] The ink will remain, suitable for pacts, ready...
In ancient times, the alleged pacts with the devil were always written on goatskin
parchment, the same material that those two were made of.
Grieg also kept in his bag a white male goose feather, specifically the fifth from the
right wing, as well as a small silver knife to cut the skin and seal the pact with the
covenanter's own blood.
Finally he pulled out a relatively heavy, rectangular object and held it restlessly in
his hands. The mere sight of it once again produced a disturbing sense of danger in
him. He remembered how that time, when he put it in the chest that he later buried,
37
it did not occur to him to think that the old man's visit would one day occur. Yet
there he was, holding it in his hands again. Grieg looked carefully at the object, a
pure gold ingot that had a small circular seal printed on it that certified its quality, its
extreme purity, and its weight:
1 KILO
FINE GOLD 999.9
A special feature distinguished it from any other ingot. Two disturbing circular
figures were engraved on its very polished and golden surface. One of them, the one
on the left, belonged to the Ouroboros and consisted of an ancestral symbol, similar
to a dragon-snake, which was coiled around itself until it adopted a circular shape
and in an attitude of biting its tail, and which for the alchemists, like the
circumference, symbolized the unity of matter, the universal fluid and the perpetual
renewal of the elements.
In the relief on the right there was a figure, similar in shape, but which had a
radically opposite meaning to the one located to the left of the gold ingot. It was the
Catobeplás, another snake, which only represented an imaginary animal, so stupid
that it devoured itself starting with the tail.
And under both figures were printed two phrases of profound allegorical meaning
written respectively in Greek and Latin. Without a doubt it was there as a warning
about the dangerous evil potential that the material from which that ingot was made
was capable of awakening in humans.
The first phrase was engraved under the figure of Ouroboros.
ev to Molv
"Hen to bread", that is: "Everything is one."
And the other sentence carved under the Catobeplás read:
CAPUT EST TU QUCERAMUS

"The essential thing is that we investigate."
Grieg, after examining that gold ingot again, raised his head and looked into the
distance, towards the shiny pavement of Plaza Molina in which the trees of Balmes
Street and the streetlights were reflected due to the fine rain. of Via Augusta. He
couldn't help but feel deeply worried. He knew perfectly well that the territory he
was going to enter in a matter of minutes was a fragile and treacherous world. A
strange and fascinating terrain, but as false and illusory as a mirage caused by the
midday sun when it burns the sand of the deserts.
He opened the bag that contained everything he needed for his foray into the
strange world that awaited him and inserted two rusty keys. Then he took a shower
and changed out of his formal clothes for jeans, a black wool sweater, and a leather
38
jacket. He grabbed the keys to his old motorcycle, which was parked in the rain right
in front of his house.
The most feared night had arrived.
When, at ten to one at night, Gabriel Grieg stopped his motorcycle at a red light
next to the Post and Telegraph building, the Via Laietana showed a shiny asphalt
that, due to the perspective and the fine rain that was falling, above the city, it
seemed to sink into the dark waters of the port.
For a moment, and although the traffic light was already green, he stopped to
observe a gigantic female face made up of an infinite number of red dots and large
multicolored brushstrokes that seemed to float to the rhythm of the coming and
going of the sailboats and yachts docked in the dock. of the port. It was Barcelona's
Head, a huge female face created by the pop art master Roy Lichtenstein and made of
artificial stone and ceramic coating.
Grieg once again doubted the identity of the person to whom he should give the
box of auques that he was carrying in his bag.
Passing the monument to Columbus, which at that time looked like a gigantic,
sharp column supporting an unbalanced person trying to defy the laws of gravity, he
arrived at the Ramblas. Silhouetted in the blackness, an immense mass of concrete
and glass rose towards the dark sky of Barcelona. This was the place where Grieg
was heading.
39
A woman was looking through the large glass window of one of the highest floors
of the skyscraper toward which Grieg was heading.
He had before him a panoramic view of the seafront of Barcelona in which the
monument to Columbus stood out in the foreground, which the cars slowly circled to
access the Rambla de Santa Mónica. Next to the old customs office, the Golondrinas
remained, motionless, docked at the Atarazanas dock; and in the distance, the sea
blurred between the two towers of the cable car: the tower of Sant Sebastià and that
of Jaume I.
The woman remained standing, absorbed and completely indifferent to the
panorama before her eyes. Again and again, he tossed into the air a shiny coin,
thirty-five millimeters in diameter and three millimeters thick, that had recently
come into his possession.
That piece was not, at all, what I expected to find that night. It was an insignificant
trifle, which could be found in any numismatics for the price of a few euros. So it was
far from being the object that was supposed to be given to him that night of the dead
and that would lead him directly to the jewel he had been looking for for years.
I was actually outraged. "I can't believe they were capable of committing such
insolence towards me," the woman lamented, still looking at the coin.
Suddenly, she noticed a humming noise coming from inside her bag. He
immediately took out a tiny mobile phone.
—Do you have the specimen in your possession? —asked a voice on the other end
of the line.
—Do you call a common cheap coin a “specimen”? —the woman rebuked. Is this
why I have had to work so hard since they contacted me? I really don't understand
what's happening here.
—I repeat the question. Do you have the specimen in your possession? —the voice
insisted.
—Yes, I have it... But what you so pompously call a "specimen" is nothing more
than a vulgar coin made with the worst jewelry brass, and then plated with twelve-
karat gold. —The woman spoke very quickly—. It has no numismatic value; It was
part of a low-end collection intended for the general public, which was sold in
numismatics and philatelies in the eighties.
For a few seconds, the woman listened to the voice exchange some words with
another that seemed to be next to her, but she could not understand the content of
the conversation.
40
“That coin…” the interlocutor continued again in a slow voice, “is the response
that the man he is tracking sent by mail. He referred it when he knew that they were
looking for him and that they urgently needed to contact him...
"There are hundreds of pieces identical to the one I hold in my hand," the woman
interrupted.
"That coin contains the clues that will lead you to him," the voice assured. Until
now, no one has been able to decipher the hidden message, and unfortunately, the
deadline to do so expires in a few hours...
—I still think it's a ruse. It doesn't surprise me that no one has been able to find the
supposed keys that lead to his whereabouts. What am I supposed to do?
—You already know that in a few minutes someone will come who will provide
you with an object and will lead you to a place that will take you away from the
momentary impasse in which you seem immersed.
Communication was abruptly interrupted.
The woman looked at the golden piece again and analyzed its two faces. "How can
an aphorism as common in alchemy books as this one take me to a specific place, this
very night of the dead?" he asked himself, without being able to give himself an
answer.
On the reverse of the coin you could see a series of golden concentric circles, on
which another numerous number of spirals were superimposed and which, as he
knew, in the complex symbolism of alchemy, represented the eternal nature of
rotations.
He turned the golden piece over and analyzed the obverse, which showed a
volcano expelling enormous amounts of lava. Above him appeared a great sun from
which powerful rays emerged.
The woman only managed to deduce that in the symbolism of alchemy the king
star had multiple allegorical interpretations, most of them related to the essence of
the lapis or philosopher's stone but, fundamentally, when it was represented alone, it
symbolized a concept in a state of being. pure of the most disinterested and altruistic
alchemical science.
He then tried to interpret the phrase that was struck in relief and forming a circle
at the end of the coin's circumference.
ITA VITRIOLUM NONNE OCCULO
He knew the Latin meaning of that alchemical maxim but, again, he was unable to
draw a useful conclusion for his cause.
He looked at his watch and saw that it was four minutes to one. He approached
the window again, and saw how, on the street, a man dressed in jeans and a black
leather jacket was parking his motorcycle next to the entrance to the Maritime
Museum.
41
The woman put the mobile phone and the coin in her bag, took out a very thin
black garment and squeezed an object that had a soft rubber texture with her right
hand.
42
Gabriel Grieg raised his head and looked, in amazement, at the place that the old
man had chosen for the meeting: the Torre Colón, the first skyscraper to be built in
Barcelona, a soulless building that stood at the very mouth of the Rambla, next to the
statue of Columbus. Its enormous, monolithic structure seemed to have never been
integrated into the city skyline .
Built in 1970, the skyscraper coolly rose to one hundred and ten meters with
twenty-five floors supported by a dingy skeleton of modulated concrete. It looked
like a gigantic lighthouse of stone and glass that had enigmatically stopped, stopping
rotating and emitting its eternal light.
Grieg walked to the front door and entered the building. At that time, the
reception looked very different from what it had during working hours. The ground
floor was in semi-darkness, and only the uniformed figure of a doorman who was
sitting behind a counter could be faintly seen. He, motionless, observed all the
movements of the person who had just entered the building, but without saying
anything, as if he were obeying orders from above and his only task was not to
prevent him from entering.
Grieg correctly interpreted the situation; He walked in the opposite direction of
the doorman and entered the elevator, which, stopped on the ground floor and with
the doors open, seemed to be waiting for him. During the seconds it took for the
doors to close, he noticed that the doorman was still staring at him. He pressed the
button for one of the highest floors of the building, and when the doors opened
again, Grieg could see, from the east side of the skyscraper, a magnificent view: the
old town and much of the Ensanche.
The city, under a very fine rain, appeared distant and dark, and the yellowish light
of the streetlights was reflected on the wet ground of the streets and avenues,
forming a grid as hermetic as a strange golden labyrinth.
Finding the door with the same number that was written on the old man's card,
his first intention was to press the bell, but he instantly realized that the door was
ajar.
—Come on, come in, don't just stand there.
Those words sounded hollow, as if the person who had spoken them were having
their mouth covered.
Gabriel Grieg slowly opened the door.
43
The large room was dimly lit by the full moon. In the center, there was a circular
six-seater sofa, made of burgundy leather, on a parquet floor with a grandiose
kaleidoscope as a drawing. A large rectangular mirror with an elaborate frame hung
on one of the walls, and next to it an elegant cane holder. That was all the decoration
of the room.
Grieg took several steps and stood next to the sofa. After hearing some footsteps,
he turned his head and saw a person leaning against the wall. The figure, which
looked like a woman, advanced towards him and stopped, until it was ghostly
illuminated by the moonlight.
The apparition was wrapped in a black tunic similar to the surcoat worn by
medieval knights when riding horses. His hands were hidden by wide cuffs and his
feet were covered by his tunic. A hood shadowed his face.
The figure was only missing the spindle and the scale to be the very incarnation of
the most fearsome of the goddesses of the night, the grim reaper Atropos, the one in
charge of definitively cutting the thread of life to all mortals after Clotho had it. spun
yarn and balled Lachesis.
After putting his hand on his hood and partially removing it, he discovered an old
woman's face with long, tangled, gray hair. He had a sharp nose and a huge chin that
ended in two repulsive warts. His eyes were sunken beneath two large, bony
eyebrows, and his mouth, drawn into a frozen laugh, had a single tooth.
That face formed an image too grotesque to be scary. She was too perfect in her
ugliness; Without a doubt, the stereotype of a fairy tale witch. It seemed like he was
going to take a red, poisoned apple out of his pocket... that was a disguise and a
mask.
Suddenly, the woman spoke.
-Trick or Treating? —he asked in the same murky tone of voice that Grieg heard
before entering the room.
"I understood that the one who asks that question on Halloween night is the one
knocking on the door, not the one in the house," Grieg answered.
—Behind every encounter there is a possible adventure, and I want this one to be
very special. —The voice sounded hollow again, his lips remained motionless and
the only tooth stood out in his rubber mouth.
—To whom do I owe the honor of this unique theatrical performance? And above
all... what is her reason? —Grieg asked, trying to discover the features hidden behind
the mask.
44
-I want something. You want something. I distrust you... You don't have to trust
me. It is essential that we make an agreement beforehand. Trick or Treating? —the
witch asked again, raising her voice.
"So, in addition to being a fairy tale witch, you are a skilled negotiator," Grieg
pointed out sarcastically.
—I am many things, but this Halloween, for you I will only have been an
apparition if you don't do what I tell you. I repeat for the last time: trick or treat?
"I will not deny that your words seem conclusive..." Grieg feigned integrity, but
knew that he could not take the situation lightly. I would like to test your powers.
Therefore, I choose the trick.
"This representation does not obey any whim, and you will understand that in due
time," she said, lowering her voice. I know perfectly well what I'm doing and if you
decide not to help me, I don't even need to take out my magic wand and cast a spell
on you. I'll just have to get out of here right now. My witch costume will have been
perfect camouflage. You will never know who I am, even if you search for me the
rest of your life.
The dark figure covered his face with his hood and walked towards the door.
—What would happen if I choose the deal?
She stopped dead, turned around, and approached him.
Grieg noticed the mixture of perfume and rubber smell from the mask. The two
stood face to face. It was paradoxical to observe that grotesque witch's mask when
one could sense beautiful woman's eyes behind the rough holes.
—Tell me something, sorceress: what is the reason for the disguise?
"I've already told you, if we don't reach an agreement, it's not in my best interest
for you to know my identity," she replied in a less severe tone of voice. Also, maybe
I'm making your life a little more pleasant by covering my true and horrendous face
with a witch costume... Anything can happen tonight, and maybe I'm Pititis, the only
female demon, of extreme ugliness.
—Of course, and I am Nebiros, his lieutenant.
Grieg remembered the warning that the old man gave him at the Lyceum, when
he warned him that the person waiting for him would resort to all kinds of tricks to
get the auques box.
—I was already leaving, remember? —the witch urged him.
"Okay, I agree to the deal," Grieg replied, preferring to agree to make an
agreement with her at whatever cost, rather than losing track of her permanently.
«If she leaves, things will be complicated for me... Furthermore, I sense that this
woman is tremendously astute. A kind of Jack O'Lantern," thought Grieg,
remembering the character who was able to deceive the devil himself three times in a
row, according to the Irish legend of Celtic origin.
"Your choice was the right one," she said.
The figure walked towards the light switch as he lowered his hood.
45
10
After the room lit up, the mysterious lady took off her tunic, revealing a tall, thin
woman. She was wearing pointy low-heeled shoes, black tights, and a tight dark
sweater with a white silk blouse underneath.
Grieg was struck by the extravagant contrast between the stranger's stylized body
and the repulsive witch's mask she was still wearing. Then she pulled the rubber
mask and threw it on top of the black robe on the floor.
Grieg could then see a beautiful woman of about thirty years old who sported
long black hair. His stylized face featured a turned-up nose and enormous black
eyes. Her eyebrows were carefully outlined and her lips were painted a deep red.
Elegant and feminine, that woman transmitted warmth and refinement. Her
mischievous expression denoted formidable self-confidence and a great ability to
achieve whatever she wanted.
The slender woman walked confidently towards Grieg and kissed him on the
cheek, almost touching his lips.
-My name is Lorena. "You have chosen the deal, so we have a lot of work ahead of
us and it is essential that we come to an agreement," he said by way of introduction,
radiating spontaneity and at the same time firmness.
—I prefer that you answer what you can imagine; "These are the most obvious
questions," Grieg added, staring at her and confirming that the woman's eyes were
dazzling.
—The only thing you should know about me is the only thing I know about you,
that is, that your name is Gabriel Grieg and that you are here to accompany me to a
place that I still don't know. Once we have left that place, you will give me an
essential object for what I am looking for, and then, we will separate and we will
never see each other again," she summarized as she picked up the witch costume
from the floor and put it back in her bag. —. Therefore, and since I assume that you
will be eager to finish this whole matter as soon as possible, it will be better that we
go and finish the procedure...
"And let's head now to the address I'm supposed to know, right?" Grieg asked.
-That's how it is.
Grieg observed the woman, trying not to be influenced by her undeniable
attractiveness, nor by what seemed to be a fascinating personality. He reminded
himself that the two of them were here for what seemed like a very serious matter; so
it was better not to get off on the wrong foot, and let her mistake him for a simple
messenger. "I must know more about the nature of this damned matter, and thus
have compelling arguments to refuse to hand over the box," thought Grieg.
46
"Before we go, answer me a necessary question," Grieg said as he looked in the
mirror. Why do you think they summoned us both in this skyscraper and precisely in
this room?
—That doesn't matter. Our meeting had to take place somewhere. Please stop
looking in the mirror and let's go,” Lorena urged.
Grieg observed the extraordinary moldings of the valuable mirror. In the frame,
carved among hundreds of small acanthus leaves, strange figures stood out: all,
except one, had their heads turned towards the mirror and seemed to be attentively
observing themselves. The only wooden figure that did not look at its reflection in
the mirror was placed at the top, and what it did was stare its penetrating gaze in an
evil way into the eyes of anyone who stood in front of that mirror.
—I disagree. The place where our meeting took place is important... do you know
why? —Grieg used a tone similar to that of a lawyer who was defending himself and
addressing the disoriented judge of the case he had to judge. I know that during this
night, no matter how unlikely it may seem, everything will have a rational
explanation. Whether it is more or less difficult to find her is another matter.
—What do you base yourself on to believe that? —Lorena asked, intrigued.
The architect continued analyzing the figures sculpted in the frame. He focused
his attention on a slender unicorn that was located at eye level and which was,
according to ancient symbolism, the only animal capable of contemplating itself in
the "mirror of truth." It was so genuinely wild that no hunter had ever been able to
capture it, since only those who were absolutely pure could approach it.
"Look at this extraordinary mirror," said Grieg. This is a museum-worthy piece.
Does it seem logical to you that in this room there is only a sofa and a valuable
mirror? What was this place designed for?
Grieg was still trying to decipher the complex allegorical ensemble that the walnut
frame contained. He looked at a centaur who was situated at the same height as the
unicorn, but on the opposite side of the frame. "The centaur combines the intuitive
nature of the animal with the judgment and hidden virtues of the human being," he
thought.
"You should limit yourself to fulfilling the mission assigned to you tonight and not
worry about anything else," she exclaimed, getting up from the sofa and heading
towards the door, ready to go out into the street.
Grieg knew that there was something important in that frame. At the bottom, he
discovered a human skeleton that had a living person locked inside the rib cage.
—I remind you that you have chosen the deal. "That commits you doubly to
fulfilling the agreement," Lorena warned him seriously with her hand on the
doorknob.
—Don't worry, I'll keep my word. "We're leaving right now," Grieg responded
with growing concern as he saw that at the base of the frame there was a scorpion
with a disturbing Latin phrase: "Cauda is semper in ictu." "The scorpion is always
ready to sting."
47
In order to keep that woman there, Grieg had no choice but to play the only trick
he had.
"I'm sure you're rushing," he said as he took out of his bag the box of auques, which
he had wrapped before leaving the house with paper from a department store. Look
carefully at this object. This is what I must give you when we leave the place to
which I have to accompany you.
Lorena, who had been perplexed when she realized that the coin she was hoping
to find that night was a simple trinket, grimaced when she saw that the fabulous
object she was hoping to get from the stranger was something wrapped in gift paper.
Then she also thought that she needed a few minutes to try to guess who the
person was who was playing with her like that. What the hell is happening tonight?
she asked herself irritably.
She approached Grieg and remained thoughtful, with the concentration of a chess
player assessing the convenience of one move or another.
Gabriel Grieg, temporarily relieved, took the opportunity to analyze the only
figure that did not contemplate itself in the mirror. It was a nine-headed hydra. «The
hydra is a fabulous being that, according to Greek mythology, protected the doors of
the Underworld. If one of its heads was cut off, two new ones would emerge from
the severed one, becoming increasingly dangerous,” Grieg recalled. The hydra
symbolizes the difficulties that obstruct the path to truth. "You should not cut off any
of the hydra's elongated necks at the roots; you should stun it by hitting it hard on
the largest of its heads."
The architect continued reasoning while observing the large head of the hydra,
which stood out among the other eight smaller ones and was located at the top of the
mirror frame, in its very center, and out of reach of the hand.
Then he looked at the cane holder next to the mirror. He took out a staff that was
longer than the rest, from which protruded a crystalline knob with a prodigious
design that seemed to shine inside.
—What are you supposed to do? —Lorraine asked.
48
11
Gabriel Grieg looked closely at the inside of the knob. The image seemed to be
related to the mirror: it was the Magic mirror, a work created in 1946 by the Dutch
artist Maurits Cornelis Escher, another example of his particular iconographic
universe made up of impossible images, fictional universes and paradoxical places.
The drawing showed disturbing dogs with wings that walked in circles in front of
a mirror that formed a right angle to the ground. Two spheres placed in front and
behind the mirror created the hypnotic sensation that the dogs came to life on the
other side of the mirror and could thus penetrate another dimension before returning
to reality again.
At that moment Grieg realized a very important detail that he had misinterpreted.
«The figures in the frame are not contemplating themselves in the mirror, but are
looking inward, as if looking at another dimension. In the plan that I consulted in the
architecture database, I did not see that there was a single-piece study on this floor.»
He then tried to separate the mirror from the wall.
—What do you propose? —Lorraine asked.
—The hydra's head should never be cut off. "It's better to hit until you stun," Grieg
responded with the cane in his hands.
-As you say? I don't understand you…
Suddenly, he raised his staff and accurately struck the central head of the hydra. A
low sound echoed in the room. The head moved back a little and remained in that
position as if held by a metal spring. A sound similar to that of nails scratching dry
wood was heard, and the mirror moved to one side, revealing a type of door that
allowed access to a dark room.
Grieg put the auques box in his bag and turned on a flashlight. The room would be
about twenty feet on a side and had an elaborate, high coffered wooden ceiling. He
pointed the flashlight and saw that two of the walls were hidden behind two
enormous shelves filled with thick books of equal size, refinedly bound in black
leather. The same golden characters appeared on the spines of the volumes, as if they
were an encyclopedia.
Lorena entered the room and turned on an art deco style lamp that was on a
hexagonal-shaped side table, next to an armchair.
"It looks like the reading room of an egregious madman," he exclaimed, looking
with real curiosity into that unusual secret room located behind the mirror.
—It's something much more complicated. This seemingly nice and orderly place
gives me chills. —Grieg looked at the books and the unintelligible words that were
49
written on their respective spines—. These books form a glossarium of the most secret
knowledge.
-I think you're right…
—This place is loaded with extremely dark symbology. It is hidden behind a
mirror, with all that that entails. In the center, there is a hexagonal table. The hexagon
is the figure of death, but also the shape that the center of profane labyrinths
normally takes. Look at the engraving on the table.
Lorena saw, carved on the wooden table, the head of a minotaur, the master of the
labyrinth.
—Do you think that in this room the Deus absconductus, the Mysterium magnum, is
symbolically represented, that is, the mythological place between earth and hell so
often cited in literature, in philosophy and that some even tried to place physically?
Gabriel Grieg looked at Lorena's beautiful face, which appeared at that moment
illuminated with all the colors of the rainbow that the art deco lamp projected on her,
and he could not help but feel like Theseus himself when he saw Ariadne's face
again.
"Exactly," Grieg acknowledged, pleased. The person or people who designed this
place did so with the purpose of feeling as if they were really in the center of a
labyrinth. The really difficult thing was not getting out of it, as happens in most
labyrinths, but getting in.
"And besides, the center of the labyrinth is usually a very dangerous place,"
Lorena recalled, still worried about what might happen that night, especially after
Grieg's appearance.
-That's how it is. According to some theories, whoever leaves the center of the
labyrinth will never be the same as when they entered. I'm afraid we won't be able to
get out of here until we find something.
—Find what?
-I do not know yet. But look at what's hanging on that wall.
Lorena observed the reproduction of the original plan that Ildefons Cerda i Sunyer
designed in 1863 for the Eixample of Barcelona. Next to the plan was a simple grid
drawn on a parchment of twenty-nine horizontal and nineteen vertical squares, with
a small label at the base of the frame:
METROPOLIS OF ATLANTIS (NORTH)

THE GREAT PLAIN
«This guy, Gabriel, is right. All this is very strange…” thought Lorena.
—What a strange place! In here… —Lorena interrupted the sentence when she
saw that Grieg grimaced—. What's happening to you? Have you discovered
something?
"I have just discovered something terrible," Grieg argued in a stern tone.
-What is it about? —she asked, truly intrigued.
50
—I will reveal it to you immediately. But first I must tell you something very
important, Lorena.
-What is it about?
—Even if I don't know the reason, I'm sure you're looking for something, and that
search can be very dangerous... I once took lightly the murky matter in which the two
of us are now involved, and I'm paying dearly for my stupid recklessness. For that
same reason you should listen to me.
—I'm still waiting for you to tell me what alarmed you.
—I'll tell you right now, but first I want you to look at the phrases written on the
shelves.
Lorena raised her head and read what was carved at the top of one of the shelves:
VERBUM PRO VERB
He then read the words that were carved on the other bookshelf:
NEC NULLA NEC OMNIS
—The two inscriptions together form the following sentence: “Word for word, not
all of them miss the mark,” said Lorena.
"That means that before we leave the center of the maze we have to find the word
that 'doesn't miss the mark,'" Grieg said flatly.
-Do not say foolishness! —Lorraine exclaimed—. How will you know what word
it is?
"I must definitely attract her to my cause," Grieg thought worriedly. If I can't count
on her help and knowledge, my life and surely hers will be in danger."
After this reflection, he uttered a disconcerting phrase.
—I will know because, before five minutes have passed, you will tell me yourself.
51
12
Lorena heard that last sentence and wondered again who he was and what that
man who was scrutinizing her so rigorously was really looking for. Whoever it was,
it was beginning to become clear to her that he was not just any emissary and seemed
to be, like her, in serious trouble.
"Please explain to me how you are going to get me to guess the code word," he
said ironically.
-Don't worry. You will have invaluable collaboration.
—What kind of collaboration?
"With the help of a magic box," Grieg revealed enigmatically, picking up his bag
from the floor.
—Wow, things seem to be getting better. Now it turns out that you're even a
magician.
-That's how it is. Weren't you a witch until a few minutes ago? You yourself have
told me that during Halloween night anything is possible.
He went to the back of the room and took out five volumes from the shelves, with
which he formed a kind of small lectern, similar to the one magicians usually use in
their performances.
—Do you know why it makes me so sad to part with the box that I must give you?
"No," Lorena replied.
"Because it's a magic box," Grieg stated theatrically. But before it passes
definitively into your power, I want you to perform one last and prodigious service
for me.
—What is it about, if you may know? —Lorena asked very seriously, who was
trying to understand the symbolism in what Grieg was doing.
—This box is going to tell me, first, who you are and what you are looking for.
Then it will help you choose a word from all those that make up the encyclopedia,
you know, the only one that "doesn't miss the mark."
Gabriel Grieg spread his arms.
—Let's see, little magic box. Tell me who is the woman who says her name is
Lorena and that we found on the other side of the mirror! —Grieg put his hand in the
box—. Look what we have here!
The “wizard” held in his left hand a paper cutout representing an apple-sized
moon, with painted eyes and a painted nose and a thick-lipped smile.
—Oh, great Selene! Tell us what the witch I found tonight on the other side of the
mirror is looking for. —Grieg moved his head closer until his right ear was almost
touching the paper cutout. A jewel... He is looking for a jewel... Tell me, great and
52
powerful Selene, what kind of jewel? A gold jewel, you say? Gold? Ah, well, I
understand... The jewel is shrouded in a great mystery, but unfortunately you cannot
clarify it for me. Alright. You've been very helpful.
Grieg kept the cutout of the paper moon under the watchful eye of Lorena, who
was clenching her jaw. He took out another and placed it back on the makeshift
lectern.
It was a Greek tragedy mask.
—Wow, the topic is getting serious. Tell us, mask, what is so special about the
jewel Lorena is looking for? —He slowly approached his head to the cutout and held
it as if he were listening to something—. Ah, I understand... It is a jewel called "the
Stone." Isn't it about...? The same? The one that is related to the obtaining of
alchemical gold in Barcelona and to the serial murders that the bibliomaniac monk
Don Germán committed in the 19th century… And is there anything else? Sure, but
you can't...
Lorena was tense, and could not suppress a shiver when she saw the paper
figurine that Grieg had just placed between the pages of the book. It was a demon in
the style of those of old fairground attractions, dressed in a red suit and sporting a
beard, goatee and two sharp horns.
-The moment of the truth has come. “I will not bother you too much, my always
feared Mephistopheles…” the architect continued with his particular representation,
pretending to be conversing with the paper figure. As? Of course! I am not just any
magician, you can talk to me without any earthly obstacles. Reveal to us,
Mephistopheles, what is the word that "does not miss the mark" and that Lorraine
will later confirm for us?
Grieg, after pretending to listen to what the clipping was telling him, picked up
the specific book from the shelf.
"Let's see..." He turned the pages and stopped on one. The moment of truth has
arrived, Lorena. Mephistopheles says the word is vitriol. Do you agree?
Lorena, with a tremor on her lips and a suppressed rage that made her beautiful
black eyes water, could not suppress her scream:
—Enough of the little games! What do you want? I'm not going to confirm
anything.
—Yes you will. "Here, between the description of the term vitriol, there are two
circular marks, one on each page," said Grieg, taking a pencil from his bag. This
shows that there was a circular object, probably a coin, and right now, by scratching
the surface with this pencil, I am going to find out what type of coin it was.
Grieg moved the pencil toward the surface of one of the pages, but a hand
grabbed his wrist to prevent him from doing so.
"How the hell did you know?" —Lorena asked, indignant.
—Very simple, the devil told me. You do not remember? It's about the magic box
that I have to give you, that's why it hurts me so much to part with it. —Grieg
smiled.
53
—Inside my closed fist I have the coin that I extracted from that book tonight, but
before showing it to you I want you to prove to me that you do not practice a double
game and that you did not know it was there beforehand. How did you come to
guess it?
He knew immediately that if he answered his question honestly, Lorena would
voluntarily open her fist, show him the coin, and a certain complicity would emerge.
"I don't blame you for not telling me that you were in this room before," Grieg
confessed. I wouldn't give away information to strangers either, but it is essential
that you and I start being honest and trust each other.
—How did you know about the vitriol?
—When I entered this room with you, it did not occur to me that you could have
been here before. I observed that all the volumes were systematically and
conscientiously well placed. All but three. From one of them, the one located in the
center, this hung. —Grieg took between his fingers the red strip of cloth as a
bookmark from the volume that rested on the table—. A strange detail in a library as
neatly ordered as this one.
-That does not mean anything.
—That's right, and to make sure, under the pretext that you were examining the
picture on the wall, I wanted to find out which two pages the bookmark selected...
and strike out! —Grieg moved his right hand in a circle—I discovered the mark that
the coin had left next to the term vitriol.
—And what made you suspect me?
—Those two small brownish drops. You see them?
Lorena approached until she saw how on the page on the left she could clearly see
the bumpy, rough and still wet surface of the paper left by the two drops.
—As soon as I opened the volume I noticed a smell that I know very well from my
work.
—What smell?
—Nitric acid mixed with some ammonium. Without a doubt, a reagent that you
used less than half an hour ago to verify that the coin was gold. —Grieg looked her
straight in the eyes—. I know it couldn't have taken more time because the drops
would have dried by now. I see that you come well prepared. Was the coin really
gold? Maybe a unique piece? —he asked with a mocking smile on his face.
Lorena remembered that when she entered the room sealed by the mirror, after
hitting the hydra's head with her staff, she took the volume out of one of the shelves,
knowing in advance where she would find it. Then he took out the coin, read the
definition of vitriol, placed it on the hexagonal table and opened it to the same page
on which it was currently open.
«Grieg tells the truth. When I used the reagent bottle to make sure if the coin was
gold and rubbed the coin on the abrasive stone, those small drops must have fallen
off; and then I didn't make sure the books were perfectly aligned. Also, I didn't notice
that the bookmark was hanging from the shelf.
54
Lorena very slowly opened her fist and showed the golden coin that she treasured
in the palm of her hand. Grieg could not help his astonishment.
55
13
—This is the coin that left the two circular marks in the book on the table? Grieg
asked, very surprised. I can not believe it.
"That's right," Lorena answered, pleased to see that he had been as surprised as
she was to find such a coin in such a special place.
—But this coin has no value... It is part of a collection so vulgar and vulgar that it
was rejected even by numismatists.
"I know," she said as she sat on one of the arms of the large armchair. Someone
told me that I would find a very special coin inside the book...
"And you expected to find a magnificent gold doubloon, instead of this..." Grieg
joked.
Suddenly, Lorena's face darkened.
—Have you ever heard of an initiatory path known as “the essential path”? -
asked.
"Yes," Grieg replied, grimacing. According to the Theosophia, it is a route that
starts from a narrow and august door called Sephira hochma…
—Gabriel… —Lorena opened her eyes and tilted her head to make it short.
—According to legend, there is an "initial object" that contains a secret, and
whoever is able to discover it, it will lead them to another object..., and so on, until
obtaining, in the last link of the chain, the formula of alchemical gold .
Lorena smiled as she tossed the coin into the air several times.
—This coin that you see dancing before your eyes is that initial object.
—What do you know about her? Grieg asked.
—That it is the first of a series of coins that make up the essential path and that no
one has been able to follow until now… —Lorena placed the volume of the
encyclopedia on the shelf, making sure that everything was in its place—. And that
finally leads to "the Stone", the jewel I am looking for.
—And according to the information you have, what characteristics does this
supposed essential path have?
"Well, we must hurry, since the path can only be walked once a year, during the
night of All Saints..." Lorena revealed, looking at her watch. And it's almost two
o'clock.
—But how do you explain that this coin can lead us to a specific place? —Grieg
asked, looking at the coin, without finding any clue.
—This apparently vulgar currency contains all the keys that start a “chain
reaction” that no one has yet been able to discover and that we must decipher right
now. —Lorena stopped before Grieg and looked him straight in the eyes with an
56
expression somewhere between disturbed and kind—. Or do you prefer to forget the
issue of the coin, to accompany me to the place you have been assigned, and give me
there the box that you so jealously keep in your bag?
Lorena had already detected that Grieg was not willing to part with the auques
box, and was using that resource for his own benefit.
He chose to follow what seemed the only path that would lead to his own
salvation.
—I seem to remember that this coin was part of a collection made up of thirteen
pieces that had a name similar to "The Marvelous Alchemy."
“The wonderful world of alchemy,” Lorena pointed out. They were minted in
Barcelona about twenty-five years ago by a company that was dedicated to low-end
numismatic prints, especially focused on esoteric enigmas. It was called Hyele, like
the mythological bird that grows on fire and lays transparent eggs.
"Let's see..." Grieg placed the coin under the light of the lamp and on the
hexagonal table, and then took his small pearl-handled knife from his pocket.
He pressed his thumb firmly on the coin and made a deep notch in its obverse.
—This coin is made of gold-plated brass, I know it very well because I often
encounter it in my work. I absolutely rule out that it contains any other type of metal
inside. This is an identical coin to the rest of the series.
"I was afraid of it..." Lorena said. The mystery must lie in the symbols and text
engraved on it, although I can tell you that I didn't find anything useful on the back
of the coin.
"The obverse is complex..." Grieg noted as he observed the crater of a volcano,
almost hidden by a sun that intensely radiated its rays.
After a few seconds of reflection, he read aloud the Latin phrase that had been
engraved on the coin.
—It is an alchemical maxim that appears in some spagyric treatises and that
means "isn't vitriol hidden?" —Lorena revealed.
"That Latin phrase contains all mysteries," said Grieg. Vitriol was crystalline
sulfate, mixed with other substances containing sulfur, and which represented the
true starting point, the first chaotic matter, in the works of medieval alchemists. It is a
term that would give us to be talking until dawn.
—Probably, and if we are selective on the subject, we will reach some specific
point. “Vitriol in Latin is written vitriol ,” Lorena continued. And it is the acronym for
"visitabis interiora terrae rectifying invenies occultum lapidem veram medicinalm."
—You know it by heart! Grieg exclaimed in astonishment.
—That acronym summarizes the purest concepts of alchemy and means "visit the
interior of the earth and when you perfect it you will find the stone (the
philosopher's stone), the true medicine."
57
The two remained silent for a few seconds, while trying to remember their
knowledge on the subject.
"We won't achieve anything by tossing around the term vitriol," Grieg lamented.
Vitriol was a very everyday term in secret treatises and alchemists dissolved and
calcined it again and again, applying the primordial law of solve et coagula.
"You're right..." she agreed, embarrassed. These two terms contain much of the
initial knowledge of alchemy and would mean that "something new cannot be
constituted if we have not previously gotten rid of what came before." What do we
do now?
"Precisely that, continuing along another path," Grieg answered. We have the
figure of the volcano enhanced by the spagyric sun. The volcano and fire are present
in every alchemical process. First of all, volcano is vulcano in Latin and I don't think it
has anything to do with this gesture.
Grieg smiled and brought his hand closer to Lorena's face. The fingers were
separated two by two forming the greeting of the people from the planet Vulcan
from the popular series Star Trek.
Lorena, for the first time since Grieg had met her, laughed heartily.
—Stop joking.
"Joking and laughter contribute to expanding knowledge, don't forget," said Grieg,
and returned to the topic: "What other meaning can the word volcano or vulcan
have?"
"The first thing that comes to mind is the Aeolian Island in the Aegean Sea,"
Lorraine immediately responded, "where, according to Roman mythology, the forge
of the fire god Vulcan was located, who counted cyclops and giants among his
assistants, and was son of Jupiter and Juno, husband of Venus and corresponds to
Hephaestus of Greek mythology.
“Having you nearby, it is no longer necessary to be connected to the Internet,”
Grieg joked, impressed, once again, by that woman's knowledge. Can you think of
anything else?
—Perhaps there is an anagram hidden in the phrase “ta vitriolum nonne occulo.”
—But do you have any idea of the number of words and phrases in all languages
that could be formed with those letters? Grieg asked.
—We could start with the name of the Roman god we were talking about.
Lorena took a pad and a pen from her bag and invited Grieg to sit on the
armchair. He immediately began to write on his haunches, resting the notebook on
the table.
—Look, from the phrase “Ita vitriolum norme occulo” we can form the word
Vulcano.
He then wrote it on paper.
VULCAN
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—And we would have the following letters left.
IT YTRIO M NNE OCULO
—For an anagram to acquire meaning, you must know the final objective, because
if you don't, it has no meaning. "You can make too many different words and
phrases," Grieg lamented. What do we do with the sixteen leftover letters?
"I don't know..." she said,
“Maybe…” Grieg stared at her and moved his pen away from his notebook. Is that
essential path that you have told me about, and that can only be followed tonight,
related to Barcelona?
-Yeah. “It is absolutely related to Barcelona,” Lorena answered without hesitation.
-Let's see. You are looking for a jewel that for its production was subjected to
intense heat processes capable of exalting the material. To carry out these techniques
in the 19th century, there were only two blast furnaces in Barcelona, and one of them
was called Talleres Nuevo Vulcano.
-Clear! —Lorraine exclaimed—. So what would the leftover letters mean?
IT YTRIO M NNE OCCULO
—This is a crazy idea, but if we look at those two paintings that are hanging on the
wall —Grieg pointed to the original plan of the Eixample of Barcelona—, they refer
us to Ildefons Cerda and Anselm Clavé, who were Cabetians, supporters of a same
utopian political doctrine, as well as a third character who is related to the term
Vulcan.
"I'm sorry, but I don't follow your reasoning," Lorena replied, "or what it may
have to do with the term Vulcan."
—That third character was an inventor who in the 19th century designed and
manufactured, with great financing problems, the first submarine that sailed under
the waters of the port of Barcelona and which was built in the Vulcano Workshop.
The same place where alchemical experiments could be carried out, by subjecting
lead and mercury to high temperatures. It's just a guess, but I think...
While Gabriel Grieg formulated his own reasoning aloud, he was abruptly
interrupted by Lorena.
—Look what I just discovered with the leftover letters! -he exclaimed-. I have used
these seven letters to compose the name that its own inventor gave to the first
submarine that sailed in the city.
ICTINEOUS
—And we only have eight letters left. —Lorena pointed them out on the paper.
59
THYROMNULO
—With which you can form… —Grieg tried to quickly organize the letters in his
mind—, surprisingly… the name of the person who devised the submarine…
The two shouted a last name at the same time.
MONTURIOL
"The laws of probability do not take into account the fact that it is a coincidence,"
Grieg exclaimed. It seems that you have already found the trigger that activates your
long-awaited essential path that leads to the jewel you are looking for.
Lorena stood up and put the notebook and pen in her bag.
—Make no mistake Gabriel, “we have found.” And right now I have the need to
communicate to you evidence, a warning and a question.
"Go ahead," Grieg agreed.
—The evidence is that I think it would not help us to look for the complete
collection of the thirteen coins in a numismatics, because we would not know which
one is next in the series.
"It's true," Grieg admitted without hesitation.
"The warning," Lorena continued, "is that we have just discovered a path that
leads us to a place where prodigious events can occur, but where danger also exists.
An extreme danger.
Grieg stared at Lorena.
—And what is the question?
—The question is if you are going to come with me to try to find out the mystery
to which that coin leads us, or do you prefer to take me to the place you had marked
to give me the box that you carry in your bag.
Grieg did not hesitate, not even for a moment, to choose the first option offered by
the beautiful woman before his eyes who said her name was Lorena.
60
14
It was a quarter past two in the morning.

A man of about forty, with shaved hair and wearing a silver-gray suit and narrow
yellow-rimmed glasses, sat in the back of a Land Rover Defender. The man had
sullen features, which sank like blackish furrows into his thin, tanned face.
The car was parked in a dark and lonely example of romantic architecture, next to
a canal, and from which I could see the medieval tower of Subirana. The man
observed, on two small television monitors, the discreet movements of the men
under his command, who were in a neoclassical garden, built in the 18th century , in
which two classical temples stood out, erected in honor of Ariadne and Danae, and
which was the largest park in Barcelona: the Horta Labyrinth.
The man held two gold-plated coins in his right hand. On the obverse of one of
them was represented a large labyrinth formed by carefully pruned cypresses; like
the garden in which his subordinates were at that precise moment. On the back of the
coin appeared a figure of Eros, exactly like the statue that was in the center of the
Labyrinth of Horta, the place where a few months ago the man had found, hidden in
its base, the second coin that he now had in his possession. her hands.
He looked at the second coin and scanned the television monitors again.
Everything seemed excessively calm... I had to admit that the initial plan had failed.
And that was the worst problem for him.
"I have to immediately reorient the situation," he thought, and he warned one of
his subordinates that the mission had been aborted and that they should return to
where he was.
He picked up his cell phone.
-You have seen something? —he asked while rapidly typing on his laptop.
"Everything is calm here," responded a man who was carrying another of those
golden coins in his hand, and who was sitting in the front seat of another Land
Rover, parked very close to the gates of the Sant Gervasi cemetery.
—Leave two men there and the rest go to point B—7.
They cut off communication.
The mysterious bald man had been hired exactly three hundred and sixty-four
days ago at the Kempinski Hotel in Geneva by a very special client, who had put at
his disposal all the financial resources necessary for him to fulfill a very specific
mission: locate a person. .
The man pressed a key on the laptop and a gold-colored numismatic folder
appeared on the screen. Among the thirteen coins that made up the collection, the
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four that until that moment had not been able to be deciphered were enlarged. On
one of them you could see an engraving of an erupting volcano, specifically
Vesuvius, on which the phrase "Ita vitriolum nonne occulo" was written in Latin.
The man pressed another key and dozens of translations of that phrase appeared
in different languages, hundreds of pages where a detailed study of the word vitriol
was made, and all the research he had managed to do regarding the reverse of that
coin. Then he looked again at some pages with thousands of anagrams from the
phrase that a special computer program had produced, in all languages, especially
French and German.
All that had been useless.
That was, perhaps, the most important piece of a series of thirteen coins that were
scattered throughout the most unusual places in Barcelona and that formed a strange
recreation of the ancient myth of the essential path, which had to be followed during
the course of the night of the dead.
The man with the yellow-rimmed glasses had tried to unravel the disconcerting
enigma contained in that folder.
The WONDERFUL WORLD OF ALCHEMY Unravel during the night

of All Saints the mystery hidden in each and every one of these votive
coins and you will enter, through the Porta amphitheater Sapientiae
Aeterneae, into the essential path that leads to the very center of the
alchemical fortification, where fearsome custodians jealously guard the
formula of alchemical gold.
Under the guise of an innocent children's game, this was becoming a very serious
job, and the man felt that he was the most appropriate person to do it; but he lacked a
more exhaustive knowledge of the city of Barcelona.
That night his future was at stake and he had to find, no matter what, the
whereabouts of a person. And he was willing to achieve it at any price. If necessary,
he would steal the knowledge and even the lives of the other people who were trying
to explore, during that night, the same dangerous path as him.
62
15
When Gabriel Grieg returned to contemplate Lichtenstein's Barcelona's Head

sculpture. Unlike the last time he had seen her, he already knew the identity of the
person he was supposed to meet that night.
It was a beautiful woman who was on the back seat of the motorcycle and had him
tightly grabbed by the chest; but he continued to know almost nothing about her,
except that she was intelligent and cunning, and that she was recklessly searching for
a jewel.
As they walked the long stretch of road that runs parallel to the Moll de la Fusta in
the light rain, Grieg was thinking that the Talleres Nuevo Vulcano, their destination,
had been dismantled at the end of the eighties. Although very deteriorated, the old
blast furnaces and the large warehouse that housed them still physically existed,
which had been converted into a huge auxiliary warehouse for shipyards, located
between the new dock and the floating dock.
The powerful sound of the motorcycle engine expanded towards the dock area,
where several of the most luxurious yachts in the world were docked, which seemed
in the distance like a whitish, elongated wave about to break into the dark waters of
the port.
Grieg finally stopped the motorcycle next to others that were parked on the
esplanade where the aquarium once stood. The first thing that surprised them was
the great crowd of people that at that hour of the morning swarmed in the dark
surroundings of the new pier and the Sant Sebastiá tower of the cable car.
Among the shadows, a group of people dressed as Frankenstein, werewolves,
vampires and other creatures created by Hollywood, were stationed at the entrance
to the old Vulcan's industrial warehouse. It seemed as if the Lord of the Night
himself had ordered his macabre hosts
that would complicate Grieg and Lorena's plans.
The "monsters" were going to celebrate a very popular Halloween party there. A
sign located at the entrance of the ship regularized the passage and set certain access
conditions that six strong watchmen were jealously responsible for enforcing.
HALLOWEEN PARTY
Free entry until 3:00
From that time on it will be mandatory to wear the
COSTUME REQUIRED to be able to attend the
PRIVATE PARTY
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"It seems to me that we have a problem if we want to find the second coin of the
series in there," said Lorena, fixing her hair after taking off her helmet.
"Maybe not," Grieg replied after reading the poster announcing the party. While
we were coming here on the motorcycle, I was thinking that the large gates of the old
blast furnace would be closed and it would be very difficult for us to enter. With all
these people inside, the problem is different, and what we have to do is adapt to this
new eventuality.
"It's already a few minutes past two-thirty," Lorena said after looking at her
wristwatch. Maybe we should get into the party now before they don't let us.
—We wouldn't have time, I think it's better to find out what the party is about,
which will start at three, and for that we have almost half an hour to get a couple of
costumes. —Grieg slung his leather bag over his shoulder and stopped in front of
her, staring at her.
—It seems that something is bothering you, Gabriel.
—If this alchemical path really exists, we have to know as soon as possible if we
are the first to follow it.
"We'll know right away if we find the second coin in there," Lorena said. What else
worries you?
—I don't like this party at all. Look around. Don't you see anything that seems
strange to you?
"Yes," she answered, after reflecting for a few seconds. Normally these types of
parties are attended by an audience of twenty-somethings, university students, with
a medium-low economic profile. However, it's full of parked high-end cars here, and
there's nowhere open for a kilometer around… so they must be at the party. It's a
little weird…
"Look above... The cable car restaurant is still open," Grieg interrupted, pointing
his index finger towards the heights.
Lorena raised her head and saw that at the top of the funicular tower, the one
known as the Sant Sebastià tower, there was an entire floor completely illuminated in
which one could easily imagine a luxurious and exclusive event for more than
seventy-five people. five meters high.
-You're right! —Lorraine exclaimed—. Surely the people upstairs are the ones who
will attend the three o'clock private party. Maybe we can get some costumes to have
more time inside the ship... Let's go up to the restaurant right now.
64
16
Upon leaving the old and spacious elevator that had taken them to the top of the
Sant Sebastià funicular tower, Grieg and Lorena took the opportunity to agree before
entering the restaurant.
They descended a flight of stairs and stopped, facing each other, on one of the
tower's rusty platforms. The floor of the landing was puddled due to the fine rain
that, like gigantic silk curtains, fell dimly illuminated by the multicolored lights of
the port.
Lorraine, who was holding the golden coin in her hand, looked at Grieg.
"Let's review the situation," he argued. Before investigating where the second coin
can be found in the ship, we first have to access the interior of the space, and to do
this we should get a couple of costumes.
"That's right, and we only have twenty-two minutes," she said.
—We should also know if the people inside the restaurant are related to the party
that will be held at three o'clock at the Vulcano Workshop.
—It would be much better if we didn't waste a second. —Lorena began to climb
the steps that led them to a door from which emerged the measured rhythm and
tempered cadence of a music that was very familiar to both of them.
In the background, enveloping and soft, you could hear the velvety voice of
Astrud Gilberto performing The Girl from Ipanema, accompanied by the warm sax of
Stan Getz. Upon crossing the threshold, they found that the restaurant tables had
been removed to form a large square central space, in which a multitude of people,
divided into small groups and elegantly dressed, were talking surrounded by very
dim light, in contrast with the multicolored lights of the city.
Several elegantly dressed waiters carried trays full of canapés and glasses of
champagne that they distributed among the numerous couples dancing in the center
of the floor.
Lorena and Grieg slowly crossed the crowded room, observing the appearance of
a party that seemed very conventional to both of them, which increased their doubts
about the type of party that would be held on Vulcano.
Lorena went to the toilets while Grieg went to the center of the room trying to
observe everything around him.
Lorena returned immediately and, with almost feline agility, caught two
overflowing glasses of sparkling cava that a waiter was carrying on a tray. He
handed one of the drinks to Grieg.
—Let's drink to the hidden forces of the night helping us on this night of the dead!
—he exclaimed when he heard the brief clinking of the glasses.
65
After taking a light sip of cava, he hugged Grieg and insinuatingly forced him to
follow the enveloping rhythm of Fly me to the Moon that was playing through the
speakers. Grieg, although pleasantly surprised, was surprised by the sudden
outburst of fiery that she showed, since they only had a few minutes to try to get the
two costumes and it was foolhardy to waste them dancing.
"If what they say about life providing strange traveling companions is true, here's
to making you and I less and less so," Lorena said, raising her glass.
Grieg smiled as he thought that tonight was the second time a woman had toasted
him.
—This morning the horoscope predicted that I was going to meet someone who
had hidden powers and knew how to use them wonderfully, and I think that, for
once, he was not wrong... —Grieg left the sentence unfinished when he saw that
someone was approaching them.
The man was about forty years old and was elegantly dressed in a navy blue suit.
Since the two entered the room he had not taken his eyes off them.
"Today the restaurant is closed to the general public," warned the man, who
seemed to be the organizer of the evening. The premises have been rented to
celebrate a private party…
“We already know,” Lorena responded with a broad smile and looking around
with her glass of cava raised. We have come with the intention of attending the
Halloween party that will be held in a few minutes at the Vulcano. Right, my love?
—And he made an exaggerated love of Grieg.
The restaurant manager was silent for a few seconds as he watched them. He then
uttered a phrase that cleared up many of the doubts they had before entering the
restaurant.
—I don't see that they carry with them the essential costumes to be allowed entry
to the premises. "The access conditions are very strict," he warned them while
carefully observing the bags that Grieg and Lorena were carrying with them.
—The costumes are safe in the trunk of the car. We've come to relax a little," said
Lorena, raising her glass again, "and to greet, still in street clothes, some friends. —
He raised his left arm as if he were greeting some old acquaintances.
"Okay, in that case I guess it won't be any problem for you to tell me what shape
the costumes are," asked the man in the blue suit, staring at Grieg, who smiled trying
to hide his ignorance.
Lorena immediately came to his aid and, putting her lips close to the manager's
ear, she whispered a few words to him.
The head waiter smiled and his expression completely changed.
"If you need anything, let me know, I won't be far away," the manager said as he
walked away.
Lorena hugged Grieg again while the first chords of Desafinado, by Astrud and
Joáo Gilberto, played, and began to sway.
—What did you whisper to the manager? Grieg asked as he felt Lorena hugging
him tighter and tighter. What are the costumes like?
66
"You just dance," she replied, smiling. You just have to relax and let yourself go. It
couldn't be easier for you, hold me tight and let yourself go,” he whispered in her ear.
Trust me and you will see how by magic we will have what we came for. Don't you
think it's wonderful? Don't worry, I'll take care of everything.
While they danced to the rhythm of bossa nova, Lorena led Grieg to a padded
surface located between two windows, on which fine drops of rain were sliding and
from which one could contemplate a wonderful view of the port, with the Montjuïc
mountain in the background. .
Gabriel Grieg watched, disturbed, as Lorena's beautiful eyes looked at him
tenderly; and despite the mysterious bond that united them and the haste with which
they had to move that night if they wanted to achieve their objectives, he couldn't
help but get even closer to her face to the point of being able to smell the light
carmine that covered her lips.
—I just took what we came for! "Now let's leave immediately and, above all, don't
make any strange movements," Lorraine suddenly said, breaking Grieg out of his
momentary reverie.
-But how? —were the only words that the architect managed to pronounce.
The two stopped on the landing without saying a word as they waited for the
elevator to arrive. Once inside, Lorena broke the silence.
"Save the questions," Lorena proclaimed with a triumphant smile on her lips. I did
not reveal to you the reason why I took you to one end of the track and remained
there hugging you because in that same corner there were two disguises, and if I had
explained my intention to you, you would have started asking more questions than a
lawyer in a courtroom. judgment, and he didn't want anyone to detect any strange
movements.
—And how did you know what the costumes were like? —Grieg asked,
disappointed to see that Lorraine's ball had been interested.
—I knew this because I saw two men coming out of the men's room with a
package of perfectly folded clothes. Protruding from the fold of one of them was the
same thing that was hanging from the two costumes that they so kindly "just lent us"
at the party.
Lorena opened her bag to show him what kind of costumes it was. Grieg could not
suppress a wide smile, but immediately became uneasy as he imagined the nature of
the party they were heading to.
67
17
It was five minutes past three in the morning, and the last partygoers who did not
meet the requirement announced on the sign installed at the entrance were leaving
through the enormous doors of the ancient Vulcano's nave. Even some of them, the
most reticent, were forced to do so by force through the pushes given to them by the
guards.
Meanwhile, a large group had gathered, made up of diners from the party at the
funicular restaurant and other people who had come expressly. It was really difficult
to see their faces because, like Grieg and Lorraine, they were all dressed in the
severe, dark costume required by the rules of that exclusive party.
When there was no one left in the industrial warehouse from the previous party,
the head of security ordered that huge black cloths located in the center of the
industrial warehouse be removed and that all the lights be turned off. They then
closed the two large steel gates and left a central space through which slowly, and
while they were meticulously observed by uniformed guards, people entered in a
very organized manner into the interior of the ancient Vulcan oven.
Inside, the darkness enhanced the silence. Suddenly, a Gregorian chant was heard
invoking the Haec dies and the Victimae paschali laudes. A door at the back of the large
room opened, casting a weak, trembling yellowish light, and five men appeared,
their faces hidden by a hood and dressed in a dark monastic habit and a hair shirt.
They all carried large lighted candles that they held with both hands at chest level.
As they advanced, those attending the party, who were dressed exactly in the same
clothes as those strange monks, saw, in the shadows and in the distance, how they
placed the candles on an elongated table carefully covered by white cloth and in
which stood out a large wooden cross covered with a black veil.
A reddish light then emerged from the same door, much more intense than that
produced by the candles. Wielding large torches, five other monks crossed the
threshold and walked with their heads slightly bowed, until they stopped forming a
circle of fire. Behind them, eight archers paraded equipped with the bright uniforms
of the soldiers of the faith.
Three of the archers were stationed next to the door, maintaining at all times a
brave position, similar to the private escort of a personality who would appear
imminently, while the other five headed towards the monks and stood halfway
between them and the main door, as if they intended to prevent the passage of
anyone who wanted to leave the ship prematurely.
A new monk, tall and burly, appeared on the scene illuminated by the light of the
torches. He walked with a slow step and in a solemn manner. He was dressed like
68
the rest of the monks, but his hood was off, allowing his plump facial features, gray
beard, and bald head to be seen; He would be around sixty years old. The monks
who formed the circle of fire with the torches slowly escorted him until he sat in the
center of the very long table.
Eleven people, illuminated ghostly by the light of candles and torches, remained
hieratic seated at the table escorted by the three archers located on a lower level.
Enhanced by Gregorian chant, this seemed like the chilling image of a court
composed of the ten prelates of the council of the Inquisition, who acted as advisors
to the great judge seated in the center.
—It seems that they have organized a party based on the book The Name of the Rose
by Umberto Eco. “They have tried to reproduce Melk Abbey in 14th century
Austria,” whispered Lorraine, dressed in her monastic habit. I'm sure they were
based on the Jean-Jacques Annaud film.
"It's possible..." Grieg replied, "but to me, more than Eco's book, all this nonsense,
who knows where they came from, reminds me more of a terrible old computer
game called The abbey of crime... We must take advantage of the slightest opportunity
to separate ourselves from the group, head towards the blast furnace and get as far
away from these morons as possible.
Suddenly, the bald monk with the gray beard uttered some strange phrases in
Latin that seemed to be part of a strange ritual, and a few seconds later a powerful
and deep voice emerged from his throat, which resonated throughout the interior of
the ship.
—This court of the Inquisition has been established to discover the authors of
horrible murders. The monk paused briefly as he stroked his beard. I know that the
reason for these execrable crimes is none other than to serve the abominable cause of
their infamous owner, the same one with whom they have established an ominous
pact. That owner is none other than the devil, his infernal master. I have committed
my dignity and my honor to this court that on one night, in a single night, they will be
discovered and duly executed. Secular arm, proceed!
The archers quickly obeyed the order until the large group of monks, silently and
very slowly, approached the inquisitor and stopped a few meters from the table.
Grieg, who was walking with the rest of the monks, turned his head and saw that
several members of the security service were blocking the metal doors with large
padlocks, while they remained on the street, guarding the outer perimeter of the
nave.
"Lorena, we must stand on the right side of the group and the first chance we get
we will sneak towards the old oven," Grieg indicated, taking her by the arm.
When the large group stopped in front of the table, the eight archers took out an
arrow from the quiver they carried on their backs and placed it on the bow in the first
shooting position, without yet tightening the string, but clearly threatening the
monks. .
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Those attending the party watched as the one who served as the grand inquisitor
got up from the table and stood in front of a large black cloth that stretched along the
table, and which hid some rounded and deformed lumps of different sizes.
"Tonight, those who committed the satanic crimes and their henchmen, however
many they may be, will be judged," said the inquisitor. His sinister expression was
enhanced by the light of the torches and the Gregorian chants. For the good of this
community, I want you to leave the group right now and show yourself in court.
No one spoke or moved. The monk began to walk slowly along the long table.
—I see that in addition to murderers, heretics, witches and devil summoners, this
congregation is full of damned cowards. I am an inquisitor of plenipotentiary
powers, and I plan to develop them to their full extent. The law requires me, prior to
the harsh application of my own authority, to show the territio verbalis... -explained
the monk, referring to the fact that, in every inquisitorial process, the instruments of
torture were shown to those accused of witchcraft. that would be applied to him if he
did not recant, or did not voluntarily admit his participation in the facts of which he
was accused.
Raising his arms, the inquisitor uttered a cry that rose above the monastic chants.
—I order the secular arm to proceed!
An archer walked towards the group of elements covered by the dark cloth and
pulled it hard. Before the eyes of the increasingly nervous monks, a series of torture
instruments appeared that seemed to have emerged from the worst of dungeons in
the Middle Ages.
At that moment Gabriel and Lorena became aware that that party could celebrate
some dangerous ritual carried out by a sect and that perhaps their lives were in
danger. Especially since the soldiers immediately drew their bows ready to repress
any movement not authorized by the inquisitor, who challenged everyone with his
gaze.
"I don't dislike sado at all, but it seems to me that these friars are going too far,"
Lorena whispered.
Grieg responded with a nod, trying to indicate that they should both move, little
by little, to the right of the group. Grieg noted with concern that all those torture
instruments were not props, but rather ancient and valuable museum pieces that
were actually used during the Middle Ages: they were authentic torture instruments.
He knew this because he had seen them before, when the mere fact of observing
those devices in some church or cathedral had given him chills.
As he saw the inimitable color of rust and the cold, shiny texture of the aged
wood, he thought that the deployment of resources exceeded what any party should
have, and that surely the previous party had been called to mask the one that would
really be held later. , and not have problems with the city council.
"You can see that this holy court has sufficient means to ensure that the truth
illuminates the hearts of heretics, witches and murderers until it burns them
completely," the inquisitor continued. And if you don't believe it, look closely at this
object and its hungry tenant.
70
The monk showed a filthy, rusty iron cage in which a huge, spinning rat had been
imprisoned.
"First, the prisoner who refuses to recognize his heresy is tied with shackles and
ropes, and the cage with the door open is placed on his chest," explained the cruel
monk. The rat, duly startled by a torch placed at the top of the cage, will bite again
and again, trying to find a way out through the heretic's flesh.
The inquisitor moved to his right until he was standing in front of a large glass
container similar to a water jug with a greasy, dented funnel inserted into its mouth.
—Look at this rudimentary device, although by no means lacking in efficiency,
which is the instrument known as the funnel method, whose mechanism is so easily
deduced, and is so obvious, that it is not necessary for us to spend excessive time
explaining its operation... Yes Perhaps the verbalis urges me to reveal that when half
of the water contained in the demijohn has been ingested, and if it has been done
abruptly because the testimony of the prisoner has not been obtained, the stomach
explodes, just as if it were a waterskin. trampled by a percherón.
Meanwhile, Lorena and Grieg had managed to position themselves on one of the
sides of the agitated group, hoping to be able to move away without being seen by
the members that formed it, or by the threatening archers.
—There are much more refined methods that do not leave a trace if the aim is to
achieve a clear confession if the heretic is an illustrious person, which is why I doubt
that it will be used tonight... Such is the "touch" method. —The inquisitor took
several very dirty scraps of linen and silk in his hands. These cloths are inserted deep
into the throat and then soaked in water. The retching they produce is so convulsive
and the sensation of suffocation is so intense that it instantly dissipates the will to
continue hiding the nefarious action committed.
The monk advanced a few meters and slowly raised a hand, so that the group of
silent monks focused their attention on a torture device that had the shape of a
blackened bronze bull with grimy greenish stains.
—What you see here is known as the Bull of Falaris, and its application is
especially indicated for cases of marked reluctance to confess on the part of the
heretic. The method of application consists of introducing the prisoner inside the
bronze sphinx and then applying burning coal embers to his skin. —The inquisitor
showed a strange grimace as he observed with delight the metallic horns of that
sinister torture device.
»This procedure is especially unpopular among members of the secular arm, who,
as you already know, are in charge of applying justice to the prisoner. They, in the
strict performance of their high work, must be very disciplined and serious, although
in some cases this temperance in the state of mind is very difficult to achieve, because
the howls of pain that the person being interrogated breaks out inside the bull of
bronze are so heartbreaking that they resemble bull moos, and sometimes they can
cause uncontrollable and very inappropriate laughter that, logically, will be severely
punished by the inquisitor himself.
71
One of the archers thought he observed some strange movement among the
members of the group and approached the area where Lorena and Grieg were, who
remained still and silent, while they continued to attend to the exposition of the
inquisitor's torture methods.
At times, the monks seemed to experience the terrifying sensation of being in the
middle of the Middle Ages and of actually witnessing a territio verbalis, and of being
susceptible to experiencing in their own flesh any of those horrifying devices that the
inquisitor so cynically showed them.
The exposition continued for a few more minutes, in which the monk stopped to
detail the characteristics of each instrument of torture, such as "Judas' cradle": a sharp
wooden pyramid on which the prisoner was forced to sit after being previously
hung. of the dolls. Then he exhaustively reviewed all kinds of whips, riding crops,
rods, hanging cages, irons to be heated red hot and marking the skin of the
defenseless accused with them.
In the end he stopped next to a torture instrument that seemed to particularly
please him, because for the first time a creepy smile appeared on his face. It was an
iron head with hinges and several adjustment keys, which was shaped like a
mechanical monster.
—This device you see here is called a head crusher and for me, as an inquisitor, it
especially comforts me, because it is really expeditious and the person accused of
heresy or crimes is capable of recognizing his exact degree of involvement in events
of an infernal nature, before The instrument first breaks his teeth, then his jaw, and
then his skull before squeezing his brain...
—Do you see that baluster that is located beyond the last torch? Grieg asked as
soon as the archer returned to the table. When the group moves we run towards it.
"I have fulfilled my obligation," the inquisitor continued, "and you have been
shown the verbalis by which the culprit or culprits of murder in an evil ritual will be
forced to recognize their dealings with the Evil One. Even if they do not recognize it,
they are already convicted of their own crimes, and if they confess, they will be
equally punished for not having recognized them when this court previously
requested it. In any case, they may even avoid the very rigorous interrogation, but
they will not escape burning definitively in the flames of hell to which what their
eyes will see right now will directly lead them.
The monk raised his arms again and ordered the court judges to show the group
the territio realis, the place where the sentence would be carried out. Three of the
monks immediately got up from the table and headed towards the part of the nave
opposite to where Grieg and Lorraine were.
Progressively, the reddish light of the torches they carried in their hands
illuminated three large mounds of straw and firewood. Each of them were topped by
a wooden mast from which a stirrup protruded, and they were exactly the same as
those used in the Middle Ages to burn alive those accused of heresy.
Grieg and Lorena took advantage of the momentary darkness to sneak through
the shadows towards the area where the blast furnaces were formerly located. From
72
afar they observed the chilling scenic composition that formed that court of the Holy
Inquisition. Lorena lowered her hood and uttered a phrase that managed to
summarize the disturbing vision of that party with the mission they had that night.
—Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomina nuda tenemus.
"Only the naked name remains of the rose."
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18
That night the old factory had the desolate appearance of an old stranded ship that
had been thrown ashore after being destroyed by a gigantic storm on the high seas.
The two false monks, Grieg and Lorena, were still terrified by the exhibition of
medieval torture devices they had just attended. For that reason, they walked half
bent over, trying to take refuge in the shadows.
—Forget about the jewel you are looking for! "Right now our priority is to get out
of here alive," Grieg muttered while checking that there was no other access that
communicated with the outside. We have to find out where the second coin in the
series may be hidden and if someone has beaten us to it.
—Just like if we were teammates and we were climbing the final stretch of the
ascent to an eight thousand, right? —She responded after turning on a small
flashlight that she had taken out of her bag.
"Exactly," Grieg said, very surprised with the example she had used.
They continued walking, helped by the flashlight that Lorena hid under her habit,
which projected an irregular triangle of dim light that preceded them a few steps.
They entered a narrow duct flanked by tall piles of materials that were formerly
related to the operation of the blast furnace. Large piles of coking and hard coal, iron
ore, magnetite and siderite stood. The piles, surrounded by blackness, looked like
strange dunes in a chimerical desert of black sand located in front of the sea.
"We are looking for the impossible," Grieg said, stopping next to a huge pile of
coking coal illuminated by a crack of light. The old blast furnace has been dismantled
so that it can be visited. Therefore…
Grieg abruptly interrupted his words when he heard that the Gregorian chants
had suddenly stopped and the voice of the inquisitor judge thundered with unusual
force, as he turned to address the group of monks in an apocalyptic tone.
—It will be shown to you! It will be shown to you! And then... some of you will
burn this very night until the fire of the bonfire purifies you!
After those words, which seemed to come from the darkest heart of the Middle
Ages, the light of the torches, which previously formed a circle of clarity, was
concentrated in an intense and bright point.
"Whoever hid the second coin must have done it when the oven was still in
operation," Lorena said. Therefore, let us rule out that the coin is on the inside of the
crucible, since if that were the case it would have been melted.
-I agree. What else can you think of, Watson?
—The most logical thing is that it is located on the outside and next to some of the
material entry or exit hatches. Look at this…
74
Lorena illuminated a sign that schematically represented the main parts of a blast
furnace, and that seemed to have informative use for visits to the factory. In the
diagram you could clearly see the different openings through which the materials
involved in the chemical process were introduced and expelled.
—The coin we are looking for must be found very close to one of the hatches or
floodgates of the great crucible.
"The crucible, as you call it, is too big," Grieg argued. It's like looking for a needle
in a haystack. We have no clue and that is usually the harbinger of failure.
—We will have to face that with all our strength, whatever! —Lorena declared
with conviction and as if her life depended on that search.
"This panel mentions the fact that the submarines Ictíneo I and II were built in
these workshops," Grieg said. Here it indicates that next to the slag pit there is a
plaque commemorating the event. And if I'm not mistaken, the slag pipe is precisely
the one we have in front of us...
Grieg did not notice Lorena's expression of unease when she heard him say that
the plaque was located next to the slag pit. With the flashlight pointed at the ground,
Grieg soon found a heavy, thick circular bronze plaque almost a meter in diameter,
badly worn by footsteps. In it a brief but sincere tribute was paid to the inventor of
the first submarine, which, although in a very precarious way, was able to navigate
under the dark waters of the port of Barcelona.
NEW VULCANO WORKSHOPS

PAY A COMPLIMENTARY TRIBUTE
ON THE CENTENARY OF HIS BIRTH
TO
NARCISO MONTURIOL
1819-1885
NOW YOUR DREAM OF THE ICTINE SUBMARINE
«THE FISHSHIP»
—There is no trace of the coin here! —Lorena exclaimed in a serious voice.

Grieg sensed that all the clues they had ended there, and he worked hard to try to
unravel the secret it might contain.
"There's nothing here," Lorena repeated, saddened.
"If there is something, it has to be here," he murmured as he moved the flashlight
to study the relief of the letters. Look at the larger letters on the plate.
—Those that make up the name of Monturiol?
-That's how it is. Don't you see anything strange in the last "O" of Monturiol?
"Yes," he answered without hesitation, "the hole is shallower than in the rest of the
letters."
Grieg took the cold cutter out of his bag and forcefully inserted it into the inside of
the last "O."
—Do you always go out with a chisel on you? —Lorena exclaimed, surprised that
he had a tool on hand that was so useful at a time like that.
75
-Usually not. I do it when I sense that the night may be busy. And this is going to
be it.
For a while he tried to find a gap in the lyrics. Finally he managed to tear off an
oval bronze plaque that was fitted to the inside of the letter and that had attached to
its back a golden coin of the same size and composition as the one that Lorena
showed him in the Columbus skyscraper. The coin, after being separated from the
small bronze oval, showed on its reverse the image of a unicorn, and on the obverse a
strange text.
d. T. MAGOFON VITALITER
—We are the first to follow the essential path! Nobody had done it before! Do you
realize what that means, Gabriel? —Lorraine exclaimed—. We must find out where
the coin leads.
"We have to get out of here first," Grieg said, putting the cold cutter back in the
bag. We better get going immediately.
The two began to walk towards the wall opposite the main entrance to the ship.
"The unicorn symbolizes the most genuine and altruistic essences of alchemy,"
said Lorena, who did not want to waste a second.
—And the «D. T. Magofon Vitaliter»?
—Refers to the greatest alchemist of the 20th century.
"No doubt you mean Fulcanelli," Grieg predicted quietly and without fear of being
wrong.
—Magofon was the best-known pseudonym under which Fulcanelli hid. The
sound that makes up the word “Fulcanelli” is related to the magical-phonetic cabala
and relates Vulcano-Helios or Vulcan with Hellémás,” Lorena clarified. Fulcanelli in
the most hermetic circles of alchemy was known as: «D. T. Magofon Vitaliter.»
—I know that in Latin the term vitaliter means “vitalizer,” or “life-giving breath,”
but I don't know the meaning of the acronym “D. T.» —He pointed out as he
searched in the shadows for a door that led to the outside.
—It means Doctor Tectum, "the hidden master." The highest level that an alchemist
can reach. Fulcanelli was the last to hold that highest and most secret rank during his
lifetime.
—The entire ship is hermetically sealed. "Not a lizard could escape from here
without the guards finding out," Grieg sighed as he momentarily uncovered his
head. Do we know who Fulcanelli really was?
"He was linked to Camille Flammarion, a famous French astronomer," Lorena
explained. There was also speculation that it could be the notary Rosny-Ainé, but I
am inclined to think that Pierre Dujols was hiding behind the pseudonym Magofon.
—The Parisian bookseller?
"Yes," she agreed. Whoever he was, Fulcanelli visited Spain, specifically the cities
of Seville and Barcelona. Who knows if the alchemical path that we are exhuming
tonight will not lead us to unravel the true identity of Fulcanelli.
76
—More than knowing who Fulcanelli was, it is more urgent to deduce the secret of
the coin and get out of here without being surprised.
—And what do you suggest?
—I'm afraid we are once again faced with an eighteen-letter anagram that must be
formed from "D." T. Mago-fon Vitaliter.
—Let's see... right now. —Lorena stood again next to the commemorative plaque
from which they had removed the coin.
Suddenly, the Gregorian chants stopped and all the torches carried by the monks
and archers went out, plunging the ship into almost complete darkness.
Once again they were overcome by the feeling that their lives were in grave
danger. And this time, Lorena was even more convinced than Grieg.
77
19
Lorena, who knew a shocking fact about the strange ritual that those monks
carried out, was even more aware of the danger that lurked in front of them.
"It would be better to take advantage of this period of time to try to decipher the
message hidden in the coin," he said.
They moved towards the east wall of the industrial warehouse and stood next to a
window protected by a thick metal mesh. Through that dirty little window you could
see a large part of the beach where the San Sebastián baths once stood.
—I'm sure this coin is related to witchcraft. With witches and satanic rites...
—Where do you get that idea from? Grieg asked, leaning against one of the
crucible hatches. On the reverse there is a unicorn and on the obverse a text related to
the alchemist Fulcanelli. Where are the witches?
—The figures, phrases and anagrams that can be formed with the texts on the
coins hide a hermetic knowledge that points towards something very sinister. I know
very well what I'm saying.
Lorena uncovered her face and in turn removed Grieg's hood.
—You don't convince me, Lorena. If the text that is engraved on the coin basically
alludes to alchemy and Fulcanelli... Why do you think it could be related to witches?
-Very easy. Of all the research I did before you and I met, I only made one thing
clear. —Lorena put her hood back on and her voice sounded much quieter—.
Something important would happen tonight, perhaps a meeting, and although I
don't know the exact time and place, I suspect where it will take place.
-Where? —Grieg preferred to let herself be carried away by her, since she seemed
to have much more information than him.
—Montjuïc mountain.
—That is of no use to us. Do you have any idea how big it is? Furthermore,
Montjuïc Mountain is a place that has always given me chills. Not only because one
of the largest necropolises in Europe is located there. It is because a strange vibration
is perceived there.
-What are you talking about? —she asked, very interested.
—The entire mountain is an intense telluric point due to the large size of the
compact rock that forms it. Grieg looked at the front door, which was still locked
tight. It is crossed by underground water courses that run alongside very long
artificial tunnels, kilometers long, that were excavated in the stone, and that are
currently closed by thick and rusty iron fences.
—I never heard of them.
78
—They were discovered during the works of the Great Universal Exhibition of
1929, and many claim that they were built by the Templars to take refuge in them,
after fleeing the properties they owned in Roman Barcino. The current name of the
mountain comes from the Romans, which they called Mount Jovis. It is believed that
they erected a great and beautiful temple in honor of the greatest of their gods.
"The great Jupiter," Lorena intervened, "to whom it would not be bad to entrust
ourselves tonight." And what do you know about witches in relation to Montjuïc
mountain? —she asked.
"Not much," Grieg admitted, still very concerned by the silence and darkness in
the ship. In the past, and because it was a place not excessively controlled by the
authorities of the time, followers of witchcraft met in what is now the Raval
neighborhood, and in groups they ascended to the foot of the mountain. They
reached an esplanade around a well-known fountain in Catalonia that has the name
of an animal closely related to the cult of the devil. Specifically the cat.
—You are referring to the Font del Gat.
-Yeah. Today they continue to meet, especially on nights like today. They do it
around, or very close to, the Font del Gat, which as you probably already know, is
presided over by the large head of a vicious stone devil from which two large horns
emanate. That's all I can say.
Lorena, after listening to Grieg's information, turned on the small flashlight again,
took the notebook and placed it on the remains of an old spoon from the old foundry
so that the light would not reveal her presence.
—Have you deduced something? Grieg asked.
—Maybe... Let's see... With the letters:
we can form a place:
GAT FONT
"That's right," Grieg acknowledged, "but unfortunately we have some letters left
over."
—The letters you are referring to are “AVMIRIO T”, with which the word can also
be formed…
RITE
—"Rite" could be related to "ceremony", "act", "celebration", and therefore also

with "coven". And we would only have four letters left, which are:
AVMI
79
—… with which we could form…
Lorena left the sentence unfinished when she saw that all the torches were lit
again. In just a few seconds, the Carmina Burana, the overwhelming collection of
secular Goliard songs, composed in the Benediktbeuren Abbey in Bavaria in the 12th
and 13th centuries, began to sound with terrifying force. Specifically, the final song
was playing, titled Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, in which the voices of the choir and the
numerous instruments of the orchestra seem to acquire an even more apocalyptic
tone.
The danger that loomed over them, between the light of the torches and the voices
of the Carmina Burana choir at full power:
O Fortune,
velut Moon
status variabilis,
semper crescis aut de crescis…
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20
A scant light had managed to sneak in between the piles that were piled up
around them, and managed to weakly and accusingly illuminate Lorena's face, who
looked away from Grieg so that he would not intuit in her eyes the information she
had kept to herself. .
Grieg took Lorena's arm to try to hide with her inside one of the chambers that
had been formed after the dismantling of the old foundry, and which was protected
by a solid metal door that was ajar.
But a tug on her part made him stop short and turn to look at her.
—What's wrong, Lorena? Grieg asked, surprised.
"Nothing," she answered, avoiding her gaze again. Only these guys aren't playing.
What they do, I know since I came here, is serious.
Grieg took her arm again, gently but determinedly, and led her into what looked
like a small cave, which was completely dark. After turning on the small flashlight,
half crouching, they stood in the only corner they could find.
—Let's see, Lorena! Grieg exclaimed. I already sensed that you were more up to
date than I on most of the issues that are happening tonight. I took it for granted!
And I even understand that you restrict my data... What I couldn't suspect is that
having first-hand information about this damn party, you haven't told me anything! I
want you to clarify for me what the hell is going on here! Or do you still not realize
the danger we are in?
Lorena seemed to hesitate before answering.
—When at the cable car party I crossed paths in the bathroom with the two men
who were wearing the costumes that I mentioned to you, I couldn't help but hear a
phrase, which at first I thought was a joke, but now...
-I'm all ears.
—I heard this phrase: «… the body is in the slag pit, but don't tell anyone…».
Grieg was shocked.
-A corpse? We're inside the slag pit! We have entered the den of the wolf!
—Until a few minutes ago I had no idea what the hell a “scumbag” was. I couldn't
have thought that we would end up locked up here! You forced me in!
—I haven't forced you to do anything! Grieg was indignant. We have taken refuge
in the place that seemed safest to us... And now we know that we have precisely
chosen the worst one. If it's true that there really is a corpse in here... we already
know what all those torturers are looking for with their torches.
They turned around, hoping to find no one. The cubicle they were in was tall and
vaguely spherical in shape; and after bending, forming a corner that was where they
81
had taken refuge, it entered a long corridor that barely allowed the passage of a
person.
After a quick but cautious analysis of the cavity, Grieg realized that if it was true
that a corpse had been imprisoned there, it could only be found at the end of the
strange corridor that formed the old slag pit once the old foundry was dismantled
and remodeled. . He decided to check it out before risking going out and being
surprised by the monks.
"Don't move from here," Grieg said as he entered the cylindrical hallway, hoping
there weren't any bodies there.
If we don't find anything, it's very possible that these crazy monks won't come
directly here and we can escape when they're gone again, he thought.
Gabriel Grieg did not need to complete the tour to see that a white sack lay on the
floor that was closed with a zipper. Due to its size and volume, it could perfectly
contain a person's body.
"We haven't had any luck," he cursed under his breath.
Lorena, ignoring Grieg's warning, had followed his steps and watched, alarmed,
as he approached the bag and undid the long zipper. Grieg pointed the flashlight at
the top and illuminated the face of a man in his fifties.
The architect raised his right eyelid and immediately noticed the cold skin. The
eyeball was sunken and already showed the flaccidity and whitish, almost milky
appearance, typical of corpse eyes.
—This guy is dead.
-How is he dressed? —Lorraine asked.
—Why do you want to know? —Grieg answered, starting to walk in the direction
of the exit hatch. We have to get out of here immediately. There is a corpse! And
unfortunately I no longer have any doubt that the monks will come here to continue
their strange trials. We have to leave immediately!
Lorena completely opened the zipper of the bag that was shrouding the corpse
and was able to verify that the body was dressed in the typical white robes with
which heretics were executed in the Middle Ages, but she did not find any wounds.
—Look, next to the bag that encloses the corpse, there are two others exactly the
same, but empty.
—Let's get out! —Grieg urged her from the end of the hallway.
Lorena zipped up the body bag and ran through the hallway, but when she
reached the central recess she realized that the monks were standing with their
torches almost at the entrance to the old pig-iron shaft. If Lorraine and Grieg tried to
leave through the hatch, the monks would discover them.
Immediately, they turned off the flashlight and hid again in a corner so narrow
that it wouldn't even have been enough to hide a person. They had to decide in a
matter of seconds what was more effective: leave or stay in that iron cave.
—We're in big trouble, Gabriel! —Lorena exclaimed, as the inquisitor's words
sounded closer and closer.
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-What can we do? Grieg asked, puzzled. When they enter they will surely see us,
here we cannot hide anywhere.
"We'll get out of here right now, but we'll do it my way," said Lorena, taking the
flashlight again and heading back to the place where the body was.
Grieg did not understand what Lorena was carrying in her hands.
—What the hell do you want those two bags for?
—I'll explain it to you later! Now we have to get out of here!
They approached the rusty hatch and opened it a crack, then rushed out of the
slag shaft. After traveling an approximate distance of ten meters, they managed to
hide from anyone's gaze behind a large steel mound.
—Why did you take the empty bags for transporting corpses? Grieg whispered.
They will realize that someone has stolen them.
Lorena did not answer.
She watched, hypnotized, as the circle of light formed by the monks' torches
entered the alley that led to the slag pit. The inquisitor, together with two archers,
entered the same cavity that they had just left.
Lorena continued to gaze lost between the flames of the torches while her pupils
reflected their fire, as if they were two mirrors. The image he offered, Grieg thought,
seemed to have come from the pen of Alexander Dumas. He could not help thinking,
when he saw her holding the two mortuary bags in her hands, that they were both
prisoners inside the castle of If itself, and that Lorraine, as if she were a transmuted
Edmond Dantès, was about to lock herself in the castle. mortuary bag to go in search
of the hidden treasure.
Gabriel Grieg felt the heat of the torch flames when he remembered the text he
read as a child. It was the warning given by the learned Abbe Faria to the man who
would soon become the Count of Monte Cristo:
Misfortune is necessary to discover certain mysterious mines that human
intelligence contains. Pressure is needed for gunpowder to explode.
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21
The grand inquisitor and his assistants had placed the body that Grieg and Lorena
discovered inside the hatch on an old wooden wagon. They had dressed him in a
monk's habit and the Gregorian chants resounded again with all their ascetic
splendor until they filled the industrial warehouse with grave and distant monastic
resonances.
The white-bearded monk stood next to the long wooden scaffold on which the
terrifying instruments of torture rested.
—Next, this court will proceed to carry out the final phase of this inquisitorial
process, and as ordered by the regulations, knowing the satanic nature of the crimes
committed, light prison or murus largus is excluded, as well as confinement for life. in a
dungeon or murus strictus. —The inquisitor paused—. Ergo, tonight, those
incriminated will be condemned to relaxation, that is, they will be handed over to the
archers who embody sacrosanct secular justice, which means that they will be
condemned to the purifying flames of the bonfire.
The inquisitor, with the color of fire reflected in his whitish face, raised his arms
and uttered a somber admonition.
—Some of you, damned worshipers of the Cuckold, have prayed to Satan himself
and committed murder in his name. Therefore, this court considers that you are meat
at the stake. And we already know who the culprits are who will be burned alive...!
Meanwhile, Lorena and Grieg, who had been trying to find an escape for a long
time, had reached a conclusive and disappointing conclusion: there was no way out.
"I think I have the solution to the anagram," said Lorena, leaning next to one of the
windows protected with bars.
"We'll talk about that when we get out of here," Grieg replied.
—The anagram that is hidden on the coin is the following: «Attend the rite that
will take place at the Font del Gat from 4 (IV) to 6 (VI) am, ante meridiem, that is, from
four to six in the morning .»
—Then we have to leave this sinister place and get to the Font del Gat quickly, or
all the work we have done will be of no use to us.
—In the best case scenario, if we try to flee without a winning plan and we get
caught, we would lose valuable time. The guards on the street would appear and,
without a doubt, would hold us until all this madness of an inquisitorial trial is over.
"Surely," Grieg admitted.
—And by the time everything was clarified, it would be too late to arrive in time
for the ceremony at the Font del Gat.
84
—Convince yourself, Lorena... We can't get out of here. Everything is closed and
the only thing we can do is hide until…
"Come, follow me," said Lorena, who began to walk through the shadows with
determination. Right now you are going to commit to me that, no matter what
happens, no matter what you hear and see what you see, you will not open your
mouth or interfere.
—I can't do that because...
—Swear to me that you will trust me!
Grieg remained silent while keeping his jaw clenched.
"I will interpret your silence as a yes," Lorena concluded. Lend me the Malleus
maleficarum.
—How do you know I have that book on me? Grieg asked, surprised.
—I saw it when we were in the library, behind the mirror. Now don't interrupt me
and just don't say anything no matter what happens, and whatever you see. You
have committed yourself. If you listen to me, within fifteen minutes we will be on the
street riding your old Harley on the way to Font del Gat.
Grieg searched in his bag for the book that Lorena had asked for, and as he raised
his head to hand it to her, he observed the object that she was holding in her hand
next to the two body bags. And a premonition chilled his blood.
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22
The inquisitor, while continuing with his incendiary slander, tried to conceal an
intimate disturbance without anyone having noticed it.
Something had happened in the last few minutes that worried him deeply, but he
continued, imperturbable, with his speech, while he walked slowly next to the long
table of the inquisitors, and around the corpse of the monk who lay with a cerulean
complexion on the old wooden wagon. .
—The sermo generalis must definitively penetrate the territio realis so that the auto
de fe can finally be carried out. —The inquisitor then spoke a few words in a
threatening tone: “Proceed with the secular arm!”
The roof of the nave was removed and the three monks who were located next to
the three mounds of dry straw proceeded to set them on fire, which caused the faces
of the inquisitors and monks to brightly illuminate with a bloody color, to the point
of noticing In them an intense heat coming from the recently lit bonfires.
"By the strength and power that was granted to this court in 1231 by Pope Gregory
IX," exclaimed the inquisitor, raising his arms toward the heights, "when he
promulgated his inquisitio hereticae pravitatis and after verifying your reluctant
silence, undoubtedly sponsored by the Evil One, I proclaim, also aided by the
Lateran Council where in 1179 Pope Alexander III decreed frontal and forcible
opposition to all types of satanic heresy, I order that...
Then something unexpected happened. An energetic shout cut short the
inquisitor's fiery speech, as the edge of the most precise of scythes would have done.
—Penitenciagite!
The monk with the white beard, upon hearing that expression, which meant
"Repent, the end is near!", turned his head quickly with an upset face.
-Anathema! —the inquisitor replied immediately and full of fury, when he saw the
person who had interrupted the auto-da-fé emerge from the compact group of
monks with an insolence typical of the most unworthy of the Dulcinite heretics. Who
dares to alter the course of this sermo generalis?
Immediately, two archers pounced on the bent figure when they saw that it was
heading with a determined step towards the ecclesiastical judge carrying a book in
its hand, but the inquisitor told them to stop, and let it advance to the place where he
was standing. .
The monk with the gray beard, who had his head uncovered, realized that the
volume that the newly appeared figure had given him was the Malleus maleficarum,
the book that would go down in history as The Hammer of Witches, and that it also
had marked one of its pages with an elongated white cardboard.
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The person who had emerged from the group was dressed as a monk and had his
face covered with the hood of his habit, but beneath them monstrous features could
be seen, illuminated by the reddish flashes of the bonfires. Finally, a female voice,
hoarse and somewhat muffled, spoke some heartbreaking words while the inquisitor
read the page from The Hammer of Witches marked with the card.
—Cita membri diminutionem et mortis periculum! —exclaimed the figure, thus
pronouncing the popular phrase that demanded that torture, mutilation of the body
and the death sentence in inquisitorial trials be definitively abolished.
The inquisitor finished reading the text and his features formed an unusually
serious expression, which increased the crackling of the branches and the flashes
coming from the bonfires.
—Tell me, your honor... Of which of the numerous contraventions outlined in this
book am I accused? —said the figure—. All of them are crimes that lead directly to
the heart of those dark flames.
The hooded woman pointed with both hands to the three bonfires that at that
moment were about to burn with all their maximum intensity.
—Am I accused of denying God? —the figure asked in a terrifying voice—. To
blaspheme? To summon the devil while I consecrate my own children to him, even
offering them as a sacrifice? Or am I perhaps accused of renting my own womb to
later attract the most abjectly unwary to their cause? That's why?
The figure stood with a defiant gesture in front of the inquisitor and next to the
corpse of the cerulean-skinned monk.
"Am I accused of having sworn in the name of the devil and not abiding by any of
the laws of the church?" -continuous-. Have you had incest? Or perhaps sending the
faithful to hell by making them ingest poisons extracted from the skin of toads? Or
for being a slave of the devil?
There was a dead silence, only interrupted by the Gregorian chants.
-Anathema! Anathema! —exclaimed, beside himself, the inquisitor with his finger
pointing towards the heart of the flames, thus demanding not only the
excommunication of the sacrilegious woman but also her eternal curse in hell. Even if
you hide your face with a hideous witch mask, I know that you are a witch. What
kind of woman appears in this ignominious manner before this holy court dressed as
a monk, and also dares to hand over to this judge the holy rules that had to be
applied to stop the empire of Satan? Do you know how to repay the affront you have
just committed with this holy court?
The archers, upon hearing the judge's intimidating tone, approached the hooded
woman with monstrous features.
—Look at those flames. You see them? —the inquisitor continued angrily—. Your
end will be very similar to that of Joan of Arc! Did you also go as a child to place
flowers on the Fairy Tree stump? You will pay with your life for this affront! —The
archers approached her even closer, but the inquisitor stopped them again by
extending his left arm—. Just as Joan of Arc was condemned to the stake in Rouen,
no one will stop you from being one here and right now. Or do you think that you
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will get out of this court believing that we are going to punish you by hanging you
with an innocent and simple sanbenito? Do you think you will be condemned only to
display the signs of infamy for life?
—Show the signs of infamy? Does your honor mean to wear two wings of yellow
yarn sewn, one on my back and the other on my chest so that everyone knows that I
was accused of witchcraft? —The monk with the hideous features and hoarse voice
let out a laugh that sounded low and muffled—. I will make it easy for this court!
The figure very slowly took off the habit that covered him. A defiant and conceited
being appeared that had the frightening features of a witch and proudly wore a black
robe with demonic symbols engraved on it. The image that made up the decomposed
and altered face of the grand inquisitor, dressed in his monk's habit and located a
short distance from the warty face of the witch who dared to look him straight in the
eyes, was overwhelming.
The two figures remained motionless as they were spectrally illuminated by the
firelight of the bonfires. The numerous judges at the table and the group of monks
continued in silence, expectant at the outcome of that duel.
—Do you recognize that with your evil practices you have contributed to others
committing this murder? —The inquisitor pointed to the corpse that was located a
few meters away.
-Murder? -exclaimed the witch-. The murderer was the inquisitor Cucumaences,
who in 1484 burned ninety-one of my sisters in the county of Burlía. Now that was a
fratricide! Or the inquisitor Alciat, who in an auto-da-fe very similar to this one
burned alive one hundred and fifty witches in Piedmont. Does your honor want us to
subject Robert II, Frederick II, or Louis VII in France to a historical review..., or do
you prefer that we talk about Henry II in Germany or Torquemada in Spain...?
-Anathema! Anathema! -exclaimed the inquisitor angrily. This court will not
tolerate any more affronts of this type. Archers! Turn her on immediately! This
inquisitorial judge so orders it!
Grieg, who was in the front row and had given his word that he would not
intervene under any circumstances, was truly disturbed by the audacity displayed by
Lorena dressed as a witch, and watched with extreme concern as the inquisitor
exchanged orders with two of the archers, and then they headed towards the
bonfires.
—It is not the function of this court to review history since the Council of
Avignon. Or what was the origin of the constitution of Gregory IX to establish the
Order of Preachers. The fact is that I will prosecute you by immediately applying his
bull lile humani generis to you. —The inquisitor raised his arms—. I solemnly sentence
that you are guilty of witchcraft and of having committed monstrous acts in the
name of the Evil One. This is what I order in an auto de fe, which will be recorded in
the gallery of the council of the Inquisition! This court will fail to put the hood on
you and lock you in the cage to hear the sentence I have just handed down, and you
will be sentenced to die right now, by live fire, at the stake. The question that this
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court asks you is a mandatory answer. Have you had the help of any other sectarians
to carry out your nefarious plans? —the inquisitor asked in a solemn voice.
"Yes," answered the witch.
—Reveal to this holy court who your henchmen are in the Work of the Evil One!
Grieg felt all the hair on his body stand up when he saw the witch point her index
finger at him.
Immediately, the two were surrounded by archers and forced to stand in front of
the court table.
"Let the culmination of this sermo generalis be carried out," exclaimed the
inquisitor. As authorized by the constitution Multorum Querella, promulgated in the
year of Our Lord 1311, I condemn these two witches to be burned at the stake, under
the direct and confessed accusation of Satanism and witchcraft, as the book itself
clearly attests. Malleus maleficarum. that this witch gave me. Secular arm, proceed!
One of the archers forcefully grabbed Grieg's right arm, while the other did the
same with the woman whose face was hidden with a rubber mask, and both were
ordered to comply with the officiant's will.
The inquisitor, with a troubled face, walked in front of the procession until
everyone was positioned at the back of the bonfires, which were at their highest
point.
Grieg's pulse was altered and he watched with increasing concern as the
proximity of the flames filled the air with sparks that fluttered around them, making
them feel the scorching heat of the fire. He couldn't even count on Lorena's knowing
gaze, who remained hidden behind the mask. The architect looked hypnotically at
the flames and it seemed increasingly difficult for him to trust Lorena's words: "No
matter what happens, whatever you hear and see what you see, don't open your
mouth or interfere, just trust me."
It was completely absurd to consider that they had been sentenced by that truly
sham court to be burned inside one of those bonfires. However, as he watched the
flames of the bonfires glow, when Grieg saw the archer coming towards him to warn
him, it was impossible for him to ignore the fact that all this was a gross farce and he
felt firsthand the terror of being burned alive.
A loud metallic sound brought Grieg out of his brief, terrifying reverie. One of the
iron doors behind him had opened, and three of the uniformed guards watching
from the outside had entered.
The inquisitor, with a serious expression, approached Lorena and handed her the
Malleus maleficarum in which he had placed a sheet of paper. The white card that had
served as a bookmark remained in his hand.
Lorena took off her mask and witch's robe. He picked up the book that the judge
gave him and returned the two white bags intended for transporting bodies. Then he
told Grieg to hand over his habit. Grieg obeyed without question, and then heard
from Lorena's lips what seemed to him then to be the two most beautiful words in
Spanish.
-Come on, let's go!
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Lorena and Grieg passed through the door while being closely watched by the
guards, who had been previously warned to let them go without getting in their way.
Lorena walked at a good pace next to Grieg, and her face reflected an expression
of deep satisfaction at having finally accomplished something she had always
wanted: facing an entire court of the holy office like a true witch.
"I want you to explain to me what exactly you did in there... and, above all, why
the hell it worked," Grieg asked while checking that the guards were watching them
leave without doing anything to prevent it.
Lorena smiled widely, and without stopping her step, she handed him the sheet
that she had placed inside the Malleus maleficarum with a white card so that the
inquisitor could see it.
Grieg read a text that surprised him both because it was imaginative and because
it was thoughtless. Apparently, Lorraine had written it just before heading towards
the group of monks and beginning her learned performance as the queen of the
witches.
General Inquisitor:
For reasons that are not relevant right now, both I and my companion
are forced to urgently leave this premises.
We have deduced (from the forensic identification card that the body
that was hidden in the cast iron pipe was hanging from the big toe of his
right foot, and that he is currently dressed as a monk on the wagon) that
you are a group made up of ancient professors and alumni of the
Barcelona Faculty of Medicine who are carrying out a very elaborate
"hazing" of the students of the first promotions.
We would not want to spoil your party, but please arrange everything
necessary and give the pertinent orders so that both my partner and I can
leave the premises. Otherwise, and if within half an hour we have not
contacted her by telephone, the person to whom we have given the
registration number of the body will inform both the rector of the
university and the police. .
Just follow the performance as the grand inquisitor and do not fear for
me, because I will do everything possible to be at your level, but
remember that we must be allowed to leave the premises within fifteen
minutes. Never yours,
WALBURGA
After reading the note, Gabriel Grieg was convinced that Lorena had drawn
conclusions too lightly and in a dangerous way.
—But... Don't you realize that it was too risky a strategy? —Grieg asked when they
reached the motorcycle.
—The fact is that the plan has gone well. It was evident that this was just a
Halloween party held to scare newbies, or perhaps as a cathartic experience for those
who have completed medical school, before practicing the profession. What do I
90
know! The fact is that we are outside,” he said, smiling as he put on his helmet and
sat on the back seat of the motorcycle.
Grieg looked at Lorena and with an evil grin on his face he revealed an alarming
piece of information.
—One of the archers wore two insignia pinned to his chest; The first represented a
sword and an olive branch flanking a wooden cross under the legend "Exurge domine
et judica causam tuam." That was the motto of the Holy Inquisition.
"That was part of the prop, it doesn't mean anything," Lorena replied in a voice
that sounded muffled under the full-face helmet.
—And what about the second insignia? Grieg asked him. It was a phoenix rising
from its own ashes, which is the symbol of one of the groups that, secretly and
sporadically, meet to defend the essence of the ancient Holy Inquisition...
Lorena did not answer and limited herself to listening to the sound of the
motorcycle engine as Grieg started it.
"Besides," Grieg continued, "if you're so sure it was just a Medical School party...
where do you think they got the torture instruments, that they were authentic?"
And... what did they want the other two empty body transport bags for?
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23
The bald man, in a gray suit and yellow glasses, looked at his watch and saw that
it was six minutes past four in the morning. It was located outside an old
construction located on the slope of Tibidabo, very close to the temple of the Sacred
Heart, whose façade was erected on the top of the mountain in which its imposing
façade stood out, composed of monumental stairs and stylized pinnacles. .
While the figures of his subordinates were silhouetted against the tiny, flickering
lights of the city, the man in the gray suit walked, brooding and furious, through an
open field where two white Land Rovers were parked.
It seemed absolutely impossible to him that despite the deployment he had made
around the scenes of the city where the coins were hidden, he had not detected any
strange movement, not even the slightest one.
«If I don't immediately find the logic of this whole matter, I will be out of it within
two hours, and tomorrow...», he thought anguished, while looking at another of
those coins. The coin showed on its reverse the image of a rampant unicorn, and on
the obverse, a perfect circle made up of eighteen letters could be seen:
The man with the yellow glasses knew perfectly well that those words referred to
the alchemist of unknown identity called Fulcanelli and his possible stay in
Barcelona, but despite the fact that he had an extensive dossier of information about
his works, and stored in the computer's memory thousands of anagrams that a
computer program had formed with those letters, he had not yet been able to unravel
the key that was hidden.
He raised his head and saw the dilapidated sign of a small, abandoned
numismatic coinage workshop that appeared as deserted as it was forgotten, like
other scenes along the essential path, where he expected to meet some people during
the course of that night.
“Something very strange is happening tonight…” he thought as he shone a
flashlight and looked closely at the old sign.
HYELE Coinages
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Suddenly, he understood something. "I couldn't have made that mistake, it's not
possible," he lamented as he headed back to a Land Rover and ordered the driver to
momentarily exit the vehicle.
The bald man entered the SUV and took out the three coins that he had not been
able to solve and placed them, along with the one he was carrying in his hand, lined
up on the same black leather-covered table on which his computer was located.
laptop.
Next to the volcano coin that had the Latin phrase “Ita Vitriolum nonne occulo” and
the concentric circles engraved on it, he placed the one that said “D. T. Magofon
Vitaliter" and showed the rampant unicorn on its reverse. Then he observed the third
golden coin that referred to the Sant Gervasi cemetery, where he had several of his
men, who had not reported that anyone had appeared there that night.
The man in the gray suit put his hand on his chin as he reflected with a frown and
a gaze lost among the small drops of water that slowly slid down the windshield,
revealing the city in the background: a spider web of lights under the sky. rain.
He slowly took the fourth piece. It was the currency that he had barely studied. "I
must be crazy!" he thought in dismay, understanding the seriousness of his mistake,
and the devilish cunning of those who had designed the thirteen coins, especially
that one.
On the obverse, one of the most universal symbols of the night of the dead
appeared. On the reverse, and he had just understood the importance of the
discovery a few moments ago, he could see what he had believed to be the symbol
that invited him to enter the essential path through a symbolic door, which
communicated with the other twelve coins in the collection. .
The man, being very aware of the mistake he had made, took the golden folder of
the collection in his hands and re-read that deceptive, childish-looking text: "and you
will enter through the Porta amphitheatri sapientiae aeterneae on the essential path... ».
That symbol was the same one that appeared on the sign of the company that had
minted the votive coins. The subordinates who were located outside the Land Rover
saw how their superior furiously hit the table integrated into the body of the SUV
until the computer jumped on its surface.
"It was not the first coin in the series... but the last!"
He immediately opened the door of the Land Rover and began issuing orders to
his subordinates, while quickly dialing a phone number on his cell phone.
"Now I know where I should go," he thought seconds before giving an address to
the alarmed driver who had just sat behind the wheel of the SUV.
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24
Gabriel Grieg parked the motorcycle next to the first of the two sharp curves that
the Santa Madrona promenade traces when it leaves behind the monumental
entrance of the Greek Theater.
Lorena, who was still wearing her helmet, watched as the steep road continued its
ascent towards the top of Montjuïc mountain with the slowness typical of an
impossible dark and cold lava river. That place had always impressed him.
The enclave where Grieg and she were was the very center of the area of greatest
telluric intensity for hundreds of kilometers around: the Font del Gat. During the
Middle Ages, this extraordinary place was a refuge and offered shelter and shelter to
a notable number of anchorites and hermits. They lived there, oblivious to the world,
in caves that they dug into the stone and that can still be visited.
In that leafy area, popular tradition has given rise to extravagant urban legends,
and there are people who claim to have seen large and strange birds fly over the
mountain every night from end to end, without ever exceeding its limits, with a slow
and sinister beat of wings, to take refuge again before dawn in a lair located near the
remains of a prehistoric and cyclopean dolmen that stood there, hundreds of years
before the current Barcelona was called Barcino, or even before, when the city was
only It was a small colony known as Barkeno.
Others are able to swear that in that place there are buried treasures of incalculable
value that are protected by large magazines that the pirates hid there. The remains of
the brigs of those pirates in the ancient Roman port have yet to be discovered, since
the mountain hid them among its rocks, as if it had the ability, just like a gigantic
lizard's tail, to regenerate itself.
According to other voices, it is impossible to make the mountain disappear,
because its stones, just as if they were protected and venerated by an army of a
million Sisyphus, are capable of rising again during the night to once again show the
old appearance they offered.
But above all, in Font del Gat that night there was a profound silence. That lonely
place contained countless arcane symbols that went completely unnoticed by those
who did not know how to interpret them properly. For example, there was a very
ancient stone slab that the light rain had left shiny and that was half hidden by
vegetation and leaf litter. In it you could see an unknown inscription that with its
sixty-six letters formed a strange triangle-arrow in the shape of the Mount of Venus,
and that pointed towards a terrifying place.
ABRA CADABRA
94
ABRACADABR
ABRACADAB
HUGGED
ABRACAD
ABRACA
ABRAC
OPEN
APR
AB
TO
It was the magical triangle of the Theosophists, to which, from time immemorial,
extraordinary virtues were attributed, related to witches and covens. It pointed, like
the arrow of a petrified and hermetic compass, to a place a hundred meters away.
The silence allowed us to hear the swaying of the trees, which seemed to be
searching for a large, abandoned house, which appeared wrapped in shadows like a
gloomy castle in which an ominous Lord of the Night hid from mere mortals.
That semi-ruined casalot had been built on the site where in the early Middle Ages
witches came, armed with brooms, after leaving the old walls of Barcelona behind, to
celebrate a diabolical mass incognito, which would later be called black mass, sabbat
or coven
That forgotten place had a gloomy name, which today only those people who feel
closest to Erebus, the most remote and dark area of hell, remember. That plot was
known as La Fosca.
La Fosca means "the mountain", but in Catalan it also means dark, dark, which
added negative connotations to the place.
On the ancient stone slab that contained the triangle formed by the word
"abracadabra", someone who knew the place towards which the arrow had been
pointing for centuries had roughly engraved a brief word loaded with diabolical
symbolism: Brocken.
That word paid tribute to the best-known sabbat in history, the one that took place
on Mount Brocken in the Black Forest, specifically in Hartz, one of the most
impenetrable regions in Germany. There Goethe placed Faust at the moment of
selling his soul to the devil.
Lorena took off her helmet, looked at her watch and saw that it was four forty-
eight minutes. He thought that the night was at its darkest point, at the opposite pole
to where the sun at its zenith is during the day.
This is the best time to organize a coven, he thought as he smiled and observed the
concentration and seriousness on Grieg's face. This one, for his part, while he took his
bag and handed the other one to Lorena, continued thinking about who the damned
old man from the Lyceum really was, and he suspected that Lorena knew him. It was
only a matter of time. He would wait for the right moment to take revenge.
95
Lorena, as if she had read Grieg's dark thoughts, seemed to understand that those
surroundings, so closely related to covens and precisely on Halloween night, were
not a particularly encouraging place for him.
—It seems as if everyone has left in terror. “This is too lonely to be “the night”,”
she indicated with a strange grimace, enhanced by the poor light coming from the
road. It would seem that they had really seen the devil.
"None of that," Grieg immediately replied. The devil, for the kind of people we
may find here tonight, will always be welcome.
"It doesn't matter," Lorena proclaimed, looking straight into Grieg's eyes, and as if
she had read his thoughts, she continued: "Although if the devil himself appeared
among those pines right now, we would have nothing to fear, since nothing we owe
you.
—You seem very sure of that, Lorena.
-Of course. We never made a pact that committed us to Innoxius Ardet with him.
You have to be very unconscious to establish a pact with the devil...! He always finds
the defaulters!
Lorena let out a tremendous laugh that was lost in the recesses of the Font del Gat,
and that made Grieg shudder. They didn't know that someone was listening to them
from behind some bushes.
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25
Crouched behind some hedges, and wrapped in darkness, a person was observing
the movements of Grieg and Lorena. He hoped to see them embrace, as he had seen
so many other couples do over many years, and go to some lush, hidden place
where, naked, they could carry out lovemaking while he watched the show.
Grieg continued talking, oblivious to his presence.
—Now it will be very difficult for us to find the coin, due to the orography and
extent of the terrain.
"Yes," Lorena responded with an elegant movement, which did not go unnoticed
by the one who was secretly observing her in the shadows, while imagining her
wonderful naked body. It's been less than an hour since we had to confront the
church and now we will do so against the infernal powers. We are surpassing
ourselves.
—Let's not take this matter as a joke because...
Grieg crouched down and dragged his left hand along the ground. He noticed that
his fingers retained an earthy substance, of fiery multicolored tones dissolved in
rainwater, which seemed to come from a terrace located a little above where they
were, almost hidden among the pine trees of the main terrace located at the entrance.
—Tell me something, Lorena... What is the culmination, the objective pursued by
all the Sabbath masses and covens? —he asked rhetorically.
Those words made the person who was spying on them in the dark convinced that
the couple was not there for love reasons.
"If I think about the answer a lot, I would say worshiping demonic powers to
summon the devil," she answered, looking askance at him and not knowing exactly
the reason for that question with such an obvious answer.
—That seems enough to me for now. Human beings have always tried to obtain,
by methods that we will call supernatural, everything that they could not obtain by
ordinary means, and some even choose to request it from Lucifer himself... —Grieg
explained while trying to follow the trail of the tiny flow of bright colors. who came
down from the terrace. But, as you very well pointed out a moment ago, this system
is a bad deal since the devil always asks for something in return and, as a general
rule, the applicant always loses.
A few steps higher, what at first was just a thin row of colors gradually expanded
until it formed a polychrome stain. Grieg took out his flashlight and, after turning it
on, pointed it towards the very center of the small terrace. There appeared a
disturbing figure that was drawn with what appeared to be colored chalk on the
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travertine marble. Because of the rain it was disfigured and the plaster was slowly
sliding into the pond.
A phrase written in Greek, and at the limit of legibility, stood out in blackish tones
under the light of the flashlight:
TEMllAI OMMYM HOMINYM FLAXIE ABBAE

"Temple Ommum Hominum Pacis Abbas."
Above those words was represented the chilling figure of a bearded goat that had
its legs crossed. His complexion was red and on his forehead he had a pentagram
represented, a five-pointed star, with one of them pointing upward. From its
enormous head, two large horns protruded between which was placed a torch that,
according to Eliphas Lévi in his Dogme et rituel de toute magie, represented
intelligence.
The shape of her body, despite being almost completely dissolved by the
rainwater, recalled that of a woman with large breasts who with both hands
composed the symbol of occultism, consisting of having her little finger and ring
finger gathered, extending almost completely the others. The left hand was in contact
with a circle of colors of yellowish tones in which the moon of Chesed appeared, and
in the right hand it was tied, with what seemed to be the remains of a chain, a white
crescent moon, which It could not be other than the moon of Geburah.
The arms, one feminine and the other masculine, were printed with the alchemical
words solve and coagula in a way that recalled the androgyne of Khunrath; and from
its belly protruded a reproductive organ made up of green scales that faded as it
reached its two blue wings, with the membranous shape of the patagio of a bat.
-How about? —asked Grieg, who was between the horns and the torch of the goat,
since he had preferred to analyze the figure upside down.
—It seems like a somewhat naive and romantic representation of the figure of the
devil. Try to merge the description that Oswald Wirth makes in Le Tarot des imagiers
du Moyen Age with the figure... —While Lorena was speaking, Grieg was looking in
his black bag for a book where he searched for the image among its pages.
Upon hearing the words that the beautiful woman had spoken, and which
demonstrated great satanic knowledge, the man who was hiding behind the bushes
understood that those strangers had not come there to have sex and decided to
change his strategy.
—…more stereotype of the devil as a goat…
Lorena could not finish the sentence because before her appeared, and without
Grieg even realizing it, a man of about thirty years old and with a very thin build.
Over his street clothes he wore a strange dark garment like a cape, and an old, dirty
and deformed multicolored hat similar to the one he wears in the Ziripot tarot cards
of Lanz, the madman in the numberless card of the Major Arcana.
The guy looked lustfully into her eyes. Grieg saw the strange expression on
Lorena's face and turned to see what was causing it.
98
Suddenly, the apparition began to speak:
"If you have come to look for something, perhaps I am the right person to provide
you with the information you are looking for... always, of course, in exchange for
something," said the man with the strange hat as he approached with small steps,
and almost on tiptoe towards Grieg. , who continued motionless and with the book
of Eliphas Lévi in his hand. Are you interested in the topic of the devil? Do you
perhaps intend to establish contact with him? —he asked with his eyes wide,
showing great interest—. If so, as is natural and it could not be otherwise, I can be of
great help to you.
The apparition began to walk around the figure of the devil, which continued to
dissolve like a candle inside a bonfire.
"Yes, we are desperately interested in your invaluable services," Grieg said
ironically.
"I agree to the deal, but first I want to know what you will pay me with," the
stranger inquired with his face tilted and his eyes wide open, almost out of their
sockets, after which he uttered a bizarre laugh, short, but very sharp.
—First tell us what you can offer us. If your answer does not satisfy us, I will send
you to him,” Grieg replied, condescendingly pointing to the image of the devil on the
ground. If we decide we're interested, I'll give you this in exchange.
Gabriel Grieg placed the book in his bag and took out a small pencil case which he
held in his hand.
—What are you hiding there that could minimally reward my services? —asked
the disturbing stranger—. I remind you that nothing about the devil is foreign to me,
even if he hides under the guise of Barbiel, or Amduscias, Behemoto, Bael, Belzebub,
Asmodeus, Belial, Maimon, or even when he camouflages himself among the
characters of books and calls himself Mephistopheles.
The stranger spoke faster and faster, impatient to know the contents of the small
bag that the stranger was holding in his hand.
—If you want, I can sell you, as I do with my adorable and adoring friends who
come here in search of my services and who fill me with so many pleasures, the
Objects of Power that I supply them. The stranger laughed again. I know that they
later boast about them during the demonic festivals that are celebrated in the upper
area.
The supplier was silent for a few seconds while a strange grimace appeared on his
face.
—Perhaps you are looking for authentic soil from Mount Brocken in the Black
Forest, or from Auvergne, perhaps from Blocula... I have them stored there, in the
backpack that hangs from my cane. I can sell you tinctures that I make with cursed
lands. The variety and quality of my products is very high. Over time, you may even
become, like so many others, my clients... I also have fresh mandrake...
"We're not interested in that kind of trifle," Grieg interrupted. I offer you the
contents of the bag in exchange for your services.
99
The thin man with the dirty hat, who appeared ghostly illuminated by the light of
the flashlight that Lorena held in her hand, approached them and took with exquisite
delicacy the package that Grieg offered him. He then unrolled the leather strip to see
its contents. First, he took out a small silver knife that had the figure of a black
rooster engraved on one of its handles, which he immediately began to caress. He
then took out the plastic bag and almost couldn't believe what he saw.
—Ohhhh! —he exclaimed, narrowing his eyes and with a face of ecstasy. It is an
authentic duck feather extracted in ceremony! There's the brand! The one that is
white... The fifth one on the right wing, a magnificent specimen.
When he felt a quadrangular shape to the touch, he immediately suspected that it
was an inkwell that contained a grimoire that is almost impossible to make today.
The witcher did not need to place the label under the light of the flashlight, because
he knew by heart the theory to make that ink. The only one with whom the demonic
pact could be written with the duck quill, and which would later be endorsed with
the blood that would flow after the cut of the silver knife on his own arm.
—«… Steal whole albérchigo bones that you will burn over the fire until they are
like the blackest coal…, and after grinding them, you will leave them in a printing
press for a hundred days without the printer knowing. With river water, on a night
with a full moon…” —the wiry necromancer repeated several times, caught in an
unusual reverie.
Lorena attended the strange transaction, and although she did not say anything,
she was very surprised that Grieg carried with him such hermetic elements typical of
witchcraft rituals.
The stranger felt the immeasurable and unique touch that that velvety goat skin
had, cured in the Middle Ages, and on which the conditions and clauses of the
infernal pact could be expressed. He couldn't help but get his eyes wet, imagining the
favors he could get from the worshipers in exchange for that.
—What do you want in exchange for this? —he asked with concern while with
great delicacy he returned everything to the small pen.
—We just want to know where the devil worshipers gather during this night of
the dead.
"They're in the 'waiting room,'" he answered with a hurried gesture, afraid that
those two strangers would know the place before he charged for their services.
—Okay, if you lead us to the place where the witches gather, I will give you the
leather bag. I give you my word, but first I want you to give it back to me.
The sorcerer looked straight into Grieg's eyes, and with visible displeasure he
handed him the prisoner. Then he wondered who this tall, strong man, with a serene
expression, was; and that woman with beautiful black eyes, whose naked body he
would have loved to contemplate.
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26
Ziripot de Lanz crossed the dark Santa Madrona road towards the Font del Gat
restaurant.
He did it recklessly and without checking to see if any of the cars were passing
that, from time to time, descended like elongated tongues of light from the outskirts
of the Olympic stadium to the Poble Sec neighborhood and Parallel Avenue.
Once he had crossed the road, he stayed on the edge of the asphalt and while he
looked towards the Fosca mound, he waited, with a strange smile on his lips, for Grieg
and Lorena to give him what they had promised him. They observed all the man's
movements from a safe distance, and anxiously hoped to be able to solve the mystery
of the coins, and why their anagrams were valid only during that night, and not on
any other night of the year.
And that guy who was anxiously waiting for them on the other side of the road
could help them in their search.
"For many years, witches have gathered in a place very close to this one to officiate
during the night of the dead," revealed the man, who had his eyes fixed on Grieg's
bag, with the promised reward. There are two ways to access it: the first is
apparently easy, and if you choose it I will immediately show you the way, it will not
be difficult for you to find the place. I will stay here and you will hand me the bag
and I will leave as I came...
He waited for the reaction his words provoked, but both Lorena and Grieg
remained silent.
—The second way to get there is a little more complicated, but the matter will be
much simplified because I will accompany you, since I value the amount of the price
you pay for my services in its fair measure. My experienced advice is that you choose
the second itinerary..., because in the long run it will be much more decisive for your
purposes. So... the choice is yours.
The witcher smiled with an automaton's grin, put his fingertips together and
began to look alternately at Grieg and Lorena, waiting for them to tell him their
decision.
—Why do you recommend the difficult path? —asked Lorena, who until that
moment had been silent studying the strange personality of that guy.
"I know you are looking for something, beautiful woman with sparkling and
adorable shapes, something material and very valuable, but also very dangerous,"
the witcher answered, opening his eyes wide. Rather than searching for something,
he desperately wants to get rid of the search.
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»The two paths that I propose lead to the same place… —Ziripot raised the tone of
his voice an octave and raised the index finger of his left hand—. But if you choose
the easy path, your plans will fail because someone, who should not know, will
know that you are here and therefore you will not be able to carry out your
aspirations.
"Okay," Grieg said, seeking approval from Lorena, who nodded slightly. Tell us
the second way.
Ziripot smiled as a dissipated English lord would have done spying through a
keyhole at the voluptuous body of a half-naked maiden on a soft velvet sofa.
Grieg sensed, as they entered the mountain, that they were heading to an area
near the Rubio i Tudurí gardens, which belong to the architectural complex of the
Greek Theater. He knew it for sure when he realized that they were near the old
plant labyrinth, which was built in the early seventies but was never opened to the
public. That night it appeared, as they approached it, like a ghostly, dark
construction.
The forgotten labyrinth was now only a ruined framework of wire mesh, almost
completely hidden by vegetation, which for decades had been growing wildly
between straight and rickety sections that led to a small central square. After decades
of abandonment, the labyrinth housed nothing more than a set of broken slabs
covered in verdigris; and he had been dispossessed of his most precious asset: a large
stone minotaur that was in the center, with which years ago someone fell in love and
made it disappear.
Ziripot of Lanz walked with a brisk step, and hummed old dirges related to secret
covens, curses and grimoires:
—Marta, Marta, the devil and not the saint... and lame devil, bring me Zutano on
the flight...
In just a minute they arrived at the doors of the old maze. The two metal doors at
the entrance were ajar, and orange flashes emerged from the labyrinth in a spectral
manner, which undoubtedly came from a bonfire in the center of the garden.
"This is the place I told you about," the witcher murmured as he entered the room.
In here they are celebrating a coven, but do not fear because the route I will trace
does not at any time pass through the center of the labyrinth, which is where they are
located. They are nothing more than mere fans.
The sections of the labyrinth were straight and in some parts it was very difficult
to navigate inside, because the branches of the cypress trees, enclosed between
rectangular blocks of wire mesh, had exceeded their limits and were expanding in all
possible directions. The strange guide moved through the interior of the labyrinth
with ease, and when he reached the end of some sections, he raised the wire mesh
and invited Lorena and Grieg to pass through some open gaps in the vegetation.
Instead of following the deceptive path suggested by the labyrinth, man had created
his own, bypassing the laws that prevailed in that place.
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Coming from the central square, you could hear some serious chants, which a
group was emitting around a large bonfire, and the high-pitched voice of a woman
who recited by heart:
—…in this hour of Uranus and showing the brass medals on which the marks of
Elohim are engraved with fire…, I assure you that whoever I will wear hanging
around my neck for a year…
Finally, the witcher stopped next to two thick stalks at the end of one of the
longest sections of the labyrinth. He broke a small wire that he himself had placed
there, lifted the wire mesh and like an usher in the stalls of a theater, pointed to the
place they were looking for. He raised his right hand, palm up, requesting the
previously agreed upon payment from his client.
Grieg entered the opening that the witcher showed him and saw a huge hole in
the mountain, as if it were the crater of a gigantic volcano, from which a great
amount of light emerged. That reminded him of the ancient and mythical
illustrations that tried to represent hell. Lorraine, bewitched by the vision, could not
contain herself: she left the labyrinth and stopped to wait for Grieg while continuing
to observe, fascinated, the spectacle before her eyes.
Faced with that crater of light that seemed to come from the center of the Earth,
Grieg could not help but think of the modernist jewel that the old man had shown
him in the Lyceum Circle, in which Charon and Eligos appeared crossing the Styx
towards hell.
The wiry sorcerer continued, histrionically and without moving a muscle, with his
right hand turned upward. When Grieg noticed the velvety feel of the pouch he was
taking out of his bag, he felt a mystery in that man's eyes that he had not noticed
before. At that moment, Grieg seemed to notice an abyss of shadows in that gaze.
And the witcher seemed to sense it.
Grieg held out the small pouch to him and saw that the man had five-pointed stars
tattooed on his hand, on each of his knuckles. They were pentacles with their beaks
pointing downwards.
The witcher untied the bag and checked that none of the objects they had agreed
upon were missing. He opened the small silver knife and ran it over the veins in his
left arm. Then he shook the inkwell that contained the infamous grimoire, and
smiled, satisfied, when he saw the goat skin.
He was convinced that he had made an extraordinary deal. Now he had to coldly
calculate how to get the most out of it.
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27
As they crossed the shadowed Forestier gardens, which are located next to the
abandoned labyrinth, Grieg and Lorena were able to see that the large hole that they
had seen from the gap to which the witcher had led them was increasing in size until
it acquired the dimensions of a gigantic cave located outdoors, or the crater of a
volcano. A trembling orange light continued to emerge from its interior.
Stone stairs, glistening with the rain, emerged from the edge of that chasm and
entered the earth beyond the angle of vision they had at that moment.
There were many legends that speculated about the origin of that large hole,
which the first settlers of ancient Barcino already had the opportunity to discover
and which, bewildered by its size and strange location, they named in a sinister way:
"El forat del diable". .» "The devil's hole."
Tradition said that that enormous chasm had been caused by the devil himself in
an outburst of anger and envy at the love that, during the Middle Ages, the people of
Barcelona showed towards Santa Madrona. That night of the dead, however, the
chasm was crowded with demon worshipers; and it was disturbingly reminiscent of
the abyss that Dante imagined, when placing the hell of his Divine Comedy at the end
of an amphitheater with a stepped path that, little by little, sank darkly into the
depths of the Earth.
Lorraine and Grieg reached the edge of that stepped cave and could see inside
hundreds of witches, magicians, sorcerers, seers, tricksters, miracle workers,
alchemists' apprentices, soothsayers, prognosticators, augurs, palmists... They
walked like tightrope walkers along its steps of stone, or they formed rings around
hundreds of candles with ethereal lights that were reflected on a huge stone wall at
the base of the amphitheater.
Most of those necromancers were dressed in wide robes in which striking golden
tones could be seen. Many of them hid their faces behind dark masks that gave them
a menacing appearance. Others, however, instead of showing a somber appearance
while performing their strange ceremonies, paradoxically accompanied their
movements with cheerful smiles.
All of them had gathered in that deep chasm open in the bowels of the Earth,
which had most likely been formed by a very ancient quarry, where the Greek
Theater is today.
It is an open-air style amphitheater that was built in 1929 for the World's Fair. It
has a shape very similar to that of Epidaurus in classical Greece. Its hemicycle, made
up of stone and steep steps, has a capacity capable of holding thousands of people,
but it remains closed for most of the year except for the summer.
104
That night, like so many others in a long tradition of more or less clandestine
Sabbath meetings depending on the time, served as a shelter for several hundred
witches coming from very different places to carry out their evil practices.
—Without a doubt, this is the rite that hid the anagram of the second coin. "It's
eighteen minutes past five and we're very short of time," Grieg indicated, and sat
down in one of the seats furthest from the amphitheater stage.
Lorena looked at the witches, with the logical concern of not knowing which of
those people would be related to the coin that had been hidden in the Vulcan
Workshops decades ago.
-Devils! -he exclaimed-. There are enough witches in here to stir all of Pedro
Botero's cauldrons for an eternity!
—Very clever! "But the night is already diabolical enough without thinking about
the cauldrons of hell," Grieg replied, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye.
-Where do we start? —she asked.
"Anywhere, as long as we move discreetly and without raising suspicions," Grieg
proposed, looking at the stage illuminated with dozens of large candles. When you
are climbing a mountain and hesitate between several routes to continue the ascent,
it is best to relax, clear your mind and opt for the one that seems most accessible.
—And what is the most accessible route now?
—I don't know yet, but you'll see how something will occur to us...
Grieg stood up and began to walk along one of the stone steps. Under the light
rain, dozens of Halloween pumpkins glowed in the darkness in an ethereal way,
giving the place magical connotations. Lorena was surprised when she saw that
Grieg was heading towards a woman of over seventy years old who was under some
trees at the top of the amphitheater. She was dressed in a black suit that she
protected with a striped apron and had her gray hair tied up in a bun.
The woman was slowly stirring with a wooden fork a liquid that burned in bluish
tones inside a small clay pot.
"We could both use something warm," Grieg said.
-No, thanks.
—Don't you drink alcohol? You see that the drink this lady sells is called “hell
water” and you undoubtedly know that fire burns everything,” Grieg joked.
“I remind you that there are twenty-five minutes until the end of the “rite”,”
Lorena urged him, showing signs of growing concern. Now is not the time to talk to
old ladies about pomace.
—This lady is as valid to start the investigations as anyone else.
Lorena searched in one of her pockets and took out the first coin that had started
her adventure. He threw it forcefully into the air.
"It's tails," he said. The coin has proven me right and I prefer not to waste my time
with the lady of the queimadas. Keep it. The ritual is about to end, we barely have
half an hour. I'm going to see what's cooking in this oven. Follow your intuition and I
will follow mine. We'll see you in ten minutes.
105
Gabriel Grieg watched Lorena as she walked away in the direction of the witches,
and then approached the place where that aromatic burn was burning. The lady
seemed very concentrated while she put all her effort into finding the exact point of
the potion, and it seemed as if her life depended on it. Although so far it had not
attracted any buyers, except for that tall individual wearing a black leather jacket and
a bag slung over his shoulder.
When the woman saw Grieg stopping in front of the kettle placed next to a tray on
which six small, shiny clay jugs rested, she attended him with the most cordial of her
smiles.
"I hope this is a good night for you," he said, smiling. Unfortunately, for my small
queimadas business, this All Saints' night, although very humid, is too soft.
"Yes," Grieg answered. The truth is that it is not cold yet.
—In the sixties it was cold! —exclaimed the lady as she continued stirring the
liquid in the cauldron—. And not just anyone tells you that. This is what the one who
had the best chestnut stand in the city tells you, right on Marqués del Duero Avenue,
the one who was the envy of all the chestnut farmers in Barcelona. —The woman
couldn't stop her face from lighting up—. You should have seen the stand smoking
like a big steamship in 1962, the year the big snow fell, and how people were
carrying away hot chestnuts that had just been roasted.
"I assure you, I would have loved to buy you a big paper cone full of hot
chestnuts," Grieg said, smiling. Although, to tell the truth, he's not bad at stirring the
cauldron either.
-Bah! You have to face the adversities of life no matter what. "One has to adapt,
just like chameleons do in the jungle, to the new times," exclaimed the old chestnut
tree. Before, what reigned were processions and novenas. You know, a lot of priests
and a lot of mass. And now what prevails is the opposite. In this country we always
go from extreme to extreme. See if I have adapted to this thing about demons, since
since I lost the chestnut stand I have learned, by dint of coming here for so many
years, the verbiage of the occult arts.
The lady handed him a small silver tray on which several cardboard cards rested.
Grieg took one of those cards and couldn't help but smile tenderly after reading its
contents.
SECRET FORMULA.
INGREDIENTS AND PREPARATION
OF THE LEGENDARY SPIRIT
THE MOUNTAIN OF AVERNO.
“I am truly interested in testing your infernal creation,” Grieg said

conspiratorially.
“Delighted,” replied the lady as she placed a hazelnut wood saucepan into the
burning liquid and took one of the shiny clay jugs. Before I was a chestnut tree and
106
now I look like an evil witch who offers secret potions in exchange for some coins. At
least, so far I haven't taken to selling poisoned apples.
A stream of firewater entered the small container.
Grieg, after letting it cool for a moment, took a drink of the potion. It had a very
sweet, slightly spicy flavor, with hints of cinnamon and red pepper.
—It's really comforting and very sweet... What is it made of?
"It's a secret formula," she answered, raising her eyebrows high. You already
know that you have to go with the times! And demons really like everything that is
secret, and the more secret, the better. That's why I can't tell you.
Grieg laughed again, appreciating the woman's great sense of humor, who spoke
with a strong Galician accent.
"Tell me something," Grieg asked. Who told you that witches gathered here
during All Saints' night?
The old woman smiled sadly and raised her eyes towards the gray sky; then he
lost his gaze at some illuminated point in the amphitheater.
"I was hoping you would ask me that question, young man." There are many who
have asked me this question over the years, and have laughed in my face when I
have answered. That's why I don't really like talking about it.
"That does seem like a big secret, and not the one about the potion," Grieg joked,
trying to seek the woman's complicity. Don't be afraid. Tell me what reason made
you come to this place for the first time on All Saints' Eve and then continue coming
every year afterward.
The old Parallel chestnut tree stopped stirring the liquid and uttered some strange
words:
—It's a terrible story, related to the legend that we were all told as children... The
one that claims that at the foot of the rainbow there is a huge cauldron full of gold
coins.
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28
Lorena put on her black witch's clothes for the third time that night with the
intention of going as unnoticed as possible among that crowd of acolytes. He walked
with a slow step, with his face half hidden in his hood, along the shiny and humid
central aisle that separates the steps of the amphitheater of the Greek Theater into
two.
The chasm continued to be illuminated with the diffuse light of the lit candles, on
the stands and the stage. A dense atmosphere floated in the air, like a faint mist that
smelled of floral perfumes, incense, incense, sandalwood and musk, aromas that
intermingled with other unrecognizable fragrances and balm vapors.
Lorena analyzed those witches trying to guess which of them could provide her
with the information she was looking for. Finally he stopped in front of a burly-
looking, middle-aged man. He was dressed in the clothes of a 19th century dandy
and held in his right hand, covered by a yellow glove, a volume of Dante Alighieri's
Divine Comedy .
He had the volume open in the part of hell, and he recited with his eyes blank the
verses belonging to Canto III, before many people hidden with masks. The actor
repeated the same verses over and over again, as if they were a litany, just as they
emerged from the pen of the eminent poet: "Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' intrate...
lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch' intrate..." « Lose all hope once you cross this threshold…!
The man opened his arms and, looking towards his audience, continued reciting
verses.
I saw these words of ominous meaning inscribed on a gate.

I proclaimed: "Master, its meaning is dark."
And he responded as a person who was intuitive:
"It is advisable to leave fear before entering because in there cowardice is
unreasonable..."
Lorena went to an area of the theater hidden in the shadows and after connecting
her mobile phone, she dialed a phone number several times. The number
communicated... Certainly, that night someone had betrayed her.
This was the person who had given her the address of Colón's skyscraper, the key
to enter the apartment and the place where she would find the first coin that would
lead her to the jewel she was looking for. He had discovered that the coin was not a
trinket and that it hid some keys, thanks to the unexpected help of Gabriel Grieg.
Lorena saw how he continued to chat kindly with the lady of the queimadas.
108
«I would like to know what role Grieg plays in this whole matter. Could the same
person who made me go to the Colón skyscraper make an appointment with me? —
Lorena asked herself, worried. I must find out what drives him, like me, to move at
the limits of his own possibilities. Where did he get all those diabolical objects and
books related to the holy office? Because it is evident that he does not know this
world..."
Lorena felt that all those questions were impossible to answer without events
beginning to accelerate. And I knew that would happen soon.
Then some musical chords reached her ears that made her shudder, as she
recognized perfectly what it was.
It was the music that Christopher Komeda created for Roman Polanski's film The
Devil's Seed , which played on a DVD player. Lorena immediately remembered the
scene that seemed to her to be the most subtly terrifying in the history of cinema, the
one in which Rosemary's husband is obscenely seduced by the enigmatic neighbors
Roman and Minnie so that he lends himself to their evil plans. In the film, the man
sells himself to achieve his long-awaited success as an actor, even knowing that in
doing so he will betray his own wife in an abominable way.
Lorena was worried that the phone she had called was busy. That fact could only
be interpreted in one way, and that was very unfavorable to their interests. Finally he
disconnected his cell phone. He put it in his bag and headed back toward Grieg
through the dark steps. He was the only one who could get her out of the quagmire
in which she was trapped.
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29
Gabriel Grieg drained the spicy potion in one gulp and continued talking to the
woman, who had stopped stirring the liquid in the cauldron.
—Tell me something..., what is the secret that even seems to take away your sense
of humor?
—Something that I could never have imagined before our chestnut stand in
Marqués del Duero, which operated all year round, selling top-class and seasonal
products, was devastated by my late husband's damned love for gambling.
—Excuse me..., but what does your late husband's love of gambling have to do
with that secret?
"The problems I brought home, a beautiful little apartment we had on Bruniquer
de Gracia Street, were increasing," the woman responded, absorbed in the flames of
the cauldron. He thought I didn't notice, but I knew I put my hand too much in the
box at the chestnut stand. At first, I turned a blind eye because the armholes were
small, but things grew...
The woman paused before continuing:
—One night, in one of the secret timbas that were organized in a place next to the
Moritz brewery, the Ronda one, my husband got into a very ugly matter. And I tell
you, I have always been very honest and I have had to live very close to evil and
vice...
—I'll buy you a little drink, so that later you don't say that I don't spend money...
—Grieg smiled—. And while he takes it, maybe I'll accompany him with another
one. Could you tell me what shady business your husband got into?
—It took me years to find out... Apparently, after several nights of good cards, my
husband managed to raise enough money to be allowed into a clandestine
establishment that was near the San Antonio market...
"Yes, on Floridablanca Street," Grieg pointed out. There, at the end of the sixties
and beginning of the seventies, timbas were organized where really big bets were
made.
"And so strong," she immediately replied. In less than five minutes my husband
lost all the money.
—It doesn't seem that serious either, does it?
—Take it away, take it away! Of course it was serious, because at that table he met
a puppet who poisoned his brain to such an extent that he forgot about the card habit
forever...
"I still don't see the connection," Grieg insisted, trying to provoke his words.
110
—My husband forgot about the letters... to get up to his neck in something much
worse... So much so that from then on our lives began to drift.
-What happened? —Grieg felt a chill.
—For several weeks, that bad man stayed with my husband in a very large and
very strange building that has many columns on the outside, and I think it was on
Bailén Street...
"And it's still there... I know the place well," Grieg helped him. This is the old
Masriera Arts Workshop.
—Yes, I think they were jewelers or something like that.
—One of the best in the world. "They made wonderful modernist jewelry," said
Grieg after inviting her, with a gesture, to drink another jug of her own "hell water,"
which she gladly accepted.
—Well, as I said, after returning from that strange building that is scary just to see
it from the street, my husband told me in the morning the stories, increasingly
macabre, that that goat told him.
—What kind of stories?
—I'm not very good at explaining these things because I don't understand, but I
remember that they were some very terrible stories where a priest killed to get some
demonized books... —Grieg shuddered when he realized what he suspected
—...where a sorcerer had invented the gold making machine…
The woman didn't seem to find the words.
—Yes, alchemical gold.
-That is! The fact is that my husband believed all those lies about the machine that
made gold. —He looked up from the cauldron and fixed his gaze on the stranger in
front of him—. My husband even agreed to help that bandit find the gold making
machine. Make gold! You have to be sick in the head!
—And why don't you think he was right? Perhaps her husband was on the trail of
some real events.
-"Real facts"? None of that... My husband got into a big mess and after many years
of research, as he said, and spending the little money we had on books and
hardware, the only thing he came up with was the famous chemical gold or as
Whatever his name was, they locked him up in the San Baudilio de Llobregat
asylum, and left me, as he sees me, at the end of the street.
—What if I showed you that your husband was not crazy, and that he was really
pursuing something that had a head and a head?
The old chestnut tree remained motionless like a pillar of salt that could only
move its lips.
—Don't make me angry, “raptor”…!
—Would things change? —Grieg insisted, sensing that from that seemingly crazy
conversation he could get the keys that would help him that night.
—Of course they would change! Then I would have to admit that I was the wrong
one. And right now, since it is November 1st, All Saints' Day, I should go to the
Montjuic cemetery, just as I go every year, but instead of bringing a lilac fabric
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chrysanthemum, I would have to prostrate myself before my husband's grave. to
apologize for the number of times I told him he was crazy. Crazy as a goat. But that's
not going to happen, because you're not going to prove anything to me.
"Okay ma'am, forgive me if I have made you relive painful memories, I didn't
mean to..." Grieg strategically excused himself, and took out his wallet with the
intention of paying.
-Wait a moment!
The woman searched in her purse, from which she took out a type of manuscript
that was folded and placed in a transparent plastic sleeve.
Gabriel Grieg thought he recognized the origin of that document. The woman
extended her hand with the intention of showing him the writing, but Grieg
prevented her from removing it completely from the sheath.
—Her husband told her that he was desperately seeking to clarify a mystery
locked inside some objects, because he had signed some kind of secret contract. It is
not like this?
The lady approached Grieg, and looked into his eyes in a way with which she had
hardly looked at anyone during the course of her long life.
—How do you know that? —he asked with a lump in his throat.
—You must make an effort if you want to clarify, once and for all, this matter that
seems to bother you so much. You have to be brave and tell me if there was anything
else. Even if it seems like a difficult topic to you. What kind of contract had he signed
and with whom?
"It's crazy..." the woman resisted, shaking her head. If I tell you, you'll think I'm
completely crazy, just like I told my poor...
—Tell me.
—My husband, years ago, and shortly before he died, told me that he had signed
this contract… —The woman crossed herself and lowered her head as if she were
unable to continue speaking—… With the devil.
—Is the writing you are holding in your hand the contract that your husband
signed? Grieg asked determinedly.
-Yeah
-Good. Take the document out of the case and tell me if the signature looks like
this.
Grieg took a pine branch from the ground and drew some lines on the clay. The
woman's eyes widened as she compared the signature Grieg had drawn on the floor
with the one on the document.
Seized by a sudden suffocation, he looked strangely at Grieg and then went to the
kettle and refilled one of those little jugs with "hell water."
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"You're a curious guy, and I've told you things I never thought I'd tell anyone..."
The woman took a small sip. I do not know what to think.
Grieg approached her and took two shiny coins from his pants pocket. Upon
seeing them, the woman felt how many memories were turning against her, and she
suspected that some things she had taken for granted all her life, perhaps were not so
certain.
Then the woman slowly raised her hands to her neck and took off a large golden
necklace that she had hanging behind the breastplate of her apron.
Grieg saw with amazement that the necklace was made from the complete
collection of the thirteen gold-plated votive coins. And among them were two exactly
the same as the ones that had led them there.
—It's a beautiful necklace.
"Made with trinkets bathed in a sea of tears..." the lady responded with her head
lowered. “Years of research, as my husband said, thrown over the side of the ship,
shortly before reaching the port of our old age,” she added sadly.
—Antonio Machado said that it is foolish…
—… confuse value and price. I do know those verses, because my mother, may
she rest in peace, repeated them very often.
—Like the Frog card game, you don't fit with any other card in the deck. In this
place and tonight, his presence is strange. There must be a very powerful reason for
you to come here every year, every All Saints' night, to sell your secret formula to
witches.
The lady laughed bitterly.
-I will tell. But first I will tell you a secret related to the Greek Theater. You and I
will give each other a big hug, and you will accept a gift from me.
-Take. —The lady handed him the necklace with the golden coins, and then she
took a worn-out photograph out of her purse and handed it to him. Do you want to
know why I keep coming here every year?
"Yes," Grieg answered with the necklace in his hand.
—Because I would like to know what happened to the guy who is next to my
husband, the same one who brought about his ruin.
Grieg, even before seeing the photograph, sensed the identity of one of the two
men reflected in it, and could even smell the unmistakable aroma of Havana cigars.
—Behind the recipe where the ingredients of the secret formula of the “mountain
of hell” are listed, you will find my telephone number and the address of my humble
pension.
Grieg delicately took the small sealed envelope.
"Keep the photo and the coins," the lady said, convinced. I want you to find out if
the guy next to my husband is still alive, or if he's resting under two meters of dirt. I
know that you will find it and I am also sure that we will see each other again one
day.
Gabriel Grieg looked at the photograph, searching for the flickering light of the
candles. He thought that it would cost him nothing to commit to that woman who
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hugged him excitedly and with teary eyes. What she asked of him was exactly the
same as what he himself wanted: to know the identity of the man who appeared in
the photo smoking a large Havana cigar.
The same person who had gotten him into that matter, and whom he planned to
take revenge on as soon as possible.
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30
Lorena, when she returned to the upper part of the amphitheater where she had
separated from Grieg barely a quarter of an hour ago, realized that he was no longer
at the queimadas stand. After inspecting the area for a while, he spotted it about
thirty meters away. He seemed to be studying a large quadrangular rock. When he
reached his height, he confirmed that Grieg was observing a square about fifty
centimeters on a side, which in turn had another twenty-five smaller squares inside
that were chiseled into the rock.
—May I know what you are looking for, Gabriel? —Lorena asked, raising her
eyebrows.
"The map that leads us to the third coin is hidden in this stone," Grieg clarified.
-How do you know?
—That's not important now. Let's say it was told to me by one of the hundreds of
elves that swarm around here tonight. The important thing is that we have very little
time to find out.
—And what is that supposed to be? —Lorena asked, shining her flashlight on the
stone.
"It is a stone reproduction of a board on which several pieces were placed to play,"
Grieg answered. It is called tabula latruncularia and was used to play latrunculi, an
ancient game similar to tic-tac-toe that was very popular among pilgrims who
walked the Camino de Santiago during the Middle Ages. I seem to remember that
there is a stone very similar to this one in the Ourense cathedral. But what intrigues
me most is the figure of the lion who is sitting on his hindquarters and has a sun in
his mouth.
Hearing that, Lorena's interest increased noticeably.
"The sun symbolizes gold," she indicated, putting all her attention on the stone,
"and it is located in the lion's mouth; which means, according to alchemical
symbolism, that the metal contained in the retort is still in full transformation, on its
way to becoming alchemical gold. Without a doubt, this is the stone we had to find.
Who told you?
—Continue with your analysis, Lorena.
—In the square, in that kind of matrix, there are infinite combinations. The grid is
completely full of arithmetic signs and numbers added later, but no one has ever
been able to decipher it.
"I don't think it's about moving the pieces like in the game of latmnculi, " Grieg
suspected. Nor about assigning a number or a letter of the alphabet to each box. Or
even do mathematical calculations until you find a specific number.
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Grieg commented that the arithmetic operations resulting from assigning a
number to each square could lead to a final number related to one of the nineteen
hundred stone seats in the amphitheater. "Maybe the coin can be found under one of
them, maybe the thirteen or the six hundred and sixty-six," he thought, but quickly
dismissed the idea.
"If we have to guess under which of those seats what we are looking for is
hidden... we will never finish," Lorena said. Who would go to the trouble of
transporting this rock here, and engraving this strange grid on it to play a game with
such a strange name?
Grieg analyzed what was unconscious in the phrase uttered by Lorena and
without saying a word he observed the alchemical lion and the latrucunlaria tabula.
"This rock ashlar is too big for anyone to be able to move it here once the works on
the Greek Theater were finished," he sensed.
He dug a nail hard into the rock and pressed down on its rough, uneven surface.
The nail continued upward until, about two inches from the top, it entered a small
wedge. Grieg slid his fingernail over and saw that the wedge was actually a crack
running parallel to the top of the rock.
“Later, someone added a stone cover,” Grieg guessed, rummaging through his
bag until he found the hammer and the cold cutter. The lion holds a sun that is
identical in size to any of the votive coins.
Lorena looked at him a little startled when she saw that he placed the two tools
close to the rock and in the same position that a sculptor or a stonecutter might do
during the development of their work.
Three accurate blows were enough to discover that under the stone sun there was
a small groove with another of those golden coins.
"Often the simplest is the most difficult," said Grieg, filling the cavity of the rock
with mud that he collected from the ground with the cold cutter. He then gently
replaced the stone sun in the lion's mouth and in the same position it was in
previously.
—What strange motives this coin has…! —Lorena exclaimed while analyzing her
—. Where do you think it will lead us?
"Towards the cauldron full of gold coins that is in the place where the rainbow is
born," Grieg said, and verified that the lady of the queimadas had already left.
Lorena looked away from the coin.
-As you say?
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31
A man of sixty-five years old, with a pale complexion and graying, dirty and
unkempt hair, dressed in a white shirt and light blue pants so wrinkled that it
seemed as if he had slept in them, heard the monotonous and mechanical singing of
a cuckoo that had suddenly emerged from a clock placed on a chipped mirror. The
man was leaning on the worn-out bar of an old bar in the heart of the Sant Gervasi
neighborhood.
—Flamel, it's only six in the morning. How come you land here so soon? —asked
the owner of the establishment, while checking the temperature of the water in the
coffee machine, which was already beginning to smoke.
The man with the messy hair, despite being a regular customer of that
establishment, did not answer and simply looked through the dirty windows of the
bar towards the end of the street. As soon as the waiter served him the coffee, he
began to savor it with very short sips while looking at a small painting that hung on
one of the walls of the bar.
Immediately, mixed with the bitter taste of coffee, many memories of a long life
came to mind, which flashed before his eyes quickly, as if he had been invited to a
private screening of a movie and had fallen asleep in his seat.
When the coffee was tempered, he finished it in one gulp and took a pill with a
little water. He placed a coin on the marble bar, greeted the waiter, and walked out
onto the street again.
It was still night and the narrow street he was walking along was completely
deserted. His intention was to return to the extraordinary and secret place he had
momentarily abandoned. In the silence of the night, the sound of footsteps behind
him made him turn his head. A few seconds later, in the silence of the night, he
thought he heard the powerful roar of an SUV's engine.
Instinctively, he decided to turn right at the first corner, instead of continuing
along the same street, in the direction of the open field to which he was heading. In
the middle of the street he saw a man appear whose silhouette reminded him of an
individual with whom he had had a single, brief encounter some time ago.
"I don't think he's the person I've been waiting for so many years," he thought as
he looked at the thin, bald guy, who was wearing an elegant gray suit with metallic
reflections and sporting yellow-rimmed glasses. He watched as two white Land
Rovers each positioned themselves on a corner of the street.
In a matter of seconds, the man with the graying and messy hair knew that, after a
long time, that night would finally be different from all the others. Although he never
imagined it would be that way.
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"I want you to immediately clarify some issues that were left up in the air the last
time we met," the man in the gray suit threatened in a threatening tone, while he
opened the door of an SUV and invited him to enter.
Flamel noticed that the subject's attitude towards him, being familiar with him and
using a rude tone, was very different from the one he had shown the first time they
met.
"I'm not going anywhere," he replied.
The man in the gray suit grimaced.
—I still don't know how you did it, but the last time we met you managed to fool
me, you damn son of a bitch, and that has caused me a lot of problems, but this time
you won't fool me again.
"I don't know what you want from me, but whatever it is, and whatever you do,
you won't get me to tell you anything," the man with the messy hair said, and
automatically three tall, burly men emerged from the two Land Rovers at the same
time. .
—Of course you'll tell me! —exclaimed the man in the gray suit, as he dropped the
thirteen votive coins that made up the essential path over his head, in a kind of
macabre baptism.
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32
After crossing the Forestier gardens, Grieg and Lorena headed to the place where
the motorcycle was parked. They had chosen to return to the Font del Gat by the
same path that Ziripot de Lanz had shown them, instead of descending the large
stone stairs, and thus fleeing furtive glances.
As they crossed the gardens, Lorena looked again and again at the votive coin that
Grieg had discovered in the stone. Both sides of the coin showed strange patterns. On
the back you could see a large tree emerging from what seemed to be the remains of
an old hermitage, and under it you could read some enigmatic words in Catalan:
"L'olivera rodona." «The olive tree with a round crown.» On the obverse he had
engraved a large pantheon with half-closed doors and a phrase that completely
enveloped it:
TUMULUS MORTEM COEMENTERIUM SANCTI GERVASII
Lorena looked at the sky and realized, relieved, that there was still almost half an
hour before dawn. Then he stood alongside Grieg, who was walking very
thoughtfully, and said:
—I don't know what this coin refers to. —He threw it in the air several times—. I
still find it more enigmatic than the others.
"Houston, we have a problem," Grieg joked, as he opened the wire mesh to make
it easier for Lorena to enter the maze. I know what the coin refers to, but it worries
me that it is a story that very few should have access to. I wonder who the person is
behind all this. It is too difficult for anyone who does not know in depth the ins and
outs of Barcelona.
—That's not a problem because I'm lucky enough to have someone with me who
really knows her, right, Gabriel? —she exclaimed, and breathed in the intense
perfume of cypress leaves—. Furthermore, between you and me we can solve any
anagram, no matter how complicated it may be.
—That's precisely what I mean. That coin you carry in your hand has a direct
message, but so cryptic that there are very few who could decipher it.
—Are you among that small group?
"I don't rule it out," Grieg replied.
-Good news. I sense that we must hurry towards the Sant Gervasi cemetery, and
once there, we will relate the shape of the pantheon with the large tree that seems to
have taken root in the earth.
Grieg glanced briefly into her eyes.
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—I fear it is too late... Very soon it will dawn and the night of the dead will be
over, and with it the possibility of finding the person we are looking for.
"Don't let yourself be overcome by pessimism, Gabriel," said Lorena. Taking
advantage of the fact that the streets are still empty, with the motorcycle we can be
there in ten minutes, fifteen at most. I know the Sant Gervasi cemetery because I have
visited it several times and I am able to move around it without a guide. With the
motorcycle and taking the Ronda de Dalt… In any case, the problem will be getting
in, because the cemetery does not open until…
"You haven't understood the nature of the problem," Grieg interrupted. We are not
going to go to the Sant Gervasi cemetery.
-Why not? she asked, showing him the coin. Here it is clearly seen that it is a
mound, which is located next to a large olive tree rooted in the Sant Gervasi
cemetery.
—None of that, Lorena. It does not say that it is the Sant Gervasi cemetery. Some
Latin letters are printed that refer to the "tumulus Mortem coementerium Sancti
Gervasii"; that is, a mythical place that tradition places in the old cemetery of Sant
Gervasi.
—I never heard of an old cemetery located in the Sant Gervasi district.
"This is an ancient tradition, half legend, half secret, but it has some traces of
reality," said Grieg. The votive coin refers to that ancient cemetery, which could be
located next to a large olive tree.
—And you don't know where it is?
—I only know vague things about it. Disjointed conversations with some elders
interested in the subject… What intrigues me most is the translation of the tumulus
Mortem.
-What are you talking about? —Lorena asked, approaching him.
—The “M” in Mortem worries me.
Lorena placed her forearms on Grieg's shoulders to catch the light of the embers
and looked at the coin. The first letter of the word Mortem was written in capital
letters, but all the other initials were written in lower case. Which gave a disturbing
meaning to the phrase...
In the silence of the night, broken only by the pleasurable moans of a couple who
had attended the coven in the center of the labyrinth, Grieg gazed into the beautiful
eyes of the woman before him. In them he could see the determined look of a woman
who was willing to do anything to achieve her goals. Even the fact of going to the
place where the third coin led them: the "tumulus Mortem." "The Tomb of Death."
120
33
Grieg and Lorena crossed Plaza Molina under an overcast sky and went up
Balmes Street. The entire city continued to be covered in a thin layer of water.
When Grieg stopped the motorcycle and kindly invited her to get off, Lorena
analyzed the destination with surprise. This was not the cemetery she had imagined
when leaving the Greek Theater.
They were very close to the Padua station, and she could almost guarantee that the
rusty steps in front of her, which were going to end between small puddles on the
sidewalks of Balmes Street, were those of Corinto Street.
"I would like to know what we are doing here, and where we are going," he asked,
observing the stately buildings that surrounded them through the mist; some in an
upward direction, towards the Tibidabo mountain, and others down the street, until
they are absorbed by the tent of yellowish light from the streetlights of Plaza Molina,
still on.
"I can't tell you," Grieg answered, putting the leather bag on his shoulder.
Lorena tried to follow the long strides with which he climbed the stairs that make
up the first section of Corinto Street, next to the statue in honor of the Bruc timpani
player .
"Why can't you tell me where we're going?" —he asked when he reached her
height.
"For a very simple reason," Grieg immediately replied. Because I don't know
either.
Before Lorena's perplexed gaze, Grieg crossed Atenas Street and stopped briefly in
front of the main entrance of the Colegio Mayor Universitario, and then continued
up the steps of the second section of Corinto Street towards the Turó de Monterols,
until a large wall covered with thick vegetation prevented his passage.
As they ascended through that area located in the heart of the Sant Gervasi
neighborhood, the streets through which they walked narrowed, while at the same
time they became populated with old mansions surrounded by lush vegetation,
which descended from the lonely open fields located on the outskirts of the park. of
Monterols, as if it were a thick sallow tide.
When he reached a particularly narrow street, Grieg stopped. After reading a
faded wooden sign, which seemed to have been there since the days when cars ran
on gas, Grieg noticed an old bar with dirty windows. The bar had a marble counter
and six small Formica tables with rusty legs covered in worn and frayed oilcloth.
Several customers were milling around inside, most of them dressed in work
overalls despite it being a holiday. The walls of that old place were completely
121
crammed with old paintings and the most varied objects, which the years, dust,
smoke from stoves and tobacco had been covering with a film of strange texture.
Lorena saw that Grieg opened the door, ready to enter that cave, from which came
the smell of rancid sausage mixed with the smell of cheap cigars.
—You're not going to go in there.
But Grieg was already inside, inviting her into that sordid tavern. And as soon as
she stepped on the threshold, she felt how the gazes of all the bar customers were
mercilessly fixed on her cleavage and the shapes drawn by her tight leotards at the
height of her thighs. Grieg sat at the table in the corner where the haze formed by
cigar smoke was thickest, and Lorena followed him.
—There is too much smoke in this place! —he grumbled.
—Barely nothing, if we compare it with what was released by the inquisitors'
bonfires. Two coffees! Grieg shouted, knowing that the owner would not come to the
table to ask them what they wanted to drink.
—Look at getting me into such a mess! You will pay me for this! —Lorena
exclaimed, tense—. And why do you ask me for a coffee without asking me first?
"The two coffees are for me, and if you had let me finish I would have asked you
what you want to drink," Grieg answered with a sly smile. Anyway... Here you have
the answer to the question of where the smallest and most mysterious cemetery in
Barcelona is, and which on the back of the coin appears as "the tomb of Death."
Lorena observed everything around her with a different look: the walls, the objects
that hung from them, and even the people who were around her at that moment.
The waiter arrived with the two coffees and Grieg drank the first; but he couldn't
do the same with the second because Lorena snatched it from him and began to take
it in very short sips. The walls of the bar were decorated with souvenirs and
postcards from European cities, grubby-looking rag dolls, broken Madelman dolls,
old calendars from the seventies, badges, shields and sports pennants. Lorraine
sighed.
-I give up. I don't know what you mean when you say that here we can find the
clue that leads us to that cemetery, the "tumulus Mortem Sancti Gervasii" of the coin.
Frankly, all this gossip seems like pure junk to me.
"You have it right there..." Grieg got up from the table to talk to the waiter.
Lorena looked strangely at the object that Grieg was pointing with his finger at.
She finished the coffee in one gulp and, without attracting attention, took a small
camera out of her bag. He pressed several buttons, increased the sensitivity and
disabled the flash so that no one would notice that he was going to store that
enigmatic object in his camera.
122
34
When Grieg and Lorena left the old bar, the streets of the Sant Gervasi
neighborhood were already beginning to light up with that strange clarity that
radiates the light of early morning, much more subtle and beautiful than that of an
eclipse, and that goes unnoticed every day by most people.
Lorena carefully followed Grieg's movements, who seemed to be heading to a
known place, although his constant turns of the head revealed certain difficulties in
finding him. After traveling about two hundred meters, he finally stopped in front of
an open field full of garbage and construction debris scattered on the ground. The
land was delimited by some semi-ruined walls of what appeared to be the remains of
an old church from the mid-18th century.
Grieg pushed aside a wire mesh with his hand and entered the room.
"Be very careful," he warned Lorena. In these places there are broken glass,
syringes, rusty nails and other nice things like that.
Seeking clarity, Grieg turned on the flashlight and began to examine the terrain.
—Can we know where we are, Mr. Architect? —Lorena asked after having taken a
reconnaissance tour of that improvised landfill.
—We are on land where oral tradition placed a large, centuries-old and
miraculous olive tree, with a huge and very round, almost spherical, crown. In a type
of legend very similar to the one that existed in the Plaza de Sant Felip Neri in front
of the oratory and that in the Plaza del Pi,” Grieg explained. In this place a church
was built, barely larger than a hermitage, which the locals remember with the second
name of "capella de la bona mort", "chapel of the good death".
—Apparently, you already knew the story.
—It is not an unknown topic, but forgotten. We are on the site and the foundations
of that old church, and if the little I know about the subject is true, this is the place
that the legend glosses...
—Without a doubt, it is related to the object you pointed out to me at the bar.
-Yeah. This is the place where the smallest cemetery in Barcelona is supposedly
located. They say that it is so small that the one in Sarria and the one in Les Corts,
which are tiny, seem like large necropolises compared to the one I'm talking about.
—I never heard it mentioned.
"There is little information about it, but I think this is the place," Grieg said. And
we are forced to clarify it in record time, if we want to achieve our objective before
the sun's rays end All Saints' night.
"In a hurry... As if we were two vampires and we were looking for a pair of
velvety coffins to shelter us from the light of day..." Lorena added, hugging Grieg
123
from behind, and provocatively showing him her white fangs over her shoulder.
And the solution, again, is found in one of these little coins.
Lorena tossed the coin into the air and Grieg caught it deftly with his hand.
-Let's see. The person who minted the coin assumed that on this land was the
chapel of the good death, which on the obverse appears as "tumulus Mortem Sancti
Geruasii", with the figure of the large olive tree with a rounded crown...
Before Grieg finished his sentence, Lorena took out the camera and enlarged the
photo she had taken in the bar to see the details more clearly. In the image you could
see a carved wooden board on which a gigantic olive tree appeared compared to the
construction from which it arose, and on which were some words written in Catalan:
"l'olivera rodona."
"On the board that was hanging in the bar you can also read a phrase in Latin," she
said, handing him the camera with the text already enlarged.
IN THE TERMINATION OF MONTEROLOS

PROPE
ECCLESSIAM SANCTIGERVASII
"Wood carving is very common," said Grieg, "and there are many similar ones in
this neighborhood." The painting echoes the large olive tree that was on the
Monterols hill, very close to a church of Sant Gervasi.
—That is, the place we are stepping on now.
"Exactly," Grieg confirmed. The question lies in the term prope, which as you know
in Latin means "near." How close? —he asked himself rhetorically—. If you come up
with the answer, Lorena, let me know.
—We only have this help. —Lorena handed him the coin, which Grieg looked at
disdainfully.
—The information it gives us is very little. Although…
"Whatever it is... say it, vampire," Lorena urged him, showing him her white
incisors again. It's almost daylight.
—During the Middle Ages, almost all churches, if not all, had their own cemetery.
Later, and for health reasons that are not relevant now, starting in the 19th century
this practice was prohibited. At the entrance to each of the churches, parishioners
were made aware, by means of a stone slab located on the floor of the atrium, of the
possibility of being buried there.
—And what was sculpted on that slab?
—The etymology, the mentions, the variants… The situation of the cemetery…
Lorena snatched the coin from his hands and quickly headed towards where the
metal fence was located. There he began to search through the rubble.
—On the coin it is clearly seen that the façade of the church had two pointed
arches. Therefore, if this is the place we are looking for, on the site we should find the
base of four pilasters. Don't you think so, Gabriel?
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Without wasting a second, the two began searching the lot and it didn't take them
long to confirm the information. Lorena was the first to detect a text that stood out
among the remains of reddish bricks.
—Here it says “Anno domine MDCC…”.
Grieg immediately lifted a large clump formed by rubble from a construction site,
revealing a stone slab covered in a whitish-red powder.
After hitting the inscription with an old newspaper, a text deeply engraved in the
stone appeared.
IN TERRIT:: BARC::NONE:P::: OLIVARIAM

ROTUND:M, PROPE MONTEROLS
coemen::::
ANNO DOMINE MDCC::::
After a careful reading, Lorena looked at Grieg with a smile that showed
impatience and concern.
—We are as before! —she exclaimed, disappointed—. Here it only says again that
it is close... but close could be down here, in the foundations, in the house next door...
we are in the same thing.
"Maybe you're wrong..." Grieg said with the flashlight in her hand, after blowing
hard on the slab. Some letters are missing from the words, which appear to have
been intentionally erased with a chisel. I think the original text was «In territory
barchinone ipsam olivariam rotundam, prope monterols. Coementerium occultum. Anno
domine MDCC…”, which means…
—It literally means: «In Barcelona there is the hidden cemetery near the circular-
topped olive tree of Monterols. Year of our Lord MDCC…” —said Lorena, and then
she stared at Grieg.
—Without realizing it, you have made the same mistake that surely many others
made before you…
"Instruct me, Mr. Champollion..." she said, crossing her arms.
—You have assumed that the demonstrative ipsam was carved between the terms
Barchinone and olivariam , but I fear that is not the case. Grieg pointed with his finger
at the remains of the word. Only a "P" can be read here and I am willing to bet you a
strong double coffee because an adverb appeared there.
"Of place," she sensed immediately.
-You're doing well.
—Post, which means…
They both turned their heads towards the back of the field, where a large wall
appeared that was almost completely hidden by vegetation. They turned off the
flashlights, which were now useless, and approached the wall to which their
deductions had led. Leafy bougainvillea completely covered that wall, as if it were a
small, greenish waterfall that added a touch of nature and order to that chaos of
rubble.
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"If we are right, behind those climbing bushes full of thorns, there should be the
entrance that gives access to the cemetery," Lorena pointed out.
Grieg saw that a pile of bougainvillea bracts were piled up on the ground, already
very dry, but much farther from the wall than the rest. He searched the ground and
soon found an elongated wooden strip, which he inserted into a hole in the wall as a
lever to separate part of the bougainvillea, as if it were a large curtain.
Without a doubt, the piece of wall that was visible belonged to the back of the only
nave of the ancient temple; what was once the back of the altar, and where you could
still see remains of sgraffito, pieces of tribunes and embedded remains of the old
carpentry, already in a state of putrefaction. It was Lorena who glimpsed a thick and
robust oak gate half hidden by thorny vines. It was clad in three panels and had the
typical hardware with which 19th century blacksmiths handcrafted their work, and
which as a whole showed a very acceptable state of conservation, given the
devastated place in which it was located.
Protruding from the gate was a small stone slab that had a drawing sculpted on its
surface that filled Lorena with optimism, since it was very common to find in most
cemeteries. It was an hourglass from which two large dove wings protruded. Below
the allegorical drawing were two short but mythical words.
TEMPUS FUGIT
"Time flies."
Grieg also saw a sign nailed to the wood of the gate.
NO TRESPASSING
PRIVATE PROPERTY
Lib. Antiquit. D.B. Vol. II, fol. 29, document 85
Two rusty rings, intended for a padlock to pass through, were empty, and after
lightly pressing, the door gave way easily. When the gate was ajar, Grieg and Lorena
wondered if this place was the "tumulus Mortem coementerium Sancti Gervasii." "The
Tomb of Death."
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It was not necessary to open the oak door completely for Lorena and Grieg to
sense with relief that this was the hidden cemetery they were looking for.
Before them appeared an elongated staircase, built with amalgamated river
boulders, and which was beginning to be illuminated by the first rays of morning
sun. The staircase rose from a small patio made entirely of shiny white marble slabs,
to the sculpture of a large stone cypress that marked the limit of the small cemetery.
The steps, in sections of ten at a time, formed five spacious landings protected by a
wide, solid railing. At the end of that stone mass was the most jealous protector of
that small cemetery: a gigantic and steep wall of living rock.
On the left side of the staircase were lined up half a dozen monumental semi-
detached pantheons, so splendid that they seemed to be the regal portals of some
Corinthian-style mansions. At the sight of that surprising necropolis, and after a
while in complete silence, Lorena took a step forward and could not suppress a deep
sigh:
—Memento mori!
"Don't forget that sooner or later you will die too," that was the sentence that a
slave in ancient Rome repeated, over and over again, to the victorious general when
he was triumphantly received by the crowd after a great victory, so that he would
not forget. that, after all, he was just a man of flesh and blood.
"I never imagined this place could be found here," thought Grieg, surprised by the
cold beauty of that small cemetery, as he secured the gate with a thick steel bar.
Lorena contemplated one of those neo-Gothic style hypogeums, and thought
about who could be the lucky ones who had had the privilege of having that be their
eternal home.
This was not a conventional cemetery. A first peculiarity stood out powerfully: all
the doors of the pantheons were open.
Grieg and Lorena carefully observed the first mausoleum. Its windows, behind
thick artistically wrought iron bars, were completely shiny, as if they had just been
cleaned; and polished bronze knobs reflected the first rays of the morning with
golden sparkles. The façade boasted a profusion of ornamental details, which filled
the entire wall up to the top, where a large marble angel stood out with open arms.
Upon entering the pantheon they saw three tombs made of Carrara marble and
shaped like an ark. They were placed one on top of the other, sculpted with floral
motifs. The one at the top had an elaborate pinnacle that crowned and gave a subtle
unity to the whole.
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Lorena silently observed the wonderful multicolored mosaic that the dawn light
formed on the glass of the hypogeum, like glistening colored flowers. It was
disturbing that there was not even an iota of dust there. The marble gleamed
splendor, even though the crypt had been built more than a century ago. The most
logical thing would have been for those three tombs to be completely covered in dust
and cobwebs, but that was not the case.
Grieg climbed up to the marble ark located at the top and verified that, like the
two lower ones, it showed the same peculiarity: the three tombs were empty.
Surprised, they went out to the stairs and soon realized that all those funerary
buildings were not only impeccably clean... but also empty.
And although they continued to be guarded by stone angels, that morning the
radiant light of dawn reduced the tombs to mere and ridiculous troupes. It seemed as
if Death herself had taken pity for once on all those deceased and had freed them
from their heavy slabs and their icy sarcophagi, so that they could see the light of the
sun again... In exchange, She would take refuge within those walls. .
Grieg discovered two false gargoyles in the shape of fabulous animals, which
seemed to look at each other suspiciously, as if they were condemned to eternally
distrust each other. Then he realized that the stone figures, as they ascended the
staircase, were gradually transforming, until they reached something much more
shadowy. The statues with delicate features and angel faces, and stylized female
forms that adorned the lower mausoleums, gave way to gargoyles and chimeras of
increasingly threatening appearance that stood out among small amphibious
demons. There were women with the faces of witches, sculpted next to the doors of
the hypogeums, and as they continued ascending, they saw that the golden knobs of
the doors of the lower pantheons were transformed into skulls and enormous metal
eyes.
When they reached the highest part of the grand staircase they found a large stone
cypress that guarded the last funerary construction. It was the only one that was not
visible from the bottom, and it was an imposing pantheon with a circular structure
and modernist style. Twelve large columns, with olive leaves sculpted on the
capitals, surrounded the pantheon. Like everything else, the walls and floor were
shiny, and the doors were wide open.
The entrance was reminiscent of the luxurious lobby of a Victorian mansion,
although more colorful. There was even a circular red velvet sofa. The pantheon was
completely paved with ceramics and mosaics with modernist figures that ended on
the ceiling, where another of those monstrous menacing figures could be seen. A
marble spiral staircase started from the ground and ascended to the top of the
mausoleum.
Without thinking twice, Lorena began to climb the stairs, and Grieg followed her a
short distance away. As they ascended, the daylight faded, and once at the top, Grieg
turned on his flashlight. The two fixed their gaze on a gap in the wall the size of half
a door, which was framed with stone borders. The slab that should close the gap was
resting on the landing of the stairs.
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They both sensed that the solution to the mystery that had led them there lay
inside that mortuary chamber. Whatever its content was.
Grieg and Lorena bowed their heads to enter the tomb, and as they descended the
three small steps at the entrance, they listened with concern to an alarming sound,
monotonous and mechanical.
Tick tock… tick tock… tick tock…
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36
Grieg and Lorena looked at a large open stone sarcophagus, with the slab that
should cover it leaning against one of the circular walls. That disturbing sound came
from that place.
Grieg passed the flashlight to Lorena with the intention of opening a small
trapdoor in the wall. After a slight struggle, he was able to open a hole and a narrow
ray of pearly light passed through the small semicircular crypt. Lorena approached
the sarcophagus and read the text that was engraved in a spiral on the thick stone
tombstone.
—"What is below tends to balance itself with what is above and what is above
with what is below, until it allows unity to carry out its marvelous prodigies." —
Lorena looked at Grieg when she sensed that this was the sarcophagus they were
looking for—. «All matter comes from that mysterious but tangible unity. The Sun is
his father. The Moon is the mother. The wind carried her on his lap. The Earth is its
guardian and its strength is full if it is transmuted into earth and can be separated
from fire. By this means you will possess all the glory of the world and all darkness
will depart from you.
After reading the enigmatic text, he meditated for a few seconds.
—It is one of the main axioms that contains the most secret of alchemies: the
transmutation of matter into the human being.
—Are you referring to occultism related to the myth of the philosopher's stone
and eternal life? Grieg asked, raising his eyebrows and giving the word "myth" a
very special tone. What must be inside that sarcophagus?
"We better clear up our doubts," Lorena concluded, climbing a narrow stone
staircase that led to the top of the mortuary chamber.
As he ascended, he noticed that the ticking sound was increasing, and that the
sarcophagus had torn off one of its sides, so that it resulted in a three-walled
receptacle.
-Come to see this! —She laughed when she saw the inside of the tomb—. Now I
know where the monotonous noise that had us so intrigued comes from!
Grieg approached Lorena and could not help but be surprised when he saw the
unusual contents of the sarcophagus. The noise came from a wind-up alarm clock
with two bells. Additionally, inside the receptacle there was a soft red mattress and
several boxes of medicine.
—What are they indicated for? —asked Lorena, who handed one of those
medicines to Grieg.
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—It's Erythropoietin. This is a very dangerous medication and must be taken with
extreme caution; Unless there is a dead person in this mausoleum who suffers from
very serious anemia, I have no idea what this is doing here.
Grieg analyzed the rest of the objects in the sarcophagus: a transistor radio from
the 1980s with dead batteries, a green Bic pen with the cap chewed off, an empty
water bottle, a padlock with the key in it that appeared to be the that closed the
cemetery gate, and a box of Romeo y Julieta brand Havana cigars that Lorena took.
"The cigar box contains bank receipts," she indicated. All deposits have been made
to the same account number at the same bank, and on the same day over many years.
-What a day?
-The 2nd of November.
—So, the anemic who spends the night in this sarcophagus has been coming here
every night of All Saints' Day waiting for someone to bring him the three coins.
"I'm afraid so." And it seems to have been doing so since…—Lorena looked at the
oldest receipts—…the end of the seventies. And someone has paid him very well to
do it. Perhaps that is why the route of the votive coins was only valid during this
night.
—What you say makes sense.
"There's also a piece of paper with phone numbers," Lorena said, handing him the
piece of paper so he could check it himself.
Gabriel Grieg analyzed a yellowed piece of paper that had written down a
telephone number that in the seventies was seven figures and began with 2. Later,
the number was crossed out to write the same number underneath, except for the
detail that the 2 was replaced by a 4, and to which more recently someone added,
with a different colored pen, the obligatory prefix corresponding to each call, or be
93. Once again all the numbers were crossed out when the old telephone number was
transformed into a mobile number.
—I suspect that this is the telephone number that the recipient of the bank
deposits had to call, once we had delivered the three coins. "In other words: the
person who set up the base camp here," Grieg deduced. But, for reasons unknown to
me, the wait took much longer than expected.
—The anemic man came tonight, but something must have happened to him. This
medicine box is almost full and someone has wound the alarm clock this very night,
because otherwise it would be stopped,” Lorena exclaimed, looking through the
outer joints of the sarcophagus. We have to be very careful... Look, there's another
box!
Lorena took the wooden box and opened it immediately.
-What's inside? A treasure with which we can abandon this hateful poverty once
and for all? —Grieg joked.
-Yeah. I think it would allow us to get out of poverty, but breaking the law.
-What do you mean?
—The box contains a magnificent Lupara.
-What the hell is that?
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—A shiny sawed-off shotgun.
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37
Grieg and Lorena descended the marble stairs of the sumptuous mausoleum until
they stepped back into the entrance.
Grieg carried a copy of the telephone numbers in his hand. Lorena, on her own,
had taken the bank receipts, the sawed-off shotgun and a box of cartridges.
"What the hell do you want that for?" Grieg exclaimed. Do you think we're Bonnie
and Clyde?
-You mean this? We have lost sight of the owner of this shotgun. —Lorena held it
energetically in her hands. I'd rather we have it than him. Don't you think?
—How is it possible that you understand so much about weapons? You're not
going to tell me now that you're a police officer or something like that.
"You don't have to be a police officer to know that a Lupara is an illegal weapon,"
said Lorena.
—I'm not going to touch any weapons.
—The anemic who sleeps in the stone sarcophagus feared some unwanted visit.
Look at these cartridges. They are completely new, have an eight-point Steel type
closure, and incorporate steel balls instead of the old lead ones. This weapon, at less
than a meter away, is capable of knocking down a mule. The person who was
waiting for us didn't mess around.
—I am an architect and restorer of historical monuments. And you, Lorena, what
do you do? Are you a new variant of detective? Maybe a police witch?
—My job is to live dangerously, you may have already realized that.
—Okay, let's leave the topic for now. Grieg grimaced. In the meantime, we'll get
busy thinking about why the alarm clock was on. That means the guy can't be far
away. We were even able to cross paths with him when we were coming here.
—Maybe it was one of the customers of the “fumarole bar.”
-Could be.
Lorena looked at the bank receipts again.
-What are you thinking about? Grieg asked.
—Whoever the prince of darkness is who sleeps in the stone sarcophagus, he has a
real obsession with pumpkins.
—Pumpkins? —he exclaimed, surprised.
—Those that are represented with triangular eyes and nose and with a mouth that
smiles intriguingly and toothlessly.
—That is, Halloween pumpkins.
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—This guy must be crazy! —Lorena commented—. He is obsessed with them.
They are drawn on all bank receipts, even the oldest ones. Look at the ink... It's dry
and blurred.
-Let me see that.
Grieg looked at a receipt dated in the eighties, and next to one of those pumpkins
he discovered another sign that looked vaguely familiar.
"Maybe it's more than just an obsession and we've found a new way to solve the
problem," Grieg said. Wait a minute... I just remembered something that could be
very useful to us.
Grieg took out of his bag the necklace of golden coins that the lady of the burnings
at the Greek Theater gave him, and spread it delicately on the sofa.
—Where did you get the complete collection of votive coins? —Lorena asked, who
for the first time seemed perplexed—. Why hadn't you told me anything?
—I propose a deal, Lorena. You tell me what your job is and what you're really
looking for, and I'll tell you the story of the necklace right away. Do you accept? —
Grieg asked rhetorically, while looking for a specific coin among all those that made
up the necklace.
"Look, here's a coin with a pumpkin engraved on the back," Grieg noted with
satisfaction.
—That's right, but that doesn't mean anything. Pumpkins and Halloween… you
know.
—Look at this other symbol that is drawn on this bank receipt next to the
pumpkin.
Lorena took the receipt and looked at the strange drawing that Grieg had pointed
out. Then he verified that it appeared several times in the rest of the supporting
documents.
—It looks like it was the entrance to a house...
Lorena stopped dead when she realized that on the other side of the coin where
the pumpkin appeared, the same drawing that she was trying to describe could be
seen.
-It's fantastic! —Lorraine exclaimed—. I think this was the currency they had to
exchange for us when we handed over the other three. The guy must not have
understood why a cheap coin was so important, and he drew it over and over again,
perhaps trying to unravel its mystery... And I understand, because I don't know what
that drawing means either. And you?
-Could be. “I think it is a very unusual symbol that was often used on architectural
plans during the 18th and 19th centuries,” Grieg responded. With this symbol it was
indicated on the plan that that room had to be built by specialized workers, who
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swore on their honor, before starting the work, that they would keep the secret of its
location forever.
—Remains of Masonic groups, linked to ancient and arcane medieval guilds…
how interesting! —Lorena exclaimed, giving her words a theatrical tone as she tried
on the necklace.
-Yes something like that. It's a very graphic way of calling it. Grieg took out of his
bag the book of symbols that he had taken from his library shortly before leaving his
house that night, and showed it to Lorena to read.
Secret Masonic symbol that refers to the WIDOW'S CHAMBER. Place in

the pantheon where the chosen one could observe and listen to the
reaction of the mourners to the corpse of the deceased, without being seen
by them. On some occasion, it had been used by the presumed deceased to
fake his own death and see the reaction of his relatives to the coffin, to
modify, if necessary, his will.
—We may have the solution to the mystery just a few meters away! —Lorena
exclaimed, and began to look curiously at the marble walls.
Grieg looked at the coin that the sarcophagus guard was supposed to have given
them and said:
—You don't know why I wanted to walk with you tonight the tortuous path that
brought us here. I can sense that we are following the trail of an extraordinarily
serious matter. "Speak more clearly," she encouraged him.
—The person behind all this is leaving us signs related to alchemy... Without a
doubt, you are much more expert than me on the subject, so you can help me...
Grieg paused; Lorena remained silent to encourage him to continue.
"You see..." Grieg continued. My knowledge on the subject is sufficient to know
that in every alchemical process there are six phases. "That's right," Lorena
confirmed.
-Which is the first?
"Calcination," she answered immediately, and sat down next to Grieg on the sofa.
It means the symbolic death of the alchemist and implies the obligation to
definitively leave behind the false and illusory terrain in which until then his life has
passed.
—According to my hypothesis, that first phase of calcination would correspond to
the stage to which the first coin led us, in the Vulcan furnace. What is the second
phase?
"Purrefaction, that is, the continued natural process that makes the entire remains
disappear after death," said Lorena, who was eager to know how Grieg's hypothesis
followed.
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—Remember that the text engraved on the third coin that we found in the Greek
Theater and that led us here was “tumulus Mortem”, that is, “the tomb of Death” —
Grieg continued.
"I see..." Lorena muttered.
—Then, following this logic, we find ourselves at the stage of the third alchemical
process.
"Distillation," Lorena added, "which means gathering the matter once purified."
—And the golden pumpkin coin refers us to the "Widow's Chamber" on its
reverse.
—You're right, Gabriel. We must find her immediately!
“I am sure that we are dealing with a cultured and cunning mind…” Grieg
indicated as he walked towards the great wall in front of him. I must admit that,
although it seemed insignificant, the coin that made us begin this itinerary held
within it an authentic alchemical initiation journey.
"And the pieces fit together, although we're going to have to work hard," said
Lorena, handing him the necklace.
—Maybe not so much, since they have left us clues on purpose. Look at the reliefs
engraved on this marble. Can you deduce anything from them?
"The crow, in alchemical language, symbolizes lead," Lorena murmured, visibly
fascinated. The white eagle represents ammoniacal salt; the flower of the sun, the red
elixir. These seven small human figures evoke a king, the prince and the five servants
who attend to them at all times and who represent sulfur, mercury and the five
metals of alchemy.
Lorena stopped short when she observed, next to a corner, a symbol that they had
already found that same night: the lion carrying a sun in its mouth.
"The spagyric lion again," said Grieg.
"That's right," she admitted in a low voice. The badge that symbolizes the long-
awaited alchemical gold.
Grieg examined the semi-hidden slab on which the figure of the lion was
engraved. Meanwhile, Lorena pressed hard on a stone canopy and one of the marble
slabs opened.
—Look at what a magnificent job! Grieg exclaimed.
—Stop focusing on technical issues now. The Widow's Chamber awaits us!
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Lorena hurried into the new space to which the slab that had been opened gave
access, while Grieg was still analyzing the complicated masonry task of the lion slab.
When Grieg entered the room, he found that it was an authentic Widow's
Chamber, one of the very few that were ever built. It was a room lined with black
padded fabric that had a marble floor of the same color. Elegant bronze chandeliers
hung from the walls, and in the center of the chamber was a small mahogany table
and a black armchair. Two small holes were opened by pulling a bronze lever, and
allowed the entrance to the sumptuous pantheon to be seen without being seen.
—It's a wonderful job! Grieg acknowledged. I never saw anything like it, and I
even doubted that this type of enclosures had really existed.
Lorena opened the drawer of the small mahogany table and said:
—Look at what's here.
Inside the drawer was a bunch of rusty keys that were inserted into a frayed red
ribbon. The red ribbon had at its end a white cardboard with blackish stains,
undoubtedly blood. Lorena saw that the name and alias of a murderer appeared on
the cardboard, with his complete criminal history: the robberies he had committed,
the crimes and even the weapons he used to carry out his cruel murders.
"I'm very relieved to know that we managed to complete tonight's tour on time,"
Lorena admitted. This ribbon was hung around the neck of Don Germán, the
bibliomaniac and murderous monk who is related to the jewel I am looking for.
Grieg noticed that an old picture of a medieval brotherhood and an address were
glued to the back of the cardboard.
Suddenly, near the cemetery gate, the roar of the engines of several high-powered
vehicles could be heard, which had violently burst onto the site where the old
hermitage had been built.
Then there were screams that alarmed Grieg.
—Immediately collect the bags and everything in the pantheon and return here as
soon as possible! I'm going to check if any of these keys open that black cloth-covered
door.
Grieg tried the different keys in the lock, while in the background he could hear
the plaintive voice of a man who, urged by another, repeated over and over again: “I
didn't bar the door! I do not get it! Someone must have come in while I was out!
When Lorena returned, she found that Grieg had managed to get the key right
and the black-lined door was open. He quickly exerted light pressure on the marble
slab and the Widow's Chamber was closed again, although this time with them
inside.
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The screams grew louder and they heard loud bangs trying to break the steel bar
with which Grieg had blocked the door.
The black-lined door opened onto a narrow, damp passage that ended in a gate,
behind which mass chants could be heard. Grieg used the keys again, until one
managed to turn the lock and the door opened. Before him he saw an elaborate
wooden latticework.
One of the parishioners who was at that moment praying on her knees was
alarmed to the point of compulsively crossing herself, when she saw that a man and
a woman emerged from the same confessional in which she had confessed a few
minutes ago.
On the street, Grieg and Lorena noticed that the morning had darkened again
under a gigantic gray dome. They walked down a stretch of street, turned left and
passed by the same field that gave access to the cemetery they had just left. Next to
the lot, three Land Rover Defenders were parked.
Lorena and Grieg observed that a waterfall of reddish sparks emerged from the
wall covered in bougainvillea, and deduced that they were cutting the steel bar with
some electrical instrument.
Next to the old gate, a sixty-year-old man with gray hair, dressed in a white shirt
and light blue pants, was harassed by three men much younger and larger than him.
A bald guy wearing a gray suit and yellow-rimmed glasses contemplated the scene a
few meters away.
"These guys shaking the man who seems to be the caretaker of the secret cemetery
are surely part, as the old man from the Lyceum foreshadowed, of the serious
problem I would get into if I gave the box of auques to the wrong person," thought
Grieg. «I have no doubt that they will have tortured that poor man. We have to get to
the place indicated on the key card before those thugs, but I have to make sure of one
thing…”
Lorena pulled Grieg's arm to continue walking, seeing that he seemed to feel sorry
for that poor unfortunate man.
—Why did you take the cartridges and the sawed-off shotgun? Grieg asked.
—For two reasons: the first is because we will surely end up needing it; and the
second, so that you never try to take pity - and he pointed to the man riddled with
questions from the strangers - on the one who could have pointed a Lupara at your
head.
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Grieg and Lorena were walking along Petritxol Street, a narrow street in the
historic center of Barcelona, flanked by elegant buildings from the 18th and 19th
centuries, which was the first pedestrian street in Europe.
At that time, nine in the morning, the city began to show signs of activity under a
gray sky delimited by the narrow streets of the Gothic Quarter.
Grieg stopped in front of a window decorated with curtains in which several trays
full of puff pastries and croissants were displayed and in which several cups
appeared, painted on the glass, in the same way that artists used to decorate the
windows of shops. of chocolate and cream dishes.
Grieg and Lorena entered the small farmhouse and chose a table at the back.
—I suggest you order a suís, you know, chocolate with cream. Doesn't it make you
think of Land Rover Defenders? —Grieg asked ironically.
"Very funny," Lorena replied. I'm starting to know you enough to know that if
we're here right now, it's for a reason, and I want to know what it is.
—Do you think the pastries and the intense aroma of chocolate are not enough for
the cup that surrounds us? “It seems like we are in a living room in the Helvetian
Republic,” he continued sarcastically.
—If you're implying that I know the Land Rover guys with Swiss license plates,
you're dead wrong. Why have we come here, Gabriel? —she insisted.
"Because it is located at a point equidistant between the two places where we can
go," he responded after placing the order with the waiter.
Lorena's face lit up.
—That means you know the location of the bunch of keys inside the Widow's
Chamber.
Grieg took the box of auques , which was still wrapped in paper, out of his bag and
placed it on the table.
"As you very well know, I am in charge of delivering this box to you and I am not
going to deceive you, I want to finish this whole matter as soon as possible," Grieg
revealed in a low voice and approaching Lorena. It is also true that I am very curious
to continue to know where these keys lead, but I am an eminently practical guy... and
I think that path is full of dangers. So I can hand you the box and walk away,
except…
-Unless…? —she replied immediately.
—Unless you convince me that it's worth continuing. Even despite knowing that
Swiss-registered Land Rovers can crush us.
—And how much time do I have to convince you?
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"I don't know exactly," Grieg answered as the waiter filled the table with pastries,
an aromatic suis , and a double coffee. Between fifteen minutes and half an hour.
"May I know why you restrict my time so severely?"
Grieg looked at his watch.
—A person who is related to the place to which the keys lead is about to enter this
farm.
—And it would be very convenient for my interests if I had convinced you to
continue the search with me, before that person leaves here again. Isn't that right, my
mean and vile ally? —she said in a sing-song tone.
"You understood perfectly, 'Samantha,'" Grieg replied, taking a sip of the steaming
coffee.
-Very good. You have wanted it. —Lorena put a large cloud of cream in her
mouth. It is obvious that our relationship is very strange, but I play a much more
coherent role than you, and the voyeur from Font del Gat was right about you.
—Right in what? Grieg asked as he cut a croissant in two.
Lorena continued looking at the box when she answered.
—Because of my profession, which I still can't tell you because I don't know if
you'll leave me alone, I'm looking for one thing, it's obvious. But you desperately try
to run away from something. I, in this matter that unites us, am in the world, while
you give clear signs of being outside. What did you commit to that you were forced
to do the things you did tonight?
"Years ago I established an apparently ridiculous pact with a person, who at the
time I believed was deceptively easy and very beneficial for my projects," Grieg
confessed with a very serious face.
—Unfortunately, in the long run—Lorena took the cup—it has been shown that it
was of a much darker nature than you initially believed. It is not like this?
—Let us leave this matter for the moment. Remember that a person is about to
enter who can be of great help to you regarding the keys,” Grieg said enigmatically
while two new clients rang the door bell as they entered the farm. But with only one
condition: you have to get out of here before she does.
Lorena turned her head and saw an elderly couple. She was aware that she had to
convince the man in front of her to help her, especially after no one had answered the
phone call she made from the Greek Theater that same night.
Then he ordered something that the waiter brought on a tray, quickly and
solicitously. It was an elongated, triangular ingot of chocolate: a Toblerone. Its
characteristic triangular sections are inspired by the shape of the Matterhorn
mountain, also known to the Italians as the Matterhorn.
—You are a climber. So there is a drive in you that forces you to rise to the top
without direct financial reward,” Lorena muttered as she opened the chocolate bar.
You know perfectly well that in mountaineering it is not about seeing who arrives
first, nor who has the most strength, but about the meticulous application of the
technique, until verifying who is capable of making the most of their own resources,
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thus overcoming fatigue, vertigo, fear of falling, and of course the innate fear of
death...
Grieg looked into that woman's black eyes; He was surprised to sense in them a
wisdom that managed to overcome their beauty.
"Mountaineering," she continued, "is a cold, cerebral sport, where leather spheres
or darts are not used, nor does the person who scores more points than the rival win.
Climbers have knowledge that others do not know, and you are used to people
calling you crazy... That is why you take refuge and trust in the leader of the group,
whom you blindly follow both for his experience and his mastery... So don't I think
I'm wrong if I tell you that you, Gabriel Grieg, would never leave anyone stranded in
the middle of an ascent, much less a partner.
Lorena took a bite of her Toblerone.
"If you say it for yourself..." Grieg answered, knowing that she was hitting his
sensitive spots in an interested way, "I'll tell you that you're not exactly a
companion."
"You never know that," she replied. In verbs, the present indicative tends to be
very changeable in relation to the future.
—You are a very intelligent woman, Lorena, I admit it. Furthermore, there is no
doubt that you are an expert in many fields, such as witchcraft camouflage, the
ballistics of the Luparas... Not to mention your knowledge of the Inquisition and the
great work of alchemy... As well as a devourer of Swiss chocolate.
Grieg brought his face closer until he was closely observing Lorena's delicate skin.
“You are elegant, but studiously careless and very sexy,” Grieg continued. And I
think you normally have piercings, which for some unknown reason you have
removed... And I also think you must have strange tattoos. I would continue talking
about you, but I would be taking up precious time for you to try to convince me.
Lorena looked at him with her beautiful black eyes.
—So, what do I give you? It's not that?
Then she became very serious, and asked something that was part of Grieg's most
intimate secrets.
—Do you know why from a very young age you have the drive to ascend to the
summits?
Grieg was silent.
—Because you feel that a young body can do whatever it sets out to do. The whole
world is dwarfed by the impulse of a passion beating in a young heart. You want to
fill yourself with the light and freedom that can only be valued when one, with one's
own efforts, has reached the top of a mountain. It is a feeling that you try to treasure
for when, like everyone else, you inevitably realize that the passing of the years
transforms the simple act of crossing a narrow street into a feat.
"Maybe you're a psychologist," Grieg answered as she finished one of those
pastries.
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Lorena took out of her bag the keys that they had found inside the Widow's
Chamber and placed them in front of her face, swinging them as if they were a
pendulum.
—Do you see these keys? They lead to an absolutely real place, but where things
are not what they seem. In that place, myths and history, lead and gold, life and
death merge in a territory that no one has ever explored.
Grieg listened to his words, trying to hide the deep emotional impact they had on
him.
—Maybe you are a literature teacher or a poet. Carry on, it looks really interesting.
—You will not be able to resist the proposal that I propose to you, because you
will be tempted to get to know the most hidden and hermetic Barcelona that you,
although you are an expert, have never heard of. "You will see it with your own
eyes," Lorena continued, using words that Grieg imagined were like the siren songs
that Ulysses must have heard.
—It's a road full of obstacles, Lorena.
—Gabriel, if there is one thing that is clear to me, it is that you love obstacles, and
the bigger they are, the better. What's more, you even enjoy them and try to learn
and fulfill yourself.
-You exaggerate.
-Absolutely. I offer you an obstacle tailored to your needs. I am looking for a jewel
called "the Stone", which was related to a series of serial murders perpetrated by the
bibliomaniac monk, whose nickname Don Germán is noted on this cardboard. —
Lorena brought the bunch of keys a few centimeters from Grieg's face again.
—Imagine being able to follow in the footsteps of Fulcanelli, the greatest alchemist
of the 20th century, in Barcelona. Don't you find it exciting? Go figure! Some keys
that lead to someone who made a pact with the devil himself to make alchemical
gold.
Grieg was about to say that it was crazy to talk about pacts with the devil, but
after everything that had happened to him that night, he chose to remain silent.
“The jewel I am looking for,” said Lorena as the door bell was heard ringing again,
“is supposedly shaped like a claw that holds a strange circular gem, and is partially
made of alchemical gold.
Grieg immediately remembered the contents of the auques box, which the old man
from the Lyceum had ordered him to deliver to the beautiful woman in front of him,
as apparently easy payment for his debt.
"They are nothing more than fantasies, true chimeras..." he said, disguising.
-You're sure? I will prove you wrong.
Lorena took out of her bag a silver cylinder that was closed with a padlock, in
which ten small squares could be distinguished. He turned some knurled metal
washers and a spring-loaded lid immediately opened.
Then, after making sure that no farm customers were looking at them, he took a
DIN A4 size photocopy from the cylinder and handed it to Grieg.
Barcelona, December 14, 1971
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Interpretation of the process carried out by XXXXX XXXXX in relation to the
detailed analysis of the alchemical gold obtained by XXXXXXXXXX.
—Why are the names at the top of the page crossed out? Grieg asked, surprised.
—It is a type of information that should not be known. You would have access to
it when the time comes. It depends on you.
Grieg continued reading that photocopy, which reproduced a typewritten text that
matched the date written at the beginning.
FORMULA TO OBTAIN 100 GRAMS OF ALCHEMICAL GOLD THE

GREAT WORK
WORK 1: Take three hundred and forty-eight grams of light sand

quartz and heat it over low heat. Do not confuse under any circumstances
this matter with the caput mortuum of the medieval alchemists.
WORK 2: Vitrify until liquefied.
WORK 3: Mix the resulting material with fifty-two grams of pure
mercury and keep it submerged in five liters of distilled water at a
constant temperature of sixty-six degrees Celsius for exactly thirty-nine
hours and twenty-two minutes.
WORK 4: Once the assigned period has ended, introduce the resulting
product into a triple-bottom tubed cornice where it will be mixed with
thirty-two grams of antimonite, twenty-three grams of tartar and we will
let it rest for twenty-two hours.
WORK 5: In an absolutely sterilized flask at a constant temperature of
fifty-two degrees Celsius, we will very slowly dissolve twenty-three grams
of sulfur in a deciliter of ALKAHEST liquor. After stirring until we obtain
a homogeneous solution, we will let it rest for…
Grieg found that this formula was much clearer and more precise, both in
processes and quantities, than those that appeared in most alchemical texts. The text
continued until step sixteen, where it reached the original paper before someone had
torn it in half.
"I once tried to read The Alchemist's Manual by Frater Albertus and ended up with
a severe headache," Grieg muttered, handing him the sheet again. All this is
nonsense, Lorena. At the moment, I see that a piece of the sheet is missing. A whole
classic. This paper so mysteriously presented is very similar to those documentaries
that seem very serious and truthful and that are almost impossible to distinguish
from the authentic ones. I think they are fake documents.
—You're wrong, Gabriel. This paper I am holding in my hand is a unique copy.
-How do you know?
Grieg watched as Lorena carefully put the photocopy back into the small cylinder,
and then took out a dossier whose header read 'CERN. Conseil Européen pour la
Recherche Nucléaire. "Or alchemique." Some crossed red words were stamped with a
rubber pad over the previous ones: "Only for Eyes." "Confidential report."
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"Let's forget about it for now," said Grieg. The person I told you about and who is
related to the keys arrived five minutes ago. We better go.
—Then let's not waste time. —Lorena placed a bill on the table and got up from
her chair—. Where we go? To the place where you must give me this box or to the
one where the tape with the keys leads?
Grieg got up and they left the room. Petritxol Street, although gloomy, looked
much busier.
"You have to know that the keys that are lit with the red ribbon lead directly to
hell," Grieg revealed suddenly. And when I say hell, I am not referring to a vague
place of dubious existence, but to a place as earthly as it is dark.
—Can you be more specific, Gabriel? —Lorena asked in front of the doors of the
Parés Room.
"I know where that place is and I have visited the construction that houses it many
times, but I never dared to break through the thin and secret wall that protects it,"
Grieg continued.
—And where is that enigmatic building located? —She asked, very intrigued.
—There is nothing enigmatic about it. —Grieg raised his left hand indicating that
he was before their eyes.
Lorena contemplated, in admiration, the façade of an imposing construction that
lacked sculptures and where the archivolts of the main door stood out for their
sobriety. A splendid large rose window was located in the center of the façade, and
next to it rose a large octagonal tower more than fifty meters high, next to two other
octagonal turrets.
—The church of Pi?! —Lorraine exclaimed.
-Exactly. Very few know it by its real name, Our Lady of the Kings, to which Pius
XI granted the title of minor basilica in 1926.
Grieg and Lorena crossed the Piazza del Pi and ascended the stone steps to the
entrance. The interior of the basilica appeared before them. Built in the 14th century,
it has a single nave, lacking buttresses and with slender buttresses, between which
the side chapels are sheltered.
They headed towards the presbytery, and while they did so, Grieg took out of his
bag the box of auques that the old man gave him so that he could, in turn, give it to
Lorena.
"Here, this box belongs to you, and my task ends here," said Grieg, handing him
the box.
—Gabriel, if you knew that in the end you were going to do this... why did you go
to so much trouble? —Lorena asked with a very serious expression.
—Someone advised me not to rush the delivery.
"So where is this supposed to lead?" she asked as the keys jingling in her hand.
Gabriel Grieg smiled enigmatically.
—I've already warned you, but you seem determined to ignore me. Those keys
lead to hell itself.
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40
Lorena was holding the box that Grieg had just handed her.
-What are you up to? —he finally asked, and his words reverberated inside the
deserted church—. You just told me that your mission is completed.
—And I don't deny it. Those were exactly my words. Because you said so?
"Then why don't you go?"
—The only thing I said was that I was giving you the box, and with that the
mission I had been given ended. I didn't mention, at all, what I would do next. —
Grieg picked up his bag from the floor.
"I'm glad to know that you're still in the team, Gabriel," Lorena acknowledged.
Let's not waste any more time and go to the place where these keys can be useful to
us. Along the way we will analyze the contents of the box.
Lorena began to walk towards the door of the Pi Church, but Grieg's words
stopped her in her tracks.
—Where are you going so determined?
—Well, onto the street… Where do you want me to go? —Lorena felt a sudden
chill.
—You should know that the place where the keys go is this same place.
Lorraine heard Grieg's words, raised her head and looked at the fascinating rose
window that illuminated the surface of the church all the way to the crypt. In it you
could see the meticulous order that the artisans managed to establish.
—Now we must hurry. He walked toward the epistle side of the church. The
person I told you about at the farm on Petritxol Street was the priest. I know that
every morning, after saying mass, he goes there to have breakfast, and we must take
advantage of that time before he returns.
Lorena had remained motionless, between two wooden benches, when she
realized that the essential object that the person who would go to the Colón
skyscraper had to give her was a simple box.
—What does this cardboard box full of paper cutouts mean? —she asked, visibly
affected.
—I'll explain it to you when we have time! Grieg whispered as he retrieved the
box and put it in his bag. Now we have to prepare ourselves mentally. We are about
to enter a post-apocalyptic place.
"So much the better for our purposes," said Lorena. Don't forget that "apocalypse"
means "revelation."
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At that time of the morning, the church of Pi showed a lonely appearance, and
only a few bent silhouettes of elderly women stood out from between the benches
who had chosen to stay to pray after mass.
Lorena and Grieg stopped in front of a chapel that was protected by a thick iron
fence. Grieg inserted one of the keys into the lock and the large gate opened without
resistance.
—How did you know these keys led here? —Lorena asked in a low voice after
entering the chapel.
—I didn't know it because of the keys, but because of this...
Grieg very slowly closed the gate, and after making sure that the old women had
not noticed his maneuver, he showed her the image that was printed on the back of
the blood-stained cardboard, which detailed the name and crimes committed by Don
German. He carried her hanging by his neck at all times, while they inflicted
torturous torment on his way to the scaffold.
Lorena, after looking at the thick cardboard again, verified that she had before her
eyes the same carving that the illustration represented, although this time life-size,
and that it was the work of the sculptor Ramón Amadeu.
"We are in the Chapel of the Forsaken," Grieg whispered. It was canonically
erected at the beginning of the 15th century. But now, what really interests us is that
the brothers faithful to this dedication had a particularly macabre mission.
"Just pronouncing the word 'brother' scares me a little, imagine," she admitted.
—They were in charge of collecting the bodies of those executed by hanging or at
the stake to give them, right here, a pious burial.
"I'm getting an idea of the place we're about to enter..." Lorena exclaimed, almost
curled up.
Grieg removed a stone slab perfectly fitted into a white marble frame, revealing a
narrow door.
—All kinds of criminals are buried in this crypt, especially bandits and serial
killers. —Grieg tried, one by one, the keys from the bunch in the rusty lock. All of
them, like Don Germán, were condemned to what was then called "crudelíssima mort"
or "mala mort", that is, to the cruelest of deaths.
Lorena remained hidden in the darkness and waited expectantly for one of those
keys to open the door.
"The prisoner was literally led from the prison to the scaffold," Grieg continued as
he continued testing the keys.
The architect was referring to the fact that, in the past, the Barcelona prison was
located next to what is now Plaza del Rey and Llibreteria Street was then called
Bajada de la Prison. To take the prisoner to the gallows there were three itineraries,
although the one preferred by the authorities was the so-called "del mar", and it ran
through Plaza del Blat, Borne, Plaza de Sant Jaume and finally Plaza Nova, where it
was located. gallows.
The procession that took the accused to the scaffold traveled through the most
important streets of Barcelona, always packed with people eager to see up close the
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so-called "bad face" of the condemned man, who was transported almost naked and
tied to a mast nailed tightly to a wagon. .
—I have no doubt that Don Germán, the murderer of the booksellers, is buried
here, and that during the journey that led him to the gallows he was whipped,
branded live with hot irons, and perhaps suffered the amputation of a limb. “I had
this damn piece of cardboard hanging around my neck, which only prevents me
from properly inserting the keys into the lock,” Grieg denied.
—I don't want to imagine what we will find behind this door! —Lorena said in a
low voice, who seemed increasingly restless.
—I tell you all this because it is essential that you know it. Before entering there,
you have to be prepared for any contingency, like the executioners in Don Germán's
time.
—Perhaps it is not the time, nor the most appropriate situation to ask it, but what
do you mean by saying that the executioner was prepared for "any contingency"?
—Very often, during the journey to the gallows, the prisoner arrived bleeding and
lifeless. That's why the executioner was waiting for him... —Grieg squeezed the key
hard and finally the door opened without any fanfare—... with the Pay Debiti.
—You finally found her! —Lorena whispered, immediately pointing the flashlight
inside, where there were numerous broken bricks from the old walling that closed
the door.
Grieg stuck his head in and saw that the crypt was completely dark. Unusually,
the intense breath of humidity and gloom that usually envelops these types of places
was not perceived in the air, nor were there any traces of any gas emanation
detected.
He pushed open the long, narrow door, took the most powerful flashlight and
prepared to enter, but first he turned his head and looked at Lorena. She was
crouching next to him, and her face could not hide a mixture of feelings: anxiety
about what she might find inside the crypt and excitement at getting what she was
looking for.
—By the way… What is Pay Debiti ? -asked.
"It is very likely that we will find one inside the crypt," Grieg answered quietly. It
was a knife of enormous dimensions that had those two words engraved in Italian,
which mean "pay off your debt." The executioner dismembered the prisoner on the
scaffold in full view of those gathered there.
—And the members of the executed, after being exposed in different places in the
city, were buried there by the brothers, right? —Lorena muttered, visibly raising her
eyebrows and pointing with her completely extended index finger towards the
interior of the crypt.
"That's right," Grieg said, nodding. Welcome to hell.
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41
Grieg and Lorena were surprised by the dimensions of the 15th century crypt.
From a rectangular landing next to the entrance, two descending flights of stairs led
to the underground.
Both the ceiling and the walls showed a total absence of decorative elements, they
were covered with large black stains produced by humidity and clotted blood.
Grieg blocked the door with a wooden wedge he found on the floor.
—Be very careful, Lorena. There are traces of petrified wax and the floor is very
slippery.
Lorena looked at one of the walls of the landing, and it took a few seconds to
properly identify what at first seemed like snakes lunging at her. x
—Those ropes...? —he mumbled.
"That's so we can get psyched up," he replied. These are some of the ropes from
which many executed people were hung. Until the death penalty by hanging was
abolished, they were objects of worship that were offered in churches and cathedrals
to the saints as authentic relics, in which the faithful believed they perceived
profound expiatory virtues.
Lorena pointed her flashlight at the end of the first flight of stairs, and noticed that
on the lower landing there were two empty coffins upright.
—I have always believed that the most surprising thing about churches is found in
their crypts. Look at that! —exclaimed Grieg as he checked the portentous contents of
the shelf, which appeared half-hidden behind thick cobwebs.
Lorena diverted her flashlight and pointed it towards the place he had indicated.
He saw almost a hundred bottles filled with a greenish liquid that shone brightly.
They were sealed with cork stoppers and sealed with a generous portion of sealing
wax stamped with the symbol of the Desamparados brotherhood.
"We have to analyze everything," said Lorena, excited. Something very important
is hidden inside here. I feel it. The person who is leaving us clues in the most
unexpected places wants us to do our best this time. And I'm sure that between the
two of us we will achieve it.
—Nothing attracts me more than analyzing the unknown…
"We must not overlook any detail, because perhaps the key is hidden behind the
smallest of objects," said Lorena.
-I completely agree. What is the fourth step in every alchemical process? Grieg
asked.
—The conjunction. It means that opposite elements are assembled until they
become one. In a philosophical sense it would symbolize that the alchemist
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synthesizes, in a single word, two supposedly antithetical terms. By the way, what
do those bottles contain?
—Aqua ardentes.
—Very interesting, it's a shame we're so busy. Did you know that the fermentation
and distillation of the original must obtained from the vine were processes that
alchemists perfected?
-Yeah. “Especially the alchemists who wore habits and belonged to the Carmelite
and Benedictine orders,” Grieg answered sarcastically. This liqueur, for example,
smells very similar to Chartreux, which shows that even in hell itself, if you put your
mind to it, you can afford some luxuries worthy of a sybarite...
Suddenly, in a reflex action, he held Lorena, who had slipped because of the wax
on the floor.
"Thank you, Gabriel..." he exclaimed, and the flashlight hit the ground and the
glass broke.
As a result, the crypt was only illuminated by the smallest lantern.
Grieg began to descend the ladder, making sure Lorena did so next to the wall.
Upon reaching the landing where the two coffins were located, and which formed the
apex where the staircase changed direction to continue descending to the
underground floor, they had a complete image of the crypt.
Several ossuaries that covered the walls had collapsed from them. The light of the
flashlight crudely showed how skulls protruded from a large number of funerary
boxes and coffins, and hundreds of bones appeared scattered on the floor of the crypt.
"We're going to have to be very careful once we get down there," Grieg said.
-It is awful! —Lorena exclaimed as she contemplated the gloomy image that the
whitish bones and the chopped up skeletons formed when the light of the flashlight
illuminated them.
"We already knew beforehand that the guy who planned this whole thing likes
allegorical things," Grieg added.
—That's right, and everything seems to indicate that he is forcing us to participate
in the most macabre of games, don't you think, Gabriel?
—As incredible as it may seem, we have to guess, among those three ossuaries full
of bones, which are the remains that belonged to Don Germán. No more no less.
The cave remained silent for a few seconds, only illuminated by the small
flashlight that Lorena carried in her hands.
"Let's see..." Grieg finally broke the silence. We are in a crypt and kriptos in Greek
means "that which is hidden."
“In a philosophical sense,” Lorena added, “the crypt symbolizes the womb to
which many, if not all, would like to return after death.
—What you just said is related to the fourth alchemical process that you described
a moment ago.
Lorena mechanically repeated some words she had said previously.
—«The alchemist synthesizes in a single word two supposedly antithetical terms.»
"Life and death," Grieg concluded.
149
They both descended to the subway floor and began to walk among skeletons and
dusty coffins.
—We have to find a clue, no matter how remote, that shows us that our man was
here.
—What is the most secret place in a crypt? Grieg asked.
—Right now I can only think of the most accessible one, and getting out of here.
"The opposite, the antagonistic to the one in the tower..." said Grieg.
—Clarify that for me.
—"In aeternum non commovebitur" was the excellent motto of the ancient fortress
towers, and it means: "eternally unbreakable." Therefore… —Grieg continued with
his reasoning—, the place opposite to the tower, and theoretically more hidden from
a crypt would be…, the direction in which it would point…
The crypt fell silent again, until two words spoken shrewdly by Lorena echoed
between the walls.
-Stairs!
The two looked at the last step, the one that pointed towards the deepest, towards
the raw material. Due to simple architectural limitation, it could no longer descend
further into the earth.
Grieg pushed aside the whitish wooden planks and there appeared, tucked under
a bend in the step, a very strange object, crushed and filthy, shaped like a conical
hood with a rounded tip and made of deep red felt.
-What's that?
"Oddly enough, it's a Phrygian cap, one of those worn by sans-culottes during the
French Revolution," Grieg explained. This hat was the symbol of the Enlightenment,
and was worn by independent workers, merchants and artisans.
—And what the hell is a Phrygian cap doing here? —Lorena asked, very
surprised. Plus, it's full of something gross.
—They are remains of mud, dry grass and balls made by birds. They are old
swallow nests.
-Gross! A Phrygian cap turned into a swallow's nest! It certainly hides an
allegorical meaning, right?
"Let's see," Grieg answered. The Phrygian cap refers us to the French Revolution,
and the swallow's nests inside, to a cathedral.
—You're going to have to explain that to me, Guillotin.
—After the French Revolution, the revolutionaries took the Bastille and the
Tuileries Palace. Do you know what the first ecclesiastical building they looked at
was?
—The Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris.
—The revolutionaries saw in Notre Dame the representation of power, through
which the church and the monarchy had managed to subjugate the people, and
Robespierre wanted to transform it so that from that moment on, within its thick
walls, the goddess reason would be honored.
150
—Until in 1801 Napoleon Bonaparte—she intervened—established a concordat,
thus returning the cathedral to the Vatican. I already know all that, mon Guillotin.
But what about swallow nests?
—Since then they became a symbol. The sansculottes destroyed the portals and the
enormous rose windows, and it was then that the birds invaded the cathedral, to
build their nests on the cornices and between the high columns, until…
Grieg stared into Lorena's eyes and then took out the coin they found on the
Vulcan, which referred to “D. T. Magofon Vitaliter", that is, to the enigmatic
alchemist Fulcanelli.
—Why don't you continue, Gabriel? What happened to the swallow nests that
populated Nótre Dame?
"It so happened that, in 1842, Eugène Viollet-le-Duc won a competition for the
complete restoration of the cathedral," he answered thoughtfully. Notre Dame
regained its former splendor, and the swallows never returned.
—But Viollet-le-Duc was harshly criticized by Fulcanelli, who fiercely accused him
of having destroyed the valuable alchemical meaning contained in the symbols and
drawings hidden on the cover, and inside the Cathedral of Notre Dame.
"So everything is very related to Fulcanelli..." said Grieg.
“Fulcanelli wrote three books on the symbology of cathedrals,” Lorena
indicated.The mystery of the cathedrals, The philosophical dwellings and another that he
left unfinished after his death and that is wrapped in mystery...
—This was the unfinished book, right?
Grieg showed him a small volume that was inside the Phrygian cap and whose
title was Finis Gloriae Mundi.
—Exactly, that is the third book that Fulcanelli wrote. What is he doing inside the
Phrygian cap?
"Well, there is another one," Grieg warned, "and it is also called Finis gloriae
mundi." The edition is from Seville, dated 1960, and is a biography of Juan de Valdés
Leal.
Grieg was referring to the baroque painter and engraver who lived in Seville
between 1622 and 1690 and who was the author of the paintings Finis gloriae mundi
("The end of worldly glories") and In ictu oculi ("Brief as a blink"). With these
paintings he captured the uselessness of vanity, and the brevity of life, since
whatever our social status, death was equal to all of us.
—They are leaving us a clue that Fulcanelli visited Seville and later was in
Barcelona. Do you realize, Gabriel? Maybe it could have been inside this crypt.
—The only thing I know is that we are facing a Machiavellian person, who devises
elaborate strategies.
"I have a feeling that something very important is hidden inside this crypt,"
Lorena insisted.
—You may be right, but the difficult part is discovering where it is hidden.
They both looked again at the skeletal remains and broken coffins that littered the
crypt floor. Then Grieg had an idea.
151
—I have an idea to find what is hidden here. But to carry it out we would need a
type of lighting very consistent with the gloomy environment that surrounds us.
—What light are you referring to? —Lorena asked, intrigued.
—In the… black light.
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42
—"Black light"? Lorena asked as she moved a femur out of the way with her foot.
Do you mean ultraviolet light?
-That's how it is.
-What do you wanted for?
Grieg could not see his companion's expression. She had shone the flashlight
directly into his eyes.
—Since we entered the crypt I realized that this underground, using the simile of a
chimney, has a draft.
—Are we going to have to be chimney sweeps?
Grieg smiled at Lorena's idea.
—Don't be afraid of that. One of the water spillways is connected to an old
ventilation system that is larger than it should be. Grieg pushed aside one of the
wooden planks and pointed to a closed iron gate. You see? That rusty plate is the seal
of the trap. When it is closed it remains relatively stable, but if you opened it
completely it would create negative pressure, that is, suction, and the air flow...
"I think that's very good," she interrupted him. And what does ultraviolet light
have to do with it?
—Why do you want to know, if we don't have an ultraviolet light device?
—Maybe I could have it. Why not? Don't you carry hammers, chisels, kits to
contact the devil and books prohibited by the Holy Inquisition. Why couldn't I carry,
for example, a flashlight that detects counterfeit bills?
—Are you carrying it? —Grieg smiled, shaking his head.
—And the good ones. Business is business.
—You must wear that device for some reason, but I'll find out, don't worry.
Lorena took out of her bag a black case that contained watchmaker's tools,
aluminum tubes with different substances, reagents, magnifying glasses and a small
device equipped with a fluorescent lamp made of blue-violet Wood glass.
-There you go. Now please explain to me what you're up to.
—I can't guarantee it will work, but it's the only thing I can think of.
Grieg opened the metal hatch slightly, and immediately a slight ventilation
impregnated with an acrid and humid smell could be perceived.
—I don't know what your plan is, but I'm afraid that air current is too weak to be
of any use to us.
—I like that, Lorena, that you try to cheer me up...
Grieg took the ultraviolet flashlight and, after intuitively calculating some
distances, placed it on a step, still unlit.
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—Well, now it would be a matter of placing ourselves in a high place and seeing if
my plan works.
-And if it's not that way?
—The guy we were tracking knew very well what he was doing, but the show he
had prepared for us has suffered a setback, which perhaps we can take advantage of
to our advantage.
Lorena approached Grieg and looked at him in amazement.
-How do you know?
—Because of the relatively modern remains of construction materials that I have
detected in the underground… Our man entered this crypt more than two decades
ago with the intention of hiding something very valuable there.
-The fact that? —Lorraine asked.
—I don't know exactly, but he did some masonry work that, I can assure you, was
not his forte. Leave me the flashlight.
Grieg pushed aside an old brick and shone his flashlight into the hole he had left
in the ground.
—Do you see that petrified plaster? Do you know what that substance is made of?
Lorena remained silent.
—This is a compound that I use very often in my work. It is made up of tricalcium
and dicalcium silicate, tricalcium aluminate and ferritotetracalcium aluminum... That
is, Portland cement. Know that means?
"Yes," Lorena answered after reflecting for a few seconds. That means that when
the person hid something here, they did so before the ossuaries collapsed.
—No more, no less, my beautiful Lilith. The "masterpiece" that the guy had
prepared for us fell to the ground and now we can't start removing all those bones
and debris. So, either what I came up with works... or we'll have to hammer the
walls.
—Understood... Explain to me about polarized light.
—When the alchemists, as the first step in obtaining the retort, purified the
elements and dissolved them with an acid, where did they carry out that operation?
—Outdoors… —Suddenly, Lorena realized—. Polarized light! The alchemists
carried out this operation with great care on a full moon night, because the light it
reflects is polarized.
Grieg nodded, satisfied.
“Polarized light was used in the fourth process of the great work: conjunction,”
Lorena continued.
—Perhaps, his theatrical performance revolved around that unknowable word.
And it is evident that if this impossible oxymoron existed... - Grieg intervened
overwhelmed -, it would be a word whose meaning would unify lead with gold, and
life with death...
—And how did you know that the representation we would have seen here if the
ossuaries had not collapsed had to do with the black light? —Lorena asked,
intrigued.
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—Often, in my work restoring old hermitages, we find razed cemeteries.
-AND?
—Human bones take on a luminescent glow when exposed to polarized light. We
use it to quickly distinguish them when they are intermixed with the stones.
—Only for that?
—Well, the truth is that this helped me a lot.
Grieg picked up from the ground a square formed by four femurs tied with a thin
rope. He also showed him a triangle composed of tibias and made with the same
technique.
"Those macabre geometric figures," Lorena pointed out, "I don't know why, but it
seems to me that they are related to what we have come here to look for."
"Let's see if we can get something clear with the help of the black light," Grieg said
as he opened the hatch completely.
A strong current of air began to suck up all the dust accumulated for years on the
floor of the crypt. Lorena turned off the flashlight when she realized that Grieg had
just turned on the small ultraviolet fluorescent light.
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43
After opening the hatch, a swirl of luminescent colors rose towards the ceiling.
Grieg and Lorena began to ascend the stairs towards the access door to the chapel
as if they wanted to get away from that horror. When they reached the landing, they
had the unpleasant impression that this small, fluorescent tornado, made up of
plaster, cement, rotten wood and the greenish dust of human bones, was heading
towards them, towards the black light flashlight that Grieg was carrying in his
hand. .
—Can we know why you take those macabre figures made of bones? —Lorena
asked, while she waved her hand trying to get rid of that filthy dust that was coming
at them.
"We'll need them in a minute," Grieg answered as he removed the wooden wedge
blocking the door. We are lucky that the air current enters from the church and
expands towards the drain, because if it were the other way around, after what I
propose to do, the church nave would look like one of those glass balls full of water
that they sell as souvenirs and that simulate snowfall when turned upside down.
—If you open that door, all the filth will fall on us! —Lorraine exclaimed.
"We have to remove all that layer of dust and plaster that covers the skeletons, and
for that there is nothing better than a good vacuum cleaner," Grieg replied as he
opened the door to the chapel.
The small tornado that stirred in the center of the underground grew stronger,
until finally the waste materials sucked into the drain caused it to become completely
blocked. Immediately, the air current stopped and the crypt was once again plunged
into stillness, while fine dust slowly fell to the ground.
"The time has come to know which of those skeletons belongs to Don Germán,"
said Grieg as he secured the door of the chapel again with the wooden wedge.
The two descended the stairs. The small hurricane had made the skeletons
scattered on the ground much more shiny, having stripped away the layer of plaster
and dust that covered them. And under the influence of the black light they shone in
a spectral way.
—Finally we will clear up doubts... Don't move, Lorena! —exclaimed the architect,
heading towards one end of the crypt while she guided his steps with the white light
of the lantern.
—I am convinced that our man had a show prepared for us. Please turn off the
flashlight.
Lorena obeyed instantly and the crypt was left in darkness.
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When Grieg turned on Wood's glass bulb again, everything took on a ghostly
appearance again, but what caused Lorena the greatest amazement was the effect she
observed in the two geometric figures formed with bones that Grieg held in each of
his hands. hands. Two of the femurs in the quadratus and two tibias in the triangle
had become "invisible."
-It's fabulous! How do you do it? -she said.
—The bones that do not glow in the dark are covered with a substance very
similar to white plastic cement, which prevents them from phosphorizing under the
effect of fluorescence.
—And that can help us in our search, right?
—I am almost sure that these two femurs and these two tibias belonged to Don
Germán.
—And what do you think the guy we're tracking wanted to prove with a little
game like that? —asked Lorena, who seemed to realize at that moment the horrifying
place in which they were.
—If he's still alive when we find him, I'll ask him. For now, we have to find the
jackpot he had in store for us.
-The jackpot"?
"Yes," Grieg agreed. Don Germán's skeleton hides something.
—Please... how disgusting...
—What if that something was very valuable? Would you get over the disgust?
—Maybe a jewel? —Lorena suggested.
—Yes, but where could a jewel be hidden in a skeleton?
—In the skull! —Lorena exclaimed, and pointed the flashlight toward the floor of
the crypt—. The problem is knowing which of all of these belonged to Don Germán.
—If we follow the logic of the invisible tibias and femurs...
"I understand..." she replied immediately. The skull we are looking for, being
covered in some substance, would be easily detectable with the white light flashlight,
but it would not shine, and would even become invisible, if it were very far away
from the black light fluorescent.
—Once we have reviewed the theory, it will be a matter of crossing our fingers
and starting the search.
Grieg and Lorena began to examine that chaotic ossuary of phosphorescent bones.
They did it by alternating the type of lighting, sometimes white and sometimes
ultraviolet, while trying to find a skull that did not radiate and that appeared under
the black light as matte as the old plaster on the walls.
However, after a long time of searching through the bones, they came to the
disappointing conclusion that they all glowed in the dark. Grieg sat on one of the
steps, dejected, while Lorena continued searching, tirelessly, and overcoming her
aversion to all those skeletons scattered on the floor.
"Apparently my plan didn't work..." Grieg muttered. Most likely it's behind one of
these walls.
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—I repeat the same question that you asked me when our adventure began in
front of the Vulcan gate: don't you see anything that seems strange to you? —she
asked.
Grieg, somewhat surprised by the appreciation she had just given him, looked
around.
-No. All I see is the creepiest crypt I've ever been in, and I assure you I've stepped
in quite a few.
-You're sure? —she insisted—. You, like me on that occasion, have looked at
ground level, but there are more things above that could have been out of the reach
of the black light.
Lorena pointed out a numerous set of sharp red wooden staffs that rested
vertically on a support, and that in the 19th century were brandished by demons
during theatrical performances of the shepherds' cars of adoration. Lorena
illuminated one of them, which held at its tip a round, balloon-like object.
Grieg looked up, and without still knowing if that rounded object was what they
were looking for, he deduced that when the ossuary collapsed, that skull could have
been stuck in one of the poles. She handed him the counterfeit detector and waited
for his indication to turn off the white light flashlight.
When Grieg pressed the switch and the fluorescent black light turned on, he saw a
skull that was stuck by the right eye in one of those sharp and demonic hangers. It
didn't glow in the dark.
He carefully extracted the skull, and after holding it with both hands by the
parietals, he shook it slightly. Nothing sounded inside him.
"Look, Gabriel... The hole where the first vertebra of the spinal column joins the
skull is blocked," Lorena observed after turning on the white light flashlight again.
Grieg turned the skull over and removed the cork that sealed it. Instantly, the two
saw a golden object glowing inside the skull, like a flare.
—Gabriel, we have done it!
-Let's get out of here! —he exclaimed as he resealed the base of the skull with the
plug. We take the skull. The tip of the spear may have broken part of the jewel, and if
we extract it right here, a piece may fall to the ground and we may lose it.
—Okay… —Lorena had a happy expression.
"Now it would be a matter of going to a more earthly place and analyzing the
contents of this skull," Grieg proposed, unzipping his bag.
"I know the right place..." she suggested with a radiant smile, which contrasted
sharply with the sinister environment that surrounded them. There we can wash,
change our clothes and get all this dirt off of us. And by the way... I can show you the
drawings that, as you very well guessed, I have tattooed on my body.
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44
It was almost ten in the morning, and a cold air was rising up Mandri Street
towards Tibidabo, which seemed wrapped in thick, dark clouds.
Upon reaching the Can Altamira Gardens, Grieg and Lorena skirted the bridge
that crosses them and walked alongside some old willow trees arranged in a row
towards Ganduxer Street. Then they crossed a narrow, cobblestone street where dead
leaves were piled up, until, shrouded in the mist, an old house emerged.
It was an elegant mansion built in the mid-19th century, which previously
appeared as an unknown island surrounded by extensive plots, but the unstoppable
advance of the city had left it imprisoned between buildings of much more recent
construction. The façade of the mansion had the strange peculiarity of having the
shape of a triumphal arch, which featured a large balcony with three double
windows that that morning showed the shutters wide open.
The main gate, with thick iron bars, was also open, allowing access to a Victorian-
style enclosure through which ivy had wildly climbed on its walls until it covered
the meticulous white sgraffito, on a brown background, which took into account its
origin the façade. Several stone statues were hidden behind the verdigris.
After passing through the small entrance tunnel, they discovered an
extraordinarily well-kept garden, which seemed to be enveloped in a breath of
timelessness and in which an unusual calm reigned. A narrow path made its way
between small and very careful hedges, and in the center stood an enormous cypress
with leafy branches and a thick stem covered with moss.
Lorena continued walking a few steps ahead of Grieg, without paying attention to
the details. Finally he stopped in front of a varnished oak gate with bronze
trimmings, where a plaque with a drawing of a vulture stood out on the top of a
steep mountain. It was the vulture of the philosophers, which held in its beak a motto
written in Latin: "Summa omnis philosophia ad beate vivirdum refertur." Its meaning?
"The purpose of all philosophy as a whole is to live well."
Lorena took out a card, opened the door with it and entered a large hall. The
window at the end of the hallway was ajar, allowing a draft to circulate through the
house, puffing out some gauzy white curtains. With a determined step, Lorena
climbed a black marble staircase, followed by her surprised companion, until she
reached a circular room from which three corridors radiated and from which she
could see the garden. They continued through the longest and widest hallway of the
enormous mansion, until they reached two closed doors.
Lorena opened the door on the left and entered a room decorated with mahogany
furniture. On the wall, in front of a large double bed with a black satin bedspread,
159
hung an enormous painting with a row of gargoyles docked next to St. Mark's
Square in Venice. Next to the bed was a bathroom with a large red marble bathtub
and brass taps.
Next to a chest of drawers there were two large open travel suitcases, from which
some feminine haute couture suits stood out.
—I assure you that he sleeps wonderfully between his sheets. —Lorena pointed to
the bed—. This looks like a haunted house, because I left the bed unmade, and you
see... it's made again and with clean sheets! And I still haven't told you the benefits of
the room I'm going to right now...
While he spoke, Lorena, ready to take a bath, undressed quite naturally.
Gabriel Grieg crossed the hallway and entered a spacious room with two
windows of veiled glass, which turned the light coming from the garden into a
hypnotic clarity.
"How strange all this is," he said to himself when he saw that there were new
clothes in his size and style in the closet.
Grieg returned to the first room and stopped at the bathroom door. Lorena,
sensing his presence, invited him in. It was inside the bathtub, covered in foam.
—What do you think of the hut, Gabriel? —he asked while soaping his right leg,
which he held up.
"The truth is that I have lived in worse places," Grieg answered, observing on her
chest the tattoo of a bony figure, which seemed to be swimming seeking the
protection of her left armpit. Who is the owner?
"No idea," Lorena replied. I only know that we can enjoy it until tomorrow at
twelve o'clock noon.
—And what is the reason for this bizarre Cinderella-like time frame?
—At that time all the lock codes in the house will change, and we will never be
able to enter it again.
—Will you lose the glass slipper? —Grieg asked, unable to take his eyes off one of
her beautiful feet.
—It's part of the deal I reached when I came to Barcelona to meet you, and to look
for the jewel that I hope is inside that damn skull.
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45
Grieg was sitting in a soft armchair in that lavish mansion. He had bathed and any
hint of tiredness had disappeared from his body.
The sepulchral silence was slightly disturbed by the chirping of some sparrows
that outlined the overcast sky over the deserted Paseo de la Bonanova.
On a golden surface, Grieg read some words that he had already seen in the
Lyceum, in front of the old man's scrutinizing gaze: "Vadam et affluam deliciis", and he
could not help but shudder. That phrase was engraved on a shiny object that he had
removed from the inside of Don Germán's skull, after having separated the mortar
that held the skull together.
Lorena had changed her clothes and was now wearing very tight jeans, a navy
blue wool sweater, and black boots. She was sitting opposite him in another large
armchair, and was anxiously contemplating the object that Grieg had extracted from
the skull. It was a gold case similar in size to a cigarette pack, with rounded corners
and sealed with a black wax seal. At the top was the inscription of a new element,
alchemical gold, which I had seen before on the poster holding the figure of Merlin
the Magician on the auques box: a triangle over the symbol "Au." The bottom part had
two initials engraved: “T. M.»
"The time has come to enjoy the fruit of our dizzying search and find out what our
particular Yorik is hiding," Lorraine exclaimed, referring to the skull of the king's
jester, which Hamlet evokes while conversing with the undertaker.
"Before opening the case, I would like to reach an agreement with you," Grieg told
him.
Lorena raised her eyebrows.
Grieg took the box of auques out of his bag and placed it on a low table.
—I propose that you keep the case and its contents, and all the other objects we
have obtained so far; the keys, the books, the coins...
-In exchange for?
—In exchange for the box of paper cutouts being definitely mine.
Grieg remained motionless, as if he had just made a bet in a poker game in which
he knew very well what was at stake.
"I don't understand anything..." she said, grimacing at the apparent generosity he
displayed, since the objects he offered her in exchange for the box seemed to have
much more value.
-There is nothing to understand.
Lorena suspiciously took the auques box and opened it with disinterest. Then he
looked closely at those childish paper cuttings.
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“To return your apparent generosity,” Lorena indicated as she closed the
cardboard box, “I will show you a room in this house that will undoubtedly surprise
you, just as it surprised me when I saw it the other afternoon.
Lorena got up from the couch and Grieg followed her. They both entered a large
room full of shelves crammed with tin toys, porcelain dolls, old cardboard puppets,
old Chinese shadow screens, spinning tops, board games with wooden chips... And
like metal and glass sarcophagi between the Full of shelves, there were several of the
automatons that were in the Tibidabo amusement park, and in the old Apolo arcade
on Parallel Avenue.
Grieg was fascinated to see that unusual collection of antiques. He stopped to
observe an automaton that represented the plump figure of a drunk in a black suit.
He had a red nose, and when a coin was inserted, he would alternately put a cigar
and a decanter full of cognac in his mouth.
However, it was the automaton in the center of the room that truly interested him.
Grieg couldn't help but plug it in and put it to work. It was the mythical mechanical
contraption that for many years was the great attraction of the Tibidabo automata
room and whose name was: "The life of the damned in hell."
Several generations of children, including Grieg himself, had watched that
automaton, enthralled and at the same time terrified by the possibility that the
contraption could take them to hell.
On a conveyor belt that rotated endlessly, the bodies of the prisoners burned
inside cauldrons, while their faces reflected the intense pain to which they were
eternally condemned. Before that scene, a demon with a goatee and sharp horns
delighted in the suffering of the poor condemned.
Lorraine's words brought Grieg back to the world.
—For some reason unknown to me, you, like the enigmatic owner of this house,
show great interest in antique toys and children's cut-outs. Sure, the toys and cut-
outs seem to be very important in this whole story, but I'm going after the jewel that I
hope is inside the golden case... So I just decided that you can keep the auques box.
"Okay," Grieg agreed, trying to hide his satisfaction.
Lorena, very serious, nodded her head.
The light formed small triangles on the floor when she, holding her breath and in
the very center of the automata room, prepared to open the golden case.
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46
When he opened the golden case, several pieces of black sealing wax fell onto the
table. Lorena's face, after observing its contents, showed deep disappointment. The
inside of the case was lined with black velvet, and in the center, where the jewel
should be, there was only a horarium.
It was a small anonymous book, just sixteen pages, in which the secret principles
of a complex alchemical process were annotated, using tiny characters: "Aurum
alchimicum barcinonensis." The small book was stamped with the seal of a court in
Barcelona, on which was written in pencil with a lawyer's handwriting, a concise
sentence: «Proof of accusation against Eugenio Tristant Pérez, nicknamed Don
Germán, belonging to the summary of this court No. 9843/33.»
Lorena, very upset, handed the horarium to Grieg.
—This whole matter is as complicated as it is cruel. Why have we had to travel the
essential path? So that in the end we only find a simple primer and an empty case?
—Don't rush, Lorena. It seems like a very valuable alchemical treatise, and I think
you understand much more about it than I do,” said Grieg after taking the book in
his hands. I bet what you want that this horarium was the objective that Don Germán
pursued with his horrible murders... And now it belongs to you.
—I expected to find “the Stone” in there. We deserved to find her… —she
objected, disappointed.
—Look at it another way, Lorena. The corridors of the maze are full of mirrors,
and most of them are deceptive. You already know that this issue has many edges...
No matter how hard we try, we cannot understand them all.
-Because? —Lorena lamented.
“The person who traced the alchemical path wants us to feel the pressure, that is,
the desperation, that the ancient alchemists felt on their personal path to perfection,”
Grieg said. The time has come for you and me to be a little more honest...
She seemed deep in thought.
—What exactly is your mission, Lorena?
-Now you know. Find the jewel that was once inside this golden case.
—Who pays you? What does this mansion mean?
—I can only tell you that this mansion is my residence until the deadline I have
stipulated to find the jewel I am looking for expires.
—I'll ask you the question in a more concise way: who is the owner?
—I repeat, I can only reveal that I am allowed access until tomorrow at noon.
—And what will happen to you once that deadline is up?
163
A silence followed, only interrupted by the sound produced by the automaton's
mechanism, with the reddish light of hell illuminating the ceiling of the room.
Grieg approached Lorena, hugged her affectionately and whispered in her ear:
—Last night, the person who got me into this mess revealed to me that the jewel
you are looking for is directly related to the devil. Not like this one you see here, so
red and with its sharp horns... —Grieg pointed to the interior of the mill—, but a real
devil..., who dresses very elegantly and walks among the people while looking at the
displays on the Diagonal.
Lorena looked up and saw Grieg's angular face, in whose pupils the reddish and
infernal light of the automaton was reflected, which managed to prevail over the
green of his eyes.
—Are you talking to me about a carnal devil? Of a person?
—Yes, I'm talking to you about the devil himself. Elegant and earthly, but it can
paralyze you with terror, just by uncovering the light veil that protects us from the
reality that surrounds us and making it show itself to us in all its true and terrifying
splendor.
—It is about a person who walks in a suit along Las Ramblas, or along Paseo de
Gracia, while wearing, pinned to the lapel of his frock coat, the jewel that was once
locked in the case that you now hold in your own hands. , and that you are looking
for... And if what I have been told is true..., that has a direct and terrible
consequence...
—Do you mean that the jewel I am looking for leads me directly to the devil? —
Lorraine asked—. This is not the time to joke, Gabriel.
-It is not my intention. I'm just warning you about what may await us in the new
sections of the labyrinth.
-Foolishness! I am looking for a very real jewel, made with alchemical gold, and it
is neither a dream nor a legend. —Lorena opened her bag and showed him a folder
where she had compiled all the information that was published in the Diario de
Barcelona during the time. The irrefutable proof of its existence is this case, and I am
not going to believe anything related to a demon who "rambles" dressed to the nines,
as if he were a worn-out gallant.
No matter how much he tried to hide it, Grieg noticed Lorena's disappointment at
not finding the jewel in the case.
"We must try and reason as before, when one coin led to another," said Grieg.
Suddenly, he noticed something strange in one of the photographs hanging on the
wall and felt short of breath.
"Maybe you're right and it's better to go back to reality," Lorena acknowledged,
closing the golden case and putting it in her bag. We had stayed at the fourth process
to obtain alchemical gold... Therefore, we still have two phases left. The fifth is
sublimation and consists of every volatile principle of purified matter being
separated from the fixed principle... What's wrong with you, Gabriel? What have you
seen?
164
Grieg had seen a framed black and white photograph that showed an image of
Parallel Avenue in the 1960s. You could see the Apolo theater, with a large poster
showing, painted in large size, the first magazine star Tania Doris, with long and
statuesque legs, who held the first comic actor Luis Cuenca in her hands, as if she
were a puppet. . In front of the theater was a small, smoky barracks.
With a terrible foreboding, Grieg moved even closer to the photo.
—Lorena, could you get me a philatelic magnifying glass?
She took out a small but powerful thread counter from her bag.
Grieg brought the lens closer to the glass and looked at the booth that was located
in front of the door of the Apollo theater. It was the chestnut stand that the lady with
the queimadas had told him about.
In that photo she was seen in profile, much younger and with the apron on. Next
to him, two men were chatting amicably. They were the chestnut tree's husband and
the "man who brought about her ruin," in his own words.
Suddenly, Grieg became aware of the reason why a deadline had been set for
Lorena to leave that house: so that she could find the jewel as soon as possible. And
by extension, so that he could unravel the mystery of who the guy who had
introduced himself at the Teatro del Liceo as M. Viguier, the enigmatic old man of
cigars.
Grieg looked at his watch.
—Lorena, we have a little more than a day for both you and I to achieve our goal.
In your case, that is the deadline to find "the Stone."
Lorraine nodded.
—I already knew about the deadline... although I'm surprised that you realize it
just now.
—When I saw this photograph, I understood it! Grieg exclaimed, as he turned off
the automatons and took one last look at the room. This luxurious mansion contains
the great mystery that haunts us, and if we do not find a way to access it after
tomorrow at noon, our lives will be in serious danger... Although perhaps by then we
will already be dead.
-What do you propose?
—We must trace the contents of the golden case. —Grieg took Lorena's arm—. I
know the most appropriate person to tell us the origin of the horarium. We must go
now!
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47
Between halos of gray light, the imposing sculpture of a woman dressed in

vaporous clothing appeared, standing as if it were the impressive figurehead of a
mysterious ship cornered between two narrow streets.
The sculpture belonged to the Palau de la Música Catalana, the work of architect
Lluís Domènech i Montaner, which looked like a schooner with the roof made up of
colorful stained glass windows and polychrome ceramics, fourteen columns like
masts that rose majestically towards the sky, and pointed in Its side features busts of
Palestrina, Bach, Beethoven and Wagner.
Grieg and Lorena left the Via Laietana behind and walked, that festive morning of
All Saints, through some alleys wet from the insistent drizzle. They entered a narrow
street that housed an old athenaeum that was located next to a centuries-old
fountain, and after walking a section of Mitjana de Sant Pere, they stopped at
Argenter Street, to later turn down an alley in the that a faint silver light filtered in,
and from which one could glimpse, in the distance, two high mounds and the moldy
remains of the ancient wall.
Grieg, who knew the area well, moved without difficulty through that network of
narrow alleys, while Lorena, at his side, tried to memorize the route in case it could
be useful later.
Finally they stopped in front of an old building, in which two large arches stood
out on its façade located between three closed balconies. In the darkened stone of the
building there was a niche from which the image it contained had been brutally
removed; It was located next to a formidable stone pediment with the door ajar.
The two entered a hall of distant splendor. There were frescoes framed between
golden festoons, with Greek mythological scenes, which several decades of
abandonment had transformed into dark, plastered shadows. The gods represented
on them had detached themselves from the walls, and in the remains that still
remained on the walls only the heavens could be distinguished, dark and unreal.
Grieg stopped in front of a thick wooden door located at the back of the hall,
where delicate reliefs in the shape of cherry leaves could be seen. Unfortunately,
someone had covered them with successive layers of green paint. At the top of the
door was a smiling wooden sun with pointed rays, facing a menacing crescent moon.
Grieg put the horarium in a pocket of his jacket and turned a bronze butterfly, the
only decorative element that glittered on the entire staircase. Suddenly, a very high-
pitched sound echoed from the entrance. Lorena saw how a small camera installed in
a corner of the ceiling was immediately activated and a red light came on.
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A few seconds later, on the other side of the door, a throaty, pasty voice was
heard, reminiscent of the plaintive sounds of an old, ungreased hinge. The thick
latches were drawn and, after opening the door, a very plump mature man
appeared, bald, with a generous double chin and wide, sanguine cheeks. He was
wearing a dark-colored boatiné robe and a cigarette without a mouthpiece and with
the ash hanging from his lower lip dangled.
—The matter at hand must be very important for Gabriel Grieg himself to visit my
humble abode! —exclaimed the man, as he tilted his head to look over his glasses,
thus showing his red, drooping eyelids and a wolfish look towards Lorena.
Upon entering they noticed the poor lighting in the house, and an air permeated
with the unmistakable and magical smell of an old book mixed with that of cigarette
smoke. In the background the voice of a tenor could be faintly heard singing the aria
E Lucevan le stelle from Puccini's opera Tosca .
The man asked them to follow him, leaving the dark hall behind, and they went to
the place where the music was coming from. The man's movements were effective,
despite the poor light, and he moved like an owl that knew every detail of its
nocturnal hunting territory.
They entered an office that overlooked an interior patio, decorated with large
ceramic vases and ivy on its walls. The man turned on a light and sat down on the
other side of the table, behind a framed chromolithograph depicting the great room
of shelves in George Peabody's library, whose hallways stretched into the distance.
—My name is Marcel Forné. —He looked at Lorena over his glasses—. I beg your
pardon for the notable absence of light that prevails in my house, but an abhorrent
illness dilates my pupils, causing me terrible photophobia. I like to clarify it so that
my friends, because I don't have clients, don't think that I am saving on electricity out
of pure stinginess.
"Don't worry, I'm used to it too," Lorena replied.
"Having said that, Grieg, I am truly interested in knowing what brings you here,
and also in such good company," continued Forné, turning his face towards the
architect. The ash that had been hanging from his cigarette for some time fell on the
glass of the table.
Lorena deduced that this man was a very special bookseller, since books of great
value rested on the table.
In reality, they were real treasures. Next to Lorena was a blue cloth-covered first
edition of Joyce's Ulysses , a copy of The Lord of the Rings from 1937 and a The Wizard
of Oz from 1900. "How strange to have these books on the table, within reach and
among this sea of ashes..." Lorena thought.
Upon seeing that the girl showed interest in those volumes, the bookseller could
not, nor did he want to, pass up the opportunity to refer to them.
—All the books on this table are prince editions, a quality that no one in this
country seems to value in the least...
The bookseller fell silent immediately upon hearing the sentence that Grieg
uttered.
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—We are looking for information about Don Germán.
The bookseller paused for a long time, while he lit another cigarette with the
blackened remains of the previous one.
—A truly delicate topic. "When two seemingly antithetical concepts such as
literature and blood are mixed in the real world, the resulting cocktail is explosive,"
Forné added as he tapped the cover of a 1902 edition of Conan Doyle 's The Hound of
the Baskervilles with his fingertips. .
He then stood up and took two books from a shelf, A Gentle Madness and Eternal
Passion for Books, by Nicholas A. Basbanes.
—Let's see... in these two books they talk about Don Germán, although very little
is known about the cruelest murderer of booksellers in history..., and that despite the
extensive research that was carried out. Even Brusi published information at the
time…
"That's why I'm here, Forné, because I sense that you are the person who knows
the subject best," Grieg said.
—I know that his body ended up dancing like a pendulum on the scaffold in
Piazza Nova, but it is always better, due to my profession, not to mention the noose
in the house of the hanged man, nor to pronounce the name of the murderer of
booksellers in the home of a bookseller... Especially when it comes to a matter related
to cursed jewels, alchemical gold and even the devil... The topic is not to be taken
lightly, especially if one is a good superstitious person...
—I know you well enough to suspect that all this preamble—Grieg gave a sly
smile—is nothing more than a strategy aimed at making the product significantly
more expensive.
—I am not a cheap bookseller, and I do not regret it... And I am pleased to define
myself as a lover of paper. Paper is one of the most wonderful diseases that a human
being can be contaminated with on this earth... But if one is not careful, the disease
can lead to much more serious manifestations, and without realizing it one can fall.
headlong into bibliophobia, bibliomania, bibliopsia or bibliopathy...
"Just like what happened to good old Don Germán," Lorena said, clicking her
tongue.
-That's how it is. In fact, Don Germán, a former Cistercian monk and librarian of
his convent, was the perfect example of the bibliopath, that is, he was capable of
killing to get hold of some books..., while I am beginning to be the perfect example of
the bibliophobe - the man joked. bookseller while the ash fell again from his cigarette.
I am always willing to do whatever it takes to get rid of them. Of course..., after
selling them.
The bookseller laughed as he exhaled a deep breath on a copy of The Little Prince
by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, dedicated in a torrid way to his wife Consuelo; and a
first edition of Salinger's Catcher in the Rye .
"Without a doubt, the issue you are presenting to me is not without interest, but it
is my obligation to warn you that it is a very dangerous topic... and of course, given
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its complex nature, it must remain conveniently limited in time and safe from
poachers," the Bookseller.
At that moment, Grieg placed on the table the horarium that they found hidden
inside Don Germán's skull.
"We come prepared for any type of barter that is satisfactory for the three of us,"
said Grieg.
Instinctively, the bookseller fixed his nocturnal raptor's gaze on the copy, although
he tried not to let his gestures give him away.
—Let's see, Grieg. I repeat that the topic of Don Germán's murders is not
something to be taken as a joke,” the bookseller pointed out. The case is tragically
related to the seven deadly sins, to alchemical gold, to the fountain of eternal youth
and, if that were not enough, also to the devil. It is such a serious issue that even in
the morbid world we live in it has been silenced.
Lorena, without saying a word, attended the duel that the bookseller had with
Grieg. It seemed to him that that small office was the lair of an old white bear
specialized in prince editions.
—Let's focus on the topic, Forné. Grieg became serious. I am not interested in
knowing who Don Germán's victims were, nor what were the reasons why he left the
convent to become a murderer. I just want to know if that horarium was your longed-
for jewel. The book he was looking for and for which he committed the murders.
"It seems things are going very well for you lately," Forné intervened.
—If you give me that information, I am willing to give you the unique copy that I
have put on the table.
The bookseller remained profoundly silent.
Grieg took the small horarium in his hands and handed it to the bookseller, who
looked surprised when he realized that it was the copy he suspected, printed in 1518
and with the typical mark of the 16th century book merchant Claudius Curnet.
Admired, he verified that the copy was complete and consisted of sixteen pages, of
which twelve were text on a bordered page, and printed in frank, small letters. In
addition, it contained the two copper-engraved plates and an offprint in which the
subsequent destruction of the plates of the only copy was recorded.
—Summa omnis philosophia ad beate vivirdum refertur. “Every philosophy pursues
living well,” he read aloud the motto printed on the back of the book.
"Aliquid aliqua re, " Grieg immediately replied, stating that his purpose was to
exchange one thing for another.
The bookseller looked at the copy of the horarium entitled Aurum alchimicum
barcenonensis , stood up and said:
—I'll show you something. Follow me
He headed towards the end of the hallway. His footsteps creaked on the
floorboards of that dark house. He stopped before a thick gate, took a key from his
robe and opened it.
They began to descend some steep steps and entered into the blackness, with the
only light from the bookseller's cigarette. Grieg and Lorena stood in the darkness as
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they listened to the bookseller's footsteps, waiting expectantly for the image they
would see around them the next time the bookseller took a drag on his cigarette.
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48
A deep drag on the cigarette feverishly illuminated what seemed to be a very long
tunnel, completely lined with books on countless shelves on both sides of the
passage.
Grieg and Lorena followed the bookseller at a short distance and in the dark,
amazed at the number of volumes that had been stored in that gigantic book
warehouse.
"He's never told me about this place," Grieg whispered, as he thought he saw a
shadow behind one of those shelves.
"During the 16th century, this passage was known as 'smugglers' passage,'" the
bookseller explained as he walked slowly down the corridor. It connected the door
through which we entered, where lived a renowned aristocrat whose name I prefer
not to mention, lest his ashen skeleton turn in the grave..., with a secret entrance in
one of the porticos of the wall, and which was located very close to what is now
Plaza Urquinaona. In the 19th century, my great-great-grandfather, also a bookseller,
took advantage of a section of that old corridor to use as a book warehouse, until I
inherited it. So I changed the name, and it was called the Library Out of Time.
—And why do you call it that? —Lorraine asked.
The bookseller, upon hearing his voice, turned around and after taking a deep
drag on the cigarette that illuminated his face, he smiled compassionately at him.
—Although the text of a book, that is, the words that are printed on the paper, is
always the same, its meaning and message changes with the passing of time. Its
meaning and understanding comes and goes like the waves of the ocean, depending
on the winds, flags and political regimes that blow out of this place.
Lorena advanced three steps and stood, silently, before the voluminous shadow of
the bookshelf.
"Look at all these books..." Forné continued. If you got caught with any of them in
the '40s and you were lucky enough not to go straight to the wall, you went to jail for
years. Now, even if I gave them away, they would hardly be accepted, and if so, their
leaves would end up in a trash can or forming eddies when the wind blows. But I
come from an old lineage of booksellers and I keep them because the book business
is very changing... What is of no interest today is a coveted treasure tomorrow.
Therefore, as long as I am their silent guardian, the books are "outside of time" here.
Lorena, thoughtful, ran her hand along the velvety spine of one of those books.
"The keeper of a bookstore as gigantic as this one," the bookseller continued as he
walked, "must be very aware of the winds that blow." You must analyze your time
and gauge the danger of safeguarding the books... because like Don Germán's, one's
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head is in danger. You have to know when it is time, as if it were a good wine that
has conveniently slept until it matures, to leave here and go up to the display case
that I keep upstairs. Depending on the times... some books silence others.
The bookseller stopped in front of a large bookshelf on which two high ladders
rested. Grieg saw that the bookshelf was packed with children's books from the 19th
and 20th centuries. Copies of Papitu, La Rialla, Pierrot, Quisquillas or Barbarroja
appeared on that shelf under cutouts and old auques, which the bookseller began to
remove.
The bookseller took a folder from the shelf and handed it to Grieg, who sat down
in a chair and turned on a small light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
Grieg opened the dossier and a set of yellowed newspaper pages appeared in
which the chronicles of events corresponding to Don Germán's crimes appeared,
among dozens of court documents where the minutes of the trial were reflected, and
the civil copy of the death sentence for Don Germán.
—Forné, this is not worth the horarium. “I need something much more forceful,”
said the architect.
The bookseller threw the cigarette butt on the floor and crushed it. He seemed
hesitant to make a decision. Grieg, seeing that he was reflecting more than was
appropriate, took a drastic measure.
—Lorena, let's go! —he exclaimed as he picked up the horarium —. Forné, I'm
sorry for wasting your valuable time. On another occasion…
"Don't go so quickly... Understand that what you're asking of me is impossible,"
the bookseller assured, trying to hide the tension.
-Because?
—You are being very innocent. You are getting into a very dangerous matter.
Much more than you can imagine.
—What does innocence have to do with all this? Are you a bookseller or a
moralist?
—To give you what you ask of me, you must offer me irrefutable proof that you
are following Don Germán's trail, and that you have not come across the horarium by
chance.
—And what difference does that make to you? —Lorraine asked.
—Here I am the one who sets the conditions. I know very well what I'm at stake!
"If it weren't like that, you would never have come down here," exclaimed the
bookseller, showing iron determination.
Grieg and Lorena looked at each other, and without saying a word they agreed
that they should give in to the bookseller's demands.
—Lorena, you have what we need to teach him in the bag. Show it to him.
The bookseller grimaced as Lorena showed him a skull split in two, in addition to
the keys they had found in the Widow's Chamber, which were hanging from a
ribbon tied to the card with the name, and the putrid blood, of Don. German.
For the first time, the bookseller lowered his head and remained silent.
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—You don't know what you're up to! —he exclaimed, taking the skull in his hands
—. You have no idea!
In the silence of the tunnel, only the bookseller's breathing could be heard. After
thinking it over, he snatched the horarium from Grieg's hands.
—Follow me.
Marcel Forné walked towards the table and turned off the light in the hallway. He
walked to a staircase, which he climbed laboriously. Lorena wondered what she was
going to do when she saw the bookseller take off his robe and hang it on a hanger
next to a door at the bottom of the stairs.
Underneath the robe, the bookseller wore an impeccable navy blue suit with a vest
and suspenders. He took a key out of his pocket with which he opened the door.
The three entered an office from which the side façade of the Palau de la Música
could be seen. Some employees were bustling between cardboard boxes and
envelopes prepared for sending books by mail.
"Very few have managed to enter the tunnel through the smugglers' door and
leave through this other door," he revealed enigmatically, while entering the
combination into a safe that presided over his office. Sit down please.
Forné put the horarium inside the safe and took out a deteriorated brass box, which
he placed on the table. This was from the 19th century and some great characters
stood out:
LE DIABLE PARFUME
"The perfumed devil."
"Inside that box is the clue to the only person who can solve the riddle you are
trying to solve, but I don't want to know anything about it," the bookseller explained.
Open it and tell me if what it contains meets your expectations.
Grieg took the box in his hands, always under the watchful eye of Lorena, and
once again felt in the air the unmistakable presence of the old man from the Teatro
del Liceo.
Terror invaded him when, after lifting the lid, he looked at the contents of the box.
It was a collection of thirteen black and white photographs, taken in different settings
in Barcelona, always with the same person.
"It can't be, the drawing on the box is from the 19th century," thought Grieg as he
discovered how in one of the photos the old man from the Lyceum appeared, much
younger, with a cigar in his hand and wearing a very precious jewel on his lapel.
similar to "the Stone" that he had seen in the auques box. He was hugging a beautiful
woman with deep eyes and long hair, clad in a dark, fitted dress; The two smiled at
the camera, in the middle of the Rambla and with the Columbus monument in the
background.
The photograph was taken by a street photographer, one of those who used a
tripod and sleeves, and developed the negatives instantly.
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"It fills them..." Grieg responded to the bookseller as he passed the box to Lorena.
We are left with the perfume box and the folder.
-Do not talk more! —the bookseller concluded, clapping his hands loudly.
Although Lorena was initially dissatisfied with the contents of the perfume box,
she changed her mind after analyzing the brass lid. Under the name "Le diable
parfumé", an elegant gallant was screen-printed, wearing a strange jewel. To his
astonishment, he was dressed in the same way as the man who appeared in the
photographs.
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49
The slender buildings of Pla de Palau seemed to radiate the entire range of grays.
It was almost noon, and the chiaroscuros were visible on the variegated reliefs on the
façade of Casa Xifré, one of the most representative buildings in the city. Among
hundreds of figures of hermetic iconography, in these reliefs Saturn could be seen
holding a scythe and a sundial in one hand; with the other, he caressed an
Ouroboros. Next to it, for almost two centuries, a stone alchemical crucible reminded
all passersby that in the city there existed mysteries determined not to be remnants of
the past.
Lorena and Grieg were sitting on a bench in front of the large columns of the Llotja
building, while Grieg studied the perfume box and an old guide to Barcelona.
—Gabriel, I still don't know why we stopped precisely here.
"Because here we are close to the three possible destinations," Grieg answered.
The architect looked at the box of "Le diable parfumé" that contained the thirteen
photographs, and where the address of a perfumery appeared; but the rust that had
accumulated over decades had caused only some letters to be visible:
ER ADENA
Lorena picked up the rickety brass box.

—Do you really think we have gained by exchanging these photographs for the
horarium?
"In life you have to be practical..." said Grieg. You have the photocopy of the
horarium we made before seeing the bookseller, don't you?
—Yes, but an original is always…
—The exchange is already done. I am not a businessman and you, until proven
otherwise, intend to find the jewel in the golden case. The important thing is that we
continue to share common interests.
—What address do you think is written down among that rust stain?
—I don't know yet, but I have a slight suspicion. Let's see, I have verified that in
Barcelona there are three streets that have the word "chain" in their name," Grieg
mused, leafing through the city guide. One of them is very close to here, next to
Icaria Avenue, but I would rule it out at first because it is a passage and, if you look
closely, there are the letters "er", which undoubtedly belong to the word "street." ,
which as you very well know in Catalan is carrer.
—And the other two addresses?
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—One is Cadena Street and it is located very close to Hospital Street, but I don't
think it is the address that appears on the box.
-Because?
—If you look closely, between the bit of the word “er” and “Cadena” there is a
space that is too wide, which I think would coincide with the third address, which is
“Carrer Pou de la Cadena.”
-It's quite far from here?
—No… It's better that we leave the motorcycle here because the streets there are
very narrow.
After leaving the Pla de Palau behind, they crossed the shiny Esaseria street with
the day becoming more and more unpleasant. They passed in front of the façade of
Santa María del Mar, and after crossing Banys Vells they stopped on Grunyí street,
very close to Argentería street, in whose portals, during the Middle Ages, the best
jewelers in the city gathered.
Finally they arrived at a tiny alley that was hidden between Barra de Ferro and
Cotoners streets, which had a marble plaque with the name of the street they were
looking for: Pou de la Cadena.
"There is no portal here," said Lorena, disappointed.
Grieg consulted the guide again and saw that the street continued beyond where
they were.
—Don't be so sure.
They crossed Princess Street, strangely desolate as most of its bazaars were closed.
A few pedestrians were walking calmly towards the Parque de la Ciudadela.
Grieg and Lorena verified with satisfaction that Pou de la Cadena street had
continuity, since it faded into the mist between Boria and Candeles streets before
reaching Plaza de la Llana.
Pou de la Cadena was a discreet alley, embedded next to the portals of Calle
Princesa, the egregious street that at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the
20th century was one of the most important arteries of Barcelona. There, on Pou de la
Cadena street, one of the most protected places in the city during the Middle Ages
was located, as the most important well in Barcelona was located within its thick
walls.
That was a telluric place, which even with the passing of the centuries remained
on the margins of the daily life of the city, and about which dozens of legends related
to the source of eternal life, the well, are still quietly told. of the devil and gifted
gold... the one who is capable of buying everything, without having to do anything
to get it.
Grieg stopped in front of an unmarked porch, where it was likely that some
distant day there would have been a luxurious perfumery. The two stopped in front
of its rusty metal door, closed with a padlock, and sealed with a large flap of
cobwebs that certified that it had not been opened for many years.
Grieg, taking advantage of the fact that there were no neighbors' stairs
surrounding her, did not hesitate to take the hammer and the cold cutter out of her
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bag and give them a sharp blow on the padlock, which immediately gave way. Then
he pulled hard on the metal door, which due to the poor condition of the guides
could only be opened one meter.
Even before entering inside, they knew that this was the place they were looking
for, because at the entrance there were broken perfume bottles, and an intense smell
of petrified musk hung in the air.
Lorena turned on the flashlight and saw an impressive cherry wood counter, on
which the name of the perfumery had been engraved in modernist characters: "The
Amber Flower." The luxurious empty shelves suggested that they had once
contained the most excellent perfumery products. There, in golden letters, appeared
the names of those perfumes that were once made with extracts of acacia, amber,
gardenia, jasmine, heliotrope, magnolia and rose. Next to the shelves were several
cabinets with absolute essences made with iris or the delicate essence of muguet.
"In here there was a true alchemical laboratory of perfume... They were looking for
the formula of the eternal feminine," said Lorena.
—I don't know, Lorena. I have never been particularly attracted to perfumes.
—Well, when we met in the Colón building..., you smelled like CK One by Calvin
Klein.
—Wow... What could be more fascinating in a setting like this than having at your
side a person with the nose of Grenouille himself?
"Maybe that's why I'm fascinated by this place, even though it's in ruins," she
admitted. Gabriel, I admit that you have found surprisingly quickly the place where
the box that the bookseller gave us was sold. But I remind you that this is a
perfumery. What makes you think that this store could be related to "the Stone"?
“Take a good look at the perfume box,” Grieg commented, handing it to him.
Although the rust has partially eaten it, the handsome model sports a jewel on his
lapel that looks very similar to the one you are looking for so hard.
Lorena pointed the flashlight at the tin dandy.
"I hadn't noticed that detail yet," he lied. In any case, I don't quite understand the
relationship between the box, the photographs and the jewel.
—What I don't understand is what could have happened for a place as emblematic
as this perfumery to have been relegated to the cruelest oblivion. —Grieg looked at
the photos on the counter. This old luxury perfumery was located in a mythical place
in Barcelona, and just a few meters from a telluric place: a water well that, according
to legend, reached to the bottom of the earth.
—«Bottom of the earth»? "A telluric place"? I don't understand.
—On one occasion I heard talk, although at the time I didn't give it much
importance, that in Barcelona, in the middle of the 19th century, a very special
jewelry store was inaugurated...
Grieg picked up a dusty perfume bottle, in the shape of an elegant, full-skirted
lady holding an umbrella, and handed it to Lorena.
"I'm telling you about the time when the very wealthy Indians secretly bought
exquisite jewels for their mistresses," he continued. Perhaps this perfumery was just
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the antechamber and cover of an exceptional jewelry store... to where powerful
gentlemen clandestinely came to buy jewelry. Something like a speakeasy of the time.
—Are you referring to the drinking fountains that were hidden behind seedy
shops in Chicago in the 1920s, during Prohibition?
-That's how it is. If a neighbor saw a famous Indian enter the store, they might
think he was doing so to buy the best perfume for his wife. In that prudish society, a
jewelry store would have raised more suspicions...
"I understand..." Lorena said. But if that is true, where is the door that led to the
supposed jewelry store?
Grieg took out of the brass box a photograph showing the elegant man with the
cigar, posing with a beautiful woman in front of some wooden shelves, identical to
those that surrounded them at that moment.
The architect headed towards one end of the perfume shop.
—This is the place where they posed for the portrait. Look at the names on the
shelves. They are the same ones that appear in the photograph.
"Very interesting," Lorena acknowledged as she illuminated the shelves with her
flashlight.
Grieg picked up a piece of wood from the floor, and began to rap on the walls
with his knuckles, until he realized that everything seemed very stable, except for a
quadrangular space that was shaped like a door, and that had been walled up with
bricks and then sealed with plaster and painted.
—I've been wondering for a while what this varnished cherry wood that the
shelves are made of sounds familiar to me... Does it remind you of anything? Grieg
asked, handing him the piece of wood he had picked up from the ground.
—Right now I'm not falling.
-I'll give you a clue. Look at the end of the photograph... Does that mirror and that
frame sound familiar to you?
Lorena opened her eyes wide when she realized that it was the same mirror of the
hydra that gave access to the secret library.
—It's the mirror that was in the apartment in the Colón skyscraper! So that…
Grieg looked towards the metal door, and after checking that no one was passing
by on the street, he took out the hammer and the cold cutter from his bag.
—Let's see what surprise awaits us this time behind the hydra mirror... The
labyrinth seems to replicate itself.
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On the other side of the gap that Grieg opened, there was a hallway with walls
paneled in noble wood. At the end awaited a steel gate ajar, with an image of Hades,
a Greek subterranean divinity whom Homer erected as lord of the underworld,
accompanied by Cerberus, his faithful three-headed dog.
The steel door opened into a room that appeared to have been a luxurious
reception room. There was a large leather sofa, several chairs arranged next to it, and
armored walls decorated with borders representing biblical scenes from the Old
Testament, mixed with idealistic visions of hell. From the elegant reception room,
and through a wide flight of stairs, there was access to a central space that seemed
taken from a sophisticated Gothic horror story.
“This place must have been wonderful,” said Lorena as she shone the flashlight
around the ghostly place.
Arranged in an oval, he discovered three counters made with precious woods and
Carrara marble.
Grieg illuminated the ceiling and saw in the stone vault a wonderful stained glass
window, based on a painting by Piero di Cosimo, which hid a secret alchemical
message. In a demonic paradise of Eden, a faun and a woman, who was lying
sensually on the grass, were engaged with a gold ring under a huge tree of evil and
good. Two peacocks contemplated the union, and in the distance a flock of bats
fluttered, presaging an ominous evening.
Grieg verified that the walls of that room were also armored, and he could
perfectly imagine that, shortly before, an exceptional type of business was taking
place between those elegant counters. A jewelry store in which items made with the
material with which almost all dreams and many nightmares are created were
clandestinely traded: gold.
"Something is missing here..." Grieg thought, "the sanctum is missing... the safe."
He pointed the flashlight at one of the walls, and felt that the damn trail of the old
man with the cigar followed him wherever he went.
-What's happening to you? —Lorraine asked.
—The dimensions of the labyrinth in which we are immersed are larger than I
thought, and the roots sink into space and time. This whole thing is too complex, and
I feel like it's overwhelming me... Gold abounds in this labyrinth, but we lack
something even more valuable: time.
-It's possible. But we both agreed to try to escape the labyrinth... if we didn't want
to remain locked in it forever.
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—Someone is urging us to enter an idyllic territory, wrapped in sublime perfumes
and wonderful jewels, but where something absolutely terrifying beats… —Grieg
took her arms with both hands—. Lorena, we are entering very dangerous territory.
For the first time in my life, after many years in contact with esoteric symbols and
working on religious constructions, I believe I am in the presence of something...
otherworldly.
"We are not yet ready to enter this world," Grieg continued. I think we should
leave until we can return with the proper equipment to climb the mountain.
—Now is not the time for mountaineer metaphors. I don't understand you,
Gabriel... We have come this far and now we must know if this place is related to the
golden case.
—We are inside a legendary jewelry store. I had heard of her before, but only now
have I come to know her name.
-Which is it?
Grieg, visibly disturbed, took a black bar of sealing wax from a drawer inserted in
one of the arms of a modernist armchair.
—Look, the golden case that you have in your bag was sealed with a stick of
sealing wax just like this one.
Grieg handed him the wax stick.
Lorena's delicate angles darkened as soon as she pointed the flashlight and read
the name engraved on it.
THE DIÁBOLO D'OR
«The golden diabolo.»

—Every time I heard about a mythical secret jewelry store that existed in
Barcelona, I thought it would be in some basement on Argenteria Street, not here. I
don't understand what could have happened for this place to fall into oblivion.
—Why would a jewelry store be secret?
—In this jewelry store there was no regular sale. Grieg took one of the flashlights
and pointed it toward the ceiling. Look at that wonderful modernist stained glass
window. The decoration of this room is diabolical, and is also related to the world of
alchemy. It is clear that very serious things happened in this place. That's why, when
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its owners hastily abandoned it..., no one was interested in talking about it, and the
matter was forgotten like an echo that fades into the night.
—I still think that our only mission should be to search for the jewel that was once
inside the golden case.
Grieg illuminated one of the walls on which a horrifying scene was depicted. In a
multicolored panel, made with precious woods, a landscape as beautiful as it was
desolate could be seen, in which one could guess the feeling that anyone heading
towards the gates of hell would have. In the foreground were the enormous eyes of
Charon, the ferryman of Hades, who demanded payment for the golden branch of
the Sibyl of Cumae to be able to cross the Styx lagoon to the mouth of Hell, which
could be seen in the distance. between vivid coppery flashes that shone at the very
entrance to hell.
—Last night the person who ordered me to go meet you to settle the debt I owed
him, appeared before me with a jewel made in the Masriera workshop, which
represented exactly the same scene that we are seeing now.
Lorena couldn't help but shudder.
"This place is much more dangerous than we can ever suspect," Grieg murmured,
passing his hand over Charon's face.
—I don't doubt it, but you already know that I am willing to take any risk. I need
to obtain "the Stone" or, failing that, irrefutable proof of its existence as soon as
possible.
-But why?
Lorena did not answer. He limited himself to approaching the large board in front
of him, because he thought he heard a murmur of water, which made the panel of
the Styx even more disturbing.
—What do you think could be behind that suggestive door to hell? —Lorena
asked, challenging her companion.
Grieg looked at her out of the corner of his eye, exerted force with his arm and
began to open the panel.
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The panel slid a few meters on metal guides located on the floor and opened
halfway. Behind it appeared a blackened wall with dozens of rusty iron bars; That
looked like a fortified vent. Lorena shined her flashlight on a spiral staircase that led
into a circular hole.
At the bottom a faint light shone and the sound of water could be heard, rising up
the thick walls, accompanied by a sensation of cold and damp in what seemed like
an endless well in which the faint squeak of a rusty machine sounded. a kind of
scream of a sick animal.
—Where do you think those stairs lead? —Lorena asked crouching, and her voice
reverberated towards the depths.
—I bet those gloomy steps lead to the place I told you about, the mythical Chain
Well, the same one that many legends associate with the devil and gold.
—The legends…, legends they are. Discovering the truth, that is what interests us.
It will be much more productive if we find out what else this panel hides,” Lorena
proposed.
Grieg forcefully pushed the panel, which slid along the guide until it hit the wall.
Next to the vent, there was a large steel hatch even more armored than the one they
had found at the entrance, and it was also closed.
"Let's test if any of the keys from the Widow's Chamber in the secret cemetery can
open this armored door," Lorena said as she pointed the flashlight at her bag in
search of the bunch of keys.
"Wait a minute..." Grieg stopped her.
-What happen? —she asked, upset.
—Just as the auques box is mine, those keys belong to you and, therefore, you can
do with them whatever you want. But I must warn you... Don't count on me to get in
there.
-Because?
—I already told you that we are entering a territory in which we have not been
summoned. The labyrinth behind that door is not our labyrinth. At least, not for
now.
—I don't understand you, Gabriel. What do you mean by that?
—Look, Lorena, they gave you a coin that ran along an essential path. With great
difficulty, we managed to complete it, and the path led us to a strange and empty
cemetery, where the same person who was later beaten by the Swiss in the Land
Rovers was waiting for us. We agree?
—You haven't said anything new.
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—Now comes the most complicated part. Grieg took a breath. The mausoleum
located at the end of the stone staircase in the cemetery was the center of our
labyrinth, our Misterium Maximun or our Deus Absconductus..., and the man with the
pills who slept in the pantheon... our particular Minotaur. But not finding him there
because he was kidnapped, so as not to get "bored" we entered the Widow's
Chamber by our own deductions. And with that we went a little too smart.
—I understand you less and less! —Lorraine exclaimed—. I would like to know…
-Know! —Grieg interrupted her, his face hidden in the darkness. That is precisely
what it is about, knowing. It was you who realized that the mystery was contained in
the coin that had the pumpkin engraved on one of its sides, and from there we
interpreted the symbol that was on the back of the coin... This is how we discovered
the Chamber of the Widow, where we found the keys that you have in your hands...,
the same ones that led us to the crypt of the church of Pi.
—Where are you going, Gabriel?
—I make it a rule never to talk about my work with my circle of friends, and I
never boast about my intuitions, much less about my knowledge..., but this time it is
different. And I'm going to do it with you. Grieg became extremely serious. Very few
people would have been able to find the Widow's Chamber, and almost no one, from
there and only with the clue of Don Germán's bloody card, would be able to deduce
that the case would be in the Chapel of the Forsaken.
—I recognize that you are right, and I also contributed to this in the interpretation
of the alchemical phases. What I don't understand is what kind of problem that could
represent.
—Well, we have crossed the finish line, and that has caused us to get fully
involved in a matter of much more significance, and that was outside the "route of
the one who stamped the common coins" in the seventies.
-Go ahead please.
—Now, instead of following Ariadne's thread that outlined the essential path for
us, we have gone off the map. We have entered the original essential path, which is
older and more dangerous. The labyrinth has grown larger, and I don't know which
fork we should take; For this we need more time.
"That's all very well, Gabriel..." Lorena exclaimed, indignant. But I want proof!
Damn evidence of what you say!
Grieg walked to the sofa in the very center of the secret jewelry store and sat down
next to the open drawer.
-Alright! Let's get the situation back on track! And for this, I will give you the
evidence you need. Please, take out that small laboratory that you have in your bag...
Also give me the golden case and the two coins that we found in the Vulcano and in
the Greek Theater.
Lorraine agreed to Grieg's request and thought she heard that distant scream
coming from the depths of the ravine again. He sat down on the sofa next to Grieg
and placed the objects on the drawer.
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"Well... now I want you to tell me if the coins we found in the Vulcano and in the
Greek Theater differ in anything from the first one you found in the secret library,"
said Grieg.
Lorena took one of the coins, cleaned it, and then took out a small touchstone; He
scratched its surface with the two coins and applied a few drops of reagent.
—How is it possible that I haven't noticed until now? —he asked with a contorted
face.
—The two coins are eighteen karat gold, right? Grieg asked. Lorena nodded. I
suspected it!
-And what does it mean?
"That the person who told you to take out the first coin from the volume of the
encyclopedia, and the one who sent me to meet you, was exhorting us to go where
no one has done so far..." Grieg exclaimed, closing the case. golden—, that is…: on
the original essential path. And the worst part is that we have achieved it.
—And how does that change things?
—It changes everything. Because I am not willing to cross that infernal door until I
have things much clearer, and I also know who you are, what you are looking for
and who you work for.
Lorena remained silent and avoided his gaze.
—And aren't you curious to know what could be down there?
—The summits are not conquered either by curiosity or by recklessness. To enter
there—Grieg pointed to the thick steel door and was increasingly reminded of the
conversation he had with the old man in the Lyceum—you must have the golden
branch of the Sibyl of Cumae with which to pay for the trip to Creon.
"Creon?" The Sibyl of Cumae? The one that was hung from the walls of the temple
of Apollo in ruins? Now you come to me with mythology, Gabriel?
—Doesn't that panel clearly notice it? —Grieg shone his flashlight on it.
-Holy God! It's just an allegorical engraving that someone designed to decorate a
strange jewelry store... Maybe down there there is nothing more than a well, a rope
and a damp curb. Nothing else.
—It's much more than that, Lorena. The person with whom I signed a diabolical
pact has set a very subtle trap for me, but with large doses of evil. I'm starting to
think that he selected me for his terrifying plan, from which I can't escape...
-I still do not understand you…
-I have already told you. To enter that place you must be properly prepared. I am
now convinced that the metaphorical image engraved on the gold medal that I saw
earlier this evening was based on reality. Don't make the mistake of taking this whole
thing as a joke. And if not, check this out! Grieg stood up and shined the flashlight at
the thick bars.
Lorena focused her attention on the right place. He could hardly believe what he
saw. At the base of the iron bars there were yellowish and twisted strips.
—Are they what they seem? —Lorraine asked.
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—I don't know what you will see in them, but I assure you that they are human
nails. Someone struggling against the door to try to get out, or to push aside the
wooden panel... I don't know, maybe to try to catch a glimpse of some light.
Lorena was thoughtful as she looked at the nauseating nails. Grieg took the bunch
of keys and inserted one into the lock that had a small drawing of an owl engraved
on it, exactly the same as the one in the keyhole. He turned the key, but couldn't open
the door.
—Listen to me, Lorena. To get in there, first we have to find the jewel you are
looking for.
Lorena caressed the key without daring to turn it a second time.
—I need to have information about “the Stone.” "At least proof of its existence," he
insisted, staring at Grieg.
—I'm beginning to understand what this is all about... Give me six hours and I will
find the jewel you are looking for.
—It can't be, Gabriel. I need a clue to show that I'm on the right track. You have to
show me irrefutable proof that you are in a position to find it.
—What you ask of me is there. —Grieg pointed toward the center of the room.
Lorena approached the armchair and took the golden case with great care. Inside
was the piece of paper that reproduced "the Stone" in great detail, and that the old
man from the Lyceum had given to Grieg inside the auques box.
—Didn't you want irrefutable proof that you were on the right path?
-That's how it is.
—Well, there you have it. And I assure you that it is a unique piece, since very few
have seen the shape of that jewel so closely.
Lorena continued pointing her flashlight at the extremely detailed reproduction,
delighting in the strange colors that could be seen among the iridescent nuances that
formed the watercolors of the design.
-Six hours? —he finally asked, without taking his eyes off the set made up of the
gold case and the original sketch of the jewel, authenticated with the seal of the
Masriera workshops.
—Not one more. And I give you my word that when we meet again, I will have
the original model.
—Where will we meet again? —Lorena asked while, covered by the shadows, she
smiled a malicious smile and kept the golden case in her bag next to the Lupara.
—It will be in a picturesque brothel.
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The afternoon advanced as quickly as the haze did over the streets next to the
port, and Lorena, turning her head from inside a taxi, watched as Grieg headed
towards Angel Square.
"Maybe the move will turn out well and I'll end up getting "the Stone" without any
effort," he thought as he held, squeezing it tightly in his hands, the gold case that
contained inside the authenticated original design of the coveted jewel. A true
treasure if you knew how to use it properly.
Grieg, after making sure that the taxi she had taken was disappearing towards
Junqueres Street, stopped abruptly and instead of going down Argentería Street
towards her motorcycle, she returned to Princesa Street, in the same direction where
the old perfumery and the secret jewelry store they had just abandoned.
Grieg sensed that in the next few hours he would have to face the most serious
events of his life.
I'm bound to get to the bottom of this damn thing, he thought. I know that the old
man, in one way or another, is pulling the strings, but in the end we will have to face
each other face to face.
After traveling a short distance, he turned left and a temple appeared before him.
It was a secluded chapel more than eight centuries old, almost the only example of
Romanesque art in Barcelona. Despite being located in one of the busiest places in
the La Ribera neighborhood, it always remained tightly closed behind two gates and
thick rusty fences.
It was the Marcús chapel, located at number 2 Carders Street.
The history of the chapel was truly unique. It was erected in 1166 by Bernat
Marcús, a rich Barcelona merchant, to serve as a hospital and to provide protection
and lodging to travelers, both at the entrance and exit of the city, since at that time it
was located next to the road. busiest in ancient Barcino. During his lifetime, the
wealthy merchant did not see it completed, but it was completed by his two sons,
who consecrated the chapel to Our Lady of the Guide.
Due to its location, its loyalty and brotherhood towards travelers, the brotherhood
of horse couriers ended up establishing themselves there. Its popularity only grew,
since within its wide walls travelers who left on foot were blessed, and outside the
chapel the same was done with the bodies and horses in the always dangerous
moment of leaving the protection. walled city.
But the history of this chapel had something sinister. It has always been shrouded
in dark legends, some of them of such dark and evil origin that they could hardly be
the result of popular deceit. The dark reputation of this chapel reached such an
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extreme that, in 1748, the diocese decided, in a very controversial decision against the
criteria of the higher ecclesiastical authorities, that the liturgical character of the place
be suppressed and religious worship completely ceased.
Since then, the former brothers were never heard from again, as if they had been
erased from the face of the earth by a force as dark as it was powerful and that still
keeps the chapel closed, without anyone knowing what is happening between its
thick walls. .
Grieg, upon seeing the chapel again after so long, felt a deep chill, since in front of
its altar ten years ago the events had taken place that had plunged him into the
danger in which he found himself immersed.
"The Marcús chapel is close enough to the thick bars of the secret jewelry store that
it makes sense to think that the two are related," he thought as he waited for Carders
Street to be deserted before entering the fenced area.
He stopped in front of the old, rusty gate, and took out from his bag a copy of the
old keys to the chapel, which he still had from when he carried out a field study for
architectural research.
"I hope they still work, because if not it will be totally impossible for me to get in
there," and he got to work.
After quickly opening and closing the two key locks, the one on the gate and the
one on the large gate, he crossed a dusty marble threshold and entered the interior of
the chapel, which at that moment appeared before his eyes, not yet accustomed to
the darkness. , like a misty and gray mass cruelly pierced by some inclined columns
of light.
The church was small but spacious enough to contain a dozen wooden benches
facing the epistle, which was formerly the place where the chapel of Our Lady of the
Guide was located, of which only a small, half-destroyed carving remained, which,
Bathed in the powerful light of the flashlight, she looked like a terrified woman,
alone in a hostile world that had turned its back on her.
The rest of the small and desecrated chapels had been desecrated and showed
only the cold stone, and as a whole, the small temple emanated a strong closed and
damp smell.
At the back of the nave was located what was once the altar, and which was
currently just a block of stone stripped of any element for the rite. And behind it was
a small chapel embedded in the wall.
In that small chapel you could see a relief of eight columns one and a half meters
high, sculpted in alabaster, among which was inserted an image made of shiny
bronze barely a span high, representing Saint Eloy, patron saint of jewelers. and
silversmiths from Catalonia. Above the image you could read an inscription in gold
letters, which a decade earlier had been premonitory for Grieg:
ILLE ME MONUIT, NE HOCFACEREM
"He urged me not to do it."
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The small figure of Saint Eloy had gotten him into that problem. Faced with that
image, Grieg made two serious mistakes.
The first was that while he was carrying out other studies that had nothing to do
with the carving, the question arose as to how it was possible that such an important
devotion as Saint Eloy had fallen into oblivion. The second mistake, and much more
serious, was letting himself be fooled by the unfortunate old man, who had
addressed him one cold December morning while he was analyzing the small
carving.
He even thought he heard her words again.
—It is a big mistake to investigate this place, Mr. Grieg. This is no longer a
church… Get away from here.
"Tell me who you are and how you opened the door," Grieg asked on that
occasion. I myself have made sure that no one can access the chapel while I am
working. This is part of the conditions that I have previously agreed with the College
of Architects and the Archbishopric of Barcelona for the completion of my doctoral
thesis.
—I am the protector of this chapel. You are treading on much more dangerous
ground than quicksand... Get away from that door immediately...
Grieg remembered those words the old man had spoken a decade ago, especially
the last sentence: “Get away from that door immediately…”
"The old man didn't say to stay away from the chapel, or the church, but he
mentioned a 'door'..." Grieg thought, and he stood in the same position he was in
when the old man approached him that time.
He carefully analyzed the little temple, barely larger than a niche, and when he
moved his leg he realized that something had gotten stuck to the sole of his shoe. It
was a piece of black electrical tape. He pointed the flashlight at the ground and saw
that a triangular-shaped plastic object was sticking out from under a bench. He
picked it up and realized, surprised, that it was a small bundle made up of folded
papers held together with insulating tape.
Grieg cut the tape and saw that it was a copy of the Swiss newspaper Le Temps
dated thirty days earlier. That meant two things: that someone had been there very
recently and that that wad of paper had been used as a wedge.
"But wedge, for what?" he asked himself as he once again analyzed the small
figure of Saint Eloy, which was suspiciously located on the right and stood out like
a... shooter.
Grieg pulled the statue towards him and noticed how the eight columns and the
small panel gave way to a larger opening.
In reality, the small temple was a secret hatch.
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53
Gabriel Grieg opened the door that camouflaged the image of Saint Eloy and
descended some dusty stone steps that led to a small and overwhelming space,
surrounded by porcelain jars with brittle bouquets of gladioli and bronze
candelabras with half-consumed candles. It was a tiny Romanesque-style chapel,
thick granite walls and without any opening to the outside. An architectural vestige,
unique in its kind.
When he reached the bottom of the stairs he stepped on a plastic bag that had an
image printed with the latest models of Nikon digital cameras.
"Someone has been lurking around here, and he certainly didn't care if anyone
knew about it," he thought as he illuminated the ground and saw that there were
footprints and some circular marks that seemed to him to be caused by the tripods
used by professional photographers. .
The footsteps were much more abundant at the back of the chapel, which was
where an exceptional black basalt altar was erected that had a disturbing, life-size
anthropomorphic image: the polychrome statue of a devil with a terrible expression
and sharp horns.
The carving was almost identical to the one found in the church of Rennes-le-
Cháteau, but, unlike the former, it had the peculiarity that at the base of the pedestal
the name of a saint: Saint Eloy.
To make clear the duality of the image of the saint, the statue was represented
with the attributes of the patron saint of jewelers: a Roman goldsmith's scale hung
from his left hand, and with his right he held a set of gilded metal weights. A long
necklace of touchstones, or glossopetrae, also known as "viper's tongues", hung from
his neck, which change color when coming into contact with any type of poison.
The horns of the devil-saint had tiny purple pebbles that returned the light of the
lantern with ruby sparkles. In ancient times, those stones were used to scare away
the Evil One and protect themselves from the demonic forces of hell.
But the strangest thing about the statue was that sharp branches of red coral were
intertwined on its head, forming a kind of crown.
Grieg noted that in front of the small stone tabernacle used for rituals there were
two bronze chairs and several chisel-carved solid wood benches, situated next to a
table on which a silver salvilla rested. The tray had two words engraved in Latin,
which indicated the nature of the rites that took place inside that clandestine and
hidden place in the city: "Anulus nuptialis."
A chapel of demonic links.
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Behind the disturbing statue, and located half a meter from the ground, thick bars
could be seen, similar to those that were located next to the armored door of the El
diabolo d'Or jewelry store, and that, like what happened there, prevented access. to a
spiral staircase, whose steps disappeared into the depths.
Coming from that hole you could hear, just like behind the panel of the Styx in the
jewelry store, a disturbing whisper, something like a faint scream mixed with the
sound of water.
Grieg raised the lantern and looked at that chapel, without a doubt the strangest
one he had ever seen. He looked again at the footprints and tripod marks on the
ground, trying to imagine what kind of people had been there recently. In the gap
formed by the stairs when he turned to the left, he noticed that someone had
cornered some jade vases. Upon examining them, he discovered that one hid
valuable information. At the base of the vase was a small silver label, with the
address of an establishment Grieg knew. He tore off the label and stuck it to the
inside of his wallet; then he prepared to leave that demonic chapel. He climbed the
steps, and as he was about to push open the heavy camouflage door, he took one last
look at the chapel.
Suddenly, a loud mournful cry was heard, and Grieg saw how the small chapel lit
up in a ghostly way. The diabolical statue began to glow in the darkness, as if,
behind it, a fluorescence of unknown origin had risen from the depths of the Earth.
Grieg wanted to approach the statue to find out what was happening, but
something paralyzed him with terror. A hand, more like a claw, emerged from
between the thick iron bars.
Long, twisted nails protruded from the claw, grasping a dark, square object.
A shiver ran down Grieg's spine as he saw the claw with deformed nails retract
again, after having deposited the object on the ground.
"My God! "What is that?" he asked himself, overcoming the horror that the sudden
appearance had caused him. As he approached, he saw that it was a book that had
the symbol of alchemical gold engraved on its black cover.
Grieg pointed the flashlight at the bottom of the stairs, but he only had time to see
how a faint yellowish light was extinguished, while the echo of hasty footsteps
towards the depths faded.
"I have to get out of here!" thought Grieg. He picked up the book from the floor
and hurried across the chapel.
Once on the street, and after having locked all the doors, he was glad to see
daylight again.
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"I have to find the key that gives a little coherence to this whole thing," he thought,
and he was terrified to reread the words that had been written on the cover of the
book with a sharp object, or perhaps... with his fingernails.
TIBI ONLY CONFIDENT
"I only trust you."
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54
The bald guy with yellow-rimmed glasses was still circling the sofa in the
pantheon of columns, located at the end of the stairs to the secret cemetery.
He waved several boxes of erythropoietin in his hand while he cast furious
glances at Flamel, the sick man in charge of guarding the small necropolis, who was
lying on the ground bleeding from his mouth and nose.
The bald man nodded for a burly guard with half an ear missing to lift Flamel off
the ground and sit him next to a glass full of water. The man approached Flamel and
placed the two boxes of medicine on the table.
—You need this, don't you? he growled as he pointed to the erythropoietin. Well,
it seems to me that with how stubborn you are, you will have it... until you get sick of
it!
"You will die before me," Flamel answered, using a phrase he had repeated before.
—We'll see about that!
The guy with the yellow glasses slowly opened the capsules and poured them all
into the glass of water while repeating all the questions he hadn't gotten the old man
to answer. After emptying the contents of the last capsule, he shook the glass
rhythmically while staring at Flamel.
—Listen to me carefully, damned old man! —he shouted a foot away from her face
—. It took me a fucking year of my life to get to you. I had to rack my brain with that
little coin game, and all that bullshit about alchemical gold... But in the end, I
understood what all this stuff is about... I'll repeat it to you one more time...
Flamel, despite the severe physical punishment to which he had been subjected
while being dragged through the pantheons of the secret cemetery, limited himself to
repeating the same thing:
—You will die before me. You don't know where you've gotten yourself.
—Right now, you damn bastard, you're going to tell me where the gold is. The
treasure, the real gold… the hundreds of gold bars!
For a moment Flamel opened his eyes and raised his head.
-I do not know nothing about that!
The guard who was missing half an ear did not miss a single detail of his
superior's words. Upon hearing the last phrase from his boss, "the hundreds of gold
bars", like a robot whose program that governed its actions had suddenly been
changed, he put his hand in the right pocket of his jacket and pressed three buttons.
of an intercom.
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At that moment the rest of the guardians, who were far from the pantheon,
received a small text on the small screens of their intercoms. The bald man with the
yellow glasses raised his head when he heard the roar of the two cemetery gates
opening. From the top of the hill, he saw how his men ascended the ladder towards
the place where he was. They carried their pistols in the weaver position while
repeating a strange slogan.
—Kempinski out! Kempinski out!
—What the hell is happening?
As if everything was happening in slow motion, he moved his right hand to take
the pistol he had in the holster under the jacket of his immaculate silver suit, but he
felt as if his right arm weighed a hundred kilos and he couldn't move it. The
bodyguard had restrained his hand.
Then he understood everything.
"I promised you that I would cover you with gold," said the bald man, looking
into the eyes of the guardian with the broken ear, who until that very moment had
offered him absolute fidelity. Damn traitor! I was about to get it! “An immense
fortune in gold bars that you may have under your own feet…” he exclaimed,
overcome with helplessness.
—I know very well who I receive orders from. "Gold, without life... loses all its
value," the bodyguard replied.
The bodyguard knew perfectly well who he served, and also obeyed a strict
instruction assigned to him: to closely follow all of his superior's movements and to
rebel against him the moment he detected that his investigations deviated from those
he had established. After hearing the words "treasure" and "ingots", he had decided
to intervene, knowing that the other escorts obeyed the same person as him.
Upon arrival, the bodyguards immobilized their supposed boss, while the traitor
escort headed outside the pantheon to make a call with his mobile phone. Upon
entering again, he observed, undaunted, that the bald man was staring at him with
eyes full of hatred.
"You stay on guard in the cemetery," the bodyguard with the broken ear ordered
one of the guards. While we wait for new orders, you will ensure that everything
remains the same as when we arrived. We'll padlock the cemetery from the outside,
and I don't want a fly to move without me knowing, okay?
The escort nodded his head.
The bald man in the silver suit, with his hands tied and gagged, was forced by his
former subordinates to get into the back seat of one of the Land Rovers, next to the
cemetery guard.
When the old man turned his head towards him, he didn't quite understand the
meaning of his Machiavellian smile as he stared into his eyes.
Meanwhile, the bodyguard who had been left on guard at the cemetery began to
clean the remains of blood from the ground, and picked up the boxes of medicine
that were scattered on the table. When he picked up the glass, a very important detail
went unnoticed.
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It was empty.
194
55
Gabriel Grieg parked the motorcycle at the confluence of Diputación Street and
Balmes, and headed towards Plaza Universidad, crossing the second-hand book
booths and the narrow passage formed by the gates of the Botanical Garden.
He was heading towards the address that appeared on the label he had found on
the vase in the demonic chapel, which was the best clue he had to investigate the life
of the mysterious old man.
Finally, he stopped before a glass door with a bronze handle, which was shaped
like a coffin. The name of the establishment shone in brilliant shades of gold:
SORIDÉ FUNERAL ORNAMENTS
Grieg prepared to enter that store for the first time. Thirty years ago, on another
All Saints' Day, I would have had to wait in line to get in. Now, however, people
didn't seem to care as much about the other world, and there were only five people
inside the store. They swarmed among bouquets of plastic flowers, funeral wreaths
and bronze crucifixes, arranged next to black Formica panels displaying an extensive
array of funeral trimmings.
Inside that unique establishment, time seemed to have stopped in an old
Barcelona, in the month of November, when the theaters were packed to see Don
Juan Tenorio and the puddles woke up frozen.
Grieg looked at the lamps, which seemed to come from the dismantling of old
funeral wagons, the kind that were pulled by percherons and that sported black
curtains and crepes. Multicolored crowns rested on the chess floor, giving the store a
colorful touch and spreading poppy aromas. Although the most spectacular thing
about the store was the back area: a double staircase that branched in a circle and
around two fluted columns led to the first floor.
Behind the counter, a man over sixty years old, extremely thin, with a cerulean
complexion and a large receding hairline, was serving with dapper neatness, dressed
in a brown suit, white shirt and navy blue tie. The man was talking to the customers
with his eyes wide open and his body very tense.
Grieg sat on a stool next to a table that had a tray full of cards, on which the name
of the store was written in the same Copperplate Gothic font that Grieg had attached
to his wallet. The owner, as soon as he saw him take a seat, approached him with a
tray full of chestnut-shaped marzipan panels .
195
—Please make yourself at home. "I'll answer you right away," the man announced,
with the firm conviction that Grieg was the person who had called him barely a week
ago inquiring about purchasing the premises.
While he waited, Grieg took the black-covered book that the monstrous hand had
left for him. With strong apprehension, he reread the torn words "I only trust you,"
written in Latin.
He opened the book in half, and between the glossy pages, a photo of the El
Diàbolo d'Or jewelry store appeared, in its heyday, with all the clerks posing in a
group in front of the camera. A few pages later there were some photographs of the
Vulcano foundry in the last years of the 19th century, which showed a burning
crucible where an incandescent liquid shone, which was poured into trapezoidal
molds in the same shape as that of the ingots of the gold…
Grieg hid the book again when he saw the shop owner approaching him.
—No... please, don't hide your pain. If these are photographs of a loved one, I'm
here to... —the owner hid so as not to show the interest he had in that man being the
buyer of his battered business.
"I wouldn't want to bother you, or waste your valuable time..." Grieg apologized.
-No way! —exclaimed the owner, opening his eyes wide—. If I have something at
my disposal, with these times, it is precisely time.
-Thank you.
-Very kind. With me, you already know the seventh generation at the head of the
Soridés Funeral Ornaments store... However, unfortunately the funeral home has just
as much life left as I have left to retire. Please tell me how I can help you…
"You see, I'm here because I'm a writer," Grieg lied.
The undertaker, disappointed after his confusion, looked around and saw that the
shop showed a desolate appearance; only a middle-aged lady was wandering
around.
"Well, you can tell me how I can help you..." and he sighed.
"I know very well the proven reputation of your establishment..." said Grieg. I am
researching for a novel that takes place in Barcelona in the 1940s, which narrates
events related to the production of alchemical gold and a serial killer who slit his
throat to obtain a small book...
"You mean Don Germán," the mortician interrupted.
"Don Germán... exactly," Grieg confirmed. How do you know?
“That guy provided so much work for my great-grandparents that it's a miracle he
doesn't have a plaque on the door,” the owner joked caustically.
—I'm glad it was like that. But rather than investigating Don Germán's crimes, you
know, the gruesome details such as the knife that the murderer viciously stuck in the
jugular, or the blood spilled on the floor... my novel focuses rather on the workshop
of the Masriera and in the fascinating story about the alchemical gold to which,
according to some chronicles, they had access.
"Man, I'm not an expert on the subject, but due to my work, I maintain a
relationship with the most distinguished families in Barcelona," confessed Mr.
196
Soridés while taking an affected bite of a panellet . I seem to remember that the
Masrieras sold the rights to an important jewelry store that has the most famous of
its stores in a building in Puig i Cadafalch, right on Paseo de Gracia. The Masriera
were great goldsmiths who made exceptional jewelry and won many international
awards, but from there to alchemical gold... All of that is nonsense that no one takes
seriously. Well..., only you, the writers.
-I know. Think that in a novel everything is possible... The reader lends himself to
the game, but appreciates that you have previously taken pains in the
documentation, of course, without ever overwhelming him with database and more
data. In a novel, above all, what really counts is the plot,” said Grieg, trying to strike
the pose he believed to be most appropriate for his role as a profound writer. And
Don Germán killed to obtain books that would allow him to make alchemical gold.
That is real information that even appeared in the newspapers and is available to
anyone in newspaper archives and on the Internet...
—It is a very interesting topic, and if you come back on another occasion when I
don't have so much work, I will tell you about the time when the funeral carriages
went up the Paseo de Gracia decorated, showing their wonderful coffins through the
windows. True wonders sculpted by artists!
—I take you at your word, but allow me… The reason for my visit is that,
throughout that dark story, the same shadowy character always appeared. I wanted
to know if any of your relatives, or even yourself, had ever heard of a strange guy...,
of a figure feared by everyone...
-It is logical. "You writers are always trying to find chilling plots," the mortician
pointed out. As if life, and I tell you, I know this for a while, wasn't already very sad,
and above all... very short.
Grieg took the metal perfume box out of his bag and placed several photographs
on the table.
The mortician, upon recognizing the man who appeared in the photographs,
immediately changed his attitude. He grimaced and his eyes became bloodshot.
—Please tell me the purpose of your visit, because I can't believe that you are a
writer! —he exclaimed.
Grieg immediately abandoned his established role as writer.
—I'm sorry to have inconvenienced you, but for me it is vitally important to know
who that individual is.
The mortician took one of those photographs in which he posed next to a beautiful
woman, and observed the fascinating jewel she wore on the lapel of her frock coat.
—If I were you, I would immediately abandon any matter that had anything to do
with that guy in the photographs.
-Because? —Grieg asked, sensing the answer.
—Because that son of a bitch… is the devil.
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56
After looking at all the photographs that were inside the brass box, the owner of
the funeral ornaments store walked with a resigned expression towards the lady in
the store and accompanied her to the door while making hasty excuses for that had
an unforeseen event.
After placing the closed sign and lowering the curtain on the door, the funereal
establishment was immersed in a spectral light of pearl tones that filtered through
the window mixed with the swaying shadows of the sycamore leaves.
—I want to know exactly who you are and what you are looking for. And I want
to know it right now! —the owner demanded.
Grieg became convinced that if he acted with the right tact, the man could provide
him with valuable information.
—My name is Gabriel Grieg and I am an architect. I specialize in the restoration of
churches and chapels. To a certain extent, your profession and mine are very similar,
since both are in contact with death and mystery.
The shop owner grimaced and said:
-What are you looking for?
—A while ago I found the address of your establishment at the base of a small jade
vase.
Grieg showed him the silver tag that was attached to the inside plastic of his
wallet, just as if he were showing her his documentation.
—We haven't used that type of label in decades. Where did you find the vase?
—In the Marcus chapel.
—You still don't answer my question. What do you look for here?
—I want to find out what kind of disastrous myth makes many people see the guy
in the photographs as the very incarnation of the devil.
—Stop rambling and answer my question. —The mortician's forceful tone
confirmed that this matter affected him more than expected.
Grieg sensed that if he wanted to get any kind of information from there, he had to
be honest.
—Although it may be hard to believe, ten years ago I signed a pact with him…,
and in a matter of hours I must pay off my debt.
The mortician's face darkened.
—Is the bastard still hanging around? —he asked with a thin voice.
-Yeah. Last night I spoke with him in the office of the director of the Círculo del
Liceo.
The man reflected for a few moments.
198
—And you say that you have not yet settled the debt that binds you to him?
—Well…, partly yes.
—That is too ambiguous an answer, when it comes to the subject we are talking
about.
"It's the truth..." Grieg said honestly with a circumspect face. I do not know to
whom I should deliver an object that has been left in my custody. Time is pressing on
me, and if I don't give it to the right person..., my life will be in danger. That's one of
the reasons I'm here: I need to gather information, as soon as possible, about this guy.
At that moment a loud ringing was heard and the room lost light. Some people
had stopped in front of the street door and were trying to find out why the
establishment was closed.
The undertaker didn't even flinch.
—What kind of object is that?
Grieg took out the box of auques and placed it on the table.
Upon seeing her, Mr. Soridés relaxed the features of his face. He sat in a chair and
with extreme delicacy lifted the cardboard cover and began to pass through the
cutouts, one by one. Grieg was excited to see how he analyzed them and how he
stopped at a specific one. Finally someone gave him hope...
"Come with me, please," he said laconically as he replaced the cutouts inside the
box.
The undertaker headed towards the back of the shop and began to climb the stairs.
Arriving at the first floor, he walked down a narrow hallway overlooking the store.
Once at the end of the hallway, Mr. Soridés opened a door hidden between square,
niche-shaped drawers.
The two entered a small room, somewhat larger than a storage room, in which a
table stood out against the wall. On the table there were several scissors, different
bottles full of white glue and a small wooden cabinet. The mortician invited Grieg to
take a seat and then looked at him intently and opened the closet doors.
Grieg, seeing the contents of the small furniture, couldn't help but sigh.
The closet shelves were filled with hundreds of small coffins, entirely made of
paper.
-What do you think?
Grieg delayed his response.
—Are the paper coffins related to the type that appears in the photographs? —he
finally asked.
-That's how it is. He was the one who introduced me to the wonderful world of
scissors, paper and glue.
Grieg stared at him without wanting to divert the conversation, and chose to
maintain a respectful silence in the claustrophobic room.
"The story comes from very far away," the mortician revealed. Did you like to play
hide-and-seek as a child?
Grieg tried to imagine what it might mean for a child to play hide-and-seek in a
funeral home full of coffins.
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—I was eight years old then and I remember that whenever that guy came to the
store he gave me a sheet of cut-outs that he took out of his lavish briefcase. —The
mortician rubbed his hand over his face—. He always gave me the gift while my
father and grandfather were waiting to attend to his important request.
The mortician was silent as he tried to remember those times.
"After giving me one of those sheets," he continued, "which I was impatiently
waiting for, he invited me to play hide-and-seek." He told me with a disconcerting
smile: "Hide in a place where I can't see you... because you already know that if I
manage to find you, the next time I come I won't bring you one of those cut-outs that
you like so much...", after which he would say one of their gloomy laughter.
Grieg listened without saying anything.
—This happened time after time, until one day that I will never forget, and that
would forever mark the rest of my life, he showed me the most wonderful cut-out I
had ever seen. I remember perfectly that he asked me: "Would you like me to be
yours?" And I said yes. What other answer could I have given him?
Grieg noticed the hypnotic trance that man felt when remembering that terrible
day of his childhood.
—Would you like to see said cutout? —inquired the mortician.
He opened a drawer on the table and showed him a cut-out with the figure of a
red and black devil, dressed in the archetypal way in which he is usually
represented, although the paper also included the different clothes that the devil
used when he changed strategies and adopted a human aspect. In that case, the
demon appeared in the form of a tall, handsome and thin man, holding a cigar in his
hand and wearing a black striped tuxedo with a glittering jewel protruding from the
lapel.
—What else happened that day? Grieg asked.
—The man with the cutouts told me that if I wanted to get it, I should hide in a
place where he couldn't find me. It wouldn't help me to hide like I normally did,
behind the wreaths or behind the columns on the floor above... This time it would
have to be a very hidden place, because he was willing to search for me thoroughly
after counting to one hundred.
The small room fell silent.
—Would you like to know where I hid that morning?
The mortician came out into the hallway, followed by the architect. He went down
the stairs, opened a locked door and entered a room with a display of coffins for
clients. The mortician went to the end of the room and entered another that offered
an overwhelming image: more than a dozen moving white coffins, resting on
elevated supports.
Soridés approached one of those small white coffins, specifically one that seemed
to be of lower quality, and opened the lid.
—I hid here! In the coffin of poor children. I hid in the one where our
establishment has always, and according to the tradition of the house for more than a
hundred years, stored and replenished for charity cases.
200
—And what happened?
"I wanted to get this cut-out so much..." the mortician shook him angrily, "that I
went into the best-hidden coffin in the entire funeral home." Once inside, I counted to
one hundred with my eyes closed; but I didn't hear anything... And then, when I was
already wondering how long this would last, I smelled the unmistakable smell of
cigar that always accompanied the man with the cut-outs and I remained completely
still inside the coffin. "Tomasito, I know you're hiding here and I'm going to find
you..." I listened, fearing that I was going to run out of the cutout. «Tomasito... I will
find you because I am like the devil of the cut-out that you want so much, and my
specialty is taking to hell the souls of the unwary like you, who believe they can hide
from me by getting into coffins...»
»Suddenly I heard a loud crash. After a few minutes, I started to get short of
breath and panicked. I pushed the lid but the coffin did not open. I pushed again
with all my might and it still didn't open. I screamed and screamed until I was
screaming but no one came to my aid. I was too far from the store, and my father and
grandfather couldn't hear me.
Grieg felt sympathy for the undertaker.
—When they finally found me and took me out of the coffin, I was almost dead
and I spent two days admitted to the Hospital del Mar. —He leaned lightly on the
small coffin—. At home, they took it as another of my pranks. This way he would
learn that funeral homes are there to sell coffins, not to play at getting inside them.
—But you think it really didn't happen like that...
-Exact. The bastard put a heavy box full of bronze knockers on top of my coffin,
trapped me, and took off. He locked an eight-year-old boy in a coffin!
—I'm sorry to play devil's advocate, but... how are you so sure that the guy finally
left and you weren't trapped in the coffin because a poorly stacked box fell?
—I'll explain it to you. —The man put his hand in the pocket of his jacket—. The
Soridés funeral home, although distinguished, is not given, by rancid tradition, to
unjustified expenditure. For the same reason, the coffin of poor children is donated
only when necessary, and as long as certain conditions are met. In other words, it can
go for a long time without surrendering, even years.
-AND? —Grieg asked.
—Five years after that event, a death occurred that met the requirements for the
store to cover the funeral expenses.
The hair on Soridés's back stood up as he picked up a small flat box that said:
"Funeral Knocker No. 3."
—Chance, or rather fate, meant that I was in charge of transporting that small
white coffin, a disastrous memory for me, to the store to begin the burial
procedures... Then I was already a little boy... Do you know what What did I find
under the coffin, between the gap left by the four legs?
"No," Grieg answered, intrigued.
—The demon cutout and this little box, which immediately reminded me of the
bastard.
201
The undertaker showed him the contents. Inside the box was a Havana cigar that
had been extinguished in the ring that surrounds it, which had previously been cut
with scissors to give it the shape of a tiny paper coffin.
—I've finally been able to tell this story to someone, and I feel really relieved. —He
placed the closed box and the cutout on the white lid of the coffin—. But I don't want
to talk about it again. If you are really interested, take that paper and that box... I
hope they help you.
The man wiped the sweat that beaded his forehead with a handkerchief.
—But before you go, let me ask you one thing: if you see that damned guy again,
settle the score on my behalf and on behalf of so many others who, without a doubt,
that damned son will have played the game. bitch I wish him the best of luck, but be
careful… he is cunning as a fox and evil as only the devil himself could be.
Grieg took note of that advice and kept the cut-out entitled The Devil and His
Thousand Faces and the small box containing the cigar in his pocket. He said goodbye
to Sorides with an affectionate pat on the shoulder and left the funeral ornaments
shop.
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57
Among cardboard horses, tin soldiers, ceramic dolls and tin drums, a tall, lanky
old man, with wan skin, observed another man from the back of his own store.
The man, dressed in jeans and a black leather jacket, had been looking at the toys
displayed in the window for a few minutes under a hand-painted wooden sign
bearing the name of the establishment: "The Toy Palace."
To get there, Grieg had had to dodge the rain through a set of narrow streets to the
Galerias Maldà, illuminated by the dim lights coming from the Plaza del Pi. Very
close by was the store to which he sent the red ink stamp stamped in one of the
corners of the cut-out that the undertaker had given him.
When Grieg opened the door, a pleasant little xylophone music sounded, very
similar to the one that announced the start of the old merry-go-rounds, which
stopped playing when the door closed again. At first, he didn't see any shop
assistants, and simply observed the wonderful constellation of toys around him.
As he walked down the central aisle of the toy store, he couldn't help but reproach
himself for not having discovered a place as endearing as that one before, where only
the electronic toys were missing.
In that store, the brass trains pretended to wait, anxiously, for someone to wind
them, and their tracks surrounded tiny armies of lead soldiers, ready to place
themselves under the command of a strategist in shorts and a licorice sucker.
The lanky old man, dressed in a shabby suit and an unusual colored bow tie,
brought Grieg out of his reverie with a rattle of his nails on a tin drum.
—Welcome to the Toy Palace! What I can help?
The clerk put on thin green linen gloves, raised a small door like a counter and
pronounced, somewhat histrionically, some words learned by several generations:
—Welcome to the Toy Palace! Order whatever you want! From a simple
cardboard horse to the most impressive wooden carousel…!
Grieg sensed that this could be one of the last representations of that wonderful
toy store.
-Good afternoon. I'm interested in cutouts.
-Of course! An admirable branch of collecting… —said the old man in the black
suit as he entered the toy store and opened a door that gave access to a room—. You
are in the right place, as I have some of the best specimens.
After turning on the light, a room appeared completely dedicated to the cut-outs,
in which the figure of a child made of paper, dressed as Tom Sawyer, stood out,
waving very smiling with a straw hat in one hand and an elaborate cardboard
theater. in the other.
203
—Tell me... Are you interested in Catalan auques , in hallelujahs, or perhaps in
Bilderbogen or the delicate French Épinal ?
—I'm only interested in a simple cutout.
Grieg handed him the haggard copy of The Devil and His Thousand Faces.
—A simple cut-out, you say? —the clerk exclaimed ironically. He left the cut-out
room and waited at the entrance for Grieg to do the same. Then he closed the door
with a haughty gesture.
-Please follow me.
The man walked with an agile step down the wide aisle of the store, which
seemed to be guarded by the thousand glass eyes of the dolls. He stopped at the
front door and returned the cut-out contemptuously.
"I'm sorry," he said, rearranging his bow tie. I thought it could be a client...
special... The most special of all...! Unfortunately, I was wrong. I don't know how you
got that valuable copy but, believe me, even if you put it up for auction, you won't
find your reward. Good afternoon.
The toymaker opened the door and the carousel music played again. That's when
Grieg intervened:
—Excuse me, but... what makes you think that I'm not that special client?
-Very easy! He would never have referred to The Devil and His Thousand Faces, the
wonderful and unrepeatable piece that you own, as "a simple cut-out."
"I warn you that I am not some upstart," said Grieg, grimacing, "nor a spiteful
person trying to sell off his grandfather's assets."
"You should prove that to me," the toymaker replied provocatively.
Grieg, after thinking for a few seconds, opened his bag and took out the box of
auques. The carousel music stopped as the door closed again.
The toymaker delicately took the box in his hands, opened it, looked at its contents
and went to a door on which the following words were painted:
DARK CAMERA
They entered a room somewhat larger than the adjacent one with the cutouts,
which had one main characteristic: the floor, walls and ceiling were painted white.
Grieg did not lose sight of the auques box, which had aroused so much interest in
the toymaker, because his life depended on it.
In the center of the room there was an elongated, quadrangular support, half a
pilaster high. The toymaker placed the box on top of the stand.
"I would like to know why that chest is so exceptional..." said Grieg.
The old man turned his head, raised his eyebrows, and smiled mockingly.
"Ahhhh..." he sighed. The eternal question of knowing what is truly important in
life... Just like in a cruel nightmare of youth, life is wasted in distractions and vain
work, until at the end of the road one realizes that the best thing one has ever known
is What to do in this life is... stop valuing.
—How do you say?
204
—Only experience and our own experiences make us value things. For me, this
box is invaluable. I have been in this business for a long time and have the
appropriate resources to value it.
—“Adequate resources”? Grieg asked.
-That's how it is.
—Does it refer to material resources?
—Believe it or not, I am the person who has dedicated the most time to the study
of shadows, kaleidoscopic images and the always disturbing anamorphic
perspectives… —The toymaker narrowed his eyes—. And I assure you that this box
is the greatest treasure you can imagine. I'll show you.
The man placed the cuttings on the pilaster-shaped support. Grieg felt that the
trap that the old man had set for him, making him custodian of the auques box, was
more poisonous than he believed.
"To the inexperienced eye," the toymaker began, "these hallelujahs are nothing
more than despicable pieces of cardboard." Therein lies the secret of the box! He
looked away from the childish figures to Grieg. Pay attention to what I am going to
show you, because, whatever fate you decide to give to the box, I assure you that you
will remember this moment.
The toymaker took a cut-out showing the figure of a smiling elephant and placed
it upside down on a clip protruding from the pilaster, under the spotlight. Grieg
verified that the cutout projected, on the floor and the wall, a large black shadow in
the shape of a terrifying monster swallowing a gigantic boa.
The toymaker, ecstatic with the transformation of the figures, placed, one after
another, the cut-outs between the ends of the clips. These, when illuminated by the
projector, transformed Aladdin into an ogre and a flower with slender petals from
the Land of Jauja into a wolf with sharp fangs.
Grieg witnessed, surprised, the indefinable transformation of those figures under
that shadow-making light.
"I admit that you are a true magician," he said. But is that box that important?
—You have one of the best collections of occult shadows known. Anyway, I'll
refrain from asking him where he got it... Although it's a real shame that the
collection...
The toymaker did not finish the sentence.
-What does it mean…?
—There could be something more...
—What are you implying?
—Could you tell me if the box is missing any pieces?
Grieg knew that two figures were missing: one he had given to Lorena, but it was
not a cutout. So it could only be the claim he had saved in his wallet. Convinced that
it could be useful, he chose to give the toymaker the small cardboard figure
representing Merlin the Wizard with a magic wand and a black-covered book
identical to the one the monster from the Marcus Chapel had left him.
205
The man took the cardboard figure and, after placing it in the clamp and under the
light of the spotlight, he verified that it projected the same shape as on the cardboard,
that of the wizard Merlin. Clearly displeased, he introduced her to other devices in
the Camera Obscura: the anorthoscope, the phenaschitiscope, and the phanthascope.
But in all of them he only saw his conventional image.
The toymaker hesitated for a few seconds before placing the cardboard on a
thaumatope. Suddenly, the figure began to rotate at such speed on itself that both
faces could be seen at the same time. The man took a step back and was completely
terrified when he saw the image that was formed in the heart of the top. Although he
had sensed it several times, he never believed he would be able to see it in life.
-What's going on? —Grieg intervened.
—You've seen it, right? He has talked to him and felt the smoke from his cigarettes
enter his lungs.
Grieg remained silent and simply took out of his pocket the box containing the
unlit cigar that the mortician had given him. When the toymaker saw the ring of the
cigar cut into the shape of a coffin, he finally knew who he had in front of him and
what diabolical task he had to perform.
With a slight tremor in his firm hands, the toymaker put the cigar butt back into
the box and handed it back to the person in front of him, while bowing his head as he
realized that he was in the presence of the "successor." ».
—SIR…, have you seen her? —said the toymaker in a submissive voice as he
pointed to the golden jewel that the devil was wearing on the flap of the paper
cutout.
Gabriel Grieg got a chill.
—I have to find her in less than four hours.
—It would be an honor for me if you did not forget the help I have given you, and
would visit me again once you exercise control of the relictum.
The toymaker bowed his head respectfully to Grieg, who did not understand the
meaning of those last words.
He simply crossed his fingers and did not turn his head so as not to discover what
shape his own shadow took under the intense light that flooded that Dark Chamber.
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At that time, four in the afternoon, Barcelona's Eixample showed the silent and
depopulated appearance that its streets take on on holidays.
A cold wind raised small clouds of dust and sandstone, when Gabriel Grieg
parked the motorcycle and prepared to enter an imposing neoclassical building,
formerly called Hotel del Arte, where León Felipe, Federico García Lorca and
Antonio stayed. Machado.
The ground floor of the hotel housed the most exclusive smoking club in
Barcelona. There, Grieg hoped to clear up the doubts left in him by his encounters
with the mortician and the toymaker.
He entered the luxurious lobby of the hotel and headed towards the reception. His
somewhat tense body alerted him to imminent danger.
-Good afternoon. “I would like to go into the Cigar Bar,” he requested.
The receptionist asked him if it was his first time there and, upon receiving an
affirmative answer, took note of the name. After accrediting him and diligently
giving him a card, he told him that the smoking club was in front of the bar, but not
before reminding him that the circle had changed its name to adopt something much
more in line with the times: Club Epicure.
Gabriel Grieg entered a pleasant area isolated from the rest of the hotel. Instantly,
he felt the soles of his shoes step on a shiny parquet floor, on which stood out some
leather armchairs dimly illuminated by the glow of some select cigar cellars.
At that early hour, the only customer in the club was a mature woman who,
dressed elegantly and sitting next to the large humidifier, was reading the
newspapers while smoking a thick cigar.
Gabriel sat in one of the large armchairs that had a side table attached to it with a
silver and boxwood ashtray. Then he took the twisted cigar butt out of his pocket
and tore off the ring of paper that was cut into the shape of a coffin. He noticed again
that the central image was completely burned, after having put out the cigar on it.
While Grieg was pondering the cigar, the club director approached. He was a man
in his fifties with gray hair and grim features, dressed in a blue suit with a tan tie and
a Windsor knot around a pristine white shirt collar.
—Good afternoon, sir... Excuse me, but I don't remember having seen you before.
Is this the first time you have honored us with your presence? —he asked, observing
with a crooked expression the deplorable appearance of the cigar that Grieg held in
his hand.
"Indeed, it is the first time," Grieg replied.
—In that case, and if the gentleman sees fit, I can recommend a good cigar.
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—The truth is that I would be very grateful…
—Please accompany me to one of our cellars. I will show you our exclusive
selection of Havana cigars.
They headed towards one of the display cases and, after opening it with a key, an
intense aroma of tobacco mixed with cedar wood invaded them.
—Does the gentleman like fast or slow cigars?
—The truth is that I am looking for a very special cigar…
-Of course. I can offer you a selection of grand reserve and premium cigars, among
which I would like to recommend this H. Upmann Magnum 50, of medium strength
and excellent shooting. It leaves sublime sweet and woody notes in the mouth with
hints of cocoa. —The manager took a copy—. Or this Montecristo with a slightly
stronger emboque that sets the benchmark for the flavor of cigars. Perhaps, if you
prefer a more intense tasting, you might be interested in a Vegas Robaina Maestros,
which displays an infinite arc of flavors. Now..., if what you want is something really
special, I suggest Cohiba's Siglo vi, which is one of the most sought-after cigars. It
has an exceptional shot and combustion and provides delicate flavors of leather,
cocoa, nuts, vanilla and honey...
Grieg took in his hand a small gold-colored metal case that contained a
Montecristo Petit Edmundo cigar.
—I opt for this one, whose name is very evocative to me. Without a doubt, the
cigars that you so kindly advise me are exceptional, but I would like you to advise
me on a very special cigar.
The club director bit his lip and looked at this strange club member.
—What do you mean?
—You see, I'm not a cigar smoker... or even cigarette smoker.
Hearing that, the manager sighed and looked up at the ceiling.
"The fact," Grieg continued, "is that I am very interested in knowing the name of a
certain brand of cigar, and no tobacco shop has been able to help me." In all of them
they have referred me to this club, where I would find you, one of the greatest
experts in the world. So I have allowed myself to come to ask you for help.
—Let's see... —After the compliment, the manager was much more willing to
answer that question—. He has been lucky enough to appear at a good time. We just
opened and, besides, on All Saints' Day and All Souls' Day the club is not usually
very busy... —He let out a chuckle—. What brand of cigars are you looking for?
"I don't know," Grieg admitted.
—He says he's a non-smoker and is looking for the brand of a cigar he doesn't
know about... I admit he's very intriguing.
-That's how it is.
—And you don't have any clue? The country of origin perhaps…
—Yes, I have the vitola… Well…, I think experts call it a paper ring or a cigar ring.
—We call it a cigar ring. The vitola is something else: it refers to the size and
diameter of the cigar made by each brand. So, if it has the ring, and it is a very special
cigar, we are already more than half way done. Let me see the ring.
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—I warn you that it is cropped and can only be partially seen.
—Come with me to my office, please.
In the office, there were many books on the history of tobacco and its work. The
director took out a large album with burgundy covers and placed it ceremoniously
on the table. It was classified by brands.
—The history of cigars is very extensive, but in the margins of the vitola, through
small clues such as the engravings or colors, you can tell the country and the era.
Let's look at the ring you're talking about.
Grieg placed the coffin-shaped vitola on the table.
Suddenly the director froze, as if a sudden force had crushed him against the seat.
He closed the large vitolary with a slap of his hand. He took the paper coffin between
his fingers and uttered some threatening words.
—I don't know who you are..., but I suspect you're not looking for a cigar brand...!
He stood up and pointed to the door with his hand. You are looking for a person,
and that is beyond my capabilities, given the most basic confidentiality rules by
which this club is governed. I ask you, therefore, to leave this room immediately...
"I don't know what's wrong with you..." Grieg replied, trying to redirect the
situation, "but I haven't told you about anyone in particular." Maybe you got
confused.
The director sat down again and seemed to reconsider.
—Yes, excuse me... Maybe I have gone too far...
—May I ask who or what you associate with the vitola I just showed you?
—Tell me first where you got it.
Now it was the club employee who tried to extract information from him. Grieg,
realizing this, decided to take advantage of that happy circumstance.
—You see, I am an architect and a long time ago I carried out restoration work
related to this man. —He showed him the photo from the fifties where the old man
from the Lyceum was seen—. I have his objects... That's why I'm looking for the man
who smoked this cigar... you understand? To deliver those objects of great monetary
and sentimental value. Maybe you can give them to him... I assure you that I would
not want to contravene any club rules, much less compromise you.
The manager looked at the photograph and said:
—Even if I wanted to violate the club's rules, it would be completely impossible
for me. This man visits us several times a year, but I do not know his identity. What's
more..., we don't even have a file on him. Maybe it's because he is an honorary
member, or a shareholder of the hotel, I don't know. Actually, no one knows. I used
to come here before I joined.
"Excuse my curiosity," Grieg intervened, "but I am intrigued by the fact that, upon
seeing the burnt ring, you feared that you were looking for that man."
—Excuse me, but I can't give you information about that.
—Given his advanced age, this is an urgent matter. And it is possible that both
you and I will regret it one day,” Grieg urged.
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—It's okay... After all, I'm not going to reveal any confidential information. I'm
also intrigued by the brand of cigar he smokes. "I can't help it..." The manager got up,
put the album back on the shelf and opened a drawer. You see... In principle, I know
all the cigar brands. But I have never been able to find out about this man, since
when he leaves, before putting out the cigar in the ashtray, he removes the ring and
crushes the hot ember against it, thus carbonizing the image that is silk-screened in
its center. He walked to the door and locked it. The truly intriguing thing about life is
that sometimes it surprises you with unforeseen situations.
The manager sat down again at the table and showed Grieg a small ring book in
which were stored several dozen of those twisted and charred cigar rings. Some
retained their original shape, but others were cut into the shape of a labarum, a cross
or a crucifix.
—All these rings belong to that man, but I still haven't been able to guess the
brand of the cigar he smokes. And I assure you that I have tried. Actually, it has me
very intrigued.
—There is something else, right? —Grieg asked, looking into his eyes.
The director shifted in his chair.
—That man gives me chills. His coldness, his icy gaze, his languid movements, his
indefinable age... You say you know him, so you know what I mean. May I see the
photographs again?
Grieg handed the box to the director, who passed them around with a sad face.
—It cannot be denied that he has had a very intense life…
Grieg took out the cutout of the devil and placed it next to the charred vitolas. The
manager, on his own, examined the cut-out, paying special attention to the elegance
of the suit and the strange jewel on the lapel.
"You're in quite a bit of trouble, aren't you?" —said the director. Grieg dodged the
question. Over time, I have come to the conclusion that they are very special Havana
cigars, made specifically for him in Cuba, and that they incorporate an exclusive
cigar ring. The same one he always covers with his bony fingers while smoking.
—Do you have any idea why he does it?
—I once asked you openly, and I assure you that it is not my style.
—And how did he react?
—He looked at me while I was closely scrutinized by his burly bodyguard, and
said: “That's part of my secret. Maybe one day someone will ask you that same
question.
"Excuse me, but I don't understand you..." said Grieg, somewhat disconcerted.
—That's what I thought when I heard your response. It's strange, but I think I
should convey to you a mysterious phrase that that man told me one day. —The
director took a breath before speaking—. I remember his words: "The person who is
able to guess where the figure printed in the center of the ring physically is will take
my place."
—Strange answer… And what happened next?
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—For some reason I walked away from him as if his words contained something
terrible… something prophetic and infernal. And just now I have just realized how
reckless and dangerous my investigation could have been...
—What research? Grieg asked.
—I remind you that our conversation is confidential, and if I am talking to you it is
because it is about an issue that has worried me for some time. I do not deny that, for
the benefit of the club, I would like to clarify it appropriately.
The director showed Grieg some pages where he had drawn several pencil
strokes. They looked like macabre figures… maybe skeletons or monsters.
“Moved by my curiosity to guess the brand of cigars he smoked,” the director
continued, “every time the man left I picked up the rings. I was drawing a series of
sketches with what I could get from them.
Grieg was overwhelmed when he looked at the sketches. Those macabre drawings
transported him to a chilling place where he had been a few hours before.
"That's all I know." You can keep the Petit Edmundo de Montecristo cigar that you
chose from the cellar. Consider it a personal gift. I will never talk about this topic
again… Subject archived.
The man put the cigar rings and drawings into a document shredding machine.
Grieg left the club with disturbing words echoing in his head: "...The person who
is able to guess where the figure printed in the center of the ring physically is will
take my place."
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Grieg returned to the place where he had been with Lorena just a few hours ago, a
space made up of dense wooden lattices that smelled of rancid wax.
He carefully opened the door of the confessional of the church of Sant Gervasi.
That compartment was connected by a passage to the secret cemetery, which is
where Grieg sensed that the original figure that had inspired the design of the paper
cigar rings was located.
Before closing the wooden pivot that blocked the door that gave access to the dark
hallway, Grieg made sure that none of the few people who were praying in the
church realized what he was doing. He carried in his pocket a drawing that he had
made himself, trying to reconstruct those that the director of the smoking club had
sketched.
The Widow's Chamber was dark. Grieg carefully lifted the peephole guard and
saw that a tall, burly man was standing on the stairs of the pantheon with the hieratic
posture of someone on guard.
Trying not to make noise, Grieg sat down in a chair and placed the sheet of
sketches he had drawn on leaving the hotel on the small table. He noticed that in the
schematic drawings there lay the mystery of the problem that was gripping him. But
not only that: the drawings harbored the dark feeling that they had made him return.
Human bones appeared in them, and among all of them you could make out the
skeleton of a horrifying figure. In many of the sketches, bones protruded above the
skull, which made one think of the stone figures, with inhuman shapes, that
decorated the secret cemetery. That was the suspicion that had led him there. It was
time to check if his assumptions were true.
Grieg began to tear the black cloth that padded the interior of the Widow's
Chamber. He cut several strips of about fifty centimeters, one of them much wider
than the others, and placed them on the table.
He went to the access door to the chamber and opened it. After verifying that the
guard could not see him, he took the strips of fabric that he had removed from the
walls and spread them on the floor, and tied a sliding knot with the widest strip.
Then he leaned his back against the wall and grabbed the cloth with the slipknot.
He connected his mobile phone and selected a specific ringtone. Instantly, the
pleading mewing of a cat could be heard in the mausoleum, which was one of the
tones preselected by the manufacturer of his mobile phone.
The watchman, upon hearing that pitiful meow, went towards the corner from
which the sound came. When he reached one end of the mausoleum, he was
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surprised to see that one of the slabs that formed the wall was open, and that the
feline's meow was coming from inside.
When he lowered his head to enter the cavity, he felt strong pressure on his
collarbone and then someone tied a cloth around the back of his neck and covered
his mouth. Within seconds, his hands had been pinned behind his back and his eyes
had been covered.
Grieg fixed the guard to one of the projections of a molding, with a double
mountaineer's knot. He took the gun from her and hid it in the folds of the circular
velvet chair.
Without delay, he headed to the entrance to the pantheon at the end of the stairs of
that enigmatic cemetery. There he hoped to find the monster.
From the top of the small hill, Grieg saw how the clouds seemed to melt in the sky
as if they were gigantic clouds of smoke coming from an enormous crucible.
If his terrible premonition turned out to be true, reality would begin to close in on
the limits of his sanity.
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Lorena observed the large cypress that rose majestically in the mansion's garden.
Then he turned and crossed those silent corridors in which time seemed to have
stopped.
Intoxicated by that hermetic harmony, Lorena entered a darkened room and
stopped before the automaton that had so fascinated Grieg: The Life of the Damned in
Hell. Then he looked at the devil's sardonic face, cynical and menacing as he
brandished his sharp trident.
"That look no longer keeps up with the times," Lorena thought contemptuously. He
then dialed a number on his mobile phone. After several rings, someone answered
on the other end of the line.
-Hello?
—Why haven't you picked up the phone the last few times I called you? —
Lorraine asked.
"I'm the one asking the questions here," said the voice. Do you already have
everything prepared for tonight?
"Yes," she answered tersely. But… it is a yes with nuances.
—You have very little time left…
-I know.
Communication was cut off.
Lorena went to her room and took an envelope with a card out of a suitcase. On it
stood out a word written in relief and plated in twenty-four carat gold.
MEPHISTOPHELE
Smiling maliciously, Lorena took the dress that was resting on the bed next to the
sawed-off shotgun and stood in front of the mirror. For some reason, when he put on
that lavish suit over his clothes, his movements were transformed into a persuasive
machinery of sensuality. It was an exclusive Chanel model in draped black satin,
with a strapless neckline and a daring updo at hip height.
Lorena slowly undressed, and before putting on her dress she looked in the
mirror. In the shadows of the room, he observed the image of the monstrous, bony
figure engraved on the side of his chest.
"The tattoo does not go beyond the limits of the neckline," he told himself.
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The secret cemetery lay enveloped by the deceptive silence of the stately
pantheons.
Not trusting this false calm, Grieg descended the stairs to the thick gates at the
entrance and found that they were secured from the outside with a padlock.
"Surely the monster is hiding within these walls," he told himself, trying not to be
horrified at the idea that someone could find him in there.
He took out of his pocket the paper on which he had scribbled the sketches when
leaving the smoking club and began to compare them with the hundreds of stone
figures that populated the entrance to the pantheons.
The slender sculptures with angelic faces seemed gripped by a dark force, as if,
from their stony immobility, they were trying to reveal the secret that the cohort of
monstrous gargoyles that surrounded them had taken over.
«I have to guess the secret they seem to want to reveal to me! And I have very little
time to find out before they return…” Grieg urged himself, with the sketches in his
hand and observing those demon-shaped figures that emerged in a menacing way
between moldy stone fires.
It was then that he noticed an extravagant stone hippocampus that had, instead of
fins, extremely expressive grotesque hands. And suddenly he noticed a revealing
detail: all the stone figures, whether with stumps, patagios or fingers, pointed
towards the same place in the cemetery.
"But... which one?" the architect asked himself.
Grieg looked at the paper again, and as if it were a flash, he remembered an image
he had seen that same morning, through the peephole of the secret compartment
located in the large circular mausoleum.
«I should have realized much sooner! All the figures point towards the pantheon
of the columns... They point to the Widow's Chamber!
And without wasting any time, he climbed the stairs and entered the Widow's
Chamber. Once there, he stood behind the bronze scope and pointed it upward,
where all the stone chimeras were pointing. He slid the viewer from left to right, as if
it were a tiny periscope, until he discovered that in the place where the ribs
converged, the very center of the dome, there was, sculpted in stone, the same figure
that the old man from the Lyceum destroyed in their cigars. It was a monstrous
skeleton with wings that seemed to howl in its skull and that pointed with its bony
index finger towards the tomb on the upper floor.
"Don't waste time..." Grieg told himself.
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He left the chamber and began to climb the stairs that led to the great tomb. But
his mind was torn between two contradictory forces: on the one hand, he wanted to
find out the secret that was hidden at the end of the essential path; On the other
hand, he knew that behind the figure of the old man there was something dark and
infernal.
And he remembered those mysterious words again: "...The person who is able to
guess where the figure printed in the center of the ring physically is will take my
place."
"What place?" Grieg asked himself.
He entered the mausoleum and ascended the narrow steps that led to the tomb,
but everything was the same as the last time. Perhaps the only difference was that he
now sensed that that tomb hid something "essential."
He tried to calculate the exact point pointed by the finger of the winged skeleton
located on the keystone of the vault. And he concluded that this imaginary line
would pass through a very specific point: the center of the tomb.
Grieg, realizing this, pushed aside the blankets until he discovered the large slab.
He decided to hit the stone until it broke, which would have been more logical, but
as long as the immobilized guard did not sense his movements, he rejected the idea.
So he used leverage and slowly lifted the slab until it was resting on one of the walls
of the mausoleum.
He took the flashlight again and pointed it towards the space hidden by the slab.
-It's not possible! —he exclaimed in a choked voice.
Grieg grabbed several gold ingots and set them aside to continue extracting
others, with the intention of reaching the bottom, to the very center of the stone base
on which rested that immense treasure made up of hundreds of gold ingots. exactly
the same as the one he had dug up under the floor of his own house before going to
meet Lorena.
"This must be 'the Stone'," he thought, dazed. I must get to the place indicated by
the winged skeleton. And I have to do it quickly, before the henchmen arrive and
untie the guard below.
Gabriel Grieg tried by all means to repress a feeling as foreign to him as greed, he
touched the cold surface of the ingots, in which the figures of Ouroboros and
Catobeplás shone. He took out ingots until the light of the flashlight reflected a
different color than gold.
«There hides the damn jewel I'm looking for!»
He inserted his arm to the bottom of the cavity and noticed a plastic-like material,
which in turn wrapped an object with a cottony texture.
For the umpteenth time, the words that the old man had said to the director of the
smoking club came to mind: "...The person who is able to guess where the figure
printed in the center of the ring is physically will take my place." And he felt a
shudder as he remembered the submissive bow that the toymaker had made while
accompanying that gesture with the infamous address "Sir."
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Grieg pulled the object from the bottom of the hole and shone his flashlight on it.
Before distinguishing anything, he already knew unequivocally what its fateful
content was.
He didn't even pay attention to the diabolical jewel that he finally had before his
eyes, the same one that Lorena called "the Stone"! In it glittered a large gem held by a
sharp dragon claw. Grieg, however, limited himself to observing the lapel of the
frock coat to which it was inseparably attached.
A terrible shock seized Grieg. It was a premonition so evil that it completely
annulled the greed that could awaken the incalculable value of that treasure that was
piled up at his feet... He sensed that in the heart of those gold ingots were sheltered,
in an infernal omen, loneliness, terror. and terror. The loneliness of having to forget
about yourself forever. The horror of carrying those sinister omens on your back.
And the terror caused by the memory of the conversation with the old man from the
Lyceum, when he referred to the physical existence of the devil and said that any of
us can be the "chosen one" to transform into him at the most unforeseen moment.
Grieg, still absorbed in those thoughts, thought he heard the noise of several
automobile engines coming from the site of the old church.
«I can't risk being discovered here. I must leave immediately.
He replaced the gold ingots in the hole and covered them again with the heavy
slab. He arranged the blanket over the grave, made sure that all the objects were in
the same position, and quickly went down the stairs.
From the steps Grieg saw, relieved, that the cemetery gates were still closed. Then
he went to the Widow's Chamber, while the watchman shook violently and his voice
was muffled by the cloth that gagged him. The architect cut the cloth that tied his
hands, and while the man finished untying himself, he entered the chamber and
blocked the marble slab with the little table.
After locking the door to the Widow's Chamber, Grieg ran towards the secret exit
of the confessional.
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Leaving the church of Sant Gervasi, Grieg got on his motorcycle and descended
the narrow streets that surround the Turó de Monterols. It was not until he reached
Balmes Street, at a red light, that he stopped and verified that no one had followed
him.
According to his watch, there were still more than two hours until his
appointment with Lorena.
Grieg couldn't stop thinking about the fabulous treasure that was buried under
the tomb, but above all, about the frock coat that was wearing the diabolical jewel.
«I cannot let myself be brought down by circumstances. Everything has a rational
explanation, and I'm going to find it, no matter what the cost," he said to himself,
with a somber look and a grim expression, sensing that he should face the terrible
phrase with which the film Corridor of No Return begins, by Samuel Fuller: "Whoever
the gods want to destroy, they first drive mad."
The twilight afternoon was losing its gray color, as if it wanted to abandon itself to
the shadows that fell on the facades like gigantic theater curtains. After the shock he
had suffered when he found the treasure, the entire city seemed to shrink before his
eyes.
Grieg, turning his head, discovered his image reflected in a shop window. And
suddenly he saw how the lights of the streetlights and neon tubes drew, on the
surface of his helmet, the face of a terrible monster.
«I can't break down. Not now! I have to find out how far the threat extends!
An uncontrollable impulse made him park the motorcycle on the sidewalk and
take the evil frock coat that he had found in the grave. He tried it on and found that it
fit him like a glove. He approached the display case of a hardware store, and
between pruners and scythes, he looked in the mirror.
Grieg noticed that he was wearing a frock coat that, without a doubt, Beau
Brummel, the most sublime dandy in history, would have found exceptional. It had
the condition that Baudelaire himself demanded of all his provocative frock coats:
"Admit infinite nuances."
And furthermore, just as Oscar Wilde's was topped with a green carnation, his had
on the lapel a disturbing jewel in the shape of a dragon's claw that trapped, like a
cold moon, the strange gem.
A jewel that was scary to caress.
Grieg got back on the motorcycle and continued down Balmes Street towards the
sea. He tried to convince himself that all the phrases the old man had said in the
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Lyceum office, although at that moment they descended on him like a flock of crows,
were nothing more than absurd and irrational tricks.
However, he was deeply uneasy. He felt deceptively warm in the frock coat, as if
the garment had been made to perform the same function as the toymaker's gloves in
the Chamber Darkness. He was a harmless cut-out figurine and the entire city
appeared like a gigantic theater of Chinese shadows, which was lost in the
background of the Diagonal, blurred between reddish mists.
He drove, absorbed in his thoughts until he realized that he was very close to the
place where he would meet Lorena again. It was in the middle of the Rambla, at the
height of the Leiva dragon, very close to the Teatro del Liceo.
The place where it had all started.
I'm sure Lorena has something to do with the party last night, he thought.
Grieg left the motorcycle parked in Pla de la Boqueria and walked along Las
Ramblas towards the port. It was then, while crossing Miró's mosaic, that he became
fully aware of the dark prophecy contained in the old man's words: "The devil walks
calmly through the streets of Barcelona without anyone taking the slightest notice of
his ominous presence..."
"If I keep thinking about this, I'll end up losing my mind," he told himself, and he
automatically felt invaded by an unusual feeling of power and calm.
When he raised his head, he realized that he was facing the façade of the Lyceum.
Unusually, the theater was dark. However, a contour of light emerged from the
porticoes, casting a shadow on the wet floor of the Ramblas.
Grieg was paralyzed when he saw that the shadow had the shape of a gigantic
demon with large horns... For a moment he did not know if the demonic shadow was
born or died at his feet.
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Grieg slowly approached the façade of the Lyceum.

Looking through the glass of the closed doors, he discovered something
incredible. At the back of the lobby was a large die-cut poster showing the figure of
the demon. That image was the same as the sculpture of the demon that Grieg had
seen in the Marcus Chapel.
"Now I know what the Swiss photographers went to the Marcus Chapel to do,"
thought Grieg. And I don't know why..., but it seems to me that the cunning Lorena
is behind all this, and I'm going to do everything possible to find out.»
Gabriel Grieg looked at the cardboard devil's vicious expression, and then touched
the fabulous jewel he was wearing pinned to the lapel of his frock coat.
"I hope this suit gives me luck at a time like this..."
Then, as if it were an apparition, he saw Ziripot de Lanz, the satyr who trafficked
in demonic goods the night before at the Font del Gat.
The scrawny little guy was entering Hospital Street in the direction of Plaza de
Sant Agustí, and although he was not wearing his characteristic half-cape, she
recognized him by his unmistakable way of walking, jumping, and he was also
leaning on his cane. Grieg prepared to follow him, maintaining a safe distance.
He watched as the man stopped near Robadors Street and looked around, trying
to detect any suspicious movement; then he turned off down a narrow street. Upon
arriving there, Grieg saw the lonely asphalt puddled, but he knew immediately
which door the satyr had passed through.
It was one of the typical modernist establishments that flourished in art deco
Barcelona: Bodega Bohemia.
The old bistrot was built during the first years of the 20th century, at the height of
the Barcelona del Excelsior or Madame Petit's brothel in the Arc del Teatre.
On the walls of Bodega Bohemia hung, among old guitars, portraits of former
showgirls from El Molino and other cabarets in Paralelo, as well as yellowed
photographs of Bella Dorita, Bella Chelito, bullfighters like Mario Cabré or artists of
the stature by Ava Gardner. There was a large solid wood bar, lined with serpentine
moldings, above which hung several bronze and glass lamps that dimly illuminated
the worn velvet of the stools.
The establishment had ten booths, separated by wooden screens and smoked
glass. It also had an old upright piano, where an old blind pianist was stationed
playing some dull melodies that no one knew anymore.
When Grieg arrived, the room was not crowded, and in the darkest booth he could
make out the shadow of the satyr, who left no doubt about his identity by putting on
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a bizarre five-pointed hat. Some girls accompanied him. Grieg sensed that the satyr
was preparing to perform some strange ritual with them, since they, giggling, stood
in a circle around him.
Grieg approached two girls who were sitting at a marble table and who had been
looking at him suggestively since he entered. They were amazed to see that the light
illuminated Grieg's face.
Grieg did not understand what was happening, since it was the first time he had
seen them, and he could not guess what caused that face of fear and fascination. He
went to the bar, and in the shadows he addressed the person who was next to the
cash register. She was an obese woman with a bitter appearance.
"I'd like to buy those two girls a drink in one of the booths," Grieg said as he took
out his wallet.
The madame, after collecting the drinks in advance, made a gesture with her hand,
and the girls approached while still observing the customer.
Grieg was waiting for them sitting in a semicircular booth, illuminated by two dim
red lights, when the girls arrived with a bottle of cava and crystal glasses. Grieg had
the satyr right in front of him, whose image was filtered through the smoked glass
that separated the booths.
Ziripot de Lanz couldn't stop gesturing with his arms open, while kissing and
touching the girls obscenely, who seemed to know the guy from previous visits.
The two girls were still whispering to each other, while they glanced at Grieg, as if
they couldn't believe what they saw before them.
"I would like you to explain to me what you are up to," Grieg said, smiling.
"We thought you would have already guessed it..." one of the girls answered
mysteriously.
"He was expected in this place for a long time," the same young woman confessed
theatrically, while the other observed the jewel that Grieg was wearing in his lapel.
—Would you mind explaining better, my beautiful ladies? What does my humble
person have that you seem to admire so much?
—We show admiration…, because there were many times that you were
invoked… —answered the other girl—. And until today you have not expressed
yourselves.
The two girls extended all the fingers of their hands except the little finger and the
ring finger. It was an unmistakably demonic symbol. Then they brought their hands
under the table and began to caress Grieg lasciviously.
The girls closed their eyes and said some strange words:
—Welcome you, lord of the underworld! —the two young women declaimed in
unison, looking into his eyes and smiling.
Although Grieg appeared imperturbable, those words penetrated like the hiss of a
thousand snakes. In order to find out what was happening, he chose to get into the
skin of the character.
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—I would like you to explain to me why you behave in such an unusual and
disrespectful way towards me. I thought you were much more submissive officiants!
—he exclaimed.
Upon hearing that, one of the two girls burst out laughing.
—Look, sir! —he exclaimed as he pointed to the adjacent booth.
Grieg watched as on the other side of the glass the man from Font del Gat put on
the same old frock coat he had been wearing the night before. Next, he drew a
pentacle on the table with red chalk, and placed five girls at the points of the star.
The satyr, as if in a trance, took out the instruments from his bag to perform a black
mass or a coven. The girls who accompanied him attended the demonic ceremony
with smiles and jokes.
The girl sitting to Grieg's right let out another laugh and began to imitate the satyr.
—Oh, great Maimón! Oh great Maimon! —he exclaimed between laughs—. I
summon you as the great Pico de la Mirandola did… Hin. Etan emen! Aio archime! Aio
archime! Super abrac ruens! Super abrac ruens!
Grieg realized that the girls thought he and the satyr were together and were
playing along.
—Your friend, the one with the hat, is telling the same thing he always tells us
when he has caught fresh money… —revealed the girl who had made the replica of
the demonic invocation—. He always tells us that he will summon the demon. Yes,
yes... One who apparently lives in Barcelona and walks through the streets with a
very elegant frock coat like the one you, Satan, are wearing..., and with that same
jewel...
The girl looked at Grieg and, a few centimeters from his face, repeated the words
with which the satyr always ended his grotesque invocations:
—I summon you, Lucifer… Make an appearance!
Then he brought his lips to Grieg's, who felt the wet and hot contact of his tongue.
With a somber look, Grieg took the box containing the Montecristo cigar that the
director of the smoking club had given him. He opened his arms and drew the two
girls towards him, while he smiled a Mephistophelean smile.
I know what to do to make the satyr bow to my will, he thought. "I have to find
out what event will take place tonight at the Lyceum and why Lorena tried to hide it
from me."
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In the booth, the five priestesses of the grotesque sabbat formed an imperfect circle
around the satyr. Their hands were suspended in the air with their palms turned
downward, covering with them the rudimentary cabalistic symbols that the guy had
drawn on the table.
The officiant conducted the improvised occultum by placing his hands on the
symbols of the Sun and the Moon, while declaiming in a low voice:
—Radius Dei seu… Sphaera luminis seu… Lucís creatae… Sphaera Spiritus…
Empyrei… I summon you, Oh, master and lord!, in the name of Collin de Planci, from
whose wisdom we learned that astral vision is like having a million eyes.
—Materialize! —concluded the officiant with a contorted face.
Suddenly, the pentacle was covered in intense smoke. The five girls were scared
and instinctively jumped off the table and headed towards the bar.
As the smoke rose toward the blackened ceiling, a man appeared wearing a
fabulous jewel on the lapel of his frock coat. The satyr was livid when he saw, at the
back of the booth, that elegant figure wrapped in smoke and shadows. He didn't
know if that man was the very incarnation of the devil, a trick of his mind or an
elaborate joke. Although, to tell the truth, the last two possibilities mattered very
little to him.
No one could understand better than him the purity of demonic lines displayed by
that man whose face he could not see, although it was enough for him to admire the
jewel he wore pinned to his lapel. Without a doubt, it was the real Eye of Geburah,
which glowed like embers in a fire.
The satyr rejoiced contemplating that appearance; He firmly believed that this was
the devil himself.
—Had you summoned me? —Grieg asked, still without revealing his features, and
he surprised himself by making the same gestures that the old man from the Lyceum
used.
The satyr continued without saying anything, completely pale, while he watched
the dark figure in front of him place the cigar in an ashtray and leave a gold ingot on
the table. He then removed the jewel from his lapel and placed it on top of the ingot.
Ziripot of Lanz remained motionless because he knew that something very
strange, diabolically overwhelming, was happening in that mundane place.
"Even if he is the most idiotic specialist in macabre jokes, he has no idea what is
happening here," said the satyr from Font del Gat. This guy, although he doesn't
know it, is the devil right now... and he confirms my theory... I was right...!
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The satyr took out of his coat a small leather notebook, corrugated and sticky. The
notebook was full of notes and drawings, spells and grimoires. He searched through
its pages and found a text that he compared with the words that were engraved on
the ingot, along with the coiled figures of the Ouroboros and the Catobeplás.
The words on the ingot matched those on the notebook:
caput est ut Quceramus
"Everything is one" and "the essential thing is that we investigate."

"Whoever you are, I am grateful to you," exclaimed the satyr, "since you have
confirmed my Theurgic Hypostatic Hypothesis." I have always thought that, to
summon the devil, it had to be done in his domain and without using the imperative
demonic liturgy... just using the most basic one, so that you would trust...
Grieg moved his head so that the weak light revealed his true identity. The
officiant was deeply moved to see that it was the same person whom, the night
before, he had accompanied to the meeting of the witches.
—So you managed to find the person you were looking for last night, because you
really did...
Grieg was concerned about two details: on the one hand, the fact that several
people had addressed him using the address "sir", referring to the devil himself. On
the other hand, he was beginning to think that he had underestimated the satyr by
trying to play a simple joke on him. I was playing with fire.
The satyr caressed the gold ingot again and reverentially took that jewel, which
some knew as "the tears of Faust," others as "the Stone," and which he called the Eye
of Geburah. He took off the trifle he was carrying in his coat and placed the real jewel
in its place. Then he closed his eyes and leaned back on the chair, sighing with
satisfaction, while the girls remained silent, not knowing what was happening.
The man seemed to have finally gotten rid of something that had gripped him for
many years. He removed the jewel from his lapel and placed it back on the table.
Grieg, who said nothing, was burned by the words he himself had uttered, without
thinking about the consequences: "You had summoned me."
—Thank you for coming, sir. This is yours. —The satyr pointed to the silver razor,
the duck feather, the inkwell, and the goat skin—. These objects belong to you, and
my humble collaboration did not deserve such generosity from you. Also, as you can
see, I have not sold them. I obtained all this money that you see from some Christians
who gave it to me willingly, solely for having contemplated them.
The satyr placed on the table all the bills that he had previously impudently
displayed before the girls.
Grieg put the demonic jewel back on his lapel and wondered again, very
anguished, what was really happening. Although he also knew that he had just
learned, in a way as precarious as it was forceful, a lesson that others had not wanted
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to learn: the fact of knowing that one should never underestimate the infinite power
of seduction that Evil hides.
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65
The sensual sound of Lorena's heels became an echo as she reached the tiny and
beautiful Plaza de la Verónica, where the fabulous façade of the old El Bolsín
building stood out, half hidden in the shadows.
As she headed to the agreed upon location, Lorena wondered if Grieg had
managed to find "the Stone."
Somewhat disconcerted, she found that the architect had arranged to meet her at a
small, high -end hotel. The walls were painted with large patches of intense colors, as
if the decoration was inspired by African tribal art. Lorena saw several women
standing next to a monster with horrendous features, in drawings that stood out
among curved columns and red leather sofas. Next to the entrance, he saw the word
mademoiselles in large letters. It was then that he understood why Grieg had called the
place a "picturesque brothel."
It was the Avinyó Hotel, built where the brothel was formerly located where, at
the beginning of the 20th century, Picasso went to visit his favorite ladies during his
time in Barcelona, and where he was inspired to paint the first masterpiece of proto-
cubism. , Les Demoiselles d'Avignon.
Lorena headed to the reception, where a smiling woman was waiting for her.
—Could you tell me if Mr. Gabriel Grieg has left a message for me? My name is…
-Of course. "He's waiting for you," the receptionist answered immediately, before
hearing her name.
Lorena observed the magnificent decoration work of the hotel, where the previous
sketches and the final painting by Picasso could be seen, painted in fresco, which was
completed in 1907 and is currently exhibited in the Museum of Modern Art in New
York.
The hotel manager entered the lobby and addressed Lorena. He was a tall man,
with curly black hair and dressed in an elegant but discreet suit. Three uniformed
bellboys followed him; one of them carried a gift-wrapped box.
"Welcome, Miss Lorena," the director greeted her with a slight bow of his head.
For all the hotel employees, and of course for myself, it is an honor to be able to serve
you.
Although surprised by such an exaggerated reception, Lorena allowed herself to
be escorted to the elevator. Once there, the director said goodbye to her.
—Mr. Gabriel Grieg is waiting for you in the suite.
The bellhop carrying the gift-wrapped box entered the elevator and turned a key
on the panel.
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The elevator stopped on the top floor, and the bellman placed the gift box on a
small table at the entrance to the suite, which took up the entire top floor of the hotel.
He immediately said goodbye with a respectful gesture.
Lorena seemed increasingly suspicious.
"Something doesn't add up here," she said uneasily, and heard something coming
from inside the suite . How is it possible for this music to sound? It can't be a
coincidence!
He tore the glossy paper that wrapped the box and revealed a small jewelry box,
lined with black leather and trimmed in gold. Lorena immediately thought of the
jewel she longed to find and that Grieg had promised to have in his possession when
they met again.
Seeing its contents, she froze with rage.
"What kind of joke is this?"
Inside was a rose.
Lorena then understood the symbolism that linked the flower to the music that
was playing. It was the opera Mefistofele by the Italian Arrigo Boito, and at that
moment the climax of the opera was heard, when Mefistofele howls ferociously at
Faust as he is thrown into hell and roses rain from heaven.
"I have to find out what's happening here," Lorena thought, trying to overcome
the unexpected, as she walked down the hallway towards the dark center of the suite.
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66
Lorena walked down the hallway dazzled by the lights coming from the main
room of the suite, while the music from the opera Mefistofele continued to play.
When he entered the room, he was surprised to see that images from a projector
connected to a laptop were projected on the windows, as if it were a transparent
movie screen. In the background you could see the Ramblas and the arches of the
Plaza Real.
The images on the projector corresponded to a performance of the opera. A
corpulent tenor, on the stage of the Scala in Milan, played the overwhelming role of
Mephistopheles, lord of the underworld, when he offers himself to Faust to be his
servant on this earth, on the condition that Faust be his own servant in the future.
hell.
«If you accept, you just have to open your shawl and fly through the air!»
"You arrive on time," Grieg exclaimed, sitting in a designer armchair, and the faces
of Mephistopheles and Faust were alternately reflected in his face.
Grieg stood up and pressed a key on the computer. The lights and music stopped
instantly, and the Ramblas once again stretched out undulatingly in the darkness of
the night as if they were a luminous snake.
Lorena, with a tight expression, left the little box with the rose on a table.
"I would like you to clarify to me what the hotel director's imposed servility is
about and, above all, what you intend to give me this rose," he demanded.
—Oh, Lorena... Assuming that's really your name...! Grieg exclaimed slyly as he
typed an address into the computer. You should eat something and rest, because I
suppose you want to look radiant at the extraordinary performance that will take
place at the Lyceum this morning. You know, none other than Arrigo Boito's
Mefistofele ... By the way, one of my favorite operas. I suppose you have remembered
me, right? I say it because of the invitations... Am I wrong?
Lorraine, very disconcerted by Grieg's cynicism, thought he seemed like a
different person. His gaze was much duller and the features of his face seemed more
severe.
—I would like to know if you have found "the Stone."
—We all have our priorities… but others also have their hearts!
—Gabriel, what do you want to know? —Lorena asked, and placed the program
for an exclusive event next to the computer.
On the golden cardboard you could see the most famous tenor of the international
opera scene of the moment, characterized as Mephistopheles, whose disturbing
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image was superimposed on the photograph of a section of the CERN particle
accelerator, located on the Franco-Swiss border.
great theater of the lyceum

nigrum opera MEFISTOFELE by Arrigo Boito.
November 2, 4:00 a.m.
Unique function.
Access by invitation only.
—Finally the mysterious lady lets slip a confidence! Grieg exclaimed.

—Have you found the jewel?
Grieg did not answer and simply took in his hands the book with black, torn
covers that he had been reading before Lorena's arrival.
"Tonight," Lorena revealed as she looked at the book, "the select event of the
invitation will take place." Although it seems you were already aware...
—A secret function at the Lyceum? Grieg asked sardonically.
—That's right, Gabriel. The very restricted guests to the performance will arrive on
foot and enter incognito.
Grieg remembered the strange sensation that the dark façade and the large demon
die located at the entrance gave him.
—What kind of guests?
—Wealthy people. During the function, purchase contracts will be signed for an
article that, due to its composition, has a very limited circulation.
—Be more precise, please.
Lorena looked away towards the window, in the direction of the Ramblas.
—It is a watch made partially with alchemical gold, through the system of
transmutation of metals. The same system that medieval alchemists pursued.
—It is a procedure that is too expensive, almost prohibitive... And furthermore,
even if they got gold..., it would be gold after all. It doesn't pay off.
Lorena approached him.
—You don't understand, Gabriel! In the world there are many people with a lot of
money. Their commitments demand increasingly exclusive gifts.
—It's always been like this, hasn't it?
—A certain elite is concerned to see how the luxury they have always enjoyed,
and that distinguishes them from ordinary people, is less evident, because more and
more people can access it. This elite is willing to pay whatever it takes to have
something unique. This is known as maximum luxury or billionaire look… —Lorena sat
next to Grieg—. These people buy luxury submarines, helicopters and yachts
designed by Versace, they attend the Millonaire fair... Chanel has a watch, the J12,
which incorporates a Tourbillon system, a mechanism that compensates for the
negative effect of Earth's gravity; In addition, it is embedded with five hundred and
sixty-eight rubies and nine diamonds. It costs a real fortune, but that no longer
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attracts anyone's attention... Swiss manufacturers, the most prestigious in the world,
no longer know how to innovate.
—That's why they want to make them with alchemical gold. “They sell the myth,
the alchemists…” replied Grieg.
—Exactly, Gabriel.
—And what is the price of those watches?
—About fifteen million euros.
—Too much money for a simple watch...
"It's never too much..." Lorena replied. For example, an archetype of the ultimate
luxury product is Damien Hirst's platinum skull, which, with its eight thousand six
hundred and one diamonds, was sold for seventy-four million euros... If the watch
were too cheap, it would lose exclusivity...
"I'm pleased to see that you're much more willing to talk," Grieg said.
—Have you found the jewel? —he insisted—. You said you would, and I want to
fill that gap.
Lorena threw him the gold case that they found inside Don Germán's skull.
—Are you sure you want to see “the Stone”?
—Yes, and right now.
Grieg moved the cursor across the computer screen and selected the third act of
the opera from a menu. Then he turned a dimmer and the lighting in the suite
became dimmer.
He opened his arms before Lorena, who was sitting on a sofa.
—Do you remember our dance at the cable car party?
—What's that about now? —Lorena asked, and stood up.
—I wanted to repeat it... Do you want to see the jewel? Hold onto me, and as you
told me at the party, "you just dance." You just have to relax and let yourself go. It
couldn't be easier... "Hold me tight and let yourself go," Grieg repeated in a sensual
tone, imitating her words.
Somewhat surprised, Lorena hugged Grieg and tried to follow the music.
—Do you really want the jewel? Grieg whispered in his ear. I warn you that it is
attached to a treasure and a demonic frock coat.
-I do not care. “I want to see it anyway…” she replied, nibbling on the collar of
Grieg's shirt.
—It's okay, Lorena. Trust me and you will see how by magic it will soon be in
your hands,” he murmured, overcome by Lorena's perfume. Don't worry, I'll take
care of everything.
While they danced, Grieg took Lorena to a dark corner of the suite , in the
anteroom of the room. She jumped when she made out the silhouette of a human
figure.
In the speakers connected to the computer, the scene from the third act of the
opera played, the moment in which dawn stalks Margaret, who begs mercy for her
sins and sees the devil, while she convinces herself that her love for Faust will kill
her. leads to hell.
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The two stopped dancing. Lorena approached the figure and saw that it was a
mannequin dressed in an elegant frock coat with a golden object. Lorena sighed,
relieved.
—You found her! —he exclaimed, caressing the jewel and the cloth to which it was
attached.
Then he took off his shoes and approached Grieg.
"We have enough time to celebrate..." he whispered. Life, like good wine, is very
convenient to oxygenate.
Grieg stepped forward.
"You have to explain to me where you found it..." she continued. But above all I
want you to tell me one thing...
She took off her blouse and revealed her bare breasts; then he lay down on the
bed.
—Confirm for me, Gabriel, if in the place where you found the jewel, there was
this...
Lorena leaned on the bed and showed Grieg the tattoo that was engraved on her
body, which started on her arm, ran along part of her back and ended on her chest.
Grieg was petrified. It was a winged skeleton.
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67
The lively murmur in the packed Lyceum stalls heralded a memorable evening.
The amazing room was splendidly illuminated, and showed its usual horseshoe
shape with five floors that end up converging on the boxes and the proscenium arch.
While the bells rang announcing the imminent start of the performance, the
musicians tuned the instruments and the technicians made the final adjustments and
checked the correct operation of the cameras installed on the parapet of the boxes in
which the profiles of the most famous stood out. opera composers in history, and on
the ceiling shone Perejaume's paintings located inside eight oculi arranged in a circle.
There was the atmosphere of great occasions.Mefistofele was going to be a
memorable performance, both for its secret nature and for the exceptionality of the
cast.
In one of the preferred boxes on the second floor was the person who had
prepared that event for years. Other similar performances would be held shortly in
Prague, Paris, Rome, Tokyo and New York. They were part of an ambitious
commercial strategy aimed at promoting an exclusive and exceptional product: a
watch made partially with alchemical gold.
The architect of the project was called Auguste Meyer, and he was a good-looking
man of fifty-two years old, tall and thin, who moved with the pretense gestures of an
old gallant. He wore an impeccable tuxedo, paired with shiny Oxford shoes, and his
hair was gelled.
Whenever he had the opportunity, he would tell whoever was in front of him, in
any of the five languages he mastered perfectly: "I am a self-made man." He was the
commercial director of one of the most prestigious watch companies in the world,
based in Switzerland, and whose logo was synonymous with prestige and quality: a
golden clover flower.
When the final announcement of the start of the event sounded, one of Meyer's
collaborators entered the box. In his hand he had some pre-purchase contracts
already signed by the front men and clients interested in purchasing the new
product. The pre-contract clauses were very high deposits and a delivery time to be
agreed upon.
The director smiled, satisfied, when he saw the thick sheet of contracts that his
faithful collaborator was carrying. He looked at the magnificent appearance that the
theater offered, and felt for a moment like a true handyman capable of moving lives
as he pleased.
Since the age of twenty, when he joined the company as an intern, he had worked
with talent and dedication, until he managed to rise to the company's first executive
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position. He was confident that he would soon become the most influential member
of the Chambre Suisse de l'Horlogérie.
"It was worth it," he thought, satisfied.
He flipped through the signed pages of the pre-contracts, delighting in the names
of the clients and the prestigious jewelry stores that had affixed their signatures.
—I really didn't expect this, Dupont! —he commented in a low voice to his
collaborator—. Look at the order for three watches that this jewelry store makes to
us…
The director took a look inside the private box of the box, specially installed for
the occasion, where, between bottles of cava, Chasselas and Merlot, a companion
smiled at him from a velvet sofa.
—I should have told that girl that, instead of that spectacular platinum hair, I
would have preferred very short Audrey Hepburn-style hair.
Auguste Meyer continued passing the orders, full of joy, while whistling the
music of Breakfast at Tiffany's.
And then the lights of the Lyceum went out, the curtain opened and a large
illustration appeared on the stage showing the elongated cylindrical cavern of CERN,
the linear particle accelerator.
Amidst applause, the presenter of the gala, the most famous showman on
television, entered the scene.
—Good evening, ladies and gentlemen... You are about to attend an unrepeatable
show. But first, allow me to address you a few brief words... Since man has been a
man and has been on Earth, he has felt an uncontrollable fascination with gold; only
surpassed by what they feel towards him… women!
Giggles were heard in the audience.
“And since time immemorial, there have been a few ways to achieve this,” the
presenter continued. Let me go over them briefly. The oldest is the geological system.
That is, hitting the hard stone of a mine insistently with a pickaxe... But you will be
with me that that is exhausting...
The giggles increased.
—Another system was to fight to win the spoils of war... But there was a problem:
if you didn't calculate your forces correctly, you not only ran the risk of losing the
gold, but also your head! And then there is the biblical way - the presenter
theatrically wiped a handkerchief over his forehead - which consists of working...
Here the audience applauded the presenter's ideas accompanied by laughter.
—But tonight, in this secret function, we are going to show you the new and most
exclusive way to get the gold. It is none other than the one that the old alchemists
pursued during the Middle Ages…
Murmurs were heard in the audience.
—Do not fear, because this time success is guaranteed. They will not have to sell
their soul to the devil, as happened to poor Faust, in order to obtain the precious
formula of alchemical gold...
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Then, while the image of the particle accelerator was hidden, the figure of the
devil from the Marcús chapel emerged from the back of the stage.
—Tonight we have a great show prepared for you, in which everything, even the
schedule, will be exceptional. To endorse my words, I only have to mention the
artists who play the roles of Faust, Mephistopheles and Margaret…
While the audience cheered the names of the soloists, the figure of the devil,
activated by a mechanism, approached the stage until it was a few meters away from
the presenter.
—The production of this opera has been possible thanks to our sponsor, who has
chosen Barcelona to promote the launch of the first watch made with alchemical gold
in history...
Auguste Meyer noticed the terrible expression of the devil who was located in the
center of the stage.
—The scenery of the opera that you will see below —the presenter continued— is
based on the places, related to the formula of alchemical gold, that frequented Don
Germán, the famous murderer of booksellers in Barcelona in the 19th century… —
The presenter pointed out towards the infernal figure. This devil is part of the facts to
which I refer. And now, if you allow me, I will leave because this demon is looking
askance at me...
The audience applauded the showman's presentation. The lights were turned on and
the curtain was closed for a few minutes, to set the stage for the opera's prologue,
which takes place in heaven, where Mephistopheles, among angels and cherubs,
challenges God that he will be able to steal Faust's soul. his most fervent devotee.
Auguste Meyer was surprised to see his collaborator re-enter the box.
—Excuse me, Mr. Meyer, but something unexpected has happened...
-"Unexpected"?
—They have just given me a card that will undoubtedly interest you.
"Right now, after seeing all those signed contracts, there are very few things that
interest me..." Meyer exclaimed, looking lustfully at his beautiful companion.
“Excuse me,” Dupont insisted submissively, “but when I started working with
you, you warned me very seriously that if I ever heard or read a name, I should tell
you immediately.
Meyer's jaw dropped and he took the card from his collaborator's hand.
As he read those words, he felt sweat beading on his forehead.
-What does this mean? —he growled.
He turned the card and read a name he had last seen thirteen years ago, when he
was a small-time boss in one of the company's minor departments:
trux
Trux was the pseudonym at the end of a secret report someone had sent him. It
contained the idea, the concept and the way to make an alchemical gold watch. And
those roles had allowed him to rise to the position he now occupied within the
complicated world of Swiss watchmaking.
234
That's why Meyer read the name with concern. Trux was, at that point, a lethal
threat.
—Who gave you this card?
"I have taken the liberty of asking you to accompany me here," the subordinate
responded.
Auguste Meyer rose from his chair while the tenor playing the role of
Mephistopheles attacked the first stanzas of the prologue aria. Already in the
hallway, he was amazed to learn the identity of Trux, whom he had not heard from
in so many years.
She was a very pretty woman, with big, beautiful eyes, who wore an exclusive
Chanel model in black satin.
Seeing her, Auguste Meyer remembered the meaning of the Latin word Trux:
"Cruel and merciless."
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68
Grieg's watch showed quarter past four in the morning.

A few meters away, his flashlight illuminated some irregular, damp steps that
descended sharply around a central recess the size of a well. As he went down, he
heard a persistent murmur rising through the well mixed with reverberations of
water.
Grieg was in search of the monstrous being who had left him the book with the
symbol of alchemical gold on the floor of the Marcus chapel. To access that rugged
place, he had opened the armored door of the secret jewelry store; the one that was
behind the panel of the Styx.
Gabriel knew that he was entering a special place, one of those places that do not
appear on maps, nor in the cameras of tourists... They are places that create a
landscape that is a mixture of a Poe nightmare, a Lovecraft chimera and an entelechy.
of the Count of Lautréamont. Grieg was heading towards one of those remote
territories that very few have the opportunity to see.
A "non-place."
As he descended the stairs, the flashlight illuminated walls full of gloomy
inscriptions.
Whoever saw us would recoil in fear!
They were apocalyptic phrases uttered by souls in pain who were confined inside
Erebus or Tartarus.
Grieg stopped before a curved wall on which was written a text that paraphrased
the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas.
The damned fire of hell seems taken from the nightmare of the cruelest of sadists:
it neither destroys souls nor devours itself. It feeds the estuaries of tar and sulfur, and
does not melt the immense plains of ice, even larger than a million steppes, with
which He threatens us, the damned, by abandoning us eternally in them...
As he reached the bottom of the stairs, Grieg made great efforts to remain calm.
«You are here because you made a damn pact with the old man and to confirm if the
guy with the claws is the person to whom you should deliver the box of auques.
Nothing else. You must mentally isolate yourself from everything around you; Only
then will you be able to return to the surface."
The smell was increasingly intense.
Grieg stopped before a half-open gate. It looked like the Alchemy Gate of the Villa
Polombara mansion, located next to Piazza Vittorio Emanuele II in Rome, which also
contains strange symbols for obtaining alchemical gold.
236
Then he entered a hallway with thick ceramic-covered walls; Without a doubt,
those were the side walls of some powerful ovens. The crucibles had all kinds of
contraptions next to them, such as tongs, anvils, phials and glass containers, the
contents of which were dry. The stills and glass flasks showed, under the light of the
flashlight, the appearance of gigantic mushrooms.
From each of the atanors a conduit emerged that snaked along walls and ceilings
to a cistern, where the gases and smoke seemed to be cooled by the waters of the
well.
"Perhaps behind that lies the mystery why in the Middle Ages they said that the
waters of this well were sulfurous and medicinal."
Grieg continued down the hallway. It illuminated another space that had been
used as a warehouse, in which hundreds of glass vessels and jars were arranged,
which contained the chemical elements to develop alchemical processes. He brought
the flashlight closer to find out what kind of materials they were: Sal nitrosum
metallorum, Aqua mixed cum oleo sanguin, Salvolatile natural, Spiritus acetosellae, Spiritus
sanguinis, sulfur in sale fixo animalium...
At the end of the corridor, to the left, another corridor began, which also led to
alchemical laboratories. The complex, despite being underground, seemed to provide
the necessary infrastructure to carry out alchemical techniques, both by the wet and
dry methods.
Grieg decided to enter a room larger than the others. In the chamber there were
several low tables, similar to desks. On them rested jeweler's instruments, piled
chaotically between plasters of paste for jewelry molds and sheets of designs. There
were wooden lathes to polish the gems, ember welders and leather tablecloths to
collect the slightest golden thread that could come loose from the craftsman's hands.
Grieg observed that there were some recent footprints on the floor, which led to a
corner of the jewelry workshop where a small athanor was located. He illuminated
the small crucible with the flashlight and confirmed that the contents of the kettle
were the result of a slow combustion process. Suddenly, the retort seemed to move.
It was a black beetle that had decided to get away from there and look for a safer
place.
The beetle snuck into a bookshelf and slid down the spines of the dusty volumes
of De Ortu amp; Olao Borrichio's Progressu Chemiae Dissertatio , and a Treatise on the
Mercurial Waters of Penoto, and upon reaching the end of the shelf, he stopped at the
base of a facsimile of I secreti, written in 1561 by the mysterious Venetian alchemist
Isabella Cortese. Then the insect continued along a rope extended from the shelf.
Grieg headed towards the hallway, but first he saw the beetle descend the rope,
which was impregnated with a brownish substance that seemed to attract him. The
rope was actually bait, which someone had strategically placed. Attached to the rope
was a dilapidated tin bucket, smeared with an oily substance, in which were
hundreds of dead beetles. Grieg took a pair of scissors and cut the rope that led the
beetle to the bucket.
237
When he returned to the hallway, he smelled sandalwood in the air. At the
opening at the end of the hallway, there was an arch-shaped light.
Grieg crossed the arch and entered a space radically different from the
claustrophobic and smelly place he had just left.
-It just can't be! —he exclaimed, amazed.
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69
Auguste Meyer had been specific: "I don't want anyone to bother me until I have
spoken to Trux and know who she is and, above all, what she is looking for." Dupont
was disturbed by his next words: "That woman is nothing, no one... When I finish
talking to her, you will never see her again. Do you understand?
After such a warning, Dupont had prepared a private meeting in one of the most
beautiful spaces of the Lyceum, the Hall of Mirrors, one of the best examples of
classical European architecture.
While Meyer was talking to his assistant, Lorena walked over to one of the
information tables about alchemical clocks and picked up one of the promotional
catalogues.
The cover featured photographs of the linear particle accelerator, the alchemical
gold symbol, the company's clover flower logo, and an image of the watch. Lorena
read some sentences from the catalogue.
The innovative concept of the watch made with alchemical gold breaks
with the tradition of a progressive and ornate incorporation of jewelry
elements such as rubies, diamonds and diamonds, a trend in our opinion
that is too...
The quality of the watch components is absolutely guaranteed by
both…
The revolutionary assembly process…
It combines the most avant-garde design with the elegance of the Greek
canon...
In the women's model...
The concept of luxury goes further…
—Who do I have the honor to speak to? —Auguste Meyer interrupted her, once
they were alone in the room.
"That doesn't matter," Lorena replied. Just know that I am a lawyer and I am here
to notify you of a legal requirement.
—«Legal requirement»? exclaimed Meyer. I don't need to tell you that you have
chosen the worst day to do it.
"Let's get to the point, Mr. Meyer," she replied. I know perfectly well that if you
are in this room alone with me right now it is because you sense that the matter at
hand is very serious. Otherwise…
239
—He's playing with fire...! —Meyer drilled Lorena with his gaze. She not only
held it, but smiled sarcastically.
—Believe me, Mr. Meyer… It will help you to listen to my requests.
—Get it over with! —the director demanded.
—I legally represent the person who years ago provided you with the idea, the
knowledge and the material evidence that they have given you. —Lorena opened the
catalog and began to read in a bombastic tone—: “…the first watch made with
alchemical gold in history,” as this elegant catalog states.
"I don't believe you represent Trux," Meyer said nervously. Hurry, give me more
information!
—Be patient, Mr. Meyer… The opera Mefistofele lasts long enough for you to fully
understand the seriousness of the problem that lies ahead.
—You cannot represent the person you say. The report you cite was written by a
deranged person who is probably already dead…” Meyer regained his composure. It
is a handwritten compendium that took me months to interpret, and was full of
crossouts, ink blots, and even blood stains.
"I know," Lorena answered. That is precisely the idea that you have tried to
promote... —Lorena showed him one of the pages of the catalog where a medieval
man appeared in a chaotic spagyric laboratory—, that of the mad alchemist... But he
never acknowledged that it was he who sent her the idea. …And you took advantage
of it for your own benefit. —Lorena looked at him intently—Have you never
wondered why it was precisely you who was sent the dossier?
"I see you have nothing, miss... And if so, I will personally take care of crushing
you," Meyer threatened while biting his lip. Suppose the secret report was a problem
for me. And? No one could prove anything, since the manuscript could be destroyed
or kept in some secret box in my beloved Switzerland.
—I doubt he destroyed the dossier. It is very likely that he has it in a security
camera at the Bank for International Settlements in Switzerland. Furthermore, your
approach is wrong... Do you know why? Because the alleged mad alchemist is not
dead, but alive and well.
"I still think it doesn't affect me at all..." Meyer responded, unperturbed.
"Good," Lorena responded, very seriously. What if I told you that this anonymous
alchemist has a relationship with this Swiss watch company?
Lorena took a card from her purse and placed it in front of the director's face.
Meyer looked, visibly disturbed, at the two initials of a Swiss watch brand even
more important than his own.
—They are nothing more than assumptions.
—The mad alchemist was a worker at this company—Lorena tapped her fingers
repeatedly on the card—and came to Barcelona in the late sixties to carry out
research related to the alleged alchemical gold that was produced in Barcelona.
Auguste Meyer ran his hand over his sweaty forehead.
“Secretly, and without sending partial reports of his investigations,” Lorena
continued, “he wrote a compendium and signed it. This dossier should have reached
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its headquarters in Switzerland, but it never did... And bam! —Lorena opened her
arms—the report reached you. You know the rest of the story.
For the first time, Auguste Meyer understood the seriousness of the situation.
—Can you imagine what would happen if tomorrow my client sent that dossier to
all the headquarters of the watch companies in the world on official paper, and with
the same letterhead that you see on this card?
Lorraine paused.
—What would happen to your prestige? -continuous-. Not only the company's...
but his own... that of the great self-made achiever, who has told everyone that the
brilliant idea of the alchemical clock occurred to him one day in Bern when he was
walking with his son... Do you want me to continue? Believe me, Mr. Meyer: you will
be the laughingstock of the entire profession, and you know you have many
enemies...
Auguste Meyer headed towards the tables where the marketing campaign for his
desired product was displayed, feeling touched to death in his life project. He finally
understood the tremendous mistake he had made by appropriating the ideas of an
anonymous madman. But it was too late.
He swallowed, stood up, and readjusted his tuxedo jacket and bow tie.
-What should I do? —he asked Lorena.
—Let's talk privately.
-Of course. Come with me. Meyer made an expressive gesture. Let's go to the
Liceo Circle.
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70
Grieg entered an unimaginable place: a chapel that mixed the Romanesque style
with some proto-Gothic elements. It was surrounded by a porticoed gallery in which
hundreds of white marble slabs shone when illuminated by the lantern.
The most significant architectural element of the temple was a large helical
staircase that looked like a gigantic column.
"That must have been the staircase by which I saw the apparition that left me the
book in the Marcus chapel descend," thought Grieg.
In that dark and enigmatic underground temple a small flame shone, spreading an
intense smell of sandalwood and giving the place an air of spirituality. "If there is a
flame, it means there is air," thought Grieg, as he pointed the flashlight upward. On
the roof, supported by eighteen columns in a circle, there was a small dome with a
fresco simulating a cloudy sky. Above it was the following phrase: "Spem dimitiere."
"Lose hope."
Grieg walked along the single nave towards the altar of the chapel, and as he did
so he illuminated the side pavilions, delicately sculpted in the stone. The statues did
not seem related to each other, and together they gave an eclectic image. There were
everything from statues of Etruscan origin to bronze haruspices that examined the
shapes of lightning or deformed masses of entrails to see the future in them.
Grieg did not correctly interpret the intense evil charge that pulsed among all the
images in that surprising underground chapel. But suddenly, the vision of two
words seemed to illuminate him:
I evoke deos
"They are all dark divinities..." Grieg thought. Then he illuminated a phrase that
was undoubtedly related to the essential path: "Porta amphitheatri sapientiae aeterneae."
He discovered this embedded in a simple golden arch, which framed a porphyry
slab on which circles were represented in relief. Grieg enlightened them and
understood that it was a detailed geometric analysis, which would probably have
been carried out by a brotherhood of architects prior to the medieval Masonic guilds.
The slab detailed a detailed study of the circle, and along with its graphic
representation the mathematical formula was cited. Finally, the analysis led to a
detailed architectural study of that infernal construction, conceived for the invocation
of the devil.
"How complex all this is..." Grieg said to himself, caressing the outline of those
circles, while he seemed to be observed attentively by the marble eyes of Pluto, the
guardian of treasures and hell. "I am in a demonic chapel built by initiatory architects
242
who, like those who built the Widow's Chamber in the secret cemetery, were
commissioned to design the most perfect of the occultum to invoke the devil in it."
Grieg reminded himself that he was not there as an architect, but to try to find
who should deliver the auques box: and with a determined step he continued towards
the place where the flame was burning.
Suddenly, he thought he heard a noise in one of the chapels on the opposite side.
In the temple there was a set of small sculptures that staged the abduction of
Proserpina, the daughter of Demeter who Hades kidnapped to make her queen of
hell.
When he pointed the flashlight at a dark corner, he discovered the presence of a
person who instinctively covered his face with his hands. They had very long claw-
shaped nails.
243
71
Auguste Meyer and Lorena were sitting, facing each other, at a large office table
on which rested a heavy bronze lamp.
Next to the table, inside an urn, there was a large silver book embossed on leather.
The words Book of honor of the Liceo were engraved on the cover, and it had been made in
1908 by the Masriera workshop.
Numerous original scores hung from the walls of the room, as well as lithographs,
busts of composers and photographs dedicated by tenors and sopranos of all times.
Both the director of the watch company and Lorena jealously preserved the
intimacy of the meeting through a door with a shiny gold plate:
presidential office
Lorena took two envelopes out of her purse and left them on the table. One
contained documents; the other, an empty plastic case.
—Mr. Meyer, I want you to read this contract carefully and then sign it.
-A contract? I'm not going to…
—I'm the one who dictates the instructions, remember? I want you to analyze the
contract in detail... But first, let me give you a warning: whatever you read, don't
make any comments out loud. Understood?
-What you say.
Meyer took the document with trembling hands and began to read the twenty
pages. The contract required him to give up a significant percentage of the profits
obtained from the sale of watches made with alchemical gold. They would have to be
deposited into a Swiss bank account in the name of a private foundation, the details
of which were provided at the bottom of the page. This amount should be made
effective, annually, "in gold ingots of non-alchemical origin."
However, as he read the document, Meyer found that the clauses became
increasingly darker and that they were taking him fully into dangerous territory,
ruled by a being that seemed to feed off Evil.
Meyer stopped reading those unfortunate clauses and raised his head.
—What kind of contract is this?
"I have ordered you to remain silent," Lorena replied from the darkness of the
room. If you make another comment, I assure you that tonight all attendees will
know the truth of the facts.
244
Meyer sank into his seat and chose not to continue reading that demonic contract.
The more I read, the harder it will be for me to make the decision to sign, he thought
as he lightened the collar of his shirt.
"Please, miss..." Meyer begged. Allow me to ask you a question... The jewel that is
mentioned several times in the dossier that the anonymous alchemist sent me, and
that he called "the Stone"... did it really exist?
—Would that change things? —She asked, knowing the risk she was taking by
asking that question.
—Given the nature of the clauses, the real existence of that jewel would
demonstrate that…
-Shut up.
—Miss, please tell me before signing the contract...
Lorena thought for a few moments and sat up in her chair. She took a golden case
from her bag and placed it on the table, at the feet of the figure of the Sibyl of Cumae.
Meyer, without touching the box, read the engraving on the lid and sighed
resignedly, knowing that that phrase summed up what he would lose if he did not
sign the contract.
Vadarn et affluam deliciis.
Meyer had studied the documents sent to him by the person he very mistakenly
took to be crazy. He knew what “the Stone” represented. It was the cursed jewel,
which symbolized the devil: that being who wanders through eternity, looking for
the emerald stone that fell from his forehead when he rebelled against God.
If this jewel made of alchemical gold was really inside that case, the clauses of the
contract acquired a truly otherworldly dimension.
Meyer, with tears in his eyes, made the decision not to touch that golden case,
repressing his fear, and doing what was necessary to get away from it.
He grabbed his fountain pen and flipped through all the pages of the contract.
When he saw the signature next to the blank space where he was to sign, all hope
disappeared.
It was a mark that Meyer already knew from the secret dossier, in which it was
claimed that those lines were the signature of the devil. Lorena encouraged him,
seeing that he was stopping too long. —I remind you that your presence will soon be
missed. box.
The director of the watch company felt the contact of his frozen fingers and signed
the document.
"I won't keep you any longer, Mr. Meyer," said Lorena. He stood up and looked at
Lorena with hatred.
245
—I don't want to know who you are. I will simply tell you a few words that the
mad alchemist constantly wrote in the margins of his studies, and which I deduced
were the origin of his madness. He looked at the contract again. And I hope that one
day, you, like I am doomed to do so from now on, will be forced to discover what
terrible mystery they contain.
Auguste Meyer headed towards the door and, before leaving, he blurted out an
enigmatic phrase as an eternal farewell.
—Testamentum sapio tristes umbrae.
After the door closed, Lorena placed the signed contract in the envelope, and then
in the plastic sleeve. As I did so, I thought about the phrase that Meyer had left
floating in the air, like the flames of an invisible fire: "The testament that remains
buried in the sad shadows."
246
72
The pupils of the man who lived locked up in the underground chapel closed
painfully as they were attacked by the penetrating light of the lantern.
Grieg turned off the flashlight and observed that a man of indefinite age was
hiding in the corner, his face almost completely hidden by long hair, as gray and
grimy as the beard that grew from his bony cheeks. He was dressed in patched rags
and wore old sandals.
The most disturbing thing of all were his very long nails, which emerged from his
fingers as if they contained a disastrous skein.
-Get out of there! Don't be afraid, I won't hurt you.
That man, who had not heard a human voice for many years, was unable to
continue supporting that painful light and snuck through the shadows towards the
altar. When he arrived, he separated his hands and began to move them over the
flame that burned in the metal vessel, as if he wanted to carry out an invocation.
-The light! I don't want to see that light! —he shouted in a thunderous tone of
voice.
Grieg left the room in darkness again.
—My name is Gabriel Grieg, and I am the person to whom you gave this book.
The man watched as Grieg held the book in his hand. I would like to know your
name.
—What is my name? —he answered after a few seconds—. Don't know. I only
remember that I was born in Switzerland, but I have already forgotten what my
name is, so you can call me Prometheus, because I was condemned to be eternally
locked up here, for having stolen fire from the Gods... This fire!
The man continued moving his nauseating nails over the fire, like the snakes that
cover the Gorgon's head, and continued with his particular invocation rite.
—Okay, Prometheus... Why did you write in the book that you only trusted me?
For a few seconds, the rhythmic and repulsive sound produced by the nails
rubbing against each other could be heard.
"When, in exchange for the most ephemeral and trivial of worldly pleasures..." the
man exclaimed as he raised his arms towards the dome, "you have to serve the
sentence set out in the fine print of the pact you made with the devil... you quickly
learn to recognize who you have in front of you
—And who do you think I am? —Grieg asked, and he approached the altar, with
the attitude of someone trying to catch a little bird before it took flight.
Upon hearing the question, the condemned man violently climbed onto the altar
with the movement of a mountebank.
247
It was then that Grieg discovered a man who in his youth must have been tall and
strong, but decades of seclusion had turned him into a pauvre deiable with almost
albino skin, who looked much older. But his muscular body allowed him to move
with great agility.
Suddenly, the shadow dweller sprang from the altar and, seized with great
excitement, headed towards the arch through which Grieg had entered the
underground chapel. As it crossed the space, it emitted blood-curdling screams.
—You are called to be the successor of the devil on Earth! And I won't let you
leave here until I know what you'll do with me!
Those words echoed in the chapel and the underground corridors.
The condemned man locked the door, and Grieg, with strong claustrophobia,
wondered if he too was condemned to remain locked inside there forever. However,
what worried him most were the man's words...
«Gabriel, remember that you just have to find out if this guy is the person to
whom you should give the box of auques. Don't be intimidated and leave as soon as
possible, he thought.
"It's okay, Prometheus," he said, trying to calm the poor man down. Suppose you
are right... And since I am called to be the "successor of the devil on Earth", you
better explain to me what kind of pact you made with the "current" one so that I can
help you.
—The reason for the pact with the devil must never be revealed, much less to the
one who is called to be his successor. Just as it should not be left in writing..., because
it can be worse than the pact itself, thus passing the relictum to the descendants...
Then the shadow dweller opened his hand and threw the key through the bars of
the door, towards the corridor that led to the alchemical laboratories.
Upon finding himself locked in such a horrible place, Grieg knew that he had just
gotten into one of the biggest problems of his life, because the man's mental
deterioration was very serious, and his life seemed to depend on him.
So he tried to remedy that situation. "I must be absolutely decisive if I don't want
to spend the rest of my life in here," he told himself.
Grieg threw the frock coat with "the Stone" pinned to its lapel onto the altar. The
condemned man instantly suspected what the garment could be and walked with a
firm step towards the altar. He looked at that cursed jewel that had ruined so many
lives.
—Testamentum sapio tristes umbrae…! The “Eye of Geburah”…! —he exclaimed,
admired—. My invocations before the occultum of Hochma were heard! You have
come here, possessor of the attributes, which means that my admonition formed with
bones and the horarium served you.
Grieg couldn't believe his ears. «This guy went down to the crypt of the Chapel of
the Desamparados of the church of Pi to hide the golden case inside Don Germán's
skull... My God, what a monstrosity! He must know some important secret that no
one ever wants to know.
248
The inhabitant of the shadows approached Grieg with his eyes filled with tears,
and between guttural moans he prostrated himself on the ground.
"Thank you, sir, for having freed me from this burden... Thank you, sir, for having
freed me from this burden..." he repeated with orgiastic relief, "but now you must not
waste your valuable time with me, because the impostor is waiting for you, and the
The deadline expires at twelve noon.
Grieg was surprised to learn that he was referring to the same thing Lorena had
mentioned, but he chose to remain silent.
—Lord, don't stop here! —exclaimed the man, still on the ground—. You must
continue your path towards the true heart of hell! Follow me..., I will show you the
way.
Grieg wanted to leave that scene as soon as possible, so he picked up the frock
coat from the altar ready to follow the itinerary that the unfortunate man wanted to
show him.
The man passed by the spiral staircase that connected to the Marcús chapel, and
then reached a room from which a golden reflection emerged. Grieg entered a room
only lit by a candle next to a cot. The room held a secret.
The ground was completely covered with thousands of golden coins. The light
from the candle reflected off them and was projected in the shape of ovals on the
walls and ceiling, giving the room the appearance of a golden pond. Grieg took a
handful of those coins from the ground and verified, astonished, that they were the
same gold-plated coins that made up the series of the essential path.
—You must not waste time, sir... Here, I wrote this dreaming that one day I could
hand it to you. —The condemned man handed him a set of sewn sheets—. With
them I show you my absolute loyalty, in the hope that today, after your gracious
third party, I can finally be released.
Grieg was silent. It seemed to him that any question on his part, given the degree
of mental alienation that the man showed, would be useless. He took the sheets that
he handed him and read the text written in very small, almost illegible handwriting,
with a disturbing and familiar title:
the essential path

The monstrous story of a living dead
Grieg could not resist reading the first lines of the manuscript.
Before the reader enters the labyrinth of my revelation, he must know

that there is no single essential path, because there are as many Essential
Paths as there are corporeal incarnations of the figure of the devil
throughout History.
This transubstantiation can have any person, anywhere in the world, as
the new active subject of Evil, and it is necessary that everyone be aware
of it.
249
This phenomenon occurs in active geographical points that move
through time, and that have been the subject of study by figures such as
Fulcanelli (Magofon) and...
Grieg verified that the names of distinguished personalities appeared in that

section, but he focused his attention on some who had come across his own essential
path.
The Cabetians, among whom was Cabet himself, Narcís Monturiol,

Ildefons Cerda...
The essential path is the satanic test that a select few must follow...
. The feeling of those filthy nails tearing his clothes made him look away from the
manuscript. The shadow dweller handed him a bulky envelope with some folded
pages.
"Lord, I am convinced that, behind these proofs of loyalty that I have shown you,
today I will finally be able to be freed," he said with a thin voice and tears in his eyes,
as if Grieg knew what he was talking about.
Grieg, who was silent, looked into the reddened eyes of that poor man, wondering
what was coming next, but the man was staring, absorbed, into the dark depths of
the room.
The architect began to move with difficulty on the coins when he suddenly
discovered that this room was missing a wall.
In reality, it was a passage. Grieg thought about the fear that man must have felt
to prefer to live eternally secluded in those walls rather than dare to continue down a
corridor that seemed to lead to the true heart of hell.
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73
It was a quarter past five in the morning when Lorena arrived at the place where
she and Grieg had met: the old Masriera jewelers' workshop, at number 72 Bailén
Street.
It was one of the most surprising buildings in the entire Eixample of Barcelona. It
was built in the mid-19th century, but mysteriously sold by its owners in the 1920s.
Lorena looked at the artistic wrought iron fence on which, surrounded by five-
pointed stars, the stems of ivy snaked. The exterior bars protected a small garden,
and a staircase ascended between an impressive peristyle formed by six enormous
Corinthian-style columns, with fluted shafts and capitals decorated with acanthus
leaves. The peristyle served as support for a triangular frontispiece, which had, at
each of its vertices, a griffin, the fabulous animal with the head of a bird and the body
of a dragon that is attributed the quality of protecting the gold and riches of the
intruders.
«Gabriel summoned me here knowing that the Lyceum presentation was related
to an alchemical gold watch, so this must be too,» Lorena thought as she crossed the
gate of the gate, which mysteriously that night was ajar.
He slowly ascended the steps of the building and stopped before the two closed
doors of the old Workshop of the Arts. Next, sheltered under the shadow of the
columns, she took out a small envelope from her purse with instructions on what she
should do that night.
The envelope was identical to the one he had opened the night before to find out
the place where he was to meet Grieg, the Columbus skyscraper. On this occasion,
the envelope said:
Inside is the address where you must deliver.

of the contract signed by meyer
Below was a serious warning:
Do not open the envelope before 6:00 a.m. from November 2
Lorena checked her watch that there were still three quarters of an hour left before
the time stated on the envelope. He thought about calling the person who had
written those instructions and telling him that he already had the signed contract in
his possession, but he stopped when he considered that this was not a smart move.
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"Something doesn't fit in all of this, and I suspect that something is hidden in the
darkest part of the labyrinth," he thought.
He dialed Grieg's number, but it signaled off or out of coverage.
«Playing with two decks has these setbacks. I don't like this delay at all... What if
something has happened to Gabriel that could end up seriously affecting my plans?
Lorena caressed the golden case that they had found inside Don Germán's skull.
"If I want it all, I could end up losing it all," he said to himself in the shadows of
the peristyle. She looked like a vampire from a Gothic tale standing at the doors of
her palace, whose ungrateful servants prevented her from entering it.
Lorena thought again about the phrase that Meyer had thrown at her like a sharp
dart in her ears: "Testamentum saepio tristes umbrae." He suspected that those words
could be the key to everything.
In ancient Rome, he thought, the sad umbrae were the living dead, and by
extension, the people who lived in hell.
I sensed that a mystery was contained in that phrase, hidden among the multiple
places and concepts that I had explored with Grieg in the last few hours.
"But where have I seen him?" she asked herself, intrigued.
Lorena looked at the clock again; Grieg was already almost a quarter of an hour
late.
«Something serious must have happened to him. I have to do something!"
She sat on the steps and took a pen and a notebook from her bag. He wrote the
initials of each of the words in the phrase, and with them he formed an acrostic,
TSTU, which did not suggest anything to him.
He reached the gate, and while he reflected on the phrase he looked at one of the
impressive griffins that decorated the pediment. He then took two letters from each
word and formed the word Tesatrum.
The term was related to the mythology of ancient Greece, and the inextricable
scenario through which Theseus evolves inside the labyrinth. Lorena thought that
she herself had been moving in a labyrinth for a day, like the one that Daedalus
created and that only served as a prison.
As she continued to observe the rampant griffin that partially hid a crescent moon,
Lorena remembered having seen that word a few hours before.
«I have to check if my suspicion is true. I must do it…, or I will never forgive
myself,” he said to himself.
Following his instinct, he left the premises and stopped the first taxi that passed
by. The taxi driver, upon seeing a beautiful woman dressed in a wonderful evening
dress emerge from the Masriera's dusty workshop, thought he was seeing a ghost. A
few minutes later, the car stopped in front of the Palau de la Música.
Lorena, very concentrated, tried to repeat the route through the alleys that she had
memorized with Grieg a few hours before. He left the old athenaeum behind and
walked along the street where the remains of the ancient wall shone in the
background. Finally he stopped in front of an old building in which two large, half-
destroyed arches stood out, located between three closed balconies. He entered the
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building and crossed the dark lobby decorated with murals depicting an angry
Poseidon.
He turned on the flashlight and climbed a staircase until he reached the door of
the Library Out of Time. There was a wood engraving framed between delicate
reliefs in the shape of cherry leaves. He pointed his flashlight at a dusty wooden
Selene, which was smiling at a sun from which sharp rays came out. Among them,
Lorena distinguished the following letters:
Aetrum
As he removed the dust with his fingers, the longed-for word appeared:
tesAetrum
Pressed by the little time she had, she went down the steps and finally convinced
herself that she had to find out what kind of fateful relationship linked the terrible
phrase that Auguste Meyer uttered at the Lyceum with the tunnel of the Library Out
of Time.
Reaching the landing, he stood in front of the door and turned the shining bronze
butterfly. After a few seconds, he saw the red light on a security camera light up.
Someone was watching her...
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74
Marcel Forné, the bookseller at the Out of Time Library, was smoking while
leaning against his office table. He had decided to spend the night awake... He knew
he would see Grieg and his companion again.
That's why he wasn't surprised to hear the bell ring, although he was surprised to
see a single face on the small screen of the intercom. The bookseller took off his
boatiné robe and replaced his suit jacket, as he headed to the hall. When he opened
the door, he found a wonderfully dressed Lorena in an evening dress. But his
worried features showed that this was not a courtesy visit.
The bookseller bowed his head and raised his eyebrows.
"I'm glad to see I didn't wake you up," Lorena said.
—It should not be surprising, since one can enter the Library Out of Time at any
time... As long as the interest of its guardian is awakened. —With a gesture he
invited her to come into his office—. How can I help you?
—You see, abusing your kindness, I would like to ask you a question related to a
matter that worries me.
"That question must be very important to try to clarify at this hour," Forné
commented as they entered the office.
The bookseller sat in his chair, next to his beloved cut-glass ashtray, overflowing
with cigarette butts. Lorena on the other side of the table.
—Miss… Lorena, isn't that right? —asked the bookseller—. Let's see... Tell me
what business brings you here.
Lorena looked at her watch.
—Excuse me if, pressed by circumstances, I go directly to the point...
—Don't worry, shoot! —Forné raised his right hand and made the gesture of
shooting. His apparent calm was a pose as feigned as it was studied.
—I would like to know why on the door of the Library Out of Time, and half
hidden by dust—Lorena showed him her sooty fingers—there is a Latin word carved
in the wood that I had not seen before: Testetrum.
Marcel Forné remained undaunted.
—And you have come at this hour to ask me that? —he asked, feigning
naturalness.
—Yes, I need to know.
The bookseller stroked his bald head and lit a cigarette. After taking an intense
drag, he looked at the beautiful woman in front of him.
—Many have asked me that question... although lately not so many... I say it's
because of the dust that covers the sign.
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—And what was your response?
—That wooden carving in which, between a moon and a sun, the word you refer
to appears, it has been there since time immemorial, since my great-great-
grandfather, perhaps even before. Why do you ask?
—I would like to know what it means.
—Well, you are an intelligent person and I think I am not discovering anything if I
tell you that the term Tesatrum means "the theater of Theseus." It is a very versatile
term on which an entire imaginative architecture could be built.
—Does its location above the entrance door serve a warning function?
—That's another story... —Forné couldn't avoid a suspicious look.
-Because?
—Unfortunately, I can't help you with that... Let's say that all families have a
secret, and that is precisely the signum that defines us as a clan. Our... sanctum
sanctorum, if you'll excuse me.
—And if I told you the meaning, what would happen? —Lorraine replied.
—Try it. —The bookseller felt a chill—. But I warn you that it will be difficult…
-You know it?
-Of course. Otherwise, this conversation would be meaningless. There is not a day
that goes by without me keeping it in mind.
Marcel Forné leaned back in the armchair and took another drag on his cigarette.
“On the same day I turned twenty-one, and while I was sitting in the same chair in
which you are now,” he continued, “my father explained to me its meaning and the
subject that was inextricably linked to it. Then he placed an object on the table and
wrote some words on a piece of paper. He demanded that I memorize them forever,
and never repeat them out loud; then he burned the paper. Unfortunately, I have
never heard them pronounced, and I don't think I ever will.
—Why do you say “unfortunately”?
"Forgive me, miss, but you ask too many questions and..."
“Testamentum ,” Lorena interrupted. The first word that makes up the term
Tesatrum is Testamentum.
The bookseller couldn't believe what he had just heard.
—That's the word, right?
"I can't say anything about it, although I warn you that you must form the
complete sentence," he responded laconically.
—The first two words are: Testamentum sapio.
Forné's hands were sweating.
"Promise me that if I say the right words, you will reveal the secret they are
hiding," Lorena asked.
—Yes, but…
—Testamentun sad sapio umbra.
There was silence.
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It was as if the phrase had activated neural circuits that had remained dormant for
decades in Forné's brain. His eyes widened and he remained motionless for a while.
Suddenly, he stood up from the chair.
"I never thought this would happen..." he said.
The bookseller turned to the framed chromolithograph of the Peabody Library's
Bookshelf Room. He removed it and a safe appeared.
Forné extracted a rusty key from it, the object that his father placed on the table
when he revealed to him, for the first and only time, the great family secret.
The bookseller put out his cigarette, took two flashlights from a drawer and
handed one to Lorena.
"I understood that the direct light from the flashlights bothered you," she said.
—We will need them where we are going...
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75
Gabriel Grieg entered a corridor with blackish walls that oozed humidity and
where rats ran around. As he moved forward, the hallway progressively widened
and numerous wooden planks appeared on the floor, coming from destroyed
furniture.
Grieg looked at a painting. It was a small oil painting that represented the stalls of
a theater. The terrified public witnessed an enigmatic spectacle hidden from the
viewer of the painting.
He continued walking down the hallway, with increasing difficulty, because his
path was obstructed by veritable mountains of rubbish and old furniture. The
corridor ended in a large open door. Crossing it, Grieg found himself in a huge
kitchen that seemed designed to host a gargantuan feast for more than a hundred
diners.
As he walked along a dusty marble floor, he realized that he was in a kind of
palace, which despite being huge and having high ceilings, produced a strong feeling
of claustrophobia, since all the windows were closed and welded to the buttresses, to
prevent anyone from entering (or leaving).
"Since I opened the door behind the Styx panel, I am being drawn, with no
possible escape, towards a specific point," Grieg told himself, while observing the
ventilation ducts, from which he would not be able to escape.
That dark palace was of Gothic origin, but other architectural styles had been
superimposed on its walls. The rooms, although devoid of their luxurious furniture,
showed a delicate sumptuousness. The refined ceilings, covered in gold leaf, were
decorated with romantic motifs, and on the walls there were naked epicene figures
that challenged the viewer with obscene postures.
Grieg entered another of those rooms. It was an old painter's studio in which large
paintings were stored, placed upside down on the floor and leaning against the
walls. With a sweep of the flashlight, he thought he saw the reflection of something
surprising.
In the center of the workshop, leaning on an easel, was a large painting partially
covered with a white sheet. As he approached, Grieg felt his pulse quicken. The paint
was recent and shone in golden tones.
He examined the part of the painting that was visible. Suddenly, an icy thought
assaulted his mind: "I have to know what images those paintings on the floor
contain."
Turning to the nearest one, he saw the blackened oil portrait of a sexagenarian
dressed in 17th-century clothing. He was bald, and the bones of his skull were
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obscenely visible on his face. He was wearing a frock coat on which a brilliant jewel
stood out. It was "the Stone."
"My God!" he said to himself.
His suspicions were confirmed when he saw the rest of the paintings. In all of
them men from different eras appeared, but with something in common, as if united
by the most disastrous of lineages: they all wore, in a frock coat adapted to the
fashion of their time, the cursed jewel.
Grieg, overwhelmed by the discovery, set about uncovering the canvas covered
with the sheet to find out who the character was portrayed on it. But when his hands
brushed the fabric, a strange force prevented him from pulling the sheet.
"Keep a cool head..." he told himself. Figuring out if it's me in the painting goes
against my strategy. "It would be like knowing the exact day of my own death..., it
would condition my freedom and compromise my movements."
Grieg left that room and continued walking through the palace through corridors
lined with blind windows. He came to a wonderful alabaster door, which was open.
When he crossed the threshold, he found that he was in a room of remarkable
dimensions decorated in an extremely baroque manner, with antique sconces on the
walls and torch holders of the most luxurious finish, and a dome from which hung
an enormous chandelier. In the center stood twelve black marble columns arranged
in a circle around an elaborate marble paving. From there a wide staircase led up to
the first floor, where a large viewpoint protected by a balustrade surrounded the
room.
Gabriel Grieg sensed that all that luxury revealed a dark breath of unspeakable
meetings, supervised by the different owners of that demonic mansion.
"Everything happens in a too subtle way: the meeting with the old man in the
office, the apparent innocence of the cutouts in the auques box..." he told himself.
Everything is subtle and too light. Evil, the terrible, is guessed and intuited, but only
a small part, as if it were a gigantic iceberg hidden by the waters of the ocean; or like
the deceptive fragility shown by the wings of a small migratory bird, capable of
crossing a continent.»
Grieg had never faced Evil in capital letters. Until then, he had avoided the issue
and, he had to admit, had even benefited from it. But he finally understood that the
time had come to confront Evil head-on, and see its face.
He knew he was in the most suitable place for it, because what seemed to be the
elegant and shiny floor of a dance hall was the most sophisticated of occultum.
On the floor, made of marble of different colors, were represented, in a perfect
circle, an Ouroboros and a Catobeplás devouring each other, in an image that formed
a perfect Gordian knot. Inside the circle several circles appeared, and in the smallest
one was represented, among cabalistic symbols, a five-pointed red star: a pentacle
turned downwards.
It was time to face Him. Grieg had perfectly understood that toys and cut-outs
were the symbol in which the true nature of the monster lay.
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The dreaded night had arrived. Circumstances forced him to carry out the most
reckless sabbat that no one had ever been forced to undertake. He sensed that at a
moment like that the light of the flashlight could not be of help, since he was in the
very heart of darkness.
When he turned off the flashlight, he was immersed in complete darkness and the
most deafening silence. Located in the center of the occultum , and standing on the
passive pentacle, the worst of fears invaded him: the terror of sensing, in a terrifying
way, that perhaps he was summoning himself.
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76
It was fourteen minutes before six in the morning, and the bookseller Marcel
Forné was walking with Lorena through the Library Out of Time, making the
floorboards creak loudly.
The appearance of the unusual book store illuminated only by the ember of the
bookseller's cigarette was so spectral and overwhelming that it lived up to the name
its owner had given it.
Finally, Marcel Forné stopped in front of a shelf with children's books. Lorena
verified that it was the same shelf from which, that day before, she had taken out a
folder to give it to Grieg. The bookseller turned a wooden pivot that protruded from
the shelf and pushed hard, until a dusty staircase full of cobwebs was visible.
Then he went up the stairs, followed by Lorena, until he reached a pentagonal
room with high ceilings. That space had fifty large ebony shelves that completely
surrounded the room. The shelves were filled with ancient books and treatises
related to the demonic theme. Lorena verified that the horarium that, a few hours
before, the bookseller had exchanged for the box with photos of Grieg, was also
there, on an orange wood lectern.
"You are the first person outside my family to visit this room," said the bookseller.
Lorena, much to her regret, lacked the time necessary to examine that immense
library of demonic knowledge.
—And that armored iron door, where does it lead? —Lorena asked, pointing the
flashlight at her.
"I don't know..." answered the bookseller, wiping the sweat from his forehead. I
have never opened it. I am prohibited from doing so.
—A door that is inside your property and you can't open it? I would like you to
clarify it for me.
—Our family's job has been to take care of that door, although with one condition:
not to go through it, nor to know what is inside.
-"The job"? Does someone pay you?
-Yeah. "But I don't know who he is," Forné answered. I limit myself to regularly
receiving an amount, just like my ancestors did, in addition to being able to enjoy the
use of the tunnel and the two houses that are located at the ends.
—But you and your ancestors were booksellers..., not porters.
—I'm not exactly a bookseller. In fact, right now, and for the first time in my life, I
am practicing my true profession.
Lorena stared at the man, waiting for him to continue.
260
—Let's say that I develop a type of profession similar to that carried out by the
operators who guard the private boxes inside the bank vaults.
Lorena looked at the rusty door and felt a chill as she remembered the phrase that
made up the word tesatrum: "The testament of those who are dead while alive."
—And why did they become booksellers?
—My ancestors found that they had a lot of time and a lot of space... Passionate
about reading, they began to accumulate books. So many, that in the end we Forné
end up looking like booksellers, although in reality we have only been guardians of
that door... Do you understand?
—If I go in there... who guarantees that I won't be locked inside?
—I guarantee it. Before entering, you must leave the bag you are carrying, and you
will not be able to take anything out of it. I guarantee you that no one will bother you
on this side of the door. Now, I can't assure you what, or who, you may find on the
other side.
Lorena looked at her watch and saw that it was eight minutes before six in the
morning.
"I'm going in," he stated.
The bookseller inserted the key, and obeying the instructions given to him by his
father, he opened the metal gate without looking inside. Lorena crossed the dark
threshold, and before she had the chance to see anything inside, she thought she
heard a distant noise muffled by the walls. It looked as if someone was hitting a
metal object with a hammer.
The room had black walls; On the red marble floor, there were fifteen metal blocks
arranged in a circle.
"The theory... is beginning to fit with reality," Lorena said to herself in a low voice,
while she shined the flashlight on the words that were written on the wall:
Aeternus relictum
Testamentum sapio tristes umbra
Lorena understood what the metal blocks on the ground could contain. That place
was a very ancient public archive room, which contained the wills of the living dead,
whose relictum or inheritance did not expire in the people who signed them but was
transmitted from parents to children, as a fateful inheritance.
He was surprised to see that, under the electric switch, there was an ashtray full of
cigar butts that had been smashed against the paper ring until completely burned.
He walked towards the metal blocks arranged in a circle, which were actually
large filing cabinets containing files arranged in alphabetical order, and began to
walk in a circle until he stopped in front of one of them, the one containing the
folders corresponding to the letter " R». He opened the filing cabinet, and next to a
folder with brittle covers that had the name "Recio, Juan José" written on it, there was
a recent folder in which there was a name that he knew very well: "Regina, Lorena."
It was his own name.
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However, the folder was empty...
He quickly went to the filing cabinet corresponding to the letter "G", and among
folders containing the wills of those who died in life, signed by doctors,
businessmen, shoe shiners, priests, bankers, architects..., was the folder of "Grieg,
Gabriel ». And it was also empty...
"I have to go before it's too late," he told himself, but as he turned to head toward
the door he saw the filing cabinet for "F," and he couldn't resist taking a look at the
Forné file.
Lorena found a thick file from the 18th century signed by an ancestor of the
gatekeeper named Maurici Forné, and whose signature was stamped next to a
signature identical to the one she had seen on the contract that Auguste Meyer had
signed.
In exchange, you will obtain as a benefit, both for the person who signs the
contract and for all his descendants, and as long as the conditions specified in the
first clause are scrupulously met, the usufruct of the two homes located on each side
of the old corridor that It ran parallel to the old wall known as…
Lorena kept the contract in the old binder. Only then did he begin to understand
the meaning of the data he had accumulated during his life, and especially in the last
twenty-four hours. The time had finally come to put his master move into play.
She remembered a small circular object that Grieg had shown her that same night
when the two were at the Avinyó Hotel, and that she had kept in her purse.
"Gabriel mentioned a name," he remembered, and searched the filing cabinets for
the folder that contained the contract of the person in whom the key to the mystery
was locked.
And after a couple of tries... he found it.
Lorena hid the contract in her dress and went out to the room of demonic books,
where the guardian was waiting for her.
"I have to go..." she said, picking up her bag.
Marcel Forné thought about searching her in case she was hiding something on
her body, but he didn't dare. So he made sure not to look beyond the confines of the
door and locked the door.
It was still night when Lorena left the Library Out of Time. As she hurried away,
she took out of her bag the envelope on which she had written down the address
where she was to deliver the contract that Auguste Meyer had signed, and which she
was not to open before six in the morning.
He looked at his watch and saw that it was forty seconds past six. Without
stopping, as he headed to Via Laietana, where he was waiting to catch a taxi, he
prepared to open the envelope, but before doing so he had a reasonable premonition.
He raised his head and looked at the name of the street he was on. He opened the
envelope, read the card it contained, and realized that his dire hunch was true.
«There are many corridors of the labyrinth that inevitably lead to the same
place…»
He had to deliver the contract on the floor above the Out of Time Library.
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77
The circular room that served as occultum was dark and silent. Suddenly, loud
knocks echoed from the balustrade and from the top of the dome. Grieg stood on the
pentacle, in the center of the occultum , expectant.
Suddenly, as if a huge window had opened, he noticed a current of icy air that
smelled of smoke. Grieg, standing still in the darkness, heard the footsteps of
someone who, after slowly descending the stairs, walked around the occultum ,
behind the columns.
In the darkness, the sound of footsteps mixed with heavy breathing. Grieg knew
that the devil himself was spinning around him.
The first meeting with Ziripot de Lanz, among the shadows of the Font del Gat,
and, above all, the revealing coven with him in the Bodega Bohemia, had taught him
an essential lesson that he had to apply at that moment in order to save his life. life.
"I can't believe that death rattle comes from a person..." he thought.
Grieg felt, next to him, the presence of a creepy being, which was undoubtedly
harassing its prey.
«Don't make the mistake of thinking that you are at the mercy of a conventional
person. If you do, he will close the coffin and throw the key into the sea, Grieg told
himself.
The footsteps could already be heard inside the circle... Suddenly, he heard the
sound of deep breathing just inches from his neck. He could smell the corrupted
breath coming from his rough throat, causing a low rumble.
Another rush of frigid air, followed by a snap. It seemed to Grieg that a painful
red light was piercing his pupils. Half dazzled, he turned and saw that he was in the
center of a wheel made up of ten red luminous spokes, and next to the axle, which
was his own head, was the old man to whom he was bound by the infernal pact.
The light rays came from the laser devices on the ten-man guns, which, from the
viewing point above the columns, were aimed directly at him. The old man saw
Grieg's frock coat and the jewel he wore, and raised his hand with a look of rage on
his face. Immediately, the men raised their guns and the red light of the lasers
illuminated the dome.
-It's me! —the old man shouted.
Gabriel Grieg remained motionless and silent.
The old man looked at the ground and saw what Grieg had done: the inverse
pentacle was broken into pieces, and next to it there was a gold ingot broken in two,
the unlit lantern and the auques box.
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Grieg bent down, took the two pieces of the ingot and headed towards the circle of
the occultum formed by the fabulous animals. On the representation of the serpent
dragon Ouroboros, he placed the piece of ingot where the Catobeplás was, and vice
versa.
The old man, seeing the move that the architect had just made, began to walk
around the pentacle.
-Very smart…! -he exclaimed-. You have separated the representations that were
engraved on the ingot that I gave you after signing our contract.
The old man took out the contract that united them from the pocket of his jacket.
"And furthermore, he has tried to render the occultum useless by destroying the
pentacle," the old man continued. But the move did not turn out well for him, and I
will personally see to it that he regrets it... do you hear me, Grieg? —the old man
threatened, alluding to the advantageous professional contracts that the architect
obtained in exchange for abandoning his research in the Marcús chapel.
Grieg continued in silence, trying not to be intimidated by the old man.
"Confusing Catobeplás with Ouroboros is a serious mistake..., and you may end
up paying for it, not only with your life," said the old man while lighting a cigar. And
if he also commits the great temerity of fusing his natures..., the mistake is
irreversible.
"Caput est ut quceramus," exclaimed Grieg. The essential thing is that we
investigate.
"Ev to kccv, ev to nav..." added the old man contemptuously. Let's investigate, you
say? You have nothing to investigate. Just surrender to the evidence.
Grieg was silent.
—We are inside a circle that has closed. And if he wants to destroy the contract
and definitively regain his freedom, he must give the box to someone... and that
someone is me! —the old man proclaimed, angry.
Grieg continued motionless and silent; The old man stared at the jewel his
opponent was wearing on his lapel.
Suddenly, a tall, burly man entered the scene and whispered something in the old
man's ear. It was the same bodyguard who was crouched in the darkness of the
Círculo del Liceo office.
"I am forced to momentarily abandon the game," the old man snapped. I must
have a relaxed conversation with a lovely lady we both know... In the meantime,
make yourself at home, but remember that...
The glow in the old man's eyes was truly demonic. He opened his arms, full of
rage, and the lasers of the guns lowered until they were aimed at Grieg's head again.
—… a single word from me would be enough to condemn him.
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78
Lorena climbed the stairs that led from the lobby where the entrance to the Library
Out of Time was.
Upon reaching the landing, he rang a bronze hand bell in the shape of a goat. A
tall, burly man, about sixty years old, with an expressionless face and eyes as cold as
an iceberg, opened the door. He was the person who had hired Lorena just a year
ago to manage the signing of a very special document. The same one that had given
him the address where he had met Grieg and the place where he would find the coin
that introduced them to the essential path.
In addition, he had provided him with all the material necessary to document his
study of "the Stone", including the armored case containing the instructions for the
production of alchemical gold and the internal CERN document.
—Welcome, Mrs. Regina. Join me please.
The two walked through a large hall illuminated by the candles of a few
candlesticks. Lorena felt an immediate fascination with that place: she had always
dreamed of being able to live in a baroque mansion. He was especially captivated by
its exceptional frescoes framed between moldings covered in gold leaf. However, he
did not quite understand why all the windows were closed and welded shut.
They walked down a hallway that led to several rooms: a living room, a library,
and an atrium that preceded the tea room. When they reached the end of the
hallway, the sumptuous decoration of the palace was radically transformed, and the
space was filled with dark shelves full of law books.
They both entered a fabulous office with walls covered in cherry sheets, walnut
shelves packed with old books, and illuminated by the lamp placed on top of the
table. At one end of the luxurious office was a leather sofa; Next to him, a walking
stick appeared very similar to the one next to the hydra mirror in the Columbus
skyscraper.
-Please sit down. —The man pointed to one of the two seats facing each other at
the office table—. In a few minutes, the person I work for, and whom I have never
spoken to before, will arrive. He is the one who truly chose her to do the job. I limited
myself, as his first figurehead, to transmitting his will to him.
Lorena, very intrigued, said nothing. The man behaved very differently. On the
other occasions, he had displayed great skills of persuasion until he convinced her to
work for his firm.
While she waited, Lorena looked at the walls and discovered that, out of reach of
the table light, there hung a gilt-framed painting in which she could sense the
portrait of a gentleman. He moved the lampshade so he could see the face in the
265
painting and realized that it was the same man who appeared in the photos on the
"Le diable parfumé" perfume box, dressed in a frock coat very similar to Grieg's with
"the Stone pinned to the lapel.
"I'm beginning to understand why Grieg was so interested in photographs..." he
thought.
Suddenly, he heard someone approaching. He was an elderly nonagenarian, who
walked very upright and carried a lit cigar in his hand. His figure was
overwhelming: he looked like a ghost that, after wandering through those rooms for
centuries, had suddenly wanted to embody itself.
The man, upon seeing the beautiful lady standing next to the table, smiled like a
true gallant.
—I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Lorena Regina!
—he exclaimed, opening his arms. He stopped before her and, very
ceremoniously, kissed her hand.
Wisps of blue smoke rose toward the ceiling.
"You must be Trux," she said, smiling.
"Let's say it's one of my many names," he answered as he sat down in the armchair
located under the painting. At my age, if you don't play at being someone else from
time to time, you end up getting tired of always seeing the same person.
"If I'm not mistaken, Trux, in Latin, means 'cruel and wild,'" Lorena commented,
flashing another smile.
-It's possible. Keep in mind that a wolf, despite her terrible jaws, can delicately
carry her cubs by the neck if she wants. —He extended his left hand with the palm
facing upwards and moved his fingers.
Lorena immediately interpreted that gesture, and opening her bag she handed
him the metal cylinder, the CERN document and the contract signed by Auguste
Meyer. The old man analyzed the latter carefully.
—Excellent work. Congratulations.
The old man took a leaflet, and after dipping a white duck feather in a silver
inkwell, he wrote something on its surface.
—This paper contains the name of the bank in Switzerland, and the account
number where the amount that you and my front man previously agreed for your
work has been deposited. I recommend that you memorize it forever and then
destroy it.
Lorena picked up the leaflet and kept it.
"Once all these formalities have been clarified, I would like to talk with you in a
more relaxed way," said the old man. He took some papers from a drawer and
walked towards the large black leather sofa. We have to celebrate this.
The old man took a bottle of cognac and two glasses.
"I really like your style when it comes to dealing with adverse situations," he
continued as he filled the glasses and watched as Lorena sat down next to him. You
are cold and ambitious, and I appreciate that, during the year you have had to
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prepare your mission, you have not moved an inch from the ground we marked for
you, nor have you misused the privileged information that I put in your hands.
—Aren't you testing me for another, even more important task?
There was a significant silence while the old man handed him the glass.
—That's right, my dear lady... I have reserved the most important job for you, but
unfortunately there is a small obstacle to my being able to give it to you. —He raised
his glass of cognac waiting for the toast.
Lorena looked into the old man's small black eyes, and then moved her hand until
the two glasses lightly collided.
—Tell me something, Trux… What obstacle is standing in the way?
—I know your academic record in depth. Law graduate, first in her class, doctor
cum laude... She has completed five master's degrees, two of them in the United
States. Expert in Demonology and topics related to the inquisitorial processes of the
Holy Office.
-You haven't answered my question...
—I offer you a job that perfectly fits your profile and your concerns, and for which
you have prepared yourself over so many years of study...
-But…? —she interrupted him.
—Unfortunately for you, there is another candidate to fill the square... —The old
man paused and took a long drag on his cigar—. He is an architect who has a deep
knowledge of the human psyche, as well as anticipatory skills in situations, which
are essential for the job I am applying for.
—Refers to Gabriel Grieg. Then I deduce that our meeting in the Colón skyscraper
was part…
—Of a plan, of course. A plan that must be completed this very night,” the old
man politely interrupted her.
—Where is Grieg now?
—In this very house, awaiting my orders.
Lorena, bewildered, tried to analyze the situation. Meanwhile, the old man
observed the intense shine in her eyes, aware that he had achieved his purpose: to
awaken anger and envy in her.
—What should I do to talk to him?
"I'm a great collector of walking sticks," said the old man. Please choose one.
Lorena understood that that phrase must have a meaning and that it was part of
the selection process. He went to the staff, where there were twelve staffs placed in a
circle and that shared one characteristic: they all had one of the different faces with
which the devil is represented carved on the handle.
Lorena took one and sat back on the couch.
—Without a doubt, I choose this one.
The old man saw how Lorena lasciviously caressed the shiny ebony surface of the
devil's face, which had the same shape as the one melted by the rain on the floor of
the Font del Gat, and he felt really pleased.
"I would like you to explain to me what the job entails," she proposed.
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-I will do so. But understand that, at my age, I like to summarize topics in forceful
and, if possible, golden metaphors.
The old man put his hand in his pocket and took out a gold ingot broken in two.
Lorena thought that the metallic bangs she had heard when she was inside the
relictum could have been caused by breaking the ingot, thus separating the two
dragons engraved on it.
"The point is that both will have to face each other," the old man explained, "and
only one of the two can be the Ouroboros..."
The old man paused for a long time.
-And the other? —Lorraine intervened.
—The other will become, fatefully..., the Catobeplás.
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79
The old man got up from the sofa and asked Lorena to accompany him. They
headed down a hallway to an armored door, which, despite dating from the 17th
century, had a polished metal surface and shiny, greased hinges. The old man
opened the thick door and lit the candles on a silver candelabra.
They entered a gloomy room similar to the one behind the mirror in the Colón
skyscraper. The walls were lined with shelves full of voluminous law books, dusty
official documents, files and papers.
Lorena knew that she had finally reached the true center of the labyrinth, in which
she and Grieg had been trapped for just over a day.
«I am in the authentic Deus absconductus... In here, any action or word that I
pronounce..., and that is not appropriate, will become an error with fatal
consequences.»
"Please take a seat," the old man said as he did the same. There are very few
people to whom I have granted the privilege of access to this unique room of the
notary's office, but it should not surprise you that in your case I have made an
exception, since, after a very long and complicated selection process that It has taken
a lifetime to make...
The old man paused as he watched the smoke rising toward the ceiling.
—… you are one of the two final candidates to remain at the head of the notary
office and inherit all the benefits attached to it.
The old man then explained to Lorena, using terminology that she mastered
perfectly, the type of faith that the notary empowered in extrajudicial contracts. He
showed him the special notarial elements that the office used: the seal with which it
was authorized and the special folios, as well as the type of certifications.
—You will see, Mrs. Regina, that all the elements that I have shown you do not
differ particularly from those that you could find in any notary office in the city...
The old man paused again and looked condescendingly at Lorena, knowing that
his next words would touch sensitive matter in the woman.
—A notary position... To which he has always wanted to access... But year after
year, "adverse circumstances" have not allowed him to do so.
Lorena continued absorbed in the old man's words.
—Now, this notary's office is a bit special... And here comes his passion for occult
topics and his deep knowledge of topics related to the always fascinating figure of
the devil... All this knowledge plays in his favor, and links with the protocol that
governs this firm, which is defined in the book that I will show you. Please come
with me.
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The notary went to a corner of the room where there was an enormous volume
with embossed black leather covers, which seemed to be covered in a thick, greasy
patina, and which had a disturbing word engraved on its cover.
dominus
This could mean either "owner" or "owner" or "lord."

The old man caressed the cover of the book, turned and gave Lorena an icy look.
—If you pass the last test, you will only have to stamp your signature next to
mine. The notarial release will be a fact, and will be fully confirmed when I show you
what is behind that door.
Lorena approached the place where the old man was pointing out: a shadowy
niche shaped like a chapel that had the name Tenebrarum engraved on it, "the dark
light of hell."
—And what is the sacculus that provides the plaza? —Lorena asked, referring to
the financial remuneration that the position of head of the notary entailed.
The old man, upon hearing that question, seemed to revive. He approached
Lorena and stopped a few centimeters from the woman's neck, where he could smell
the jasmine aroma that her body gave off.
—The dignity of owner of this notary office brings with it all the gold ingots you
can imagine... —The old man approached even closer to Lorena and whispered in
her ear—: In addition to numerous properties, among which the New Foundation in
the that you have stayed these days, and new offices of the firm more in line with the
new times.
Lorena scrutinized the notary's eyes.
—What is the last test? -asked.
—As I have already told you, you will have to face the person who, along with
you, is most qualified to occupy the position.
—And what should I get from that confrontation?
—Your challenge is that said person voluntarily, I repeat, voluntarily, hand over
to you the frock coat that characterizes all the previous notaries of the firm, and that
has the Eye of Geburah inserted in the lapel... In addition, you must hand it over,
with full conviction of this, from the auques box.
—Grieg and I, facing each other… I had it planned from the beginning, didn't I?
—Grieg is a complex man, and it is difficult to try to convince him. But if you
manage to attack him at his weak point, perhaps you can win the battle...
The old man took another pause, which Lorena took advantage of to delve into
her last reflection.
-Which is it?
"Conscience," answered the notary. Despite his undeniable intuition and
intelligence, he allows himself to be dominated by his conscience, without knowing
that what people call conscience is a simple neutral and modifiable neural circuit. —
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He brought his face a few centimeters from Lorena's—. If you manage to attack him
on that flank, you will be able to defeat him.
The flames of the candles flickered as if a draft had entered the room. The smoke
from the candles and the old man's cigar mixed together, drawing strange figures up
to the ceiling.
—Where can I find Grieg? —Lorena asked, holding the old man's gaze.
—It's very close... In the center of the most luxurious occultum in the world, where
I lived some of the best moments of my life.
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80
Lorena entered a lavish and baroque room that had eight large columns arranged
in a circle that completely surrounded a marble floor. It looked like the glittering
dance floor of a gothic fairytale castle, but Lorena immediately realized that it was
the most sophisticated occultum she had ever seen.
The room was illuminated by a single ray of light that filtered between two half-
open wooden doors. This fell directly on a disturbing garment that was on the floor,
on an inverted pentacle.
The illuminated garment was the frock coat, and the dim ray of light decomposed
the reflection of "the Stone" into small geometric figures of bright ocher tones.
While Lorena skirted the circular track, her first intention was to start ascending
the wide staircase, but when she looked up she saw that at the top, and standing on
the last step, a burly bodyguard was stationed, staring at her. .
He headed towards the two large, half-open gates, and when he passed through
them he was surprised by the strange place he saw: it was a large balcony
surrounded by a balustrade. The top of the balcony was completely covered with
thick steel plates, giving the place a claustrophobic feel. All the windows that could
be seen from there were blinded, except for the notary's office, whose weak light
illuminated that silent place.
Lorena reached the balustrade and saw the motionless silhouette of the person she
was looking for.
Grieg, on his own, watched as Lorena approached, wondering what path she had
taken to get there.
"Gabriel, we have to reach an agreement," Lorena said, very seriously. If we make
separate decisions, this palace will be our tomb. The jewel that you left in the
occultum hides a bitter elixir - he approached him - that one of the two must drink. I
am willing to do it.
Grieg grabbed her waist and pulled her towards him.
—I have only known you for a short time, but I already know enough about you
to fear that the formula resulting from your intelligence plus your beauty… could be
lethal to me.
—If you are not willing to assume the role to which circumstances have led you, at
least let me be the one to do it.
—You don't understand the dark world that hides behind the words you so
recklessly pronounce.
Grieg looked into her eyes while he held her tightly in his arms, as if he really
wanted to make her understand without words the mistake he was making.
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—Do you see the only light that illuminates this interior balcony that seems to
come from a castle in a horror story? she asked, stroking his hair as she felt Grieg's
heavy breathing on her neck. Do you see her? It is the authentic light of the deus
absconductus, the one that emerges from the true center of the labyrinth, which enters
the occultum and dimly illuminates the Eye of Geburah. Do you see her, Gabriel?
Grieg looked into her eyes like someone who feels hypnotized.
"That's the notary's office," she continued. Do you understand what I want to tell
you? I don't know about you, but I'm interested in the vacant position.
—You don't know what you're saying, Lorena. That guy is not a simple notary...
By now you should know that.
—There is our main difference, Gabriel. You are so accustomed to interpreting
symbolism through your work that you now see macabre and demonic aspects
where there really are none.
—You have not seen or noticed the sensations that I have experienced.
—Gabriel, trust me. If you do, all the evil you sense will disappear. I assure.
—Don't be so sure about it.
—If you listen to me, this whole matter will have ended in an advantageous way
for you. But first you have to give me, voluntarily, the frock coat, the jewel and...
Grieg interrupted the sentence:
—I, voluntarily, will not give you anything, Lorena. If you want it, you know what
you have to do. Enter the occultum and pick it up.
-That's impossible.
-Because?
—Because you know perfectly well that it was you who got the jewel, and that
comes with some responsibilities.
-Explain yourself…
—I will tell you more clearly: if you do not wish to be the heir, you must give your
consent for me to be the heir.
-As?
—Give me the frock coat, the jewel and the auques box.
For a few seconds, the large balcony was plunged into silence, as if that dark
palace were located in some timeless place.
"You ask too much of me," Grieg finally intervened. If you're not the one I'm
supposed to hand the box to, any of those guys with guns and expensive suits will
kill me.
—What if I really am? —she asked.
—You will get into a terrifying matter... But since that seems to be your irrevocable
will, let's advance through the last corridor of the labyrinth.
Grieg separated from her and motioned for her to take a few steps towards a
corner of the balcony. She went through the shadows to the place where he told her
and saw a strange stone statue: it was a Minotaur holding the auques box in his hands,
as if offering it to the void.
Lorena approached Grieg.
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"Trust me, Gabriel," she whispered in his ear.
—Do you really know what you are about to become?
Lorena looked at the architect's face and noticed the shadows of his deep
confusion. He took Grieg's hand and brought her closer to the statue.
—Gabriel, touch it; the Minotaur is made of stone. And the devil, whether you
want to call him Maimón, Amduscias, Barbiel, Behemoto, Bael, Belzebub, Asmodeo
or Belial..., only exists in the tormented minds of some people, like that of that poor
man who spied on us among the vegetation of the Font del Gat. The devil doesn't
scare me. What truly terrifies me is that you can't work on what you've been
studying for so many years. Don't you understand that you have allowed yourself to
be suggested?
Lorena caressed Grieg's face, who looked at her, weighing the truth of her words.
—I need you to voluntarily give me the box, the frock coat and the jewel.
The two remained silent.
"You didn't want to give the box to the notary," she continued, "and that's your big
problem... We are the two chosen ones, and since you found the frock coat, if you
don't give it to me the good way, they will force you to do it the hard way."
Lorena pointed up, towards the place where she had seen the old man's
bodyguards.
—I will clarify the dilemma that seems to afflict you so much, Gabriel. There was
no person to whom you had to deliver the box of auques. You know why? Because
you had to keep it. —Lorena took the box in her hands—. I give you the solution to
the enigma. Here, take it along with the frock coat and show up at the notary's door...
Everything you see, and much more, that you can't even imagine..., will be yours
forever. Come on! Do it!
Grieg was dismayed. He was faced with a dilemma when he sensed that she had
not understood the true nature of the job she was opting for.
-You do not say anything? You must hand it to me, Gabriel. If you don't, neither of
us will get out of here alive. No choice.
Lorena's face received the yellowish light that emerged from the notary's window.
A devilish smile was drawn on his lips that did not go unnoticed by Grieg.
—What worries you so much about this simple box of children's cutouts? —
Lorena asked as she walked towards the center of the balcony. What have they told
you or what have you seen on your way to get "the Stone" and the frock coat, which
seems to have impressed you so much? Are you worried about its origin? Perhaps
the terrible personality of its former owner? —Lorena accompanied her words with
theatrical gestures.
—That box is full of shadows.
-What are you talking about?
Lorena opened the box and looked at the paper figures.
—It can't be, Gabriel... I thought you were much smarter than to fall into such a
crude trap. Have you not been impressed by the little characters in a little shadow
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theater? The trick is that, depending on how they are placed and the type of light that
falls on them, their shadows take on one shape or another. Come, I'll show you!
Lorena took two characters and showed them to them. They were two figures
wearing a pointed hat: a little storybook princess and Merlin the Wizard.
"We are going to show you how characters can transform into very different ones,"
she said, pretending to be speaking to the two small figures. In this way we will
definitively chase away from Mr. Grieg's head all those nonsense that makes him see
demons; instead of realizing that they are just a bunch of crazy old men, loaded up to
their eyebrows, and that we, if we know how to move the pieces properly, can solve
our lives forever.
Next, Lorena put the figures back into the box.
—Look closely, Gabriel!
Lorena crossed the wooden gates and closed the curtains. With a determined step,
he placed himself in the center of the occultum.
Grieg saw Lorena's silhouette through the curtains. He looked at the shape of her
evening dress, to which an unusual volume was added when she picked up the frock
coat from the floor. Then Grieg witnessed how Lorena properly rearranged her
clothes until her body adopted the silhouette of a fairy tale princess, with wide skirts
and curly hair.
Suddenly, he tilted himself to one side with a sudden movement, and as if it were
a sibylline magic game, he transformed into the prince of the same enigmatic story.
Then he turned again, and after bowing, he extended his arms as if he were thanking
the audience for some non-existent applause, or perhaps to warn the guards,
stationed at the top of the viewpoint, that they should leave.
After a few seconds, he raised his arms above his head until they formed the
silhouette of the wizard Merlin's pointed cap, whose figure unexpectedly
materialized, as in a mysterious play in which the actors were incorporeal shadows.
At that moment, Grieg felt a chill as he sensed that he was about to witness the
same thing that the old toymaker discovered inside the dark chamber. He proved
that he was right when he saw that Lorena had the shape of a terrifying silhouette,
made entirely of shadows, only visible from the place and angle at which he was,
and that only lasted for a moment.
After a few seconds, the Mephistophelian shadow once again assumed a feminine
form, approached Grieg, pulled back the curtain and appeared with a smiling face
and with his frock coat hanging from his arm.
—What did you think, Gabriel? You must definitely convince yourself that
shadows are just that, shadows.
Grieg just looked at her without saying a word.
—Are you going to give me the box now? —Lorraine asked.
A tall man appeared behind Lorena, with an expressionless face and cold gaze.
Grieg thought he was there to witness the transaction that was going to happen next.
Grieg reached out and handed Lorena the box of auques.
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—Go, you're free! —she exclaimed with the box in her hand—. At the end of the
hallway there is a door that is unlocked. Open it and go. No one will stop you from
leaving. Go to the place where you know I will arrive before noon. There we will
meet again, and do not doubt that, by then, I will receive you as a notary.
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81
The notary's first figurehead, after requesting permission, entered with Lorena
Regina into the room next to the notary's office.
With the movements typical of the most solicitous of butlers, he carefully hung, on
a bronze and cedar wood coat rack, the frock coat with the Eye of Geburah pinned to
its lapel. Then he bowed and stood guard at the threshold.
Lorena verified that someone had removed the old volumes and files that were
previously piled up on the table. Now on it there was only a penknife, a silver
inkwell and the notary's protocol book. Lorena stood next to the old notary's chair
and waited for him to tell her to sit down and leave the box of auques on the table.
The old man took a drag on his cigarette and looked at Lorena with some envy. He
contemplated her in all her splendor, covetously appreciating her talent, her cunning
and, above all, her youth.
"You have achieved it, and I congratulate you for it," he said. He has managed to
appear before me with all the credentials that I requested... Therefore, and in
compliance with my thoughtful and invariable proposal, we only need to carry out
the somewhat tedious procedure of stamping the signatures so that it is reflected in
the book of protocol of the notary's office the succession act, which my first front man
will witness and ratify with his signature.
The old clerk got up and went to the dominus that was on the table, next to Lorena,
and opened it to the last page that was printed and marked with black wax seals.
Then he took the penknife, tore a paper seal, and placed the book in front of her
for her to examine. The notary looked at her with the condescension typical of
someone who, after fighting a thousand battles to protect his kingdom, ends up
donating it in exchange for nothing.
—I admit that I am really surprised by the serenity you demonstrate in a
transcendental moment like this, which confirms that my choice has been the correct
one.
The old notary looked at Lorena's eyes and saw something in them that took him
back to his youth, to that time when the looks of human beings still held some
mystery that he did not know how to properly interpret.
Lorena read the text carefully and took the white duck feather. He dipped his tip
in the thick black ink made in the Middle Ages and wrote a Latin phrase that means
"I take over": "In locum alicuis." With an undaunted face, he signed the protocol book.
At that time she became the new owner of the notary's office.
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The old man made a slight gesture with his hand and the first figurehead
approached the dominus to, with the same pen, sign and ratify that he had attended
the relay as a witness.
—The ceremony is almost finished. The old man gave a tight smile. I will now
proceed to show you the two adjoining rooms, and I hope that when you see them...
you will continue to show the same serenity.
The old man approached Lorena, as if he wanted to ascertain something truly
disturbing, and looked into her cold eyes. Lorena had a look as cold as ice; The old
man had a monstrous premonition.
-Come with me. “I will show you the true heart of the notary,” he said, extending
his hand. It is an essential place in the firm's organizational chart, given that a
labyrinth, in order not to be a prison, must have an entrance and an exit that is
difficult to find... —The until then titular notary paused and seemed to search for
other words to explain himself better— . Every notary office must have a registry that
is public, although to access it you have to know a password...
The old man took out a key and stopped before some letters that were carved on a
baroque wooden door that protected an area that Lorena had already visited that
same night:
.Aeternus relictum
Testamentum sapio tristes umbra
She stood up and took the Eye of Geburah from the lapel of her frock coat and
attached it to her satin dress. The old man was surprised to see that Lorena, instead
of going to where he was and continuing with the ceremony of transfer of power, sat
back down in the same chair and took out three circular objects from her bag.
The old man left the key in the lock and approached Lorena, watched by his
figurehead. When he reached the height of the table and saw the three objects, he felt
for the first time in many years something that he had already forgotten: the beating
of his heart.
Lorena opened the lid of one of the three circular objects, took the silver letter
opener and inserted the tip into a viscous, blackish substance, which she took to her
mouth, tasting it pleasantly.
The old man could not maintain his eternal restraint. He slapped the air and the
figurehead interpreted that as meaning that he should leave the room. His boss's
eyes were wild with anger.
-Sit down! —Lorena ordered him in a tone of voice that deeply irritated the old
man, but he chose to do what she asked, waiting to confirm his infamous suspicions
about what was happening—. You don't need to go out of your way to show me the
relictum files. I know that the wills of the living dead are kept there. As the new head
of the notary's office, what I want is for us to talk about the sacramentum.
The former notary felt, for the first time in his life, that his lungs were full of
smoke and he was beginning to short of breath.
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What the woman had just said implied a deep knowledge of the internal
functioning of the notary, since the sacramentum was the amount accumulated as a
monetary deposit as a result of the accumulation of goods provided by the relictum
contracts, and which remained in the hands of the notary. of the notary.
—Your ambition has no limits... You have gone too far, Lorena Regina... You even
seem to demand something from me that does not correspond to you.
Lorena looked for a few seconds at the motionless flames of the candles that
burned in the air, and after emitting a deep sigh, she turned her head and fixed her
gaze mercilessly on the old man.
—Alfonsito, throughout your life you have usurped a position that did not belong
to you. In a dirty trick very worthy of you, you seized the Serpent Scepter, stealing it
from the one who truly belonged to it. Now I am here so that the Eye of Geburah
shines on the chest of those who legitimately deserve it.
A dead silence took over the room. The old man felt as if he had lost control of his
muscles.
“Those two solid gold coins that I left on the table,” Lorena continued, “are the
coins that you have been looking for your entire life. You can keep them, but I'm sure
you won't want to now, because you know very well that they are irrefutable proof
that you are a usurper.
Lorena opened the circular can, which was nothing more than a small can of shoe
polish.
—You don't want our conversation to last too long, because if those waiting for us
outside find out who you really are... Can you imagine what could happen if I told
them the tricks you used to get hold of the notary's office?
Lorena once again smeared her tongue with the pasty, black substance contained
in the small can of shoe polish, and continued speaking:
—Do you remember, Alfonsito, when at eleven years old you were the admirer of
the Ramblas? It was when you did the famous shoeshine act who was so hungry that
he was capable of eating the shoe polish.
The old man felt absolutely dejected, unable to say anything. Lorena was showing
him that her choice as the new notary had been the most correct, since she was using
the same merciless technique with him that he had been using for so many years.
—Do you remember, Alfonsito? You made everyone believe that what you ate
was bitumen, when in reality it was…—Lorena put the tip of a finger to the corner of
her lips—a very ingenious mixture of sugar, coffee extract and oil…, which also In
addition to being very tasty, it was capable of polishing shoes. Don't you remember,
Alfonsito?
The old notary still didn't say a word. He felt powerless and crushed to the chair.
—You've always been very tricky, Alfonsito. And from trap to trap, you managed
to accomplish your masterpiece: taking charge of the notary's office. —Lorena took
out a contract and placed it on the table—. As a child you managed to attract
attention for your cunning and your sleight of hand... That notary noticed you, and
despite having the reputation of being a true demon, he saw a successor in you. He
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took you off the streets, paid for the most expensive school in Barcelona... But when
he saw your unhealthy inclination towards cards and gambling, he ruled you out as
his successor. Isn't that right, Alfonsito Gómez Expósito?
The old man had a contorted face.
—The definitive proof that you could never be the legitimate successor of the
previous notary are those two solid gold coins manufactured by Hyele coinage. You
tried to reproduce the coins in infamous series, so that others would solve the puzzle
for you. You should have discovered those coins, as Grieg and I did, but you did not
create an essential new path, which each notary must design ad hoc to choose his
successor, but rather you repeated the one that you were not able to follow …and
thus discover the mystery that intrigued you so much: Ita vitriolum nonne occulo.
-What do you want? —said the old man, in a defeated voice.
—What I want is for you to stay away from me forever, as well as from the person
you asked me to confront. After the relief, I never want to see you again.
—And what will I get in return?
Lorena, with a half smile on her face, put away the box of auques and the contract.
He got up and opened the door. The figurehead looked at her, and then at the old
man, who had immediately composed his figure.
"We have already visited the relictum archives," Lorena smiled at the figurehead,
"and I am ready to visit the rest of the notary's offices."
The figurehead waited for orders from the old man, who after seeing how Lorena
went to the coat rack and picked up the frock coat, nodded to the new notary's words
with a nod.
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82
Lorena Regina walked alongside the former notary and the first front man
through the hallway of soft carpets that connected the occultum with the main office
of the notary.
Located on each side of the corridor, very erect and with their backs against the
wall, were dozens of men perfectly suited and in a parade position. Six of those men
were officers in a preeminent position, and each had one-sixth of all the aide-de-
camps under his command.
Lorena walked with her head held high as she observed each of the serious faces
of those men, who, from that moment on, became part of her entourage, and under
her command.
The new notary stopped next to one of the six officers, who was missing half an
ear. He approached him and whispered a few words to him. The man, somewhat
bewildered, looked at the former notary, who nodded his head. The aide-de-camp
walked towards his men, and they all looked at the old man, who nodded again.
Lorena, with a slight gesture, indicated that they should follow her. The entourage
formed by her, the former notary, his front man, and the group of aides-de-camp that
the new notary's office had selected, entered the office with walls lined with cherry
wood panels and walnut shelves. She sat at the office table, in front of the Ordinary
Relay Book.
He took the same duck feather that he had used to sign the dominus. He placed it
in the silver inkwell, and with a precise movement he placed it on the page where his
full name appeared, written in black ink and in Gothic characters. In a solemn
manner, he signed the signature that from that moment on he would have to use on
all notarial documents:
After signing, he turned the book until he placed it in front of the old notary, so
that he could also sign the document. The old man took the pen with suspicion,
aware that he was going to use a signature that did not really belong to him, and he
knew that this was the last time that his hand would draw those unappealable
strokes.
Once the two signatures were initialed in the book, the man who was missing half
an ear (and whom Lorena had chosen as the new first figurehead of the notary) took
a stick of black sealing wax and subjected it to the heat arising from the book. flame
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of a thin rod of apple wood. He dropped a few drops of sealing wax on the outgoing
notary's signature until it was completely covered, and then he stamped a silver seal
on the stain with the motto: "Non impedio quominus tu proficiscaris." "I'm not stopping
you from leaving." The same motto that Lorena recited out loud, as a ritual of the
eternal renewal of the notary's office.
Once the phrase had been pronounced, he stood solemnly in front of the outgoing
notary, who had remained silent the entire time. He looked into the eyes of that
beautiful woman who wore the Eye of Geburah on her chest, and he couldn't help
but think of the phrase he liked to use so much when stalking his prey: "The most
secretly feared thing always ends up happening."
The old man took the cane, the ebony handle of which was carved with the image
of a bearded goat with its legs crossed, which with both hands formed the symbol of
occultism, with the little finger and ring finger gathered, and the others extended.
The outgoing notary looked at Lorena, who, with a Mona Lisa smile, made the same
gesture as the image of the cane, walked towards the cane holder and carefully
inserted her cane into the only hole that was left free.
The old man kissed Lorena's hand and, with a solemn step, crossed the porch and
walked down the hallway where the men who until then had been under his
command paid him honor for the last time.
The new notary sat down at the table and ordered everyone to leave the office
except her newly elected first figurehead.
As soon as they were alone, Lorena asked her employee what had happened to the
careless-looking man who had been shoved into the old cemetery of Sant Gervasi,
and where the man in charge of the group was: a man with yellow frame glasses. The
front man detailed the facts and whereabouts of both of them in detail. Lorena then
asked who had ordered the secret cemetery to be built, and where the gold ingots
that were hidden under a tomb were, according to information from Grieg at the
Avinyó Hotel.
The aide got up and went to a shelf where the deeds of all the properties and gold
deposits that the notary managed were archived. Then he returned to the table with a
thick black leather-bound volume with the reference SACRAMENTUM LIBER 178.
The book specified who was the notary who ordered the construction of the cemetery
and the contracts of the people related to its construction.
Lorena asked him to urgently prepare a complete list of all the hidden gold
deposits and to leave her alone.
Then she went to the cane holder and took the same cane that the notary had just
left. Full of satisfaction, she observed the faint golden reflection that emerged from
the letters printed on the spines of the volumes, as if they were small stars shining on
pages detailing the immense fortune that, from that moment on, she had to manage.
As he caressed the demonic ebony shape of the pommel of the cane, he smiled a
slight, Machiavellian smile.
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83
Gabriel Grieg observed, through the windows of the large mansion, how some
sparrows continued to flutter around the old cypress in the center of the garden,
despite the numerous people who were there.
While he saw the Paseo de la Bonanova in the distance, he perceived a vaporous
aroma of sage soap in the air, and he felt someone hugging him from behind, until he
noticed the warm touch of a bathrobe. He turned and saw Lorena staring at him.
Grieg noticed in Lorraine, through her captivating smile, a dose of mischief and
cunning. In reality he felt like the student who has not studied the lesson and looks
askance at the teacher. That woman was the one who had established the rules of the
game, and had been able to make a master move.
"It's almost four in the afternoon, and the sun is finally shining," Lorena whispered
in his ear while the song Rarny Days and Mondays by the Carpenters played in the
background. "It's been more than three hours" and as you can see, no one has kicked
us out of this haunted house...
Grieg looked at her fascinated, completely attracted to her. Lorena pointed
towards the garden.
"They're waiting for me," he said, and left Grieg's room to go to his own. I'm going
to get dressed... In the meantime, you can do whatever you want, after all you're at
home. But don't go too far, because you have to clarify some things for me... for
example, how you managed to move around at ease in the Avinyó Hotel.
Grieg decided to walk around the mansion. He looked out one of the windows
and saw six men, dressed in suits and ties, unloading large cardboard boxes from a
van parked in front of the entrance to the house. Suddenly, he arrived at a large
office, whose door was protected by a guard. The man put his hand to his ear and
asked for instructions. The order he received through the communicator was
positive, since when Grieg reached him, the guard bowed his head and allowed him
passage.
The office door was decorated with the figures of several argentarii , the wealthy
bankers of ancient Rome, who appeared in the carving surrounded by gold coins.
The office was a large, bright room, completely covered with new, empty shelves.
The cabinetmakers had done a fantastic job, and the air smelled of oak and varnish.
A Latin word sculpted on the shelves stood out in a special way: sacramentum.
"These shelves will be to contain the books in which the properties and gold
deposits managed by the notary are recorded," Grieg thought. "That's what the boxes
they're unloading must contain."
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At that moment he heard footsteps, and immediately saw the new owner of the
notary's office enter the office. She was accompanied by a tall, burly man, missing
half an ear, whom Grieg had seen before. Lorena wore her hair down and wore a red
chiffon blouse and a black pencil skirt that she paired with stockings and loafers. His
movements were agile and precise.
"Gabriel, just like good sighthounds, how quickly you go to the marrow of the
bone..." Lorena joked while pointing to the man who accompanied him. Meet my
first front man. In my absence, and in case you find yourself in a hurry, you have my
authorization to put yourself at your service.
The two men exchanged a cautious greeting.
"Now I will ask you to come with me, Gabriel," said Lorena, heading to the door.
Since I have only been in office for a short time, last night I made a mistake... I
commented that I wanted to hold a meeting with all the people sadly related to the
notary's office, and for everyone around me my wishes are orders, which must be
carried out immediately. Come with me please.
Lorena walked down the hallway several steps ahead of Grieg and the figurehead.
When she reached the circular room shaped like a rotunda, an aide-de-camp who
was waiting for her approached her and whispered a few words in her ear.
"There is no time for excessive formalities," she disagreed. This is only a first
contact. I want you to see the new head of the notary up close.
The aide made a gesture to indicate that they should follow him. Next, two large
frosted glass doors opened. Lorena took Grieg's arm and they entered a large hall
with a high dome and shiny floors, where a large group of people was waiting for
them.
"It's not possible!" Grieg thought, observing the faces of all those people, coming
from all social strata, who were looking expectantly at Lorena.
She stopped before a bald, burly man; On his plump face stood out two flushed
cheeks covered by a neat gray beard. The front man proceeded to identify him.
—Mrs. Regina, meet Pascual Revuelta. It is closely linked to the notary's office
through an old relictum contract. Their delicate work consists of keeping us informed
of the daily events of the most "orthodox" sectors.
Grieg and Lorena saw that it was the inquisitor she had faced on All Saints' Eve,
and who had nearly burned them at the stake as witches.
"Madam..." said the sad-faced man, "you know that you can count on my absolute
and unwavering loyalty."
They continued observing the faces of those people, among whom Grieg
recognized several fellow architects, whom he discreetly greeted as he passed by
them.
A few steps later, Lorena stopped before a man with a double chin who was
dressed in a baggy blue striped suit, and in whom it could be detected, by the
blackish color of his fingertips, that he was a chain smoker.
The figurehead returned to Lorena to make the introductions.
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—Meet Marcel Forné… He is a descendant of a family that has been linked to the
notary office for generations. Protect the library that hides the public archive of the
relictum.
The librarian, knowing that it was the first time that a new notary wanted to meet
a member of her family in person, respectfully greeted Lorena and handed her the
horarium.
Lorena headed towards a corner of the room, where, half hidden by a column,
stood a helpless-looking man who had the fleeting gaze of a poor beaten dog. He was
wearing a suit that was several sizes too big for him, and it showed that the
afternoon light bothered him infinitely, as if he had just been rescued from a dark
hell after staying there for many years. The little man was astonished when he
realized that the new notary was not the person to whom he had given the document
and the envelope, a few hours ago, before he was rescued; but a beautiful woman
with silky hair and ethereal clothing.
"This person is an exception within the organizational chart," the front man
revealed. I must admit that I was not aware of its existence, and that, by express
order of the previous notary, it remained in confinement.
"I want you to personally supervise his physical and mental recovery," Lorena
ordered. Collect all the information in the files about him, and the exact reason why
the former notary detained him.
The figurehead nodded.
"Let all these people return to their jobs," he concluded.
Lorena and Grieg returned to the office. There the silence enveloped them like a
warm and pleasant breeze.
"You know, Solve et Coagula... Something has to be destroyed beforehand if you
want to create something else," the woman commented.
—How was the matter of the old Sant Gervasi cemetery finally resolved? Grieg
asked.
—Under the tomb where the watchman slept, as you indicated to me, a large
amount of gold had been deposited, which after the change at the notary's office I did
not think it was appropriate to continue there, and it has already been duly
transferred and deposited in another, much safer place. .
—I fear for the fate of both guys, both for the old man and for that of the arrogant
bald man.
—Let's go in parts... The old man committed suicide by drinking the contents of all
his capsules in one gulp.
"Why was he carrying out such strange surveillance?"
—For the contracts, the vital mortgages, the strategic structural plans defined by
the former notaries... What do I know! The labyrinth is immense and people's
passions..., as great as they are unpredictable.
—And the bald one?
"The problem caused by that guy is now history," Lorena replied. Apparently, he
was given large doses of his own medicine, and I assure you that the "therapy" has
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been wonderful for him, since he is fully convinced that it is not in his best interest to
be less than three thousand miles away from the place where the one that you and I
meet...
Lorena remained silent. Suddenly, he pulled out of the table drawer a document
that Grieg immediately recognized as the contract he had signed with the former
notary.
—And now the time has come for me to take care of you…, my most beloved
Gabriel.
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84
Lorena was in her bedroom, slowly approaching the person who had signed the
contract that she carried in her left hand, and that committed her for life to the notary
office of which she was the owner.
—Gabriel, you still haven't told me how you managed to get us such preferential
treatment at the Avinyó Hotel.
“I used my contacts,” Grieg replied. A few years ago I participated in the design
and construction of the hotel... They owed me a favor, and I thought the time had
come to make it happen.
"This is for you," she said, handing him the contract. I assure you that I have not
read it, although I admit that I am very intrigued to know how the old notary came
to capture you.
Grieg sighed with relief upon recovering that infamous document.
"A person who was present at this afternoon's kissing," he replied, "where you
certainly knew how to move like a fish in water, advised me not to talk about that
topic with anyone."
Grieg stroked her hair.
-What happened?
—Basically, I did not take into account the consequences that could result from not
investigating the mysteries that were hidden in the basement of an insignificant
chapel, in exchange for help at the beginning of my professional career.
"Maybe you're right and it's better not to talk about it," Lorena suggested;
Although I want to thank you for your valuable help, without which I would never
have been able to achieve my goal.
Lorena looked again at the frock coat, perfectly placed on a night suit, in which
"the Stone" shone in the evening sun.
"You don't need to be so modest, Lorraine," Grieg said as he caressed her leg.
When you use the adverb "never" you do not take into account the inevitability of
your purposes, which you knew how to hide so well until you found the moment to
show your cards.
Lorena laughed.
—You flatter me, but without all the revelations you told me in the suite at the
Avinyó Hotel... And the master touch of carrying the sugar icing on top... how did
you achieve it?
—For some time I investigated the origins of the former notary, but I decided that
it was better to wait until he forgot about me. In the end it wasn't like that..., and
suddenly, you arrived.
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—Aren't you interested in knowing how I convinced the notary? —Lorraine
asked.
—When we were walking the essential path, I noticed that you didn't miss a single
detail; especially when you discovered that the two coins were gold, and not plate,
which meant that they were hidden during the period of the penultimate notary...
and you deduced that, surely, the old man with the cigar took a gamble.
At that moment Grieg took out an envelope and a strange circular object from his
jacket, which he placed on the dresser.
—The rest of the mystery is locked inside those two arcana… —he indicated.
Lorena approached and looked at the blackish container.
-That's what I think? —he asked without taking his eyes off the crucible.
-I'm afraid so.
-Where did you find it?
—In the place where the former notary detained the Swiss who came to prepare a
report on the alchemical gold that was allegedly manufactured in Barcelona. The
man paid dearly to discover a murky matter surrounding the notary's relief, but he
left a cryptic clue in Don Germán's skull, for someone as special as you to discover
while walking the essential path.
She remained thoughtful.
"I'm going to regain my freedom, Lorena," said Grieg, taking the lighter between
his fingers, "and if the theory of the six degrees of separation is true..."
—I've heard about that many times.
—Well, in my case, to get to know you thoroughly, I had to go through six
alchemical purification processes.
Lorena looked again inside the small crucible that Grieg had rescued from the
alchemical furnace where that poor man was imprisoned, and saw that in the very
center of the mazacote a golden substance shone.
That small nucleus, due to a circumstantial accident, was forgotten for decades. At
that time, the contents of the small crucible were subjected to an alchemical
metaprocess that had created a small amount of matter that shone with the same
intensity as gold. Lorena stared at the golden core and sensed that the sheet detailing
that alchemical process could be found inside the envelope that Grieg had placed on
the cherry wood chest of drawers.
“Listen to me, Lorena…” Grieg grabbed a lighter. To get to where we are now, we
both had to undergo four of the six alchemical processes: calcination, putrefaction,
distillation and conjunction…
Grieg folded the diabolical contract that fatally bound him to the notary into four
folds and set it on fire, and then placed it in the small alchemical crucible.
—You were the expert on the subject. What are the two missing processes?
"Sublimation and coagulation," she answered, absorbed in the flame.
—If I have had to walk this entire path with you to be a better person and to be
able to look into your eyes without fear, I consider it well spent. I don't regret
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anything, Lorena, because, at the end of the process, I have achieved something more
precious than gold.
Lorena approached Gabriel until she perfectly matched her body to his, and stared
into his green eyes in which the reflection of the flame still shone.
"The envelope on the dresser was given to me by someone who thought I would
be the new notary, and I want his will to be carried out," Grieg said, hugging her. I
have noticed that notaries do not intervene personally; All arrangements are made
by intermediaries and hostesses. That's why I know you won't stop that envelope
from reaching its recipient.
Lorena smiled and began to undress next to the bed. Grieg thought that perhaps
she just wanted to worry him, showing him the winged skeleton that, starting from
her side, seemed to go in search of the pink areola of one of her beautiful breasts.
289
First epilogue
Prague, eighty-seven days later

It was the middle of winter, but the temperature that the thermometers showed
that evening at the end of January was truly spring-like.
Lorena Regina and Gabriel Grieg were heading to the Alley of Gold, while the sky
was taking on a reddish glow that spread across the streets of Prague and the sun
was setting behind the top of Mount Petrin.
Lorena was radiant. She was dressed in an elegant black jacket with raised lapels,
Japanese sleeves and damask fabric, which incorporated a prodigious golden
embroidery in the shape of a dragon. The outfit was completed by tight black pants
and high-heeled shoes. Grieg was wearing his usual clothing: black leather jacket,
dark shirt, and somewhat worn jeans.
The couple stopped next to one of the majestic statues that populate the city, next
to an art nouveau building. Grieg carried in his hand a golden booklet, on the cover of
which the alley to which they were heading was clearly visible: the Alchemists'
Alley, as the legend represented it in the 17th century.
An elegant watch stood out in the luxurious catalog. It was an exceptional jewel: it
was the first watch in history made partially with the coveted alchemical gold, which
alchemists so desperately tried to obtain. The presentation of the alchemical clock
would take place after half an hour in one of the halls of the new palace in Prague
Castle, during an event that continued the ambitious global promotion of the product
begun at the Liceu Theater in Barcelona and the Coliseum in Rome.
Grieg opened the magnificent catalog and analyzed the impressive marketing
campaign that the golden clover watch company had organized to promote the
watch. It consisted of recreating the Golden Street as it was in the 17th century, so
that citizens and tourists could visit it.
Grieg was amazed to see that reality seemed to blend with the plot of the short
story that accompanied the catalogue. It narrated the sensations that overwhelmed a
Venetian alchemical banker, who finally saw his dream come true of being able to
touch the alchemical gold that was produced in that alley, under the patronage of
Emperor Rudolph II. Grieg looked up, and upon discovering the same carved
wooden sign that the banker saw in the story, he was overcome by the same
wonderful and timeless sensation.
ZLATÁ ULICKA
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Like the banker in the story, Grieg had no trouble imagining what that street
looked like, four centuries earlier.
The Venetian banker, even before distinguishing the faint light of the torch that
illuminated the dark alley, already perceived a sulfurous effluvium in the air that
came out as if in a cloud.
It was said that that smell could transform beggars into knights and the
disinherited into powerful feudal lords. Turn servants into emperors and change
subjects into kings.
The emanation spread in the air like an irritating breath, and emerged strongly
towards the heights from the chimneys of some crucibles located in each of those
small houses in the singular alley. Only in that alley, attached to the northern wall of
the largest castle in Europe, did that unusual concentration of alchemical furnaces
occur...
Lorena took the golden catalog from him at the same moment they both entered
the recreated alley.
—Some say that life… —And he flashed a radiant smile as he showed a pass to a
uniformed woman wearing a Dopravní Policie badge —… is like good literature:
while there are pages or days left, they must be savored intensely before they run out
Today allow me to choose life.
The couple walked down the alley observing the detailed recreation, until Lorena
chose to enter one of those alchemical laboratories. In the room there were a large
number of dusty volumes, which were stacked haphazardly on top of each other on
old wooden shelves. An accumulation of objects and tools cluttered the floor,
between stills and glass flasks, full of greenish liquids.
Lorena walked towards the crucible, and as if the laws of physics did not affect
her, she leaned her back against the combustion window, from which a light came
out that filled the room with reddish reverberations, which seemed to come from the
ignis itself, the burning fire of hell. Lorena's dark silhouette was silhouetted between
the greenish tones of the flasks and glass vessels. She looked at Gabriel and opened
her arms, inviting him to take shelter between them.
Grieg approached and stopped a few centimeters from her, as if he was afraid of
being burned if he came into contact with her body. Then he closed his eyes and felt
transported beyond time and space, aware that the disturbing adventure that had
begun in the first shadows of All Saints' night had engendered the most wonderful
love story.
A painful pleasure pierced his heart like a fiery arrow. His consciousness was
expanding so uncontrollably that he did not know if that sensation was a reward or a
punishment. Perhaps that is why, as if asking for the protection that ships seek in the
waters of the port during the storm, he had no choice but to hug her.
"Come with me," she whispered in his ear.
Grieg did not have time to answer, because a man had just entered the recreation
of the alchemical laboratory and stood before Lorena adopting a respectful posture.
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He was dressed in an impeccable navy blue suit and spoke with a thick French
accent.
—Madame Lorena Regina, Mr. Auguste Meyer has entrusted me, given her status
as executive sponsor of the event, to accompany you in the official company car to
the castle hall.
The three of them went out into the alley and headed towards a silver-bodied
Rolls Royce, with the door open, in front of which a uniformed chauffeur was
waiting.
Lorena stopped in front of Grieg, and looked into his eyes while her figure
partially hid the poster that announced a musical-multimedia show that had just
started at that precise moment and was titled The Devil in the Alley of Gold.
The powerful chords of the song Simpathy for the Devil, by the Rolling Stones,
reached his ears. Lorena's eyes shone intensely as Mick Jagger's incendiary voice
reached them, echoing between the walls of the alleys: "All the sinners saints... As
heads is tails... just call me Lucifer."
Lorena repeated what she had asked Grieg when she was leaning against the
crucible window, and Grieg felt a knot in his chest and an uncontrollable force that
urged him to go with her. But he remained motionless and silent, while he felt that
the opportunity he was letting slip away was tempting like that legend that claimed
that at the base of the rainbow a cauldron overflowing with gold coins was hidden.
“Please to meet you… hope you guessed my name… um yeah…”
Lorena continued to look at Grieg without saying anything, while the driver
waited respectfully.
«But what's puzzling you… is the nature of my game…»
Finally Lorena smiled and extended her hand. Gabriel took her and caressed her
gently, with the same sensation as someone who has just woken up and touches
themselves to see if they are still in the dream.
«Tell me, baby, what's my name…»
She turned and walked towards the car. Grieg watched her go, wishing that the
golden dragon engraved on his coat could guard her with the same care as he would
passionately watch her go.
«Tell me honey, can you guess my name?»
Lorena entered the car, and her figure was hidden by a reddish cloud that was
reflected in the tinted glass.
«Tell you one time, you're the blame…»
The car started moving and Grieg could see it disappearing down a narrow street.
Then he watched the amazing Prague sunset, which was slowly lengthening the
shadows of the buildings and towers of the castle towards which Lorraine was
heading. While listening to the voice of his satanic majesty, he finally understood that
things, even if they seem untrue, sometimes are not.
«Just call me Lucifer. » Just call me Lucifer.
292
Second epilogue
Three years and one hundred and seven days later
In the center of the vault located in the most inaccessible area of the bank, the
silence was broken again.
As on other occasions, the new director had posed the question to the outgoing
general director of the institution, while the auditor, the cashier and the chief auditor
waited in an adjoining room accompanied by the three key holders.
To carry out the institutional transfer and reach that room, the delegation had to
pass several security checks, descend forty-five meters in an elevator, overcome two
cyclopean steel doors, cross a retractable bridge that crossed a cave of stone and
black marble. , cross another door weighing eight tons and finally access a fabulous
warehouse where thousands of gold ingots were deposited.
As in previous replacements, the new director had been surprised by the presence
of that mysterious safe precisely in the most protected place in the vault. That box
was known among the key workers as "the dark chamber."
At that time, the outgoing director had already transferred all the powers of the
position and he only had to carry out the final procedure, which consisted of
showing the new director the contents of the safe. The new director was seated, and
on the table he had the document that he had to sign once the contents of the box
were known. This document made him responsible for its custody during the time he
held his position, and he already had the key to the dark chamber in his hand.
The new director looked for a few seconds at the gold key ring that held the key,
and on which three human skeletons could be seen. They maintained the same
posture as Kikazaru, Wazaru and Mizaru, the three wise and mystical monkeys, who
alternately covered their mouths, eyes and ears. To not speak, nor see, nor hear. Or
perhaps, which was much more likely, they acquired the three primary postures that
human beings instinctively adopt when faced with a dangerous situation.
The new director, after glancing at his colleague, slowly walked towards the safe.
When he reached it, he inserted the key, turned it four times to the left and pushed
hard towards him. The door opened silently.
So the incoming director did not do the usual thing in these cases, because he
already knew what the safe contained. He did not analyze the hundreds of one-kilo
gold ingots of extreme purity that had an Ouroboros and a Catobeplás engraved on
their surface. Nor did he analyze the reports documenting its origin, since he already
knew it.
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In the 12th century, at that transit point, which was initially a travelers' hostel and
ended up becoming the Marcús chapel, many wealthy owners stopped during the
year transporting valuable shipments of gold. They longed to receive the protection
of a saint, at the entrance and exit of the city, but they mysteriously disappeared with
the last light of sunset. The stolen gold treasures were hidden and accumulated in
basements, and justice had difficulties in clarifying those execrable events that
attracted the members of an unusual lineage of actuaries, which was renewed every
few years in the person chosen by the outgoing notary. . A system that already
existed in Frankfurt or Florence and that, through Machiavellian blackmail, ended up
dominating the initial organization.
The new general director did not need to be reminded of that, he also knew that in
his new position he should not underestimate any issue that was based on a topic as
unlikely as demonic pacts, or the payment of his services to participate in eternal
benefits that could be generate alchemical gold.
I already knew all that.
For that reason, his movements were only aimed at finding two objects. So, upon
seeing them, he let out a silent sigh, while feeling a deep sense of relief.
It was a small crucible in which a golden substance shone, and a bulky envelope,
whose presence meant for him the salvation, not only of his apparently
irreproachable reputation, but also of his life, after having made the mistake of sitting
down. to play in a disastrous game of cards that had brought him an unfortunate
gambling debt, which could only be remedied if he undertook a small task.
The new director slowly pushed the thick steel door open and locked it again. And
pretending that he was really impressed by what was hidden there, he signed with a
firm hand the document that guaranteed him the secret that the dark chamber
contained.
Once he had signed, he took the gold keychain between his fingers and looked at
the three skeletons... until he noticed a small detail that had gone unnoticed by all the
other CEOs, including the one in front of him.
Barely perceptible, because they were folded along the ribs, he saw that one of the
three figures was slightly different.
It was a human skeleton with two wings.
294
The Golden Labyrinth

Francisco J. de Lys
2011
ISBN: 978-84-666-4625-3
295

The Golden Labyrinth - Francisco J. de Lys

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The Golden Labyrinth - Francisco J. de Lys

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Francisco J.

by Lys The Golden Labyrinth

To my brother Carlos Diego

On the night of All Saints' Day, during a gala dinner at the

The novel takes place in a period of forty-three hours, and

The golden labyrinth hides a wonderful secret within its

The Alley of Gold and Alchemists.

There, a select group of necromancers tried to achieve the chimerical task of

It was All Saints' Eve.

GREAT LYCEUM THEATER

The tsar's wine cellar ended up at the bottom of the sea.

Laia seemed increasingly intrigued.

The most secretly feared thing always ends up happening...

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENCE

—Is there a safe here?

And the other sentence carved under the Catobeplás read:

CAPUT EST TU QUCERAMUS

ITA VITRIOLUM NONNE OCCULO

METROPOLIS OF ATLANTIS (NORTH)

VERBUM PRO VERB

NEC NULLA NEC OMNIS

ITA VITRIOLUM NONNE OCCULO

ITA VITRIOLUM NONNE OCCULO

—And we would have the following letters left.

IT YTRIO M NNE OCULO

IT YTRIO M NNE OCCULO

It was a quarter past two in the morning.

The WONDERFUL WORLD OF ALCHEMY Unravel during the night

When Gabriel Grieg returned to contemplate Lichtenstein's Barcelona's Head

NEW VULCANO WORKSHOPS

—There is no trace of the coin here! —Lorena exclaimed in a serious voice.

we can form a place:

—"Rite" could be related to "ceremony", "act", "celebration", and therefore also

TEMllAI OMMYM HOMINYM FLAXIE ABBAE

“I am truly interested in testing your infernal creation,” Grieg said

I saw these words of ominous meaning inscribed on a gate.

TUMULUS MORTEM COEMENTERIUM SANCTI GERVASII

IN THE TERMINATION OF MONTEROLOS

IN TERRIT:: BARC::NONE:P::: OLIVARIAM

Secret Masonic symbol that refers to the WIDOW'S CHAMBER. Place in

FORMULA TO OBTAIN 100 GRAMS OF ALCHEMICAL GOLD THE

WORK 1: Take three hundred and forty-eight grams of light sand

Between halos of gray light, the imposing sculpture of a woman dressed in

Lorena picked up the rickety brass box.

THE DIÁBOLO D'OR

«The golden diabolo.»

ILLE ME MONUIT, NE HOCFACEREM

"He urged me not to do it."

TIBI ONLY CONFIDENT

"I only trust you."

SORIDÉ FUNERAL ORNAMENTS

Grieg slowly approached the façade of the Lyceum.

caput est ut Quceramus

"Everything is one" and "the essential thing is that we investigate."

great theater of the lyceum

—Finally the mysterious lady lets slip a confidence! Grieg exclaimed.

Grieg's watch showed quarter past four in the morning.

the essential path

Before the reader enters the labyrinth of my revelation, he must know

Grieg verified that the names of distinguished personalities appeared in that

The Cabetians, among whom was Cabet himself, Narcís Monturiol,

Inside is the address where you must deliver.

Below was a serious warning: