****
Finally, we came to a steel door that was very different than the ones we had walked through. It was gilded along the sides and featured the purple symbol of The One True Way. Father Sylvanus whispered something to Doshar, who nodded and made his way to the front of the group. For a moment, he peered back and connected with each one of us with his eyes, before pushing through the door and disappearing into the room inside. Father Sylvanus lowered his head to both Dr. Lombardi and I, and whispered “Don’t say a word.”
Doshar had been confronted by two armed guards. They were shouting at him through the mouthpiece of their golden masks, sending a chill down the length of my spine. The eye holes of each of their masks shone a bright red, and their pointy golden chins each converged on Doshar, almost impaling him through the neck. One of them placed a gloved hand on Doshar’s shoulder and gripped it tightly in an attempt to intimidate him. I eyed the spears that they held at their sides, with the sharp blades glistening in the candlelight. Was this the end?
Doshar stood his ground in defiance. “You will allow us entry into the Inner Sanctum, our Master has requested it,” he cooed into their ears in a low, soft-speaking voice. “We wish to worship alongside the Lost Ones, commune with them, be still with them. It is our right to enter, tonight of all nights.”
One of the armed guards hesitated, “But you do not have masks, or the proper identification, to gain entry to the Sanctum. We cannot allow it.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Father Sylvanus shifting his hand towards his side. He palmed a shiny, sharp object—a blade, I now saw—before taking a few steps forward. I could hear Dr. Lombardi’s breathing grow heavier beside me.
“You can allow it, and you will,” Doshar maintained his calm, convincing tone. “You will allow us entry, as our Master has requested it.”
Just as Father Sylvanus was a few feet from Doshar, with the knife held behind his back, the guard on the right nodded to the guard on the left and removed his terrible hand from Doshar’s shoulder. “We will allow you entry, as our Master has requested. Go and be at peace. Revel in the truth.”
Doshar said nothing as he led the three of us past the guards and into the Inner Sanctum. It was a small room, much smaller than the main auditorium, where hundreds of individuals—this time wearing silver masks with sharp horns jutting out from the forehead—were bent over in silence. Just then, the chanting began, that same low, droning buzz that we had heard faintly before. At the front of the room was a statue of Master Zule, standing in the same benevolent position, with his arms wide open, as the real Zule had done just a few hours before. The worshippers were enveloped in the white mist.
“Quickly, this way,” Father Sylvanus ordered as he led us along the back of the room, ignoring the pseudo-service that was taking place. He led us through several more unguarded, gilded doors before we reached a dead end. In front of us was a large set of steel double doors, with the green light of a card reader flashing brightly from the side of the frame. Father Sylvanus stepped aside and Dr. Lombardi moved past me towards the reader. She pulled out a tiny metal device, and began working away at it.
“How did you get us past those guards?” I asked Doshar, my heart still beating.
“Knowledge of the mind, my friend, can be a very powerful tool,” he spoke very softly has he leaned over me, his beard rustling with the movement of his lips. “But the mind is also susceptible to manipulation from those with knowledge of the right words. Knowledge, my friend, is the key to everything. Knowledge of the mind, of the spirit, and the spiritual world around us, this is what feeds our energy, what feeds our minds.”
I nodded to him, amazed at the wisdom of those dark brown eyes. “Openness,” he continued, “dialogue, debates, and discourse, these are our tools. Meditation, self-exploration, being one with oneself and the spiritual world. That is the true key to eternal happiness. That is why we must eradicate the source of this insipid cult.”
“Got it,” said Dr. Lombardi triumphantly as she glanced back at us. A second later the doors shot open, and each of us, in turn, climbed through. It was an elevator shaft, a small one, which led in only one direction: down.
“We go down from here,” Father Sylvanus gestured as he took a small leap forward and grabbed onto the steel cables that ran down the length of the cold, silent shaft. Doshar followed behind him, but Dr. Lombardi urged me to go ahead, and followed me from above. Slowly, but surely, we inched our way down the shaft.
“The real tragedy in all this,” Dr. Lombardi explained as she worked her way down the cables just above me, “is the ongoing destruction of knowledge that The One True Way admonishes. Not the pie in the sky, heady stuff that someone like Doshar will preach. But knowledge of the physical world, the scientific world. The pursuit of this knowledge, the discovery of how the world works, that is the true essence of life. Hypotheses, testing, uninhibited progress, these are our tools and our rewards.”
I paused from my climb and strained to look upward. I saw that Dr. Lombardi had paused also, and was peering down at me. “Science, my dear colleague, is life, and life is science. The pursuit of knowledge of the physical world around us, that is the true key to eternal happiness.”