The Mistery of Belicena Villca like a hemispherical nave , the stalagmite with the Face of Pyrene at one end near the stone wall ; it appeared dripping with lava and salts , while the ceiling was presented bristling with greenish stalactites ; the floor , on the contrary , had been carefully cleaned of bumps and leveled so that it was possible to sit comfortably in front of the Face of the Goddess and contemplate , likewise , the Perennial Lamp and the Wise Sword with the Stone of Venus .
The food necessary to subsist was provided by the Lords of Tharsis always keeping the pantry full , of a Chapel that existed at the foot of Cerro Candelaria . Such a Chapel , which had been built for the purpose indicated , remained closed for most of the year and was only visited by the Lords of Tharsis who went there to pray in the greatest solitude : they took the opportunity to deposit the provisions in a small back room , whose only door led to the hillside . The Initiates would sneak down there , preferably at night , several times a year , to provide themselves food . They usually found a mule in an adjoining pen , with which they carried the packages to the secret entrance and then released it , since the animal meekly returned to its fence . But on other occasions the Lords of Tharsis waited in the Chapel for weeks until some of those nocturnal visits coincided : then , in the midst of the joy of the reunion , the Noyos or the Vrayas received news from the House of Tharsis ; they especially inquired about the young members of the family , if any of them were seriously preparing for the Cold Fire Trial and if they noticed chances that they could overcome it . Nothing worried the Men of Stone and the Kâlibur Ladies more , that they will not be replaced by other Initiates , that the Wise Sword was left without Custody . The Lords of Tharsis , for their part , inquired of Noyos or Vrayas about their mystical visions : hadn ' t the Lithic Sign of K ' Taagar still manifested ? had they received any messages from the Liberator Gods ? when Oh Gods ! when would the day of the Final Battle arrive ? when the Total War against the Powers of Matter ? when would they leave the infernal Universe ? when the Origin ?
It had always happened in the same way . Until then . Because since the Castle of Aracena was completed , a few tens of kilometers from Cerro Candelaria , a halo of threat seemed to spread across the whole region . Therefore , precautionary measures had to be taken to supply the Secret Cavern and encounters with the hermit Initiates were reduced to a minimum . Back then the Secret Cavern was inhabited by three Initiates : an elderly Vraya , a woman over seventy years old , who during fifty years never left the Guard ; a fifty-year-old Noyo , Noso de Tharsis , who until he was thirty was a priest in the church of Nuestra Señora de la Gruta and was now officially dead ; and a young Noyo , thirty-two years old , Godo de Tharsis , who fulfilled the function of supplying the Secret Cavern . But Godo , son of Count Odielón de Tarseval , was not an improviser in a question of risks : brought as a child to Sicily by one of the Aragonese Knights who served in the court of Frederick II , was a page in the palace of Palermo and later squire to a Teutonic Knight in the Holy Land ; appointed to turn Knight , at the age of twenty , he entered the Order of Teutonic Knights and fought five years in the conquest of Prussia ; for seven years he had been Guard in the Secret Cavern , although he was thought to be still fighting in Northern Germany . He was , then , an expert warrior , who knew how to move precisely in the battlefield : his forays into the Chapel were careful and studied , trying to avoid the possibility of being surprised by the enemy . This I clarify to rule out the case that an oversight was the responsible for what happened next .
The truth is that the Enemy knew that place and this was not ignored by the members of the House of Tharsis : according to the family saga , indeed , in the place where the Chapel of Cerro Candelaria stood , the Immortals Bera and Birsha had slain the Vrayas seventeen hundred years ago . Hence the Lords of Tharsis thought of changing the supply point ; but the intense surveillance they kept on Aracena did not reveal any movement in the direction of the Chapel and things continued like this for the four years following . Every three or four months the Noyo Godo descended from the mountains in unexpected and unpredictable way and he proceeded to transport the provisions to the Secret Cavern ; and only once a year did he make contact with one of the Lords of
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