The Mistery of Belicena Villca so much effort was in vain . Despite all the attacks suffered so far , the House of Tharsis always managed to overcome difficult moments , although none so critical like the present ; but there was also a lot of progress : the family pattern was almost completed ; the Cold Fire Cult for centuries had provided Men of Stone to the Lords of Tharsis ; and had preserved the Stone of Venus , the most precious trophy for the Enemy ; only one last effort of blood purification was needed , that the family produced a Man of Stone capable of understanding the Serpent with the Symbol of the Origin , that is , one who was able to project the Sign of the Origin onto the Stone of Venus ; that Hyperborean Initiate would thus achieve the Highest Wisdom , the location of the Origin , and the Stone of Venus would show them the Lithic Sign of K ' Taagar ; then the Lords of Tharsis could march towards the destiny that the Liberator Gods had in store for them ; and that moment did not seem far away , the House of Tharsis was aware of the imminence with which a Man of Stone would arrive who would be Pontiff and would understand the greatest secrets ; they awaited him with anxiety for years but everyone agreed that he would soon arrive ; and the signs of the Gods were coincidental . How , then , how could this disaster take place now ? where had they failed ? perhaps an excess of confidence ? had they once again underestimated the Enemy ? Undoubtedly that was the reply . A sufficient state of alert was not maintained and the Enemy was allowed to act when it should have been preemptively attacked as soon as it approached the Aracena region . That being the case , what happened was explained , at least strategically , since against the knowledge employed by the Immortals they had no defense outside of Blood Purity .
It was not possible , the Vraya repeated , that the Liberator Gods would have abandoned them at the mercy of the Golen ; that blow could not mean the end of the House of Tharsis , not before having completed the family mission ; for sure other Lords of Tharsis would still be alive to save the Lineage and enable the generation of the expected Man of Stone . It was necessary to look for them ! Noso de Tharsis would have to leave and travel the places where other relatives inhabited , although there was no hope of survival of anyone who was not initiated . And the latter , the Men of Stone , they were all incorporated into the Order of Preachers , working in different monasteries and universities in France and Italy . The Noyo would travel immediately . She would be on Guard ; rationing to the maximum the supplies available she would hold out for six months , then naturally she would die right there , if Noso didn ' t return on time .
The Vraya was right : they were still Lords of Tharsis alive and with possibilities of saving the Lineage ; but it was no less true that that would be the most critical situation they had ever faced , including the destruction of Tartessos . That time sixteen members of the lineage survived : now only eight remained , counting the old woman Vraya and the Noyo . Indeed , during his trip to Seville , Córdoba and Toledo , Noso found only the mourning and fear of the non-blood relatives , to whom nothing had happened , and he learned that the Plague knew no distances . Only in Toledo did he meet another Man of Stone , that was already aware that something terrible was happening and was preparing to travel to Turdes : several relatives had also died there because of the strange Plague . Upon learning of the serious news , he decided to leave with Noso towards Zaragosa and Toulouse , in the Languedoc , where the Chief of the Domini Canis lived . In Zaragosa they found that the Final Death had turned the beautiful family of one of his cousins to bitumen , mother of twelve children : all thirteen died in the same moment , in the same fateful night ; her husband , a Byzantine Knight , a talented Greek teacher , had no consolation . As he told the Men of Stone , the deceased had revealed to him years ago that an esoteric sect integrated by terrible beings called " Golen ", had persecuted the Lords of Tharsis since ancient times ; exhaling that awful cry , before she died , she had clung to Peter of Crete and he thought he could distinguish the word " Golen ", modulated with the last breath . That is why he then swore , over the thirteen corpses , to avenge those deaths if they were actually a product of the Golen black magic , as suggested by the horrible decomposition observed in
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