“This in truth is the many-headed mob.”
“Have I not been a Martyr! Others have offered up their blood at the shrine of their Faith. I, I, have given the very blood of my soul! I have made a sacrifice of love; love such as man of thought alone can feel; I have rushed beyond the boundaries of thought, that confine the opinions of common men; I have dared the vengeance of the Faith beside whose altars I was reared; the arm of the God, whose existence was imprinted on my brain from infancy; I, I have dared the most terrible doom of all—the remorse of my own soul!”
“The words of the Scroll—what were they?”
“Hast thou ne’er perused yon volume of Fate?”
“A fear of the terrible mysteries inscribed on its pages, ever deterred the Princes of Ben-Malakim, from the perusal of the Mystic volume.”
“A dark passage on the Scroll, vaguely hinted that in case the Seeker failed, in the first bold experiment, in case the life drops of her dearest to his heart, were spilt in vain, then, another sacrifice was to be offered, ere the Crystal Waters would be undimmed by the speck of jet—and, and—Ibrahim, behold yon funeral urn.”
“It stands upon the shelf, amid a heap of massive volumes, and time-eaten parchments. What means this funeral urn?”
“I cannot, cannot tell thee now. But Ibrahim listen—after long care and thought, care and thought such as never wrinkled the brow of mortal man before, I have arrived at certain, fixed principles of belief. These principles relate to the consummation of the Secret—the last Charm which will make it complete—the manner in which the Water of Life is to be tested, ere it is imbibed by mortal man. The Last Roll of the Mystic Volume, which thou hast borne from the far east, may confirm these principles or declare them false, but can teach Aldarin nothing. Look, Ibrahim, the sands have fallen to within the fourth part of an hour of midnight! Give me the last Scroll, I would read.”
Ibrahim drew the scroll from his breast.
It was a massive roll of parchment, sealed at either end with an intricate seal of dark wax, stamped with strange characters.