"The secret is how to die."
"Mal`akh knew it had all gone wrong.
There was no brillant light.
No wonderous reception.
Only darkness and excruciating pain.
There were voices...
human voices...
one of them...
belonging to Robert Langdon.
How could this be?
"She's okey," Langdon kept repeating
Katherine is fine, Peter.
Your sister is okay."
Mal`akh could no longer see...
Unfamiliar voices...
shouting now,
talking urgently with Langdon about the laptop and video file.
Mal`akh sensed that a lone individual had quietly approached...
"I don't know if you can here me,
Peter Solomon whispered in his ear.
"But I want you to know something."
He touched a finger to the sacred spot atop Mal`akh's skull.
"what you wrote here..."
He paused.
"this is not the Lost Word."
Of course it is, Mal`akh thought...
In the idiom of symbology,
there was one symbol that reigned supreme above all others...
The oldest and most universal,
this symbol fused all the ancient traditions...
a single sollitary image...
The circumpunct.
The symbol of the Source.
The origin of all things."
"Mal`akh had had inscribed the great symbol of the circumpunct on his scalp...
he felt an upwelling of power and satisfaction...
The forces of darkness were waiting for him...
this was to be his moment of glory...
And yet, at the last instant,
everything had gone horribly wrong.
Peter...behind him now,
speaking words that Mal`akh could barely fathom.
"I lied to you,"
he was saying...
"You left me no choice.
If I had revealed to you the true Lost Word,
you would have never believed me,
nor would you have understood."
The Lost word is...not the circumpunct?
"The truth is...
the Lost Word is known to all...
but recognized by very few...
You remain incomplete,"
Peter said gently placing his palm on top of Mal`akh's head.
"Your work is not yet done.
But wherever you are going,
please know this..
you were loved."
For some reason,
the gentle touch of his father's...
felt like it was burning through him...
he felt a rush of blistering energy surging through his physical shell...
every cell in his body...now dissolving.
In an instant, all of his worldly pain evaporated.
Transformation. Its happening.
I am gazing down upon myself...
I feel an upwelling of rage...and confusion.
I am trapped here, hovering...
tethered to my earthly shell.
My father gently runs a soft palm across my face to close my fading eyes.
i feel the tether release."
"A billowing veil materializes around me...
Suddenly time accelerates...
I am plunginging into an abyass...
I hear whispering...
I sense a gathering force...surrounding me.
Ominous and powerful.
Dark and commanding..
This is my triumph...
for some reason, I am filled not ...with joy,
but rather with boundless fear.
The force...swriling around me...
threatening to tear me apart...
I am facing all the dark souls who have gone before me.
I am screaming in infinite terror...
as the darkness swallows me whole"
(TLS 458-60).
