I write this with my own blood, though I know it will not be read.

I cannot say for sure how much time I have left, how long these doors will hold back the seething bubbling anger of the priests that clamor to extinguish the last flames of my consciousness.

I pray that when the wood that shields me from the frenzied hacking and furious shrieks finally crumbles, it will end quickly. I will try to acquit myself well, but whether I die as a man or as a craven coward, the game has been worth the candle.

I know their secret. I understand their true knowledge of God.

I have managed to beg, cajole, bluster, cheat, trick, and fight my way into this, the holiest part of their holy temples. I have seen that to which they give no name, that which only the highest of their high have seen. To have knowledge of their secret grants all power and the ability to transcend the limiting mess men call reality.

I have seen it and now I must die. To spread word of the secret is to confer all power on all men, and to grant this power to all men of earth is to remove all power from the maniacal throng at the other side of the door.

Even now as they hew and hack at the wood that shields me, I turn to gaze again at their secret. Again, the thrill of the ultimate truth ripples from the center of my being and I behold and understand this most wondrous of objects.

I gaze at the sacred mirror, and in the mirror I see myself.