Rose of Fire

5

When Sempere had finished translating the notebook, the first light of dawn peered through the clouds. Shortly afterwards the inquisitor, without uttering a word, left the room and two sentries came in to fetch Sempere and lead him to a cell from which he felt sure he would never emerge alive. While Sempere was being flung into the dungeon, the grand inquisitor’s men were sent to the ship’s hulk where, hidden in a metal coffer, they were to find the scarlet phial. Jorge de León was waiting for them in the cathedral. They had not managed to find the medal with the supposed tear of Christ which Edmond’s text referred to, but the inquisitor was unconcerned because he felt that his soul did not need any cleansing. With his eyes poisoned by greed, the inquisitor grabbed the scarlet bottle, raised it above the altar to bless it and, thanking God and hell for that gift, downed the contents in a single gulp. A few seconds went by and nothing happened. Then the inquisitor began to laugh. The soldiers looked at one another, disconcerted, wondering whether Jorge de León had lost his mind. For most of them this was the last thought of their lives. They saw the inquisitor fall to his knees as a gust of icy wind swept through the cathedral, dragging with it the wooden benches, knocking down statues and lighted candles. Then they heard his skin and his limbs cracking, and amid agonising howls Jorge de León’s voice was lost in the roar of the beast emerging from his flesh, rapidly growing into a bloody tangle of scales, claws and wings. A tail punctuated by sharp edges, like the blades of an axe, fanned out like a gigantic snake and when the beast turned and showed them its face lined with fangs, its eyes alight with fire, they had no courage left to turn and run. The flames surprised them as they stood there, rooted to the ground. It ripped the flesh off their bones like a hurricane tearing leaves off a tree. The beast then spread its wings and the inquisitor, Saint and dragon all in one, took flight, passing through the cathedral’s large rose-window in a storm of glass and fire, then rising over the roofs of Barcelona.