George Mathers, who had never before gotten sick in Africa, not even with a stomachache, came down with malaria during his first week on the Niger. He died without ever recovering consciousness. Lily lost her baby, and she also had fevers—what illness it was exactly, the western doctors didn’t know—it seemed like malaria, but it could have been anything—and she survived it, but only for a few months.

The news reached London quickly. Christopher Mathers handed over control of the Order to his youngest son, Charles. He had lost two sons already, and he felt worn out and old.

It would be Charles Mathers’ daughter, Florence, who would confirm the arrival of the most powerful medium the Order had found, in Argentina, one winter night in 1962: the fragile blond boy who brought the Darkness, this time in the house of another blood family, the Bradfords. Again, in the jungle and the heat. Florence confirmed his arrival, but I found him. The medium manifested in front of me and for me.

What the Darkness dictates to the Order are instructions about how to achieve the survival of consciousness. To call them “instructions” is inaccurate, but it’s the simplest term to help explain what happens. Every time it speaks and communicates through the medium, it dictates the steps necessary for that transition. Those steps are what the Darkness dictated when it came to Olanna, and also during the trances of the Scottish youth, though in those first sessions they couldn’t decipher the meaning of the words. The method is transmitted in a very slow, spaced-out, and enigmatic way. Everything is written down in a sacred Book. What we believe, and what the Darkness—and, as such, the Order—offers, is the possibility of maintaining existence on this plane forever. But the Darkness is fickle. Sometimes it speaks and there’s no way to find meaning in what it says. Sometimes it utters only isolated words. Sometimes it dictates methods for other ends, generally hurtful ones, because such a god can only be cruel. Often it tells brief stories about its solitary existence in an empty wasteland: it invites us to visit but it doesn’t say how, because its nature is fickle.

Only the mediums can summon this Darkness that speaks and that will help us live forever, help us walk like the gods. Mortals are the past, Florence once said to me. It took a long time for the method of survival to be revealed, and it is, of course, repugnant. I should also add that, so far, it’s not only repugnant but also a resounding failure. There is no arguing with faith, though. And it’s impossible to disbelieve when the Darkness comes. So, we trust, and we go on. At least, that’s what many of us do. Others are sick with doubt.