The City The Hermit knew about another secret tunnel leading to the City. He was the only one who knew – nobody else. He reproached himself that he had not time to share the discovery with the Stranger. There was a chance to avoid collision with the warriors of desert so as not to play their game. They turned their distorted and absurd interpretations of prophecies about the Messenger into fact. They cannot see the evident, for their hearts hardened. They cannot hear with their ears, for they do not want to hear the voice of the Truth. Their eyes are closed, for the light of the Truth hurt them. The old man remembered that once, in the early morning, while gathering healing herbs, he found some clay grout hardened into stone of apparently artificial origin. By knocking the walls with a cane, he could hear a hollow sound. He immediately returned to his hermitage for tools, and went full tears back. He moiled the clay brick masonry to reveal a very tight breach, switched on a lantern and started moving along the gloomy tunnel corridors.
