or three days we had been making a kind of forced march. Petrus would wake me before daybreak, and we would not end our days hike before nine in the evening. The only rest stops granted were for quick meals, since my guide had abolished our siesta. He gave the impression that he was keeping to some mysterious schedule that he hadnt shared with me.

Whats more, his behavior had changed completely. At first, I thought it had something to do with my hesi- tation at the waterfall, but later I could see that it was not that. He was irritable with everyone, and he looked at his watch frequently during the day. I reminded him that it was he who had told me that we ourselves create the pace of time.

You are becoming wiser every day, he answered. Lets see if you can put all of this wisdom into play when it is needed.

On one afternoon, I was so tired from the pace of our hiking that I simply could not get up. Petrus told me to take my shirt off and settle my spine along the trunk of a nearby tree. I held that position for several minutes and felt much better. He began to explain to

me that vegetation, and especially mature trees, are able to transmit harmony when one rests ones nerve centers against a tree trunk. For hours he discoursed on the physical, energetic, and spiritual properties of plants.

Since I had already read all of this somewhere, I didnt worry about taking notes. But Petruss discourse helped to diminish my feeling that he was irritated with me. Afterward, I treated his silence with greater respect, and he, perhaps guessing correctly at my apprehension, tried to be friendlier whenever his constant bad mood allowed him to do so.

We arrived one morning at an immense bridge, totally out of proportion to the modest stream that coursed below it. It was early on a Sunday morning, and, since the bars and taverns nearby were all closed, we sat down there to eat our breakfast.

People and nature are equally capricious, I said, trying to start a conversation. We build beautiful bridges, and then Mother Nature changes the course of the rivers they cross.

Its the drought, he said. Finish your sandwich, because we have to move along.

I decided to ask him why we were in such a hurry.

We have been on the Road to Santiago for a long time. I have already told you that I left a lot of things unattended in Italy, and I have got to get back.

I wasnt convinced. What he was saying might well be true, but it wasnt the only issue. When I started to question what he had said, he changed the subject.

What do you know about this bridge?

Nothing, I answered. But even with the drought, its too big. I think the river must have changed its course.

As far as that goes, I have no idea, he said. But it is known along the Road to Santiago as the honorable passage. These fields around us were the site of some bloody battles between the Suevians and the Visigoths, and later between Alphonse IIIs soldiers and the Moors. Maybe the bridge is oversize to allow all that blood to run past without flooding the city.

He was making an attempt at macabre humor. I didnt laugh, and he was put off for a moment, but then he continued, However, it wasnt the Visigoth hordes or the triumphant cries of Alphonse III that gave this bridge its name. It was another story of love and death.

During the first centuries of the Road to Santiago, pilgrims, priests, nobles, and even kings came from all over Europe to pay homage to the saint. Because of this, there was also an influx of assailants and robbers. History has recorded innumerable cases of robbery of entire caravans of pilgrims and of horrible crimes com- mitted against lone travelers.

Just like today, I thought.

Because of the crimes, some of the nobility decided to provide protection for the pilgrims, and each of the nobles involved took responsibility for protecting one segment of the Road. But just as rivers change their course, peoples ideals are subject to alteration. In addi- tion to frightening the malefactors, the knights began to

compete with each other to determine who was the strongest and most courageous on the Road. It wasnt long before they began to do battle with each other, and the bandits returned to the Road with impunity.

This developed over a long period of time until, in 1434, a noble from the city of Leon fell in love with a woman. The man was Don Suero de Qui–ones; he was powerful and rich, and he did everything in his power to win his ladys hand in marriage. But this woman history has forgotten her name did not even want to know about his grand passion and rejected his request.

I was dying of curiosity to know what an unrequited love had to do with battles among the knights. Petrus saw that I was interested and said that he would relate the rest of the story only if I finished my sandwich and we began to move along.

You are just like my mother when I was a child, I said. But I gulped down the last morsel of bread, picked up my knapsack, and we began to make our way through the sleepy city.

Petrus continued, Our gentleman, whose pride had been offended, resolved to do what all men do when they feel themselves to have been rejected: he began a private war. He promised himself that he was going to perform such an important feat that the woman would never forget his name. For months he sought a noble idea that would consecrate his spurned love. And then he heard of the crimes and the battles along the Road to Santiago. That gave him an idea.

He called together ten of his friends, and they set themselves up in the small city we are passing through right now. He spread the word by means of the pilgrims that he was prepared to remain there for thirty days and break thirty lances in order to prove that he was the strongest and boldest of all the knights of the Road. He established himself with his banners, his standards, his pages, and servants, and waited for challengers.

I could imagine what a picnic that must have been: roast boar, endless supplies of wine, music, stories, and battles. A lively picture came to my mind as Petrus related the rest of the story.

The bouts began on the tenth of July with the arrival of the first challengers. Qui–ones and his companions fought during the day and held huge feasts every night. The contests were always held on the bridge so that no one could flee. During one period, so many challengers came that fires were built along the entire length of the bridge so that the bouts could go on until dawn. All of the vanquished knights were required to swear that they would never again do battle with the others and that from then on, their only mission would be to protect the pilgrims going to Compostela.

On the ninth of August, the combat ended, and Don Suero de Qui–ones was recognized as the bravest and most valiant of all the knights of the Road to Santiago. From that day forward, no one dared to issue challenges of bravery, and the nobles returned to their battle against the only enemy in common, the bandits

who assaulted the pilgrims. This epic was later to give rise to the Military Order of Santiago of the Sword.

We had crossed the small city. I wanted to go back and take another look at the honorable passage, the bridge on which all of that had taken place. But Petrus said that we had to move on.

And what happened to Don Qui–ones? I asked.

He went to Santiago de Compostela and placed a golden necklace at San Tiagos shrine; even today it adorns the bust of San Tiago the Lesser.

I was asking whether he wound up marrying the lady.

Oh, I dont know, Petrus answered. In those days, history was written only by men. With such a battlefield close at hand, who was going to be interested in a love story?

After telling me the story of Don Suero de Qui–ones, my guide went back to his now habitual silence, and we went along for two more days without a word. We hardly stopped to rest. On the third day, though, Petrus began to walk more slowly than usual. He said that he was a bit tired from the efforts of the week and that he was too old to continue at that pace. Again I was sure that he was not telling the truth; his face, rather than showing fatigue, revealed an intense preoccupation, as if something very important was about to occur.

We arrived that afternoon at Foncebadon, a large vil- lage that was completely in ruins. The houses, built of

stone, had slate roofs that had been destroyed by time and the rotting of the wood that supported them. One side of the village gave onto a precipice, and in front of us, behind a mountain peak, was one of the most important landmarks of the Road to Santiago: the Iron Cross. This time it was I who was impatient; I wanted to get to that strange monument, comprised of an immense wooden base, almost thirty feet tall, topped by the Iron Cross. The cross had been left there during the epoch of Caesars invasion, in homage to Mercury. Observing the pagan tradition, the pilgrims along the Jacobean route were accustomed to leaving stones brought from elsewhere at the base of the cross. I took advantage of the abundance of stones in the abandoned village and picked up a piece of slate.

It was only when I had resolved to move along more quickly that I saw that Petrus was walking more slowly. He examined the ruined houses and the fallen tree trunks and finally decided to sit down in the middle of one of the plazas where there was a wooden cross.

Lets rest a bit, he said.

It was early afternoon, so even if we stayed there for an hour there would still be time to reach the Iron Cross before nightfall.

I sat down beside him and gazed at the empty sur- roundings. Just as rivers change their course, humans also change where they live. The houses were solid and must have lasted for a long time before falling into ruin. It was a pretty place, with mountains in the distance and

a valley in front of us. I asked myself what could have happened to cause the people to leave such a place.

Do you think that Don Suero de Qui–ones was crazy? Petrus asked.

I did not even remember who Don Suero was, and he had to remind me about the honorable passage.

I dont think he was crazy, I answered. But I wasnt sure about my answer.

Well, he was, just as Alfonso, the monk that you met, was. Just as I am, as you can see from the plans that I make. Or you, seeking your sword. Every one of us has the flame of madness burning inside, and it is fed by agape.

Crazy doesnt mean you want to conquer America or talk to the birds like Saint Francis of Assisi. Even a vegetable vendor on the street corner can show this flame of madness if he likes what he is doing. Agape is grander than our ordinary human concepts, and every- one thirsts for it.

Petrus told me that I knew how to invoke agape by means of the Blue Sphere Exercise. But in order for agape to flourish, I must not be afraid to change my life. If I liked what I was doing, very well. But if I did not, there was always the time for a change. If I allowed change to occur, I would be transforming myself into a fertile field and allowing the Creative Imagination to sow its seeds in me.

Everything I have taught you, including agape, makes sense only if you are satisfied with yourself. If

you are not, then the exercises you have learned are inevitably going to make you seek change. And if you do not want all of those exercises to work against you, you have to allow change to happen.

This is the most difficult moment in a persons life when the person witnesses the good fight and is unable to change and join the battle. When this happens, knowledge turns against the person who holds it.

I looked at the deserted city of Foncebadon. Maybe all of those people, collectively, had felt the need for a change. I asked whether Petrus had chosen this place purposely in order to say all of this to me.

I dont know what happened here, he answered. Often people have to accept the changes that destiny forces upon them, but thats not what Im talking about. I am speaking of an act of will, a concrete desire to do battle against everything that is unsatisfying in ones everyday life.

On the road of our lives, we always run into prob- lems that are hard to solve like, for example, passing through a waterfall without letting it make us fall. So you have to allow the Creative Imagination to do its work. In your case, the waterfall was a life-and-death sit- uation, and there wasnt time to consider many options; agape showed you the only way.

But there are problems in our lives that require us to choose between one way and another. Everyday prob- lems, like a business decision, the breakup of a relation- ship, a social obligation. Each of these small decisions

we have to make, throughout our lives, might represent a choice between life and death. When you leave the house in the morning on your way to work, you might choose one means of transportation that will drop you off safe and sound or another that is going to crash and kill its passengers. This is a radical example of how a simple decision may affect us for the rest of our lives.

I began to think about myself as Petrus spoke. I had chosen to walk the Road to Santiago in search of my sword. It was the sword that was most important to me now, and I needed somehow to find it. I had to make the right decision.

The only way to make the right decision is to know what the wrong decision is, he said after I had men- tioned my concern. You have to examine the other path, without fear and without being morbid, and then decide.

It was then that Petrus taught me the Shadows Exercise.

Your problem is your sword, he said after he had explained the exercise.

I agreed.

So do the exercise now. Im going to take a walk. When I come back, I know that you will have the right solution.

I remembered how much of a hurry Petrus had been in during the past few days, yet now we were having a prolonged conversation in this abandoned city. It seemed to me that he was trying to gain some time so