2011-12-10 14:16:25

CLUEBOOK
TIME ADVENTURES 1
From: Jacko Stol
For: Jana
Subject: Time adventures
           
Hi Jana,
I hope you’re well. I have lots of things to tell you, and I know that after
reading this you’ll think I’m crazy or hallucinating and to tell you the
truth…., I don’t blame you. But I hope you’ll understand me, and understand that
what’s happening to me has made me desperate.
I’ll begin at the beginning and tell you exactly what happened, or how I
remember it.
One day someone rang home asking for me. It was a lawyer who told me that my
uncle Alek Sanda had died and that I had been named in the will: he was leaving
me something in his inheritance.
We went to uncle Alek’s  funeral in the village. The truth is I only vaguely
remembered it. I hadn’t seen it since I was a kid. He was my uncle by marriage
and had divorced my aunt, so, as you can imagine, the news that I was inheriting
something was quite a surprise.
When the funeral ended, the lawyer said he had to get some papers ready and that
he would expect us in his office at twelve. My parents and my aunt went to eat
something. I wanted to have a walk round the village.
I decided to buy a magazine at the village paper shop to pass the time. The
shopkeeper wasn’t very nice, so after asking her a bit about my uncle’s life, I
decided to buy a magazine and some sweets.
I went back to the village square. There were some children playing, some old
people chatting, people queuing at the phone box. I didn’t know where to go to
pass the time until it was time to see the lawyer, so I thought of going to the
library. It was a good idea. I was sure to be able to sit down and read some
interesting book. Just in front of the door of the library was a bicycle. Your
bike. It attracted my attention because it didn’t have a padlock or anything. I
was also surprised to see that one of the wheels was a bit flat. While I was
there looking a the bike, you came out of the library loaded with books and we
bumped into each other. You said you were studying history and told me about
your work on Greece. You were in a real hurry, so we said goodbye and I decided
to go and talk to a boy who was on the swing.
The boy was a bit cheeky. I chatted with him for a while, and he told me that he
had fallen off the swing and that his mother had bought him some  sticking
plasters. I asked him to give me one. I didn’t need it but I would have done
anything to pass the time. In the end, the boy  gave me a plaster in exchange
for one of the sweets I had bought in the paper shop. I was getting really
bored. I looked at the clock and saw that there was only a quarter of an hour to
go before twelve o’clock.
Then I noticed you were still at the library door, so  I went to talk to you a 
bit more. Your bike had a puncture and you didn’t have any patches. Then it
occurred to me that maybe the boy’s sticking plaster would serve as a temporary
patch. It was a bit of a crazy idea, but it worked. After that you gave me your
e- mail address and told me you’d send me your work. It’s thanks to that that I
can tell you all this today.
At twelve, I went to the lawyer’s office. In the office were the lawyer, my aunt
and my parents. The lawyer read the will and said that my uncle had named me as
the heir of a great fortune. The greatest fortune in the world. He only imposed
one condition: I alone had to look for and find the fortune, without any
external help, in his house in the mountains that night – the night after his
funeral.
At dusk, they took me to the house and left me there to look this great fortune.
What a mess I’d got myself into …or rather I had been put into. They said in the
village that my uncle was not very normal, and this was proof. He couldn’t have
left me the house, a car, a cheque….Noooo..I had to look for the greatest
treasure in the world in a hut in the mountains. And  I’m hopeless at finding
things.
There I was in the middle of the living room. It wasn’t decorated very
tastefully. There was a pretty worn desk, a sofa, and loads of books on shelves.
On the sofa, there was a book on Greek art. I took it and leafed through it a
bit. As I was looking at it, a page fell out of the book. I picked it up. It was
interesting. It talked about the technique used in the V century B.C. for making
bronze statues.
I didn’t know what to do, because I didn’t know either what I was supposed to
find.  So I decided to sit down at the desk. On it there was a pencil and a
notebook. In the notebook he had drawn a rectangle. I took it and kept it. I
also kept the pencil. There was a drawer in the same desk. I opened it and
looked inside. There was a very small key. I kept it.
Well, I really felt as if I was wasting time, so I decided to have a look at the
other rooms in the house. The great fortune he spoke about in his will must be
hidden away somewhere.
I opened a door, and found myself in the kitchen. There didn’t appear to be much
there: a broom, a mop, and some cooking utensils. I liked the look of one
utensil  which looked really weird, so I took it. I also kept the mop, since it
could always come in handy if I had to defend myself. I opened a cupboard and
there was just the crockery. Very nice, but worthless, so I closed the cupboard.
But unfortunately, the doorknob came off. I kept it, because there was no way  I
could but it back on. I tried to open the other cupboard, but it was locked. It
had a small lock. That was when  I thought of the little key I had found in the
desk drawer. I tried it, and, in fact it went in and turned. I was a bit
nervous, because I didn’t know what I was going to find inside. You can imagine
how surprised I was to find that inside there was nothing but the fuse box.
Without a fuse, by the way.
After  I’d visited the kitchen, I decided to  continue my tour of the rest of
the house. I opened another door and found myself in my uncle’s bedroom. He had
quite a big bed, a cupboard and a shelf with more books. I noticed that one of
the books had not been put back properly, as if it had recently been used, so I
went up and looked to see what book it was. Little did I imagine what I would
find, because in the space left by the book was a charger which looked like the
one on my mobile phone, but different. The pin which connects with the mobile
was completely different. I took it because I thought it was strange that that
should be there and that maybe it would be useful to me later. After looking at
the shelf,  I opened the cupboard. Inside there were clothes and some things for
going walking in the mountains, fishing, etc.  I decided to look among the
things and found a lunch box. I opened it and found a fuse. This did not make
sense. What was a fuse doing inside a lunch box? I kept the fuse and went to
take the fishing rod, and the reel came off, throwing all the nylon on the
floor. I took it and kept it. What would there be in the other two rooms I still
had to look at? I didn’t know, but I was about to find out.
I went back to the living room and opened another door. Now I was in the
bathroom of the house – in the main bathroom, I’d say, because my uncle, in
spite of being in a small hut in the middle of the woods, was not short of
anything. He even had a jacuzzi. I had decided to look in every corner of the
house, so I also had to look in the bathroom. I pulled the chain on the toilet,
but somebody had cut the water. The pipes made a lot of noise, but no water came
out. I looked in the mirror and noticed that one corner was broken. I looked at
the piece more closely and took it. It was a triangular-shaped broken piece of
mirror. I looked inside the cupboard. There were towels there, toilet paper and
a strange piece of equipment. I took it and looked at it closely. It was a
photoelectric measurer.
There weren’t any more rooms in the house. What was I supposed to do with the
things I had found? it was quite clear that someone had put them there, since
you don’t usually keep a fuse in a lunch box, for example. I began to do things
in what seemed to me to be a more logical way – if any of all this was logical.
In the end, I went to the kitchen and put the fuse in the fuse box. In fact, it
worked, and the house had power. Then I looked at the photoelectric measurer. It
could work with batteries, which I didn’t have, or off the mains. Maybe the
charger could be  used, so I decided to join the charger with the measurer. It
worked! The I plugged the other end of the charger into the mains. It was
working. I measured all the rooms and wrote down the results of my measuring in
the notebook. When I had finished, I noticed that between the bedroom and the
bathroom there was a hollow space, as if there was a secret room. I sensed that
I was getting closer to finding the promised fortune of my inheritance. I went
into the bedroom and looked in the cupboard. The entrance to the secret room had
to be near. I moved aside the clothes and saw a hole in the wall, just at the
height of my hand. Nervously, I took the knob which had broken off the kitchen
cupboard and put it in the hole. It fitted perfectly and the door opened.
This room was damp, cold and musty – but there was no treasure. It was very
dark, so  I felt my way along the wall. Without realising, I leant on a stone
which moved. I  took it and uncovered a triangular-shaped hole. I put the piece
of mirror into it, hoping that something would happen – and it did. A piece of
the wall lit up on which was written the word ALPHA. I read it aloud, and a
heavy stone wall moved in front of me, to reveal a spiral staircase which went
down to a place nobody had told me about.
I went down the stairs and found myself in a room full of shelves crammed with
books. After going along a pretty dark corridor, I reached a room where there
was a man sitting in an armchair. I didn’t know him, but the man appeared not
only to know me, but to have been waiting for me.
The man began to speak to me and introduced himself. Amazingly, it was my uncle
Alek, the one who was supposed to be dead. I didn’t understand anything. My
uncle, theoretically dead, was before me talking and trying to explain the
reason for all this mess.
He told me that he was the Record Keeper of the Stone of Knowledge, the Alpha
stone. “the continuous beginning”, and he gave me a box which contained a stone.
According to him, it was the greatest treasure in the world, and I had to guard
it. He told me this was my inheritance. He also explained  that I was in danger,
and that was why he had feigned his death, to keep me from the threats which
were hanging over the stone, and so that for a while I need not fear that
anybody would trouble me. I neither understood nor believed anything. It was
then that I noticed that the stone was beginning to glow and my uncle explained
to me its importance, as well as the signs which had been etched onto it
throughout history. I then noticed that this stone that was so important was
broken. He explained that he had to protect me from the other part, and after a
chat, he offered me a drink, and without knowing how or when I appeared in my
room in the big city.
My parents were a bit disappointed, since they  had imagined that my uncle had
left a great treasure. [[gold]], jewels and other things. I pretended not to
remember anything, since if I told them what had really happened, they wouldn’t
have believed me. In fact, neither did  I believe my memories. It was then that
my father told me that the Geology Club had sent me a subscription present. This
puzzled me, since I had not subscribed to any Geology Club, but I kept quiet and
waited until I was alone to open the parcel.
When I was at last alone, I didn’t know what to do with the parcel from the
Geology Club.  Part of my wanted to know what it was, but I was afraid in case
it was the stone ….Then, everything I remembered would be true. Eventually, I
opened the parcel and what I had feared came true. The Stone was there, in a
box. So it hadn’t been a dream. The Stone with the scrawling did exist. I tried
to think rationally. It was a stone which, according to my uncle,  was the stone
of continuous beginning, or of continuous marvels, or whatever…What was certain
was that it was there, in front of me. As if I could not see it moving, glowing,
or anything, I chose to ignore everything that had happened to me. I preferred
to think that maybe it was all thought up by my uncle.
I was incredible tired, so I went back to sleep and then the mysterious,
threatening dreams started. In my dreams, somebody with a revolting face wanted
the stone, threatened me and called me the stone thief. I was tormented by
horrible dreams. At that moment, my mother woke me up to tell me that my friend
Rannon had called to remind me that today was the big day. Well.. a big day for
him. Rannon was moving to a Branded city. He wouldn’t, so it seemed, have any
more worries.
I left my house and went out into the street. There, right on the other corner
of my block of flats was the second hand bookshop of Mr. Aziz, Rannon’s father.
Outside the shop were Mr. Aziz, his wife, his car loaded to the brim, and my
friends, Rannon and Valeria. As usual, I was late again. My conversation with
Rannon was rather cold. I find it difficult to say goodbye. He was very pleased
because he was going to live in a city with all the conveniences, and he
wouldn’t have to worry about anything any more, since there everything was
sorted out. I wasn’t so sure. I told him, and he felt offended. Rannon and
Valeria said it was fantastic to live in the Branded Cities, since the
government decided on the weather. They were really thrilled because they
imagined it was going to be summer all year round. Seeing that we weren’t going
to agree, we decided to drop the discussion. I was really sorry he was going. He
was my friend and I wouldn’t be able to see him any more unless I too went to
live in McTech City. And that was very difficult, since my father consistently
refused. We couldn’t even talk about the matter at home. My parents were totally
against the idea.
After talking to Rannon, I went to say goodbye to his father, since Mr. Aziz
liked me very much, and I liked him. Whenever I went to his shop, he always gave
me a book as a present. I suppose that’s why – because he appreciated me, he
entrusted me with the keys to his shop.
I said goodbye to my friend and his family. They got into the car and went off.
Then I decided to have a look round the shop to see if I would find any book
that interested me.
I used the keys which Mr. Aziz had just given to me, and went in. It was strange
to be there and not to see Mr. Aziz. I looked on the tables and there were piles
of books. They were arranged by subject. There were books of philosophy, art,
and books about Ancient Greece, such as you were carrying the day we bumped into
each other. That’s why they caught my eye and I decided to leaf through them.
There was a book that had been set aside from that pile: “Plato’s Banquet”.  I
took it to have a look at it.
I went back home. I was angry, disappointed, and above all, lonely, because all
my friends had gone. I took the stone and while I was thinking aloud, I was
playing with it. Then the stone fell and broke into two pieces. I didn’t know
what had happened. The stone was flickering. Then I heard several voices at once
asking me to help them.
I went to sleep, and when I woke up I wasn’t in my room, nor in the city. I was
in a stable with horses. I didn’t understand anything, but I had to get out of
there. The door was locked, so I went to the window and jumped out. There was a
huge garden and at the end a  large house. In the garden there was a girl who
reminded me very much of you, Jana, and a lady. The two were dressed in clothes
that looked as if they belonged to another period, as if they were dressed up.
The girl was the servant of the lady. I started to talk to her, because I didn’t
understand anything of what was happening. At first, I thought that it was all a
joke and that I was still dreaming …but everything was very real.
The girl told me that her name was Casandra. I didn’t know why, but this girl
didn’t trust me. Then I saw that on my arm was a shining symbol which, from what
the girl told me,  gave me away as being one of the followers of a thinker. I
then figured out that they knew one of the record-keepers in that house. The
girl didn’t want to talk to me any more. She seemed to be afraid. I went up to
the house and went to the left door. There, I found the kitchen of the house.
There was a lady there who was kneading bread.
In the kitchen I saw that there was an iron bar, and I took it because I thought
I could use it if things got nasty. I spoke to the lady who was kneading bread
and she told me her story, how she came to be a slave, and that the house I was
in was that of  Pericles the governor of Athens. The lady was called Philomena,
and she mistook me for the new cook, since the one they had had fallen ill.
After looking round an interior courtyard, I went out into the garden and went
to see what there was behind the other door. I went in through the middle door
of the house. There I found a place that seemed ready for a party. There were
some boys who were taking down the strange decorations.
I went up to them and they told me that a symposium was supposed to have been
held, but since the cook had fallen ill, the event had been cancelled. The same
as what Philomena had told me, who, from what  I could work out, was the mother
of these two boys and of Casandra, the girl who looked so much like you.
I couldn’t believe what was happening. I didn’t know if these people were
acting, or if I had really gone back in time, and was in Ancient Greece, in the
Athens governed by  Pericles. And if that was the case, how was  I going to get
back to my own period? It was clear that all this had something to do with the
breaking of the stone. I had to find the record-keeper of that period and ask
him some questions.
I went out into the garden and there I found Casandra again, and again, she was
with the lady she served, Aspasia. Casandra refused to tell me what was
happening, so  I decided to talk to her lady. At first, Aspasia thought I was a
thief and that I had fallen asleep. I didn’t know what to say, because I didn’t
know how I had got there, so I made out that I was an experienced cook, and that
I was there because I had heard about the illness of theirs. She was a clever
woman, and did not allow herself to be taken in with just words, so she
challenged me to prepare the lunch for that day. If I was able to go and buy and
cook successfully, the symposium could be held.  It was to my advantage that it
was held, because I had gathered, from what Casandra had told me, that it was
very likely that a record-keeper would come to the symposium. Nevertheless, if
the lunch did not work out well, I’d have quite a lot of problems, since my
deception would be uncovered.
First I had to buy the food I was going to use to make the lunch. Aspasia had
made Casandra available to me, and a couple of guards who would help me with
carrying the food. But first, I had to dress as one of the people of the period.
They took me to the stable and there gave me some items of clothing. First, I
put on
a tunic, like a dress. Then a belt. Then I took a kind of cape called a
“clamide”, some very primitive sandals and, finally, I put on a hat they called
a “petaso”. Then I found a map with different places marked on it.
When I was dressed, I went shopping round Athens with Casandra and the two
slaves. On the way, I remembered that in Mr. Aziz’s bookshop I had taken a book:
“Plato’s Banquet”. I looked for it and found it. That could help me in the
cooking. I began to read, and found a  paragraph which said “…Xenophonte
explains that a good banquet cannot start without a poultry consomé or without
kykeon (barley soup, water and spices), but also tuna, molluscs, and squid.
Later, more elaborate dishes arrive, with pork, or any kind of game, accompanied
with vegetables, sauces, or roasted meats…” That gave me some clues.
We were approaching the market. First, they took me to East  Panathens. The
first stall we came across was the vegetable stall. There,  I bought peas,
onions, carrots, almonds, pine nuts and garlic. After that, I went to the fish
stall, and bought baby clams, mussels, squid and tuna. In this part of the
market there was a stall selling pigs and sheep. I looked around for a bit, then
decided to go to West Panathens. There, there was a stall selling game. I had a
quick look at the animals that were there, and then I saw a stall which really
caught my attention. It was a perfume stall. There, I bought some powder they
call the Wrath of the Gods. I also bought Oil of the Arabian  Nights, and some
jasmine perfume. After a while I thought that maybe I’d need some meat to make a
stew, so I bought meat at one of the stalls. In the same part of the market I
saw an area where there were philosophers and a scribe. Since I’d done my
shopping, I looked at the map of Athens and we went back to  Pericles’ house.
I went into the kitchen and used the iron bar to open a trapdoor in the roof,
which served a s a fumes extractor. Then I had to do the most difficult bit –
cook. I’d never cooked at home, so I asked Philomena for help. At first, she
flatly refused, but I pressed her a bit and gave her the jasmine perfume as a
present. Then her attitude changed and she agreed to guide me a bit. But I still
had a problem. I didn’t know how to light the fire. Then I remembered that
outside in the garden the two brothers were stoking the fire for a kind of
barbecue, so I went outside and asked them for help. In spite of the altruism in
ancient Greece, this didn’t go down too well, because the brothers also refused
to give me a hand  - at first. But when  I offered them the Oils of the Arabian
Nights, their attitude changed radically and they gave me some fire so that I
could light the fire in the kitchen.
That was how  I lit the stove. I took an iron pot and, according to what was
written down, I had to make a soup. To do this, I needed water. I remembered
that in the inner garden of the house there was a well, so I took the pot,
filled it with water, and put it on the stove.
Then I began to make the soup. First, I threw in the baby clams and the mussels.
After that, I put in the squid, tuna and salt.
Philomena helped me, telling me if what I was doing was all right or not.
When the first dish was ready, Philomena served it and I began to prepare the
second dish. First, I put the peas into the pot, then the onion, carrots, some
pine nuts, garlic, salt and pork which I had bought in the market. When it was
ready, Philomena took it away. After a while, Aspasia wanted to talk to me and
she called me into the great hall where I had been before, which I discovered
was called the “Andrón”
Aspasia said that she had liked the meal very much, and that I was now
responsible for the organisation of the symposium, although I had to get the
guests to come to the dinner. To do this, I had to go to Athens and talk to
them.
She told me who the guests were and where  I could find them. I had to look for 
Phydias, who she said would be at the building site in the high city, in the 
Parthenon, which was being built. I also had to visit Sophocles, who was
rehearsing his latest play in the Theatre of Dionysus. And finally, I had to
take the invitation to Herodotus, who was working in his house on the Hill of
the  Muses. I looked at the map of Athens. I had to decide where I was going to
go first.
Firstly, I went to the Theatre of Dionysus. There, I found Sophocles putting the
finishing touches to his latest play. I spoke to him and told him about the
invitation to the symposium. He said he was sorry, but he couldn’t go, as he was
still missing some important things to finish his play, such as, for example, to
work out a way of making an actor fly. I then realised that unless I thought of
something Sophocles wouldn’t be coming to the dinner.
I had no time to lose, so, while I was thinking of something to make Sophocles’
actor fly, I  went to see Phydias, who was on the Acropolis.
I arrived at  Phydias’ workshop. There, there was a crane, some miniatures of
the pyramids and a strong man, who I deduced must be  Phydias himself, since he
was drawing some plans. At the back of his workshop there were two boys who were
sculpting a clay figure.
One of the things which caught my eye was the crane which was at the entrance to
the workshop. With a contraption like this, Sophocles might have his problem
about the flying actor solved.
I introduced myself to  Phydias and asked his permission to take away the crane.
He flatly refused since, according to him, the crane could only be used by
experienced people. Then I started talking to the architect’s assistants. They
told me what I had already guessed: without their master’s permission they
couldn’t go anywhere. I spoke to  Phydias again. I had to convince him in any
way possible. He told me that he couldn’t let his employees go off until they
had finished a bronze sculpture that they had to deliver that very day.
Immediately, I volunteered to finish the sculpture myself and, to my surprise,
Phydias accepted.  For a moment, I thought that all was lost, because I had no
idea how a bronze sculpture was made. But then I remembered that in uncle Alek’s
house I was looking at a book of Greek art of the Vth century B.C., and that,
while I was looking, one of the pages fell out. If I remembered rightly, on it
was an explanation of how bronze sculptures were done. I looked for the page and
found it. I followed the instructions to the letter. I took the boiling wax
which was in the workshop and threw it over the clay sculpture. Then , I covered
it with the two blocks of mud. With some tongs, I opened the furnace door where
the bronze was boiling. With the same tongs, I took the pot and poured its
contents into the blocks of mud through a hole in the upper part of the blocks.
Then, I took away the mud blocks and let the bronze dry. The statue was
practically ready and only had to be polished.

When I had finished, Phydias came up to me and congratulated me. But the most
important thing, without a doubt, was that he agreed to lend me his two
assistants. Since he was no longer in a hurry to finish the sculpture, he
confirmed that he would be able to attend Pericles’ symposium.
I went with the crane and the two assistants to the Theatre of Dionysus, to show
Sophocles how to make his actor fly. When I arrived, I handed over the crane to
Sophocles, who couldn’t get over his amazement. However, he admitted that he had
other problems apart from that. And – worst of all – he couldn’t come to the
symposium until they were solved. I asked him again what he needed, and then he
confessed that he didn’t have a sufficiently terrifying mask. What he had was no
good to him. I looked at the mask they had and made some adjustments to it. To
begin with,  for hair, I put on the mop I had found in the kitchen of my uncle’s
hut. The mask now looked more terrifying, although something was still missing.
I thought for a bit and came up with a solution. I also had to put on it the
kitchen utensil – that weird  thing I had taken from my uncle’s house. The mask
was now terrifying enough – or at least, Sophocles thought so, as he seemed very
pleased with the result.
But he still couldn’t come. Although I had already helped him a lot, he still
needed a stage effect to represent the wrath of the slighted goddess. I had
bought some powder in the market called the Wrath of the Gods. Then I understood
everything. The wrath of the gods was gunpowder, which, if you mix with fire,
would make a small explosion – just what Sophocles was looking for. So I threw a
little of this powder onto the oil lamp which the playwright had on his table. 
Sophocles was fascinated by the small explosion. That was how I finally managed
to get Sophocles to come to the symposium that night.
Now, I only needed to ask Herodotus if he could come. The guards who were
guiding me through Athens took me to his house. There, a slave opened the door
to us and took us to the historian. I apologised to him for the interruption and
asked him if he accepted Pericles’ and Aspasia’s invitation.  He said he was
very sorry, but he was working on a story about the Wonders of the world, that
he had to finish it, but things were going very slowly because one of his
miniatures of the pyramids had disappeared.
I thought I had seen a miniature of a pyramid somewhere. Eventually, I
remembered having seen in  Phydias’ workshop a model of the pyramid Herodotus
needed. I went to Phydias’ workshop and tried to take the miniatures, but
Phydias noticed me and called my attention. I asked him to give them to me,
because otherwise Herodotus would not be able to continue his story, but he
refused again It seemed he was very attached to those pyramids. I pressed him
several times, until Phydias gave in and gave me the miniature.
I went back to the Hill of the Muses and gave the miniature to Herodotus. The
historian was very happy, but said his problems didn’t end there. He had to take
some urgent texts to the scribe in the Agora. If he finished the story of the
Wonders, he wouldn’t have time to take the texts to the scribe, and if he took
the texts to the scribe, he couldn’t finish the story of the Wonders. I offered
to take the text myself. At first, he resisted a little, but in the end he let
me take the texts to the scribe.
I went to the Agora where the scribe was and gave him the texts he had to copy.
The man gave me a receipt and I went back to Herodotus’ house on the Hill of the
Muses. I gave him the receipt and he told me that now he could confirm his
attendance at the symposium.
I went back to the house of Pericles: governor of Athens. After a while, the
guests arrived and the symposium was held. When it was over, Pericles called me
to talk to me.
When I arrived in the hall Sophocles, Phydias, Herodotus, Pericles and Aspasia
were waiting for me. Pericles had a lot of things to ask, and I tried to answer
those that I could, which, unfortunately, weren’t many. I also asked him some
things, and he told me that he knew the Record keeper of that time. But then the
conversation was interrupted by a soldier who brought some news. It appeared
that a Spartan expedition was about to attack Athens. The governor of the polis
helped me to escape through a labyrinth and told me that at the end of the
labyrinth I would find Protagoras the Record keeper and guardian of the Stone.
The only clue he gave me was that  Protagoras lived near the beach. Maybe the
sound of the sea would guide me and help me to get out of the complicated
labyrinth?
I went into the labyrinth and tried to follow the sound of the sea. Finally,
after going round in circles a few times, I came out onto the beach. There, on
top of a hill, there was a man looking at the horizon. I went up to him and
asked him if he was  Protagoras. The man said that he was and, after a slight
misunderstanding, the philosopher saw the sign on my arm. As a result,
Protagoras thought  that I had been sent by those who wanted to take possession
of the Stone, but, after talking a little with me, he perceived that I was a
record keeper like him. We talked for while. He explained what the Stone wanted
of me and the reason for this journey. I relaxed and suddenly I woke up in my
house – in my room.
Once I’d got back home, I couldn’t stop thinking about you and your double in
Greece, Casandra. I remembered that you had given me your e-mail. I looked in
the trousers I had been wearing in the village and, sure enough there was a
piece of paper in the pocket with you address written down on it.
I switched on my computer and started up my mail programme Emailpro. I wrote to
you, and after a while I checked my e-mails and saw that you had replied. In
your mail you invited me to start up the chat programme. I did so and we had a
talk. Do you remember? I couldn’t explain anything that had happened, but I
tried to tell you about my feelings in Greece. You seemed to understand.
After chatting with you, I felt like going to Mr.Aziz’s shop to look for some
books on Greece. Above all, I wanted to know what had happened to Pericles,
Herodotus, Phydias and all those people  I had got  to know. So I took the keys
to the shop and set off for the shop. I got there, opened the door and I hadn’t
been there long when a very strange man came in, asking for a book. I tried to
show him where he could find it. While I was talking to him, the man was sending
me telepathic messages. He was threatening me. I began to get frightened and
invented an excuse to throw him out of the shop. Once he had gone, I felt
quieter, although my worries about everything that had happened didn’t go away. 

That’s why  I’m sending you this e-mail. I sense that  I’m in danger and if
anything happens to me, I want someone to know of the existence of the stone. At
the moment, I don’t think  I’ll send this e-mail. I’m afraid you’ll think  I’m
mad – a maniac, or something. Well, I hope we can meet up soon, and I can
explain all this in person. If this doesn’t happen and you read it, it may be
because I’m in danger. Please, Jana, if I disappear, look for me. And, above
all, look for Alpha, the Stone of knowledge.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)