Alpha, the Stone of knowledge.

.By Robert W kingett

Summary. The stone of knowledge can do so many things. It can make you take a time trip, change your appearance, or even switch your body with someone else’s. The stone is a peacemaker. It tries to resolve people’s problems. If two people are fighting about their lives, the stone will make them switch bodies. The stone does not do this on its own; souls that are trapped within the stone perform the magic that is necessary to go through the metamorphosis. In this story two handicapped teenagers go to a carnival in there hometown. Robert, the short white kid with enough brains to fill a stadium, and Brian, a black deaf friend of Robert’s, are so happy about going to a fair they go as soon as it opens. They win the stone as a prize. After that, they get in a fight. The stone switches their bodies. Now Robert is deaf instead of blind, and Brian is blind instead of deaf. For the very first time, Brian can hear music, and Robert can see well. Then things start going wrong. Brian lands Roberts Mom in jail and Robert manages to ruin Brian’s family by getting Brian’s mom and dad mad at each other over something he did. They agree that they have to get back to their own bodies, but how? In this twisted mystery, both boys must find a lost girl, the girl who knows about the stone and of its magical power, and how to reverse it.

Prologue.

From: Jacko STOL

For: Jana

Subject: the Stone of knowledge

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 at 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 for this great fortune.

What a mess I’d got me 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.

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; he went on explaining what the stone was.

“Know what this is dear?” he said. Holding up the package with a pale hand.

“No I don’t”

“The stone I am about to hand over to you can make peace in the world.” I thought that my dear old uncle was insane. Surely he must be making a joke.

“What does the stone do?” I asked with a hint of sarcasm in my voice. My uncle was undaunted by my mouth.

“Whatever is needed.” Now I really thought that he was insane. My hand slipped in my pocket where my cell phone was, but I didn’t dial anything yet.

“I still don’t get it. If the stone can do whatever you want, then why didn’t you wish for one of those huge houses you see in movies?”

“It doesn’t work like that. You don’t tell it what to do or you don’t wish for anything. The stone’s magic will work when the children feel it is needed.

“Children? You mean there are real kids in there?”

“Yes!” he said clapping his hands and jumping up and down. “That is what is so amazing about the stone of knowledge! The stone of knowledge can do so many things. It can make you take a time trip, change your appearance, or even switch your body with someone else’s. The stone is a peacemaker. It tries to resolve people’s problems. If two people are fighting about their lives, the stone will make them switch bodies. The stone does not do this on its own; souls that are trapped within the stone perform the magic that is necessary to go through the metamorphosis.”

“But why are there souls trapped inside?”

“A long time ago, before the stone came into my position, a wizard made it. He was a dark man. He made the stone out of slaves he had when he was at the height of his power. Two hundred years after that, the stone was buried. In addition, one day I was on one of my hiking trips, way before you were born, and found the alpha stone.

“I still don’t understand, what do you mean it can make you switch bodies?” I was reminded of the movie freaky Friday.

“The stone can do more than that, it tries to resolve conflicts. If a kid is too short to be on a basketball team and the stone notices this, then the souls trapped within will make the kid grow. Now you understand?”

“Yes, but lets just say that two people switched bodies, how would they return?”

“Respect for one another’s interests. If two people are saying something as if you have no idea what I go through! Then the stone switches them. Until they realize how hard the other person’s life is. Alternatively, if some kid is in the high school band, and his mom is a doctor, and they both think that the other activity is pointless. The stone will switch them until the mom realizes that playing drums in a play takes as much guts as telling somebody their son died.

I understood it all now. He went on to tell me that he heard many things about me, and he told me that I had to keep the stone. 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 incredibly 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 along the long walk 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. They sounded as though they were screaming kids. I managed to fix the stone. I walked home with the books I got from the shop under my arm. I got home and started reading the books. I had the stone on my bed, and the books sitting one on top of the other in front of me. I started thinking that the people in ancient grees had it better than we did. I began to think that “if I had the chance, I would spend a few days in grees just to show everybody that I could do it.” I heard the same voices from inside the stone. I was so tired at that very moment. I closed my eyes.

I went to sleep, and when I woke up I wasn’t in my room, or 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 Cassandra. 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 Cassandra, 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 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 Cassandra again and again, she was with the lady she served, Aspasia. Cassandra 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 Cassandra 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 Cassandra 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 Cassandra and the two slaves. On the way, I remembered that in Mr. Aziz’s bookshop I had taken a book: “Plato’s Banquet”. I tried to remember what I had read back in my bedroom. That could help me in the cooking. I began to remember 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 some things I would need. After that, I went to the fish stall, and bought baby clams, mussels, squid and tuna.

I went into the kitchen and used the iron bar to open a trapdoor in the roof, which served an 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. 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 opportunity to hear about what was “going to” happen in the future, 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. 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. 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 eighteenth 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 remembered what the book had said. I followed the instructions I could remember. 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. 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, Cassandra. 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 ’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 is 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. Now, 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 does not happen and you read it, it may be because I’m in danger. Please, Jana, if I disappear, looks for me. And, above all, look for Alpha, the Stone of knowledge.