Afterward she brought him out to the great hall to dine with the household: Xenophile, Kyno, Sebastian, Polos and Polymara the savage waif of Attika, who Arlene was attempting to civilize to little effect. Selene, the Amazon with the body of Artemis was rarely present, as she kept the bed of Menander. After the meal Arlene and Sebastian nodded to one another, and then she rose up from the bench.

“My Dear, Sebastian and I would like to engage you in conversation.”

She nodded toward the master’s chamber and took his hand. “Let me hold your hand, Master?”

Master? Whatever became of “My Dear’ and ‘Ari’.

“So my companion finally sees fit to divulge her true intentions?”

Take that to bed with you, you scheming barbarian.

“Yes I do, and I want what you promised in the end.”

It is flattery intended to disarm your mind. She would surely rather lie beneath Menander or one of his kind.

What is so improbable about a companion desiring the love of a great-minded man of experience?

You smitten fool. Just teeter off to your doom then!

They were soon standing before him as he sat on the great bed. To his surprise Sebastian opened the discussion.

“Aristotle, I was born an orphan and left by a midwife to the care of a religious order. One of our most sacred tasks was the preservation, translation and copying of ancient books. The books I most loved were those of the man known as ‘The Philosopher’, father of logic, science-in-its-many-forms and of higher thought. I often felt that this great-minded man spoke to me through his written words separated as we were by nearly two thousand years. I was born in the fifteen-hundredth-and-tenth Year of Our Lord and Savior. You see, our order worshipped one God, the only God, he who you term the Unmoved Mover in some of your works.”

Aristotle interjected, “And who my dear teacher Plato called the First Cause Uncaused. You are a learned lover of wisdom Sebastian. What is your point?”

Her hand reached for his thigh and soothed him.

Sebastian continued haltingly, “As you know, I am a weak speaker, and I will get to the point as directly as I may.

“In my twenty-seventh year, I was caught stealing an extra measure of beer from the Abby vats, and was then sentenced by the Abbot, the head of my order, to accompany the Great Lord Soto across The Ocean to serve as a confessor and establish missions for educating the barbarians living there in the matter of God. During this invasion of the unknown land our cruel lord was slain by that which we thought to be a divine agent of God—an Angel we said—who came to protect an Ethiopian priest residing among the barbarians. These barbarians were red of skin and black of hair I might add.”

This is incredibly fascinating.

“Continue please, you are establishing a convincing rhythm—if I might instruct a bit.”

“Thank you, Aristotle.

“This man of God and science—which were not one-in-the-same in my Time—was named Prester Charles.”

There, he did it as she has, using Time in the reference of a place. Could this be due to the manner in which their language translates into the True Language?

The soothing hand of the companion went to his thinning hair as Sebastian continued. “Prester Charles informed me that he was in fact not an Ethiopian traveler on The Ocean but an ‘American’ traveler through Time. He claimed that he hailed from the year two-thousand-eleven, nearly five hundred years in the future. I could scarcely credit this claim if not for the evidence of the Angelic warrior who had stood invincible before an army. At last, I accompanied Prester Charles as his disciple along with his barbarian manservant, to his Time, a time of horseless carriages, un-rowed ships without sails, ships shaped like birds that flew the skies, wondrous healing arts and unimaginable magical devices. The most pleasing aspect of this Time was the presence of so many beautiful and assertive women—most even possessing their full set of teeth into old age.”

With this last statement Sebastian came to rest his hand on Arlene’s back. “Teacher, the name of ‘The Philosopher’ that illuminated the dark ages of a struggling civilization and spoke to me so directly through his copied works was Aristotle, and he died in the three-hundredth-and-twenty-third year before the birth of Our Savior.”

This is beyond all possibilities.

His ears were ringing and he felt somewhat unsteady. Sebastian continued, “Aristotle, we serve a great man of empathy and science who would not have you lost to the ages. We have been sent from the unthinkably distant future to bring you forward to make his acquaintance, and to teach. It is thought that half of your work perished. It is known that of the one-hundred-and-fifty-one community constitutions that you and your students collected, only that of Athens survived.”

“And those bastards don’t deserve it!”

Do you hear yourself? You cannot seriously entertain this fantastic tale as true?

Arlene’s soothing voice intruded, “Ari, we cannot leave in an obvious manner before witnesses, and are sworn not to abandon our teammate Selene. We will have to make two trips and it is a very obvious and disruptive process. We have decided to leave with you from Delphi, but first Menander must be convinced to take us there, and he is involved in this war. We are in peril, but we will not leave without you, for we are certain now that you will be killed by enemies. The Spartan does us a service by hiding you from his Athenian allies, but he holds us close. We need your help.”

His ears were ringing from the battle his mind was having with itself over the veracity of these fantastic claims.

Plato or Pythagoras would believe them outright. The Dog would sneer and fart at the proposition.

He attempted to stand on unsteady legs and they sat him back down. Arlene spoke in a kindly tone, “Ari, I am about to show you the means by which we arrived at Marathon under the full moon of the New Year. I would then like to perform a procedure that will permit you to leave with us in the event that some horrible circumstance arises. I am committed to bringing Selene back and would like to take Polymara—by the Furies why?—with us. However, if you are threatened or if there is an attempt to separate use, I will take you no matter what.”

Arlene then searched within her wondrous carry sack and produced a silk-covered hoop. She removed the silk to reveal a hoop of gold—no, a rarer metal—which had four bands of strange lettering. The woman pushed the strips of one of these bands, making a slight clicking noise, until the letters were in the order she desired. She then stepped back and let the hoop drop, and it did not! With a low whooping sound the hoop hovered!

Rise and inspect this wonder man!

His curiosity awakened and his logical mind engaged, he stood on suddenly firm legs and looked at the hoop. Within its diameter surged a sun and sky colored mist. The flowing and whirling mist of blue and yellow settled into a stable—static, but yet pulsing with life force —pattern as the hoop continued to levitate.

He was in a state of wonder. “Oh, this would make many believers of those who doubt the Olympian gods and the Titans. I cannot credit or discredit this. I am also not a believer in things not understood. I do not know what to say.”

She spoke with a compassionate and somewhat lost quality, “We do not understand this technology, Ari. Charles, who recruited me for this mission and rescued Sebastian from his dreadful Time, is credited with designing this. It was not, however, fabricated until eight-hundred-and-thirty years later. He had the idea for bending Space-Time but not the means. Even he has not been able to fathom the complexity of this device, although he understands much of the mechanics.”

They refer to Space and Time as one conjoined element?

Or do they so name the cosmos Space-Time?

I should engage the head of their order in dialogue. This might answer the unanswerable, might reward your search for The Purpose.

The low humming stopped as she grasped the hoop. She then produced a small steel tool and opened a tiny panel in the hoop, from which she withdrew a shimmering sun-fire wire with translucent qualities. Sebastian helped him sit and held out Aristotle’s left arm. Arlene then made a small cut in the skin of his wrist and began threading the wire into the cut. To his amazement the wire seemed to come to life and wriggle like a worm beneath his skin—Oh…