…When he regained consciousness his wrist had been cleaned and the incision had closed. He felt oddly light in the left wrist and noticed a faint outline beneath the skin. She then brought the hoop to life and held it out before his hand. He felt a tug in his wrist and saw the wire within glow—Oh no…

…He woke between them as they held his hands and there was thankfully no ghost-hoop in sight.

Sebastian spoke, “Aristotle, in the event that we may not be able to bring you home with us, we have been tasked to ask you certain questions. Are you well enough for this?”

“Yes, this would alleviate the superstitious panic that has afflicted me since your revelations. Go on, please.”

Perhaps the traditional superstitions are justified. You could not have been the first to be contacted in such a supernatural manner. Perhaps the tale of old Simonides being taken by Kastor and Polydeukes was not a fable at all? Indeed it was said to have happened in this very region, just beyond Mount Othrys.

The man’s slight voice came to him through his own muddled thoughts, “What was it like to be Alexander’s teacher?”

“What a question. I’ve asked that of myself enough. If a teacher with experience is making the inquiry I would answer him like so. ‘Imagine that your brightest, most prominent, most eager, most able student—your dream as a teacher to have such a student—were also so afflicted with wanderlust and the urge-to-act that he was not granted by his impulsiveness the time for contemplation necessary to grasp many of the most salient points you attempted to inculcate into his keen mind.’”

“I feel that in many ways I lacked the necessary teaching techniques for that specific student. I am confident only that I instilled in him the value of piety as a means of social stability, the values of arête and the importance of good acts in the development of a good man. I count myself a failure, though my student counted me a success.

“I would have to admit that I despaired of properly cultivating him as a philosopher king in the end. For this reason, the fear of which abided within my mind for my entire tenure as his educator, I attempted to engage him with the preserved word. Though it is a tenet of ours—us True-speaking philosophers—to value the spoken word above the written, which is indeed simply a stolen echo of the former, I resorted to writing in the case of Alexander.

“You must understand, based on your own involvement with the Iliad, that Alexander went nowhere without a copy to keep by his bed and consult. I therefore made for him his own copy of the Poet’s work with my own illuminating and instructive annotations. I, having understood his reverence for this work, sought to influence him to The Good through it. Only with much time removed from the actual events of his conquests, news of which are still filtering back among the Hellenes, might one judge if this method had any good effect. Perhaps, having returned to your ‘Time’ I might be able to judge for myself.”

Sebastian had been dictating in his native Latin script with a fast and finely balanced quill and began the next inquiry before he scratched the last word. “Aristotle, how many of the zoological observations recorded by your students were yours?”

“Oh, not as much as one would think: bees; the hen’s egg; aquatic life of plant-animal nature like sponges, and the unicorn—you know we were brought a preserved head out of Egypt. The thing was much larger and more pig-like than one would have imagined.”

The Iberian scholar pushed haltingly on with his queries, “Aristotle, according to our records, upon hearing of your condemnation to death for impiety by the Athenian Assembly, it is said that you excused yourself from Athens, so, in your words, “’to prevent the Athenians from sinning twice against philosophy’. Is this an accurate record?”

What a nicely wrought departing statement.

“I was already making preparations to leave before your appearance, and your appearance preceded any such ruling. Logic dictated the ruling of the Assembly. As for having said such a witty thing, no. To be honest, Theophrastus is the one person of the Lykeum that has the gift for such neatly turned words. It is why I so revered him as a student and miss his company. It takes me a bit longer to make an ironic point my friend. I think, Sebastian, that you and I are afflicted by the same plodding muse.”

“Aristotle—must he always precede a query with my name?—what do you believe is Man’s true purpose in life?”

“To seek, to understand and to work toward The Good, through good acts, for good purposes.”

“Aristotle, what do you regard as you best work?”

“It was easily my reestablishment of Stagira and the composition of the community constitution in concord with their assembly.”

“Aristotle, do you believe that slavery is a natural and just state for that portion of humanity to whom it falls as their lot?”

“This is to The Good, that people shall be possessed by their betters for good purpose.”

Her hand is tightening and growing cold on my arm. This opinion strikes a discordant chord in her mind.

“In light of Man’s need to possess the goods and lands of his neighbor, I would again identify slavery as a boon, in that it prevents the wholesale slaughter of conquered people. Although subjugation is not the best state-of-being, it is preferable to annihilation, and, amongst the civilized, subjugation is not an absolute barrier to advancement. For one may well win a place for themselves and buy freedom if blessed with the requisite ability and possessed of the necessary industry.”

She smiled, ever so slightly.

Sebastian spoke with a note of intense curiosity, “Those for whom I speak wonder about divinity. The One God, or Unmoved Mover, or First Cause Uncaused, do you conceive of this entity as an intentional designer of Man and his world?”

“No, but rather the all-inspiring purpose.”

“Does ‘God’ possess a will?”

“Yes.”

“A purpose?”

“Yes, according to his nature, which is thought, thought to The Good.”

“Can Man know ‘God’?”

“That is the aspiration of the philosopher, and, I believe, the final purpose of Man, to become one with the higher mind—but not…yes, this is the crux of the question is it not? Then I would say…”

Just then the tramp of iron-knobbed sandal soles clattering on the slate floor of the great hall without came to them, and the tapestry was pulled aside from the door to his chamber, to reveal the oak-like form of Kratoklus, rudest of a rude nation. “Wiseass, boss says out here. Leave the sissy and the slice-of-ass.”

Sebastian and Arlene looked nervously at each other and she hurried to dress him in his best robe, that which once belonged to the master of this house. She whispered as she dressed him, “Say nothing of leaving Ari, but get us to Delphi.”