by Paul Edwards
Chapter three
I walked through the door, I could tell something was going on as I cautiously tried to walk without falling. I could barely make out a spritely looking old man pacing back and forth about ten feet in front of me.
Barbarella... what the hell did that mean, I thought. I had watched a bit of the movie once when I was flipping through channels. It struck me as being a silly film, the lead actress had been a young woman that was way to pretty for her own good.
"Mr Archimedes," I said in ancient Egyptian.
I hoped I was standing in the right place the stupid plastic circles were now at nose level. I pulled the head piece back trying to realign them.
"Hmf arf yuu," I heard someone say.
The goddamn suit was making it almost impossible to hear with all the commotion going on. Enough of this, the stupid suit wasn't doing anything anyway. I grabbed one of the large zipper handles and pulled. The head piece came right off quite easily.
I shook my head to get the hair out of my eyes, then removed the rest of the suit kicking it aside in disgust. I looked back at the old man.
Archimedes was staring at me, his mouth was half open, a look of amazement of his face.
"Mr Archimedes?" I asked hesitantly.
"By the gods... yes... I am Archimedes."
I looked around, I was on top of an immense city wall constructed of stone, to my right was a large sea, there were hundreds of boats on it full of soldiers wearing steel helmets. Beside me near the edge of the wall were dozens of soldiers holding large polished shields.
I saw a blinding white beams of light emanating from the shields, the soldiers were using them to set the sails of the ships below alight. I also saw large wooden claw things grabbing some of the ships and upending them.
"Hi... I'm Kemamonit, I'm from the City of Magic... I've come to ask a favor," I said as I turned back to Archimedes.
"I... I... know who you are..."
He seemed to be in some kind of daze.
"I knew of her beauty... but this... she outshines the sun." I heard him mumble to himself.
I hoped he wasn't suffering from some kind of dementia.
"Will you come with me... we have a problem with the machine you built, we have to fix it."
I saw his face turn dark.
"Never! I swore never to go back."
He tried turning his back to me but was unable to bring himself to do so completely. He was still surreptitiously eyeing me over his shoulder.
"Fine... do whatever you want, have fun fighting the Romans." I had lost all patience, wearing the stupid suit getting covered in fake snot.
I started to turn to leave.
"No... no... wait," he turned and then dropped to his knees in front of me.
"I can't..." he grabbed one of my hands and started kissing it.
I rolled my eyes, my god what was it with these nerdy guys constantly throwing themselves at me. I looked down at him, the lust in his eyes made him look slightly younger.
"Get up," I commanded.
He stood up looking at me meekly.
"let's go." I said.
I turned and walked back towards the door to the City of Magic. Archimedes followed me obediently completely under my spell.
"Where's the stupid computer thingy," I asked Janet brusquely as I walked past her.
She tossed up a small glowing white ball.
"Take her to the Archimedes machine," she said to it
"Yes ma'am" I heard a male voice reply.
The ball positioned itself in front of me then slowly started to move forward. I started to follow it, the faster I walked the faster it went.
Soon Archimedes and I were walking down a corridor I no longer recognized.
"You walk as if you carry a great burden," Archimedes said.
"Pregnant."
"Ahh... an enchanted dress... some things never change... the other one... this was her idea."
"Yes."
"You're condition wouldn't have diminished you're beauty."
I looked at his face, I saw no disappointment in his expression, Janet had been right.
"You said you would never come back here, why?" I asked.
"It's a long story... what era are we in? The city... this building it looks different."
Archimedes was examining everything with his eyes as we walked, he had a curious look on his face.
"Two thousand years have passed... the city was abandoned for centuries, we're not sure how long exactly."
Archimedes eyes grew as large as saucers.
"That long, gods... so much must have happened... you must tell me."
I looked at him.
"You tell me your long story, I'll tell you mine."
The glowing ball stopped at a large wooden door with a heavy brass ring for a handle. The ball then disappeared in a bright flash of light.
Archimedes grabbed the handle then put his foot against the wall next to it, he yanked the handle with a grunt of effort. The door slowly opened making a horrible screeching sound.
There were dimly glowing light globes floating near the ceiling, they all started to brighten when we walked in. The ones nearest to us started to move a bit closer to give us the best possible illumination.
"Curious," Archimedes said as he reached into a leather satchel was hanging off his shoulder.
He pulled out a circular device, it looked vaguely like a wall clock but with the face removed and all the brass gears and clockwork revealed. It had a sturdy handle on one side with which Archimedes held it, he used his other hand to manipulate the many knobs on the rim which turned the gears. I saw intricate writing on them.
"A spell writing device?" I asked while I examined it with my eyes.
"Yes, yes... got the idea from you actually, your bracelet."
I looked around the room, there were literally hundreds of large rectangular wooden frames, between which were thousands of gears, pulleys, levers and every other conceivable kind of mechanical device. They were all made of gleaming golden brass.
"Lost my old one... dropped it into the sea by accident... kinda miss it," Archimedes mumbled as he worked his spell device.
"Where exactly?"
I had that vague feeling you get before an epiphany.
"I was flying over some tiny island Aigila I think."
The name didn't sound familiar.
"Damn it!" Archimedes cursed.
"What?"
"Its these shitty bronze gears, they're wearing out. Tried everything to get the stupid things to last."
"Well two thousand years isn't too shabby."
"Could never find a good material... tried everything , stone, wood, even ceramics."
"There's all kinds of new stuff now... even substitutes for gears," I said.
"Really... how is that possible?"
"Um... well... a lot has happened... I think they just want you to shut it down."
Archimedes shoulders slumped, I saw his expression change from anger to a sort of sad dejection.
"Just an old piece of crap... like me."
I touched his arm and smiled at him.
"You've changed the world Archimedes, maybe you and this thing deserve a rest."
"Changed the world? What do you mean?"
"If you turn it off, I'll explain everything."
It took Archimedes about an hour to shut the machine down, he explained its operation to me as he did so. Sadly I could only understand about half of what he said.
He did show me the master kill lever however, which I promptly labelled with a large red cable tag. He also showed me a series of other levers which would engage or disengage the different components of the device.
I tagged these as well.
I finally asked him to summon all the papyri drawings and notes he had made when designing the machine. I put them on a small table someone had put in the corner.
"Why would anybody want these?" he asked.
"You're very clever
, there may be idea's here that could be of use somewhere else."
I saw his shoulders un-slump.
We were outside walking on the city's streets. Archimedes was almost like a tour guide pointing out the different buildings and statues and their relevance.
I had him summon a small donkey simulacrum for me to ride on. I had also found a way to turn off the dresses enchantment so my familiar large belly reappeared. It had been disconcerting for some reason not being able to see it.
The section of the city we were in was overgrown with trees, weeds and grass.
"It rains twice a week for one hour in the morning," he said pointing to the greenery.
A rain spell had been constructed in this part of the city for the residents that had come from a more temperate climate. I had originally built the City of Magic in a large desert.
Archimedes finally stopped in front of a large stone arch almost completely unrecognizable as being such because of a thick covering of winding vines.
Archimedes conjured up a small sword and then used it to clear a path through the arch, he walked through and then a cleared a small part of the facing on the other side. He dispelled the sword walked back to me and helped me off the donkey.
He led me through the arch and then showed me a large bronze plaque that had been fastened onto the masonry beside the arch. There was Hieroglyphic writing on it, it read.
THE FOLLOWING PERSONS ARE FORBIDDEN ENTRY
There followed four columns of names, I saw Archimedes name in one of the columns.
"This is the old city entrance," Archimedes said matter-of-factly.
"Why were you one of the ones they banished?"
"This was a place of ideas... of ideology... everyone was young... impressionable, everything seemed possible. The powers that be started to think that we were above the rabble... that nature knew best, humanity should be left alone... water will find its own level."
"You didn't?"
"War... starvation... all caused by ignorance and tyrants... tyrants who believed they were descended from gods."
Archimedes laughed.
"I remember following the thread of descent from one of these supposed demigods... one of his great grandfathers cleaned latrines... he was still a hundred times the man the tyrant was."
"You wanted to stop it."
"Yes... but not the way you think... I wanted to educate, get the masses to think for themselves."
"The city opposed that? How did they prevent you from entering anyway?"
"The banishment was basically symbolic. As I said they believed in ideology, this was just the latest of a long line of strange ideas to be embraced fanatically. The City's History is full of examples... you've heard of Hathor?"
"Oh yes."
"Trying to create a Utopia, pure silliness."
I turned and looked at the plaque again, I read the names in their entirety to see if I recognized any. There were many that seemed vaguely familiar.
So Mary of Magdalene what did you do to piss everyone off, I thought to myself as I looked her name, it was one of the vaguely familiar ones.
"You were never known as a sorcerer, the magic you were using in Syracuse, how did you explain that to the... rabble?" I asked.
Archimedes laughed.
"Ignorance has its benefits... I just told them it's all levers... simple reflection of sunlight... the last thing I wanted was people to believe was that magic was real."
I had watched a television program about Archimedes a few months ago, I suddenly realized that I knew the details of his demise.
"Syracuse... the siege, it will cause your death you know," I said.
Archimedes sighed.
"I thought as much... fucking Romans... I thought about just blowing them up you know, use an Imhotep sphere, but it would undo everything I had worked for, getting people to think for themselves. I think the City was watching me anyway."
"Will you still go back?"
Archimedes looked around.
"Yes... but I think I'll stay a while, I am curious to see how things turned out in the world. Where is the library now?"
"Umm... that probably wouldn't be a good idea."
"Ahh... someone wrote a bad search spell for it I bet."
"Ya... kinda."
"Lost count of the number of times some moron would think they had come up with a great idea to organize it."
I felt my eyes start to narrow.
"Mechanical book grabbers still there?" He asked.
"Not that I know of..."
"Nasty buggers those things... Title howlers?"
"No... um... what?"
"Make one wrong turn" Archimedes snapped his fingers," lose half your hearing. Sentient books shelves?"
"Huh?"
"You don't wanna know... librarian golems?"
"Golems?"
"Ya...worked fine till they all went insane... who wouldn't... being asked the same stupid questions over and over."
"I have a better idea, we have sort of a magical window now, it will show you everything you need to know, it will even translate it into whatever language you want." I said
I grabbed Archimedes elbow and started to walk back towards the donkey.
I knew of a small pub that had been set up for the students near the school, it had a collection of laptops as well Wi-Fi access to the internet.
There would also be many students there to assist him, most who knew how to speak passable ancient Egyptian.
It took about fifteen minutes for us to make it back to the occupied part of the city and into the Pub. I introduced Archimedes to the Pub's bartender. He told me he would be happy to introduce him to some of the students.
I looked around the place as the bartender conversed with Archimedes. It looked quite different then the last time I had visited it.
Students are never happy with anything, I thought to myself.
It now had a middle eastern look to it, the rooms were divided by openings with high pointed arches, the walls were all whitewashed. There was a man playing an upright piano in the middle of it all.
I noticed a handsome man in his mid thirties walking around in a white dinner jacket, he appeared to be the manager.
I rolled my eyes when I recognized him.
He was a character in a film I had watched a few months ago. I had enjoyed the movie, excepting the fact that all the characters in it had appeared to be raging alcoholics.
Archimedes, walked back to me.
"You will see me off, when I return to Syracuse?" He asked.
I looked into his eyes, there was a touch of sadness in them.
"Of course," I said as I smiled at him.
His eyes brightened slightly.
