The Emperor Awakes (21 page)

Katerina drenched Aristo’s face repeatedly, but any relief was short-lived. He kept bringing his hands to his face to shade his eyes, as if from a vision that was being branded on his eyes, a terrible vision that would not go away, until he understood. Otherwise there would be no respite and no salvation.

Slowly Katerina noticed Aristo calming down. The panic was gone. The pain was lessening. His face was already shedding its blistery layers and was returning to normal.

After a while she knew the nightmare had passed. He was coming round. They were both a bit bashed and bruised, but alive and all the visible horrific injuries and unexplained phenomena were gone. Only some superficial signs of their ordeal remained to give a healthy glow and colour to their skin. Aristo got up.

‘I think we’ve done all we could here for the moment. We need to talk to Giorgos about the passage we got. Maybe he has some ideas. Let’s avoid calls and emails, though. You never know. Both may be closely monitored. Only the company’s network and the ones at our homes are safe to be used for access. Let’s get back to Limassol.’

CHAPTER 25

Limassol, Cyprus
Present day

Katerina and Aristo landed at Larnaca International Airport at four in the afternoon on the same day. A car was waiting for them outside. They had called Giorgos on his mobile on their way to Limassol. They arranged to meet at Elli’s house, so that she could be there as well. An hour later they were sitting in the library of Elli’s house.

‘I can see from the bruises you are both sporting that it wasn’t straightforward.’ Elli said, looking at Katerina and Aristo. Her cool exterior belied her shock at their appearance. Aristo sensed his mother’s worry.

‘No, it wasn’t. It looks worse than it actually is. We had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of one of the Ruinand helpers, a Muftir. We dispatched him with only a slight difficulty. Mother, we are very closely watched. We have to increase our security measures. We took extreme precautions and still they were there at the exact time that the inscription began to appear. They knew. Mother, I suspect we may have a spy, an insider.’

‘Surely, you are not suspecting anyone who attended the meeting at Ariana’s.’

‘No, but there must be someone else who has access to us and the company, someone working for us, perhaps. We need to have our offices and homes checked for bugs and from now on we need to be careful what we say and where.’

‘Aristo, let’s adjourn for a while and have the house checked. If it is bugged and they are listening right now, they will probably know we are onto them. But we cannot change that now.’ Elli picked up her secure mobile and called her security chief.

‘Andreas, I’ve got a job for you. I want the following checked for bugs: the Valchern building and my home, the homes of Aristo, Iraklios, Katerina, Ariana, that’s Katerina’s grandmother, the home of Katerina’s parents and Vasilis’. I want it to be done today, as soon as possible. I’ll call them and tell them to expect you. I want you to do it discreetly and I want you to start from my house. Shall I expect you in the next half hour?’

‘Yes, Mrs Symitzis. No problem.’

‘Excellent. See you then.’ Elli hung up. She turned to the assembled group.

‘Let me arrange for some coffee, tea and a snack. Whatever rubbish you’ve had on the plane you must be famished. Mrs Manto.’ Mrs Manto was at the door within five seconds.

‘Could you please arrange for coffee, tea and snacks?’

‘Of course, it will be a pleasure.’

‘Could you please leave them outside on the veranda? We’ll be in the garden for a short stroll. Thanks, Mrs Manto.’

Mrs Manto took a look at Aristo and Katerina. ‘My goodness you must have not eaten a single thing for the last two days. You seem to have lost weight. You need fattening up. I’ll see what I can do.’ With that she was off to the kitchen. Aristo started to laugh.

‘We know what snack means to Mrs Manto. Thank God you didn’t say a meal, mother. That would’ve been scary, like something out of the kitchens of Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace.’

Elli decided to round them all up to continue their discussion outside. ‘Come on everybody. Let’s continue our discussion in the garden until the house has been checked. I’m be fairly sure there will be no bugs there, especially next to the fountains and my little weir.’

They all got up and went together into the garden. Once they reached the safe spot, Elli stopped and the others did, too.

* * *

Within the hour the house had been checked for bugs and given the all-clear. Elli led them all back inside and into the library.

‘Aristo, what have you got?’ Elli pressed a button and the blinds came down bathing them in almost total darkness apart from a few of subtle lights on the walls.

Aristo connected Katerina’s mobile to the projector and pressed play. The wall opposite them came to life with the video clip from Ayia Sophia. After it ended, Aristo turned to Giorgos.

‘Giorgos we need your help here. It clearly refers to a place. Any ideas?’

Giorgos was silent for a while, deep in thought.

‘I was thinking about that as I was watching it. I would guess that the place referred to is Athens. You see during the time of Pericles, only in name was Athens a democracy. In reality it was the rule of one man, Pericles.’

Elli was reading from the Book of the Pallanians and she looked up. ‘I believe Giorgos is right. It makes sense. In this book it says that the next test will be a philosophical one, a series of dialogues.’

Giorgos, excited, started to speak. ‘Yes, it must be Athens then. And it says in the passage “where the three philosophers meet”. The only place I can think of that fits that description is the ancient cemetery of Keramikos where the tombs of Plato, Aristotle and Socrates are located next to one another. These must be the three philosophers it refers to.’

Katerina, silent till now, looked at her brother. ‘You are a genius. We should go there now. What are we waiting for?’

Giorgos raised a quizzical brow. ‘We?’

‘Yes, we. I’m coming with you.’

‘I think you are getting a taste for adventures.’

Katerina smiled. ‘I certainly am.’

They all looked at Elli.

Yes. Aristo and Giorgos, you should go there and see where that leads us.’

‘Katerina interrupted. ‘Not me? Elli, please.’

‘No, I want you to stay here. I’ve got something else in mind for you. Aristo, I know your bag is packed, but you’ll need to refresh its contents. Giorgos, go and pack. I’ll arrange for tickets for you both on tomorrow morning’s flight to Athens. We’ll discuss the second part of the inscription another time. Think about it and we’ll meet later. I want to hear your thoughts on it. But first let’s go and enjoy Mrs Manto’s spread. She will be offended if we don’t. Personally, I wouldn’t mind a bite. I haven’t eaten anything all day.’

CHAPTER 26

Athens, Greece
Present day

Under the fiery Mediterranean sun, in a quiet corner of the Athenian archaeological trail, Giorgos and Aristo were on their way to the ancient Keramikos cemetery and the tombs of the three philosophers, Plato, Aristotle and Socrates.

They reached the spot and stood there looking at the three tombs in awe of the small space that they occupied compared to their occupants’ impact on the world.

Aristo remembered his mother’s exact words. “My son, according to the Book of the Pallanians, this is the ancient language of the Pallanians who were numerous and flourished before they were crushed in the great last battle that destroyed the temple of knowledge and wisdom and had to go underground. But a selected few kept the flame of their culture and knowledge alive over the centuries. Plato was a member and so were Aristotle, Socrates and Pericles.

“Through that special implant in your palm you now have the ability to read this long-forgotten language. But to understand it you don’t just read it. You use your mind, you feel its meaning, it gets into your head and speaks to you. There are always multiple meanings underneath. Each one of us sees something different. What you do is this: you close your mind to all outside influences and corporeal things, you place your hand on the inscription and trace the words with your fingers. Just feel the words speaking to you.”

Aristo had a vision of his mother being a crazy medium goading him on to feel and see spirits and dead people and talk to them. Aristo immediately dismissed the idea from his mind.

‘Giorgos, I think this is the time to use one of those powers my mother told us about. There must be something on these tombs that we are supposed to find out. Let’s start from Plato’s. It is the first one here. But he was in a way the one that blazed the way. Socrates was his teacher, but left nothing in writing. All we know about Socrates, his philosophy and his methods, comes from what Plato wrote. There is no other proof that Socrates said any of those things himself.

‘There are some people who say he was Plato’s invention at least as far as his philosophy, his ideas and his dialectic method are concerned. A person with that name did exist at that time in Athens.’ Aristo paused. ‘And to complete the great trio of ancient Greek philosophers, and appearing as a roughly seamless generational succession, was Aristotle who was Plato’s student.’

Giorgos was sceptical, but kept silent and simply nodded. Aristo put his hand first on Plato’s tomb. Nothing happened and he was about to give up when suddenly strange characters began to appear.

Aristo, look. It’s working.’

‘I will tell you what it says.

‘You don’t need to. It’s in Greek. I can read it perfectly.’

‘What are you talking about? What Greek? Are you having me on?’

‘No, I’m not. Shall I tell you what it says?’

‘Go on then.’ Aristo expected Giorgos to say some invented gibberish and he half-closed his ears to him. And then Giorgos started talking. And Aristo caught words that he had just seen, but which were not in Greek when he saw them. He turned to look at Giorgos.

‘How is this possible?’

‘Some of that power must have rubbed off on me, eh?

‘Undoubtedly. The ability to read and understand the Pallanian language appears to manifest itself in different ways to different people. Anyway, let’s not waste time. Let’s finish it.’

Once the inscription ended Aristo turned to Giorgos.

‘What do you think? Does it look familiar to you?’

‘I’ve seen this pattern before. Of course. It’s related to Plato. Socrates was Plato’s greatest teacher. The pupil immortalised the teacher’s words. It’s a dialogue. It’s a Socratic dialogue. It’s the Socratic or dialectic method, as it is otherwise known. It seems unfinished, though I recognise the dialogue from Plato’s writings and I remember it differently.’

‘So maybe it’s for us to complete the dialogue using the principles of the Socratic method. Let’s see what’s missing.’

Giorgos had an inspiration. ‘It’s interesting. Seeing the flow of the argument it seems that it starts as one of Plato’s Socratic dialogues in the “Republic”, but it later changes protagonists by dropping the original ones in favour of Plato and Aristotle who join in to battle it out with Socrates. This dialogue would be out of place in the “Republic” as it seems to deal with more than one subject. I can actually count seven subjects, some of Plato’s originals and some new ones.’

Giorgos paused and Aristo who was deep in thought picked up the thread of the analysis of the inscription.

‘It seems here that Plato and Aristotle find common ground between them and with Socrates too. If I remember correctly, Socrates was the first of the Greeks who, in an unorthodox deviation from the strictly pagan environment of the time, was proclaiming the revolutionary, for the Greeks, idea of the one God. Giorgos, where did you say that Plato’s Academy and Aristotle’s school, the Lyceum, used to be?’

‘I didn’t, but since you ask, they were not far from here. Both schools co-existed peacefully for quite some time. Plato’s Academy lasted, in one form or another and with periods during which it was closed, between 387 B.C. and 529 A.D. when its latest iteration was closed down by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, because he wanted to stop the teaching of anything Hellenistic and non-Christian.’

Aristo was intrigued. ‘The Justinian of Ayia Sophia fame?’

‘The very same.’

‘Yes, but, Giorgos, it’s odd though that such an enlightened Emperor would do that. Yet it was still a time of Christian fanaticism. It all started with Emperor Theodosius about a hundred and fifty years earlier, when he started the persecution of pagans and the destruction of their temples, libraries, and not only what offended, but anything that differed, anything that was not related to Christianity. He was the one who replaced one perceived sacrilege with another, as is the way of the victor. Theodosius the Great. The Christian Fanatic. And he was also the one who prohibited the staging of the Olympic Games, as it was considered a pagan festival.’

Aristo finished and looked at Giorgos. When nothing came from Giorgos he was baffled. He was about to say something about Giorgos being distracted and not having listened to what he was saying when he saw Giorgos’ face lit up. He knew Giorgos had a brainwave and he waited for him to speak.