Now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, Floriana took a look around. The trap she was in looked like a dungeon. She grabbed the chain with both her hands and pulled it with all her strength. The chain remained attached to the wall and her palms almost got burnt by the heat. A ray of light emitted from above and struck a hard-cut stone behind her. She looked at the dark ceiling, but she didn’t figure out the source of the light.
Drops of sweat rolled down her forehead; she swung her head to get rid of them. She scrutinized the cobble where the light ray landed and touched the stones that were within reach of her free hand. They were all hot.
“I have to connect the dots. And to do this, I must recall all I have been through so far.”
She had floated into a dark void, she had got sucked into a vortex (twice), she was almost eaten by a lion, and she witnessed a moment in human history that had happened more than two thousand years before her time. A moment that she had read about in that old heavy history book Dora had gifted to her and she had read through so many times that she memorized every page. That’s why she was able to recognize the scene she had witnessed in that Macedonian palace.
When Alexandre the Great imposed to his court the Persian style of obeisance, the well-known philosopher Callisthenes didn’t hesitate to express this opposition to the mighty Macedonian king’s demand. After Alexandre condemned the philosopher to a slow death, Callisthenes was mutilated and thrown in a cage with a wild dog. Lysimachus, who was one of Alexandre’s best friends and one of Callisthenes’s students, took pity on the poor man and smuggled poison in the cage. Alexandre got furious over his friend’s disobedience and that was the scene that Floriana had witnessed.
Magnanimous as he was, Lysimachus thrown himself to a lion as punishment, but had overcome the beast with his bare hands. Amazed by his friend’s bravery, Alexander treated Lysimachus with respect and honored him as one of the noblest of Macedonians.
Years later Alexander accidentally injured Lysimachus in the forehead with the point of his spear. The bleeding was so severe that the blood could not be stopped by any means, until Alexander took off his diadem and placed it on his friend’s head. The diadem pressed on the wound, stopping the bleeding. It was also an omen of Lysimachus’s royal dignity. After Alexander the Great died, Lysimachus was crowned king of Lydia and Ionia, an area that would later be known as West-Center Turkey.
That was a reason Floriana was able to recognize the two men so easily; the story of their strong friendship had always been one of her favorite moments in history.
Bright red dots appeared again in the dark.
“Another set of flying letters and symbols.”
Again, they started out being tiny and grew bigger as they moved towards her. She stretched out her free arm and when her fingers almost touched one of them, the bright red symbols started swirling. A diagonal cross, like the shape of the letter X in Roman type, appeared behind them and became larger as it came forward and stopped in front of her.
“Is this a letter or a symbol? It looks like Saint Andrew's Cross. However, there is a dot in each cell of the cross. Could it be a pigpen cipher?”
A childhood memory came back to her at the sight of the diagonal cross with the dots.
She was back home, sitting with Dora in front of the fireplace studying cryptology. It was her aunt who had introduced to her the love of cryptography, it was a form of entertainment they enjoyed together since she had been sent to live with her. It was a game Floriana enjoyed tremendously and had grown an interest in anything cipher related.
Grabbing one symbol after another, Floriana started putting them in a row, trying to figure out if there were any letters among them that could form a word or phrase. There weren’t any.
“Maybe this is isn’t a pigpen cipher after all.”
But there was again the Greek letter Λ. “Maybe this is the key to solve this riddle.” She grabbed the Lamda and it was solid and cold, made of a material she couldn’t recognize.
Then she noticed another familiar object.
“It’s the tetradrachm,” she said astonished as she recalled that it was that ancient Greek coin that had triggered her jump to Alexander’s the Great courtyard.
“What am I supposed to do with these two?” she wondered while looking at the diagonal cross right in front of her. Two of the dots in the cross cells started blinking.
“What if I put this one right here?” she said to herself as she placed the Λ symbol in one of the cells with the blinking dot.
“Oh, my!” she uttered as the symbol locked into the cell. “So, that means that this one goes right here,” she said as she placed the tetradrachm in the other cell with a blinking dot.
There were two cells left and their dots weren’t blinking yet. She stared at the symbols that were still floating in front of her until she noticed the symbol of a sun with sixteen triangular rays.
“The Vergina Sun, the royal symbol of the Argead dynasty of Macedon, whose most famous member was Alexander the Great.”
Without a second thought, she grabbed the symbol and inserted it in the cell with the dot which had just started blinking.
“Yay!”
The symbol locked into the cell. “There is one cell left empty. Let’s see which symbol goes there”.
She looked again at the symbols floating in front of her. So far, all three symbols that fitted the diagonal cross cells had something to do with the three events she had experienced since she was magically transported from her home’s attic to a time travel vortex.
“An umbrella, a key, a weird rune, a Chinese letter, a black rose... Wait a minute. A black rose?”
Her mind was once more flooded by memories. Now she had gone back to a place that she could hardly remember how it looked, but she couldn’t ever forget how it smelled. It was Christmas time in her parents’ house. He would never forget the sweet smell of fresh baked Bethmännchen, a pastry made from marzipan with almond. Her mother would always bake for her while her father would read her favorite story about the knight with a black rose.
“A long time ago, there was a handsome bright knight, a member of a secret militia sect called the Order of the Black Rose. They lived on an isolated island in the middle of a vast sea, in tall sandstone castles. Tall walls protected them from evil enemies. They all wore silver rings with black agate stones. They had sworn to fight against evil and protect the innocent. But then, a big split occurred, and the knights had to flee their beloved island and find shelter in other realms. After the Middle Ages came to an end, some of them returned to their homeland, while others preferred to stay in their new countries,” her father would narrate with his hoarse voice.
Another image popped into her mind. The image of a black rose engraved on the cover of a book her father used to keep on his bedside table.
A black rose. Was that the answer to the riddle? The dot in the last empty cell of the diagonal cross started to blink.
With steady hands, she put the black rose symbol into the cell and watched in awe as a dark shadow emerged beneath her and slowly took the form of a black rose.
And another downwards flight into a dim vortex began.
CHAPTER 4
*
After a long ride downwards through a dark vent, Floriana fell on the fluffy and soft object. Her eyes watered trying to adjust to the bright light that filled the room she was now in. She was in her bedroom, lying on her comfortable bed.
Rosewood furniture, pink armchairs decorated with fluffy cushions, and red roses in a white vase on the nightstand beside her bed cozied up the room.
Red roses, not black ones.
A knock at the door interrupted her thoughts. “Come in,” she responded weakly. Dora appeared behind the half-open door.
“You alright, love?”
Floriana moved to get out of bed, but with a nod, Dora urged her not to move. Floriana sat up in the bed and beckoned Dora to sit in the armchair.
“I heard a strange noise coming from your be
droom and I thought I should check out on you,” Dora said as she sank into the chair.
“I had the strangest nightmare.” Floriana moved to straighten her pajama shirt, only to realize that she was still wearing her skinny jeans and sneakers. “That’s weird.”
“What is weird?” asked Dora.
“I thought I was in my pajamas. What time is it?”
“It’s almost midnight.”
“Midnight? Why aren’t you in bed yet?” asked Floriana.
“Because I’ve had something important to share with you. But first, can you describe that nightmare that scared you?” Dora asked softly.
“I saw that I fell in one vortex after another after having first met Alexander the Great and Lysimachus. There were flying objects like symbols and ancient coins and a large black rose that worked as the gateway to my way back home.” Floriana pointed to a letter that Dora was holding. “What is this?”
“This is the reason I’m still up. This is what I want to talk to you about. And it pretty much has something to do with the nightmare you just had.”
Dora moved calmly her hands to show the letter she was holding and that was when Floriana saw it. A black ring adorned Dora’s right hand.
“That black ring! I saw it in my dreams. I haven’t seen you wearing it before.” She pointed to Dora’s right hand. And then she saw a similar black ring around her own finger. “Oh, it’s similar to this one I found in the attic. How long have you had them? Why did you refrain from wearing them? Is there any sort of hidden secret behind them?”
Dora smiled at her. “This is not just a black ring.” She took her ring off her finger and placed it on Floriana’s palm. “Take a closer look. What do you see?”
The patina of time had left scars on the silver hoop. An ornate carving stood on the black, oval, agate stone in the ring’s mounting.
“A rose! It’s a black rose,” Floriana exclaimed, entranced by the exquisite beauty of the engraving. “Black rose rings, black rose symbols, wormhole vortexes ... What on earth does that mean?”
With slow and careful movements, Dora put the ring back on her finger.
“My dear child,” he replied pompously, “tonight you will hear things you’ll wish you had never heard and learn about things you would have preferred to ignore.”
“THE ANSWER TO ALL YOUR questions is in this envelope,” Dora said.
“What exactly is in that envelope?” Floriana asked.
“Your pass certificate. You passed the test, love.”
“What test?”
“The test that gives you the opportunity to join the Clocksworth Academy,” Dora replied with a broad smile on her face.
Floriana raised an eyebrow. “The what?”
“The Clocksworth Academy. Both your father and mother were Clocksworth Academy graduates.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“It means they were time travelers.” Dora paused for a moment, waiting for Floriana’s reaction.
“What kind of prank is this?” Floriana uttered, her eyebrows pointing inwards.
“I’ll explain everything to you,” Dora said softly. “The privilege of being a Clocksworth time traveler is hereditary; the onus, though, can be deadly. The stake is high, and every time traveler is requested to take the oath to fight for the greater good even if that harms himself or his loved ones. None of us can put their personal lives above the cause.”
“What is the cause?”
“To stop anyone from changing the course of history,” replied Dora.
“To stop ...what...” Floriana laughed so hard she almost choked. “You’re joking, right? Give me a break, tell me the truth!”
She laughed so hard her eyes filled with tears.
“Ha, ha, ha! Who told you to pull a prank on me? Ha, ha, ha! Come on; tell me... You’re looking so serious! Really now, why are you looking so serious?”
Dora wasn’t smiling.
“I wish it were a joke. Unfortunately, it is true, and we are all involved. We are members of the Order of the Black Rose,” Dora replied in a gruff voice. “And by passing the test, you proved that you’re ready to enroll the Clocksworth Academy”.
“What was all that I went through? The symbols, the vortex, the dungeon, the roman arena, the ancient Macedonian palace... what was this all about?” Floriana asked skeptically after a moment of silence.
“That was the test that was chosen for you to go through.”
“By whom?”
“By the ring.”
“The ring?” Floriana gasped.
“Yes, the ring you found in the attic,” Dora explained. “The discovery of the ring was what triggered the evaluation process for you. The ring sent you to those specific moments in time.”
“I don’t understand. What kind of ring is this? How can it be responsible for what I went through?”
“Floriana, please forgive me but I can’t say much on the matter. You’ll need to enroll in the Clocksworth Academy to unlock all its secrets and the secrets of time traveling. All I can reveal now is that this humble silver ring with the black stone is a time travel device.” Dora put back her ring on her finger.
“You said that the privilege of being a member of the Order of the Black Rose is hereditary. How does that apply to our family?” asked Floriana.
“Your grandparent, my father and your mother’s father, was a member of the Order. And both your father’s parents were members, too. We all bear the symbol of the Order, the silver ring with the black agate stone with a rose engraved.”
Dora stood up slowly and left the letter on the bedside table.
“We have all been trained in riddle solving. Our membership also requires that we are fully trained in self-defense and take intensive courses in history, science, and languages. That’s why I’ve been training you in code breaking and I’ve been teaching you history for years.”
Moving towards the door, Dora added, “You’ll find out more about the Academy and the mechanics of time traveling if you enroll in the Clocksworth Academy. Feel no pressure to do so though, it’s your choice.”
“What happens if I choose to pass?” Floriana asked right before Dora closed the door behind her.
“Then this conversation never happened. Literally.”
CHAPTER 5
*
Floriana opened her bedroom door and rushed into the corridor. She galloped down the stairs and entered the living room where Dora had already taken her place in her cozy armchair next to the fireplace.
“I want in,” she said. Her breath was fast, and her heart was beating like a wild animal out of excitement.
“Are you sure?” Dora asked.
“Never been more.”
“I’m so glad for you.” Dora’s face beamed as she smiled broadly.
“So, what’s next?” Floriana was still breathing fast.
“Wait and see.”
A loud noise interrupted their conversation as a vortex of light blue liquid suddenly appeared in the middle of the living room. The liquid slowly stopped moving and the vortex transformed into a glassy, mirror-like surface. Three shadows appeared on the mirror and, with a whooshing sound, three people, two men and a woman jumped out from it and into the room.
They all were in their late twenties and were dressed in beige pants, white shirts and brown with grey stripes old fashioned suit jackets.
“Hi guys,” Dora greeted them.
“Hi, Dora, nice to see you again,” the woman said smiling.
“You must be Floriana,” one of the men said.
Unable to utter a word, Floriana nodded positively.
“Are you ready to join the Clocksworth Academy?” the other man said.
“Yeah?” Floriana replied with a tone of uncertainty in her voice.
“Then follow us,” the woman said and stretched her hand towards Floriana.
“Get ready for your very first jump,” the man on her left said.
“Don’t be afraid. It’ll only
last a few seconds,” the man on her right said.
“Give them your hands,” Dora instructed, her voice sweet and calm.
Floriana closed her eyes and gave her hands to the trio of travelers that were standing in front of her.
“Have fun, love. And never forget that I love you.” Dora’s voice fainted as Floriana was sucked in the vortex which closed behind her, along with the door to her old life.
WHEN SHE OPENED HER eyes again, she was in an old-fashioned train cabin. The harmony rocking of the train made her feel queasy.
As soon as her eyes became accustomed to the light, she looked around. It was furnished like a living room, with red velvet chairs and drapes, and a thick green carpet. The cabin was large and oblong, surrounded by windows. It was night outside, darkness everywhere.
A shapely brunette was sitting on a chair next to her. Everything was swaying rhythmically. Her body felt heavy, as if she were sinking into a sand dune.
“Where am I?”
This time she heard her own voice asking the question, but it was not a voice she recognized. What the heck was happening?
“We are on a train on our way to Clocksworth Academy. You might feel odd for a few hours, but you will be better soon. No need for you to worry, everything is fine. At least for now,” the young woman announced in a firm voice. Chocolate brown hair surrounded her olive toned face and ceased in a flawless bob at the end of her jaw. She was dressed in black and a black ring adorned her middle finger.
“I’m feeling sick... My head... My stomach...”
“I apologize but it’s standard procedure. We had to make the jump. We couldn’t risk letting you know where the train platform is located, you know, in case you change your mind and you don’t want to enroll the Academy anymore.”
“Where are we now?” asked Floriana.
“You don’t need to know that,” the woman replied strictly, before a calm and deep voice was heard behind them.
“I have always believed that all things depended upon Fortune, and nothing upon ourselves. Floriana, do you know who said that?” the man asked her.
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