Ancient Alliance - The First Human Mage

1: To My Children

I have lived a long life.
The passport says, ninety-five.

My body says 'to old' every morning.
But today is my birthday, and the family is gathering down below.

I have not been as grand an explorer as my family, but I have witness some unique things.

When I had my sixty birthday, we went on a trip through Latin America.
We visited many unique places.

My dad was a famous spy in the first world war.
And he got knighted for his deeds.

I was an ace pilot in the second world war.
I had shot down twenty air-planes, in the war. So I also got knighted.

The title gave us something that is allowed to very few.
We got to spend a weekend at Machu Picchu in Peru.
My wife, our son and me.
Camping in the old ruins of that long forgotten city.

Some pictures of Machu Picchu has a large mountain in the back ground.

My son was twelve and was wild, like I was at that age.
He got bored with the old buildings, and was trying to climb a small mountain.

I was walking behind him, when he tried to climb the small mountain.

He slipped and The mountain side collapsed.
My wife screamed, and the boy had a roller coaster ride down ten meter of the mountain.

He was shocked, and crying.
He had many cuts and dust in his eyes.

We could not get to him, because of the lose gravel.

Some of the helpers got a rope around a tree.
They threw the rope down to him.
He got it around himself, and they started pulling him up.

They got him two meters up, when he started to shout.
I had my head over the edge, and signal them to stop.
My wife was going crazy over, that he might be harmed.

My son started to shout:
“I have found something, dad.
It looks like a wall, or something.”

I shout: “Do You have a camera.?
Take a picture.”

He finds a camera in his small back pack, and takes ten pictures.
We get him hauled up, and get him cleaned and washed.

It is just cuts and brushes, nothing serious.

I talk with the local guys, and ask about the wall behind the mountains.
They know nothing about it.

The next day, I take the rope, and descend down to the wall.
The local guys are pulling the rope, and my son is telling them what to do.

I find a wall, and an small opening.
It looks like an ancient wall.
Maybe older than the buildings on the top.

I have taken the two cheap cameras and two torches with me.
When I get down to the opening, I signal them to stop.
It is a small ledge, maybe twenty centimetres wide.
The opening is closer to a small window, or what might be, maybe an air duct.
There are dirty all around the opening.
I kick at the dirt, and most of it falls in.
The opening is to small for me, but my son, maybe small enough.

I use the torchlight to scan the inside of the wall.

It is deep.
The torchlight can only reach the floor and the ceiling close to the opening.
I take the cheap camera, and shot pictures, with a flash on.

It might give me something, or nothing at all.

I shout for them to haul me up again.

When I reach the top, I describe the findings.

I say: “It might be a completely new found, ancient building.”

The local guys are excited, because this means more fame and more tourists.

The local village has a small short-wave radio.
We use it to claim the find in my sons name.

The local museum that has the job of looking after the ancient site, congratulates us.
They want to start the exploration and are ready to start a day later.

We get some more and better ropes, and pulleys, and descend once more.

I have convinced my wife, to let our son go down with me.
He is a little to big, to easily get into the hole, but after stripping naked, but for underpants...
He gets inside.

Maybe the first human in a Thousand years, to walk there.

I give him his shoes and a shirt.
I hand him the flash-light, and a small lamp.
He set the lamp on the floor, and lights it.

The lamp only shows the floor, and the ceiling.
But it will serve as a point, if he gets lost.

I say: “Use a minute to follow the wall, and then come back.”

He starts walking along the wall.
It takes him forever to come back.
Okay. Maybe only two or three minutes...

He says: “It is a large cavern.”

I say: “It is carved or natural.?”

He walks around and says: “It has been carved, but is … I don't know.”

I say: “If the ground is okay, walk twenty steps into the room.”

He says: “Okay.”
I can see the light moving away.
He has walk into the cavern, and stand in the middle.
He turns around, and walks back.

He says: “I can see small rooms, around the sides.”

I say: “Take this camera, and take some pictures.
First five should be of the Wall and floor.”

He takes the camera, and takes some pictures.

He says: “I can walk to the first room.
Is it okay, if I go there.?”

I say: “Yes. And take the rest of the pictures.”

He is again gone for maybe three or four minutes.

I can see the flash from the camera.

He comes back and says: “No more power on the flash.”

I say: “What is in the room.?”

He says: “Looks boring. Just some old stone plates with writing on them.”

I say: “Ancient text that tell of life before the Incas. And You found them.?”

I chuckle: “You better get out, before your mother kills me.”

I help him out, and we hug.

The guy on top shouts: “Policia, Policia.“

My son says: “The cops are here.”

I say: “Better hide the cameras, and then play nice.”

We get up to the surface.
The police is closing down the area.
We get to go home.

They try to hide that we found the site, and get their own people to do the excavation.
But I have a little cloud, from my title as knight.

That we have about fifty pictures, twenty from the inside, does go a long way.

The site is now called the Ancient library.
It took them seven years to excavate the site.

And yes, as my son said, it is just boring stone plates, with writing on them.

The Writing is dated back, more than fifteen thousand years.

Before the last ice age, and before humans was really out of Africa.

My son has grown up, and become an expert on ancient civilization.
He says arcology, his wife says Tomb Raider.

My son made two great discoveries in his life.
The Ancient library, and Love.

He fall for an Japanese understudy in his advanced ancient civilization class.
And he gotten me,... grandchildren.

The youngest is standing in front of me now.
The girl says: “Grandpa. Mum says, You have to come down to your own birthday.”

I am in my office.
My son found the library, and the stone tablets.
Twenty thousands stone tablets.

We still don't know, what they say.
We know that they start with a date, and we can guess at the numbers.
But the text, we can't read that yet.

I have tried for the last thirty years.

My granddaughter stands and looks at my papers.
They are a copy of one of the tablets.

She ask: “What are you doing.?”

I try to explain to her, that it is a secret language that her father found and I try to learn it.

She ask: “Won't dad tell you what is says.?”

I laugh at the child's idea.

I say: “Nobody knows the language.”

She ask: “What is up and down.?”

I am about to tell her, when I realize something.

I says: “I don't know.?”

She climbs on my knee and says: “That sign looks like the Japanese sign for mum.
That looks like it is a house or home.”

I just play along with her, and we find ten signs that can be something in Japanese.

I punch in the signs in an AI, a guy has made for me.
It should be able to translate the language, if it knowns enough signs.

Her mother comes into the office, and looks at what we are doing.
My grandchild explains what she found.
Her mother says, that it does look like ancient Japanese signs.

She looks through the signs and find three more, that is from an older version of Japanese.
And seven from Chinese.

Then we only need two-hundred more, and we can read the language.

They force me to be social for the rest of the day.

The next day, I sleep in late.

I am old and has gotten to much cake, and brandy last night.
It was nice, and hearing about the family and their lifes.

But something in the back of my mind was grinding away.

I go to my office after breakfast.
The AI program is running, but not finding anything useful.

I start to flip through old languages.
I had an idea, and find maybe ten more signs from ancient languages, that we know.

I write a small article about it, and publish my findings.

Twenty-five signs maybe identified.
Comparing ancient language signs, maybe the way to creak the code to the library.

My son is the first to comments:
“Sound like a good idea.”

I say: “I hope so.

Your daughter came up with it.”

Then I go down, to eat lunch and take a nap on the sofa.

When I come back up, another twenty has commented.
Some with ideas for other of the signs.
Something as stupid as turning the signs ninety degrees, yields another ten sings.

I work on the ideas, and feed the data to the IA.

The next morning it comes out with a result.