Jade slept late, as instructed, and then lingered in her room for a while, just looking around. It was pretty bare, ...

Eventually, she ventured out into the hallway, and found her way back over to the cafeteria area.

Dorian was the only one there when she entered. He was sitting at the table, reading what looked like a thick scroll partially unrolled on the table while he absentmindedly forked mouthfuls of an omelet into his mouth. She noticed his feet didn't reach the ground, and he swung his legs as he ate and read. He looked up as she came in.

"Hi Jade!"

"Hi Dorian."

"Join me! I think Mr. Norton prepared something more suitable for you, in the kitchen fridge over there, since we didn't know when you'd be up."

"Thanks, I'll go take a look."

Mr. Norton had been thoughtful: It was a raw ribeye on a plate under some cellophane, with a little paper note that said, "For Jade. ~N" in fancy looking cursive. She brought it back to Dorian's table and sat down across from him.

"Oh hey, Pel said she told you about your prophesy? Did you know you're the second person to arrive here because of a prophecy?" Dorian asked.

"The second? Who was the first?" Jade replied, with genuine curiosity.

"Me!" said Dorian brightly.

"Wow. What did it say?"

"It wasn't long like yours. Mine just said, in ancient Sanskrit, something like, 'Good morning Dorian. Soon a friendly centaur will come to take you home. This is fine.'"

Jade cracked up. "What kind of prophecy is that?"

"I know right?" said Dorian.


Xander trotted forward slowly and quietly on padded hooves, the light from his torch the only illumination in the dark, narrow passageway. It paid to be careful in these places indicated by clues to Atlantis. Sometimes there were traps, and sometimes there were monsters. He wasn't afraid, though. On the contrary, he felt exhilarated. He loved nothing better than to be where no other soul had been in thousands of years, and this place was as old as any he had seen.

His anticipation increased as the light found the end of the hall, and he was able to see that the passageway ahead ended in a door with the great symbol of ancient Atlantis, and a magical puzzle lock, just like the others they had found. Every genuine clue to Atlantis had ultimately led somewhere like this, and each time they had found one, after months or even years of speculation, research, and fruitless expeditions, it had always rewarded them with some freshly shocking revelation from the past. He settled contentedly in to the puzzle of the door.

Six hours later, the tumblers fell into place, and the outline of the door glowed faintly blue. Xander sighed with satisfaction as he emerged from his trance-like state of concentration, and lit a fresh torch from his pack. This was it. Behind this door, now waiting only for his touch, was the next step in their journey. This one had taken two years to identify, and another five months to pinpoint. They had located it from the sparsest of hints, pieced together from several scrolls, parchments, and engravings found all over the world. It was bound to be important, and perhaps even the final piece of the puzzle.

With loving reverence, Xander leaned forward and reached down to touch the handprint outline on the door. With barely inaudible music playing in the back of his mind and a thousand clicking sounds from the mechanico-magical mechanism within the door, it opened, and a blinding light burst from inside. Xander drew back his hand and shielded his eyes, dropping the torch. He raised his spear, but didn't expect to need it. His soul thrilled to the crescendoing music of the door.

As his eyes adjusted to the light from the previous pitch darkness, he peered inside.

"Hi! I'm Dorian, probably!", said what looked like an eight year old human boy, speaking in an ancient dialect of Celestial that Xander had never before heard spoken aloud.

Xander was only frozen with surprise for a moment. At times like this, his phlegmatic nature always served him well. Doing his best to infer correct pronunciation from the child's own brief utterance, Xander began, "Greetings and salutations, Dorian. My name is Xander, and I come searching for the lost secrets of Atlantis, on a quest to restore the true foundations of magic to all sentient-"

"You must be my friendly centaur!"

"I..." Xander paused. "I do fit that description, yes."

"I'm sorry, I interrupted your speech."

"That's quite alright."

"Did you want to finish?"

Xander stared at Dorian for another moment, then said, "I think perhaps I should take a moment to collect my thoughts first."

"Sounds good! Me too. I just woke up a moment ago, so I'm still pretty groggy. I wasn't expecting you so soon."

They stood in silence for several minutes. Then Xander asked, "Do you live here?"

"I'm... not clear on that, actually. I was rather hoping I would remember more if I took some time to wake up, but... It's still pretty empty in here!" Dorian said, tapping his temple with a laugh. "Though I suppose there are some inferences to be drawn from our surroundings."

Xander had been about to ask more about Dorian, but his curiosity now got the better of him. "Such as?"

Dorian turned around then and gestured at the walls behind him. Still in that bright, enthusiastic voice of his, he said, "Well, this is written in six different languages, but I seem to be able to read everything ok, so whatever all I've forgotten, it must involve quite some scholarship. Or maybe I'm magically able to read anything... I'll test that later. Then there's the fact that the room seems completely sealed, apart from the door you're still standing in, and I don't see any food or water, so I've been in some kind of magical suspension. The runes are all worn down somewhat, which... kinda freaks me out a little! In a magically sealed room, that would take a loooooooooong time..." he laughed, a bit nervously but not unhappily.

Catching Dorian's enthusiasm for the puzzle, Xander observed, "The crystal light sources are quite bright, yet the coloration of that lacquered hanging remains unfaded, so perhaps they were only just now illumined... I expect you do need light to see?"

Dorian cupped both of his hands over his eyes experimentally, a then let them drop again. "Yup! So it's likely I've been just lying around in that open sarcophagus over there for something like... mmm... 10,000 to 100,000 years, also factoring in the general decrepitude... Makes me feel rather..." He paused and thought for a moment. "Hungry! You wouldn't happen to have a sandwich on you?"

Xander, his guard briefly back up at "hungry", but immediately relaxed again at "sandwich", pulled a packet of jerky from a pouch and held it out for Dorian. Then he watched him eat it. Eventually, he said, "You eat."

"A good sign I think!" said Dorian. "It implies I'm probably natural and organic, rather than merely some kind of sending, or projection, or spirit, or golem."

"Well, as strange as your presence here is, I think I've seen enough to be convinced you're not likely dangerous to me. It's possible that you're the very reason I came here," said Xander.

"Oh, I could have told you that," replied Dorian.

"...Huh?"

Dorian, who had just that moment taken another bite of the tough jerky, pointed silently at the ceiling above the sarcophagus, where, deeply carved in ancient Sanskrit, were the words, "Good morning Dorian. Soon a friendly centaur will come to take you home. This is fine."

Dorian looked pleased at the shock on Xander's face. Then he said, "We'll have to check later if that's anything like my own handwriting, of course."

Xander stared at the ceiling for a moment, and then said, absentmindedly, "'Take you home'... to your home, or to mine, I wonder..."

Dorian, still munching his jerky, said thickly, "Since you came through the door only about five minutes after I had woken up and climbed out, I think that gives the prophesy a rather immediate interpretational context, and I have no idea where my home was, or is. So I think it means yours. Or perhaps we're making a distinction without a difference, if it makes any sense for me to live in the same place as you for a while. Perhaps it's my home too now."

Xander looked back down to stare at Dorian. He said, "You're very unusual, for your appearance... Aren't you the least bit put off by your predicament? Aren't you afraid?"

"I'm not sure how I would know for sure if I was unusual, but I do have the feeling you're right! I also get the feeling you're pretty unusual yourself Mr. Xander! As for being put off, or afraid, sure. But that comes in degrees, and the puzzle of the thing seems pretty exciting at the moment, don't you think?"

Xander laughed aloud, a deep booming chuckle in the silence. Dorian had no way of knowing how uncommon that was for him. Then Xander said, "I do think. Dorian, we shall get along just fine." He took a notebook, some parchment paper, and some charcoal sticks from his pouch, and offered them. "I wonder if you would be interested in helping to record every inch of the room before we head home. We need to take rubbings of these engravings, and record all of our observations. We should also attempt to bring along anything that seems portable and important."

Dorian beamed, swallowed his bite of jerky, took the archeological implements, and got to his feet. "I would love to." The two of them started in on the walls, while they continued their discussion.

"By the way," said Dorian. "What's Atlantis?"