THE QUEST FOR THE FOUNT OF KNOWLEDGE

PROLOGUE

You found me at last.  I’ve been waiting for you.  You seek what I have failed to find.

You may see before you a, tired, blind, and melancholic old man, but once I was young, full of life and invincible! I travelled the world, boldly going where no one had gone before…well at least nowhere a nobody somebody from Northamptonshire had gone before anyway.  I wanted to see everything, know everything, experience everything that the World had to offer.  

I have seen things you would not believe.  Meteors shooting through the shoulder of Orion.  I watched fire flies glitter under the shadow of giant Sequoia in Yosemite.  All these moments stardust in my mind.  

I think of these moments now, bought to tears by the memory of their beauty, and the rare privilege bestowed upon me to witness these events, yet overwhelmed with grief that I did not appreciate these gifts for then I was never satisfied.  I was never happy, never fulfilled, never taking the time to appreciate what I had, always looking forward.  I was restless.  There was something missing in my life.  Something. An itch on the edge of my consciousness, but tantalisingly, maddeningly just out of reach.

I began hearing of rumours, whispers, that spoke of an Oracle.  An overheard conversation in Laos.  Gossip on the back streets of Jakarta, a news article in Singapore.  The Oracle, these snippets of idle tittle tattle told, knew of a place that if a person were to find, that person would hold within their grasp and have at their disposal all the knowledge in the World.  Imagine the power such knowledge could yield!  This, I thought, was what I was looking for!  This was what I had been seeking.  Oh the riches that would be at my disposal I thought.  With renewed vigour I set out on my quest to seek out this Oracle, to find this place and fulfil my dreams and desires.  I have had many years now to reflect on how my selfishness and single-mindedness, my passion, no, my obsession came to consume my life. 

For months I trekked through the cloying, dripping heat of the Amazon - the fetid air invading my nostrils for weeks after - to find the Yanomami tribe who talked of a place of trees in a far off land.  Burnt, parched and close to death in the Sahara I stumbled into a Sahrawi tribe encampment.  Under a sky of a billion stars, warmed by their fire fending off the coldness of the night they talked of a place of lush fields and rain.  And on ice covered plains in the north of Nunavut, the Metis bade me to look for rolling hills and craggy outcrops.  Many more places and people I visited gaining more pieces of information as to where the Oracle might be.  Finding many dead ends, blind alleys and paths that petered out to nothing, my hope and resolve of ever finding the Oracle began to waiver. And then, one day, I found her.

Climbing through fields roaming with sheep, overlooking the Menai Straits, a waterfall cascading to my right, a butterfly fluttered and gently landed on my shoulder. As I paused, captivated by the lustre of this painted beauty’s wings, a microscopic drop of water magnifying the delicate structure, the world moved on and a lifetime past, my impatience to meet the person whom I’d pursued for nearly 20 years momentarily gone.  Then a breeze off the waterfall lifted the butterfly and carried it away into the trees carrying the moment with it.

I carried on up the hill, following the flight of the butterfly and passed deeper into the forest.  The air under the canopy cooled, the birdsong muted and the light dappled through the leaves.  The air held the scent of recent rain, the earthy, ozone smell filling my lungs as I drank it it deeply.  Eventually I came to a clearing.  A shaft of sunlight illuminated a small wooden hut, its ancient timber hardened like stone, iridescent in the shimmering light.

As I walked toward the hut a robin fluttered down onto a rock near me, its head cocked to the side, a quizzical look on its face as though questioning my right to intrude upon its territory.  I walked up to the door and knocked.  A voice as ancient and soft as the timbers yet crackling with authority, wisdom and omniscience directed me enter.

As my eyes adjusted to the low light of a kerosene lamp and a gently glowing fire casting their warmth within the hut but no strong enough to penetrate the infinite pitch black depths of the huts corners, the spartan interior was slowly revealed to me.  A threadbare rug covering part of the wood-planked floor lay beside a simple wooden table and two high-back chairs.  Above the fire a pot hung from a chain, wisps of herb, vegetable and meat odours gently rising to tease my stomach and salivate my mouth.  I could make out the shadow of a bed against the back wall. And in an old, saggy chair, baggy and a bit loose at the seams, sat the Oracle.

Lines like dry riverbed deltas on Mars spread across her face and forehead, and liver spots marked her suntanned and wind blasted face as craters would the moon, bearing witness to the epochs they had endured.  Out of which stared intense, yet kind and sensitive blue eyes.  A smile lit her face.

'You found me at last.’ She said.  ‘I’ve been waiting for you.  You seek what I have found. You think your journey is near the end but it has just begun.’  She told me of her journey.  The years of sacrifice she had given over to find the Fount of Knowledge.

She told me that to understand the meaning of life, to hold in your hands (I was going to point out that maybe it should be ‘holding in one’s head’ but the look in her eyes advised me not to contradict her) the answer to life the universe and everything was not something to be given away lightly or freely.  Such knowledge needed to be earned.

She told me of 13 scrolls on which she had written 13 puzzles which, in the form of anagrams, would give 13 locations.  She had then written a cryptic clue to find a specific artefact, painting or object found within these locations, each one giving one part of a coordinate that would give the exact location of the Fount of all Knowledge.  Whomever, she said, was able to correctly decipher these clues would be worthy of finding the Fount of all Knowledge. 

The Oracle did not keep these scrolls, but hid them in places around the World. She handed me a scroll, on which were 13 puzzles and 13 clues which would direct me to the locations of these 13 scrolls.  Many had come to her door she said and none were successful in finding all 13 scrolls.

'Take your time whilst exploring these places of wisdom and learning.  Soak up the knowledge they give up for this knowledge will fill you and enrich you and aid you on your quest,' the Oracle implored.

‘Rest before you begin your journey’, she spoke kindly and gently.  She shared a her nourishing broth and I sat down with her to break bread.  As we ate she told me more of her journeys deep into the night.  I slept and when I woke the Oracle was gone.  The fire was cold and stale, musty air pervaded the hut’s interior, cobwebs hung from rotting rafters and the floor and surfaces were covered in a thick layer of dust as though the hut had been empty and uninhabited for years.  I gathered my belongings and continued my quest.

A long and winding world I travelled for…I don’t know how long. 10 years, 20 years?  It could have been 30 for time lost its meaning to me.  All that mattered was solving the Oracle’s puzzles and finding the scrolls, taking me a step closer to my goal.  The Dead Sea, Machu Picchu, Basildon (don’t ask), the national archives of more cities and countries than I care to remember.  After many more dead-ends, cul-de-sacs and blind alleys I finally tracked down all 13 scrolls!

I should have been overwhelmed with joy, buoyed by the thought I was a step closer to what I had sought for most of my life but alas I was not.  I had travelled many thousands of miles, visited a multitude of countries, sweated and burned under countless suns, shivered and froze beneath many moons and scraped, stung, bruised or broke every part of my body on a million rocks, plants and creatures.  Ravaged by arthritis and half blind I found I had not the body or energy to continue.  It took me many years to reconcile myself to the fact that I would never fulfil my dream.

Perhaps you can succeed where I have failed.  Here, take these scrolls and find what I could not.  There is a powerful tool at your disposal that was not available to me in my quest and one, because of my eyesight cannot use.  And even if I could my internet connection is worse that my eyes!

I have learnt of a new Oracle called Google:

• Seek out Google’s Arts and Culture.  
• Where Google encourages you to Explore, follow its path to the World’s Collections.
• Once you have deciphered the Oracle’s puzzles you will find the gateway to the locations you need within these Collections.
• You will be able to enter the location through a round portal signposted ‘Explore’.
• Follow the Oracle’s clues to the artefact, painting or object that will give you a co-ordinate.  Here is a scroll she gave  me on which you can keep a record of the coordinates.

• Once you have the 13 parts of the coordinate, enter these into Google Earth or Google Maps and you will find the Fount of All Knowledge!

Follow the advice the Oracle gave me, for it indeed helped me on my quest and has enriched my life, take your time in these places, explore and soak up their knowledge for though I have not visited the places you will go, I have been to many others that have enriched me so. All I ask is that you make an old man happy and tell me of the location you find.  You can write to me at fountofknowledgequest@gmail.com

Here are the scrolls.  Good luck my friend.  I look forward to hearing from you again.

THE SCROLLS

Scroll 1:  Starry, Starry Night

Dry Sea Mouse Pairs (5,6,5)

You’ll find me on the same floor as Suzanne Vega’s Luca.  I looked out of my window, on a summer’s day, the light shimmering off my blue painted walls, drying my towel as it hung on a peg.  

What was the second number of the date I created this personal painting?

Scroll 2: Emerging Dawn

La, Jagle Putty (1,4,5,1,1)

An impressive impressionist view.  Smoke billows from a stack. A scene of old and new, the ephemeral light casting in shadow a new dawning France on this marine scene.  

Including this painting, how paintings are there on the wall on which they hang?

Scroll 3: A Canadian Tree in an Eastern Land

A yak tail on Panto Jon (5,8,5)

By a river to the North in Autumn a shrine already covered in snow.  Viewers of this syrup giving tree relax drinking tea.  

Leave the room into the other gallery with traditional dress.  Count the number of black sofas and divide by 2.

Scroll 4:  What the F?

I face frilly furgle zone (6,7,8)

Margarine perhaps, a Goddess of flowers or all plant life.  Take your pick.  

How many people without beards are in the painting to the left of me?

Scroll 5:  The Salad and the Soothsayer

I transport Gaul (6,8)

Seek out the salad and the Soothsayer.  

Explore! Under the painting of a woman dressed in blue is a chest.  How many plates are on the chest?

Scroll 6:  You Wait Ages For One And Then….

Slam zip bra (4, 6)

A modern masterpiece of architecture (Niemeyer inspired maybe) and transport.  

Find the painting with the office blocks and public transport.  How many people sit in the second window to the left on the second pubic vehicle from the left?  The blue one.

Scroll 7:  Coining It

Lion hunts meal.  U made wine. (8,6,3,5) 

The Golgafrinchans used leaves, ancient Rome had the Talent.  India had the Hon, the Shivrai and then the Rupee. Find the room of coin cabinets.  

Look for the cabinet that is the ninth Distinct Semi-prime Number.  What is the 4th English letter on the sign in the display box?

Scroll 8: Ferrero Roche Anyone?

Lone rally don’t gain loan (8,7,6)

A distorted skull, a celestial globe, portable sundial, a musical instrument and two official envoys.  

Look closely.  How many broken springs are on the lute?

Scroll 9: Light of Hope

A tempest rages, ruins St Brutus’ muse (5,7,6,2,10)

Beethoven’s last symphony with one of Katrina’s backing group will find this scene of destruction and power of nature over humanity.  

Look closely.  If one was to fall and perish how many would be left?

Scroll 10:  Wild Animals

Whales out west really rang (3,7,3,5,5)

You won’t find me in the Rhonda valley, but you might find me where Vegemite is made.  

How many Macropodidae are there in the gallery shop menagerie? 

Scroll 11:  Long Walk

Robin Bland won’t escape (6,6,4,4)

Colina, kombuis, keuken.  

Find the last digit next to the Vulcan.  Live long and prosper!

Scroll 12: An Ancient Babel Fish

Unsound thimble misor (7,6,6)

A decree in Ancient Egyptian Demotic and hieroglyphic and in Ancient Greek carved in stone over 2000 years ago.  

Find the translating granodiorite and count the number of people you see on the top left of the cabinet in which it sits.

Scroll 13:  The last puzzle - I bid you farewell!

Marko came (1,1,1,1,5)

A work by Kim Yong-ik, not vandalised by kids’ graffiti but finishing the work he said.  

Look closely and find the first letter of the missing word:  ‘Now it’s time to enshrine this _ _ _ _ in a museum.

You have the coordinates, now enter them into Google Earth or Maps and find the Fount of Knowledge!