Jean picked up the box. She looked at the carved symbols, none of them made any sense to her. In all of her linguistics training, she had never seen anything like them. Her instincts told her that they weren’t made by human hands.

The box itself was made from the wood of an ancient plum tree of the species: Prunus mume. It was said that the tree had graced the courtyard of the Sung Emperor Zhenzong, but the veracity of that statement had never been proven, although the timbers did come from an ancient tree, that much was certain.

She stared at the box and felt both fear and intrigue as she rotated the cylinder that held the latch in place. Then the hasp was freed and with trembling hands she opened the lid.

The box held an apparatus that from the side looked like a glass sphere encased in what appeared to be a type of metallic foam. The sphere seemed to emit a feeling almost like an invisible glow, and it was an eerie feeling of disembodiment.

Then she heard sound of footsteps and a mans voice.