Lesson 7 Rule: Everyone you meet in time is yourself.    Barry slowly walked along the marble path, he heard flautists spinning out interlocking melodies. The air dry and hot, and Barry had not showered in centuries.
  Barry counted forty-eight painted vases full of tall reeds, lining the walk. At the foot of marble stairs stands a forty-nineth, with two men in rags, one old, one young, pulling a stone towards a towering, half-finished pyramid. At the top of four stairs, a fiftieth, beside a bench, bears the image of a jackal-headed god.
  Writhing on the bench, a woman in a white robe wrapped herself around a soldier. The snake of her golden head pieces dipped down on to his neck.