The Sceptre of Samnos

Dermakarak Part 6

     The bottle smashed on the statue's chest, splattering the clear, clean water across the crudely carved rock, but the warm feeling of satisfaction it gave her was wiped out in a sudden blast of terror as a distant howl of pain seemed to come from it. When she raised her eyes to look at its head, the features of the statue seemed to be contorted in a grimace of rage. The cleric's legs turned to water and cold sweat broke out across her body, but when she turned to the others they seemed entirely unaware that anything had happened, and when she looked back at the statue the effect was gone.

     Had she imagined it? She tried to make herself feel relieved and angry at herself for being silly, but then she remembered that Skorvos was more than just an idol, an image raised up by ignorant humanoids. Skorvos was a true God, every bit as divine as Caroli, even though He was as evil as She was good, and He was no doubt very aware of what she had done. All of a sudden, cleansing the temple didn't seem like such a good idea, but it had been her duty as a follower of the Lady of Healing, and Her goodness, Her pacifistic nature, didn't make Her any less powerful than the war God. She would protect her from the God of Conquest. She knelt for another prayer, renewing her love and devotion, and then went to the wall behind the statue, where words in the buglin's own language had been written in blood, probably describing the power and greatness of the evil God. She fished a handkerchief out of a pocket and started cleaning it off.

     "This will have to do for now," she muttered as one horrible word after another was smeared into illegibility. "No time to do a proper job." Then she came across a loose slab of rock, though, about three feet above the ground, so cunningly crafted as to be almost undetectable by sight alone. She carefully levered it out, looked behind it, and saw a hole about a foot deep containing a bundle of rags in which something was wrapped. As she took it out, Shale ran across and snatched it from her. "What have you got there, girl?" he asked, his voice trembling with excitement. He hurriedly pulled the rags apart and, sure enough, there in the middle was a rolled up sheet of parchment that he unrolled and stared at with wide, delighted eyes. Then he laughed in joy and triumph. "The Proof of Mantellor! The pride and glory of the Granore family is restored! Now Redeye can again rest in peace!" He turned to Diana. "My family owes you an undying debt of gratitude. If ever you need anything from us, it will be our pleasure to provide it."

     The others gathered around to stare at it. It looked at first like any other sheet of parchment, a pale dirty yellow, darker around the edges where it had been exposed to the air while rolled up, but there was a sheen to it, as if it was wet, and when Thomas reached out a hand to touch it it felt smooth and slippery, as if it had been soaked in oil, and yet it was dry. The lexin, he thought. The strange substance that keeps it from disintegrating from age. The writing was also strange. It wasn’t like any other script the others had ever seen before, not even the circles and dots of trog script. There were trog glyphs in amongst it, intermingled with other symbols the others had never seen before but which Thomas recognised from the Book of Axioms the trog cleric had shown him. Suddenly he knew what he was looking at. “This is mathematics!” he said in surprise.

     “Mantellor’s proof of Skewes’s theory,” said Bluin, looking a little shaky as if unable to believe he was in the same room with it. “The problem was handed down by Caratheodory Himself as a reward for Skewes’s brilliance and devotion but it remained unsolved for centuries. It is the pride of the Granore family that it was one of us who finally cracked it. It’s to do with prime numbers. The clerics could explain it better that I can...”

     “Later,” said Shale, rolling the parchment back up and tucking it carefully into a pocket of his robes. “We’ll have time for a proper maths lesson when we’re safely back in the human town.”

     "Does that mean we can leave now," asked Shaun.

     "Yes indeed," said Shale, to everyone's relief. "There are clearly too many of them for us to handle alone. We must find Rogil's group, get out, and return later with an army. We have only to show them this," he tapped his pocket, "and every lost member of our family will flock back to us. We will return with a hundred men, and our enemies will fly before us!" He grew serious for a moment. "Who could have guessed that their numbers would increase so quickly, though. Where have they all come from?" Suddenly, he noticed that there was someone missing. "Where's Jherek?" he asked. "He should be here for this moment of triumph."