Chapter 4: Breakthrough

Skinner is certain he can teach himself to read the writing on the wall. He just needs the key . . .

 

Chapter 4: Breakthrough

Time slipped by in a meaningless series of seasons. By day, Skinner foraged and worked on his physical needs. By night he studied the scroll and wall. He used charred sticks to write on dried lizard skins, which he favored for writing on, having experimented with numerous kinds of hide. Socrates disappeared now and then for various lengths of time. Skinner only noticed when the wolf returned that he had been gone, unless he got into trouble on this wilder side of the mountain.

Socrates had a habit of getting into losing battles with the black bears. For some reason Skinner could not guess, the wolf seemed unable to tell when the bears were around. The bears themselves seemed to have a penchant for hunting the wolf, as if it were some kind of sport. They attacked in stealth and seemed content to injure grievously, getting quite excited over the smell of blood.

One particularly cold day, Skinner was surprised to find himself cornered by one of the black bears between a cliff wall and a line of close, straight trees. Socrates had stayed out of the cold while Skinner ventured out for firewood. Now the bear, a head taller than Skinner, stood growling and shuffled toward him.

“Don’t you fecund beasties hibernate?” he asked crossly. “I have quite enough furs, thank you.”

The bear advanced menacingly, moving its head back and forth. Its drool melted the snow at its feet. It lumbered toward him, slobbering stupidly, but Skinner saw something in the beast’s eyes, something greater than animal hunger.

“That’s quite enough,” Skinner growled. “Now turn around and make your way home.”

It growled and took another step toward him. He lashed out suddenly with his staff and smacked the bear hard in the nose. It roared with shocked pain, then ran noisily away.

“Guess there’s more than one way to prove . . .” He stopped suddenly. His eyes flicked at the sky for a second, and then he sprinted back to the cave.

“Figured it out, Soxy,” he told the wolf, who sniffed him as dogs do. “Epiphany. That’s what they call it. I’ve had one. Just now.”

Skinner opened his lizard scrolls and looked through them, then compared them to the wall and nodded. Soon he had copied the pattern he finally figured to be the elements of the language.

His eyes fell to a pair of symbols he had noticed time and again on both the scroll and the wall. Both were centered in the rightmost blocks. One was what he thought for sure was a pictograph to symbolize a scroll, something like a stylized ampersand. The second he had puzzled over for many evenings. He had copied it numerous times, but always at the same size. Now he drew it larger and larger until he found a shape that made sense to him.

“Tongues,” he crowed. Socrates perked his ears. “Three tongues. Or one tongue wagging?”

He rolled it around in his mind, trying to imagine why he would use such a symbol. Grabbing another charstick, he started writing words beside the symbols. He stared until the chill brought him to the realization that his fire was low. He got up and stoked it, running the words through his mind.

“Can’t think with all this noise in my head,” he complained to Socrates, making his way to his cache of mushrooms and roots.

He sat cross-legged, staring into the fire as the mushrooms took effect. Cautious of being overly inebriated, he placed a two-inch piece of root into his mouth. Having chewed the bark off the root, he realized suddenly that it tasted wrong. He spat it out quickly and stared at it. Though it was very similar to the sassafras-like root with the faint licorice taste, this root was much darker and pulpier beneath the bark. It tasted more of cinnamon mixed with clove and nutmeg.

He retched into the fire, his head spinning. He grew feverish and dizzy. The walls began to waver as though they were water. Strange noises assaulted his ears. Chills ran through his core and spread to his fingers. His vision seemed to smear like oil on water. He retched again.

There was no way to tell how long his hallucinations lasted. When he came to his senses again, Skinner’s head and stomach ached. He swore softly, but thanked his lucky stars that he was still alive. His breathing calmed finally. The retching left a horrible taste in his mouth. His hair and beard were soaked with sweat, and he had bruises he guessed must be from seizures. His memory seemed to have quit recording after the first bout of retching. Cold ashes pooled in the cave floor where his fire had been. He wondered how the thick, bearskin blanket had gotten around him.

“Bad combination,” he shrugged at Socrates, who sat watching him warily. He stumbled out into a snow bank to cool his head.

Refreshed, he returned to sit by the wolf and stroke its head. “Sorry, Sox. ‘Bout left ya.”

He sat leaning on the wolf, rubbing and scratching its thick winter fur. It surprised him to find tears streaming from his eyes a few minutes later. For the first time in over a year, he was lonely to the point of depression. He cried himself to sleep, ignoring his own better sense telling him he needed to renew his fire.

W          W          W

“Polyglot!” Skinner sat bolt upright, awakened wild-eyed from a sound sleep. He thought the echoes from the walls turned it into a question.

“Yes,” he whispered. “Yes.”

He scrambled over to his notes and scrolls. Unconsciously, he had summoned his luminorbs. They floated brilliantly in orbit around his head an arm’s length away. He stared feverishly at the wall that had been the focal point of his life for so long.

“Polyglotus!” he berated the wall. “Polyglot. Polyglotus. Polyglotimus scrollobus! SHOW ME.” His voice echoed eerily several times, joined by a high-pitched howl from Socrates.