Men at Arms

There was quite a crowd around them when they finally got the main door open. Lumps of ice clinked on the stones, and there was a rush of supercold air.

Frost covered the floor and the rows of hanging carcasses on their backwards journey through time. It also covered a Detritus-shaped lump squatting in the middle of the floor.

They carried it out into the sunlight.

“Should his eyes be flashing on and off like that?” said Dibbler.

“Can you hear me?” shouted Cuddy. “Detritus?”

Detritus blinked. Ice slid off him in the day's heat.

He could feel the cracking up of the marvellous universe of numbers. The rising temperature hit his thoughts like a flamethrower caressing a snowflake.

“Say something!” said Cuddy.

Towers of intellect collapsed as the fire roared through Detritus' brain.

“Hey, look at this,” said one of the apprentices.

The inner walls of the warehouse were covered with numbers. Equations as complex as a neural network had been scraped in the frost. At some point in the calculation the mathematician had changed from using numbers to using letters, and then letters themselves hadn't been sufficient; brackets like cages enclosed expressions which were to normal mathematics what a city is to a map.

They got simpler as the goal neared—simpler, yet containing in the flowing lines of their simplicity a spartan and wonderful complexity.

Cuddy stared at them. He knew he'd never be able to understand them in a hundred years.

The frost crumbled in the warmer air.

The equations narrowed as they were carried on down the wall and across the floor to where the troll had been sitting, until they became just a few expressions that appeared to move and sparkle with a life of their own. This was maths without numbers, pure as lightning.

They narrowed to a point, and at the point was just the very simple symbol: “=”.

“Equals what?” said Cuddy. “Equals what?”

The frost collapsed.

Cuddy went outside. Detritus was now sitting in a puddle of water, surrounded by a crowd of human onlookers.

“Can't one of you get him a blanket or something?” he said.

A very fat man said, “Huh? Who'd use a blanket after it had been on a troll?”

“Hah, yes, good point,” said Cuddy. He glanced at the five holes in Detritus' breastplate. They were at about head height, for a dwarf. “Could you come over here for a moment, please?”

The man grinned at his friends, and sauntered over.

“I expect you can see the holes in his armour, right?” said Cuddy.

C. M. O. T. Dibbler was a survivor. In the same way that rodents and insects can sense an earthquake ahead of the first tremors, so he could tell if something big was about to go down on the street. Cuddy was being too nice. When a dwarf was nice like that, it meant he was saving up to be nasty later on.

“I'll just, er, go about my business, then,” he said, and backed away.

“I've got nothing against dwarfs, mind you,” said the fat man. “I mean, dwarfs is practically people, in my book. Just shorter humans, almost. But trolls… weeeelll… they're not the same as us, right?”

“'scuse me, 'scuse me, gangway, gangway,” said Dibbler, achieving with his cart the kind of getaway customarily associated with vehicles that have fluffy dice on the windscreen.

“That's a nice coat you've got there,” said Cuddy.

Dibbler's cart went around the corner on one wheel.

“It's a nice coat,” said Cuddy. “You know what you should do with a coat like that?”

The man's forehead wrinkled.

“Take it off right now,” said Cuddy, “and give it to the troll.”

“Why, you little—”

The man grabbed Cuddy by his shirt and wrenched him upwards.

The dwarf's hand moved very quickly. There was a scrape of metal.

Man and dwarf made an interesting and absolute stationary tableau for a few seconds.

Cuddy had been brought up almost level with the man's face, and watched with interest as the eyes began to water.

“Let me down,” said Cuddy. “Gently. I make involuntary muscle movements if I'm startled.”

The man did so.

“Now take off your coat… good… just pass it over… thank you…”

“Your axe…” the man murmured.

“Axe? Axe? My axe?” Cuddy looked down. “Well, well, well. Hardly knew I was holding it there. My axe. Well, there's a thing.”

The man was trying to stand on tiptoe. His eyes were watering.

“The thing about this axe,” said Cuddy, “the interesting thing, is that it's a throwing axe. I was champion three years running up at Copperhead. I could draw it and split a twig thirty yards away in one second. Behind me. And I was ill that day. A bilious attack.”

He backed away. The man sank gratefully on to his heels.

Cuddy draped the coat over the troll's shoulders.

“Come on, on your feet,” he said. “Let's get you home.”

The troll lumbered upright.

“How many fingers am I holding up?” said Cuddy.

Detritus peered.

“Two and one?” he suggested.

“It'll do,” said Cuddy. “For a start.”