The White Order by L. E. Modesitt Jr

Author:L. E. Modesitt Jr. [Modesitt, L. E. Jr.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Science Fiction & Fantasy, Favorite Author
ISBN: 9780812541717
Amazon: 0812541715
Publisher: Tor Fantasy
Published: 1999-04-15T04:00:00+00:00

LIV

CERRYL SAT AT the table, looking blankly at the slate and the wedge of chalk beside it. The whole room smelled of chalk, unlike any of the other mages’ chambers he had been inside.

Standing at the other side of the ancient table was the heavyset Esaak, wearing flowing white robes of the older style, rather than the white tunic and trousers used by Sterol and Jeslek and all of the younger mages.

“Master scholar Cerryl . . . might I have your attention?” Esaak’s jowls wobbled as he spoke, and his voice rumbled.

“Ser?”

“Have you read any of the book I left for you? Naturale Mathematicks, it is called, if you do not remember.”

“Only a few pages, ser.”

“Why not more, might I ask? Is the ancient and honored study of mathematicks beneath you?” Esaak half-turned, walking a few paces across the dusty floor.

“No, ser. I fear I am beneath it.”

“Such refreshing honesty.” The older mage’s words dripped irony. “You seek to disarm me with false modesty.” He coughed several times, with a rumbling deeper than even his bass voice.

Cerryl felt tongue-tied, feeling he was off on the wrong foot.

“Well?”

“No, ser. I can read and write, but my education has been limited to history mostly. The honored Jeslek has insisted that I read all of Colors of White and complete a large map within a short period of time. I have to do some anatomie drawings for the mage Broka. I read the first section of the Mathematicks, but much of it was so unfamiliar . . .”

“Tell me what you thought you read . . .”

Cerryl wanted to sigh.

“Go on. What was the first section about? Surely, surely, you can tell me what the words said?”

Why did all the mages ask questions rather than tell anything? It seemed to Cerryl almost as though he were being asked to teach them. He moistened his lips. “Ser . . . the very beginning I understood. That was about the history of reckoning, where the first use of numbers were words like ‘yoke’ and ‘pair’ or ‘couple’—two things because we have two hands. Then, as people gathered more goods or crops, or lived in larger settlements, larger numbers were needed, and they came up with terms to count larger groups of things, like ‘score’ and ‘stone’ . . .”

“What is similar about the two?”

Cerryl looked as blank as he felt.

“They’re each a pair multiplied by ten,” snapped Esaak. “A stone is a pair of fists ten times over. A score is a couple of hunters ten times over. Go on.”

“Then the book started talking about something called partition enumeration . . .”

“And when it got a little difficult . . . you stopped reading?”

“No, ser. I kept reading. I understood the idea of dividing groups of things into groups of the same size and using symbols to represent larger numbers, like ten score, but when it started on how to scrive such numbers, and that you had to have a symbol for nothing . . .

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