Durosimi O’Stoat pulled his overcoat tightly around him, in a forlorn effort to keep at bay the icy wind that was blowing in from the Atlantic. He hoped it would be worth his while, following Mr Squash for yet another long night of apparently aimless wandering. It puzzled Durosimi why the Sasquatch should have chosen to return to The Squid and Teapot at Christmas; after all, there is no good reason why anyone should be celebrating the season here on this most miserable of islands, Hopeless, Maine. The sorcerer, who was inclined to judge everyone by his own set of standards, could only conclude that the Sasquatch must have had an excellent, and probably dubious, motive to want to return.
For night after night, Durosimi trudged around after Mr Squash, keeping a safe distance downwind, and ducking into shadows at the slightest hint of discovery. When, after a week, and the whole enterprise seemed to be fruitless, he finally decided to cut his losses. It was during that eleventh hour that Durosimi overheard a snatch of conversation which, while heralding no clue as to why the Sasquatch had returned, made his catalogue of discomforts almost worthwhile.
“If the need arises,” he heard Mr Squash declare to Reggie Upton, “I can always build another portal to Tibet, or, indeed, to anywhere I choose. They’re not difficult to do.”
Durosimi held no illusions that Mr Squash would let him in on his secrets, but it was enough to know that these mysterious portals had been man-made (or Sasquatch-made in this instance) and not some natural phenomenon that could never be replicated. Durosimi was confident that, if the business of building a portal could be achieved by some overgrown neanderthal (his words), then he, the greatest sorcerer in the Northern Hemisphere (again, his words, unsurprisingly), would, with the application of his genius, be able to produce something at least as wonderful, if not better.
With these thoughts in his head, and the metaphorical bit lodged firmly between his teeth, Durosimi was now totally convinced that somewhere in his formidable library, hidden in that vast assortment of ancient tomes, forbidden grimoires, therimoires, diabologues, spell-books and an almost complete set of farmers’ almanacs, would lie the secret words which would open a portal to anywhere in the world, or, who knows, even the universe.
Over the following week, anyone passing Durosimi’s window might have spotted him at any hour of the day or night, bent over a manuscript of some description, or wrestling with a huge, leather bound book. His candles were burning from dusk until dawn, for having embarked upon this quest, he refused to eat or sleep until he had found the treasure that he was seeking.
One grey, misty morning Durosimi burst through his front door and exclaimed to the world, in triumph,
“I have it!”
Doc Willoughby, who happened to be passing by, hoped that, whatever it was that Durosimi had, it wasn’t contagious. To be on the safe side, he looked him over with a wary eye. Even Doc’s limited medical expertise could detect that Durosimi was not quite as he should be. His tired eyes glowed with a wild light, and he appeared to have lost weight. His skin was as yellow as the parchment he held in his shaking hands.
“It’s Etruscan,” Durosimi said excitedly.
“I can’t say that I’ve ever treated a case of that…”
began the Doc, but Durosimi was too excited to hear him.
“It has been copied from a tablet, but the answer is here, I’m sure…” said Durosimi.
“Ah, so you’ve got a tablet,” said Doc. “Tablets are good. Be sure to take plenty.”
It was then that Durosimi realised that Doc Willoughby had no idea what he was talking about.
“Willoughby, come on in, old friend, and I’ll explain everything,” he said. “You might be able to help.”
Doc was more than happy to obey. Old friend, eh? That boded well, and whisky seemed to be involved somewhere or other whenever Durosimi wanted to include Doc in his plans. Even at nine in the morning.
“So, you see,” confided Durosimi “It’s not just the likes of Squash who can build these portals, and the proof is all here, on this piece of parchment. I must admit, my grasp of Etruscan is a little rusty. but …”
“Remind me again what Etruscan is, exactly,” said the Doc, tentatively.
“Oh, it’s an ancient language,” explained Durosimi. “Pre-Indo and Paleo-European, of course, but not dissimilar to the Raetic and Lemnian languages.”
“Ah, yes, the Lemon languages. Splendid,” said the Doc knowledgeably. “Sorry, they had temporarily slipped my mind.”
“Anyway, as I was saying,” continued Durosimi, “as far as I can make out, the words on this parchment have been copied from a tablet that was inscribed about three thousand years ago. I’m sure, with a bit of diligence, it can be translated.”
“How are you going to do that?” Doc asked, accepting another tot of whisky.
“Fortunately,” said Durosimi, “Etruscan is an agglutinative language, where words contain multiple morphemes concatenated together. Do you follow my meaning?”
“Oh, absolutely,” said Doc, emptying his glass.
“As you’ll appreciate,” went on Durosimi, “what makes the whole process of translation easier is that the language is constructed in such a manner that each word stem can be isolated and identified as indicating a particular inflection or derivation… you know, passive suffix, causative suffix, etc. on verbs, and plural suffix, accusative suffix, dative suffix, etc. on nouns. Makes it fairly simple, eh?”
“Umm… indubitably,” replied a bewildered Doc, hoping that this was going to yield at least one more glass of whisky.
“So, that’s settled, then. You’ll help me?” urged Durosimi with a smile that he hoped was not too ingratiating.
“To do what?” asked Doc, who was beginning to wish that he had stayed in bed that morning.
Durosimi sighed and poured them both another shot of whisky.
It was going to be a long day.
