'So what is it?'

'That's the problem, we don't know.' Professor Dawlish scratched his head in the manner of one not used to being confounded. 'It's been with Schild-Voss in archaeology, Shedden in antiquities, Malt in metallurgy and Wandle in anthropology. We've all drawn a blank.'

Parablaine studied the looks on the expectant faces of the eminent men crowded into his room. 'Well you must know something about it.'

'Oh yes, indeed – we recovered it at our dig earlier this year.' Schild-Voss nodded.

'At Ur?'

'Yes, you know the city in ancient Mesopotamia, we recovered it from under the ziggurat there. The university archaeological team have been going there for the last ten years under my guidance.'

'I know they have, to the old Sumerian city. Just because I study mathematics I'm not a complete ignoramus in everything else.'

'Yes of course. Sorry, Parablaine, but what do you think?'

Parablaine turned the object over in his hand. It filled his palm, a silvered device of a curious metallic construction, its unnatural weight suggested it was hollow. He ran his fingers over its surface, the shell like design had a bizarre series of patterns cut in its surface. 'Surely it's just a fossil that's somehow been coated and etched. It's a beautiful thing, remarkable in fact. Ornament, trophy, curiosity, tribute ...who knows?'

'No Parablaine,' Schild-Voss spoke with the authority of a man who knew his subject, 'it's more than that. It was found in a silver lined box under the ziggurat in a king's tomb of which we're dating at about 4,500 BC. We've not been able to discern its function, its metallurgical structure or the meaning of the inscriptions on it. The whole thing it totally alien to us. A damnable mystery.'

'Truly a UFO,' added Shedden, his face appearing oddly angelic in the frosty light that filtered into the room.

'UFO?' Queried Parablaine bemused.

'Unidentified Found Object,' chuckled Shedden.

'Oh, give over Shedden,' Malt threw him a look of reproach.

Parablaine turned it over in his hand a few times. 'Look, it's just not my field. Have you tried Mayers in Palaeontology?'

'Clueless.'

'Life Sciences. Liccey will know, he knows everything, he's constantly telling everyone that.'

'Looked at it once and returned it straight away saying he wasn't falling for a practical joke. He said the writing looked like elfish to him.'

'Well he would know, wouldn't he?' said Parablaine with a wry grin. 'Mind you think of Piltdown Man, are you sure someone's not pulling your leg.'

'It's not a joke, Parablaine or a plant,' said Malt frostily.

'Shrewsbury and Fiennes then?'

'Both too interested in competing with each other in dalliances with their young research assistants. Young professors can be so tiring, the Dean really should intervene.'

Parablaine sighed, he did not wish to disappoint the Heads of the other colleges but... 'Look, I've got my work here,' he passed the object back to Malt and tapped his folio with his finger, 'I'm in the thick of it.'

'Oh come on, Parablaine you've been in the thick of your proof for the last five years. Have you completed it?'

'Well no, I'm ....' Parablaine looked dismayed and scratched his stubbled chin distractedly.

'Well there we go, man,' Malt pressed the piece firmly back into Parablaine's palm. 'What you need is a rest, a distraction to give your mind a diversion. You need to take a look at something completely different and when you return to your work you finally see something new and original and that will allow you to top your theorem off.'

Parablaine toyed with the object. Malt was right of course and letting him down softly, by not suggesting to another academic that he might fail to deliver his seminal work. He couldn't fail, at forty one he was still the bright young thing of the University but their glittering star seemed to be losing its lustre over the last few years. The college patrons were becoming increasingly frustrated at how long he was taking to prove his theorem. His monthly updates to the University were becoming torturously depressing. He sighed at Malt. 'So what make you think I can solve the nature of this thing, wherever it is?'

'Because you're a great puzzler aren't you, everyone knows that. Codes, riddles, crosswords they're what you do. Come on, Parablaine spend a little time with it, give it some thought. You'll get a mention or two in some learned journals if you can figure it out.'

'I suppose...'

'Splendid! 'Malt slapped him cheerily on the shoulder, 'I told you chaps he'd do it.'

Parablaine ushered the group out of the room with due reverence to their seniority and combined wisdom. He returned to his desk, opened his note book and studied the last formula he written. After some consideration he scored it through. For a while he went back over his notes tapping his teeth with the edge of his pen until his eyes felt sore from studying the hundreds of compressed equations laid out in his own neat compact handwriting.

Placing the pen back on the desk he rose and made himself a cup of tea and a piece of toast on the tiny stove in the corner of his room and returned to his work. After a while of staring blankly at his notes he stood and checked his appearance in the ornate mirror over the fire. His dark hair was a crow's nest of dark twine shot through with grey, his red rimmed eyes stared fiercely back at him, fighting back the wrinkles of failure from their edges. He'd aged considerably over the last few years, his cheeks had shrunk, his brow permanently furrowed, looking for answers had cost him his geeky good looks. He sat down at his table again, looked at his handwriting for a few moments and then finding an excuse in the darkening chill creeping into the room rose and lit a fire in the cast iron fireplace.

Sitting at his desk feeling the warmth of the fire lapping at his back he tried to focus hard on his work. He took a piece of rough paper and explored a few ideas on it. He turned it over and tried more. He couldn't concentrate, something was nagging at him, something was not right.

Out of the corner of his eye he picked out an odd shape on the wall, a shape that did not belong in his room, a thing that had crept in uninvited to mock him in his work. The shadow of a strange humped back creature flickered on the wall over his desk, driven by the firelight it was creeping stealthily forward as if preparing itself to pounce upon him. His gaze fell back to find its source and found the ancient relic Malt had left on his desk.

He ignored it and went back to his work.

But the thing kept coming back to him, stealing into the edge of his vision. He shifted his chair so he could not see the shape on the wall. But even then he could feel its presence, a new skulking strangeness that had inhabited his room. Try as he might he could not find a way of expelling it from his thoughts.

Cursing loudly he jumped up and grabbed the fossil and dropped it into the bin and watched it disappear through a cloud of discarded notepaper.

He sat back down and wrote some inanely stupid equations which did little to help his mood. For a while he pottered to and fro making tea and toast, occasionally looking at himself in the mirror. The night drew in, the small fire shod the room with glowing amber and shadows that shuddered unsteadily in the nooks and crannies as if afraid to reveal themselves.

He swore to himself, whatever he did he could not expunge the thing from his brain.

Reluctantly he reached into the bin through the rustling paper and pulled the curiosity out. Sitting in his high backed chair in front of the fire he turned it circumspectly in his hands.

The object had the appearance of a large ammonite, circular in shape, like a fattened discus. A spiral set of grooves emerged at its centre and radiated outward in bands of ever increasing width toward the outer edge. A coating of a mercurial silver hue caught the firelight, the reflected light sliding a multitude of prismic colours across the ceiling as Parablaine slowly rotated it through his fingers.

On the side facing him was etched an odd cuneiform script that he was not familiar with. Interwoven with the basic shapes were depictions of chariots, bearded winged creatures, stars and planets reminiscent of the pictograms used by the Aztecs and other ancient races. Running through the symbols chased a long fanged serpent with open jaws. At the centre was what Parablaine took to be the depiction of a moon around which the serpent's teeth closed.

He flipped it over. On the reverse side was Liccey's elfish. The script appeared as a long elegant characters full of whorls and swirls interspersed with multitudes of raised dots similar in form to braille.

On impulse he lit his gas stove and held the object over it. After a few moments he turned off the flame and tentatively touched the surface with his fingers. His eyebrows arched in surprise, the metal was still cool to the touch. He tapped it on the stone mantelpiece and its answer rung a high note, clear as a bell. Perhaps it was a musical device?

A conundrum for sure. He sat spinning the device on its central axis as he meditated on its origin and application. The two writing systems on either side seemed aeons apart in development, the signs on one could have originated from anywhere from between 9,000 and 4,500 years ago but the elfish with it swirls and dots looked in part a musical script interspersed with a system like a binary notation. It was a much more complex system of writing unlike anything he'd ever encountered before. Could its function be a declaration of some sort in two different languages? Like the Rosetta Stone could be used to decipher an unknown language. But not much use if the languages on both sides were unknown to start off with.

Absent-mindedly he span it faster and faster. Suddenly the shell cracked open and like a switchblade it flew open in his hand. Surprised he grabbed the edge of one of the revealed plates. Two semi-circular sections joined together with a hinge and a long digit like extension ending in a sharp point now hung loosely in his hand.

Holding it up like a poisonous reptile Parablaine examined the curiously gothic looking object. It fleetingly occurred to him that it may have been some type of ancient torture device but this seemed at odds with the overall beauty of the design and the coloured enamels that covered its inner surface. A thought dawned on him. Slowly he twisted the hinges around, the form now was a bracelet with a single digit hanging from it. Experientially he pushed his finger within the protrusion and clasped the bracelet around his wrist. For a second he felt it tighten as the springs within it moulded it to his hand.

Parablaine gave out a little cry of delight as he held it up to the light. He'd uncovered a secret. He was not sure exactly what but still he'd made more progress than any of the others. He examined the device more closely. The bracelet held firm to his arm, his forefinger was encased firmly in a metal core ending at a point, at the end of which he was mystified to see a small globule of glistening liquid. With a shock he suddenly perceived its use.

Grabbing the blotter from the table he drew his finger over it. A thin red line appeared. He wrote his name in a rolling script and experientially tried a few equations. Momentarily he laughed with the realisation of his discovery. Then looking at his script his face dimmed in puzzlement then understanding.

In a panic he tore the thing from his hand and threw it on the floor and watched in horror the device curling up under its own energy to resume its original fossil like shape.

Hurriedly he checked his hand, running his fingers carefully across his palm and wrist until he found what he was looking for. The thin cut in his wrist was barely discernible but it was there. The diabolical device had used his own blood as ink.

He sat down until the pounding in his chest and the trembling in his hands had eased. What had panicked him so, he felt a fool. Why would it be a surprise that an ancient culture would find such an alternative to ink, a substance tricky to make especially when all around was a natural source of it- blood. And millennium ago there would have been no such squeamishness at the sight of a little blood. There was an undeniable elegance in the solution however morbid it may seem in present times. He arched his fingers and rested his chin of their tips and fell deep into thought.

An hour later he picked up the arcane device, span it around and when the contraption had opened he put it on his hand, sat at his table and began writing.

At first it seemed strange, seeing the glistening x's and y's and symbols appear on the page and knowing they were drawn from his own body. In orderly form they fell like soldiers to his command in neat rows before him, upright and correct. They marched steadily out and occupied one then two pages. Then his hand stopped and he shivered violently as a blast of cold air swung through the room.

He turned and stared over his shoulder. The fissured mirror over the fireplace held within its grasp a dim reflection of the moon outside, a distant black pearl held in the boiling silence of the still night. Parablaine studied the moon for a few moments drawn to its glistening oddness and slowly a strange uneasiness rippled into the far seas of his mind.

As he watched the edges of the moon seemed to vibrate and pulse, as if were spinning erratically off centre. A dull ache in his head began to beat in sympathy to the hypnotic display, his heart picked up and joined the erratic drum beat that now filled his ears, a strange, drunken rhythm that rose and fell like the fury of far off tribal drums. The moon shrunk and grew, first small, now seeming occupying all of the mirror. Parablaine's heart expanded and compressed in time to the erratic tempo. The sound rose until a steam train pounded his ears, the blood coursed through his veins like a multitude of swelling snakes and his breath grew short with confusion. He held his hand over his ears to force down his panic. The room wobbled, his hands raced from his ears to grasp the chair for fear of falling off and he blinked wildly at the pulsing void on the wall. His head was racing, filling with ideas, maddening ideas, overwhelming thoughts and visions. He closed his eyes and suppressed a scream of anguish.

Taking control of himself he swung away from his vision, twisting around and clutching his notebook between his shaking hands. Pushing the pages open, he wrote furiously as his thoughts crashed through his mind. As the drum beat louder and louder his hand sped faster and faster. Equations spilled out of him, carriages of long formula chased each other over the page, numbers and symbols flew from his fingers. The fire roared red, black and violent blue as a torrent of bloodied letters streamed from his fingers into the book.

Behind him the moon shifted, vibrating more violently it began unwinding, opening up like a peeled orange. Parablaine could feel his heart thumping harder in his chest, the pressure of a thousand feet of water pushing down on his body but still his fingers flew and the equations forced themselves from his consciousness and threw themselves desperately in heaps on the page.

He could feel it, over his feverish activity, over the orchestra of noise in his head, over the vacuum of darkness that now sullied his room. Something was crawling out of the moon, a long smooth body with an obscenely large head and ragged wings that tore wildly at the space around it. An ebony serpent uncurling and twisting across the vastness of the void toward him. He could sense it as it came, closer and closer.

Tearing his eyes from his book and looking over his shoulder he could see it was almost on him, a river of muscled fury racing toward him across the blackness, its needle filled mouth gaping wide, its maddening eyes fixed upon him. His body shook sideways and salted blood filled his mouth as the shock of the fiery blast that proceeded the beast hit him, but still he held on and wrote and wrote. He had almost finished, just one moment more...

                                                              ******

'Poor Parablaine,' Shedden blanched as he looked at the body on the floor surrounded by a shadow of ochre blood. Close by lay the shell closed up where it had spun away from his hand in his final frenzied activity.

Wandle checked the body. 'Bled out at the wrist. It will look like suicide.'

Malt carefully skirted the bloodied pool and tugged open the curtains. Light flooded the room. He stood staring down at Parablaine, face glowing white in the stark sunlight, the memory of a slight smile lingering on his lips. 'He drank of the cup and its contents were too addictive for him, he held on to it for too long.'

'We should never have given it to him,' Schild-Voss whimpered biting his fist. 'I sometimes regret I ever found it back on that first dig.'

Malt spun around, his eyes shot through with anger, 'Which of you is not a Nobel Prize winner, which of you is not the most respected man in his field, which of you does not enjoy your personal wealth to the full and the open adoration of the scientific community. And all down to this,' he swept the relic off the table and held it aloft revealing the thin line on his wrist of a long since healed wound.

'We all knew there were risks, Patterson at Columbia went mad, Oats at UCL shot himself. They ran the thing too close, too close to the raggedy edge. They saw the thing that lived out there but they did not stop in time like the rest of us.' Shedden shuddered as the fire shot a bold of cinder into the air making them all jump.

'Mark my words,' Malt tore his gaze from the fire and suppressed the waver in his voice.' Parablaine would have been driven to insanity if he'd not proved his theorem. We all know he was brilliant but who here truly believed he could have solved it himself? How many years had he been working on it? Our poor Parablaine was becoming a laughing stock amongst his peers, trying to solve a problem they all held as insolvable. He was our friend and we wanted to help him.' Malt paused and searched their faces. 'Remember we all voted on whether he should be given it.'

For a moment the room stilled and the clock ticked aching slowly. 'And has he solved it, his theorem?' Wandle asked quietly.

Malt swept the notebook up and flipped through the crumpled pages. His face darkened then lightened with relief. 'Yes, it appears he has.'

A story with a nod to the old horror writer, HP Lovecraft.