VIII. Numerical Ghost

On another of his earlier travels, Prim stood with two other men overlooking an expansive prairie in Rome watching the morning fog lifting to reveal a recently undiscovered stone village whose dwellings were interlaced by ley lines. Seen best from a star field above; they walked these interconnecting pathways together as the elucidator of the eerie listened attentively to the unscrupulous archelogist's descriptive conquest. There were what the man termed nine, singularly unremarkable sites; each had a square of three rows of the same number carved into their northern foundations.The ancient scholar theorized quite correctly that they were intended for protection of each structure. Prim redrew the engraved amulet of the first cataloged site combining the same number of each vertical, horizontal and diagonal row in the cool, damp dirt to arrive at the same sum of three. "You are in error, Mr. Stern. There is yet one infinite doorway missing that fits the pattern of one through nine." The historical expert responded dryly that every single one of the nine sites had been uncovered and logically enumerated, and that any magic regarding the intention of those known was fallacy. The men proceeded together to the second visable site; Prim continued to solve the sums by writing them in the cool, damp soil directing them as they moved along, "Six, nine, twelve, fifteen, eighteen, twenty-one, twenty-four, twenty-seven, they are all stationary spells." Unimpressed, the developer proclaimed that nothing remains permanent and when it comes to progress everything at one time or another winds up for sale through the usual method of the way things were done around there. Divining its energy, Prim explored along an undiscovered ley line that lead him to a shallow, empty section where no evidence of ruin could be seen. Satisfied by their own plans and opinions, the two followed out of curiosity of perhaps discovering something new. "I'll allow you to draw the designation of this singular stone in the earth yourself, Mr. Stern." On completion of the final number of the bottom row, having carried no charm of protection, the archeologist forced his hands to his ears, clothes dissolving, flesh and fat peeling away in ribbons, clinging sinewy muscles unwinding in succession revealing shiny, dry bones heated into brittle blackness before imploding into a odious vapor, leaving only a haze . . . the archeologist had vanished! "A magic square amulet inscription of three numbers in three rows containing all of nine cardinal numbers when tallied vertically, horizontally and diagonally to form the same sum opens an otherworldly portal to interspatial travel." Prim retrieved his walking stick from the ground. "I am not easily moved by plots composed through contrived or coincidental occurrences; however, some people more than others have difficulty crossing a field." The covetous developer was stunned into silence but acquired a permanent loss of avarice and would remain forever haunted by his experience of a numerical ghost.