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Pages 1-73
In the first part of the book, the main character and narrator, Erasmus, is introduced. He is a member of a society of mathematicians cloistered away from the rest of the world (the book takes place on a futuristic, alternate planet.) However, once per ten years, Erasmus and his associates (the 'Tenner' part of the avout (math monk guys)) are allowed to leave for ten days. When this festival starts, Erasmus and his friend set out to see the world they used to know.
72 pages, total of 854. -
Pages 73-213
Partway through Apert, the festival during which the avout cloistered inside the walls are aloud outside, it appears as though several outsiders broke into a cellar and stole a great deal of meade. This goes relatively unnoticed. Soon, strangely, the observatory inside is shut down. Furthermore, when Erasmus, the main character, is giving a tour, it turns out two of the people on his tour ae members of the Inquisition, sent to check up on the avout in their walls. -
73-213, cont.
On the last night of Apert, Erasmus speaks to one of the Inquisitors again. This inexplicably makes the Warden Regulant, in charge of keeping discipline among the avout, rather angry, and she sentences to solitary confinement and tedious copying. However, partway through his confinement and after Apert, a ceremony distracts the entire group of avout long enough for Erasmus to sneak to the observatory and place a disk in one of the telescopes to find out why it was closed. -
73-213, continued again
After his confinement ends, Erasmus graduates to the Ehardian order, a group of astronomers. Another ceremony comes up, during which Erasmus goes back to the observatory to retrieve his disk, but during the ceremony, Orolo, Erasmus's freind and teacher, is kicked out of the walled convent. Eager to see what was no the disk, Erasmus and his friends set up a covert plan to study it.
130 pages, total of 984. -
213-321, cont.
The avout eho were Evoked rope together a convoy of extras (people not fom the math) and begin making their way to a different math where they were told to meet. A group, including Erasmus and his sister, Cord, an extra, take a detour to find Orolo and Paphlagon, Orolo's mentor, along the way. After spending the night in a religious monastary, they find Paphlagon, who tells Erasmus and Cord to cryptically 'go north' to find Orolo.
108 pages, 1092 total. -
Pages 213-321
Soon after this, Erasmus and his friends discover an image that appears to be some sort of alien ship on the disk. Without warning, a huge number of avout are Evoked, and removed from the math, to be sent to another math. Erasmus is one of them. Once outside the math, his group discovers that they have no form of transport waiting for them. -
Pages 321-519
Erasmus does indeed head north, and after a tumultous trip over the pole, finds his way with Cord and the two Crades, as well as Sammann, to the island of Ecba, where it is assumed Orolo is. Once there, he discovers what is more or less a math, but inhabited by outcasts and the anathemed, such as Orolo. There, he and Orolo discuss many things related to the alien ship. On one of their walks through the math, the pair spot an object descending towards them, which turns out to be an alien probe. -
Pages 321-519, cont.
Inside the probe is a dead woman who appears to have been murdered. Without warning, a group of the Saecular power's soldiers arrive, and begin ferrying away 'avout' as a metal rod from the alien ship if fired into a nearby volcano, causing an erruption. In the chaos, Orolo throws the dead alien's body onto one of the military planes evacuating everyone, but is himself killed in the explosion. The planes take the avout away, and Erasmus is taken to the convox. 198 pages, total of 1290. -
Pages 519 - 600
After a while at the convox, it turns out one of the people at the Convox is actually one of the Geometers. When his identity is revealed, he gives a brief explaination of Geometer politics, including that there is a faction that simply wants Arbre plundered for materials. So, the Antiswarm is put in effect, splitting up the Convox and hiding everyone at various locations. Erasmus is put in a cell with some of his old friends, Jad, and several Valers.
81 pages, total of 1371 -
Period: to
Thanksgiving cont.
In the longest - lasting timespan, Erasmus wakes up weeks after landing on the geometer's ship. He was apparently frozen to keep him alive long enough for negotiations to be made and Arbre physicians, as well as a good deal of Avout, to be brought up. However, it turns out Jad, as well as most of the Valers, are dead. 92 pages, total of 1463. -
Period: to
Thanksgiving Break: Pages 600-692
Once at their destination, it turns out Erasmus's "cell" is to be launched into speace. Thet spend a while training, then are launched up on the heads of missiles, along with a great deal of junk to use as decoys. After menuevering in space for a while, they manage to board the Geometer's ship. What follows is a series of events that may or may not be in Erasmus's head. In one timeline he dies, in another he and Jad end up talking to the Geometers, but one comes out on top. -
Pages 692-732
The avout from Arbre return the remains of Lise, Jules Verne Durand's wife and the woman in the spacecraft that arrived at Orithena, and the Valer's remains are returned to them, after a bit of time spent on the spacecraft. The action then leaps ahead a while to Erasmus and several other avout building the Concent of Saunt Orolo. At the end, Erasmus marries Ala, his sweetheart from the start of the book, and Erasmus's sister marries a side character. 40 pages, total of 1503. Book Complete