The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

He said, "It is, in my experience, unique: an area from which all the magic has been removed, not externally, as would be normal, but internally. Whatever Powers are involved are still contained within the barrier established around them, but have in effect created that barrier to shield them from the surrounding world - or vice versa. I have no idea how to penetrate the barrier from This Side."

"Could whatevers in there burst out from the Other Side?" I asked.

"It is conceivable," Michael said. "Since I am of necessity ignorant of what lies inside the barrier - think of it as an opaque soap bubble, if you like, although it is almost infinitely stronger - I cannot evaluate the probability of that possibility."

I worked that through till I thought I understood it. Then I said, "Why does the, the Nothing make everything behind it look so far away?"

"Again, I cannot give a precise answer," Michael said, "I believe I do grasp the basic cause of the phenomenon, however: the barrier is in effect an area where the Other Side has been removed from contact with This Side. The eye naturally attempts to pursue it in its withdrawal, thus leading to the impression of indefinitely great distance behind it."

"Okay," I said. That made some sense - certainly more than anything I'd thought of (which, given my current state, wasn't saying much). But it raised as many questions as it answered, the most important of which was, how do you go about separating This Side and the Other? They've been inextricably joined at least since people and Powers became aware of each other, and possibly since the beginning of time.

Michael said, "If your next question is going to be whether I have a theoretical model to explain how this phenomenon came to be, the answer, I regret, is no."

"I regret it, too, but that's not what I was going to ask you," I said. Michael raised a pale eyebrow; to him, finding a theoretical model ranked right up there with breathing. My mind was on simpler things: "I was going to ask if you'd come with me to inspect Chocolate Weasel tomorrow morning." I explained how more and more of the evidence was pointing toward an Aztedan connection.

"Beaten a hermetic seal, have they?" Michael murmured; again, the thaumaturgy interested him more than anything else. He went on, "We'll be seeing learned articles on that for some time to come. But yes, I will be happy to accompany you to Chocolate Weasel. Where is the facility located?"

"In St. Ferdinand's Valley, near the comer of Mason and Nordhoff," I answered. That wasn't a part of the Valley I'd learned yet; the Devonshire dump was north of it, while the businesses and factories I'd visited were farther south and east. I figured Michael or I could find it, though.

He said, "Shall we take my carpet again, and meet here as we did yesterday?"

"All right," I answered. I was just as glad that he'd fly us up into the Valley; at the moment, I wondered whether I'd be able to get myself home tonight Michael headed for the lab, no doubt intent on catching up on whatever he'd had to abandon when I called him from the Devonshire dump. I asked my watch what time it was - a little before four. Not quite soon enough to go home, but too late to do anything useful (assuming I could do anything useful) to the parchments on my desk.

I decided to try to call Henry Legion. I realized there was an advantage in dealing with a spook rather than a person (the first I'd found, so I treasured it): even though it was just about seven back in D.C., he was likely to be on the job. At least, I didn't think spooks had families to go home to.

And sure enough, I got him when I called. "Inspector Fisher," he said. "I was hoping I would hear from you. What have you learned since this morning?"

So I told him what I'd learned: the hermetic seals, the quetzal feather, the fer-de-lance, the One Called Night, the Nothing. It took a while. Until I told him what all I'd found out in the course of the day, I hadn't realized how big a forest it made; one tree at a time had been falling on me.

But, to shift the figure of speech, I had a lot of pieces. I didn't have a puzzle.

"I shall convey your information to the appropriate sources," he said when I was through. "Inspector Fisher, the Confederation may well owe you a large debt of gratitude."

"I'm sorry," I said, but right now that doesn't matter much to me. All I want to do is get Judy back, and I don't think I'm much closer than I was." Maybe fitting some of the pieces together would help. I asked, "Is it the Aztecians that we've bumped up against here?"

"Your information makes that appear more likely," he answered, maddeningly evasive and dispassionate as usual.

I was too tired to get angry at him. I just pushed ahead; "If it was the Aztedans, why did they attack the Garuda Bird?"