The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

"Fire wasn't reported in the monastery until after one,"

Kawaguchi said.

"Not the Fire of This Side, but that of the Other, which burns the spirit rather than the material," Erasmus replied.

"Not for nothing, I can now tell you, do so many mortals fear the pangs of hellfire, for to endure such eternally would be anguish indeed."

Kawaguchi scribbled notes. I wondered how much good they'd do him. Counting the magics that don't have fire in them somewhere is a much easier job than reckoning up those that do. And the way Erasmus talked about what had happened to him suggested the fire sprang from Christian or Muslim sources; the former, espedaBy, didn't lend itself to narrowing down the list of suspects.

The scriptorium spirit continued, "At 12:41, the invaders concluded fire was inadequate to persuade me. They resorted instead to the venom of sorcerous serpents, which coursed through my ichor and brought with it suffering different from, but not less intense than, that which the names had produced."

"Snakes, you say?" Kawaguchi repeated with a now - we'regetting - somewhere air. "And of what nature were they?"

"With all respect. Legate, I must remind you that I am a scriptorium spirit at a monastery, not a herpetologistfs establishment," Erasmus answered in a dignified voice. "I can state with authority that they were dissimilar to the one inhabiting the garden here, for which claim I have Scriptural authority behind me. Past that, fools may rush in but, while I am no angel, I tear to tread."

I found a question I thought Kawaguchi had missed: "Can you describe the men who tormented you, Erasmus?"

"Again, I fear not," the spirit answered. "They were masked against the sight of Your Side, and so cloaked around in sorcery that I have no notion of their true spiritual semblance, either, save that were it benign they would not have used me as they did."

I sighed. Kawaguchi sighed. Even Brother Vahan looked a little less saintly than he had. Nigel Cholmondeley and Madame Ruth shifted from foot to foot They'd brought us all together here in virtuous reality, but for the amount of information Erasmus had given us, they might as well not have bothered.

"Very well, then," Kawaguchi said, sighing again. "What happened next?" °I still refused to divulge the nature of the research Inspector Fisher had been conducting," Erasmus said. "At 12:48, the intruders again became discontented with their means of torment and shifted stratagems. I found myself tramped under the sharp hooves of an enormous cow."

That made me sit up and take notice: metaphorically, you understand. Legate Kawaguchi leaned forward toward Erasmus till he was fell past the point where I thought he'd fall on his face. Maybe you can't do that in virtuous reality; I don't know. "A cow, you say?" he pressed. "Not a bull? Are you sure about that?"

"I am certain," Erasmus declared.

"Interesting," Kawaguchi said. I saw what he was flying toward. Bull cults are common. Straight Mithraism has never quite died, and there are modem revivalist sects trying to pick up supporters who don't get the spiritual charge they need from Christianity and Islam. Personally, I don't need to get drenched by the blood of a slaughtered bull to feel a union with the Godhead, but some folks evidently do.

But cows, now… two of the places where the cow is a focus of magic are India - home of the Garuda Bird - and Persia, from which sprang, among others in the case. Slow Jinn Fizz and Bakhtiar's Precision Burins (a place I hoped I'd get to before I died of old age).

Erasmus went on. The hooves of the cow seemed sharp as whetted steel. They flayed me past any anguish I had previously imagined. And so, to my lasting shame, Inspector Fisher, at 12:58 I yielded to my inquisitors' torment and described in detail the records I had copied for you. Judge me as you will; the deed is done."

When a spirit talks about lasting shame, it means lasting forever unless it's a sylph or one of that flighty breed. I said,

"Erasmus, you did the best you could. What you went through is more than I could have stood; I'm sure of that.

You don't need to feel shame on my account."

"You are gracious," the scriptorium spirit said. Brother Vahan also inclined his head in my direction. That made me feel good; winning Brother Vahan's good opinion isn't easy, but it's worth doing.

"What happened after you finished providing the perpetrators with this information, after"-Kawaguchi glanced down at his notes-"12:58?"

"I finished betraying Inspector Fisher at 1:03," Erasmus said bleakly. "I hoped that would be the end of it, that the malefactors would take what they had learned and depart. Instead, as you know, they forthwith kindled the fire which I gather resulted in the destruction of the Thomas Brothers monastery. As to that, I could not speak with certainty, for when the ground glasses in the scriptorium melted or shattered from the heat of the flames, I lost my interface with Your Side and, still in agony, awaited my own dissolution."