The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

"The firecrew and constabulary rescued you," I said.

"Exactly so. At the time and since, I have doubted whether they did me any great favor, but, as with my betrayal of you, the deed is done and we now must proceed to act upon its consequences." The scriptorium spirit turned to Legate Kawaguchi. "Oh: there is one thing more. For some time after I was tormented, I lacked much of my normal awareness of self and surroundings. Were I flesh and blood, I gather you would say I was semiconscious. Only quite recently have I regained my full sensorium. When I did so, I found as part of my immediate surroundings - this."

I hadn't figured Erasmus for a sense of the dramatic. But from behind his back he pulled out a short green feather.

Kawaguchi held out his had. "May I see it?" Erasmus gave it to him. He felt it, held it close to his face in a gesture that said he was nearsighted. He shrugged. "Just seems like a feather to the eye and the hand." He turned to Madame Ruth and Nigel Cholmondeley and asked, "Are magical forensic tests possible in virtuous reality?'

They both shook their heads. Madame Ruth said,

"Remember, that isn't the actual feather you're holding, Legate, but its analog in this sorcerous space. And, like everything else in virtuous reality, it is imbued with special properties springing from this space and thus not a fit subject for testing."

"I should have thought of that." Kawaguchi clicked his tongue between his teeth, not so much in disappointment as in annoyance at himself. He turned to Brother Vahan. "Further questions?"

"I have one," I said. "How did the two men react when you finally yielded to the cow's hooves and told them what I'd been investigating?" 

"One of them said to the other, 'He'll get his, too, I expect,'" Erasmus answered. It didn't surprise me, but it didn't delight me, either. If somebody was willing to bum down a monastery, the added burden of sin that would accrue from going after an EPA inspector couldn't have been heavy enough to worry him.

Brother Vahan said, "Old friend, how soon will you be able to manifest yourself normally on Our Side once more?"

"It shouldn't be much longer, holy abbot," Erasmus said.

"The metaphysicians tell me I could do it now if my familiar haunts were restored. As it is, I'm given to understand it's a matter of days rather than weeks."

"Good," the abbot said. "I shall pray that the time will be soon, for purely selfish reasons: I find I miss you very much."

An undead who hadn't fed in a thousand years had infinitely more blood in him than Erasmus ever could, so when I saw the scriptorium spirit blush I just chalked it up to virtuous reality. And if we were out of questions, we didn't need to be there any more. I asked, "How do we get back to Interrogation Room Two?"

"You must return to awareness of the body you left behind there," Nigel Cholmondeley answered. "As soon as your hands leave contact with those of the persons to either side of you, the circuit will be broken and you - and all of us - will return to the mundane world."

My hands? I looked down, and of course I couldn't see them. From what my eyes reported, I might as well not have had any hands, or anything else - I was just there. Virtuous reality is an insidious kind of place: it so completely involves all the senses and seems so dioroughly real that leaving wasn't as easy as Cholmondeley made it sound. I wondered if early explorers had got stuck in it forever. Ifdiey had, I wondered ifdiey'd realized it.

An intense look of concentration came over Brodier Vahan's face. Presumably he couldn't see his own hands, either. But an instant later, I was sitting on a hard chair with a stifling helmet over my eyes and ears. I clawed it off. The (nimy reality of the interrogation room was a long, long way om the Garden where I'd been a moment before. Everyone else was taldng off the masks, too. Now that we were back in the constabulary station, Nigel Cholmondeley was horsefaced again, Madame Ruth fat as any two people you want to name, and Legate Kawaguchi short and skinny and tired-looking. I suppose I looked the way I always do, too.

On the table in front of Kawaguchi, along with the cigarette bums and coffee rings, lay a note tablet full of scribbles.

I didn't remember its being there when we sat down. I didn't think he could have brought it back from virtuous reality… but then I saw, right in the middle of the table, a bright green feather. Kawaguchi spotted it at the same time I did.

He grabbed it and stuck it in a little transparent pouch made of spirit gum to keep it from being magically influenced.

"Remarkable," Nigel Cholmondeley said. "One seldom sees artifacts returning with participants in a virtuous reality experience."