Erasmus said. “But as a scriptorium spirit, concerned not only with order in my records but also with regular access to those records by the holy brethren and other researchers”—he looked toward me—“I have a dear sense of duration and sequence, yes.”
“Go ahead, then.” Kawaguchi poised his stylus.
Erasmus took him literally. Beginning with the monks’ celebration of vespers, he began to give a minute-by- minute account of everything that had happened within range of his sensorium. At first, everything was both tedious and altogether irrelevant. If he kept up in that vein, I began to fear we’d stay in virtuous reality forever. It would certainly feel like forever.
Nigel Cholmondeley held up a hand. “Forgive me, Erasmus,” he broke in, “but could you perhaps skip to that portion of the evening when you first noticed something amiss?”
“Ah.” Erasmus gave Kawaguchi a why-didn’t-you-say-what-you-wanted? look, then took up the tale anew: “At 12:04 in the morning, two unauthorized persons entered the scriptorium. I attempted to give the alarm, but was prevented.”
Before Erasmus could answer. Brother Vahan put in, “We noted nothing out of the ordinary. Legate, as I told you on the night of the fire. That evildoers should trespass upon hallowed ground without drawing the notice of anyone within, and that they should overcome alarm spells lain down with the authority of the Holy Catholic Church… they had no small power behind them. Till the day, I would not have thought it possible.”
Like any other major faith, the Catholic Church maintains that its connections with the Other Side are the most potent around (I’d say the most omnipotent, but purists like Michael Manstein and Erasmus wouldn’t approve). With the powers the Church has Over There, it’s not easy even for a Jew like me to disagree very loudly. Having his holy protection fail must have been a dreadful shock for Brother Vahan.
“I cannot answer the question with certainty,” Erasmus said. “I know only that I was silenced, as the holy abbot has suggested, by a spell of great force.”
“What flavor did it have?” I asked. “Was it some strong ancient ritual revived specially for this purpose, or did it cany the precision of modem magic?”
“Again, I cannot say,” the scriptorium spirit answered. “If I may use an analogy from your Side, as well ask a mouse crushed by a boulder in a landslide whether it was granite or sandstone.”
“Very well, we are to understand you were forcibly silenced and prevented from alerting the brethren,”
Kawaguchi said, trying to keep Erasmus moving in the right direction. “What transpired subsequently?”
“I was interrogated,” Erasmus answered. “My questioners sought to learn what Inspector Fisher here had gleaned from our records. I tried to refuse, I tried to resist; the holy abbot had ordered me to treat the inspector in all ways as if he were one of the brethren, and I should never have betrayed (heir secrets who came into the scriptorium like—or rather, as—thieves in the night Then they began to torment me.”
So much for virtuous reality. I didn’t feel virtue, not after I heard that—what I felt was guilt. I didn’t need to ask that disappearing serpent where the Tree of Knowledge grew; I’d already eaten of it at the Thomas Brothers monastery. And because I had, Erasmus had suffered.
Brother Vahan made a noise that said he was suffering, too. He embraced the scriptorium spirit. They dung to each other.
Whatever Legate Kawaguchi was feeling, he didn’t let it interfere with his interrogation. He said, “Could you please describe for me the torments performed upon you?”
Brother Vahan angrily turned on him. “Why are you trying to force Erasmus to reexperience the torments those murderers inflicted?”
“Because their nature may provide important information on the perpetrators,” Kawaguchi answered. “The particular magics utilized will be clues to the backgrounds of those who performed them. I assure you, this is standard constabulary procedure in dealing with cases involving the Other Side, Brother Vahan.”
“I pray your pardon,” the abbot said; he was one of the rare people I’ve met who didn’t find his manhood threatened by backing down. “You don’t tell me how to conduct my affairs; I owe you the same courtesy.”
“Erasmus?” Kawaguchi said.
The scriptorium spirit didn’t look happy about recounting what had happened to him, but after a little while he nodded. “Let it be as you say. Legate, and may the truth bear out your hopes. First came fire: this would have been at 12:32, when my questioners decided I was and would remain obdurate.”
“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
