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?"
The CI spook hesitated - I must have asked the right question. "The answer which immediately springs to mind is that the Garuda Bird is the great enemy of serpents, being the representative of birth and the heavens, while serpents are in the camp of death, the underworld, and poison."
"The great enemy of serpents," For a second, it didn't mean anything - I was beat Then an alarm dock started yelling inside my head. "Quetzalcoati."
"This though had occurred to me, yes," Henry Legion said.
"What do we do?" I demanded.
"Prayers come to mind," the spook answered, which, while sensible, was not what I wanted to hear. He added,
"Past that, the best we can. Call if you require my assistance, Inspector Fisher; I shall do what I can for you."
"Thanks," I said. I was talking to a dead line; he'd hung up.
Someone tapped on the door. I looked up. Now, as the day wound down, it was Bea. I gulped. She wasn't the person I wanted to see right then. Or at least I thought she wasn't, until she said quietly, "I just want you to know, David, that my prayers will be with you tonight."
From Henry Legion, the suggestion of prayer had had the undertone that even that probably wouldn't help the mess we were in. Bea, though, sounded calmly confident it would make everything all right. I liked her attitude better than the spook's. But then, Henry Legion knew more about what all was wrong than she did.
I'm sorry I didn't come see you," I muttered. I wasn't just sorry; I was ashamed of myself. But that's not something you can casually say to your boss.
I guess she was good at reading between the lines. She said, "If you like, we can talk about it more tomorrow. Why don't you go home and try to get some rest now? You'll be better for it" She made shooing motions, then smiled. "My mother used to do that to chase chickens off the back porch.
I haven't thought about it in years. Go on home now."
"Thank you, Bea," I said humbly, and I went on home.
I don't remember what I cooked for supper that night, which is probably just as well. I thought about going to bed right afterward, but if I did that, I knew I'd wake up at three in the morning and stay up. So I rattled around in my flat instead, like a pea in a pod that was much too big for it. The quiet in there felt very loud. I wished I had an ethemet set to give myself something to occupy my ears and maybe my mind. Being alone with yourself when you're worried is hard work. I tried to work, but I couldn't concentrate on the words.
The phone yelled. I banged my shin on the coffee table in the front room as I sprang up and dashed off to answer it. It was some mountebank selling microsalamander cigar lighters. I'm afraid I told him where to put one before he let the salamander loose. I limped back out front after I hung up.
I picked up my book again. I should have been reading something useful, maybe about the Garuda Bird or Quetzalcoati. But no, it was a thriller about thirteen guys on a spy mission to Alemania during the Second Sorcerous War.