Harry Turtledove - The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump

“As a matter of fact, I do know that” I was getting angry.

“I also know that I gave you straight answers and you’re giving me the runaround. I don’t call that a fair exchange.” I didn’t know what I could do about that, unfortunately. If Henry Legion didn’t feel like answering questions, all he had to do was disappear and ignore my phone calls from then on out.

But he didn’t disappear. He held up a transparent but placating hand. Before he could say anything, Rose tapped on the door, then opened it and stuck her nose into my office.

“I’m sorry, Dave,” she said quickly. “I didn’t realize you had someone in here.” Then she got a good look at Henry Legion. Her eyes widened as she realized what sort of someone he was. But she dosed the door and went away anyhow.

Rose is a wonderful secretary.

“You were saying—” I prompted the spook.

“So I was,” Henry Legion agreed. “I do apologize for appearing evasive, but the matter is more complex than most mortals, even those in high places, fully grasp. The turmoil that has marked this century—and that may yet precipitate the Third Sorcerous War—has roots that go back hundreds of years. It is an outcome of a fundamental shift in the balance of Powers that occurred with and as a result of the European expansion which began half a millennium ago.” °I do follow you,” I said. “Remember where you are: this is the EPA. One of the things I’m working on that has nothing to do with the toxic spell dump case is whether the Chumash Indian Powers have gone extinct in the past few years.”

“This is a trivial example of the phenomenon to which I refer,” the spook said. Towers have been reduced and displaced and others magnified on a scale unseen since the diminution and near-destruction of the Greco-Roman pagan deities and the rise of Christianity. And that impacted only Europe, North Africa, and western Asia; this is worldwide in scope. To give you some notion of what I mean, consider that Sarganatas and Nebiros, the one brigadier—major, the other field-marshal and inspector—general of the JudeoChristian Descending Hierarchy, have for several centuries made their residence here in the Americas.”

“I grant that they’re wickeder than Huitzilopochtli, but are they any nastier?” I asked. The Aztecian war-god wasn’t evil in and of himself the way the demon princes were, but his proper food was blood. My stomach twisted when I thought about the flayed human skin in the potion Cuauhtemoc Hemandez had sold to Lupe Cordero.

But Henry Legion said, “That is not the point. The point is that Huitzilopochtli has been displaced, and naturally resents it. The same is true of most of the indigenous Powers of the Americas, of Polynesia, of Australia. The Muslim expansion through the Southern Isles has reduced the range of the Hindu Powers, who still have their enormous Indian belief base upon which to draw. Ukrainian and Spainish conquests, on the other hand, have cut into the sphere where jinni and ghouls and other Muslim Powers can roam at will.

And the horror that was Alemania two generations ago shows Christendom isn’t immune to theological disaster, either.”

“What you’re telling me is that the whole world is going to hell,” I said slowly. I wondered whether I was exaggerating for conversational effect or being perfectly literal.

“Central Intelligence prognostications put the probability of that outcome as less than ten percent in the next decade,”

Henry Legion said, his voice inhumanly calm. “A year ago, however, that same probability was assessed at less than three percent. Whether fully Judeo-Christian or not, Inspector Fisher, trouble is brewing beneath the orderly surface of our existence.”

Since I’d had the door closed all morning, my office was warm and rather stuffy. I shivered even so. “Okay,” I said.

“There’s trouble. What does it have to do with the Devonshire toxic spell dump?”

“As for a precise answer, I can only speculate,” Henry Legion replied. “But consider this: the spell residues stored at that site are the worst and most potent yet devised. If they are lealdng into the wider environment, they draw attention to the dump. That attention is liable to be extremely unwelcome if something undocumented but deadly is being disposed of at the Devonshire dump.”

All at once, I remembered the Nothing I’d seen walking the path from the dump entrance to Tony Sudalds’ office. I never had got around to asking him what that was. I hadn’t called him Tuesday, either—too many other things going on.

“Have you any further questions?” Henry Legion asked.

“Yeah, I do,” I said. “Okay, you don’t know for sure which Powers or humans might touch off the Third Sorcerous War.

You must have suspects, though. Isn’t that what Central Intelligence is for—to be suspicious?”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” the spook answered. “Suspects, you say? In order of probability, they are Persia, Azteda, the Ukraine, and India.”

That didn’t help me much. Some sort of Persian connection seemed the most likely cause of trouble at the Devonshire dump, too, at least judgtog by what had happened to Erasmus, while I couldn’t rule out the Aztecans, either, not with Huitzilopochtlism on the loose and the trail that had led me to poor soulless Jesus Cordero.

For that matter, I couldn’t rule out the Powers of India, either, which meant Loki and the other aerospace firms were still suspects. Along with the cow, Erasmus had been tormented by sorcerous serpents, and the Garuda Bird is a great foe of such.

Complications, complications… I remembered that other serpent I’d seen, the one in the Garden of virtuous reality who hadn’t had to crawl around on his belly. If the model for that serpent had behaved himself better, the world would be a more peaceful place today.

I said, “What you’re telling me is that you don’t know who’s trying to kill me or who wants to start the war, but you want to use me to help you find out”

“In essence, yes,” Henry Legion said. “Keeping you alive while the investigation proceeds would also be desirable,”

To me even more than to you,” I assured him. The situation reminded me of an old riddle: how do you know when there are pixies around? The answer is, when you get pixilated. I never had found that riddle very funny. It was a lot less so now, when it was more like finding out who was trying to IdB me by what happened when they did it Someone tapped on the door, then opened it Rose again.

She said quietly, “When I saw you hadan important guest, David, I arranged for my phone imp to cover yours. Here’s a message for you.” Nodding as politely to Henry Legion as if she couldn’t see through him, she went back outside again.

The spook said, “We here at Central Intelligence—and at other nations’ equivalent services, I assure you—are generally less than delighted when an amateur like yourself gets stuck between the lines of the cantrip, so to speak: not only because of the danger to which you are exposed but also on account of your unpredictability, which may set off other unpredictable acts at a juncture when unpredictable acts have the potential to bring on what may for all practical purposes be Armageddon.”

If Henry Legion had been a human being, he couldn’t possible have said all that on one breath. As it was, Charlie Kelly had in essence told me the same thing. But Charlie had bugged out on me, while the CI spook was still on my side—I hoped.

“What do you suggest I do next?” I asked him.

“Cany on with your life and work as normally as you can,” he answered. “If fate is kind-always an interesting question—you will eventually be able to work your way out of the center of interest you now occupy.”