Free Order of the Air Omnibus: Books 1-3 by Melissa Scott

said. He’d never thought it was the Magister’s place to support his people unreservedly, but this wasn’t his kind of lodge. “So not Bullfinch, either. Fine, I’ll see what I can do. Do you know anything more about where this was found? Or if there were any more of them?”
    Henry shook his head. “You know everything I know. Why?”
    I doubt that, Jerry thought, but looked back at the tablet. “This —” He pointed to the concluding lines, careful not to touch the surface. “This implies that there are more tablets. See? It’s all plurals here.”
    Henry nodded. “Can you read it? I recognized the Latin, but that….” He pointed in turn. “It looks like runes.”
    “It’s visually similar,” Jerry said. “It’s Etruscan, actually, and that’s unusual. The Romans used it as a ritual language, of course, very much the way we use Greek and Latin, but you don’t often see it written out. It’s mostly found on tombstones. And of course the real problem is that Etruscan is a lost language.”
    “Which means?”
    “Nobody knows how to read it,” Jerry said. “There’s been some progress recently, a few people who’ve managed to pick out — they think — Indo-European roots to some words, but it’s not at the point where you can know what it says.”
    “Damn,” Henry said, half under his breath. “So you’re saying this is pointless?”
    “Not entirely,” Jerry answered. “I can give you the Latin, of course, and I think I can figure out some of the Etruscan by context. We’ve got a date here, consuls’ names, and I’m guessing this is going to be the reign of Claudius. You’ve got something I can look that up in?”
    “Maybe,” Henry said.
    Jerry went on as though he hadn’t spoken. “So it’s not like this is going to be Etruscan as it was spoken by the Etruscans, it’s going to be more like ritual Latin, and that means I ought to be able to guess at some of it. Especially since there’s a fair amount of information in the other sections.”
    “All right,” Henry said. He pushed himself up off the desk. “Let me ring for some sandwiches, and we can get on with it.”
    Jerry nodded absently, not really listening. The tablet began with a fairly standard invocation to Diana, a recitation of her titles and attributes as Diana Nemorensis, and then the usual language apologizing for any imperfection in the rites — no, it was a more particular apology, for some ritual fault well known to everyone, apparently. And then the first Etruscan section, and a more specific confession of fault, this one having to do with the profanation of the priesthood of the shrine, and then…. He stopped abruptly, pushing his glasses up onto his nose as though that would clarify the translation.
     
    Diana in all your aspects, heal the wounds and strengthen the bonds that here imprison this spirit of the underworld .
     
    Oh, Henry, he thought. What have you gotten yourself into?
     
    A lma put her hands on her hips. “You told Henry what?”
    “I told Henry I needed more time with it.” Jerry carefully sat down on the edge of the neatly made bed. He’d returned to the hotel at mid-afternoon, just before Mitch and Alma had decided to go look for him. They’d given it until three for him to show up or call, and Jerry had showed at ten of. “It’s Latin and Etruscan both, some of it quite intriguing. From what I can determine based on context….”
    Mitch interrupted him in a calm, strong voice, not bothering to get up from the chair by the window. “Jerry, you can translate Latin in your sleep. Hell, I could probably have read the damn thing in three hours. And nobody can read Etruscan, so it doesn’t matter how much time you have with it. What gives?”
    Lewis thought that Jerry looked a little embarrassed. “There’s a lot that can be worked out by context. The Etruscan sections aren’t that long, actually. They seem to be the form of the actual invocations, which all follows since