people outside to stop the racket. How can they expect the Spirit of the Pox to come out of His Eminence when they're raising a din like that?"

Aguar's eyes widened for a moment as he hesitated; then he threw open the door and screamed a command. The wailing stopped as though a switch had been thrown. As a couple of cowering guards crept in to remove the braziers, Red Doctor Jenkins drew the wizard aside.

"Tell me what spells you've already used."

Hurriedly, Kiz began enumerating, ticking off items on hairy fingers. As he talked Jenkins dug into the black bag and started assembling a liter flask, tubing and needles.

"First we brewed witches' root for seven hours and poured it over his belly. When the Pox appeared in spite of this we lit three red candles at the foot of the bed and beat His Eminence steadily for one hour out of four, with new rawhide. When His Eminence protested this, we were certain the Spirit had possessed him, so we beat him one hour out of two—"

Jenkins winced as the accounting of cabalistic clap-trap continued. His Eminence, he reflected, must have had the constitution of an ox. He glanced over at the panting figure on the bed. "But doesn't anybody ever recover from this?"

"Oh, yes—if the Spirit that afflicts them is very small. Those are the fortunate ones. They grow hot and sick, but they still can eat and drink—" The wizard broke off to stare at the bottle-and-tube arrangement Jenkins had prepared. "What's that?"

"I told you about the iron needles, didn't I? Hold this a moment." Jenkins handed him the liter flask. "Hold it high." He began searching for a vein on the patient's baggy arm. The Moruan equivalent of blood flowed back greenishly in the tube for an instant as he placed the needle; then the flask began to drip slowly.

Aguar let out a horrified scream and raced from the room; in a moment he was back with a detachment of guards, all armed to the teeth, and three other Moruan physicians with their retinues of apprentices. Sam Jenkins held up his hand for silence. He allowed the first intravenous flask to pour in rapidly; the second he adjusted to a steady drip-drip-drip.

Next he pulled two large bunsen burners and a gas tank from the bag. These he set up at the foot of the bed, adjusting the blue flames to high spear-tips. On the bedside table he set up a third with a flask above it; into this he 

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