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cry, he swung it down with all his strength and struck the Compendium a blow such as would have severed any head from its body, no matter how sturdy the neck that supported it. Yet, to Tomás’s wonder and dismay, the blade bounced off the exposed pages without so much as creasing them.
    â€œThis cannot be!” Ramiro cried.
    He swung again and again, raining blow after blow upon the Compendium , but for all the effect he had he might as well have been caressing it with a feather.
    Finally, red faced, sweating, panting, Ramiro stopped and faced them.
    â€œSurely this is a thing from hell!”
    Tomás would not argue that.
    â€œWhat do we do?” Ramiro said, still panting. “Asher ben Samuel said he was going to throw it in the river. Perhaps that is the only course that remains to us.”
    Tomás shook his head. “No. Not a river. Too easy for a fisherman’s net to retrieve it from the bottom. The deep ocean would be better. Perhaps we can send one of you on a voyage far out to sea where you can drop it over the side.”
    Ever the philosopher, Adelard said, “First we must make certain it will sink. But even if it does sink, it will still be intact. It will still exist. And even confined to a briny abyss, there will always remain the possibility that it will resurface. We must find a way to destroy it.”
    â€œHow?” Ramiro said. “It will not burn, it will not be cut.”
    Adelard said, “Perhaps I can concoct a mixture of elements and humors that will overcome its defenses.”
    Elements! An idea struck Tomás just then—why hadn’t he thought of it before? He pointed to a small table in the corner.
    â€œAdelard, bring the holy water here.”
    The younger man’s eyes lit as he hurried across the room and returned with a flagon of clear liquid. Tomás rose slowly from his chair and approached the book where it lay on the hearth. When Adelard handed him the unstoppered flagon, he blessed it, then poured some of its contents onto the Compendium …
    â€¦ to no effect.
    Angered, Tomás began splashing the holy water in the shape of a cross as he intoned, “In Nomine Patri et Fili et Spiritus Sancti!”
    Then he waited, praying for the holy water to eat away at the pages. But again… nothing.
    A pall settled over him. Had they no recourse against this hellish creation?
    â€œGood Prior,” Adelard said after a moment, “if I could take the tome and experiment on it, I might be able to discover a vulnerability.”
    Tomás fought a burst of anger. “You seek to succeed where water blessed in God’s name has failed?”
    Adelard pointed to the Compendium . “That thing was fashioned from the elements of God’s earth. I know in my heart that it can be undone by the same.”
    Could philosophy succeed where faith had failed?
    â€œFor the sake of the Faith, let us pray you are right.”

8
    Tomás did pray—all that night. And in the morning, when he stepped into the hall outside his room, an acrid odor assailed his nostrils. It seemed to issue from Adelard’s workroom at the end of the hall. He approached the closed door as quickly as his painful hips would allow and pulled it open without knocking.
    Inside he found Adelard holding a pair of steel tongs. The gripping end of the tongs suspended a glass flask of fuming red-orange liquid over the Compendium . The Compendium itself rested on the tile floor.
    Adelard smiled at him. “You are just in time, Prior.”
    Tomás covered his mouth and nose and pointed to the flask. “What is that?”
    â€œ Aqua regia . I just now mixed it. The solution will dissolve gold, silver, platinum, almost any metal you care to name.”
    â€œYet the simple glass of its container appears impervious.”
    â€œGlass is not metal. But the Compendium is.”
    Tomás felt his hackles rise. “This smacks of alchemy, Brother