Ring Of Solomon (13 page)

The great king coughed. The hippo stopped mid-bawl and eyed him hopefully. ‘Your ridiculous display of over-acting has entertained me,’ Solomon said. ‘I shan’t need my girners or my jugglers tonight. As a result I shall spare your meagre life’ – here he cut short my torrent of gratitude – ‘and instead put your “excess energies and zeal” to proper use.’

Solomon paused at this ominous juncture to select a variety of sweetmeats, wines and fruit from an attendant’s silver tray. Several of his nearest wives fought subtly but viciously amongst themselves for the honour of feeding him. The hippo, gritting its teeth with unease, shook a few flies out of its tufted ears and waited.

One pomegranate, five grapes and an iced date-and-pistachio sherbet had passed the royal lips before the king held forth again. ‘O meanest and most despicable of my djinn – and don’t look around so blankly, I’m talking to
you
– since you find your work here so dull, we shall give you a more stimulating occupation.’

I bowed my head to the dirt. ‘Master, I listen and obey.’

‘So then. South from Jerusalem, across the Desert of Paran and the Desert of Zin, my trade road runs; on it travel merchants from Egypt and the Red Sea, from the Arabian interior, even – though more rarely than we might wish – from mysterious Sheba itself. These merchants,’ he went on, ‘carry myrrh, frank-incense, precious woods and spices, and other riches that bring prosperity to the people of Israel. In recent weeks it has come to my attention that many caravans have met with disaster; they have not got through.’

I grunted wisely. ‘Probably ran out of water. That’s the thing about deserts. Dry.’

‘Indeed. A fascinating analysis. But survivors reaching Hebron report differently: monsters fell upon them in the wastes.’

‘What, fell upon them in a squashed-them kind of way?’

‘More the leaped-out-and-slew-them kind. These monsters were huge, hideous and terrible.’

‘Well, aren’t they all?’ The hippo considered. ‘My advice is to send those four off to investigate.’ I indicated the marids from the Ring, who were still hanging about on the seventh plane, quietly arguing about the succulence of the nearest wives.

Solomon gave a feline smile. ‘Most conceited of my spirits, it is
you
who must investigate. The attacks are clearly the work of bandits who have powerful magicians amongst them. So far my troops have been unable to trace the instigators. You must search the deserts, eliminate them, and discover who is behind this outrage.’

I hesitated. ‘All on my lonesome?’

The king drew back; he had come to a new decision. ‘No, you will not be on your own. Khaba! Step forward!’

My master did so, fawning, supplicating. ‘Great King, please! I can explain my absence—’

‘No explanation is required. I gave you strict instructions to keep a close eye on your servants, and this you failed to do. I blame
you
for this djinni’s misdeeds. Since neither you nor your group is worthy of working on this temple a moment longer, you shall all depart into the deserts tomorrow and not return until the brigands are found and brought to heel. Do you understand this, Khaba? Well, man? Speak up!’

The Egyptian was staring at the ground; a muscle in his cheek throbbed steadily. One of the other magicians suppressed a chuckle.

Khaba looked up; he bowed stiffly. ‘Master, as always I follow your requirements and your will.’

Solomon made an ambiguous gesture. The interview was over. Wives darted forth offering water, sweetmeats and vials of scent; slaves wafted palms; officials unscrolled papyri with plans of the temple precincts. Solomon turned away, and the gaggle of humanity departed with him, leaving Khaba, the hippo, and the seven other disgraced djinn standing silent and disconsolate on the hill.

³¹
Most of them winged. Faquarl’s were leathery, Chosroes’ feathery, and Nimshik’s ashimmer with the silver scales of the flying fish. Xoxen, as ever, had to be different: he bounded up and down beside the porch on a pair of giant frog’s legs, which meant that most of his blocks were hopelessly out of true.

³²
Heaven knows why he was so fussy about this temple job. Early in his reign his host of spirits had jerry-built most of Jerusalem for him, throwing up new housing districts in a day or two, hiding their slapdash workmanship with strategically placed Illusions. They’d spent a bit longer on the palace itself, admittedly, and the city walls only wobbled if you pushed really hard, but this temple Solomon wanted done without any magical sleights of hand, which in my view kind of defeated the point of using djinn.

³³
Tivoc and Chosroes voted against: Tivoc because of a complicated argument involving certain subtleties in clause 51c of his summoning; Chosroes because he was just plain chicken.

³⁴
Hippo in a skirt
: this was a comic reference to one of Solomon’s principal wives, the one from Moab. Childish? Yes. But in the days before printing we had limited opportunities for satire.

³⁵
A
bit
showy, that. You only need a middling djinni for a stone that size.

³⁶
Again, do you
need
an afrit to catch a wife? No, except maybe in the case of the one from Moab.

³⁷
I suppose I should have been glad he’d only
touched
the thing and not
turned
it. It was when the terrible Spirit of the Ring was invoked that things were supposed to get
really
nasty.

³⁸
Rat’s arse
: technical term, this, corresponding to about 1/15
^th
of a cubit. Other units of measurement used by the djinn during this period were ‘camel’s thigh’, ‘leper’s stretch’, and ‘the length of a Philistine’s beard’.

Returning to his tower at speed, Khaba descended by secret ways to his cellar workroom, where a doorway of black granite stood embedded in the wall. As he approached, he spoke an order. Soundless as thought, the spirit residing in the floor spun the door ajar. Khaba passed through without breaking stride; he spoke another word and the door shut fast behind him.

Blackness enfolded him, incalculable and absolute. The magician stood there for a time, enduring as an exercise of will the silence and the solitude and the relentless pressing of the dark. Gradually soft noises started in the cages: shuffles, faint mewlings of things shut long in blackness, the anxious stirring of other things that anticipated light and feared its violence. Khaba luxuriated in the plaintive sounds a while, then stirred himself. He gave a fresh command, and all along the ceiling of the vault, the imps trapped in their faience globes made their magic flare. Eerie blue-green radiance filled the chamber, waxing, ebbing, deep and fathomless as the sea.

The vault was broad and domed; its roof supported at intervals by rough-hewn columns that cut across the blue-green haze like the stalks of giant underwater reeds. Behind his back the granite door was one block among many on an immense grey wall.

Between the columns stood an assortment of marble plinths and tables, chairs, couches and many instruments of subtle use. It was the heart of Khaba’s domain, an intricate reflection of his mind and inclinations.

He threaded his way past the slabs where he conducted his experiments of dissection, past the preservation pits, acrid with the taint of natron, past the troughs of sand where the process of mummification could be observed. He skirted between the ranks of bottles, vats and wooden piping, between the pots of powdered herbs, the trays of insects, the dim, dark cabinets containing the carcasses of frog and cat and other, larger, things. He bypassed the ossuary, where the labelled skulls and bones of a hundred beasts sat neatly side by side with those of men.

Khaba ignored the calls and supplications from the essence-cages in the recesses of the hall. He halted at a large pentacle, made of smooth black onyx and mounted in a raised circle on the floor. Stepping into its centre, he took up the flail that hung loosely at his belt. He cracked it once into the empty air.

All sounds from the cages stilled.

In the shadows beyond the columns, on the margins of the blue-green light, a presence made itself known by a deepening of darkness and a clattering of teeth.

‘Nurgal,’ Khaba said. ‘Is that you?’

‘It is I.’

‘The king insults me. He treats me with disdain, and the other magicians laugh.’

‘What do I care? This is a cold, dark vault, and its occupants make for dismal company. Release me from my bonds.’

‘I shall not release you. I wish something for my colleague Reuben. It was he who laughed the loudest.’

‘What do you wish for him?’

‘Marsh fever.’

‘It shall be done.’

‘Make it last four days, worsening each night. Make him lie awash in his misery, his limbs afire, his body chilled; make his eyes blind, but let him see visions and horrors during the hours of darkness, so that he screams and writhes and cries out for aid that never comes.’

‘You wish him to die?’

Khaba hesitated. The magician Reuben was weak and would not retaliate; but if he died, Solomon would surely take a hand. He shook his head. ‘No. Four days. Then he recovers.’

‘Master, I obey.’

Khaba cracked the flail; with a clattering of teeth the horla swept past him and away through a narrow aperture in the roof; sour air buffeted the margins of the pentacle and set the caged things howling in the dark.

The magician stood in silence, tapping the whip slowly against the palm of his hand. At last he spoke a name. ‘Ammet.’

A soft voice at his ear. ‘Master.’

‘I have lost the favour of the king.’

‘I know, Master. I saw. I am sorry.’

‘How shall I regain it?’

‘That is no easy matter. Apprehending these desert bandits would seem to be the first step.’

Khaba gave a cry of rage. ‘I need to be here! I must be at the court! The others will seize the chance to speak with Solomon and further undermine me. You saw their faces on the hill. Hiram could scarcely keep from crowing with joy as he watched me squirm!’ He took a deep breath and spoke more quietly. ‘Besides, there is my
other
business to attend to. I must continue to observe the queen.’

‘Do not be distressed about
that
,’ the soft voice said. ‘Gezeri can report to you in the desert as well as anywhere. Besides, you have given too much time to your … secondary affairs these last few days – and see where it has got you.’

The magician ground his teeth. ‘How was I to know that the preening fool would choose today to inspect his cursed temple? He might have given me some warning!’

‘He has the Ring. He is not beholden to you or anyone.’

‘Ah! You think I do not
know
that?’ Khaba gripped the flail tightly; his curling fingernails dug deep into the ancient human leather. He bent his head forward to let something stroke the back of his neck. ‘How I wish … I wish …’

‘I know what you wish, dear Master. But it is not safe to express it, even here. You have glimpsed the Spirit of the Ring – you have seen how terrible he is! We must be patient, have faith in our abilities. We will find a way.’

The magician took a deep breath, drew back his shoulders. ‘You are right, sweet Ammet, of course you are. It is just so
hard
to stand there and watch that vain, indolent—’

‘Let us inspect the cages,’ the voice said soothingly. ‘It will relax you. But, Master, before we do, I crave a word. What of Bartimaeus?’

Khaba gave a piercing cry. ‘That vile djinni – if it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t be cast out of Jerusalem! A
hippopotamus
, Ammet! A hippopotamus on Temple Mount!’ He paused, reflecting. ‘And wouldn’t you have said,’ he added slowly, ‘that in face and form it bore a certain resemblance to—’

‘Fortunately for us,’ the soft voice said, ‘I don’t think Solomon noticed.’

Khaba nodded grimly. ‘Well, I have whipped Bartimaeus soundly for his sins, but a whipping is not enough! The flail is too good for him.’

‘I quite agree, Master. This is the last straw. He abused Gezeri a week ago; he has caused frequent dissension among the djinn. He deserves a proper punishment now.’

‘The Inverted Skin, Ammet? The Osiris Box?’

‘Too lenient … Too temporary …’ The voice grew urgent. ‘Master,’ it beseeched, ‘let
me
deal with him. I hunger, I thirst. I have not fed for so, so long. I can rid you of this irritant, and satisfy my cravings at the same time.’ There was a wet, smacking noise behind the magician’s head.

Khaba grunted. ‘No. I like you hungry; it keeps you alert.’

‘Master,
please
... ’

‘Besides, I need all my djinn available and alive while we comb the deserts for these outlaws. Stop your whingeing, Ammet. I will give the matter thought. There will be time enough to deal with Bartimaeus when we return to Jerusalem …’

The voice was truculent, resentful. ‘As you will …’

Khaba’s posture had previously been tight and hunched, tense at the indignities fate had thrust upon him. Now he jerked upright, his voice newly hard and decisive. ‘In a moment we shall make ready to depart. First, however, there is the other matter. Perhaps we will have positive news at last …’

He snapped his fingers, spoke a complex string of syllables. There was a distant chime of bells. The imp-globes shivered against the ceiling of the vault, and drapes on some of the larger cages ruffled to and fro.

The magician peered out into the darkness. ‘Gezeri?’

With a sharp odour of rotten eggs, a small lilac cloud materialized in the air beside the pentacle. Sitting atop the cloud was the foliot Gezeri, who today appeared as a large green imp, with long pointed ears and a pear-shaped nose. He made a series of complex and faintly facetious salutes, which Khaba ignored.

‘Your report, slave?’

The foliot affected an attitude of matchless boredom. ‘I have been to Sheba as you “requested”. I have wandered through its streets unseen, listening to the people. Be certain I let no whisper pass me by, no muttered comment go unheard!’