Ring Of Solomon (22 page)

Khaba’s head jerked up; his eyes shone like a giant spider’s in the blue-green dusk. ‘The wording is correct,’ he said, in tones of driest satisfaction. ‘The procedure should succeed …’

I coughed politely. ‘I’m
so
glad,’ I said. ‘If you could just dismiss me now, you’ll be able to get back to work on … whatever it is you’re doing …’ My voice kind of drifted off at this point. I didn’t like the gleam in those big, pale eyes.

He was doing that thin-lipped-smile thing too, leaning forward, nails gripping the lectern as if he wished to cut the ivory through. ‘Bartimaeus of Uruk,’ he said softly, ‘you can scarcely imagine that after all the ceaseless trouble you have caused me, after setting King Solomon himself against me so that I was cast out into the desert, after assaulting poor Gezeri in the quarry, after your endless litany of disobedience and cheek – you can scarcely imagine that, after all
that
, I should be disposed to simply let you go.’

Put like that, I suppose it
would
have been a bit surprising. ‘But the bandits,’ I began. ‘It was thanks to me that—’

‘Without you,’ the magician said, ‘they would not have been my concern at all.’

This was admittedly true. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘but what about the priestess? You just said that—’

‘Ah, yes, the charming Cyrine,’ Khaba smiled, ‘who fondly believes that a simple girl from some savage backwater can waltz straight in to talk with Solomon. Tonight she will share a banquet in my company and be beguiled by the wonders of the palace; tomorrow, perhaps, if Solomon is busy and has no time to spare, I might persuade her to take a walk with me. Perhaps she will come here. Perhaps she will forget her diplomatic mission. Who can tell? And yes, slave, I promised her that you would leave my service, and so you shall. But in recompense for the injuries you have done me, you will do me one last favour in return.’

His hand rummaged in his robes, drew forth something white and shining, and held it up to show me. It was a bottle. A short, roundish bottle, perhaps the size of a child’s fist. It was made of thick clear crystal, bright and shiny and multi-faceted, and was lightly studded with glass flowers.

‘Like it?’ the magician said. ‘Egyptian rock crystal. I found it in a tomb.’

I considered it. ‘Those flowers are a bit kitsch.’

‘Mmm. Styles in the third dynasty
were
a little basic,’ Khaba agreed. ‘Still, don’t worry yourself, Bartimaeus. You won’t have to look at them, because you’re going to be on the
inside
. This bottle,’ he said, angling it so the facets flashed, ‘will be your home.’

My essence recoiled. The tiny round opening of the bottle’s mouth gaped blackly like an open grave. I cleared my throat painfully. ‘It’s a bit small …’

‘The spell of Indefinite Confinement,’ Khaba said, ‘is a procedure in which I have taken great interest. As you will doubtless know, Bartimaeus, it is in effect a Dismissal, but one that forces the demon into some physical prison instead of allowing it back to its own dimension. These cages here’ – he gestured behind him at the glowing monstrosities stacked beyond the pillars – ‘are filled with past servants I have “dismissed” in just this way. I would do the same with you, but this bottle will be more useful. When you are sealed in, I will present you to King Solomon as a gift, a token of my loyalty, a small addition to the curiosities of his collection. I shall call it, I think, “The Mighty Captive”, or some such twaddle. It will appeal to his primitive tastes. Perhaps, when his jugglers bore him, he will occasionally glance at your distorted features through the glass; perhaps he will simply store it with his other trinkets and never pick it up again.’ The magician shrugged. ‘But I think it might be a hundred years or more before someone breaks the seal and sets you free. Ample time in any case, as your essence slowly festers, for you to regret your wicked insolence to me.’

My fury swelled; I took a step forward in my circle.

‘Come, come,’ Khaba said. ‘By the terms of your summoning you are prevented from harming me. And even if you
were
able, it would not be wise, little djinni. I am not unprotected, as perhaps you know.’

He clicked his fingers. The sounds from the essence-cages went abruptly silent.

At Khaba’s back his shadow shifted off the floor. Up it curled, like a furling scroll, high, high, taller than the magician, a paper-thin wisp of darkness without features of any kind. It rose until its flat black head brushed against the stone blocks of the ceiling, and the magician was like a doll beneath its shade. And now it spread its flat black arms, wide, wide, wide as the vault itself, and bent them to encircle me.

⁵⁶
The town of Zafar
is
in Himyar, as I knew well, having flown over it several times on my trips to collect roc’s eggs for assorted pharaohs. It’s not a ‘rock city’, though, but just your usual provincial town, as the girl should definitely have known.

⁵⁷
This is called irony. Djinn-guards aren’t much cop, if truth be known, being little more than a few flakes of silver attached with cat-gut to a wickerwork frame. Desert peoples wave them about at a moment’s notice to ward off evil influence, and I suppose a particularly feeble spirit might take the hint and leg it. But as far as warding off
real
djinn is concerned, they’re about as effective as a chocolate toothbrush. You just keep away from the silver and brain the owner with a rock or something.

⁵⁸
Despite her protests, it has to be said.

⁵⁹
In its profound infinity the canopy of stars echoes the measureless expanse of the Other Place. On clear nights many spirits are often found sitting on mountain crests or palace rooftops, staring at the heavens. Others fly fast and high, swooping and circling, so the tumbling lights begin to resemble the fluid wonder of our home … I sometimes used to do this, back in the days of Ur, but the melancholy soon affected me. Now, more often, I avert my eyes.

⁶⁰
Like silver,
iron
repels all spirits, and burns our essence if we touch it. Most Egyptian magicians wore iron ankhs about their necks as a basic protection. Not Khaba, though.
He
had something else.

⁶¹
Incidentally this was an actual punishment meted out by the Xan people of East Africa to corrupt leaders and bogus priests. With their cloths nicely filled, they were forced to crouch in a barrel, which was promptly rolled down a hill to the riotous accompaniment of shekere gourds and drums. I enjoyed my association with the Xan. They lived life to the full.

⁶²
We were old hands, you see, well aware of the latent ambiguities contained in even the most blandly reassuring sentence. Dismissing us sounded good, naturally, but it needed clarification; and as for us getting our ‘just reward’ ... in the mouth of someone like Khaba, that phrase was almost an overt threat.

⁶³
Just for a moment, as his essence shrugged off Earth’s limitations and became susceptible to the infinite possibilities of the Other Place, seven Faquarls were visible across the planes, each one in a slightly different place. It was an amazing sight, but I didn’t look too closely.
One
Faquarl is quite enough.

‘Lost your voice, Bartimaeus?’ Khaba said. ‘That’s not like you.’

It was true. I’d not said much. I was too busy looking all about me, coolly assessing my predicament. The downsides, certainly, were clear enough. I was deep underground in the stronghold of a wicked magician, cornered in my circle by the questing fingers of his giant shadow-slave. In a moment or two I was to be compressed into a rather tawdry bottle and turned into a cheap sideshow attraction, possibly for all eternity. Those were the downsides. As for the upsides …

Well, I couldn’t see any just yet.

But one thing was for sure. If I was going to meet a horrid fate, I wasn’t going to do it in the form of a squat, plump-stomached imp. Drawing myself up, I changed, grew, became a tall and elegant young man with shining wings upon my back; I looked no different, even down to the pale-blue nets of veins running through my slender wrists, from when I’d been Gilgamesh’s spear-bearer in Sumer, so many centuries before.

It certainly made me
feel
better. But it did little more than that.

‘Mmm, delightful,’ Khaba said. ‘It’ll look all the more amusing when you’re compressed at speed through this little hole. Sadly I shan’t be here to see it. Ammet …’

Without a glance at the great black column swaying at his back, Khaba held up the crystal bottle. At once a wispy arm, whose fingertips had been hovering close beside my neck, shrank back, bent like a reed stem, then, with probing deftness, plucked the bottle from the magician’s hand and raised it high into the air.

‘The Indefinite Confinement spell,’ Khaba said, tapping the papyrus strip upon the lectern, ‘is long and arduous, and I do not have time to work it now. But Ammet here can speak it for me.’ He looked up then, and from its height a shadow-head shaped just like his own bent down to meet him. ‘Dear Ammet, the hour of the banquet approaches fast, and since I have a
delightful
young woman to meet, up at the palace, I must delay no longer. Finish our business here, as we discussed. I have set out the exact words; you will find them appropriate to a djinni of this level. When all is done and Bartimaeus is interred, seal the bottle with molten lead and mark it with the usual runes. Once it has cooled, bring it up to me. Gezeri and I will be in the Magicians’ Hall.’

So saying – and without another word or backward glance – Khaba stepped out of his circle and walked away among the columns. The foliot, with a carefree wave in my direction, padded after him. The shadow stayed standing where it was. For a moment the ends of its long, tapering legs remained joined to the magician’s heels, stretching out longer, longer along the floor. At last, as if reluctantly, and with a faint, wet rending sound, they peeled away. The magician went on walking. Two narrow strips like midnight streams pooled back across the stones and flowed up into the legs, where they were reabsorbed.

A deep reverberation sounded; the granite door was closed. Khaba had gone. Across the vault his shadow stood silent, watching me.

And then – the shadow hadn’t moved, and nothing on any of the planes had altered – a great force struck me like a raging wind. It blew me back across the circle. I landed flat upon my wings, spinning with the impact of the blast, which did not drop or slacken.

With some difficulty I struggled to a sitting position, trying to clear my head, prodding my essence tentatively. All was still in working order, which meant that the fearsome impact
hadn’t
been an attack. The truth, if anything, was more alarming still. Whatever cloaking mechanism the shadow had employed while being attached to the magician had simply been removed. The planes about me shuddered with the force of its proximity. Its power beat upon me like cold heat.

That told me what I already knew: that the entity I faced was great indeed.

Slowly, painfully, I got to my feet, and still the shadow watched me.

Though now without its concealing Veil, it displayed no different guise. It still bore Khaba’s shape faithfully, if rather larger than the original. As I watched, it folded its arms, crossed one leg loosely above the other. Where its limbs bent, it completely disappeared from view, for it had no thickness. Even such darkness as it possessed was gauzy and see-through, like something woven from black webbing. On the lower planes it almost merged into the chamber’s natural dimness; on the higher ones it grew gradually more substantial, until on the seventh its outline was sharp and well defined.

The head – a smooth-sided node of grainy blackness – had tilted slightly to one side. Featureless as it was, it held the suggestion of keen attention. The body swayed a little, like a mesmerist’s snake rising from its basket. Now that they were separated from the magician, its legs narrowed to two sharp points. It had no feet at all.

‘What are you?’ I said.

It had no ears, but heard me; no mouth, and yet it spoke.

‘I am Ammet.’ The voice was soft as tomb-dust shifting. ‘I am a marid.’

So
that’s
what he was. A marid! Well – it could have been worse
⁶⁴
.

The spear-bearer swallowed; and by an embarrassing quirk of acoustics the painful gulping sound echoed back and forth across the vaults, getting louder with each rebound. The shadow waited. From the essence-cages beyond the columns there was nothing but watchful silence.

The smile I gave when all was still was possibly a trifle forced; nevertheless I gave it, and bowed low. ‘Lord Ammet,’ I said, ‘the pleasure is mine. I have observed you wonderingly from afar, and am glad to speak with you at last in private. We have much to discuss.’

The shadow said nothing; it appeared to be consulting the papyrus. A long gauzy arm stole forward and placed the crystal bottle in the centre of the circle close beside my feet.

I shuffled away a bit, and cleared my throat. ‘As I say, we have much to discuss before we do anything hasty. First of all, let me make my position clear. I acknowledge you as a mighty spirit and I bow to your power. In no way can I match your qualities
⁶⁵
.’

This was, of course, exactly the sort of slavish bootlicking I’d criticized the girl for earlier that afternoon, but I was in no mood for quibbling right now. The idea of being trapped for decades in the crystal bottle was unappealing in the extreme, and I’d have given the shadow a scented massage if I thought it would save my skin.

But hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. I thought I glimpsed a possible way out.

‘However, great as you are, and humble as I am,’ I went on, ‘in one aspect we
are
alike, are we not? For we are both enslaved to this vile Khaba, a man depraved even by the standards of magicians. Look around you! See what wicked things he does to spirits in his power. Listen to the sighs and moans that fill this unhappy vault! These essence-cages are an abomination!’