Bartimaeus #02 - The Golem's Eye Jonathan Stroud

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Bartimaeus

It was the biggest joint summoning that I'd been involved in since the great days of Prague. Forty djinn materializing more or less at once, in a vast chamber built for that purpose in the bowels of Whitehall. As with all such things, it was a messy business, despite the best efforts of the magicians. They were all lined up in tidy rows of identical pentacles, wearing the same dark suits and speaking their incantations quietly, while the officiating clerks scribbled their names down at tables to the sides. We djinn, of course, were less concerned with regimental decorum: we arrived in forty very different guises, trumpeting our individuality with horns, tails, iridescent flanges, spikes, and tentacles; with colors ranging from obsidian-black to delicate dandelion-yellow; with a menagerie full of hollerings and chitter; with a magnificent range of sulfurous guffs and stenches. Out of sheer boredom, I had reverted to one of my old favorites, a winged serpent with silver feathers arching from behind my head.^[1] To my right was a kind of bird thing on stilt legs, to my left an eerie miasma of blue-green smoke. Beyond him was a slavering griffin, and beyond him—more disconcerting than menacing, this one—was a stumpy and immobile footstool. We all faced our masters, waiting for our charges.

[1] That used to bring the house down in the Yucatán, where you'd see the priests tumbling down the pyramid steps or diving into alligator-infested lakes to escape my mesmerizing sway. Didn't have quite the same effect on the boy here. In response to my undulating menace, he yawned, picked his teeth with a finger and began scribbling in a notepad. Is it me, or have kids today simply seen too much?

The boy hardly paid any attention to me; he was too busy writing down some notes.

"Ahem." The serpent of silver plumes gave a polite cough. "A-hem." Still no response. How impolite was this? You call someone up, then take them for granted. I coughed a little louder. "A-thaniel."

That got a response. His head jerked up, then swiveled from side to side. "Shut up," he hissed. "Anyone could have heard that."

"What is all this?" I said. "I thought we had a private thing going. Now every man and his imp are joining in."

"It's top priority. We've got an insane demon on the loose. We need it destroyed."

"It won't be the only mad thing about if you let this lot go." I flicked my tongue in a lefterly direction. "Check out that one at the end. He's taken the form of a footstool. Weird... but somehow I like his style."

"That is a footstool. No one's using that pentacle. Now, listen. Things are moving fast. The Resistance have broken into Gladstone's tomb and freed the guardian of his treasures. It's at large in London, causing merry hell. You'll recognize it by its mildewed bones and general smell of decay. The Prime Minister wants it gone; that's why this group is being assembled."

"All of us? It must be potent. Is it an afrit?"^[2]

[2] I'd had a few close encounters with Gladstone's afrits during his war of conquest and it was fair to say I wasn't anxious for another. They were a prickly lot, in general, made restless and aggressive by unpleasant treatment. Of course, even if this afrit had started out with the loving personality of a gentle babe (unlikely), it would not have been improved by a century's inhumation in a tomb.

"We think so, yes. Powerful—and embarrassing. It was last seen gyrating Gladstone's pelvis on Horseguards' Parade. But listen, I want you to do something more. If you find the de—, the afrit, see if you can get any information concerning the Resistance: particularly about a girl called Kitty. I think she may have escaped with a precious Staff. The creature may be able to give a description."

"Kitty..." The serpent's tongue flicked back and forth musingly. A Resistance girl of that name had crossed our paths before. If I remembered correctly, she was a feisty specimen with big trousers.... Well, several years on, her feistiness evidently hadn't failed her.^[3] I recalled something else. "Wasn't she the one who nicked your scrying-glass?"

[3] I had no information on the trousers so far.

He made his patented bulldog-who's-sat-on-a-thistle face. "Possibly."

"And now she's pinched Gladstone's Staff... Talk about going up in the world."

"There was nothing wrong with that scrying glass."

"No, but you'll admit it'd never laid Europe to waste. That Staff's a formidable piece of work. And you say it's been lying in Gladstone's tomb all this time?"

"Apparently." The boy glanced carefully around him, but all the neighboring magicians were busily delivering their charges to their slaves, shouting over the general caterwauling. He leaned forward in a conspiratorial manner. "It's ridiculous!" he whispered. "Everyone's always been too scared to open the tomb. And now some bunch of commoners has made a fool of the whole government. But I intend to find the girl and rectify that."

I shrugged my hood. "You could always just wish her well and leave her alone."

"And let her sell the Staff to the highest bidder? Don't make me laugh!" My master bent closer. "I think I can track her down. And when I do... well, I've read a lot about that Staff. It's powerful, all right, but its Words of Command were fairly straightforward. It needs a strong magician to control it, but in the right hands—who knows what it could achieve?" He straightened impatiently. "What's the delay here? They should be giving the general order to move off. I've got more important things to do."

"They're waiting for Buttercup there in the corner to finish his incantation."

"Who? Tallow? What's that idiot playing at? Why doesn't he just summon his green monkey thing?"

"Judging by the amount of incense he's employed, and the size of that book he's holding, he's going for something big."

The boy grunted. "Trying to impress everyone with a higher-level demon, I suppose. Typical. He'd do anything to keep Whitwell's favor."

The winged serpent swayed back violently. "Whoa, there!"

"What's the matter now?"

"It was your face! Just for a moment there, you had a really unpleasant sneer on it. Horrible, it was."

"Don't be ridiculous. You're the one who's a giant snake. Tallow's been on my back too long, that's all." He cursed. "Him and all the rest. I can't trust anyone around here. Which reminds me..." He bent closer once more; the serpent dipped its majestic head to hear him. "I'm going to need your protection more than ever. You heard what that mercenary said. Someone in the British government tipped him off that we were coming to Prague."

The plumed serpent nodded. "Glad you caught up. I figured that out long ago. By the way, have you freed those Czech spies yet?"

His brow darkened. "Give me a chance! I've got more urgent things to consider. Someone near the top's controlling the golem's eye, stirring up trouble here. They might try to silence me."

"Who knew you were coming to Prague? Whitwell? Tallow?"

"Yes, and a minister in the Foreign Office. Oh, and possibly Duvall."

"That hairy Police Chief? But he left the meeting before—"

"I know he did, but his apprentice, Jane Farrar, might have wormed the information out of me." Was it the light, or had the boy flushed a little?

"Wormed it? How's that, exactly?"

He scowled. "She used a Charm and—"

Rather to my disappointment, this interesting story was suddenly disrupted by an abrupt and, to the assembled magicians, disconcerting occurrence. The stocky, yellow magician, Tallow, who was standing in a pentacle at the end of the next row, had finally finished his long and complex invocation, and with a flex of his pinstriped arms, lowered the book from which he had read. A few seconds passed; the magician waited, breathing hard, for his summons to be heard. All at once, a billowing column of black smoke began to issue from the center of the second pentacle, small yellow forks of lightning crackling in its heart. It was a bit hackneyed, but quite well done in its way.^[4]

[4] Several of us hovering nearby had been half-watching with the detached interest of the connoisseur. It's always interesting to study one another's styles when you get the chance, since you never know when you might pick up a new tip on presentation. In my youth, I was always one for the dramatic entrance. Now, in keeping with my character, I gravitate more toward the subtle and refined. Okay, with the occasional feathered serpent thrown in.

The magician went gog-eyed with foreboding; rightly so as it turned out. The smoke coalesced into a muscular black form some seven feet high, complete with four waving arms.^[5] It shuffled slowly around the perimeter of the pentacle, testing for weaknesses.

[5] This guise suggested the djinni's career had included a spell in the Hindu Kush. Amazing how these influences stay with you.

And to its evident surprise, found one.^[6]

[6] The words of a summons act as crucial reinforcements of the runes and lines drawn upon the floor. They create invisible bands of power that circle the pentacle, knotting and reknotting, and looping in upon themselves, until an impassable boundary is formed. However, just one word a smidgen out of place can leave a fatal weakness in the whole defense. As Tallow was about to discover.

The four arms froze for a moment, as if in doubt. Then a dribble of smoke emerged from the base of the figure and prodded the edge of the pentacle with experimental care. Two such prods was all it took. The weak spot was pinpointed: a little hole in the incantatory barrier. Instantly, the pseudopodium extended forward and began to stream through the breach, narrowing almost to a point as it passed through, expanding again on the other side. Faster and faster streamed the smoke; it swelled and grew and became a bulging tentacle that darted eagerly across the space to the other pentacle, where the magician stood transfixed in horror. The trails of rosemary and rowan that he had placed around its edges were scattered to the winds. The smoke ballooned up about his shoes, rapidly encasing his legs in a thick black column. The magician made a few incoherent noises at this point, but he didn't have time for much; the figure in the first pentacle had now dwindled to nothing; all its essence had passed through the gap and was enveloping its prey. In less than five seconds, the whole magician, pinstriped suit and all, had been swallowed by the smoke. Several triumphalist lightning bolts were emitted near the head of the column, then it sank away into the floor like a solid thing, taking the magician with it.

An instant later, both pentacles were empty, except for a telltale scorch where the magician had once stood, and a charred book lying beside it.

Throughout the summoning chamber, there was stunned silence. The magicians stood dumbfounded, their clerks limp and sagging in their seats.

Then the whole place erupted into noise; those magicians who had already suitably bound their slaves, my master among them, stepped from their pentacles and gathered around the scorch mark, stewy-faced and jabbering. We higher beings began a cheery and approving chatter. I exchanged a few remarks with the green miasma and the stilt-legged bird.

"Nice one."

"Stylishly done."

"That lucky beggar. You could tell she could hardly believe it."

"Well, how often does a chance like that come along?"

"All too rarely. I remember one time, back in Alexandria. There was this young apprentice—"

"The fool must have mispronounced one of the locking injunctions."

"Either that or a printer's error. You saw he was reading straight out of a book? Well, he said exciteris before stringaris; I heard him."

"No! Really? A beginner's mistake."

"Exactly. It was the same with this young apprentice I mentioned; he waited till his master was away, then—now, you're not going to believe this—"

"Bartimaeus—attend to me!" The boy strode back to his pentacle, coat billowing behind him. The other magicians were doing likewise, all across the hall. There was a sudden sense of businesslike intensity about them. My fellow slaves and I reluctantly faced our masters. "Bartimaeus," the boy said again, and his voice was shaking, "as I bade you, so you must do: go out into the world and hunt down the renegade afrit. I bid you return to me only when it is destroyed."

"All right, steady on." The plumed serpent eyed him with something like amusement. He was getting all uptight and official with me suddenly, lots of "bids" and "bades"—this suggested he was quite upset. "What's the matter with you?" I said. "You're coming over all shocked. I thought you didn't even like the bloke."

His face colored. "Shut up! Not another word! I am your master, as you so regularly forget. You will do as I command!"

No more conspiratorial confidences for us. The boy was back to his old foot-stamping ways again. Strange what a small jolt of reality will do.

There was no point talking to him when he was in a mood like this. The plumed serpent turned its back, coiled in upon itself and, in company with its fellow slaves, vanished from the room.

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