Bartimaeus #02 - The Golem's Eye Jonathan Stroud

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Bartimaeus

There was plenty of activity above the roofs of London that evening. As well as the forty or so heavy-duty djinn, such as me, who, after leaving the Whitehall chamber, had more or less spontaneously scattered in all directions of the compass, the air was rife with imps and foliots of varying levels of ineptitude. Barely a tower or office block existed that didn't have one or two of them skulking on lookout from its top. Down below, battalions of Night Police were marching, combing the streets with some reluctance for signs of the rogue afrit. In short, the capital was awash with government servants of every type. It was a wonder the afrit wasn't tracked down in the first few seconds.

I spent a little time meandering vaguely around central London in gargoyle form, without any definite plan in mind. As always, my inclination to stay out of harm's way vied with my desire to complete the job and hasten my release as swiftly as possible. Trouble was, afrits are tricky blighters: very difficult to kill.

After a while, lacking anything better to do, I flew across to an unappetizing modern high-rise—a magician's fancy, constructed of concrete and glass—to speak to the sentries on duty there.

The gargoyle alighted with balletic grace. "Here, you two. Has that skeleton passed by here? Speak up." This was relatively polite, given that they were small blue imps—always a trying sort.

The first imp spoke up promptly. "Yes."

I waited. It saluted and went back to polishing its tail. The gargoyle gave a tired sigh and coughed heavily. "Well, when did you see it? Which way did it go?"

The second imp paused in a detailed examination of its toes. "It came by about two hours ago. Don't know where it went. We were too busy hiding. It's mad, you know."

"In what way?"

The imp considered. "Well, all you higher spirits are pretty nasty, of course, but most of you are predictable. This one... it says strange things. And one minute it's happy, the next—well, look what it did to Hibbet."

"He seems happy enough."

"That's Tibbet. It didn't catch Tibbet. Or me. It said it'd get us next time."

"Next time?"

"Yeah, it's been past five times so far. Each time it gives us a really boring lecture, then eats one of us. Five down, two to go. I tell you, the combination of fear and tedium takes some beating. Do you think this toenail's ingrowing?"

"I have no opinion on the subject. When is the skeleton due back?"

"In about ten minutes, if it keeps to his current schedule."

"Thank you. At last—some definite information. I shall await it here."

The gargoyle shrank and dwindled, and became a blue imp only moderately less hideous than the other two. I took myself upwind of them and sat cross-legged on a ledge overlooking the London skyline. Chances were, another djinni would have caught up with the afrit before he returned here, but if not, I'd have to have a go. Quite why he was going around and around the city was anyone's guess; possibly his long vigil in the tomb had sapped his wits. Anyhow, there was plenty of backup in the vicinity: I could see several other djinn drifting about within a couple of streets.

As I waited, a few idle thoughts ran through my mind. No question about it, a lot of funny things were happening in London, all at the same time. First: the golem was causing trouble, instigator unknown. Second, the Resistance had broken into a high-security tomb and made off with a valuable item. Third, and as a direct result of the second, we had an unbalanced afrit loose, too, causing additional mayhem. All this was having a result: I'd tasted the fear and confusion among the magicians during the general summoning. Could it be coincidence? I thought it unlikely.

It didn't seem plausible to me that a bunch of commoners could have gained access to Gladstone's tomb all on their lonesome. I guessed instead that someone must have put them up to it, given them a few tips so they got past the first safeguards and down into the vault. Now, either that very helpful person didn't know about the guardian of the tomb, or maybe he (or she) did; either way, I doubted very much that the girl Kitty and her friends had much idea what they were going up against.

Still, she at least had survived. And now, while the magicians tied themselves in knots trying to catch up with Gladstone's roving skeleton, the dreaded Staff was at large in the world.^[1] Someone was going to take advantage of this, and I didn't think it would be the girl.

[1] In the 1860s, when Gladstone's own remarkable health and vigor were fading, the old codger had endowed his Staff with considerable power, the better for him to access easily. It ended up containing several entities, whose natural aggression was exaggerated by being cooped up together in a single thimble-sized node within the wood. The resulting weapon was perhaps the most formidable since the glory days of Egypt. I'd glimpsed it from afar during Gladstone's wars of conquest, carving the night with sickle-shaped bursts of light. I'd seen the old man's silhouette, static, high-shouldered, holding the Staff, he and it the single fixed points within the parabolas of fire. Everything within its range—forts, palaces, well-built walls—it pounded into dust; even the afrits cringed before its power. And now this Kitty had pinched it. I wondered if she knew precisely what she'd got herself into.

I recalled the unknown intelligence that I'd sensed watching me through the golem's eye, as the creature tried to kill me at the museum. It was possible, if you looked at the whole affair dispassionately, to imagine a similar shadowy presence behind the abbey job, too. The same one? I thought it more than likely.

As I waited, engaged in lots of clever speculation such as this,^[2] I scanned the planes automatically, keeping watch for trouble. And so it chanced that, by and by, upon the seventh plane, I saw an amorphous glow approaching through the evening light. It flitted here and there among the chimney pots, sometimes flaring clearly as it passed into the shadows, sometimes getting lost in the red gleam of the sunlit tiles. On planes two to six the glow was identical; it had no obvious form. It was something's aura, all right—the trail of something's essence—but its material shape was impossible to make out. I tried the first plane, and there, drained of all color by the descending sun, I caught my first glimpse of a leaping man-shaped form.

[2] There were plenty more incredibly intelligent thoughts, which I won't bother troubling your pretty little heads with. Take it from me it was all good, damn good.

It sprang from gable to weathervane with the precision of a mountain goat, teetering on the smallest crest, spinning around like a top, then bounding on. As it drew nearer, I began to hear thin cries, like those of an excited child, erupting from its throat.

My fellow imps were possessed by sudden eleventh-hour anxiety. They left off picking their toenails and polishing their tails and began to skitter to and fro about the roof, attempting to hide behind each other and sucking in their bellies in an attempt to look less obvious. "Uh-oh," they said. "Uh-oh."

I spied one or two of my fellow djinn following the leaping figure at a cautious distance. Quite why they hadn't yet attacked, I couldn't fathom. Perhaps I would soon find out. It was coming my way.

I got up, tucked my tail over my shoulder for neatness' sake, and waited. The other imps darted around me, squeaking incessantly. Eventually, I stuck out a foot and tripped one up. The other cannoned into him and ended up on top. "Quiet," I snarled. "Try showing a bit of dignity." They looked at me in silence. "That's better."

"Tell you what..." The first imp nudged the other and pointed at me. "He could be next."

"Yeah. It might take him this time. We could be saved!"

"Get behind him. Quick."

"Me first! After me!"

There followed such an undignified display of scuffling and scurrying, as they fought with each other to hide behind my back, that my attention for the next few moments was entirely taken up with administering some well-deserved slaps, the noise of which echoed around the town. In the midst of this performance, I looked up; and there, standing astride a parapet at the edge of the tower-block roof, not two meters away, was the renegade afrit.

I admit his appearance startled me.

I don't mean the golden mask, shaped with the deathly features of the great magician. I don't mean the wispy hair drifting out behind it on the breeze. I don't mean the skeletal hands resting easily on the hips, or the vertebrae peeping out above the necktie, or the dusty burial suit hanging so limply off his frame. None of that was particularly exciting; I've taken on the guise of a skeleton dozens of times—haven't we all? No, what surprised me was the realization that this was not a guise, but real bones, real clothes, and a real golden mask up top. The afrit's own essence was quite invisible, hidden somewhere within the magician's remains. He did not have a form of his own—on this, or any of the other planes. I'd never seen this done before.^[3]

[3] It is a simple fact that, upon materializing in the human world, we have to take on some form or other, even if it is just a drift of smoke or a dribble of liquid. Although some of us have the power to be invisible on the lower planes, on the higher, we must reveal a semblance: that is part of the cruel binding wrought by the magicians. Since we have no such definite forms in the Other Place, the strain of doing this is considerable and gives us pain; the longer we remain here, the worse that pain gets, although changing form can alleviate these symptoms temporarily. What we don't do is "possess" material objects: the less we have to do with earthen things the better, and anyway, this procedure is strictly forbidden by the terms of our summoning.

Whatever the skeleton had been getting up to during the course of the day, it had evidently been quite energetic, since the clothes were looking the worse for wear: there was a trendy slit across the knee,^[4] a burn mark on one shoulder, and a ragged cuff that looked as if it had been sliced by claws. My master would probably have paid good money for that ensemble if he'd seen it in some Milanese boutique, but for an honest afrit it was a pretty shoddy affair. The bones below the cloth seemed complete enough, however, the joints hinging smoothly as if they had been oiled.

[4] Less trendy was the bony patella poking out.

The skeleton regarded the heap of imps with its head cocked to one side. We stood stock still, our mouths agape, frozen in the middle of our scuffle. At last it spoke.

"Are you breeding?"

"No," I said. "Just a bit of rough-and-tumble."

"I mean your numbers. There were two of you last time."

"Reinforcements," I said. "They called me over to hear you speak. And to get eaten, of course."

The skeleton pirouetted on the edge of the parapet. "How charming!" it cried gaily. "What a compliment to my eloquence and clarity! You imps are more intelligent than you look."

I glanced at Tibbet and his friend, who were both standing stock still, mouths wide and dribbling. Rabbits in headlights would have looked on them with scorn. "I wouldn't count on it," I said.

In response to my searing wit, the skeleton gave a trilling laugh and an impromptu tap dance with arms aloft. About fifty yards beyond, loitering behind a chimney stack like two shifty teenagers, I could see the other djinn, waiting and watching.^[5] So I reckoned we pretty much had Gladstone's bones surrounded.

[5] One was my friend from the mass summoning—the bird with stilt legs. The other was shaped like a pot-bellied orangutan. Good honest traditional forms, in other words; no messing about with moldy bones for them.

"You seem in a very upbeat mood," I observed.

"And why shouldn't I be?" The skeleton came to a halt, clicking its fingerbones like castanets in time to its shoes' final climactic tap. "I'm free!" it said. "Free as can be! That rhymes, you know."

"Yes... well done." The imp scratched its head with the tip of its tail. "But you're still in the world," I said slowly. "Or at least you are from where I'm sitting. So you're not really free, are you? Freedom comes only when you break your bond and return home."

"That's what I used to think," the skeleton said, "while I was in that smelly tomb. But not anymore. Look at me! I can go wherever I want, do whatever I like! If I want to gaze at the stars—I can gaze to my heart's content. If I want to stroll amid the flowers and the trees—I can do that, too. If I want to grab an old man and throw him head over heels into the river—no problem either! The world calls me: Step right on up, Honorius, and do whatsoever you please. Now, imp; I'd call that freedom, wouldn't you?"

It made a menacing sort of scurry toward me as it said this, its fingers making little clutching spasms and a murderous red light suddenly flaring in the blank sockets behind the eyes of the golden mask. I hopped back hurriedly out of range. A moment later, the red light faded a little and the skeleton's advance became a merry dawdle. "Look at that sunset!" it sighed, as if to itself. "Like blood and melted cheese."

"A delightful image," I agreed. No question about it, those imps were right. The afrit was quite insane. But insane or not, a few things still puzzled me. "Excuse me, Sir Skeleton," I said, "as a humble imp of limited understanding, I wonder if you would enlighten me. Are you still acting under a charge?"

A long curved fingernail pointed to the golden mask. "See him?" the skeleton said, and its voice was now saturated with melancholy. "It's all his fault. He bound me into these bones with his last breath. Charged me to protect them forever, and guard his possessions too. Got most of them here—" It swung around to reveal a modern rucksack hanging incongruously on its back. "And also," it added, "to destroy all invaders of his tomb. Listen, ten out of twelve's not too bad, is it? I did my best, but the ones that got away keep nagging at me."

The imp was soothing. "It's very good. No one could have done better. And I suppose the other two were tough nuts to crack, eh?"

The red light flared again; I heard teeth grinding behind the mask. "One was a man, I think. I didn't see. He was a coward; he ran while his comrades fought. But the other... Ah, she was a spry little whippet. I'd have loved to get her white neck between my fingers. But—would you credit such guile in one so young? She had purest silver on her person; gave Honorius such a jarring in his poor old bones when he reached out to stroke her."

"Disgraceful." The imp shook its head sadly. "And I bet she never even told you her name."

"She didn't, but I overheard it—oh, and I so nearly caught her, too." The skeleton gave a little dance of rage. "Kitty she is and, when I find her, Kitty she'll die. But I'm in no hurry. There's time enough for me. My master's dead, and I'm still obeying my orders, guarding his old bones. I'm just taking them along with me, that's all. I can go where I want, eat whatever imp I please. Especially"—the red eyes flared—"the talkative, opinionated ones."

"Mmm." The imp nodded, mouth tight shut.

"And do you want to know the best of it?" The skeleton spun right around (away on the next roof over, I saw the two djinn duck back behind the chimney stack) and bent down close to me. "There is no pain!"

"Mm-mmm?" I was still being quiet, but I tried to express sufficient interest.

"That's right. None at all. Which is exactly what I'm telling any spirit whom I meet. This pair—" It pointed at the other imps, who had by now summoned enough gumption to creep off to the opposite end of the roof. "This pair have heard it all several times over. You, no less hideous than they, are privileged to hear it now as well. I wish to share my joy. These bones protect my essence: I have no need to create my own, vulnerable form. I nestle snugly within, like a chick inside my nest. My master and I are thus united to our mutual advantage. I am obeying his command, but can still do whatever I wish, happily and without pain. I can't think why no one's thought of this before."

The imp broke its vow of silence. "Here's a thought. Possibly because it involves the magician's being dead?" I suggested. "Most magicians aren't going to want to make that sacrifice. They don't mind that our essences shrivel while we serve them; in fact, they probably prefer it, since it concentrates our minds. And they certainly don't want us wandering about doing any old thing we wish, do they?"

The gold mask considered me. "You are a most impertinent imp," it said at last. "I shall consume you next, since my essence requires some stoking.^[6] But you speak sense, nevertheless. Truly I am unique. Unlucky as I once was, trapped for long dark years in Gladstone's tomb, I am now the most fortunate of afrits. Henceforward I shall roam the world, taking my leisurely revenge on human and spirit alike. Perhaps one day, when my vengeance is sated, I shall return to the Other Place—but not just yet." It gave a sudden lunge in my direction; I somersaulted backward, just out of reach, landing with my rear end teetering over the edge of the parapet.

[6] You could tell Honorius was far gone by the fact that he evidently hadn't bothered checking through the planes. If he had, he'd have seen that I was an imp only on the first three planes. On the rest, I was Bartimaeus, in all my lustrous glory.

"So it doesn't bother you then that you've lost the Staff?" I said quickly, making frantic signals with my tail to the djinn on the opposite roof. It was time we put an end to Honorius and his megalomania.^[7] Out of the corner of my eye I saw the orangutan scratch his armpit. Either this was a subtle signal promising swift aid, or else he hadn't seen me.

[7] I have to say that his ramblings were not without interest, in an odd sort of way. Since time out of mind, every one of us, from the toughest marid to the smallest imp, has been cursed by the twin problems of obedience and pain. We have to obey the magicians, and it hurts us to do it. Through Gladstone's injunction, Honorius seemed to have found a way out of this cruel vise. But he had lost his sanity in the process. Who would rather stay on Earth than return home?

"The Staff..." The skeleton's eyes flashed. "Yes, my conscience pricks me a little. Still, what matter? The girl Kitty will have it. She is in London; and sooner or later I will find her." It brightened. "Yes... And with the Staff in my hand, who knows what I could do. Now stand still, so that I can devour you."

It reached out a leisurely hand, evidently not expecting further resistance. I suppose the other imps must have sat quietly, accepting their fate, not being a very decisive bunch. But Bartimaeus was made of sterner stuff, as Honorius was about to learn. I gave a little skip between the outstretched arms, jumped up, and bounded over the horrid white head, ripping the death mask off as I did so.^[8]

[8] My six imp's fingers came in handy here; each one had a small sucker on the end.

It came away without difficulty, having been held on by only a few tightened strands of the skeleton's dirty white hair. Honorius gave a yelp of surprise and wheeled around, his leering skull fully exposed. "Hand that back!"

For answer, the imp danced away around the rooftop. "You don't want this," I called over my shoulder. "It belonged to your master and he's dead. Euuch, and he didn't have very good teeth, did he? Look at that one hanging by a thread."

"Give me back my face!"

"Your 'face'? That's not healthy talk for an afrit. Ooops, there it goes. Clumsy me." With all my strength, I spun it away like a small gold Frisbee, off the edge of the building and down into the void.

The skeleton roared with rage and sent three Detonations off in rapid succession, singeing the air around me. The imp flipped and sprang, over, under, over, and down below the parapet, where I promptly used my suckers to cling to the nearest window.

From this vantage point, I waved again at the two djinn lurking over by the chimney, and whistled as shrilly as I could. Evidently, Honorius's proficiency with his Detonations had been the reason for their previous caution, but I was relieved now to see the stilt-legged bird shift itself, followed reluctantly by the orangutan.

I could hear the skeleton standing on the verge above, craning its neck out in search of me. Its teeth snapped and ground in anger. I pressed myself as flat as I could to the window. As Honorius now discovered, one definite drawback to his residency in the bones was that he could not change his form. Any honest afrit would by now have grown wings and shot down to find me, but without a nearby ledge or roof to hop to, the skeleton was stymied. Doubtless he was considering his next move.

In the meantime, I, Bartimaeus, made mine. With great stealth, I shimmied sideways along the window, across the wall and around the corner of the building. There, I promptly clambered upward and peered over the top of the parapet. The skeleton was still leaning out in a precarious manner. From behind it looked rather less threatening than from the front: its trousers were ripped and torn, and sagged so catastrophically that I was treated to an unwanted view of its coccyx.

If it would just hold that position a moment more...

The imp hopped up onto the roof and changed back into the gargoyle, which tiptoed across, palms outstretched.

It was just then that my plan was shattered by the sudden appearance of the bird and the orangutan (now complete with orange wings), who descended in front of the skeleton from the sky. Each fired off a burst of magic—a Detonation and an Inferno, to be precise; the twin bolts slammed into the skeleton, knocking it backward away from the precipice. With the swift thinking that is my hallmark, I abandoned my idea and joined in likewise, choosing a Convulsion for variety's sake. Flickering inky bands swarmed over the skeleton, seeking to shake it to pieces, but to no avail. The skeleton uttered a word, stamped its foot, and the remnants of all three attacks spun away from it, shriveling and fading.

Bird, orangutan, and gargoyle fell back a little on all sides. We anticipated trouble.

Gladstone's skull rotated creakily to address me. "Why do you think my master chose me for the honor of inhabiting his bones? I am Honorius, a ninth-level afrit, invulnerable to the magic of mere djinn. Now—leave me be!" Arcs of green force crackled out from the skeleton's fingers; the gargoyle leaped from the roof to avoid them, while the bird and orangutan tumbled unceremoniously out of the sky.

With a bound, the skeleton dropped to a lower roof and made off on its sprightly way. The three djinn held a hurried midair consultation.

"I don't like this game much," the orangutan said.

"Nor me," said the bird. "You heard him. He's invulnerable. I remember one time, back in old Siam. There was this royal afrit, see—"

"He's not invulnerable to silver," the gargoyle interrupted. "He told me so."

"Yep, but nor are we," protested the orangutan. "It'll make my fur fall off."

"We don't have to touch it, do we? Come on."

A swift descent to the thoroughfare below resulted in a minor accident, when the driver of a lorry saw us in passing, and jackknifed off the road. Nasty, but it could have been worse.^[9]

[9] The lorry, which was delivering a cargo of melons somewhere, careered into the glass front of a fishmonger's, sending an avalanche of ice and halibut cascading out onto the pavement. The trap at the back of the lorry opened, and the melons bounced out into the street, where, following a natural incline, they gathered pace along the road. Several bicycles were upended, or forced sideways into the gutter, before the melons' descent was halted by a glassware store at the foot of the hill. The few pedestrians who managed to avoid the rolling missiles were subsequently knocked flying by the horde of alley cats converging on the fish shop.

My colleague paused in indignation. "What's the matter with him? Hasn't he ever seen an orangutan before?"

"Not one with wings, possibly. I suggest we become pigeons on the first plane. Now, break me off three of those railings. They're not iron, are they? Good. I'm going to find a jeweler's."

A quick examination of the retail district revealed something even better: a veritable silversmith's, boasting a complex window display of jugs, tankards, golfing trophies, and memorial plates that had evidently been assembled with loving care. Bird and orangutan, who had managed to secure three long rails, held back fearfully from the shop, since the freezing aura of the silver raddled our essences even halfway across the street. But the gargoyle had no time for delay. I seized one of the railings, gritted my teeth, and, hopping over to the window, staved the glass in.^[10] With a quick stab of the rail, I lifted a large silver tankard by its handle and backed away from the shop, ignoring plaintive cries from within.

[10] Imagine the discomfort of closely approaching a raging fire: this was the effect so much silver had on me—except that it was cold.

"See this?" I dangled the tankard at the end of the rail before my bemused companions. "One spear. Now we need two more."

It took twenty minutes of low-level flying to locate the skeleton once again. This was easy really; we just followed the sound of the screams. It seemed that Honorius had rediscovered the delights of frightening people, and was sauntering along the embankment, swinging from streetlights and popping up behind the river wall to scare witless any passerby. It was a harmless enough hobby, but we had our collective charge, and that meant we had to act.

Each one of us had a homemade spear, complete with its silver object. The bird had a darts cup swinging on the end of his rail, while the orangutan, who had spent a couple of fruitless minutes trying to balance a large plate on the tip of his, had settled at last for a toastrack. I had hurriedly schooled them both in tactics, and we approached the skeleton in the manner of three sheepdogs tackling an obstinate ram. The bird flew up along the Embankment from the south, the orangutan flew down from the north, and I came at him from the landward side. We cornered him in the region of Cleopatra's Needle.^[11]

[11] Cleopatra's Needle: a sixty-foot Egyptian obelisk, weighing 180-odd tons, that has nothing to do with Cleopatra at all. I should know, since I was one of the workers who erected it for Tuthmosis III in 1475 B.C. As we'd plunked it in the sand at Heliopolis, I was rather surprised when I saw it in London 3,500 years later. I suppose someone pinched it. You can't take your eyes off anything these days.

Honorius saw the bird first. Another swinging jet of power shot out, cut between his bandy legs, and vaporized a public convenience. In the meantime, the orangutan darted close and thrust the toastrack between Gladstone's shoulder blades. A burst of greenish sparks, a smell of burning cloth; the skeleton leaped high into the air. It fell to earth with a keening cry, bounded away toward the road, only to narrowly avoid a swipe from my oncoming tankard.

"Ahh! You traitors!" Honorius's next attack shot past the gargoyle's ear; yet while he struggled to keep my fleeing frame in view, the bird stole close and tickled his bony leg with the darts trophy. As he spun around to tackle this new danger, the toast-rack went to work again. And so it went. However much the skeleton turned and twisted, one silver weapon or another was always in action behind its back. Before long, its missiles became erratic, lacking force; it was more interested in retreat than engagement. Howling and cursing, it fled across the Embankment's width, nearer and nearer the river wall.

The three of us closed in with great caution. For a moment I couldn't work out why this felt so unusual. Then I realized: it was a chase, and for once I was doing the chasing. Usually it's the other way around.

In minutes, we had the skeleton pressed up against the foot of the obelisk. The skull rotated frantically left and right, the red dots flaring, seeking avenues of escape.

"Honorius," I said, "this is your last chance. We understand the stresses you've been under. If you can't dematerialize voluntarily from those bones, doubtless one of today's magicians can free you from your binding instead. Surrender now, and I will ask my master to research the necessary spell."

The skeleton gave a screeching cry of contempt. "Ask your master? Will it really be so easy? Are you on such equal terms? I doubt it very much. All of you are subject to the whims of human masters, and I alone am free!"

"You're trapped in a festering bag of bones," I said. "Look at you! Not even able to turn into a bird or fish to get away."

"I'm in a better state than you," the skeleton snarled. "How many years have you been working for them? Change shape all you like, the fact remains you're a slave, with threats and manacles binding you to your task. Ooh, look—now I'm an imp, now I'm a devil! Who cares? Big deal!"

"Gargoyle, actually," I muttered. But only quietly; his point had hit home.

"If you had half a chance, you'd be here with me, roaming London at will, teaching those magicians a thing or two. Hypocrite! I defy you!" The vertebrae cracked, the torso turned, white bones reached up and grasped the granite column. With a heave and a gasp, Gladstone's skeleton was climbing up the obelisk, using the ancient carved hieroglyphs for footholds.

My companions and I watched it climb.

"Where's he think he's going?" the bird asked.

The gargoyle shrugged. "There's nowhere for him to go," I said. "He's just postponing the inevitable." I spoke angrily, since Honorius's words had contained more than a grain of truth, and that knowledge hurt me. "Let's finish him off."

But as we rose, spears lifted, silver ornaments glinting darkly in the dusk, the skeleton reached the uppermost point of the ancient stone. There, it clambered awkwardly to its feet and raised its ragged arms toward the west and the setting sun. The light shone through the long white hair and danced on the hollow innards of the skull. Then, without another sound, it bent its legs and launched itself up and out over the river in a graceful swan dive.

The orangutan hurled its spear after it, but really there was no need.

The Thames that evening was at high tide and in full spate; the skeleton hit the surface far out and was submerged instantly. Once only did it reappear, way downstream, with water gushing from the eye sockets, jaw champing, arm bones flailing. But still it made no sound. Then it was gone.

Whether the skeleton was carried straight out to sea, or drawn down into the mud at the bottom of the Thames, the watchers on the bank could not say. But Honorius the afrit, together with Gladstone's bones that housed him, was seen no more.

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