Jonathan Stroud - Bartimaeus 1 (50 page)

I flapped my wings once and rose up a fraction. As he shot under me, I swiveled

and booted his backside with all my strength. He was going too fast to stop quickly,

especially with my friendly assistance. His wings jammed forward in an effort to stop. He slowed, and began to turn, snarling.

The rift exerted its pull on him. An expression of sudden doubt appeared on his

face. He tried to beat his wings, but they didn't move properly. It was as if they were immersed in fast-flowing treacle; traces of a black-gray substance were pulled off the fringes of his wings and sucked away. That was his essence beginning to go. He made a

tremendous effort, and actually succeeded in advancing a little toward me. I gave him a thumbs-up sign.

"Well done," I said. "I reckon you made about five centimeters there. Keep going." He made another Herculean effort. "Another centimeter! Good try! You'll get your hands on me soon." To encourage him, I stuck a cheeky foot in his direction and waved it in front of his face, just out of reach. He snarled and tried to swipe, but now the essence was curling away from the surface of his limbs and being drawn into the rift; his muscular tone was visibly changing, growing thinner by the instant. As his strength

ebbed, the pull of the rift became stronger and he began to move backward, slowly first, then faster.

If Jabor had had half a brain he might have changed into a gnat or something:

perhaps with less bulk he might have fought free from the rift's gravitational pull. A word of friendly advice could have saved him, but dear me, I was too busy watching him

unravel to think of it until it was far too late.

Now his rear limbs and wings were sloughing off into liquid streams of greasy

gray-black stuff that spiraled through the rift and away from Earth. It can't have been pleasant for him, especially with Lovelace's charge still binding him here, but his face showed no pain, only hatred. So it was, right to the end. Even as the back of his head lost its form, his blazing red eyes were still locked on mine.

Then they were gone, away into the rift, and I was alone, waving him a fond

adieu.

I didn't waste too much time on my good-byes. I had other matters to attend to.

Nathaniel

"An amazing thing, the Amulet of Samarkand." Whether from fear, or from a

cruel delight in reasserting his control, Lovelace persisted in keeping up a one-sided conversation with Nathaniel even as Ramuthra stalked remorselessly toward them. It

seemed he could not bring himself to shut up.

Nathaniel was retreating slowly, hopelessly, knowing there was nothing he could

do.

"Ramuthra disrupts the elements, you see." Lovelace continued. "Wherever it treads, the elements rebel. And that ruins the careful order on which all magic depends.

Nothing any of
you
might try can stop it: every magical effort will misfire—you cannot hurt me, you cannot escape. Ramuthra will have you all. But the Amulet contains an

equal and opposite force to Ramuthra's; thus I am secure. It might even lift me to its mouth, so that chaos raged upon me, and I would feel nothing."

The demon had halved the distance to Nathaniel and was picking up pace. One of

its great transparent arms was outstretched. Perhaps it was eager to taste him.

"My dear master suggested this plan," Lovelace said, "and, as always, he was inspired. He will be watching us at this moment."

"You mean Schyler?" Even on the threshold of death, Nathaniel couldn't restrain a savage satisfaction. "I doubt it. He's lying dead upstairs."

Lovelace's self-possession faltered for the first time. His smile flickered.

"That's right," Nathaniel said. "I didn't just escape. I killed him."

The magician laughed. "Don't lie to me, child—"

A voice behind Lovelace: a woman's, soft and plaintive. "Simon!"

The magician looked back; Amanda Cathcart stood there, close at hand, her gown

torn and muddied, her hair disheveled and now slightly maroon. She limped as she

approached him, her arms out, bafflement and terror etched upon her face. "Oh,
Simon"

she said. "What have you done?"

Lovelace blanched; he turned to face the woman. "Stay back!" he cried. There was a note of panic in his voice. "Get away!"

Tears welled in Amanda Cathcart's eyes. "How could you do this, Simon? Am I to

die too?"

She lurched forward. Discomforted, the magician raised his hands to ward her off.

"Amanda—I-I'm sorry. It... it had to be."

"No, Simon—you promised me so much."

Sideways on, Nathaniel stole closer.

Lovelace's confusion turned to anger. "Get away from me, woman, or I will call

on the demon to tear you to shreds! Look—it is almost upon you!" Amanda Cathcart

made no move. She seemed past caring.

"How
could
you use me in this way, Simon? After everything you said. You have no honor."

Nathaniel took another shuffling step. Ramuthra's outline towered above him now.

"Amanda, I'm warning you—"

Nathaniel leaped forward and snatched. His fingers rasped against the skin on

Lovelace's neck, then closed about something cold, hard, and flexible. The Amulet's

chain. He pulled at it with all his strength. For an instant the magician's head was jerked toward him, then a link somewhere along the chain snapped and it came away free in his hand.

Lovelace gave a great cry.

Nathaniel fell back from him and rolled onto the floor, the chain's links colliding

against his face.

He scrabbled at it with both hands, clasping the small, thin oval thing that hung

from the middle of the broken chain. As he did so, he was conscious of a weight being

removed from him, as if a remorseless gaze had suddenly shifted elsewhere.

Lovelace had reeled in the first shock of the assault, then made to pounce upon

Nathaniel—but two slender arms pulled him back. "Wait, Simon—would you hurt a poor, sweet boy?"

"You're mad, Amanda! Get off me! The Amulet—I must—" For an instant he

fought to extricate himself from the woman's desperate grip, and then the towering

presence directly above him caught his horrified eye. His legs sagged. Ramuthra was

very close to all three of them now: in the full power of its proximity, the fabric of their clothes flapped wildly, their hair blew about their faces. The air around them shivered, as if with electricity.

Lovelace squirmed backward. He nearly fell. "Ramuthra! I order you—take the

boy! He has
stolen
the Amulet! He is not truly protected!" His voice carried no conviction. A great translucent hand reached out. Lovelace redoubled his entreaties.

"Then forget the boy—take the woman! Take the woman first!"

For a moment, the hand paused. Lovelace made a great effort and ripped himself

from the woman's grasp. "Yes! See? There she is! Take her first!"

From everywhere and nowhere, came a voice like a great crowd speaking in

unison. "I see no woman. Only a grinning djinni."

Lovelace's face froze; he turned to Amanda Cathcart, who had been gazing at him

with a look of agonized entreaty. As he watched, her features slowly altered. A smile of triumphant wickedness spread across her face from ear to ear. Then, in a flash, one of her arms snaked out, plucked the summoning horn from Lovelace's slackening grip and

snatched it away. With a bound, Amanda Cathcart was gone, and a marmoset hung by its

tail from a light fixture several meters away. It waved the horn merrily at the aghast magician.

"Don't mind if I have this?" it called. "You won't need it where you're going."

All energy seemed to depart from the magician; his skin hung loose and ashen on

his bones. His shoulders slumped; he took a pace toward Nathaniel, as if halfheartedly trying to reclaim the Amulet.

Then a great hand reached down and engulfed him, and Lovelace was plucked

into the air. High, high, higher he went, his body shifting and altering as it did so.

Ramuthra's head bent to meet him.

Something that might have been a mouth was seen to open.

An instant later, Simon Lovelace was gone.

The demon paused to look for the cackling marmoset, but for the moment it had

vanished.

Ignoring Nathaniel, who was still sprawled on the floor, it turned back heavily

toward the magicians at the other end of the hall.

A familiar voice spoke at Nathaniel's side.

"Two down, one to go," it said.

Bartimaeus

I was so elated at the success of my fine trick that I risked changing into

Ptolemy's form the moment Ramuthra's attention was elsewhere. Jabor and Lovelace

were gone, and now only the great entity remained to be dealt with. I nudged my master with a boot. He was lying on his back, cradling the Amulet of Samarkand in his grubby

mitts as a mother would her baby. I set the summoning horn down by his side.

He struggled to a sitting position. "Lovelace... did you see?"

"Yep, and it wasn't pretty."

As he rose stiffly to his feet, his eyes shone with a strange brilliance—half horror,

half exaltation.

"I've
got
it," he whispered. "I've got the Amulet."

"Yes," I replied, hastily. "Well done. But Ramuthra is still with us, and if we want to get help, we're running out of time."

I looked across at the far side of the auditorium. My elation dwindled. The

assembled ministers of State were a lamentable heap by now, either cowering in dumb

stupefaction, banging on the doors, or fighting viciously with each other for a position as far away as possible from the oncoming Ramuthra. It was an unedifying spectacle, like

watching a crowd of plague rats scrapping in a sewer.

It was also highly worrying: since not one of them looked in a fit state to recite a

complex dismissal spell.

"Come on," I said. "While Ramuthra takes some, we can rouse the others. Who's most likely to remember the counter-summons?

His lip curled. "None of
them,
by the looks of things."

"Even so, we've got to try." I tugged at his sleeve. "Come
on.
Neither of us knows the incantation."[7]

[7] I hadn't a clue. Words of Command are magicians' business. That is what they

are good at. Djinn can't speak them. But crabbed old master magicians know an

incantation for every eventuality.

"Speak for yourself," he said, slowly. "I know it."

"You?" I was a little taken aback. "Are you sure?"

He scowled at me. Physically, he was pretty ropy—white of skin, bruised and

bleeding, swaying where he stood. But a bright fire of determination burned in his eyes.

"That possibility hadn't even occurred to you, had it?" he said. "Yes—I've learned it."

There was more than a hint of doubt in the voice, and in the eyes too—I glimpsed

it wrestling with his resolve. I tried not to sound skeptical. "It's high level," I said. "And complex; and you'll need to break the horn at exactly the right moment. This is no time for false pride, boy. You could still—"

"Ask for help? I don't think so." Whether through pride or practicality, he was quite right.

Ramuthra was almost upon the magicians now; we had no chance of getting help

from them. "Stand away," he said. "I need space to think."

I hesitated for an instant. Admirable though his strength of character was, I could

see all too clearly where it led. Amulet or no Amulet, the consequences of a fluffed

dismissal are always disastrous, and this time I would suffer right along with him. But I could think of no alternative.

Helplessly, I stood back. My master picked up the summoning horn and closed his

eyes.

Nathaniel

He closed his eyes to the chaos in the hall and breathed as slowly and deeply as he

could.

Sounds of suffering and terror still came to him, but he shoved them from his

mind with a force of will.

That much was relatively easy. But a host of inner voices were speaking at him,

and he could not shut their clamor out. This was his moment! This was the moment when

a thousand insults and deprivations would be cast aside and forgotten! He knew the

incantation—he had learned it long ago.

He would speak it and everyone would see that he could not be overlooked again.

Always,
always
he had been underestimated! Underwood had thought him an imbecile, a fool with barely the strength to draw a circle. He had refused to believe his apprentice could summon a djinni of any kind.

Lovelace had thought him weak, childishly softhearted, yet likely to be tempted

by the first cursory offer of power and status. He had refused to accept that Nathaniel had killed Schyler too: he had gone to his death denying it. And now, even Bartimaeus, his own servant, doubted that he knew the dismissal spell! Always, always, they cast him

down.

Now was the moment when everything was in his hands. Too often before he had

been rendered powerless—locked in his room, carried from the fire, robbed by the

commoners, trapped in the Stricture.... The memories of these indignities burned hot

inside him. But now he would act—he would show them!

The outcry of his wounded pride almost overwhelmed him. It pounded on the

inside of his skull.

But at the deeper core of his being, beneath this desperation to succeed for his

own sake, another desire struggled for expression. Far off, he heard someone cry out in fear and a shudder of pity ran through him. Unless he could bring the spell to mind, the hapless magicians were going to die. Their lives depended on him. And he had the

knowledge to help. The counter-summons, the dismissal.

How had it gone? He'd read the incantation, he
knew
he had—he'd committed it to memory months before. But he couldn't concentrate now, he couldn't bring it to mind.