Ring Of Solomon (26 page)

Conversation turned to other matters: to the magician Reuben’s illness, to the clearing of Ezekiel’s tower, to the increasing reclusiveness of King Solomon. It seemed that – apart from his regular councils in the garden hall – he was appearing less and less often about the palace; even Hiram, his vizier, had access to him only at certain times of day. His main interest appeared to be the temple he was constructing; aside from this, he remained remote. He paid little attention to his magicians, except for his frequent orders during council, which they resentfully obeyed.

‘Your desert sojourn is nothing, Khaba! Tomorrow I must travel to Damascus and set my djinn to rebuilding its fallen walls.’

‘I travel to Petra, to help build grain silos—’

‘I must irrigate some pathetic little Canaanite village—’

‘That Ring! Solomon feels he can treat us like slaves! I only wish—’

Asmira paid little attention to their complaints. She had picked up the bottle and was turning it slowly between her fingers. How light it was! How strange the substance within! Beyond the panes of crystal, little flecks of colour twirled and shimmered, moving slowly like fading petals drifting on the surface of a lake. She thought of the djinni, solemn-eyed and silent, standing beside her in the ravaged gorge …

Across the hall, many of King Solomon’s guests had now departed towards the stairs, though others still sat and gorged on the remnants of the food. Beside her, the magicians were sinking lower in their seats, talking louder, drinking deeper …

She looked again at the bottle in her hands.

‘Yes, study it by all means!’ Khaba had swayed in close, and was regarding her unsteadily. ‘You are drawn to the strange and wonderful, are you not? Ah, but I have many more such things hidden in my tower! Such choice delights! You shall experience them tomorrow!’

Asmira did her best not to recoil at the vapours of his breath. She smiled. ‘Please, your cup is empty. Let me get you more wine.’

How slowly, how
painfully
the long years pass when you’re immured inside a bottle! I don’t recommend the experience to anyone
⁶⁹
.

The effect on your essence is the worst of it. Each and every time we’re summoned to this Earth, our essence begins to die a little, but providing we aren’t kept here too long, and distract ourselves with plenty of fights, chases and sarcastic wordplay, we can keep the ache at bay before returning home to recover. This just isn’t possible in a prolonged Confinement. Opportunities for fights and chases are somewhat limited when it’s just you in an enclosure an inch or two square, and since sarcasm is one of those activities best enjoyed in company, there’s nothing to do but float and think and listen to the soft sound of your essence shrivelling, wisp by sorry wisp. To make matters worse, the Confinement spell itself has the property of drawing out this process indefinitely, so you don’t even have the dignity of actually
dying
. Khaba had chosen well for me: it was a punishment worthy of a bitter foe.

I was utterly cut off inside that crystal sphere. Time was unknowable. No sound penetrated. Sometimes lights and shadows moved against the confines of my prison, but the powerful Binding spell that had been fused into the crystal obscured my vision and I couldn’t make the forms out clearly
⁷⁰
.

To add to my discomfort, the ancient bottle’s original contents had evidently been an oily substance, perhaps hair grease for some long-dead Egyptian girl. Not only was the interior still faintly perfumed (rosewood, I thought, with a hint of lime), it was also darn slippery. When I tried, for variety’s sake, to take on the guise of a scarab or some other tiny insect, my tarsal claws kept slipping out from under me.

For the most part, therefore, I stayed in my natural state, floating quietly, drifting, thinking noble and somewhat melancholy thoughts, and only occasionally scrawling obscene graffiti on the inside of the glass. Sometimes my mind turned to episodes from my past. I thought of Faquarl and his dismissive assessment of my powers. I thought of the girl, Cyrine, who had so nearly got me freed. I thought of the wicked Khaba – now, with time’s remorseless passing, presumably a cursed heap of bones – and his vile helpmate, Ammet, perhaps still wreaking evil somewhere on the hapless world. Most often, of course, I thought of the peace and beauty of my distant home, and wondered when I’d ever return.

And then, after untold ages, when I’d utterly given up hope …

The bottle broke.

One moment it was there, as it had always been, my small domed dungeon, tightly sealed. The next, the walls collapsed into a shower of crystal shards that fell about me, spinning, glittering, borne on a sudden tide of sound and air.

With the destruction of the bottle, Ammet’s spell could not survive. Its strands tore; they burst asunder.

I felt myself dismissed.

A tremor bristled through my essence. With a sudden rush of joy, all pain and suffering were at once forgotten. I lingered not at all. Like a soaring lark I departed from the Earth, faster and faster, passing through the elemental walls that opened to receive me, plunging into the sweet infinity of my home.

The Other Place enfolded me. I was embraced, made many where I had once been one. My essence shook itself free and spread, singing, across the reaches. I joined the endless, whirling dance …

And froze.

For an instant my joyous forward momentum and the sudden pull behind me were equal and opposite. I was held suspended, motionless. I just had time to register my alarm …

Then I was wrenched away, ripped from the infinite, plucked back down time’s corridor no later than I’d left it. It happened so fast I almost met myself going back.

I dropped like a shower of gold down an endless well.

I funnelled inward to a point, and landed.

I looked around. The point was at the centre of a pentacle drawn on dark, red-tinted fabric. Close by, in inky shadow, silken curtains hung like spider-webs, stifling the contours of the room. The air was close and thick with burning frankincense. Reddish candlelight glimmered across a marbled floor like the memory of a gout of blood.

I was back on Earth.

I was back on Earth!
Confusion and my shock of loss mingled with the resumption of my pain. With a howl of rage I rose up from the middle of the circle as a red-skinned demon, slender, agile, avid for revenge. My eyes were blazing orbs of gold, their thorn-thin pupils darting to and fro. Below the jutting wad of gristle that functioned as my nose, there gaped a snarling, fang-filled mouth
⁷¹
.

The demon bent low, questing all around. It scanned the square of fabric in which it stood, it saw the weights of carven jade that held that fabric to the floor. It saw a flickering oil lamp, the waxen candles, the pots of burning frankincense set out upon the tiles beyond. It saw a certain bag of red-brown leather, open on a silken couch. It saw an upturned plinth, a broken bottle; it saw a scattering of crystal shards …

It saw a
second
pentacle on another fabric square. And standing
in
that pentacle –

‘Bartimaeus of Uruk,’ the Arabian girl intoned, ‘I bind you by the cords of Nakrah and the manacles of Marib, which are both most grievous and terrible, to hereafter do my bidding, on pain of immediate and fiery expunction. Stand fixed in your proper place until I give you leave, then depart upon your errand with fleet and true intent, without deviation or delay, to return at the precise time and place that I shall give you …’

There was a good deal more of this, all very archaic, not to say long-winded, and spoken in a tortuous south Arabian dialect that was difficult to follow. But I’d been round the block a bit. I got the gist.

I admit that I was shocked. I admit that I was baffled. But put me in a pentacle and the age-old rules are immediately back in force. Whoever summons me risks everything, regardless of what has gone before. And the girl was not safe yet.

She was speaking the Binding mechanisms in something of a trance, standing quite rigid, swaying slightly with the effort of the summoning. Her small fists were clenched, her arms fixed as if bolted to her sides. Her eyes were closed; she recited with metronomic precision the word-seals and phrase-locks that would hold me fast.

The red-skinned demon edged forward within its circle, claws pricking at the cloth beneath its feet. My golden eyes gleamed in the candle-smoke. I waited for the mistake or hesitation that would let me snap my bonds like celery and treat her body likewise.

‘Almost there,’ I prompted. ‘Don’t mess things up now. Steady … this is the hard bit. And you’re so very, very tired … So tired I can almost
taste
you.’ And I snapped my teeth together in the dark.

She blanched then, went paler than the mountain snows. But she made no mistake, she didn’t hesitate
⁷²
.

All too soon I felt the bonds grow tight. My hungry readiness slackened and I subsided in my circle.

The girl finished. She wiped the sweat from her face with the sleeve of her robe.

She looked at me.

There was silence in the room.

‘And what,’ I said, ‘do you think you’re doing?’

‘I just saved you.’ She was still a little breathless, and her voice was faint. She nodded towards the crystal fragments on the floor. ‘I got you out.’

The red-skinned demon nodded slowly. ‘So you did. So you did … But only so you could enslave me again within seconds!’ Livid flames erupted from the cloth about my feet and licked up to shroud my wrathful form. ‘Do you not recall,’ I roared, ‘how I saved your wretched little life so long ago?’

‘So long a— What?’

Fire darted from my eyes; trails of burning sulphur flickered on my shining skin. ‘Can you
conceive
the pain and suffering I’ve since endured?’ I cried. ‘Trapped inside that tiny, suffocating prison all those endless years, through all those long slow cycles of the sun and moon? And now, no sooner am I released than you summon me again, without so much as a …’ I hesitated, noticing the girl was tapping a delicate foot upon her cloth. ‘Just how long
was
I trapped, incidentally?’

‘A few hours. It’s just gone midnight. I was talking with you yesterday afternoon.’

The red-skinned demon stared; my flames went out. ‘Yesterday afternoon? The one just gone?’

‘Well, how many others are there? Yes, the yesterday just gone. Look at me. I’m wearing the same clothes.’

‘Right …’ I cleared my throat. ‘It’s just a little bit hard to keep tabs in there … Well, as I say, it’s been grim.’ My voice rose once more. ‘And I don’t care to be summoned again – by you or anybody! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let me go.’

‘That I cannot do.’

‘You’d better,’ I snarled. ‘It’s not as if you’ll be able to keep me long, anyway. You’re obviously a novice.’

The girl’s eyes blazed; flames didn’t dart from them, but it was a close-run thing.

‘Know, Bartimaeus of Uruk,’ she cried, ‘that in my land I am an initiate of the Eighteenth Attainment in the Temple of Marib! Know that it was I who summoned the demon Zufra and, by whipping her with cords, forced her to dig the reservoir at Dhamar in a single night! Know too that I have subdued twelve dozen demons to my will and cast nine into the innermost pit!’ She pushed a strand of hair back from her brow and smiled grimly. ‘And that I am now
your
master is the final thing you need to know.’

The red-skinned demon gave a caw of mirth. ‘Good try,’ I said. ‘Falls down on three accounts. First, “Eighteenth Attainment in the Temple of Marib” doesn’t mean a fig to me. For all I know it means you’re qualified to scrub the toilets.’ The girl gave an indignant squeak here, but I ignored it. ‘Second,’ I went on, ‘there’s your tone of voice. You meant it to be awe-inspiring and terrible, didn’t you? Sorry. Sounded scared and constipated. Third, it’s clearly all absolute baloney! You only barely got your First Injunction
⁷³
out without tripping over your own tongue. I thought you were going to bind
yourself
at once point, you got so hesitant. Let’s face it, this is all a bluff.’

The girl’s nose had gone all white and pinched. ‘It is not!’

‘Is so too.’

‘Is not!’

‘Say that any higher and you’re going to shatter that nice vase over there.’ I folded my scaly arms and gave her a savage glare. ‘And, by the way, you’ve just proved my point
again
. How many
real
magicians do you think get involved in stroppy little verbal spats like this? They’d have hit me with the Dark Scouring by now and had done with it.’

The girl stared at me. Her face was livid.

‘You don’t even know what a Dark Scouring is, do you?’ I said, grinning.

She breathed hard. ‘No. But I do know
this
.’ She took hold of the silver sun disc round her neck, and spoke a muttered phrase. Once again it was barely competent, the kind of Ward
⁷⁴
a hedge-witch might use to admonish a naughty imp. Even so, a swell of black substance plumed in the air, reared back and darted at my circle.

I lifted my hand to fend off the stroke, called out her name. ‘
Cyrine!
[75]’

Black shards of force went straight through my lifted hand and scoured my essence like a storm of whirling pins.

They vanished. I considered my perforations grimly. ‘Cyrine’s not actually your name, is it?’ I said.

‘No. Who’d be so stupid as to give up their real name so readily –
Bartimaeus
?’

Which was a fair point. ‘Even so,’ I said, ‘as punishments go, that was pathetic. And once again you only just spoke it right. Go on, do another one, I dare you.’

‘I don’t need to.’ The girl pushed her robes aside, revealing three silver daggers at her hip. ‘Anger me again,’ she said, ‘and I’ll skewer you with one of these.’

She might have done, as well. Trapped in the circle, I knew that my opportunities for dodging were limited. But I just shrugged. ‘That’s my final proof,’ I said. ‘You’re an assassin of some kind. You’re not a magician at all. And you
need
to be a magician if you’re going to deal with me.’ My teeth glinted in the shadows. ‘I
killed
my last master, you know.’