Ring Of Solomon (30 page)

It wasn’t to be. In a shower of leaves and a four-limbed lollop, the ape burst out from the bushes once more. It appeared rather more dishevelled than previously; its teeth were bared and its eyes bulged in their sockets.

‘Zahzeel! I make report of further oddities.’

‘Not Bosquo again?’

‘Bosquo has not yet been located, sir. But now Susu and Trimble are missing too.’

The ogre stopped short. ‘What? Where were
they
stationed?’

‘On the battlements adjacent to the treasury. Susu’s pike was discovered in the garden below, protruding from the flowerbed. Several of Trimble’s scales were also scattered here and there, but there is no sign of the djinn themselves on any plane.’

‘And the outer nexus is still undamaged?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Zahzeel smacked a meaty fist into a palm. ‘Then nothing has entered from outside! If there is an enemy spirit abroad, it must have been conjured by someone inside the palace. We must get reinforcements and go to the scene.’ At this the ogre seized the horn hanging at his side, and was just about to set it to his lips when, with a flash of light,
another
small spirit materialized in mid-air.

This one was a manikin sitting in an oyster shell. ‘I have news, Master!’ it squeaked. ‘The sentry Hiqquus has been discovered compressed inside a water butt; he is somewhat squashed, not to mention soggy – but he lives. He says that he was attacked—’

The afrit gave a curse. ‘By whom
⁸⁵
?’

‘He only got a glimpse, but … it was Bosquo! He recognized his belly and his snout!’

The ogre nearly fell off his pedestal in shock. He was just about to speak when, in a shower of damp earth, a
third
small demon, this one with the soft, sad face of a gazelle, rose from the turf below him. ‘Master, the sentry Balaam has been pushed into the manure pile and a heavy statue placed on top of him! I heard his muffled squeaks, and with a grapple on the end of a long pole have just succeeded in tugging him free. Poor Balaam – he won’t smell of brimstone for some considerable time to come. As soon as he could speak he named his cruel assailant – it was the djinni Trimble!’

‘Zahzeel’ – this was Kibbet, the first of the informants – ‘clearly Trimble and Bosquo have gone berserk! We must locate them with all speed.’

The ogre gave a decisive nod. ‘I have noted a pattern here. Their assaults are focused on the area around the treasury. The king’s gold is collected there, and many precious treasures. Clearly these djinn – or the magicians who are their masters – intend a robbery, or some other atrocious act. We must act fast! Kibbet and you others, go at speed to the treasury block. I shall summon further help and meet you there. Once our forces are assembled we will alert the vizier. Hiram will have to decide whether to disturb the slumbers of the king.’

The gazelle-imp ducked down into the ground; the manikin pulled down his oyster shell and spun away into the sky; the orange ape gave a star-jump and, with a grunt, devolved into a twirl of orange sparks that drifted out of sight.

Zahzeel the afrit? He raised the horn to his mouth and blew.

All across the gardens of the palace of Solomon there was a roaring and a shaking as Zahzeel’s subordinates were summoned to his side. Bright lights flared in unexpected places among the pavilions and rose bowers; eyes blinked open in shrubs and potted ferns. Sculptures shifted, hopped down from pedestals; innocent-seeming vines bent and coiled; benches shimmered, were suddenly no more. All across the northern gardens the hidden sentries bestirred themselves: and here they came – horned, clawed, red-eyed and frothing, things with twisting tails of bone, and fibrous wings, and dangling bellies; oozing things and scuttling things; things with legs and things without; darting mites and bounding ghuls, wisps and implets, foliots and djinn, all silently surfing the lawns and treetops of the gardens to congregate about Zahzeel.

The afrit gave a few brief orders and clapped his hands. The air grew chill; ice formed on the pedestal and glittered on the rhododendron leaves. The ogre was gone; atop the pedestal rose a column of rushing smoke and licking tendrils, from which two baleful yellow eyes gleamed down with grim ferocity
⁸⁶
.

Coiling like a spring, the column of smoke shot upwards into the air and disappeared over the shrubbery. There followed an explosion of movement as Zahzeel’s hordes took to the skies, or set off, galloping, along the ground. In a few short seconds the whole grisly cavalcade had thundered south in the direction of the treasury – precisely where I wasn’t, and didn’t want to go.

To the north, however, the garden was quiet and still.

On its exotic sculpture the cricket gave a brief caper of wicked glee. The score so far could be summarized as follows: Bartimaeus of Uruk 1, Assembled Spirits of Solomon 0. Not bad for twenty minutes’ work, I’ll think you’ll agree. But I didn’t hang about to celebrate. There was no telling how soon it would be before Zahzeel and Co. returned.

In keeping with this sense of urgency, I hoicked the girl out of the rose bush in double-quick time and set her running alongside me north across the lawns. As we went, I gave her a modest précis of my triumph – just the bare bones of it, keeping it terse and unshowy, as is my wont, limiting the historical comparisons to a minimum and only concluding with three rhyming paeans of self-praise. When I finished, I waited expectantly, but the girl said nothing; she was still too busy plucking thorns from her underclothes.

At last she finished. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘Well done.’

I stared at her. ‘
Well done?
Is that all you can say?’ I gestured at the empty trees and rustic arbours all around. ‘Look – nothing left on any plane! I’ve cleared the way right to Solomon’s door. A
marid
couldn’t have done any better than that in the time available.
Well done?
‘ I scowled. ‘What kind of a response is that?’

‘It’s a thank-you,’ she said. ‘Would your other masters have spoken any better?’

‘No.’

‘Well, then.’

‘Only I’d have thought you might have viewed things in a different light,’ I said idly. ‘You know, on account of you being a slave yourself.’

There was a silence; ahead of us, between the trees, the king’s apartments could now be seen, a dark domed mass rising sheer against the milky sheen of stars.

The girl jumped over the little tiled channel that marked the beginnings of the water gardens. She said: ‘I’m
not
a slave.’

‘Sure.’ I was in human form again: the handsome young Sumerian, lolloping along like a wolf, with easy strides. ‘I remember. You’re a “hereditary guard”. Nice one. Altogether different. That “hereditary” bit, incidentally – what’s that mean?’

‘Is it not obvious, Bartimaeus? I follow my mother, and my mother’s mother, and so on down the years. I, as they, have the sacred role of protecting our queen’s life. There is no higher calling. Where now?’

‘Left around the lake – there’s a footbridge there. So you’ve prepared for this from birth?’

‘Well, from early girlhood. As a baby I couldn’t hold a knife.’

I glanced at her. ‘Was that a joke, or just painfully literal thinking? I’m guessing the latter.’

The girl said flatly: ‘Do not seek to demean me, demon. I have an exalted position. There is a special altar in the Temple of the Sun dedicated to the guards. The priestesses bless us individually at each festival. The queen addresses us each by name.’

‘How thrilling for you,’ I said. ‘Wait, watch out on the bridge – there’s a trip-thread on the second plane – it’ll trigger an alarm. When you get to the top, do a little jump like me. That’s it; you’re over it … Now, I’ve a question. Have you, at any time, had any choice in what you do? Could you have been anything other than a guard?’

‘No. And I wouldn’t have wanted to. I followed my mother.’

‘Lack of choice,’ I said. ‘Preordained from birth. Ordered to sacrifice yourself for a cruel, unfeeling master. You’re a slave.’

‘The queen is
not
unfeeling,’ the girl cried. ‘She practically wept when she sent me—’

‘Here to die,’ I finished. ‘You can’t see what’s right in front of your nose, can you? Speaking of which, there’s another trip-thread here, suspended between those trees. Bend down double, like this, nice and low. That’s it, you’re through. Take it from me,’ I went on as we took up the pace once more. ‘You’ve got a fancy title and a nice line in weaponry, but you’re just as enslaved as if your neck was chained. I pity you.’

The girl had had enough by now. ‘Be silent!’

‘Sorry, don’t
do
silent. The only difference between you and me is that I’ve got self-knowledge. I
know
I’m enslaved, and it gets on my wick. That gives me just a shadowy slice of freedom. You haven’t even got that. This queen of yours must be laughing her crown off, you’re so eager to obey her every whim.’

Something flashed in the starlight; a dagger was in her hand. ‘Never
dare
to insult the queen, demon!’ the girl cried. ‘You cannot
imagine
the responsibility she holds. She has absolute faith in me, and I in her. I would never question a command she gave.’

‘Apparently not,’ I said crisply. ‘Right, watch out here: we need three little jumps, one after the other, high as you can. That’s it. Now get down on all fours … wiggle forwards … try and keep your bottom a little lower please … a bit more … OK, you can get up now.’

The girl stared back at me across the empty patch of lawn in wonder. ‘How many trip-threads were concealed
there
?’

I strolled across to her, grinning. ‘Absolutely none. That was just a little illustration of what your queen is doing to you – as well as being highly amusing to watch. You certainly don’t question
anything
, do you? “Blind obedience to no good purpose” – that could be your motto.’

The girl gave a gasp of fury; the knife in her hand was suddenly finely balanced between fingertip and thumb. ‘I should
kill
you for that.’

‘Yeah, yeah, but you won’t.’ I turned away from her and began surveying the great stone blocks of the building rising just ahead. ‘Why? Because that wouldn’t help your precious queen. Besides, I’m not in a circle now. I could dodge it pretty well out here, even when I’m looking in the opposite direction. But by all means try it, if you like.’

For a few moments there wasn’t any sound behind, then I heard feet padding on the grass. When the girl came alongside me, the knife was in her belt.

She scowled up at the mass of stonework. At its splaying foot the last vestiges of the northern gardens broke apart in a sculpted mess of jasmine trees. The pale white flowers were probably quite pretty by daylight, but under the stars’ spectral gloaming brought to mind a glittering pile of bones.

‘Is this it, then?’ the girl said.

I nodded. ‘Yep, probably in every sense. This is Solomon’s tower. There’s a rooftop balcony somewhere up there, which is where I suggest we try to enter. But I’ve one final question before we do.’

‘Well?’

‘What’s your mother think about this? About you coming out here, all on your own. Is she as pleased as you are?’

Unlike some of my other probing questions, the girl seemed to find this a very easy one to answer. ‘My mother died in the service of the last queen,’ she said simply. ‘As she looks down on me from the Sun God’s realm, I am sure she honours all I do.’

‘I see,’ was all I said to this. And I did, too.

Other things being equal, I would at that point have turned myself into a roc, phoenix or other dashing bird, seized the girl by an ankle, and hoisted her indecorously up to the balcony. Sadly, I was prevented from doing this by a fresh danger in the air above us: a multitude of bright-green, luminous Pulses, drifting at different heights close beside the wall. They weren’t moving fast, but they were very thick in places, and also erratic, sometimes speeding up for no apparent reason. Any flying thing would inevitably collide with some of them, with unpleasant results.

They were first-plane, so the girl could see them too. ‘What do we do now?’

‘We need,’ I said, ‘an appropriate guise … What sticks to walls?’

‘Spiders,’ she said. ‘Or slugs.’

‘Not keen on spiders. Too many limbs to control; I get confused. I
could
do a slug, but we’d be here all night, and anyway, how would I carry you?’ I snapped my fingers. ‘I know! A nice big lizard.’

So saying, the handsome youth was gone, and in his place stood a slightly less good-looking giant gecko, complete with spiny, interlocking scales, splay-toes, multi-suckered feet and bulbous boggling eyes set on either side of its gummy, grinning mouth. ‘Hello,’ it said, extending a juicy tongue. ‘Give us a hug.’

The girl’s squeal would probably have been the shrillest ever uttered by one of Sheba’s hereditary guard, except that it was muffled by the coiling tip of my long and sinewy tail, which wrapped itself around her and lifted her off the ground. Then the lizard was up and away, clinging to the stones with the sticky spatulae upon its spreading feet. With one eye I kept my gaze fixed on the wall ahead; the other, swivelled at approximately ninety degrees over my scaly shoulder, kept close watch on the floating Pulses in case any should come too near. It was a shame I didn’t have a spare eye to check out the dangling girl as well, but various distant Arabian curses reassured me of her state of mind.

My progress was fast, and the way relatively unimpeded. Only once did a Pulse come anywhere near us, and then I managed a sideways shimmy to avoid it – I felt the air grow momentarily chill as it bounced off the stonework beside my head.

Things went very well, in short; until, that is, I heard the girl calling something out below me.

‘What was that?’ I said, swivelling an acerbic eye in her direction. ‘I told you, I can’t do spiders. It’s a leg thing. Think yourself lucky I didn’t do the slug.’

Her face was white, which might have been the ride, but she was also pointing upwards and to the side. ‘No,’ she croaked. ‘A spider – over there.’

The lizard looked with both eyes then, just in time to observe a large, fat spider-djinni squeezing out from a concealed opening in the wall. It had a tarantula’s body, swollen big as a cow corpse after the rains. Each of its legs was hard and knobbly as bamboo and ended in a sharpened sting. Its face, however, was human, with a neat little beard and a tall conical hat. Evidently, as a guardian of Solomon’s tower, it wasn’t under Zahzeel’s command; either that, or it was deaf. Whichever, it reacted swiftly enough now. A jet of yellow webbing shot from its baggy undercarriage and struck me full on, breaking my grip on the wall. I fell a few yards, caught desperate hold and hung one-handed, encased in webbing, swinging back and forth above the gulf.