Ring Of Solomon (45 page)

Picking up a bit of burned wood from the floor, I hopped across and made a few brisk adjustments in charcoal. ‘There!’ I said. ‘Physiologically improbable, but somehow appropriate, don’t you think? How long before he notices
that
, I wonder?’

The girl laughed; it was the first time in our association that she’d done so.

I glanced at her sidelong. ‘Shall I add Balkis as well? There’s a little space.’

‘Go on, then.’

‘There we are …’

I strolled back to the circle. The girl was eyeing me in that same way Faquarl had – with a sort of detached amusement. I stared at her. ‘What?’

‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘You make such a big deal out of the horrors of your enslavement that I almost missed the obvious. You
enjoy
it too.’

I settled myself in my pentacle, fixing her with an expression of bleak disdain. ‘A friendly bit of advice,’ I said. ‘Unless you’re
extremely
competent, it’s never a good idea to insult a departing djinni. Particularly this one. In old Babylonia the priests of Ishtar forbade any magician below the ninth level to deal with me for just that reason
¹²⁶
.’

‘Which proves my point,’ the girl said. ‘You’re always boasting about your past achievements. Come on, admit it. You revel in it all. Even last night – I noticed how you stopped your moaning once we were getting near the Ring.’

‘Yes, well …’ I clapped my hands together briskly. ‘I had to, didn’t I? There was too much going on. Take it from me, I disliked every moment. Right, enough of this. Say the Dismissal and set me free.’

She nodded and closed her eyes, a young, thin girl thinking through the incantation. I could almost hear the cogs grinding as I watched.

Her eyes opened. ‘Bartimaeus,’ she said abruptly, ‘thank you for what you’ve done.’

I cleared my throat. ‘Pleasure, I’m sure. Look – do you truly know the words? I don’t want to find myself re-materialized into a festering bog or something.’

‘Yes, I know the words.’ She smiled. ‘Come to Sheba some day. You’ll like it.’

‘Not that it’s ever up to me.’

‘Just don’t take too long. We haven’t all got as much time as you.’

Then she gave the Dismissal and, sure enough, she
did
know the words. More or less. There were only three hesitations, two fluffed inflections and one major stumble, all of which – on this occasion – I was prepared to overlook. She wasn’t very big, after all, and there wasn’t that much meat on her. Besides, I
really
wanted to be gone.

The girl was of like mind. Even as my bonds broke and I was whirled free across the planes, I could see (from seven varied angles) that she had already left the circle. She was walking off, straight-backed and resolute, through Solomon’s ruined chamber, looking for the steps that would lead her from the tower, and so into the waiting day.

¹²³
Mouler
: an incredibly dull sub-type of spirit. Imagine a small, slow, beige-coloured— No, it bores me to death just describing them.

¹²⁴
The usual assemblage of warriors, court officials, wives and slaves. It appeared that most categories of palace personnel, other than the magicians, had managed to survive the night with their servility intact. The indignant twittering of the wives, as they assessed the Queen of Sheba, carried through the air like the calls of roosting birds. In many ways, things were back to normal.

¹²⁵
The Glamour laid upon the room had been blown apart during the night’s fighting, along with several couches, carpets, murals – and Solomon’s crystal orb, which now looked blank as rainwater, the spirit trapped inside having been happily released.

¹²⁶
This was after a series of fatalities, my favourite of which was that of a brutish acolyte who’d tormented me with the Inverted Skin. However, he also suffered badly from hayfever. I thereupon brought him a massive bunch of pollen-rich lupins, at which he sneezed himself out of his circle.