Jonathan Stroud - Bartimaeus 1 (22 page)

There he was: Simon Lovelace, red-faced and out of breath. Evidently he had

only just arrived.

He removed his overcoat in a flurry and tossed it to a servant, before adjusting the

lapels of his jacket and hurrying for the stairs. His appearance was just how Nathaniel remembered it: the glasses, the hair slicked back, the energy of movement, the broad

mouth flicking a smile on-off at everyone he passed. He trotted down the steps briskly, spurning the champagne that was offered him, making for his friends.

Nathaniel speeded up. In a few seconds, he had reached an empty patch of floor

beside one sweeping banister of the staircase. He was now not far from the foot of the stairs, close to where the end of the banister curled round to form an ornate plinth, topped with a stone vase. Behind one side of the vase, he glimpsed the back of the clammy

magician's head; behind the other, part of the old man's jacket. Lovelace himself had now descended the staircase to join them and was out of view.

The vase shielded Nathaniel from their sight. He eased himself against the rear of

the plinth and leaned against it in what he hoped was a debonair fashion. Then he strained to distinguish their voices from the hubbub all around.

Success. Lovelace himself was speaking, his voice harsh and irritable. "...no luck whatsoever.

I've tried every inducement possible. Nothing I've summoned can tell me who

controls it."

"Tcha, you have been wasting your time." It was the thick accent of the older man. "How should the other demons know?"

"It's not my habit to leave any possibility untried. But no—you're right. And the spheres have been useless, too. So perhaps we have to change our plans. You got my

message? I think we should cancel."

"Cancel?" A third voice, presumably the clammy man's.

"I can always blame the girl."

"I don't think that would be wise." The old man spoke softly; Nathaniel could barely hear the words. "Devereaux would be down on you even more if you canceled.

He's looking forward to all the little luxuries you've promised to provide. No, Simon, we have to put a brave face on it. Keep searching. We've got a few days. It may yet turn up."

"It'll ruin me if it's all for nothing! Do you know how much that room's cost?"

"Calm down. You're raising your voice."

"All right. But you know what I can't stand? Whoever did it is
here,
somewhere.

Watching me, laughing... When I discover who, I'll—"

"Keep your voice down, Lovelace!" The clammy man again.

"Perhaps, Simon, we
should
go somewhere a little more discreet...." Behind the plinth, Nathaniel jerked himself backward as if propelled by an electric charge. They

were moving off. It would not do to come face to face with them here. Without pausing, he sidestepped away from the shadow of the staircase and took a few steps into the

crowd. Once he had got far enough away to be safe, he looked back. Lovelace and his

companions had scarcely moved: an elderly magician had imposed herself on their

company and was jabbering away—to their vast impatience.

Nathaniel took a sip of his drink and composed himself. He had not understood all

he had heard, but Lovelace's fury was pleasingly evident. To find out more, he would

have to summon Bartimaeus. Perhaps his slave was even here right now, trailing

Lovelace.... Nothing showed up in his lenses, admittedly, but the djinni would have

changed its form on each of the first four planes. Any one of these seemingly solid people might be a shell, concealing the demon within.

He stood, lost in thought for a time, at the edge of a small group of magicians.

Gradually, their conversation broke in on him.

"...so handsome. Is he attached?"

"Simon Lovelace? Some woman. I don't recall her name."

"You want to stick clear of him, Devina. He's no longer the golden boy."

"He's holding the conference next week, isn't he? And he's
so
good-looking...."

"He had to suck up to Devereaux long and hard for that. No, his career's going

nowhere fast."

"The P.M.'s sidelined him. Lovelace tried for the Home Office a year ago, but

Duvall blocked it.

Hates him, can't recall why."

"Duvall's got the P.M.'s ear, all right."

"That's old Schyler with Lovelace, isn't it? Whatever did he summon to get a face like that? I've seen better-looking imps."

"Lovelace chooses curious company for a minister, I'll say that much. Who's that

greasy one?"

"Lime, I think. Agriculture."

"He's a queer fish...."

"Where's this conference taking place, anyway?"

"Some godforsaken place—outside London."

"Oh no,
really?
How desperately tedious. We'll probably all be pitchforked by men in smocks."

"Well, if that's what the P.M. wants..."

"Dreadful."

"So
handsome, though..."

"John—"

"You
are
shallow, Devina; mind you, I'd like to know where he got that suit."

"John!"

Mrs. Underwood, her face flushed—perhaps with the heat of the room—

materialized in front of Nathaniel. She grabbed his arm. "John, I've been calling and calling! Mr. Devereaux is about to make his speech. We need to go to the back; ministers only at the front. Hurry up."

They slipped to the side as, with a clopping of heels and a shuffling of gowns, a

vigorous herd instinct moved the guests toward a small stage, draped with purple cloth, that had been wheeled in from a side room. Nathaniel and Mrs. Underwood were buffeted

uncomfortably in the general rush, and ended up at the back and to the side of the

assembled audience, near the doors that opened out onto the river terrace. The number of guests had swelled considerably since they had arrived; Nathaniel estimated there were now several hundred contained within the hall.

With a youthful spring, Rupert Devereaux bounded up onto the stage.

"Ladies, gentlemen, ministers—how glad I am to see you here this evening...." He had an attractive voice, deep but lilting, full of casual command. A spontaneous round of cheers and clapping broke out. Mrs. Underwood nearly dropped her champagne glass in

her excitement. By her side, Nathaniel applauded enthusiastically.

"Giving a state address is always a particularly
pleasant
task for me," Devereaux continued.

"Requiring as it does that I be surrounded by so many
wonderful
people..." More whoops and cheers erupted, fairly shaking the rafters of the ancient hall. "Thank you.

Today I am pleased to be able to report success on all fronts, both at home and abroad. I shall go into more detail in a moment, but I can announce that our armies have fought the Italian rebels to a stalemate near Turin and have bunkered down for the winter. In

addition, our alpine battalions have annihilated a Czech expeditionary force"—for a moment, his voice was drowned out in the general applause. "And destroyed a number of their djinn."

He paused. "On the home front, concern has been expressed again about another

outbreak of petty pilfering in London: a number of magical artifacts have been reported stolen in the last few weeks alone. Now, we all know these are the actions of a handful of traitors, small-time ne'er-do-wells of no consequence. However, if we do not stamp it out, other commoners may follow their lead like the brainless cattle they are. We will

therefore take draconian measures to halt this vandalism. All suspected subversives will be detained without trial. I feel sure that with this extra power, Internal Affairs will soon have the ringleaders safely in custody."

The state address continued for many minutes, liberally punctuated with

explosions of joy from the assembled crowd. What little substance it contained soon

degenerated into a mass of repetitive platitudes about the virtues of the Government and the wickedness of its enemies. After a time, Nathaniel grew bored: he could almost feel his brain turning to jelly as he strove to listen. Finally he gave up trying altogether, and looked about him.

By half turning, he could see through an open door onto the terrace. The black

waters of the Thames stretched beyond the marble balustrade, picked out here and there by reflections of the yellow lights from the south side. The river was at its height, flowing away to the left under Westminster Bridge toward the docklands and the sea.

Someone else had evidently decided the speech was too tedious to bear and had

actually stepped out onto the terrace. Nathaniel could see him standing just beyond the well of light that spilled out from the hall. It was a reckless guest indeed who so blatantly ignored the Prime Minister... more probably it was just a security official.

Nathaniel's mind wandered. He imagined the ooze at the bottom of the Thames.

Bartimaeus's tin would be half buried now; lost forever in the rushing darkness.

Out of the corner of his eye he noticed the man on the terrace make a sudden,

decisive movement, as if he had drawn something large out from under his coat or jacket.

Nathaniel tried to focus, but the figure was shrouded in darkness. Behind him, he

could hear the Prime Minister's mellifluous voice still sounding. "...this is an age of consolidation, my friends. We are the greatest magical elite on earth; nothing is beyond us...."

The figure stepped forward toward the door.

Nathaniel's lenses logged a flash of color within the darkness; something not

entirely on one plane....

"...we must follow the example of our ancestors, and strive..."

In doubt, Nathaniel tried to speak, but his tongue was furred to the roof of his

mouth.

The figure leaped through into the hall. A youth with wild, dark eyes; he wore

black jeans, a black anorak; his face was smeared with some dark oil or paste. In his

hands was a bright blue sphere, the size of a large grapefruit. It pulsated with light.

Nathaniel could see tiny white objects swirling within it, round and round and round.

"...for further domination. Our enemies are wilting...."

The youth raised his arm. The sphere glinted in the lantern light.

A gasp from within the crowd. Someone noticing—

"Yes, I say to you again..."

Nathaniel's mouth opened in a soundless cry.

The arm jerked forward; the sphere left the hand.

"...they are
uniting...."

The blue sphere arced into the air, over Nathaniel's head, over the heads of the

crowd. To Nathaniel, transfixed by its movement like a mouse mazed by the swaying of a snake, its trajectory seemed to take forever. All sounds ceased in the hall, except for a barely discernible fizzing from the sphere—and from the crowd, the gulped, high-pitched beginnings of a woman's scream.

The sphere disappeared over the heads of the crowd. Then came the tinkle of

breaking glass.

And, a split second later, the explosion.

20

The shattering of an elemental sphere in an enclosed space is always a frightening

and destructive act: the smaller the space, or the bigger the sphere, the worse the

consequences are. It was fortunate for Nathaniel and for the majority of the magicians with him that Westminster Hall was extremely large and the tossed sphere relatively

small. Even so, the effects were noteworthy.

As the glass broke, the trapped elementals, which had been compressed within it

for many years, loathing each other's essences and limited conversation, recoiled from each other with savage force. Air, earth, fire, and water: all four kinds exploded from their minute prison at top speed, unleashing chaos in all directions. Many people standing nearby were at one and the same time blown backward, pelted with rocks, lacerated with fire, and deluged with horizontal columns of water.

Almost all the company of magicians fell to the ground, scattered like skittles

around the epicenter of the explosion. Standing at the edge of the crowd, Nathaniel was shielded from the brunt of the blast, but even so found himself propelled into the air and sent careering back against the door that led onto the river terrace.

The major magicians escaped largely unscathed. They had safety mechanisms in

place, mainly captive djinn charged to materialize the instant any aggressive magic drew near their masters' persons.

Protective shields absorbed or deflected the ballooning gobbets of fire, earth, and

water, and sent the gusts of wind screeching off toward the rafters. A few of the lesser magicians and their guests were not so fortunate. Some were sent ricocheting between

existing defensive barriers, bludgeoned into unconsciousness by the competing elements; others were swept along the flagstones by small tidal waves of steaming water and

deposited in sodden humps halfway across the hall.

The Prime Minister was already gone. Even as the sphere crashed onto the stones

three meters from the stage, a dark-green afrit had stepped from the air and swathed him in a Hermetic Mantle, which it promptly carried into the air and out through a skylight in the roof.

Half dazed by his impact with the door, Nathaniel was struggling to rise when he

saw two of the men in gray jackets running toward him at frightening speed. He fell back; they leaped over him, out of the door and onto the terrace. As the second one passed

above with a prodigious bound, he let out a peculiarly guttural snarl that raised the hairs on Nathaniel's neck. He heard scuffling on the river terrace, a scrabbling noise like claws on stone, two distant splashes.

He raised his head cautiously. The terrace was empty. In the hall the pent-up

energy of the released elementals had run its course. Water sluiced along cracks between the flagstones; clods of earth and mud were spattered across the walls and the faces of the guests; a few flames still licked at the edges of the purple drape upon the stage. Many of the magicians were stirring now, levering themselves to their feet, or helping others to rise. A few remained sprawled upon the floor. Servants were running down the staircase and in from adjoining rooms. Slowly people began to find their voices; there was