Jonathan Stroud - Bartimaeus 1 (3 page)

Amulet and hung it round my neck. I turned swiftly. The room was as before, but I could sense something on the seventh plane, moving swiftly and coming closer.

The time for stealth was over.

As I ran for the door I noticed out of the corner of my eye a portal suddenly open

in midair.

Inside the portal was a blackness that was immediately obscured as something

stepped out through it.

I charged at the door and hit it with my small boy's fist. The door smashed open

like a bent playing card. I ran past it without stopping.

In the corridor, the toad turned toward me and opened its mouth. A green gobbet

of slime issued forth, which suddenly accelerated down at me, aiming for my head. I

dodged and the slime splattered on the wall behind me, destroying a painting and

everything down to the bare bricks beneath it.

I threw a bolt of Compression at the toad. With a small croak of regret it imploded

into a dense blob of matter the size of a marble and dropped to the floor. I didn't break stride. As I ran on down the corridor I placed a protective Shield around my physical

body in case of further missiles.

Which was a wise move as it happened, because the next instant a Detonation

struck the floor directly behind me. The impact was so great that I was sent flying

headlong at an angle down the corridor and half into the wall. Green flames licked around me, leaving streaks on the decor like the fingers of a giant hand.

I struggled to my feet amid the confusion of shattered bricks and turned around.

Standing over the broken door at the end of the corridor was something that had

taken the form of a very tall man with bright red skin and the head of a jackal.

"Bartimaeus!"

Another Detonation shot down the corridor. I somersaulted under it, aiming for

the stairs, and as the green explosion vaporized the corner of the wall, rolled head over heels down the steps, through the banisters and six feet down onto the black-and-white tiled floor, cracking it quite badly.

I got to my feet and took a look at the front door. Through the frosted glass beside

it I could see the hulking yellow outline of one of the three sentinels. It was lying in wait, little realizing that it could be seen from inside. I decided to make my exit elsewhere.

Thus does superior intelligence win over brute strength any day of the week!

Speaking of which, I had to get out fast. Noises from above indicated pursuit.

I ran through a couple of rooms—a library, a dining room—each time making a

break for the window and each time retreating when one or more of the yellow creatures hove into view outside.

Their foolishness in making themselves so obvious was only equaled by my

caution in avoiding whatever magical weapons they carried.

Behind me, my name was being called in a voice of fury. With growing frustration

I opened the next door and found myself in the kitchen. There were no more internal

doors, but one led out to what looked like a lean-to greenhouse, filled with herbs and greens. Beyond was the garden—and also the three sentinels, who came motoring round

the side of the house at surprising speed on their rotating legs. To gain time, I put a Seal on the door behind me. Then I looked around me and saw the cook.

He was sitting far back in his chair with his shoes on the kitchen table, a fat,

jovial-looking man with a red face and a meat cleaver in his hand. He was studiously

paring his nails with the cleaver, flicking each fragment of nail expertly through the air to land in the fireplace beside him. As he did so he watched me continuously with his dark little eyes.

I felt unease. He didn't seem at all perturbed to see a small Egyptian boy come

running into his kitchen. I checked him out on the different planes. On one to six he was exactly the same, a portly cook in a white apron. But on the seventh...

Uh-oh.

"Bartimaeus."

"Faquarl."

"How's it going?"

"Not bad."

"Haven't seen you around."

"No, I guess not."

"Shame, eh?"

"Yes. Well... here I am."

"Here you are, indeed."

While this fascinating conversation was going on, the sounds of a sustained series

of Detonations came from the other side of the door. My Seal held firm, though. I smiled as urbanely as I could.

"Jabor seems as excitable as ever."

"Yes, he's just the same. Only I think perhaps slightly more
hungry,
Bartimaeus.

That's the only change I've noticed in him. He never seems satisfied, even when he's been fed. And that happens all too rarely these days, as you can imagine."

" 'Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen,' that's your master's watchword, is it? Still, he must be fairly potent to be able to have you
and
Jabor as his slaves."

The cook gave a thin smile and with a flick of the knife sent a nail paring spinning

to the ceiling. It pierced the plaster and lodged there.

"Now, now, Bartimaeus, we don't use the s-word in civilized company, do we?

Jabor and I are playing the long game."

"Of course you are."

"Speaking of disparities in power, I notice that you choose to avoid addressing me on the seventh plane. This seems a little impolite. Can it be that you are uneasy with my true form?"

"Queasy, Faquarl, not uneasy."[6]

[6] I'm no great looker myself, but Faquarl had too many tentacles for my liking.

"Well, this is all very pleasant. I admire
your
choice of form, by the way, Bartimaeus. Very comely. But I see that you are somewhat weighed down by a certain

amulet. Perhaps you could be so good as to take it off and put it on the table. Then if you care to tell me which magician you are working for, I might consider ways of ending this meeting in a nonfatal manner."

"That's kind of you, but you know I can't do that."[7]

[7] Not
strictly
correct. I
could
have given over the Amulet and thus failed in my charge. But then, even if I had managed to escape from Faquarl, I would have had to

return empty-handed to the pale-faced boy. My failure would have left me at his tender mercy, doubly in his power, and somehow I knew this was not a good idea.

The cook prodded the edge of the table with the tip of his cleaver. "Let me be

frank. You can and will. It is nothing personal, of course; one day we may work together again. But for now I am bound just as you are. And I too have my charge to fulfill. So it comes, as it always does, to a question of power. Correct me if I am wrong, but I note that you do not have too much confidence in yourself today—otherwise you would have left

by the front door, quelling the triloids as you went, rather than allowing them to shepherd you round the house to me."

"I was merely following a whim."

"Mmm. Perhaps you would stop edging toward the window, Bartimaeus. Such a

ploy would be pitifully obvious even to a human[8] and besides, the triloids wait for you there. Hand over the Amulet or you will discover that your ramshackle defense Shield

will count for nothing."

[8] Ouch.

He stood up and held out his hand. There was a pause. Behind my Seal, Jabor's

patient (if unimaginative) Detonations still sounded. The door itself must have long since been turned to powder.

In the garden the three sentinels hovered, all their eyes trained on me. I looked

around the room for inspiration.

"The Amulet,
Bartimaeus."

I raised my hand, and with a heavy, rather theatrical sigh, took hold of the Amulet.

Then I leaped to my left. At the same time, I released the Seal on the door. Faquarl gave a tut of annoyance and began a gesture. As he did so he was hit square on by a particularly powerful Detonation that came shooting through the empty gap where the Seal had been.

It sent him backward into the fireplace and the brickwork collapsed upon him.

I smashed my way into the greenhouse just as Jabor stepped through the gap into

the kitchen.

As Faquarl emerged from the rubble, I was breaking out into the garden. The

three sentinels converged on me, eyes wide and legs rotating. Scything claws appeared at the ends of their blobby feet. I cast an Illumination of the brightest kind. The whole garden was lit up as if by an exploding sun.

The sentinels' eyes were dazzled; they chittered with pain. I leaped over them and

ran through the garden, dodging bolts of magic that sprang from the house, incinerating trees.

At the far end of the garden, between a compost heap and a motorized

lawnmower, I vaulted the wall. I tore through the blue latticework of magical nodes,

leaving a boy-shaped hole. Instantly alarm bells began ringing all over the grounds.

I hit the pavement outside, the Amulet bouncing and banging on my chest. On the

other side of the wall I heard the sound of galloping hooves. It was high time I made a change.

Peregrine falcons are the fastest birds on record. They can attain a speed of two

hundred kilometers an hour in diving flight. Rarely has one achieved this horizontally over the roofs of North London. Some would even doubt that this was possible,

particularly while carrying a weighty amulet around its neck. Suffice it to say, however, that when Faquarl and Jabor landed in the Hampstead backstreet, creating an invisible

obstruction that was immediately hit by a speeding moving van, I was nowhere to be

seen. I was long gone.

5

Nathaniel

"Above all," said his master, "there is one fact that we must drive into your wretched little skull now so that you never afterward forget. Can you guess what that fact is?"

"No, sir," the boy said.

"No?" The bristling eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. Mesmerized, the boy

watched them disappear under the hanging white thatch of hair. There, almost coyly, they remained just out of sight for a moment, before suddenly descending with a terrible

finality and weight. "No. Well then..." The magician bent forward in his chair. "I shall tell you."

With a slow, deliberate motion, he placed his hands together so that the fingertips

formed a steepled arch, which he pointed at the boy.

"Remember
this,"
he said in a soft voice. "Demons are very wicked. They will hurt you if they can. Do you understand this?"

The boy was still watching the eyebrows. He could not wrench his gaze away

from them. Now they were furrowed sternly downward, two sharp arrowheads meeting.

They moved with a quite remarkable agility—up, down, tilting, arching, sometimes

together, sometimes singly. With their parody of independent life they exerted a strange fascination on the boy. Besides, he found studying them infinitely preferable to meeting his master's gaze.

The magician coughed dangerously. "Do you understand?"

"Oh—yes, sir."

"Well now, you say yes, and I am sure you mean yes—and yet..." One eyebrow

inched skyward musingly. "And yet I do not feel convinced that you really, truly

understand!"

"Oh, yes, sir; yes, I do, sir. Demons are wicked and they are hurtful and they will hurt you if you let them, sir." The boy fidgeted anxiously on his cushion. He was eager to prove that he had been listening well. Outside, the summer sun was beating on the grass and the hot pavement; an ice-cream van had passed merrily under the window five

minutes before. But only a bright rim of pure daylight skirted the heavy red curtains of the magician's room; the air within was stuffy and thick. The boy wished for the lesson to be over, to be allowed to go.

"I have listened very carefully, sir," he said.

His master nodded. "Have you ever seen a demon?" he asked.

"No, sir. I mean, only in books."

"Stand up."

The boy stood quickly, one foot almost slipping on his cushion. He waited

awkwardly, hands at his sides. His master indicated a door behind him with a casual

finger. "You know what's through there?"

"Your study, sir."

"Good. Go down the steps and cross the room. At the far end you'll find my desk.

On the desk is a box. In the box is a pair of spectacles. Put them on and come back to me.

Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well then. Off you go."

Under his master's watchful eye, the boy crossed to the door, which was made of a

dark, unpainted wood with many whorls and grains. He had to struggle to turn the heavy brass knob, but the coolness of its touch pleased him. The door swung open soundlessly on oiled hinges and the boy stepped through to find himself at the top of a carpeted

staircase. The walls were elegantly papered with a flowery pattern. A small window

halfway down let in a friendly stream of sunlight.

The boy descended carefully, one step at a time. The silence and sunlight

reassured him and quelled some of his fears. Never having been beyond this point before, he had nothing but nursery stories to furnish his ideas of what might be waiting in his master's study. Terrible images of stuffed crocodiles and bottled eyeballs sprang garishly into his mind. Furiously he drove them out again. He would not be afraid.

At the foot of the staircase was another door, similar to the first, but smaller and

decorated, in its center, with a five-sided star painted in red. The boy turned the knob and pushed: the door opened reluctantly, sticking on the thick carpet. When the gap was wide enough the boy passed through into the study.

Unconsciously he had held his breath as he entered; now he let it out again,

almost with a sense of disappointment. It was all so
ordinary.
A long room lined with books on either side. At the far end a great wooden desk with a padded leather chair set behind it. Pens on the table, a few papers, an old computer, a small metal box. The