Ptolemy's Gate (22 page)

The incantation finished. Mandrake's gaze swiveled to the chair, where a dark shadow flickered. Now it was gone. The man's body jerked, as if all its muscles had tensed, then relaxed. Mandrake waited. The breeze subsided, the lightbulb flared once more. The young man sat inert and passive. His eyes were closed.

Mr. Makepeace lowered his hands. He winked at Mandrake. “Now then …”

He took a step forward. Mandrake gasped, cried out a warning. “Wait, you fool! The demon's there! It's suicide to—”

Calm and slow as a noonday cat, Makepeace stepped out of his circle and into the other. Nothing happened. Grinning, he once more removed the gag and patted the captive gently on one cheek. “Mr. Drew! Wake up! This is no time for sleeping!”

Languorously the young man stirred. Hands and feet stretched against their bonds. His eyes opened and stared about them dreamily. He seemed to have difficulty recollecting his situation. Fascinated despite himself, Mandrake moved a little closer.

“Hold that stick ready,” Makepeace said. “Things may go wrong.” He bent near, spoke sweetly. “What is your name, friend?”

“Nicholas Drew.”

“Is that your
only
name? Think deeply. Do you have another?”

A pause. The man's face furrowed. “Yes … I do.”

“And what is it?”

“Borello …”

“Ah, good. Tell me, Nicholas, what is your occupation?”

“Shopworker.”

“And what is the Shriveling Fire? When is it applied?”

A brief frown of puzzlement gave way to bland assurance. “It is the penalty for disobedience, should we purposefully fail in our charge. Our master puts our essence to the torch. Ah, we fear it!”

“Very good. Thank you.” Mr. Makepeace turned away, leaped carefully over the nearest chalk marks, and approached John Mandrake, whose face had been robbed of expression. “What do you think, my boy? Is it not a fascinating situation?”

“I don't know.… It is a clever trick—”

“It is more than a trick! The demon has lodged itself within the man. It is trapped inside as if he were the pentacle! Did you not hear? And the demon's knowledge is at the man's command. Suddenly he knew the meaning of the Shriveling Fire. He had knowledge, where before had just been blankness! Now, consider the implications…”

Mandrake frowned. “The feat is morally dubious. This fellow is an unwilling victim. Besides, he is a commoner. He cannot properly use the demon's information.”

“Aha! Perceptive as ever! Forget the moral dimension for a moment. Imagine if—”

“What is he doing?” Mandrake was studying the captive, who seemed to have newly recognized his surroundings. Agitation had returned to the face; he struggled with his bonds. Once or twice he turned his head violently from side to side, like a dog worrying at a flea.

Makepeace shrugged. “Perhaps he senses the demon inside. Perhaps it talks within him. Hard to tell. I have not tried it with a commoner before.”

“You have used others?”

“A single one only. A volunteer. That union has worked extremely well.”

Mandrake rubbed his chin. The sight of the writhing captive unsettled him, disrupting his intellectual interest. He could not think what to say.

Mr. Makepeace had no such problems. “The implications, as I say, are immense. Notice how I entered the pentacle unharmed? The demon was powerless to stop me, since it was within an altogether
different
prison! Now, I wanted you to see this, John, with the utmost urgency, because I trust you, just as you, I hope, trust me. And if—”

“Please!"A plaintive cry from the figure in the chair. “I can't bear it! Oh, it whispers! It drives me mad!”

Mandrake flinched. “He is suffering. The demon must be dismissed.”

“Shortly, shortly. Probably he lacks the mental ability to constrain its voice—”

The captive wriggled anew. “I'll tell you all I know! About the commoners, about our plans! I can give you information….”

Makepeace made a face. “Tush, you can give us nothing that our spies don't already know. Cease your hollering. I have a headache.”

“No! I can tell you of the Commoners' Alliance! Of their ringleaders!”

“We know them all—their names, their wives, their families. They are ants to be stepped on when we choose. Now—I have vital matters to discuss here—”

“But—but you do not know
this:
a fighter from the old Resistance lives! She hides in London! I have seen her, hours ago! I can take you to the place—”

“That is all ancient history.” Mr. Makepeace took the iron spike from Mandrake's fingers and weighed it casually in his palm. “I am a patient man, Mr. Drew, but you begin to irk me. If you do not cease—”

“Wait a moment.” John Mandrake's voice had altered; its tone halted the playwright in his tracks. “What Resistance fighter is this? A woman?”

“Yes! Yes, a girl! Her name is Kitty Jones, although she goes now by another name—Ah, will you
stop
your whispering!” He groaned and thrashed beneath his bonds.

A faint rushing sounded in Mandrake's head. For a moment, he felt dizzy, as if he were about to fall. His mouth was dry. “Kitty Jones? You lie.”

“No! I swear it! Release me and I will take you to her.”

“Is this line of questioning
really
necessary?” Mr. Makepeace wore a petulant frown. “The Resistance is long defunct. Please concentrate on what J say, John. It is extremely important, especially in your current situation. John?
John?”

Mandrake did not hear him. He saw Bartimaeus, wearing the apparel of a dark-skinned boy. He saw him standing in a cobbled courtyard years before. He heard the boy speak. “
The golem seized her … incinerated her in seconds
.” Kitty Jones was dead. The djinni had told him so. Mandrake had believed him. And now, out of the past, the boy's sober expression suddenly shifted horribly into a leer of contempt.

Mandrake leaned over the captive. “Where did you see her? Tell me, and you shall go free.”

“The Frog Inn, Chiswick! She works there! She has the name of Clara Bell. Now please—”

“Quentin, be so good as to dismiss the demon and release this man immediately. I must depart.”

The playwright had become quiet, suddenly withdrawn. “Certainly, John … if you wish it. But will you not wait? I strongly advise you to listen to what I have to say. Forget the girl. There are more important things. I want to discuss this experiment—”

“Later, Quentin, later.” Mandrake was white-faced; he was already at the arch.

“But where are you going? Not back to work?”

Mandrake spoke through gritted teeth. “Hardly. I have a summoning of my own that I have to perform.”

14

T
ime, as I may have mentioned once or twice, does not really exist in the Other Place. Even so, you know full well when you're being shortchanged. And I had scarcely been reabsorbed by the nourishing energies of the maelstrom when I felt the cruel tug of a summons once again, sucking me out like yolk drawn from an egg, plunging me back upon the hard and bitter earth.

Already.
And my essence had hardly begun to heal.

My last activities upon the material world had been so painful, so perilous to my essence, that I could barely remember them. But one thing was clear enough: my numbing, cursed weakness! How I—whose power scattered the magicians of Nimrud, who set the Barbary Coast aflame, who sent cruel Ammet, Koh, and Jabor spinning to their doom—how I, that same Bartimaeus, had been reduced to fleeing as a miserable, no-good frog, unable to trade the smallest Detonation with a gang of hireling herons.

During the whole debacle I'd been too near death to truly feel the righteous anger that was my due. But I felt it now. My very being frothed with it.

I could dimly recall my master dismissing me. Probably he disliked the mess I was making on his floor. Perhaps my decrepitude had embarrassed him at last. Well, whatever the reason, it hadn't taken him long to change his mind.

Fine. I was through with him. We would both go to our deaths. I'd use his name against him now, come what may. My last desire was to see him squirm.

And I wasn't going to go out as a paltry amphibian, either.

In the few short hours I'd been away from Earth, the Other Place had worked its magic. I'd managed to absorb a little energy. It wouldn't last long, but I was going to put it to good use.

As I materialized, I drew what was left of my essence into a form that reflected my emotions with simple purity, e.g. a big-horned demon with muscles like melons and lots of teeth. It was the full works. You name it, I'd got it. Brimstone, spear-tail, wings, hooves, claws, even a couple of whips thrown in. My eyes were burning fishhooks, my skin glowed like cooling lava. Not particularly original, but as a statement of intent it did the job nicely. I erupted into the room with a roll of thunder fit to send the living dead scuttling to their coffins. This was followed by a howl of famished rage, the kind uttered by Anubis's jackals as they prowled about the Memphis tombs—only a bit louder and longer, a vile noise unnaturally prolonged.

In fact I was still in the middle of my ululation when I caught sight of the figure in the pentacle opposite, and was completely put off my stroke. The barnstorming roar contracted into a wobbling gargle that shot up a couple of octaves and ended in a falsetto squeak with a question mark on the end. The demon—which had been busily rearing up, leather wings akimbo, whips a-cracking—froze in an unstable posture with its backside protruding. The wings slumped; the whips drooped limply. The billowing brimstone cloud petered away into a timorous dribble that drifted discreetly out of view behind my hooves.

I stopped and stared.

“All right,” the girl said tartly. “Quit the silly faces. Have you never been summoned by a woman before?”

The demon lifted a brawny finger and pushed its jaw back into position. “Yes, but—”

“But nothing. Stop making such a fuss.”

A forked tongue identical to the tail below issued from the demon's mouth and moistened its dry lips. “But—but—hold on a minute—”

“And what horrible kind of manifestation do you call this, anyhow?” she went on. “That noise! That stench! All those folds and knobbly warts and things! What are you trying to prove?” Her eyes narrowed. “I think you're compensating for something.”

“Listen,” I began, “this is an established, traditional form that—”

“Traditional nothing. Where are your clothes?”

“Clothes?” I said weakly. “I don't normally bother with them in this guise.”

“Well, you could put on a pair of shorts, at least. You're not decent.”

“I'm not sure they'd go with the wings….” The demon frowned, blinked. “Hold on, enough of this!”

“Lederhosen would. They'd compliment the leather.”

With difficulty, I gathered my thoughts. “Stop! Forget the clothes! The point is … the point
is
—what are
you
doing here? Summoning
me
! I don't understand! This is all wrong!” In my perplexity, all attempts at established, traditional terrors ceased. Much to the relief of my wounded essence, the towering demon shrank and shimmered and adjusted itself down to fit the pentacle more snugly. My leather wings became two shoulder nubs and my tail retracted out of sight.

“
Why
is it wrong?” the girl asked. “It's just another one of those master/servant things you were telling me about when last we met. You know:
I'm
the master,
you're
the slave.
I
give the orders,
you
obey without question. Remember how it works now?”

“Sarcasm doesn't go with a pretty face,” I said. “So feel free to make lots more comments along those lines. You know perfectly well what I mean.
You're not a magician.”

She smiled sweetly and gestured about us. “Really? In what way do I not fit the bill?”

The snug-fit demon looked left. The snug-fit demon looked right. Unnervingly, she had a point. There was I, imprisoned in a pentacle. There was she, standing in another. And all around sat the usual paraphernalia: candelabra, incense bowls, chalk sticks, big book lying on a table. It was an otherwise empty room, without curtains on the window. A big round moon shone high above, splashing a silver light across our faces. Except for the smooth, raised section in the middle where the runes and circle had been painted, the floor was of warped, irregular boards. Behind the taint of rosemary the whole place smelled of damp, disuse, and assorted rodents. So far, so
ordinaire.
I'd seen this dismal view a thousand times—all that ever changed was the view out of the window.

No, what was preoccupying me was the summoner herself, the so-called magician.

Kitty Jones.

There she was. Large as life and twice as confident, standing hands on hips with a grin as wide as the Nile estuary. Exactly as I'd portrayed her all those times while annoying Mandrake.
¹
Her long dark hair had been chopped back level with her ears; perhaps her face was a little thinner than I remembered. But she looked in far better shape than when I'd last seen her, hobbling down the street after her triumph with the golem. How long had it been since then? Three years—no more. But time seemed to have passed differently for her, somehow: her eyes held the calmness of earned knowledge.
²