Ptolemy's Gate (4 page)

“I thought I told you to stop doing that,” he snapped.

A thin-lipped mouth opened; the jutting chin and nose knocked together indignantly. “Do what?”

“Taking on such a hideous appearance. I've just had my breakfast.”

A section of brow lifted, allowing an eyeball to roll forward with a squelching sound. The face looked unapologetic. “Sorry, mate,” it said. “It's just my job.”

“Your job
is to destroy anyone entering my study without authority. No more, no less.”

The door guard considered. “True. But I seek to
preempt
entry by scaring trespassers away. To my way of thinking, deterrence is more aesthetically satisfying than punishment.”

Mr. Mandrake snorted. “Trespassers apart, you'll likely frighten Ms. Piper here to death.”

The face shook from side to side, a process that caused the nose to wobble alarmingly. “Not so. When she comes alone, I moderate my features. I reserve the full horror for those I consider morally vicious.”

“But you just looked that way to me!”

“The contradiction being … ?”

Mandrake took a deep breath, passed a hand across his eyes and gestured. The face retreated into the metal to become the faintest of outlines; the door swung open. The great magician drew himself up and, ushering Ms. Piper along before him, walked into his study.

It was a functional room—high, airy and white-painted, lit by two windows looking out upon the square. It had no excess decoration. On this particular morning thick clouds covered the sun, so Mandrake switched on the ceiling lights as he entered. Bookcases ran along the entirety of one wall, while the opposite side was bare except for a giant pin board, covered in notes and diagrams. The wooden floor was smooth and dark. Five circles were inscribed upon it, each with its own pentacle, runes, candles, and incense pots. Four of these were of a conventional size, but the fifth, nearest the window, was significantly larger: it contained within it a full-size desk, filing cabinet, and several chairs. This master-circle was joined to the smaller ones by a series of precisely drawn lines and rune-chains. Mandrake and Ms. Piper crossed into the largest circle and sat behind the desk, spreading out their papers before them.

Mandrake cleared his throat. “Right then. To business. Ms. Piper, we will deal with the ordinary reports first. If you would activate the presence indicator.”

Ms. Piper spoke a brief incantation. Instantly the candles around the perimeters of two of the smaller circles flickered into life; wisps of smoke rose to the ceiling. In the pots beside them, flakes of incense stirred and shifted. The other two circles remained quiet.

“Purip and Fritang,” Ms. Piper said.

The magician nodded. “Purip first.” He uttered a loud command. The candles in the leftmost pentacle flared; with a queasy shimmering, a form appeared in the center of the circle. It was shaped like a man and respectfully dressed in a sober suit and dark blue tie. It nodded briefly in the direction of the desk and waited.

“Remind me,” Mandrake said.

Ms. Piper glanced at her notes. “Purip has been observing the response to our war pamphlets and other propaganda,” she said. “Watching the commoners' mood.”

“Very well. Purip—what have you seen? Speak.”

The demon bowed slightly “There is not much new to report. The people are like a herd of Ganges meadow cattle, half-starved but complacent, unused to change or independent thought. Yet the war presses on their minds, and I believe discontent is spreading. They read your pamphlets, just as they buy your newspapers, but they do so without pleasure. It does not satisfy them.”

The magician scowled. “How is this discontent expressed?”

“I detect it in the careful blankness of their features when your police draw near. I see it in the hardness of their eyes as they pass the recruitment booths. I watch it pile up silently with the flowers at the doors of the bereaved. Most will not declare it openly, but their anger at the war and at their government is growing.”

“These are just words,” Mandrake said. “You give me nothing tangible.”

The demon shrugged its shoulders and smiled. “Revolution is
not
tangible—not to begin with. The commoners barely know the concept exists, but they breathe it when they sleep and they taste it when they drink.”

“That's enough riddles. Continue with your work.” The magician snapped his fingers; the demon sprang out of the circle and vanished. Mandrake shook his head. “All but useless. Well, we'll see what Fritang has to offer.”

Another command: the second circle flared into life. In a cloud of incense a new demon appeared—a short, fat gentleman with a round red face and plaintive eyes. It stood blinking agitatedly in the artificial light. “At last!” it cried. “I have terrible news! It cannot wait another moment!”

Mandrake knew Fritang of old. “As I understand it,” he said slowly, “you have been patrolling the docks, hunting for spies. Does your news have anything to do with this?”

A pause. “Indirectly …” the demon said.

Mandrake sighed. “Go on, then.”

“I was carrying out your orders,” Fritang said, “when—oh, how the memory appalls me!—my cover was blown. Here is my account. I had been conducting inquiries in a wine shop. As I exited, I found myself surrounded by a tribe of street urchins, some scarcely taller than my knee. I was disguised as a manservant, going about my quiet business. I had made no loud noises or extravagant gestures. Nevertheless I was singled out and hit by fifteen eggs, mostly thrown with force.”

“What was your exact guise? Perhaps that was itself a provocation.”

“I was as you see me. Gray-haired, sober, and straight-backed, the model of tedious virtue.”

“Evidently the young scoundrels decided to waylay a man of such qualities. You were unlucky, that is all.”

Fritang's eyes widened and its nostrils flared. “There was more to it than that! They knew me for what I am!”

“As a demon?” Mandrake flicked skeptically at a particle of dust upon his sleeve. “How could you tell?”

“My suspicions were aroused by their repetitive chanting: ‘Get out, get out, vile demon. We hate you and your dangling yellow crest.'”

“Really? That
is
interesting….” The magician appraised Fritang carefully through his lenses. “But what yellow crest is this? I don't see it.”

The demon pointed at a space above its head. “That is because you cannot see the sixth or seventh planes. On those, my crest is self-evident, resplendent as a sunflower. I may add that it is
not
dangling, though captivity
does
make it droop a little.”

“The sixth and seventh planes … and you're quite sure you didn't let your guise slip for a moment? Yes, yes.” Mandrake held up a hasty hand as the demon began a vehement protest. “I'm sure you're right and I am grateful for the information. You will doubtless want to rest after your egg trauma. Be gone! You are dismissed.”

With a yell of delight, Fritang departed in corkscrew motion through the center of the pentacle, as if sucked noisily down a plughole. Mandrake and Ms. Piper looked at each other.

“Another
case,” Ms. Piper said. “Children again.”

“Mmm.” The magician leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms out behind his head. “You might just check the files, get the exact number. I must summon the demons back from Kent.”

He sat forward, his elbows on the desk, and made the incantation in an undertone. Ms. Piper got up and crossed to the filing cabinet on the edge of the circle. She opened the topmost drawer and drew out a bulging manila file. Returning to her seat, she removed the elastic around the file and began sifting rapidly through the documents within. The incantation ended amid a suffusion of jasmine and sweetbriar. In the right-hand pentacle a hulking form appeared—a giant with blond, braided hair and a single glaring eye. Ms. Piper went on reading.

The giant performed a low and complex bow. “Master, I greet you with the blood of your enemies, with their cries and lamentations! Victory is ours!”

Mandrake raised an eyebrow. “So you chased them away, then.”

The cyclops nodded. “They fled like mice before lions. Literally, in some cases.”

“Indeed. That was to be expected. But did you capture any?”

“We killed a good many. You should have heard them squeak! And their fleeing hooves fairly shook the earth.”

“Right. So you didn't capture a single one. Which was expressly what I ordered you and the others to do.” Mandrake rapped his fingers on the table. “In a matter of days they will attack again. Who sent them? Prague? Paris? America? Without captives it is impossible to say. We are no further forward.”

The cyclops gave a crisp salute. “Well, my work is done. I am pleased to have given satisfaction.” It paused. “You seem lost in thought, O master.”

The magician nodded. “I am debating, Ascobol, whether to subject you to the Stipples or the Unfortunate Hug. Do you have a preference?”

“You could not be so cruel!” The cyclops wiggled agonizedly back and forth, toying with a braid of hair. “Blame Bartimaeus, not me! Once again, he took no useful part in the action, but was waylaid by a single blow. I was delayed from the chase by his loud requests to help him up from beneath a pebble. He is as weak as a tadpole and vicious with it: you should subject
him
to the Stipples forthwith.”

“And where is Bartimaeus now?”

The cyclops gave a pout. “I know not. Possibly he has expired from exhaustion in the interim. He took no part in the chase.”

The magician sighed deeply. “Ascobol—be gone from here.” He made a dismissive sign. The giant's fluting cries of thanks were abruptly cut off; it vanished in a gout of flame. Mandrake turned to his assistant. “Any joy, Piper?”

She nodded. “These are the unauthorized demon sightings of the last six months. Forty-two—no, forty
-three
now in total. As far as the demons go, there's no pattern: we've had afrits, djinn, imps, and mites all spotted. But when you look at the commoners …” She glanced down at the open file. “Most are children, and most of those children are young. In thirty cases the witnesses were under eighteen. What's that? Seventy percent or so. And in over half of those the witnesses were under twelve.” She looked up. “They're being born with it. With the power to see.”

“And who knows what else.” Mandrake swiveled his chair and stared out over the bare gray branches of the trees in the square. Mists still meandered around them, cloaking the ground from view. “All right,” he said, “that's enough for now. It's nearly nine, and I've private work to do. Thanks for your help, Piper. I'll see you at the ministry later this morning. Don't let that door guard give you any cheek as you go out.”

For some moments after his assistant's departure the magician remained motionless, tapping his fingers together aimlessly. Finally he leaned over and opened a side drawer in his desk. He pulled out a small cloth bundle and set it down in front of him. Flicking the fabric aside, he revealed a bronze disc, shiny with the use of years.

The magician stared down into the scrying glass, willing it into life. Something stirred in its depths.

“Fetch Bartimaeus,” he said.

3

W
ith dawn, the first people returned to the little town. Hesitant, fearful, groping their way like blind men up the street, they began to inspect the damage wrought to their houses, shops, and gardens. A few Night Police came with them, ostentatiously flourishing Inferno sticks and other weapons, though the threat was long since gone.

I was disinclined to move. I spun a Concealment around the chunk of chimney where I sat and removed myself from the humans' sight. I watched them passing with a baleful eye.

My few hours' rest had done me little good. How could it? It had been two whole
years
since I'd been allowed to leave this cursed Earth; two full years since I'd last escaped the brainless thronging mass of sweet humanity. I needed more than a quiet kip on a chimney stack to deal with
that,
I can tell you. I needed to go home.

And if I didn't, I was going to die.

It is technically possible for a spirit to remain indefinitely on Earth, and many of us at one time or another have endured prolonged visits, usually courtesy of being forcibly trapped inside canopic jars, sandalwood boxes, or other arbitrary spaces chosen by our cruel masters.
¹
Dreadful punishment though this is, it at least has the advantage of being safe and quiet. You aren't called upon to
do
anything, so your increasingly weakened essence is not immediately at risk. The main threat comes from the remorseless tedium, which can lead to insanity in the spirit in question.
²

My current predicament was in stark contrast. Not for me the luxury of being hidden away in a cozy lamp or amulet. No—day in, day out, I was a djinni on the street, ducking, diving, taking risks, exposing myself to danger. And each day it became a little more difficult to survive.