Forget the square. Too many irritating children around. But perhaps if I found a shelter close by, the amulet’s pulse would still be hard for the spheres to locate. I could hole up behind some bins until the morning came. It was the only option. I was too weary to take to the skies again.
And I wanted to do some thinking.
The old pain had started up again, throbbing in my chest, stomach, bones. It wasn’t healthy to be encased in a body for so long. How humans can stand it without going completely mad, I’ll never know.1
I stumped down the dark, cold street, looking at my reflection as it flitted across the blank squares of the windows alongside. The boy’s shoulders were hunched against the wind, his hands deep in his jacket pockets. His trainers scuffed the concrete. His posture perfectly expressed the annoyance I was feeling. The Amulet beat against my chest with every step. If it had been in my power, I would have ripped it off and lobbed it into the nearest trash can before dematerializing in high dudgeon. But I was bound by the orders of the child’s command.2 I had to keep it with me.
I took a side street away from the traffic. The massed darkness of high buildings closed in on either side, oppressing me. Cities get me down, almost as if I am underground. London is particularly bad—cold, gray, heavy with odors and rain.
It makes me long for the south, for the deserts and the blank blue sky.
Another alley led off to the left, choked with wet cardboard and newspapers. Automatically I scanned through the planes, saw nothing. It would do. I rejected the first two doorways for reasons of hygiene. The third was dry. I sat there.
It was high time I thought through the events of the night so far. It had been a busy one. There was the pale-faced boy, Simon Lovelace, the Amulet, Jabor, Faquarl.… A pretty hellish brew all round. Still, what did it matter? At dawn I would hand over the Amulet and escape this sorry mess for good.
Except for my business with the boy. He’d pay for it, big time. You didn’t reduce Bartimaeus of Uruk to dossing in a West End back alley and expect to get away with it. First I’d find out his name, then—
Wait …
Footsteps in the alley … Several pairs of boots approaching.
Perhaps it was just coincidence. London’s a city. People use it. People use alleys. Whoever was coming was probably just taking a shortcut home.
Down the very alley that I happened to be hiding in.
I don’t believe in coincidences.
I shrank back into the doorway’s shallow well of darkness and cast a Concealment upon myself. A layer of tightly laced black threads covered me where I sat in the shadows, blending me into the murk. I waited.
The boots drew nearer. Who might it be? A Night Police patrol? A phalanx of magicians sent by Simon Lovelace? Perhaps the orbs had spotted me, after all.
It was neither police nor magicians. It was the children from Trafalgar Square.
Five boys, with the girl at their head. They were dawdling along, looking casually from side to side. I relaxed a little. I was well hidden, and even if I hadn’t been, there was nothing to fear from them now that we were out of the public gaze. Admittedly, the boys were big and loutish looking, but they were still just boys, dressed in jeans and leathers. The girl wore a black leather jacket and trousers that flared wildly from the knees down. There was enough spare material there to make a second pair for a midget. Down the alley they came, scuffling through the litter. I realized suddenly how unnaturally silent they were.
In doubt, I checked the other planes again. On each, everything was just as it should be. Six children.
Hidden behind my barrier, I waited for them to go past.
The girl was in the lead. She drew level with me.
Safe behind my barrier, I yawned.
One of the boys tapped the girl’s shoulder.
“It’s there,” he said, pointing.
“Get it,” the girl said.
Before I had a chance to get over my surprise, three of the burliest boys leaped into the doorway and crashed down upon me. As they touched the Concealment wisps, the threads tore and dissolved away into nothingness. For an instant I was overwhelmed by a tidal wave of distressed leather, cheap aftershave, and body odor. I was sat upon, punched, and smacked about the head. I was bundled unceremoniously to my feet.
Then I reasserted myself. I am Bartimaeus, after all.
The alley was illuminated by a brief discharge of heat and light. The bricks of the doorway looked as if they had been seared on a griddle.
To my surprise the boys were still holding on. Two of them gripped my wrists, while the third had both arms tight round my waist.
I repeated the effect with greater emphasis. Car alarms in the next street started ringing. This time, I confess, I expected to be left in the charcoally grip of three charred corpses.3
But the boys were still there, breathing hard and holding on like grim death.
Something was not quite right, here.
“Hold it steady,” the girl said.
I looked at her, she looked at me. She was a little bit taller than my current manifestation, with dark eyes, long dark hair. The other two boys stood on either side of her like an acned guard of honor. I grew impatient.
“What do you want?” I said.
“You have something round your neck.” The girl had a remarkably level and authoritative voice for someone so young. I guessed she was about thirteen.
“Says who?”
“It’s been in full view for the last two minutes, you cretin. It fell out of your T-shirt when we jumped you.”
“Oh. Fair enough.”
“Hand it over.”
“No.”
She shrugged. “Then we’ll take it. It’s your funeral.”
“You don’t really know who I am, do you?” I made it sound damn casual, with a side helping of menace. “You’re not a magician.”
“Too right I’m not.” She spat the words out.
“A magician would know better than to trifle with one such as me.” I was busy cranking up the awe-factor again, although this is always fairly tricky when you have a brawny half-wit clasping you round your waist.
The girl grinned coldly. “Would a magician do so well against your wickedness?”
She had a point there. For a start, a magician wouldn’t have wanted to come within a dog’s bark of me without being protected up to the hilt with charms and pentacles. Next he would have needed the help of imps to find me under my Concealment; and, finally, he would have had to conjure up a fairly heavyweight djinni to subdue me. If he dared. But this girl and her boyfriends had done it all on their own, without seeming particularly fussed.
I should have let fly a full-strength Detonation or something, but I was too tired for anything fancy. I fell back on empty bluster.
I laughed eerily. “Hah! I’m toying with you.”
“That’s empty bluster.”
I tried another tack. “Despite myself,” I said, “I confess I’m intrigued. I applaud your bravery in daring to accost me. If you tell me your name and purpose, I will spare you. In fact, I might well be able to help you. I have many abilities at my command.”
To my disappointment, the girl clamped her hands over her ears. “Don’t give me your weasel words, demon!” she said. “I won’t be tempted.”
“Surely you do not want my enmity,” I went on, soothingly. “My friendship is greatly to be preferred.”
“I don’t care about either,” the girl said, lowering her hands. “I want whatever it is you have round your neck.”
“You can’t have it. But you can have a fight if you like. Apart from the damage it’ll do you, I’ll make sure I let off a signal that’ll bring the Night Police down on us like gorgons from hell. You don’t want their attention, do you?”
That made her flinch a bit. I built on my advantage.
“Don’t be naive,” I said. “Think about it.You’re trying to rob me of a very powerful object. It belongs to a terrible magician. If you so
much as touch it, he’ll find you and nail your skin to his door.”
Whether it was this threat or the accusation of naivete that got to her, the girl was rattled. I could tell by the direction of her pout.
Experimentally I shifted one elbow a little. The corresponding boy grunted and tightened his grip on my arm.
A siren sounded a few roads away. The girl and her bodyguards looked uneasily down the alley into the darkness. A few drops of rain began to fall from the hidden sky.
“Enough of this,” the girl said. She stepped toward me.
“Careful,” I said.
She stretched out a hand. As she did so, I opened my mouth, very, very slowly. Then she reached for the chain round my neck.
In an instant I was a Nile crocodile with jaws agape. I snapped down at her fingers. The girl shrieked and jerked her arm backward faster than I would have believed possible. My snaggleteeth clashed just short of her retreating fingernails. I snapped at her again, thrashing from side to side in my captors’grasp. The girl squawked, slipped, and fell into a pile of litter, knocking over one of her two guards. My sudden transformation took my three boys by surprise, particularly the one who was clutching me around my wide scaly midriff. His grip had loosened, but the other two were still hanging on. My long hard tail scythed left, then right, making satisfyingly crisp contact with two thick skulls. Their brains, if they had any, were nicely addled; their jaws slackened and so did their grasps.
One of the girl’s two guards had been only momentarily shocked. He recovered himself, reached inside his jacket, emerged with something shiny in his hand.
As he threw it, I changed again.
The quick shift from big (the croc) to small (a fox) was nicely judged, if I say so myself. The six hands that had been struggling to cope with large-scale scales suddenly found themselves clenching thin air as a tiny red bundle of fur and whirling claws dropped through their flailing fingers to the floor. At the same moment a missile of flashing silver passed through the point where the croc’s throat had recently been and embedded itself in the metal door beyond.
The fox ran up the alley, paws skittering on the slippery cobbles.
A piercing whistle sounded ahead. The fox pulled up. Searchlights dipped and spun against the doors and brickwork. Running feet followed the lights.
That was all I needed. The Night Police were coming.
As a beam swung toward me, I leaped fluidly into the open mouth of a plastic bin. Head, body, brush—gone; the light passed over the bin and went on down the alley.
Men came now, shouting, blowing whistles, racing toward where I’d left the girl and her companions. Then a growling, an acrid smell; and something that might have been a big dog rushing after them into the night.
The sounds echoed away. Curled snugly between a seeping bin-bag and a vinegary crate of empty bottles, the fox listened, his ears pricked forward. The shouts and whistles grew distant and confused, and to the fox it seemed as if they merged and became an agitated howling.
Then the noise faded altogether. The alleyway was silent.
Alone in the foulness, the fox lay low.
8
Arthur Underwood was a middle-ranking magician who worked for the Ministry of Internal Affairs. A solitary man, of a somewhat cantankerous nature, he lived with his wife, Martha, in a tall Georgian house in Highgate.
Mr. Underwood had never had an apprentice, and nor did he want one. He was quite happy working on his own. But he knew that sooner or later, like all other magicians, he would have to take his turn and accept a child into his house.
Sure enough, the inevitable happened: one day a letter arrived from the Ministry of Employment, containing the dreaded request. With grim resignation, Mr. Underwood fulfilled his duty. On the appointed afternoon, he traveled to the ministry to collect his nameless charge.
He ascended the marbled steps between two granite pillars and entered the echoing foyer. It was a vast featureless space; office workers passed quietly back and forth between wooden doors on either side, their shoes making respectful pattering noises on the floor. Across the hall, two statues of past Employment ministers had been built on a heroic scale, and sandwiched between them was a desk, piled high with papers. Mr. Underwood approached. It was only when he actually reached the desk that he was able to glimpse, behind the bristling rampart of bulging files, the face of a small, smiling clerk.
“Hello, sir,” said the clerk.
“Junior Minister Underwood. I’m here to collect my new apprentice.”
“Ah—yes, sir. I was expecting you. If you’ll just sign a few documents …” The clerk rummaged in a nearby stack. “Won’t take a minute. Then you can pick him up from the day room.”
“’Him’? It’s a boy, then?”
“A boy, five years old. Very bright, if the tests are anything to go by. Obviously a little upset at the moment…” The clerk located a wodge of papers and withdrew a pen from behind his ear. “If you could initial each page and sign on the dotted lines …”
Mr. Underwood flourished the pen. “His parents—they’ve left, I take it?”
“Yes, sir. They couldn’t get away fast enough. The usual sort: take the money and run, if you get my meaning, sir. Barely stopped to say good-bye to him.”
“And all the normal safety procedures—?”
“His birth records have been removed and destroyed, sir, and he has been strictly instructed to forget his birth name and not reveal it to anyone. He is now officially unformed. You can start with him from scratch.”
“Very well.” With a sigh, Mr. Underwood completed his last spidery signature and passed the documents back. “If that’s all, I suppose I had better pick him up.”
He passed down a series of silent corridors and through a heavy, paneled door to a brightly painted room that had been filled with toys for the entertainment of unhappy children. There, between a grimacing rocking horse and a plastic wizard doll wearing a comedy conical hat, he found a small pale-faced boy. It had been crying in the recent past, but had now fortunately desisted. Two red-rimmed eyes looked up at him blankly. Mr. Underwood cleared his throat.
“I’m Underwood, your master. Your true life begins now. Come with me.”
The child gave a loud sniff. Mr. Underwood noticed its chin wobbling dangerously. With some distaste, he took the boy by the hand, pulled it to its feet, and led it out down echoing corridors to his waiting car.
On the journey back to Highgate, the magician once or twice tried to engage the child in conversation, but was met with teary silence. This did not please him; with a snort of frustration, he gave up and turned on the radio to catch the cricket scores. The child sat stock-still in the backseat, gazing at its knees.
His wife met them at the door. She carried a tray of biscuits and a steaming mug of hot chocolate, and straight away bustled the boy into a cozy sitting room, where a fire leaped in the grate.
“You won’t get any sense out of him, Martha,” Mr. Underwood grunted. “Hasn’t said a word.”
“Do you wonder? He’s terrified, poor thing. Leave him to me.” Mrs. Underwood was a diminutive, roundish woman with very white hair cropped short. She sat the boy in a chair by the fire and offered him a biscuit. He didn’t acknowledge her at all.
Half an hour passed. Mrs. Underwood chatted pleasantly about anything that came into her head. The boy drank some chocolate and nibbled a biscuit, but otherwise stared silently into the fire. Finally, Mrs. Underwood made a decision. She sat beside him and put her arm around his shoulders.
“Now, dear,” she said, “let’s make a deal. I know that you’ve been told not to tell anyone your name, but you can make an exception with me. I can’t get to know you properly just calling you ‘boy,’ can I? So, if you tell me your name, I’ll tell you mine—in strictest confidence. What do you think? Was that a nod? Very well, then. I’m Martha. And you are …?”
A small snuffle, a smaller voice. “Nathaniel.”
“That’s a lovely name
, dear, and don’t worry, I won’t tell a soul. Don’t you feel better already? Now, have another biscuit, Nathaniel, and I’ll show you to your bedroom.”
With the child fed and bathed and finally put to bed, Mrs. Underwood reported back to her husband, who was working in his study.
“He’s asleep at last,” she said. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he was in shock—and no wonder, his parents leaving him like that. I think it’s disgraceful, ripping a child from his home so young.”
“That’s how it’s always been done, Martha. Apprentices have to come from somewhere.” The magician kept his head bent meaningfully toward his book.
His wife did not take the hint. “He should be allowed to stay with his family,” she went on. “Or at least to see them sometimes.”
Wearily, Mr. Underwood placed the book on the table. “You know very well that is quite impossible. His birth name must be forgotten, or else future enemies will use it to harm him. How can it be forgotten if his family keeps in contact? Besides, no one has forced his parents to part with their brat. They didn’t want him, that’s the truth of it, Martha, or they wouldn’t have answered the advertisements. It’s quite straightforward. They get a considerable amount of money as compensation, he gets a chance to serve his country at the highest level, and the state gets a new apprentice. Simple. Everyone wins. No one loses out.”
“All the same …”
“It didn’t do me any harm, Martha.” Mr. Underwood reached for his book.
“It would be a lot less cruel if magicians were allowed their own children.”
“That road leads to competing dynasties, family alliances … it all ends in blood feuds. Read your history books, Martha: see what happened in Italy. So, don’t worry about the boy. He’s young. He’ll forget soon enough. Now, what about making me some supper?”
The magician Underwood’s house was the kind of building that presented a slender, simple, dignified countenance to the street, but which extended back for a remarkable distance in a confusion of stairs, corridors, and slightly varying levels. There were five main floors altogether: a cellar, filled with wine racks, mushroom boxes, and cases of drying fruit; the ground floor, containing reception room, dining hall, kitchen, and conservatory; two upper floors mainly consisting of bathrooms, bedrooms, and workrooms; and, at the very top, an attic. It was here that Nathaniel slept, under a steeply sloping ceiling of whitewashed rafters.