“Kitty Jones?” Nathaniel scanned the courtyard. He had quite forgotten her. “She—she must have fled.”
“Wrong again. I’ll tell you, shall I?” The djinni fixed him with its black-eyed stare. “You knocked yourself out, like the idiot you are. The golem was approaching, doubtless planning to take the Staff and crush your head like a melon. It was foiled—”
“By your prompt action?” Nathaniel said. “If so, I’m grateful, Bartimaeus.”
“Me? Save you? Please—someone I know might be listening. No. My magic is canceled out by the golem’s, remember? I sat back to watch the show. In fact … it was the girl and her friend. They saved you. Wait—don’t mock! I do not lie. The boy distracted it while the girl climbed on the golem’s back, tore the manuscript from its mouth, and threw it to the ground. Even as she did so, the golem seized her and the boy—incinerated them in seconds. Then its life force ebbed and it finally froze, inches from your sorry neck.”
Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed in doubt. “Ridiculous! It makes no sense!”
“I know, I know. Why should she save you? The mind boggles, Nat, but save you she did. And if you don’t think it’s true, well—seeing’s believing.” The djinni brought a hand out from behind its back, held something out. “This is what she plucked from the mouth.” Nathaniel recognized the paper instantly; it was identical to the one he’d seen in Prague, but this time furled and sealed with a daub of thick black wax. He took it slowly, gazed across at the golem’s gaping mouth and back again.
“The girl …” He couldn’t accommodate the thought. “But I was taking her to the Tower; I’d hunted her out. No—she’d kill me, not save my life. I don’t believe you, djinni. You’re lying. She’s alive. She’s fled the place.”
Bartimaeus shrugged. “Whatever you say. That’s why she left the Staff with you when you were helpless.”
“Oh …” This was a point. Nathaniel frowned. The Staff was the Resistance’s great prize. The girl would never willingly give it up. Perhaps she was dead. He looked down at the manuscript again. A sudden thought occurred to him.
“According to Kavka, the name of our enemy will be written on the parchment,” he said. “Let’s look! We can find out who’s behind the golem.”
“I doubt you’ll have time,” the djinni said. “Watch out—there it goes!”
With a melancholy hiss, a yellow flame erupted from the surface of the scroll. Nathaniel cried out and dropped the parchment hastily to the cobblestones, where it juddered and burned.
“Once out of the golem’s mouth, the spell’s so strong it soon consumes itself,” Bartimaeus went on. “Never mind. You know what happens now?”
“The golem is destroyed?”
“Yes—but more than that. It returns to its master first.” Nathaniel stared at his slave with sudden understanding. Bartimaeus raised an amused eyebrow. “Might be interesting, you think?”
“Very much so.” Nathaniel felt a surge of grim elation. “You’re sure of this?”
“I saw it happen, long ago in Prague.”
“Well, then …” He stepped past the smoldering fragments of the parchment and hobbled over to the golem, wincing at the pain in his side. “Ahh, my stomach really hurts. It’s almost like someone fell on it.”
“Eerie.”
“No matter.” Nathaniel reached the Staff, picked it up. “Now,” he said, stepping clear of the golem’s bulk once more, “let’s see.”
The flames died away; the manuscript was nothing but ash drifting in the breeze. An odd dark scent hung in the air.
“Kavka’s lifeblood,” Bartimaeus said. “All gone now.” Nathaniel made a face.
As the last wisp of paper vanished, a shudder ran through the golems transfixed body; the arms wobbled, the head jerked spasmodically, the chest rose, then fell. A faint sighing, as of a dying breath, was heard. A moment’s silence; the stone giant was quite still. Then, with the wrenched creaking of an old tree in a storm, the great back rose, the outstretched arm fell against its side, the golem stood straight once more. Its head tilted, as if deep in thought. Deep in the forehead, the golem’s eye was blank and dead: the commanding intelligence rested there no longer. But still the body moved.
Nathaniel and the djinni stood aside as the creature turned and with weary steps began to trudge off across the courtyard. It paid no heed to them. It went at the same remorseless pace that it had always used; from a distance, it carried the same energy as before. But already a transformation was taking place: small cracks extended out across the surface of the body. They began in the center of the torso, where previously the stone had been smooth and strong, and radiated toward the limbs. Little pieces of clay broke from the surface and drifted to the cobblestones in the giant’s wake.
Behind the golem, Nathaniel and the djinni fell into step. Nathaniel’s body ached; he used Gladstone’s Staff as a crutch as he went along.
The golem passed under the arch and departed the mews. It turned left into the street beyond, where, ignoring the regulations of the highway, it proceeded to march directly down the center of the road. The first person to encounter it, a large, bald trader with tattooed arms and a trolley of root vegetables, uttered a piteous squeal on its appearance and scampered pell-mell into a side alley. The golem ignored him, Nathaniel and Bartimaeus likewise. The small procession marched on.
“Assuming that the golem’s master is a senior magician,” Bartimaeus remarked, “just assuming, mark you—we may be heading for Westminster right now. That’s the center of town. This is going to cause something of a stir, you know.”
“Good,” Nathaniel said. “That’s exactly what I want.” With every passing minute, his mood was lightening; he could feel the anxiety and fear of the past few weeks beginning to drain away. The exact details of his escape from the golem that morning were still unclear in his mind, but this mattered little to him now; after the low point of the night before, when the massed ranks of the great magicians were set against him and the threat of the Tower hung above his head, he knew he was clear, he was safe once more. He had the Staff—Devereaux would fall at his feet for that—and better, he had the golem. None of them had believed his story; now they would be groveling with apologies—Duvall, Mortensen, and the rest. He would be welcomed into their circle at last, and whether Ms. Whitwell chose to forgive him or not would, in truth, matter very little. Nathaniel allowed himself a broad smile as he stumped along through Southwark, following the golem.
The fate of Kitty Jones was perplexing, but even here things had worked out well. Despite the prompting of practicality and logic, Nathaniel had felt uneasy with his breaking of his promise to the girl. It could not have been helped, of course—the vigilance spheres were observing them, so he could scarcely have allowed her to go free—but the business had weighed a little on his conscience. Now, he did not have to worry. Whether in helping him (he still found this difficult to credit) or in attempting to escape (more likely), the girl was dead and gone, and he did not need to waste time thinking about her. It was a shame in a way…. From what he had seen of her, she appeared to have had remarkable energy, talent, and willpower, far more than any of the great magicians, with their endless bickering and foolish vices. In some odd way, she had reminded Nathaniel a little of himself, and it was almost a pity she was gone.
The djinni walked in silence beside him, as if deep in thought. It did not seem much disposed to speak. Nathaniel shrugged. Who could guess what strange and wicked daydreams a djinni had? Better not to try.
As they went, they crushed small pieces of damp clay underfoot. The golem was shedding its material with increasing speed; clusters of holes were visible across its surface, and the outline of its limbs was a little uneven. It moved at its normal pace, but with a slightly bent back, as if growing old and frail.
Bartimaeus’s prediction, that the golem would cause something of a stir, was proved increasingly correct with every passing moment. They were now firmly on Southwark High Street, with its m
arket stalls and cloth merchants and general air of shabby industry. As they went, the commoners fanned out screaming up ahead, driven like cattle to gross and excessive panic before the striding giant. People threw themselves into shops and houses, breaking down doors and smashing windows in their efforts to escape; one or two climbed lampposts; several of the thinnest jumped down manholes into drains. Nathaniel chuckled under his breath. The chaos was not altogether regrettable. It would do the commoners good to be stirred up a bit, have their complacency shaken out of them. They should see the kinds of dangers the government was protecting them against, understand the wicked magic that threatened them on all sides. It would make them less likely to listen to zealots like the Resistance in the future.
A large number of red spheres appeared over the rooftops and hovered silently above the road, regarding them. Nathaniel composed his face into an expression of sobriety, and glanced with what he hoped was patrician sympathy at the broken stalls and frightened faces all around.
“Your friends are watching us,” the djinni said. “Think they’re happy?”
“Envious, more like.”
As they passed the Lambeth rail terminal and headed west, the golem’s outline became noticeably more irregular, its shambling more exaggerated. A large piece of clay, perhaps a finger, detached itself and fell wetly to the ground.
Westminster Bridge was up ahead. There seemed little doubt now that Whitehall was their destination. Nathaniel’s mind turned to the confrontation to come. It would be a fairly senior magician, of that he had no doubt, one who had discovered his trip to Prague and so sent the mercenary after him. Beyond that, it was impossible to say. Time would quickly tell.
Gladstone’s Staff was comfortable in his hand; he leaned heavily upon it, for his side still hurt him. As he went, he looked at it almost lovingly. This was one in the eye for Duvall and the others. Makepeace would be very pleased with the way things had turned out.
He frowned suddenly. So where would the Staff go now? Presumably, it would be placed into one of the government vaults, until someone needed to use it. But who among them had the ability to do so—other than he? Using nothing but improvised conjurations, he’d almost succeeded in using it the first time of asking! He could master it easily, given the opportunity. And then …
He sighed. It was a great pity he could not keep it for himself. Still, once he was back in Devereaux’s favor, all things were possible. Patience was the key. He had to bide his time.
They turned at last up a short rise between two glass and concrete watchtowers, onto Westminster Bridge itself. Beyond lay the Houses of Parliament. The Thames sparkled in the morning; little boats meandered with the tide. Several tourists vaulted the balustrade at the sight of the decaying golem and plopped into the water.
The golem strode on, its shoulders slumped, its arms and legs truncated stumps that shed clay in rapid gobbets. Its stride was visibly more disjointed; the legs wobbled unsteadily with each step. As if recognizing its time was short, it had increased its speed, and Nathaniel and the djinni were forced into a half-trot behind it.
Since they reached the bridge, there had been little traffic on the road, and now Nathaniel saw the reason why. Halfway across, a small, nervous unit of Night Police had erected a cordon. It consisted of concrete posts, barbed wire, and a number of savage second-plane imps, all spines and shark teeth, circling in midair. When they perceived the approaching golem, the imps retracted both spines and teeth and retreated with shrill wails. A police lieutenant stepped slowly forward, leaving the rest of his men loitering uncertainly in the shadows of the posts.
“Halt now!” he growled. “You are entering a government-controlled area. Rogue magical effusions are strictly forbidden on pain of swift and awful puni—” With a yelp like a puppy, he sprang sideways out of the golem’s path. The creature raised an arm, swatted a post into the Thames and tore through the cordon, leaving small pieces of clay hanging on the ravaged wire. Nathaniel and Bartimaeus sauntered along behind, winking cheerily at the cowering guards.
Over the bridge, past the towers of Westminster, onto the green itself. A crowd of minor magicians—pale-faced bureaucrats from the Ministries along Whitehall—had been alerted to the kerfuffle and had emerged blinking into the light of day. They fringed the pavements in awe, as the shambling giant, now considerably reduced, paused for a moment at the corner of Whitehall, before turning away, left, toward Westminster Hall. Several people called out to Nathaniel as he passed them. He waved a regal hand. “This is what’s been terrorizing the city,” he called. “I am returning it to its master.”
His answer awoke great interest; in ones and twos, and then in a rushing mass, the crowd fell in behind him, keeping always at a safe distance.
The great entrance door of Westminster Hall was ajar, the gatekeepers having fled at the sight of the oncoming creature and the crowd behind. The golem shouldered its way inside, ducking a little under the arch. By now, its head had lost most of its shape; it had melted like a candle by morning. The mouth had merged with the torso; the carved oval eye was skewed, hanging drunkenly midway down the face.
Nathaniel and the djinni entered the lobby. Two afrits, yellow-skinned, with lilac crests, materialized menacingly from pentacles in the floor. They considered the golem and swallowed audibly.
“Yep, I wouldn’t bother,” the djinni advised them as it passed. “You’ll only hurt yourselves. Watch your backs, though—half the city’s on our heels.”
The moment was coming. Nathaniel’s heart was beating fast. He could see where they were going now: the golem was passing along the corridor toward the Reception Chamber, where only elite magicians were allowed. His head spun at the implications.
From a side corridor a figure stepped out—slight, gray-uniformed, with bright green, anxious eyes. “Mandrake! You fool! What are you doing?”
He smiled politely. “Good morning, Ms. Farrar. You seem unduly agitated.”
She bit her lip. “The Council have scarcely been to their beds all night; now they have gathered once more and are watching through their spheres. What do they see? Chaos across London! There’s pandemonium in Southwark—riots, demonstrations, mass destruction of property!”
“It’s nothing that your estimable officers can’t control, I’m sure. Besides, I am merely doing what I was … requested to do last night. I have the Staff”—he flourished it—“and in addition, I am returning some property to its rightful owner, whoever that may be. Whoops, that was valuable, wasn’t it?” Up ahead, the golem, entering a more constricted section of corridor, had sent a vase of Chinese porcelain smashing to the floor.
“You’ll be arrested … Mr. Devereaux—”
“Will be delighted to learn the identity of the traitor. As would these people behind me” He did not need to glance over his shoulder. The hubbub of the pursuing crowd was deafening. “Now, if you would care to accompany us.…”
A set of double doors ahead. The golem, now little more than a shapeless mass, stumbling and careering from side to side, broke its way through. Nathaniel, Bartimaeus, and Jane Farrar, with the first of the onlookers close behind, stepped after it.
As one, the ministers of the British government rose from their places. A sumptuous breakfast lay before them on the table, but it had been brushed aside to accommodate the swirling nexuses of several vigilance spheres. In one, Nathaniel recognized an aerial view of Southwark High Street, with crowds milling restlessly amid the debris of the market; in another, he saw the people thronging Westminster Green; in a third, a view of the very chamber they were in.
The golem halted in the center of the room. Breaking through the doors had taken its toll and it appeared to have very little energy remaining. The ruined figure swayed where it stood. Its arms had vanished now, its legs conjoined into a single fluid mass. For a few moments, it teetered as if it would fall.
Nathaniel was scanning the faces of the ministers around the table: Devereaux, whey-faced with weariness and sho
ck; Duvall, scarlet with fury; Whitwell, her features hard and set; Mortensen, lank hair disordered and unoiled; Fry, still peaceably crunching the remnants of a wren; Malbindi, her eyes like saucers. To his surprise, he saw, among a knot of lesser ministers hovering to the side, both Quentin Makepeace and Sholto Pinn. Evidently the events of the early morning had drawn everyone of influence to the room.
He looked from face to face, saw nothing but anger and distress. For a moment, he feared he had been wrong, that the golem would collapse now, with nothing proven.
The Prime Minister cleared his throat. “Mandrake!” he began. “I demand an explanation of this—”
He halted. The golem had given a lurch. Like a drunken man, it wobbled to the left, toward Helen Malbindi, the Information Minister. All eyes followed it.
“It may still be dangerous!” Police Chief Duvall appeared less frozen than the rest. He tapped Devereaux on the arm. “Sir, we must vacate the room immediately.”
“Rubbish!” Jessica Whitwell spoke harshly. “We are all aware what is happening. The golem is returning to its master! We must stand still and wait.”
In dead silence they watched the column of clay shuffle toward Helen Malbindi, who retreated with shaking steps; all at once, its balance shifted, it tipped sideways and to the right, toward the places of Jessica Whitwell and Marmaduke Fry. Whitwell did not move an inch, but Fry gave a mewl of fright, lurched back and choked on a wren bone. He collapsed gasping into his chair, pop-eyed and scarlet-cheeked.
The golem veered toward Ms. Whitwell; it hovered above her, great slabs of clay sloughing off onto the parquet floor.
Mr. Duvall cried out. “We have our answer and must delay no longer! Jessica Whitwell is the creature’s master. Ms. Farrar—summon your men and escort her to the Tower!”
The clay mound gave a strange shudder. It tipped suddenly—away from Ms. Whitwell, and toward the center of the table, where Devereaux, Duvall, and Mortensen were standing. All three started back a pace. The golem was scarcely taller than a man now, a crumbling pillar of decay. It lurched up against the table edge and here it paused again, separated from the magicians by a meter of varnished wood.