I hesitated. ‘How exactly were you snared?’
Another Illusion. He is a master of them. It seemed a great entity rose from the ground, a being of such power that I was rendered dumb with terror. As I strove to fight it, sending Detonation after Detonation into its writhing coils, Solomon appeared behind me and turned the Ring. Now, I am here.
The moth considered this unexpected information. Here, then, was the reason I was still on Earth. The girl was captured, not devoured. It had uneasy repercussions for me, not least since Solomon might well wish to meet the slave who had brought her so far. I needed to do something, and fast, but there was more to learn from Philocretes first.
‘All very well,’ I said airily, ‘but assume you had ignored the Illusion and got as far as the real Solomon. He’d still have had the Ring. You would never have got it off him.’
From somewhere came a roaring that was at once ferocious and very faint, like a thunderstorm heard far away at sea. The air moved with curious wafts and eddies, swaying the moth gently to and fro. O most lowly and offal-headed Bartimaeus, how I long to tear your wings to tissue shreds! Solomon is not invincible! When he sleeps, he removes his Ring!
At this the tenor of my voice became a trifle sceptical. ‘Why would he do that? All the stories say he never takes it off. One of his wives tried—’
The stories are wrong! It suits the king that they should be so, which is why he spreads them. Between midnight and cock-crow, the king must sleep. To sleep he must remove the Ring!
‘But he simply wouldn’t do it,’ I said. ‘It’s far too risky for him. All his power—’
A horrid gurgling, like that of a particularly malevolent blocked drain, resounded all around me. Philocretes was laughing. Yes, yes, the power is the problem! The Ring contains too much. Its energies burn whoever wears it! This, by day, is something Solomon can endure, though he has to conceal his pain from the outside world. At night, in solitude, he must give himself respite. The Ring lies on a silver dish beside his pallet – close enough for him to reach, of course. Ah, but he is vulnerable!
‘It burns him …’ I murmured. ‘I suppose it could be so. I have known such things before.’4
That is not the only drawback of the Ring, the voice went on. Why do you think Solomon uses it so rarely? Why do you think he relies so heavily upon the magicians who cluster around his feet like fawning dogs?
The moth shrugged.5 ‘I just assumed he was lazy.’
Not so! Whenever it is used, the Ring draws life out from the wearer, and he or she is left weakened by the act. The energies of the Other Place work harm upon a mortal’s body, if exposed to it too long. Solomon himself, with all the great works he has accomplished, is already aged far beyond his years.
The moth frowned.6 ‘He looked all right to me.’
Look closer. Little by little the Ring is killing him, Bartimaeus. Another man would have given up the fight by now, but the fool has a strong sense of responsibility. He fears that someone less virtuous than himself might find and use the Ring. The consequences of that …
The moth nodded.7 ‘Might well be terrible …’ What an informative pot this was. Of course, Philocretes might just be mad, and certainly some things he said didn’t quite gel with what the girl had told me. For instance, just how virtuous was it to threaten to destroy Sheba if you didn’t get the big pile of frankincense you wanted? Then again, Solomon was human. And that meant he was flawed.8
Still, there was no way of telling the truth of it without going to see things for myself.
‘Thanks for that, Philocretes,’ I said. ‘I must admit it sounds as if you’re right. Solomon does have a weakness. He is vulnerable.’
Ah yes, but he is safe … for no one knows these facts but me.
‘Er, and me now,’ I said cheerily. ‘And I’m going to look into it all this minute. Might even pinch the Ring if I get a chance. Tell you what – you think of me doing that, getting a spot of revenge and everlasting glory, while you stay mouldering away in this tedious old pot. If you’d been polite to me I might have offered to break it for you, thus putting you out of your misery, but you weren’t, and I won’t. If I remember, I may get around to visiting you again in a millennium or two. Until then, farewell.’
With that the moth made for the lid, and now there came such a faraway howling that my wings rippled in consternation. Little buffets of air beset me, blowing me for an instant off my course. Then I righted myself and reached the lid and, in a moment more, had pushed myself out of the dust and darkness, and was back in the living world.
I was a cat again, standing in shadows. I looked back at the pot. Did I hear a distant voice screaming, cursing, shouting out my name? I listened hard.
No, there was nothing.
Turning away, I peered out of the storeroom into the central hall. All was still; the Glamour hung like gold haze above the silent pool and couches. There was no marauding entity and no Arabian girl. But then I spied, beyond the archway opposite, a distant gleam of an oil lamp on a chamber wall, and heard two voices raised in sharp discussion. One was high, familiar; the other low.
Lilac eyes gleaming, wicked schemes trailing like a cloak behind it, the cat pattered forwards and vanished from the hall.
1 I didn’t hang around long enough to get a good look at it, but its size and scale, not to mention all those gooey jellyfishy bits swirling about the place, told me it was something from the very depths of the Other Place. Entities like that are rarely house-trained, and almost always have bad attitudes.
2 You could tell it was genuine because of the spiky armpit hair sprouting like black broccoli from the top of the wrinkled scalp. I’ve got to say, you can add all the shiny button eyes and cutesy cotton mouths you like, but if I was a kid who was given that doll to cuddle of a bedtime, I’d feel a bit short-changed.
3 As my last master but one would tell you, never attempt to use an unknown magical artefact. Hundreds of magicians have risked it down the years and only one or two of them survived to regret it. Most famous, to djinn of my antiquity, was the Old Priestess of Ur, who wished for immortality. For decades she worked dozens of her magicians to death, forcing them to create a beautiful silver circlet that would confer on her perpetual life. They finished at last; in triumph, the ageing woman put the circlet on her head. But the entities trapped inside the circlet had not chosen to spell out the exact terms of the great magic they invoked. The Old Priestess lived on, all right, but not in quite the pleasant manner she had assumed.
4 The Circlet of Harms, for instance, embedded in the forehead of the Old Priestess of Ur. How she yelled when she put it on! But by then it was too late.
5 OK, maybe not shrugged exactly. I didn’t have any shoulders. But I certainly gave my wings a damn good non-committal twitch.
6 All right, all right. For frowned read ‘let its compound eyes tilt and its antennae droop quizzically’. Anatomically more accurate, but cumbersome, don’t you think? I hope you’re satisfied now.
7 Don’t start.
8 Go on, take a look at yourself in the mirror. A good long look, if you can bear it. See? Flawed’s putting it mildly, isn’t it?
29
It was very quiet when Asmira awoke. She lay on her back staring at the ceiling – at a long thin crack that meandered along the plaster to the corner with the wall. It was not a particularly distinctive crack, but it puzzled her, because she had never noticed it before. Her little room had a great many cracks, and places where the old mud-brick was half worn through, and faded marks where forgotten guards before her had scratched their names – and Asmira had thought she knew them all. But this was new.
She stared at it for a time, open-mouthed, relaxed of limb, and then, with a quickening of consciousness, realized that the ceiling plaster had been whitewashed, and was further from her than it ought to be. And the wall was on the wrong side. The light was strange. The bed felt soft. It was not her room. She was not in Marib any more.
Memories came fl
ooding back to her in a rush. With a cry she jerked bolt upright on the bed, scrabbling at her belt.
A man sat watching her from a chair across the room.
‘If you’re looking for this,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I removed it.’ He flourished her silver dagger briefly, then settled it back across his knees.
Asmira’s body juddered to the hammer-pounding of her heart. Her eyes were staring, her fingers clutching at the cool white sheet. ‘The demon—’ she gasped.
‘Has gone at my bidding,’ the man said, smiling. ‘I saved you from its claws. I must say you’ve recovered fairly swiftly. I’ve known some intruders’ hearts to stop.’
Panic seized her; with a sudden movement she swung her feet over the edge of the bed and made to stand – but at a gesture from the man she froze.
‘You can sit, if you like,’ he said calmly. ‘But don’t try to get up. I’ll take that as an aggressive act.’
His voice was very soft and gentle, melodic even, but the iron in the tone was clear. Asmira held her position a moment longer, then slowly, slowly, continued to turn so that her feet dropped to the floor and her knees rested on the edge of the bed. Now she sat facing him.
‘Who are you?’ the man said.
He was tall and slim and dressed in a white robe that hid his lower limbs from view. His face was long and slender, with a strong chin and finely fluted nose, and quick, dark eyes that glittered, jewel-like, in the lantern light as he regarded her. He was handsome – or would have been so, but for the grey cast of weariness that hung heavily about him, and the curious nets of little lines that ran across his skin, particularly around the eyes and mouth. It was very hard to tell his age. The lines, the gaunt and wrinkled wrists and hands, the long dark hair now thoroughly flecked with grey – all these spoke of advancing years, but his face was quick and his movements youthful, and his eyes were very bright.
‘Tell me your name, girl,’ he said and, when she didn’t answer, ‘You’ll have to sooner or later, you know.’
Asmira pressed her lips together, breathing deeply, trying to quiet the beating of her heart. The room she was in was, if not small, then much less grandiose than the other regions of the palace she had seen. Besides that, it was furnished with a bare simplicity that made it seem more intimate still. There were ornate rugs upon the floor, but the floor itself was dark cedar wood instead of marble. The walls were plainly whitewashed, and lacked all decoration. On one wall was a single rectangular window that looked out upon the night. Beside the window several wooden racks displayed a collection of ancient scrolls; beyond, on a writing table, sat parchments and styluses and bottles of coloured ink. It reminded Asmira of the room above the training hall where she had first practised her summonings.
Other than the bed, and the chair where the man sat waiting, two rough-hewn tables completed the furniture in the room. The tables were positioned on either side of the man’s chair, conveniently to hand.
Some way beyond him an arch opened in the wall, but from this angle Asmira could not see where it led.
‘I’m waiting,’ the man said. He made a clicking noise with his tongue. ‘Perhaps you’re hungry? Do you want to eat?’
Asmira shook her head.
‘You ought to. You’ve just had a shock. Take some wine, at least.’
He gestured to the table on his right. There were several earthen bowls upon it, one with fruit, one with bread, one piled high with seafood – smoked fish, oysters, calamari rings.
‘My visitors tell me that the squid is particularly good,’ the man said. As he spoke, he was pouring out a cup of wine. ‘But here, drink first …’ He bent towards her, holding out the cup. ‘It’s safe to do so. I’ve not put an enchantment on this one.’
Asmira stared at him in perplexity – then her eyes widened in astonishment and fear.
The dark eyes glinted. ‘Yes, that’s right,’ he said. ‘I am he. Not so like the images you’ve seen, perhaps. Come on, take it. You might as well enjoy it while you can. It’s unlikely you’ll live to taste another.’
Numbly Asmira reached out and took the cup from him. His fingers were long, the nails shaped and polished. The smallest finger had a bright red weal encircling it, just below the second knuckle.
Asmira stared at it. ‘The Ring …’
‘Is here,’ the man said. He gestured negligently to the table on his left. In its centre stood a silver platter, and on the platter lay a golden ring, studded with a small black stone. Asmira gazed at it, then at the king, then at the Ring again.
‘Such a lot of effort you’ve gone to for such a tiny thing.’ King Solomon smiled as he spoke, but the smile was tired and hard. ‘You’ve got farther than most, but the end will be the same. Now, listen to me. I am going to ask you another question, and you will open those dour little lips of yours and answer eagerly and well, or I will take the Ring and put it on, and then— Well, what do you think will happen? The end result will be that you answer anyway, and nothing will be different, save that you will no longer be quite so pert and pretty as you are now. It pains me to even suggest such things, but it is late, I am weary, and frankly somewhat surprised to find you in my rooms. So: take a good drink of wine and concentrate your mind. You came to kill me and steal the Ring – that much is obvious. I want to know the rest. First: what is your name?’
Asmira had calculated the distance from the bed to the chair. Were she standing, she might easily jump that far; she could strike his left arm down as it stretched out for the Ring, seize the dagger and run him through. Sitting down, however, it would be harder. She might be able to do it fast enough to block his hand, but it wasn’t likely.
‘What is your name?’
She focused on him reluctantly. ‘Cyrine.’
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Himyar.’
‘Himyar? So small and far away?’ The king frowned. ‘But I have nothing to do with that land. Who, precisely, do you serve?’
Asmira lowered her eyes. She had no answer. Her false identity hadn’t been prepared for capture and interrogation. In such circumstances, she had not assumed she would be alive.
‘Last chance,’ King Solomon said.
She shrugged and looked away.
King Solomon struck the arm of his chair in brisk impatience. He reached for the Ring, slipped it on his finger and turned it once. The room went dark. There was a thud; air shifted like a solid mass, flung Asmira back across the bed. She collided with the wall.
When she opened her eyes, a Presence stood beside the king, blacker than shadow. Power and terror radiated from it like heat from a great fire. Elsewhere in the darkness, she heard the scrolls and parchments fluttering in their racks.
‘Answer me!’ the king’s voice thundered. ‘Who are you? Who do you serve? Speak! My patience is at an end!’
The Presence moved towards her. Asmira gave a cry of mortal fear. She cowered back upon the bed. ‘My name is Asmira! I come from Sheba! I serve my queen!’
At once the figure was gone. Asmira’s ears popped; blood trickled from her nose. The lamps around the room resumed their normal light. King Solomon, grey with weariness or rage, took the Ring from his finger and tossed it back upon the silver plate.
‘Queen Balkis?’ he said, passing his hand across his face. ‘Balkis? Young miss, if you dare to lie to me …’
‘I do not lie.’ Asmira slowly struggled back into a sitting position. Tears welled in her eyes. Her sense of overwhelming horror had vanished with the Spirit of the Ring; now she reeled at the shame of her betrayal. She stared in blank hatred at the king.
Solomon tapped his fingers upon the chair. ‘Queen Balkis …?’ he mused again. ‘No! Why should it be?’
‘I speak the truth,’ Asmira spat. ‘Though it matters little either way, since you’ll kill me whatever I say.’
‘Are you surprised?’ The king seemed pained. ‘My dear young woman, it was not I who crept in here to put a knife in another’s back. It is only because you do n
ot fit the normal run of demons or assassins that I speak with you at all. Believe me, most of them are drearily self-explanatory. But you … When I find a pretty girl upon the floor of my observatory, flat out in a faint, with a silver dagger in her belt and another embedded in my floor, and no obvious sign of how she evaded the sentries of my palace and climbed up here at all – I must say I am perplexed and intrigued. So if you have a grain of sense, you will take advantage of my interest, wipe away those unbecoming tears and speak rapidly and well, and pray to whatever god you hold dear that my interest is long maintained. For when I get bored,’ King Solomon said, ‘I turn to my Ring. Now, then. Queen Balkis sent you, so you say. Why should this be?’
While he had been speaking, Asmira had made great play of dabbing at her face with her dirty sleeve, and in so doing, shuffled forward on the bed. A last desperate attack was all she could hope for now. But she might still inch a little closer …
She lowered her arm. ‘Why? How can you even ask me that?’
The king’s face darkened. His hand stretched out—
‘Your threats!’ Asmira cried out in panic. ‘Your cruel demands! Why should I spell it out for you? Sheba cannot withstand your power, as you well know, so my queen took what action she could to save her honour! If I had succeeded, my country would have been saved! Believe me, I curse myself for failing!’
Solomon had not picked up the Ring, though his fingers hovered over it. His face was calm, but he breathed deeply, as one in pain. ‘This seems … an unusual course of action to take against someone who has offered marriage,’ he said slowly. ‘A rejection I can take. Assassination is a little more extreme. Don’t you think so, Asmira?’