‘It burns!’ she cried. ‘What have you done to it, demon?’
‘Me?’
‘You’ve put some cursed magic on it!’ With her good hand, she waved the silver dagger. ‘Take it off this instant, or I swear—’
It was at this moment that King Solomon stood up; and though (speaking frankly) he was in his nightie, though his frame was thin, though his face, without its cloak of Illusion, was lined and aged, he nevertheless projected a sudden severe authority, so that the girl and I fell instantly quiet. ‘The djinni speaks truly,’ he said. ‘The Ring of Solomon brings pain. That is its nature. If you wish for proof, look here.’ And he held up his hand, with the livid mark upon its finger.
The girl stared at it. ‘I – I don’t understand,’ she stammered. ‘No. This is a trick. I’m not listening to you.’ But though her eyes returned to the little fleck of gold and obsidian lying on the floor beside her feet, she did not pick it up, nor make any move to do so.
‘It’s not a trick,’ I said. ‘It burned me too.’ Note that I’d just changed from the beskirted hippo into the dark-haired young Sumerian boy, who, while less adorably curvy, better reflected the gravity of the moment. I felt that something important was approaching fast, and I didn’t know which way it was going to go.
‘But why should it burn?’ the girl said plaintively. ‘How will my queen—? I thought the Ring—’
Solomon said quietly: ‘Let me tell you what I know of the Ring, Asmira. After that you can do what you like with it – and with me.’
She hesitated, looking towards the door, then back at the object at her feet. She stared at Solomon, and at the dagger in her hand. She swore under her breath. ‘Quickly, then. And no tricks.’
‘When I was young,’ King Solomon said at once, ‘my interest was in treasures of the past – a passion that remains with me still.8 I journeyed far in search of them, bartering in the bazaars of Thebes and Babylon for relics of the ancient days. I also visited the ruins of yet older cities, places whose names are lost to men. One such site lay on the desert’s edge beside the Tigris River. It is nothing now but a few worn mounds covered with earth and sand. No doubt, over the centuries, most of its secrets had been steadily plundered, but the greatest – and most terrible – still lay undisturbed.’
He paused, ostensibly to cough, but probably (given he was such an old ham) to build up the tension. I noticed that he was standing in such a way that the lantern light cast a golden, rather celestial, halo about his head. He was a good performer, Solomon, even without his power.
I watched the girl too. She was frowning (as usual), but the shock of the Ring’s touch was still upon her, and she seemed willing to wait and listen.
‘When I came to these ruins,’ Solomon continued, ‘a recent earth tremor had split the surface of one of the smaller mounds. The soil had collapsed, revealing a stretch of mud-brick wall, a half-collapsed archway and – beyond – a flight of stairs leading into the ground. You can well imagine that my curiosity was aflame! I made a light, crept down into the depths and, after an incalculable descent, arrived at a broken door. Some ancient rock-fall had split it open, and whatever magic might have been upon it had long been spent. I squeezed through into the blackness—’
‘You were so-o-o-o jammy!’ I cried. ‘Sumerian well-rooms are notorious for traps! Ordinarily there’d have been any amount of hexes and things in there.’
‘Whether I was lucky,’ King Solomon said irritably, ‘I will leave to you to judge. Do not interrupt again. I squeezed inside, as I say, and found myself in a small chamber. In its centre’ – he shuddered, as at an oft-remembered horror – ‘in its centre was an iron chair, and on that chair, strapped there with ancient fastenings of rope and wire, sat the mummified body of – I cannot say whether it was a man or woman, for great terror had seized me, and all I longed for was escape. As I turned to go, I caught sight of a glint of gold upon one papery finger. In my avarice I snatched at it: the finger broke away, the Ring was in my hand. I put it on’ – he held up his hand, so that the red weal upon the finger shone bright and raw – ‘and instantly such pain came over me that I collapsed and knew no more.’
Solomon took a drink of wine. We stood silent. Even I didn’t try to butt in this time.9
‘I was awoken in the darkness of that fearful place,’ the king went on, ‘by the burning pain. My one thought was to remove the Ring. As I fumbled at it, it twisted on my finger; at once a soft voice at my shoulder asked me what I desired. You may be sure I wished, with what I assumed to be my dying breath, to be home again. A moment passed, my head spun – when I awoke I was on the roof of my house in Jerusalem, with the sun shining warm upon me.’
‘You were transported in an instant?’ Despite herself, the girl’s face was slack with wonder. Even the handsome young Sumerian, who had seen and heard a fair bit in his time, was grudgingly impressed.10
‘It was even so,’ Solomon said. ‘Well, I shall be brief, for you can guess the rest. Soon I learned two things about the Ring. First, with it on my finger, I had power undreamed of. The Spirit of the Ring, who is very great, provides innumerable slaves to do my bidding. By simply touching the stone, I summon them; by turning the Ring, the Spirit himself appears. Thus I can instantly realize my heart’s desires. Second, and less pleasant’ – here he closed his eyes a moment – ‘there is the pain the Ring exerts. This never slackens. Not only that: each time I use it, my personal strength diminishes. In the early years, when I was strong, I used it daily – I built this palace, I made my empire, I forced the kings around me to down their swords and sue for peace. I began to use the Ring to help those peoples most in need. Recently’ – he gave a sigh – ‘this has become … more difficult. Even the slightest use wearies me, and I must rest long to recover. Which is regrettable, since hundreds come daily to my gates, begging for my aid! More and more I must rely on my squabbling magicians to do this work for me.’ He broke off and coughed again.
‘You do know,’ I said, and I spoke quite sympathetically, for Solomon’s story had made a favourable impression on me,11 ‘that some of your magicians are not quite as … scrupulous as you. In fact, they’re downright bad. Take Khaba, for instance—’
‘I know this,’ Solomon said. ‘By instinct, many of the Seventeen are wicked as well as strong. I keep them near me, and I keep them nervous by threatening to use the Ring on them. That is good policy. Better this than have them conspiring against me far away. Meanwhile, I use their power.’
‘Yeah, fine, but I don’t think you know the full extent—’
And then the girl was suddenly between us, with the dagger pointing at the king’s throat. ‘Bartimaeus,’ she hissed, ‘stop talking with him as if he were your ally! Pick up the Ring. We have to go.’
‘Asmira,’ King Solomon said. He did not flinch from the dagger blade. ‘You have heard my story. Now look at my face. Would you want your queen to look like this?’
She shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t do so. She wouldn’t wear it as you have done.’
‘Ah, but she would. She would have to. Or else it would be stolen! Nothing on Earth,’ King Solomon said, ‘is desired as much as this Ring. She would be forced to wear it, and it would madden her, for the pain when you touch it, Asmira, is nothing to what you feel when you put it on. Try it. Put it on your finger. See for yourself.’
Asmira was still holding her dagger outstretched. She did not answer.
‘No?’ Solomon said. ‘I am not surprised. I would not wish the Ring on anyone.’ He sat down abruptly, an old and shrunken man. ‘Well, you have your choice. Kill me if you must, and take the Ring to Sheba. Then a dozen magicians will fight for it and there will be war in the world. Or leave it here, and go. Leave me to my burden. I will keep the Ring safe, and with it do what good I can. I will not hinder your departure, that I swear.’
I’d been uncharacteristically quiet for a bit, giving Solomon space to make his pitch, but now I took a tentative step forward. ‘That sounds lik
e fine good sense to me,’ I said. ‘Give him the Ring back, Asmira, and let’s g— Ow!’
She had swung the dagger round, pointing it towards me, so its aura bit my essence. I jumped back with a cry. Still she didn’t speak. Her face was set, her eyes staring. She didn’t seem to see me or Solomon any longer, but something far away.
I tried again. ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Ditch the Ring and I’ll give you a lift home. How’s that for a deal? True, I haven’t got a nice big carpet like Khaba, but I’m sure we could find you a towel or napkin or something. You can see that Solomon’s right, can’t you? The Ring is nothing but trouble. Even the ancients didn’t use it. They sealed it in a tomb.’
Still the girl said nothing. The king sat quiet in his chair, maintaining his attitude of meek acceptance, but I knew that he was watching her closely, hanging on her word.
She looked up; her eyes focused on me at last. ‘Bartimaeus …’
‘Yes, Asmira.’
Surely she would see sense now after all she’d been told and seen. Surely, after feeling the Ring’s power for herself, she would know what she had to do.
‘Bartimaeus,’ she said, ‘fetch me the Ring.’
‘To give to Solomon?’
‘To take to Sheba.’ Her face was hard, expressionless. She turned away from me. Without looking at the king, she sheathed her dagger in her belt and walked off towards the door.
1 The fly was an optional extra right then. They were so preoccupied I don’t think they’d have noticed me if I’d turned into a flatulent unicorn and pirouetted gently across the room.
2 Tatty chipped ones, they were, no doubt chosen specially by Solomon for his humble little whitewashed bedroom, to go along with the earthen plates and the rough wood furniture. I bet going there after the day’s luxuries were over made him feel all virtuous and austere … and therefore, paradoxically, even more superior to the rest of us than before.
3 My very first job, in fact, when I arrived on Earth fresh-faced and dewy-eyed, was nicking a fertility statue from the love goddess’s sanctuary in Ur. Morally speaking, this pretty much set the tone for my next two thousand years.
4 Not to mention trying to use it. Turning the Ring would have been equivalent to opening the door to the Other Place and subjecting one’s essence to the full power of its pull. Any Earth-tethered spirit who tried such a thing would surely soon be torn in two. Here was an irony which Philocretes, Azul and the other restless spirits who desired the Ring had not lived to discover.
5 Actually, I couldn’t help being impressed by her all-round feistiness in defying Solomon, despite the threat of the ‘Ring’. Though I suppose hopeless last stands always look best viewed from the outside.
6 Stupefaction’s putting it mildly. Two blocks of limestone crudely daubed with cartoon faces would have been more animated than Solomon and the girl right then.
7 Not a calamari ring, note: he seemed to have gone off them.
8 In other words, he was a typical magician, wanting old-time freebies to supplement his power.
9 I was thinking about the unknown corpse, that person who had been bound to the chair with the Ring upon their finger, then carefully buried alive. All that power (and pain) literally at their fingertips, yet forced to endure a helpless death! It was a terrible end. It was also striking how keen the ancient executioners were to rid themselves of the allegedly wondrous Ring.
10 Spontaneous matter transfer is very, very tricky. I can’t do it. No one I know can do it. The only time a spirit shifts instantaneously from one place to another is when it’s being summoned, and we’re made of essence. Moving a great fat heavy human (like you) in this fashion is even harder.
11 I too understand a little about being trapped by circumstances, about enduring pain.
31
Transporting an object as potent as the Ring of Solomon is a ticklish task, particularly if you’re keen to avoid being toasted as you do so.
In an ideal world I’d have put it in a lead-lined box, put the box inside a sack, and pulled the sack behind me on the end of a mile-long chain, so that neither my essence nor my sight suffered in any way from its emanations. Instead I had to make do with wrapping it in a scrumpled ball made from the parchments found on Solomon’s writing table.1 This solution shielded the worst of the heat quite well, but even through the thick, coarse layers its aura remained uncomfortable. I could feel my fingers tingling.
The girl had already gone. Holding the ball of parchment gingerly like the unwilling slave I was, I followed in her wake. At the door I paused, looked back. The king was still in his chair, his chin lowered almost to his chest. He seemed older, more hunched and far more shrunken than before. He did not look at me, nor seek to prevent my theft. He knew that I couldn’t have returned the Ring to him, even if I’d wanted to.
There was nothing to say. I set off slowly down the corridor, leaving King Solomon sitting silent in his little whitewashed room.
*
Out into the main chamber I went, past the pool, past the doors that led to the observatory and the storeroom, past the golden tables in all their Glamour, and so through the drapes, the nexus and the arch, and onto the balcony again.
Above me, the stars were still spread out in splendid cold array. Below me, the lights of the palace gleamed beyond the gardens.
The girl waited at the balustrade, gazing to the south. Her arms were crossed, the breeze flicked at her long dark hair.
Without looking at me, she said: ‘You’ve got the Ring?’
‘Oh, I’ve got it.’
‘Take me and it to Sheba. I don’t care how we go. Turn into a bird, or a bat, or whatever monstrosity you please. Get me there quickly and I’ll dismiss you when we arrive.’ For someone who had just carried out her impossible quest, she didn’t seem exactly buoyant. More taut with anger, if truth be told.
She wasn’t the only one.
I said: ‘We’ll get to that in a moment. I want to ask you something first.’
She pointed down to the distant southern gardens, where several lights still flitted like a storm of wasps. ‘No time for talking. What if Solomon alerts the guards?’
‘We’ve got this now,’ I said coldly, holding up the parchment ball. ‘That gives us all the time we need. If they spot us, you can simply put the Ring on, can’t you? That’ll send them packing.’
She shook her head, shuddering at the memory of its touch. ‘Don’t be stupid. I couldn’t do that.’
‘No? That’s what you expect your precious queen to do, though, isn’t it? Think she’ll be able to cope with the pain?’
‘Queen Balkis,’ the girl said in a toneless voice, ‘will know what to do.’
‘Will she, though?’ I stepped closer now. ‘Perhaps you didn’t understand what Solomon was telling you back there,’ I said. ‘He wasn’t lying. You’ve felt the Ring’s power for yourself, Asmira. You’ve heard what it does. Do you truly want that unleashed upon the world?’
Her anger burst forth then, just a little. ‘Solomon already unleashes it! Nothing’s going to change.’
‘Well now, I’m not Solomon’s biggest fan,’ I said, ‘but I’d say he was doing his best not to unleash it. He keeps the Ring cooped up in here, and uses it as little as possible.’
The girl made a loud, unladylike, scoffing noise. ‘Wrong! He threatens Sheba!’
‘Oh, come on!’ My scoffing noise was louder still. ‘You don’t really believe that any more, do you? I was listening to you both back there. Why should he deny responsibility? He was holding you captive – he didn’t need to lie. It’s obvious to anyone with half a brain that there’s some other conspiracy going on, which—’
‘Which is irrelevant!’ the girl cried. ‘I don’t care either way. My queen has given me a task, and I am carrying it out. That’s all there is to it. I have to obey her!’
‘Spoken like the slave you are,’ I sneered. ‘You don’t have to obey her, and that’s the point. For all I know, Balkis is normally a paragon of
virtue, but she’s made the wrong call here. Solomon wasn’t your enemy until you crept into his bedroom with that dagger. Even now I think he’d let you off if you just took it back and— Oh, swan off all you like, young madam, but that doesn’t change the obvious!’
The girl had spun on her heel with a squeak of rage, and had stalked away along the balcony – but at my words, as if she were doing some primitive Arabian dance, she spun again and jabbed her finger at me. ‘Unlike a faithless demon, who has to be coerced into everything he does, I have sacred bonds,’ she said. ‘I hold true to the duty placed in me. I faithfully serve my queen.’
‘Which doesn’t stop you both messing things up,’ I said. ‘How old’s Balkis, exactly? Thirty? Forty, tops? Well, listen, I’ve got two thousand years of accumulated wisdom here, and even I get it wrong sometimes. For instance, I thought you had something about you when I met you in the gorge. Intelligence, flexibility of mind … Ha! How misinformed was I?’
‘It’s not about intelligence,’ the girl snapped, proving her point precisely. ‘It’s about trust. I trust my queen and obey her in everything.’
‘In everything?’
‘Yes.’
‘In that case’ – this was a good one; I’d been saving it for a while – ‘why didn’t you kill Solomon?’
There was a silence. I placed the ball of parchment on the balustrade, the better to fold my arms in a decisive, calmly superior sort of way. The girl hesitated; her hands gave little tremors of uncertainty. ‘Well, I didn’t need to. He’s powerless without the Ring.’
‘But you were ordered to kill him. In fact that was the top priority, if I recall. The Ring came second.’
‘Without his Ring, he’ll soon be dead,’ the girl said. ‘The other magicians will finish him off as soon as they find—’
‘That’s still not answering my question. Why didn’t you kill him? You had the dagger. Or you could have got me to do it. I’ve killed kings before now, oodles of them.2 But no, we just slipped away without giving him so much as a dead arm or Chinese burn. One more time for luck: Why didn’t you kill him?’