I stared back, the winged Sumerian spear-bearer, curly haired and tousled. Wave-flecks wet my bare feet; dawn light broadened in my sombre eyes. With a rapid movement I removed the Ring from Khaba’s finger, which I tossed into the sea. Then I raised one arm. In my hand the Ring of Solomon was held outstretched, poised above the gulf.
Ammet and I stood in silence, the cold deeps below us tugging at our essence.
‘So, Bartimaeus,’ the shadow said at last. ‘You have led me a merry dance, and fought well. Five djinn together could not have done better. But this is the end.’
‘Too right it is.’ I raised my arm a little higher. Where the Ring rested between my finger and thumb, my essence fizzed; the steam drifted gently up into the pink dawn light. ‘If you dare to drift so much as a single wave-length nearer,’ I said, ‘it’s going in. Right to the bottom, down where it’s dark and oozy, and things with too many legs will guard it for eternity. Think carefully, Ammet! Your master wouldn’t want to lose it for ever, would he?’
The shadow gave an indifferent shrug. Dawn light drifted through the ragged hole in the middle of his chest. ‘You’re bluffing, Bartimaeus,’ he whispered. ‘Even with your minuscule intelligence you must see that if you drop the Ring, I shall become a fish and retrieve it before it sinks a dozen yards. Besides which, its aura is bright enough to be seen even in the remotest depths. I would find it even if you stuffed it in a whale. Throw me the Ring and, on my honour, despite the retribution I so sorely owe you, I promise I will kill you quickly. But keep it from me a moment more, and I swear that I shall do such things to you that even Khaba would weep to look on your remains.’2
I stood quietly above the water. Below my feet and the shadow’s pin-sharp tapers, the blue-pink wave crests rose and fell, sloshing and sucking gently. The sun rose in the east, prising open the lid of the dark blue sky. After all the fire and fury of the night just gone, everything was, for a moment, calm. I saw things clearly once again.
Ammet was right. It was pointless to throw it into the deep.
‘Give it up,’ the shadow said. ‘Look at the damage it’s doing to you! You’ve been holding it far too long.’
I considered my melting hand.
‘Has it burned away your wit, Bartimaeus?’ The shadow flitted towards me across the sea. ‘No more of this. Give me the Ring.’
I smiled, came to a decision. Without a word, I changed my form. Solomon the Wise stood there.3
The shadow drifted to an uncertain halt.
‘What do you think?’ I said. ‘Do I look the part? I’m betting I do. I’ve got the slightly pear-shaped hips and everything. Even the voice is pretty good, wouldn’t you say? But there’s one thing missing.’ I showed both hands, palms outwards, waved them from side to side. ‘Let’s see now … Where is it?’ I patted my robes all over in a show of mild concern; then, like a back-street conjurer, pulled a small gold band from out of my ear. ‘Ta-da! The Ring! Recognize this?’
I held it up, grinning, so that it caught the bright dawn light. Ammet’s outline had sagged a little, grown gauzy with anxiety. ‘What are you doing?’ he hissed. ‘Put it down!’
‘You know, Ammet,’ I said. ‘I agree with you. Holding the Ring’s really been messing up my essence. So much so, it seems to me I’m not going to lose anything right now by going one step further …’
The shadow took a swift step forwards. ‘It’ll kill you. You wouldn’t dare.’
‘Oh, wouldn’t I?’
I put the Ring upon my finger.
It was a nice fit.
A nice fit that happened to come with the excruciating sensation of being violently pulled in two directions at once. The Ring, as I may have said before, was a gateway. Holding it was like feeling the breeze passing under the gate. Putting it on? That was the gate blowing open, with the full hurricane coming roaring in, and you being caught there, small and helpless.4 It was like a Dismissal in full flow, dragging me back towards the Other Place – and yet my essence was unable to obey it. I felt my essence tearing as I stood there in the silence on the calm, unruffled water, and knew I didn’t have long.
Perhaps, in those first moments, while I was reeling, Ammet might yet have acted. But he was too stupefied by my audacity. He hung beside me like a greasy stain wiped on the morning. He seemed transfixed. He didn’t move.
I mastered the pain, spoke over it as best I could. ‘Now then, Ammet,’ I said in an agreeable voice, ‘you’ve been talking a lot recently about punishments and retribution. You’ve been quite vocal on the subject. I quite agree we should look into that in some considerable detail. Just hold on a mo.’
‘No, Bartimaeus! No! I beg you—’
This, then, was the terror the Ring induced. This was its power. This was what the magicians fought for, why Philocretes and Azul and the rest had risked everything to get it in their hands. It wasn’t very pleasant. Still, I was going to see it to the end.
I turned the Ring about my finger. The pain fluxed and twisted; my essence tore. I gasped aloud at the rising sun.
All about me the seven planes warped. The dark Presence hung beside me in the air. The dawn light did not illuminate its shape at all, but passed right through it, leaving it as deep and black as if a hole had been cut in the day. It cast no shadow.
Speaking of which, poor old Ammet’s trademark blackness looked rather grey and gauzy beside the newcomer’s. He didn’t know what to do with himself, exposed out there on the water. He flitted left and right with little nervous movements, shrank low, waxed long, and spun spiral trails in the water with his trailing strands.
As on the balcony, the Presence didn’t beat about the bush. ‘What is your wish?’
It hadn’t escaped my notice that when Khaba had summoned him, the Spirit of the Ring had sounded slightly irritable not to see Solomon. Hence my clever disguise. It wasn’t perfect – perhaps my voice was slightly more squeaky than the king’s, owing in part to my rampant terror and discomfort, but I did my best. I flatter myself the old king’s mother wouldn’t have known the difference. I spoke coolly. ‘Greetings, O Great Spirit.’
‘You can stop putting on that silly accent,’ the Presence said. ‘I know your name and nature.’
‘Oh.’ I swallowed. ‘You do? Does it matter?’
‘I am bound to obey whoever wears the Ring. No exceptions … Even you.’
‘Oh, good! That is good news. Hold on … Where are you off to, Ammet? Can’t stay around?’ The shadow had turned and was speeding away across the waves. I watched him go with a light and negligent smile, then addressed the Spirit of the Ring again. ‘How did you guess?’
‘Aside from my ability to see through all Illusions? Solomon rarely stands over open ocean. Also, you forgot the perfume.’
‘Two beginner’s mistakes! Well, it’s pleasant chatting like this, Great Spirit, but—’
‘What is your wish?’
Brief and to the point. Which was good, because I could not take the pull of the Ring much longer. Where my finger passed through the band, my essence was worn and faint and thin as a thread. Portions of my strength had already been pulled through.
Ammet was very distant by now, a small diagonal blur that left a scud of foam on the sea behind him. He had almost reached the land.
I said: ‘There is a certain marid rapidly retreating over there. I wish him seized this moment and given a sound drubbing.’
‘It is done.’
From nowhere, a flurry of grey shapes rose from the surf and engulfed the fugitive shadow. Sadly I couldn’t see the details, because of the distance and all the spray and splashing, but the outcry was enough to send seabirds rising from their nests up and down the coast for a satisfying number of miles.
At length the racket finished. The shadow was a melancholy patch of greyness floating on the water.
The shape still waited at my side. ‘Your wish?’
If my essence had been strained before, the exertion of my will upon the Ring had worsened the pain
considerably. I held back, unsure of what to do.
The Presence appeared to understand my indecision. ‘That is the nature of the Ring,’ it said. ‘It draws upon the energy of its user. In truth, your request was small, therefore – if you wish it – your essence could withstand a repetition.’
‘In that case,’ I said heartily, ‘another sound drubbing for Ammet, please.’
While the thrashing frenzy was still ongoing, I said, ‘Great Spirit, I require a bottle, or something similar, but I haven’t one to hand. Perhaps you could assist me.’
‘The sea is deep here,’ the Presence said, ‘but far below lies the wreck of an Egyptian ship that sank in storms three hundred years ago. It has a cargo of amphorae that once held wine. Most are empty, but are otherwise intact and have been scattered far across the sea-bed. You want one?’
‘Not too big, please.’
There was a bubbling and a frothing beneath my feet, and a green up-current of deep cold water that broke against the surface, bringing with it a great grey wine-jar, covered in weed and barnacles.
‘Just the job,’ I said. ‘Spirit, this will be my final request, for despite your reassurances, I think my essence will explode if I wear this Ring a moment longer. I wish the marid Ammet bound within this bottle, and the lid stoppered with lead or whatever equivalent you have to hand, and that stopper sealed with appropriate hexes and runes, and the whole returned to the bottom of the sea, where it can remain undisturbed for several thousand years, until such time as Ammet has reflected on his crimes against other spirits and, most especially, against me.’
‘It is done,’ the Presence said. ‘And a most appropriate penalty it is.’
For a moment the wine-jar spun with coloured lights and I felt the bending of the planes. Somewhere amid it all, I fancy I heard the shadow’s final cry, but it might have been the seabirds calling out across the water. The jar’s neck flared bright with molten lead; saltwater hissed and steamed. Now the neck was cool, save where nine symbols of Charm and Binding still glowed upon the plug of lead. The jar began to spin, slowly at first, then faster: fast enough to make the sea break open in a spreading cone, a dark-blue funnel winding into darkness. Down the funnel the jar went spinning, down and down beneath my feet, and the sea closed in upon it.
A little swell rose up and wet my feet. It fell away. The sea was flat again.
‘Spirit,’ I said, ‘I thank you. That was my last wish. Before I remove the Ring, do you require me to break it in two, and so release you?’
‘Politely speaking,’ the Presence said, ‘that is beyond your competence. The Ring cannot yet be broken.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘That is sad to hear.’
‘My freedom will occur in time,’ the Presence said. ‘And what is time to us?’
I turned to look towards the sun. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes it feels a while.’
I took off the Ring. The Presence vanished. I stood on my own above the quiet, lapping sea.
1Great Sea: later (by the Romans) called the Mediterranean. In Rome’s day this body of water would become a commercial playground, its waves flecked with brightly coloured galley sails, its aerial lanes dark with spirits hurrying to and fro. In Solomon’s time, however, when even skilful Phoenician sailors preferred to hug the coasts, the Great Sea was left blank and desolate, a primeval embodiment of chaos.
Personally speaking, whatever the epoch, I always find seas the same: big, cold, and unnecessarily wet.
2 As newly invented threats go that was a pretty good one, particularly after such a long chase. Ammet clearly subscribed to the Egyptian curse tradition: keep it succinct and keep it scary. As opposed to (say) those long-winded Sumerian curses that waffle on endlessly about boils, sores and painful bouts of wind, while you, the intended victim, softly slip away.
3 I went for the fully rigged-up ‘official’ Solomon here – handsome, healthy, saturnine, dolled out in flashy, jewel-decked clothes – and not the ‘private’ crinkly white-robed version the girl and I had met. Partly this was to avoid having to copy all his many creasy bits (which would have taken an age), and partly because, at this do-or-die moment of supreme truth, I was blowed if I was going to wear the guise of an old bloke in his pyjamas.
4 And naked. Just to make the analogy extra chilly.
37
Even as she moved, Asmira knew that it was hopeless. She would not reach Khaba before the shadow did. There was nothing she could do to prevent him reclaiming the Ring.
Too slow, too feeble, too far away to be of use – it was a sensation she had known before. But she ran anyway. Perhaps she could distract them, give Solomon time to use his weapon, or give him space to flee. She ran – it was the right thing to do. And in those final moments Asmira was richly conscious of everything in the room: the dawn light shining through the drapes; the four demon monkeys standing huddled in a corner; the magician stumbling forward, his mouth open, his eyes gleaming, his good hand avidly outstretched …
And the shadow, Khaba’s dark reflection, hastening towards him.
Despite the ravages upon its essence, the shadow still maintained its faithful mimicry of its master. Except … As it drew close to the magician, Asmira saw that its silhouette had changed. Its nose was suddenly longer than the Egyptian’s, and had sprouted several enormous warts, while two vast jug-ears, resembling those of an elephant, protruded from the skull.
The shadow and its master met. Khaba held out his hand. The shadow made as if to drop the Ring into his palm, then – at the last moment – jerked it out of reach.
Khaba swiped for the Ring and missed. He hopped and danced, squeaking with annoyance, but now the shadow raised the Ring high above his head, dangling it teasingly from side to side.
‘Nearly got it,’ the shadow said. ‘Oo, that was a big jump. If only you were a little taller.’
‘What are you doing, slave?’ Khaba roared. ‘Give me the Ring! Give it to me!’
The shadow clapped a hand against one of its outsize ears. ‘Sorry, ugly. I’m a bit deaf. What did you say?’
‘Give it to me!’
‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure.’
At which the shadow drew back, swung a fist and punched the Egyptian square on the chin, sending him bodily off the floor, whistling backwards through the air, and down onto one of the golden tables, which shattered beneath his sprawling weight.
Khaba the Cruel lolled there unconscious in a mess of fruit. Purple grape juice pooled like blood around him.
Asmira stared. Her gasp mingled with the others echoing around the room.
The shadow gave a small salute. ‘Thank you, thank you. For my next trick, a ring to its rightful owner, followed by the immediate dismissal of a well-known djinni. Autographs available on request.’
‘Bartimaeus …?’ Asmira began.
The shadow bowed. ‘Morning. I’ve got something for you.’
‘But how—? We thought you were surely—’
‘I know, I know – you were probably expecting me back a little sooner. Well, I couldn’t help having a chat with Ammet before I disposed of him, you see. Gave him a stern talking to, made him learn the error of his ways. Then, after that, there was all his pleading for mercy, all the inevitable wailing and begging; you know how these marids go on …’ For the first time the shadow appeared to notice the cluster of demons loitering in the margins of the hall. ‘Hello, boys,’ it said cheerfully. ‘Hope you’re taking notes here. This is how to dispose of a master properly.’
Asmira’s astonishment broke into sudden urgency. ‘Then you still truly have—’
The shadow opened its hand. Where the Ring of Solomon lay, the djinni’s essence was bubbling and spitting, sending redhot threads of vapour into the air.
‘I thought I told you to drop it in the sea?’ Asmira said.
‘You did. And I carried out your order to the letter. Well, I sort of let it fall in and then scooped it out again immediately. It got wet, put it that way. You
have to be careful how you phrase things when you’re playing at being a magician, Asmira – this is the kind of trick we naughty djinn get up to when we’re not simply saving civilization. The point is,’ the shadow went on, ‘even though it was my idea, I don’t think it’s best to lose the Ring in the sea and doom its Spirit to an even longer captivity than he already endures. I wouldn’t want that on my conscience. So, as per your original request and, frankly, because it bloody hurts, I’m giving it back to you now. It’s up to you what you do with it, of course. Catch.’
The Ring was tossed over. Asmira caught it, gasping at the pain. This time, she did not let go.
Instead, without hesitation, she turned and knelt to face the king, who stood waiting across the room. ‘Masterful Solomon,’ she began. ‘He whose magnificence and majesty are boundless—’
She looked up at him for the first time, to discover that the great king was gaping at her like a stranded fish. His face and shoulders were black with soot, and his hair stood on end in a frizz of spikes.
‘Oh,’ she gasped. ‘What happened to you?’
Solomon blinked. ‘I … hardly know. When I thought Khaba was about to get the Ring, I aimed this golden serpent device at him, pressed a couple of buttons and – and it was like the ending of the world. I got some kind of shock, then the thing expelled a plume of tarry smoke straight in my face. I hope I don’t look too discomfited.’
Asmira spoke in a small voice. ‘Not … too bad.’
‘At least you didn’t press the third stud,’ the djinni said. ‘That releases a really bad smell which …’ He hesitated, sniffed. ‘Oh … you did.’
‘Great Solomon,’ Asmira said hastily. ‘I hereby return your property.’ She bowed her head and held up her cupped hands. They burned with the power of the Ring, but she gritted her teeth and kept them steady. ‘Bartimaeus and I passionately regret the wrong we have done you. We throw ourselves upon your wisdom and your mercy.’