‘Actually,’ I said, ‘I can. Speaking of which—’
‘Yes, of course.’ Asmira stood up decisively. ‘It’s time. I see that. I have to let you go.’
Which just goes to prove yet again that she wasn’t really a magician. Since the days of Uruk, all bouts of slavery have traditionally ended with a sordid argument in which my master refuses to set me free, and I become a cackling corpse or blood-clawed lamia in order to ‘persuade’ him. But the girl, who had freed herself, was happy enough to do the same to me. And do it without a scrap. For a moment I was so surprised I said nothing.
I got slowly to my feet. The girl was looking around the hall. ‘We’re going to need a pentacle,’ she said.
‘Yes. Or even two. There’ll be a couple somewhere.’
We hunted about, and soon enough spied the edge of a summoning circle peeping out beneath one of the singed carpets. I began to throw aside the furniture that covered it, while the girl stood watching me with that same calm self-possession I’d noticed in the gorge. A question occurred to me.
‘Asmira,’ I said, kicking an upturned table across the room, ‘if you head back to Sheba, what are you going to do there? And what about the queen? She’s not going to be pleased to see you hanging about, if today’s spite is anything to go by.’
To my surprise the girl had her answer ready. ‘I won’t be hanging about in Marib,’ she said. ‘I’ll take work with the frankincense traders, help guard them on their journeys across Arabia. From what I’ve seen there are plenty of dangers out there in the deserts – bandits and djinn, I mean. I think I can deal with those.’
I tossed an antique couch approvingly over my shoulder. That actually wasn’t a bad idea.
‘It’ll also give me a chance to travel,’ she went on. ‘Who knows, I might even go to Himyar one day – see that rock city you mentioned. Anyway, the incense trail will keep me well away from Marib most of the time. And if the queen does take exception to me …’ Her expression hardened. ‘Then I’ll have to deal with it. And her.’
I wasn’t a soothsayer or an augur and had no knowledge of the future, but I wondered if things might prove a little ominous for Queen Balkis. But there were other issues to attend to now. I shoved the last bits of furniture to the side, rolled up the priceless carpet and threw it in the plunge-pool – and stood back in satisfaction. There, embedded in the floor – and quite undamaged – lay two pentacles of pinkish marble. ‘Slightly fey,’ I commented, ‘but they’ll have to do.’
‘Right then,’ the girl said. ‘Get in.’
We stood facing each other for a final time. ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘you do know the words of a Dismissal, don’t you? I’d hate to hang around for months while you were apprenticed out to learn them.’
‘Of course I know them,’ the girl said. She took a deep breath. ‘Bartimaeus—’
‘Hold on a minute …’ I’d just spotted something. It was a mural I hadn’t seen before, just along the wall from Gilgamesh, Rameses and all the other top despots of the past – a handsome full-length portrait of Solomon himself in all his glory. Somehow, miraculously, it had survived the carnage of the night before.
Picking up a bit of burned wood from the floor, I hopped across and made a few brisk adjustments in charcoal. ‘There!’ I said. ‘Physiologically improbable, but somehow appropriate, don’t you think? How long before he notices that, I wonder?’
The girl laughed; it was the first time in our association that she’d done so.
I glanced at her sidelong. ‘Shall I add Balkis as well? There’s a little space.’
‘Go on, then.’
‘There we are …’
I strolled back to the circle. The girl was eyeing me in that same way Faquarl had – with a sort of detached amusement. I stared at her. ‘What?’
‘It’s funny,’ she said. ‘You make such a big deal out of the horrors of your enslavement that I almost missed the obvious. You enjoy it too.’
I settled myself in my pentacle, fixing her with an expression of bleak disdain. ‘A friendly bit of advice,’ I said. ‘Unless you’re extremely competent, it’s never a good idea to insult a departing djinni. Particularly this one. In old Babylonia the priests of Ishtar forbade any magician below the ninth level to deal with me for just that reason.’4
‘Which proves my point,’ the girl said. ‘You’re always boasting about your past achievements. Come on, admit it. You revel in it all. Even last night – I noticed how you stopped your moaning once we were getting near the Ring.’
‘Yes, well …’ I clapped my hands together briskly. ‘I had to, didn’t I? There was too much going on. Take it from me, I disliked every moment. Right, enough of this. Say the Dismissal and set me free.’
She nodded and closed her eyes, a young, thin girl thinking through the incantation. I could almost hear the cogs grinding as I watched.
Her eyes opened. ‘Bartimaeus,’ she said abruptly, ‘thank you for what you’ve done.’
I cleared my throat. ‘Pleasure, I’m sure. Look – do you truly know the words? I don’t want to find myself re-materialized into a festering bog or something.’
‘Yes, I know the words.’ She smiled. ‘Come to Sheba some day. You’ll like it.’
‘Not that it’s ever up to me.’
‘Just don’t take too long. We haven’t all got as much time as you.’
Then she gave the Dismissal and, sure enough, she did know the words. More or less. There were only three hesitations, two fluffed inflections and one major stumble, all of which – on this occasion – I was prepared to overlook. She wasn’t very big, after all, and there wasn’t that much meat on her. Besides, I really wanted to be gone.
The girl was of like mind. Even as my bonds broke and I was whirled free across the planes, I could see (from seven varied angles) that she had already left the circle. She was walking off, straight-backed and resolute, through Solomon’s ruined chamber, looking for the steps that would lead her from the tower, and so into the waiting day.
1Mouler: an incredibly dull sub-type of spirit. Imagine a small, slow, beige-coloured— No, it bores me to death just describing them.
2 The usual assemblage of warriors, court officials, wives and slaves. It appeared that most categories of palace personnel, other than the magicians, had managed to survive the night with their servility intact. The indignant twittering of the wives, as they assessed the Queen of Sheba, carried through the air like the calls of roosting birds. In many ways, things were back to normal.
3 The Glamour laid upon the room had been blown apart during the night’s fighting, along with several couches, carpets, murals – and Solomon’s crystal orb, which now looked blank as rainwater, the spirit trapped inside having been happily released.
4 This was after a series of fatalities, my favourite of which was that of a brutish acolyte who’d tormented me with the Inverted Skin. However, he also suffered badly from hayfever. I thereupon brought him a massive bunch of pollen-rich lupins, at which he sneezed himself out of his circle.
Praise for THE AMULET OF SAMARKAND
‘A rip-roaring read, hugely inventive, full of mood-swings and featuring a fascinating central relationship between apprentice and djinni’ Wendy Cooling
‘The djinni’s wonderfully witty asides in the form of footnotes really make this novel something special and will leave readers salivating for the next instalment’ Grainne Cooney, THE BOOKSELLER
‘A complex, fast-paced and witty fantasy that Hollywood lapped up with relish … The Amulet of Samarkand has great cross-over potential’ Carl Wilkinson, OBSERVER
‘The action is thrillingly cinematic …
Not since Gulliver’s Travels has a children’s writer managed to combine a thrilling tale of magic and adventure with such deliciously pointed comedy … The ending is perfect in ambiguity. Stroud’s sinister world is imagined in baroque and energetic detail …’ Amanda Craig, THE TIMES
‘Drama, humour and hypnotically engaging storyt
elling’ Nicholas Tucker, INDEPENDENT
‘… the truly original touch is the way Stroud alternates Nathaniel’s story with the djinni’s own knowing and irascible first-person narrative’
Diana Wynne Jones, GUARDIAN REVIEW
‘Stroud’s voice is distinct and confident enough to shake off waiting doubters. His cast becomes embroiled in a complex plot to unseat the government, resulting in a glorious set piece which will translate beautifully onto the big screen. But this is essentially an excellent children’s thriller – full of fun, action, tension and magic … it could easily be the talk of the playground’ Lindsey Fraser, GLASGOW SUNDAY HERALD
‘Both the djinn and the boy exist in a world described with great imaginative detail … The action-packed adventures of Nathaniel and Bartimaeus … are sustained over nearly 500 pages by the immensely enjoyable characterisation. The narrative slips skilfully from first person to third and back and Bartimaeus’s voice is laugh-out-loud sassy, while Nathaniel’s story has an engaging poignancy as he tries to prove himself in a world in which he has always been despised’ Nicolette Jones, SUNDAY TIMES
‘Terrific stuff’ MAIL ON SUNDAY
‘This book gripped me like a magnet to metal …
I don’t have a favourite part of it because it was all brilliant. I can’t wait for the next book. I would recommend the story to anyone aged 9 years and over’
Sam Baker (aged 10) IPSWICH
THE AMULET
OF SAMARKAND
A young magician’s apprentice, Nathaniel, secretly summons the irascible 5,000-year-old djinni, Bartimaeus, to do his bidding. Bartimaeus must steal the powerful Amulet of Samarkand from the master magician Simon Lovelace, and before long Nathaniel and Bartimaeus are caught up in a terrifying flood of magical intrigue, rebellion and murder.
Turn over for an exciting extract!
Bartimaeus
1
The temperature of the room dropped fast. Ice formed on the curtains and crusted thickly around the lights in the ceiling. The glowing filaments in each bulb shrank and dimmed, while the candles that sprang from every available surface like a colony of toadstools had their wicks snuffed out. The darkened room filled with a yellow, choking cloud of brimstone, in which indistinct black shadows writhed and roiled. From far away came the sound of many voices screaming. A pressure was suddenly applied to the door that led to the landing. It bulged inwards, the timbers groaning. Footsteps from invisible feet came pattering across the floorboards and invisible mouths whispered wicked things from behind the bed and under the desk.
The sulphur cloud contracted into a thick column of smoke that vomited forth thin tendrils; they licked the air like tongues before withdrawing. The column hung above the middle of the pentacle, bubbling ever upwards against the ceiling like the cloud of an erupting volcano. There was a barely perceptible pause. Then two yellow staring eyes materialized in the heart of the smoke.
Hey, it was his first time. I wanted to scare him.
And I did, too. The dark-haired boy stood in a pentacle of his own, smaller, filled with different runes, a metre away from the main one. He was pale as a corpse, shaking like a dead leaf in a high wind. His teeth rattled in his shivering jaw. Beads of sweat dripped from his brow, turning to ice as they fell through the air. They tinkled with the sound of hailstones on the floor.
All well and good, but so what? I mean, he looked about twelve years old. Wide-eyed, hollow-cheeked. There’s not that much satisfaction to be had from scaring the pants off a scrawny kid.1
So I floated and waited, hoping he wasn’t going to take too long to get round to the dismissing spell. To keep myself occupied I made blue flames lick up around the inner edges of the pentacle, as if they were seeking a way to get out and nab him. All hokum, of course. I’d already checked and the seal was drawn well enough. No spelling mistakes anywhere, unfortunately.
At last it looked as if the urchin was plucking up the courage to speak. I guessed this by a stammering about his lips that didn’t seem to be induced by pure fear alone. I let the blue fire die away to be replaced by a foul smell.
The kid spoke. Very squeakily.
‘I charge you … to … to …’ Get on with it! ‘… t-t-tell me your n-name.’
That’s usually how they start, the young ones. Meaningless waffle. He knew and I knew that he knew my name already; otherwise how could he have summoned me in the first place? You need the right words, the right actions and most of all the right name. I mean, it’s not like hailing a cab – you don’t get just anybody when you call.
I chose a rich, deep, dark chocolatey sort of voice, the kind that resounds from everywhere and nowhere and makes the hairs stand up on the back of inexperienced necks.
‘BARTIMAEUS.’
I saw the kid give a strangled kind of gulp when he heard the word. Good – he wasn’t entirely stupid then: he knew who and what I was. He knew my reputation.
After taking a moment to swallow some accumulated phlegm he spoke again. ‘I-I charge you again to answer. Are you that B-Bartimaeus who in olden times was summoned by the magicians to repair the walls of Prague?’
What a time-waster this kid was. Who else would it be? I upped the volume a bit on this one. The ice on the light bulbs cracked like caramelized sugar. Behind the dirty curtains the window glass shimmered and hummed. The kid rocked back on his heels.
‘I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N’gorso the Mighty and the Serpent of Silver Plumes! I have rebuilt the walls of Uruk, Karnak and Prague. I have spoken with Solomon. I have run with the buffalo fathers of the plains. I have watched over Old Zimbabwe till the stones fell and the jackals fed on its people. I am Bartimaeus! I recognize no master. So I charge you in your turn, boy. Who are you to summon me?’
Impressive stuff, eh? All true as well, which gives it more power. And I wasn’t just doing it to sound big. I rather hoped the kid would be blustered by it into telling me his name in return, which would give me something to go on when his back was turned.2 But no luck there.
‘By the constraints of the circle, the points on the pentacle and the chain of runes, I am your master! You will obey my will!’
There was something particularly obnoxious about hearing this old shtick coming from a weedy stripling, and in such a rubbish high voice too. I bit back the temptation to give him a piece of my mind and intoned the usual response. Anything to get it over with quickly.
‘What is your will?’
I admit I was already surprised. Most tyro magicians look first and ask questions later. They go window-shopping, eyeing up their potential power, but being far too nervous to try it out. You don’t often get small ones like this squirt calling up entities like me in the first place, either.
The kid cleared his throat. This was the moment. This is what he’d been building up to. He’d been dreaming of this for years, when he should have been lying on his bed thinking about racing cars or girls. I waited grimly for the pathetic request. What would it be? Levitating some object was a usual one, or moving it from one side of the room to the other. Perhaps he’d want me to conjure an illusion. That might be fun: there was bound to be a way of misinterpreting his request and upsetting him.3
‘I charge you to retrieve the Amulet of Samarkand from the house of Simon Lovelace and bring it to me when I summon you at dawn tomorrow.’
‘You what?’
‘I charge you to retrieve—’
‘Yes, I heard what you said.’ I didn’t mean to sound petulant. It just slipped out, and my sepulchral tones slipped a bit too.
‘Then go!’
‘Wait a minute!’ I felt that queasy sensation in my stomach that you always get when they dismiss you. Like someone sucking out your insides through your back. They have to say it three times to get rid of you, if you’re keen on sticking around. Usually you’re not. But this time I remained where I was, two glowing eyes in an angry fug of boiling smoke.
‘Do you know what you are asking for, boy?’
‘I have no wish to converse with a scrawny adolescent, believe you me, so save your rote-learned rubbish. Someone is taking advantage of you. Who is it – your master, I suppose? A wizened coward hiding behind a boy.’ I let the smoke recede a little, exposed my outlines for the first time, hovering dimly in the shadows. ‘You are playing with fire twice over, if you seek to rob a true magician by summoning me. Where are we? London?’
He nodded. Yes, it was London all right. Some grotty town house. I surveyed the room through the chemical fumes. Low ceiling, peeling wallpaper; a single faded print on the wall. It was a sombre Dutch landscape – a curious choice for a boy. I’d have expected pop chicks, football players … Most magicians are conformists, even when young.
‘Ah me …’ My voice was emollient and wistful. ‘It is a wicked world and they have taught you very little.’
‘I am not afraid of you! I have given you your charge and I demand you go!’
The second dismissal. My bowels felt as if they were being passed over by a steamroller. I sensed my form waver, flicker. There was power in this child, though he was very young.
‘It is not me you have to fear; not now, anyway. Simon Lovelace will come to you himself when he finds his amulet stolen. He will not spare you for your youth.’
The Ring of Solomon: A Bartimaeus Novel Page 35