All energy seemed to depart from the magician; his skin hung loose and ashen on his bones. His shoulders slumped; he took a pace toward Nathaniel, as if halfheartedly trying to reclaim the Amulet. Then a great hand reached down and engulfed him, and Lovelace was plucked into the air. High, high, higher he went, his body shifting and altering as it did so. Ramuthra’s head bent to meet him. Something that might have been a mouth was seen to open.
An instant later, Simon Lovelace was gone.
The demon paused to look for the cackling marmoset, but for the moment it had vanished. Ignoring Nathaniel, who was still sprawled on the floor, it turned back heavily toward the magicians at the other end of the hall.
A familiar voice spoke at Nathaniel’s side.
“Two down, one to go,” it said.
I was so elated at the success of my fine trick that I risked changing into Ptolemy’s form the moment Ramuthra’s attention was elsewhere. Jabor and Lovelace were gone, and now only the great entity remained to be dealt with. I nudged my master with a boot. He was lying on his back, cradling the Amulet of Samarkand in his grubby mitts as a mother would her baby. I set the summoning horn down by his side.
He struggled to a sitting position. “Lovelace … did you see?”
“Yep, and it wasn’t pretty.”
As he rose stiffly to his feet, his eyes shone with a strange brilliance—half horror, half exaltation. “I’ve got it,” he whispered. “I’ve got the Amulet.”
“Yes,” I replied, hastily. “Well done. But Ramuthra is still with us, and if we want to get help, we’re running out of time.”
I looked across at the far side of the auditorium. My elation dwindled. The assembled ministers of State were a lamentable heap by now, either cowering in dumb stupefaction, banging on the doors, or fighting viciously with each other for a position as far away as possible from the oncoming Ramuthra. It was an unedifying spectacle, like watching a crowd of plague rats scrapping in a sewer. It was also highly worrying: since not one of them looked in a fit state to recite a complex dismissal spell.
“Come on,” I said. “While Ramuthra takes some, we can rouse the others. Who’s most likely to remember the counter-summons?
His lip curled. “None of them, by the looks of things.”
“Even so, we’ve got to try.” I tugged at his sleeve. “Come on. Neither of us knows the incantation."7
“Speak for yourself,” he said, slowly. “I know it.”
“You?” I was a little taken aback. “Are you sure?”
He scowled at me. Physically, he was pretty ropy—white of skin, bruised and bleeding, swaying where he stood. But a bright fire of determination burned in his eyes. “That possibility hadn’t even occurred to you, had it?” he said. “Yes—I’ve learned it.”
There was more than a hint of doubt in the voice, and in the eyes too—I glimpsed it wrestling with his resolve. I tried not to sound skeptical. “It’s high level,” I said. “And complex; and you’ll need to break the horn at exactly the right moment. This is no time for false pride, boy. You could still—”
“Ask for help? I don’t think so.” Whether through pride or practicality, he was quite right. Ramuthra was almost upon the magicians now; we had no chance of getting help from them. “Stand away,” he said. “I need space to think.”
I hesitated for an instant. Admirable though his strength of character was, I could see all too clearly where it led. Amulet or no Amulet, the consequences of a fluffed dismissal are always disastrous, and this time I would suffer right along with him. But I could think of no alternative.
Helplessly, I stood back. My master picked up the summoning horn and closed his eyes.
He closed his eyes to the chaos in the hall and breathed as slowly and deeply as he could. Sounds of suffering and terror still came to him, but he shoved them from his mind with a force of will.
That much was relatively easy. But a host of inner voices were speaking at him, and he could not shut their clamor out. This was his moment! This was the moment when a thousand insults and deprivations would be cast aside and forgotten! He knew the incantation—he had learned it long ago. He would speak it and everyone would see that he could not be overlooked again. Always, always he had been underestimated! Underwood had thought him an imbecile, a fool with barely the strength to draw a circle. He had refused to believe his apprentice could summon a djinni of any kind. Lovelace had thought him weak, childishly softhearted, yet likely to be tempted by the first cursory offer of power and status. He had refused to accept that Nathaniel had killed Schyler too: he had gone to his death denying it. And now, even Bartimaeus, his own servant, doubted that he knew the dismissal spell! Always, always, they cast him down.
Now was the moment when everything was in his hands. Too often before he had been rendered powerless—locked in his room, carried from the fire, robbed by the commoners, trapped in the Stricture…. The memories of these indignities burned hot inside him. But now he would act—he would show them!
The outcry of his wounded pride almost overwhelmed him. It pounded on the inside of his skull. But at the deeper core of his being, beneath this desperation to succeed for his own sake, another desire struggled for expression. Far off, he heard someone cry out in fear and a shudder of pity ran through him. Unless he could bring the spell to mind, the hapless magicians were going to die. Their lives depended on him. And he had the knowledge to help. The counter-summons, the dismissal. How had it gone? He’d read the incantation, he knew he had—he’d committed it to memory months before. But he couldn’t concentrate now, he couldn’t bring it to mind.
It was no good. They were all going to die, just as Mrs. Underwood had died, and again he was about to fail. How badly Nathaniel wanted to help them! But desire alone was not enough. More than anything else he had wanted to save Mrs. Underwood, bring her from the flames. He would have given his life for hers, if he could. But he had not saved her. He had been carried away and she had gone forever. His love had counted for nothing.
For a moment, his past loss and the urgency of his present desire mingled and welled within him. Tears ran down his cheeks.
Patience, Nathaniel.
Patience …
He breathed in slowly. His sorrow receded. And across a great gulf came the remembered peace of his master’s garden—he saw again the rhododendron bushes, their leaves glinting dark green in the sun. He saw the apple trees shedding their white blossom; a cat lying on a red-brick wall. He felt the lichen under his fingers; saw the moss on the statue; he felt himself protected again from the wider world. He imagined Ms. Lutyens sitting quietly, sketching by his side. A feeling of peace stole over him.
His mind cleared, his memory blossomed.
The necessary words came to him, as he had learned them sitting on the stone seat a year or more ago.
He opened his eyes and spoke them, his voice loud and clear and strong. At the end of the fifteenth syllable, he split the summoning horn in two across his knee.
As the ivory cracked and the words rang out, Ramuthra stopped dead. The shimmering ripples in the air that defined its outlines quivered, first gently and then with greater force. The rift in the center of the room opened a little.Then, with astonishing suddenness, the outlines of the demon crumpled and shrank, were drawn back into the rift and vanished.
The rift closed up: a scar healing at blinding speed.
With it gone, the hall seemed cavernous and empty. One chandelier and several small wall lights came on again, casting a weak radiance here and there. Outside, the late afternoon sky was gray, darkening to deep blue. The wind could be heard rushing through the trees in the wood.
There was absolute silence in the hall. The crowd of magicians and one or two bruised and battered imps remained quite still. Only one thing moved: a boy limping forward across the center of the room, with the Amulet of Samarkand dangling from his fingers. The jade stone at its center gleamed faintly in the half light.
In utter silence, Nathaniel
crossed to where Rupert Devereaux sprawled half buried under the Foreign Minister, and placed the Amulet carefully in his hands.
43
Typical of the kid, that was. Having carried out the most important act of his grubby little life, you’d expect him to sink to the ground in exhaustion and relief. But did he? No. This was his big chance, and he seized it in the most theatrical fashion possible. With all eyes on him, he hobbled across the ruined auditorium like a wounded bird, frail as you like, straight for the center of power. What was he going to do? No one knew; no one dared to guess (I saw the Prime Minister flinch when the boy held out his hand). And then, in the climactic moment of this little charade, all was revealed: the legendary Amulet of Samarkand—held up high so all could see—handed back to the bosom of the Government. The kid even remembered to bow his head deferentially as he did so.
Sensation in the hall!
What a performance, eh? In fact, almost more than his ability to bully djinn, this instinctive pandering to the crowd suggested to me that the boy was probably destined for worldly success.1 Certainly, his actions here had the desired effect: in moments, he was the center of an admiring throng.
Unnoticed in all this fuss, I abandoned Ptolemy’s form and took on the semblance of a minor imp, which presently (when the crowd drew back) hovered over to the boy’s side in a humble sort of way. I had no desire for my true capabilities to be noticed. Someone might have drawn a connection with the swashbuckling djinni who had lately escaped from the government prison.
Nathaniel’s shoulder was the ideal vantage point for me to observe the aftermath of the attempted coup, since for a few hours at least the boy was the center of attention. Wherever the Prime Minister and his senior colleagues went, my master went too, answering urgent questions and stuffing his face with the reviving sweetmeats that underlings brought him.
When a systematic headcount was made, the list of missing was found to include four ministers (all fortunately from fairly junior posts) and a single under-secretary.2 In addition, several magicians had suffered major facial and bodily distortions, or been otherwise inconvenienced.
The general relief quickly turned to anger. With Ramuthra gone, the magicians were able to set their slaves against the magical barriers on the doors and walls and quickly burst out into the house. A thorough search was made of Heddleham Hall, but apart from assorted servants, the dead body of the old man and an angry boy locked in a lavatory, no one was discovered. Unsurprisingly, the fish-faced magician Rufus Lime had gone; nor was there any sign of the tall, black-bearded man who had manned the gatehouse. Both seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Nathaniel also directed the investigators to the kitchen, where a compressed group of under-cooks was found trembling in a pantry. They reported that about half an hour previously,3 the head chef had given a great cry, burst into blue flame, and swelled to a great and terrifying size before vanishing in a gust of brimstone. Upon inspection, a meat cleaver was found deeply embedded in the stonework of the fireplace, the last memento of Faquarl’s bondage.4
With the main conspirators dead or vanished, the magicians set to interrogating the servants of the Hall. However, they proved ignorant of the conspiracy. They reported that during the previous few weeks Simon Lovelace had organized the extensive refurbishment of the auditorium, keeping it out of bounds for long periods. Unseen workers, accompanied by many oddly colored lights and sounds, had constructed the glass floor and inserted the new carpet,5 supervised by a certain well-dressed gentleman with a round face and reddish beard.
This was a new clue. My master eagerly reported sighting such a person leaving the Hall that very morning, and messengers were immediately sent out with his description to alert the police in London and the home counties.
When all was done that could be done, Devereaux and his senior ministers refreshed themselves with champagne, cold meats, and jellied fruits and listened properly to my master’s story. And what a story it was. What an outrageous yarn he told. Even I, with my long experience of human duplicity, was flabbergasted by the whoppers that boy came up with. To be frank, he did have a lot of things to hide: his own theft of the Amulet, for example, and my little encounter with Sholto Pinn. But a lot of his fibs were quite unnecessary. I had to sit quietly on his shoulder and hear myself referred to as a “minor imp” (five times), a “sort of foliot” (twice), and even (once) as a “homunculus."6 I ask you—how insulting is that?
But that wasn’t the half of it. He recounted (with big, mournful eyes) how his dear master, Arthur Underwood, had long been suspicious of Simon Lovelace, but had never had proof of any wrongdoing. Until, that was, the fateful day when Underwood had by chanced perceived the Amulet of Samarkand in Lovelace’s possession. Before he could tell the authorities, Lovelace and his djinn had arrived at the house intent on murder. Underwood, together with John Mandrake, his faithful apprentice, had put up strong resistance, while even Mrs. Underwood had pitched in, heroically trying to tackle Lovelace herself. All in vain. Mr. and Mrs. Underwood had been killed and Nathaniel had fled for his life, with only a minor imp to help him. There were actually tears in his eyes when he recounted all this; it was almost as if he believed the rubbish he was spouting.
That was the bulk of his He. Having no way of proving Lovelace’s guilt, Nathaniel had then traveled to Heddleham Hall in the hope of somehow preventing his terrible crime. Now he was only happy he had managed to save the lives of his country’s noble rulers, etc., etc.; honestly, it was enough to make an imp weep.
But they bought it. Didn’t doubt a single word. He had another hurried snack, a swig of champagne, and then my master was whisked away in a ministerial limousine, back to London and further debriefing.
I went along too, of course. I wasn’t letting him out of my sights for anything. He had a promise to keep.
44
The servant’s footsteps receded down the stairs. The boy and I looked around.
“I preferred your old room,” I said. “This one smells, and you haven’t even moved in yet.”
“It doesn’t smell.”
“It does: of fresh paint and plastic and all things new and fabricated. Which I suppose is quite appropriate for you—don’t you think so, Mr. Mandrake?”
He didn’t answer. He was bounding across to the window to look out at the view.
It was the evening of the day following the great summoning at Heddleham Hall, and for the first time, my master was being left to his own devices. He had spent much of the previous twenty-four hours in meetings with ministers and police, going over his story and no doubt adding lies with each retelling. Meanwhile, I’d remained out on the street,1 shivering with impatience. My frustration had only increased when the boy had spent the first night in a specially provided dormitory on Whitehall, a building heavily guarded in numerous ways. While he snored within, I’d been forced to skulk outside, still unable to engage him in the necessary chat.
But now another day had passed and his future had been decided. An official car had driven him to his new master’s home—a modern riverside development on the south bank of the Thames. Dinner would be served at half past eight; his master would await him in the dining room at eight-fifteen. This meant that Nathaniel and I had an hour all to ourselves. I intended to make it count.
The room contained the usual: bed, desk, wardrobe (a walk-in one, this—swanky), bookcase, bedside table, chair. A connecting door led to a tiny private bathroom. There was a powerful electric light set in the pristine ceiling and a small window in one wall. Outside, the moon shone on the waters of the Thames. The boy was looking out at the Houses of Parliament almost directly opposite, an odd expression on his face.
“They’re a lot nearer now,” I said.
“Yes. She’d be very proud.” He turned, only to discover that I had adopted Ptolemy’s form and was reclining on his bed. “Get off there! I don’t want your horrible—hey!” He spotted a book tucked into a shelf beside the bed. “Faust’s Compendium!
My own copy. That’s amazing! Underwood forbade me to touch this.”
“Just remember—it didn’t do Faust any good.”
He was flipping the pages. “Brilliant… And my master says I can do minor conjurings in my room.”
“Ah, yes—your nice, sweet, new master.” I shook my head sadly. “You’re pleased with her, are you?”
He nodded eagerly. “Ms. Whitwell’s very powerful. She’ll teach me lots. And she’ll treat me with proper respect, too.”
“You think so? An honorable magician, is she?” I made a sour face. My old friend Jessica Whitwell, rake-thin Minister for Security, head of the Tower of London, controller of the Mournful Orbs. Yes, she was powerful, all right. And it was no doubt a sign of how highly the authorities thought of Nathaniel that he was being trusted to her tender care. Certainly, she would be a very different master from Arthur Underwood, and would see to it that his talent didn’t go to waste. What it would do to his temperament was another question. Well—no doubt he was getting exactly what he deserved.
“She said I had a great career ahead of me,” he went on, “if I played my cards right and worked hard. She said she would supervise my training, and that if all went well they’d put me on the fast track and I’d soon be working in a ministerial department, getting experience.” He had that triumphant look in his eyes again, the kind that made me want to put him over my knee. I made a big show of yawning and plumping up the pillow, but he kept going. “There’s no restriction on age, she said, only on talent. I said I wanted to get involved with the Ministry for Internal Affairs—they’re the ones who’re hunting the Resistance. Did you know there was another attack while we were out of London? An office in Whitehall was blown up. No one’s made a breakthrough, yet—but I bet I could track them down. First off I’ll catch Fred and Stanley—and that girl. Then I’ll make them talk, then I’ll—”
“Steady on,” I said. “Haven’t you done enough for a lifetime? Think about it—two power-crazed magicians killed, a hundred power-crazed magicians saved…. You’re a hero.”
Bartimaeus: The Amulet of Samarkand Page 36
