The Amulet of Samarkand tbt-1

by Jonathan Stroud

  "The boss, your master, the éminence grise, the power behind the throne. The man who has put you up to this little theft, who's told you what to say and what to draw. The man who'll still be standing unharmed in the shadows when Lovelace's djinn are tossing your ragged corpse around the London rooftops. He's playing some game that you know nothing of, appealing to your ignorance and youthful vanity."

  That stung him. His lips curled back a little.

  "What did he say to you, I wonder?" I adopted a patronizing singsong voice: " 'Well done, young fellow, you're the best little magician I've seen in a long while. Tell me, would you like to raise a powerful djinni? You would? Well, why don't we do just that! We can play a prank on someone too—steal an amulet—"

  The boy laughed. Unexpected that. I was anticipating a furious outburst or some anxiety. But no, he laughed.

  He turned the Amulet over a final time, then bent and replaced it in the pot. Also unexpected. Using the stick with the hook, he pushed the pot back through the circle to its original position on the floor.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Giving it back."

  "I don't want it."

  "Pick it up."

  I wasn't about to get into a prissy exchange of insults with a twelve—year old, particularly one who could impose his will on me, so I reached out through my circle and hefted the Amulet.

  "Now, what? When Simon Lovelace comes I won't be hanging on to this, you know. I'll be giving it right back to him with a smile and a wave. And pointing out which curtain you're shivering behind."

  "Wait."

  The kid produced something shiny from one of the inner pockets of his voluminous coat. Did I mention that this coat was about three sizes too big for him? It had evidently once belonged to a very careless magician, since, although heavily patched, it still displayed the unmistakable ravages of fire, blood, and talon. I wished the boy similar fortune.

  Now he was holding in his left hand a burnished disc—a scrying glass of highly polished bronze. He passed his right hand over it a few times and began to gaze into the reflective metal with passive concentration. Whatever captive imp dwelled within, the disc soon responded. A murky picture formed; the boy observed it closely. I was too far off to see the image, but while he was distracted I did a bit of looking of my own.

  His room… I wanted a clue to his identity. Some letter addressed to him, perhaps, or a name tag in his coat. Both of those had worked before. I wasn't after his birth name, of course—that would be too much to hope for—but his official name would do for a start.[26] But I was out of luck. The most private, intimate, telltale place in the room—his desk—had been carefully covered with a thick black cloth. A wardrobe in the corner was shut; ditto a chest of drawers. There was a cracked glass vase with fresh flowers among the mess of candles—an odd touch, this. He hadn't put it there himself, I reckoned; so somebody liked him.

  The kid waved his hand over the scrying glass and the surface went dull. He replaced the disc in his pocket, then looked up at me suddenly. Uh—oh. Here it came.

  "Bartimaeus," he began, "I charge you to take the Amulet of Samarkand and hide it in the magical repository of the magician Arthur Underwood, concealing it so that he cannot observe it, and achieving this so stealthily that no one, either human or spirit, on this plane or any other, shall see you enter or depart; I further charge you to return to me immediately, silent and unseen, to await further instructions."

  He was blue in the face when he finished this, having completed it all in one straight breath.[27] I glowered under my stony brows.

  "Very well. Where does this unfortunate magician reside?"

  The boy smiled thinly. "Downstairs."

  11

  Downstairs… Well, that was surprising.

  "Framing your master, are you? Nasty."

  "I'm not framing him. I just want it safe, behind whatever security he's got. No one's going to find it there." He paused. "But if they do…"

  "You'll be in the clear. Typical magician's trick. You re learning faster than most."

  "No one's going to find it."

  "You think not? We'll see."

  Still, I couldn't float there gossiping all day. I encased the Amulet with a Charm, rendering it temporarily small and giving it the appearance of a drifting cobweb. Then I sank through a knothole in the nearest plank, snaked as a vapor through the empty floor space, and in spider guise crawled cautiously out of a crack in the ceiling of the room below.

  I was in a deserted bathroom. Its door was open; I scurried toward it along the plaster as fast as eight legs could carry me. As I went I shook my mandibles at the effrontery of the boy.

  Framing another magician: that wasn't unusual. That was part and parcel, it came with the territory.[28] Framing your own master, though, now that was out of the ordinary—in fact possibly unique in a wizardling of twelve. Sure, as adults, magicians fell out with ridiculous regularity, but not when they were starting off; not when they were just being taught the rules.

  How was I sure the magician in question was his master? Well, unless age—old practices were now being dropped and apprentices were being bussed off to boarding school together (hardly likely), there was no other explanation. Magicians hold their knowledge close to their shriveled little hearts, coveting its power the way a miser covets gold, and they will only pass it on with caution. Since the days of the Median Magi, students have always lived alone in their mentors' house—one master to one pupil, conducting their lessons with secrecy and stealth. From ziggurat to pyramid, from sacred oak to skyscraper, thousands of years pass and things don't change.

  To sum up then: it seemed that to guard his own skin, this ungrateful child was risking bringing the wrath of a powerful magician down upon his innocent master's head. I was very impressed. Even though he had to be in cahoots with an adult—some enemy of his master, presumably—it was an admirably twisted plan for one so young.

  I did an eightfold tiptoe out of the door. Then I saw the master.

  I had not heard of this magician, this Mr. Arthur Underwood. I assumed him therefore to be a minor conjuror, a dabbler in fakery and mumbo—jumbo who never dared disturb the rest of higher beings such as me. Certainly, as he passed underneath me into the bathroom (I had evidently exited just in time), he fit the bill of second—rater. A sure sign of this was that he had all the time—honored attributes that other humans associate with great and powerful magic: a mane of unkempt hair the color of tobacco ash, a long whitish beard that jutted outward like the prow of a ship, and a pair of particularly bristly eyebrows.[29] I could imagine him stalking through the streets of London in a black velveteen suit, hair billowing behind him in a sorcerous sort of way. He probably flourished a gold—tipped cane, maybe even a swanky cape. Yes, he'd look the part then, all right: very impressive. As opposed to now, stumbling along in his pajama bottoms, scratching his unmentionables and sporting a folded newspaper under his arm.

  "Martha!" He called this just before closing the bathroom door. A small, spherical female emerged from a bedroom. Thankfully, she was fully dressed.

  "Yes, dear?"

  "I thought you said that woman cleaned yesterday."

  "Yes, she did, dear. Why?"

  "Because there's a grubby cobweb dangling from the middle of the ceiling, with a repellent spider skulking in it. Loathsome. She should be sacked."

  "Oh, I see it. How foul. Don't worry, I'll speak to her. And I'll get the duster to it shortly."

  The great magician humphed and shut the door. The woman shook her head in a forgiving manner and, humming a lighthearted ditty, disappeared downstairs. The «loathsome» spider made a rude sign with two of its legs and set off along the ceiling, trailing its cobweb behind it.

  It took several minutes' scuttering before I located the entrance to the study at the bottom of a short flight of stairs. And here I halted. The door was protected against interlopers by a hex in the form of a five—pointed star. It was a simple device. The star appeared
to consist of flaking red paint; however, if an unwary trespasser opened the door the trap would be triggered and the «paint» would revert to its original state—a ricocheting bolt of fire.

  Sounds good, I know, but it was pretty basic stuff actually. A curious housemaid might be frazzled, but not Bartimaeus. I erected a Shield around me and, touching the base of the door with a tiny claw, instantly sprang back a couple of feet.

  Thin orange streaks appeared within the red lines of the five—pointed star. For a second the lines coursed like liquid, racing round and round the shape. Then a jet of flame burst from the star's uppermost point, rebounded off the ceiling and speared down toward me.

  I was ready for the impact on my Shield, but it never took place.

  The flame bypassed me altogether and hit the cobweb I was trailing. And the cobweb sucked it up, drawing the fire from the star like juice through a straw. In an instant it was over. The flame was gone. It had disappeared into the cobweb, which remained as cool as ever.

  In some surprise, I looked around. A charcoal—black star was seared into the wood of the study door. As I watched, the hex began to redden slowly—it was reassembling its charge for the next intruder.

  I suddenly realized what had happened. It was obvious. The Amulet of Samarkand had done what amulets are supposed to do—it had protected its wearer.[30] Very nicely, too. It had absorbed the hex without any trouble whatsoever. That was fine by me. I removed my Shield and squeezed myself beneath the door and into Underwood's study.

  Beyond the door I found no further traps on any of the planes, another sign that the magician was of a fairly low order. (I recalled the extensive network of defenses that Simon Lovelace had rigged up and which I'd broached with such easy panache. If the boy thought that the Amulet would be safe behind his master's «security» he had another thing coming.) The room was tidy, if dusty, and contained among other things a locked cupboard that I guessed housed his treasures. I entered via the keyhole, tugging the cobweb in my wake.

  Once inside I performed a small Illumination. A pitiful array of magical gimcracks were arranged with loving care on three glass shelves. Some of them, such as the Tinker's Purse, with its secret pocket for making coins "vanish," were frankly not magical at all. It made my estimate of second—rater seem overly generous. I almost felt sorry for the old duffer. For his sake I hoped Simon Lovelace never came to call.

  There was a Javanese bird totem at the back of the cupboard, its beak and plumes gray with dust. Underwood obviously never touched it. I pulled the cobweb between the purse and an Edwardian rabbit's foot and tucked it behind the totem. Good. No one would find it there unless they were really hunting. Finally I removed the Charm on it restoring it to its normal amulet—y size and shape.

  With that, my assignment was complete. All that remained was to return to the boy. I exited cupboard and study without any hiccups and set off back upstairs.

  This was where it got interesting.

  I was heading up to the attic room again, of course, using the sloping ceiling above the stairs, when unexpectedly the boy passed me coming down. He was trailing in the wake of the magician's wife, looking thoroughly fed up. Evidently he had just been summoned from his room.

  I perked up at once. This was bad for him, and I could see from his face that he realized it too. He knew I was loose, somewhere nearby. He knew I would be coming back, that my charge had been to return to him immediately, silent and unseen, to await further instructions. He knew I might therefore be following him now, listening and watching, learning more about him, and that he couldn't do anything about it until he got back to his room and stood again within the pentacle.

  In short, he had lost control of the situation, a dangerous state of affairs for any magician.

  I swiveled and followed eagerly in their wake. True to my charge, no one saw or heard me as I crept along behind.

  The woman led the boy to a door on the ground floor. "He's in there, dear," she said.

  "Okay," the boy said. His voice was nice and despondent, just how I like it.

  They went in, woman first, boy second. The door shut so fast that I had to do a couple of quick—fire shots of web to trapeze myself through the crack before it closed. It was a great stunt—I wish someone had seen it. But no. Silent and unseen, that's me.

  We were in a gloomy dining room. The magician, Arthur Underwood, was seated alone at the head of a dark and shiny dining table, with cup, saucer, and silver coffee pot close to hand. He was still occupied with his newspaper, which lay folded in half on the table. As the woman and the boy entered, he picked up the paper, unfolded it, turned the page crisply, and smacked the whole thing in half again. He didn't look up.

  The woman hovered near the table. "Arthur, Nathaniel's here," she said.

  The spider had backed its way into a dark corner above the door. On hearing these words it remained motionless, as spiders do. But inwardly it thrilled.

  Nathaniel! Good. That was a start.

  I had the pleasure of seeing the boy wince. His eyes flitted to and fro, no doubt wondering if I was there.

  The magician gave no sign that he had heard, but remained engrossed in the paper. His wife began rearranging a rather sorry display of dried flowers over the mantelpiece. I guessed then who was responsible for the vase in the boy's room. Dead flowers for the husband, fresh ones for the apprentice—that was intriguing.

  Again Underwood unfolded, turned, smacked the paper, resumed his reading. The boy stood silently waiting. Now that I was free of the circle and thus not under his direct control, I had a chance to assess him more clinically. He had (of course) removed his raggedy coat and was soberly dressed in gray trousers and jumper. His hair had been wetted and was slicked back. A sheaf of papers was under his arm. He was a picture of quiet deference.

  He had no obviously defining features—no moles, no oddities, no scars. His hair was dark and straight, his face tended toward the pinched. His skin was very pale. To a casual observer, he was an unremarkable boy. But to my wiser and more jaundiced gaze there were other things to note: shrewd and calculating eyes; fingers that tapped impatiently on the papers he held; most of all a very careful face that by subtle shifts took on whatever expression was expected of it. For the moment he had adopted a submissive but attentive look that would flatter an old man's vanity. Yet continually he cast his eye around the room, searching for me.

  I made it easy for him. When he was looking in my direction, I gave a couple of small scuttles on the wall, waved a few arms, wiggled my abdomen in a cheery fashion. He saw me straight off, went paler than ever, bit his lip. Couldn't do anything about me though, without giving his game away.

  In the middle of my dance, Underwood suddenly grunted dismissively and slapped the back of his hand against his paper. "See here, Martha," he said. "Makepeace is filling the theaters again with his Eastern piffle. Swans of Araby… I ask you, did you ever hear of such sentimental claptrap? And yet it's sold out until the end of January! Quite bizarre."

  "It's all booked up? Oh, Arthur, I'd rather wanted to go—"

  "And I quote: … in which a sweet—limbed missionary lass from Chiswick falls in love with a tawny djinni… —it's not just romantic nonsense, it's damnably dangerous too. Spreads misinformation to the people."

  "Oh, Arthur—"

  "You've seen djinn, Martha. Have you seen one 'with dusky eyes that will melt your heart'? Melt your face, maybe."

  "I'm sure you're right, Arthur."

  "Makepeace should know better. Disgraceful. I'd do something about it, but he's in too deep with the Prime Minister."

  "Yes, dear. Would you like more coffee, dear?"

  "No. The P.M. should be helping out my Internal Affairs department rather than socializing his time away. Four more thefts, Martha, four in the last week. Valuable items they were, too. I tell you, we're going to the dogs." So saying, Underwood lifted his mustache with one hand and expertly passed the lip of his cup beneath. He drank long and loudly. "Martha, t
his is cold. Fetch more coffee, will you?"

  With good grace the wife bustled off on her errand. As she exited, the magician tossed his paper to one side and deigned to notice his pupil at last.

  The old man grunted. "So. You're here, are you?"

  Despite his anxiety, the boy's voice was steady. "Yes, sir. You sent for me, sir."

  "I did indeed. Now, I have been speaking to your teachers, and with the exception of Mr. Sindra, all have satisfactory reports to make on you." He held up his hand to silence the boy's prompt articulations of thanks. "Heaven knows, you don't deserve it after what you did last year. However, despite certain deficiencies, to which I have repeatedly drawn your attention, you have made some progress with the central tenets. Thus"—a dramatic pause—"I feel that the time is right for you to conduct your first summons."

  He uttered this last sentence in slow resounding tones that were evidently designed to fill the boy with awe. But Nathaniel, as I was now so delighted to call him, was distracted. He had a spider on his mind.

  His unease was not lost on Underwood. The magician rapped the table peremptorily to attract his pupil's attention.

  "Listen to me, boy!" he said. "If you fret at the very prospect of a summons you will never make a magician, even now. A well—prepared magician fears nothing. Do you understand?"

  The boy gathered himself, fixed his attention on his master. "Yes, sir; of course, sir."

  "Besides, I shall be with you at all times during the summoning, in an adjoining circle. I shall have a dozen protective charms to hand and plenty of powdered rosemary. We shall start with a lowly demon, a natterjack impling.[31] If that proves successful, we shall move on to a mouler."[32]

  It was a measure of how unobservant this magician was that he quite failed to notice the flame of contempt that flickered in the boy's eyes. He only heard the blandly eager voice. "Yes, sir. I'm looking forward to it very much, sir."

  "Excellent. You have your lenses?"

  "Yes, sir. They arrived last week."