The Amulet of Samarkand tbt-1

by Jonathan Stroud

  "…for further domination. Our enemies are wilting…" The youth raised his arm. The sphere glinted in the lantern light. A gasp from within the crowd. Someone noticing—"Yes, I say to you again…" Nathaniel's mouth opened in a soundless cry. The arm jerked forward; the sphere left the hand. "…they are uniting…" The blue sphere arced into the air, over Nathaniel's head, over the heads of the crowd. To Nathaniel, transfixed by its movement like a mouse mazed by the swaying of a snake, its trajectory seemed to take forever. All sounds ceased in the hall, except for a barely discernible fizzing from the sphere—and from the crowd, the gulped, high—pitched beginnings of a woman's scream.

  The sphere disappeared over the heads of the crowd. Then came the tinkle of breaking glass.

  And, a split second later, the explosion.

  20

  The shattering of an elemental sphere in an enclosed space is always a frightening and destructive act: the smaller the space, or the bigger the sphere, the worse the consequences are. It was fortunate for Nathaniel and for the majority of the magicians with him that Westminster Hall was extremely large and the tossed sphere relatively small. Even so, the effects were noteworthy.

  As the glass broke, the trapped elementals, which had been compressed within it for many years, loathing each other's essences and limited conversation, recoiled from each other with savage force. Air, earth, fire, and water: all four kinds exploded from their minute prison at top speed, unleashing chaos in all directions. Many people standing nearby were at one and the same time blown backward, pelted with rocks, lacerated with fire, and deluged with horizontal columns of water. Almost all the company of magicians fell to the ground, scattered like skittles around the epicenter of the explosion. Standing at the edge of the crowd, Nathaniel was shielded from the brunt of the blast, but even so found himself propelled into the air and sent careering back against the door that led onto the river terrace.

  The major magicians escaped largely unscathed. They had safety mechanisms in place, mainly captive djinn charged to materialize the instant any aggressive magic drew near their masters' persons. Protective shields absorbed or deflected the ballooning gobbets of fire, earth, and water, and sent the gusts of wind screeching off toward the rafters. A few of the lesser magicians and their guests were not so fortunate. Some were sent ricocheting between existing defensive barriers, bludgeoned into unconsciousness by the competing elements; others were swept along the flagstones by small tidal waves of steaming water and deposited in sodden humps halfway across the hall.

  The Prime Minister was already gone. Even as the sphere crashed onto the stones three meters from the stage, a dark—green afrit had stepped from the air and swathed him in a Hermetic Mantle, which it promptly carried into the air and out through a skylight in the roof.

  Half dazed by his impact with the door, Nathaniel was struggling to rise when he saw two of the men in gray jackets running toward him at frightening speed. He fell back; they leaped over him, out of the door and onto the terrace. As the second one passed above with a prodigious bound, he let out a peculiarly guttural snarl that raised the hairs on Nathaniel's neck. He heard scuffling on the river terrace, a scrabbling noise like claws on stone, two distant splashes.

  He raised his head cautiously. The terrace was empty. In the hall the pent—up energy of the released elementals had run its course. Water sluiced along cracks between the flagstones; clods of earth and mud were spattered across the walls and the faces of the guests; a few flames still licked at the edges of the purple drape upon the stage. Many of the magicians were stirring now, levering themselves to their feet, or helping others to rise. A few remained sprawled upon the floor. Servants were running down the staircase and in from adjoining rooms. Slowly people began to find their voices; there was shouting, weeping, a few belated and rather redundant screams.

  Nathaniel got to his feet, ignoring a sharp pain in his shoulder where he had collided with the wall, and set off in anxious search of Mrs. Underwood. His boots slipped in the mess on the floor.

  The fat man in the white suit was leaning on his crutches, talking to Simon Lovelace and the old, wrinkled magician. None of them seemed to have suffered much in the attack, although Lovelace's forehead was bruised and his glasses slightly cracked. As Nathaniel passed them, they turned together and evidently muttered a joint spell of summoning, for six tall, slender djinn wearing silver cloaks suddenly materialized in front of them. Orders were given. The demons rose into the air and floated at speed onto the terrace and away.

  Mrs. Underwood sat on her backside with a bewildered look on her face. Nathaniel crouched at her side. "Are you all right?"

  Her chin was caked in mud and the hair around one ear was slightly singed; otherwise she seemed unharmed. Nathaniel felt a little teary with relief. "Yes, yes, I think so, John. You don't need to hug me so. I am glad you are not hurt. Where is Arthur?"

  "I don't know." Nathaniel scanned the bedraggled crowd. "Oh, there he is."

  His master had evidently not had time to mount an effective defense—if his beard, which now resembled the split halves of a lightning—struck tree, was anything to go by. His smart shirt and jacket front had been blown away, leaving only a blackened vest and a slightly smoking tie. His trousers had not escaped either; they now started too late and ended too soon. Mr. Underwood stood near a group of others in a similar predicament, with a look of goggling outrage on his red and soot—stained face.

  "I think he'll live," Nathaniel said.

  "Go and help him, John. Go on. I'm fine, really I am. I just need to sit down a little."

  Nathaniel approached his master with some caution. He would not have put it past Underwood to blame him somehow for the disaster.

  "Sir? Are you—"

  His master did not seem to register his presence. A bright light of fury shone beneath his blackened eyebrows. With a magisterial effort, he drew the tattered remnants of his jacket together and joined them at the one remaining button. He flattened down his tie, wincing a little at the heat. Then he strode over toward the nearest straggling group of guests. Unsure what to do, Nathaniel trailed along behind.

  "Who was it? Did you see?" Underwood spoke abruptly.

  A woman whose evening gown hung like damp tissue from her shoulders shook her head. "It happened too fast." Several of the others nodded.

  "Some object, came from behind…"

  "Through a portal, perhaps, a renegade magician—"

  A white—haired man with a whining voice cut in. "They say someone entered by the terrace…"

  "Surely not—what about security?"

  "Excuse me, sir…"

  "This Resistance, do you think they—?"

  "Lovelace, Schyler, and Pinn have sent tracker demons downriver."

  "Sir—"

  "The villain must have jumped into the Thames and been swept away."

  "Sir! I saw him!"

  Underwood turned to Nathaniel at last. "What? What did you say?"

  "I saw him, sir. The boy on the terrace—"

  "By heaven, if you're lying…"

  "No, sir, it was just before he threw it, sir. He had a blue orb in his hand. He ran in through the doors and chucked it, sir. He was dark—haired, a boy, a little older than me, sir. Thin, with dark clothes on; he had a coat, I think; I didn't see what happened to him after he threw it. It was an elemental sphere, I'm sure, sir, a small one; so he didn't need to be a magician to break it…"

  Nathaniel paused for breath, suddenly conscious that in his enthusiasm he had revealed a far greater knowledge of magic than was appropriate in an apprentice who had yet to summon his first mouler. But neither Underwood nor any of the other magicians seemed to notice this. They took a moment to absorb his words, then turned away from him and began chattering away at breakneck speed, each talking over the others in their eagerness to proclaim their theories.

  "It has to be the Resistance—but are they magicians or not? I've always said—"

  "Underwood, Internal Affai
rs is your department. Have any elemental spheres

  been registered stolen? If so, what the hell's being done about it?"

  "I can't say; confidential information…"

  "Don't mutter into what's left of your beard, man. We've a right to know!"

  "Ladies, gentlemen…" The voice was soft, but its effect was immediate. The clamor ceased, all heads turned. Simon Lovelace had appeared on the fringes of the group. His hair was back in place. Despite his broken glasses and bruised forehead, he was as elegant as ever. Nathaniel's mouth felt dry.

  Lovelace looked around the group with his quick, dark eyes. "Don't bully poor Arthur, please," he said. For an instant, the smile flicked across the face. "He isn't responsible for this outrage, poor fellow. The assailant appears to have entered from the river."

  A black—bearded man indicated Nathaniel. "That's what the boy said."

  The dark eyes fixed on Nathaniel and widened slightly with recognition. "Young Underwood. You saw him, did you?"

  Nathaniel nodded dumbly.

  "So. Sharp as ever, I see. Does he have a name yet, Underwood?"

  "Erm, yes—John Mandrake. I've filed it officially."

  "Well, John." The dark eyes fastened upon him. "You're to be congratulated; no one else I've spoken to so far got much of a look at him. The police may want a statement from you in due course."

  Nathaniel prised his tongue free. "Yes, sir."

  Lovelace turned back to the others. "The assailant left a boat below the terrace, then climbed up the river wall and cut the throat of the guard. There's no body, but a fair bit of blood, so he presumably lowered the corpse into the Thames. He too seems to have jumped into the water after the attack and allowed himself to be swept away. He may have drowned."

  The black—bearded man tutted. "It's unheard of! What was Duvall thinking? The police should have prevented this."

  Lovelace held up a hand. "I quite agree. However, two officers are speedily on the trail; they may find something, though water won't help the scent. I've sent djinn out along the banks too. I'm afraid I can't tell you anything more at this point. We must all be grateful that the Prime Minister is safe and that no one important was killed. Might I humbly suggest that you all head home to recuperate—and perhaps treat yourselves to a change of clothes? More information will no doubt come your way at a later time. Now, if you'll forgive me…"

  With a smile he detached himself and walked away to another knot of guests. The group looked after him, open—mouthed.

  "Of all the arrogant—" The black—bearded magician stopped himself with a snort. "You wouldn't think he was only Deputy Minister for Trade. He's going to find an afrit waiting for him one of these days… Well, I'm not hanging around, even if you lot are." He stomped away; one by one, the others followed suit. Mr. Underwood silently collected his wife, who was busily comparing bruises with a couple from the Foreign Office, and with Nathaniel trotting along behind, left the breathless confusion of Westminster Hall.

  "All I can hope," his master said, "is that this will encourage them to give me more funds. If they don't, what can they expect? With a measly department of six magicians! I'm not a miracle worker!"

  For the first half of the journey, the car had been heavy with silence and the smell of singed beard. As they left central London, however, Underwood suddenly became talkative. Something seemed to be preying on his mind.

  "It's not your fault, dear," Mrs. Underwood said, soothingly.

  "No, but they'll blame me! You heard them in there, boy—accusing me, because of all the thefts!"

  Nathaniel ventured a rare question. "What thefts, sir?"

  Underwood slapped the steering wheel with frustration. "The ones carried out by the so—called Resistance, of course! Magical objects thieved from careless magicians all over London. Objects like the elemental sphere—a few of them were taken back in January from a warehouse, if I remember rightly. In the last couple of years, crimes like this have become more and more common, and I'm meant to tackle it—with just six other magicians in Internal Affairs!"

  Nathaniel was emboldened; he leaned forward on the backseat. "Sorry, sir, but who are the Resistance?"

  Underwood turned a corner too fast, narrowly avoiding an old lady and startling her into the gutter by slamming his fist down on the horn. "A bunch of traitors who don't like us being in control," he snarled. "As if we hadn't given this country all its wealth and greatness. No one knows who they are, but they certainly aren't numerous. A handful of commoners drumming up support in meeting houses; a few halfwit firebrands who resent magic and what it does for 'em."

  "They're not magicians, then, sir?"

  "Of course not, you fool, that's the point! They're common as muck! They hate us and everything magical, and want to bring the Government down! As if that were possible." He accelerated through a red light, waving his arm impatiently at the pedestrians diving back to the safety of the pavement.

  "But why would they steal magical objects, sir? If they hate magical things, I mean."

  "Who knows? Their thinking's all wrongheaded, of course; they're only commoners. Perhaps they hope it'll reduce our power—as if losing a few artifacts would make a blind bit of difference! But some devices can be used by non—magicians, as you saw today. They may be stockpiling weapons for some future assault, perhaps at the behest of a foreign government… It's impossible to tell—until we find them and snuff them out."

  "But this was their first actual attack, sir?"

  "The first on this scale. There have been a few ridiculous incidents… mouler glasses tossed at official cars: that sort of thing. Magicians have been hurt. In one case the driver crashed; while he was unconscious, his briefcase, with several magical items, was stolen from his car. It was highly embarrassing for him, the idiot. But now the Resistance has gone too far. You say the assailant was young?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Interesting… Youths have been reported at the scene of the other crimes too. Still, young or old, these thieves will rue the day they're caught. After tonight, anyone in possession of a magician's stolen property will suffer the severest penalties our Government can devise. They won't die easily, you can be sure of that. Did you say something, boy?"

  Nathaniel had uttered an involuntary noise, something between a choke and a squeak. A sudden vision of the very stolen Amulet of Samarkand, which even now was hidden somewhere in Underwood's study, had passed before his eyes. He shook his head, dumbly.

  The car turned the final corner and hummed down the dark and silent road. Underwood swept into the parking space in front of the house. "Mark my words, boy," he said, "the Government will have to act now. I shall request more personnel for my department first thing in the morning. Then perhaps we'll start catching these thieves. And when we do, we'll tear them limb from limb."

  He got out of the car and slammed the door, leaving a fresh waft of burned hair behind him. Mrs. Underwood turned her head toward the backseat. Nathaniel was sitting bolt upright, neck rigid, looking into space.

  "Hot chocolate before bed, dear?" she said.

  21

  Bartimaeus

  The darkness cloaking my mind lifted. Instantly, I was as alert as ever, crystal—sharp in all my perceptions, a coiled spring ready to explode into action. It was time to escape!

  Except it wasn't.

  My mind works on several levels at once.[56] I've been known to make pleasant small talk while framing the words of a spell and assessing various escape routes at the same time. This sort of thing regularly comes in handy. But right then I didn't need more than one cognitive level to tell me that escape was wholly out of the question. I was in big trouble.

  But first things first. One thing I could do was look good. The moment I awoke I realized that my form had slipped while I had been out. My falcon form had deteriorated into a thick, oily vapor that sloshed back and forth in midair, as if pulled by a miniature tide. This substance was in fact the nearest I could get to revealing my pure essence[
57] while enslaved on earth, but despite its noble nature, it wasn't wholly fetching.[58] I thus quickly changed myself into the semblance of a slender human female, draped in a simple tunic, before adding a couple of small horns on her scalp for the heck of it.

  With this done, I appraised my surroundings with a jaundiced eye.

  I was standing on top of a small stone plinth or pillar, which rose about two meters high from the middle of a flagstoned floor. On the first plane my view was clear in all directions, but on the second to seventh, it was blocked by something nasty: a small energy sphere of considerable power. This was made up of thin, white, crisscrossing lines of force that expanded out from the top of the pillar beside my slender feet and met again over my delicate head. I didn't have to touch the lines to know that if I did so they would cause me unbearable pain and hurl me back.

  There was no opening, no weak spot in my prison. I could not get out. I was stuck inside the sphere like some dumb goldfish in a bowl.

  But unlike a goldfish, I had a good memory. I could remember what had happened after I busted out of Sholto's shop. The silver Snare falling on me; the afrit's red—hot hooves melting the pavement stones; the smell of rosemary and garlic throttling me fast as a murderer's hands until my consciousness fled. The outrage of it—me, Bartimaeus, spark out on a London street! But there was time for anger later. Now I had to keep calm, look for a chance.

  Beyond the surface of my sphere was a sizeable chamber of some antiquity. It was built of gray stone blocks and roofed with heavy wooden beams. A single window high up on one wall let in a shaft of weak and ailing light, which barely managed to push through the swirling motes of dust to reach the floor. The window was fitted with a magical barrier similar to my prison. Elsewhere in the room were several other pillars similar to the one on which I stood. Most were desolate and empty, but one had a small, bright, and very dense blue sphere balanced upon it. It was hard to be sure, but I thought I could see a contorted something pressed inside.