The Amulet of Samarkand tbt-1

by Jonathan Stroud

  My response went almost unnoticed: the magicians were otherwise occupied. Swathed in his defensive nexus, Underwood sent a bolt of blue fire crackling toward Lovelace. The bolt hit Lovelace directly in his chest and vanished. The Amulet of Samarkand had absorbed its power.

  I broke through the door with the boy under my arm and set off up the stairs. I hadn't reached the top when a colossal explosion ripped through the passage from behind and sent us slamming against a far wall. The impact dazed me. As I lay there, momentarily stunned, a series of deafening crashes could be heard. Jabor's attack had perhaps been overzealous: it sounded as if the entire study floor had given way beneath him.[80]

  It didn't take me long to put my essence in order and get to my feet, but believe it or not, in those few moments, that benighted boy had gone. I caught sight of him on the landing, heading for the stairs. And going down.

  I shook my head in disbelief. What had I told him about staying out of trouble? He'd already walked straight into Lovelace's hands and risked both our lives in the process. Now here he was, in all probability heading straight toward Jabor. It's all very well running for your little life, but at least do it in the right direction. I flapped my wings and set off in grim pursuit.

  The second golden rule of escaping is: make no unnecessary sounds. As the boy reached the ground floor, I heard him breaking this in no uncertain terms with a bellow that echoed up and down the stairwell: "Mrs. Underwood! Mrs. Underwood! Where are you?" His shouts sounded even above the crashing noises reverberating through the house.

  I rolled my eyes to the skies and descended the final flight of stairs, to find the hall already beginning to fill with billowing coils of smoke. A dancing red light flickered from along the passage. The boy was ahead of me—I could see him stumbling toward the fire.

  "Mrs. Underwood!"

  There was a movement far off in the smoke. A shape, hunched in a corner behind a barrier of licking flames. The boy saw it too. He tottered toward it. I speeded up, claws outstretched.

  "Mrs. Underwood? Are you—?"

  The shape rose, unbent itself. It had the head of a beast.

  The boy opened his mouth to scream. At that precise moment I caught up with him and seized him round the middle. He settled for a choking yell.

  "It's me, you idiot." I hiked him backward toward the stairs. "It's coming to kill you. Do you want to die along with your master?"

  His face went blank. The words shocked him. I don't think that until that moment he had truly comprehended what was happening, despite seeing it all unfold before his eyes. But I was happy to spell it out; it was time he learned the consequences of his actions.

  Out through a wall of fire strode Jabor. His skin gleamed as if it had been oiled; the dancing flames were reflected on him as he stalked along the hall.

  We started up the stairs again. My limbs strained at my master's weight. His limbs dragged; he seemed incapable of movement.

  "Up," I snarled. "This house is terraced. We'll try the roof."

  He managed a mumble. "My master…"

  "Is dead," I said. "Swallowed whole, most probably." It was best to be precise.

  "But Mrs. Underwood…"

  "Is no doubt with her husband. You can't help her now."

  And here, believe it or not, the fool began to struggle, flailing about with his puny fists. "No!" he shouted. "It's my fault! I must find her—!" He wriggled like an eel, slipping from my grasp. In another moment he would have hurled himself around the banister and straight into Jabor's welcoming arms. I let out a vivid curse[81] and, grabbing him by an earlobe, pulled him up and onward.

  "Stop struggling!" I said. "Haven't you made enough useless gestures for one day?"

  "Mrs. Underwood—"

  "Would not want you to die too," I hazarded.[82] "Yes, it is your fault, but, er, don't blame yourself. Life's for the living… and, erm… Oh, whatever." I ran out of steam.[83] Whether or not it was my words of wisdom, the boy stopped straining against me. I had my arm round his neck and was dragging him up and round each corner, half flying, half walking, fast as I could lift him. We reached the second landing and went on again, up the attic stairs. Directly below, the steps cracked and splintered under Jabor's feet.

  By the time we reached the top, my master had recovered himself sufficiently to be stumbling along almost unaided. And so, like the hopeless pair in a three—legged race who trail in last to a round of sympathetic applause, we arrived at the attic room still alive. Which was something, I suppose.

  "The window!" I said. "We need to get onto the roof!" I bundled Nathaniel across to the skylight and punched it open. Cold air rushed in. I flew through the opening and, perching on the roof, extended a hand back down into the room. "Come on," I said. "Out."

  But to my astonishment, the infernal boy hesitated. He shuffled off to a corner of the room, bent down and picked something up. It was his scrying glass. I ask you! Jackal—headed death hard on his heels, and he was dawdling for that? Only then did he amble over to the skylight, his face still wiped clean of expression.

  One good thing about Jabor. Slow. It took him time to negotiate the tricky proposition of the stairs. If it had been Faquarl chasing, he'd have been able to overtake us, lock and bar the skylight, and maybe even fit it with a nice new rollerblind before we got there. Yet so lethargic was my master that I barely had him within grabbing distance when Jabor finally appeared at the top of the stairs, sparks of flame radiating from his body and igniting the fabric of the house around him. He caught sight of the boy, raised a hand and stepped forward.

  And banged his head nicely on the low—slung attic door.

  This gave me the instant I needed. I swung down from the skylight, holding on with my feet like a gibbon, seized the boy under an arm and swung myself back up and away from the hole. As we fell back against the tiles, a gout of flame erupted from the skylight. The whole building shook.

  The boy would have lain there all night if I'd let him, staring glassy—eyed at the stars. He was in shock, I think. Maybe nobody had seriously tried to kill him before. Conversely, I had reactions born of long practice: in a trice I was up again, hoisting him with me and rattling off along the sloping roof, gripping tightly with my claws.

  I made for the nearest chimney and, flinging the boy down behind it, peered back the way we had come. The heat from below was doing its work: tiles were popping out of position, small flames dancing through the cracks between them. Somewhere, a mass of timber cracked and shifted.

  At the skylight, a movement: a giant black bird flapping clear of the fire. It alighted on the roof crest and changed form. Jabor glared back and forth. I ducked down behind the chimney and snatched a quick look up ahead.

  There was no sign of any of Lovelace's other slaves: no djinn, no watchful spheres. Perhaps, with the Amulet back in his hands, he felt he had no need of them. He was relying on Jabor.

  The street was terraced: this gave us an avenue of escape stretching away along a succession of connecting houses. To the left, the roofs were a dark shelf above the lamp—lit expanse of the street. To the right, they looked over the shadowy mass of the gardens, full of overgrown trees and bushes. Some way off, a particularly large tree had been allowed to grow close to its house. That had potential.

  But the boy was still sluggish. I couldn't rely on a speedy flight from him. Jabor would nail us with a Detonation before we'd gone five meters.

  I risked a quick peek around the edge of the brickwork. Jabor was approaching, head lowered a little, snuffling in our trail. Not long before he guessed our hiding place and vaporized the chimney. Now was very much the time to think of a brilliant, watertight plan.

  Failing that, I improvised.

  Leaving the boy lying, I rose up from behind the chimney in gargoyle form. Jabor saw me; as he fired, I closed my wings for a moment, allowing myself to drop momentarily through the air. The Detonation shot above my plummeting head and curved away over the roof to explode harmlessly[84] somewhere in th
e street beyond. I flapped my wings again and soared closer to Jabor, watching all the while the little sheets of flame licking up around his feet, cracking the tiles and feeding on the hidden timbers that fixed the roof in place.

  I held up my claws in a submissive gesture. "Can't we discuss this? Your master may want the boy alive."

  Jabor was never one for small talk. Another near miss almost finished the argument for me. I spiraled around him as fast as I could, keeping him as near as possible in the same spot. Every time he fired, the force of his shot weakened the section of roof on which he stood; every time this happened the roof trembled a little more violently. But I was running out of energy—my dodges grew less nimble. The edge of a Detonation clipped a wing and I tumbled to the tiles.

  Jabor stepped forward.

  I raised a hand and fired a return shot. It was weak and low, far too low to trouble Jabor. It struck the tiles directly in front of his feet. He didn't so much as flinch. Instead, he let out a triumphant laugh, which was cut short by the whole section of roof collapsing. The master beam that spanned the length of the building split in two; the joists fell away, and timber and plaster and tile upon tile dropped into the inferno of the house, taking Jabor with them. He must have fallen a good long way from there—down four burning floors to the cellars below ground. Much of the house would have fallen on top of him.

  Flames crackled through the hole. To me, as I grasped the edge of the chimney and swung myself over to the other side, it sounded rather like a round of applause.

  The boy was crouching there, dull—eyed, looking out into the dark.

  "I've given us a few minutes," I said, "but there's no time to waste. Get moving." Whether or not it was the friendly tone of my voice that did it, he struggled to his feet quickly enough. But then he set off, shuffling along the rooftop with all the speed and elegance of a walking corpse. At that pace it would have taken him a week to get close to the tree. An old man with two glass eyes could have caught up with him, let alone an angry djinni. I glanced back. As yet there was no sign of pursuit—only flames roaring up from the hole. Without wasting a moment, I summoned up my remaining strength and slung the boy over my shoulder. Then I ran as fast as I could along the roof.

  Four houses further on, we drew abreast of the tree, an evergreen fir. The nearest branches were only four meters distant. Jumpable. But first, I needed a rest. I dumped the boy onto the tiles and checked behind us again. Nothing. Jabor was having problems. I imagined him thrashing around in the white heat of the cellar, buried under tons of burning debris, struggling to get out.

  There was a sudden movement among the flames. It was time to go.

  I didn't give the boy the option of panicking. Grasping him around the waist, I ran down the roof and leaped from the end. The boy made no sound as we arched through the air, picked out in orange by the light of the fire. My wings beat frantically, keeping us aloft just long enough, until with a whipping and stabbing and a cracking of branches, we plunged into the foliage of the evergreen tree.

  I clasped the trunk, stopping us from falling. The boy steadied himself against a branch. I glanced back at the house. A black silhouette moved slowly against the fire.

  Gripping the trunk loosely, I let us slide. The bark sheared away against each claw as we descended. We landed in wet grass in the darkness at the foot of the tree.

  I set the boy on his feet again. "Now—absolute silence!" I whispered. "And keep below the trees."

  Then away we slunk, my master and I, into the dripping darkness of the garden, as the wail of fire engines grew in the street beyond and another great beam crashed into the flaming ruin of his master's house.

  Part Three

  31

  Nathaniel

  Beyond the broken glass, the sky lightened. The persistent rain that had been falling since dawn drizzled to a halt. Nathaniel sneezed.

  London was waking up. For the first time, traffic appeared on the road below: grimy red buses with snarling engines carrying the first commuters toward the center of the city; a few sporadic cars, honking their horns at anyone scurrying across their path; bicycles too, with riders hunched and laboring inside their heavy greatcoats.

  Slowly, the shops opposite began to open. The owners emerged and with harsh rattling raised the metal night—grilles from their windows. Displays were adjusted: the butcher slapped down pink slabs of meat on his enamel shelving; the tobacconist hung a rack of magazines above his counter. Next door, the bakery's ovens had been hot for hours; warm air that smelled of loaves and sugared doughnuts drifted across the street and reached Nathaniel, shivering and hungry in the empty room.

  A street market was starting up in a side road close by. Shouts rang out, some cheery, others hoarse and guttural. Boys tramped past, rolling metal casks or wheeling barrows piled high with vegetables. A police car cruised north along the road, slowing as it passed the market, then revving ostentatiously and speeding away.

  The sun hung low over the rooftops, a pale egg—yellow disc clouded by haze.

  On any other morning, Mrs. Underwood would have been busy cooking breakfast.

  He could see her there in front of him: small, busy, resolutely cheerful, bustling round the kitchen clanging pans down on the cooker, chopping tomatoes, slinging toast into the toaster… Waiting for him to come down.

  On any other morning that would have been so. But now the kitchen was gone. The house was gone. And Mrs. Underwood, Mrs. Underwood was—

  He wanted to weep; his face was heavy with the desire for it. It was as if a floodtide of emotion lay dammed there, ready to pour forth. But his eyes remained dry. There was no release. He stared out over the gathering activity of the street below, seeing none of it, numb to the chill that bit into his bones. Whenever he closed his eyes, a flickering white shadow danced against the dark—the memory of flames.

  Mrs. Underwood was—

  Nathaniel took a deep, shuddering breath. He buried his hands in his trouser pockets and felt the touch of the bronze disc there, smooth against his fingers. It made him start and pull his hand away. His whole body shook with cold. His brain seemed frozen too.

  His master—he had tried his best for him. But Mrs. Underwood—he should have warned her, got her out of the house before it happened. Instead of which, he…

  He had to think. This was no time to… He had to think what to do, or he was lost.

  For half the night, he had run like a madman through the gardens and back—streets of north London, eyes vacant, mouth agape. He remembered it only as a series of rushes in the dark, of scrambles over walls and dashes under street lamps, of whispered commands that he had automatically obeyed. He had a sensation of pressing up against cold brick walls, then squeezing through hedges, cut and bruised and soaked to the skin. Once, before the all—clear was given, he had hidden for what seemed like hours at the base of a compost heap, his face pressed against the moldering slime. It seemed no more real than a dream.

  Throughout this flight, he had been replaying Underwood's face of terror, seeing a jackal head rising from the flames. Unreal also. Dreams within a dream.

  He had no memory of the pursuit, though at times it had been close and pressing. The hum of a search sphere, a strange chemical scent carried on the wind: that was all he knew of it, until, shortly before dawn, they had stumbled down into an area of narrow, redbrick houses and back alleys, and found the boarded—up building.

  Here, for the moment, he was safe. He had time to think, work out what to do…

  But Mrs. Underwood was—

  "Cold, isn't it?" said a voice.

  Nathaniel turned away from the window. A little way off across the ruined room, the boy that was not a boy was watching him with shiny eyes. It had given itself the semblance of thick winter gear—a down jacket, new blue jeans, strong brown boots, a woolly hat. It looked very warm.

  "You're shivering," said the boy. "But then you're hardly dressed for a winter's expedition. What have you got under that jersey?
Just a shirt, I expect. And look at those flimsy shoes. They must be soaked right through."

  Nathaniel hardly heard him. His mind was far away.

  "This isn't the place to be half naked," the boy went on. "Look at it! Cracks in the walls, a hole in the ceiling… We're open to the elements here. Brrrrrr! Chilly."

  They were on the upper floor of what had evidently been a public building. The room was cavernous, bare and empty, with whitewashed walls stained yellow and green with mold. All along each wall stretched row upon row of empty shelves, covered in dust, dirt, and bird droppings. Disconsolate piles of wood that might once have been tables or chairs were tucked into a couple of corners. Tall windows looked out over the street and wide marbled steps led downstairs. The place smelled of damp and decay.

  "Do you want me to help you with the cold?" the boy said, looking sideways at him. "You have only to ask."

  Nathaniel did not respond. His breath frosted in front of his face.

  The djinni came a bit closer. "I could make a fire," it said. "A nice hot one. I've got plenty of control over that element. Look!" A tiny flame flickered in the center of its palm. "All this wood in here, going to waste… What was this place, do you think? A library? I think so. Don't suppose the commoners are allowed to read much anymore, are they? That's usually the way it goes." The flame grew a little. "You have only to ask, O my master. I'd do it as a favor. That's what friends are for."

  Nathaniel's teeth were chattering in his head. More than anything else—more even than the hunger that was gnawing in his belly like a dog—he needed warmth. The little flame danced and spun.

  "Yes," he said huskily. "Make me a fire."

  The flame instantly died out. The boy's brow furrowed. "Now that wasn't very polite."