The Ring of Solomon

by Jonathan Stroud

  2 I couldn’t do anything while I was in the circle, of course. But later I’d be able to find out who he was, look for weaknesses of character, things in his past I could exploit. They’ve all got them. You’ve all got them, I should say.

  3 One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror.

  2

  When I landed on the top of a lamppost in the London dusk it was peeing with rain. This was just my luck. I had taken the form of a blackbird, a sprightly fellow with a bright yellow beak and jet-black plumage. Within seconds I was as bedraggled a fowl as ever hunched its wings in Hampstead. Flicking my head from side to side I spied a large beech tree across the street. Leaves mouldered at its foot – it had already been stripped clean by the November winds – but the thick sprouting of its branches offered some protection from the wet. I flew over to it, passing above a lone car that purred its way along the wide suburban road. Behind high walls and the evergreen foliage of their gardens, the ugly white façades of several sizeable villas shone through the dark like the faces of the dead.

  Well, perhaps it was my mood that made it seem like that. Five things were bothering me. For a start the dull ache that comes with every physical manifestation was already beginning. I could feel it in my feathers. Changing form would keep the pain at bay for a time, but might also draw attention to me at a critical stage of the operation. Until I was sure of my surroundings, a bird I had to remain.

  The second thing was the weather. Enough said.

  Thirdly, I’d forgotten the limitations of material bodies. I had an itch just above my beak, and kept futilely trying to scratch it with a wing. Fourthly, that kid. I had a lot of questions about him. Who was he? Why did he have a death wish? How would I get even with him before he died for subjecting me to this assignment? News travels fast and I was bound to get some stick for scurrying around on behalf of a scrap like him.

  Fifthly … the Amulet. By all accounts it was a potent charm. What the kid thought he was going to do with it when he got it beat me. He wouldn’t have a clue. Maybe he’d just wear it as some tragic fashion accessory. Maybe nicking amulets was the latest craze, the magician’s version of pinching hubcaps. Even so, I had to get it first and this would not necessarily be easy, even for me.

  I closed my blackbird’s eyes and opened my inner ones, one after the other, each on a different plane.1 I looked back and forth around me, hopping up and down the branch to get the optimum view. No less than three villas along the road had magical protection, which showed how nobby an area we were in. I didn’t inspect the two further off up the street; it was the one across the road, beyond the streetlight, that interested me. The residence of Simon Lovelace, magician.

  The first plane was clear, but he’d rigged up a defence nexus on the second – it shone like blue gossamer all along the high wall. It didn’t finish there either; it extended up into the air, over the top of the low white house and down again on the other side, forming a great shimmering dome.

  Not bad, but I could handle it.

  There was nothing on the third or fourth planes, but on the fifth I spotted three sentries prowling around in mid-air, just beyond the lip of the garden wall. They were a dull yellow all over, each one formed of three muscular legs that rotated on a hub of gristle. Above the hub was a blobby mass, which sported two mouths and several watchful eyes. The creatures passed at random back and forth around the perimeter of the garden. I shrank back against the trunk of the beech tree instinctively, but I knew they were unlikely to spot me from there. At this distance I should look like a blackbird on all seven planes. It was when I got closer that they might break through my illusion.

  The sixth plane was clear. But the seventh … that was curious. I couldn’t see anything obvious – the house, the road, the night all looked unchanged – but, call it intuition if you like, I was sure something was present there, lurking.

  I rubbed my beak doubtfully against a knot of wood. As expected, there was a good deal of powerful magic at work here. I’d heard of Lovelace. He was considered a formidable magician and a hard taskmaster. I was lucky I had never been called up in his service and I did not much want his enmity or that of his servants.

  But I had to obey that kid.

  The soggy blackbird took off from the branch and swooped across the road, conveniently avoiding the arc of light from the nearest lamp. It landed on a patch of scrubby grass at the corner of the wall. Four black bin bags had been left out there for collection the next morning. The blackbird hopped behind the bags. A cat that had observed the bird2 from some way off waited a few moments for it to emerge, lost patience and scuttled curiously after it. Behind the bags it discovered no bird, black or otherwise. There was nothing there but a freshly turned molehill.

  1 I have access to seven planes, all co-existent. They overlap each other like layers on a crushed Viennetta. Seven planes is sufficient for anybody. Those who operate on more are just showing off.

  2 On two planes. Cats have that power.

  3

  I hate the taste of mud. It is no fit thing for a being of air and fire. The cloying weight of earth oppresses me greatly whenever I come into contact with it. That is why I am choosy about my incarnations. Birds, good. Insects, good. Bats, OK. Things that run fast are fine. Tree-dwellers are even better. Subterranean things, not good. Moles, bad.

  But there’s no point being fastidious when you have a protective shield to bypass. I had reasoned correctly that it did not extend underground. The mole dug its way deep, deep down, under the foundations of the wall. No magical alarm sounded, though I did hit my head five times on a pebble.1 I burrowed upwards again, reaching the surface after twenty minutes of snuffling, scruffling and turning my beady nose up at the juicy worms I uncovered every couple of scrapes.

  The mole poked its head cautiously out of the little pile of earth it had driven through the immaculate surface of Simon Lovelace’s lawn. It looked around, checking out the scene. There were lights on in the house, on the ground floor. The curtains were drawn. The upper floors, from what the mole could see, were dark. The translucent blue span of the magical defence system arched overhead. One yellow sentry trudged its stupid way three metres above the shrubbery. The other two were presumably behind the house.

  I tried the seventh plane again. Still nothing, still that uneasy sense of danger. Oh well.

  The mole retreated underground and tunnelled below the grass roots towards the house. It reappeared in the flowerbed just below the nearest windows. It was thinking hard. There was no point going further in this guise, tempting though it was to try to break into the cellars. A different method would have to be found.

  To the mole’s furry ears came the sound of laughter and clinking glasses. It was surprisingly loud, echoing from very close by. An air vent, cracked with age, was set in the wall not half a metre away. It led indoors.

  With some relief, I became a fly.

  1 Once each on five different pebbles. Not the same pebble five times. Just checking. Sometimes human beings are so dense.

  4

  From the security of the air vent I peered with my multi-faceted eyes into a rather traditional drawing room. There was a thick pile carpet, nasty striped wallpaper, a hideous crystal thing pretending to be a chandelier, two oil paintings that were dark with age, a sofa and two easy chairs (also striped), a low coffee table laden with a silver tray and, on the tray, a bottle of red wine and no glasses. The glasses were in the hands of two people.

  One of them was a woman. She was youngish (for a human, which means infinitesimally young) and probably quite good-looking in a fleshy sort of way. Big eyes, dark hair, bobbed. I memorized her automatically. I would appear in her guise tomorrow when I went back to visit that kid. Only naked. Let’s see how his very steely but ever-so-adolescent mind responded to that!1

  However, for the moment I was more concerned with the man this woman was smiling and nodding at. He was tall, thin, handsome in a rather
bookish sort of way, with his hair slicked back by some pungent oil. He had small round glasses and a large mouth with good teeth. He had a prominent jaw. Something told me that this was the magician, Simon Lovelace. Was it his indefinable aura of power and authority? Was it the proprietorial way in which he gestured around the room? Or was it the small imp which floated at his shoulder (on the second plane), warily watching out for danger on every side?

  I rubbed my front two legs together with irritation. I would have to be very careful. The imp complicated matters.2

  It was a pity I wasn’t a spider. They can sit still for hours and think nothing of it. Flies are far more jittery. But if I changed here, the magician’s slave would be certain to sense it. I had to force my unwilling body to lurk, and ignore the ache that was building up again, this time inside my chitin.

  The magician was talking. He did little else. The woman gazed at him with spaniel eyes so wide and silly with adoration that I wanted to bite her.

  ‘… it will be the most magnificent occasion, Amanda. You will be the toast of London society! Did you know that the Prime Minister himself is looking forward to viewing your estate? Yes, I have that on good authority. My enemies have been hounding him for weeks with their vile insinuations, but he has always remained committed to holding the conference at the Hall. So you see, my love, I can still influence him when it counts. The thing is to know how to play him, how to flatter his vanity … Keep it to yourself, but he is actually rather weak. His speciality is Charm, and even that he seldom bothers with now. Why should he? He’s got men in suits to do it for him …’

  The magician rattled on like this for several minutes, name-dropping with tireless energy. The woman drank her wine, nodded, gasped and exclaimed at the right moments and leaned closer to him along the sofa. I nearly buzzed with boredom.3

  Suddenly the imp became alert. Its head swivelled 180 degrees and peered at a door at the other end of the room. It tweaked the magician’s ear gently in warning. Seconds later, the door opened and a black-jacketed flunky with a bald head stepped respectfully in.

  ‘Pardon me, sir, but your car is ready.’

  ‘Thank you, Carter. We shan’t be a moment.’

  The flunky withdrew. The magician replaced his (still full) wineglass back on the coffee table and took hold of the woman’s hand. He kissed it gallantly. Behind his back the imp made faces of extreme disgust.

  ‘It pains me to have to go, Amanda, but duty calls. I will not be home this evening. May I call you? The theatre, tomorrow night, perhaps?’

  ‘That would be charming, Simon.’

  ‘Then that is settled. My good friend Makepeace has a new play out. I shall get tickets presently. For now, Carter will drive you home.’

  Man, woman and imp exited, leaving the door ajar. Behind them, a wary fly crept from its hiding place and sped soundlessly across the room to a vantage point that gave a view of the hall. For a few minutes there was activity, coats being brought, orders given, doors slammed. Then the magician departed his house.

  I flew out into the hall. It was wide, cold and laid with a flooring of black and white tiles. Bright green ferns grew from gigantic ceramic pots. I circled the chandelier, listening. It was very quiet. The only sounds came from a distant kitchen and they were innocent enough – just the banging of pots and plates and several loud belches, presumably emanating from the cook.

  I debated sending out a discreet magical pulse to see if I could detect the whereabouts of the magician’s artefacts, but decided that it was far too risky. The sentry creatures outside might pick it up, for one thing, even if there was no further guard. I, the fly, would have to go hunting myself.

  All the planes were clear. I went along the hall, then – following an intuition – up the stairs.

  On the landing a thickly carpeted corridor led in two directions, each lined with oil paintings. I was immediately interested in the right-hand passage, for halfway along it was a spy. To human eyes it was a smoke alarm, but on the other planes its true form was revealed – an upside-down toad with unpleasantly bulbous eyes sitting on the ceiling. Every minute or so it hopped on the spot, rotating a little. When the magician returned, it would relate to him anything that had happened.

  I sent a small magic the toad’s way. A thick oily vapour issued from the ceiling and wrapped itself around the spy, obscuring its vision. As it hopped and croaked in confusion, I flew rapidly past it down the passage to the door at the end. Alone of the doors in the corridor, this did not have a keyhole; under its white paint, the wood was reinforced with strips of metal. Two good reasons for trying this one first.

  There was a minute crack under the door. It was too small for an insect, but I was aching for a change anyway. The fly dissolved into a dribble of smoke, which passed out of sight under the door just as the vapour screen around the toad melted away.

  In the room I became a child.

  If I had known that apprentice’s name, I would have been malicious and taken his form, just to give Simon Lovelace a head start when he began to piece the theft together. But without his name I had no handle on him. So I became a boy I had known once before, someone I had loved. His dust had long ago floated away along the Nile, so my crime would not hurt him, and anyhow it pleased me to remember him like this. He was brown-skinned, bright-eyed, dressed in a white loincloth. He looked around in that way he had, his head slightly cocked to one side.

  The room had no windows. There were several cabinets against the walls, filled with magical paraphernalia. Most of it was quite useless, fit only for stage shows,4 but there were a few intriguing items there.

  There was a summoning horn that I knew was genuine, because it made me feel ill to look at it. One blast of that and anything in that magician’s power would be at his feet begging for mercy and pleading to do his bidding. It was a cruel instrument and very old and I couldn’t go near it. In another cabinet was an eye made out of clay. I had seen one of them before, in the head of a golem. I wondered if the fool knew the potential of that eye. Almost certainly not – he’d have picked it up as a quaint keepsake on some package holiday in central Europe. Magical tourism … I ask you.5 Well, with luck it might kill him some day.

  And there was the Amulet of Samarkand. It sat in a small case all of its own, protected by glass and its own reputation. I walked over to it, flicking through the planes, seeking danger and finding – well, nothing explicit, but on the seventh plane I had the distinct impression that something was stirring. Not here, but close by. I had better be quick.

  The Amulet was small, dull and made of beaten gold. It hung from a short gold chain. In its centre was an oval piece of jade. The gold had been pressed with simple notched designs depicting running steeds. Horses were the prize possessions of the people from central Asia who had made the Amulet three thousand years before and had later buried it in the tomb of one of their princesses. A Russian archaeologist had found it in the 1950s and before long it had been stolen by magicians who recognized its value. How Simon Lovelace had come by it – who exactly he had murdered or swindled to get it – I had no idea.

  I cocked my head again, listening. All was quiet in the house.

  I raised my hand over the cabinet, smiling at my reflection as it clenched its fist.

  Then I brought my hand down and drove it through the glass.

  A throb of magical energy resounded through all seven planes. I seized the Amulet and hung it round my neck. I turned swiftly. The room was as before, but I could sense something on the seventh plane, moving swiftly and coming closer.

  The time for stealth was over.

  As I ran for the door I noticed out of the corner of my eye a portal suddenly open in mid-air. Inside the portal was a blackness that was immediately obscured as something stepped out through it.

  I charged at the door and hit it with my small boy’s fist. The door smashed open like a bent playing card. I ran past it without stopping.

  In the corridor, the toad turned towards m
e and opened its mouth. A green gobbet of slime issued forth, which suddenly accelerated down at me, aiming for my head. I dodged and the slime splattered on the wall behind me, destroying a painting and everything down to the bare bricks beneath it.

  I threw a bolt of Compression at the toad. With a small croak of regret it imploded into a dense blob of matter the size of a marble and dropped to the floor. I didn’t break stride. As I ran on down the corridor I placed a protective Shield around my physical body in case of further missiles.

  Which was a wise move as it happened, because the next instant a Detonation struck the floor directly behind me. The impact was so great that I was sent flying headlong at an angle down the corridor and half into the wall. Green flames licked around me, leaving streaks on the décor like the fingers of a giant hand.

  I struggled to my feet amidst the confusion of shattered bricks and turned round.

  Standing over the broken door at the end of the corridor was something that had taken the form of a very tall man with bright-red skin and the head of a jackal.

  ‘BARTIMAEUS!’

  Another Detonation shot down the corridor. I somersaulted under it, aiming for the stairs, and as the green explosion vaporized the corner of the wall, rolled head over heels down the steps, through the banisters and two metres down onto the black and white tiled floor, cracking it quite badly.

  I got to my feet and took a look at the front door. Through the frosted glass beside it I could see the hulking yellow outline of one of the three sentinels. It was lying in wait, little realizing that it could be seen from inside. I decided to make my exit elsewhere. Thus does superior intelligence win over brute strength any day of the week!

  Speaking of which, I had to get out fast. Noises from above indicated pursuit.