The imp considered. “Well, all you higher spirits are pretty nasty, of course, but most of you are predictable. This one … it says strange things. And one minute it’s happy, the next—well, look what it did to Hibbet.”
“He seems happy enough.”
“That’s Tibbet. It didn’t catch Tibbet. Or me. It said it’d get us next time.”
“Next time?”
“Yeah, it’s been past five times so far. Each time it gives us a really boring lecture, then eats one of us. Five down, two to go. I tell you, the combination of fear and tedium takes some beating. Do you think this toenail’s ingrowing?”
“I have no opinion on the subject. When is the skeleton due back?”
“In about ten minutes, if it keeps to his current schedule.”
“Thank you. At last—some definite information. I shall await it here.”
The gargoyle shrank and dwindled, and became a blue imp only moderately less hideous than the other two. I took myself upwind of them and sat cross-legged on a ledge overlooking the London skyline. Chances were, another djinni would have caught up with the afrit before he returned here, but if not, I’d have to have a go. Quite why he was going around and around the city was anyone’s guess; possibly his long vigil in the tomb had sapped his wits. Anyhow, there was plenty of backup in the vicinity: I could see several other djinn drifting about within a couple of streets.
As I waited, a few idle thoughts ran through my mind. No question about it, a lot of funny things were happening in London, all at the same time. First: the golem was causing trouble, instigator unknown. Second, the Resistance had broken into a high-security tomb and made off with a valuable item. Third, and as a direct result of the second, we had an unbalanced afrit loose, too, causing additional mayhem. All this was having a result: I’d tasted the fear and confusion among the magicians during the general summoning. Could it be coincidence? I thought it unlikely.
It didn’t seem plausible to me that a bunch of commoners could have gained access to Gladstone’s tomb all on their lonesome. I guessed instead that someone must have put them up to it, given them a few tips so they got past the first safeguards and down into the vault. Now, either that very helpful person didn’t know about the guardian of the tomb, or maybe he (or she) did; either way, I doubted very much that the girl Kitty and her friends had much idea what they were going up against.
Still, she at least had survived. And now, while the magicians tied themselves in knots trying to catch up with Gladstone’s roving skeleton, the dreaded Staff was at large in the world.1
Someone was going to take advantage of this, and I didn’t think it would be the girl.
I recalled the unknown intelligence that I’d sensed watching me through the golem’s eye, as the creature tried to kill me at the museum. It was possible, if you looked at the whole affair dispassionately, to imagine a similar shadowy presence behind the abbey job, too. The same one? I thought it more than likely.
As I waited, engaged in lots of clever speculation such as this,2 I scanned the planes automatically, keeping watch for trouble. And so it chanced that, by and by, upon the seventh plane, I saw an amorphous glow approaching through the evening light. It flitted here and there among the chimney pots, sometimes flaring clearly as it passed into the shadows, sometimes getting lost in the red gleam of the sunlit tiles. On planes two to six the glow was identical; it had no obvious form. It was something’s aura, all right—the trail of something’s essence—but its material shape was impossible to make out. I tried the first plane, and there, drained of all color by the descending sun, I caught my first glimpse of a leaping man-shaped form.
It sprang from gable to weathervane with the precision of a mountain goat, teetering on the smallest crest, spinning around like a top, then bounding on. As it drew nearer, I began to hear thin cries, like those of an excited child, erupting from its throat.
My fellow imps were possessed by sudden eleventh-hour anxiety. They left off picking their toenails and polishing their tails and began to skitter to and fro about the roof, attempting to hide behind each other and sucking in their bellies in an attempt to look less obvious. “Uh-oh,” they said. “Uh-oh.”
I spied one or two of my fellow djinn following the leaping figure at a cautious distance. Quite why they hadn’t yet attacked, I couldn’t fathom. Perhaps I would soon find out. It was coming my way.
I got up, tucked my tail over my shoulder for neatness’sake, and waited. The other imps darted around me, squeaking incessantly. Eventually, I stuck out a foot and tripped one up. The other cannoned into him and ended up on top. “Quiet,” I snarled. “Try showing a bit of dignity.” They looked at me in silence. “That’s better.”
“Tell you what …” The first imp nudged the other and pointed at me. “He could be next.”
“Yeah. It might take him this time. We could be saved!”
“Get behind him. Quick.”
“Me first! After me!”
There followed such an undignified display of scuffling and scurrying, as they fought with each other to hide behind my back, that my attention for the next few moments was entirely taken up with administering some well-deserved slaps, the noise of which echoed around the town. In the midst of this performance, I looked up; and there, standing astride a parapet at the edge of the tower-block roof, not two meters away, was the renegade afrit.
I admit his appearance startled me.
I don’t mean the golden mask, shaped with the deathly features of the great magician. I don’t mean the wispy hair drifting out behind it on the breeze. I don’t mean the skeletal hands resting easily on the hips, or the vertebrae peeping out above the necktie, or the dusty burial suit hanging so limply off his frame. None of that was particularly exciting; I’ve taken on the guise of a skeleton dozens of times—haven’t we all? No, what surprised me was the realization that this was not a guise, but real bones, real clothes, and a real golden mask up top. The afrit’s own essence was quite invisible, hidden somewhere within the magician’s remains. He did not have a form of his own—on this, or any of the other planes. I’d never seen this done before.3
Whatever the skeleton had been getting up to during the course of the day, it had evidently been quite energetic, since the clothes were looking the worse for wear: there was a trendy slit across the knee,4 a burn mark on one shoulder, and a ragged cuff that looked as if it had been sliced by claws. My master would probably have paid good money for that ensemble if he’d seen it in some Milanese boutique, but for an honest afrit it was a pretty shoddy affair. The bones below the cloth seemed complete enough, however, the joints hinging smoothly as if they had been oiled.
The skeleton regarded the heap of imps with its head cocked to one side. We stood stock still, our mouths agape, frozen in the middle of our scuffle. At last it spoke.
“Are you breeding?”
“No,” I said. “Just a bit of rough-and-tumble.”
“I mean your numbers. There were two of you last time.”
“Reinforcements,” I said. “They called me over to hear you speak. And to get eaten, of course.”
The skeleton pirouetted on the edge of the parapet. “How charming!” it cried gaily. “What a compliment to my eloquence and clarity! You imps are more intelligent than you look.”
I glanced at Tibbet and his friend, who were both standing stock still, mouths wide and dribbling. Rabbits in headlights would have looked on them with scorn. “I wouldn’t count on it,” I said.
In response to my searing wit, the skeleton gave a trilling laugh and an impromptu tap dance with arms aloft. About fifty yards beyond, loitering behind a chimney stack like two shifty teenagers, I could see the other djinn, waiting and watching.5 So I reckoned we pretty much had Gladstone’s bones surrounded.
“You seem in a very upbeat mood,” I observed.
“And why shouldn’t I be?” The skeleton came to a halt, clicking its fingerbones like castanets in time to its shoes’ final climactic tap.
“I’m free!” it said. “Free as can be! That rhymes, you know.”
“Yes … well done.” The imp scratched its head with the tip of its tail. “But you’re still in the world,” I said slowly. “Or at least you are from where I’m sitting. So you’re not really free, are you? Freedom comes only when you break your bond and return home.”
“That’s what I used to think,” the skeleton said, “while I was in that smelly tomb. But not anymore. Look at me! I can go wherever I want, do whatever I like! If I want to gaze at the stars—I can gaze to my heart’s content. If I want to stroll amid the flowers and the trees—I can do that, too. If I want to grab an old man and throw him head over heels into the river—no problem either! The world calls me: Step right on up, Honorius, and do whatsoever you please. Now, imp; I’d call that freedom, wouldn’t you?”
It made a menacing sort of scurry toward me as it said this, its fingers making little clutching spasms and a murderous red light suddenly flaring in the blank sockets behind the eyes of the golden mask. I hopped back hurriedly out of range. A moment later, the red light faded a little and the skeleton’s advance became a merry dawdle. “Look at that sunset!” it sighed, as if to itself. “Like blood and melted cheese.”
“A delightful image,” I agreed. No question about it, those imps were right. The afrit was quite insane. But insane or not, a few things still puzzled me. “Excuse me, Sir Skeleton,” I said, “as a humble imp of limited understanding, I wonder if you would enlighten me. Are you still acting under a charge?”
A long curved fingernail pointed to the golden mask. “See him?” the skeleton said, and its voice was now saturated with melancholy. “It’s all his fault. He bound me into these bones with his last breath. Charged me to protect them forever, and guard his possessions too. Got most of them here—” It swung around to reveal a modern rucksack hanging incongruously on its back. “And also,” it added, “to destroy all invaders of his tomb. Listen, ten out of twelve’s not too bad, is it? I did my best, but the ones that got away keep nagging at me.”
The imp was soothing. “It’s very good. No one could have done better. And I suppose the other two were tough nuts to crack, eh?”
The red light flared again; I heard teeth grinding behind the mask. “One was a man, I think. I didn’t see. He was a coward; he ran while his comrades fought. But the other … Ah, she was a spry little whippet. I’d have loved to get her white neck between my fingers. But—would you credit such guile in one so young? She had purest silver on her person; gave Honorius such a jarring in his poor old bones when he reached out to stroke her.”
“Disgraceful.” The imp shook its head sadly. “And I bet she never even told you her name.”
“She didn’t, but I overheard it—oh, and I so nearly caught her, too.” The skeleton gave a little dance of rage. “Kitty she is and, when I find her, Kitty she’ll die. But I’m in no hurry. There’s time enough for me. My master’s dead, and I’m still obeying my orders, guarding his old bones. I’m just taking them along with me, that’s all. I can go where I want, eat whatever imp I please. Especially”—the red eyes flared—“the talkative, opinionated ones.”
“Mmm.” The imp nodded, mouth tight shut.
“And do you want to know the best of it?” The skeleton spun right around (away on the next roof over, I saw the two djinn duck back behind the chimney stack) and bent down close to me. “There is no pain!”
“Mm-mmm?” I was still being quiet, but I tried to express sufficient interest.
“That’s right. None at all. Which is exactly what I’m telling any spirit whom I meet. This pair—” It pointed at the other imps, who had by now summoned enough gumption to creep off to the opposite end of the roof. “This pair have heard it all several times over. You, no less hideous than they, are privileged to hear it now as well. I wish to share my joy. These bones protect my essence: I have no need to create my own, vulnerable form. I nestle snugly within, like a chick inside my nest. My master and I are thus united to our mutual advantage. I am obeying his command, but can still do whatever I wish, happily and without pain. I can’t think why no one’s thought of this before.”
The imp broke its vow of silence. “Here’s a thought. Possibly because it involves the magician’s being dead?” I suggested. “Most magicians aren’t going to want to make that sacrifice. They don’t mind that our essences shrivel while we serve them; in fact, they probably prefer it, since it concentrates our minds. And they certainly don’t want us wandering about doing any old thing we wish, do they?”
The gold mask considered me. “You are a most impertinent imp,” it said at last. “I shall consume you next, since my essence requires some stoking.6 But you speak sense, nevertheless. Truly I am unique. Unlucky as I once was, trapped for long dark years in Gladstone’s tomb, I am now the most fortunate of afrits. Henceforward I shall roam the world, taking my leisurely revenge on human and spirit alike. Perhaps one day, when my vengeance is sated, I shall return to the Other Place—but not just yet.” It gave a sudden lunge in my direction; I somersaulted backward, just out of reach, landing with my rear end teetering over the edge of the parapet.
“So it doesn’t bother you then that you’ve lost the Staff?” I said quickly, making frantic signals with my tail to the djinn on the opposite roof. It was time we put an end to Honorius and his megalomania.7 Out of the corner of my eye I saw the orangutan scratch his armpit. Either this was a subtle signal promising swift aid, or else he hadn’t seen me.
“The Staff …” The skeleton’s eyes flashed. “Yes, my conscience pricks me a little. Still, what matter? The girl Kitty will have it. She is in London; and sooner or later I will find her.” It brightened. “Yes … And with the Staff in my hand, who knows what I could do. Now stand still, so that I can devour you.”
It reached out a leisurely hand, evidently not expecting further resistance. I suppose the other imps must have sat quietly, accepting their fate, not being a very decisive bunch. But Bartimaeus was made of sterner stuff, as Honorius was about to learn. I gave a little skip between the outstretched arms, jumped up, and bounded over the horrid white head, ripping the death mask off as I did so.8
It came away without difficulty, having been held on by only a few tightened strands of the skeleton’s dirty white hair. Honorius gave a yelp of surprise and wheeled around, his leering skull fully exposed. “Hand that back!”
For answer, the imp danced away around the rooftop. “You don’t want this,” I called over my shoulder. “It belonged to your master and he’s dead. Euuch, and he didn’t have very good teeth, did he? Look at that one hanging by a thread.”
“Give me back my face!”
“Your ‘face’? That’s not healthy talk for an afrit. Ooops, there it goes. Clumsy me.” With all my strength, I spun it away like a small gold Frisbee, off the edge of the building and down into the void.
The skeleton roared with rage and sent three Detonations off in rapid succession, singeing the air around me. The imp flipped and sprang, over, under, over, and down below the parapet, where I promptly used my suckers to cling to the nearest window.
From this vantage point, I waved again at the two djinn lurking over by the chimney, and whistled as shrilly as I could. Evidently, Honorius’s proficiency with his Detonations had been the reason for their previous caution, but I was relieved now to see the stilt-legged bird shift itself, followed reluctantly by the orangutan.
I could hear the skeleton standing on the verge above, craning its neck out in search of me. Its teeth snapped and ground in anger. I pressed myself as flat as I could to the window. As Honorius now discovered, one definite drawback to his residency in the bones was that he could not change his form. Any honest afrit would by now have grown wings and shot down to find me, but without a nearby ledge or roof to hop to, the skeleton was stymied. Doubtless he was considering his next move.
In the meantime, I, Bartimaeus, made mine. With great stealth, I shimmied sideways along the window, across
the wall and around the corner of the building. There, I promptly clambered upward and peered over the top of the parapet. The skeleton was still leaning out in a precarious manner. From behind it looked rather less threatening than from the front: its trousers were ripped and torn, and sagged so catastrophically that I was treated to an unwanted view of its coccyx.
If it would just hold that position a moment more …
The imp hopped up onto the roof and changed back into the gargoyle, which tiptoed across, palms outstretched.
It was just then that my plan was shattered by the sudden appearance of the bird and the orangutan (now complete with orange wings), who descended in front of the skeleton from the sky. Each fired off a burst of magic—a Detonation and an Inferno, to be precise; the twin bolts slammed into the skeleton, knocking it backward away from the precipice. With the swift thinking that is my hallmark, I abandoned my idea and joined in likewise, choosing a Convulsion for variety’s sake. Flickering inky bands swarmed over the skeleton, seeking to shake it to pieces, but to no avail. The skeleton uttered a word, stamped its foot, and the remnants of all three attacks spun away from it, shriveling and fading.
Bird, orangutan, and gargoyle fell back a little on all sides. We anticipated trouble.
Gladstone’s skull rotated creakily to address me. “Why do you think my master chose me for the honor of inhabiting his bones? I am Honorius, a ninth-level afrit, invulnerable to the magic of mere djinn. Now—leave me be!” Arcs of green force crackled out from the skeleton’s fingers; the gargoyle leaped from the roof to avoid them, while the bird and orangutan tumbled unceremoniously out of the sky.
With a bound, the skeleton dropped to a lower roof and made off on its sprightly way. The three djinn held a hurried midair consultation.
“I don’t like this game much,” the orangutan said.
“Nor me,” said the bird. “You heard him. He’s invulnerable.
I remember one time, back in old Siam. There was this royal afrit, see—”
“He’s not invulnerable to silver,” the gargoyle interrupted. “He told me so.”