Ptolemy's Gate

  No time to waste. The sparrow dropped like a stone to the pavement and crept, unnoticed by the hurrying throng, to the open door. In the act of passing through, I gritted my teeth and changed: the sparrow became a fly, a bluebottle with a furry rump. The flash of pain from the alteration made my flight pattern erratic; I lost track of where I was, meandered for a moment through the smoky air and landed, with a soft plop, in the wineglass of a lady who was just setting it to her lips.

  She looked down, sensing movement, and saw me floating on my back an inch below her nose. I waved a hairy leg; she emitted a scream like a baboon and dashed the glass away. Wine spattered into the face of a man standing at the bar; he careered back in shock, knocking two other ladies from their stools. Cries, yells, much flailing of limbs. All around was tumult. Soused with wine, the bluebottle landed on the surface of the bar, bumped, skidded, righted itself, and hid behind a bowl of peanuts.

  Well, if I hadn’t been quite as unobtrusive as I’d wished, there was at least enough distraction for me to make a quick survey of the room. I wiped a couple of eye-facets clean and did a quickstep off the bar and up a nearby pillar, sashaying between the crisps and bags of pork scratchings. From a vantage point aloft I looked about.

  There, standing in the center of the room, talking avidly with two others, was Jenkins.

  The fly flitted closer among the shadows, checking the planes. None of the men had active magical defenses, though the stench of incense clung to their clothes and their skin had the pallor of the typical working magician. They were a shabby trio to be sure—like Jenkins, the others wore suits too big and too good for them; their shoes were pointed, their shoulder pads a little high. All three were in their twenties, or so I judged. Apprentices, secretaries: none gave off the aura of power. But they spoke avidly; their eyes glittered in the dusk of the Cheddar Cheese with fanatics’ fervor.

  Upside down on the ceiling, the fly craned its head to listen to their words. No luck—the squawking at the bar blocked out the sound. I dropped into midair, circled stealthily down toward them, cursing the lack of walls nearby. Jenkins was speaking; I flitted nearer, close enough now to smell the lacquer on his scalp, see the pores in his little red nose.

  “… thing is to make sure you’re ready for the night. Have you both chosen yours?”

  “Burke has. I’ve not.” It was the weediest of the trio who spoke: rheumy of eye, concave of chest—compared to him, Jenkins looked like Atlas.3 The third man, Burke, was scarcely better, a bandy-legged individual, shoulders flecked with scurf.

  Jenkins grunted. “Get on with it then. Try using Trismegistus or Porter—they’ve both got a lot of choice.”

  The weedy fellow let out a melancholy bleat. “It’s not choice that’s the problem, Jenkins. It’s just—how powerful should I go for? I wouldn’t want—”

  “Not scared, are you, Withers?” Jenkins’s smile was scathing, hostile. “Palmer was scared; and you know what happened to him. It’s not too late to find someone else.”

  “No, no, no.” Withers was aflurry with reassurance. “I’ll be ready. I’ll be ready. Whenever you want.”

  “Are there many of us?” Burke asked. If Withers bleated like a sheep, Burke’s voice was more bovine, that of a ruminative dullard.

  “No,” Jenkins said. “You know not. Just seven in total. One for each chair.”

  Burke gave a low hiccupping laugh. Withers sniggered in a higher key. The idea seemed to entertain them.

  Withers’s caution resurfaced. “And you’re sure we’re safe till then?”

  “Devereaux’s distracted with the war, Farrar and Mandrake with the restless commoners. Far too much going on for anyone to take any notice of us.” Jenkins’s eyes gleamed. “Who, after all, has ever taken any notice of us?” He paused to allow a bit of mutual glowering, then popped his hat back on his head. “Right, I have to go,” he said. “I’ve a few more visits to make. Don’t forget the imps, either.”

  “But the experiment”—Burke had leaned in close—“Withers had a point. We’ll need to see proof that it’s been successful, before we … you understand?”

  Jenkins laughed. “You’ll get that proof. Hopkins himself will show you there are no side effects. But I assure you it’s most impressive. For a start—”

  Whup. With that unusual sound, my eavesdropping came to an abrupt halt. One moment I was buzzing discreetly by Jenkins’s ear, the next a rolled-up newspaper descended like a thunderbolt from the skies and walloped me from behind. It was a treacherous attack.4 I was knocked plumb out of the air and onto the floor, head reeling, six legs akimbo. Jenkins and company looked down at me in vague surprise. My assailant, a brawny bartender, flourished the paper cheerfully at them.

  “Got it,” he smiled. “Buzzing right by your ear, sir. Horrible big ’un too, very out of season.”

  “Yes,” said Jenkins. “Isn’t it?” His eyes narrowed, no doubt studying me through his lenses, but I was a fly on planes one to four, so it told him nothing. He moved suddenly, stretching out a foot to crush me. With perhaps more nimbleness than a wounded fly ought to have, I dodged and drifted off unsteadily toward the nearest window.

  Out in the street I kept the pub door in view, while inspecting my tender essence. It’s a sorry state of affairs when a djinni who___________5 is laid low by a rolled-up piece of paper, but that was the sad fact of the matter. All this changing and being batted about was not doing me any good. Mandrake … It was Mandrake’s doing. He’d pay for this, first chance I got.6

  I was worried that Jenkins might have suspected I was no ordinary insect, and have taken evasive steps, but to my relief he appeared at the door a few minutes later and set off back up Whitehall. I knew the fly guise would no longer wash with him, so—groaning with the pain—I became a sparrow once more, and set off in pursuit.

  As dusk settled on the city, the magician Jenkins made his way, on foot, along the lanes of central London. He had three further assignations. The first was in a hostelry not far from Trafalgar Square. I didn’t attempt to enter this time, but watched him through a window, speaking to a narrow-eyed woman in dowdy dress. Next he crossed Covent Garden up to Holborn, where he entered a small coffee shop. Again I deemed it sensible to keep my distance, but I got a clear view of the person he spoke to, a middle-aged man with an oddly fishlike face. His lips looked as if they’d been loaned him by a cod. Like my essence, my memory was full of holes; even so, something about him was a bit familiar…. No—I gave up. I couldn’t place him.

  It was a curious business all round. From what I’d overheard, some kind of plot was certainly on the boil. But these people seemed oddly unsuited for dangerous machinations. None of them was powerful or dynamic. In fact, the reverse was true. If you’d lined every magician in London up against a playground wall and picked sides for soccer, they’d have been the ones left standing at the end, next to the fat kid and the one with the plaster cast. Their general rubbishness was evidently part of a pattern, but I couldn’t for the life of me tell what it was.

  We came at last to a dilapidated cafe in Clerkenwell and here, for the first time, I noticed a slight alteration in Jenkins. Hitherto he had been breezy, abrupt, casual in his dealings; now, before entering, he paused as if to steady himself. He slicked back his hair, adjusted his tie, and went so far as to inspect the pimple on his chin with a small mirror he had in his pocket. Then he entered the cafe.

  Now this was interesting. He wasn’t talking to equals or inferiors any more. Perhaps the mysterious Mr. Hopkins himself waited inside. I needed to find out.

  Which meant I had to gird my diminutive sparrow’s loins and make another change.

  The cafe door was shut, the windows likewise. A small gap beneath the door let out a slit of yellow light. With a groan of despair, I shifted and became a wisp of coiling smoke, which issued its weary way through the crack.

  A warm fug of coffee, cigarettes, and frying bacon. The smoke’s tip peeped under the door, reared up, and looked left and rig
ht. Everything was a little blurred—following my transformation my eyes were misting worse than ever—but I could make out Jenkins settling himself at a distant table. A dark shape sat there too.

  The smoke slithered across the room, keeping low against the floor, winding cautiously around chair legs and the shoes of customers. An uneasy thought occurred to me; halting beneath a table, I sent forth a Pulse to search for hostile magic.7 While waiting, I looked toward Jenkins’s companion, but his back was to me: I could see no details.

  The Pulse returned—virulent orange, streaked with red. Grimly I watched it fade. So there was magic here, and it wasn’t weak.

  What should I do? Leaving the cafe in a funk wouldn’t help me learn Jenkins’s plans, which was the only way I could secure my dismissal. Besides, if the dark figure was Hopkins, I could then trail him, return to Mandrake, and be free by dawn. All in all—whatever the risks—I had to stay.

  Well, Prague’s walls weren’t built without danger or effort.8 With a couple of silent undulations, the coil of smoke drifted between tables, closer and closer to where Jenkins sat. At the penultimate table I gathered my energies in the overhang of the plastic cloth, then peered tentatively out.

  I could see the dark figure more clearly now, though he still faced away from me. He wore a heavy greatcoat, and also a broad-brimmed hat, which obscured his face.

  Jenkins’s skin was waxy with tension: “… and Lime arrived from France this morning,” he said.9 “All of them are ready. They await their moment eagerly.”

  He cleared his throat unnecessarily. The other did not speak. A faintly familiar magical aura exuded from him. I racked my bleary brains. Where had I seen it before?

  A sudden movement across my table. The smoke recoiled like an anemone—but all was well. A waiter passed me, carrying two mugs of coffee. He plonked them down in front of Jenkins and the other. Whistling tunelessly, he departed.

  I watched the next table. Jenkins took a sip of coffee. He did not speak.

  A hand stretched out for the second mug—a big hand; its back was laced with an odd crisscrossing of thin white scars.

  I watched the hand take the mug, raise it delicately from the table. The head turned a little as it bent to drink; I saw the heavy brow, the hooked nose, the bristles of the trim black beard. And then, too late, I felt the surge of recognition.

  The mercenary drank his coffee. I shrank back into the shadows.

  10

  Thing was, I knew this mercenary. Both times we’d met we’d had a difference of views, and we’d done our best to resolve it in a civilized fashion. But whether I squished him under a statue, blew him up with a Detonation, or (as in our last encounter) simply set him on fire and hurled him down a mountainside, he never seemed to suffer the slightest injury. For his part, he’d come annoyingly close to killing me with various silver weapons. And now, just when I was at my weakest, here he was again. It gave me pause. I wasn’t scared of him, of course; dear me, no. Let’s call it judiciously nervous.

  As always, he was wearing a pair of ancient leather boots, scratched and worn, which positively stank of magic.1Presumably it was these that had triggered my Pulse. Seven-league boots, which can cover great distances in the blink of an eye, are rare indeed; combined with the fellow’s extreme resilience and his assassin’s training, he was a formidable foe. I was rather glad I was well concealed behind the tablecloth.

  The mercenary finished his coffee in a single gulp,2 and rested his scarred hand on the table once again. He spoke. “So they have all chosen?” It was the old familiar voice, calm, deliberate, and ocean-deep.

  Jenkins nodded. “Yes, sir. And their imps too. I hope it will be enough.”

  “Our leader will provide the rest.”

  Aha! Now we were getting down to business! A leader! Was this Hopkins, or someone else? Thanks to my pain, there was a buzzing in my head—I found it hard to listen. Better get closer. The smoke wriggled a little way out from under the table.

  Jenkins sipped his drink. “Is there anything further you wish me to do, sir?”

  “Not for now. I shall organize the vans.”

  “What about the chains and ropes?”

  “I will deal with them too. I have … experience in that department.”

  Chains! Ropes! Vans! Put them together and what do you get? No, I hadn’t a clue either. But it sounded like dirty work to me. In my excitement I wriggled a little nearer.

  “Go home,” the mercenary said. “You have done well. I shall report to Mr. Hopkins now. Things gather pace.”

  “What if I need to contact him? Is he still at the Ambassador?”

  “For the moment, yes. But do so only as a last resort. We must not attract attention.”

  Under the nearby table the coil of smoke would have been hugging itself with glee, had its essence not been quite so stiff. The Ambassador was bound to be a hotel or something. Which meant I had Hopkins’s address, exactly as Mandrake had required. Freedom was almost mine! Like I said, I might be a little below par, but I don’t make mistakes when it comes to stealthy trailing.

  Jenkins was looking a little pensive. “Speaking of that, sir … I have only just recalled … well, earlier this evening there was a fly hovering near while I spoke to Burke and Withers. It was probably innocent enough, but—”

  The mercenary’s voice was like distant thunder. “Is that so? And you did what?”

  Jenkins pushed his little round glasses up his nose—an anxious gesture, which I could well understand. The mercenary was a full foot taller than he, and almost twice as wide. He could have snapped Jenkins’s spine with a single blow. “I kept careful watch as I continued,” he stammered, “but I saw nothing.”

  Naturally. Beneath the table the coil of smoke grinned to itself.

  “Also I asked Truklet, my imp, to follow at a distance and report back here.”

  Ah. Not so good. I ducked back out of sight and twisted to and fro, staring between the chair legs, looking on all the planes. At first—nothing. Then what should I see but a little spider come creeping, creeping along the floor. It was looking under every table, eyes brightly questing this way and that. I rose up out of view, hung undulating in the shadows. Waiting.

  The little spider came creeping, creeping to my table. It passed below … caught sight of me in an instant, and reared up on its back legs to sound an alarm. The coil of smoke swept down, engulfed the spider. There was a moment’s struggle, a desperate squeak.

  Presently the coil of smoke moved again. It went slowly at first, in cumbrous rolls, like a python after a heavy feed, but soon began to gather pace.3

  I looked back. The conspirators were parting company; the mercenary standing, Jenkins staying put, presumably until his imp turned up.4 It was decision time.

  Mandrake had told me to locate Hopkins and uncover his plot, and I’d gone a fair way toward fulfilling the first request. I could have simply headed back to my master there and then, since by rights I’d done enough to justify my dismissal. But “rights,” particularly mine, weren’t things Mandrake understood very well. He’d disappointed me before. So it was better to make absolutely certain; to hit him with so much information that all he could do was thank me humbly and show me to a pentacle.

  And right now the mercenary was going to Hopkins.

  The coil of smoke curled up like a spring beneath the table. I watched the floor nearby. Nothing … nothing … Two boots came into view; old brown leather, scratched and worn.

  Just as they passed, I uncoiled, sprang—and in so doing, made another change.

  The mercenary crossed to the door with stately steps. His coat rustled, weapons clinked about his person. A small long-clawed lizard clung to the leather of his right boot.

  Outside, night had fallen. A few cars droned on a distant road. Passersby were few and far between. The mercenary let the cafe door bang shut behind him, walked a couple of paces, then stopped. The lizard dug its claws in deeper. I knew what was coming.

  A thr
ob of magic, a vibration that shook my essence to its core. The boot I was on rose, tipped, fell to earth again—it was a single step, but all around me the street, the night and the lights of the cafe had blurred into a liquid stream. Another step, and yet another. The stream of light flickered; dimly I sensed buildings, people, and broken shards of noise, but I was too busy hanging on for dear life as the seven-league boots moved without regard for normal space and time. It was like being back in the Other Place again; I would have quite enjoyed the ride had I not felt little grains of essence breaking loose from my extremities, flicking away behind us like dead embers from a fire. Even warmed as I was by my recent feed, it was beginning to be hard to maintain a viable form.

  At the third step the boot rested. Instantly the blurring lights congealed, became a new set of surroundings, another part of London, some miles from the cafe. I waited for my eyes to stop revolving, then took a bleary look around.

  We were in one of the parks, close to Trafalgar Square. With the onset of evening the city’s commoners had straggled here to lose themselves in relaxation. In this aim they were aided by the kind authorities, who—in the months since the war turned sour—provided daily festivities of the most gaudy kind, designed to stimulate the senses and discourage contemplation.

  Away over in the center of the park gleamed the great Glass Palace, a marvelous confusion of domes and minarets, all shimmering with light. Made of twenty thousand curved glass sheets set upon an iron frame, it had been built in the first year of the war, and afterward stuffed full of snack bars and carousels, bear pits and freak shows. It was popular among commoners; less so among djinn. We didn’t like all that iron.

  Other pavilions were dotted about the park, which was sporadically illuminated by colored imp-lanterns hanging among the trees. Here, train cars looped and plummeted, whirligigs bucked and spun; over at the Sultan’s Castle sultry beauties danced before a horde of drunken commoners.5 Along the central pathway vats of wine and ale were broached, and melancholy oxen turned on spits. The mercenary set off among them now, going at a human pace.