Ptolemy's Gate

  “That is all ancient history.” Mr. Makepeace took the iron spike from Mandrake’s fingers and weighed it casually in his palm. “I am a patient man, Mr. Drew, but you begin to irk me. If you do not cease—”

  “Wait a moment.” John Mandrake’s voice had altered; its tone halted the playwright in his tracks. “What Resistance fighter is this? A woman?”

  “Yes! Yes, a girl! Her name is Kitty Jones, although she goes now by another name—Ah, will you stop your whispering!” He groaned and thrashed beneath his bonds.

  A faint rushing sounded in Mandrake’s head. For a moment, he felt dizzy, as if he were about to fall. His mouth was dry. “Kitty Jones? You lie.”

  “No! I swear it! Release me and I will take you to her.”

  “Is this line of questioning really necessary?” Mr. Makepeace wore a petulant frown. “The Resistance is long defunct. Please concentrate on what J say, John. It is extremely important, especially in your current situation. John? John?”

  Mandrake did not hear him. He saw Bartimaeus, wearing the apparel of a dark-skinned boy. He saw him standing in a cobbled courtyard years before. He heard the boy speak. “The golem seized her … incinerated her in seconds.” Kitty Jones was dead. The djinni had told him so. Mandrake had believed him. And now, out of the past, the boy’s sober expression suddenly shifted horribly into a leer of contempt.

  Mandrake leaned over the captive. “Where did you see her? Tell me, and you shall go free.”

  “The Frog Inn, Chiswick! She works there! She has the name of Clara Bell. Now please—”

  “Quentin, be so good as to dismiss the demon and release this man immediately. I must depart.”

  The playwright had become quiet, suddenly withdrawn. “Certainly, John … if you wish it. But will you not wait? I strongly advise you to listen to what I have to say. Forget the girl. There are more important things. I want to discuss this experiment—”

  “Later, Quentin, later.” Mandrake was white-faced; he was already at the arch.

  “But where are you going? Not back to work?”

  Mandrake spoke through gritted teeth. “Hardly. I have a summoning of my own that I have to perform.”

  14

  Time, as I may have mentioned once or twice, does not really exist in the Other Place. Even so, you know full well when you’re being shortchanged. And I had scarcely been reabsorbed by the nourishing energies of the maelstrom when I felt the cruel tug of a summons once again, sucking me out like yolk drawn from an egg, plunging me back upon the hard and bitter earth.

  Already. And my essence had hardly begun to heal.

  My last activities upon the material world had been so painful, so perilous to my essence, that I could barely remember them. But one thing was clear enough: my numbing, cursed weakness! How I—whose power scattered the magicians of Nimrud, who set the Barbary Coast aflame, who sent cruel Ammet, Koh, and Jabor spinning to their doom—how I, that same Bartimaeus, had been reduced to fleeing as a miserable, no-good frog, unable to trade the smallest Detonation with a gang of hireling herons.

  During the whole debacle I’d been too near death to truly feel the righteous anger that was my due. But I felt it now. My very being frothed with it.

  I could dimly recall my master dismissing me. Probably he disliked the mess I was making on his floor. Perhaps my decrepitude had embarrassed him at last. Well, whatever the reason, it hadn’t taken him long to change his mind.

  Fine. I was through with him. We would both go to our deaths. I’d use his name against him now, come what may. My last desire was to see him squirm.

  And I wasn’t going to go out as a paltry amphibian, either.

  In the few short hours I’d been away from Earth, the Other Place had worked its magic. I’d managed to absorb a little energy. It wouldn’t last long, but I was going to put it to good use.

  As I materialized, I drew what was left of my essence into a form that reflected my emotions with simple purity, e.g. a big-horned demon with muscles like melons and lots of teeth. It was the full works. You name it, I’d got it. Brimstone, spear-tail, wings, hooves, claws, even a couple of whips thrown in. My eyes were burning fishhooks, my skin glowed like cooling lava. Not particularly original, but as a statement of intent it did the job nicely. I erupted into the room with a roll of thunder fit to send the living dead scuttling to their coffins. This was followed by a howl of famished rage, the kind uttered by Anubis’s jackals as they prowled about the Memphis tombs—only a bit louder and longer, a vile noise unnaturally prolonged.

  In fact I was still in the middle of my ululation when I caught sight of the figure in the pentacle opposite, and was completely put off my stroke. The barnstorming roar contracted into a wobbling gargle that shot up a couple of octaves and ended in a falsetto squeak with a question mark on the end. The demon—which had been busily rearing up, leather wings akimbo, whips a-cracking—froze in an unstable posture with its backside protruding. The wings slumped; the whips drooped limply. The billowing brimstone cloud petered away into a timorous dribble that drifted discreetly out of view behind my hooves.

  I stopped and stared.

  “All right,” the girl said tartly. “Quit the silly faces. Have you never been summoned by a woman before?”

  The demon lifted a brawny finger and pushed its jaw back into position. “Yes, but—”

  “But nothing. Stop making such a fuss.”

  A forked tongue identical to the tail below issued from the demon’s mouth and moistened its dry lips. “But—but—hold on a minute—”

  “And what horrible kind of manifestation do you call this, anyhow?” she went on. “That noise! That stench! All those folds and knobbly warts and things! What are you trying to prove?” Her eyes narrowed. “I think you’re compensating for something.”

  “Listen,” I began, “this is an established, traditional form that—”

  “Traditional nothing. Where are your clothes?”

  “Clothes?” I said weakly. “I don’t normally bother with them in this guise.”

  “Well, you could put on a pair of shorts, at least. You’re not decent.”

  “I’m not sure they’d go with the wings….” The demon frowned, blinked. “Hold on, enough of this!”

  “Lederhosen would. They’d compliment the leather.”

  With difficulty, I gathered my thoughts. “Stop! Forget the clothes! The point is … the point is—what are you doing here? Summoning me! I don’t understand! This is all wrong!” In my perplexity, all attempts at established, traditional terrors ceased. Much to the relief of my wounded essence, the towering demon shrank and shimmered and adjusted itself down to fit the pentacle more snugly. My leather wings became two shoulder nubs and my tail retracted out of sight.

  “Why is it wrong?” the girl asked. “It’s just another one of those master/servant things you were telling me about when last we met. You know: I’m the master, you’re the slave. I give the orders, you obey without question. Remember how it works now?”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t go with a pretty face,” I said. “So feel free to make lots more comments along those lines. You know perfectly well what I mean. You’re not a magician.”

  She smiled sweetly and gestured about us. “Really? In what way do I not fit the bill?”

  The snug-fit demon looked left. The snug-fit demon looked right. Unnervingly, she had a point. There was I, imprisoned in a pentacle. There was she, standing in another. And all around sat the usual paraphernalia: candelabra, incense bowls, chalk sticks, big book lying on a table. It was an otherwise empty room, without curtains on the window. A big round moon shone high above, splashing a silver light across our faces. Except for the smooth, raised section in the middle where the runes and circle had been painted, the floor was of warped, irregular boards. Behind the taint of rosemary the whole place smelled of damp, disuse, and assorted rodents. So far, so ordinaire. I’d seen this dismal view a thousand times—all that ever changed was the view out of the window.

/>   No, what was preoccupying me was the summoner herself, the so-called magician.

  Kitty Jones.

  There she was. Large as life and twice as confident, standing hands on hips with a grin as wide as the Nile estuary. Exactly as I’d portrayed her all those times while annoying Mandrake.1 Her long dark hair had been chopped back level with her ears; perhaps her face was a little thinner than I remembered. But she looked in far better shape than when I’d last seen her, hobbling down the street after her triumph with the golem. How long had it been since then? Three years—no more. But time seemed to have passed differently for her, somehow: her eyes held the calmness of earned knowledge.2

  All very well. But still, she couldn’t have summoned me. I knew this.

  The pocket demon shook its head. “It’s a trick,” I said slowly. I glanced about, my gaze probing the corners of the room with rapier-keen precision. “The real magician’s here somewhere … hiding.…”

  She grinned. “What, you think I’m concealing him up my sleeve?” She shook her arm somewhat unnecessarily. “Nope. Not there. Perhaps in your great age you’re growing forgetful, Bartimaeus. You’re the one who does the magic.”

  I rewarded her with a suitably demonic scowl. “Say what you like, there’s another pentacle close by … must be … I’ve seen this kind of stunt pulled before …Yes, behind that door, for instance.” I pointed at the only exit.

  “There isn’t.”

  I folded my arms. All four of them. “That’s where he is.”

  She shook her head, almost laughing. “I assure you he’s not!”

  “Prove it! Go open it and show me.”

  She laughed aloud. “Step out of my pentacle? So you can tear me limb from limb? Get real, Bartimaeus!”

  I masked my disappointment with a huffy face. “Tsk. That’s a poor excuse. He’s behind there for sure. Can’t fool me.”

  Her expressions had always been mercurial. Now they switched to one of boredom. “We’re wasting time. Maybe this will convince you.” She uttered a quick five-syllable word. A lilac-colored flame rose from the center of my pentacle and administered a swift jab in a private area. My ceiling-high leap distracted her from my whoop of pain—at least, that was my intention. By the time I landed again, the flame had vanished.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Now don’t you think you should have worn a pair of trousers?”

  I looked at her long and deeply. “You’re lucky,” I said, with as much dignity as I could muster, “that I decided not to reverse that Punitive Jab against you. I know your name, Ms. Jones. That gives me protection, or have your studies not taken you that far?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve heard something about that. I’m not interested in the details.”

  “Again I say it: you’re not a magician. Magicians are obsessed with details. That’s what keeps them alive. I really don’t know how you’ve survived all your other summonings.”

  “What others? This is my first one solo.”

  Despite its singed bottom, from which the odor of burned toast was gently wafting, the demon had been doing its best to appear in belated command of the situation. But this new information felled it once again.3 Yet another plaintive question formed on my lips, but I let it drift away unspoken. There was little point. Whichever way I looked at it, nothing here made sense. So I tried a new and unfamiliar strategy, and stayed silent.

  The girl seemed taken aback by this cunning approach. After a few seconds of waiting she realized that continuing our conversation was up to her. She drew a deep breath to settle her nerves and began to speak. “Well, you’re quite right, Bartimaeus,” she said. “I am not a magician, thank goodness. And this is the one and only summoning that I ever intend to do. I’ve been planning it for the last three years.”

  She took another breath and waited.… A dozen more questions occurred to me.4 But I said nothing.

  “This is just a means to an end,” she went on. “I’m not interested in the things that the magicians want. You don’t have to worry about that.”

  Another pause. Did I speak? No. I just kept shtoom.

  “I don’t want any of that,” the girl said. “I don’t want to acquire vast power or wealth. I think that’s all despicable.”

  My strategy was working, albeit with the pace of a tortoise in lead boots. I was getting an explanation.

  “And I certainly don’t want to subjugate enslaved spirits,” she added brightly. “If that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Not interested in subjugation?!” Bang went my strategy—but hey, I’d managed more than a minute’s silence, which was itself some kind of record. The diminished demon fingered its burned region gingerly, letting off little oohs and aahs of discomfort. “You’ve got a funny way of going about it then. I’m in pain here, you know.”

  “I was just proving a point, that’s all,” she said. “Look, would you mind not doing that? You’re putting me off my stride.”

  “Doing what? I was only feeling—”

  “I saw quite well what you were feeling. Just stop it. And while you’re about it, can’t you change into something else? That really is the most hideous incarnation. I thought you had more class.”

  “This—hideous?” I whistled. “You really haven’t done many summonings, have you? All right then, seeing as you’re so sensitive. I shall cover my modesty.” I changed into my favorite guise. Ptolemy suited me, as I felt comfortable in his form, and he suited the girl too, as his burned bits were hidden under his loincloth.

  As soon as I altered, her eyes lit up. “Yes,” she whispered under her breath. “That’s it!”

  I looked at her, eyes narrowed. “Sorry, can I help you with something?”

  “No, it’s nothing. Um, that’s … that’s a much better shape.” But she was all breathless and excited and it took her a few moments to regain her poise. I sat down cross-legged on the floor and waited.

  The girl sat too. For some reason she was suddenly more relaxed. Where a minute earlier her words had been slow and cumbersome, now they burst from her in a veritable flood.

  “Well, I want you to listen to me very carefully, Bartimaeus,” she said, leaning forward with her fingers jabbing against the floor. I watched them closely, just in case they chanced to jab a chalk line, maybe smudging it a little. I was interested in what she had to say, for sure, but I wasn’t going to miss an opportunity of escape.

  Ptolemy rested his chin upon the back on one hand. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

  “Good. Oh, I’m so pleased it’s worked out so well.” She rocked back and forth on her haunches, almost hugging herself with delight. “I hardly dared to hope that I’d succeed. I had so much to learn—you have no idea. Well … maybe you do,” she conceded, “but from a standing start I can tell you it was not much fun.”

  My dark eyes frowned at her. “You’ve learned all this in three years?” I was impressed, and more than a little doubtful.

  “I started not long after I saw you. When I got my new identity papers through. I was able to visit libraries, get books of magic out—”

  “But you hate magicians!” I burst out. “You hate what they do. And you hate us spirits too! You told me so to my face—which, I might add, rather hurt my feelings. What’s changed that makes you want to call one up?”

  “Oh, I wasn’t after any old demon,” she said. “The whole purpose of my studying all this time, of my mastering these … these wicked skills, was to summon you.”

  “Me?”

  “You seem surprised.”

  I drew myself up. “Not at all, not at all. What was it that drew you back? My marvelous personality, I suppose? Or my sparkling conversation?”

  She chuckled. “Well, not the personality, of course. But yes—the conversation was what did it for me, what caught my imagination when we spoke before.”

  In truth, I remembered this conversation too. Three years had passed, but it seemed longer now, back in the days when my perennial master Nathaniel was still a glum outs
ider, panting for recognition. It had been during the middle of the golem crisis, when London was being beset by the clay monster and Honorius the afrit, that my path crossed Kitty Jones’s for the second time. She had impressed me then both with the force of her personality and with her fierce idealism, qualities rarely mingled in magicians. She was a commoner—scarcely educated, ignorant of everything that had conspired to create her world, but nonetheless defiant and hopeful of change. And more than that too: she had risked her life to save that of her enemy, a despicable lowlife, someone unfit to so much as lick her boots.5

  Yep, she’d made an impression on me. And on my master too, come to think of it.

  I grinned. “So you liked what you heard, eh?”

  “You set me thinking, Bartimaeus, with all your talk of civilizations come and gone. Above all, you said there were patterns to look out for, and I knew I had to find them.” One finger jabbed down as she made the point, almost touching the red chalk line. It was close, very close. “So,” she said simply, “I went looking.”

  Ptolemy adjusted the corner of his loincloth. “All very well, but that’s a different thing from cruelly ripping an innocent djinni from his place of rest. My essence is in sore need of respite. Mandrake’s kept me in service”—I made a rapid finger-and-toe calculation—“for six hundred and eighty-three days out of the last seven hundred. And that has its effects. I’m like an apple at the bottom of a barrel—sweet and fair to look at, but bruised to a pulp beneath the skin. And you’ve taken me from my place of healing.”

  Her head was tilted; she looked up at me from under her brows. “The Other Place, you mean.”

  “That is one of its names.”

  “Well, I’m sorry to have disturbed you.” She spoke as if all she’d done was rouse me from a little nap. “But I didn’t know I could even do it. I feared my technique might be faulty.”

  “Your technique’s fine,” I said. “In fact it’s good. And that leads me to my biggest question. How have you learned to summon me?”

  She shrugged modestly. “Oh, it wasn’t so hard. You know what I think? The magicians have been exaggerating the difficulty for years, just to put the commoners off. What does it take, after all? A few careful lines drawn with rulers, string, and compass. A few runes, some spoken words. Popping down the market to get some herbs … a bit of peace and quiet, a little memorizing … do all that and you’re sorted.”