Ptolemy's Gate

  “It’s hardly his fault, though, is it?” Mwamba put in sympathetically. Of all the rats, she was the most elegant and convincing. Ascobol had one eye, Hodge had a row of poison spines amongst his bristles, and Cormocodran, as always, looked more like a small, brick outhouse than anything else. As for me, my essence was playing me up again; there were some hazy patches around my extremities, although I hoped they were too small for anyone to notice.

  “Maybe not, but he’s a liability on a job like this,” Ascobol said. “Look at his outline now. All fuzzy.”

  “He’ll slow us up. He was lagging when we flew.”

  “Yeah, and he’d be terrible in a fight.”

  “Probably subside into a custard.”1

  “Well, you won’t catch me scooping him up.”

  “Nor me. We’re not on babysitting duty here.”

  “Your high opinion of my powers notwithstanding,” I growled, “I’m the only one who’s actually seen Hopkins. Go on without me if you want. See how far you get.”

  “He’s getting huffy now,” Hodge said in contemplative tones. “Ego like a balloon. Watch out! It’s going to pop!”

  Mwamba batted her tail irritably against the floor. “We’re wasting time. Bartimaeus may be decrepit, but we need his advice before we start.” She smiled as sweetly as a sewer rat can smile. “Please go on, Bartimaeus. Tell us what you saw.”

  You know me. I’m not one to hold grudges.2 I gave a careless shrug. “In truth, it isn’t much. I saw Hopkins, but only briefly. Whether he’s a magician or not, I can’t say. I assume so. Certainly someone used a gang of foliots and djinn to chase me off.”

  “Just a thought, this,” Mwamba said. “You’re sure he’s human?”

  “Hopkins? Yep, I checked him out on all seven planes. Human on each one. If we can catch him by surprise, we should be able to hold him.”

  “Oh, I’ll hold him,” Hodge said in a dark, exulting voice. “Don’t you worry about that. I’ve got a snug place waiting for him, a place where ropes and shackles won’t be needed. A place right here … under my skin.” He sniggered lovingly; the sound faded.

  The other four rats looked at each other.

  Ascobol said, “I think we’ll stick to plain old ropes, Hodge. Thanks for the offer. Right, to continue, we know Hopkins stays here. Any idea which room?”

  I shrugged. “Not a clue.”

  “We’ll have to check the book at reception. What then?”

  Cormocodran shifted his hairy bulk. “We rampage upstairs, break down the door, beat Hopkins to a pulp, and spirit him away. Simple, efficient, satisfying. Next question.”

  I shook my head. “Tactically brilliant, but Hopkins might be alerted as we stomp upon the stairs. We must be subtle here.”

  Cormocodran frowned. “I’m not sure I do subtle.”

  “Besides,” Mwamba said, “Hopkins may not yet have returned. We need to get to his room quietly and see. If he’s away, we lurk within.”

  I nodded. “Disguises are necessary, and in Hodge’s case an additional bath and fumigation. Humans have a sense of smell, you know.”

  The rat in question stirred indignantly, rattling his poison spines. “Step this way, Bartimaeus. I wish to taste your essence.”

  “Oh, yes? Think you can take me?”

  “Nothing would be easier or more welcome.”

  For some while the argument proceeded, scintillating in its wit, verve, and skillful repartee,3 but before I could rout my opponent with a final devastating proof, a bloke came in to use the phone box, and the rats turned tail and scattered.

  * * *

  Twenty minutes passed. At the entrance to the Ambassador Hotel the doorman paced rhythmically from side to side and clapped his hands together to keep warm. A group of guests approached, a woman and three men, all beautifully attired in suits of Silk Road cloth. They spoke quietly together in an Arabic tongue; the woman wore jewels of moonstone at her throat. Each gave off reassuring emanations of wealth, dignity, and social poise.4 The doorman stepped back, saluted. The four acknowledged him with nods and gracious smiles.They passed up the steps and into the hotel foyer.

  A young woman sat smiling behind a mahogany desk. “Can I help you?”

  The most handsome of the men approached. “Good evening. We are from the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sheba. We have a royal party arriving in a few weeks, and wish to inspect your premises with a view to hiring rooms.”

  “Certainly, sir. Would you care to follow me? I will find the manager.”

  The receptionist rose from her desk and padded on light feet down a corridor. The four Sheban diplomats followed; as they did so, one opened a clenched fist. A small but unpleasant insect rose out, all legs, spines, and sulphurous odors, and flew on whirring wings to the vacated desk, where it proceeded to scan the register.

  The hotel manager was a small, amply padded lady of middle age. Her bone-gray hair was swept back and fixed in place by a piece of polished whalebone. She received her visitors with polite reserve. “You are from the Sheban Embassy?”

  I made a courteous bow. “That is correct, madam.Your perspicacity is beyond compare.”

  “Well, the girl just told me. But I was not aware that Sheba was an independent state. I thought it was part of the Arabian Confederacy.”

  I hesitated. “Erm, all that is about to change, madam. We are shortly to become self-governing. It is to celebrate this that our royal guests are coming.”

  “I see … Dear me, self-government is a dangerous trend. I hope Sheba does not set an example to our empire…. Well, I can certainly show you a typical room. This is a very prestigious hotel, as I’m sure you know—private and extremely exclusive. Its security systems have been authorized by government magicians. We have state-of-the-art door-guard demons for every room.”

  “Is that so? Every single one?”

  “Yes. Excuse me—let me just get the appropriate key. I won’t be a minute.”

  The manager bustled swiftly away. At this the female diplomat turned to me. “You idiot, Bartimaeus,” she hissed. “You swore Sheba still existed.”

  “Well, it did last time I was out there.”

  “Which was when, exactly?”

  “Five hundred years or so ago.… Yes, all right. You needn’t get all snippy.”

  The hulking diplomat spoke in rumbling tones. “Hodge is taking his time.”

  “Can he actually read?” I said. “That may have been the flaw in our plan.”

  “Of course he can. Hush. She’s coming back.”

  “I have the key now, sirs, madam. If you would be so good …”

  The manager trotted along a dimly lit corridor, all oak panels, gilded mirrors, and unnecessary pots on stands, pointing out assorted arches. “That is the dining room in there … decorated in the Rococo style, with an original painting by Boucher; beyond are the kitchens. To our left is the grand lounge, the only room where one is permitted to use demons. Elsewhere we forbid their presence, since they are in general unhygienic, noisy, and a repellent nuisance. Particularly djinn. Did you speak, sir?”

  Cormocodran had uttered a croak of rage. He swallowed it down. “No, no.”

  “Tell me,” the manager continued, “is Sheba a magical society? I’m afraid I should know, but I have learned so little of other lands. One has so much to do to occupy oneself in one’s own country, don’t you think? It is hard to have much time for foreigners, particularly when so many of them are savages and anthropophagi. Here is the lift. We ascend to the second floor.”

  Manager and diplomats entered the lift and turned to face the front. As the doors eased shut, a whirring sound was heard. Unnoticed by the manager, a noisome insect, all spines and strange emissions, slipped through the closing crack, flitted onto the sleeve of the Sheban woman and crawled up to her ear. It whispered briefly.

  She turned to me, mouthed the message: “Room twenty-three.”

  I nodded. We had the information we required. The four Sheban diplomats glanced at each
other. As one, they turned their heads slowly to look down at the diminutive manager, who was wittering away complacently about the delights of the hotel sauna, oblivious to the sudden change in atmosphere in the crowded lift.

  “We don’t have to,” I said in Arabic. “We could tie her up.”

  “She might squeak,” said the female diplomat. “And where would we put her?”

  “True.”

  “Well, then.”

  The old lift trundled on. It came to the second floor. The doors opened. Four Sheban diplomats stepped out, accompanied by a whirring insect. The biggest of the four was picking his teeth with a polished whalebone hair grip. He finished presently, stuck the whalebone in the soil of a voluminous pot plant outside the lift, and padded after the others down the silent hall.

  With the door to room twenty-three in sight, we halted once again.

  “What do we do?” Mwamba whispered.

  Ascobol made an impatient noise. “We knock. If he’s there, we break down the door and get him. If not …” His flood of inspiration had wearied him; he ceased.

  “We get inside and wait.” That was Hodge, buzzing around our heads.

  “The woman mentioned a door guard,” I cautioned. “We’ll have to deal with it.”

  “How hard can that be?”

  The group of diplomats approached the door. Mwamba knocked. We waited, looking up and down the corridor. All was still.

  Mwamba knocked again. There was movement within a circular panel in the center of the door. The wood grains shifted, rippling and contorting to form the faint outline of a face. It blinked sleepily and spoke in a squeaky, nasal voice. “The occupant of this room is out. Please return later.”

  I stepped back and considered the base of the door. “It’s pretty tight fitting. Think we could slip under there?”

  “Doubtful,” Mwamba said. “Keyhole might be okay, if we changed to smoke.”

  There was a titter from Ascobol. “Bartimaeus won’t need to change. Look at his lower half—it’s gaseous already.”5

  Cormocodran was frowning down at his hulking torso. “I’m not sure I do smoke.”

  The door guard had listened in with some concern. “The occupant of the room is out,” it squeaked again. “Please do not attempt entrance. I will be forced to act.”

  Ascobol stepped close. “What manner of spirit are you? An imp?”

  “Yes, sir. Indeed I am.” The door guard seemed unfeasibly proud.

  “How many planes can you observe? Five? Very well—take a look at us on the fifth. What do you see? Well? Do you not tremble?”

  The face on the door had swallowed audibly. “A little, sir … But, if I may ask, what is that nebulous blot hovering on the right?”

  “That is Bartimaeus. Pay no attention to him. We others are ruthless and strong and demand to enter the room. What do you say?”

  A pause, a heavy sigh. “I am bound by a bond, sir. I must prevent you.”

  Ascobol cursed. “Then you sign your death warrant. We are powerful djinn. You are a smudge of insignificance. What can you hope to do?”

  “I can sound the alarm, sir. Which is what I have just done.”

  A faint popping, as of bubbles bursting in hot mud. The diplomats glanced left and right: along the corridor on either side a number of heads were rising from the carpet. Each head was oval like a rugby ball, smooth and shiny, beetle-black, with two pale eyes set closely near the base. Each popped free and rose into the air, trailing a writhing strip of tentacles.

  “We need to deal with this quickly, quietly, and neatly,” Mwamba said. “Hopkins can’t know anything has happened.”

  “Right.”

  In a somewhat menacing silence the heads drifted in our direction.

  We didn’t hang around to see what they planned to do. We acted, each one according to their specialty. Mwamba sprang at the wall, scrambled up it and onto the ceiling, from where she clung like a lizard, discharging Spasms at the nearest head. Hodge swelled from insect size in the blink of an eye, turned, and shook his skin, hurling innumerable poison darts toward the enemy. From Ascobol’s shoulders feathered wings protruded; he rose into the air and fired a Detonation. Cormocodran became a man-boar. He lowered his tusks, rotated his massive shoulders, and charged into the fray. As for me, I nipped behind the nearest ornamental pot plant, erected what Shield I could and tried to look inconspicuous.6

  I’d vaguely wondered, as I rearranged the biggest leaves, what sort of threat the floating heads might pose. I soon discovered. As soon as one or two drew close, the heads tipped back, the tentacles drew apart, and tubes within squirted forth black sprays that deluged everything before them. Cormocodran was caught mid-charge; he let forth a bellow of pain—where it hit, the liquid burned his essence; it bubbled, spat, ate into his form. Even so, he was not done. He lunged with his tusks and sent a head crashing down the hall. Ascobol’s Detonation caught another, exploded it in midair; black spray splashed against the walls, further coating the writhing Cormocodran and even pattering onto the topmost leaves of my trusty pot plant.

  Up on the ceiling, Mwamba sprang and dodged, avoiding all but the slightest smears of black. Her Spasms found their mark: here and there heads whirled and shook themselves apart. Hodge’s poison darts had likewise speared a couple: they swelled, turned yellow, and sank to the carpet, where they became ichorous and faded.

  The heads put on a surprising turn of speed. They darted this way and that, seeking to evade the darts, Spasms and Detonations, and to get around behind the djinn for further attacks. In this they were hampered by the confines of the corridor, and by a madness that seemed to have infected Cormocodran. With molten tusks and a face that blurred and steamed, he roared and charged, swiping with his fists, grasping tentacles, trampling with his hooves, seemingly insensible to the gouting spray. With such a foe, the heads were up against it. In less than a minute the last one gloopily subsided. The battle was over.

  Mwamba dropped down from the ceiling, Ascobol floated to the floor. I stepped nimbly out from behind the plant. We regarded the corridor. It was going to give next morning’s cleaners quite a surprise, whatever plane they operated on. Half the walls were coated with the spray; it hissed and foamed and ran in rivulets to the floor. The corridor was a kaleidoscope of stains, scorches, and congealing slime. Even the front half of my pot plant had been badly burned; I rotated it carefully to present its good side to the world.

  “There!” I said brightly. “Think Hopkins is going to notice anything?”

  Cormocodran was in poor shape, the boar’s head scarcely recognizable, his tusks blackened, his nice tattoos quite gone. With limping steps, he approached the door of room twenty-three, where the imp watched blinking in its circle.

  “Now, my friend,” he said, “we must decide upon the nature of your death.”

  “One moment!” the door guard cried. “There is no need for such unpleasantness! Our difference of opinion is at an end!”

  Cormocodran narrowed his eyes. “Why so?”

  “Because the occupant of the room has now returned and you can take up the matter with him personally. Good day to you.” The grains of wood shifted and relaxed; the outline of the face was gone.

  There was a second or two while we stood pondering the mystery of the imp’s words. Then a further second as we slowly turned to look back down the hall.

  Halfway along it stood a man.

  He had evidently just come in from outside, for he wore a winter coat over a dark gray suit. His head was bare and slightly windswept; a shock of brownish hair fell down across a face that was neither old nor young. It was the same man I’d seen in the park: slender, pigeon-chested, thoroughly unremarkable. He had a plastic bag of books in his left hand. Even so, something about him tugged uneasily at my memory, just as it had last time. What was it? I’d have sworn I’d not met Hopkins before.

  I viewed him on the seven planes. Hard to be sure, but his aura seemed a little stronger than most humans’. Perhaps it was
just the lights. He was certainly a man.

  Mr. Hopkins looked at us. We looked at him.

  Then he smiled, turned, and ran.

  Off we went: Mwamba and Ascobol in the lead, Hodge pounding after, me next, conserving as much energy as I could, and finally poor old Cormocodran bringing up the rear.7 Around the corner we piled, into the alcove with the lift.

  “Where’s he gone?”

  “There! Stairs—quick—”

  “Up or down?”

  I saw a flash of sleeve on the turn below. “Down! Quick! Change, someone.”

  A shimmering. Mwamba was a bird with black-green wings, diving down the center of the stairwell. Ascobol became a vulture, a less astute choice, since he had trouble turning his bulk in the narrow space. Hodge shrank, climbed onto the balustrade in the form of an evil-looking pangolin. He curled up into a ball, so that his plates protected him, and dropped bodily down the shaft. No such speed for me or Cormocodran; we hurried after them as best we could.

  Down to the ground floor, through swing doors, out into the corridor. I halted, only to be knocked sprawling by Cormocodran charging blindly along behind, “Which way did they go?”

  “I don’t know. We’ve lost them. No—listen!”

  Sounds of shouts and screams—always a good indication of where my chums might be. It came from the direction of the dining room. As we watched, a number of humans—a pick-’n’-mix assortment of customers and kitchen staff—came bursting through the arch and fled howling up the corridor. We waited for the tubbiest to wheeze past, then hurried on. Into the dining room, along a trail of scattered chairs, cutlery, and broken glass, and through a set of swing doors into the hotel kitchen.

  Ascobol looked around. “Quick!” he cried. “We’ve got him surrounded!”

  The cyclops was standing astride a metal sink top, pointing. To his left, Mwamba blocked the space between two racks of pans, her scaly tail swishing idly to and fro, her long forked tongue flicking at the air. To his right, Hodge had hopped upon a chopping table, and was raising and lowering his poison spines with malevolent intent. All were staring fixedly at the far corner of the kitchen, where the fugitive had taken refuge. Behind him was solid wall, no doors or windows. He had no chance of escape.