The mercenary spoke no more. Gloved hands grasped their collars; firmly, but without undue roughness, they were guided out of the door and up the corridor. In the distance they heard a great gabbling and babbling, a cacophony of shrieks and yells—the gathering sound of pandemonium.
Nathaniel was quite calm. So black was the outlook now that fear had become redundant. The worst was upon them, death was all but inevitable, yet he faced it without anxiety. His final conversation with Kitty had lit a fire within him—to Nathaniel it seemed she had burned away all his weaker emotions. His head still spun with her revelations of Bartimaeus’s past, but it was her own example that inspired him as the crisis approached. It scarcely mattered that she had pinned her hopes on Ptolemy’s Gate—a mirage, a phantom, a fairy tale that all sensible magicians had long ignored—it was the look in her eyes as she talked of it that fascinated him. Excitement had shone there, and wonder, and belief—sensations that Nathaniel had almost forgotten. Now, at the last, she had reminded him, and he was grateful. He felt cleansed, almost eager for what was to come. He glanced across; her face was pale, but set. He hoped he would not weaken in front of her.
His eyes flickered from side to side as they went, taking in the familiar surroundings of the Whitehall passages, the oil paintings, the plaster busts sitting in their niches, the paneled walls and imp-light. They passed the stairs that led to the vaults and, distantly, the Staff; instinctively, Nathaniel flinched toward it. The grip on his collar tightened. They rounded the final corner.
“Here,” the mercenary whispered. “Let this sight put an end to your dreams.”
During their absence the demons had been busy. The Hall of Statues, for a hundred years the sedate meeting place of the Council, had been transformed by its new rulers. Everywhere was movement, noise, uncoordinated hubbub. Nathaniel’s senses were briefly overwhelmed.
The round table and its chairs had been swept from the center of the room. The table now rested against the far wall; upon it sat the golden chair. Here lolled Nouda, the great demon, in an attitude of temporary repletion. One leg dangled over a chair arm, the other extended before him. Makepeace’s shirt had been untucked—it hung loose about the swollen stomach. The eyes were glazed; the mouth unnaturally stretched—it wore a tired smile, as of one who has lately completed a pleasant meal. A few odd rags and clothes lay on the tabletop around him.
Below the table, upon a redwood chair, the demon Faquarl stood cloaked in Mr. Hopkins’s body. It was he who orchestrated events: he held a book open in his hands and uttered crisp orders to the company below.
The bodies of the five original conspirators—Nathaniel recognized Lime, Jenkins, and the scrawny Withers—were now operated by their demons with some efficiency. True, there were still plenty of trips and stumbles, the legs and arms swinging with abrupt staccato movements, but they no longer fell or collided with the wall. This had enabled them to venture out of the room and—as the scrying-glass imp had reported—bring forth selected members of the government from their cells. Batch by batch, great and small, the magicians were being transformed.
To the left, Lime and Withers stood watchful guard over a huddle of waiting prisoners, perhaps twenty in number, their hands still bound. Not far away, in a pentacle close to Nouda’s throne, one of these prisoners had been untied; now she stood free, uttering the fatal summons in a quavering voice. She was a woman unknown to Nathaniel, presumably from another department. As he watched, she stiffened and shook. The air about her shimmered as the arriving demon took possession. Faquarl made a gesture; the demon Naeryan, dressed in Jenkins’s body, led her gently to the far corner of the hall, to join—
The hairs prickled on Nathaniel’s head. There they were—more than two dozen magicians from every level of the government, rolling, twitching, laughing, falling, as their masters explored their limitations. Occasional bursts of magical energy exploded against the walls; the air was full of the murmuring of alien tongues, strange cries of joy and pain. And what was that among them, head twitching, hands rising and falling like a puppet’s, florid face gleaming and vacuous? Nathaniel recoiled.
Rupert Devereaux, the Prime Minister …
Despite everything that had occurred, despite his awakening abhorrence of what the man had been and represented, Nathaniel felt tears pricking at his eyes. For an instant he was twelve years old again, caught up in the swirl of Westminster Hall, seeing Devereaux for the first time—dazzling, charming, everything he aspired to be….
Devereaux’s body gave a caper, collided with another, and collapsed in a writhing heap. Nathaniel was sick with horror; he felt his knees sag.
“Up with you!” The mercenary gave him a cursory shove. “Join the line.”
“Wait!” Nathaniel half turned. “Kitty—”
“She does not share your destiny, for which you may be thankful.”
Nathaniel stared across at Kitty, who for a single moment caught his gaze; then he was propeled savagely toward the crowd of prisoners. Lime’s body turned, caught sight of him; he saw green lights far off behind the eyes. A harsh voice, like the snapping of twigs, emerged from the loose mouth: “Faquarl! Here is Bartimaeus’s friend! You want him next?”
“Certainly I do, Gaspar. He can jump the queue. He shall come after this sour creature. Lord Nouda, I assume you have no wish to taste this one.”
The great voice rumbled from on high. “I have seen better flesh on a pharaoh’s corpse.When she turns sideways, she all but disappears. Process her and be done.”
Nathaniel’s eyes were fixed on the figure in the pentacle. Stick-thin, white hair disheveled, his old master Jessica Whitwell stood staring up toward the throne. The demon in Withers’s body had just removed her bonds; her hands were knotted fists.
“Very well.” Faquarl consulted his book. “Number twenty-eight. Let me see. I have chosen the afrit Mormel for you. You should be honored. He is a noble spirit.”
Ms.Whitwell stared up at the figure on the throne. “What is your plan for us?”
“Do not think to address the great Nouda!” Faquarl cried. “You and your kind have enslaved us for centuries, showing no consideration. What do you think we plan? This revenge has been incubated for five thousand years! No portion of the world will be safe from us.”
Ms. Whitwell laughed contemptuously. “I think you are overoptimistic. Look at you all, trapped in awkward bodies, barely able to walk in a straight line.”
“Our inconveniences are only temporary,” Faquarl said. “Yours shall be permanent. Begin the summons.”
Jessica Whitwell spoke quietly. “To all the others you have given a choice. You have not asked me for mine.”
Faquarl lowered his book; his eyes were narrowed. “Well, I assume, like all the other wretches, you prefer life to death, even if it is life worked through another.”
“You assume wrongly.”
Ms. Whitwell raised her hands and made an ornate sign; she shouted out two words. A burst of yellow light, a cloud of brimstone—her afrit, wearing the form of an uneasy-looking grizzly bear—appeared above her head. Whitwell screamed an order; a shimmering blue Shield rose up around her body. The afrit sent a Detonation at the startled Faquarl: it struck him head-on, knocking him off his chair and halfway through the wall.
The demons in the bodies of the conspirators set up a clamor. Naeryan raised a finger: from Jenkins’s hand a lance of emerald light stabbed at Whitwell. The Shield absorbed it; Whitwell was already turning, running for the exit. The demon Gaspar, encased in the body of Lime, leaped forward to intercept her; Nathaniel stretched out a boot; the demon tripped, was unable to right itself, fell crashing to the ground.
Nathaniel turned and ran; above his head the bear afrit sent successive Detonations toward the golden throne.
Where was Kitty? There! But the mercenary held her by the arm. She struggled, kicked, could not break free.
Nathaniel sped toward her—
The floor shook; he stumbled, fell—and, for a moment
, looked behind him.
The body in the golden chair had moved. It was surrounded by a nimbus of pale fire. Energies crackled from its fingers; its eyes were silver notches in the darkened face. One hand was outstretched. The power that came from it—arcing out in five looping bolts, one from each finger—made statues fall and mortar tumble from the ceiling. The bolts were randomly directed: two plunged harmlessly into the floor; one leaped among the crowd of newly summoned demons, destroying several human bodies. The fourth struck Whitwell’s Shield, broke it into shards and cut straight through her back, killing her instantly. The bear afrit vanished. She fell midstride, facedown upon the flagstones.
The fifth bolt burst the floor at the mercenary’s feet: he was blown one way, Kitty Jones the other.
Nathaniel was on his feet. “Kitty!”
His voice was drowned out by assorted howls, roars, bays, and trumpetings from the demons in the hall. Confused and panic-stricken, they willed their human carriers in every direction, legs working oddly, knees too high, elbows out. They collided with each other, let fly random Detonations and Infernos. Among them stumbled a few magicians who had yet to be processed, arms still tied, mouths gagged, eyes wide and staring. The room was filled with smoke, lights, and rushing forms.
Amid the tumult Nathaniel came to the place where Kitty Jones had fallen. She was nowhere to be seen. He flinched as a magical pulse passed above his head, and looked round a final time. No, she had gone.
Without further hesitation he ducked between two flailing demons and made for the double doors. As he left the Hall of Statues, he could hear Faquarl’s voice rising above the commotion. “Friends, calm down! Calm down! The crisis is over! We must resume the summonings. Calm down.…”
It took Nathaniel less than a minute to negotiate the corridors and arrive at the stairs to the Whitehall vaults. Abandoning all caution, he leaped over the balustrade and careered down the staircase two steps at a time. Down, down … the air grew colder, all sound from above faded clean away; Nathaniel heard nothing now but the gasping of his breath.
At the end of the third flight the steps opened out into the entrance vault. Two days before—or was it three?—he had come here as Information Minister and been shown the treasure room by a supercilious clerk. It seemed another life. Now the clerks desk was empty. It gave signs of being abandoned in a hurry; papers were scattered upon it, a pen lay on the floor.
At the end of the chamber a passage led away into the earth. A line of red tiles marked the beginning of the security zone. Nathaniel stepped toward them; as his shoe rose to cross the line, he cursed, stopped dead, and felt inside his pocket. Careful! He had almost triggered the trap. Nothing magical was permitted beyond the line! He deposited the scrying glass upon the desk, smoothed down his hair, and stepped across the tiles.
If only the Pestilence guarding the Staff could be so easily bypassed. He hadn’t a clue how to—
A little noise behind him, a scraping of metal.
Nathaniel stopped, looked back … Across the chamber, at the bottom of the stairs, the mercenary was standing. A curved knife glinted in his hand.
27
Kitty shut the door.
Noises from the Hall of Statues echoed in her ears; she could hear the commotion even down the corridor and through the heavy wood. She remained still for a time, pressing her ear against the door. More than anything else she feared being followed by the terrible bearded man. Something in him filled her with more dread than the massing hordes of demons.
She listened.… As far as she could tell, nothing stirred in the corridor outside.
A heavy key protruded beside her hand. With some difficulty, and fully conscious of the only moderate security it represented, Kitty locked the door. Then she turned to face the room.
It was just as she remembered it from her failed escape attempt: someone’s office, sparsely furnished. A bookcase ran along one wall; opposite was a desk piled high with papers. And, crucially, in the near corner, scuffed and scoured with many years of bureaucratic use—two circles, two pentacles.
Kitty only needed one.
The pentacle design was simple, of the kind she had frequently prepared with Mr. Button: conventional star, double circle, normal Latin hex-locks. It had been painted on a raised dais and, owing to the dimensions of the room, was not particularly large. Elsewhere—she made a quick inspection—she found the usual magician’s accessories, gathered in the drawers of the desk. Chalks, pens, paper, candle stubs, lighters, jars of assorted herbs. The herbs were what she needed. She extracted them with calm efficiency and set them on the floor beside the outermost circle.
From somewhere not so very distant came a loud explosion. Kitty started nervously, heart pounding in her chest; she looked toward the door….
Concentrate. What did she have to do?
Mandrake’s—no, Nathaniel’s summary of the instructions in the Apocrypha had been rapid and hard to digest, but Kitty had grown used to such things during her time with Mr. Button. Her memory was suitably elastic.
So … a conventional pentacle. No candles required. Yep, this one was fine.
But her body should be protected—and that meant herbs and iron. She emptied out the rosemary, Saint-John’s-wort, and sticks of rowan wood, mixed them together, and separated the result into several rough piles, which she placed at intervals within the pentacle. As for the iron, that was more tricky. For a moment she cast her eyes about the room in vain. Perhaps she would have to do without it….
The key. Was it iron? Kitty had no idea. If it was, it might protect her. If not, it would do no harm. She pulled it from the door.
What else? Yes … Nathaniel had said something about breaking the circle, a symbolic act to allow the magician to return to his body. Very well, that could be done. She bent down, and with the key’s edge scored a gash in the painted circle. It was useless now for any ordinary summons. But this was not what Kitty planned.
She stood upright. Finished. No other physical preparations were necessary.
Except … the small matter of her comfort. On the chair behind the desk she discovered a dirty old cushion, much used and battered, and this she placed in the pentacle as a pillow.
A mirror hung on the wall behind the desk; as she returned from the door, she caught sight of herself in passing. Only then did Kitty pause.
It had been a while since she had looked at her face; she could not remember the last time. There she was: the thick dark hair, dark eyes (complete with outstanding bags), the quizzical lips, a purple bruise swelling becomingly above one eye. No doubt about it, she was a little shopworn. But still young, still well.
And if she succeeded in what she planned? Terrible things had happened to those magicians who had tried to follow Ptolemy’s course. Mr. Button had been unspecific in the details, but given dark hints of madness and deformity. As for Ptolemy himself, she knew he had not survived for long after creating his Gate. And Bartimaeus had said his face had—
With a curse, Kitty turned from the mirror. In truth, whatever risk she ran was immaterial compared with what was going on nearby. She had resolved to try and that was an end to it. There was nothing more she could do. Getting teary would achieve nothing. So.
So there was nothing left for her but to lie within the pentacle.
The floor was hard, but the cushion felt pleasant against the back of her head. Herb smells filled her nostrils. She took the key and closed it in her fist. A deep breath—
An afterthought struck her. She raised her head, looked along her body, and to her annoyance discovered an awkward fact. She was too long for the circle—her feet stuck out over the inner lines. Perhaps it wouldn’t matter, but perhaps it would. Kitty rolled onto her side, drew her knees to her chest, and assumed a curled-up position, as if she were in bed. A quick squint along … fine, she was nice and tidy now. Nice and ready.
But ready for what? A sudden burst of skepticism exploded in her. This was nothing but another of her dreams, one o
f the ridiculous fancies Bartimaeus had derided. It was the height of arrogance to think she could succeed where no one else had in two thousand years or more. What was she thinking? She was no magician.
But perhaps this was an advantage. Bartimaeus had prompted her to try it, she knew he had. His last words as he left them had echoed his description of Ptolemy: “We do have a bond … but for the present there are limits to it.” For the present … What was that if not an implicit invitation to her and her alone? Ptolemy had known no limits: he had come to the Other Place by rejecting all the established magical conventions—by turning them on their head. And you didn’t need more than the basic knowledge of summoning to do what he had done—the instructions in the Apocrypha were entirely straightforward. The crucial part was calling to the demon at the end. Kitty could do all this. The question was: would it work?
There was only one way to find out.
She closed her eyes and tried to relax her muscles. The room was very quiet—no sound came through the door. Time to begin the summons? No, something was still not right.… What was it? After a moment she realized her hand was clenched so tightly upon the key that it dug hard into her skin. That was a symbol of her fear. She concentrated for a few moments, allowing her finger-grip to slacken…. Now she cupped the metal gently. Better …
Remembered fragments came into her head, words written by past authorities about the Other Place: a region of chaos, a whirl of endless abominations, a sump of madness … cheerful pronouncements all. Then there was Mr. Button’s pithy edict: to venture there risks body and soul. Oh, God, so what would happen to her? Would she melt or burn? Would she see—? Yes, but whatever she saw could hardly be worse or more abhorrent than Nouda and his crippled hybrids—his demons cloaked in human flesh. And none of Mr. Button’s authorities had even visited the Other Place! It was all pure speculation. Besides, Ptolemy had returned alive.