Kitty curled her lip contemptuously at the blatant propaganda of the woodcut. That was Mandrake’s work: he was head of Information now. And to think she’d let him live.
But it had been the djinni Bartimaeus who had encouraged her to do it, to act to spare the magician’s life, and three years later, this still puzzled and intrigued her. Nothing that she had known about demons had quite prepared her for Bartimaeus’s personality. Their conversations, framed against a backdrop of fear and danger, remained fresh in her mind—full of vitality, insight, and, above all, an unexpected rapport. He had opened a door for her, giving her a glimpse of a historical process she had never guessed at: thousands of years of magicians enslaving demons, forcing them to lend their power. Thousands of years, during which time a dozen empires had risen to glory, waned, then crumbled. The pattern recurred again and again. Demons were summoned, magicians fought their way to wealth and fame. Stagnation set in. Commoners discovered inherent abilities they didn’t know they had—magical resilience built up through the generations that allowed them to rebel against their rulers. The magicians fell; new ones appeared elsewhere and began the process once more. So it went on: an endless cycle of strife. The question was—could it be broken?
A horn blared; with a jerk, the bus came to a sudden stop. Kitty lurched back into her seat and craned her neck against the window in an effort to see the cause.
From somewhere beyond the front of the bus a young man came flailing through the air. He landed heavily on the pavement, lay there an instant, and began to rise. Two Night Police, gray-uniformed, shiny of boot and cap, hurried into view. They flung themselves upon the youth, but he fought and kicked, punched his way free. He struggled to his feet. One officer produced a stick from her belt: she spoke a word—a glimmering blue current crackled at its end. The crowd that had gathered drew back in alarm. The young man retreated slowly. Kitty saw that his head was bloodied, his eyes wild.
The policewoman advanced, waving her jolt-stick. A sudden lunge, a jab.The current caught the young man in the chest. He jerked and twitched a moment; smoke billowed from his burning clothes.Then he laughed—a harsh and mirthless sound, like the calling of a crow. His hand reached out and grasped the stick at its active end. Blue energies juddered on his skin, but he seemed impervious: in two quick movements he had seized the stick, reversed it—and sent the policewoman jerking back upon the pavement in a flash of light. Her limbs twitched, her body arched, subsided. She lay quite still.
The young man threw the jolt-stick aside, turned upon his heel and, without a backward glance, disappeared down a side alley. The silent crowd parted for him.
With a grinding shudder and a rumble of gears, the bus set off. A woman sitting in front of Kitty shook her head at nobody in particular. “The war,” she said. “It’s causing all this trouble.”
Kitty looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes to the library. She closed her eyes.
It was half true: the war was causing most of the trouble, both at home and abroad. But the spreading resilience of the commoners was helping to fan the flames.
Six months previously the War Minister, Mr. Mortensen, had implemented a new policy. In a bid to bludgeon the American rebels into submission, he determined to dramatically increase the size of the government force. To this end he enacted the Mortensen Doctrine—a policy of mobilization across the country. Recruitment offices were opened, and commoners were encouraged to sign up to the armed forces. Lured by the prospect of preferential jobs on their return, many men did so. After a few days of training they sailed for America on special troopships.
Months passed; the expected return of the conquering heroes did not materialize. Everything went quiet. Information from the colonies was hard to come by; government statements became elusive. At length rumors began, perhaps spread by traders operating across the Atlantic: the army was bogged down deep in enemy territory; two battalions had been massacred; many men were dead, some had fled into the trackless forests and had never been seen again. There was talk of starvation and other horrors. The recruitment office queues dwindled and died away; a sullenness stole imperceptibly across the faces of people in the London streets.
In due course passive resentment turned to action. It began with a few disjointed episodes, far-flung and brief, each of which could be ascribed to random local causes. In one town a mother conducted a solitary protest, hurling a rock through the window of a recruitment office; in another, a group of laborers set down their tools and refused to toil for their daily pittance. Three merchants tipped a truckload of precious goods—golden oats, fine flour, sun-cured hams—upon the Whitehall road and, dousing it with oil, ignited it, sending a fragile ribbon of smoke into the sky. A minor magician from the eastern colonies, perhaps maddened by years of foreign diet, ran screaming into the War Ministry with an elemental sphere in his hand; in seconds he had activated the sphere, destroying himself and two young receptionists in a maelstrom of raging air.
While none of the incidents was as dramatic as the attacks once carried out by the traitor Duvall, or even by the moribund Resistance, they had greater staying power in the public mind. Despite the best efforts of Mr. Mandrake at the Information Ministry, they were discussed repeatedly in markets, at workplaces, in pubs and cafes, until by the strange alchemy of gossip and rumor they were joined together into one big story, becoming the symptoms of a collective protest against the magicians’ rule.
But it was a protest without teeth, and Kitty, who had tried active rebellion in her time, was under no illusions about how it was going to end. Each evening, at work in the Frog Inn, she heard proposals of strikes and demonstrations, but no suggestion of how to prevent the magicians’ demons from cracking down.Yes, a few scattered individuals had resilience, as she had, but that alone was not enough. Allies were needed too.
The bus set her down in a peaceful, leafy road south of Oxford Street. Shouldering her bag, she walked the last two blocks to the London Library.
The guard had seen her often, both singly and in the company of Mr. Button. Nevertheless, he ignored her greeting, held out his hand for her pass, and scanned it sourly from his perch on a high stool behind a desk. Without comment, he ushered her on. Kitty smiled sweetly and strolled into the library foyer.
The library filled five labyrinthine floors, extending across the width of three town houses in the corner of a quiet square. Although out of bounds to commoners, it was not primarily concerned with magical texts, but instead with works that the authorities considered dangerous or subversive in the wrong hands. These included books on history, on mathematics, astronomy and other stagnant sciences, as well as literature that had been forbidden since Gladstone’s day. Few of the leading magicians had the time or inclination to visit it, but Mr. Button, from whose attentions few historical texts were safe, sent Kitty to browse there frequently.
As usual, the library was almost deserted. Looking into the alcoves stretching away from the marbled stairs, Kitty made out one or two elderly gentlemen, sitting crumpled below the windows in the apricot afternoon light. One held a newspaper loosely in his hands; another definitely slept. Along a distant aisle a young woman was sweeping the floor; shht, shht, shht went the broom, and faint clouds of dust seeped through the shelving to the aisles on either side.
Kitty had a list of titles to borrow on Mr. Button’s behalf, but she also had an agenda of her own. After two years’ regular visits, she knew her way around; before long she was in a secluded corridor on the second floor, standing in front of the Demonology section.
Necho, Rekhyt … Her knowledge of ancient languages was nonexistent: these names might belong in almost any culture. Babylonian? Assyrian? On a hunch, she tried Egyptian. She consulted several general demon listings, all bound in cracked black leather, yellowed pages covered in tight, faint columns of script. Half an hour passed; she found nothing. A brief consultation with the library index led her to a remote alcove beside a window. A window seat with purple cushions waited invitin
gly. She hauled down several specialist Egyptian almanacs and began to search.
Almost immediately, in a portly dictionary, she found something.
Rekhyt: Engl, transl.: lapwing. This bird symbolized slavery to the Egyptians; occurs commonly in tomb art and in hieroglyphs on magicians’ papyri. Demons with this byname recur in the Old, New, and Late Periods.
Demons plural … That was frustrating. But she’d pinned the epoch down, for sure. Bartimaeus had been employed in Egypt; for some of that time, at least, he had been known as Rekhyt.… In her mind’s eye Kitty saw the djinni as she remembered him: dark, slight, wearing a simple wraparound kilt. From what she knew of the appearance of the Egyptians, Kitty felt she might be onto something.
For another hour she sat there, flipping contentedly through the dusty pages. Some books were useless, written in foreign tongues, or in phrases so abstruse that the sentences seemed to coil up on themselves before her eyes. The rest were dense and forbidding. They gave her lists of pharaohs, of civil servants, of the warrior-priests of Ra; they provided tables of known summonings, of surviving records, of obscure demons sent on mundane tasks. It was a daunting search, and more than once, Kitty’s head nodded. She was startled back into life by police sirens in the distance, by shouts and chanting from a nearby street, once by an elderly magician blowing his nose loudly as he shuffled down the passage.
The autumn sun was lowering level with the library window; its rays warmed the seat with a golden light. She glanced at her watch. Four-fifteen! Not long before the library closed, and she hadn’t even found Mr. Button’s books. In three hours she must be at work too. It was an important night and George Fox of the Frog Inn was a stickler for punctuality. Wearily she pulled another volume across the window seat and flipped it open. Just another five minutes, then—
Kitty blinked. There it was. A list, eight pages long, of selected demons, tabulated alphabetically. Now then … Kitty scanned down it with practiced speed. Paimose, Pairi, Penrenutet, Ramose … Aha—Rekhyt. Three of them.
Rekhyt (I): Afrit. Slave of Sneferu (4th Dynasty) and others; of legendarily vicious temperament. Killed at Khartoum.
Rekhyt (II): Djinni. By-name of Quishog. Guardian of the Necropolis of Thebes (18th Dynasty). Morbid tendencies.
Rekhyt (III): Djinni. Also named Nectanebo or Necho. Energetic, but unreliable. Slave of Ptolemaeus of Alexandria (fl. 120s B.C.).
It was the third one, it had to be…. The entry was shortness itself, but Kitty felt a surge of excitement in her veins. A new master, a new possibility. Ptolemaeus … the name was quite familiar. She was sure she’d heard Mr. Button mention it; sure even that he owned books with it in the title … Ptolemaeus. She racked her brains—well, it would be easy enough to track down the reference, when she got back.
With fevered haste, Kitty noted down her findings in her jotter, snapped the elastic band around it, and shoved it into her tattered satchel. She gathered the books into an untidy pile, hoisted them into her arms, and returned them to the shelves. As she did so, the distant buzzer sounded in the foyer. The library was closing! And she’d still not got her master’s books!
Time to move. But it was with a definite sense of triumph that Kitty sprinted down the corridor. Better look out, Bartimaeus, she thought as she ran. Better look out … I’m closing in on you.
8
The afternoon’s Council meeting was even less satisfactory than John Mandrake had feared. It took place in the Hall of Statues at Westminster, a rectangular room built of pink-gray stone, with soaring medieval vaulting high above, and thickly layered Persian rugs covering the flagstones. In a dozen niches along the walls stood life-size statues of the great magicians of the past. There at the end, austere and forbidding, was Gladstone; opposite him, flamboyant in a frock coat, his deadly rival Disraeli. All the succeeding Prime Minister’s were featured, together with other notables. Not every alcove yet contained a statue, but Mr. Devereaux, the current premier, had ordered the empty ones to be filled with sumptuous floral displays. It was guessed the vacant spaces reminded him of his own mortality.
Globes of imp-light drifted against the ceiling, illuminating—in the center of the room—a circular table of English oak, broad in diameter and polished to perfection by laboring imps. Around this sat the Council, the great ones of the Empire, toying with their pens and bottles of mineral water.
Mr. Devereaux had chosen a round table for reasons of diplomacy. Technically no one person took precedence over another—an admirable policy which had been undermined by his insistence on using a gigantic golden chair, ornately carved with swollen cherubs. Mr. Mortensen, the War Minister, had followed suit with an ostentatious seat of burnished redwood. Not to be outdone, Mr. Collins of the Home Office had responded with a monumental throne of emerald brocade, complete with perfumed tassels. So it went. Only John Mandrake and his erstwhile master Ms. Jessica Whitwell had resisted the temptation to somehow modify their seating.
The placing of each magician’s chair was likewise subtly fought over, until the situation had stabilized to reflect the factions that were opening up in Council. Mr. Devereaux’s two favorites sat beside him: John Mandrake, the Information Minister, and Jane Farrar of the police. Beyond Farrar sat Ms. Whitwell and Mr. Collins, who were known to be skeptical about the direction of the war. Beyond Mandrake were Mr. Mortensen and Ms. Malbindi of the Foreign Office: it was their policies that the government was currently following.
The meeting began inauspiciously with an advertisement. From a side room a giant crystal orb came rumbling on a wheeled platform. It was pulled by a slave-gang of implets, led by a foliot overseer wielding a horsehair whip. As they drew near the table, the foliot uttered a cry, the implets sprang to attention, and with the cracking of the whip vanished one after the other in clouds of colored steam. The crystal orb glowed pink, then orange; in its center appeared a broad and beaming face, which winked and spoke.
“Esteemed ladies and gentlemen of the Council! Let me remind you that we are only two days from the theatrical event of the decade, the society event of the year! Reserve your tickets now for the premiere of my latest work, based on the life of our beloved friend and leader, Mr. Rupert Devereaux! Get ready to laugh, cry, tap your feet, and sing along to the choruses of From Wapping to Westminster: A Political Odyssey. Bring your partners, bring your friends, and don’t forget your handkerchiefs. I, Quentin Makepeace, promise you all a sensational night!”
The face faded; the orb went dark. The assembled ministers coughed and shuffled in their seats. “Dear God,” someone whispered. “It’s a musical.”
Mr. Devereaux beamed around at them. “Quentin’s sweet gesture is a mite unnecessary,” he said. “I’m sure you all already have your tickets.”
So they had. There was little option.
The day’s business commenced. Mr. Mortensen gave a report of the latest news from America, brought by djinn across the ocean. It was sour fare: deadlock in the wilderness, minor skirmishes, nothing decisive gained. It had been so for weeks.
John Mandrake barely listened. The account was predictable and depressing; it only increased the frustration that boiled within him. Everything was out of control—the war, the commoners, the situation across the Empire. Something decisive needed to be done, and soon, if the nation was to be saved. And he knew what that something was. The Staff of Gladstone—a weapon of incredible power—lay useless in the vaults below that very chamber, begging to be brought out by anyone with the talent to use it. If wielded effectively, it would destroy the rebels, cow Britain’s enemies, send the commoners scampering back to work. But it needed a magician of the strongest level to command it, and Devereaux was not that man. Hence—out of fear for his own position—he kept it safely locked away.
Would Mandrake have been able to use the Staff, given the opportunity? In all honesty, he didn’t know. Perhaps. He was the strongest magician in the room, with the possible exception of Whitwell. Then again, three years before, when he had ac
quired the Staff on the government’s behalf, he had tried to get it working, and had failed.
That knowledge, that frustrated ambition mixed with self-doubt, contributed to the listlessness which had lately come over him. Day to day, his job was futile—he was surrounded by squabbling fools, unable to improve the situation. The only glimmer of hope came from the hunt for the traitor Hopkins. Perhaps there he could make a breakthrough, achieve something tangible for once. Well, he would have to see what Bartimaeus found.
Mortensen droned on. Overcome by boredom, Mandrake made desultory notes on his pad. He sipped his water. He appraised his fellow Council members, one by one.
First: the Prime Minister, his hair streaked with gray, his face puffy and blotched with the strain of war. A heaviness hung about him; he seemed tentative and quavering in speech. Only when discussing theater would a trace of his old animation return, the infectious charisma that had so inspired Mandrake as a boy. At other times he was dangerously vindictive. Not long before, Mr. Collins’s predecessor in the Home Office, a woman named Harknett, had spoken out against his policies. Six horlas had come for her that evening. Such events troubled Mandrake—it did not suggest the clear thinking worthy of a leader. Besides, it was morally unsound.
Beyond Devereaux sat Jane Farrar. Sensing his appraisal, she looked up and smiled; her eyes were conspiratorial. As he watched, she scribbled something on a piece of paper and pushed it across to him. It read: HOPKINS. ANY NEWS? He shook his head, mouthed, “Too soon,” made a rueful face, and turned his eyes to her neighbor.
The Security Minister, Jessica Whitwell, had endured several years out of favor; now she was steadily clawing it back. The reason was simple—she was too powerful to be ignored. She lived frugally, did not attempt to accumulate great wealth, and devoted her energies to enhancing the Security services. A number of recent raids had been annihilated thanks to her efforts. She was still bone-thin, her hair ghost-white and spiky. She and Mandrake regarded each other with respectful loathing.