Jonathan Stroud - The Amulet of Samarkand

" 'Treat 'em mean, keep 'em keen, that's your master's watchword, is it? Still, he must be fairly potent to be able to have you and Jabor as his slaves."

The cook gave a thin smile and with a flick of the knife sent a nail paring spinning to the ceiling. It pierced the plaster and lodged there.

"Now, now, Bartimaeus, we don't use the s—word in civilized company, do we? Jabor and I are playing the long game."

"Of course you are."

"Speaking of disparities in power, I notice that you choose to avoid addressing me on the seventh plane. This seems a little impolite. Can it be that you are uneasy with my true form?"

"Queasy, Faquarl, not uneasy." [12] I'm no great looker myself, but Faquarl had too many tentacles for my liking.

"Well, this is all very pleasant. I admire your choice of form, by the way, Bartimaeus. Very comely. But I see that you are somewhat weighed down by a certain amulet. Perhaps you could be so good as to take it off and put it on the table. Then if you care to tell me which magician you are working for, I might consider ways of ending this meeting in a nonfatal manner."

"That's kind of you, but you know I can't do that." [13] Not strictly correct. I could have given over the Amulet and thus failed in my charge. But then, even if I had managed to escape from Faquarl, I would have had to return empty—handed to the pale—faced boy. My failure would have left me at his tender mercy, doubly in his power, and somehow I knew this was not a good idea.

The cook prodded the edge of the table with the tip of his cleaver. "Let me be frank. You can and will. It is nothing personal, of course; one day we may work together again. But for now I am bound just as you are. And I too have my charge to fulfill. So it comes, as it always does, to a question of power. Correct me if I am wrong, but I note that you do not have too much confidence in yourself today—otherwise you would have left by the front door, quelling the triloids as you went, rather than allowing them to shepherd you round the house to me."

"I was merely following a whim."

"Mmm. Perhaps you would stop edging toward the window, Bartimaeus. Such a ploy would be pitifully obvious even to a human [14] Ouch. and besides, the triloids wait for you there. Hand over the Amulet or you will discover that your ramshackle defense Shield will count for nothing."

He stood up and held out his hand. There was a pause. Behind my Seal, Jabor's patient (if unimaginative) Detonations still sounded. The door itself must have long since been turned to powder. In the garden the three sentinels hovered, all their eyes trained on me. I looked around the room for inspiration.

" The Amulet , Bartimaeus."

I raised my hand, and with a heavy, rather theatrical sigh, took hold of the Amulet. Then I leaped to my left. At the same time, I released the Seal on the door. Faquarl gave a tut of annoyance and began a gesture. As he did so he was hit square on by a particularly powerful Detonation that came shooting through the empty gap where the Seal had been. It sent him backward into the fireplace and the brickwork collapsed upon him.

I smashed my way into the greenhouse just as Jabor stepped through the gap into the kitchen. As Faquarl emerged from the rubble, I was breaking out into the garden. The three sentinels converged on me, eyes wide and legs rotating. Scything claws appeared at the ends of their blobby feet. I cast an Illumination of the brightest kind. The whole garden was lit up as if by an exploding sun. The sentinels' eyes were dazzled; they chittered with pain. I leaped over them and ran through the garden, dodging bolts of magic that sprang from the house, incinerating trees.

At the far end of the garden, between a compost heap and a motorized lawn—mower, I vaulted the wall. I tore through the blue latticework of magical nodes, leaving a boy—shaped hole. Instantly alarm bells began ringing all over the grounds.

I hit the pavement outside, the Amulet bouncing and banging on my chest. On the other side of the wall I heard the sound of galloping hooves. It was high time I made a change.

Peregrine falcons are the fastest birds on record. They can attain a speed of two hundred kilometers an hour in diving flight. Rarely has one achieved this horizontally over the roofs of North London. Some would even doubt that this was possible, particularly while carrying a weighty amulet around its neck. Suffice it to say, however, that when Faquarl and Jabor landed in the Hampstead backstreet, creating an invisible obstruction that was immediately hit by a speeding moving van, I was nowhere to be seen. I was long gone.

"Above all," said his master, "there is one fact that we must drive into your wretched little skull now so that you never afterward forget. Can you guess what that fact is?"

"No, sir," the boy said.

"No?" The bristling eyebrows shot up in mock surprise. Mesmerized, the boy watched them disappear under the hanging white thatch of hair. There, almost coyly, they remained just out of sight for a moment, before suddenly descending with a terrible finality and weight. "No. Well then…" The magician bent forward in his chair. "I shall tell you."

With a slow, deliberate motion, he placed his hands together so that the fingertips formed a steepled arch, which he pointed at the boy.

"Remember this," he said in a soft voice. "Demons are very wicked. They will hurt you if they can. Do you understand this?"

The boy was still watching the eyebrows. He could not wrench his gaze away from them. Now they were furrowed sternly downward, two sharp arrowheads meeting. They moved with a quite remarkable agility—up, down, tilting, arching, sometimes together, sometimes singly. With their parody of independent life they exerted a strange fascination on the boy. Besides, he found studying them infinitely preferable to meeting his master's gaze.

The magician coughed dangerously. "Do you understand?"

"Oh—yes, sir."

"Well now, you say yes, and I am sure you mean yes—and yet…" One eyebrow inched skyward musingly. "And yet I do not feel convinced that you really, truly understand! "

"Oh, yes, sir; yes, I do, sir. Demons are wicked and they are hurtful and they will hurt you if you let them, sir." The boy fidgeted anxiously on his cushion. He was eager to prove that he had been listening well. Outside, the summer sun was beating on the grass and the hot pavement; an ice—cream van had passed merrily under the window five minutes before. But only a bright rim of pure daylight skirted the heavy red curtains of the magician's room; the air within was stuffy and thick. The boy wished for the lesson to be over, to be allowed to go.

"I have listened very carefully, sir," he said.

His master nodded. "Have you ever seen a demon?" he asked.

"No, sir. I mean, only in books."

"Stand up."

The boy stood quickly, one foot almost slipping on his cushion. He waited awkwardly, hands at his sides. His master indicated a door behind him with a casual finger. "You know what's through there?"

"Your study, sir."

"Good. Go down the steps and cross the room. At the far end you'll find my desk. On the desk is a box. In the box is a pair of spectacles. Put them on and come back to me. Got that?"

"Yes, sir."

"Very well then. Off you go."

Under his master's watchful eye, the boy crossed to the door, which was made of a dark, unpainted wood with many whorls and grains. He had to struggle to turn the heavy brass knob, but the coolness of its touch pleased him. The door swung open soundlessly on oiled hinges and the boy stepped through to find himself at the top of a carpeted staircase. The walls were elegantly papered with a flowery pattern. A small window halfway down let in a friendly stream of sunlight.