Jonathan Stroud - The Amulet of Samarkand

"Yes," I said. "Another's just materialized at the edge of that triangular field."

"Oh! The first one's gone."

"I told you—they're randomly materializing. We can't predict where they'll appear. Do you see that dome?"

"No."

"Your lenses are worse than useless."

The boy cursed. "What do you expect? I don't have your sight, demon. Where is it?"

"Coarse language will get you nowhere. I'm not telling."

"Don't be ridiculous! I need to know."

"This demon's not saying."

"Where is it?"

"Careful where you stamp your feet. You've trodden in something." "Just tell me!" "I've been meaning to mention this for some time. I don't like being called a demon. Got that?"

He took a deep breath. "Fine."

"Just so you know."

"All right."

"I'm a djinni."

"Yes, all right. Where's the dome?"

"It's in the wood. On the sixth plane now, but it'll shift position soon."

"They've made it difficult for us."

"Yes. That's what defenses do."

His face was gray with weariness, but still set and determined. "Well, the objective's clear. The gateway is bound to mark the official entrance to the estate—the only hole in the protective domes. That's where they'll check people's identities and passes. If we can get beyond it, we'll have got inside."

"Ready to be trussed up and killed," I said. "Hurrah."

"The question," he continued, "is how we get in…"

He sat for a long time, shading his eyes with his hand, watching as the sun sank behind the trees and the fields were swathed in cold green shadow. At irregular intervals, sentries came and went without trace (we were too far away to smell the sulfur).

A distant sound drew our attention back to the roads. Along the one that led to the horizon, something that from a mile away looked like a black matchbox came roaring: a magician's car, speeding between the hedges, honking its horn imperiously at every corner. It reached the crossroads, slowed to a halt and—safely assured that nothing was coming—turned right along the road to Heddleham. As it neared the gateway, two of the sentries bounded toward it at great speed across the darkened fields, robes fluttering behind them like tattered rags. Once they reached the hedges bordering the road they went no further, but kept pace beside the car, which presently drew close to the gateway in the trees. The shadows here were very thick, and it was hard to glimpse what happened. The car pulled up in front of the gate. Something approached it. The sentries hung back at the lip of the trees. Presently, the car proceeded on its way, through the arch and out of sight. Its drone faded on the evening air. The sentries flitted back into the fields.

The boy sat back and stretched his arms. "Well," he said, "that tells us what we need to do."

The crossroads was the place for the ambush. Any vehicles approaching it had to slow down for fear of accident, and it was concealed from the distant Heddleham gateway by a thick clump of oaks and laurel. This also promised good cover for lurking.

Accordingly, we made our way there that night. The boy crawled along the base of the hedges beside the road. I flitted in front of him in the guise of a bat.

No sentries materialized beside us. No watchers flew overhead. The boy reached the crossroads and burrowed into the undergrowth below the biggest oak tree. I hung from a bough, keeping watch.

My master slept, or tried to. I observed the rhythms of the night: the fleeting movements of owl and rodent, the scruffles of foraging hedgehogs, the prowling of the restive djinn. In the hours before dawn, the cloud cover drifted away and the stars shone down. I wondered whether Lovelace was reading their import from the roof of the hall, and what they told him. The night grew chill. Frost sparkled across the fields.

All at once, it struck me that my master would be suffering greatly from the cold.

A pleasant hour passed. Then another thought struck me. He might actually freeze to death in his hiding place. That would be no good: I'd never escape the tin. Reluctantly, I spiraled down into the bushes and went in search of him.

To my grudging relief, he was still alive, if somewhat blue in the face. He was huddled in his coat under a pile of leaves, which rustled perpetually with his shivering.

"Want some heat?" I whispered.

His head moved a little. It was hard to tell whether it was a shiver or a shake.

"No?"

"No."

"Why?"

His jaw was clamped so tight it could barely unlock. "It might draw them to us."

"Sure it isn't pride? Not wanting help from a nasty demon? You'd better be careful with all this frost about—bits might drop off. I've seen it happen." [92] Very, very nasty it was. Remind me to tell you about it some day.

"L—leave me."

"Suit yourself." I returned to my tree. Some while later, as the eastern sky began to lighten, I heard him sneeze, but otherwise he remained stubbornly silent, locked into his self—appointed discomfort.

With the arrival of dawn, hanging about as a bat became a less convincing occupation. I took myself off under the bushes and changed into a field mouse. The boy was where I had left him, stiff as a board and rather dribbly about the nose. I perched on a twig nearby.

"How about a handkerchief, O my master?" I said.

With some difficulty, he raised an arm and wiped his nose on his sleeve. He sniffed. "Has anything happened yet?"

"Still a bit under your left nostril. Otherwise clean."

"I meant on the road."

"No. Too early. If you've got any food left, you should eat it now. We need to be all set when the first car comes by."

As it transpired, we needn't have hurried. All four roads remained still and silent. The boy ate the last of his food, then crouched in the soaking grass under a bush, watching one of the lanes. He appeared to have caught a slight chill, and shivered uncontrollably inside his coat. I scurried back and forth, keeping an eye out for trouble, but finally returned to his side.

"Remember," I said, "the car mustn't be seen to stop more than a few seconds, or one of the sentries might smell a rat. We've got to get on board as soon as it reaches the crossroads. You'll have to move fast."

"I'll be ready."

"I mean really fast."

"I'll be ready, I said."

"Yes, well. I've seen slugs cover ground more quickly than you. And you've

made yourself ill by refusing my help last night."

"I'm not ill."

"Sorry, didn't catch that. Your teeth were chattering too loudly."

"I'll be fine. Now leave me alone."

"This cold of yours could let us down big time if we get in the house. Lovelace might follow the trail of sn—Listen!"

"What?"

"A car! Coming from behind us. Perfect. It'll slow right here. Wait for my or der."

I scampered through the long grasses to the other side of the copse and waited behind a large stone on the dirt bank above the road. The noise of the oncoming vehicle grew loud. I scanned the sky—no watchers could be seen, and the trees hid the road from the direction of the house. I readied myself to spring…

Then hunched down behind the stone. No good. A black and shiny limousine: a magician's car. Too risky to try. It flashed past in a welter of dust and pebbles; all skirling brakes and shining bonnet. I caught a glimpse of its occupant: a man I did not know, broad—lipped, pasty, with slicked—back hair. There was no sign of an imp or other guardian, but that meant nothing. There was no point in ambushing a magician.

I returned to the boy, still motionless under the bush. "No go," I said. "Magician."

"I've got eyes." He sniffed messily. "I know him, too. That's Lime, one of Lovelace's cronies. Don't know why he's in on the plot; he's not very powerful. I once stung him with some mites. He swelled up like a balloon."