Jonathan Stroud - The Amulet of Samarkand

Jessica Whitwell had finished her incantation: a short, stumpy djinni hovered in the air beside her; it had taken the form of a black bear. She pointed, yelled an order. The bear moved forward through the air, paddling its limbs as if swimming.

Other magicians sent attacks in Lovelace's direction: for perhaps a minute, he was the center of a lightning storm of furious, crackling energy. The Amulet of Samarkand absorbed it all. Lovelace was unaffected. He carefully smoothed back his hair.

The afrit had picked itself up from where it had fallen and, having set the dazed Prime Minister lolling on a chair, leaped into the fray. It flew on speedy, shining wings, but Nathaniel noticed that it approached Lovelace on a peculiar circular course, avoiding the air directly above the podium.

Several magicians had by now reached the door of the hall, and were vainly straining at the handles.

The afrit sent a powerful magic toward Lovelace. Either it went too fast, or it was primarily on a plane he could not see, but Nathaniel only saw it as the suggestion of a jet of smoke that crossed to the magician in an instant. Nothing happened. The afrit cocked its head, as if bemused.

On Lovelace's other side, the black bear djinni was closing fast. From each paw, it unsheathed two scimitar—like claws.

Magicians were running helter—skelter, making for the windows, the door, for anywhere at all, accompanied by their host of shrieking imps.

Then something happened to the afrit. To Nathaniel, it was as if he was looking at the afrit's reflection in a pond and the water surface was suddenly disturbed. The afrit seemed to shatter, its form splitting into a thousand quavering shards that were sucked toward a section of air above the podium. A moment later they were gone.

The black bear djinni stopped paddling forward. Its claws were drawn back out of sight. Very subtly, it went into reverse.

The fly buzzed loudly against Nathaniel's ear, shouting in pure panic. "It's happening!" it cried. "Can't you see it?"

But Nathaniel saw nothing.

A woman ran past, mouth open in panic. Her hair was a pale shade of blue.

The first thing most of them noticed was the afrit. That was the spectacular one, the real curtain raiser, but in fact plenty had been going on in the previous seconds. The afrit was unlucky, that was all; in her haste to destroy the threat to her master, she got too close to the rift.

The split in the air was about four meters in length and only visible on the seventh plane. Perhaps a few of the imps glimpsed it, but none of the humans could have done so. [113] Unless they noticed a faint gray smudge along the line of the rift. This was where light was draining away, being sucked off into the Other Place. It wasn't a nice, clean, vertical sort of rift, but diagonal, with jagged edges, as if the air had been torn like thick, fibrous cloth. From my prison, I had watched it form: after the first flicker above the podium, the air had vibrated, distorted wildly, and finally snapped along that line. [114] It was the old chewing—gum principle in action. Imagine pulling a strip of chewed gum between your fingers: first it holds and stretches, then gets thin somewhere near the middle. Finally a tiny hole forms at the thinnest point, which quickly tears and splits Here, Lovelace's summoning had done the pulling. With some help from the thing on the other side.

As soon as the rift appeared, the changes had begun.

The lectern on the podium altered: its substance turned from wood to clay, then to an odd, orange metal, then to something that looked suspiciously like candle wax. It sagged a little, as if melting along one side.

A few blades of grass grew up from the surface of the podium.

The crystal drops of the chandelier directly above it turned to water droplets, which hung suspended for a second in position, shimmering in many colors, then fell to the floor as rain.

A magician was running toward a window. Each line of the pinstripe on his jacket undulated like a sidewinder.

No one noticed these first minor changes or a dozen similar others. It would take the afrit's fate for them to cotton on.

Pandemonium filled the room, with humans and imps squeaking and gibbering in all directions. As if oblivious to this, Lovelace and I watched the rift. We waited for something to come through.

Then it happened. The planes close to the rift suddenly went out of sync, as if they were being pulled sideways at varying speeds. It was as though my focus had gone haywire, as it does after a blow to the head—I suddenly saw the windows beyond seven times over, all in slightly different positions. It was most disconcerting.

If whatever Lovelace had summoned was strong enough to disrupt the planes like this, it boded ill for all of us inside the pentacle. It must be very close now. I kept my eye on the rift in the air…

Amanda Cathcart passed us, screaming, her bob a fetching blue. A few more changes had been noticed by all and sundry: two magicians, who had strayed too near the podium in a vain attempt to attack Lovelace, found their bodies elongating unpleasantly; one man's nose also grew to a ridiculous length, while the other's vanished altogether.

"What's happening?" the boy whispered.

I did not answer. The rift was opening.

All seven planes distorted like stirred syrup. The rift widened and something like an arm thrust through. It was quite transparent, as if it were made of the most perfect glass; in fact, it would have been wholly invisible were it not for the twisting, swirling convulsions of the planes around it. The arm moved back and forth experimentally: it seemed to be testing the odd sensations of the physical world. I glimpsed four thin protuberances or fingers at the end of the arm: they, like it, had no substance of their own, and were only given form by the rippling disturbances in the air about them.

Down below, Lovelace stepped back, his fingers nervously feeling between his shirt buttons for the Amulet's reassuring touch.

With the distortion of the planes, the other magicians began to see the arm for the first time. [115] They could only see the first three planes clearly, of course, but that was enough to get the outline. They emitted assorted cries of woe that, from the biggest, hairiest man to the smallest, shrillest woman, covered a range of several octaves. Several of the bravest ran into the center of the room and coerced their attendant djinn into sending Detonations and other magics galore in the direction of the rift. This turned out to be a mistake. Not one single bolt or blast made it anywhere near the arm; all either screamed off at angles to smash into the walls and ceiling, or dribbled to the floor like water from a dripping hose, the energy taken out of them.

The boy's mouth hung so low and loosely, a rodent could have used it as a swing. "That th—thing," he stammered. "What is it?"

A fair enough question. What was it, this thing that distorted the planes and disrupted the most powerful magic, when only one arm had actually come through? I could have said something dramatic and eerie like, "The death of us all!" but it wouldn't have got us very far. Besides, he'd only have asked again.

"I don't know exactly," I said. "Judging by its caution in coming through, it has rarely been summoned before. It is probably surprised and angry, but its strength is clear enough. Look around! Inside the pentacle, magic is going wrong, things are beginning to change form. All normal laws are being warped, suspended. The greatest of us always bring the chaos of the Other Place with them. No wonder Lovelace needed the Amulet of Samarkand to protect himself." [116] The entity trapped inside the Amulet had to be at least as powerful as this newcomer if Lovelace was to withstand its force. Even as a long—suffering djinni, I still had a grudging admiration for the ancient Asian people who had managed to capture and compress it.