Part Three 4 page

Nick raised the hammer and brought it down sharply on the lid of the ebony casket. The lid broke in two; the precise crack it made echoed like a pistol shot. A stream of yellow particles flew upward out of the casket, twirling and twinkling with their own light. They spiraled above the company to a height perhaps of fifteen feet, then arched out and downward like water from a fountain, hitting the stone floor, and disappearing into it. Particles continued to rise from the box, loop up, and rain down, forming a faint glimmering canopy that sealed them in, as if inside a dome.

Mr. Pennyfeather held the tiny golden key. With great speed, he reached out, taking care that his hand did not stray beyond the edge of the glittering dome, and inserted the key into the lock. He turned it, then withdrew his hand as fast as a rattlesnake.

They waited. No one moved a muscle. The sides of Kitty's face were swathed in cold sweat.

Soundlessly, the small bronze door swung inward. Beyond was a black space, and out of this a glowing green bulb of light came slowly floating. As it drew level with the opening, it suddenly accelerated, expanding as it did so, with a peculiarly repellent hiss. An instant later, a bright green cloud had erupted out across the transept, illuminating all the statues and memorials like a livid flame.

The company cowered within their protective Mantle as the Pestilence burned the air about them, rising to half the height of the transept walls. They were safe, provided they did not stir outside the dome; even so, a smell of such taint and decay drifted to their nostrils that they struggled not to gag.

"I hope," Mr. Pennyfeather gasped, as the green cloud raged back and forth, "that the Mantle's duration is longer than that of the Pestilence. If not—if not, Stanley, I fear the next skeletons you see will be our own."

It was very hot inside the Mantle. Kitty felt her head beginning to swim. She bit her lip and tried to concentrate: fainting now would certainly prove fatal.

With surprising suddenness, the Pestilence blew itself out. The green cloud seemed to implode, as if—lacking victims—it had been forced to consume its own essence. One moment the whole transept was aglow with its unhealthy light; the next, it was sucked down into nothing and the darkness had returned.

A minute passed. Sweat dripped down Kitty's nose. No one moved a muscle.

Then, abruptly, Mr. Pennyfeather began to laugh. It was a high, almost hysterical sound that set Kitty's teeth on edge. It held a tone of exultation carried slightly beyond the normal bounds.

Instinctively, she jerked backward, away from him, and stepped out of the Mantle. She felt a tingle as she passed through the yellow canopy, then nothing. She looked about her for a minute, then took a deep breath.

"Well, the tomb's open," she said.

Bartimaeus

Evening was drawing closer; the proprietors of the smaller coffeehouses in the backstreets around the square were stirring themselves at last, lighting lamps that hung from door beams, and stacking up the wooden chairs that had spilled out across the pavement through the day. A peal of eventide bells was being tolled beneath the dark black spires of old Tyn Church, where my good friend Tycho lies entombed,[1] and the streets murmured with Prague's people walking home.

[1] Tycho Brahe (1546—1601), magician, astronomer, and duelist, perhaps the least offensive of my masters.

Well, in fact quite possibly the most offensive, if you were one of his human contemporaries, since Tycho was a passionate fellow, forever getting into fights and trying to kiss friends' wives. That was how he lost his nose, incidentally—it was cut off by a lucky stroke during a duel over a woman. I fashioned him a fine gold replacement, together with a delicate tufted stick for burnishing the nostrils, and with this won his friendship. Thereafter he summoned me mainly when he fancied a good conversation.

For much of the day, the boy had sat slumped at a white-clothed table outside a tavern, reading a succession of Czech newspapers and cheap pamphlets. If he looked up, he had a good view of the Old Town Square, into which the street opened a dozen yards away; if he looked down, he had an even better view of a medley of empty coffee cups and dishes strewn with sausage scraps and pretzel crumbs, the relics of his afternoon's consumption.

I was sitting at the same table, wearing a large pair of dark glasses and a swanky coat similar to his. For token effect, I had placed a pretzel on my plate and broken it into a few pieces, to make it look like I was trying. But of course I ate and drank nothing.[2]

[2] Mortal food clogs our essences something chronic. If we do devour anything—such as a human, say—it generally has to be still alive, so that its living essence galvanizes our own. This outweighs the burden of ingesting the useless bone and flesh. Sorry—not putting you off your tea, am I?

The Old Town Square was one of the largest open areas in the east of the city, an uneven space of bright cobblestone, spotted with pedestrians and flower stalls. Flocks of birds drifted lazily down in front of the elegant five-story houses; smoke rose from a thousand chimneys. It was as peaceful a scene as could be wished for, yet I was not at ease.

"Will you stop fidgeting?" The boy slapped his pamphlet on the table. "I can't concentrate."

"Can't help it," I said. "We're too exposed here."

"Relax—we're in no danger."

I looked around furtively. "So you say. We should have stayed in the hotel."

The boy shook his head. "I'd have gone mad if I'd stayed in that fleapit a moment longer. I couldn't sleep in that bed for dust. And a tribe of bedbugs were feasting on me all night—I heard them popping off me every time I sneezed."

"If you were dusty, you should have had a bath."

He looked embarrassed. "Didn't fancy that tub somehow. It was a bit too... hungry-looking.

Anyhow, Prague's safe enough; there's hardly any magic here any more. You've seen nothing all the time we've been sitting here—no imp, no djinni, no spell—and we're in the center of town! No one's likely to see you for what you are. Relax."

I shrugged. "If you say so. It won't be me running around the walls with soldiers jabbing pikes into my trousers."

He wasn't listening. He'd picked up his pamphlet again and was frowning his way through it. I returned to my afternoon's occupation: namely checking and double-checking the planes.

Here's the thing: the boy was absolutely right—we'd seen nothing magical all day. This was not to say the authorities weren't represented: a few soldiers in dark-blue uniforms with shiny jackboots and highly burnished caps[3] had wandered repeatedly through the square. (Once, they had stopped at my master's table and asked for our identification; my master produced his fake ID, while I performed a Glaze upon them, so they forgot the object of their query and wandered on.) But we'd seen none of the magical sorties that were par for the course in London: search spheres, foliots masquerading as pigeons, etc.... It all seemed very innocent.

[3] As a rough rule of thumb, the jazzier the uniform, the less powerful the army. In its golden age, Prague's soldiers wore sober outfits with little decoration; now, to my disgust, they minced about under a heavy weight of pompous finery: a fluffy epaulette here, an extra brass knobble there. You could hear their metal bits jingling like bells on cats' collars from far off down the street. Contrast that with London's Night Police: their outfits were the color of river-sludge, yet they were the ones to fear.

Yet, having said that, I could feel strong magic somewhere in the vicinity, not far from where we were, operating vigorously on all the planes. Each one tingled with it, particularly the seventh, which is usually where the most trouble comes. It wasn't aimed at us—yet; even so, it made me nervous, particularly because the boy—being human, young, and arrogant—sensed nothing and persisted in acting like a tourist. I didn't like being in the open.

"We should have agreed to meet him in a lonely spot," I persisted. "This is just too public."

The boy snorted. "And give him the opportunity to come dressed as a ghul again? I think not. He can wear a suit and tie like everyone else."

Six o'clock drew near. The boy paid our bill and stuffed pamphlets and newspapers hurriedly into his rucksack. "The hot-dog stand it is, then," he said. "As before, hang back and protect me if anything happens."

"Okay, boss. You're not wearing a red feather this time. How about a rose, or a ribbon in your hair?"

"No. Thank you."

"Just asking."

We parted in the crowd; I peeled off, keeping close to the buildings on one side, while the boy continued on out into the center of the square. Since most of the home-goers for one reason or another kept to the edges, this made him look slightly isolated. I watched him go. A flock of sparrows erupted from the cobblestones near his feet and flapped away toward the rooftops high above. I scanned them anxiously, but there were no hidden watchers among them. All was well, for now.

A gentleman with a small struggling mustache and an enterprising nature had affixed a wheeled brazier to a bicycle and had cycled to a vantage point near the middle of the square. Here, he had set his coals alight, and was busily toasting spiced sausages for the hungry citizens of Prague. A small queue had formed, and to this my master attached himself, glancing casually around for the appearance of Harlequin.

I positioned myself nonchalantly by one of the perimeter walls and surveyed the square. I didn't like it: too many windows ablaze with the light of the dying sun; it was impossible to tell who might be looking down from them.

Six o'clock came and went. Harlequin did not appear.

The sausage queue shortened. Nathaniel was last in line. He shuffled forward, fumbling in his pocket for some change.

I checked out the passersby in all the distant fringes of the square. A small knot stood gossiping below the town hall, but most people were still hurrying homeward, entering and departing down the roads that fed into the square.

If Harlequin was anywhere close, he gave no sign.

My feeling of unease grew. There was no magic visible, but still that tingling sensation on every plane.

Out of habit, I checked each exit road. There were seven.... That at least was good: plenty of avenues of escape, should the need arise.

Nathaniel was now second in the queue. A small girl was ahead of him, demanding extra ketchup on her sausage.

A tall man strode out across the square. He wore a suit and hat; he carried a battered satchel. I eyed him up. He seemed about the right height for Harlequin, though it was difficult to be sure.

Nathaniel had not yet noticed him. He was watching the small girl stagger off under the weight of her vast hot dog.

The man made for Nathaniel, walking fast. Too fast, perhaps—almost as if he had some unseen purpose...

I started forward.

The man passed close behind Nathaniel without giving him a glance. He marched away smartly over the cobbles.

I relaxed again. Perhaps the boy was right. I was a little jittery.

Now Nathaniel was purchasing his sausage. He appeared to be haggling with the vendor about the amount of extra sauerkraut.

Where was Harlequin? The clock on the tower of the Old Town Hall showed twelve minutes past six. He was very late.

I heard a distant jingling, somewhere amid the pedestrians on the edges of the square—faint, rhythmic, like the bells on Lapland sleighs, heard far off across the snow. It seemed to come from all sides at once. It was familiar to me, yet somehow different from anything I had heard before.... I could not place it.

Then I saw the specks of blue weaving their way through the bystanders at the entrance to every one of the seven streets, and understood. Boots slapped on cobblestones, sunlight glinted on rifles, metal paraphernalia jangled on the chests of half of Prague's armed forces as they shouldered their way into view. The crowd melted backward, voices rising in alarm. The soldiers stopped suddenly; solid lines blocked each street.

I was already running out across the square.

"Mandrake!" I shouted. "Forget Harlequin. We have to go."

The boy turned, holding his hot dog. He noticed the soldiers for the first time. "Ah," he said.

"Tiresome."

"Too right it is. And we can't go over the roofs, either. We're badly outnumbered there, too."

Nathaniel looked up, treating himself to a grandstand view of several dozen foliots, which had evidently scrabbled up the roofs on the far side, and were now crouching on the uppermost tiles and chimneys of every house in the square, leering down at us and making offensive gestures with their tails.

The hot-dog seller had seen the army cordons; with a yelp of fright, he leaped onto the saddle of his bicycle and veered furiously away across the cobblestones, leaving a trail of sausages, sauerkraut, and hissing red-hot coals behind him.

"They're only human," Nathaniel said. "This isn't London, is it? Let's break our way through them."

We were running now, toward the nearest street—Karlova.

"I thought you didn't want me to use any violence or obvious magic," I said.

"Those niceties are past. If our Czech friends want to start something, we can—oh."

We still had the cyclist in view when it happened. As if crazed with fear, uncertain what to do, he had made two random sorties back and forth across the square; suddenly, head down, feet pumping, he changed tack, charging straight at one of the army lines. One soldier raised a rifle; a shot rang out.

The cyclist gave a twitch, his head slumped to one side, his feet slipped from the pedals and jerked and juddered against the ground. Still carried by its own momentum, the bicycle continued forward at a great pace, brazier crashing and banging behind it, until it plowed straight into the breaking line of soldiers and overturned, spilling body, sausages, hot coals, and cold cabbage over the nearest men.

My master halted, panting hard. "I need a Shield," he said. "Now."

"As you wish."

I raised a finger, willed the Shield around us both: it hung there shimmering, visible on the second plane—an uneven, potato-shaped orb that shifted when we moved. "Now," the boy said savagely, "a Detonation. We'll blast our way through."

I looked at him. "Are you sure about that? These men aren't djinn.

"Well, just knock them aside somehow. Bruise them gently. I don't care. As long as we get through unscathed—"

A soldier disentangled himself from the mess of sprawling limbs and took swift aim. A shot: a bullet whistled across the thirty-yard space, straight through the Shield and out again, parting Nathaniel's hair on the crown of his head en route.

The boy glared at me. "And what sort of Shield do you call this?"

I made a face. "They're using silver bullets.[4] The Shield's not safe. Come on—" I turned, reached out for the scruff of his neck, and in the same movement, made a necessary change. The slim, elegant form of Ptolemy grew and roughened; skin turned to stonework, dark hair to green lichen. All across the square, the soldiers had a fine view of a swarthy, bow-legged gargoyle stumping off at speed, dragging an angry adolescent beside him.

[4] Just as silver is deeply poisonous to our essences, so is it capable of cutting through many of our magical defenses like a hot knife through butter. Low in magic though Prague had now become, it seemed they hadn't forgotten all the old tricks. Not that silver bullets were mainly used on djinn in the old days—they were generally employed against a hairier enemy.

"Where are you going?" the boy protested. "We're cut off out here!"

The gargoyle gnashed its horny beak. "Quiet. I'm thinking."

Which was hard enough to do in all that kerfuffle. I sprinted back into the center of the square.

From every street, soldiers were advancing slowly, rifles at the ready, boots thudding, regalia rattling.

Up on the roofs, the foliots chittered eagerly and began to stalk forward, down the steep inclines, claws on tiles clicking like the sound of a thousand insects. The gargoyle slowed and stopped. More bullets whizzed past us. Dangling as he was, the boy was vulnerable. I swung him up in front of me; stone wings descended about him, blocking off the line of fire. This had the extra advantage of muffling his complaints.

A silver bullet ricocheted off my wing, stinging my essence with its poison touch.

We were surrounded on all sides: silver at street level, foliots up high. Which left only one option. The middle way.

I retracted a wing briefly, held the boy up so he had a quick view of the square. "Take a look," I said. "Which house do you think has the thinnest walls?"

For a moment, he was uncomprehending. Then his eyes widened. "You're not—"

"That one? With the pink shutters? Yes, maybe you're right. Well, let's see..."

And with that, we were off, careering through a shower of bullets—me, beak forward, eyes narrowed; him, gasping, trying to curl up into a ball and shield his head with his arms all at once. On foot, gargoyles can put together a pretty fine turn of speed, provided we pump our wings as we run, and I'm pleased to say we left a thin scorched trail on the stones behind us as we went.

A brief description of my objective: a quaint four-story building, square, broad, with tall arches at its base marking out a shopping arcade. Behind it rose the bleak spires of Tyn Church.[5] The owner of this house loved it. Each window had twin shutters that had recently been repainted a delightful pink. Long, low flower boxes sat on every sill, crammed to bursting with pink-white peonies; frilly net curtains hung chastely across the inside of each window. It was all remarkably twee. The shutters didn't quite have hearts carved in their wood, but it was a close thing.

[5] I could almost hear old Tycho urging me on. He loved a gamble, Tycho did. He once bet me my freedom that I couldn't jump across the Vltava in a single bound on a given day. If I succeeded he was mine to do with as I wished. Of course, the cunning hound had calculated the date of the spring tides in advance. On the given day, the river burst its banks and flooded a much wider area than normal. I landed hooves first in the drink, much to my master's cruel amusement. He laughed so hard his nose fell off.

Soldiers ran forward from two side streets; they converged to cut us off.

Foliots skittered off gutters and descended on looping parachutes of arm skin.

I thought, on balance, the second floor was the one to aim for, midway between our enemies.

I ran, I jumped, my wings creaked and flapped; two tons of gargoyle launched proudly into the air. Two bullets rose to meet us; also, a small foliot, somewhat ahead of his fellows, descended into our path. The bullets shot by on either side; for his part, the foliot was met by a stony fist, which concertinaed him into something round and flat, resembling an aggrieved pie plate.

Two tons of gargoyle hit a window on the second floor.

My Shield was still in force. The boy and I were thus largely protected from the glass and timber, the bricks and plaster exploding all around us. This didn't stop him from crying out in woe, which was more or less what the old lady sitting in her Bath chair did as we flew past her at the topmost point of our arc. I had a brief glimpse of a genteel bedroom, in which ornamental lacework was given undue prominence; then we were out of her life once more, exiting swiftly through the opposite wall.

Down we fell, down into the cool shadows of a backstreet in a storm of bricks, through a tangle of washing that some thoughtless individual had hung on a line outside his window. We landed heavily, the gargoyle absorbing most of the impact in his hoary calves, the boy flung from his grasp and rolling off into the gutter.

I got wearily to my feet; the boy did likewise. The outcry behind us was muffled now, but neither soldiers nor foliots would be long in coming. A narrow street led away into the heart of the Old Town.

Without a word, we took it.

Half an hour later, we were slumped in the shady overgrowth of an untended garden, catching our breath. No sounds of pursuit had been heard for many minutes. I had long since returned to Ptolemy's more unobtrusive form.

"So," I said. "That not-drawing-attention-to-ourselves business. How are we doing?"

The boy didn't answer. He was looking at something gripped tightly in his hands.

"I suggest we forget Harlequin," I said. "If he's got any sense, he'll be emigrating to Bermuda after all this fuss. You'll never track him down again."

"I don't need to," my master said. "Besides, it wouldn't do any good. He's dead."

"Eh?" My famed eloquence had been sorely tested by events. It was at this point that I realized the boy was still holding his hot dog. It was looking a trifle forlorn after its adventure, the sauerkraut having been largely replaced by a scrumptious coating of plaster, wood, splinters of broken glass, and flower petals. The boy was staring at it intently.

"Look, I know you're hungry," I said. "But that's going a bit far. Let me find you a burger or something."

The boy shook his head. With dusty fingers he pried apart the bread. "This," he said slowly, "is what Harlequin promised us. Our next contact in Prague."

"A sausage?"

"No, you fool. This..." From underneath the hot dog, he drew out a small piece of card, somewhat bent and ketchup-stained. "Harlequin was the hot-dog seller," he continued. "That was his disguise. And now he's died for his country, so avenging him is part of our mission. But first—this is the magician we must find."

He held out the card. Scrawled on it were just four words:

Kavka,

13 Golden Lane

Bartimaeus

To my great relief, the boy appeared to learn something from our close shave in the Old Town Square. I saw no more of the casual English tourist now; instead, for the rest of that dark, uncomfortable evening, he allowed me to guide him through Prague's maze of crumbling alleys in the appropriate manner—the stealthy, painstaking progress of two spies abroad in an enemy land. We made our way north with infinite patience, dodging the foot patrols that were now radiating out from the square by enmeshing ourselves under Concealments or, on occasion, entering derelict buildings to skulk as the soldiery tramped by. We were aided by darkness and the comparative scarcity of magical pursuit. A few foliots tripped across the rooftops, flashing out questing Pulses, but I diverted these easily without detection. Beyond that, there was nothing: no demi-afrits unleashed, no djinn of any capacity. Prague's leaders were heavily reliant on their unobservant human troops, and of this I took full advantage. Less than an hour after we had begun our flight, we had crossed the Vltava on the back of a vegetable lorry and were making our way on foot through a region of gardens toward the castle.

In the great days of the Empire, the low hill on which the castle stood had been illuminated, each day at dusk, by a thousand lanterns; these changed color, and occasionally position, at the Emperor's whim, casting multifarious light upon the trees and houses clinging to its slopes.[1] Now the lamps were broken and rusted to their posts. Except for a few feeble orange spots that marked out windows, Castle Hill was dark before us, enfolded by night.

[1] Each lantern contained a sealed glass pod in which an irritable imp resided. The Master of Lamps, an hereditary official among the court magicians, stalked along the hillside each afternoon, instructing his captives in the colors and intensity required for the night to come. By subtle phrasing of each charge, the nuances achieved could be subtle or spectacular, but were always in accordance with the mood at court.

We came at length to the base of a steep flight of cobbled steps. Up above was Golden Lane—I glimpsed its lights glinting high against the stars, on the very edge of the cold black slab of hill. Beside the bottom of the steps was a low wall, and behind this was a midden; I left Nathaniel lurking there, while I flew, as a bat, on a quick reconnaissance up the steps.

The eastern steps had changed little, since that distant day when my master's death had released me from his service. Too much to hope that an afrit would leap out to grab my current master now.

The only presences I could detect were three fat owls, hidden in the avenues of dark trees on either side of the way. I double-checked; they were owls even on the seventh plane.

Far off across the river, the hunt was still in operation. I could hear soldiers' whistles shrilling with sad futility, a sound that gave a thrill to my essence. Why? Because Bartimaeus was too fast for them, that's why; because the djinni they wanted was far away already, flitting and flapping the 256 steps up Castle Hill. And because somewhere ahead of me in the night silence was the source of the disturbance that I still felt tingling on each plane—the odd, unidentified magical activity. Things were going to get interesting.

The bat passed the tumbled husk of the old Black Tower, once occupied by the Elite Guard, but home now to no one but a dozen sleeping ravens. Beyond it was my objective. A street, narrow and unassuming, walled by a series of humble cottages—all tall stained chimneys, small windows, cracked plaster-fronts, and plain wooden doors leading straight onto the road. The place was always like this, even in the great years. Golden Lane worked under different rules.

The roofs, always sagging, were now beyond repair—a mess of warped frames and loose tiles.

I settled on an exposed rib of wood on the endmost cottage and surveyed the street. In the days of Rudolf, greediest of the emperors, Golden Lane was a center of great magical effort, the objective of which was nothing less than the creation of the Philosopher's Stone.[2] Each house was rented to a different alchemist and, for a time, the tiny cottages hummed with activity.[3] Even after the search was abandoned, the street remained home to foreign magicians working for the Czechs. The government wanted them close beside the castle, where it could keep an eye on them. And so the situation remained, right through to the bloody night when Gladstone's forces took the city.

[2] A fabled pebble accredited with the ability to turn base metals into gold or silver. Its existence is, of course, utter moonshine, as might be discovered by asking any imp. We djinn can alter the appearance of things by casting a Glamour or an Illusion; but to permanently shift the true nature of something is quite impossible. But humans never listen to something that doesn't suit them, and countless lives were expended on this futile search.

[3] The magicians came from all over the known world—from Spain, from Britain, from snowbound Russia, from the fringes of the Indian deserts—in the hope of winning incalculable reward. Each was master of a hundred arts, each the tormentor of a dozen djinn. Each drove their slaves for years in the great quest; each, in turn, failed utterly. One by one, their beards turned gray, their hands weakened and palsied, their robes grew faded and discolored from ceaseless summonings and experiments. One by one, they tried to give up their positions, only to find Rudolf was unwilling to let them go. Those who attempted to slip away found soldiers waiting for them on the castle steps; others, attempting a magical departure, discovered a strong nexus around the castle, sealing them in.

They did not escape. Many ended in the dungeons; the rest took their own lives. It was, to those of us spirits who watched the process, a deeply moral tale: our captors had been caught in the prison of their own ambitions.

No foreign magicians dwelled here now. The buildings were smaller than I remembered, huddled together like seabirds on a headland. I sensed the old magics, still seeped into the stonework, but little that was new. Except... the faint tremoring on the planes was stronger now, its source much closer.

The bat looked about carefully. What could it see? A dog, ferreting in a hole at the foot of one old wall. A lit window, fringed by thin curtains; inside it, an old man hunched beside a fire. A young woman, in the glare of a streetlight, walking carefully along the cobblestones in high-heeled shoes, perhaps making for the castle. Blank windows, shut casements, roof holes, and broken chimneys.

Date: 2015-02-28; view: 554