For the first half of the journey, the car had been heavy with silence and the smell of singed beard. As they left central London, however, Underwood suddenly became talkative. Something seemed to be preying on his mind.
"It's not your fault, dear," Mrs. Underwood said, soothingly.
"No, but they'll blame me! You heard them in there, boy—accusing me, because of all the thefts!"
Nathaniel ventured a rare question. "What thefts, sir?"
Underwood slapped the steering wheel with frustration. "The ones carried out by the so—called Resistance, of course! Magical objects thieved from careless magicians all over London. Objects like the elemental sphere—a few of them were taken back in January from a warehouse, if I remember rightly. In the last couple of years, crimes like this have become more and more common, and I'm meant to tackle it—with just six other magicians in Internal Affairs!"
Nathaniel was emboldened; he leaned forward on the backseat. "Sorry, sir, but who are the Resistance?"
Underwood turned a corner too fast, narrowly avoiding an old lady and startling her into the gutter by slamming his fist down on the horn. "A bunch of traitors who don't like us being in control," he snarled. "As if we hadn't given this country all its wealth and greatness. No one knows who they are, but they certainly aren't numerous. A handful of commoners drumming up support in meeting houses; a few halfwit firebrands who resent magic and what it does for 'em."
"They're not magicians, then, sir?"
"Of course not, you fool, that's the point! They're common as muck! They hate us and everything magical, and want to bring the Government down! As if that were possible." He accelerated through a red light, waving his arm impatiently at the pedestrians diving back to the safety of the pavement.
"But why would they steal magical objects, sir? If they hate magical things, I mean."
"Who knows? Their thinking's all wrongheaded, of course; they're only commoners. Perhaps they hope it'll reduce our power—as if losing a few artifacts would make a blind bit of difference! But some devices can be used by non—magicians, as you saw today. They may be stockpiling weapons for some future assault, perhaps at the behest of a foreign government… It's impossible to tell—until we find them and snuff them out."
"But this was their first actual attack, sir?"
"The first on this scale. There have been a few ridiculous incidents… mouler glasses tossed at official cars: that sort of thing. Magicians have been hurt. In one case the driver crashed; while he was unconscious, his briefcase, with several magical items, was stolen from his car. It was highly embarrassing for him, the idiot. But now the Resistance has gone too far. You say the assailant was young?"
"Yes, sir."
"Interesting… Youths have been reported at the scene of the other crimes too. Still, young or old, these thieves will rue the day they're caught. After tonight, anyone in possession of a magician's stolen property will suffer the severest penalties our Government can devise. They won't die easily, you can be sure of that. Did you say something, boy?"
Nathaniel had uttered an involuntary noise, something between a choke and a squeak. A sudden vision of the very stolen Amulet of Samarkand, which even now was hidden somewhere in Underwood's study, had passed before his eyes. He shook his head, dumbly.
The car turned the final corner and hummed down the dark and silent road. Underwood swept into the parking space in front of the house. "Mark my words, boy," he said, "the Government will have to act now. I shall request more personnel for my department first thing in the morning. Then perhaps we'll start catching these thieves. And when we do, we'll tear them limb from limb."
He got out of the car and slammed the door, leaving a fresh waft of burned hair behind him. Mrs. Underwood turned her head toward the backseat. Nathaniel was sitting bolt upright, neck rigid, looking into space.
"Hot chocolate before bed, dear?" she said.
21
Bartimaeus
The darkness cloaking my mind lifted. Instantly, I was as alert as ever, crystal—sharp in all my perceptions, a coiled spring ready to explode into action. It was time to escape!
Except it wasn't.
My mind works on several levels at once.[56] I've been known to make pleasant small talk while framing the words of a spell and assessing various escape routes at the same time. This sort of thing regularly comes in handy. But right then I didn't need more than one cognitive level to tell me that escape was wholly out of the question. I was in big trouble.
But first things first. One thing I could do was look good. The moment I awoke I realized that my form had slipped while I had been out. My falcon form had deteriorated into a thick, oily vapor that sloshed back and forth in midair, as if pulled by a miniature tide. This substance was in fact the nearest I could get to revealing my pure essence[57] while enslaved on earth, but despite its noble nature, it wasn't wholly fetching.[58] I thus quickly changed myself into the semblance of a slender human female, draped in a simple tunic, before adding a couple of small horns on her scalp for the heck of it.
With this done, I appraised my surroundings with a jaundiced eye.
I was standing on top of a small stone plinth or pillar, which rose about two meters high from the middle of a flagstoned floor. On the first plane my view was clear in all directions, but on the second to seventh, it was blocked by something nasty: a small energy sphere of considerable power. This was made up of thin, white, crisscrossing lines of force that expanded out from the top of the pillar beside my slender feet and met again over my delicate head. I didn't have to touch the lines to know that if I did so they would cause me unbearable pain and hurl me back.
There was no opening, no weak spot in my prison. I could not get out. I was stuck inside the sphere like some dumb goldfish in a bowl.
But unlike a goldfish, I had a good memory. I could remember what had happened after I busted out of Sholto's shop. The silver Snare falling on me; the afrit's red—hot hooves melting the pavement stones; the smell of rosemary and garlic throttling me fast as a murderer's hands until my consciousness fled. The outrage of it—me, Bartimaeus, spark out on a London street! But there was time for anger later. Now I had to keep calm, look for a chance.
Beyond the surface of my sphere was a sizeable chamber of some antiquity. It was built of gray stone blocks and roofed with heavy wooden beams. A single window high up on one wall let in a shaft of weak and ailing light, which barely managed to push through the swirling motes of dust to reach the floor. The window was fitted with a magical barrier similar to my prison. Elsewhere in the room were several other pillars similar to the one on which I stood. Most were desolate and empty, but one had a small, bright, and very dense blue sphere balanced upon it. It was hard to be sure, but I thought I could see a contorted something pressed inside.
There were no doors in the walls, though that meant little. Temporary portals were common enough in magicians' prisons. Access to the next chamber out (or in) would be impossible except through gateways opened to order by combinations of trusted magician—warders. It would be tiresomely difficult to bypass these, even if I could escape my prison sphere.
The guards didn't help matters either. They were two sizeable utukku,[59] stolidly marching around the perimeter of the room. One of them had the face and crest of a desert eagle, all cruel curving beak and bristling plumes. The other had a bull's head, blowing clouds of spittle out of his nostrils. Both walked like men on massive legs; their great, veined hands clasping silver—tipped spears. Feathered wings lay folded heavily on their muscled backs. Their eyes rolled ceaselessly back and forth, covering every inch of the room with their stupid, baleful glare.
56
Several conscious levels, that is. By and large, humans can only manage one conscious level, with a couple of more or less unconscious ones muddling along underneath. Think of it this way: I could read a book with four different stories typed one on top of the other, and take them all in with the same sweep of my eyes. The best I can do for you is footnotes.
57
59
A type of djinni much favored by the Assyrian magicians for their unintelligent devotion to violence. I first fought these at the battle of Al—Arish, when the pharaoh drove back the Assyrian army from Egyptian soil. The utukku looked good—four meters high, heads of beasts and birds of prey, crystal breastplates, flashing scimitars. But they could all be caught by the old "He's behind you" trick. Recipe for success: 1. Take a stone. 2. Chuck behind utukku so that it makes a diverting sound. 3. Watch utukku swivel, eyes popping. 4. Run him through the back with gusto. 5. Gloat to taste. Oddly, my exploits that day made me a few enemies among the surviving utukku.