I couldn't help glancing across at the neighboring pillar, with its densely packed blue sphere. Something had been inside that orb and its remains were in there still. The orb had shrunk until it had run out of room. It was like glimpsing a dead spider at the bottom of a dark glass bottle.
The woman had followed my gaze. "Exactly," she said. "Need I say more?"
"If I do talk," I said, addressing her for the first time, "what happens to me then? What's to stop you squeezing the juice out of me anyway?"
"If you cooperate we will let you go," she said. "We have no interest in killing slaves."
She sounded so brutally forthright I almost believed her. But not quite.
Before I could react, Sholto Pinn gave a wheezing cough to draw the woman's attention. He spoke with difficulty, as if his ribs were hurting him. "The attack," he whispered. "The Resistance…"
"Ah, yes." The woman turned back to me. "You will gain even more chance of a reprieve if you can give us information about an incident that happened yesterday evening, after your capture—"
"Hold on," I said. "How long have you kept me knocked out?"
"For a little under twenty—four hours. We would have interrogated you last night, but as I say, this incident… We didn't get round to removing the silver net until about thirty minutes ago. I am impressed at the speed of your recovery."
"Don't mention it. I've had practice.[62] So, this incident… Tell me what happened."
"It was an attack by terrorists, styling themselves the Resistance. They claim to loathe all forms of magic, but notwithstanding that, we believe they may have some magical connections. Djinn such as yourself, perhaps; conjured by enemy magicians. It's possible."
This Resistance again. Simpkin had mentioned them too. He'd guessed they'd stolen the Amulet. But Lovelace was responsible for that—perhaps he was behind this latest outrage as well.
"What sort of attack was it?"
"An elemental sphere. Futile, haphazard."
Didn't sound quite Lovelace's cup of tea. I saw him as more of a stealth—andintrigue man, the kind who authorizes murders while nibbling cucumber sandwiches at garden parties. Also, his note to Schyler had suggested they were planning something a little farther ahead.
My musings were rudely disrupted by a guttural snarl from my old friend Sholto.
"Enough of this! It will not tell you of its own free will. Reduce the orb, dear Jessica, so that it squirms and speaks! We are both far too busy to loiter in this cell all day."
For the first time, the thin—lipped slash that was the woman's mouth extended outward in a kind of smile. "Mr. Pinn is impatient, demon," she said. "He does not care whether you speak or not, as long as the orb is put to work. But I always prefer to follow the proper procedure. I have told you what we require—now is the time for you to talk."
A pause followed. I'd like to say it was pregnant with suspense. I'd like to say that I was wrestling with my conscience about whether to spill the beans about Nathaniel and my mission; that waves of doubt poured dramatically across my delicate features, while my captors waited on tenterhooks to know what my decision would be. I'd like to say that, but it would be a lie.[63] So it was in fact a rather more leaden, dreary, and desolate kind of pause, during which I tried to reconcile myself to the pain that I knew would be forthcoming.
Nothing would have given me greater pleasure than to stitch Nathaniel up good and proper. I'd have given them everything: name, address, shoe size—I'd even have hazarded a guess about his inside—leg measurement if they'd wanted it. I'd have told them about Lovelace and Faquarl too, and precisely where the Amulet of Samarkand was to be found. I'd have sung like a canary—there was so much to tell. But… if I did so, I doomed myself. Why? Because: 1. There was a good chance they'd just squish me in the orb anyway, and 2. Even if they did let me go, Nathaniel would then be killed or otherwise inconvenienced and I'd be bound for Old Chokey at the bottom of the Thames. And just the thought of all that rosemary made my nose run.[64]
Better a quick extinction in the orb than an infinity of misery. So I rubbed my delicate chin and waited for the inevitable to begin.
Sholto grunted and looked at the woman. She tapped her watch.
"Time's up," she said. "Well?"
And then, as if written by the hand of a bad novelist, an incredible thing happened. I was just about to give them a last tirade of impassioned (yet clever) abuse, when I felt a familiarly painful sensation in my bowels. A multitude of red—hot pincers were plucking at me, tugging at my essence…
I was being summoned!
22
For the first time ever I felt grateful to the boy. What perfect timing! What a remarkable coincidence! I could now disappear from under their noses, dematerialized by the summons, while they gawped and gulped like startled fish. If I was quick, there would just be time to thumb my nose at them too before departure.
I gave a rueful shake of the head. "So sorry." I smiled. "I'd love to help you, really I would. But I have to go. Maybe we can pick up the torture and captivity again sometime soon. Only with a small alteration. I'll be out there and it'll be you two cuddling up inside the orb. So you'd better start dieting big time, Sholto. Meanwhile, you can both—ouch! —go boil your heads and—Ahh!.. Oooh!" It was—n't my most fluent repartee, I'll admit, but the pain of the summoning was getting to me. It felt worse than normal, somehow—sharper, less healthy…
Also, it was taking longer.
I abandoned all pretence of a cheekily insolent posture, and writhed about on the top of the column, willing the boy to get on with it. What was his problem? Didn't he know I was in agony? It wasn't like I could writhe properly either—the orb's force—lines were far too close for comfort.
After two deeply unpleasant minutes, the vicious tug of the summoning lessened and died away. It left me in an undignified posture—crouched in a ball, head between my knees, arms over my head. With the slow stiffness of accumulated agony, I raised my face a little and gingerly brushed the hair back from my eyes.
I was still inside the orb. The two magicians were right there, grinning at me from beyond the walls of my prison.
No way to make this look good. Grimly, with a thousand residual aches, I straightened, stood up, stared back at them implacably. Sholto was chuckling quietly to himself. "That was worth the price of admission on its own, dear Jessica," he said. "The look on its face was simply exquisite."
The woman nodded. "Such good timing," she said. "I'm so glad we were here to see that. Don't you understand yet, you stupid creature?" Her flagstone shifted a little nearer. "I told you; it is impossible to leave a Mournful Orb, and that includes by summoning. Your essence is locked inside it. Even your master cannot call you from it."
"She'll find a way," I said, then bit my lip as if I regretted saying it.
"She?" The woman's eyes narrowed. "Your master is a woman?"
"It lies." Sholto Pinn shook his head. "An obvious bluff. Jessica, I am weary; also I am overdue for my morning's massage at the Byzantine Baths. I should be in the steam room this moment. Might I suggest that the creature needs further encouragement, and that we leave him to it?"
"An admirable idea, dear Sholto." She clicked her nails five times. A hum, a shudder. Time to downsize, pronto! I poured what remained of my energy into a hasty transformation, and as the flickering lines of the orb closed in on me, shrank myself into a new form. An elegant cat, hunched and sinuous, shying away from the lowering walls of the orb.
62
So right. I've been knocked out at various times by various people in places as far afield as Persepolis, the Kalahari, and Chesapeake Bay.
64
Thoughtful persons might at this point object that since Lovelace had stolen the Amulet and was thus working against the Government, it might have been worth a gamble to tell them about his crimes. Perhaps both Nathaniel and I might have then been let off for services rendered. True, but unfortunately there was no knowing who else was involved with Lovelace's plot, and since Sholto Pinn himself had been lunching with Love—lace the previous day, there was certainly no trusting him. All in all, the risks of coming clean far outweighed the possible benefits.