"Marvelous," Faquarl said. "If only we'd had a drumroll accompaniment."
The fly landed on the floor and became a very irritable falcon.
"It was dramatic enough for me, I assure you," I said. "And now?"
Faquarl tossed the remains of the ring to the floor. "Yes, we'd better go." A silver—headed trident shot through the air and clattered between us across the flagstones. Up by the portal, now half choked with horla corpses, Jabor was steadily retreating. A new wave of guards, uttuku mainly, advanced behind a strong collective Shield, which repelled Jabor's steadily weakening Detonations and spun them away around the room. At last a horla won free of the portal and, with his armor fully formed, came creeping round the edge of the Shield. Jabor fired at him; the blast hit the horla in his spindly chest and was completely absorbed. The horla gave a wintry smile and darted forward, spinning his net like a bola.
Faquarl became a raven and took off effortfully, one wing laboring through the air. My falcon followed him, up toward the hole. A net passed just under me; a trident buried its prongs in the wall.
"Jabor!" Faquarl shouted. "We're leaving!"
I snatched a look below: Jabor was grappling with the horla, his strength seemingly undiminished. But countless more kept coming. I concentrated my efforts on reaching the hole. Faquarl had already vanished within it; I ducked down my beak and plunged in too. Behind me, a colossal explosion rocked the room and I heard the savage fury of the jackal's cry.
In the narrow, pitch—black tunnel, Faquarl's voice sounded muffled and strange. "We're nearly out. Being a raven would be most appropriate from now on."
"Why?"
"There are dozens of the things out there. We can mingle with the flock and gain time while we make for the walls."
Loath as I was to follow Faquarl's advice about anything, I had no idea what we were up against outside. Escape from the Tower was the priority. Escape from him could come later. So I concentrated and shifted form.
"Have you changed?"
"Yep. It's not a guise I've tried before, but it doesn't seem too difficult."
"Any sign of Jabor behind us?"
"No."
"He'll be along. Right, the opening to the outside is just ahead of me. There's a Concealment on the exit hole, so they shouldn't have spotted it yet. Fly out fast and go straight down. You'll see a kitchen yard where the ravens congregate to gather scraps; I'll meet you there. Above all, don't be conspicuous."
A scrabbling in the tunnel ahead, then a sudden burst of light. Faquarl was gone, revealing the outline of the exit, covered with a mesh of concealing threads. I hopped forward until my beak hit the barrier, pressed against it and pushed my head through into the cold November air.
Without pause, I pushed off from the hole and began to glide toward the courtyard below.
As I descended, a brief glance around confirmed how far I was from safety: the distant rooftops of London were barely visible behind a series of rounded towers and curtain walls. Guards walked upon them, and search spheres moved randomly through the sky. The alarm had already been raised. From some eyrie high above, a siren was wailing, and not far off, within this innermost courtyard, battalions of police were running toward an unseen point.
I landed in a little side yard, cut off from the general panic by two outbuildings that projected from the body of the main tower. The cobbles of the yard were covered in greasy scraps of bread and bacon rind, and by a hungry, cawing flock of ravens.
One of the ravens sidled over. "You idiot, Bartimaeus."
"What's up?"
"Your beak's bright blue. Change it."
Well, it was my first time as a raven. And I'd had to alter in the dark. What did he expect? But it wasn't the time or place to argue. I changed the beak.
"They'll see through the disguise anyway," I snapped. "There must be a thousand sentries of one sort or another out there."
"True, but all we need's a little time. They don't know we're ravens yet, and if we're in a flock, it'll take them a few extra seconds to pick us out and check. All we need now is for the flock to fly…"
One moment a hundred ravens were snapping innocently at cold bacon rind, at peace with themselves and the world. The next, Faquarl revealed his true self to them on the first plane: he only did so for a fraction of a second, but the glimpse was enough. Four ravens dropped dead on the instant, several others lost their breakfast, and the rest took off from the courtyard in a panic—stricken mob, cawing and clawing at the air. Faquarl and I were in the heart of the flock, flapping as hard as we could, wheeling and diving when the others did so, desperately trying not to be left behind.
Up high and over the flat roof of the great keep, where a huge flag fluttered and human sentries stood gazing out across the waters of the Thames; then down low and sweeping across the gray courtyard on the other side. Around twenty permanent workaday pentacles had been painted in the center of the parade ground, and as I flashed past, I caught a glimpse of a formidable company of spirits appearing within them, summoned at that moment by a troop of gray—uniformed magicians. The spirits were minor ones, glorified imps for the most part,[69] but en masse they would present problems. I hoped the flock of ravens would not land here.
But the birds displayed no desire to halt; fear still carried them onward in a whirling course across the fortifications of the Tower. Several times they seemed to be heading for an outer wall; on each occasion they banked and turned back. Once I was tempted to make a break for it alone, but was discouraged by the appearance on the battlements of an odd blue—black sentry with four spider—like legs. I didn't like its look, and was too weary after my captivity and forced changes of form to risk its unknown power.
At last, we came to yet another courtyard, surrounded on three sides by castle buildings and on the other by a steep bank of green grass rising up to a high wall. The ravens alighted on the bank and began to mill about, pecking at the ground aimlessly.
Faquarl hopped over to me, one wing hanging away from his breast. It was still bleeding.
"These birds are never going to leave the grounds," I said. "They get fed here."
The raven nodded. "They've got us as far as they can, but it'll do. This is an outer wall. Over that and we're away."
"Then let's go."
"In a minute. I need to rest. And perhaps Jabor—"
"Jabor's dead."
"You know him better than that, Bartimaeus." Faquarl pecked at his wounded wing, pulling a feather away from the clotting blood. "Just give me a moment. That utukku! I wouldn't have guessed he had it in him."
"Imps coming," I hissed. A battalion had scurried through an arch into the far corner of the yard and were fanning out to begin a meticulous survey of every brick and stone. We were still concealed within the flock of ravens, but not for long.
Faquarl spat another feather onto the grass, where it briefly changed into a writhing strip of jelly before melting away. "Very well. Up, over, and out. Don't stop for anything."
I gestured politely with a wing. "After you."
"No, no, Bartimaeus—after you!" The raven flexed one large, clawed foot. "I shall be right behind you all the time, so please be original and don't try to escape."
"You have a horrid, suspicious mind." The imps were creeping nearer, sniffing the ground like dogs. I took off and shot up toward the battlements at speed. As I drew level with them, I perceived a sentry patroling the walkway. It was a small foliot, with a battered bronze horn strapped to the side of his head. Unfortunately, he perceived me too. Before I could react, he had swiveled his lips to the mouthpiece of the horn and blown a short, sharp blast, which instantly triggered a wave of answering signals from along the wall, high and low, loud and soft, away into the distance. That did it: our cover was well and truly blown. I weaved at the sentry, talons grasping; he gave a squeak, lost his balance and tumbled backward over the edge of the wall. I shot across the battlements, over a steep bank of tumbled black rocks and earth, and away from the Tower into the city.
69
The less powerful the being, the quicker and easier it is to summon. Most magical empires employ some magicians specially to rustle up whole cohorts of imps at short notice. Only the greatest empires have the strength in depth to create armies of higher entities. The most formidable such army ever seen was put together by Pharaoh Tuthmosis III in 1478 B.C. It included a legion of afrits and a motley group of higher djinn, of which surely the most notable was… No, modesty prevents my continuing.