Ptolemy's Gate

resist. I was vulnerable as a kitten. A few small buildings in the face, I could stand. But already I was practically at the mercy of second-rate fops such as Ascobol, a fool with no great history to speak of.[3] And if I met a foe with even a grain of power, my luck would surely end.

[3] It is a curious fact that, despite our fury at being summoned into this world, spirits such as I derive a good deal of retrospective satisfaction from our exploits. At the time, of course, we do our darnedest to avoid them, but afterward we often display a certain weary pr ide in the cleverest, bravest, or most jammy events on our resume. Philosophers might speculate this is because we are essentially defined by our experiences in this world, since in the Other Place we are not so easily individualized. Thus, those with long and glittering careers (e.g. me) tend to look down on those (e.g. Ascobol) whose names have been unearthed more recently, and haven't amassed so many fine achievements. In Ascobol's case, I also disliked him for his silly falsetto voice, which ill becomes an eight-foot cyclops.

A weak djinni is a bad slave—bad twice over, since he is both ineffective and a laughingstock. It does a magician no favors to maintain one in the world. This is the reason why they usually allow us back to the Other Place on a temporary basis, to repair our essence and renew our strength. No master in his right mind would permit a djinni to deteriorate as far as I had done.
    No master in his right mind . . . Well, that of course was the problem.
    I was interrupted in my gloomy cogitation by a stirring in midair. The girl looked up.
    Above the road appeared the faintest shimmering—a delicate tingling of pretty pink and yellow lights. It was invisible on the first plane, and thus went unnoticed by the people trudging up the street, but if any children had seen it, they'd probably have guessed it to be fairy dust.
    Which shows how wrong you can be.
    With an abrupt scratching noise, the lights froze and were drawn back from the middle like two curtains. Between them appeared the grinning face of a bald baby with bad acne. Its evil little eyes were red and sore, indicating an owner who kept long hours and bad habits. For a few moments they peered myopically to and fro; the baby swore under its breath and rubbed its eyes with dirty little fists.
    All at once it noticed my Concealment and let out a dreadful oath.[4] I regarded it with cool impassivity.

[4] Probably Germanic in origin—it involved nailing someone's entrails to an oak tree .

"Oi, Bart!" the baby cried. "That you in there? Stir yourself! You're wanted."
    I spoke casually. "By whom?"
    "You know full well. And boy, are you in trouble! I reckon it's the Shriveling Fire for sure this time."
    "Is that so?" The girl remained firmly seated on the broken chimney and crossed her slender arms. "Well, if Mandrake wants me, he can come and get me himself."
    The baby grinned nastily. "Good. I was hoping you'd say that. No problem, Barty! I'll pass that on. Can't wait to see what he'll do."
    The imp's malicious glee irritated me.[5] If I'd had a little more energy I'd have leaped up and swallowed it there and then. I contented myself with snapping off a chimney pot and throwing it with unerring aim. It struck the baby's bald fat head with a satisfactory ringing sound.

[5] We were, after all, slaves together; we had both suffered long at Mandrake's hands. A bit of empathy would not, I think, have been out of place. But the imp's long confinement had rather soured its worldview, which has happened to far better spirits than it over the years.

"As I thought," I said. "Hollow."
    The unlovely grin converted into a scowl. "You cad! Just you wait—we'll see who's laughing when I watch you burn." Propelled by a gust of ripe language, it popped back behind its curtains of glimmering lights and drew them smartly together. Twinkling softly, the lights dissipated on the breeze. The imp was gone.
    The girl pushed a strand of hair behind one ear, refolded her arms grimly, and settled back to wait. Now there would be consequences, which was exactly what I needed. It was time for a proper confrontation.
    To begin with, years before, my master and I had got along well enough. I don't mean amicably, or a nything ridiculous like that, but our mutual irritation was founded on something approximating respect. During a series of early incidents, from the Lovelace conspiracy to the golem affair, I'd