Ptolemy's Gate

nodded eagerly. "The lower orders did not attend the play. Perhaps they can aid us. . .What demons do they use?"
    "A hotchpotch of foliots that cower behind the dustbins as the commoners march by."
    Mandrake groaned. "Hopeless. Imp, your news is poor, but you have done well." He made a magnanimous gesture. "If I survive, you shall have your freedom."
    "That's me here for all eternity then." The disc went blank.
    "So, there will be no outside help," the magician said slowly. "It will have to be the Staff, if I can reach it. If I can get it to work . . ."
    Kitty touched his arm. "You were telling me about Ptolemy's Gate. What's the exact method? Can it be easily done?"
    He tore himself away, eyes angry and bewildered." Why do you persist in this?"
    "Ptolemy used the Gate to reach out to the djinn—it was a gesture of reconciliation, of good faith. We need to do this, and fast, if we're to get some help."
    "Get some—? Oh dear." Mandrake spoke as if to a simple child. "Kitty, the demons are our enemies. They have been for millennia. True, their powers are useful, but they are wicked things, and will hurt us if they can. As proved this very night! Given half a chance, they are invading!"
    "Some are invading," Kitty said. "But not all. Bartimaeus did not agree to stay."
    "So what? Bartimaeus is nothing! Nothing but a middling djinni, frayed to a thread, whom I kept here too long."
    "Even so, he has loyalty to us. Certainly to me. Maybe even you."
    The magician shook his head. "Rubbish. His loyalty changes with every summoning. Just days ago he served another master, doubtless one of my rivals. But this is beside the point. To get the Staff—"
    "I summoned him."
    "—I will need to get away. You must cause a distract—hold on. What?"
    "I summoned him."
    Mandrake's eyes seemed to glaze; he swayed where he stood. His mouth made odd popping noises like a stranded fish. "But. . . but you're a—"
    "Yes," Kitty cried. "I'm a commoner. Well done. But that doesn't mean much anymore, does it? Look around you. Everything's turning upside down: magicians have destroyed the government; demons are willingly being summoned by their own kind; commoners are taking control of the streets. The old certainties are falling apart, Mandrake, and only those who adapt are going to prevail. I intend to. What about you?" She indicated the door. "Any moment now Faquarl's going to walk back in and lead you before Nouda. Do you want to keep quibbling until then? Yes, I learned a little of your art. I summoned Bartimaeus. I wanted an alliance with him, but he rejected it because I couldn't trust him. He's skeptical about us, you see. Only one person in his past has treated him with absolute trust, and that was Ptolemaeus."
    Mandrake's eyes bulged. "What? Not the same Ptolemy that—"
    "The very same. He used the Gate, he made the gesture. Why do you think Bartimaeus still wears his form? Oh, you hadn't realized? All those years of training and you can't see what's right in front of your eyes." She shook her head sadly. "When I summoned him," she went on, "Bartimaeus told me that he would have done anything for Ptolemy because of the gesture he made.' There was no limit to our bond' That's how he put it. And you heard what he said just now, when he left?"
    A dozen emotions had washed across the magician's face, leaving it smooth, blank, chastened. He shook his head. "I didn't hear."
    "He said he had a bond with us too, but that there were 'limits' to it. That's what he told Nouda. And he was looking at me as he went. Don't you see? If I can follow him . . ." She was gazing beyond Mandrake now, eyes sparkling. "I know that I need to call Bartimaeus's name as part of the incantation, but beyond that I haven't a clue. Until you tell me what's in the book." She smiled at him.
    The magician took a slow, deep breath. Then he opened the book and skimmed to a certain page. For a moment he read in silence. When he spoke, his voice was flat. "The procedure is simplicity itself. The magician reclines in a pentacle—he must sit, or lie, since his body will collapse at the moment of transfer. No candles or specific runes are required; indeed such barriers are kept to a minimum to speed the return of the magician to his body. Ptolemy suggests breaking the circle symbolically to help this process. . . He also recommends holding something iron—such as an ankh—to keep out evil influences; that, or one of the normal herbs—rosemary or suchlike. Okay, well, the