Ptolemy's Gate

Besides, with power comes profit. The demons require human helpers; there is much here they do not understand. They have offered me wealth if I serve them, and this girl has that option too. Who knows, by cooperating with Lord Nouda, she and I may flourish. . ." He reached out his gloved hand and touched Kitty's neck. She recoiled from him with an oath. Blind anger surged inside Nathaniel, but he fought it down.
    The mercenary spoke no more. Gloved hands grasped their collars; firmly, but without undue roughness, they were guided out of the door and up the corridor. In the distance they heard a great gabbling and babbling, a cacophony of shrieks and yells—the gathering sound of pandemonium.
    Nathaniel was quite calm. So black was the outlook now that fear had become redundant. The worst was upon them, death was all but inevitable, yet he faced it without anxiety. His final conversation with Kitty had lit a fire within him—to Nathaniel it seemed she had burned away all his weaker emotions. His head still spun with her revelations of Bartimaeus's past, but it was her own example that inspired him as the crisis approached. It scarcely mattered that she had pinned her hopes on Ptolemy's Gate—a mirage, a phantom, a fairy tale that all sensible magicians had long ignored—it was the look in her eyes as she talked of it that fascinated him. Excitement had shone there, and wonder, and belief—sensations that Nathaniel had almost forgotten. Now, at the last, she had reminded him, and he was grateful. He felt cleansed, almost eager for what was to come. He glanced across; her face was pale, but set. He hoped he would not weaken in front of her.
    His eyes flickered from side to side as they went, taking in the familiar surroundings of the Whitehall passages, the oil paintings, the plaster busts sitting in their niches, the pa neled walls and imp-light. They passed the stairs that led to the vaults and, distantly, the Staff; instinctively, Nathaniel flinched toward it. The grip on his collar tightened. They rounded the final corner.
    "Here," the mercenary whispered. "Let this sight put an end to your dreams."
    During their absence the demons had been busy. The Hall of Statues, for a hundred years the sedate meeting place of the Council, had been transformed by its new rulers. Everywhere was movement, noise, uncoordinated hubbub. Nathaniel's senses were briefly overwhelmed.
    The round table and its chairs had been swept from the center of the room. The table now rested against the far wall; upon it sat the golden chair. Here lolled Nouda, the great demon, in an attitude of temporary repletion. One leg dangled over a chair arm, the other extended before him. Makepeace's shirt had been untucked—it hung loose about the swollen stomach. The eyes were glazed; the mouth unnaturally stretched—it wore a tired smile, as of one who has lately completed a pleasant meal. A few odd rags and clothes lay on the tabletop around him.
    Below the table, upon a redwood chair, the demon Faquarl stood cloaked in Mr. Hopkins's body. It was he who orchestrated events: he held a book open in his hands and uttered crisp orders to the company below.
    The bodies of the five original conspirators—Nathaniel recognized Lime, Jenkins, and the scrawny Withers— -were now operated by their demons with some efficiency. True, there were still plenty of trips and stumbles, the legs and arms swinging with abrupt staccato movements, but they no longer fell or collided with the wall. This had enabled them to venture out of the room and—as the scrying-glass imp had reported— bring forth selected members of the government from their cells. Batch by batch, great and small, the magicians were being transformed.
    To the left, Lime and Withers stood watchful guard over a huddle of waiting prisoners, perhaps twenty in number, their hands still bound. Not far away, in a pentacle close to Nouda's throne, one of these prisoners had been untied; now she stood free, uttering the fatal summons in a quavering voice. She was a woman unknown to Nathaniel, presumably from another department. As he watched, she stiffened and shook. The air about her shimmered as the arriving demon took possession. Faquarl made a gesture; the demon Naeryan, dressed in Jenkins's body, led her gently to the far corner of the hall, to join—
    The hairs prickled on Nathaniel's head. There they were— more than two dozen magicians from every level of the government, rolling, twitching,