Ptolemy's Gate

my mind. It'd be just like him."
    "Yeah right" I cried, "and burn my only ticket out of there? I'm not hanging out in your head for all eternity, pal. Don't worry. I need that Dismissal. I won't touch nothing."
    "You'd better not."
    We glared at each other for a spell.
    The girl clapped her hands. "Ohhh-kay. Posturing over?
    Good. I didn't ruin my health just to sit here and watch you two idiots fight. Can we please get on with it?"
    The magician sniffed. "All right."
    The smoke coiled sullenly skyward. "All right."
    "That's better."
    I would never have done it had it not been for the girl. But she had been quite correct, back there in the Other Place, to appeal to me in Ptolemy's name. As she'd instantly perceived, that was my weak spot, my open wound. And two thousand years of accumulated cynicism hadn't managed to heal it up, try as I might. For all that long and weary time I'd carried round the memory of his hope—that djinn and humans might one day act together, without malice, without treachery, without slaughter. Let's face it, it was a stupid idea and I didn't believe it for an instant—there was simply too much evidence to the contrary. But Ptolemy had believed it and that was enough. Just the echo of his faith was powerful enough to win me over when Kitty repeated his great gesture, and came across to meet me.
    She'd renewed his bond. And once that was done, my fate was sealed. No matter what the groans and cussing of my better judgement, I'd have thrown myself into a pit of fire for Ptolemy, and the same was true for Kitty now.
    Mind you. . . pit of fire? Vat of acid? Bed of nails? Any of them would've been preferable to what I was about to do.
    In one circle the magician was busy psyching himself up. He was getting his lines straight, readying the incantation. In the other, the column of smoke drifted back and forth like a caged tiger. I noticed that both pentacles had had holes scratched in their perimeters to allow me immediate transit from one side to the other. Boy, they were trusting. . . I could have nipped out there and then, and gobbled them both up before departing with a smile and a song. Part of me itched to do it as well, just to see the expression on my old master's face. It had been ages since I'd devoured a magician.[2] But of course, unscheduled devouring was off Kitty's agenda for the day. Regretfully, I resisted the temptation.

[2] A couple of hundred years, in fact. A Czech master of mine had been inclined to plumpness. I used to criticize him for his lack of condition, gradually building up in him a sense of annoyed defiance. One night I challenged him to touch his toes while in his pentacle. He succeeded valiantly, but in so doing stuck his backside over the edge of the circle, allowing me to break my bonds. And sure enough, he was a bit fatty, but he still tasted pretty good.

There was also the small matter of my condition. Even so simple a form as the smoke was proving hard to maintain. I needed protection, and I needed it fast.
    "Sometime today," I said. "If you don't mind."
    The magician ran nervous fingers through his hair and turned to Kitty. "Any snide comments when he's in there and I'll dismiss him right off, Staff or no Staff. You tell him."
    She tapped a foot. "I'm waiting, Nathaniel."
    A curse, a rub of the face, then he was off. The incantation was a tad improvised, I felt—didn't have the elegance and refinement I was used to. The clause "snare this cursed demon Bartimaeus and compress him with unmerciful precision" was a little crude, for instance, and could have been misinterpreted. But it seemed to do the trick. One moment the column of smoke was rising innocently in its circle, the next it had been sucked up and outward, over the break in my pentacle, over the break in his, and drawn down, down, down toward my master's head....
    I braced myself. I glimpsed him squeeze his eyes tight shut...
    Plunk.
    Gone. The pain was gone. That was my first sensation. That was all that mattered. It was like a curtain had suddenly been flung open and everything had gone from dark to light. It was like being plunged into an ice-cold spring. It was a little like returning to the Other Place after months of slavery—the crisscross lattices of hurt that ran throughout my essence just fell away like scabs, left me suddenly feeling whole. It was like being refreshed and rebuilt and reborn, all at the same time.
    My essence surged with a terrible joy, the kind I hadn't felt on Earth