Ptolemy's Gate

find someone."

6

    I ask you. You fluff a mission, you harass a messenger, and you flatly refuse an order to return. Then you sit back waiting for the magician to respond. And nothing happens. For hours. No summons, no attempted punishment, nothing.
    What kind of master do you call that?
    If there's one thing that really annoys me, it's being ignored. Harsh treatment I can stand, insulting gestures likewise. At least they show you're having some kind of effect. But just being left to fester as if I were no better than that tuppenny imp in the scrying glass. . . that makes me more than a little annoyed.
    The day was half done by the time I felt the first tweaking in my essence: firm, insistent, like razor wire passing through my vitals. The summons at last! Good—time to go! Not for me any fearful reluctance or holding back. I stood up from the broken chimney, stretched, removed the Concealment upon myself, scared a passing dog, made a rude noise to an old lady in the next garden, and lobbed the chimney as far as I could into the street.[1]

[1] Owing to my weakness it didn't make it across the pavement. But, boy, the gesture was savage.

No more messing about. I was still Bartimaeus of Uruk, al-Arish, and Alexandria. This time I meant business.
    I allowed the summons to pull my essence up and away. The street fast disintegrated in a welter of lights and colored bands. A second later these coalesced once more into the shape of a typical summoning hall: striplights on the ceilings, multiple pentacles on the floor. The Information Ministry, as usual. I allowed my body to reform in Kitty Jones's guise. It was simpler than trying to think of something else.
    Right. The cursed Mandrake: where was he?
    There! Sitting behind a desk, pen in hand, staring at a wodge of papers laid before him. He wasn't even glancing in my direction! I cleared my throat, put dainty hands on hips, prepared to speak—
    "Bartimaeus!" A gentle voice. Too low to be Mandrake's. I turned, saw a delicate young woman with vole-brown hair sitting at another desk in a neighboring pentacle. It was Piper, my master's assistant, today doing her best to be severe. Her forehead was puckered in something resembling a frown; her fingertips were steepled sternly. She eyed me like a cross schoolmistress in a kindergarten. "Where have you been, Bartimaeus?" she began. "You should have returned this morning when requested. Mr. Mandrake has had to exert himself to draw you back, when he is so desperately busy. It isn't good enough, you know. Your behavior is really becoming most tiresome."
    This wasn't what I'd had in mind at all. I drew myself up. "Tiresome?" I cried. "Tiresome? Have you forgotten whom you are addressing? This is Bartimaeus here—Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty, builder of walls, destroyer of empires. I have twenty names and titles in as many tongues and my exploits reverberate in every syllable! Do not attempt to degrade me, woman! If you wish to live, I advise you to pick up your skirts and depart at speed. I intend to speak to Mr. Mandrake alone."
    She clicked her tongue. "You simply are being quite impossible today, Bartimaeus. I think you should know better. Now, we have a little job here for you—"
    "What? Not so fast!" In the pentacle I gave a half step forward; sparks snapped from my eyes and a nimbus of coral fire trembled upon my skin. "I'll have things out with Mandrake first!"
    "I'm afraid the minister is currently indisposed."
    "Indisposed? Baloney! I can see him right there!"
    "He is busy working on today's news pamphlet. A deadline approaches."
    "Well, he can leave off inventing his lies for a few minutes.[2] I want a word."

[2] As part of his attempt to appease the commoners, Mandrake had initiated a series of penny-dreadful pamphlets, which told heroic tales of British soldiers fighting in the American wilderness. A typical title was Real War Stones.They were illustrated by bad woodcuts and purported to be true accounts of recent events. Needless to say, the American magicians were savage and cruel, using the blackest magic and the most hideous demons. Conversely, the square-jawed Brits always insisted on good manners and fair play and invariably got out of scrapes by improvising homemade weapons from fence posts, tin cans, and pieces of string. The war was depicted as being both necessary and virtuous. It was the old, old story—I've seen imps carve similar claims on official stelae up and down the Nile delta, defending