Ptolemy's Gate

extremities, flicking away behind us like dead embers from a fire. Even warmed as I was by my recent feed, it was beginning to be hard to maintain a viable form.
    At the third step the boot rested. Instantly the blurring lights congealed, became a new set of surroundings, another part of London, some miles from the cafe. I waited for my eyes to stop revolving, then took a bleary look around.
    We were in one of the parks, close to Trafalgar Square. With the onset of evening the city's commoners had straggled here to lose themselves in relaxation. In this aim they were aided by the kind authorities, who—in the months since the war turned sour—provided daily festivities of the most gaudy kind, designed to stimulate the senses and discourage contemplation.
    Away over in the center of the park gleamed the great Glass Palace, a marvelous confusion of domes and minarets, all shimmering with light. Made of twenty thousand curved glass sheets set upon an iron frame, it had been built in the first year of the war, and afterward stuffed full of snack bars and carousels, bear pits and freak shows. It was popular among commoners; less so among djinn. We didn't like all that iron.
    Other pavilions were dotted about the park, which was sporadically illuminated by colored imp-lanterns hanging among the trees. Here, train cars looped and plummeted, whirligigs bucked and spun; over at the Sultan's Castle sultry beauties danced before a horde of drunken commoners.[5] Along the central pathway vats of wine and ale were broached, and melancholy oxen turned on spits. The mercenary set off among them now, going at a human pace.

[5] Some of the beauties were real people, though on the higher planes I spotted two who weren't all they should have been: one an empty shell, solid at the front, hollow at the back; another a grinning foliot with spiny limbs concealed beneath its Glamour.

We passed Traitors' Corner, where several captive rebels dangled above the baying crowd in a cage of glass. Alongside, in another prism, a hideous black demon was visible on the first plane. It growled and pranced, shaking its fist at the awestruck throng. Beyond this, a stage had been set up. A banner proclaimed the title of the piece: Colonial Treachery Overcome; actors ran about, telling the official story of the war with the aid of rubber swords and papier-mache demons. Everywhere you looked smiling ladies thrust free supplements of Real War Stones into outstretched hands. Such was the ceaseless noise and color and confusion that it was impossible for anyone present to think straight, let alone frame a coherent argument against the war.[6]

[6] I saw Mandrake's hand behind much of this—it had all his attention to detail, together with the theatricality he had learned off his mate, the playwright Makepeace. A perfect combination of the crude and the subtle. The captive "American" demon was particularly good, I thought, doubtless summoned by someone in the government specially for the occasion.

I had seen it all before, many times. I concentrated now on clinging to the mercenary, who had left the central path and was striding off across the darkened lawns toward an ornamental lake among the trees.
    This lake was scarcely a large affair—during the day waterfowl no doubt sat drably upon it, while children splashed about in little hired boats—but by night it held a certain quiet mystery. Its margins were lost in shadows and a maze of reed beds; Oriental-style bridges spanned it, linking silent islands. A Chinese pagoda rose from one such. In front of the pagoda was a wooden veranda, extending above the water.
    The mercenary made for this in haste. He set off across an ornamental bridge, boots pattering on the planking. Beyond, on the darkness of the veranda, I glimpsed a figure waiting. About his head, on the higher planes, sinister shapes drifted watchfully.
    Time for caution. Attached to the boot, I would soon be spotted by even the most half-witted imp. But I could still get close enough to watch and listen. Below the walkway a reed bed stretched, thick and black. A perfect place for lurking. The lizard disengaged itself, gave a leap, fell in among the reeds. Seconds later, after yet another painful transformation, a small green snake was swimming toward the island between the decaying stalks.
    I heard the mercenary's voice up above, quiet, respectful. "Mr. Hopkins."
    A gap in the reeds. The snake wound itself about a rotten branch protruding