Ptolemy's Gate

in the circle. He finished as a giant rodent of some kind, plump and fluffy, with hind legs crossed and forelegs folded irritably.
    Kitty did not blink. "Yes, but you don't generally go around as a king-size hamster," she snapped. "You always revert to the same dark kid in a loincloth. Why? Because it means something to you. That's obvious. It's someone important from your past. All I had to do was work out who."
    The hamster licked a pink paw and smoothed a tuft of fur behind one ear. "I don't acknowledge there's any truth in those far-fetched statements," it said. "But I'm curious. Where did you go from there? The boy could have been anyone."
    Kitty nodded. "True. It happened this way. After our last meeting I was keen to speak with you again. All I knew about you was your name—or one of them—Bartimaeus. Which was tough enough, since I didn't even know how to spell it. But I knew that if I looked hard, you'd turn up in the historical records somewhere. So when I began to study, I kept my eyes peeled for mention of you."
    The hamster nodded modestly. "I imagine that it didn't take long. There must be countless references to my exploits."
    "In fact it took almost a year to find the slightest mention. I got the names of plenty of other demons of all sorts here and there among the library books. Nouda the Terrible kept coming up, as did an afrit named Tchue, and something called Faquarl was notable too in a dozen cultures. And then at last you appeared— a fleet ing mention in a footnote."
    The hamster bristled." What? Which books did you look in? All the best ones must have been taken out. A footnote indeed!" It continued muttering indignantly into its fur.
    "My problem," Kitty said hastily, "was that you weren't always known as Bartimaeus, so even when you had long, long, very important mentions, I couldn't pick up on it. But the footnote helped me out, you see, because it linked the name I knew—Bartimaeus of Uruk—to two others—Sakhr al-Jinni (wasn't that your Persian one?) and Wakonda of the Algonquin. After that I was able to get more references to you here and th—I mean, everywhere I looked. And so I proceeded. I learned a bit about some of your tasks and ventures, and discovered the names of several of your masters, which was interesting too."
    "Well, I hope you were impressed," the hamster said. It still sounded rather put out.
    "Of course," Kitty went on." Very. Did you really speak with Solomon?"
    The hamster grunted. "Yeah, yeah, only a brief chat." All the same, it seemed a little mollified.
    "All the while," Kitty said, "I was learning the art of summoning. My master was rather slow, and I was slower, I'm afraid, but I was gradually getting to the stage when I felt I might call you. But I still had no clue to the identity of this boy, which was a pity, because I knew he was important to you. And then I suddenly found the vital clue! I discovered your Egyptian name—Rekhyt—and linked that to the magician Ptolemaeus." She broke off, grinning with triumph.
    "Even so," the hamster said, "what did that tell you? I have had a hundred masters, and whether their pentacles have been drawn on the sand or the steppe, the enmity—"
    "Yes, yes." Kitty waved the hamster into silence. "That was exactly the point. One account mentioned a close bond between this Ptolemaeus and his slaves. It also mentioned that he was only a boy when he died. That's when it became clear to me. That's when I realized the identity of your favorite guise."
    The hamster was busy cleaning one of its toenails. "And what details," it asked lightly, "might the account have given about the relationship between the djinni and the boy? Just out of interest, you understand."
    "Not a lot," Kitty admitted. "In fact, nothing. I don't think anything much is known about Ptolemaeus as a person any more. Some of his writings survived, I believe. They mentioned a thing called 'Ptolemy's Gate,' whatever that is—"
    She broke off. The hamster was staring out of the window at the midnight moon. At last it turned its head to her, and as it did so reverted back to the familiar shape of the boy-magician, Ptolemy of Alexandria.
    "Enough," the boy said. "What is it you want from me?"
    Now that her guess had been confirmed, Kitty found her perception of the djinni's guise had completely changed. It was a curious and disconcerting thing to realize that she was looking into the face of a real boy, two thousand years dead. Previously she had viewed the