The Amulet of Samarkand

chimney in gargoyle form. Jabor saw me; as he fired, I closed my wings for a moment, allowing myself to drop momentarily through the air. The Detonation shot above my plummeting head and curved away over the roof to explode harmlessly[5] somewhere in the street beyond. I flapped my wings again and soared closer to Jabor, watching all the while the little sheets of flame licking up around his feet, cracking the tiles and feeding on the hidden timbers that fixed the roof in place.
     
    [5] To me. Which is what counts.
     
    I held up my claws in a submissive gesture. "Can't we discuss this? Your master may want the boy alive."
    Jabor was never one for small talk. Another near miss almost finished the argument for me. I spiraled around him as fast as I could, keeping him as near as possible in the same spot. Every time he fired, the force of his shot weakened the section of roof on which he stood; every time this happened the roof trembled a little more violently. But I was running out of energy—my dodges grew less nimble. The edge of a Detonation clipped a wing and I tumbled to the tiles.
    Jabor stepped forward.
    I raised a hand and fired a return shot. It was weak and low, far too low to trouble Jabor. It struck the tiles directly in front of his feet. He didn't so much as flinch. Instead, he let out a triumphant laugh, which was cut short by the whole section of roof collapsing. The master beam that spanned the length of the building split in two; the joists fell away, and timber and plaster and tile upon tile dropped into the inferno of the house, taking Jabor with them. He must have fallen a good long way from there—down four burning floors to the cellars below ground. Much of the house would have fallen on top of him.
    Flames crackled through the hole. To me, as I grasped the edge of the chimney and swung myself over to the other side, it sounded rather like a round of applause.
    The boy was crouching there, dull-eyed, looking out into the dark.
    "I've given us a few minutes," I said, "but there's no time to waste. Get moving." Whether or not it was the friendly tone of my voice that did it, he struggled to his feet quickly enough. But then he set off, shuffling along the rooftop with all the speed and elegance of a walking corpse. At that pace it would have taken him a week to get close to the tree. An old man with two glass eyes could have caught up with him, let alone an angry djinni. I glanced back. As yet there was no sign of pursuit—only flames roaring up from the hole. Without wasting a moment, I summoned up my remaining strength and slung the boy over my shoulder. Then I ran as fast as I could along the roof.
    Four houses further on, we drew abreast of the tree, an evergreen fir. The nearest branches were only four meters distant. Jumpable. But first, I needed a rest. I dumped the boy onto the tiles and checked behind us again. Nothing. Jabor was having problems. I imagined him thrashing around in the white heat of the cellar, buried under tons of burning debris, struggling to get out.
    There was a sudden movement among the flames. It was time to go.
    I didn't give the boy the option of panicking. Grasping him around the waist, I ran down the roof and leaped from the end. The boy made no sound as we arched through the air, picked out in orange by the light of the fire. My wings beat frantically, keeping us aloft just long enough, until with a whipping and stabbing and a cracking of branches, we plunged into the foliage of the evergreen tree.
    I clasped the trunk, stopping us from falling. The boy steadied himself against a branch. I glanced back at the house. A black silhouette moved slowly against the fire.
    Gripping the trunk loosely, I let us slide. The bark sheared away against each claw as we descended. We landed in wet grass in the darkness at the foot of the tree.
    I set the boy on his feet again. "Now—absolute silence!" I whispered. "And keep below the trees."
    Then away we slunk, my master and I, into the dripping darkness of the garden, as the wail of fire engines grew in the street beyond and another great beam crashed into the flaming ruin of his master's house.

 
     
     
     
     
    Part Three

31
     
    Nathaniel
     
    Beyond the broken glass, the sky lightened. The persistent rain that had been falling since dawn drizzled to a halt. Nathaniel sneezed.
    London was waking up. For the first time, traffic appeared on the road below: grimy red buses with snarling engines carrying the first