The Amulet of Samarkand

be grateful we're there."
    "Grateful for people like Lovelace, you mean?"
    He frowned at this, but did not answer.
     
    It was mid-afternoon before we ran into danger. The first thing my master knew about it was my throwing myself upon him and bundling us into a shallow ditch beside the road. I pressed him low against the earth, a little harder than necessary.
    He had a mouthful of mud. "Whop you doing?"
    "Keep your voice down. A patrol's flying up ahead. North-south."
    I indicated a gap in the hedge. A small flock of starlings could be seen drifting far off across the clouds.
    He spat his mouth empty. "I can't make them out."
    "On planes five onward they're foliots.[7] Trust me. We have to go carefully from now on."
     
    [7] A variety with five eyes, two on the head, one on either flank, and one—well, let's just say it would be hard to creep up on him unawares while he was touching his toes.
     
    The starlings vanished to the south. Cautiously, I got to my feet and scanned the horizon. A little way ahead a straggling band of trees marked the beginning of an area of woodland. "We'd better get off the road," I said. "It's too exposed here. After nightfall we can get closer to the house." With infinite caution, we squeezed through a gap in the hedge and, after rounding the perimeter of the field beyond, gained the relative safety of the trees. Nothing threatened on any plane.
     
    The wood was negotiated without incident; soon afterward, we crouched on its far fringes, surveying the land ahead. Before us, the ground fell away slightly, and we had a clear view over the autumn fields, heavily plowed and purple-brown. About a mile distant, the fields ran themselves out against an old brick boundary wall, much weathered and tumbledown. This, and a low, dark bunching of pine trees behind it, marked the edge of the Heddleham estate. A red dome was visible (on the fifth plane) soaring up from the pines. As I watched, it disappeared; a moment later another, bluish, dome materialized on the sixth plane, somewhat farther off.
    Hunched within the trees was the suggestion of a tall arch—perhaps the official entrance to the manor's grounds. From this arch a road extended, straight as a javelin thrust between the fields, until it reached a crossroads next to a clump of oak trees, half a mile from where we stood. The lane that we had recently been following also terminated at this crossroads. Two other routes led away from it elsewhere.
     
    The sun had not quite disappeared behind the trees and the boy squinted against its glare. "Is that a sentry?" He pointed to a distant stump halfway to the crossroads. Something unclear rested upon it: perhaps a motionless, black figure.
    "Yes," I said. "Another's just materialized at the edge of that triangular field."
    "Oh! The first one's gone."
    "I told you—they're randomly materializing. We can't predict where they'll appear. Do you see that dome?"
    "No."
    "Your lenses are worse than useless."
    The boy cursed. "What do you expect? I don't have your sight, demon. Where is it?"
    "Coarse language will get you nowhere. I'm not telling."
    "Don't be ridiculous! I need to know."
    "This demon's not saying."
    "Where is it?"
    "Careful where you stamp your feet. You've trodden in something."
    "Just tell me!"
    "I've been meaning to mention this for some time. I don't like being called a demon. Got that?"
    He took a deep breath. "Fine."
    "Just so you know."
    "All right."
    "I'm a djinni."
    "Yes, all right. Where's the dome?"
    "It's in the wood. On the sixth plane now, but it'll shift position soon."
    "They've made it difficult for us."
    "Yes. That's what defenses do."
    His face was gray with weariness, but still set and determined. "Well, the objective's clear. The gateway is bound to mark the official entrance to the estate— the only hole in the protective domes. That's where they'll check people's identities and passes. If we can get beyond it, we'll have got inside."
    "Ready to be trussed up and killed," I said. "Hurrah."
    "The question," he continued, "is how we get in...."
     
    He sat for a long time, shading his eyes with his hand, watching as the sun sank behind the trees and the fields were swathed in cold green shadow. At irregular intervals, sentries came and went without trace (we were too far away to smell the sulfur).
    A distant sound drew our attention back to the roads. Along the one that led to the horizon, something that from a mile away looked like a black matchbox came roaring: