The Amulet of Samarkand

wanted to mug someone, he'd have been top of my list. But when I left him and went on a loop through the crowd, the children followed right along too.
    Weird. And annoying. I didn't want to make a change and fly off; I was too weary. All I wanted was to be left in peace. I still had many hours to go before the dawn.
    I speeded up; the children did so too. Long before we'd done three circuits of the square, I'd had enough. A couple of policemen had watched us beetling around and they were likely to halt us soon, if only to stop themselves getting dizzy. It was time to go. Whatever the kids were after, I did not want any more attention drawn to me.
    There was a subway close by. I hotfooted it down the steps, ignored the entrance to the Underground, and came up again on the other side of the road, opposite the central square. The kids had vanished—maybe they were in the subway. Now was my chance. I slipped round a street corner, along past a bookshop, and ducked down an alley. I waited a little there, in the shadows among the dumper bins.
     
    A couple of cars drove past the end of the alley. No one came after me.
    I allowed myself a brief smile. I thought I'd lost them.
    I was wrong.

7
     
    The Egyptian boy wandered off along the alley, made a couple of right-angle turns and came out in one of the many roads that radiate from Trafalgar Square. I was revising my plans as I went.
    Forget the square. Too many irritating children around. But perhaps if I found a shelter close by, the amulet's pulse would still be hard for the spheres to locate. I could hole up behind some bins until the morning came. It was the only option. I was too weary to take to the skies again.
    And I wanted to do some thinking.
    The old pain had started up again, throbbing in my chest, stomach, bones. It wasn't healthy to be encased in a body for so long. How humans can stand it without going completely mad, I'll never know.[1]
     
    [1] Then again... maybe that explains a lot.
     
    I stumped down the dark, cold street, looking at my reflection as it flitted across the blank squares of the windows alongside. The boy's shoulders were hunched against the wind, his hands deep in his jacket pockets. His trainers scuffed the concrete. His posture perfectly expressed the annoyance I was feeling. The Amulet beat against my chest with every step. If it had been in my power, I would have ripped it off and lobbed it into the nearest trash can before dematerializing in high dudgeon. But I was bound by the orders of the child's command.[2] I had to keep it with me.
     
    [2] There have been cases where a spirit has attempted to refuse a command. On one notable occasion, Asmoral the Resolute was instructed by his master to destroy the djinni Ianna. But Ianna had long been Asmoral's closest ally and there was great love between them. Despite his master's increasingly severe injunctions, Asmoral refused to act. Sadly, though his willpower was equal to the challenge, his essence was tied to the irresistible tug of the magician's command. Before long, because he did not give way, he was literally torn in two. The resulting matter explosion destroyed the Magician, his palace, and an outlying suburb of Baghdad. After this tragic event, magicians learned to be cautious of ordering direct attacks on opposing spirits (opposing magicians were a different matter). For our part, we learned to avoid conflicts of principle. As a result, loyalties among us are temporary and liable to shift. Friendship is essentially a matter of strategy.
     
    I took a side street away from the traffic. The massed darkness of high buildings closed in on either side, oppressing me. Cities get me down, almost as if I am underground. London is particularly bad—cold, gray, heavy with odors and rain.
    It makes me long for the south, for the deserts and the blank blue sky.
    Another alley led off to the left, choked with wet cardboard and newspapers. Automatically I scanned through the planes, saw nothing. It would do. I rejected the first two doorways for reasons of hygiene. The third was dry. I sat there.
    It was high time I thought through the events of the night so far. It had been a busy one. There was the pale-faced boy, Simon Lovelace, the Amulet, Jabor, Faquarl.... A pretty hellish brew all round. Still, what did it matter? At dawn I would hand over the Amulet and escape this sorry mess for good.
     
    Except for my business with the boy. He'd pay for it, big time. You didn't reduce