The Amulet of Samarkand

border passed below him, then the carpet's tasseled edge itself. It moved off, revealing a gleaming surface below— perhaps made of whitewashed plaster—on which great runes were inscribed in shining black ink. Nathaniel knew immediately what they were standing on, and one glance across the room confirmed it. He saw sections of perfectly drawn circles, two straight lines converging at the apex of a star, the elegant curving lines of runic characters, both red and black.
    "A giant pentacle," he whispered. "And we're all inside."
    "Nathaniel," said the fly. "You know I told you to keep calm and not bother waving or shouting?"
    "Yes."
    "Cancel that. Make as much movement as you can. Perhaps we can attract the attention of one of these idiots."
    Nathaniel jiggled about, waved his hands and jerked his head from side to side. He shouted until his throat was sore. Around him whirled the fly, its body flashing in a hundred bright warning colors. But the magicians nearby noticed nothing. Even Jessica Whitwell, who was closest, still gazed at the ceiling with starry eyes.
    The terrible helplessness that Nathaniel had felt on the night of the fire flooded over him again. He could feel his energy and resolution draining away.
    "Why won't they look?" he wailed.
    "Pure greed," the fly said. "They're fixated with the trappings of wealth. This is no good. I'd try a Detonation, but it would kill you at this range."
    "No, don't do that," Nathaniel said.
    "If only you'd already freed me from the Indefinite Confinement spell," the fly mused. "Then I could break out and tackle Lovelace. You'd be dead, of course, but I'd save everyone else, honest, and tell them all about your sacrifice. It would— Look! It's happening!"
    Nathaniel's eyes had already been drawn to Lovelace, who had made a sudden movement. From pointing at the ceiling, his hands now descended to the back of the lectern with feverish haste. He drew something out, hurled its covering cloth to the floor and raised the object to his lips: a horn, old, stained, and cracked. Sweat beaded his forehead; it glistened in the light from the chandeliers.
    Something in the crowd gave an inhuman roar of anger. The magicians lowered their heads in shock.
    Lovelace blew.
    Bartimaeus
     
    When the carpet drew back and the giant summoning pentacle was revealed, I knew we were in for something nasty. Lovelace had it all worked out. All of us, him included, were trapped inside the circle with whatever he was calling from the Other Place. There were barriers on the windows and no doubt in the walls as well, so there was no chance any of us would escape. Lovelace had the Amulet of Samarkand—and with its power, he was immune—but the rest of us would be at the mercy of the being he had summoned.
    I hadn't lied to the boy. Without the constraining pentacle, there was a limit to what any magician would willingly summon. The greatest beings run amok if they're given any freedom,[3] and Lovelace's hidden design meant that the only freedom this one was going to get would be inside this single room.
     
    [3] One of the worst examples was the Mycenean outpost of Atlantis on the island of Santonni in the Mediterranean About 3,500 years ago, if memory serves. They wanted to conquer another island (or some predictable objective like that), so their magicians clubbed together and summoned an aggressive entity. They couldn't control it. I was only a few hundred miles away on the Egyptian delta; I heard the explosion and saw the tsunami waves come roaring across to deluge the African coast. Weeks later, when things had settled down, the pharaoh's boats sailed to Santorini. The entire central section of the island, with its people and its shining city, had sunk into the sea. And all because they hadn't bothered with a pentacle.
     
    But that was all the magician needed. When his slave departed, he alone of the great ones of the Government would be left alive, ready to assume control.
    He blew the horn. It made no sound on any of the seven planes, but in the Other Place it would have rung loud.
    As was to be expected, the afrit acted fastest. Even as the summoning horn came into view, she let out a great bellow, seized Rupert Devereaux by the shoulders and flew at the nearest set of windows, picking up speed as she went. She crashed into the glass; the magical barriers across it flared electric blue, and with an impact like thunder, she was propelled back into the room, head over heels, with Devereaux