The Amulet of Samarkand

unison. "I see no woman. Only a grinning djinni."
    Lovelace's face froze; he turned to Amanda Cathcart, who had been gazing at him with a look of agonized entreaty. As he watched, her features slowly altered. A smile of triumphant wickedness spread across her face from ear to ear. Then, in a flash, one of her arms snaked out, plucked the summoning horn from Lovelace's slackening grip and snatched it away. With a bound, Amanda Cathcart was gone, and a marmoset hung by its tail from a light fixture several meters away. It waved the horn merrily at the aghast magician.
    "Don't mind if I have this?" it called. "You won't need it where you're going."
    All energy seemed to depart from the magician; his skin hung loose and ashen on his bones. His shoulders slumped; he took a pace toward Nathaniel, as if halfheartedly trying to reclaim the Amulet. Then a great hand reached down and engulfed him, and Lovelace was plucked into the air. High, high, higher he went, his body shifting and altering as it did so. Ramuthra's head bent to meet him. Something that might have been a mouth was seen to open.
    An instant later, Simon Lovelace was gone.
    The demon paused to look for the cackling marmoset, but for the moment it had vanished. Ignoring Nathaniel, who was still sprawled on the floor, it turned back heavily toward the magicians at the other end of the hall.
    A familiar voice spoke at Nathaniel's side.
    "Two down, one to go," it said.
     
     
    Bartimaeus
     
    I was so elated at the success of my fine trick that I risked changing into Ptolemy's form the moment Ramuthra's attention was elsewhere. Jabor and Lovelace were gone, and now only the great entity remained to be dealt with. I nudged my master with a boot. He was lying on his back, cradling the Amulet of Samarkand in his grubby mitts as a mother would her baby. I set the summoning horn down by his side.
    He struggled to a sitting position. "Lovelace... did you see?"
    "Yep, and it wasn't pretty."
    As he rose stiffly to his feet, his eyes shone with a strange brilliance—half horror, half exaltation. "I've got it," he whispered. "I've got the Amulet."
    "Yes," I replied, hastily. "Well done. But Ramuthra is still with us, and if we want to get help, we're running out of time."
    I looked across at the far side of the auditorium. My elation dwindled. The assembled ministers of State were a lamentable heap by now, either cowering in dumb stupefaction, banging on the doors, or fighting viciously with each other for a position as far away as possible from the oncoming Ramuthra. It was an unedifying spectacle, like watching a crowd of plague rats scrapping in a sewer. It was also highly worrying: since not one of them looked in a fit state to recite a complex dismissal spell.
    "Come on," I said. "While Ramuthra takes some, we can rouse the others. Who's most likely to remember the counter-summons?
    His lip curled. "None of them, by the looks of things."
    "Even so, we've got to try." I tugged at his sleeve. "Come on. Neither of us knows the incantation."[7]
     
    [7] I hadn't a clue. Words of Command are magicians' business. That is what they are good at. Djinn can't speak them. But crabbed old master magicians know an incantation for every eventuality.
     
    "Speak for yourself," he said, slowly. "I know it."
    "You?" I was a little taken aback. "Are you sure?"
    He scowled at me. Physically, he was pretty ropy—white of skin, bruised and bleeding, swaying where he stood. But a bright fire of determination burned in his eyes. "That possibility hadn't even occurred to you, had it?" he said. "Yes—I've learned it."
    There was more than a hint of doubt in the voice, and in the eyes too—I glimpsed it wrestling with his resolve. I tried not to sound skeptical. "It's high level," I said. "And complex; and you'll need to break the horn at exactly the right moment. This is no time for false pride, boy. You could still—"
    "Ask for help? I don't think so." Whether through pride or practicality, he was quite right. Ramuthra was almost upon the magicians now; we had no chance of getting help from them. "Stand away," he said. "I need space to think."
    I hesitated for an instant. Admirable though his strength of character was, I could see all too clearly where it led. Amulet or no Amulet, the consequences of a fluffed dismissal are always disastrous, and this time I would suffer right along with him. But I could think of no alternative.
    Helplessly, I stood back. My master picked up the