The Amulet of Samarkand

bit if that tickles your fancy."
    "Thank you. None of that will be necessary."
     
    The floor in one corner of the room had been purposely left bare of carpet and was slightly raised. Here, with great precision, and with only one or two fleeting glances at his book of formulae, the boy drew a simple pentacle and two circles with a piece of black chalk he found in the drawer of his desk. I kept very quiet while he did so. I didn't want him to make any mistakes.
    At last he finished, and rose stiffly, holding his back.
    "It's done," he said, stretching. "Get in."
    I considered the runes carefully. "That cancels Adelbrand's Pentacle, does it?"
    "Yes."
    "And breaks the bond of Perpetual Confinement?"
    "Yes! See that hieroglyph here? That snaps the thread. Now do you want to be dismissed or not?"
    "Just checking." I skipped into the bigger circle and turned to face him. He readied himself, ordering the words in his mind, then looked at me severely.
    "Take that stupid grin off your face," he said. "You're putting me off."
    "Sorry." I adopted a hideous expression of malady and woe.
    "That's not much better."
    "Sorry, sorry."
    "All right, prepare yourself." He took a deep breath.
    "Just one thing," I said. "If you were going to summon someone else soon, I recommend Faquarl. He's a good worker. Put him to something constructive, like draining a lake with a sieve, or counting grains of sand on a beach. He'd be good at that."
    "Look, do you want to go or not?"
    "Oh, yes. I do. Very much."
    "Well, then—"
    "Nathaniel—one last thing."
    "What?"
    "Listen: for a magician, you've got potential. And I don't mean the way you think I mean. For a start, you've got far more initiative than most of them, but they'll crush it out of you if you're not careful. And you've a conscience too, another thing which is rare and easily lost. Guard it. That's all. Oh, and I'd beware of your new master, if I were you."
    He looked at me for a moment, as if he wanted to speak. Then he shook his head impatiently. "I'll be all right. You needn't bother about me. This is your last chance. I have to be down for dinner in five minutes."
    "I'm ready."
    Then the boy spoke the counter-summons swiftly and without fault. I felt the weight of words binding me to the earth lessen with every syllable. As he neared the end, my form extended, spread, blossomed out from the confines of the circle. Multiple doors opened in the planes, beckoning me through. I became a dense cloud of smoke that roared up and outward, filling a room that became less real to me with every passing instant.
    He finished. His mouth snapped shut. The final bond broke like a severed chain.
     
    So I departed, leaving behind a pungent smell of brimstone. Just something to remember me by.
     
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