The Amulet of Samarkand

still displayed the unmistakable ravages of fire, blood, and talon. I wished the boy similar fortune.
    Now he was holding in his left hand a burnished disc—a scrying glass of highly polished bronze. He passed his right hand over it a few times and began to gaze into the reflective metal with passive concentration. Whatever captive imp dwelled within, the disc soon responded. A murky picture formed; the boy observed it closely. I was too far off to see the image, but while he was distracted I did a bit of looking of my own.
     
    His room... I wanted a clue to his identity. Some letter addressed to him, perhaps, or a name tag in his coat. Both of those had worked before. I wasn't after his birth name, of course—that would be too much to hope for—but his official name would do for a start.[4] But I was out of luck. The most private, intimate, telltale place in the room—his desk—had been carefully covered with a thick black cloth. A wardrobe in the corner was shut; ditto a chest of drawers. There was a cracked glass vase with fresh flowers among the mess of candles—an odd touch, this. He hadn't put it there himself, I reckoned; so somebody liked him.
     
    [4] All magicians have two names, their official name and their birth name. Their birth name is that given to them by their parents, and because it is intimately bound up with their true nature and being, it is a source of great strength and weakness. They seek to keep it secret from everyone, for if an enemy learns it, he or she can use it to gain power over them, rather in the same way that a magician can only summon a djinni if he knows their true name. Magicians thus conceal their birth names with great care, replacing them with official names at the time of their coming of age. It is always useful to know a magician's official name—but far, far better to learn his secret one.
     
    The kid waved his hand over the scrying glass and the surface went dull. He replaced the disc in his pocket, then looked up at me suddenly. Uh-oh. Here it came.
    "Bartimaeus," he began, "I charge you to take the Amulet of Samarkand and hide it in the magical repository of the magician Arthur Underwood, concealing it so that he cannot observe it, and achieving this so stealthily that no one, either human or spirit, on this plane or any other, shall see you enter or depart; I further charge you to return to me immediately, silent and unseen, to await further instructions."
    He was blue in the face when he finished this, having completed it all in one straight breath.[5] I glowered under my stony brows.
     
    [5] Strictly advisable when dealing with subtle, intelligent entities such as myself. It is often possible to interpret a pause for breath as a full stop, which either changes the meaning of the instructions or turns them into gobbledegook. If we can misinterpret something to our advantage, we most certainly will.
     
    "Very well. Where does this unfortunate magician reside?"
    The boy smiled thinly. "Downstairs."

11
     
    Downstairs... Well, that was surprising.
    "Framing your master, are you? Nasty."
    "I'm not framing him. I just want it safe, behind whatever security he's got. No one's going to find it there." He paused. "But if they do..."
    "You'll be in the clear. Typical magician's trick. You re learning faster than most."
    "No one's going to find it."
    "You think not? We'll see."
    Still, I couldn't float there gossiping all day. I encased the Amulet with a Charm, rendering it temporarily small and giving it the appearance of a drifting cobweb. Then I sank through a knothole in the nearest plank, snaked as a vapor through the empty floor space, and in spider guise crawled cautiously out of a crack in the ceiling of the room below.
    I was in a deserted bathroom. Its door was open; I scurried toward it along the plaster as fast as eight legs could carry me. As I went I shook my mandibles at the effrontery of the boy.
    Framing another magician: that wasn't unusual. That was part and parcel, it came with the territory.[1] Framing your own master, though, now that was out of the ordinary—in fact possibly unique in a wizardling of twelve. Sure, as adults, magicians fell out with ridiculous regularity, but not when they were starting off; not when they were just being taught the rules.
     
    [1] Magicians are the most conniving, jealous, duplicitous group of people on earth, even including lawyers and academics. They worship power and the wielding thereof, and seek every