The Amulet of Samarkand

had observed the bird[2] from some way off waited a few moments for it to emerge, lost patience, and scuttled curiously after it. Behind the bags it discovered no bird, black or otherwise. There was nothing there but a freshly turned molehill.
     
    [2] On two planes. Cats have that power.

3
     
    I hate the taste of mud. It is no fit thing for a being of air and fire. The cloying weight of earth oppresses me greatly whenever I come into contact with it. That is why I am choosy about my incarnations. Birds, good. Insects, good. Bats, okay. Things that run fast are fine. Tree dwellers are even better. Subterranean things, not good. Moles, bad.
    But there's no point being fastidious when you have a protective shield to bypass. I had reasoned correctly that it did not extend underground. The mole dug its way deep, deep down, under the foundations of the wall. No magical alarm sounded, though I did hit my head five times on a pebble.[1] I burrowed upward again, reaching the surface after twenty minutes of snuffling, scruffling, and turning my beady nose up at the juicy worms I uncovered after every couple of scrapes.
     
    [1] Once each on five different pebbles. Not the same pebble five times. Just want to make that clear. Sometimes you human beings are so dense .
     
    The mole poked its head cautiously out of the little pile of earth it had driven through the immaculate surface of Simon Lovelace's lawn. It looked around, checking out the scene. There were lights on in the house, on the ground floor. The curtains were drawn. The upper floors, from what the mole could see, were dark. The translucent blue span of the magical defense system arched overhead. One yellow sentry trudged its stupid way ten feet above the shrubbery. The other two were presumably behind the house.
    I tried the seventh plane again. Still nothing, still that uneasy sense of danger. Oh, well.
    The mole retreated underground and tunneled below the grass roots toward the house. It reappeared in the flowerbed just below the nearest windows. It was thinking hard. There was no point going further in this guise, tempting though it was to try to break into the cellars. A different method would have to be found.
    To the mole's furry ears came the sound of laughter and clinking glasses. It was surprisingly loud, echoing from very close by. An air vent, cracked with age, was set in the wall not two feet away. It led indoors.
    With some relief, I became a fly.

4
     
    From the security of the air vent, I peered with my multi-faceted eyes into a rather traditional drawing room. There was a thick pile carpet, nasty striped wallpaper, a hideous crystal thing pretending to be a chandelier, two oil paintings that were dark with age, a sofa and two easy chairs (also striped), a low coffee table laden with a silver tray, and, on the tray, a bottle of red wine and no glasses. The glasses were in the hands of two people.
    One of them was a woman. She was youngish (for a human, which means infinitesimally young) and probably quite good-looking in a fleshy sort of way. Big eyes, dark hair, bobbed. I memorized her automatically. I would appear in her guise tomorrow when I went back to visit that kid. Only naked. Let's see how his very steely but ever so adolescent mind responded to that![1]
     
    [1] For those who are wondering, I have no difficulty in becoming a woman. Nor for that matter a man. In some ways I suppose women are trickier, but I won't go into that now. Woman, man, mole, maggot—they're all the same, when all's said and done, except for slight variations in cognitive ability.
     
    However, for the moment I was more concerned with the man this woman was smiling and nodding at. He was tall, thin, handsome in a rather bookish sort of way, with his hair slicked back by some pungent oil. He had small round glasses and a large mouth with good teeth. He had a prominent jaw. Something told me that this was the magician, Simon Lovelace. Was it his indefinable aura of power and authority? Was it the proprietorial way in which he gestured round the room? Or was it the small imp which floated at his shoulder (on the second plane), warily watching out for danger on every side?
    I rubbed my front two legs together with irritation. I would have to be very careful. The imp complicated matters.[2]
     
    [2] Don't get me wrong. I wasn't afraid of the imp. I could squish him without a second thought. But he was there for two reasons: for his undying loyalty to his master and for