The Amulet of Samarkand

looked at him resentfully. "I can talk if I want to. So, you think I'm stupid, do you? Well, I'm not, see? What's this plan of yours?"
    "Don't tell him, Xerxes!" I whispered loudly. "Don't tell him anything."
    Eagle-beak made a rasping noise with his beak. "Plan? I know no plan. The prisoner's lying to you, Baztuk. What's it been saying?"
    "It's all right, Xerxes," I called, brightly. "I haven't mentioned... you know."
    Bull-head brandished his spear. "I think it's me who should be asking the questions, Xerxes," he said. "You've been plotting with the captive!"
    "No, you idiot—"
    "Idiot, am I?"
    Then they were off: muzzle to beak, all posturing muscles and flaring crest feathers, shouting and landing punches on each other's armored chests. Ho-hum. Utukku always were easy to fool. In their excitement, I had been quite forgotten, which suited me fine. Ordinarily, I would have enjoyed seeing them at each other's throats, but right now it was scant consolation for the mess I was in.
    The orb had become uncomfortably tight once more, so I downsized again, this time to a scarab beetle. Not that there was a great deal of point in this; but it delayed the inevitable and gave me room to scurry back and forth on the top of the pillar, flashing my wing-cases in rage and something like despair. That boy, Nathaniel! If ever I got out, I'd wreak such revenge on him that it would enter the legends and nightmares of his people! That I, Bartimaeus, who spoke with Solomon and Hiawatha, should go out like this—as a beetle crushed by an enemy too arrogant to even watch it done! No! Even now, I'd find a way....
    I scurried back and forth, back and forth, thinking, thinking....
    Impossible. I could not escape. Death was closing in steadily on every side. It was hard to see how the situation could possibly get any worse.
    A froth of steam, a roar, a mad, red eye lowered to my level.
    "Bartimaeus!"
    Well, that was one way. Bull-head was no longer squabbling. He had suddenly remembered who I was. "I know you now!" he cried. "Your voice! Yes, it is you— the destroyer of my people! At last! I have waited twenty-seven centuries for this moment!"
    When you're faced with a comment like that, it's hard to think of anything to say.
    The utukku raised his silver spear and howled out the triumphant battle cry that his kind always deliver with the death stroke.
    I settled for whirring my wings. You know, in a forlorn, defiant sort of way.

23
     
    Nathaniel
     
    What was to become the worst day of Nathaniel's life started out much as it meant to go on. Despite returning from Parliament at such a late hour, he had found it almost impossible to get to sleep. His master's final words rang endlessly through his mind, instilling in him a growing unease: "Anyone in possession of stolen property will suffer the severest penalties..." The severest penalties... And what was the Amulet of Samarkand if not stolen property?
    True, on the one hand, he was certain Lovelace had already stolen the Amulet: it was to get proof of this that he had sent Bartimaeus on his mission. But on the other hand, he—or, strictly speaking, Underwood—currently had the stolen goods instead. If Lovelace, or the police, or anyone from the Government should find it in the house... indeed, if Underwood himself should discover it in his collection, Nathaniel dreaded to think what catastrophes might occur. What had started out as a personal strike against his enemy now seemed suddenly a far riskier business. It wasn't just Lovelace he was up against now, but the long arm of the Government too. He had heard about the glass prisms, containing the remains of traitors, that hung from the battlements of the Tower of London. They made an eloquent point. It was never wise to risk official wrath.
    By the time the ghostly light that precedes the dawn began to glow around the skylight, Nathaniel was sure of one thing only. Whether the djinni had gathered proof or not, he ought to get rid of the Amulet fast. He would return it to Lovelace and alert the authorities in some way. But for that, he needed Bartimaeus.
    And Bartimaeus refused to come to him.
    Despite his bone-aching weariness, Nathaniel performed the summoning three times that morning, and three times the djinni did not appear. By the third try, he was practically sobbing with panic, gabbling out the words with hardly a care that a mispronounced syllable might endanger him. When he finished, he waited, breathing fast, watching the