The Golem's Eye

dozen djinn. Each drove their slaves for years in the great quest; each, in turn, failed utterly. One by one, their beards turned gray, their hands weakened and palsied, their robes grew faded and discolored from ceaseless summonings and experiments. One by one, they tried to give up their positions, only to find Rudolf was unwilling to let them go. Those who attempted to slip away found soldiers waiting for them on the castle steps; others, attempting a magical departure, discovered a strong nexus around the castle, sealing them in. They did not escape. Many ended in the dungeons; the rest took their own lives. It was, to those of us spirits who watched the process, a deeply moral tale: our captors had been caught in the prison of their own ambitions.
     
    No foreign magicians dwelled here now. The buildings were smaller than I remembered, huddled together like seabirds on a headland. I sensed the old magics, still seeped into the stonework, but little that was new. Except... the faint tremoring on the planes was stronger now, its source much closer. The bat looked about carefully. What could it see? A dog, ferreting in a hole at the foot of one old wall. A lit window, fringed by thin curtains; inside it, an old man hunched beside a fire. A young woman, in the glare of a streetlight, walking carefully along the cobblestones in high-heeled shoes, perhaps making for the castle. Blank windows, shut casements, roof holes, and broken chimneys. Litter blowing in the wind. An upbeat scene.
    And number 13, halfway down the street, a hovel indistinguishable from the rest in its griminess and melancholy, but with a glowing green nexus of force surrounding it on the sixth plane. Someone was in, and that someone did not want to be disturbed.
    The bat made a quick sortie up and down the street, carefully avoiding the nexus where it curved up into the air. The rest of Golden Lane was dark and quiet, fully obsessed with its little activities of evening. I swooped quickly back the way I had come, down to the bottom of the hill to rouse my master.
    "I've found the place," I said. "Mild defenses, but we should be able to get in. Hurry, while no one's around."
    I've said it before, but humans are simply useless when it comes to getting about. The time it took for that boy to climb those measly 256 steps, the sheer number of huffs and puffs and gratuitous pauses for breath he needed, the remarkable color he became—I've never seen the like.
    "I wish we'd brought a paper bag or something," I told him. "Your face is glowing so much it can probably be seen from the other side of the Vltava. It's not even a very big hill."
    "What—What—kind of—defenses are there?" His mind was strictly on the job.
    "Flimsy nexus," I said. "No problem. Don't you exercise at all?"
    "No. No time. Too busy."
    "Of course. You're too important now. I forgot."
    After ten minutes or so, we reached the ruined tower and I became Ptolemy again. In this guise, I led the way to a place where a shallow incline dropped down onto the street. Here, while my master gasped and wheezed gently against the wall, we looked out at the hovels of Golden Lane.
    "Appalling lack of condition," I commented.
    "Yes. They should... knock them all down... and start again."
    "I was talking about you."
    "Which—which one is it?"
    "Number thirteen? That one on the right, three along. White plaster front. When you've finished dying, we'll see what we can do."
    A cautious walk along the shadows of the lane took us to within a few meters of the cottage. My master was all for marching up to the front door. I reached out an arm. "Stop right there. The nexus is directly in front of you. A fingertip farther and you'll set it off."
    He stopped. "You think you can get inside?"
    "I don't think, boy. I know. I was doing this kind of stuff when Babylon was a small-time cattle station. Stand aside, watch and learn."
    I stepped up to the frail glowing net of filaments that blocked our way, bent my head close. I chose a small hole between the threads and blew gently toward it. My aim was true: the tiny sliver of Obedient Breath [4]  passed into the hole and hung there, neither slipping through, nor withdrawing. It was too light to trigger the alarm. The rest was easy. I expanded the sliver slowly, gently; as it grew, it pried apart the filaments. In a few minutes, a large round hole had been created in the net, not far above the ground. I remodeled the Breath into the shape of a hoop and stepped