The Golem's Eye

feathers one by one, sending Icarus and his witticisms plummeting to a watery grave.
     
    "Huh, you're not going to drop me. You just said."
    "Oh. Yes. So I did." The roc sighed. "The truth is I do not know what is planned for you. Now, shut your trap a minute. I'm coming in to land."
    We sank through the darkness, across the ocean of orange lights, down to the street where the boy and I had sheltered on the night of the Underwood fire. The ruined library was still there: I could see its bulk sandwiched among the lights of the smaller shops nearby. The building had deteriorated somewhat in the intervening years, and a considerable hole now yawned in one place, where a large glass skylight had fallen away. The roc diminished in scale as it approached, judged the angle carefully, and popped the girl feet first through the hole as if posting a letter. We descended into the cavernous space, lit here and there by shafts of moonlight. Only when we were a safe distance from the rubble of the floor did I let my burden go. [4] She dropped with a squeak and rolled briefly.
     
    [4] We were about six feet up. Hey, she was young and bouncy.
     
    I alighted a little way off and appraised her properly for the first time. It was the same one, all right—the girl in the alley who had tried to pinch the Amulet. She looked older now, thinner, and more jaded, her face gray and drawn and her eyes wary. The last few years had been hard for her, I reckoned; the last few minutes positively cruel. One arm hung limp, its shoulder slashed and caked with blood. Even so, the defiance in her was palpable: she got carefully to her feet and, with chin studiedly aloft, stared at me from across a column of silver light.
    "I don't think much of this," she snapped. "Can't you interrogate me somewhere cleaner? I was expecting the Tower at least."
    "This is preferable, believe me." The roc was sharpening a claw against the wall. I wasn't in much of a mood for conversation.
    "Well, get on with it, then. Where's Jakob? Where are the magicians?"
    "They'll be along in a bit."
    "In a bit? What kind of outfit is this?" She put her hands on her hips. "I thought you lot were meant to be terrifyingly efficient. This is all cockeyed."
    I raised my great plumed head. "Now, listen," I said. "Don't forget that I've just saved you from the jaws of the Night Police. A little gratitude wouldn't go amiss here, young lady." The roc rapped its talons meaningfully on the floor and fixed her with the kind of look that sends Persian sailors diving overboard.
    She fixed me with the kind of look that curdles milk. "Get lost, demon! I defy you and your wickedness. You don't frighten me!"
    "No?"
    "No. You're just a useless imp. Your feathers are mangy and covered in mold."
    "What?" The roc made a hurried inspection. "Rubbish! That's the moonlight giving them that sheen!"
    "It's a wonder they haven't fallen out. I've seen pigeons with better plumage."
    "Now, listen—"
    "I've destroyed demons with real power!" she cried. "Think I'll be impressed by an overgrown chicken?"
    The cheek of the girl! "This noble roc," I said with bitter dignity, "is not my only form. It is but one of a hundred thousand guises I can assume. For instance..." The roc reared up: I became, in quick succession, a ferocious red-eyed minotaur, frothing at the mouth; a granite gargoyle, champing its jaws; a thrashing serpent, spitting venom; a moaning ghost; a walking cadaver; a floating Aztec skull, gleaming in the dark. It was a motley assortment of nastiness, [5]  if I say so myself. "Well?" the skull inquired, meaningfully. "Care to comment?"
     
    [5] If not particularly inventive. I was tired and out of sorts.
     
    She swallowed audibly. "Not bad," she said, "but all those guises are big and showy. I bet you can't do subtle."
    "Of course I can!"
    "I bet you can't go extra small—say small enough to... to get into that bottle over there." She pointed at the end of a beer bottle poking out from under a pile of litter, while all the time watching me out of the corner of her eye.
    That old one! If it's been tried on me once, it's been tried a hundred times. The skull shook itself slowly from side to side and grinned. [6]  "Nice effort, but that didn't work on me even in the old days. [7]  Now," I went on. "Why don't you sit down and rest? You look dog-tired."
     
    [6] Actually, it was grinning already, grinning being one of the few things skulls do really well.
     
    [7] You know the trick. The clever