The Golem's Eye

hall; several smaller pharaohs had already been bunted aside and lay like ninepins in indignant heaps on the margins, while a couple of gods were in closer proximity to each other than they would have cared for in life. But if these had given little trouble, some of the larger statues seemed to be putting up more resistance. Halfway down the hall, and directly in the path that the enemy was taking, rose a giant seated figure of Ramses the Great, more than thirty feet high and carved from solid granite. The top of its headdress was gently shaking; muffled scraping sounds came from the darkness below, suggesting that something was trying to force Ramses from its path. [9]

    [9] Ramses wouldn't have been surprised that his statue was proving so troublesome; he had the biggest ego of any human it's been my misfortune to serve. This despite being small, bandy-legged, and with a face as pockmarked as a rhino's bottom. His magicians, however, were strong and inflexible—for forty years I labored on grandiose building projects on his behalf, along with a thousand other benighted spirits.
     
    Even an utukku would have figured out after a couple of minutes that the easiest thing to do was to walk around something so big and just head off on its travels. But my enemy was worrying away at the statue like a small dog trying to lift an elephant's shinbone. So perhaps (a positive thought) my adversary was very stupid. Or perhaps (less positive, this) it was simply ambitious—intent on causing maximum destruction.
    Anyway, it was evidently happily occupied for the present. And this gave me the opportunity to take a closer look at what I was up against. Without a sound, the minotaur minced through the blackness of the hall until it came to a tall sarcophagus that so far remained untouched. It peered around it, toward the base of Ramses' statue. And frowned in perplexity.
    Most djinn have perfect night sight; it's one of the countless ways in which we are superior to humans. Darkness has little meaning for us—even on the first plane, which you see, too. But now, though I scrolled through the other planes with the speed of thought, I found I could not penetrate a deep well of blackness centered on the statue's base. It swelled and shrank around its edges, but remained as inkily inscrutable on the seventh plane as on the first. Whatever was causing Ramses to shake was deep within the darkness, but I could see nothing of it.
    However, I could certainly judge roughly where it would be, and since it was being good enough to remain stationary, it seemed the time had come for a surprise attack. I looked around me for an appropriate missile. In a glass cabinet nearby was an odd black stone, of irregular outline, small enough to lift, but large enough to brain an afrit nicely. It had a lot of scribbling down one flat side, which I didn't have time to read. It was probably a set of rules for visitors to the museum, since it seemed to be written in two or three languages. Whatever, it would do the job.
    The minotaur carefully and quietly lifted the glass case off the floor and over the top of the rock, setting it down again without a sound. It checked across: the blackness still welled aggressively against Ramses' feet, but the statue remained immobile. Good.
    With a bend and a lift, the rock was in the minotaur's brawny arms, and I was heading back across the gallery, looking for a suitable vantage point. A smallish pharaoh met my eye. I didn't recognize him: he can't have been one of the more memorable ones. Even his statue had a slightly apologetic expression. But he was sitting high up on a carved throne on top of a dais, and his lap looked big enough for a minotaur to stand on.
    Still holding the rock, I hopped up, first onto the dais, then onto the throne, then onto the pharaoh's lap. I squinted over his shoulder; perfect—I was a stone's throw away from the pulsating blackness now, high up enough to get just the right trajectory. I tensed my goat legs, flexed my biceps, gave a snort for luck, and tossed the stone up and over, as if from a siege catapult.
    For a single second, maybe two, its inscribed surface flashed in the light from the windows, then it plummeted down in front of Ramses' face, down to the base of the statue and into the center of the black smog.
    Smack! A crack of stone on stone, rock on rock. Small black pieces flew out of the smog in all directions, pinging off the masonry and cracking glass.
    Well, I'd hit