The Ring of Solomon

opposite, a distant gleam of an oil lamp on a chamber wall, and heard two voices raised in sharp discussion. One was high, familiar; the other low.
    Lilac eyes gleaming, wicked schemes trailing like a cloak behind it, the cat pattered forwards and vanished from the hall.

    1 I didn’t hang around long enough to get a good look at it, but its size and scale, not to mention all those gooey jellyfishy bits swirling about the place, told me it was something from the very depths of the Other Place. Entities like that are rarely house-trained, and almost always have bad attitudes.
    2 You could tell it was genuine because of the spiky armpit hair sprouting like black broccoli from the top of the wrinkled scalp. I’ve got to say, you can add all the shiny button eyes and cutesy cotton mouths you like, but if I was a kid who was given that doll to cuddle of a bedtime, I’d feel a bit short-changed.
    3 As my last master but one would tell you, never attempt to use an unknown magical artefact. Hundreds of magicians have risked it down the years and only one or two of them survived to regret it. Most famous, to djinn of my antiquity, was the Old Priestess of Ur, who wished for immortality. For decades she worked dozens of her magicians to death, forcing them to create a beautiful silver circlet that would confer on her perpetual life. They finished at last; in triumph, the ageing woman put the circlet on her head. But the entities trapped inside the circlet had not chosen to spell out the exact terms of the great magic they invoked. The Old Priestess lived on, all right, but not in quite the pleasant manner she had assumed.
    4 The Circlet of Harms, for instance, embedded in the forehead of the Old Priestess of Ur. How she yelled when she put it on! But by then it was too late.
    5 OK, maybe not shrugged exactly. I didn’t have any shoulders. But I certainly gave my wings a damn good non-committal twitch.
    6 All right, all right. For frowned read ‘let its compound eyes tilt and its antennae droop quizzically’. Anatomically more accurate, but cumbersome, don’t you think? I hope you’re satisfied now.
    7 Don’t start.
    8 Go on, take a look at yourself in the mirror. A good long look, if you can bear it. See? Flawed’s putting it mildly, isn’t it?

29
    I t was very quiet when Asmira awoke. She lay on her back staring at the ceiling – at a long thin crack that meandered along the plaster to the corner with the wall. It was not a particularly distinctive crack, but it puzzled her, because she had never noticed it before. Her little room had a great many cracks, and places where the old mud-brick was half worn through, and faded marks where forgotten guards before her had scratched their names – and Asmira had thought she knew them all. But this was new.
    She stared at it for a time, open-mouthed, relaxed of limb, and then, with a quickening of consciousness, realized that the ceiling plaster had been whitewashed, and was further from her than it ought to be. And the wall was on the wrong side. The light was strange. The bed felt soft. It was not her room. She was not in Marib any more.
    Memories came flooding back to her in a rush. With a cry she jerked bolt upright on the bed, scrabbling at her belt.
    A man sat watching her from a chair across the room.
    ‘If you’re looking for this ,’ he said, ‘I’m afraid I removed it.’ He flourished her silver dagger briefly, then settled it back across his knees.
    Asmira’s body juddered to the hammer-pounding of her heart. Her eyes were staring, her fingers clutching at the cool white sheet. ‘The demon—’ she gasped.
    ‘Has gone at my bidding,’ the man said, smiling. ‘I saved you from its claws. I must say you’ve recovered fairly swiftly. I’ve known some intruders’ hearts to stop.’
    Panic seized her; with a sudden movement she swung her feet over the edge of the bed and made to stand – but at a gesture from the man she froze.
    ‘You can sit, if you like,’ he said calmly. ‘But don’t try to get up. I’ll take that as an aggressive act.’
    His voice was very soft and gentle, melodic even, but the iron in the tone was clear. Asmira held her position a moment longer, then slowly, slowly, continued to turn so that her feet dropped to the floor and her knees rested on the edge of the bed. Now she sat facing him.
    ‘Who are you?’ the man said.
    He was tall and slim and dressed in a white robe that hid his lower limbs from view. His face was