The Ring of Solomon

Ring.’
    ‘Oh, who cares about that?’ Her arm rose. Pressed tight against her wrist, which shielded its tell-tale chill from the shadow’s slackening grip – her final silver dagger.
    The djinni’s eyes widened. It glanced up at the shadow, which was still whooping and cooing at the destruction below. It looked at Asmira, then at Khaba’s back.
    ‘From here?’ Bartimaeus whispered. ‘You reckon?’
    ‘No problem.’
    ‘I don’t know … It’ll have to be a good one.’
    ‘It will be. Shut up. You’re disturbing my concentration.’
    She adjusted her position slowly, keeping her eyes fixed on the magician. Breathe slowly, just as her mother used to do. Aim for the heart. Don’t think about it. Just relax …
    The djinni gave a gasp. ‘Ooo, he keeps moving. I can’t bear it.’
    ‘ Will you be quiet?’
    A riderless carpet swathed in purple flames carved diagonally through the air straight in front of Khaba, who jumped aside. The carpet struck the tower somewhere below; a plume of smoke rose like a pillar before them. Asmira cursed silently, gathered herself, assessed the angles to his new position, moved her wrist back …
    Now she had him.
    ‘Master – watch out!’ The foliot Gezeri, hovering in his cloud beside the parapet, had glanced across; he gave a sudden warning cry. Khaba turned, his arms outstretched, his fingers spread. Asmira made an instant adjustment. She threw the dagger. Silver flashed, sliced across Khaba’s moving hand. Blood showered; something like a bent twig fell away. Gold glinted at its ragged end.
    All across the sky the demon horde winked out. Stars shone.
    The severed finger bounced upon the stone.
    Khaba opened his mouth and screamed.
    ‘ Go , Bartimaeus!’ Asmira cried. ‘Catch it! Drop it in the sea!’
    The youth at her side was gone. A small brown bird thrust itself clear of the shadow’s grasp.
    Khaba screamed, clutching at his hand. Blood gouted from his finger stump.
    The shadow’s scream was identical to its master’s. The grip about Asmira’s waist was broken; she was abruptly tossed aside.
    The little bird swooped low, seized the finger in its beak, and disappeared over the edge of the parapet –
    Asmira landed hard upon her back.
    – a mighty bird of flame and fire shot upwards into view, a fleck of gold held in its beak. Turning to the west, it disappeared amid the rising smoke.
    ‘Ammet!’ Khaba howled. ‘Kill it! Kill it! Bring it back!’
    The shadow flitted forward, jumped from the parapet. Long black wings sprouted from its sides. They rose and fell with a noise like thunder. It too was gone into the smoke. Its wing-beats faded. Silence fell upon the House of Solomon.
    Asmira got unsteadily to her feet.
    A haze of spent magic drifted like dark fog beyond the parapet. The palace and its gardens could not be glimpsed, save here and there where coloured fires were burning. Somewhere perhaps she heard faint voices, but they were far away and far below, and might as well have been calling from another world. The walkway was all there was, a mess of fractured stone and blackened wood.
    And she was not alone upon it.
    The magician stood there, six feet away, cradling his maimed hand and staring into the dark. It seemed to Asmira that the lines upon his face had deepened, and that delicate new ones clustered on his skin. He staggered a little as he stood.
    He was very close to the edge. A single shove was all it needed …
    Asmira stepped silently towards him.
    A rush of air, a smell of rotten eggs. Asmira threw herself flat upon the ground, so that the swiping claws of the foliot Gezeri sliced just above her neck. She felt a tingling as the lilac cloud passed over her, then she was up upon her feet again. The foliot spun round upon his rushing cloud, reversed its direction, came hastening back. His eyes were slits of hatred, his mouth gaped wide. The barb on his twirling tail curled like a scimitar. His indolent posture and bright red cheeks were gone; he had become a crouching thing of claws and teeth.
    Asmira grasped the silver pendant at her neck, stood ready. With a cry, the foliot sent a thin green spear of light shooting at her chest. Asmira leaped aside, uttered a Ward that deflected the attack, sent it harmlessly out into the void. She uttered another. Yellow discs rained down upon the lilac cloud, peppering it with smoking blisters. The cloud veered sideways, collapsed to the parapet; Gezeri, jumping free as it fell, skittered with