The Ring of Solomon

power in this child, though he was very young.
    ‘It is not me you have to fear; not now, anyway. Simon Lovelace will come to you himself when he finds his amulet stolen. He will not spare you for your youth.’
    ‘You are bound to do my will.’
    ‘I am.’ I had to hand it to him, he was determined. And very stupid.
    His hand moved. I heard the first syllable of the Systematic Vice. He was about to inflict pain.
    I went. I didn’t bother with any more special effects.

    1 Not everyone agrees with me on this. Some find it delightful sport. They refine countless ways of tormenting their summoners by means of subtly hideous apparitions. Usually the best you can hope for is to give them nightmares later, but occasionally these stratagems are so successful that the apprentices actually panic and step out of the protective circle. Then all is well – for us. But it is a risky business. Often they are very well trained. Then they grow up and get their revenge.
    2 I couldn’t do anything while I was in the circle, of course. But later I’d be able to find out who he was, look for weaknesses of character, things in his past I could exploit. They’ve all got them. You’ve all got them, I should say.
    3 One magician demanded I show him an image of the love of his life. I rustled up a mirror.

2
    W hen I landed on the top of a lamppost in the London dusk it was peeing with rain. This was just my luck. I had taken the form of a blackbird, a sprightly fellow with a bright yellow beak and jet-black plumage. Within seconds I was as bedraggled a fowl as ever hunched its wings in Hampstead. Flicking my head from side to side I spied a large beech tree across the street. Leaves mouldered at its foot – it had already been stripped clean by the November winds – but the thick sprouting of its branches offered some protection from the wet. I flew over to it, passing above a lone car that purred its way along the wide suburban road. Behind high walls and the evergreen foliage of their gardens, the ugly white façades of several sizeable villas shone through the dark like the faces of the dead.
    Well, perhaps it was my mood that made it seem like that. Five things were bothering me. For a start the dull ache that comes with every physical manifestation was already beginning. I could feel it in my feathers. Changing form would keep the pain at bay for a time, but might also draw attention to me at a critical stage of the operation. Until I was sure of my surroundings, a bird I had to remain.
    The second thing was the weather. Enough said.
    Thirdly, I’d forgotten the limitations of material bodies. I had an itch just above my beak, and kept futilely trying to scratch it with a wing. Fourthly, that kid. I had a lot of questions about him. Who was he? Why did he have a death wish? How would I get even with him before he died for subjecting me to this assignment? News travels fast and I was bound to get some stick for scurrying around on behalf of a scrap like him.
    Fifthly … the Amulet. By all accounts it was a potent charm. What the kid thought he was going to do with it when he got it beat me. He wouldn’t have a clue. Maybe he’d just wear it as some tragic fashion accessory. Maybe nicking amulets was the latest craze, the magician’s version of pinching hubcaps. Even so, I had to get it first and this would not necessarily be easy, even for me.
    I closed my blackbird’s eyes and opened my inner ones, one after the other, each on a different plane. 1 I looked back and forth around me, hopping up and down the branch to get the optimum view. No less than three villas along the road had magical protection, which showed how nobby an area we were in. I didn’t inspect the two further off up the street; it was the one across the road, beyond the streetlight, that interested me. The residence of Simon Lovelace, magician.
    The first plane was clear, but he’d rigged up a defence nexus on the second – it shone like blue gossamer all along the high wall. It didn’t finish there either; it extended up into the air, over the top of the low white house and down again on the other side, forming a great shimmering dome.
    Not bad, but I could handle it.
    There was nothing on the third or fourth planes, but on the fifth I spotted three sentries prowling around in mid-air, just beyond the lip of the garden wall. They were a dull yellow all over, each one formed of three muscular legs that rotated on a hub of gristle. Above the hub