The Ring of Solomon

on carving.
    ‘I wouldn’t mind so much,’ Faquarl said sourly, ‘if we could do this properly . A quick Detonation or two would work wonders on this rock.’
    ‘Tell that to Solomon,’ I said. ‘It’s his fault we’re not allowed to— Ow! ’ My hammer hit my thumb instead of the chisel. I hopped and pranced; my curses echoed off the rock-face and startled a nearby vulture.
    All morning, since the dark-blue hour of dawn, the two of us had been toiling in the quarry below the building site, hacking out the first blocks for the temple. Faquarl’s ledge was somewhat below mine, so he got the worst of the view. Mine was fully exposed to the rigours of the risen sun, so I was hot and irritable. And now my thumb was sore.
    I took a look around: rocks, heat haze, nothing moving on any plane. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I said. ‘Khaba’s not about, and nor is that nasty little foliot of his. I’m having a break.’ So saying, the handsome youth tossed his chisel aside and slid down the wooden ladder to the quarry floor.
    Faquarl was the Nubian again, plump, pot-bellied, dusty and glowering. He hesitated, then threw his tools down as well. We squatted together in the shade beneath his half-squared block, in the manner of idling slaves the world over.
    ‘We’ve got the worst job again,’ I said. ‘Why couldn’t we be digging foundations with the rest of them?’
    The Nubian scratched his stomach, selected a chipping from the rubble at our feet and picked his delicately pointed teeth. ‘Perhaps because our master dislikes us most particularly. Which in your case isn’t surprising, considering the lip you gave him yesterday.’
    I smiled contentedly. ‘True.’
    ‘Speaking of the magician,’ Faquarl said. ‘This Khaba: what do you make of him?’
    ‘Bad. You?’
    ‘One of the very worst.’
    ‘I’d say top-ten bad, possibly even top-five.’
    ‘Not only is he vicious,’ Faquarl added, ‘but he’s arbitrary. Viciousness I can respect; in many ways I find it a positive quality. But he’s just a little too quick with the essence-flail. If you work too slow; if you work too fast; if you happen to be nearby when he feels like it – every opportunity, out it comes.’
    I nodded. ‘Too right. He scoured me again last night simply because of a pure coincidence.’
    ‘Which was?’
    ‘I made a gratuitous comedy sound-effect just as he bent to retie his sandals.’ I gave a sigh and shook my head sadly. ‘True, it echoed off the valley walls like a thunderclap. True, several grandees of Solomon’s court were in attendance and hurriedly changed course to get upwind of him. But even so! The fellow lacks humour – that’s the root of the problem.’
    ‘Good to see you’re still as cultivated as ever, Bartimaeus,’ Faquarl said blandly.
    ‘I try. I try.’
    ‘But recreations aside, we need to be careful with Khaba. You remember what he showed us in the sphere? That could be either one of us.’
    ‘I know.’
    The Nubian finished picking at his teeth and tossed the chip away. We stared out together at the pulsating whiteness of the quarry.
    Now, to the casual onlooker the dialogue above may seem unremarkable, but in fact it scores highly for originality as it featured Faquarl and me having a chat without resorting to (a) petty abuse, (b) contrived innuendo, or (c) attempted murder. This, down the centuries, was a fairly unusual event. In fact there were entire civilizations that had hauled themselves from the mud, mastered the arts of writing and astronomy, and decayed slowly into decadence in the intervals between us having a civil conversation.
    We’d first crossed paths in Mesopotamia, during the interminable wars between the city states. Sometimes we fought on the same side; sometimes we were ranged against each other in battle. This in itself wasn’t a big deal – it was par for the course for any spirit, and a situation quite outside our control, since it was our masters who forced us into action – but somehow Faquarl and I seemed to rub each other up the wrong way.
    Quite why was hard to say. In many respects we had a lot in common.
    First off, we were both djinn of high repute and ancient origin, although (typically) Faquarl insisted his origin was a little more ancient than mine. 1
    Secondly, we were both zestful individuals, potent, resourceful and good in a scrap, and formidable opponents of our human masters. Between us we had accounted for a great many magicians who had