The Ring of Solomon

then a broad passage that presumably led to the ground-floor entrance, and still we descended into the Earth.
    Faquarl and I didn’t say much as we went. Our thoughts had strayed to the tortured spirit we’d seen in Khaba’s sphere, a ruined thing kept in the vaults below the tower.
    Now, perhaps, we were to join it.
    I spoke with false heartiness over my shoulder. ‘No need to worry, Faquarl! We dealt with the bandits well today – even Khaba must see that!’
    ‘Whenever I’m lumped in with you, I worry,’ Faquarl growled. ‘That’s all there is to it.’
    Down, down, down the staircase curled, and despite my best intentions, my jollity didn’t stick. Maybe it was the sour and musty air, maybe it was the louring darkness, maybe it was the candles flickering in the mummified grasp of severed hands that had been fixed on spikes at intervals along the walls, maybe it was my imagination – but I felt a definite unease as I progressed. And then the staircase ended suddenly before an open doorway of black granite, through which a dim blue-green light pulsed steadily, carrying with it certain sounds . Faquarl and I stopped dead, our essence crawling.
    ‘In there,’ Gezeri said. ‘He’s waiting.’
    There was nothing for it. The two imps squared their knobbly shoulders, stepped forward and entered Khaba’s vaults.
    No doubt, if we’d had the time and the inclination, there would have been many curiosities to observe in that dreadful place. The magician clearly spent much time there, and had invested great effort in making himself feel at home. The vast carved stones of the floor, walls and ceiling were of Egyptian style, and so were the squat, rather bulb-shaped columns that held the ceiling blocks in place. Add in the carvings of papyrus flowers at the topmost points of every pillar and the clinging smells of incense and natron, and we could have been in one of the catacombs beneath the Karnak temples, rather than somewhere deep below Jerusalem’s busy hill.
    Khaba had kitted out his workroom with tools and magical adjuncts in great profusion, as well as an impressive pile of scrolls and tablets looted from civilizations already gone. But what really caught the eye as we entered was neither the imposing décor, nor all this paraphernalia, but the evidence of this man’s more private hobbies.
    He was interested in death.
    There were a great many bones piled all about.
    There was a cabinet of skulls.
    There was a rack of mummies – some clearly ancient, others very new.
    There was a long low table bearing sharp metal tools, and little jars, and pots of pastes and unguents, and a rather bloody cloth.
    There was a mummification pit newly filled with sand.
    And, for when he’d finished fiddling about with dead humans, and wanted a different kind of plaything, there were the essence-cages too. These were arranged in neat rows in the far corner of the vault. Some were roughly squared, others circular or bulb-shaped, and on the lower planes they seemed to be made of iron mesh, which by itself was bad enough. 5 But on the higher planes their full viciousness was revealed, since each was additionally formed of solid, essence-fraying force-lines that kept their agonized occupants inside. It was from here that the noises came – low twitterings and pleadings, occasional feeble cries, snatches of language the speakers could no longer properly recall.
    Faquarl and I stood very still, contemplating Gezeri’s words.
    There’s not many goes down there comes swiftly up again.
    A voice spoke from the depths of the room, a voice of sand and dust. ‘Slaves, attend to me.’
    The two imps stumbled forward with such painful reluctance you’d have thought we had sharp stones shoved down our loincloths. 6
    In the centre of the vault, midway between four columns, was a raised circle in the floor. The circle had a rim of pink-white lapis lazuli, around which Egyptian hieroglyphs spelled out the five master-words of Binding. Within the circle a pentacle of black onyx had been laid. Some short way off, within a smaller circle, stood a lectern made of ivory and, behind it, hunched like a vulture beside its feast, the magician.
    He waited as we approached. Five candles had been set around the margins of the raised circle, burning with black flames.
    Khaba’s wet eyes reflected the evil light. About his feet his shadow pooled like a formless thing.
    Faquarl and I scuffled to a halt. We raised our heads defiantly.
    Our master