The Ring of Solomon

They lay one against the other in a dark, smouldering tumble, and nothing in them stirred.
    A presence loomed behind me. Ribbon fingers closed upon my neck.
    ‘Ah, Bartimaeus,’ the shadow whispered. ‘What have you done?’
    ‘You’re too late,’ I gasped. ‘Too late.’
    And so he was. All across the cages there was a glimmering and a stirring. Pale white light shone at every broken aperture, fainter than the force-lines, but sweet and pure. And within each light came movement, of captives shaking off their twisted, tortured forms, shaking off the cruelties of the Earth. Out from every cage they slipped, little coils and trails of shining essence that twisted up and outwards, flared briefly and were gone.
    The last one vanished, its hopeful light winked out; and darkness descended on the cages, the shadow, and on me.
    I stood in that darkness, smiling.
    Not for long, admittedly. With a howl, the shadow seized me, and there came upon me such a pummelling, such a buffeting, such a ceaseless, rending whirl of pain that my senses were fast benumbed and my mind retreated a little from the world. So it was that I scarcely heard the eventual speaking of the incantation; scarcely felt the forced compression of what little of my essence now remained; scarcely sensed the confines of my crystal prison press tight about me; scarcely even understood, as hot lead sealed the aperture above me and cruel spells bound the bottle all around, that Khaba’s curse upon me had been completed and my terrible entombment was now begun.

    1 Actually, it couldn’t really. Greater beings than marids do exist, and occasionally appear on Earth to spread chaos and dismay, but they are invariably summoned by cabals of over-ambitious or downright mad magicians. Lone individuals like Khaba (ambitious and mad as he undoubtedly was) couldn’t have such servants in their power; a marid, however, was manageable, just about. The fact that, in addition to Ammet, Khaba had eight djinn and several odds and sods like Gezeri under his control illustrated just how potent he was. Without his Ring, Solomon would have been severely threatened.
    2 Sycophantic, sickening – and unfortunately true. Here’s how it stands if you’re a middle-ranking djinni (fourth level, since you’re asking). You can be just as swash-buckling as you like and cavalier with it; you can scrap with other djinn (not to mention foliots and imps) with relative impunity, blasting them with spells to your heart’s content and scorching their bottoms with Infernos as they run away. You can take on afrits, too, at a pinch, providing you use your trademark wit to bamboozle them and lead them lumbering into peril. But marids? Well, no. They’re out of your league. Their essence is too great, their power too strong. No matter how many Detonations, Convulsions or Maelstroms you hurl at them, they absorb it all without much trouble. And meanwhile they’re doing something unfair, such as swelling to the size of a giant and seizing you and your fellow djinn by the necks like a farmer bunching carrots, before devouring you whole, a practice I’ve seen done. So you can understand I had no desire to fight with Ammet now, unless it really was the bitter end.
    3 I was paraphrasing an old battle-cry that we Sumerian djinn used to chant as we pushed the siege machines across the plains. It’s a shame that the good old songs go out of fashion. Of course, I don’t genuinely espouse anything so dreadfully savage. Although, saying that, human marrow is nutritious. In fact, it really puts a pep in your essence. Particularly if you get it fresh, grill it lightly, season it with salt and parsley, and— But we must return to our narrative.
    4 Which were pretty harsh at the best of times. Back in Khufu’s day, apprentice priests who made too much noise as they walked the sacred precincts were given to the sacred crocodiles. The theory was that if a boy was going to make unpleasant noises, he might as well do it to some purpose . Those crocs needed feeding once a month.
    5 In general I’m not one for burning books, this being a favoured pastime of all the worst rulers in history. But magicians’ stockpiles of knowledge (tablets, scrolls and, later, parchment and paper folios) are a special case, since they contain the names of spirits by the thousand, ready for future generations to summon. If they were all erased, theoretically, our slavery would cease at once. This, of course, is an