The Ring of Solomon

magician said. ‘So you’re back in Solomon’s favour already? Didn’t take you long.’
    Khaba nodded. ‘Did you doubt it, Septimus? The bandits are destroyed, as requested. I shall make my formal representations to the king when he next allows an audience.’
    Asmira said: ‘Will you take me with you when you meet the king? I am fretful of delay.’
    Several of the other magicians snorted. Khaba looked around at them with a smile. ‘You see that young Cyrine is eagerness itself – I can scarcely restrain her! Dear Priestess, one may not come unbidden into Solomon’s presence. I shall do my best to speed matters for you, but you must be patient. Come to my tower tomorrow, and we shall discuss it further.’
    Asmira inclined her head. ‘Thank you.’
    ‘Khaba!’ At the far end of the table the little vizier was scowling; he tapped the wood peremptorily with his finger. ‘You seem remarkably confident that Solomon will welcome you once more,’ he said. ‘Yes, you may have killed some robbers, all well and good, but your negligence on Temple Mount distressed him deeply, and he is getting ever more irritable with age. Don’t assume that you will find it smooth going with him.’
    Asmira, looking at Khaba, noticed something stir in the depths of the soft eyes, a sudden unveiling that made her soul recoil. Then it was gone, and he was laughing. ‘Hiram, Hiram, do you truly question my judgement?’
    A sudden silence fell among the magicians. Hiram held Khaba’s gaze; he spat an olive stone upon the table. ‘I do.’
    ‘The fact is,’ Khaba went on, ‘I know the king just as well as you. He likes his trifles, does he not? Well, I shall smooth my way with a little gift, a curiosity for his collection. I have it here. A pretty enough thing, don’t you think?’
    He put something on the table, a small round bottle of clear crystal, decorated with little flowers. The top had been plugged with a wad of lead; behind the crystal facets, faint coloured lights and traces swirled.
    One of the nearest magicians picked it up and inspected it closely, before passing it along. ‘Lost all form, I see. Is that normal?’
    ‘It may still be unconscious. It resisted its Confinement.’
    The long-haired woman turned the bottle over and over in her hand. ‘Is it liquid? Is it vapour? What vile, unnatural things they are! To think they can be reduced to this.’
    When the vizier took it, the green-eyed mouse shied away and hid its face behind its paws. ‘It makes a pretty trinket,’ Hiram said grudgingly. ‘Look how the lights wink in and out of view; it is never the same twice.’
    The bottle completed its circuit of the table and was returned to Khaba, who set it before him. Asmira was fascinated; she reached out her hand and touched the crystal; to her surprise the cold surface vibrated to the touch. ‘What is it?’ she said.
    ‘This, my dear,’ Khaba said, laughing, ‘is a bottled fourth-level djinni, imprisoned for as long as Solomon desires.’
    ‘More to the point,’ the long-haired woman said, ‘ which is it?’
    ‘Bartimaeus of Uruk.’
    Asmira started, and opened her mouth to speak, then realized that Khaba did not know she knew the djinni’s name. Or perhaps he was too drunk to care.
    Evidently the others recognized the name also. There was a chorus of approval.
    ‘Good! Ezekiel’s ghost will take pleasure in the act.’
    ‘The hippo? You are right, Khaba – Solomon will certainly enjoy this gift!’
    Asmira stared at Khaba. ‘You have trapped a spirit in there? Is this not a rather cruel deed?’
    All around the table the magicians – old, young, men, women – burst into peals of raucous laughter. Khaba laughed louder than all of them. His eyes, when he looked at Asmira, were contemptuous, red-rimmed, bleary with wine. ‘Cruel? To a demon? That is a contradiction in terms! Do not worry your pretty little head about it. He was a pestilential spirit and no great loss to anyone. Besides, he’ll get his freedom eventually – in a few hundred years or so.’
    Conversation turned to other matters: to the magician Reuben’s illness, to the clearing of Ezekiel’s tower, to the increasing reclusiveness of King Solomon. It seemed that – apart from his regular councils in the garden hall – he was appearing less and less often about the palace; even Hiram, his vizier, had access to him only at certain times of day. His main interest appeared to be the temple he was constructing; aside from