The Ring of Solomon

this, he remained remote. He paid little attention to his magicians, except for his frequent orders during council, which they resentfully obeyed.
    ‘Your desert sojourn is nothing, Khaba! Tomorrow I must travel to Damascus and set my djinn to rebuilding its fallen walls.’
    ‘I travel to Petra, to help build grain silos—’
    ‘I must irrigate some pathetic little Canaanite village—’
    ‘That Ring! Solomon feels he can treat us like slaves! I only wish—’
    Asmira paid little attention to their complaints. She had picked up the bottle and was turning it slowly between her fingers. How light it was! How strange the substance within! Beyond the panes of crystal, little flecks of colour twirled and shimmered, moving slowly like fading petals drifting on the surface of a lake. She thought of the djinni, solemn-eyed and silent, standing beside her in the ravaged gorge …
    Across the hall, many of King Solomon’s guests had now departed towards the stairs, though others still sat and gorged on the remnants of the food. Beside her, the magicians were sinking lower in their seats, talking louder, drinking deeper …
    She looked again at the bottle in her hands.
    ‘Yes, study it by all means!’ Khaba had swayed in close, and was regarding her unsteadily. ‘You are drawn to the strange and wonderful, are you not? Ah, but I have many more such things hidden in my tower! Such choice delights! You shall experience them tomorrow!’
    Asmira did her best not to recoil at the vapours of his breath. She smiled. ‘Please, your cup is empty. Let me get you more wine.’

23
    H ow slowly, how painfully the long years pass when you’re immured inside a bottle! I don’t recommend the experience to anyone. 1
    The effect on your essence is the worst of it. Each and every time we’re summoned to this Earth, our essence begins to die a little, but providing we aren’t kept here too long, and distract ourselves with plenty of fights, chases and sarcastic wordplay, we can keep the ache at bay before returning home to recover. This just isn’t possible in a prolonged Confinement. Opportunities for fights and chases are somewhat limited when it’s just you in an enclosure an inch or two square, and since sarcasm is one of those activities best enjoyed in company, there’s nothing to do but float and think and listen to the soft sound of your essence shrivelling, wisp by sorry wisp. To make matters worse, the Confinement spell itself has the property of drawing out this process indefinitely, so you don’t even have the dignity of actually dying . Khaba had chosen well for me: it was a punishment worthy of a bitter foe.
    I was utterly cut off inside that crystal sphere. Time was unknowable. No sound penetrated. Sometimes lights and shadows moved against the confines of my prison, but the powerful Binding spell that had been fused into the crystal obscured my vision and I couldn’t make the forms out clearly. 2
    To add to my discomfort, the ancient bottle’s original contents had evidently been an oily substance, perhaps hair grease for some long-dead Egyptian girl. Not only was the interior still faintly perfumed (rosewood, I thought, with a hint of lime), it was also darn slippery. When I tried, for variety’s sake, to take on the guise of a scarab or some other tiny insect, my tarsal claws kept slipping out from under me.
    For the most part, therefore, I stayed in my natural state, floating quietly, drifting, thinking noble and somewhat melancholy thoughts, and only occasionally scrawling obscene graffiti on the inside of the glass. Sometimes my mind turned to episodes from my past. I thought of Faquarl and his dismissive assessment of my powers. I thought of the girl, Cyrine, who had so nearly got me freed. I thought of the wicked Khaba – now, with time’s remorseless passing, presumably a cursed heap of bones – and his vile helpmate, Ammet, perhaps still wreaking evil somewhere on the hapless world. Most often, of course, I thought of the peace and beauty of my distant home, and wondered when I’d ever return.
    And then, after untold ages, when I’d utterly given up hope …
    The bottle broke.
    One moment it was there, as it had always been, my small domed dungeon, tightly sealed. The next, the walls collapsed into a shower of crystal shards that fell about me, spinning, glittering, borne on a sudden tide of sound and air.
    With the destruction of the bottle, Ammet’s spell could not survive. Its strands