The Ring of Solomon

fragments on the floor. ‘I got you out.’
    The red-skinned demon nodded slowly. ‘So you did. So you did … But only so you could enslave me again within seconds!’ Livid flames erupted from the cloth about my feet and licked up to shroud my wrathful form. ‘Do you not recall,’ I roared, ‘how I saved your wretched little life so long ago?’
    ‘So long a— What?’
    Fire darted from my eyes; trails of burning sulphur flickered on my shining skin. ‘Can you conceive the pain and suffering I’ve since endured?’ I cried. ‘Trapped inside that tiny, suffocating prison all those endless years, through all those long slow cycles of the sun and moon? And now, no sooner am I released than you summon me again, without so much as a …’ I hesitated, noticing the girl was tapping a delicate foot upon her cloth. ‘Just how long was I trapped, incidentally?’
    ‘A few hours. It’s just gone midnight. I was talking with you yesterday afternoon.’
    The red-skinned demon stared; my flames went out. ‘Yesterday afternoon? The one just gone?’
    ‘Well, how many others are there? Yes, the yesterday just gone. Look at me. I’m wearing the same clothes.’
    ‘Right …’ I cleared my throat. ‘It’s just a little bit hard to keep tabs in there … Well, as I say, it’s been grim.’ My voice rose once more. ‘And I don’t care to be summoned again – by you or anybody! If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let me go.’
    ‘That I cannot do.’
    ‘You’d better,’ I snarled. ‘It’s not as if you’ll be able to keep me long, anyway. You’re obviously a novice.’
    The girl’s eyes blazed; flames didn’t dart from them, but it was a close-run thing.
    ‘Know, Bartimaeus of Uruk,’ she cried, ‘that in my land I am an initiate of the Eighteenth Attainment in the Temple of Marib! Know that it was I who summoned the demon Zufra and, by whipping her with cords, forced her to dig the reservoir at Dhamar in a single night! Know too that I have subdued twelve dozen demons to my will and cast nine into the innermost pit!’ She pushed a strand of hair back from her brow and smiled grimly. ‘And that I am now your master is the final thing you need to know.’
    The red-skinned demon gave a caw of mirth. ‘Good try,’ I said. ‘Falls down on three accounts. First, “Eighteenth Attainment in the Temple of Marib” doesn’t mean a fig to me. For all I know it means you’re qualified to scrub the toilets.’ The girl gave an indignant squeak here, but I ignored it. ‘Second,’ I went on, ‘there’s your tone of voice. You meant it to be awe-inspiring and terrible, didn’t you? Sorry. Sounded scared and constipated. Third, it’s clearly all absolute baloney! You only barely got your First Injunction 5 out without tripping over your own tongue. I thought you were going to bind yourself at once point, you got so hesitant. Let’s face it, this is all a bluff.’
    The girl’s nose had gone all white and pinched. ‘It is not!’
    ‘Is so too.’
    ‘Is not!’
    ‘Say that any higher and you’re going to shatter that nice vase over there.’ I folded my scaly arms and gave her a savage glare. ‘And, by the way, you’ve just proved my point again . How many real magicians do you think get involved in stroppy little verbal spats like this? They’d have hit me with the Dark Scouring by now and had done with it.’
    The girl stared at me. Her face was livid.
    ‘You don’t even know what a Dark Scouring is, do you?’ I said, grinning.
    She breathed hard. ‘No. But I do know this .’ She took hold of the silver sun disc round her neck, and spoke a muttered phrase. Once again it was barely competent, the kind of Ward 6 a hedge-witch might use to admonish a naughty imp. Even so, a swell of black substance plumed in the air, reared back and darted at my circle.
    I lifted my hand to fend off the stroke, called out her name. ‘ Cyrine! ’ 7
    Black shards of force went straight through my lifted hand and scoured my essence like a storm of whirling pins.
    They vanished. I considered my perforations grimly. ‘Cyrine’s not actually your name, is it?’ I said.
    ‘No. Who’d be so stupid as to give up their real name so readily – Bartimaeus ?’
    Which was a fair point. ‘Even so,’ I said, ‘as punishments go, that was pathetic. And once again you only just spoke it right. Go on, do another one, I dare you.’
    ‘I don’t need to.’ The girl pushed her robes aside, revealing