The Ring of Solomon

three silver daggers at her hip. ‘Anger me again,’ she said, ‘and I’ll skewer you with one of these.’
    She might have done, as well. Trapped in the circle, I knew that my opportunities for dodging were limited. But I just shrugged. ‘That’s my final proof,’ I said. ‘You’re an assassin of some kind. You’re not a magician at all. And you need to be a magician if you’re going to deal with me.’ My teeth glinted in the shadows. ‘I killed my last master, you know.’
    ‘What – Khaba? The one who trapped you in the bottle?’ The girl gave a rude snort. ‘He seemed alive enough to me when I left him drunk downstairs.’
    ‘All right,’ I growled, ‘my last master but one. Same difference. Statistically speaking, that’s the fate of forty-six per cent of all—’ I stopped short. ‘Wait up. The magician Khaba is downstairs ? Where exactly are we?’
    ‘The palace of King Solomon. Do you not recognize it? I thought you were well acquainted with the place; that is why I released you.’
    ‘Well, I don’t know every last bedroom, do I?’ And all at once the red-skinned demon grew suddenly still, conscious of an unpleasant trepidation, a creeping certainty that, annoying as things currently were, they were shortly to get a whole lot worse.
    I fixed her with a cold, hard stare. She stared back, her eyes as cold as mine. ‘I’ll say this politely just one time,’ I said. ‘Thank you for letting me out of my prison. That puts paid to the debt you owe me. Now – speak the Dismissal and let me go.’
    ‘Have I or have I not bound you, Bartimaeus?’
    ‘For the moment.’ I prodded the cloth with a toe-claw. ‘But I’ll find a loophole. It won’t take long.’
    ‘Well, while you look,’ the girl said, ‘you’ll agree you are in my service. Which means you do as I say, or suffer the Dismal Flame. You’ll find that won’t take long, either.’
    ‘Oh, sure. Like you know that spell.’
    ‘Try me.’
    And here, of course, I was fairly caught, because I couldn’t be certain either way. It was possible she didn’t know the incantation – which is the final security of all magicians – but equally possible that she did. And if she did, and I disobeyed her, it was a sad look-out for me.
    I changed the subject. ‘Why did Khaba give you the bottle?’
    ‘He didn’t,’ she said. ‘I stole it.’
    So there you go. As predicted, things were worse already. Worse mainly (I was thinking here of the horrors of the magician’s vaulted room) for the girl.
    ‘You’re a fool,’ I said. ‘Stealing from him is not a good idea.’
    ‘Khaba is irrelevant.’ Her face was still pale, but a certain composure had returned to it, and there was a brightness in her eyes that I didn’t like at all. They shone, in fact, with a zealot’s gleam. 8 ‘Khaba is nothing,’ she said. ‘Forget him. You and I must concern ourselves with greater things.’
    And now my trepidation became a cold, hard knot of fear, because I recalled the girl’s conversation in the gorge, and all her questions about forbidden matters. ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘Before you say anything we’ll both regret, think about where you are. The planes around us are a-thrum with the auras of great spirits. I can sense them, even if you cannot, and the echoes they make are almost deafening. If you wish to summon me, go right ahead, but do it somewhere far away where we have a chance of prolonged survival. Stealing magicians’ property is frowned on here, and so are unofficial summonings. They’re exactly the sort of things it’s best not to do in or around the House of Solomon.’ 9
    ‘Bartimaeus,’ the girl said, putting her hand upon one of the daggers in her belt, ‘stop talking.’
    I stopped. I waited. Waited for the worst.
    ‘Tonight,’ the girl went on, ‘you are going to help me complete the mission that has brought me a thousand miles and more from the gardens of fair Sheba.’
    ‘ Sheba? Hold on, you mean the Himyar stuff wasn’t true either ? Honestly. What a fibber you are.’
    ‘Tonight, you will help me save my nation, or we shall both die in the attempt.’
    So, bang went my last lingering hope that she wanted me to help change the colour co-ordination of her bedroom. Which was a pity. I could have done wonders with those silks.
    ‘Tonight, you will help me do two things.’
    ‘Two things …’ I said. ‘Very well. Which are …?’
    Just how mad was she? Exactly where on the scale of raving