The Ring of Solomon

conjured by someone inside the palace. We must get reinforcements and go to the scene.’ At this the ogre seized the horn hanging at his side, and was just about to set it to his lips when, with a flash of light, another small spirit materialized in mid-air.
    This one was a manikin sitting in an oyster shell. ‘I have news, Master!’ it squeaked. ‘The sentry Hiqquus has been discovered compressed inside a water butt; he is somewhat squashed, not to mention soggy – but he lives. He says that he was attacked—’
    The afrit gave a curse. ‘By whom?’ 2
    ‘He only got a glimpse, but … it was Bosquo! He recognized his belly and his snout!’
    The ogre nearly fell off his pedestal in shock. He was just about to speak when, in a shower of damp earth, a third small demon, this one with the soft, sad face of a gazelle, rose from the turf below him. ‘Master, the sentry Balaam has been pushed into the manure pile and a heavy statue placed on top of him! I heard his muffled squeaks, and with a grapple on the end of a long pole have just succeeded in tugging him free. Poor Balaam – he won’t smell of brimstone for some considerable time to come. As soon as he could speak he named his cruel assailant – it was the djinni Trimble!’
    ‘Zahzeel’ – this was Kibbet, the first of the informants – ‘clearly Trimble and Bosquo have gone berserk! We must locate them with all speed.’
    The ogre gave a decisive nod. ‘I have noted a pattern here. Their assaults are focused on the area around the treasury. The king’s gold is collected there, and many precious treasures. Clearly these djinn – or the magicians who are their masters – intend a robbery, or some other atrocious act. We must act fast! Kibbet and you others, go at speed to the treasury block. I shall summon further help and meet you there. Once our forces are assembled we will alert the vizier. Hiram will have to decide whether to disturb the slumbers of the king.’
    The gazelle-imp ducked down into the ground; the manikin pulled down his oyster shell and spun away into the sky; the orange ape gave a star-jump and, with a grunt, devolved into a twirl of orange sparks that drifted out of sight.
    Zahzeel the afrit? He raised the horn to his mouth and blew.
    All across the gardens of the palace of Solomon there was a roaring and a shaking as Zahzeel’s subordinates were summoned to his side. Bright lights flared in unexpected places among the pavilions and rose bowers; eyes blinked open in shrubs and potted ferns. Sculptures shifted, hopped down from pedestals; innocent-seeming vines bent and coiled; benches shimmered, were suddenly no more. All across the northern gardens the hidden sentries bestirred themselves: and here they came – horned, clawed, red-eyed and frothing, things with twisting tails of bone, and fibrous wings, and dangling bellies; oozing things and scuttling things; things with legs and things without; darting mites and bounding ghuls, wisps and implets, foliots and djinn, all silently surfing the lawns and treetops of the gardens to congregate about Zahzeel.
    The afrit gave a few brief orders and clapped his hands. The air grew chill; ice formed on the pedestal and glittered on the rhododendron leaves. The ogre was gone; atop the pedestal rose a column of rushing smoke and licking tendrils, from which two baleful yellow eyes gleamed down with grim ferocity. 3
    Coiling like a spring, the column of smoke shot upwards into the air and disappeared over the shrubbery. There followed an explosion of movement as Zahzeel’s hordes took to the skies, or set off, galloping, along the ground. In a few short seconds the whole grisly cavalcade had thundered south in the direction of the treasury – precisely where I wasn’t, and didn’t want to go.
    To the north, however, the garden was quiet and still.
    On its exotic sculpture the cricket gave a brief caper of wicked glee. The score so far could be summarized as follows: Bartimaeus of Uruk 1, Assembled Spirits of Solomon 0. Not bad for twenty minutes’ work, I’ll think you’ll agree. But I didn’t hang about to celebrate. There was no telling how soon it would be before Zahzeel and Co. returned.
    In keeping with this sense of urgency, I hoicked the girl out of the rose bush in double-quick time and set her running alongside me north across the lawns. As we went, I gave her a modest précis of my triumph – just the bare bones of it, keeping it terse and unshowy, as is my wont,