The Ring of Solomon

illustration of what your queen is doing to you – as well as being highly amusing to watch. You certainly don’t question anything , do you? “Blind obedience to no good purpose” – that could be your motto.’
    The girl gave a gasp of fury; the knife in her hand was suddenly finely balanced between fingertip and thumb. ‘I should kill you for that.’
    ‘Yeah, yeah, but you won’t.’ I turned away from her and began surveying the great stone blocks of the building rising just ahead. ‘Why? Because that wouldn’t help your precious queen. Besides, I’m not in a circle now. I could dodge it pretty well out here, even when I’m looking in the opposite direction. But by all means try it, if you like.’
    For a few moments there wasn’t any sound behind, then I heard feet padding on the grass. When the girl came alongside me, the knife was in her belt.
    She scowled up at the mass of stonework. At its splaying foot the last vestiges of the northern gardens broke apart in a sculpted mess of jasmine trees. The pale white flowers were probably quite pretty by daylight, but under the stars’ spectral gloaming brought to mind a glittering pile of bones.
    ‘Is this it, then?’ the girl said.
    I nodded. ‘Yep, probably in every sense. This is Solomon’s tower. There’s a rooftop balcony somewhere up there, which is where I suggest we try to enter. But I’ve one final question before we do.’
    ‘Well?’
    ‘What’s your mother think about this? About you coming out here, all on your own. Is she as pleased as you are?’
    Unlike some of my other probing questions, the girl seemed to find this a very easy one to answer. ‘My mother died in the service of the last queen,’ she said simply. ‘As she looks down on me from the Sun God’s realm, I am sure she honours all I do.’
    ‘I see,’ was all I said to this. And I did, too.
    Other things being equal, I would at that point have turned myself into a roc, phoenix or other dashing bird, seized the girl by an ankle, and hoisted her indecorously up to the balcony. Sadly, I was prevented from doing this by a fresh danger in the air above us: a multitude of bright-green, luminous Pulses, drifting at different heights close beside the wall. They weren’t moving fast, but they were very thick in places, and also erratic, sometimes speeding up for no apparent reason. Any flying thing would inevitably collide with some of them, with unpleasant results.
    They were first-plane, so the girl could see them too. ‘What do we do now?’
    ‘We need,’ I said, ‘an appropriate guise … What sticks to walls?’
    ‘Spiders,’ she said. ‘Or slugs.’
    ‘Not keen on spiders. Too many limbs to control; I get confused. I could do a slug, but we’d be here all night, and anyway, how would I carry you?’ I snapped my fingers. ‘I know! A nice big lizard.’
    So saying, the handsome youth was gone, and in his place stood a slightly less good-looking giant gecko, complete with spiny, interlocking scales, splay-toes, multi-suckered feet and bulbous boggling eyes set on either side of its gummy, grinning mouth. ‘Hello,’ it said, extending a juicy tongue. ‘Give us a hug.’
    The girl’s squeal would probably have been the shrillest ever uttered by one of Sheba’s hereditary guard, except that it was muffled by the coiling tip of my long and sinewy tail, which wrapped itself around her and lifted her off the ground. Then the lizard was up and away, clinging to the stones with the sticky spatulae upon its spreading feet. With one eye I kept my gaze fixed on the wall ahead; the other, swivelled at approximately ninety degrees over my scaly shoulder, kept close watch on the floating Pulses in case any should come too near. It was a shame I didn’t have a spare eye to check out the dangling girl as well, but various distant Arabian curses reassured me of her state of mind.
    My progress was fast, and the way relatively unimpeded. Only once did a Pulse come anywhere near us, and then I managed a sideways shimmy to avoid it – I felt the air grow momentarily chill as it bounced off the stonework beside my head.
    Things went very well, in short; until, that is, I heard the girl calling something out below me.
    ‘What was that?’ I said, swivelling an acerbic eye in her direction. ‘I told you, I can’t do spiders. It’s a leg thing. Think yourself lucky I didn’t do the slug.’
    Her face was white, which might have been the ride, but she was also pointing