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She knelt beside her leather bag, and removed from it her water-skin, a pastry wrapped in vine

leaves, a silver dagger, and her travelling cloak, which she placed about her shoulders to keep

warm. Her first action was to drink deeply from the skin, for she was very thirsty. Next she ate the pastry with brisk, efficient little bites, staring down the hill, planning her route towards the town.

Then she turned to face the east, where the Sun God’s disc was just pulling free of the Earth.

Somewhere far away it settled on fair Sheba too. His glory blinded Asmira, his warmth fell on her face. Her movements slowed, her mind emptied; the urgencies of her mission loosened their hold

upon her. She stood upon the hilltop, a slight, slim young woman, with gold light shining on her

long dark hair.

When she was still very young, Asmira’s mother had taken her to the palace roof and walked her

in a circle, so she could look out all around.

‘The city of Marib is built on a hill,’ her mother said, ‘and this hill is Sheba’s centre as the heart is the centre of the body. Long ago, the Sun God ordained our city’s size and shape, and we cannot

build beyond its limits. So we build upwards! See the towers rising on every side? Our people

live within them, a family to a floor, and when the need arises we build another level in fresh mud brick. Now, child, look beyond the hill. You see that all about us is green, while beyond lies

yellow desert? These are our gardens, which keep us all alive. Each year snows melt in the

mountains and run in torrents along the dust-dry wadis to irrigate our lands. Queens of the past

cut the channels to irrigate the fields with water. Maintenance of these channels is their most

important duty, for without them we die. Now look to the east – see that range of blue-white

mountains? That is the Hadhramaut, where grow our forests. These trees are our other most precious resource. We harvest their resin and dry it … and what does it become then?’

Asmira had hopped and capered with excitement, for she knew the answer. ‘Frankincense,

Mother! The stuff the hill-men stink of!’

Her mother had placed a steely hand upon her daughter’s head. ‘Not so much jigging about, girl.

A palace guard does not cavort like a dervish, even at the age of five. But you are right. This

incense is our gold, and makes our people rich. We trade with distant empires far away beyond

the deserts and the seas. They pay well for it, but they would steal it if they could. Only the great sands of Arabia, which an army cannot cross, have shielded us from their greed.’

Asmira had stopped her spinning. She frowned. ‘If enemies came here,’ she said, ‘the queen

would kill them. Wouldn’t she, Mother? She keeps us safe.’

‘Yes, child. Our queen keeps Sheba safe. And we in turn keep her safe – the guards and I. That is what we are born to do. When you grow up, dear Asmira, you too must protect our blessed lady

with your life – just as I have, and our grandmothers did before us. Do you so swear?’

Asmira was as still and serious as could be. ‘Mother, I do.’

‘Good girl. Then let us go down and join our sisters.’

At that time the old Queen of Sheba had not yet grown too heavy to leave the palace, and was

accompanied wherever she went by an escort of her guard. As its leader, Asmira’s mother always

walked right behind the queen, close as a shadow, curved sword hanging easily at her waist.

Asmira (who particularly admired her mother’s long and shining hair) thought her far more

beautiful and regal than the queen herself, though she took care not to mention this to anyone.

Such a thought was possibly treasonous, and there was a place for traitors on the bare hill beyond the water meadows, where their remains were picked over by little birds. Instead she contented

herself imagining the day when she would be First Guard and walk behind the queen. She went out to the gardens behind the palace and, with a severed reed stem, practised savage swordplay,

putting ranks of imagined demons to full and awful flight.

From the earliest age she joined her mother in the training hall, where, under the watchful eye of the wrinkled guard-mothers, who were now too old for active service, the women of the guard

daily learned their craft. Before breakfast they scaled ropes, ran around the meadows, swam in the canals below the walls. Now, their muscles readied, they worked six hours a day in the echoing,

sunlit rooms, sparring with swords and twirl-staffs, duelling with knives and whirling fists,

throwing discs and daggers into straw-stuffed targets across the floor. Asmira would watch it all from the benches, where the guard-mothers bound wounds and bruises in cloths lined with

soothing herbs. Often she and other girls would pick up the little wooden weapons laid out for

them, join their mothers in gentle play-fights, and so begin their training.

Asmira’s mother was the most accomplished of the women, which is why she was First Guard.

She ran fastest, fought most fiercely, and above all threw the little shining daggers more

accurately than anyone else. She could do this standing, moving, and even on the half-turn,

sending the blade hilt-deep into any chosen target far off along the hall.

Asmira was mesmerized by this. Often she scampered up, holding out her hand. ‘I want a go.’

‘You’re not old enough,’ her mother said, smiling. ‘There are wooden ones that are better

weighted, so you don’t do yourself a mischief. No, not like that’ – for Asmira had prised the

dagger from her grasp – ‘you need to hold the point lightly between the thumb and forefinger …

like so. Now, you must be calm. Close your eyes, take a deep, slow breath—’

‘Don’t need to! Watch this for a shot! Oh.’

Her mother laughed. ‘Not a bad attempt, Asmira. If the target was six paces to its right and twenty paces nearer, you would have hit it square on. As it is, I’m glad I don’t have slightly larger feet.’

She stooped, picked up the knife. ‘Have another try.’

The years passed, the Sun God worked his daily passage through the heavens. Now Asmira was

seventeen years old, light of foot and serious of eye, and one of four newly promoted captains of the palace guard. She had excelled during the latest rebellion of the hill-tribes, and had personally captured the rebel chief and his magicians. She had several times deputized for the First Guard in standing behind the queen during ceremonies in the temples. But the Queen of Sheba herself had

never once spoken to her, never once acknowledged her existence – until the night the tower

burned.

Beyond the window, smoke still drifted on the air; from the Hall of the Dead came the sound of

mourning drums. Asmira sat in the royal chamber, awkwardly holding a cup of wine and staring

at the floor.

‘Asmira, my dear,’ the queen said. ‘Do you know who carried out this dreadful act?’

Asmira raised her eyes. The queen was sitting so close to her their knees almost touched. It was

an unheard-of proximity. Her heart thudded in her chest. She lowered her gaze again. ‘They say,

my lady,’ she stammered, ‘they say it was King Solomon.’

‘Do they say why?’

‘No, my lady.’

‘Asmira, you may look on me when you speak. I am your queen, yes, but we are both of us

daughters of the Sun.’

When Asmira looked up once more, the queen was smiling. The sight made her a little light-

headed; she took a sip of wine.

‘The First Guard has often spoken about your qualities,’ the queen went on. ‘Quick, strong and

clever, she says. Unafraid of danger. Resourceful, almost reckless … And pretty too – I can see

that for myself. Tell me, what do you know of Solomon, Asmira? What stories have you heard?’

Asmira’s face was burning and her throat felt tight. Perhaps it was the smoke. She had been

marshalling the water-chains below the tower. ‘I have heard the usual tales, my lady. He has a

palace of jade and gold, built in a single night with his magic Ring. He controls twenty thousand spirits, each more terrible than the last. He has seven hundred wives – and is therefore clearly a man of abominable wickedness. He—’

The queen raised her hand. ‘I have heard this too.’ Her smile faded. ‘Asmira, Solomon desires the wealth of Sheba. One of his demons carried out tonight’s attack, and when the moon is new –

which will be in thirteen days – the full host of the Ring will come here to destroy us all.’

Asmira’s eyes opened wide in horror; she said nothing.

‘Unless, that is,’ the queen went on, ‘I pay a ransom. Needless to say, I do not wish to do so. That would be an affront to both Sheba’s honour and my own. But what is the alternative? The power

of the Ring is too great to withstand. Only if Solomon himself is killed might the danger pass. But that is almost impossible, since he never leaves Jerusalem, a city that is too well-guarded for armies or magicians to hope to enter. And yet …’ The queen sighed heavily and stared out of the

window. ‘And yet I wonder. I wonder whether someone travelling alone, someone with sufficient

intelligence and skill, someone who seems harmless, and yet is not so – whether that person might find a way to get access to the king … And when she is alone with him, she might— Ah, but it

would be a hard task indeed.’

‘My lady …’ Asmira’s voice quivered with eagerness, as well as fear at what she was about to

say. ‘My lady, if there’s any way that I can help—’

The Queen of Sheba smiled benignly. ‘My dear, you need say no more. I already know your faith.

I know your love for me. Yes, dear Asmira, thank you for suggesting it. I do believe you can.’

The rising sun hung low above the eastern desert. When Asmira stirred and turned to face the

west again, she found the port of Eilat had become a clear white scattering of buildings, and the sea an azure strip, to which tiny white things clung.

Her eyes narrowed. Ships belonging to the wicked Solomon. From now on she must take care.

She picked up the silver dagger from where it lay beside her bag and tucked it in her belt, pushing it out of sight beneath her cloak. As she did so, her gaze strayed high above: she saw the outline of the waning moon, still hanging frail and ghost-like in the blue. The sight gave her fresh

urgency. Twelve days remaining! And Solomon was far away. Picking up her bag, she jogged

swiftly down the hill.

‘Watch where you drop those chippings,’ Faquarl snapped. ‘That last shower went down my

neck.’

‘Sorry.’

‘And you might wear a longer skirt while you’re about it. I’m afraid to look up.’

I paused in my chiselling. ‘Can I help it if this is the current fashion?’

‘You’re eclipsing the sun. Move along a bit, at least.’

We scowled at each other. I moved a grudging inch to my left; Faquarl moved a resentful inch to

his right. We went on carving.

‘I wouldn’t mind so much,’ Faquarl said sourly, ‘if we could do this properly. A quick Detonation or two would work wonders on this rock.’

‘Tell that to Solomon,’ I said. ‘It’s his fault we’re not allowed to— Ow! ’ My hammer hit my thumb instead of the chisel. I hopped and pranced; my curses echoed off the rock-face and

startled a nearby vulture.

All morning, since the dark-blue hour of dawn, the two of us had been toiling in the quarry below the building site, hacking out the first blocks for the temple. Faquarl’s ledge was somewhat below mine, so he got the worst of the view. Mine was fully exposed to the rigours of the risen sun, so I was hot and irritable. And now my thumb was sore.

I took a look around: rocks, heat haze, nothing moving on any plane. ‘I’ve had enough of this,’ I said. ‘Khaba’s not about, and nor is that nasty little foliot of his. I’m having a break.’ So saying, the handsome youth tossed his chisel aside and slid down the wooden ladder to the quarry floor.

Faquarl was the Nubian again, plump, pot-bellied, dusty and glowering. He hesitated, then threw

his tools down as well. We squatted together in the shade beneath his half-squared block, in the

manner of idling slaves the world over.

‘We’ve got the worst job again,’ I said. ‘Why couldn’t we be digging foundations with the rest of them?’

The Nubian scratched his stomach, selected a chipping from the rubble at our feet and picked his

delicately pointed teeth. ‘Perhaps because our master dislikes us most particularly. Which in your case isn’t surprising, considering the lip you gave him yesterday.’

I smiled contentedly. ‘True.’

‘Speaking of the magician,’ Faquarl said. ‘This Khaba: what do you make of him?’

‘Bad. You?’

‘One of the very worst.’

‘I’d say top-ten bad, possibly even top-five.’

‘Not only is he vicious,’ Faquarl added, ‘but he’s arbitrary. Viciousness I can respect; in many

ways I find it a positive quality. But he’s just a little too quick with the essence-flail. If you work too slow; if you work too fast; if you happen to be nearby when he feels like it – every

opportunity, out it comes.’

I nodded. ‘Too right. He scoured me again last night simply because of a pure coincidence.’

‘Which was?’

‘I made a gratuitous comedy sound-effect just as he bent to retie his sandals.’ I gave a sigh and shook my head sadly. ‘True, it echoed off the valley walls like a thunderclap. True, several

grandees of Solomon’s court were in attendance and hurriedly changed course to get upwind of

him. But even so! The fellow lacks humour – that’s the root of the problem.’

‘Good to see you’re still as cultivated as ever, Bartimaeus,’ Faquarl said blandly.

‘I try. I try.’

‘But recreations aside, we need to be careful with Khaba. You remember what he showed us in

the sphere? That could be either one of us.’

‘I know.’

The Nubian finished picking at his teeth and tossed the chip away. We stared out together at the

pulsating whiteness of the quarry.

Now, to the casual onlooker the dialogue above may seem unremarkable, but in fact it scores

highly for originality as it featured Faquarl and me having a chat without resorting to (a) petty abuse, (b) contrived innuendo, or (c) attempted murder. This, down the centuries, was a fairly

unusual event. In fact there were entire civilizations that had hauled themselves from the mud,

mastered the arts of writing and astronomy, and decayed slowly into decadence in the intervals

between us having a civil conversation.

We’d first crossed paths in Mesopotamia, during the interminable wars between the city states.

Sometimes we fought on the same side; sometimes we were ranged against each other in battle.

This in itself wasn’t a big deal – it was par for the course for any spirit, and a situation quite outside our control, since it was our masters who forced us into action – but somehow Faquarl

and I seemed to rub each other up the wrong way.

Quite why was hard to say. In many respects we had a lot in common.

First off, we were both djinn of high repute and ancient origin, although (typically) Faquarl

insisted his origin was a little more ancient than mine.1

Secondly, we were both zestful individuals, potent, resourceful and good in a scrap, and

formidable opponents of our human masters. Between us we had accounted for a great many

magicians who had failed to close their pentacles properly, misspoken a word during our

summonings, left a loophole in the terms and conditions of our indentures, or otherwise messed

up the dangerous process of bringing us to Earth. The flaw in our feistiness, however, was that

competent magicians, recognizing our qualities and wishing to use them for their own ends, summoned us ever more frequently. The net result was that Faquarl and I were the two hardest-working spirits of that millennium, at least in our opinion.

If all that wasn’t enough, we had plenty of shared interests too, notably architecture, politics and regional cuisine.2 So one way and another you’d have thought that Faquarl and I would have got

along fine.

Instead, for some reason, we got up each other’s noses,3 and always had done.

Still, we were generally prepared to put our differences aside when faced with a mutual enemy,

and our present master certainly fitted that bill. Any magician capable of summoning eight djinn

at once was clearly a formidable proposition, and the essence-flail didn’t make things any easier.

But I felt there was something more to him even than that.

‘There’s one odd thing about Khaba,’ I said suddenly. ‘Have you noticed—?’

Faquarl gave me a sharp nudge; he tilted his head slightly. Two of our fellow workers, Xoxen and

Tivoc, had appeared down the quarry path. Both were trudging wearily and rested spades upon

their shoulders.

‘Faquarl! Bartimaeus!’ Xoxen was incredulous. ‘What are you doing?’

Tivoc’s eyes gleamed nastily. ‘They’re having a breather.’

‘Come and join us if you want,’ I said.

Xoxen leaned upon his spade and wiped his face with a dirty hand. ‘You fools!’ he hissed. ‘Don’t

you remember the name and nature of our master? He is not called Khaba the Cruel because of

the fond generosity he shows to skiving spirits! He ordered us to work without breaks during the

hours of light. By day we toil, by night we rest! What is there in this concept that you don’t

understand?’

‘You’ll have us all in the essence-cages,’ Tivoc snarled.

Faquarl made a dismissive motion. ‘The Egyptian is just a human, imprisoned in grim flesh,

while we are noble spirits – I’m using the term “noble” in the loosest possible sense, of course, so as to include Bartimaeus. Why should any of us toil for Khaba? We should work together to destroy him!’

‘Big talk,’ growled Tivoc, ‘but I notice the magician is nowhere in sight.’

Xoxen nodded. ‘Exactly. When he appears, you’ll both be chiselling at double speed, you mark

my words. In the meantime, shall we report that your first blocks are not quite done? Let us know when they’re ready to be dragged up to the site.’

Wheeling round, they minced out of the quarry. Faquarl and I stared after them.

‘Our workmates leave much to be desired,’ I grunted. ‘No backbone.’4

Faquarl picked up his tools and rose heavily to his feet. ‘Well, we’re just as bad as them so far,’

he said. ‘We’ve been letting Khaba push us around too. The trouble is, I don’t see how we’re

going to fight back. He’s strong, he’s vindictive, he’s got that cursed flail – and he’s also got …’

His voice trailed off. We looked at each other. Then Faquarl sent out a small Pulse that expanded around us, creating a glowing, green Bulb of Silence. The few faint noises from the hill above,

where the spades of our fellow djinn could distantly be heard, became instantly muffled; we were

alone, our voices insulated from the world.

Even so, I leaned in close. ‘Have you noticed his shadow?’

‘Slightly darker than it ought to be?’ Faquarl muttered. ‘Ever so slightly longer? Responds just a little too slowly when Khaba moves?’

‘That’s the one.’

He made a face. ‘Nothing shows on any of the planes, which means a very high-level Veil’s in

place. But it’s something all right – something protecting Khaba. If we’re going to get him, we first need to find out what. ’

‘Let’s keep an eye on it,’ I said. ‘Sooner or later, it’ll give itself away.’

Faquarl nodded. He flourished the chisel; the Bulb of Silence burst into a scattered shower of

emerald droplets. Without another word, we went back to our work.

For a couple of days activities proceeded quietly at the temple site. The top of the hill was

levelled, scrub and brushwood were cleared away, and foundations for the building were dug.

Down in the quarry Faquarl and I produced a good number of top-quality limestone blocks,

geometric, symmetrical, and so cleanly finished the king himself could have eaten his breakfast

off them. Even so, they didn’t meet with the approval of Khaba’s odious little overseer Gezeri,

who materialized on an outcrop above our heads and tuttingly inspected our work.

‘This is poor stuff, boys,’ he said, shaking his fat green head. ‘Lots of rough bits down the sides need sanding. The boss won’t accept ’em like that, oh dear me, no.’

‘Come closer and show me exactly where,’ I said pleasantly. ‘My eyesight isn’t what it was.’

The foliot hopped down from the ledge and sauntered over. ‘You djinn are all the same. Big

bloated sacks of uselessness, I call you. If I was your master, I’d riddle you with a Pestilence each day just on princip— Ay!’ Further such pearls of wisdom from Gezeri were in short supply for

the next few minutes, as I industriously sanded down the edges of the blocks using the side of his head. When I’d finished, the blocks gleamed like a baby’s bottom, and Gezeri’s face was

flattened like an anvil.

‘You were right,’ I said. ‘They look much better now. So do you, as a matter of fact.’

The foliot pranced from foot to foot with fury. ‘How dare you! I’ll tell on you, I will! Khaba’s got his eye on you already! He’s just waiting for an excuse to plunge you in the Dismal Flame! When

I go up and tell him—’

‘Here, let me help you out with that.’ In a philanthropic spirit, I grabbed him, tied his arms and legs in a complex knot, and with an impressive kick punted him high over the quarry walls to land somewhere on the building site. There was a distant squeak.

Faquarl had been watching all this with urbane amusement. ‘Bit reckless, Bartimaeus.’

‘I get the flail daily anyway,’ I growled. ‘Once more won’t make any difference.’

But in fact the magician seemed too preoccupied now even to do much scouring. He spent most

of his time in a tent on the edge of the site, checking the building plans and dealing with

messenger-imps sent from the palace. These messages carried endless new instructions for the

temple layout – brass pillars here, cedar floors there – which Khaba had to instantly incorporate into the plans. Often he came out to double-check his changes against the work that had been

done so far, so whenever I was up dragging a block onto the site, I took my chance to study him.

It wasn’t very reassuring.

The first thing I spotted was that Khaba’s shadow was always at his heels, trailing behind him

along the dirt of the ground. It remained there regardless of the position of the sun: never in front, never to the side, always quietly behind him. The second thing was even odder. The magician seldom emerged when the sun was at its zenith,5 but when he did, it was noticeable that while all other shadows were reduced almost to nothing, his was still long and sleek, a thing of evening or early morning.

Though it more or less corresponded to its owner’s shape, it did so in an elongated sort of way, and I took an especial dislike to its long, thin, tapering arms and fingers. Usually these moved in conjunction with the movements of the magician, but not always. Once, as I was helping push a

block towards the temple, Khaba observed us from the side. And out of the corner of my eye I

seemed to see that, though the magician had his arms crossed, his shadow’s arms now resembled

those of a praying mantis, folded hungrily and waiting. I turned my head swiftly, only to find the shadow’s arms crossed normally, just as they should have been.

As Faquarl had observed, the shadow looked the same on each of the seven planes, and this was

ominous in itself. I’m no imp or foliot, but a strapping djinni with full command of every plane, and ordinarily I expect to be able to see through most magical deceptions going. Illusions,

Concealments, Glamours, Veils, you name it – by flipping to the seventh plane they all

disintegrate before my eyes into obvious layers of glowing wisps and threads, so that I see the

true thing beneath. It’s the same with spirit guises: show me a sweet little choirboy or a smiling mother and I’ll show you the hideous fanged strigoï6 it really is.7 There’s very little that remains hidden from my sight.

Not with this shadow. I couldn’t see past its Veil at all.

Faquarl didn’t have any better luck, as he confided one evening by the campfire. ‘It’s got to be

high level,’ he muttered. ‘Something that can fox us on the seventh isn’t going to be a djinni, is it? I think Khaba’s brought it with him from Egypt. Any idea what it could be, Bartimaeus?

You’ve spent more time there than I have lately.’

I shrugged. ‘The catacombs at Karnak are deep. I never got far in. We need to tread cautiously.’

Just how cautiously was brought home to me the following day. There was a problem with the alignment of the temple porch, and I’d shinned up a ladder to assess things from above. I was

concealed in a narrow cleft between two blocks, and was fiddling with my cubit rod and plumb

line, when I saw the magician pass by me on the hard tamped earth below. A small messenger-

imp approached from the direction of the palace, a missive in its paw, and intercepted him; the

magician halted, took the wax tablet on which the message was impressed, and read it swiftly. As

he did so, his shadow, as was its wont, was stretched out long on the ground behind him, though

the sun was almost at its height. The magician nodded, tucked the tablet in a belt-pouch and

proceeded on his way; the imp, with the aimless vapidity of its kind, meandered off in the

opposite direction, picking its nose the while. In so doing it passed the shadow; all in an instant there was a blur of movement, a single sharp snapping noise, and the imp was gone. The shadow

flowed away after the magician; just as it disappeared from view, its trailing head turned to look at me, and in that moment it didn’t seem the least bit human.

With slightly shaking hands, I completed my measurements and descended stiffly from the porch.

All things considered, it was probably best to keep away from the magician Khaba. I would lie

low, do my jobs effectively, and above all not draw attention to myself. That would be the best

way to keep out of trouble.

I managed it for four whole days. Then disaster struck.

1 By his account, Faquarl’s first summoning was in Jericho, 3015 BC, approximately five years before my initial appearance in Ur.

This made him, allegedly, the ‘senior’ djinni in our partnership. However, since Faquarl also swore blind he’d invented hieroglyphs by ‘doodling with a stick in the Nile river-mud’ and claimed to have devised the abacus by impaling two dozen imps along the branches of an Asiatic cedar, I regarded all his stories with a certain scepticism.

2 In my view the people of Babylonia were the tastiest, owing to the rich goat’s milk in their diet. Faquarl preferred a good Indian.

3 Or snouts. Or trunks. Or tentacles, filaments, palpi or antennae, depending which guise we were in.

4 To be fair, a few of them were all right. Nimshik had spent a good while in Canaan and had interesting points to make about the local tribal politics; Menes, a youngish djinni, listened attentively to my words of wisdom; even Chosroes grilled a mean imp. But the rest were sorry wastes of essence, Beyzer being boastful, Tivoc sarcastic and Xoxen full of false modesty, which in my humble opinion are three immensely tiresome traits.

5 He preferred to keep to his tent and let foliots in the shape of Scythian slave boys wave palms above his head and feed him sweetmeats and iced fruit. Which I suppose is fair enough.

6 Strigoï: a disreputable sub-class of djinni, pallid and nocturnal, with a predilection for drinking the blood of the living. Think succubus, but without the curves.

7 Not always. Just sometimes. Your mother is absolutely fine, for instance. Probably.

The port of Eilat came as a surprise to Asmira, whose experience of cities was limited to Marib

and its sister town of Sirwah thirty miles away across the fields. Crowded as they often were,

especially on festival days, they maintained at all times a certain order. The priestesses wore their golden kirtles, the townsfolk their simple tunics of white and blue. If men from the hill-tribes

were present, their longer robes of red and brown made them easily identifiable from the guard

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