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Ever afterwards, that Phoenician girl has haunted the pine trees of the Kidron Valley, a white owl with wild eyes whose cry means death to someone of the royal house.’ Khaba took a reflective sip

of wine. ‘You see, Solomon can be terrible.’

Asmira had kept her face suitably agog, but inside she was thinking how stupid the Phoenician

girl had been, trying to wrestle the Ring clear when one strike with a knife would have sufficed.

She said: ‘I suppose kings must be ruthless in protecting what is theirs. But you are kind and gentle, are you not, great Khaba? Speaking of which, what of my earlier request? Will you release those two demons who saved my life?’

The magician threw a bony hand up in the air, eyes rolling. ‘Priestess Cyrine, you are

remorseless! You will not be denied! All right, yes – you need say no more. I shall dismiss those servants from my service this very night!’

Asmira fluttered her eyelashes in feigned admiration. ‘You vow it, O Khaba?’

‘Yes, yes, I vow it on the great god Ra, and all the gods of Ombos – provided,’ he said, leaning in a little closer and staring at her with his shining eyes, ‘that I may in return speak with you again at dinner in the palace this evening. Other dignitaries will be there, of course; also my fellow

magicians—’

‘And King Solomon?’ Here, finally, Asmira’s eagerness was genuine.

‘Possibly, possibly … It is not unknown. Now, see – here is a servitor waiting. A guest room has

been prepared for you. But first … another glass of wine? No?’ Asmira was already rising. ‘Ah,

you are tired. Of course; I understand. But we shall meet again at dinner,’ Khaba said, bowing,

‘and – I trust – become much better acquainted …’

A knock sounded on the chamber door. Asmira was at once alert. Patting down her robes,

checking that the knife-hilts were invisible beneath the cloth, she crossed to the door and opened it.

In the dimly lit corridor a man stood waiting, framed in a star-shaped pool of light, the source of which could not be seen. He wore a plain white robe of high office. He was small and slight, and

very dark of skin; Asmira guessed him to be a man from Kush, or somewhere in the Nile lands.

On his shoulder sat a white mouse with glowing eyes as green as emeralds. It tilted its head to

look at her.

‘Priestess Cyrine,’ the man said, ‘I am Hiram, Solomon’s vizier. I welcome you to his house. If

you will follow me, I can offer you refreshment.’

‘Thank you. That would be gratifying indeed. However, I urgently seek audience with King

Solomon. I wonder whether—’

The small man smiled bleakly. He held up his hand. ‘In time all things may be possible. As for

now, a meal begins soon in the Magicians’ Hall; to this you are invited. Please …’ He gestured

towards the door.

Asmira stepped forward; instantly the white mouse gave a squeak of alarm, stood up on its hind

legs and chittered loudly in the magician’s ear.

The vizier’s forehead furrowed; he stared at Asmira with his heavy-lidded eyes. ‘Forgive me,

Priestess,’ he said slowly. ‘My slave, great Tybalt here, says the taint of silver is very strong about your person.’ Upon his shoulder the mouse rubbed his whiskers furiously with a paw.

‘Tybalt says it makes him want to sneeze.’

Asmira could feel her silver daggers pressing hard against her thigh. She smiled. ‘Perhaps he

refers to this.’ From beneath her tunic she pulled out her silver necklace. ‘It is a symbol of the great Sun God, who watches over me throughout my life. I have worn it round my neck since

birth.’

The vizier frowned. ‘Could you possibly remove it? It may aggravate spirits such as Tybalt, who

abound across the palace. They are sensitive to such things.’

Asmira smiled. ‘Alas, to do so would cut my birth-luck short, and bring the wrath of the Sun God

down upon me. Do you not also have this custom in Jerusalem?’

The magician shrugged. ‘I’m no expert, but I believe the Israelites worship some other deity.

Well, we each must follow our beliefs as best we may. No, Tybalt – hold your tongue!’ The

mouse had been uttering shrill protests in his ear. ‘She is a guest; we must make allowances for

her oddities. Priestess Cyrine – please follow me …’

He left the room and moved away across the cool, dim slabs of marble, framed in a gliding star of light. Asmira followed close behind. From its perch upon the magician’s shoulder the green-eyed

mouse continued to look her keenly up and down.

Off through the palace they went, the magician limping a little in his long white robes, Asmira

stalking along behind. Along torch-lit corridors; down marbled steps; past windows overlooking

gardens of dark trees; through grandiose galleries, empty save for plinths supporting fragments of ancient statuary. Asmira glanced at the pieces as she passed. She recognized Egyptian work, and

certain styles from north Arabia, but other forms were unknown to her. There were sculptures of

warriors, women, animal-headed spirits, battles, processions, people working in the fields …

The vizier noticed her inspection. ‘Solomon is a collector,’ he said. ‘It is his greatest passion. He studies relics from civilizations of the past. See there – that monumental head? That is the

pharaoh Tuthmosis III, taken from a colossal statue he erected in Canaan, not far from here.

Solomon found the fragments buried in the earth, and had us bring the pieces to Jerusalem.’ The

magician’s eyes glittered in his mage-light. ‘What do you think of the palace, Priestess?

Impressive, is it not?’

‘It is very large. Bigger than the queen’s house in Himyar, if not so beautiful.’

The vizier laughed. ‘Was your queen’s palace built in a single night, as this was? Solomon wished his residence to exceed the glories of old Babylon. What did he do? He summoned the Spirit of

the Ring! The Spirit commanded nine thousand djinn to appear. Each carried a bucket and a

shovel and flew on butterfly wings, so that the sound of their labours would not wake the wives in the harem camp below the hill. As dawn broke, the final brick was eased into place, and water

began to flow from the fountains in the garden. Solomon breakfasted beneath orange trees that

had been brought from eastern lands. From the first it has been a house of marvels, like nothing

yet witnessed in the world!’

Asmira thought of the fragile mud-brick towers of Marib, painstakingly tended and patched by

her people down the centuries, now threatened by this self-same Ring. Her teeth clamped tight;

still, she affected a tone of guileless wonder. ‘All in a single night!’ she said. ‘Can this truly be the work of one small ring?’

A sidelong glance beneath the heavy lids. ‘It is so.’

‘Where does it come from?’

‘Who can tell? Ask Solomon.’

‘Did he make it, perhaps?’

The green-eyed mouse chittered with mirth. ‘I think not!’ the vizier said. ‘In his youth Solomon

was a magician of small competence, not yet a great one of the world. But always a passion for

the mysteries of the past burned like a flame inside him, a love of long ago, when magic was first practised and the first demons brought out of the abyss. Solomon collected artefacts from those

early civilizations, and to that end travelled extensively in the east. The stories say he grew lost one day, and came upon a place of ancient ruins, where, hidden beyond the sight of man or spirits for who knows how many years, he chanced upon the Ring …’ The vizier smiled grimly. ‘I do

not know the truth of that, but this I do know. From the time he picked up that Ring, fate has favoured him more than any living man.’

Asmira gave a little maidenly sigh. ‘How I wish to speak with him!’

‘No doubt. Unfortunately you are not alone. Other supplicants have arrived in Jerusalem on

missions similar to yours. Here! This is the viewing gallery above the Magicians’ Hall. Take a

look, if you wish, before we go down.’

In the side of the corridor, a stone alcove; in the centre of the alcove, an opening. Beyond was a vast space, shimmering with light. From it rose a swell of sound.

Asmira went to the alcove, set her hands upon cold marble, leaned out a little way.

Her heart caught in her throat.

She looked down upon a hall of immense size, lit with floating orbs. The roof was made of dark,

rich wood, each beam a tree’s length. The walls, inset with columns inscribed with magic signs,

had been coated in plaster and painted with wondrous scenes of dancing animals and spirits. All

along the hall were rows of trestle tables, at which sat a vast company of men and women, eating

and drinking from plates of gold. Broad platters of every kind of food were piled before them.

White-winged djinn, wearing the bodies of youths with golden hair, drifted above the tables,

carrying jugs of wine. As hands were raised and orders given, the youths flitted down, pouring

glittering red streams of wine into the waiting cups.

The people at the tables were of even greater variety than Asmira had seen in Eilat. Some were

very new to her: strange pale-skinned men with reddish beards and uncouth fur-lined clothes, or

dainty women in dresses formed of woven flakes of jade. The whole great multitude sat and ate,

and drank, and talked together, while high above, in the centre of the plaster wall, between the

cavorting djinn, a painted king watched over all. He was drawn sitting upon a throne. His eyes

were dark, his face beautiful and strong; faint beams of light radiated from his person. He stared straight out in calm and solemn majesty, and on his finger he wore a ring.

‘All these delegations,’ the vizier said drily at her shoulder, ‘are here to seek aid from Solomon, just as you are. All, like you, have matters of the utmost importance to discuss. So you will see that it is a ticklish business to please everyone. Still, we try to keep everyone fed and watered while they wait their turn. Most are satisfied; some even forget the business that brought them

here.’ He chuckled. ‘Come then, you shall join their number. We have a place set ready for you.’

He turned away. Hot-eyed, dry-mouthed, Asmira followed him.

The food, at least, was good, and for a time Asmira thought of nothing but roasted meat and

grapes and honeyed cakes and dark red wine. The noise of the hall engulfed her; she felt

cocooned by it, swaddled in its splendour. At last, with pains in her belly and a warm haze in her brain, she sat back and looked around. The vizier was right. In such a place it would be easy for anyone to get detached from the purpose that had brought them here. She glanced up with

narrowed eyes at the great throned figure painted on the wall: perhaps, indeed, this was what

Solomon intended.

‘New, are you?’ the man beside her said. With his knife he speared a small glazed piece of meat

from a selection on his plate. ‘Welcome! Try a jerboa!’ He spoke Arabic, though with a strange

inflection.

‘Thank you,’ Asmira said. ‘I am already full. Are you here to speak with Solomon?’

‘I am. Need a dam built above our village. There’s water enough in the spring, but it all runs past.

In the summer there’s drought. One touch of the Ring should sort it. Just need a few afrits, or a marid or two.’ He took a bite and went on chewing. ‘You?’

‘Something similar.’

‘We need terraces dug in our valley.’ This was the person opposite, a woman with bright, almost

fevered eyes. ‘It’s too steep, you see. But his slaves could do it easily. Not hard for him, is it?’

‘I see,’ Asmira said. ‘How long have you waited?’

‘Five weeks, but my time is almost up! I shall be one of the lucky few next council!’

‘That’s what they told me two weeks ago,’ another man said dourly.

‘A month for me – no, two!’ the man beside her said, between chews. ‘Still, when there is such

bounty to enjoy, who am I to complain?’

‘It’s all right for some,’ the dour man said. ‘But I don’t hold with waiting. There’s famine coming in the Hittite lands, and we need help now. Why he can’t just send out his demons to help all of us straight off, rather than this bloody hanging about, I’ll never know. Enjoying himself too much up there, I reckon.’

‘Wives,’ said the first man.

‘He’ll get to us in time,’ the woman said. Her bright eyes sparkled. ‘I can’t wait to see him.’

‘Have you not even seen Solomon?’ Asmira cried. ‘Not in five whole weeks?’

‘Oh no, he never comes down here. He’s up in his apartments across the gardens. But next

council day I’ll see him, sure enough. You get to stand before him, so I’m told, but then he’s up on a throne, of course, top of some steps, so it’s not exactly close, but even so …’

‘How many steps?’ Asmira said. She could throw a dagger forty feet with perfect accuracy.

‘I’m sure I couldn’t say. You’ll see soon enough, dear. In a month or two.’

Asmira sat back from the conversation after this, a smile carefully maintained upon her face and a dull-edged stab of panic prodding in her gut. She did not have two months. She did not have one.

She had two days to gain access to the king. Yes, she was in the palace, but that meant little, if she was expected to sit around with these fools, waiting. She shook her head as she regarded

them, still busily discussing their hopes and needs. How blind they were! How fixated on their

own small purpose! Solomon’s wickedness was invisible to them.

She stared angrily about the crowded hall. Clearly the king did not rely purely on terror to

maintain his rule, but laced it with charitable deeds so that some good would be spoken of his

name. All very fine, but the upshot for her was that he was out of reach. And that was only the

half of it. Even if, by some miracle, she managed to gain access to his very next council, it didn’t sound as if she would be allowed to approach the king at all. That wasn’t good enough. She

needed to be so close that neither he, nor his demons, had time to act. Without that, her chances of success were small indeed.

She needed to find another way.

The voices of the nearby diners stilled; their hands hovered above their plates.

Asmira’s skin prickled; she sensed a presence at her back.

Grey fingers brushed against her sleeve, wine fumes plumed about her neck.

‘And what,’ the magician Khaba said, ‘are you doing sitting here?’

He wore an elegant tunic of black and grey and a short grey cape. His face was flushed with wine.

When he held out his hand to her, she noticed how long his nails were.

Asmira attempted a smile. ‘The vizier, Hiram, said I should—’

‘The vizier is a fool and should be hung. I have been waiting for you at high table this last half-hour! Up with you, Cyrine! No, leave your cup – you’ll get another. You shall sit with the

magicians now, not among this rabble.’

The people all about her stared. ‘Someone’s got friends in high places,’ a woman said.

Asmira rose, waved farewell, followed the magician through the ranks of tables to a raised

platform. Here, at a marbled table piled high with delicacies, and attended by several hovering

djinn, sat a number of richly apparelled men and women, who stared at her blankly. All carried

about them the casual assurance that came with power; one or two had small animals sitting on

their shoulders. At the far end sat Hiram; he, like Khaba, and most of the other magicians, had

already consumed a good deal of wine.

‘These are the Seventeen,’ Khaba said. ‘Or what’s left of them, Ezekiel being dead. Here, take a

seat by me, and we shall talk some more, get to know each other better.’

Hiram’s eyes widened over the rim of his cup at the sight of Asmira, and his green-eyed mouse

wrinkled its nose in distaste. ‘What’s this, Khaba? What’s this?’

A sharp-featured woman with long braided hair frowned: ‘That is Reuben’s chair!’

‘Poor Reuben has the marsh fever,’ Khaba said. ‘He stays in his tower, swears he’s dying.’

‘Small loss if he is,’ a little, round-faced man grunted. ‘Never pulls his weight. So, Khaba –

who’s this girl?’

‘Her name,’ Khaba said, taking his cup of wine and pouring another for Asmira, ‘is Cyrine. She is a priestess of … I do not recall the exact location. I saved her on the desert road today.’

‘Ah, yes. I heard,’ another magician said. ‘So you’re back in Solomon’s favour already? Didn’t

take you long.’

Khaba nodded. ‘Did you doubt it, Septimus? The bandits are destroyed, as requested. I shall make

my formal representations to the king when he next allows an audience.’

Asmira said: ‘Will you take me with you when you meet the king? I am fretful of delay.’

Several of the other magicians snorted. Khaba looked around at them with a smile. ‘You see that

young Cyrine is eagerness itself – I can scarcely restrain her! Dear Priestess, one may not come

unbidden into Solomon’s presence. I shall do my best to speed matters for you, but you must be

patient. Come to my tower tomorrow, and we shall discuss it further.’

Asmira inclined her head. ‘Thank you.’

‘Khaba!’ At the far end of the table the little vizier was scowling; he tapped the wood

peremptorily with his finger. ‘You seem remarkably confident that Solomon will welcome you

once more,’ he said. ‘Yes, you may have killed some robbers, all well and good, but your

negligence on Temple Mount distressed him deeply, and he is getting ever more irritable with

age. Don’t assume that you will find it smooth going with him.’

Asmira, looking at Khaba, noticed something stir in the depths of the soft eyes, a sudden

unveiling that made her soul recoil. Then it was gone, and he was laughing. ‘Hiram, Hiram, do

you truly question my judgement?’

A sudden silence fell among the magicians. Hiram held Khaba’s gaze; he spat an olive stone upon

the table. ‘I do.’

‘The fact is,’ Khaba went on, ‘I know the king just as well as you. He likes his trifles, does he not? Well, I shall smooth my way with a little gift, a curiosity for his collection. I have it here. A pretty enough thing, don’t you think?’

He put something on the table, a small round bottle of clear crystal, decorated with little flowers.

The top had been plugged with a wad of lead; behind the crystal facets, faint coloured lights and traces swirled.

One of the nearest magicians picked it up and inspected it closely, before passing it along. ‘Lost all form, I see. Is that normal?’

‘It may still be unconscious. It resisted its Confinement.’

The long-haired woman turned the bottle over and over in her hand. ‘Is it liquid? Is it vapour?

What vile, unnatural things they are! To think they can be reduced to this.’

When the vizier took it, the green-eyed mouse shied away and hid its face behind its paws. ‘It

makes a pretty trinket,’ Hiram said grudgingly. ‘Look how the lights wink in and out of view; it is never the same twice.’

The bottle completed its circuit of the table and was returned to Khaba, who set it before him.

Asmira was fascinated; she reached out her hand and touched the crystal; to her surprise the cold surface vibrated to the touch. ‘What is it?’ she said.

‘This, my dear,’ Khaba said, laughing, ‘is a bottled fourth-level djinni, imprisoned for as long as Solomon desires.’

‘More to the point,’ the long-haired woman said, ‘ which is it?’

‘Bartimaeus of Uruk.’

Asmira started, and opened her mouth to speak, then realized that Khaba did not know she knew

the djinni’s name. Or perhaps he was too drunk to care.

Evidently the others recognized the name also. There was a chorus of approval.

‘Good! Ezekiel’s ghost will take pleasure in the act.’

‘The hippo? You are right, Khaba – Solomon will certainly enjoy this gift!’

Asmira stared at Khaba. ‘You have trapped a spirit in there? Is this not a rather cruel deed?’

All around the table the magicians – old, young, men, women – burst into peals of raucous

laughter. Khaba laughed louder than all of them. His eyes, when he looked at Asmira, were

contemptuous, red-rimmed, bleary with wine. ‘Cruel? To a demon? That is a contradiction in

terms! Do not worry your pretty little head about it. He was a pestilential spirit and no great loss to anyone. Besides, he’ll get his freedom eventually – in a few hundred years or so.’

Conversation turned to other matters: to the magician Reuben’s illness, to the clearing of

Ezekiel’s tower, to the increasing reclusiveness of King Solomon. It seemed that – apart from his regular councils in the garden hall – he was appearing less and less often about the palace; even Hiram, his vizier, had access to him only at certain times of day. His main interest appeared to be the temple he was constructing; aside from this, he remained remote. He paid little attention to his magicians, except for his frequent orders during council, which they resentfully obeyed.

‘Your desert sojourn is nothing, Khaba! Tomorrow I must travel to Damascus and set my djinn to

rebuilding its fallen walls.’

‘I travel to Petra, to help build grain silos—’

‘I must irrigate some pathetic little Canaanite village—’

‘That Ring! Solomon feels he can treat us like slaves! I only wish—’

Asmira paid little attention to their complaints. She had picked up the bottle and was turning it slowly between her fingers. How light it was! How strange the substance within! Beyond the

panes of crystal, little flecks of colour twirled and shimmered, moving slowly like fading petals drifting on the surface of a lake. She thought of the djinni, solemn-eyed and silent, standing

beside her in the ravaged gorge …

Across the hall, many of King Solomon’s guests had now departed towards the stairs, though

others still sat and gorged on the remnants of the food. Beside her, the magicians were sinking

lower in their seats, talking louder, drinking deeper …

She looked again at the bottle in her hands.

‘Yes, study it by all means!’ Khaba had swayed in close, and was regarding her unsteadily. ‘You

are drawn to the strange and wonderful, are you not? Ah, but I have many more such things

hidden in my tower! Such choice delights! You shall experience them tomorrow!’

Asmira did her best not to recoil at the vapours of his breath. She smiled. ‘Please, your cup is

empty. Let me get you more wine.’

How slowly, how painfully the long years pass when you’re immured inside a bottle! I don’t recommend the experience to anyone.1

The effect on your essence is the worst of it. Each and every time we’re summoned to this Earth,

our essence begins to die a little, but providing we aren’t kept here too long, and distract

ourselves with plenty of fights, chases and sarcastic wordplay, we can keep the ache at bay before returning home to recover. This just isn’t possible in a prolonged Confinement. Opportunities for fights and chases are somewhat limited when it’s just you in an enclosure an inch or two square,

and since sarcasm is one of those activities best enjoyed in company, there’s nothing to do but

float and think and listen to the soft sound of your essence shrivelling, wisp by sorry wisp. To

make matters worse, the Confinement spell itself has the property of drawing out this process

indefinitely, so you don’t even have the dignity of actually dying. Khaba had chosen well for me: it was a punishment worthy of a bitter foe.

I was utterly cut off inside that crystal sphere. Time was unknowable. No sound penetrated.

Sometimes lights and shadows moved against the confines of my prison, but the powerful

Binding spell that had been fused into the crystal obscured my vision and I couldn’t make the

forms out clearly.2

To add to my discomfort, the ancient bottle’s original contents had evidently been an oily

substance, perhaps hair grease for some long-dead Egyptian girl. Not only was the interior still

faintly perfumed (rosewood, I thought, with a hint of lime), it was also darn slippery. When I

tried, for variety’s sake, to take on the guise of a scarab or some other tiny insect, my tarsal claws kept slipping out from under me.

For the most part, therefore, I stayed in my natural state, floating quietly, drifting, thinking noble and somewhat melancholy thoughts, and only occasionally scrawling obscene graffiti on the

inside of the glass. Sometimes my mind turned to episodes from my past. I thought of Faquarl and

his dismissive assessment of my powers. I thought of the girl, Cyrine, who had so nearly got me

freed. I thought of the wicked Khaba – now, with time’s remorseless passing, presumably a

cursed heap of bones – and his vile helpmate, Ammet, perhaps still wreaking evil somewhere on

the hapless world. Most often, of course, I thought of the peace and beauty of my distant home,

and wondered when I’d ever return.

And then, after untold ages, when I’d utterly given up hope …

The bottle broke.

One moment it was there, as it had always been, my small domed dungeon, tightly sealed. The

next, the walls collapsed into a shower of crystal shards that fell about me, spinning, glittering, borne on a sudden tide of sound and air.

With the destruction of the bottle, Ammet’s spell could not survive. Its strands tore; they burst asunder.

I felt myself dismissed.

A tremor bristled through my essence. With a sudden rush of joy, all pain and suffering were at

once forgotten. I lingered not at all. Like a soaring lark I departed from the Earth, faster and

faster, passing through the elemental walls that opened to receive me, plunging into the sweet

infinity of my home.

The Other Place enfolded me. I was embraced, made many where I had once been one. My

essence shook itself free and spread, singing, across the reaches. I joined the endless, whirling dance …

And froze.

For an instant my joyous forward momentum and the sudden pull behind me were equal and

opposite. I was held suspended, motionless. I just had time to register my alarm …

Then I was wrenched away, ripped from the infinite, plucked back down time’s corridor no later

than I’d left it. It happened so fast I almost met myself going back.

I dropped like a shower of gold down an endless well.

I funnelled inward to a point, and landed.

I looked around. The point was at the centre of a pentacle drawn on dark, red-tinted fabric. Close by, in inky shadow, silken curtains hung like spider-webs, stifling the contours of the room. The air was close and thick with burning frankincense. Reddish candlelight glimmered across a

marbled floor like the memory of a gout of blood.

I was back on Earth.

I was back on Earth! Confusion and my shock of loss mingled with the resumption of my pain.

With a howl of rage I rose up from the middle of the circle as a red-skinned demon, slender, agile, avid for revenge. My eyes were blazing orbs of gold, their thorn-thin pupils darting to and fro.

Below the jutting wad of gristle that functioned as my nose, there gaped a snarling, fang-filled

mouth.3

The demon bent low, questing all around. It scanned the square of fabric in which it stood, it saw the weights of carven jade that held that fabric to the floor. It saw a flickering oil lamp, the waxen candles, the pots of burning frankincense set out upon the tiles beyond. It saw a certain bag of

red-brown leather, open on a silken couch. It saw an upturned plinth, a broken bottle; it saw a

scattering of crystal shards …

It saw a second pentacle on another fabric square. And standing in that pentacle –

‘Bartimaeus of Uruk,’ the Arabian girl intoned, ‘I bind you by the cords of Nakrah and the

manacles of Marib, which are both most grievous and terrible, to hereafter do my bidding, on pain of immediate and fiery expunction. Stand fixed in your proper place until I give you leave, then

depart upon your errand with fleet and true intent, without deviation or delay, to return at the

precise time and place that I shall give you …’

There was a good deal more of this, all very archaic, not to say long-winded, and spoken in a

tortuous south Arabian dialect that was difficult to follow. But I’d been round the block a bit. I got the gist.

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