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Authors: Jonathan Stroud

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Ptolemy's Gate

BOOK: Ptolemy's Gate
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BOOKS BY JONATHAN STROUD

LOCKWOOD & CO.
The Screaming Staircase

THE BARTIMAEUS BOOKS
The Amulet of Samarkand
Ptolemy's Gate
The Ring of Solomon
The Amulet of Samarkand Graphic Novel

Buried Fire
The Leap
The Last Siege
Heroes of the Valley

About the Endnotes

Bartimaeus is famous for making snarky asides and boastful claims, which you can find in this book's endnotes. To access his comments as you are reading the story, click on the highlighted superscript number and the page will turn to the corresponding note. To return to where you were reading, click on the same number in the endnotes section. This feature works on most devices.

Copyright © 2006 by Jonathan Stroud

Excerpt from
The Screaming Staircase
text copyright © 2013 by Jonathan Stroud, illustrations copyright © 2013 by Kate Adams

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney - Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

ISBN-13: 978-1-4231-4141-9

Visit
www.disneyhyperionbooks.com

For Isabelle, with love

The Main Characters

 

THE MAGICIANS

Mr. Rupert Devereaux
Prime Minister of Great Britain and the Empire, and acting Chief of Police
Mr. Carl Mortensen
Minister of War
Ms. Helen Malbindi
Foreign Minister
Ms. Jessica Whitwell
Security Minister
Mr. Bruce Collins
Home Secretary
Mr. John Mandrake
Information Minister
Ms. Jane Farrar
Deputy Police Chief
Mr. Quentin Makepeace
A playwright; author of
Petticoats and Rifles
and other works
Mr. Harold Button
Magician, scholar, and book collector
Mr. Sholto Pinn
A merchant; proprietor of Pinn's Accoutrements of Piccadilly
Mr. Clive Jenkins
Magician Second Level, Department of Internal Affairs
Ms. Rebecca Piper
Assistant to Mr. Mandrake, Information Ministry

THE COMMONERS

Ms. Kitty Jones
A student and barmaid
Mr. Clem Hopkins
An itinerant scholar
Mr. Nicholas Drew
A political agitator
Mr. George Fox
Proprietor of the Frog Inn, Chiswick
Ms. Rosanna Lutyens
A private tutor

THE SPIRITS

Bartimaeus
A djinni—in service to Mr. Mandrake
Ascobol
Cormocodran
Mwamba
Hodge
Greater djinn—in service to Mr. Mandrake
Purip
Fritang
Lesser djinn—in service to Mr. Mandrake

Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Part One

Alexandria: 125 B.C.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part Two

Alexandria: 126 B.C.

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Part Three

Alexandria: 125 B.C.

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Part Four

Alexandria: 124 B.C.

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Part Five

Alexandria: 124 B.C.

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Preview of
Lockwood & Co., Book One: The Screaming Staircase

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

About the Author

T
he assassins dropped into the palace grounds at midnight, four fleet shadows dark against the wall. The fall was high, the ground was hard; they made no more sound on impact than the pattering of rain. Three seconds they crouched there, low and motionless, sniffing at the air. Then away they stole, through the dark gardens, among the tamarisks and date palms, toward the quarters where the boy lay at rest. A cheetah on a chain stirred in its sleep; far away in the desert, jackals cried.

They went on pointed toe-tips, leaving no trace in the long wet grass. Their robes flittered at their backs, fragmenting their shadows into wisps and traces. What could be seen? Nothing but leaves shifting in the breeze. What could be heard? Nothing but the wind sighing among the palm fronds. No sight, no noise. A crocodile djinni, standing sentry at the sacred pool, was undisturbed though they passed within a scale's breadth of his tail. For humans, it wasn't badly done.

The heat of the day was a memory; the air was chill. Above the palace a cold round moon shone down, slathering silver across the roofs and courtyards.
1

Away beyond the wall, the great city murmured in the night: wheels on dirt roads, distant laughter from the pleasure district along the quay, the tide lapping at its stones. Lamplight shone in windows, embers glowed on roof hearths, and from the top of the tower beside the harbor gate the great watch fire burned its message out to sea. Its image danced like imp-light on the waves.

At their posts, the guards played games of chance. In the pillared halls, the servants slept on beds of rushes. The palace gates were locked by triple bolts, each thicker than a man. No eyes were turned to the western gardens, where death came calling, secret as a scorpion, on four pairs of silent feet.

The boy's window was on the first floor of the palace. Four black shadows hunched beneath the wall. The leader made a signal. One by one they pressed against the stonework; one by one they began to climb, suspended by their fingertips and the nails of their big toes.
2
In this manner they had scaled marble columns and waterfalls of ice from Massilia to Hadhramaut; the rough stone blocks were easy for them now. Up they went, like bats upon a cave wall. Moonlight glinted on bright things gripped between their teeth.

The first of the assassins reached the window ledge: he sprang tigerlike upon it and peered into the chamber.

Moonlight spilled across the room; the pallet was lit as if by day. The boy lay sleeping, motionless as one already dead. His dark hair fell loose upon the cushions, his pale lamb's throat shone against the silks.

The assassin took his dagger from between his teeth. With quiet deliberation, he surveyed the room, gauging its extent and the possibility of traps. It was large, shadowy, empty of ostentation. Three pillars supported the ceiling. In the distance stood a door of teak, barred on the inside. A chest, half filled with clothes, sat open against the wall. He saw a royal chair draped with a discarded cloak, sandals lying on the floor, an onyx basin filled with water. A faint trace of perfume hung on the air. The assassin, for whom such scents were decadent and corrupt, wrinkled his nose.
3

His eyes narrowed; he reversed the dagger, holding it between finger and thumb by its shining, gleaming tip. It quivered once, twice. He was gauging the range here—he'd never missed a target yet, from Carthage to old Colchis. Every knife he'd thrown had found its throat.

His wrist flickered; the silver arc of the knife's flight cut the air in two. It landed with a soft noise, hilt-deep in the cushion, an inch from the child's neck.

The assassin paused in doubt, still crouched upon the sill. The back of his hands bore the crisscross scars that marked him as an adept of the dark academy. An adept never missed his target. The throw had been exact, precisely calibrated … yet it had missed. Had the victim moved a crucial fraction? Impossible—the boy was fast asleep. From his person he pulled a second dagger.
4
Another careful aim (the assassin was conscious of his brothers behind and below him on the wall: he felt the grim weight of their impatience). A flick of the wrist, a momentary arc—

With a soft noise, the second dagger landed in the cushion, an inch to the
other
side of the prince's neck. As he slept, perhaps he dreamed—a smile twitched ghostlike at the corners of his mouth.

BOOK: Ptolemy's Gate
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