Ptolemy's Gate (43 page)

26

C
uriously, Nathaniel's immediate sensation was one of relief. The mercenary, at least, was human. He spoke quickly. “You are alone?”

The bearded man stood in the doorway and regarded him steadily with his pale blue eyes. He did not reply. Nathaniel took this as a yes. “Good,” he said. “Then we have a chance. We must forget our differences and escape together.”

The mercenary remained silent. Nathaniel plowed on. “The demons are still slow and awkward. We will be able to slip out and organize defenses. I am a notable magician; somewhere near here other ministers lie bound—if we can release them we will be able to fight the invaders. Your, er, skills will be invaluable in the battles to come. Past murders and other atrocities will be discounted, I'm sure. There may even be a reward for your service. Come, sir—what do you say?”

The mercenary gave a little smile. Nathaniel beamed back. “Lord Nouda,” the mercenary said, “is waiting for you. We would do well not to be late.” He stepped into the room; grasping Nathaniel and Kitty by the arms, he led them to the door.

“Are you mad?” Kitty cried. “The demons threaten us all, and you
willingly
serve them?”

At the doorway the mercenary paused. “Not willingly,” he said in his deep, soft voice. “But I must be realistic. The demons' power waxes every moment. Before dawn all London will be in flames and those who oppose them will be dead. I wish to survive.”

Nathaniel squirmed in the iron grip. “The odds are against us, but we
can
prevail. Reconsider, before it is too late!”

The bearded face bent close; the teeth were bared
“You
have not seen what I have seen. Quentin Makepeace's body sits on the golden chair, hands clasped upon the plumpness of his belly. His face is smiling, smiling. One by one the magicians of your precious government are brought before him. Some he allows to pass—they go to the pentacle to receive a demon. To others he takes a liking. He beckons them. They approach his chair, helpless as rabbits; he leans forward …” The mercenary's jaw closed with a snap; Kitty and Nathaniel flinched. “Afterward he wipes his waistcoat and sits back smiling. And the demons around him howl like wolves.”

Nathaniel swallowed. “Not pleasant. Even so, with those boots of yours, surely you could—”

“I see all seven planes,” the mercenary said. “I see the power in that room. It would be suicidal to resist it. Besides, with power comes profit. The demons require human helpers; there is much here they do not understand. They have offered me wealth if I serve them, and this girl has that option too. Who knows, by cooperating with Lord Nouda, she and I may flourish….” He reached out his gloved hand and touched Kitty's neck. She recoiled from him with an oath. Blind anger surged inside Nathaniel, but he fought it down.

The mercenary spoke no more. Gloved hands grasped their collars; firmly, but without undue roughness, they were guided out of the door and up the corridor. In the distance they heard a great gabbling and babbling, a cacophony of shrieks and yells—the gathering sound of pandemonium.

Nathaniel was quite calm. So black was the outlook now that fear had become redundant. The worst was upon them, death was all but inevitable, yet he faced it without anxiety. His final conversation with Kitty had lit a fire within him—to Nathaniel it seemed she had burned away all his weaker emotions. His head still spun with her revelations of Bartimaeus's past, but it was her own example that inspired him as the crisis approached. It scarcely mattered that she had pinned her hopes on Ptolemy's Gate—a mirage, a phantom, a fairy tale that all sensible magicians had long ignored—it was the look in her eyes as she talked of it that fascinated him. Excitement had shone there, and wonder, and belief—sensations that Nathaniel had almost forgotten. Now, at the last, she had reminded him, and he was grateful. He felt cleansed, almost eager for what was to come. He glanced across; her face was pale, but set. He hoped he would not weaken in front of her.

His eyes flickered from side to side as they went, taking in the familiar surroundings of the Whitehall passages, the oil paintings, the plaster busts sitting in their niches, the paneled walls and imp-light. They passed the stairs that led to the vaults and, distantly, the Staff; instinctively, Nathaniel flinched toward it. The grip on his collar tightened. They rounded the final corner.

“Here,” the mercenary whispered. “Let this sight put an end to your dreams.”

During their absence the demons had been busy. The Hall of Statues, for a hundred years the sedate meeting place of the Council, had been transformed by its new rulers. Everywhere was movement, noise, uncoordinated hubbub. Nathaniel's senses were briefly overwhelmed.

The round table and its chairs had been swept from the center of the room. The table now rested against the far wall; upon it sat the golden chair. Here lolled Nouda, the great demon, in an attitude of temporary repletion. One leg dangled over a chair arm, the other extended before him. Makepeace's shirt had been untucked—it hung loose about the swollen stomach. The eyes were glazed; the mouth unnaturally stretched—it wore a tired smile, as of one who has lately completed a pleasant meal. A few odd rags and clothes lay on the tabletop around him.

Below the table, upon a redwood chair, the demon Faquarl stood cloaked in Mr. Hopkins's body. It was he who orchestrated events: he held a book open in his hands and uttered crisp orders to the company below.

The bodies of the five original conspirators—Nathaniel recognized Lime, Jenkins, and the scrawny Withers—were now operated by their demons with some efficiency. True, there were still plenty of trips and stumbles, the legs and arms swinging with abrupt staccato movements, but they no longer fell or collided with the wall. This had enabled them to venture out of the room and—as the scrying-glass imp had reported—bring forth selected members of the government from their cells. Batch by batch, great and small, the magicians were being transformed.

To the left, Lime and Withers stood watchful guard over a huddle of waiting prisoners, perhaps twenty in number, their hands still bound. Not far away, in a pentacle close to Nouda's throne, one of these prisoners had been untied; now she stood free, uttering the fatal summons in a quavering voice. She was a woman unknown to Nathaniel, presumably from another department. As he watched, she stiffened and shook. The air about her shimmered as the arriving demon took possession. Faquarl made a gesture; the demon Naeryan, dressed in Jenkins's body, led her gently to the far corner of the hall, to join—

The hairs prickled on Nathaniel's head. There they were—more than two dozen magicians from every level of the government, rolling, twitching, laughing, falling, as their masters explored their limitations. Occasional bursts of magical energy exploded against the walls; the air was full of the murmuring of alien tongues, strange cries of joy and pain. And what was that among them, head twitching, hands rising and falling like a puppet's, florid face gleaming and vacuous? Nathaniel recoiled.

Rupert Devereaux, the Prime Minister …

Despite everything that had occurred, despite his awakening abhorrence of what the man had been and represented, Nathaniel felt tears pricking at his eyes. For an instant he was twelve years old again, caught up in the swirl of Westminster Hall, seeing Devereaux for the first time—dazzling, charming, everything
he
aspired to be….

Devereaux's body gave a caper, collided with another, and collapsed in a writhing heap. Nathaniel was sick with horror; he felt his knees sag.

“Up with you!” The mercenary gave him a cursory shove. “Join the line.”

“Wait!” Nathaniel half turned. “Kitty—”

“She does not share your destiny, for which you may be thankful.”

Nathaniel stared across at Kitty, who for a single moment caught his gaze; then he was propeled savagely toward the crowd of prisoners. Lime's body turned, caught sight of him; he saw green lights far off behind the eyes. A harsh voice, like the snapping of twigs, emerged from the loose mouth: “Faquarl! Here is Bartimaeus's friend! You want him next?”

“Certainly I do, Gaspar. He can jump the queue. He shall come after
this
sour creature. Lord Nouda, I assume you have no wish to taste this one.”

The great voice rumbled from on high. “I have seen better flesh on a pharaoh's corpse.When she turns sideways, she all but disappears. Process her and be done.”

Nathaniel's eyes were fixed on the figure in the pentacle. Stick-thin, white hair disheveled, his old master Jessica Whitwell stood staring up toward the throne. The demon in Withers's body had just removed her bonds; her hands were knotted fists.

“Very well.” Faquarl consulted his book. “Number twenty-eight. Let me see. I have chosen the afrit Mormel for you. You should be honored. He is a noble spirit.”

Ms.Whitwell stared up at the figure on the throne. “What is your plan for us?”

“Do not think to address the great Nouda!” Faquarl cried. “You and your kind have enslaved us for centuries, showing no consideration. What do you
think
we plan? This revenge has been incubated for five thousand years! No portion of the world will be safe from us.”

Ms. Whitwell laughed contemptuously. “I think you are overoptimistic. Look at you all, trapped in awkward bodies, barely able to walk in a straight line.”

“Our inconveniences are only temporary,” Faquarl said. “Yours shall be permanent. Begin the summons.”

Jessica Whitwell spoke quietly. “To all the others you have given a choice. You have not asked me for mine.”

Faquarl lowered his book; his eyes were narrowed. “Well, I assume, like all the other wretches, you prefer life to death, even if it is life worked through another.”

“You assume wrongly.”

Ms. Whitwell raised her hands and made an ornate sign; she shouted out two words. A burst of yellow light, a cloud of brimstone—her afrit, wearing the form of an uneasy-looking grizzly bear—appeared above her head. Whitwell screamed an order; a shimmering blue Shield rose up around her body. The afrit sent a Detonation at the startled Faquarl: it struck him head-on, knocking him off his chair and halfway through the wall.

The demons in the bodies of the conspirators set up a clamor. Naeryan raised a finger: from Jenkins's hand a lance of emerald light stabbed at Whitwell. The Shield absorbed it; Whitwell was already turning, running for the exit. The demon Gaspar, encased in the body of Lime, leaped forward to intercept her; Nathaniel stretched out a boot; the demon tripped, was unable to right itself, fell crashing to the ground.

Nathaniel turned and ran; above his head the bear afrit sent successive Detonations toward the golden throne.

Where was Kitty? There! But the mercenary held her by the arm. She struggled, kicked, could not break free.

Nathaniel sped toward her—

The floor shook; he stumbled, fell—and, for a moment, looked behind him.

The body in the golden chair had moved. It was surrounded by a nimbus of pale fire. Energies crackled from its fingers; its eyes were silver notches in the darkened face. One hand was outstretched. The power that came from it—arcing out in five looping bolts, one from each finger—made statues fall and mortar tumble from the ceiling. The bolts were randomly directed: two plunged harmlessly into the floor; one leaped among the crowd of newly summoned demons, destroying several human bodies. The fourth struck Whitwell's Shield, broke it into shards and cut straight through her back, killing her instantly. The bear afrit vanished. She fell midstride, facedown upon the flagstones.

The fifth bolt burst the floor at the mercenary's feet: he was blown one way, Kitty Jones the other.

Nathaniel was on his feet. “Kitty!”

His voice was drowned out by assorted howls, roars, bays, and trumpetings from the demons in the hall. Confused and panic-stricken, they willed their human carriers in every direction, legs working oddly, knees too high, elbows out. They collided with each other, let fly random Detonations and Infernos. Among them stumbled a few magicians who had yet to be processed, arms still tied, mouths gagged, eyes wide and staring. The room was filled with smoke, lights, and rushing forms.

Amid the tumult Nathaniel came to the place where Kitty Jones had fallen. She was nowhere to be seen. He flinched as a magical pulse passed above his head, and looked round a final time. No, she had gone.

Without further hesitation he ducked between two flailing demons and made for the double doors. As he left the Hall of Statues, he could hear Faquarl's voice rising above the commotion. “Friends, calm down! Calm down! The crisis is over! We must resume the summonings. Calm down.…”

It took Nathaniel less than a minute to negotiate the corridors and arrive at the stairs to the Whitehall vaults. Abandoning all caution, he leaped over the balustrade and careered down the staircase two steps at a time. Down, down … the air grew colder, all sound from above faded clean away; Nathaniel heard nothing now but the gasping of his breath.

At the end of the third flight the steps opened out into the entrance vault. Two days before—or was it three?—he had come here as Information Minister and been shown the treasure room by a supercilious clerk. It seemed another life. Now the clerks desk was empty. It gave signs of being abandoned in a hurry; papers were scattered upon it, a pen lay on the floor.

At the end of the chamber a passage led away into the earth. A line of red tiles marked the beginning of the security zone. Nathaniel stepped toward them; as his shoe rose to cross the line, he cursed, stopped dead, and felt inside his pocket. Careful! He had almost triggered the trap. Nothing magical was permitted beyond the line! He deposited the scrying glass upon the desk, smoothed down his hair, and stepped across the tiles.

If only the Pestilence guarding the Staff could be so easily bypassed. He hadn't a clue how to—