Jonathan Stroud - Bartimaeus 1 (6 page)

I should have let fly a full-strength Detonation or something, but I was too tired

for anything fancy. I fell back on empty bluster.

I laughed eerily. "Hah! I'm toying with you."

"That's empty bluster."

I tried another tack. "Despite myself," I said, "I confess I'm intrigued. I applaud your bravery in daring to accost me. If you tell me your name and purpose, I will spare you. In fact, I might well be able to help you. I have many abilities at my command."

To my disappointment, the girl clamped her hands over her ears. "Don't give me

your weasel words, demon!" she said. "I won't be tempted."

"Surely you do not want my enmity," I went on, soothingly. "My friendship is greatly to be preferred."

"I don't care about either," the girl said, lowering her hands. "I want whatever it is you have round your neck."

"You can't have it. But you can have a fight if you like. Apart from the damage

it'll do you, I'll make sure I let off a signal that'll bring the Night Police down on us like gorgons from hell. You don't want
their
attention, do you?"

That made her flinch a bit. I built on my advantage.

"Don't be naïve," I said. "Think about it. You're trying to rob me of a very powerful object. It belongs to a terrible magician. If you so much as touch it, he'll find you and nail your skin to his door."

Whether it was this threat or the accusation of naïveté that got to her, the girl was

rattled. I could tell by the direction of her pout.

Experimentally I shifted one elbow a little. The corresponding boy grunted and

tightened his grip on my arm.

A siren sounded a few roads away. The girl and her bodyguards looked uneasily

down the alley into the darkness. A few drops of rain began to fall from the hidden sky.

"Enough of this," the girl said. She stepped toward me.

"Careful," I said.

She stretched out a hand. As she did so, I opened my mouth, very, very slowly.

Then she reached for the chain round my neck.

In an instant I was a Nile crocodile with jaws agape. I snapped down at her

fingers. The girl shrieked and jerked her arm backward faster than I would have believed possible. My snaggleteeth clashed just short of her retreating fingernails. I snapped at her again, thrashing from side to side in my captors' grasp. The girl squawked, slipped, and fell into a pile of litter, knocking over one of her two guards. My sudden transformation took my three boys by surprise, particularly the one who was clutching me around my

wide scaly midriff. His grip had loosened, but the other two were still hanging on. My long hard tail scythed left, then right, making satisfyingly crisp contact with two thick skulls.

Their brains, if they had any, were nicely addled; their jaws slackened and so did

their grasps.

One of the girl's two guards had been only momentarily shocked. He recovered

himself, reached inside his jacket, emerged with something shiny in his hand.

As he threw it, I changed again.

The quick shift from big (the croc) to small (a fox) was nicely judged, if I say so

myself. The six hands that had been struggling to cope with large-scale scales suddenly found themselves clenching thin air as a tiny red bundle of fur and whirling claws

dropped through their flailing fingers to the floor.

At the same moment a missile of flashing silver passed through the point where

the croc's throat had recently been and embedded itself in the metal door beyond.

The fox ran up the alley, paws skittering on the slippery cobbles.

A piercing whistle sounded ahead. The fox pulled up. Searchlights dipped and

spun against the doors and brickwork. Running feet followed the lights.

That was all I needed. The Night Police were coming.

As a beam swung toward me, I leaped fluidly into the open mouth of a plastic bin.

Head, body, brush—gone; the light passed over the bin and went on down the alley.

Men came now, shouting, blowing whistles, racing toward where I'd left the girl

and her companions. Then a growling, an acrid smell; and something that might have

been a big dog rushing after them into the night.

The sounds echoed away. Curled snugly between a seeping bin-bag and a

vinegary crate of empty bottles, the fox listened, his ears pricked forward. The shouts and whistles grew distant and confused, and to the fox it seemed as if they merged and

became an agitated howling.

Then the noise faded altogether. The alleyway was silent.

Alone in the foulness, the fox lay low.

8

Nathaniel

Arthur Underwood was a middle-ranking magician who worked for the Ministry

of Internal Affairs. A solitary man, of a somewhat cantankerous nature, he lived with his wife, Martha, in a tall Georgian house in Highgate.

Mr. Underwood had never had an apprentice, and nor did he want one. He was

quite happy working on his own. But he knew that sooner or later, like all other

magicians, he would have to take his turn and accept a child into his house.

Sure enough, the inevitable happened: one day a letter arrived from the Ministry

of Employment, containing the dreaded request. With grim resignation, Mr. Underwood

fulfilled his duty. On the appointed afternoon, he traveled to the ministry to collect his nameless charge.

He ascended the marbled steps between two granite pillars and entered the

echoing foyer. It was a vast featureless space; office workers passed quietly back and forth between wooden doors on either side, their shoes making respectful pattering noises on the floor. Across the hall, two statues of past Employment ministers had been built on a heroic scale, and sandwiched between them was a desk, piled high with papers. Mr.

Underwood approached. It was only when he actually reached the desk that he was able

to glimpse, behind the bristling rampart of bulging files, the face of a small, smiling clerk.

"Hello, sir," said the clerk.

"Junior Minister Underwood. I'm here to collect my new apprentice."

"Ah—yes, sir. I was expecting you. If you'll just sign a few documents..." The clerk rummaged in a nearby stack. "Won't take a minute. Then you can pick him up from the day room."

" 'Him'? It's a boy, then?"

"A boy, five years old. Very bright, if the tests are anything to go by. Obviously a little upset at the moment..." The clerk located a wodge of papers and withdrew a pen from behind his ear. "If you could initial each page and sign on the dotted lines..."

Mr. Underwood flourished the pen. "His parents—they've left, I take it?"

"Yes, sir. They couldn't get away fast enough. The usual sort: take the money and run, if you get my meaning, sir. Barely stopped to say good-bye to him."

"And all the normal safety procedures—?"

"His birth records have been removed and destroyed, sir, and he has been strictly instructed to forget his birth name and not reveal it to anyone. He is now officially

unformed. You can start with him from scratch."

"Very well." With a sigh, Mr. Underwood completed his last spidery signature and passed the documents back. "If that's all, I suppose I had better pick him up."

He passed down a series of silent corridors and through a heavy, paneled door to a

brightly painted room that had been filled with toys for the entertainment of unhappy

children. There, between a grimacing rocking horse and a plastic wizard doll wearing a comedy conical hat, he found a small pale-faced boy. It had been crying in the recent

past, but had now fortunately desisted. Two red-rimmed eyes looked up at him blankly.

Mr. Underwood cleared his throat.

"I'm Underwood, your master. Your true life begins now. Come with me."

The child gave a loud sniff. Mr. Underwood noticed its chin wobbling

dangerously. With some distaste, he took the boy by the hand, pulled it to its feet, and led it out down echoing corridors to his waiting car.

On the journey back to Highgate, the magician once or twice tried to engage the

child in conversation, but was met with teary silence. This did not please him; with a snort of frustration, he gave up and turned on the radio to catch the cricket scores. The child sat stock-still in the backseat, gazing at its knees.

His wife met them at the door. She carried a tray of biscuits and a steaming mug

of hot chocolate, and straight away bustled the boy into a cozy sitting room, where a fire leaped in the grate.

"You won't get any sense out of him, Martha," Mr. Underwood grunted. "Hasn't said a word."

"Do you wonder? He's terrified, poor thing. Leave him to me." Mrs. Underwood was a diminutive, roundish woman with very white hair cropped short. She sat the boy in a chair by the fire and offered him a biscuit. He didn't acknowledge her at all.

Half an hour passed. Mrs. Underwood chatted pleasantly about anything that

came into her head. The boy drank some chocolate and nibbled a biscuit, but otherwise

stared silently into the fire.

Finally, Mrs. Underwood made a decision. She sat beside him and put her arm

around his shoulders.

"Now, dear," she said, "let's make a deal. I know that you've been told not to tell anyone your name, but you can make an exception with me. I can't get to know you

properly just calling you 'boy,'

can I? So, if you tell me your name, I'll tell you mine—in strictest confidence.

What do you think?

Was that a nod? Very well, then. I'm Martha. And you are...?"

A small snuffle, a smaller voice.
"Nathaniel."

"That's a lovely name, dear, and don't worry, I won't tell a soul. Don't you feel better already?

Now, have another biscuit, Nathaniel, and I'll show you to your bedroom."

With the child fed and bathed and finally put to bed, Mrs. Underwood reported

back to her husband, who was working in his study.

"He's asleep at last," she said. "It wouldn't surprise me if he was in shock—and no wonder, his parents leaving him like that. I think it's disgraceful, ripping a child from his home so young."

"That's how it's always been done, Martha. Apprentices have to come from

somewhere." The magician kept his head bent meaningfully toward his book.

His wife did not take the hint. "He should be allowed to stay with his family," she went on. "Or at least to
see
them sometimes."

Wearily, Mr. Underwood placed the book on the table. "You know very well that

is quite impossible. His birth name must be forgotten, or else future enemies will use it to harm him. How can it be forgotten if his family keeps in contact? Besides, no one has

forced
his parents to part with their brat. They didn't want him, that's the truth of it, Martha, or they wouldn't have answered the advertisements. It's quite straightforward.

They get a considerable amount of money as compensation, he gets a chance to serve his country at the highest level, and the state gets a new apprentice. Simple.

Everyone wins. No one loses out."

"All the same..."

"It didn't do
me
any harm, Martha." Mr. Underwood reached for his book.

"It would be a lot less cruel if magicians were allowed their
own
children."

"That road leads to competing dynasties, family alliances... it all ends in blood feuds. Read your history books, Martha: see what happened in Italy. So, don't worry

about the boy. He's young. He'll forget soon enough. Now, what about making me some

supper?"

The magician Underwood's house was the kind of building that presented a

slender, simple, dignified countenance to the street, but which extended back for a

remarkable distance in a confusion of stairs, corridors, and slightly varying levels. There were five main floors altogether: a cellar, filled with wine racks, mushroom boxes, and cases of drying fruit; the ground floor, containing reception room, dining hall, kitchen, and conservatory; two upper floors mainly consisting of bathrooms, bedrooms, and

workrooms; and, at the very top, an attic. It was here that Nathaniel slept, under a steeply sloping ceiling of whitewashed rafters.

Each morning, at dawn, he was woken by the fluting clamor of pigeons on the

roof above. A small skylight was set in the ceiling. Through it, if he stood on a chair, he could see out over the gray, rain-washed London horizon. The house stood on a hill and the view was good; on clear days he could see the Crystal Palace radio mast far away on the other side of the city.

His bedroom was furnished with a cheap plywood wardrobe, a small chest of

drawers, a desk and chair, and a bedside bookcase. Every week Mrs. Underwood placed a

new bunch of garden flowers in a vase on the desk.

From that first miserable day, the magician's wife had taken Nathaniel under her

wing. She liked the boy and was kind to him. In the privacy of the house, she often

addressed the apprentice by his birth name, despite the stern displeasure of her husband.

"We shouldn't even
know
the brat's name," he told her. "It's forbidden! He could be compromised. When he is twelve, at his coming of age, he will be given his new

name, by which he will be known, as magician and man, for the rest of his life. In the meantime, it is quite wrong—"

"Who's going to notice?" she protested. "No one. It gives the poor lad comfort."

She was the only person to use his name. His tutors called him Underwood, after

his master. His master himself just addressed him as "boy."

In return for her affection, Nathaniel rewarded Mrs. Underwood with open

devotion. He hung on her every word, and followed her directions in everything.

At the end of his first week at the house, she brought a present to his room.

"This is for you," she said. "It's a bit old and dreary, but I thought you might like it."