Ptolemy's Gate (54 page)

A shaft of white light—a tremendous explosion. The loping creature vanished—in its place a smoking crater. A figure passed beneath the lantern out of sight, going with steady strides; it held a long staff in its hand.

Kitty placed her mineral water carefully on the floor. “Summon whatever demons you can,” she said. “If we're going to do any good at all,
that's
where we have to be.”

35

I
t has to be said, we worked well together. Better than either of us expected.

Okay, maybe it took a
little
while to get the system sorted—we had a couple of embarrassing moments when our body did two things at once, but we always rectified it sharpish, so no harm done.
¹
And once we got into our seven-leagued stride, we really began to motor, and to enjoy the advantages of our irregular condition.

It was our first success against poor old Naeryan that really fired us up: it showed us what we had to do; how to combine to best effect. We stopped trying to second-guess each other and did a bit of
delegation.

Here's how it went. Nathaniel worked the boots: if we had a long straight distance to travel, he did the strides. Once at our destination (one or two seconds later, generally—those boots were pretty snappy), I took over the legs, imbued them with a little of my trademarked vim, and sent us bounding like an impala, back, forth, up, down, left, and right, until any enemy, and occasionally even myself, was hopelessly confused. Meanwhile, Nathaniel retained full control of his arms and of Gladstone's Staff; he fired it whenever we came within range, and since I could anticipate his intentions, I usually stayed put long enough for him to do so. The only exception (justified, I feel) was when I was hurrying us out of the path of a Detonation, a Flux, or a Spiraling Dismemberment. Always best to avoid such things if you wish to retain momentum.
²

We communicated with pithy, rather monosyllabic thoughts: viz.
Run, Jump, Where? Left, Up, Duck,
etc.
³
We didn't ever quite say
Ug,
but it was a close-run thing. It was all a bit butch and male, and left little room for introspection or emotional analysis, a factor that fitted in nicely with the business of staying alive, and also with a certain subdued detachment that now flooded Nathaniel's mind. It hadn't been so noticeable at first, when we were back with Kitty (his head was full of softer things, then—half-formed, eager, outward-looking), but after that moment in Trafalgar Square, when the woman had turned away from him with a face of fear and scorn, it rose up swiftly and closed him off. His softer emotions were new and hesitant—they didn't like rejection. Now they were sealed away; in their stead returned the old familiar qualities: pride, remoteness, and steely determination. He was still committed to his task, but he undertook it in an attitude of vague self-disgust. Not healthy, maybe, but it helped him fight well.

And fighting, now, was what we had to do.

Naeryan, dawdling at the square, had been the most tardy of the spirits; the others had hurried on, drawn by the sound and smell of human bodies, under the Churchill Arch and out into the dark acres of St. James's Park. Perhaps, if the commoners had not been congregated here in considerable numbers, Nouda's army would have immediately dispersed across the capital and so been far harder to discover and waylay. As it was, the people's protest had been gathering through the night, emboldened by the government's inertia; now, for the avid spirits, their teeming masses provided an unmissable temptation.

When we arrived, the entertainment was well underway. Far across the park the spirits wandered, chasing herds of fleeing humans as the whim took them. Some used magical attacks; others preferred to move for the sake of moving, trying out the unfamiliar stiffness of their limbs, racing around to cut off scurrying prey. Many of the distant trees were aflame with colored lights; the air was a montage of flashes, spinning cords of smoke, shrill screams, and general outcry. Behind it all, the great Glass Palace cast illumination down upon the hectic lawns: across its projected slabs of light the people ran, the spirits bounded, the bodies fell, the breathless hunt went on.

We paused under the arch, at the gateway to the park, taking it all in.

Chaos
, Nathaniel thought.
It's CHAOS.

It's nothing to a real battle
, I said.
You ought to have been at al-Arish, where for two square miles the sand clogged red.
I gave him a mental picture.

Lovely. Thanks for that. See Nouda?

No. How many demons are there?

Enough.
⁴
Let's go.

He tapped his heel; the boots took wing. We launched ourselves into the fray.

Strategy dictated that the spirits did not
collectively
notice our presence. One by one, we could fell them; facing them en masse would be a mite more tricky. Hence rapid-fire attacks and continual movement. Our first objective, close by on the lawns, was an afrit cloaked in the body of an elderly woman; uttering shrill whoops, it sent Spasms ricocheting among the crowds. In two strides we were behind it. The Staff pulsed. The afrit was a memory, sighing on the wind. We turned, moved … and were far off among the fairground stalls, where three strong djinn, plumply dressed in human skin, industriously toppled the Sultan's Castle. Nathaniel pointed the Staff and claimed them in a single greedy flash of light. We looked, saw: up by some trees, a rickety hybrid stalking a child—in three strides we had him in our sights. White fire consumed him. The child fled into the dark.

We need help
, Nathaniel thought,
for the people. They're running round in circles.

That's not our con—Yep; I see them. Go.

A stride, a leap—we landed on a bandstand roof, spun round the central pole, fired the Staff four times. Three hybrids perished; the fourth, alerted by the others' deaths, dodged, jumped back. It spied us, sent a Spasm. The bandstand shook itself to splinters, but we had somersaulted clear, slid down a tent awning and, before our boots touched ground, reduced the culprit's essence to a twirl of dwindling sparks.

A prickle of regret, a slackening of desire. Nathaniel hesitated.
That … that was Helen Malbindi! I
know
it was. She's …

She's been dead long since. You killed her killer. Shake a leg! There—by the lake! Those children. Quick—be swift!

Best to keep moving. Best not to think of it. Fight on.
⁵

Ten minutes passed; we stood beneath an oak tree in the center of the park. The remains of two djinn rose smoking from the earth.

Notice anything about the spirits?
I thought.
I mean, what you can see of them.

The eyes? I catch a glow sometimes.

Yes, but also the auras. They seem bigger somehow.

Meaning what?

I don't know. It's like the human bodies aren't containing them so well.

You think—

The spirits Faquarl summoned are strong. Perhaps their feeding makes them stronger. If—

Wait. By the lake …
And we were gone.

Back and forth across the park we went, among the pavilions and pleasure grounds, the bowers and the walkways, wherever we saw the flash of predatory movement. Sometimes the djinn perceived us and fought back; more often we slew them unawares. The power of the Staff was irresistible, the seven-league boots carried us more swiftly than the enemy could see. Nathaniel was cold and resolute; with every minute he controlled the Staff with greater skill. As for me, whether or not it was the adrenaline we shared, I began to enjoy myself hugely. I slowly awoke again to the old bloodlust, to the fierce joy of combat that I'd known in early Egypt's wars, when the utukku of Assyria marched from the deserts and the gathering vultures blotted out the sky. It was the love of speed and cleverness, of defying death and dealing it; it was the love of carrying out new exploits that would be told and sung around the campfires till the sun went out. It was the love of energy and power.

It was part of Earth's corruption. Ptolemy wouldn't have been pleased.

But it was a good deal better than being a pyramid of slime.

I noticed something and gave a mental prod. Nathaniel stopped where he was in the middle of the field to get a better look. We stood awhile, considering. As we stood, we held the Staff out horizontally, clasped in casual fingers. It glowed and crackled; white smoke drifted from the end. The ground beneath our boots was blackened, charred. All around us bodies lay, and shoes and coats and placards; beyond
them
were burning trees and the deep abyss of night.

Away across the park, the gleaming lights of the great Glass Palace. Within it, silhouetted upon the grass, distant figures seemed to move. We were too far away to make out any details.

Nouda? Faquarl?

Could be …

Watch out.
Away to our left, something coming. We raised the Staff. Paused. Out from the dark a man came—human, with negligible aura. He was shoeless, shirt half torn away. He stumbled past on bloodied feet. He never looked at us.

What a mess
, Nathaniel thought.

Give the poor bloke a chance! He's just been chased by forty demons.

Not him. This. Everything.

Oh. Yes. Yes, it is.

So you reckon there were forty, total?

I didn't say that. A wise warrior—

How many have we killed?

I don't know. Wasn't counting. There aren't so many here now, though.

The central vistas of the park were largely empty. It was as if an invisible skin or barrier had been punctured, and the mass of frantic movement had suddenly poured, then ebbed, away.

Nathaniel sniffed and wiped his nose upon a sleeve.
The Glass Palace it is, then. We're just about finished here.

One step, two … up across the lawns and in among some ornamental hedges, flower beds, ponds, and tinkling fountains. Nathaniel slowed the boots; we took stock of our surroundings.

The Glass Palace rose like a breaching whale from the center of the park, two hundred meters long and a hundred wide. It was constructed almost entirely of glass panes, set among a web of iron girders. The main walls were gently soaring curves; here and there protruded secondary domes, crests, minarets, and gables. It was nothing but a giant conservatory, really, but instead of containing a few moldering tomato plants and a sack of compost, it boasted lines of full-grown palm trees, a man-made stream, aerial walkways, gift shops, and refreshment booths, as well as all manner of ramshackle entertainments.
⁶
Thousands of electric lights hanging from the girders illuminated the area night and day. In ordinary times it was a favorite place for commoners to whittle away their lives.

In the past I had rarely ventured near the palace, since its iron skeleton made my essence squeamish. Now, however, protected within Nathaniel, I had no such worries. We climbed some steps toward the eastern entrance. Here, tropical ferns and palm trees pressed thickly against the inside of the glass; it was hard to see beyond them.

Faint noises echoed from the building. We did not pause, but strode to the wooden doors. We pushed; the doors opened. Holding the Staff before us, we stepped within.

An instant mugginess: out of the night's cold, under the roof of glass, the air was warm. An instant stench of magic too—the after-plumes of sulphurous Detonations. Somewhere to our right, beyond a knot of trees and a Japanese style sushi bar, came sounds of lamentation.

Commoners
, Nathaniel thought.
Need to get close. See who's got them.

Try the walkway?

To our left, a spiral stair of iron led by rapid revolutions to a walkway high above. An elevated vantage point would give us immediate advantage. We crossed swiftly and scaled the steps without a sound. We rose above the spreading palm fronds, up tight against the curve of the great glass wall, and came out upon the narrow gantry, which extended like an iron thread to the opposite side. Nathaniel crouched low; he held the Staff horizontal against the floor. With slow and careful movements, we shuffled out across the void.

It did not take long before we could see beyond the trees to the center of the palace, directly below the highest domes of soaring glass. Here, in an open space, wedged between a gaudily painted merry-go-round and an area of picnic tables, we saw a throng of humans, perhaps a hundred strong, huddled together like penguins in a winter storm. They were marshaled by seven or eight of Nouda's spirits, who stood on every side. Rufus Lime's body was among their vehicles, as was—I knew this from an agitation within Nathaniel's mind—that of the Prime Minister Rupert Devereaux. From the authority of their movements, the spirits seemed comfortable in their hosts. Their auras had spread far around the outlines of the bodies. It was not they, however, who attracted our attention.