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Authors: Jonathan Stroud
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bit guilty, as if you'd let yourself down. Harsh invective was a no-no, too. It's surprising I had anything left to say.
Ptolemy put down his stylus. "It is a mistake to be too concerned with names and titles, my dear Rekhyt. Such things are never more than rough approximations, matters of convenience. The people speak thus out of ignorance. It's when they understand your nature and are still abusive that you will have to worry." He grinned at me sidelong. "Which is always possible, let's face it."
I raised my wings a little, allowing the sea wind to ruffle through my feathers. "Generally you come off well in the accounts so far. But mark my words, they'll be saying you let the bull loose soon."
He sighed. "In all honesty, reputation—for good or ill— doesn't much bother me."
"It may not bother you" I said darkly, "but there are those in the palace for whom the issue is life and death."
"Only those who drown in the stew of politics," he said. "And I am nothing to them."
"May it be so," I said darkly. "May it be so. What are you writing now?"
"Your description of the elemental walls at the margins of the world. So take that scowl off your beak and tell me more of it."
Well, I let it go at that. Arguing with Ptolemy never did much good.
From the beginning he was a master of curious enthusiasms. The accumulation of wealth, wives, and bijou Nile-front properties—those time-honored preoccupations of most Egyptian magicians—did not enthrall him. Knowledge, of a kind, was what he was after, but it was not the sort that turns city walls to dust and tramples on the necks of the defeated foe. It had a more otherworldly cast.
In our first encounter he threw me with it.
I was a pillar of whirling sand, a fashionable getup in those days. My voice boomed like rock-falls echoing up a gully. "Name your desire, mortal."
"Djinni," he said, "answer me a question."
The sand whirled faster."! know the secrets of the earth and the mysteries of the air; I know the key to the minds of women.[2] What do you wish? Speak."
[2] Patently all lies. Especially the last bit.
"What is essence?"
The sand halted in midair. "Eh?"
"Your substance. What exactly is it? How does it work?"
"Well, um . . ."
"And the Other Place. Tell me of it. Is time there synchronous with ours? What form do its denizens take? Have they a king or leader? Is it a dimension of solid substance, or a whirling inferno, or otherwise? What are the boundaries between your realm and this Earth, and to what degree are they permeable?"
Um . . .
In short, Ptolemy was interested in us. Djinn. His slaves. Our inner nature, that is, not the usual surface guff. The most hideous shapes and provocations made him yawn, while my attempts to mock his youth and girlish looks merely elicited hearty chuckles. He would sit in the center of his pentacle, stylus on his knee, listening with rapt attention, ticking me off when I introduced a more than usually obvious fib, and frequently interrupting to clarify some ambiguity. He used no Stipples, no Lances, no other instruments of correction. His summonings rarely lasted more than a few hours. To a hardened djinni like me, who had a fairly accurate idea of the vicious ways of humans, it was all a bit disconcerting.
I was one of a number of djinn and lesser spirits regularly summoned. The normal routine never deviated: summons, chat, frenzied scribbling by the magician, dismissal.
In time, my curiosity was aroused. "Why do you do this?" I asked him curtly. "Why all these questions? All this writing?"
"I have read most of the manuscripts in the Great Library," the boy said. "They have much about summoning, chastisement, and other practicalities, but almost nothing about the nature of demons themselves. Your personality, your own desires. It seems to me that this is of the first importance. I intend to write the definitive work on the subject, a book that will be read and admired forever. To do this, I must ask many questions. Does
Ptolemy put down his stylus. "It is a mistake to be too concerned with names and titles, my dear Rekhyt. Such things are never more than rough approximations, matters of convenience. The people speak thus out of ignorance. It's when they understand your nature and are still abusive that you will have to worry." He grinned at me sidelong. "Which is always possible, let's face it."
I raised my wings a little, allowing the sea wind to ruffle through my feathers. "Generally you come off well in the accounts so far. But mark my words, they'll be saying you let the bull loose soon."
He sighed. "In all honesty, reputation—for good or ill— doesn't much bother me."
"It may not bother you" I said darkly, "but there are those in the palace for whom the issue is life and death."
"Only those who drown in the stew of politics," he said. "And I am nothing to them."
"May it be so," I said darkly. "May it be so. What are you writing now?"
"Your description of the elemental walls at the margins of the world. So take that scowl off your beak and tell me more of it."
Well, I let it go at that. Arguing with Ptolemy never did much good.
From the beginning he was a master of curious enthusiasms. The accumulation of wealth, wives, and bijou Nile-front properties—those time-honored preoccupations of most Egyptian magicians—did not enthrall him. Knowledge, of a kind, was what he was after, but it was not the sort that turns city walls to dust and tramples on the necks of the defeated foe. It had a more otherworldly cast.
In our first encounter he threw me with it.
I was a pillar of whirling sand, a fashionable getup in those days. My voice boomed like rock-falls echoing up a gully. "Name your desire, mortal."
"Djinni," he said, "answer me a question."
The sand whirled faster."! know the secrets of the earth and the mysteries of the air; I know the key to the minds of women.[2] What do you wish? Speak."
[2] Patently all lies. Especially the last bit.
"What is essence?"
The sand halted in midair. "Eh?"
"Your substance. What exactly is it? How does it work?"
"Well, um . . ."
"And the Other Place. Tell me of it. Is time there synchronous with ours? What form do its denizens take? Have they a king or leader? Is it a dimension of solid substance, or a whirling inferno, or otherwise? What are the boundaries between your realm and this Earth, and to what degree are they permeable?"
Um . . .
In short, Ptolemy was interested in us. Djinn. His slaves. Our inner nature, that is, not the usual surface guff. The most hideous shapes and provocations made him yawn, while my attempts to mock his youth and girlish looks merely elicited hearty chuckles. He would sit in the center of his pentacle, stylus on his knee, listening with rapt attention, ticking me off when I introduced a more than usually obvious fib, and frequently interrupting to clarify some ambiguity. He used no Stipples, no Lances, no other instruments of correction. His summonings rarely lasted more than a few hours. To a hardened djinni like me, who had a fairly accurate idea of the vicious ways of humans, it was all a bit disconcerting.
I was one of a number of djinn and lesser spirits regularly summoned. The normal routine never deviated: summons, chat, frenzied scribbling by the magician, dismissal.
In time, my curiosity was aroused. "Why do you do this?" I asked him curtly. "Why all these questions? All this writing?"
"I have read most of the manuscripts in the Great Library," the boy said. "They have much about summoning, chastisement, and other practicalities, but almost nothing about the nature of demons themselves. Your personality, your own desires. It seems to me that this is of the first importance. I intend to write the definitive work on the subject, a book that will be read and admired forever. To do this, I must ask many questions. Does
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