As part of my current charge I have been instructed to provide an occasional journal* of my recent activities. Since my most trivial thoughts are suffused with rare insight and the ringing clarity of true wisdom, this is a good deal for you. So here we go, then. Listen and be enlightened.
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* I dislike the term blog, since coincidentally this word is also the name of a repulsive sub-caste of foliots, characterised by ooze, fleshy folds and gills of blue-grey gristle. Think slugs, but with worse personalities. Magicians send them to harass their enemies in their sleep; after a night of tormented dreams, the sleeper wakes to find his bed-clothes crossed with trails of slime… Where was I? Oh, yes – this being the case, I'll stick with journal if you don't mind. |
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Monday* Tuesday Wednesday |
*I'm not one for exact timekeeping, since (a) time doesn't exist in the Other Place, (b) I'm never sure whether to use the Gregorian, Julian, Egyptian or Mayan calendars. So don't expect exact days or months. Or centuries, for that matter. | ||
Thursday Friday |
*Dangerous because any verbal hiccup while giving me my orders would break my bonds and uncage my savage wrath. Ooh, gave myself a bit of a shiver writing that. That's literary talent. |
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Saturday After a day cloistered in the workroom, this unpleasant magician departed to an evening conference, promising me other jobs 'suitable to my status' on the morrow. I anticipate nothing less than daring reconnaissance/search and destroy missions. Sunday Monday Mid-afternoon comes. The garden is hot and drowsy. Spy three suspicious butterflies flitting over hedge. Check the planes. Yep, small foliots, arms flapping wildly. Wasp rises up behind them, shoots down out of sun, zaps them with Infernos, one, two, three. Burning butterflies crash-land in pond. Alert master to my triumph. She inspects charred fragments. Her scowl deepens; turns out they were her slaves, returning with valuable information. Another Spasm. At dinner the boy spills the soup and is clouted for his pains. |
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Tuesday A fearful roar; the manticore's head jerks back. A silver spear-head juts through its throat. Behind stands the tow-haired boy, white-faced, clutching the spear. This is my chance: the serpent rallies, opens its mouth, sends out as strong a Detonation as I can muster. It hits the manticore directly in the throat and splits the wounded essence. Pop! The manticore's head goes spinning into a rosebush. The body sloughs and slips, falls into separate chunks that melt among the grasses. The boy and I stand looking at each other. At length the magician emerges from bed and we recount our tale. Her response lacks gratitude: stammering furiously, she chides us for the damage to her lawns and flowerbed.* The boy is smacked; I am Spasmed; we both spend the day with nail-clippers attending to the damage to the garden. I try to start up a conversation with the lad, but he is very quiet. Wednesday I was the cat, as usual, sitting insolently in my circle. The magician and the boy stepped in and took their places; she ordered him to begin the new incantation. The boy did the preliminaries, sealing the circles, erecting the bonds. Now we were all subject to the rules of the summoning. But then he stopped. He did not progress. The woman looked at him furiously. "I've forgotten it," he said. The woman knew the words well enough, but couldn't do it for fear of stammering. She did her best to keep her temper, prompting, encouraging, cajoling and imploring, while the cat sat quietly in its circle as if it wasn't watching. The boy shrugged. "I've forgotten it," was all he said. And then, "I guess I wasn't taught well enough." At this, the magician's fury knew no bounds. She reached out of her circle and slapped the apprentice round his head. But by doing so, she broke her protective seal. The cat stretched languidly; the stretch arched up, widened, became lime-green. Fur became scales. The serpent's mouth opened wide as a grave; it came down upon the woman and swallowed her whole, like a snake does an egg, down to the heels of her quivering shoes. The serpent closed its mouth; a bulge retreated slowly along its coils. It looked at the boy, still standing safely in the circle of his own. "Goodbye," he said. "G'bomf," I said. Well, I had my mouth full. Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday |
*This is me by the way. Bartimaeus. I'd almost lost track myself.
*True, there were several holes burnt by molten essence in the grass, and the rosebush had split in two with the impact of the severed head. But that's not really the point, is it? |
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