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When I first feel it, I hiss. The imp in front of me blinks and lunges, and with one whip of my serpent’s tail, the small beast crushes between the scales and the marble wall. It fizzles into a puddle of cloudy essence, but I don’t pay attention long enough to see the smoggy remnants dissipate into the air.
Instead, I feel a compress in the very fiber of my spiritual being.
“Bartimaeus, love!” A raucous voice rings out. “If you’re done dawdling, let’s go! The Master awaits!” The hideously dressed cyclops smiles broadly and I quickly shift into a more presentable form- a leopard.
“Lead the way,” I respond lightly, a thin smile caking my lips. The cyclops clicks his meaty tongue and smashes the wall into an exit when there’s a perfectly good door only a few yards away. But I don’t say anything, and simply trot after him.
But the memory of the pain persists.
~*~
I should have guessed earlier. In fact, the idea should have been come to me the second I realized the wrinkles on Nathaniel’s forehead were deeper and more creased than ever. The boy didn’t sleep, the boy didn’t eat properly. And he was perpetually sour- more sour than before.
I should have guessed that he’d bind me to his service in regards to the war sooner rather than later. The threat that loomed over London was nothing compared to the threat that loomed over his head- his reputation. His pride and wellbeing were of more import than most other things, especially his slaves. And what was I but a slave in service to His Majesty the Runt?
And so that evening, after he chastised Ascobol and I for failing to capture any spies, I left to prepare for the morning meal for a commoner event in South London hosted by Internal Affairs.
And I began to remember.
~*~
I’d met djinn who prepared themselves for death. I consorted with them plenty of times in the Other Place. (Simply because masters of the past weren’t as buffoon minded as dearest Nathaniel, and actually let their slaves recuperate for a few days before throwing them back into the fray.) I’d befriended many in past few millennia, and still kept in touch with the ones that managed to make itout alive. They all had one thing in common more often than not- they tended to remember.
A lot.
In fact, I would mostly serve as a listening device as they prattled on about this master they despised or that human they had chosen not to eat on a day some few hundred years ago. Many of their recollections were boring enough to will myself to cry. (Not that I could, even if I tried my hardest. Djinn simply did not expel bodily fluids. Yet another pointer that separated us from the humans no matter how hard we tried to imitate them.) But other times, the tales were far more profound than the djinn speaking. Almost made me envy the lot of them, since most of my own memories consisted of idiotic masters who needed this person dead or that woman abducted (Really, the amount of effort these humans put into shedding flesh and then claiming it.) before the evening ran out.
That all went well and good until I met him. He who I’ve managed to keep safe in my memories for well over two thousand years. (I wonder, to this day, if there’s a living djinn out there who even remembers the last master that treated it with any damned dignity. I doubt it.)
And so here I am now, performing the same rites the other djinn did before they met their end. But instead of speaking to another essence in the Other Place, I was speaking to a cat.
A cat who mewled at intervals to remind me that yes, in fact, it had been listening. So I continued my tales and remembered that one person and stirred the sauce that would be served early the next morning with the bread.
~*~
The clock ticks solemnly and days turn into weeks, and weeks carry on into months. By now, my strength and power is almost on the scale of a third level djinn (Maybe I was already on their level, but I have enough pride left in me to refrain from speaking of such things in front of my collegues and my runty master.) and I hurt when I exert too much strength. (The first pains started six months into my service to Nathaniel, and now we’re well into the ninth. I begin to wonder if I’ll make it through the year.) But I grit my teeth and pick up a smile, just to addle the boy. Especially in Jane Farrar’s form. Her womanly, lush form which never fails to coax a blush from his hardened features. And I subtly torture him with my mannerisms until he dismisses me to the next job and I’m back to where I was when the pains first started and I realized I was dying.
I remember.
~*~
I tell the cat that I love the young Greco-Egyptian princeling.
In response to my confession, it cocks its small head to the side. I nod my head solemnly and continue to cut the vegetables for the hotpot that would be served later in the evening.
“He was-” I cough and correct myself. “He is. He is the most beautiful human I’ve ever encountered. He treated me better than most kings did their wives. Ha! How jealous do you think those wives were, hmm?”
The cat mewls and licks its paws and I continue with my cooking, my thin fingers treading over wooden spoons and copper pots. (My guise on this particular afternoon is that of a butler I once knew during my Prague vs. Britain days. He was a kind, gentle man. And quite obviously, not my master. My luck was that rotten.)
“He let me touch him,” I tell the animal as I bustle along. “I put my hand on his shoulder, and soon, we were walking so close our fingers were always entangled. Not that the rest of Alexandria cared. I was in the guise of a servant ordered to protect the king’s nephew at every turn.”
The cat mewls once more, and I continue.
“We read to each other. I spoke, he listened. Then he spoke and I listened. I read him scrolls in languages he had yet to learn. He told me about things I’d heard of hundred times before, but I let him speak anyway because his voice was always so nice to hear.”
I turn off the flames on the stoves and wipe my hands on my apron and realize my mistake.
Was. Was always so nice to hear. I sigh and take the cat into my arms before shifting into the guise of Kitty Jones. I stroked the animal’s fur and it nestled against my breast in return.
“Was,” I whisper. “Was always nice to hear. So soft, so fleeting. Like a lovely belle. One that tolls once and never again.”
Alive once, and never to be seen again. Wasn’t that the cycle of all living beings? Live once, die, and disappear? Maybe, maybe there would be someone who would care enough to remember. (My nonexistent heart aches. My essence aches. Everything aches, and it isn’t the actual, physical pain of my essence dwindling and me dying. It’s something else. Something deeper.) But if no one did, then fade they did, all living beings. Human and djinn alike. Dead and never to return.
~*~
The last djinn I remember that held a remembrance session before he died was quaintly named Filius. He was under Gladstone’s control and had six hours to himself in the Other Place before he was to be summoned once more to be thrown into battle. Not that one could distinguish “time” in the Other Place, but Filius assumed the period was sufficient enough to heal and tell someone of all the things he loved best about being a thousand year old djinn.
And so there I was, at his service, all humble and kindly. (In the human world, I would be the one to eventually end his life, but he would dissipate with a smile. For as heaven is to humans, the afterlife is to djinn. True freedom, they said, laid beyond the mortality of all living beings. After the body was destroyed, the essence was crushed, the soul could soar free. Free to go back to the one they’d loved and lost. And so did Filius. I think. I hope.) And he accepted my offer.
We sat down on a pillar of dark blue, and he told me of the young girl who’d summoned him three hundred years before in India and asked him to take the guise of their boy king. He turned and the little girl led him to the priests. There she’d proclaimed that she was already the king’s so she could not be sold to the man who would force her to bear children at the tender age of twelve. He was forced to play king for a year, though the girl summoned and dismissed him in regular periods as not to afflict too much stress on him and never once touched him. Eventually, the real king caught on and claimed sorcery and the girl was put to death.
Except she did not die. Filius pretended to be the little girl and took the wooden stake’s death. And then took the girl and flew her out of her kingdom and planted into another’s in a fortnight. The girl thanked him and kissed his palm, before thanking him again and dismissing him for good.
And then, Filius died. I killed him. I watched as Gladstone summoned five more as replacements for Filius. And more shuffled in and I continued to kill. And I remember Filius’s words as he explained just how much he thought about the girl. Not because he loved her or anything. Not at all. But because in the end, despite all that happened and all the blood that was shed in saving her, she still took it upon herself to kiss his palm. A palm of a demon. And then, a quaint three hundred years later, he died by my hands. Yet another slave marked for death.
Just like me.
~*~
“I was in love with him.”
The cat stares at Kitty Jones’ visage.
“I was in love with him.” I say again. “I never told him, but it was understood. Like between Filius and his Indian girl. And maybe the moon and sun. An unspoken agreement.”
Because no djinn would be dumb enough to fall for a human, and no human suicidal enough to reciprocate. But it had happened. And blood was shed. Humans died. Djinn dissipated. The world moved on.
And I was still in love with a boy who’d been dead for well over two thousand years. Ashes spread across the Nile by now. Words of wisdom lost. Gone.
But not gone. Still safe, tucked away in my memories.
“I loved him.”
And the cat understood.
“When I die, do you think we’ll meet again?”
“Bartimaeus! Stop yapping with that godforsaken cat and get back to work!” It was the deafening call of the kitchen master. Nathaniel would have my head if he got another complaint.
But before I could turn back to the food, the cat jumped and landed on my shoulder. It pressed itself against my face and I stroked in return.
“I think we will,” I agree. “Won’t be long, now will it?” I say, finishing my rounds. I had to go fight in a little bit. Nathaniel would want me back before the kitchen master’s next call, so I hastily finished the next fair’s foodstuffs.
“And when we meet again, I’ll tell him about all the things I’ve told you. And he’ll listen to me, won’t he? He always did. And then, I’ll tell him I love him and kiss him like Londoners do in Hyde Park. On the mouth with spittle and giggling and flushed cheeks.” I giggle and the cat mewls back. I wave to the kitchen master before putting the cat down and readying myself for another night in bowels of the Empire’s current war. (So many wars. At first I was disgusted, now I just “roll with it,” as the youth proclaim.)
“And I’ll tell him again how much I love him. And maybe, he’ll tell me he loves me so. He does, doesn’t he? I think he does. We’ll find out soon enough.” I let a smile break out on Kitty Jones’ visage. I have half a mind to turn into his form, but decide against.
“Soon,” I whisper as I step into the cool night. Ascobol and the others wait for me to hurry. I do.
And the ache in my essence that marks my death doesn’t seem so bad in the end after all.