The Golem's Eye by Jonathan Stroud
“Pleasant journey?” I inquired.
He completed a few protective bonds and stepped from the circle, signaling me to do the same. “Hardly. There were still some magical traces on me when I went through customs. They collared me and took me to a drafty backroom where I had to talk pretty fast—I said my wine warehouse was right next to a government compound and occasional deviant spells permeated the walls. In the end, they bought it and let me go.” He scowled. “I can’t understand it! I changed all my clothes before leaving home to prevent any traces sticking to me!”
“Underpants, too?”
He paused. “Oh—I was in a hurry. I forgot them.”
“That’ll be it, then. You’d be surprised what builds up down there.”
“And look at this room,” the boy continued. “This is meant to be their top hotel! I swear it hasn’t been redecorated this century. Look at the cobwebs on those drapes! Appalling. And can you tell what color that carpet’s supposed to be? Because I can’t.” He kicked out at the bed irritably; a cloud of dust ballooned outward. “And what’s this stupid four-poster thing, anyway? Why can’t they just have a nice clean futon or something, like at home?”
“Cheer up! At least you’ve got your own facilities.” I investigated a forbidding-looking side door: it swung open with a theatrical squeak to reveal a dingily tiled bathroom, lit by a single bulb. A monstrous three-legged bath lurked in one corner; it was the kind brides are bumped off in, or where pet crocodiles grow to vast size, fed on unusual meats.1 A similarly imposing toilet waited opposite, its chain hanging from the ceiling like a gallows rope.2 Cobwebs and mold fought keenly for dominion of the far reaches of the ceiling. A complex series of metal pipes wound around each other across the wall, connecting bath and toilet and looking for all the world like the spilled intestines of a—
I shut the door. “On second thought, I wouldn’t bother looking in there. Just a bathroom. Nothing special. How’s the view?”
He glowered at me. “Check it out.”
I parted the heavy scarlet curtains and looked out on a charming vista of a large municipal graveyard. Lines of neat headstones stretched away into the night, shepherded by rows of gloomy ash and larch. At intervals, yellow lanterns hanging from trees gave off mournful light. A few hunched and solitary individuals could be seen wandering the gravel paths between the stones; the wind carried their sighs up to the window.
I drew the curtains smartly. “Yes.… Not exactly uplifting, I admit.”
“Uplifting? This is the dreariest place I’ve ever been!”
“Well, what do you expect? You’re British. Of course they’ll put you in a lousy room with a view of a graveyard.”
The boy was sitting at a heavy desk, inspecting some papers from a small brown packet. He spoke absently “I should get the best room for exactly that reason.”
“Are you kidding? After what Gladstone did to Prague? They don’t forget, you know.”
He looked up at this. “That was warfare. We won, fair and square. With minimum loss of civilian life.”
I was Ptolemy at this point, standing by the curtains, arms folded, glowering at him in my turn. “You reckon?” I sneered. “Tell that to the people of the suburbs. There are still wastelands out there, where the houses burned.”
“Oh, you’d know, would you?”
“Of course I’d know! I was there, wasn’t I? Fighting for the Czechs, I might add. Whereas everything you’ve learned was concocted by Gladstone’s Ministry of Propaganda after the war. Don’t lecture me about it, boy.”
He looked, for a moment, as if he might erupt into one of his old furies. Then a switch seemed to go off inside him, and he instead became all cold and careless. He turned back to his papers, blank-faced, as if what I had said was of no account and even bored him. I would have preferred the anger, somehow.
“In London,” he said, almost to himself, “the cemeteries are outside the city boundaries. Much more hygienic that way. We have special funeral trains to take the bodies out.
That’s the modern method. This place is living in the past.” I said nothing. He didn’t deserve the benefit of my wisdom.
For perhaps an hour, the boy studied his papers by the light of a low candle, making small notes in the margins. He ignored me; I ignored him, except to subtly send a breeze across the room to make the candle gutter over his work in an irritating manner. At half-past ten, he rang down to reception and, in perfect Czech, ordered a dish of grilled lamb and a carafe of wine to be delivered to his room. Then he put down his pen and turned to me, smoothing his hair back with his hand.
“Got it!” I said, from the depths of the four-poster, where I was taking my ease, “I know who you remind me of now. It’s been bugging me since you summoned me last week. Lovelace! You fiddle with your hair just like he did. Can’t leave it alone.”
“I want to talk about the golems of Prague,” he said.
“It’s a vanity thing—must be. All that oil.”
“You’ve seen golems in action. What kind of magician uses them?”
“I reckon it shows insecurity as well. A constant need to preen.”
“Was it always Czech magicians who created them? Could a British one do it?”
“Gladstone never fiddled—with his hair or anything else. He was always very still.”
The boy blinked; he showed interest for the first time. “You knew Gladstone?”
“Knew’s putting it a trifle strongly. I saw him from afar. He was usually present during battle, leaning on his Staff, watching his troops cause carnage; here in Prague, across Europe…. Like I say, he was very still; he observed everything, said little; then, when it counted, every movement was decisive and considered. Nothing like your prattling mages of today”
“Really?” You could tell the boy was fascinated. No prizes for guessing who he modeled himself on. “So,” he said, “you kind of admired him, in your poisonous, demonic sort of way?”
“No. Of course not. He was one of the worst. Church bells rang across occupied Europe when he died. You don’t want to be like him, Nathaniel, take it from me. Besides”—I plumped up a dusty pillow—“you haven’t got what it takes.”
Oh, he bristled at that. “Why?”
“You’re not nasty enough by a long way. Here’s your supper.”
A knock at the door heralded the arrival of a black-coated servant and an elderly maid, bearing assorted domed platters and chilled wine. The boy spoke courteously enough to them, asking a few questions about the layout of the streets nearby and tipping them for their trouble. For the duration of their visit, I was a mouse curled cozily between the pillows; I remained in this guise while my master scoffed his food. At last he clattered his fork down, took a last swig from his glass and stood up.
“Right,” he said. “No time for talk. It’s a quarter past eleven. We’ve got to go.”
The hotel was on Kremencova, a short street on the edge of Prague Old Town, not far from the great river. We exited and wandered north along the lamp-lit roads, making our way slowly, steadily, in the direction of the ghetto.
Despite the ravages of war, despite the dissolution into which the city fell after its Emperor was killed and its power transferred to London, Prague still maintained something of its old mystique and grandeur. Even I, Bartimaeus, indifferent as I normally am to the various human hellholes where I’ve been imprisoned, recognized its beauty: the pastel-colored houses, with their high, steep terra-cotta roofs, congregating thickly around the spires and bell towers of the endless churches, synagogues, and theaters; the great gray river winding past, spanned by a dozen bridges, each created to a different style by its own workforce of sweating djinn;3 above it all, the castle of the Emperors, brooding wistfully on its hill.
The boy was silent as we went. Unsurprising, this—he had seldom left London in his life before. I guessed him to be gazing about in dumbstruck admiration.
“What an appalling place,” he said. “Devereaux’s slum-clearance mea
I looked at him. “Do I take it the golden city does not meet with your approval?”
“Well … it’s just so messy, isn’t it?”
True, as you worm your way deeper into the Old Town, the streets become narrower and more labyrinthine, connected by a capillary system of snickelways and side courts, where the gable overhangs become so extreme that daylight barely hits the cobblestones below. Tourists probably find this warren charming; for me, with my slightly more soiled outlook, it perfectly embodies the hopeless muddle of all human endeavor. And for Nathaniel, the young British magician used to the broad, brutal Whitehall thoroughfares, it was all a bit too messy, a bit too out of control.
“Great magicians lived here,” I reminded him.
“That was then,” he said, sourly. “This is now.”
We passed the Stone Bridge, with its ramshackle old tower on the eastern side; bats were swirling about its protruding rafters, and flickering candlelight shone in the topmost windows. Even at this late hour, plenty of traffic was abroad: one or two old-fashioned cars, with high, narrow bonnets and cumbersome retracting roofs, passing slowly across the bridge; many men and women on horseback, too; others leading oxen, or driving two-wheeled carts full of vegetables or beer kegs. Most of the men wore soft black caps in the French style, fashions evidently having changed since my time here so many years before.
The boy made a disparaging face. “That reminds me. I’d better get this charade over with.” He was carrying a small leather rucksack; into this he now delved, pulling out a large floppy cap. Further rummaging revealed a curled and rather crumpled feather. He held this up so it caught the lantern light.
“What color would you call that?” he said.
I considered. “I don’t know. Red, I suppose.”
“What kind of red? I want a description.”
“Erm, brick red? Fiery red? Tomato red? Sunburn red? Could be any or all.”
“Not blood-red, then?” He cursed. “I was so short of time—that was all I could get. Well, it’ll have to do.” He pushed the feather through the fabric of the cap and placed the ensemble on his head.
“What’s this in aid of?” I asked. “I hope you’re not trying to be dashing, because you look like an idiot.”
“This is strictly business, I assure you. It’s not my idea. Come on, it’s almost midnight.”
We turned away from the river now, heading into the heart of the Old Town, where the ghetto guarded Prague’s deepest secrets.4 The houses became smaller and more ramshackle, crowded in upon each other so tightly that some were doubtless held up only by the proximity of their neighbors. Our moods shifted in opposite directions as we went. My essence felt energized by the magic seeping from the old stones, by the memories of my exploits of the past. Nathaniel, conversely, seemed to become ever gloomier, muttering and grumbling under his outsize hat like a cantankerous old man.
“Any chance,” I said,” of telling me exactly what we’re doing?”
He looked at his watch. “Ten to midnight. I have to be in the old cemetery when the clocks start chiming.” He tutted again. “Another cemetery! Can you believe it? How many are there in this place? Well, a spy will meet me there. He will know me by this cap; I will know him by his—and I quote—‘unusual candle.’“ He held up a hand. “Don’t ask—I haven’t got a clue. He may, perhaps, be able to point us in the direction of someone who knows something of golem lore.”
“You think some Czech magician is causing the trouble in London?” I said. “That’s not necessarily so, you know.”
He nodded, or at least his head did something abrupt under his enormous cap. “Quite. An insider must have stolen the clay eye from the Lovelace collection: there’s a traitor working somewhere. But the knowledge to use it must have come from Prague. No one in London’s ever done it before. Perhaps our spy can help us.” He sighed. “I doubt it, though. Anyone who calls himself Harlequin is obviously pretty far gone already.”
“No more deluded than the rest of you, with your silly fake names, Mr. Mandrake. And what am I to do, while you meet this gentleman?”
“Keep hidden and keep watch. We’re in enemy territory, and I’m not going to trust Harlequin or anyone else. All right, this must be the cemetery. You’d better change.”
We had arrived at a cobbled yard, surrounded on all sides by buildings with small, black windows. Before us was a flight of steps, leading up to an open metal gate, set in a tumbledown railing. Beyond rose a dark and toothy mass—the uppermost headstones of Prague’s old cemetery.
This graveyard was little more than fifty meters square, by far the smallest in the city. Yet it had been used for many centuries, over and over, and this contributed to its distinctive flavor. In fact, the sheer weight of burials in this restricted space had led to bodies being interred one on top of another, time and again, until the surface of the cemetery had risen six feet higher than the surrounding yard. The headstones were packed in likewise, with large ones overhanging small, small half-buried in the ground. With its higgledy-piggledy disregard for clarity and order, the cemetery was exactly the kind of place calculated to unsettle Nathaniel’s tidy mind.5
“Well, get on with it, then,” he said. “I’m waiting.”
“Oh, that’s what you’re doing, is it? I couldn’t tell under that hat.”
“Turn yourself into a loathsome snake or plague rat, or whatever foul creature of the night you desire. I’m going in. Get ready to protect me if necessary.”
“Nothing will give me greater pleasure.”
I chose to be a long-eared bat this time, leather-winged, tufted of head. It’s a flexible guise, I find—fast-moving, quiet, and very much in keeping with the tone of midnight graveyards. I flittered off into the clotted wilderness of jumbled stones. As an initial precaution, I made a sweep of the seven planes: they were clear enough, though so steeped in magic that each one vibrated gently with the memories of past deeds. I noticed no traps or sensors, though a few protective hexes on buildings nearby implied that magicians of a sort still dwelled here.6 There was no one about; at this late hour, the graveyard’s tangle of narrow paths was empty, swathed in black shadow. Rusty lamps nailed to the railings emitted half-hearted light. I found an overhanging headstone and hung elegantly from it, tucked inside my wings. I surveyed the main path into the cemetery.
Nathaniel stepped through the gate, his shoes crunching gently on the path. Even as he did so, the dozen clocks of the churches of Prague began to chime, marking the beginning of the secret, midnight hour.7 The boy gave an audible sigh, shook his head disgustedly, and began to stroll tentatively along the path, one hand outstretched, feeling his way between the stones. An owl hooted close by, possibly as a harbinger of violent death, possibly commenting on the ridiculous scale of my master’s hat. The blood-red feather waved to and fro behind his head, glimmering faintly in the meager light.
Nathaniel paced. The bat hung motionless. Time passed as slowly as it always does when you’re hanging out in cemeteries. Once only was there movement in the street below the railing: a strange four-legged, two-armed creature with a kind of double head came shuffling out of the night. My master caught sight of it and halted in doubt. It passed beneath a lantern, to be revealed as a courting couple, heads resting together, arms entwined. They kissed assiduously, giggled a bit, moved off along the road. My master watched them go with an odd expression on his face. I think he was trying to look contemptuous.
From then on, his pacing, never particularly energetic, became distinctly half-hearted. He scuffed along, kicking unseen pebbles, and wrapping his long black coat about him in a hunched, uncaring sort of way. His mind did not seem to be on the job. Deciding he needed a pep talk, I fluttered over and hovered by a headstone.
“Perk it up,” I said, “you’re looking a bit lackluster. You’ll put this Harlequin bloke off if you’re not careful. Imagine you’re on a romantic assignation with some pretty, young girl magician.”<
I couldn’t swear to it—it was dark and all—but I think he might have blushed. Interesting…. Perhaps this was fertile ground to furrow, in due time.
“This is hopeless,” he whispered. “It’s nearly half-past twelve. If he was going to show, we’d have seen something by now. I think … are you listening to me?”
“No.” The bat’s keen ears had picked up a scrabbling noise from way off across the graveyard. I rose a little higher, peered out into the dark. “This might be him. Feather at the ready, Romeo.”
I banked and swooped low among the stones, taking a circular course to avoid direct collision with whatever it was that was coming our way.
For his part, the boy adopted a more upright pose; with his hat at a rakish angle, hands casually behind his back, he dawdled along the path as if in deep, profound thought. He gave no sign that he noticed the increasingly persistent scuffling sounds, or the strange pale light that now approached him from among the gravestones.
24
From the corner of his eye, Nathaniel saw the bat flitter away toward an age-old yew tree, which had somehow managed to survive centuries of burials in one corner of the cemetery. A particularly desiccated branch offered a good view of the path. The bat alighted under it and hung still.
Nathaniel took a deep breath, adjusted his hat, and strolled forward as nonchalantly as he could. All the while, his eyes were fixed on something moving in the depths of the cemetery. Despite the profound skepticism he felt for the whole farrago, the dankness and solitude of this lonely place had infected his spirits. Against his wishes, he found his heart thudding painfully against his chest.
What was it that he saw before him? A pale corpse light drifting nearer, a greenish milky white in color, staining the stones it passed with an unhealthy radiance. Behind it came a moving shadow, hunched and shambling, weaving ever nearer through the stones.