The Master's Shadow
Rating: T
Warning(s): Slash pairing, so if that's not your thing you may prefer to look elsewhere.
Spoilers: References to general plot developments in Part II of The Ring of Solomon.
Disclaimer: Characters are from the Bartimaeus novels and are the property of Jonathan Stroud.
Notes: I'm pretty sure Stroud meant to imply some kind of erotic/romantic relationship between Khaba and Ammet. Pretty sure. I wanted to explore that, so here we are. Not the most titillating slash pairing, I'm sure, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. Happy reading!
For all his better qualities, the power and ambition that first earned Ammet's regard in Egypt, Khaba is still human. Humans are notoriously thoughtless, self-concerned, and – yes – cruel in ways both deliberate and inadvertent. Khaba is so rarely cruel to Ammet in either respect that the pain of it now comes as a shock. This is meant to be a delightful moment, a clever and well-deserved punishment for the spirit that brought so much disgrace down on Khaba. And yet:
"Ah, yes, the charming Cyrine…. Tonight she will share a banquet in my company and be beguiled by the wonders of the palace; tomorrow, perhaps, if Solomon is busy and has no time to spare, I might persuade her to take a walk with me. Perhaps" – and this is the part that freezes Ammet's essence and sends a slow roll of horror through the spirit's form so that the shadow shudders – "she will come here."
The trembling note of excitement in Khaba's voice is proof enough that the charming priestess would not end as another skeleton arranged on a table, her vitals suspended in jars. The implications, and Khaba's obvious pleasure in contemplating them, make Ammet twitch on the floor, destroying the shadowy illusion. Neither magician nor djinni notices, though, and Ammet's mind races; surely there must be some way to dissuade him from that, to convince him of the folly of such an action.
And it is folly. To bring a senseless girl into these chambers, where master and spirit commune darkly over the cries of their captives? Into these chambers, where an untold bond has been forged, rendering the area a practically sacred space?
No – unthinkable. This is their place, no open garden or hall where any interloper can come to gawk.
Movement in the djinni's circle breaks this increasingly furious train of thought; Bartimaeus has tensed as if to spring at the magician, and Ammet is instantly alert, the instinct to protect Khaba overriding any other impulse. Khaba snaps his fingers, a signal, and Ammet rises from the floor, expanding, like the coming of night itself; the shadow rears to the ceiling and reaches for Bartimaeus, now cringing in his pentacle. The sight is immensely satisfying; who did the djinni imagine he was dealing with?
Khaba holds up the bottle that is to be Bartimaeus' prison – a truly wicked interpretation of the girl's simpering plea for Khaba to Dismiss the djinni, one that had thrilled the magician when Ammet suggested it. Ammet plucks the bottle from his fingers; the magician has laid the scroll out on the lectern, since he had decided to leave the recitation to Ammet's superior control of the languages involved. Ammet is surprised, however, to hear that Khaba doesn't intend to remain to see Bartimaeus confined – this isn't what they had planned. Still, his unquestioning faith in Ammet's competence is almost enough to make the spirit forget its indignation. Khaba looks up, moist eyes gleaming, and the vast shadow eagerly bends its head down so that its forehead almost touches its master's.
"Dear Ammet," Khaba says, "the hour of the banquet approaches fast, and since I have a delightful young woman to meet…"
These words are like a blast of cold water. Ammet listens numbly to the rest of Khaba's instructions; if the shadow had features, they surely would have betrayed the marid's emotions now.
This is how it was to be? Abandoning Ammet and their shared delight in ingenious tortures, over lust for a nondescript and worthless girl? Apparently so – Khaba strides to the door without another word or glance to either spirit. Disbelievingly, Ammet doesn't separate its form from its master's immediately, but when Khaba pays no heed Ammet peels the shadow's extremities from his heels with a disconsolate tearing sound. The deep reverberation of the chamber sealing is worse.
Perhaps Ammet might have stopped the djinni from destroying quite as much as it did; the marid certainly might have prevented the release of the captive spirits. But there doesn't seem much of a point, not when Khaba's interest has been so easily diverted anyway.
"Loves his master," Bartimaeus had scoffed, so clearly disgusted. Even as Ammet whirls around the djinni in a shadowy maelstrom, barely refraining from tearing its essence apart, even as Ammet seals its unresponsive essence in the glass bottle, the marid cannot disregard this scorn.
For the first time, Ammet considers straight-on the indignity of such a position, to care so deeply for one who enslaves you. Who rewards your devotion and protection by leaving, by preferring another sack of flesh to your noble being. Such a girl, her supposed charms transient as a blooming flower, is unworthy of Khaba's attentions. His equal is here, the fulfillment of his every desire here, but he…he is not.
"So cruel, Khaba," Ammet whispers, shadowy fingers tightening dangerously around Bartimaeus' prison. "So blind – unfeeling – insulting –"
With a terrible cry, Ammet lashes an arm against a still-intact row of jars, sending them in a cacophony of shattering glass to the stone floor. Embalming fluid seeps into the wreckage of Khaba's treasures. Ammet doesn't have to breathe, but rending, half-sobbing gasps echo off the chamber's walls.
Ammet delivers the bottle to Khaba unobtrusively at the high table, not in the form of his paper-thin shadow but of a fair youth in a short white tunic – slave's garb and appropriate for the occasion – with golden bracelets clasped around his tan upper arms Ammet keeps the young man's expression deliberately blank, does not speak a word as his smooth hands offer the bottle to the magician. Khaba rakes his wet eyes over his slave's form, but it isn't until they settle on the bottle that he seems to realize who the young man really is. This delay may have something to do with the wine, the effects of which are evident in Khaba's color-blotched cheeks.
"Ah, perfect," he says in a low voice, accepting the bottle. "Did he put up much resistance?"
"Yes," Ammet says shortly. "And with your leave I'll go put your chamber back in order."
Khaba is too distracted with wine and the sight of Bartimaeus' unformed essence swirling in the glass depths to ask about the state of the chamber, which is just as well. He waves Ammet away distractedly, and with a sinister hiss like wind through dry grass Ammet turns on his heel and departs.
There really isn't much that can be done with the destroyed objects, but the marid salvages what it can. The loss of the cuneiform tablets will hit Khaba the hardest, but he had at least had the foresight to copy their contents onto scrolls, stored in another chamber.
When the chamber is as restored as possible under the circumstances, Ammet heads for open air. Devotion to Khaba, their nearly perfect alignment of desires and pleasures, usually distracts Ammet from the discomfort of confinement, but tonight that luxury is absent. Being outside, under the expanse of the sky, eases the pain, and Ammet perches at the very summit of Khaba's tower, turning the young man's head back and forth so that the stars blur in his vision. An itch at the youth's shoulderblades, a rustling – enormous black-feathered wings burst from the tanned skin, and Ammet takes to the air, the better to dissolve in the indistinct starlight. The winged boy climbs higher in the air with furious beats of his wings, higher, until ice begins to crystallize on his outermost feathers, until the air around him changes and begins to be a strain on Ammet's essence.
Then a familiar sensation, invisible hooks nearly turning the marid inside-out as they draw it back to earth, to Khaba – except this time accompanied by unfamiliar displeasure. Nevertheless, resistance would be a futile gesture; Ammet materializes in the pentacle, only defiant in its continued neglect to take on the shape of Khaba's shadow. The ice-crusted wings fold back and into the youth's shoulders.
Khaba looks ill, his face no longer flushed with wine but drained of color. His hand is on the lectern for support, fingers crumpling the papyrus inscribed with the Indefinite Confinement spell. His eyes, however, burn with fury.
"Ammet," he grits out, "I have been – the bottle – she has robbed me."
"Your delightful priestess? Did she?" Ammet asks with no little satisfaction. Khaba's pale face darkens at his slave's tone.
"This amuses you, Ammet?" he asks, his voice dangerously calm. He draws himself up straight. "This new assault on my dignity pleases you? I confess myself surprised" – spitting now – "when until now my success has been your success, my disgrace your disgrace. Did you not say so in the desert?"
"And did not you," Ammet responds in turn, "tell me our desires were equivalent, our minds as one?"
Khaba has the audacity to look confused. "What does that–"
The young man's eyes take on a white illumination, obscuring the irises; he interrupts, "Have I not been with you almost from the beginning, have I not helped you ascend?"
"I know it," Khaba says shortly, brows knitting.
"Then why," Ammet's voice is soft now, almost a caress, "do you disregard me in favor of a thieving, pathetic girl? Leave me to carry out our supposedly shared pleasure while you seek her company like an eager lamb? Is she really so beguiling?"
"I–"
"Did she fog your mind with her lilting praise?" Ammet continues recklessly, voice rising. "Did she ply you with drink, offer you the delights of her flesh, perhaps, and thus receive the bottle from your willing hands, only to leave you wanting? Was this the nature of her so-called theft?"
Khaba's face is white with rage.
"You forget your place," he gasps, the words constricted in his throat. "How you could dare –"
"My place?" Ammet shouts over him. "I clean up the detritus of your revenge like a common maid, deliver the bottled djinni to you as if I were a messenger imp! I, who make the very atmosphere tremble with a single breath, who in the world's inception scored the canyons and ridges of the earth with my own claws! Yet I sensed an uncommon power in you, dear Khaba, and willingly submitted to what I deemed our partnership, which I see now you regard quite differently."
A tense silence follows this outburst.
"Is it not the nature of summoning," Khaba says finally, "that one binds and one submits? I have endeavored to lessen this indignity – I leave out the stricter binding clauses, I give you as much freedom as the constraints of the pentacle allow. I turn to you in all things, want you with me always – I ask that you manifest as an extension of my very self. And yet as soon as my attentions are engaged elsewhere, you take offense, pout like a child and revel in my misfortune. What else can I give you, Ammet, that will satisfy your pride?"
The tanned youth, unbound by the traditional constraints, lunges from his pentacle. Khaba staggers back, but Ammet seizes the front of his tunic and crushes their mouths together, a desperate clashing of lips and tongues and teeth. Khaba responds almost immediately, fingers clenching in Ammet's hair, his long nails scraping at the youth's scalp. His body is pliant, wilting into Ammet's like a drooping flower, his flesh when Ammet's hands slide underneath his tunic burns as if with fever.
"I see," Khaba says, breathing heavily, when at length they part. "My dear Ammet…"
"I am a slave who loves his master," Ammet says, deliberately. "And you, Khaba? Are you…?"
"Honored," Khaba rasps. "But my shadow, my other self – you are no mere slave."
"And the girl?"
Khaba's hot mouth is at Ammet's jaw, his breath wet against the spirit's ear. "She will give me far more pleasure when I watch you eviscerate her than in anything else she might do."
Ammet smiles coldly, the youth's form swiftly dissolving into shadow. "Then, sweet Khaba, we should find her now."
End Notes: Well. Uh. Not much to say, I guess. In all likelihood, if Khaba and Ammet ever got it on, it would have been before the events of The Ring of Solomon. I chose this timeline purely for the sake of drama, because I'm kind of lazy sometimes. Whether you review or not, thanks for reading!