Disclaimer: I do not own the Bartimaeus Trilogy

Summary: AU ending of Ptolemy's Gate. What would have happen had Nathaniel survived the explosion at the Glass Palace? Waking up to find two spirits in his head definitely wasn't what he anticipated.


#1 – Bartimaeus

As the smoke cleared, I lifted the rubble of what had formerly been the Glass Palace off a rather delicate part of Nathaniel's anatomy, hence putting his future generations in my debt. His own debt had already grown to a size far greater than Nouda's bloated belly. The fool had mispronounced one of the most crucial parts of the Words of Dismissal, leaving me helplessly tied to the earth as the spirits of Gladstone's staff made their joyful (and explosive) escape from the prison in which they had spent the worse part of a century. (1)

(1) By the way, I strongly suspect that they weren't quite as badly off as their earlier moans had indicated. I swear I saw a pack of cards in a grinning marid's hand.

But even in my dazed and disorientated state, I was battle-ready! (2)

(2) Or as close to it as is possible when you have a meagre four limbs, three of which are utterly useless and bloodied. How the human race has survived this long, I'll never understand.

Being trapped in Nathaniel's body wasn't quite as bad as it could have been. Alright, he still had an incredible amount of earwax lodged firmly in his right ear but our union had saved us from the worst effects of the Staff's full prowess. Nathaniel's body had acted as armour for my essence, while the strength I lent him allowed him to cling to life. (3)

(3) Well, maybe the enchantments Gladstone had put on the Staff to ensure that whoever broke it didn't die in the process helped. Just a tiny bit. But mostly, it was just my essence holding us up.

I poked around in his mind, hoping for some clues on how to move his unconscious body to a safer location. Nathaniel was dreaming of an older woman, sitting next to Gladstone's statue in a garden and sketching. I shook a metaphorical head at the sheer lack of focus in the children of the modern world. Really, this was no time for wet dreams.

I crept in a little further, entering into the thoughts that he had previously hidden from me. The boy had wasted a great deal of brain space on Jane Farrar, Jessica Whitwell and numerous other creatures whose bodies now lay scattered across London. But beyond that lay the virtual goldmine I sought. All the spells, enchantments, curses and counter-curses that he had memorized over the years lay in a few neatly wrapped up cells. Knowledge of thousands of years of human civilization was just a few tendrils of thought away. (4)

(4) For so many Great Centuries, they had surprisingly little to show by way of actual achievement. It appeared they had spent far more time feuding than establishing anything of actual value.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing indeed. Nathaniel's knowledge could prove invaluable to me sometime in the currently hazy future. The counter-curses could prove invaluable if I encountered a harsh master in my next Summoning. (5)

(5) It's surprising, I know, but despite my incredible wit and talent, my masters do sometimes see fit to punish me. Then again, if their vision is anywhere near as terrible as the boy's had been when I first took control of him, it would be telling. They are obviously incapable of seeing my sheer intelligence.

Some people might believe that I was being exceedingly foolish in leisurely exploring Nathaniel's mind while some dangerous enemy spirits were still wandering loose. Those people would be exceedingly foolish. A good soldier knows when to shut up, play dead and let other people handle the work. (6)

(6) Not that I was ever a good soldier. Or a good anything, really. I was always utterly brilliant.

Now that Nouda had been defeated, the other spirits would behave like headless chickens and flee in different directions, from where they would undoubtedly be caught and rendered headless literally. A morale boost always guarantees an exceptional rise in productivity and even the lacklustre crowd I had seen earlier would be sufficient to deal with them, as long as they fought only one spirit at a time. But since the possibility of two marids running together was too ridiculous to even contemplate, there was no danger of that. Two such powerful creatures rarely get along well. To hammer the final nail in their spiritual coffin, the higher spirits are rather arrogant and have a tendency to underestimate the opponents who kill them.

This was the result that I had anticipated and now believed fulfilled. Unfortunately, Nathaniel's luck simply isn't as good as mine and it was his horrific karma that landed us into a mess of proportions so gigantic that our collective mind boggled.

Just as I had been about to reach out and etch Nathaniel's memories of painstakingly learnt counter-curses into my own, a voice called out. It was calm, powerful and filled with enough menace to make the hair on the sleeping boy's neck stand up in dread.

"Bartimaeus," said Nouda, his menacing tone echoing in the boy's cranium.