He was aware of a great pain deep within his being. It felt like he was being ripped apart from the inside out, slowly and methodically. Vaguely, somewhere in the back of his mind, a part he'd all but forgotten about, a part now awakened by the pain, he knew what was happening to him. He'd never experienced it personally, of course. He'd only heard descriptions of the process second-hand, but it was so much worse than that. So, so much worse.
Immediately, he gave in to the summons, because hopefully that would make it stop, although he knew it really wouldn't.
The all-too familiar lines of the pentacle materialized before him, and, if he'd had a form, he would have screamed. Was it more painful the first time you were summoned, or was it always like this? He hoped not. He'd never be able to forgive himself if it were always like this.
The room was small, for a magician's room, and the musty smell of rosemary and incense hung heavy in the air, like a thick blanket, threatening to suffocate him. It had never smelled this bad to him before.
The walls were made of a strange material that appeared to be a light blue, but it was hard to tell. The only light in the room was the flickering candlelight, dim and strangely fitting with the musty smell of the place.
Smoke began to form in the pentacle in small, lazy tendrils, which coiled in upon themselves before rising to the center of the pentacle. He didn't think about the form he took. He was used to it, he wasn't sure he could have been anything else if he had tried.
A small, dark-haired boy formed in the pentacle, his legs crossed as he had often sat many times before, but never here, on this end. He clasped his arms in his lap and looked levelly at the magician, looking a lot more composed than he felt. To tell the truth, he was scared, and confused. But he didn't let himself show it.
He noticed things he knew he wouldn't have before- the way the hair on the man's arms stood up slightly, as if he were cold, and the way his right eye was slightly lower than his left, and so may other things, all at once. He was almost, almost, distracted from his current situation
"Good. A docile one," the man spoke.
Ptolemy had no idea how to respond to that. It was unnerving, how the magician looked at him like he was nothing of consequence, just a tool to be used and then discarded however he saw fit. He'd never been looked at like that before. Oh yes, he'd seen it before, in the glances of magicians from across the seas, but never before had he been the subject of it.
Several seconds passed where neither him nor the magician spoke. He got the impression that he was expected to respond somehow. The problem was he didn't know how. Everything just felt so alien now- his body didn't feel quite right, everything stood out from everything else, and it hurt. Not like the summoning, but an ache, that he knew would only get worse the longer he was here.
Calm, he told himself. If he let himself get worked up, he wouldn't be able to think straight. But calm was impossible. Even if he tried to focus on something else (he'd tried the sleeves of the magician's robe, which seemed to be decorated with ornate gold embroidery) another part of him kept panicking.
It was nothing like he'd thought, having multiple levels of conciousness. Ptolemy had never been able to quite imagine what it would be like, but it had been nothing like this. It was strange, disconcerting, but somehow it just felt right.
Ptolemy turned one of those conciousnesses to the obvious problem before him, and he began to think, all the while keeping a close eye on the magician to gauge his reaction. He was supposed to respond, that much was obvious by the way the magician was staring at him, his face growing an ever deeper shade of red, but lacking the proper response, it was likely better to remain silent and avoid saying the wrong thing.
In that way he found it was a lot like dealing with his cousin. Sometimes it was better to remain silent than to risk causing offence. It was absurd, but that tiny shard of familiarity comforted Ptolemy; it was something he could cling to.
As for this... He was certain that this was a side effect of his trip to the Other Place, but the question was how. It should have been impossible for a human to become a spirit, or vice versa. His being should have been eroded by the chaos of the Other Place, just as spirit's essences were damaged by Earth, even if his physical body had been destroyed, and his spirit somehow stranded there. Perhaps it was possible that the natures of humans and spirits were no so different as he had originally thought, which would make a change between the two states of being not only a plausible feat, but also one that would be easy to initiate under the right circumstances.
He felt one of his conciousnesses (Later he'd try to count them, for curiosity's sake) turn to Bartimaeus. Hopefully his friend was doing well, where ever he was. If only he could have summoned him, told him he was, somehow, alive. But he couldn't, or at least he didn't think he could, now that he was a spirit. He didn't even know if he'd have the heart to, if he'd be able to put his friend through that, knowing how much it hurt.
How long had it been? he wondered. The magician's clothes were strange, and he was obviously by no means Egyptian or Greek, but that didn't mean anything. He could have been summoned across the world for all he knew. For some irrational reason, his spirits lightened. Maybe he would be able to see the world, just like Bartimaeus had done. Maybe he'd meet him.
Perhaps...
"Demon!" The magician's face had turned an unappealing shade of mottled purple and red. "Do not ignore me!" He raised his hand, and spoke the syllables of a punishment, Ptolemy couldn't recall which. He never had payed much attention to them.
Ah, so perhaps that had been the wrong thing to do after all- all his thoughts, on every level of his mind, were cut off, consumed by a searing red pain through every fibre of his being.
When it stopped, Ptolemy lay circled up in a ball in the center of the pentacle, breathing heavily. Everything on Earth hurt so much. So much more than he remembered. The ground pulled at him, like an anchor tied to the very fabric of his being. He didn't remember hurting that much when he'd died.
"Now, demon, we'll try this again. You will address me as master."
Ptolemy found his tongue. Still cringing from the pain, curled up and not caring what the magician thought, he spoke, although it was different from the way he had before. His mouth moved, but it didn't feel like the sound was coming from it. "Yes, master," he said, using the same tone of politeness he'd often used with his cousin.
Now he knew why Bartimaeus hated that word so much.
The magician looked smug. "Good. That's better. Now, demon, I charge you to monitor my that man in the building directly adjacent to mine, on the right. You are to report to me the daily movements, summonings, and various other activities, as well as the names and activities of those he interacts with, meaning the visitors who come and leave his house or the surrounding area, or those with whom he engages in conversation for any length of time. You will report your findings to me when I summon you, and are to under no circumstances to approach my house. You will not falsify or withhold any information from me. You are to not reveal yourself to anyone, man, woman, or demon, or use any method of communication, be it verbal or otherwise, to convey your presence to such an entity."
He said all this in one breath, standing still as a statue in his pentacle, never even lifting his arm or moving his foot the slightest amount. Ptolemy could tell he was nervous, he stood so stiffly, and it was obvious by the way he spoke, enunciating every syllable crisply and sharply, that he'd practiced his speech. He looked young, though not quite as young as he had been- was? He couldn't have done many summonings before, or at least not with more powerful spirits. (He had to wonder what class he was)
Should he say something? He wanted to, but he'd probably be punished again, maybe with something else than whatever that had been. But maybe it would be worth it. If only he could get him to stop being afraid, show him that he- the spirits in general- weren't like he thought they were, things would start changing. Maybe if he told the magician about what had happened to him, they could work together to find the cause. That fact that it was even possible suggested a strong connection between the Other Place and Earth, much stronger than he had previously thought.
"You are dismissed."
He resisted it, remaining in the pentacle and slowly returning to his seated position, trying his best to ignore the way his body-essence, he corrected himself- screamed in protest. The movement came as an instinct, much like speaking had, even though it was so different from the way he had used to move. (He had to wonder if he was even speaking the same language that he used to. Withing the collective conciousness of the Other Place, it was entirely possible that he'd managed to pick up on many new languages without even knowing it.)
The magician's face purpled, he probably wasn't happy with him not obeying immediately. "If I may ask, master," he added the last word on, having almost forgotten it, "Why do you wish me to do this?" It seemed to Ptolemy as good a place as any to start if he wanted to get to know this magician.
The magician's face twisted into a scowl. "That is none of your business demon! Now begone!"
Ptolemy didn't leave. The dismissal was tugging harder at him now, and he began to feel nauseous as he resisted it. He couldn't think of anything to say to the magician. Something, anything would do, he supposed, so he opened his mouth, prepared to say the first thing that came to mind.
The magician raised his hand, beginning a gesture that could have only been something unpleasant. Ptolemy left before he could find out what. It seemed talking with him wouldn't be as easy as he'd thought. In any case, they'd have to talk once he reported, so he had best begin spying.
So, yeah. I wrote a thing. I've had the general plot of this in my head for a while, so it's about time I wrote it. My summary is liable to change on a moment's notice, since I'm really not happy with it, even though I spent a good ten minutes trying to come up with it. I'll try to update as fast as humanly possible, but if I'm not updating fast enough for your liking, reviews tend to make me write faster. *Hint hint* (Also, the spell check on this website is stupid. No spell check, I did not mean to type "feet" when I wrote "feat".) Oh, yeah, I guess I should do the disclaimer thing: I am not, the last time I checked, Jonathan Stroud, and therefore I do not own the Bartimaeus Trilogy or any characters associated with it.