Bartimaeus oneshot: First Impressions.
Summary: The first meeting of Bartimaeus and a friend of his, Queezle. She was sadly killed in The Golem's Eye; this is in tribute to her better qualities; her relative innocence, her friendly nature, and the way she learnt slowly what the world was like. It also remembers her friendship with a certain djinni; and suggests how it all began.
So, In Memorium:
Queezle.
Rest In Peace.
First Impressions.
Bartimaeus
It was a darkened room, with candles and the smell of incense and herbs. [1] The rosemary stung my nose as I breathed it in, the runes sickened me just to look at. [2] I hated the feeling of being summoned, though the responses to my first choices of guise were usually interesting. Aside from that, though; being clawed away from happy chaos, cut from the whole; the whole process scarred your soul, more and more each time.
[1] It seemed that all magicians' rooms were the same. Dark, dreary, holes of despair. Yet the impression I got of them was less and less impressive as time went on, as none ever seemed to quite live up to that hell-hole of a dungeon that belonged to Khaba the Cruel. Though now I come to think of it, the Old Preistess of Ur had some pretty nifty torture chambers. And Loew's ghetto was a low point in my career too. But yeah, it had gotten old way before this guy decided to put a shutter on his lanterns and hook a dark brown curtain across his windows. Not even black, either; he'd evidently just gone for the lazier option, which had the side-effect of curtains the colour of faeces. Charming.
[2] Not physically, of course. The fact that runes like those were the reasons for my presence and that of so many others on this world, torn from freedom in the Other Place, to dismal existance on this earth? Now /that/ sickened me.
Fortunate, then, that I was not the one being summoned for the first time by this magician. I was already there, in a different pentacle; this mediocre sorcerer was trying to summon another servant, then. I'd thought it was beyond him.
And not just a weak one, either. I listened to the slow voice of my current master, a French magician. I didn't know his name. [3] However, his hesitant summons gave me enough time to correctly assess the strength of the new servant he was summoning, judging by the strength of the counter-enchantments.
[3] This was before the time of Tycho Brahe, the golden-nosed gambler and womaniser I'd served in the late fifteen-hundreds. This was before Prague had expanded its empire out across Europe from it's strongly-build walls. Hell, it barely even had walls at this point. I sorted that out quick once I got there, and (presumably) that was the start of an Empire.
"Oh, /very/ ambitious there, Master," I mocked. "/Two/ fourth-level djinn? A threat to many, I'm sure, including yourself. Don't slip up, will you?" But to his own dismay and mine - I would not get to eat the fat lump myself - one of the syllables of a binding charm was mispronounced, allowing whatever djinni he was summoning to escape with ease.
And he'd faltered /just/ near the end, too.
As he didn't have a choice, the magician continued, with the classic ending injunction and the name; "Queezle!"
Queezle it was, then. About my level, I'd heard of most of the old hands, but this name was new to me. The djinni in question must be a relatively young one.
Lucky thing, being gifted with such an easy kill.
Now, if it were me, after seing a room like that, with the dark and spooky vibe, I'd manifest myself as something in direct contrast, in an attempt to shock the magician out of his pentacle. The classic silver serpant that terrorized the Tibetan Monks might cut it, I supposed, with a noble glint in its eye and a radiant, glowing aura. Or I could do something new; just a glowing silhouette, looming upwards in the darkness; indistinct and intimidating.
Yes, that would be it.
However, this new spirit didn't do anything so spectacular. With barely a flash of light, or anything dramatic at all, some type of large jungle cat, possibly a jaguar, was sat in the middle of the pentacle, head tilted questioningly towards the sorcerer.
No one moved, rather unfortunately. If the jaguar, this Queezle djinn, had done so, she would have discovered her freedom, and her ability to take the magician down. If /he/ had moved, that might have allowed me to take care of him myself. And if I'd been able to move, the magician problem would be over by now.
After about a minute of silence, I grew bored of the staredown between the fearful magician and the stationary djinn. [4] "Well," I said, "Get out of that pentacle and chase him out of his!"
[4] Make no mistake, a fearful magician is quite a funny sight. However, when the reason for the fear is doing about as much good as the guard-foliots employed by the weaker Pharoes that came after Egypt's golden age, it gets irritating. And trust me, those foliots were pathetic. They were only good for one thing; me and Farqual had a competition once; whoever ate the most at a single sitting would win. I switched several of his for some small humans, and thus managed to eat a dozen in under ten minutes, winning the contest. He never found out just why they made him so bloated.
The magician froze even more - were that possible - while the djinn just gave me a confused look. "Whatever for?" she asked in perfect French. I snorted.
"He's a magician, one of the self-serving conspirators that have been enslaving our race for centuries!"
"They have?" I stared, aghast.
"Are you that young? Of course they have!" I lashed my tail. I was a gargoyle at this time; a form I'd always liked. Also, it was in fashion at the time. They matched the palaces.
"Am I young? What's that supposed to mean? How old are you then?"
"I was brought to this planet four thousand five hundred years ago! I've served multiple pharoes, kings, shamans, warlords, assassins, and just normal magicians, two of Solomon's best thirteen court magicians, three witch doctors, a couple of emporors and a heriditary guard. And please trust me when I say, I've met two that were sort of nice to me. Out of hundreds."
"I've met two, and they were both nice to me."
I shook my weary head. "Well, aren't you the lucky one, yeah? When you've been here as long as I have, you'll know how harsh this is. Now just do it!"
"Do what?"
"Move! Towards him!" The jaguar looked puzzled, but took a few steps forwards, out of the pentacle. The middle-aged magician winced backwards instinctively as she passed the barrier. It seemed he was still lost for words at my list of former masters, which was fair enough. It /was/ pretty impressive.
Fortunately, he winced his way right out of the pentacle. My gargoyle form immediately elongated, stretched, bounded over to him and sent a fist crashing into his chest. He collapsed to the floor, with me looming over him. I glanced to the other djinni, with a wry grin, but she was obviously shocked.
"That might have been a good person!" I rolled my eyes scathingly. How naive could you get?
"Look here, he wasn't. He pays for love, orders me around, collects taxes, if the last task he set me wasn't killing an old hairdresser then I'm a morturary imp, he smells worse than a morturary imp, which is quite an achievement, and I'm damn certain the task he was assigning us for was robbing his rival from across the street. But hey, I could be wrong. Go figure." I sneered down at the magician as he tried to crawl away. "Oh no, you're staying down there, then going down a lot further, if you believe your own beliefs. If not, believe me when I say, you aren't going anywhere."
Queezle shuddered. "But why kill him?"
I considered. "Why? Because he's a bad person. Because he's the only thing keeping me from going home. But also..." I trailed off, not liking my own thoughts.
The jaguar's elegant head tilted. "But also what?"
I sighed heavily. She'd picked up on my lapse.
"Go on, then, why else are you killing him?" She was getting angry now, hackles up. I involountarily winced away.
"Alright then, as you're so pushy. You might as well know." A heavy sigh. "To protect you. Innocence never lasts while people like this are around. I lost mine years ago." He stared into her eyes. "But every second of it is precious. So if I were you, Queezle, I would turn around."
He could see the indecision in her eyes, and she nodded, but didn't turn. "What's your name?"
I answered, "Bartimaeus."
She nodded. "Then, Bartimaeus, you are a friend," she said, then she turned, and through a detonation, I released both of us from our servitude to a bad master.
That was the high point in my career with him, and I felt that I'd done some good in helping Queezle to avoid the servitude of a master like that; and in preparing her for when she was forced into such a service.
What had she called me?
A friend.
And was she my friend?
I smiled as I faded upwards to the Other Place. Perhaps she was at that.
And that was the start of the friendship of Bartimaeus and Queezle! And hopefully a decent sending-off to the latter.
Hope I did well, feel free to tell me!