"The Silence"
It is quiet.
This is the first thing Kitty notices as she steps through the burnt grass of St. James's Park. She feels flakes of broken glass crunch beneath her boots. Each step is a herculean effort, but one that must be made.
Before her sits the Glass Palace; at least, what is left of it. No longer a majesty to behold, a feat of architecture and engineering, now it is but a mess of iron, a gigantic skeleton of cold steel bent and prodded and burnt. Now it is but a grave.
For a moment, Kitty closes her eyes. And for a moment, the Glass Palace stands once again. Lights flash. Energies roar. Shouts and screams fill the air, riding on the winds like a sickly green Pestilence. Smoke rises into the sky and something nearby is burning.
Within the crystal majesty, something large and black and shapeless gnashes its teeth, beats its wings, and roars a mighty roar. The winds howl and the earth trembles beneath its terrifying form. It is evil. It is death. It is Nouda.
But see! Before the beast stands a figure, human, hunched over and broken, eyes closed and mouth moving quickly. He holds a staff in his hands. The beast roars, lunges. The figure does not move. He says the words. He breaks the staff. From everywhere and nowhere, all at once, a flash of the purest white consumes the building.
The figure disappears. The beast is destroyed. Unseen, a spirit is dismissed.
A deafening roar consumes all. White lightning flashes, the grass is burnt, and the Glass Palace collapses in upon itself. Clouds of dust burst forth. Nothing can be seen. Nothing can be heard. Chaos rules.
Kitty opens her eyes. And suddenly everything is still.
The grass is slowly returning. The wind is silent, cool, passive. The iron wasteland lies there, unmoving; magic clings to it, but life has left it. The battle was long ago. The victory, the triumph, had worn away. Fires were put out. Structures were rebuilt.
Kitty fumes at the silence around her. Once it was loud here. But no longer. Not a sound to be heard. The silence grows, wraps around her, consumes her. And she hates it for this. The earth, the wind, the world . . . none have the right to be so quiet. But the earth does not remember. The wind does not keep score. The world does not seem to care.
She closes her eyes again, but refrains from dreaming. A hand rises and delicately fingers the Amulet of Samarkand she wears about her neck; it is cool against her breast. Suddenly, the wind picks up, blows back her dyed hair. Yet it remains silent. Kitty frowns.
It is quiet. And it has no right to be.
It is quiet.
Quiet, of course, being a relative term around here. The Other Place, as you well know by now, never stays the same for very long. It is constantly changing, evolving, flowing one way and then the other. It is like us.
Imps. Foliots. Djinn. Afrits. Marids. All are one in the Other Place. Oh, and it is beautiful. The colors. The lights. The shapes. Time passes; we barely notice. That is the nature of the Other Place. But I'm pretty damn sure I've told you all this before.
Anyway, for the moment, it was quiet. And I, for one, found it to be wildly inappropriate. Especially after what I had experienced. The blast of the wind on my face, the crackling energies surging around us, the roar of my foes as they were felled one by one, by my own hand.
Or, rather, Nathaniel's hand. My essence. But that's beside the point.
Who am I? I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N'gorso the Mighty, and the Serpent of Silver Plumes! Builder of walls! Scourge of empires! Master of long-winded introductions!
And compared to where I last was, the Other Place seems very out of sorts. Picture it: London under attack. Spirits roaming free. Commoners running, screaming for help. Buildings leveled, fires started, smoke rising steadily into the air.
Quiet was not the word to describe it.
And there we were, Nathaniel and I, in the very center of it. Picking off the hybrids one by one like true warriors. A kick of the boots, a lifting of the staff, and a white flash of light. A Detonation fire here, a Shield erected there. It was a messy business. And it was loud.
Up until the very end. I hear it even now. Nathaniel speaking in my mind, his voice growing weaker as he slowly faded away. The people outside the palace, screaming and shouting and praying for mercy. The energies of the staff humming louder and louder, surging about us, causing the very air to crackle.
Nouda roaring, gnashing his teeth, lunging at us with deadly intent.
And then . . . silence. All was gone. Nouda disappeared. The Glass Palace disappeared. Nathaniel disappeared. Earth disappeared.
And I was in the Other Place once again. Home. Nothing to see. Nothing to hear. Nothing to feel or smell or taste. Chaos. Disorder. The quiet kind. The welcome kind. My battle is over. My duty fulfilled. But the longing . . . it remains.
It is quiet. And it has no right to be.
It is quiet.
Nathaniel breaths in; Nathaniel breaths out. The pain in his side, where the Detonation struck . . . it hurts no more. Nothing hurt anymore. He sees darkness, and so tries to open his eyes; he realizes his eyes are already open. There is nothing to see but darkness.
And there is nothing to hear. Silence. Complete, total, utter silence. So silent, it is loud. So silent, it is deafening.
Nathaniel remembers clearly what last he heard. The demon, Nouda, roaring so loudly the very earth rumbled and shook. The humming of the staff as he spoke, voice failing, removing the various entrapments Gladstone had placed upon it. The djinni speaking in his head, arguing and taunting him and generally making a mess of things.
He lied to Kitty. He freed Bartimaeus. He broke the staff. A white light . . . and then nothing.
Was he proud of what he did? Yes. Would he do it all over again? Yes.
Kitty . . .
Nathaniel closes his eyes. He breathes in; he breathes out. For the first time since he was six years old, he allows himself to rest. He allows the silence to surround him, consume him, carry him away.
It is quiet. And it has every right to be.