Another Point of View
Disclaimer: I do not own the Bartimaeus Trilogy but I do own Nero but please do not sue.
Chapter 5
Nero
The walls of Rome were one of the most essential items that the Romans needed at the time. There were many raging barbarian tribes, waiting to pounce on any helpless travelers. They, lately the past century, had gathered to make one big empire, and had started to conquer Roman cities, until Rome and a few other minor and major cities were left, clinging on to a hopeful future.
And because these walls were so imperative, new structures were being built every year, and old ones repaired. So I was there, lifting tons of stone and enforcing each one painfully, day and night. So when a portion of the wall I just rebuilt blows to pieces, I'm telling you, somebody gets pisses real bad, somebody. I leap to the edge of the destruction and looked down.
The walls were about four and a half meters tall so I could see a lot of details, especially since I'm a djinni. There, were four official demi afrits chasing what appeared to be, a marid in a fat cat disguise. It had scotch marks about his back and was limping slightly. In one paw, steadily balanced, was a black box that had around it a suspiciously large aura. The cat blasted another segment of the wall and pounced into a hut that was sited near the wall. It then leaped out of the hut without the cube. The cat disappeared into a tree.
Despite my work destroyed in a blink of an eye, I was entertained by this and would have continued to gawk at this chase if one of the demi afrits didn't shout out to me.
"Hey, you! Quit staring and start helping us catch this thrower!"
I jumped down in a flash and in a cat demon form I bounded into the tree, only to find it empty, save for a few birds. One of the demi afrit in an overly large toad form (it was a metre high and probably would have weighed about a hundred pounds) pointed to a large deciduous tree and gestured the other demi afrits to come. One was in a floating fire demon form; another in a crane form and a boxer dog was the last to come. I arrived without permission.
We surrounded the tree in a cautious way with our fingers lit in preparation for the inevitable battle; we demons never give up until told to since we're told to never give. The leaves rustled a little from the unnatural cold wind. The toad (who seemed to be the leader of this pack) hopped a bit further then the others. It croaked out "Come out, we have you surrounded!"
"Right, um Todd I don't think it'll come out,"
"Silence Crot!"
"Well 'Crot'" (that was the crane's name) " has a point; it is a marid after all and…"
"You too stranger, silence— what! a marid!"
An Inferno burst out of the tree, burning a few leaves on its way and smote the toad directly in his face, just as it croaked in fear and surprise. The corpse tilted to the left, leaving a black hollow face. Several more flames came out as the other three official spirits dived to the side in revelation. I just quietly hid by the trunk of the tree without being perceived by anyone.
By now, Infernos and Detonations were flying all over the place and hitting random objects like bushes and trees, debris from the broken wall and especially a crane and a dog. Only the fire demon demi afrit and I were well hidden. The last remaining demi afrit couldn't return fire without ending up like his companions. Both of us would have waited out the attack until the marid finished, but he just seemed to keep going.
Twenty minutes of flames lighting everything had pass, with no help from the city on the way and the marid flying spells everywhere. Maybe help would have come if only some visitors didn't come uninvited.
Three figures flew above my head just visible through the clouds. The marid stopped for quite a while. Seeing this, the demi afrit returned fire making him visible to the three figures. They plummeted headfirst directly for the fire demon. As he threw Detonations at the tree, he didn't see or hear the three spirits dive toward him. And so, he got killed obviously.
They hit him hard and fast so fortunately for him, it was quick and painless, which unfortunately meant I was alone now. The marid and the three figures came together to examine the remains of the demi afrits. After a while in which I hid behind the trunk of the smoldered tree, they started to talk.
"That was quite a bit of practice for me, especially with the last one…" stated the marid.
"Yeah, for you, you had a bit of practice,"
"Besides, without us, you would have been blown or burned up by that fire demon,"
"Well I'm an marid and he's a demi afrit so unless he had some silver or iron stashed away somewhere here, I highly doubt that he could kill me,"
"Never mind; do you have the box our master told us, or at least you, to get?"
"Of course, it's at the hut nearby. Don, go get it quickly before some djinn or djinni come out of that city to finally see the commotion."
"Yes, I thought the Romans would respond I little faster to such big smoke right outside their city; and they're missing spirits too,"
I was very suspicious now; their voices (well at least the marid's) seemed a bit familiar. From a quick peek, it seemed that the other three contained of a high level djinni and two afrits. Who ever could be able to control all four of these were very potent. Or maybe these were spirits that enjoy their summons so it's much easier for the master. That's also a strange thing. And that black cube, it had a huge aura and it seemed more important then it probably being a box of sweetmeats; four demi afrits don't go chasing after a box of missing sweetmeats unless the army really needs to recruit troops.
By now, the djinni came back with the cube. It seemed to be an observable one because…
"Hey um, wasn't there another one?"
"What?"
"Another spirit was here, wasn't there?"
They began to look on the planes and flail their heads in search of me. One of the afrits turned to a bird and flew into the air. As I dived into a bush, I realized who they were; they were the spirits at the outpost! Yes, the marid's fighting style was similar and so was his voice!
I was considering this, when suddenly, a huge hand grabbed onto to me and pulled me out of the bush and there I was, with the djinni as a moody duck holding me by the gruff of the neck. I smiled.
I distracted the djinni. "Nice day eh?" (It was actually a very cloudy day with high winds that shrank the day temperature to about ten degrees C. Not a lot for an August day).
"Huh, yeah" said the djinni quietly. He continued on.
"What are you doing here?"
"Going for a nice stroll?" I said this uncertainly and uncomfortably.
"Right, you know we can see you on all seven planes djinni and that we know that animals don't talk,"
"So why are you talking?"
"Okay, stop with the chit-chat Don," the marid interrupted our mini conversation. He had the black box under his left arm now. The other two afrits were watching the city for any activity threatening them. The clouds now had covered the sun and everything was gray with occasional sunlight peeping out.
The cube box had some swirls going all around with weird sounds and images coming out of it occasionally like absurd black, dead white arms, flying faces, randomly appeared at one of the faces of the cube. A low howling and whipping winds as well sounded; or maybe the latter is just the real wind slamming leaves against my back. This month, lots of bizarre weather has come like some snow flakes falling, two week long rain afterwards (in where I had to stand in it waiting five days straight for the Ostrogoths to come and attack a few common small villages) and at the beginning of the month, a huge forty degree C (or about 100 degrees F) came sweeping in and wreaking some crops in the countryside. A gypsy predicted some force would come and put an end to the world or that an event would flounce in and shock thousands or even millions of people (shock as in like put to death).
"Okay then, what do you want from me,"
"Information. We know you have vital information,"
"What do you mean? Since after all, my master is a harmless military captain…"
The marid slammed me against a huge oak tree. It wobbled slightly, creaking a little.
"Listen to me on this. I am a marid. You are a djinni,"
"Yes, that is quite obvious…"
A hard slap to the face came my way.
"Don't talk funny…"
"You don't want me to? Oh, I thought you were a funny one. Okay, I'll talk physician. Pi equals to 3.14 and…"
Another good beating to the face.
"I said, don't mess with me,"
"Oh. Ah, well you could have said that earlier…"
The marid's hands lit up with flames. He put them close to my face. I could feel the cold heat (our magic sometimes do weird things).
"I'm pretty sure you don't like to feel this smote right in your face. Make it look…funny."
My eyes crossed to keep the flames in view.
"Really? Well, how come it seems that you are leaking essence from behind?"
He turned around to look at his backside. He loosened his grip on me. I slipped away, snatched the cube from him, and disappeared.
Bartimaeus
"Where's that bleeder?" screamed the marid. The djinni by his side flashed through the planes, but failed to notice the bug on his shoulder.
"There!" He saw Nero fly off to the walls of Rome, well away from clear view.
"Damn! We got to get that cube back, or else the master's going to put the Essence Rack on us! The best way in is to the human barracks on the west wall. Let's go!"
They turned back into their bird forms and flew to the west.
I had been tracking them from where these foreign spirits had killed the four djinn. Back in the washrooms, it was a huge mess. Djinn and Roman guards had rumbled everywhere, in baths, hallways, change rooms you get the point. After a quick cleanup, I was sent to follow the delinquent and come back with satisfying answers. And so, here I was, on the back of a smelly crow.
Knowing this wouldn't get me anywhere, I decided to make a risky move. I slowly crawled to the top of the crow's head, down the forehead and on the nose. The djinni had crossed his eyes to look at me. I waved four ladybug arms, and poked his eye rather painfully.
Crying in pain, the crow lost attitude and fell into a canopy of trees.
The others hadn't noticed their companion's absence, so I took his form and kept in line behind the other three.
The dived to the west barracks near the wall and flew straight through the smoke hole at the roof. While they had their fun with the humans, I waited on the roof and spied for Nero. I knew he wouldn't waste his time here; nope, he would go straight to the master. I would take time to do so too.
The other three walked out the door as Roman soldiers. One of the afrits motioned me over.
As I landed and transformed to a hoplite, they armed themselves with silver tipped spears and silver laced short swords. I sighed as them handed me a spear; it seemed that the only important thing was war.
"Don, watch our backs, we're going to go into the house of the imposter's master's house."
"Imposter's master's house?" This sounded awkward.
"What ever just do it,"
I was about to give a retort back, but I restrained myself. I could blow my cover if I wasn't careful. But right now it didn't matter; I could hit one of them with a Detonation, say it was an accident, and they would believe me. Quite low security measures.
After reaching my master's abode, the other three whispered together for some plot, while leaving me behind, facing all the strange stares. I pitied the djinni I threw into the woods; not from the fact that I chucked him into a bunch of painful branches 1, but from the treatment he received from his fellows. I'm not too surprised actually; most afrits and especially marids are like that.
As I walked past them, they stared at me. I looked behind me through the corner of my eye. They seemed suspicious…oh damn. They might have checked the planes…
Either they didn't search thoroughly, or the flash in their eyes was not them filing through the planes, but the sun, because they just continued walking with their eyes on me. I didn't want to break my pattern. It seemed that they were already quite suspicious. Quite a change from a few minutes ago when they treated me just like the garbage that's thrown out on the street, to a spy of high power. Well, really I am.
I decided to walk into a detour through a crowded street, knowing that the afrits and marid were concentrating on me too much to realize where I was leading them. I passed under an archway into a more eloquent setting. The expensive villas came into view; senators talked of politics and power.
I neared the main military building. Yep, you guessed it; I was leading them straight into Roman hands where they would be held in hostile circumstances.
But I never made it; I was just fifteen feet away from the stairs, when they jumped me, literally. They three heavy bodies forced me to hit the stone floor. Several human guards ran over to assist me, only to be decimated by several Infernos. The last I saw before one of the afrits put me out were Roman two afrits came dragging me off.
After I had woken up from my "sleep", I was recalled back to my master. Nothing to exciting; just the praising of Nero "miraculously" retrieving the box back, and my scolding of forcing three afrits to take down the imposter demons, while I took my time getting knocked out pleasantly. Yes, it was so pleasant getting knocked out cold.
As for the three annoying afrits and marid, they were put in a silver cell to wait out the night. I rather say they deserved being isolated in a silver box of terror.
Ignoring Nero's smirk 2, we traveled over to another magician for temporary use. Like most high class Romans, he was fat and very weak physically. As a magician, he was merciless with punishments and kept his spirits in line 3. Many of the spirits under his binds could have been running wild and making rude sounds and gestures at their masters. Instead, they were standing straight like in the army like a stiff, and not showing any face but a hard cold one. Though Nero adapted to the same statue pretty well, I felt rather awkward, like the walls were closing on me. But I got by.
Of us ten djinn, five went to the wall to fix up on the "Brother's"4 Work of smashing the wall to smithereens. The rest of us went to the cells to keep an eye on the criminals. Of course, patrolling was always boring, especially if you can't talk, but then, there are always the escapees.
The Three Brothers were in their cell, simply flying, as all six sides were made of silver. They were in excruciating pain for being in a silver cube for more then five hours. Being high spirits, they could last for 24 hours and a bit more if forced to. So they barley managed.
One of the afrits, Michael, was just sweeping around the room, when he saw something unnatural in the walls on the planes. In two small patches along the east wall, had no or little aura around them, meaning, that there was no silver. Curious, he put two small Detonations to the patches. Instead of bouncing off, it did what a Detonation should do; make two holes. Michael peered out the holes, his hopes high. It flew even higher, as he had seen the botanic garden outside. This meant, for those of you too thick to realize, that they three could escape.
Excited, Michael called the other two over. They came over, annoyed by their capture.
"What is it?"
"Just look at this Leo,"
The marid did examine the holes. His upper body jerked up in excitement. After a moment, he turned to the other two afrits. They grinned.
"How can you stand looking out into the boring crowd?"The section of the jail that had silver inside to keep the spirits inside tortured without any human effort saw Nero and me stationed side by side. I had only stood there for ten minutes, peering out into the nearby inn to see any peculiar activity, when I felt board. Bartimaeus of Uruk does not do guard patrol! But Nero, Scourge of the Romans did. So I ask him how he could manage to do such a stodgy duty.
"Simply occupy yourself with another activity."
I scowled at him for his stout and unhelpful attitude. A scream and breaking of glass came from the inn I was just watching seconds ago. I didn't care to see the reason behind of disruption.
"Besides, the master we have is fair, and so we should do what he says even if -"
"Even if he punishes us? Nero, Nero, you've got to see that no master is fair or worth a million of us."
"He is, and don't argue, I know it."
"What makes you think…this is about Ptolemy isn't it?"
Nero ignored that last question-comment. He stared at a shady looking fellow, and then turned away.
"I say, he is the only-, "
"Why are you so grim? Wouldn't you like to have another master just like Ptolemy?"
"Yes I do, but we cannot guess; it's not worth our skin. The master has to make a move to get the spirit's trust, not the other way around,"
Nero started to reply a retort, but I cut him off.
"Okay, so he hasn't punished us all that much. But that fact that he has punished us changes everything."
"If needed, a magicians will need to punished his spirit to get him to do his job,"
There was a loud bang behind us. I noticed, but we both ignored it. Let the high and mighty 5 afrits take care of it.
"Well, one there are other ways of punishing and getting the job done, and two— "
I had just realized that the sound was coming from the Brothers' cell.
I turned to the suspected place, muttering curses in different languages, leaving Nero in a confusion of both the languages I was speaking 6 and from my sudden leave. But I knew something fishy was up over there.
And soon, as I walked up the hill with Nero to the prison, a imp with burns and scratches came coughing and words that sounded vaguely and similar to "The Brothers have managed to escape. They have killed all the guards nearby and are freeing all the convicts— and then it collapsed on the grass and rolled down the hill, almost looking lifeless. Nero and I looked at each other in fear; we both had experienced the power of the Brothers.
In no time, a blasted sounded in the wall in front of us. There was a big flash and both Nero and I winced and covered our eyes. When we looked up, a bunch of unshaven and dirty prisoners came running out, screaming in happiness at their freedom. I only wrinkled my nose at the smell of them; let the magicians take care of it, give them a bit of exercise from their orgies and dinners that made them gain a few more pounds and a few more excuses to insult them based on their weight and smell.
"Well…that's quite a of number escapees,"
"Um, if you haven't noticed 'quite a number of escapees' puts it vaguely if you hadn't noticed,"
Scowling at his sarcasm 7, I turned to where his large index finger pointed to. To be quite honest, I was shocked at the number of runaways; close to a four hundred were pouring out of the from prison gates; four hundred is almost half of the prison cells. At the back, they shepherded by the Brothers (the djinni brother managed to catch up with them), who were literally pushing the weak ones falling behind with sharp stakes. All the guards, human and spirit alike, were either knocked out or run over by the fleeing prisoners; or really former prisoners.
"Who cares about the prisoners, lets get the brothers,"
Nero nodded stiffly.
Once most of the prisoners had rushed down to the city to cause havoc, only the brothers remained. Satisfied with the empty jail, they walked past us without seeing Nero and me. Sticking out my foot, I tripped the wide-eyed djinni Brother.
"You! You threw me down the into the forest!"
"Oh yes, I did. Did you have a nice trip? Both trips?"
Nero sniggered. The other three frowned at me.
"You got Don?" the afrit Ralph asked both annoyed and amazed.
"Apparently you don't have the skill to be an afrit; you didn't use your planes to see me when you should have since I took a while to keep up,"
"So?"
"RRRRRRR, never mind. Right before we kill you four brutally—"
All four snorted in disbelief. Okay, maybe I couldn't take them all on; one of them is a marid. But with Nero and his unnatural power, there were possibilities…
"We need to know who's your master, that's the important one,"
"And why would we tell you?"
I took a few steps toward the four and leaned in as if I was telling a secret. I was not.
"BECAUSE YOU HATE YOUR MASTER AND YOU WANT TO BE RID OF HIM," As you can see, I said this quite loudly, loud enough for the gray hairs on the Rat-Men afrits to go flying back. The marid I was speaking to winced as I shouted into his ear. Even Nero, who was behind me, half covered his ears. I actually went once so loud so that an entire forest broke out of the ground and the logs fell a couple of miles away. But that's by the by; the interrogation at hand was the important thing at the time.
After some time in which the marid took time to adjust to the sudden change of my shouts and the quiet, empty jail courtyard. Leo blinked several times, and said quietly, "We are loyal to our masters, even if they are annoying mosquitoes,"
"So I take it that as—"
The marid sent a massive Discharge at me, rising blocks of stone all over the ruined court. It was rather miraculous that I survived, and my quick reflexes 8 helped as well.
Nero blew up another part of the walk plus the stones in front of me. As I stumbled back from the exploding Detonations at my feet, bits of granite flew everywhere, and I think even the djinni Brother accidentally swallowed a pebble and, unfortunately, nearly choked him to death.
After less then a minute, and the dust had settled, the courtyard had become unrecognizable. All the stones had either been blown to smithereens, or were meters away from their placement. The columns supporting the jail, only several meters away, were pulverized by missed shots; the building was shaking now by the sounds of battle, and the absent support.
I, naturally, had gotten up by now. The Brothers were covered in ashes and dust. Nero mainly was untouched because of his distance from the main fight. The sound of running came not too far away. All five of us were silent, unmoving, waiting for the other. But if anyone wanted to make a move, it was too late; the other high spirits and Roman warriors came, every arrival armed with silver weapons. The four brothers wearily stared at the newcomers. The marid looked at Nero and I.
"You'll be seeing us around," said the marid with a sly grin. Then, in the blink of the eye, they disappeared.
Confused, us spirits searched the planes and scoured the area for abnormal aura with accord to the area. There were no sudden bright spots or low dark colours; they had disappeared without a trace.
1 Actually I felt pretty good after dropping the fellow
2 That got him a trip into the leftover garbage from yesterday
3 This was where my smart mouth got me into pain
4 These four (or really three since I did away the djinni brother) would usually always be summoned altogether, rarely apart.
5 Note the sarcasm
6 Nero knew only some barbarian languages Old English and Latin. I was saying a lot of ancient civilization words, like Old Greek
7 Despite fourth level djinn very hard to control and usually have big mouths, his cracks were, how can I put it, odd
8 Okay, fine, Nero mainly put the shield up for me. How insulting; he saved a better spirit when he could protect himself.
Thank you for reading, please review; seriously, I have tons of hits but only 8 reviews.
But that's by the by, the last part of "The fall of Rome" will be updated in probably a month. A new character will come and will be a human! Sorry for the time length but I GO TO SCHOOL!