Hey everyone!
First of all, Molly, I hope you weren't angry. I love your fanfic, and thank you Allendra for finally reviewing. Do not worry, story picks up in later chapters. Also, I will announce that this chapter and the next chapter as well. Will probably be totally Barty! I just felt I hadn't done enough of him recently. I had some new ideas for plot twists come to me, so that may be exciting (for futures chapters that is.) Anyway, PROCEED WITH READING!!!
Joeylejoker
Bartimaeus
The air in the dungeon was humid, damp and moist. The temperature was a mix of cold and warm, which was weird. You would expect a dungeon to have some sort of putrid temperature insured to make the prisoners suffer.
The dungeon was shaped from pure stone, stone walls, stone floors. I took it we were inside of some sort of cave. Water trickled through cracks in the wall. It could have been rain, but I had a feeling it was just the wet rock. It was hard to tell when you were chained up to a wall by your thumbs, after being beaten unconscious, dragged to the middle of nowhere, then bound with about 20 enchantments (1).
I glanced to my left, where Nathaniel was hanging; he was gagged and had various shackles around his hands. In this state, he could not cast any spells. To my right, Faquarl, Negabor, and Ascobal were hanging. However, Rekoj el Yeoj was nowhere to be seen. I am not sure where he went, the last time I saw him was when we were attacked by the 4 Afrits. After then, we had been knocked out, and taken captive.
The magician had started firing on us; and eventually he succeeded in knocking us all out. That staff of his was strong, but he had not set it high enough to kill. Well... not for when he attacked us at least. Nathaniel had tried to shoot him with the staff, but the Afrit we had been fighting swooped down and stole the staff. So, now we were hanging in a dungeon, with the most powerful member of our team nowhere to be seen.
Well, I guess I have been in worse situations. Plus, I liked dungeons, not as much fighting going on (2).
I heard some movement to my left; twisting my neck, I saw Nathaniel's eyes slowly start to flicker open. "He's alive..." I cheered unenthusiastically. He mumbled something; I could not make out what he was trying to say though. "What Nathaniel? I am the greatest spirit ever? You wish you never summoned my greatness? You are sorry you got me into this?"
He relaxed, and started swinging back and forth; and eventually managed to kick me. "Oh, well if it is a leg fight you want, I can fight Natty-boy! You see, I used to play Aztec..."
I cut off when I heard a noise. Looking around the dungeon to where the entrance was. Two shadows were shining against the wall, outlined by a bright light, probably a lantern. Nathaniel closed, his eyes, and pretended to sleep.
Slowly, the two shadows grew, until two Indians entered the room. Each of them held a lantern. "Ahhh, look at our fine prisoners, Lasbaco! How are we doing, spirit." He said, nodding to me (3). "Oh, I am doing fine... just fine, although these chains are a bit tight." I shook my shackles for good measure. The Indian gave a toothy smile, "well you will not be in them for long. I have a feeling we will be letting you out soon."
I regarded him with a cold glare for a moment when I heard another voice, it was Faquarl. "Shut up you horrible excuse of a Djinni, and you!" He yanked his chains at the Indian who had not said anything yet, "what are you here for, foliot?"
Well, like usual, Faquarl had managed to get me confused already. A great ability that he had managed to master over the centuries, despite the fact I can confuse him as well. "Faquarl, what are you talking about? How do we know their spirits? Right now, one of these enchantments-" I kicked at the magical shield for emphasis "-Is keeping us from viewing the higher planes."
He sighed, "Bartimaeus, you idiot. If you used your brain, you would know how I figured it out."
I scanned the Indians, then, after a minute I shook my head. "Obviously Faquarl, I do not know, even though I am using my brain right now to investigate the situation. Which means, you do not know, or rather did not know that I would not know. Which means you are the one who is wrong here, do you know what I am saying?"
"What?" (4)
"Will you two stop your bickering?" This was the Indian talking now.
"NO!" Faquarl and I both yelled at him. Faquarl sighed; again, I was starting to wonder if he was depressed... "Bartimaeus, look again, the answer is staring you right in the face."
I looked at the Indian again, suddenly realizing what I had missed. "Oh, I get it." On the Indian's ankle, was a metallic band, engraved with the symbol of Babylon, and as far as I knew, the Americans had not traveled that far... And the "foliot" had one engraved with the signs of a foliot named Lasbaco.
"So see Bartimaeus? I did know that you know which in the end you knew. So technically, I am not the wrong one here. I am the one who knows, and you are the one who doesn't know."
"Hey! I am the only one who makes the annoying "know" ramblings around here."
"Bartimaeus, you do not know what you are even talking about."
"That! Faquarl... Is beside the point! Plus what would you know? Your depressed"
"What?"
"-Silence!" The Djinni-Indian finally yelled. "What is the matter with you two?
Faquarl and I both hung are heads; it was not out of guilt though. It was simply the most comfortable position since we were hung up on a wall.
The Indian looked at us expectantly, waiting to see if we would break into a fight again. I was just about to say something, when someone burst into the chamber. A column of smoke erupted from the entrance, as a Djinni stormed in.
Now, you would have no problem recognizing him in public. Essentially a being of fire and smoke, he was a true Aladdin character, fresh out of the lamp, a classic Djinni. What I am trying to say is that he looked like what you would normally expect a Djinni to look like... a being of smoke.
"Are the prisoners ready? He asked, his voice loud, and booming.
Before the Indian could respond, I answered, "oh, no, no, no, we are not ready yet. Nope, not at all, far from it actually, right Faquarl?"
"He is absolutely right, we are far from ready. Come back later please." He quickly added.
The Djinni who had the form of a.... Djinni, laughed an evil low laugh (5). With a sigh, he returned his attention to us. "I hope you two realize that this is not a choice, whether you are ready or not, I do not care."
I turned to my left, Nathaniel had one eye open and was taking a peek at the conversation. I quickly looked away before anyone saw that I was looking at him. Obviously I was unsuccessful. "Eh! Who is that there, is the boy awake?!" It took me a second to realize this was the foliot talking. However, no one seemed to even bother with him. The conversation juts kept flowing, "so.." the Djinni continued. "Aren't you guys going to ask what we are going to do with you."
"No, that my friend would be called 'taking the bait,' which I do not want to do. Since it will be your pleasure to tell us, and see us look scared. No, I am waiting for you to get bored and just tell us, because I have some self respect." I smiled as I finished my answer. Taking a look at Faquarl, I saw that he had gone nearly as white as Nathaniel. "Oh, come on Faquarl. Never seen a Djinni stand up for himself before?" I asked.
"Bartimaeus, shut up."
"No, seriously Faquarl, I do it all the time. One of the reasons I have so many adoring fans."
"You do not have fans, we are spirits, idiot."
"Well you wouldn't know with an attitude like that. I could never imagine being your fan."
The Indian sighed as he leaned against the Djinni. "You were not here when they had their last fight, this is going to take about an hour to blow over." He whined. I didn't really hear him though. Faquarl and I were still shouting back and forth across the room.
"Bartimaeus, you ignorant piece of Djinni scum!" He shouted.
"Says the person who was used to scrub the floors, while I accompanied the princess of Algonquin."
"That isn't fair! We agreed that we would both rebel then, I did and you didn't. End solution? I got various punishments while you ran off scot free! You went back on your word!"
"You have gone back on your word before! Remember that time in the Babylonian market?"
"Yes, but that was-"
We stopped as we each got hit with a blast of magic. The Djinni was scowling at us, "honestly you two! I have never had worse prisoners." He looked at us, waiting for our response. We said nothing, he continued, "well then... I will ask again, are our prisoners ready?" The Indian nodded. "Excellent! See how simple that is?!"
I couldn't take this much longer (6), they were being way to cocky...
An awkward silence followed for the next few seconds, so when I heard a stirring to my left. It was even more surprising. Nathaniel had 'woken up.'
"Well go on then, tell us what you plan to do to us!" How I managed to understand what he said was amazing, given the fact that he was talking with a gag in his mouth.
I looked expectantly at the Djinni. The way he and the Indian both smiled at the same time told me that their plans were not nice. "Oh, that is easy. We will kill you, and then we will have a trial... in that order."
(1) What? You do not believe me? Well, why don't you try it, eh? Huh? That is what I thought... you humans just do not get us! You're not crying while you hear me drabble on about my ordeal, or anything. Well, you know what. Maybe I will for 20 minutes just say humans are thick. I am sure you would not notice, since you cannot even concentrate on a simple chapter.
(2) Well... when Whitwell had locked me up in her mournful orb; that was a different situation.
(3) I really like Indians, much nicer then the snobby magicians of London, they even referred to me as "Spirit!" Also, FYI they weren't actually speaking English. They were speaking their own language, which of course I understood.
(4) See? I do confuse him as well
(5) Ok, so not like the Djinni from Aladdin, more like the evil guy.
(6) Ok...I know it hasn't been too long. But, well... this may be hard to believe. But I... sometimes have trouble being quiet. What? Yeah, I knew you wouldn't believe me.
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I am very sorry this was really late, I got lazy... also be nice. It might have been a little dry. But plot twists will return, it is hard writing an entire chapter which is just dialogue.
PLEASE REVIEW!!!