Hey everyone!

Sorry this has taken a while, I have been lazy. The site has been kind of quiet, eh? Nothing much going up, so I decided I would finish typing this chapter. At this point in the story I would like to announce that if I manage to complete this fan fiction, which I hope I do. I have plans for a trilogy. This being the first in it, the second will be called The Lights of Svalbad. And the third, I am not completely sure about it. I find titles important as they are what your writing is going to be called forever, one of my favourite ideas for the third story titles is: A Spirit of Light. Anyway, those are just a couple little teasers. I will get on with the story I have not even finished yet.

Joeylejoker

Bartimaeus

When you see five birds halt, and hover in midair, it is a strange sight. What makes a sight like that even stranger is when those birds appear to talk – in English, among themselves. Nevertheless, it is sights like these in the world of the magicians which lead to some of the largest undertakings in the whole of reality; and in this case, the undertaking was an expedition into the world of the dead.

I did miss Queezle, of course I did! But how did I truly feel towards her? Not even I knew. I sighed, and made sure that Nathaniel was in my arms (1) and that I hadn't accidently dropped him a few meters back. It was annoying flying with humans, their so fragile. One 1200 foot drop and their dead! I mean come on, what use is that? Sure enough he was there though, still arguing with Rekoj.

"Nathaniel, how will we even get into the mountain?" Rekoj demanded, he was not that eager to cross into the world of the dead. Hmm, I wonder why... (2)

"We will find away," Nathaniel answered, and so our flight towards the mountain continued in peace until sure enough upon circling the mountain we did find a way. At the forest floor where the mountain touched the ground, there were 4 different doors, each facing a different direction: North, South, East, and West.

Each of them was about 30 feet high and decorated with different carvings, patterns, designs and a large golden handle in the middle. Only one word could describe the ancient doors: beautiful; so beautiful that they would have disgraced an Incan pyramid. (3)

We landed in a clearing in front of the south door; it seemed grand enough to be a doorway into the world of the dead. But at the same time, it didn't seem right. There were no people around, nothing guarding it or going in. What happened to the myths of Cerberus, or Saint Peter?

I know that those stories were probably not true, but I expected something - someone to be there.

"Bartimaeus!"

I snapped back to reality at the sound of my name, it was Ascobal. He and the rest of Nathaniel's group were trying to open the door. However, no matter how hard they pulled, it was to no avail. I sighed, and walked over to the group of spirits.

"You can't get it open?" I yelled.

"No," answered Rekoj, "the door does not have any enchantments, well at least none we are aware of. However, it is really big."

"I can see that," I mumbled as I scanned the planes, nothing. I scanned again just to be sure, again I found nothing, looked like we would have to just use brute strength. I walked over, and placed my hands around the handle – or rather paws I was in the form of a gargoyle (4) – and pulled as hard as I could. Not even the combined efforts of all of us could budge the door.

"We might have to blast it open," observed Rekoj.

"No, we cannot let them know we are here." This was Nathaniel talking now.

I scowled, how could we possibly get the door open? I thought about it for a few minutes, and finally it hit me. I ran to the side of the door. Between where the door met the wall, there was a centimetre gap where the hinges were. One of us could turn into smoke, slip through, and open the door from the other side! I couldn't believe that we hadn't thought of this earlier! After all, we are Djinni; turning into smoke and other shapes is what we have always done.

I proposed this idea to the rest of the group; they too were surprised at the utter simplicity of my plan. Nevertheless, it could work, that is if there were no other surprises... We selected Negabor for the job; he contorted himself into a very thin smoke, and started to squeeze through the side of the door.

The next minutes that followed were tedious; none of us could contain our restlessness. Nathaniel paced back and forth along the clearing, Rekoj did some stretches, Ascobal punched a tree, and Faquarl – like I – observed them all.

Until finally after what seemed like an hour, the door swung open. On the other side was Negabor in the form of a smiling being made of water. "Come on in," he cheered, "all come on in to the cozy underworld of the dead. You will all like it in here much more then outside in that wonderful, safe forest!

I saw Ascobal kick him in the shins on his way in, Negabor just snickered.

The door lead into a tunnel, deserted, and lit by torches every 20 odd feet. The walls were red, lightly decorated with carvings.

"So what do we do now Nathaniel," asked Rekoj el Yeoj.

"I am not really sure," answered Nathaniel, his face was blank.

Rekoj mumbled a few ancient Egyptian curses, "oh great, we follow a master who should be in high school right now into the world of the dead for no real reason, and he does not know what to do!"

Nathaniel snapped back to reality at Rekoj's yelling, "look, all I know is that we have a chance to make contact with another world, how amazing is that?"

"You make contact with the world of us spirits every day," I commented.

"This – This is different," Nathaniel stuttered, "This is the world of the dead! How can you people not be interested?"

Half of us raised our fingers in a matter-of-fact way about to answer, but Nathaniel interrupted us, "rhetorical," he said firmly.

"Well, if you have no ideas, may I propose one?" I asked.

Everyone just exchanged glances, "yes, and for the proposition, yes" Nathaniel answered. I smiled, but then as quickly as it came I quickly got rid of it – to late obviously, they had noticed, it was bad enough they already knew I wanted to pursue Queezle.

"Ahh, so you do like her," Faquarl was smiling.

"Can we just go?" Was all I said, not even bothering to answer his question, or rather statement. I started to walk off down the tunnel.

None of them moved, "Bartimaeus," Rekoj called, his face was solemn, "how will we even find her?"

I closed my eyes for a moment before answering, "We will find away."

"The underworld is full of a lifetime's... many lifetimes' worth of souls. There must be near a trillion people down here, and we do not even know our way around this –"He cut off, staring off into space (5.)

We all waited for him to come back for many minutes, I'd say about 10 had passed before we got any reaction from him. "That shouldn't happen." He said firmly. Before any of us could ask, he explained. "I know how the realm is laid out. There are many levels all leading down into Earth. Souls on the top level have just recently died, the further down you are, the longer you have been dead. If you are on the first level, you still have access to the world, as long as you do not make any contact with the living, unless you are waging war for instance. If you die again, you move down to the second level, eventually everyone moves down a level from the constant stream of new souls coming in."

I was staring at him, my eyes narrowed, "how do you know that?" I asked. He took in a big, deep breath, and remained looking away for about 15 seconds before turning to me and answering, "I don't know." He said simply. "I just... I closed my eyes, and suddenly it just kind of came to me" (6).

The bombardment of stares which were directed at Rekoj stopped after a few minutes, and we finally started off again, in silence we continued our way down the tunnel.

After about 1 hour and a half of walking, the tunnel opened up into a circle with three separate paths coming off of it. We took the middle path and kept going straight, straight into the heart of another world, another realm, straight into danger, straight towards destiny, straight towards love, and what we didn't know, was straight towards death.

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(1) No not THAT way...

(2) That is heavy sarcasm, if you did not realize. Humans... just so dense.

(3) How would I know? Yes, I guess you are right, I couldn't possibly know that. After all, it's not like I am an ancient Djinni or something.

(4) Oh, but enough about me. How about you? Hmm, a human. I can't say that I admire your taste...

(5) Why did everyone always have to do this? I was about to fire a detonation at the next person who got... well, whatever was happening.

(6) Joeylejoker: Do not worry readers, I am not just making a lame excuse, you will know what I mean eventually.

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Once again, I am sorry this was late. Hopefully my next one will be quicker. Everyone please review! Long nice reviews... those are the things which make me write quicker.

Cheers everyone,

And a happy new year!