Ptolemy's Gate Read Free

two problems. One: I found it hard to change shape these days, very hard, even at the best of times. Two: the considerable downward pressure would have blown my essence apart the moment I softened it to make the change.
    So much for the negatives. The good side was that I was unable to rejoin the battle that was taking place up and down the suburban street.
    It was a fairly low-key sort of battle, especially on the first plane. Nothing much could be seen. The house lights were all out, the electric street lamps had been tied in knots; the road was dark as an inkstone, a solid slab of black. A few stars shone coldly overhead. Once or twice indistinct blue-green lights appeared and faded, like explosions far off underwater.
    Things hotted up on the second plane, where two rival flocks of birds could be seen wheeling and swooping at each other, buffeting savagely with wings, beaks, claws, and tails. Such loutish behavior would have been reprehensible among seagulls or other down-market fowl; the fact that these were eagles made it all the more shocking.
    On the higher planes the bird guises were discarded altogether, and the true shapes of the fighting djinn came into focus.[3] Seen from this perspective, the night sky was veritably awash with rushing forms, contorted shapes, and sinister activity.

[3] Truer, anyway. At bottom, we are all alike in our seeping formlessness, but every spirit has a "look" that suits them, and which they use to represent themselves while on Earth. Our essences are molded into these personal shapes on the higher planes, while—on the lower ones—we adopt guises that are appropriate to the given situation. Listen, I'm sure I've told you all this before.

Fair play was entirely disregarded. I saw one spiked knee go crunching into an opponent's belly, sending him spinning away behind a chimney to recover. Disgraceful! If I'd been up there I'd have had no truck with that.[4]

[4] I'd have kneed him first, then stuck a wingtip in his eye, while kicking his shin for good measure. Much more effective. The techniques of these young djinn were so inefficient, it pained me.

But I wasn't up there. I'd been put out of action.
    Now, if it had been an afrit or marid who'd done the damage, I could have lived with it. But it wasn't. In fact my conqueror was none but a third-level djinni, the kind I could normally roll up in my pocket and smoke after dinner. I could still see her now from where I lay, her nimble feminine grace rather undermined by her pig's head and the long rake she clutched in her trotters. There she was, standing on a post-box, laying left and right with such brio that the government forces, of which I was nominally a pa rt, backed off and left her well alone. She was a formidable customer, with experience in Japan if her kimono was anything to go by. In truth, I'd been misled by her rustic appearance and had ambled close without upping my Shields. Before I knew it, there was a piercing oink, a blur of movement, and— whump! —she'd left me pinned in the road, too weary to break free.
    Little by little, however, my side was gaining the upper hand. See! Here strode Cormocodran, snapping off a lamppost and swinging it like a twig; there raced Hodge, loosing off a volley of poison darts. The enemy dwindled and began to adopt ever more fatalistic guises. I saw several large insects buzzing and dodging, one or two wisps twisting frantically, a couple of rats heading for the hills. Only the she-pig stubbornly maintained her original appearance. My colleagues surged forward. One beetle went down in a corkscrew cloud of smoke; a wisp was blown apart by a double Detonation. The enemy fled; even the pig realized the game was up. She leaped gracefully onto a porch, somersaulted up onto a roof, and vanished. The victorious djinn set off in hot pursuit.
    It was quiet in the street. Water trickled past my ears. From topknot to toes, my essence was one long ache. I gave a heartfelt sigh.
    "Dear me," a