"Jonathan Stroud - Bartimaeus 2 - The Golem's Eye" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stroud Jonathan)

Up on the path, the imps were pouring onto the courtiers. I saw Queezle and a burly djinni spin
past, hands at each other's throats.

With insulting nonchalance, the afrit ambled down the slope toward me. He winked and raised
the silver scythe.

And at that moment, my master acted.

He'd not been a particularly good one, all toldтАФhe'd been too fond of the Stipples for
startersтАФbut from my point of view his last deed was the best thing he ever did.

The imps were all around him, vaulting over his head, ducking between his legs, reaching for the
Emperor. He gave a cry of fury and from a pocket in his jacket produced a Detonation stick, one of
the new ones made by the alchemists of Golden Lane in response to the British threat. They were
shoddy, mass-produced rubbish, inclined to explode too fast, or often not at all. Either way, it was
best, when using them, to throw them speedily in the general direction of the enemy. But my master
was a typical magician. He wasn't used to personal combat. He gabbled the Word of Command all
right, but then proceeded to hesitate, holding the stick above his head and feinting at the imps, as if
undecided which one to choose.

He hesitated a fraction too long.

The explosion tore half the stairs away. Imps, Emperor, and courtiers were blown into the air
like dandelion seeds. My master himself vanished utterly, as if he had never been.

And with his death, the bonds that tethered me withered into nothing.

The afrit brought the scythe blade down, exactly where my head had lain. It drove uselessly into
the ground.



Thus, after several hundred years and a dozen masters, my ties to Prague were broken. But as
my grateful essence fled in all directions, and I looked down upon the burning city and the marching
troops, on the wailing children and the whooping imps, on the death throes of one empire and the
bloody baptism of the next, I must say I didn't feel particularly triumphant. I had a feeling it was all
going to get a whole lot worse.




Part One


1
Nathaniel

London: a great and prosperous capital, two thousand years old, which in the hands of the
magicians aspired to be the center of the world. In size at least it had succeeded. It had grown vast