They tinkled with the sound of hailstones on the floor.Īll well and good, but so what? I mean, he looked about twelve years old. Beads of sweat dripped from his brow, turning to ice as they fell through the air. He was pale as a corpse, shaking like a dead leaf in a high wind. The dark-haired boy stood in a pentacle of his own, smaller, filled with different runes, three feet away from the main one. Then two yellow staring eyes materialized in the heart of the smoke. The column hung above the middle of the pentacle, bubbling ever upward against the ceiling like the cloud of an erupting volcano. The sulfur cloud contracted into a thick column of smoke that vomited forth thin tendrils they licked the air like tongues before withdrawing. Footsteps from invisible feet came pattering across the floorboards and invisible mouths whispered wicked things from behind the bed and under the desk. Pressure was suddenly applied to the door that led to the landing. From far away came the sound of many voices screaming. The darkened room filled with a yellow, choking cloud of brimstone, in which indistinct black shadows writhed and roiled. The glowing filaments in each bulb shrank and dimmed, while the candles that sprang from every available surface like a colony of toadstools had their wicks snuffed out. Ice formed on the curtains and crusted thickly around the lights in the ceiling. The temperature of the room dropped fast. For information address Hyperion Books for Children, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.

This feature works on most devices.Īll rights reserved. To return to where you were reading, click on the same number in the endnotes section. To access his comments as you are reading the story, click on the highlighted superscript number and the page will turn to the corresponding note. Bartimaeus is famous for making snarky asides and boastful claims, which you can find in this book’s endnotes.

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