Bartimaeus

I knew my masters were intending to leave me alone for a while when the imp that converts my essence into power for heating and cooling food was dismissed.  Why they need to do those things to their food I do not know.  If they could settle for having food at ambient temperatures I wouldn’t need to put up with that parasitic imp all the time.

The noisy foliot usually confined under the back deck converting that foul-smelling red liquid in to essence has also been dismissed.  Why they don’t dismiss me as well I don’t understand.  Instead of sending me back to the Other Place where my essence could fully recover, they leave me encased in iron and unable to escape.  They have at least left me in a place with plenty of sunlight.  In the sun my essence can recover slightly, without it I can feel my essence slowly draining away.

One of my masters is continually using his scrying glass to check on me.  In his self-importance he seems to think it will somehow help to know the state of my essence.  He has charged two more imps to make an annoying squeak if anyone enters the cabins.  But what would he then do? A djinni such as I could transform in to a falcon and fly to the defence, transforming in to a bear on arrival to vanquish the intruder.  Can my masters do these things? No!  All they can do is issue more spells in the vain hope of summoning help.  At least their spells no longer require all that smelly business with candles and chalk.¹

He has now commanded me to inform him if I move any distance.  My iron prison is tied to metal pilings – I’m hardly going to do that by myself!  Doubtless he would punish me with the red hot stipples for following the command of another master.  Perhaps they will return and take me somewhere exciting² – at least away from that bridge where the humans insist on duelling with car horns.

¹ I can hardly complain about the smell really, I am known to emit sulphurous belches from time to time, though generally only when I have imbibed a little too much essence.

² Not as exciting as, say, Babylon with King Hammurabi.