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.what might Lovelace do to Mr.Underwood or his wife?Bartimaeus had told him to wait upstairs and be ready for the worst.But Na-thaniel had had enough of helpless loitering.He was not done yet.Thesituation was desperate, but he could still act.The magicians were in thedining room.Un-derwood's study was empty.If he could slip inside and retrieve the Amulet,per-haps he could hide it somewhere, whatever Bartimaeus might say.Quietly, quickly, he stole downstairs to the landing below, to the level ofhis master's study and workrooms.The muffled voices from the ground floorwere raised now: he thought he could hear Underwood shouting.Time was short.Na-thaniel hastened through the rooms to the door leading to the study stairs.Here he paused.He had not gone that way since he was six years old.Distantmemories as-sailed him and made him shiver, but he shrugged them off.He passed onward,down the steps.And pulled up dead.Underwood's study door stood before him, daubed with its red, five-pointedstar.Nathaniel groaned aloud.He knew enough now to recognize a fire-hex whenhe saw it.He would be incinerated the moment he touched the door.Withoutpro-tection, he could not progress, and protection required a circle, a summons,careful preparation.178And he had no time for that.He was helpless! Useless! He beat his fistagainst the wall.From far away in the house came a noise that might have beena cry of fear.Nathaniel ran back up the stairs and through to the landing, and as he did so,he heard the dining-room door open and footsteps sounding in the hall.They were coming.Then from below, Mrs.Underwood's voice, anxious and enquiring, spearedNathaniel with a thrill of pain."Is everything all right, Arthur?"The reply was dull, weary, almost unrecognizable."I am just showingMr.Lovelace something in my study.Thank you, we need nothing."They were climbing the stairs now.Nathaniel was in an agony of indecision.What should he do? Just as someone turned the corner, he ducked behind thenearest door and closed it almost to.Breathing hard, he pressed his eyeagainst the small crack that gave a view onto the landing.A slow procession passed.Mr.Underwood led the way.His hair and clothes weredisordered, his eyes wild, his back bent as if by a great weight.BehindwalkedSimon Lovelace, eyes hidden behind his glasses, his mouth a thin, grim slit.Behind him came a spider, scuttling in the shadows of the wall.The procession disappeared in the direction of the study.Nathaniel sank back,head spinning, nauseous with guilt and fear.Underwood's face.Despite hisex-treme dislike of his master, to see him in that state rebelled againsteverything Na-Page 139ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlthaniel had been taught.Yes, he was weak; yes, he was petty; yes, he hadtreatedNathaniel with consistent disdain.But the man was a minister, one of thethree hundred in the Government.And he had not taken the Amulet.Nathanielhad.He bit his lip.Lovelace was a criminal.Who could tell what he might do?LetUnderwood take the blame.He deserved it.He had never stuck up for Nathaniel,he had sacked Ms.Lutyens.let him suffer too.Why had Nathaniel put theAmulet in the study in the first place, if not to protect himself whenLovelace came? He would stay out of the way, as the djinni had said.Get readyto run, if necessary.Nathaniel's head sank into his hands.He could not run.He could not hide.That was the advice of a demon, treach-erous and sly.Running and hiding were not the actions of an honorablemagician.If he let his master face Lovelace alone, how would he live withhimself again? When his master suffered, Mrs.Underwood would suffer too andthat would be impossi-ble to bear.No, there was no help for it.Now that the crisis was upon him,Na-thaniel found, to his surprise and horror, that he had to act.Regardless ofthe con-sequences, he had to intervene.Even to think of doing what he now did made him physically sick.Neverthe-less he managed it, little by little, step by dragging step.Out from behindthe door, across the landing, along toward the study stairs.Down thestairs, one at a time.179With every step, his common sense screamed at him to turn and flee, but heresisted.To run would be to fail Mrs.Underwood.He would go in there andtell the truth, come what may.The door was open, the fiery hex defused.Yellow light spilled from inside.Nathaniel paused at the threshold.His brain seemed to have shut down.He didnot fully understand what he was about to do.He pushed at the door and went in, just in time to witness the moment of dis-covery.Lovelace and Underwood were standing by a wall cupboard with their backs tohim.The cupboard doors gaped wide.Even as he watched, Lovelace'shead craned forward eagerly like a hunting cat's, and his hand stretched outand knocked something aside.He gave a cry of triumph.Slowly, he turned andraised his hand before Underwood's corpse-white face.Nathaniel's shoulders slumped.How small it looked, the Amulet of Samarkand, how insignificant it seemed, asit hung from Lovelace's fingers on its slender gold chain.It swung gently,glinting in the study light.Lovelace smiled."Well, well.What have we here?"Underwood was shaking his head in confusion and disbelief.In those few sec-onds, his face had aged."No," he whispered."A trick.You're framing me."Lovelace wasn't even looking at him.He gazed at his prize."I can't imaginewhat you thought you could do with this," he said."Summoning Bartimaeus onits own would have been quite enough to wear you out.""I keep saying," Underwood said weakly, "I don't know anything about thisBartimaeus, and I know nothing about your object, nor how it got there."Nathaniel heard a new voice speaking, high and shaky.It was his own."He's telling the truth," he said.took it.The person that you want is me.""IPage 140ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlThe silence that followed this statement lasted almost five seconds.Bothmagi-cians spun round on the instant, only to stare at him openmouthed in shock.Mr [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]