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satisfying work—I got a craftsman's pleasure from it. In addition, I helped Mandrake and the police in the search for two fugitives from the golem affair. The first of these was a certain mysterious mercenary (distinguishing features: big beard, grim expression, swanky black clothes, general invulnerability to Infernos/Detonations/pretty much everything else). He'd last been seen far away in Prague, and predictably enough we never got a whiff of him. The second was an even more nebulous character, whom no one had even set eyes on. He apparently went by the name of Hopkins, and claimed to be a scholar. He was generally suspected of masterminding the golem plot, and I'd heard he'd been involved with the Resistance too. But he might as well have been a ghost or shadow for all the substance we could pin down. We found a spidery signature in an admissions book at an old library that might have been his. That was all. The trail, such as it was, went cold.
    Then Mandrake became Information Minister and I was soon engaged in more depressing work, viz. pasting up adverts on 1,000 billboards across London; distributing pamphlets to 25,000 homes across ditto; corralling selected animals for public holiday "entertainments";[10] supervising food, drink, and "hygiene" for same; flying back and forth across the capital for hours on end trailing pro-war banners. Now, call me picky, but I'd argue that when you think of a 5,000-year-old djinni, the scourge of civilizations and confidante of kings, certain things come to mind—swashbuckling espionage, perhaps, or valiant battles, thrilling escapes and general multipurpose excitement. What you don't readily think of is that same noble djinni being forced to prepare giant vats of chili con carne for festival days, or struggling on street corners with bill-posters and pots of glue.

[10] Following the Roman tradition, the magicians sought to keep the people docile with regular holidays, in which free shows were put on in all the major parks. Lots of exotic beasts from across the Empire were displayed, as were minor imps and sprites allegedly "caught" during the war. Human prisoners were paraded along the streets, or enclosed in special glass viewing globes in the St. James's Park pavilions for the populace to jeer at.

Especially without being allowed to return home. Soon my periods of respite in the Other Place became so fleeting I practically got whiplash traveling there and back. Then, one day, Mandrake ceased dismissing me altogether, and that was it. I was trapped on Earth.
    Over the next two years I grew steadily weaker, and just when I was hitting rock bottom, scarcely able to lift a poster brush, the wretched boy began sending me out on more dangerous missions again—fighting bands of enemy djinn that Britain's many enemies were using to stir up trouble.
    In the past I'd have had a quiet word with Mandrake, expressing my disapproval with succinct directness. But my privileged access to him was no more. He'd taken to summoning me along with a host of other slaves, giving orders en masse and sending us off like a pack of dogs. Such multiple summoning is a difficult business, requiring great mental strength on the part of the magician, but Mandrake did it daily without apparent effort, talking quietly with his assistant or even flicking through a newspaper while we stood and sweated in our circles.
    I did my best to get to him. Instead of using a monstrous guise like my fellow slaves (Ascobol's cyclops and Cormocodran's boar-headed behemoth were typical), I took to wearing the semblance of Kitty Jones, the Resistance girl Mandrake had persecuted years before. Her assumed death still weighed on his conscience: I knew this because he always reacted to my echo of her face with a reddening of his own. He'd get all angry and sheepish, assertive and embarrassed at the same time. Didn't make him treat me any better, mind.
    Well, I'd had about as much as I could stand from Mandrake. It was time