How could he summon anything anyway? Does he have chalk, insence and candles on his person? Give up, Nathaniel's not a contender in this fight.

He'd have prepared spirits he's already bound and can summon without messing around with pentacles and stuff. Standard magician procedure. If you get attacked you need your spirits quickly and with the minimum of fuss. Like I said, I still don't think he stands a chance, but he might not be entirely helpless.

Even so, it still doesn't count as Nathaniel, it's another spirit doing his fighting for him.

That's what magicians do.

There's a few questions that need answering:
1) What age is Nathaniel during the fight (this will determine the power of the entity/s he summons)
2) Do the rules of the fight permit Nathaniel to summon a spirit to fight on his behalf, or does it count as introducing another contestant?
3) Does any of this even matter? The demons will vanish if Bartimaeus or Verroq kill Nathaniel himself (which would be quite easy, seeing as Verroq could just chuck a one of those discs into his throat).

Yes, I mentioned point 3 previously (though Verroq's unarmed, he could do it just as easily with his fists, or Barti could throw a detonation at him). I reckon it's most sensible to take him as he was shortly before death, to give him the least reduced chance of winning. Depriving him of the ability to summon is like depriving Verroq of his resilience of Barti of his ability to use magic; it just renders him completely helpless. If you're doing that you might as well say that the footstool wins, since Nat and Verroq die of thirst and Barti eventually dies of being trapped on Earth too long.

I was always under the assumption I was for the Whitewell v. Mandrake topic - Nat's at his most powerful, around the time of the end of PG, just without the injuries that sapped his strength.

Still, the fact remains that Nathaniel wouldn't win the fight. How do you know he would have slaves on hand anyway? At the end of PG they had all been either dismissed or destroyed.

Well, yes, but a good magician always has a few on hand.
Obviously he would use those, they were dead by half way through the book.
A couple Djinn, a couple Foliots...
He'd probably only bother with the Djinn.

Dansariki wrote:Obviously he would use those, they were dead by half way through the book.

A couple Djinn, a couple Foliots...
He'd probably only bother with the Djinn.

What? He would use them because they were dead . . . ? I'm going to take that as a typo.

To what djinn and foliots are you reffering? As I said, they were all dismissed or destroyed. And to summon new ones, (as I said earlier) he would need all that summoning crap and he would be taken out before he could light the first candle.

Well let's assume he had spirits ready beforehand, and the fight is a spur-of-the-moment thing, shall we?
Otherwise Nat means nothing in this fight, as I believe Sent mentioned.
By those I meant others.

He'd still get owned. A spur-of-the-moment fight? So he'd just have whatever spirits at his service at the time. I doubt he'd have anything powerful enough to stop a silver disc going through his face.

No weapons!
Sheesh.
Silver disks count as weapons for both reasons: Silver, sharp.
No.

Oh, sorry, forgot. Got a bit carried away there. Nevertheless, whatever spirits Nathaniel would have on hand at the time of the fight I doubt would be able to challenge Verroq or Bartimaeus (assuming, that is, Bart is at near full strength, yet another variable).

True... unless he had a very high strength djinni (like Faquarl) or an Afrit (unlikely), no contest.

Mmmm, but when has he ever (casually) had a djinni of a higher level that Bartimaeus in his service? In PG (which we're assuming is the point in time Nathaniel is at during this fight) he uses a group of 3rd level djinn. As I said, they're all dead anyway. But even more to the point, we're assuming it's within the rules of the fight for him to summon anything at all. So basically, as I have previously outlined, the winner of the fight cannot be determined without specific details of the situation.

Actually Abscobol was more powerful then Barti...
Well, at his height, no, but during the book...
We've already agreed he's toast, so moot point.

He has to summon, for reasons that Sent already outlined: taking his summoning away is like taking Verroq's resilience or Bart's magic away.

If you read the book, Dansariki, you will see that Abscobol was a 3rd level djinn. Bartimaeus is a 4th level. Bartimaeus himself says that he would have usually wiped the floor with Abscobol, if he hadn't been trapped on Earth 2 years. I think we've agreed that the Bartimaeus in this fight is not the weak Bart in PG. That wouldn't be fair. Therefore, if Nathaniel happened to summon Abscobol in this fight, Bart would have no trouble taking him out.

And yes, okay, Nat can summon. Makes little difference, I can't see him winning anyway.

Neither do I, but three 3rd level Djinn would at least slow down Bart.

. . . if you say so. If Nathaniel would even have the time to summon anything before he was taken out. But if he did, all Bart or Verroq would have to do is dodge the attacks of the djinn (Bart has had practise) and dispose of Nathaniel.