A friend and I were discussing the books recently. (He's just reading them, which is very frustrating for me, as I can't comment on some of his observations so far!) We came up with a number of questions (and these don't involve future directions of the storyline, so perhaps they are more likely to be answered than my earlier questions):

1 - Why is Bart still available when Nathaniel summons him (in either of the first two books)? My friend and I speculated that a) Bart isn't as famous or highly regarded among magicians as he would like us to think, B) he did most of his work outside of England (and most recently, apparently, in Prague), and English magicians may be a bit stuffy about that, and/or c) His attitude makes him very difficult to work with unless he happens to like you somewhat, and he has a bit of a fondness for Nat, even in the earlier books (though he rarely admits this).

2 - How do spirits "in service" normally get rest? Jessica Whitwell seems to have hers always on call, but we know from Bart that if they stay in this world too long they get depleted-- and less effective. Ms. Whitwell might not care if her spirits (djinn or afrit or whatever) have aches in their essence, but I can't see her leaving her safety to chance by allowing her slaves to weaken. On the other hand, it seems that spirits who are released to the Other Place are subject to being summoned by another magician. Can one allow spirits to return to the Other Place for R & R, but with bindings not to respond to the summonings of another magician, and to return to the human world after a specified period of time? Do magicians rely more on the idea that if someone steals one of their servants, swift retribution (via other enslaved spirits) will follow? (I wouldn't want to get caught "borrowing" Jessica Whitwell's afrit!) Do spirits bound into items keep their effectiveness longer, e.g. the imp bound into Nat's scrying mirror, or that poor djinn who got stuck under the foundations of the bridge in Prague? Are they able to return to the Other Place between the object being used, or "sleep," or something?

3 - Who figured out how to summon spirits first, and how did they avoid getting eaten on the spot? We know that Bart found it much more amusing when it first happened to him, so maybe that's the key. I was wondering if the shamanic way of communicating with spirits came first, though, and the methods of enslavement came later, after the spirits started to get less enthusiastic about coming and doing the bidding of those calling them.

4 - I'm guessing that the original method of separating the essence of a spirit from the Other Place and giving it a name has been lost? Or do the shamans still know how to do this? If Bart is "5000 years old" in the mortal world, are other spirits who have been summoned about the same age, i.e. were they all first summoned about that long ago?

5 - Living things in our world have essence, as Bart notes when he remarks that spirits will only eat living things in our world, because the essence offsets the taint of the matter being consumed. Is there a relationship between the essence of spirits and the essence of living things in our world? For example, does the essence of living things in our world originally come from the Other Place, and does it return there when living things die? What happens when spirits die in our world, if they are not consumed by another spirit? (This would, presumably, have the effect of their essence returning to the Other Place when the consuming spirit returned, just by a different route.) Does their essence get scattered, but does it eventually seep back to the Other Place?

6 - Do spirits have any special ability to locate each other in the mortal world? Magicians seem to send their spirits (e.g. Nathaniel's Imp) out to look for things fairly often, but Bart doesn't seem to have any special ability to find places, e.g. "the hall where Lovelace's Big Event will take place." On the other hand, Nat seems to think it's quite reasonable to expect his imp to locate Bart and return quickly. Perhaps there's not so much on the higher planes to obscure spirits' vision of each other?

7 - Is there any way to permanently dissociate a spirit from its name(s), so that it can't be summoned again? As an example, in Phyllis Eisenstein's Sorcerer's Son, a magician can free a demon in such a way that it cannot be summoned again, and when one magician starts doing this, other magicians start to have a lot more trouble summoning and using demons.

Thanks for considering these questions,

neko

Hi Neko,

Thanks for your questions. Sorry about the LONG delay.

1. Good question. You're pretty much right, I think. He's certainly not as well known as he'd like to be (check out in PG when it takes Kitty ages to find him in the books), and his reputation IS probably pretty difficult. Nat is a fairly formidable magician, even when young; a lot of the current English crop would shy away from working with such an insolent and energetic slave.

2. Sensible magicians, like J Whitwell will certainly allow all their slaves occasional periods of rest - otherwise, as you say, they risk harm to themselves (they care less about the slave, of course). They can't ensure that their resting slave doesn't get summoned by someone else, but the likelihood is pretty remote, since there are countless slaves to choose from, and most magicians will have some fairly low level demon to work with normally (top-notch ones will occasionally summon hugely powerful and famous demons, but only for short periods). Even Bart, say what he will, isn't massively famous. It's only because Kitty's met him that she summons him while he's resting in PG and Nat finds he can't get him back.

When completely inactive - ie trapped inside a stationary object, or under the Charles Bridge - the natural leaching of a demon's powers is slowed considerably, though they can't be said to enjoy their long captivity. Sometimes, as with Honorius, they effectively go mad. But 100 plus years in a skeleton hasn't diminished H's powers that much; he could probably have gone on for a while more.

3. That's a really good point and I think you're spot on with the shamanism thing. Bart hints more than once that the shamanistic methods of communicating with demons is different (and less cruel) than the typical 'western' method of pentacles and slavery. It's rather lost in the mists of time, but the earliest summonings were probably rather more evenly balanced, allowing early magicians to muddle along for a bit and learn key methods of staying alive. Some early-summoned demons may have been rather less aggressive than their later counterparts - until they realised the limitations and general uncomfortableness of their visits to Earth.

4. Some of the spirits around (Faquarl, Jabor say) have been going back and forth for the same length of time as Bart, but by no means all. Queezle is much 'younger' for example. Also a goodly number drop by the wayside as they get killed over the centuries. It's probably true to say that the magicians of the past - Mesapotamia, Egypt etc - summoned many more than are needed today: hence there are still plenty in the books for modern magicians to summon. The old techniques of summoning a 'new' demon are seldom used - partly because they're rather more risky than the standard way.

5. Another excellent and rather scarily philosophical question! There must be some relation between the essence of a spirit and the essence of a 'physical' living thing, but I don't think there is natural cross-over between our world and Bart's realm. When a spirit dies here, his essence is lost - it doesn't creep or seep back to the OP - that's it for them. They're dead. Ditto, I don't think that when a magician dies, his or her essence goes to the OP - although having said that, this is getting into metaphysics, and I tend to shy away from that in the books. What happens to Nat when he dies is maybe not for me to say. We can all speculate, but the focus of the books is on our world, and there - when he dies - there is an end.

6. You're right that Bart often has to blunder about much as we would, though he can get places more quickly most of the time. But other, often lesser, spirits have abilities that are more attuned to searching and locating - and it may well be as you say, that they can tune into the presence of other spirits by focusing on the higher planes, where there's less 'interference' from physical objects. The scrying glass imp probably operates this way.

7. Hmmm... In Nat's world once a demon's name is known, he's fair game. But if he's thought to be dead - as Bart will be, after the end of PG - he can reasonably expect not to be bothered again. Mr Button or someone will record his 'demise' and he'll be written out of the books. But whether Kitty will ever try, just in case, is another question entirely...

Great questions, Neko! Hope these answers help.

All the best,

Jonathan