The Alchemyst (19 page)

“Of course,” Hekate said. “He told you there were dangers, didn’t he?”

“He didn’t tell us everything,” Josh snapped.

“Nicholas Flamel never tells anyone everything.” One side of Hekate’s face was touched with the silver light radiating from Sophie, the other was sheathed in black shadow. Suddenly, Hekate’s nostrils flared and her eyes widened. She looked up at the ceiling of roots. “No,” she gasped. “No!”

Sophie’s eyes snapped open and then she opened her mouth and screamed. “Fire!”

“They’re burning the World Tree!” Hekate howled, her face contorted into a savage mask. Shoving Josh to one side, she darted out into the corridor, leaving him alone with the person who had once been his twin. He stared at the girl floating in the air before him, unsure what to do, afraid to even touch her. All he knew was that for the first time in their lives, they were different in ways he could not even begin to comprehend.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

“W
e need to go.” Nicholas Flamel caught Josh’s shoulder and shook him, bringing him back to the present.

Josh turned to look at the Alchemyst. There were tears on his cheeks, but he was unaware of them. “Sophie…,” he whispered.

“…is going to be fine,” Nicholas said firmly. Shouts echoed in the corridor outside, the sudden clash of weapons mingling with the roars of humans and animals. Above it all rose Scathach’s delighted laughter. Flamel reached for Sophie, who was still floating four inches above the earth, and his aura flared white-green when he took her hand. Gently he pulled her back to the ground. As soon as her feet touched the earth, it was as if all the strength had left her body, and he caught her before she crumpled to the floor, unconscious.

Josh was immediately at his sister’s side. He pushed Flamel away and held his twin in his arms. Crackling energy darted from Sophie’s fading aura to his flesh, but he didn’t even register the tiny stings. When he looked up at Flamel, his face was an angry mask. “You
knew,
” he accused, “you knew how dangerous this was. My sister could have been left in a coma.”

“I knew that was not going to happen,” Nicholas said calmly, crouching down beside Josh. “Her aura—your aura—is too strong. I knew you would both survive. I would never have deliberately placed either of you in danger. I swear that.” He reached for Sophie’s wrist to check her pulse, but Josh pushed his hand away. He didn’t believe him; he wanted to, but somehow Flamel’s words rang false.

They both jumped as an agonized, catlike squeal came from the corridor outside. It was followed by Scatty’s voice. “We really should be leaving. And right now would be a good time!”

The smell of burning wood was stronger, and tendrils of gray smoke begun to curl into the chamber.

“We’ve got to go. We can talk about this later,” Flamel said firmly.

“You better believe we will,” Josh promised.

“I’ll help you carry her,” the Alchemyst offered.

“I can do it myself,” Josh said, and gathered his sister into his arms. He wasn’t going to trust Sophie to anyone else. He was surprised by how light she felt, and he was suddenly thankful for all those painful months of football practice that had made him stronger than he looked.

The Alchemyst picked up the short staff he’d left propped against the wall and spun it in the air before him. The tip glowed green and it left the faintest of smoking emerald trails in the air. “Ready?” Flamel asked.

Josh, his sister held tightly against his chest, nodded.

“Whatever happens, whatever you see, don’t stop, don’t turn back. Just about everything outside this doorway will not hesitate to kill you.”

Josh followed Flamel through the door…and immediately stopped, frozen in shock. Scatty was standing in the center of the narrow corridor, her two short swords a blur before her. Behind the swords, crowding the corridor, were some of the most terrifying creatures he had ever seen. He’d been expecting monsters; what he had not been expecting were creatures even more terrifying. Creatures that were neither beast nor human, but something caught in between. Humans with the heads of cats snarled and slashed at Scatty, their claws striking sparks off her swords. Others with the bodies of men but with the huge peaked skulls of ravens jabbed at her, attempting to gouge and stab her.

“Scatty—down!” Flamel shouted. Without waiting to see if she even heard him, he stretched out his arm and leveled the short staff. His aura flared green and the air was suddenly bitter with the odor of mint. An emerald-colored globe of spinning light gathered at the tip of the staff and then shot forward with an audible pop. Scatty barely managed to duck before the ball sizzled through the air and shattered against the ceiling almost directly over her head. It left a bright mark, like a stain, which started to dribble and drip sticky green light. The scarred head of a tabby cat pushed through the opening, mouth gaping, fangs glinting. It spotted Scatty and lunged for her—and a drop of the gooey light splashed off the top of its head. The cat-headed human went wild. It threw itself back into the corridor, where it immediately attacked everything in its path. A birdman stepped up to the opening, and was doused in the dripping green light. Its black wings abruptly developed holes and tears, and it fell back with a hideous chattering cawing. Josh noticed that although the green light, which had the consistency of honey, burned the creatures, it had no effect on the wood. He knew he should be paying more attention, but all his concern was focused on his sister. She was breathing quickly, and behind her closed eyelids her eyes were dancing.

Scatty scrambled to her feet and darted back to Flamel and Josh. “Very impressive, I’m sure,” she muttered. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

Flamel spun the staff like a baton. “This focuses my power.”

Scatty looked around. “We seem to be trapped.”

“Hekate went this way,” Nicholas said, turning to the right and pointing to what looked like an impenetrable barrier of knotted roots. “I saw her come running out of the chamber and walk straight through this.” He stepped up to the knotted wood and stretched out his arm. It disappeared right up to the elbow.

“I’ll go first,” Scatty said. Josh noticed that although she had been fighting the deadly combination of birds and cats, there was neither a scratch on her body nor a hair out of place. She wasn’t even breathing hard—though if she really was a vampire, then maybe she didn’t need to breathe at all, he thought. Scatty darted forward, and in the last moment before she reached the wall of roots, she dived straight into the opening, swords crossed over her chest.

Flamel and Josh looked at one another in the brief moment that followed…and then Scatty’s head poked through the solid-looking tangle of roots. “All clear.”

“I’ll take the rear,” Flamel said, stepping back to allow Josh to go ahead of him. “I’ll deal with anything that follows us.”

Josh nodded, unwilling to trust himself to talk to Flamel. He was still furious with the Alchemyst for endangering his sister’s life, but he also recognized that Flamel was now fighting for them, placing himself in very real danger to protect them. Josh stepped up to the wall of twisted roots and packed earth, closed his eyes…and walked right through. There was an instant of damp chill and then he opened his eyes to see Scatty directly in front of him. He was standing in a low, narrow chamber created entirely from the Yggdrasill’s gnarled roots. Clumps of green moss leaked a dim green light into the chamber, and he could see that Scatty was standing at the bottom of a set of narrow, irregular steps that led upward into the gloom. Scatty’s head was tilted to one side, but before Josh could ask what she was hearing, Flamel stepped through the wall. He was smiling, and the top of his staff emitted traces of green gas. “That should hold them for a while.”

“Let’s go,” Scatty called as soon as the Alchemyst appeared.

The stairway was so narrow that Josh was forced to move in a sideways crab-crawl, head ducked low, with Sophie held close to his body to prevent her head and legs from cracking against the rough wooden walls. He tested every step before he took it; he didn’t want to risk falling and dropping his sister. He suddenly realized that these steps were cut into the space between the inner and outer bark of the great tree, and couldn’t help wondering if a tree the size of Yggdrasill was riddled with secret passages, hidden rooms, forgotten chambers and lost stairways. It must be, he decided. Did Hekate even know where they all were? And then, his mind racing, he wondered who had created these steps. Somehow he could not imagine the goddess carving them out of the living wood herself.

As they climbed, they could smell the bitter stench of burning wood, and the sounds of battle came clearer. The cat shrieks became even more human, the bird screeches were completely terrifying, and they mingled with the bellowing roars of the boars and the hissing of the nathair. Now that the group was no longer underground, the heat and smoke intensified and they began to hear another sound—a deep bass groaning rumble.

“We need to hurry.” Scatty’s voice drifted back out of the gloom. “We
really
need to hurry now….” And somehow the forced calm in the Warrior’s voice frightened Josh more than if she had screamed. “Careful now; we’ve reached an opening. We’re at the end of a thick root, about thirty yards away from the main body of the tree. We’re well clear of the fighting,” she added.

Josh rounded a corner and discovered Scatty standing bathed in shafts of early-morning sunshine that shone through a curtain of vines directly ahead of her. She turned to face him, sunlight turning her red hair golden and running along the blades of her short swords, and in that moment, Josh saw her as the ancient and terrifying Warrior she was. The sounds of battle were all around them, but louder than all the other noises was the groaning rumble that seemed to vibrate deep in the ground. “What is that sound?” he asked.

“The cries of the Yggdrasill,” Scatty answered grimly. “Hekate’s enemies have set light to the World Tree.”

“But why?” He found the very idea horrifying—this ancient living tree had harmed no one. But the action gave him an insight into the contempt with which the Dark Elders held life.

“Her powers are inextricably linked to it; her magic brought it to towering life, its life force keeps her strong. They believe that by destroying it, they will destroy her.”

Flamel came panting up the steps to stand behind Josh. The Alchemyst’s thin face was bright red and beaded with sweat. “Getting old,” he said with a wry smile. He looked at Scatty. “What’s the plan?”

“Simple,” she began, “we get away from here as quickly as possible.” Then she spun the sword in her left hand so that the blade was lying flat against the length of her arm. She pointed with the hilt. Flamel and Josh stood close to her and peered out through the curtain of vines. On the opposite side of the field, Dr. John Dee had appeared, moving cautiously through the undergrowth. The black-bladed short sword that he held in both hands glowed and flickered with a cold blue light.

“Dee,” Flamel said. “Never in my life would I have imagined being delighted to see him. This is good news indeed.”

Both Scatty and Josh looked at him in surprise.

“Dee is human…which means that he came here via human transportation,” the Alchemyst explained.

“A car”—Scatty nodded in agreement—“that he would probably have left just outside the Shadowrealm.”

Josh was about to ask how she knew he would have left it outside when he suddenly realized he knew the answer. “Because he knew if he drove it in here, the battery would be drained.”

“Look,” Scatty murmured.

They watched one of the huge, boarlike Torc Alltas emerge from the long grass behind Dee. Although it was still in its beast shape, it rose on its hind legs, until it reached nearly three times the height of the man.

“It’s going to kill him,” Josh murmured.

Dee’s sword flared bright blue, and then the small man threw himself backward,
toward
the Torc Allta, bringing the sword around in a short arc. The sudden movement seemed to surprise the creature, but it easily batted aside the blade…and then it froze. Where the blade had touched it, a thin sheath of ice grew up the beast’s arm, tiny crystals sparkling in the early-morning sunshine. The ice coated the Torc Allta’s chest and flowed down its massive legs and up his shoulders and head. Within a matter of heartbeats the creature was encased in a block of blue-veined ice. Dee picked himself up off the ground, dusted off his coat and then, without warning, hammered on the ice with the hilt of his sword. The block shattered into millions of tinkling pieces, each one containing a fragment of the Torc Allta.

“One of the elemental swords,” Scatty remarked grimly, “Excalibur, the Sword of Ice. I thought it was lost ages past, thrown back into the lake when Artorius died.”

“Looks like the doctor found it,” Flamel murmured.

Josh discovered that he wasn’t even surprised to hear that King Arthur had been real, and he found himself wondering which other legendary figures had really existed.

They watched as Dee hurried back into the undergrowth, heading for the other side of the huge tree house, where the sounds of battle were loudest. The smell of smoke was stronger now. Sharp and bitter, it curled and twisted around the tree, carrying with it the reek of ancient places and long-forgotten spices. Wood snapped and cracked, sap boiled and popped and the deep bass thrumming was now strong enough to set the entire tree vibrating.

“I’ll clear the way,” Scatty said as she darted through the vines. Almost immediately a trio of the birdmen came winging toward her, followed by two of the cat-people, running on all fours.

“We’ve got to help her!” Josh said desperately, though he’d no idea what he could do.

“She is Scathach; she doesn’t need our help,” Flamel said. “She’ll lead them away from us first….”

Scathach raced into the undergrowth, running lightly, her heavy boots making no sound on the soft earth. The birds and cats followed.

“She’ll back herself up against something, so that they can only come at her from one side, then she’ll turn to face them.”

Josh watched as Scatty spun and faced her attackers, with her back to a gnarled oak tree. The cat creatures reached her quickly, claws flashing, but her short swords were quicker, and struck sparks from their claws. A bird-creature swung in low, huge wings flapping, talons extended. Driving the sword in her left hand into the ground, she caught the creature’s extended wrist and yanked it out of the air, then tossed it into the middle of the snarling cats. The bird instinctively lashed out at the cats, and suddenly, the animals were fighting among themselves. Two more bird-people immediately dropped onto the cats with a hideous squalling. Scatty yanked her sword out of the ground and used it to beckon to Flamel and Josh.

Flamel tapped Josh’s shoulder. “Go. Get to Scathach.”

Josh turned to look at the Alchemyst. “What about you?”

“I’ll wait a moment, then follow and protect you.”