resistance. For a long moment nothing happened, and then Yggdrasill began to
moan. The sound was like that of an animal in pain: beginning as a deep
grumbling, it quickly rose to a high-pitched whimpering. Where the hilt of
the sword protruded from the tree, a blue stain appeared. Like dripping ink,
it flowed down the tree and seeped into the ground, then the oily blue light
ran along the veins and seams of wood. Yggdrasill s cries grew higher and
higher, until they were almost beyond human hearing. The surviving Torc Allta
fell to the ground, writhing in pain, clutching at their ears; birdmen
whirled in confusion and the cat-people began to hiss and howl in unison.
The blue stain raced around the tree, coating everything in a thin veneer of
glittering ice crystals that reflected the light. Blue-black and purple-green
rainbows shimmered in the air.
The oily stain shot up the length of the tree and out along the branches,
turning everything it touched to faceted crystals. Even the fire was not
immune to it. Flames froze, fire caught in ornate and intricate patterns,
then spiderwebbed, like ice on the surface of a pond, and dissolved to
sparkling dust. Where the blue stain touched the leaves, they hardened and
broke away from the branches. They did not spiral to the ground: they fell
and shattered with tiny tinkling sounds, while the branches, now solid pieces
of ice, ripped away from the trunk of the tree and crashed to the earth. Dee
threw himself to one side to avoid being impaled by a three-foot length of
frozen branch. Catching hold of Excalibur s hilt, he dragged the stone blade
free of the ancient tree and ran for cover.
The Yggdrasill was dying. Huge slabs of bark sheared off, like icebergs
breaking away from an ice cap, and crashed to the ground, littering the
beautiful Shadowrealm landscape with shards of razor-sharp ice.
Keeping his distance and watching for falling branches, Dee raced around the
tree; he needed to see Hekate.
The Goddess with Three Faces was dying.
Standing quite still before the crumbling Yggdrasill, Hekate was flickering
through her three faces young, mature and old in heartbeats. The change was
happening so fast that her flesh had no time to adapt and she was caught
between phases: young eyes in an old face, a girl s head on a woman s body, a
woman s body with a child s arms. Her ever-changing dress had lost all color
and was the same solid black as her skin.
Dee stood beside the Morrigan and they watched in silence. Bastet rejoined
them, and together the three observed Hekate and Yggdrasill s last moments.
The World Tree was now almost entirely blue, covered with a sheath of ice.
Frozen roots had burst through the ground, destroying the perfect symmetry of
the earth, cutting thick gouges in the soil. Huge holes had appeared in the
massive trunk, revealing the circular rooms within, which were warped and
stained with the blue ice.
Hekate's transformations slowed. The changes were taking longer to
materialize because now the blue stain was slowly creeping up her body,
hardening her skin, turning it to ice crystals.
The Morrigan glanced at the blade in Dee s hand, then quickly looked away.
Even after all these years in our employ, Dr. Dee, you can still surprise
us, she said quietly. I was not aware that you possessed the Sword of Ice.
I m glad I brought it, Dee said, not directly answering her. It seems
Hekate's powers were stronger than we suspected. At least my guess that her
strength was connected to the tree was correct.
What remained of the Yggdrasill was now a solid block of ice. Hekate, too,
was completely covered beneath a frozen sheet, though behind the blue
crystals, her butter-colored eyes were bright and alive. The top of the tree
began to melt, dirty water running down the length of the bark, cutting deep
grooves into it.
When I realized that she had the power to nullify your spells, I knew I had
to do something, Dee said. I saw how the cats and birds were reverting to
their natural shapes.
That was not Hekate's doing, Bastet growled suddenly, her accent thick, her
voice beastlike.
furry claw and pointed across the field. It was the girl. Someone spoke
through her, someone who knew my true names, someone who used the girl s aura
to wield a whip of pure energy: That'swhat reversed our spells.
Dee looked across the field where he had seen Flamel, Scatty and the twins
gathered around the oak tree. But there was no sign of them. He was turning
to order the surviving cats and birds to find them when he spotted Senuhet
staggering up. The old man was spattered with mud and blood though none of
the blood seemed to be his and he had lost one of his curved bronze swords.
The second had snapped in half.
Flamel and the others have escaped, he gasped. I followed them out of the
Shadowrealm. They re stealing our car, he added indignantly.
Howling his rage, Dr. John Dee spun around and flung Excalibur at the
Yggdrasill. The stone blade struck the ancient World Tree, which tolled with
the solemn sound of a great bell. The single note, high-pitched and serene,
hung vibrating on the air and then the Yggdrasill began to crack. Long
fractures and tears ran the height of the tree. They started small, but
widened as they raced upward in ragged patterns. Within moments the entire
tree was covered in the crazed zigzagging. Then the Yggdrasill shattered and
came crashing down on the ice statue of Hekate, crushing it to dust.
CHAPTER THIRTY
J osh Newman jerked open the door of the black SUV and felt a wave of relief
wash over him. The keys were in the ignition. He pulled open the rear door
and held it while Nicholas Flamel hurried toward the car, carrying Sophie in
his arms. He reached in and gently stretched her out on the backseat. Scatty
burst through the barrier of leaves and came hurtling down the path, a broad
smile on her face.
Now, that, she said as she launched herself into the back of the SUV, was
the most fun I ve had in a millennium.
Josh climbed into the driver s seat, adjusted it and turned the key in the
ignition. The big V6 engine growled to life.
Flamel hopped into the passenger s seat and slammed the door. Get us out of
here!
Josh pushed the gearshift into drive, gripped the leather steering wheel in
both hands and pressed the accelerator flat to the floor. The big Hummer
lurched forward, kicking up stones and dirt as he spun it in a circle and
then set off down the narrow path, rocking and bouncing over the ruts, tree
branches and bushes scraping its sides, scoring lines along its pristine
paintwork.
Although the sun had risen in both the Shadowrealm and the real world, the
road was still in deep shadow, and no matter where Josh looked, he still
couldn t find the controls for the lights. He kept glancing in the side and
rearview mirrors, expecting at any moment to see the Morrigan or the Cat
Goddess step through the wall of vegetation behind them. It was only w
hen the
path ended in a burst of sunshine and he wrenched the steering wheel to the
right, turning the heavy SUV onto the narrow, winding blacktop, that he eased
off the gas. The Hummer immediately lost speed.
Everyone OK? he asked shakily.
He tilted the rearview mirror down so that he could see into the back. His
twin lay stretched across the wide leather seats, her head on Scatty s lap.
The Warrior was using a scrap of cloth torn from her T-shirt to wipe the
girl s forehead. Sophie s skin was deathly white, and although her eyes were
closed, her eyeballs moved erratically beneath her lids, and she twitched as
if she was having a nightmare. Scatty caught Josh looking at them in the
glass and she smiled in encouragement. She s going to be OK, she said.
Is there anything you can do? Josh demanded, glancing at Flamel'sitting
next to him. His feelings for the Alchemyst were completely confused now. On
the one hand, he had placed them in terrible danger, and yet Josh had seen
how savagely Flamel had fought in their defense.
There is nothing I can do, Flamel'said tiredly. She is simply exhausted;
nothing more. Nicholas also looked worn out. His clothes were streaked with
mud and what might have been blood. Bird feathers stuck in his hair, and both
hands were scratched from his encounters with the cats. Let her sleep, and
when she awakens in a few hours time, she will be fine. I promise you.
Josh nodded. He concentrated on the road ahead of him, unwilling to continue
the conversation with the Alchemyst. He doubted that his sister would ever be
fine again. He d seen how she looked at him, her eyes blank and staring: she
hadn't recognized him. He d listened to the voice that had come out of her
mouth: it wasn't a voice he d known. His sister, his twin, had been utterly
changed.
They came up on a sign for Mill Valley, and he turned left. He had no idea
where they were going; he just wanted to get away from the Shadowrealm. More
than that: he wanted to go home, wanted to go back to a normal life, he
wanted to forget that he d ever come across that ad in the university
newspaper his father had brought home.
Assistant Wanted, Bookshop. We don't want readers, we want workers.
He d sent in a r sum and a few days later he d been called for an interview.
Sophie had had nothing else to do that day and had come along for company.
While she d been waiting, she d gone to the shop across the road for a chai
latte. When Josh had come out of The Small Book Shop, beaming delightedly
because he d been offered the job, he d discovered that Sophie had found a
job as well in The Coffee Cup. They would be working right across the street
from each other it was perfect! And it had been perfect until yesterday, when
this madness had begun. He had trouble believing it had only been yesterday.
He looked in the mirror at Sophie again. She was resting quietly now,
completely still, but he was relieved to see that a little color had come
back into her cheeks.
What had Hekate done? No what had Flamel done? It all came back to the
Alchemyst. This was all his fault. The goddess hadn't wanted to Awaken the
twins she knew the dangers. But Flamel had pushed, and now, because of the
Alchemyst, Hekate's Shadowrealm paradise was under attack, and his sister had
become a stranger to him.
When Josh had started working in the bookshop for the man he knew then as
Nick Fleming, he d thought he was a little strange, eccentric, maybe even a
little weird. But as he d gotten to know him, he d come to genuinely like the
man, and to admire him. Fleming was everything Josh s father wasn't. He was
funny, and interested in just about everything Josh did, and his knowledge of
trivia was incredible. Josh knew that his father, Richard, was really only
happy and comfortable when he was standing before a lecture hall full of
students or buried up to his knees in dirt.
Fleming was different. When Josh quoted Bart Simpson to him, Fleming
countered with Groucho Marx and then went further and introduced Josh to the
movies of the Marx Brothers. They shared a love of music even though their
tastes were widely different; Josh introduced Nick to Green Day, Lamb and
Dido. Fleming recommended Peter Gabriel, Genesis and Pink Floyd. When Josh
let Fleming listen to some ambient and trance on his iPod, Fleming loaned him
CDs of Mike Oldfield and Brian Eno. Josh introduced Nick to the world of
blogging and showed him his and Sophie s blog, and they had even started
talking about putting the entire shop s stock online.
In time Josh had come to think of Fleming as the older brother he d always
wished he had. And now that man had betrayed him.
In fact, he d been lying to Josh from the very beginning. He hadn't even been
Nick Fleming. And somewhere at the back of Josh s mind, an ugly question was
beginning to form. Keeping his voice low and his eyes on the road ahead, he
asked, Did you know all this would happen?
Flamel'sat back into the deep leather seat and turned to look at Josh. The
Alchemyst was partially in shadow and he clutched the seat belt across his
chest with both hands. What would happen? he asked carefully.
You know, I m not a kid, Josh said, his voice rising, so don't talk to me
like one. In the rear seat, Sophie muttered a little in her sleep, and he
forced himself to lower his voice. Did your precious Book predict all this?
He caught a glimpse of Scatty moving in the backseat and realized she had
eased forward to hear the Alchemyst s answer.
Flamel took a long time before replying. Finally, he said. There are some
things you must know first about the Book of Abraham the Mage. He saw Josh
open his mouth and he pressed on quickly. Let me finish. I always knew the
Codex was old, he began, though I never knew just how old. Yesterday Hekate
said she was there when Abraham created it and that would have been at least
ten thousand years ago. The world was a very different place then. The
commonly held view is that mankind appeared in the middle of the Stone Age.
But the truth is very, very different. The Elder Race ruled the earth. We
have scraps of the truth in our mythology and legends. If you believe the
stories, he continued, they possessed the power of flight, they had vessels
that could cross the oceans, they could control the weather and had even
perfected what we would call cloning. In other words, they had access to a
science that was so advanced, we would call it magic.
Josh started to shake his head. This was too much to take in.
And before you say this is all far-fetched, just think how far the human
race has come in the past ten years. If someone had told your parents, for
example, that they would be able to carry their entire music library in their
pocket, would they have believed it? Now we have phones that have more
computing power than was used to send the first rockets into space. We have
electron microscopes that can see individual atoms. We routinely cure
diseases that only fifty years ago were fatal. And the rate of change is
increasing. Today we are able to do what your parents would have dismissed
as
impossible and your grandparents as nothing short of magical.
You haven t answered my question, Josh said. He was watching his speed
carefully; they couldn t afford to be pulled over.
What I m saying to you is that I do not know what the Elder Race was able to
do. Was Abraham making predictions in the Codex, or was he simply writing
down what he had somehow seen? Was he aware of the future, could he actually
see it? He swiveled around in the seat to look at Scatty. Do you know?
She shrugged, lips curling into a little smile. I m Next Generation; much of
the Elder World had vanished before I was even born, and Danu Talis was long
sunk beneath the waves. I ve no idea what they could do. Could they see
through time? She paused, thinking. I ve known Elders who seemed to have
that gift: Sibyl certainly could, and so could Themis and Melampus, of
course. But they were wrong more often than they were right. If my travels
have taught me anything, it is that we create our own future. I ve watched
world-shaking events come and go without anyone making predictions about
them, and I ve also seen prophecies usually to do with the end of the
world that also failed to happen.
A car overtook them on the narrow country road, the first they had seen so
far that morning.
I m going to ask you the question one more time, Josh said, struggling to
keep his voice even. And this time, just give me a straight yes-or-no
answer: was everything that just happened predicted in the Codex?
No, Flamel'said quickly.
I hear a but in there somewhere, Scatty said.
The Alchemyst nodded. There is a little but. There is nothing in the book
about Hekate or the Shadowrealm, nothing about Dee or Bastet or the Morrigan.
But He sighed. There are several prophecies about twins.
Twins, Josh said tightly. You mean twins in general or specifically to do
with Sophie and me?
The Codex speaks of silver and gold twins, the two that are one, the one
that is all. It is no coincidence that your auras are pure gold and silver.
So yes, I am convinced the Codex is referring to you and your sister. He
leaned forward to look at Josh. And if you are asking me how long I ve known
that, then the answer is this: I began to suspect only yesterday, when you
and Sophie came to my aid in the shop. Hekate confirmed my suspicions a few