The Sorceress

by Michael Scott

  “Who are they?”

  “Shakespeare and Palamedes …”

  “Shakespeare has disappeared, possibly dead in the fire in London,” Machiavelli’s master said immediately, “and Palamedes was seen with the Alchemyst. Neither has mastery of an elemental magic. Who else?”

  “Baybars the Mamluk …”

  “Friend of Palamedes and no friend to us. He has no knowledge of the elemental magics.”

  “Virginia Dare …”

  “Dangerous, deadly and loyal to none but herself. Her master is dead; I believe she may have killed him. She is a Mistress of Air, but she has no love for Flamel and has fought alongside Dee in the past. Flamel will not go to her.”

  Machiavelli looked at the final name blinking on the screen. “And then there is Gilgamesh.”

  “The king,” the voice sighed, “who knows all the magics, but has no power to use them. Of course.”

  “Where do his loyalties lie?” Machiavelli wondered aloud. “His name is not associated with any Elder.”

  “Abraham the Mage, the creator of the Codex, is responsible for Gilgamesh’s immortality. I believe the process was flawed. It fractured his mind, and the centuries have made him both mad and forgetful. He might teach the twins, though he could just as easily refuse. Do you have an address?”

  “No fixed abode,” Machiavelli said. “Looks like he’s living on the streets. I have a note here that he is usually to be found sleeping in the park close to the Buxton Monument, which is in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament. If Flamel and the twins were at that car yard in North London, it will take them some time to get across the city.”

  “My spy reported that a black vehicle left that location at high speed.”

  Machiavelli looked up at the photo of Palamedes standing alongside a black London cab. He scrolled down until he found the license plate. “The English capital has more traffic and security cameras than any other city in Europe,” he said absently. “Even more than Paris. However, they use the same traffic monitoring system that we use here.” Two of the screens turned black, and then short lines of code started to appear as Machiavelli hacked into London’s traffic cameras. “And the same software.”

  The Italian brought up a high-resolution map of London, found the Buxton Monument in Victoria Tower Gardens alongside the Houses of Parliament and then pinpointed the nearest traffic lights. Sixty seconds later he was looking at the live feed from the traffic camera. Watching the time code, he started running it in reverse: 2:05 … 2:04 … 2:03 … Traffic was sparse, and he sped up the digital video, jumping backward in five-minute intervals. The time code had reversed to 00:01 before he finally found what he was looking for. A black taxicab had stopped at the lights almost directly opposite the monument and a homeless man had shuffled out of the park to wipe the windows. The cab had sat at the light even though it had changed from red to green. Then the same homeless man climbed into the back of the cab and it pulled away.

  “I’ve got him,” he said. “They’re heading west toward the A302.”

  “Where are they going?” Machiavelli’s master demanded. “I want to know where they’re going.”

  “Give me a minute ….” Using illegal access codes, Machiavelli hopped from traffic camera to traffic camera, tracking the cab by its number plate across Parliament Square, Trafalgar Square, into Piccadilly and onto the A4. “He’s heading out of London,” he said finally.

  “Which direction?”

  “West onto the M4.”

  “Where are they going?” the Elder snarled. “Why are they leaving London? Surely if they are trying to convince Gilgamesh to teach the twins one of the elemental magics, they could do it at a safe house in the city?”

  Machiavelli increased the resolution on the map, looking for items of significance on their route. “Stonehenge,” he said suddenly. “I’ll wager they are going to Stonehenge. He’s heading for the ley lines on Salisbury Plain,” he announced confidently.

  “Those gates have been dead for centuries,” the Elder said. “Assuming he chose the correct gate, it would still need a powerful aura to activate them.”

  “And Gilgamesh has no aura,” Machiavelli said very softly. “The Alchemyst would have to do it himself. But that would be madness; in his weakened state, the effort would burn through his aura and consume him in seconds.”

  “That might be just enough time to open the gate and push the twins through,” the Dark Elder said.

  Machiavelli looked up at the screen, tracking the black cab as it drove down the A4, washed yellow in the glare of sodium light. “Would Nicholas Flamel sacrifice himself for the twins?” he wondered aloud.

  “Does he believe—truly believe—these to be the real twins?”

  “Yes. Dee also believes that, and so do I.”

  “Then I have no doubt that he would sacrifice himself to save them.”

  “There is one other option,” Machiavelli said. “Could he not have the twins open the gates? We know their auras are powerful.”

  There was a long silence on the other end of the line. The Italian heard ghostly snatches of song, like the sounds of a distant radio. But the song was a Spartan marching ballad. “The gate on Salisbury comes out on the West Coast of America, north of San Francisco.”

  “I could have told you that,” Machiavelli said.

  “We will lay our plans accordingly,” the Elder said.

  “Well, what exactly does that mean …,” Machiavelli began, but the phone was dead.

  osh’s right hand shot out, fingers wrapping around Gilgamesh’s wrist. He squeezed and twisted all in one movement and the knife fell from the king’s hand, embedding itself point-first in the rubber matting on the floor. Sophie bent down and quickly scooped it up.

  “Hey,” Palamedes shouted at the sudden commotion. “What’s going on back there?”

  “Nothing,” Flamel answered quickly, before Josh or Sophie could say anything. “Everything is under control.”

  Gilgamesh sat back in the seat, nursing his bruised wrist, glaring at the Alchemyst. He looked at the knife in Sophie’s hands. “I want that back.”

  Ignoring him, she passed it to her brother, who handed it to Nicholas. She was shaking with the shock of what had just happened … and something else, too: fear. She had never seen Josh move like that before. Even with her enhanced senses, she had barely registered that Gilgamesh had a knife in his hand and then Josh had struck, neatly disarming him without saying a word or even rising from his seat. Drawing her legs up to her chest, she wrapped her arms around her shins and rested her chin on her knees. “Do you want to tell us what that was all about?” she asked quietly.

  “It took me a while,” Gilgamesh said grimly, staring at Flamel. “But I knew there was something about you, something familiar.” He wrinkled his nose. “I should have recognized your foul stench.” He sniffed. “Is it still mint or have you changed it to something more appropriate?”

  Both twins automatically sniffed the air but could smell nothing.

  “It is still mint,” the Alchemyst said softly.

  “I see you know one another,” Josh said.

  “We’ve met over the years,” Nicholas agreed. He looked at the king. “Perenelle told me to say hello.”

  Streetlights ran liquid down Gilgamesh’s face as he turned to look at the twins. “And I knew I’d met you before,” he snapped.

  “We’ve never seen you before in our lives,” Josh said sincerely.

  “Honestly, we haven’t,” Sophie agreed.

  A look of confusion passed across the immortal’s face; then he shook his head. “No, you’re lying. You’re Americans. We’ve met before. All of you.” He pointed at each of them in turn. “You two were with the Flamels. That’s when you tried to kill me.”

  “It wasn’t these twins,” Nicholas said quietly. “And we weren’t trying to kill you. We were trying to save you.”

  “Maybe I didn’t want to be saved,” Gilgamesh said petulantly. He dipped his h
ead so that his hair fell over his forehead, covering his eyes. Then he peered out at the twins. “Gold and silver, eh?”

  They both nodded.

  “The twins of legend?”

  “So we’re told.” Josh smiled. He glanced sidelong at his sister and saw her nod; she knew the question he was about to ask. She focused on the Alchemyst as Josh spoke, watching his reaction, but his face was a mask, and the passing streetlights turned it dark and ugly. Her brother leaned toward Gilgamesh. “Do you remember when you met the other American twins?”

  “Of course.” The king frowned. “Why, it was only last month …” His voice trailed away into silence. When he spoke again, there was a note of terrible loss in his voice. “No. It was not last month, or last year, or even in the last decade. It was …” His gaze drifted and he turned to look at the Alchemyst. “When was it?”

  The twins both turned to Flamel.

  “In 1945,” he said shortly.

  “And it was in America?” Gilgamesh asked. “Tell me it was America.”

  “It was in New Mexico.”

  The king clapped his hands. “At least I was right about that. What happened to the last pair?” he suddenly asked Flamel.

  The Alchemyst remained silent.

  “I think we’d like to hear the answer too,” Sophie said coldly, eyes blinking silver. “We know there’ve been other twins.”

  “Lots of other twins,” Josh added.

  “What happened to them?” Sophie demanded. Somewhere at the back of her mind she thought she already knew the answer, but she wanted to hear Flamel say it out loud.

  “There have been other twins in the past,” Nicholas admitted finally. “But they were not the right twins.”

  “And they all died!” Josh said, a crack of anger in his voice. The scent of oranges filled the cab, but the odor was sour and bitter.

  “No, not all,” Flamel snapped. “Some did, and some went on to live to old age. Including the last pair.”

  “And what happened to the ones who didn’t survive?” Sophie asked quickly.

  “A few were damaged by the Awakening process.”

  “Damaged?” She picked up on the word, determined not to let him get away with anything.

  The Alchemyst sighed. “Anyone can be Awakened. But no two people react to the process in the same way. Some were not strong enough to handle the wash of emotions. Some fell into comas, others ended up lost in dreams or unable to cope with the real world, or their personalities split and they spent their days in institutions.”

  Sophie began to tremble. She felt physically sickened by what Flamel was saying. Even the way he reported it—coldly, without emotion—frightened her. She knew now that Josh’s suspicions were justified: the Alchemyst was not to be trusted. When Nicholas Flamel had brought them to the Witch of Endor to be Awakened, he had been fully aware of the terrible consequences of a failed Awakening. But he’d still been willing to go through with it.

  Josh slid across the seat, moving closer to his sister, wrapping his arms around her, holding her. He couldn’t speak. He knew that he was close, dangerously close, to hitting the Alchemyst.

  “How many other sets of twins have there been, Flamel?” Gilgamesh asked. “You have lived on this earth for more than six hundred and seventy years. Was there one set a century? Two? Three? How many lives have you destroyed trying to find the twins of legend?”

  “Too many,” the Alchemyst whispered. He sat back into the shadows, and the passing streetlights painted his wet eyes sulfurous yellow. “I have forgotten my father’s face and the sound of my mother’s voice, but I remember the name and face of every twin, and not a day goes by that I do not think of them and regret their loss.” And then the hand holding the black bladed knife jabbed out of the gloom at Sophie and Josh. “But every mistake I made, each failed Awakening, gradually and inexorably led me to these, the real twins of legend. And this time, I have no doubts.” His voice rose, becoming harsh and raw. “And if they are trained in the elemental magics, then they will be able to stand against the Dark Elders. They will give this world a chance of survival in the battle to come. And then all the deaths and lost lives will not have been in vain.” He leaned forward out of the shadows and glared at Gilgamesh. “Will you train them? Will you help them fight the Dark Elders? Will you teach them the Magic of Water?”

  “Why should I?” Gilgamesh asked simply.

  “You could help save the world.”

  “I saved it before. No one was grateful. And it is in worse shape today than it has ever been.”

  The Alchemyst’s smile turned feral. “Train them. Empower them. We will take back the Codex from Dee and his Dark Elders and reunite it with the last two pages. I will surrender the Book to the twins: you know there are spells within the Book of Abraham that could return this world to a paradise.”

  The king leaned closer to the twins. “And there are spells within the Codex that could turn this world to a cinder,” he said absently. His finger began moving, pointing to each of them in turn as he repeated the ancient verse. “‘And the immortal must train the mortal and the two that are one, must become the one that is all.’” He sat back. “One to save the world, one to destroy it. But which one?”

  The Witch’s memories battered at Sophie’s thoughts, random images leaking into her consciousness.

  A tidal wave racing across a lush landscape, crashing into a forest, sweeping away everything before it …

  A line of volcanoes erupting in sequence, tearing out huge chunks of landscape, the sea foaming white-hot against the red-black lava …

  The skies boiling with storm clouds, raindrops dark with grit, snowflakes black with soot …

  “I have no gift of foresight,” Flamel snapped. “But this I know to be certain truth: if the twins are not trained and cannot protect themselves, then the Dark Elders will take them, enslave them and use their incredible auras to open the gates to the Shadowrealms. The Dark Elders are missing the Final Summoning from the Codex, but once they have these pages, then they will be able to reclaim this earth again.”

  “Even without the Codex, the Dark Elders could begin the process if they had the twins,” Gilgamesh said, voice calm and even. “The Final Summoning is designed to open all the doors to the Shadowrealms simultaneously.”

  “What would happen to us afterward?” Josh asked, breaking the long silence that followed. He pressed his hands against his chest, feeling beneath his T-shirt, where he carried the two pages he’d torn from the Book of Abraham.

  “There is no afterward, not for you or for any other human.”

  Palamedes drove for nearly ten minutes in silence, and then Gilgamesh cleared his throat and said, “I will train you in the Magic of Water on one condition.”

  “What condi—” Josh began.

  “Agreed,” Sophie interrupted. She turned to look at her brother. “There are no conditions.”

  “When all of this is over, and if we have survived, then I want you to promise that you will return here to me with the Book of Abraham,” the king told them.

  Josh was about to ask another question, but Sophie squeezed his fingers as hard as she could. “We’ll come back, if we can.”

  “There is a spell in the Codex right on page one.” The king closed his eyes and tilted his head back. His words were precise, his voice little more than a whisper. “I stood by Abraham’s shoulder and watched him transcribe it. It is the formula of words that confers immortality. Bring that to me.”

  “Why?” Josh asked, puzzled. “You’re already immortal.”

  Gilgamesh opened his eyes and looked at Sophie and she suddenly realized why he wanted the Book. “The king wants us to create the formula in reverse,” she said softly. “He wants to become mortal again.”

  Gilgamesh bowed. “I want to live out my life and die. I want to be human again. I want to be normal.”

  Sitting facing him, Sophie Newman nodded in silent agreement.

  ven though the late-afternoon su
n was warm on her face, Perenelle suddenly felt chilled. “What do you mean, you’re not with Nicholas and the children?” she asked in alarm, staring intently into the flat metal plate filled with faintly discolored water. Wisps of her white aura crawled across the surface of the liquid.

  Grass green eyes, huge, magnified and unblinking, stared out of the water. “We got separated.” Even though it was barely audible, Scathach’s voice sounded miserable. “I had a spot of bother,” she admitted, embarrassment thickening her Celtic accent.

  The Sorceress was sitting with her back to the warm stones of the Alcatraz lighthouse, staring into the liquid in front of her. Taking a deep breath, she raised her head to look at the city across the bay. The realization that Nicholas and the children were unprotected had set her heart thumping. When she’d been talking to him earlier, she’d just assumed Scathach was there, somewhere in the background, but she’d been distracted talking to William Shakespeare and then the vetala had attacked. She looked down again. Scathach had stepped back from whatever reflective surface was carrying the image and Perenelle was able to see more of her face. There was a quartet of long scratches like claw marks on Scatty’s forehead, and one cheekbone looked bruised. “A spot of bother. Are you all right?” she asked. She had trouble trying to decide what the Shadow might call bother.

  The Shadow’s vampire teeth appeared in a savage inhuman smile. “Nothing I could not handle.”

  Perenelle knew she needed to remain calm and focus her aura. She was concentrating so hard on scrying and keeping the connection with Scathach that her other defenses were failing, and already she could see the flickering movement of the ghosts of Alcatraz in the air around her. As more and more of the protective layers of colors fell away from her aura, the ghosts would start to flock around her, disturbing her, and she’d lose the link with the Warrior Maid. “Scathach, tell me,” she said calmly, staring hard at the water, “where are Nicholas and the twins?”