The Sorceress

by Michael Scott

  “Can you not speak plainly?” Dee snapped. He was tired and running out of time. Despite the hours of roadblocks and countless police checkpoints, there was still no sign of Flamel and the children. The British government was coming under pressure to remove the checkpoints. All roads leading in and out of the city were still gridlocked, and London itself was at a standstill.

  “You had a meeting with my employer late last night,” the pale man said. “It was terminated before it had reached a satisfactory conclusion, due to circumstances entirely beyond your control.”

  The Magician rose and walked around the desk. He was holding Excalibur in his right hand, tapping the stone blade gently against his left. The seated man showed no reaction. “What are you?” Dee asked, curious. He had come to the conclusion that the creature was not entirely natural and probably not even human. Going down on one knee, he stared into the man’s face, looking at the mismatched eyes. Green and gray. “Are you a tulpa, a Golem, simulacrum or homunculus?”

  “I am a Thoughtform,” the figure said, and smiled. Its mouth was filled with stag’s teeth. “Created by Cernunnos.”

  Dee was scrambling back even as the figure changed. The body remained that of a tall ill-dressed man, but the head altered, became beautiful and alien, even as great antlers sprouted. The Horned God’s mouth moved in the tiniest of smiles and its slit-pupiled eyes expanded and contracted. “Lock your door, Doctor; you would not want anyone to walk in now.”

  Giving the creature a wide berth, keeping Excalibur between them, Dee moved around to snap the lock on the door. What Cernunnos had just done was remarkable. Using its imagination and the power of its will, the Archon had created a being entirely out of its aura. The creation wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough. Dee knew that humani never really looked at one another anymore, and even if someone had noticed that something was wrong with the man’s appearance, they would have looked away, embarrassed.

  “I’m impressed,” Dee said. “I take it that you are controlling the Thoughtform from a distance?”

  “Farther than you can imagine,” Cernunnos said.

  “I had come to the conclusion that you did not have any mastery of magic,” Dee admitted, returning to his desk. The fancy silver business card was slowly steaming, curls of off-white smoke drifting away to be absorbed by the stag-headed man sitting on the opposite side of the desk.

  “Not magic, just Archon technology,” Cernunnos said simply. “You would find the two indistinguishable.”

  “I assume you are here for a reason,” Dee said, “and not just to demonstrate this … this technology.”

  The stag nodded, smiling brilliantly. “I know where Flamel, Gilgamesh, Palamedes and the twins are.”

  “Right now?”

  “Right now,” the creature agreed. “They are an hour from here.”

  “Tell me,” Dee demanded, then added, “please.”

  The Archon held up its right hand. Dee noticed that it had one too many fingers. “My terms remain the same, Magician. I want Flamel, Gilgamesh and Palamedes alive. And I want Clarent.”

  “Agreed,” Dee said without hesitation. “All yours. Just tell me where they are.”

  “And I want Excalibur.”

  At that moment the Magician would have promised the creature anything. “Done. I will put it in your hands myself, the moment Flamel is dead. How many others are with him?” he asked eagerly.

  “None.”

  “None? What about the Gabriel Hounds?”

  “The Ratchets and their master, the Bard, have vanished. The Alchemyst, the knight and the king are with the twins.”

  “How did you find them?” Dee asked. He had to admit he was impressed. “I’ve looked everywhere.”

  The creature was changing again as it stood, horns retracting back into its skull. A head and face that was subtly, disturbingly different from its previous head appeared. “I went back to their metal fortress, and then I simply followed their scent.”

  “You tracked them across this city by smell?” Dee found that an even more astonishing feat than controlling the Thoughtform. He bit back a smile at the sudden image of the Horned God on all fours running through traffic, sniffing after a car.

  “Archon technology. It was simplicity itself,” the Thoughtform said. “Now, if you will just accompany me, I will endeavor to arrange for you to be transported ….”

  “The Thoughtform is impressive,” the Magician said sincerely, “but if you intend to pass among the humani, you really need to work on the voice. And the clothes.”

  “It is of little consequence,” the creature said. “Soon the humani will be no more.”

  erenelle Flamel was disappointed.

  Huddled in the watchtower where she had spent the night, the Sorceress had been hoping against hope that any one of the small sailing boats scattered across the bay would suddenly veer toward the island, and Scatty and Joan would come ashore.

  But as the day wore on, she’d realized that they were not coming.

  She had no doubts that they had tried, and she knew that only something terrible could have kept them away. But she was also a little annoyed with herself for getting her hopes up.

  “Boat coming!” de Ayala’s voice whispered behind her left ear, startling her.

  “Juan!” she snapped. “You’re going to be the death of me!” She pushed to the edge of the watchtower, feeling a wave of relief wash over her, along with the tiniest twinge of guilt that she had ever doubted her friends. The Sorceress’s face broke into a cruel smile; with Joan of Arc and Scathach the Shadow by her side, nothing—not even the sphinx and the Old Man of the Sea—would be able to stand against her.

  Huge black wings flapped and snapped, and she watched the Crow Goddess come spiraling down off the top of the lighthouse and float gently to the wharf almost directly below her. Perenelle frowned; what was the creature thinking? Scathach would probably feed her to the Nereids, who were none too fussy about what they ate.

  She was just about to stand up and climb out of the tower when de Ayala’s face partially materialized in front of her. The ghost’s eyes were wide with alarm. “Down. Stay down.”

  Perenelle flattened herself against the floor. She heard the bubbling of an outboard motor and the scrape of wood against wood as the boat bumped up against the dock. And then a voice spoke. A male voice.

  “Madam, it is an honor to find you are here.”

  There was something about the voice, something dreadfully familiar …. Perenelle crept over to the edge of the watchtower and peered down. Almost directly below her, the Italian immortal Niccolò Machiavelli was bowing deeply to the Crow Goddess. The Sorceress recognized the young man who climbed out of the boat as the immortal she’d caught spying on her the previous day.

  Machiavelli straightened and held up an envelope. “I have instructions from our Elder master. We are to awaken the sleeping army and kill the Sorceress. Where is she?” he demanded.

  The Crow Goddess’s smile was savage. “Let me show you.”

  he twins slept, and their dreams were identical.

  They dreamt of rain and pounding water, towering waterfalls, vast curling waves and a flood that had once almost destroyed the earth.

  The dreams left them twitching and mumbling in their sleep, muttering in a variety of languages, and once, Sophie and Josh simultaneously called out for their mother in a tongue Gilgamesh recognized as Old Egyptian, a language first spoken more than five thousand years ago.

  A dozen times during the course of the long day, Nicholas Flamel had been tempted to wake the twins, but Gilgamesh and Palamedes stood guard over them. The king had pulled a barrel alongside Josh; the knight had squatted down on a broken box beside Sophie. The two men scratched out a square board in the dirt and played endless games of checkers with stones and seeds, rarely speaking except to keep score with scraps of broken twig.

  The first time Flamel had approached the twins, the two men had looked up, matching expressions of distrus
t on their faces. “Leave them be. They must sleep,” Gilgamesh said firmly. “The Magic of Water is unique. Unlike the other magics, which are external—spells that can be memorized, an aura that can be charged and shaped—the power of Water magic comes from within. We are all creatures of water. This is the magic we are born with. I have awakened that knowledge deep within their cells, their DNA. Now their bodies need to adapt, adjust and absorb what they have just learned. To awaken them now would be just too dangerous.”

  Flamel folded his arms and looked down at the sleeping twins. “And how long are we expected to sit here, waiting?”

  “All day and all night, if we have to,” Gilgamesh snapped.

  “Dee is tearing this country apart looking for us, my Perenelle is trapped on an island full of monsters. We can’t just—” Flamel began angrily.

  “Oh yes we can. And we will.” Palamedes slowly rose to his full height, towering over the Alchemyst. There was an expression of disgust on his face, and the scars under his eyes were bright against his dark skin. “You told me earlier that you did not kill people.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Well, I do.”

  “Are you threatening me?”

  “Yes,” the knight said simply. “Impatience and stupidity claim more victims than any weapon. You will heed the king. Wake the twins now and you will kill them.” He paused and then added bitterly, “Just as you killed the others before them.” He turned his head to look down on Sophie and Josh. “Have you ever wondered if some of those who died might have been the twins of legend, and it was your eagerness that caused their deaths or was responsible for their madness?”

  “Not a day passes that I do not think about them,” Flamel said sincerely.

  The Saracen Knight sat down and stared at the game board carved into the earth. He moved a piece, then looked up again and spoke very softly. “And if you take a step closer, I will kill you.”

  The Alchemyst had no doubt that he meant it.

  Flamel spent most of the day in the taxicab, listening to the news on the radio, hopping from station to station, looking for any clue to what was happening. Speculation was running wild, and the talk shows and phone-ins were full of the most outrageous theories. But there was little real news. Alerted by their colleagues in France of a major terrorist threat, the British authorities had closed down all of Britain’s air-and seaports. There were checkpoints on all major roads, and the police were advising people not to travel unless it was absolutely necessary. Nicholas had always known that the Dark Elders were powerful and had agents at every level of human society, but this was the clearest demonstration he had seen of that power.

  As the afternoon wore on into evening, the Alchemyst wandered through the field of tall grass that surrounded the barn, drinking the bottled water Palamedes had bought in the nearby town. Usually, Nicholas was the most patient of men—alchemy by its very nature was a long slow process—but the delay was infuriating. Stonehenge was less than a mile away, and within the broken circle of standing stones was a leygate that connected with Mount Tamalpais. Flamel was aware that he no longer possessed the strength to open the gate, but the twins did. He was sure they would be as eager as he was to return home. Then he could set about rescuing Perenelle. He would either free her or die trying. And even if he succeeded and managed to get Perry off the island, he was beginning to believe that there was little left for them to do but die.

  The Alchemyst stopped by one of the ancient oaks that bordered the field and leaned back against it, staring up at the skies through the thick covering of leaves, before sinking down to the hard dry earth. He held both hands up to the light: they were the veined hands of an old man. He brushed his fingers across his scalp and saw tiny strands of short hair drift away in the sunlight. His knuckles were swollen and stiff, and there was a stabbing pain in his hip when he stood or sat. Old age was catching up with him. Since last Thursday, when Dee had walked into his bookshop, he must have aged a decade, though it was beginning to feel like two. He’d used so much of his aura without allowing it to recharge that the aging process had accelerated. His energy levels were dangerously depleted, and he was conscious that if he used much more of his aura anytime soon, there was a very real danger that he would spontaneously combust.

  Without the Codex, both he and Perenelle would die. The Alchemyst’s lips curled in a wry smile. The Book of Abraham was with Dee and his masters, who were not likely to return it. Nicholas stretched out his legs, closed his eyes and turned his face to the sun, letting it’s warmth embrace him. He was going to die. Not someday, not at some vague point in the future—he was going to die very soon. And what would happen to the twins then? Sophie had two magics left to learn, Josh still had four to master; who would continue their training? If they survived their present predicament, he knew he would need to make some decisions before death claimed him. Would Saint-Germain be willing to mentor the twins? he wondered—though he was unsure whether he entirely trusted the count. Maybe there was someone in America he could ask, maybe one of the Native American shamans could …

  A bone-deep exhaustion coupled with the heat and stillness of the day made the Alchemyst drowsy. His eyelids blinked, then closed, and he fell asleep sitting up against the tree.

  The Alchemyst dreamt of Perenelle.

  It was their wedding day—August 18, 1350—and the priest had just pronounced them man and wife. The Alchemyst trembled in his sleep; this was an old dream, a nightmare that had once haunted him every night for centuries, and he knew what was coming.

  Nicholas and Perenelle turned away from the altar to face the church and found that the small stone building was packed with people. As they came down the aisle, they discovered that the church was filled with twins—boys and girls, teenagers, young men and women—all with blond hair and blue eyes. They all looked like Sophie and Josh Newman. And they all had the same expression of horror and disgust on their faces.

  Nicholas jerked awake. He always awoke at the same point.

  The Alchemyst remained unmoving, allowing his thundering heart to slow. He was startled to discover that night had fallen. The air was cool and dry against his sweat-damp skin. Overhead leaves rustled and whispered, the scent of the forest heavy and cloying ….

  That was wrong. The night should have smelled of trees and grass, but where was the scent of the primal forest coming from?

  A branch snapped to his left, dried leaves crunched somewhere off to the right and the Alchemyst realized that something was moving through the field toward the barn.

  he Sorceress is in a cell in D Block,” the Crow Goddess said. “This way.” She stood back and allowed Machiavelli and Billy the Kid to precede her. Then she turned her head and looked over her shoulder, up at the watchtower, red and yellow eyes bright against her pale skin. She raised her pencil-thin eyebrows, her black lips curled in a slight smile and then she dropped her sunglasses on her face. The Crow Goddess tugged her black feathered cloak high on her shoulders and strode after the two immortals, boot heels clicking on the damp stones.

  “What just happened?” de Ayala asked, confused.

  “A debt was paid,” Perenelle said softly, her eyes following the creature as she disappeared directly below the watchtower. “Unasked and unexpected,” she added with a smile. The Sorceress grabbed her spear, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and climbed down the metal ladder onto the wharf. She breathed deeply; there were traces of Machiavelli’s serpent odor and his companion’s scent—red pepper—lingering on the air. She would not forget them.

  “You should wait until they are in the cells below before attacking,” de Ayala said, materializing beside her. He was now wearing the more formal costume of a lieutenant in the Spanish navy. “Take them unawares. Is your aura strong?”

  “As strong as it is going to get, I believe. Why?”

  “Strong enough to bring the ceiling down on top of them?”

  Perenelle leaned on the spear and stared at the sea-rotted buildings.
“Yes, yes, I could do that,” she said carefully. The onshore breeze whipped strands of hair across her face. She brushed them away, realizing there was more silver than black in them. “I need to conserve my aura, but I’m sure I could find a little spell to eat away at the concrete and metal supports ….”

  The ghost rubbed his hands gleefully. “All the spirits of Alcatraz will assist you, of course, madame. Just tell us what we need to do.”

  “Thank you, Juan. They have already helped enough.” Perenelle took off after the trio, moving silently in her battered shoes. She stopped at the corner of a building and peered around. The Crow Goddess and the immortals had vanished.

  De Ayala floated up. “And what of the ice you used against the sphinx? That was successful; how about sealing the entire corridor in solid ice?”

  “That might be a little trickier,” the Sorceress admitted, turning and heading purposefully back toward the wharf, past the bookshop. A wicked smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “However, there is something I can do that will most certainly upset them.”

  “Which is?” de Ayala asked eagerly.

  Perenelle pointed with the wooden spear. “I’m going to steal their boat.” The ghost looked so disappointed that the Sorceress laughed for the first time in days.

  int green light blazed through the barn’s warped walls, incandescent shafts and bars lighting up the interior in solid beams.

  Outlined by the light, its antlers huge and terrifying, was the Archon, Cernunnos. Shadows of wolves’ heads danced on the walls.

  Sophie woke up with a scream, shining silver armor winking into existence around her body as her aura sparkled over her flesh. Josh’s eyes snapped open and he scrambled to his feet, his left hand automatically reaching for Clarent. The stone sword hummed and hissed as his fingers closed around the hilt, the blade crackling, a sheen of colors running along its length.