Nicholas Flamel 1 - The Alchemyst sotinf-1

by Michael Scott

  Josh swallowed hard. I didn't know .

  No reason why you should have except that your ignorance could have gotten

  you killed or worse.

  But what did you do to the table? Sophie asked. She looked at the ruin of

  the circular table: it was split down the middle where Scatty had cut it with

  her knife. The wood on either side of the split looked dry and dusty.

  Iron, Scatty said simply.

  One of the surprising side effects of the artificial metal, Flamel'said,

  is its ability to nullify even the most powerful magics. The discovery of

  iron really signaled the end of the Elder Race s power in this world. He

  held up the black stone arrowhead. That'swhy I was using this. The Elders

  get nervous in the presence of iron.

  But you re carrying iron, Sophie said to Scatty.

  I m Next Generation not pure Elder like Hekate. I can bear to be around

  iron.

  Josh licked his dry lips. He was still remembering the green light buzzing in

  Hekate's palms. When you said turned into green slime, you didn't really

  mean

  Scathach nodded. Sticky green slime. Quite disgusting. And I understand the

  victim retains some measure of consciousness for a while. She glanced at

  Flamel. I cannot remember the last person to cross one of the Elders and

  live, can you?

  Flamel'stood. Let s hope she doesn't remember in the morning. Get some

  rest, he said to the twins. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

  Why? Sophie and Josh asked simultaneously.

  Because tomorrow, I m hoping I can convince Hekate to Awaken your magical

  potential. If you are going to have any chance of surviving the days to come,

  I will have to train you to become magicians.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  N icholas Flamel watched Sophie and Josh follow Scathach into the tree. Only

  when the door had closed behind them did his colorless eyes betray the worry

  he felt. That had been close: another heartbeat or two and Hekate would have

  reduced Josh to bubbling liquid. He wasn't sure if she would have been able

  to reconstitute him in the morning when she had taken on her maiden form. He

  had to get the twins away from her before their ignorance got them into

  trouble.

  Flamel walked away from the ruined table and followed the slope of the tree

  limb down to the pool. He stepped off the branch and onto a narrow unpaved

  path. There were a multitude of marks in the mud some were boar tracks,

  others looked more like human feet and some were a curious mixture of both.

  He knew he was being followed, that his every movement was being tracked by

  creatures he couldn t see, and he guessed that the Torc Allta were probably

  the least of Hekate's guards.

  Crouching by the water s edge, he took a deep breath and allowed himself a

  moment to relax. It would be true to say that this had been one of the more

  eventful days in his long life, and he was exhausted.

  From the moment Dee had snatched Perry and the Codex and the twins had

  appeared, Flamel knew that one of the first prophecies he had read in the

  Book half a millennium previously was beginning to come true.

  The two that are one, the one that is all.

  The Codex was full of cryptic phrases and incomprehensible sayings. Most of

  them were concerned with the annihilation of Danu Talis, the ancient homeland

  of the Elder Race, but there was also a series of prophecies that had to do

  with the return of the Dark Elders and the destruction and enslavement of the

  humani.

  There will come a time when the Book is taken

  Well, that was fairly self-explanatory.

  And the Queen s man is allied with the Crow .

  That had to refer to Dr. John Dee. He had been Queen Elizabeth s personal

  magician. And the Crow was clearly the Crow Goddess.

  Then the Elder will step out of the Shadows

  Flamel knew that Dee had been working for centuries with the Dark Elders to

  bring about their return. He had heard unconfirmed reports that more and more

  of the Dark Elders had left their Shadowrealms and begun to explore the world

  of the humani again.

  And the immortal must train the mortal. The two that are one must become

  the one that is all.

  Nicholas Flamel was the immortal of the prophecy. He was sure of it. The

  twins the two that are one must be the mortal who needed to be trained. But

  he had no idea what the last phrase referred to: the one that is all.

  Circumstances had placed the twins in his care, and he was determined that no

  harm should come to them, especially now that he believed they were destined

  to play a critical role in the war against the Dark Elders. Nicholas knew

  that bringing Josh and Sophie to the Goddess with Three Faces had been an

  incredible risk especially in the company of Scathach. The Warrior s feud

  with the goddess was older than most civilizations. Hekate was one of the

  most dangerous of the Elders. Immensely powerful, one of her many skills

  enabled her to Awaken the magical powers that existed in every sentient

  creature. However, like many of the Elders, her metabolism was linked to a

  solar or lunar cycle. She aged during the day, and effectively died when the

  sun went down, but was then reborn with the sunrise as a young woman. This

  peculiar trait clouded and colored her thinking, and sometimes, as had

  happened earlier, the older Hekate forgot the promises her younger selves had

  made. Flamel was hoping he would be able to reason with the maiden Hekate in

  the morning and convince her to Awaken the twins extraordinary potential.

  The Alchemyst knew that everyone had the possibility for magic within them.

  Once it had been sparked into life, it tended to become increasingly powerful

  of its own accord. Sometimes very rarely children suddenly exhibited

  extraordinary powers, usually either telepathy or telekinesis or a

  combination of both. Some children realized what was happening and managed to

  control their growing powers, while others never fully understood it. Left

  untrained and unchecked, magical energy radiated off the children in waves,

  moving furniture around, knocking people to the ground, gouging marks in

  walls and ceilings. This was often reported as poltergeist activity. He knew

  that if Hekate Awakened the twins dormant magical powers, then he could use

  what he had learned over six hundred years of study to increase their skills.

  Not only would he give them the means of protecting themselves, but he would

  also be able to begin preparing them for whatever lay ahead.

  Still crouching by the pool, he stared into the green-tinged water. Red and

  white koi moved just below the surface, while deeper down, humanlike faces

  peered up, eyes huge and blank, mouths filled with needle-pointed teeth. He

  decided against dipping his fingers into the water.

  It was commonly held in all the ancient magical books that there were four

  elements of magic: Air and Water, Earth and Fire. But centuries of study had

  revealed to Nicholas that there were, in fact, five elemental forces of

  magic. The fifth force was the magic of Time, the greatest of all magics. The

  Elders could control all the other elements, but the secret of the fifth was

&
nbsp; contained only in the Codex and that was one of the many reasons why Dee, and

  the Dark Elders he sided with, wanted the Codex. With it in their possession,

  they would be able to control time itself.

  Along with Perenelle, Nicholas Flamel had spent most of his long life

  studying the elemental forces. While Perry had trained herself in different

  styles of magic, he had concentrated on the formulae and theorems from the

  Codex. These formed the basis of the study of alchemy, which was a type of

  science. Using the formulae, he had learned how to turn base metal into gold

  and coal into diamonds, but there was very little magic involved. True, it

  was a remarkably complex formula and required months of preparation, but the

  process itself was almost ridiculously simple. One day he had been poor, the

  next wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. Taking Perry s advice, he had founded

  hospitals, established orphanages and funded schools in his native Paris.

  Those had been good times no, more than that they had been great times. Life

  had been so much simpler then. They had not known about the Elder Race, had

  not begun to suspect even the tiniest portion of dark knowledge the Codex

  contained.

  In recent years, Nicholas would sometimes awaken at the quietest hour of

  night with a single thought spinning round and round in his head: if he had

  known then what he knew now about the Codex, would he have continued his

  research into the philosopher s stone? That path had ultimately brought him

  into contact with the Elder Race notably the Dark Elders and had brought Dr.

  John Dee into his life. It had forced Perry and him to fake their own deaths

  and flee Paris and ultimately to spend the next half millennium in hiding.

  But the study of the Codex had also made them both immortal. Most nights he

  answered yes: even knowing all he knew now, he would still have continued his

  studies and become the Alchemyst.

  But there were rare occasions, like today, when the answer was no. Now he

  stood to lose Perenelle, probably the lives of the innocent twins and the

  not-so-innocent Scathach though she would not be so easy to kill and there

  was also a chance that he had doomed the world.

  Nicholas felt himself grow cold at the thought. The Book of Abraham was full

  of what he had first assumed to be stories, legends, myths and tales. Over

  the centuries, his research had revealed that all the stories were true, all

  the tales were based on fact, and what he believed to be legends and myths

  were simply reports of real beings and actual events.

  The Elder Race existed.

  They were creatures that looked human sometimes but had the powers of gods.

  They had ruled for tens of thousands of years before the creatures they

  called the humani humankind appeared on the earth. The first primitive humani

  worshipped the Elder Race as gods and demons and over generations had

  constructed whole mythologies and belief systems based around an individual

  or a collection of Elders. The gods and goddesses of Greece and Egypt, of

  Sumeria and the Indus Valley, of the Toltec and the Celt, existed. They

  weren t different gods, however; they were simply the same Elders called by

  different names.

  The Elder Race divided into two groups: those who worked with the humani and

  those who regarded them as little better than slaves and, in some cases,

  food. The Elders warred against one another in battles that took centuries to

  complete. Occasionally humani would fight on one side, and their exploits

  were recalled in great legends like those of Gilgamesh and Cuchulain, Atlas

  and Hippolytus, Beowulf and Ilya of Murom.

  Finally, when it became clear that these wars might destroy the planet, the

  mysterious Abraham, using a powerful collection of spells, forced all of the

  Elder Race even those who supported the humani to retreat from the earth.

  Most were like Hekate and went willingly, settling into a Shadowrealm of

  their own creation, and afterward had little or no contact with the humani.

  Others, like the Morrigan, though she was greatly weakened, continued to

  venture out into the humani world and worked to restore the old ways. Others

  still, like Scathach, lived anonymously among humankind. Flamel eventually

  came to understand that the Codex, which contained the spells that had driven

  the Elder Race from this world and into their Shadowrealms, also contained

  the spells that would allow them to return.

  And if the Dark Elders returned, then the civilization of the twenty-first

  century would be wiped away in a matter of hours as the godlike creatures

  warred among themselves. It had happened before; mythology and history

  recorded the event as the Flood.

  Now Dee had the Book. All he needed were the two pages Flamel could feel

  pressed against his flesh. And Nicholas Flamel knew that Dee and the Morrigan

  would stop at nothing to get those pages.

  Flamel hung his head and wished he knew what to do. He wished Perenelle were

  with him; she would surely have a plan.

  A bubble burst on the surface of the water. The lady asks me to tell you

  Another bubble popped and burst. that she is unharmed.

  Flamel'scrambled back from the pool s edge. Tendrils of mist were rising from

  the surface of the water, tiny bubbles popping and snapping. A shape began to

  form out of the mist cloud a surprising shape: that of an elderly man in a

  security guard s uniform. The shape hovered, twisting and curling over the

  pond. The late-evening sunshine shone through the water drops, turning each

  one into a brilliant rainbow of light. You are a ghost? Nicholas asked.

  Yes, sir, I am. Or I was until Mrs. Flamel freed me.

  Do you know me? Nicholas Flamel asked. He wondered quickly if this might be

  a trick of Dee s, but then he dismissed the idea: the sorcerer was powerful,

  but there was no way he could penetrate Hekate's defenses.

  The mist shifted and thickened. Yes, sir, I believe I do: you are Nicholas

  Flamel, the Alchemyst. Mrs. Flamel asked me to go in search of you. She

  suggested that I would find you here, in this particular Shadowrealm. She

  overheard Dee mention that you were here.

  She is unharmed? Flamel asked eagerly.

  She is. The small man they call John Dee is terrified of her, though the

  other woman is not.

  What woman?

  A tall woman, wearing a cloak of black feathers.

  The Morrigan, Flamel'said grimly.

  Aye, and That'sthe message A fish leapt out of the pond and the figure

  dissolved into a thousand water droplets that hung frozen in the air, each

  one a tiny portion of a jigsaw that made up the ghost. Mrs. Flamel'says you

  have to leave and leave now. The Crow Goddess is gathering her forces to

  invade the Shadowrealm.

  SHe'll not succeed. She is Next Generation; she has not the power.

  The fish leapt again, scattering the water droplets, and the ghost s voice

  drifted and whispered away, dying with each bursting bubble. Mrs. Flamel

  instructed me to tell you that the Crow Goddess intends to awaken Bastet.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  S cathach stood by the door to Sophie s room and regarded the twins with her

  grass gr
een eyes. Get some rest, she said, repeating Flamel's advice. Stay

  in your rooms, she added. You may hear strange sounds from outside just

  ignore them. You are completely safe so long as you remain within these

  walls.

  What sort of sounds? Josh asked. His imagination was working overtime, and

  he was beginning to regret all those hours he d spent playing Doom and Quake,

  scaring himself silly.

  Scathach took a moment to consider. Screams, maybe. Animal howls. Oh, and

  laughter. She smiled. And believe me, you don't want to find out what s

  laughing, she said, and added, without a trace of irony, Sleep tight.

  Josh Newman waited until Scathach had rounded the end of the corridor before

  turning to his sister. we've got to get out of here.

  Sophie chewed her bottom lip hard enough to leave the impression of her two

  front teeth in the flesh, and then nodded. I ve been thinking the same

  thing.

  I think we re in some pretty serious danger, Josh said urgently.

  Sophie nodded again. Events had moved so fast that afternoon that she d

  barely had time to catch her breath. One moment she d been working in the

  coffee shop, the next they were racing across San Francisco in the company of

  a man who claimed to be a six-hundred-year-old alchemyst and a girl who

  looked no older than herself and yet who Flamel'swore was a

  two-and-a-half-thousand-year-old female warrior. And a vampire. I keep

  looking for the hidden cameras, she muttered, glancing around the room.

  Cameras? Josh looked startled. He immediately picked up on his twin s

  thoughts. You mean like Candid Camera? He looked uncomfortable and felt

  color flood his face: what if he d managed to make an idiot of himself in

  front of the entire nation? He d never be able to show his face at school

  again. He peered up into the corners of the room, looking for the cameras.

  They were usually behind mirrors. There were no mirrors in the room, but Josh

  knew that didn't mean anything; the new generation of cameras were so small

  that they were virtually invisible. A sudden thought struck him. What about

  the birds?

  Sophie nodded once more. I keep coming back to the birds. Everything else

  could be special effects: the Torc Allta could be trained animals and men in

  prosthetic makeup, what happened in Scathach s dojo could be some sort of