Sophie looked into her brother s bright blue eyes. She could see herself
reflected there, and she abruptly realized that his eyes were magnified
behind unshed tears. She reached for him, but he caught her hand and squeezed
her fingers gently. I don't want anything to happen to you, he said simply.
Sophie nodded, unwilling to trust herself to speak. She felt exactly the same
way about her twin.
Three of the enormous pterosaur-like nathair flew overhead, the downdraft of
their wings sending plumes of dust along the ground below. Neither Sophie nor
Josh looked up.
Nicholas said that there are risks, Josh continued, but Hekate'said that
it s dangerous, possibly even deadly. I don't want you to go through with
this Awakening in case something goes wrong, he finished quickly.
We have to do it. Nicholas said
I m not entirely sure I trust him, Josh interrupted. I have a feeling he s
up to something. He s too eager for Hekate to Awaken our powers despite the
dangers.
He said it s our only chance, Sophie persisted.
Yesterday, he said he had to get us away from the shop to keep us safe now,
all of a sudden, we have to be trained so that we can protect ourselves from
Dee and these Dark Elders. Trust me, Sophie, Nicholas Flamel is playing his
own game.
Sophie s gaze drifted to the Alchemyst. She d known him for a couple of
months, and she remembered writing in her blog that she thought he was cool.
Of course, now she realized that she didn't really know him at all. The man
she d thought of as Nick Fleming was an imposter. A lie. Flamel was staring
intently at her, and for the briefest of moments, she imagined that he knew
what they were talking about.
Both of us don't have to go through this Awakening, Josh continued. Let me
do it.
Again, Sophie looked into his eyes. And how do you think I d feel if
something happened to you?
This time it was Josh who found he couldn t speak. The idea that something
terrible could happen to his sister had only occurred to him a little while
before. But the very thought of it terrified him.
Sophie took her brother s hands in hers. From the moment we were born, we've
done everything together, she said, her voice low and serious. And with Mom
and Dad away so much, it s really always been just you and me. you've always
looked after me, I ve always looked out for you. I m not going to allow you
to go through this process by yourself. We ll do this just like we've done
everything else together.
Josh looked long and hard at his sister. Are you sure? he asked. He was
beginning to see a new Sophie.
I ve never been more sure.
They both knew what remained unsaid: neither wanted to be left behind if
anything happened during the Awakening.
Josh finally nodded. He then squeezed his sister s hand and they both turned
to face the Alchemyst, Hekate and Scatty.
We re ready, the twins said.
The Morrigan is here, Scatty informed them as they followed Nicholas and
Hekate through the huge door into the heart of the tree. She had changed into
black pants, a high-necked black T-shirt that left her arms bare and
thick-soled combat boots. She wore two short swords strapped to her back, the
hilts protruding slightly over her shoulders, and had daubed her eyes and
cheekbones with a black dye that gave her face a startlingly skull-like
appearance. She s brought Bastet with her. They re already surging into the
Shadowrealm.
Hekate can hold them back, Can't she? Sophie asked. She only had an inkling
of the goddess s powers, but the thought that there was something more
powerful than her was terrifying.
Scatty shrugged. I have no idea. They ve arrived in force; they ve brought
their armies with them.
Armies? Josh echoed. What kind of armies? More mud people?
No Golems this time. They have brought the birds of the air and the cats of
the earth with them.
Sophie laughed shakily. Birds and cats what Can'they do?
Scatty glanced at the girl, the whites of her eyes startling against the
black war paint. You saw what the birds did to the car on the way here.
Sophie nodded, suddenly feeling sick in the pit of her stomach. Images of the
filthy black crows battering the windshield and pecking holes in the metal
hood would haunt her to her dying day.
Well, imagine what would happen if tens of thousands of birds gathered.
Tens of thousands, Sophie whispered.
More like hundreds of thousands, Scatty said, turning into a narrow
corridor. The nathair scouts estimate maybe half a million.
And didn't you say something about cats? Josh asked.
Yes, I did. More than we can count.
Josh looked at his sister, the realization of the terrible danger they faced
really beginning to sink in now. They could die in this strange Shadowrealm
and no one would ever know. He felt tears prickling his eyes and blinked them
away; their parents would spend the rest of their lives wondering what had
happened to them.
The corridor they were following turned into another, even narrower
passageway. The ceiling was so low that both twins had to walk with their
heads ducked down. There were no steps or stairs, but the corridor circled
down and down in a long, slow spiral. The twins realized that they were going
into the ground deep beneath the tree. The walls became darker, the smooth
wood now scarred with straggling roots that curled out and pulled at their
hair with clutching fingers. The air turned damp, perfumed with loam and
fresh earth, rotting leaves and new growth.
The house is alive, Sophie said in wonder as they turned into another
twisting, spiraling corridor that was completely composed of the gnarled and
bulbous roots of the great tree that rose above them. Even with us moving
around inside, with the rooms and the windows and the pools it s still a
living tree! She found the idea both astonishing and frightening at the same
time.
This tree was grown from a seed of the Yggdrasill, the World Tree, Scatty
said quietly, rubbing the palm of her hand against the exposed roots. She
brought her palm to her face and breathed deeply, drawing in the aroma.
Millennia ago, when Danu Talis sank beneath the waves, a few of the Elders
were able to rescue some of the flora and fauna and transplant it to other
lands. But only two of the Elders, Hekate and Odin, managed to nurture their
Yggdrasill seeds to life. Odin, like Hekate, had power over magic.
Josh frowned, trying to remember what little he knew about Odin. wasn't he
the one-eyed Norse god? But before he could ask, Hekate disappeared into an
opening framed by knots of twisted roots. Nicholas Flamel'stopped and waited
for the twins and Scatty to catch up. His pale eyes were deeply shadowed, and
a thin vertical crease showed between his eyebrows. When he spoke, he chose
his words with care, his nervousness making his French accent even more
pronounced. I wish you did not have to do this, he said, but you must
believe me when I say that there is no other way. He reached out and put one
hand on Sophie s right shoulder and one on Josh s left shoulder. Their
auras silver and gold flared briefly, and the heavy air was touched with the
scents of vanilla ice cream and oranges. I m afraid that when you helped
Perenelle and me, you placed yourselves in the most dreadful danger. If when
Hekate Awakens your magical potential, I will teach you some protective
spells, and there are others I will take you to, specialists in the five
ancient forms of magic. I m hoping they will complete your training.
We re going to be trained as magicians? Sophie asked. She guessed she
should be more excited, but she kept remembering Scatty s words, that once
Hekate Awakened their powers, they would be in grave danger.
As magicians and sorcerers, as necromancers, warlocks and even enchanters.
Flamel'smiled. He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to the twins.
Now go inside and do whatever she tells you. I know you are afraid, but try
not to be. Let me tell you, there is no shame in fear. He smiled, his lips
curling upward, but the smile never reached his troubled eyes. When you come
out of that room, you will be different people.
I don't want to be a different person, Sophie whispered. She wanted
everything to be just as it had been a couple of hours earlier, when
everything was ordinary and boring. Right now, she would give anything to go
back to a boring world.
Flamel'stepped back from the doorway and ushered the twins inside. From the
moment you laid eyes on Dee, you started to change. And once begun, change
cannot be reversed.
It was dark inside the chamber, whose walls were composed entirely of knotted
and twisted roots. Sophie could feel her brother s hand in hers and she
squeezed his fingers slightly. His hand tightened in return.
As the twins moved deep into the hollow, which was obviously larger than it
had first seemed, their eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom and the room
took on a greenish glow. Thick, furry moss covered the twisted roots and
radiated a watery jade green light, making it appear as if everything were
underwater. The air was heavy with moisture, and drops of liquid gathered on
their hair and skin like tiny beads of sweat. Although it wasn't cold, they
both shivered.
You should consider yourselves honored. Hekate's voice came from the green
gloom directly ahead of them. I have not Awakened a humani for many
generations.
Who , Josh began, and then his voice cracked. He gave a dry cough and tried
again. Who was the last human you Awakened? He was determined not to let
his fear show.
It was some time ago in the twelfth century, as you humani measure time a
man from the land of the Scots. I do not remember his name.
Both Sophie and Josh instinctively knew that Hekate was lying.
What happened to him? Sophie asked.
He died. There was a peculiar high-pitched giggle. He was killed by a
hailstone.
Must have been some hailstone, Josh whispered.
Oh, it was, Hekate murmured. And in that moment, they both knew that she
had something to do with the mysterious man s death. To Josh the goddess
suddenly seemed like a vindictive child.
So what happens now? Josh asked. Do we stand or sit or lie down?
You do nothing, Hekate'snapped, and this is not something to be done
lightly. For thousands of generations, you humani have deliberately distanced
yourselves from what you laughingly call magic. But magic is really only the
utilization of the entire spectrum of the senses. The humani have cut
themselves off from their senses. Now they see only in a tiny portion of the
visible spectrum, hear only the loudest of sounds, their sense of smell is
shockingly poor and they can only distinguish the sweetest and sourest of
tastes.
The twins were aware that Hekate was moving about them now. They couldn t
hear her move, but were able to track her by the sound of her voice. When she
spoke from behind them, they both jumped.
Once, mankind needed all those senses simply to survive. There was a long
pause, and when she spoke again, she was so close that her breath ruffled
Sophie s hair. Then the world changed. Danu Talis sank beneath the waves,
the Age of the Lizards passed, the Time of Ice came, and the humani
grew sophisticated. She made the word into a curse. The humani grew
indolent and arrogant. They found they did not need all their senses, and
gradually, they lost them.
You re saying we lost the powers of magic because we grew lazy, Josh said.
Sophie suppressed a groan; one of these days her brother was going to get
them into real trouble.
But when Hekate replied, her voice was surprisingly soft, almost gentle.
What you call magic is nothing more than an act of the imagination fired by
the senses, then given shape by the power of your aura. The more powerful the
aura, the greater the magic. You two have extraordinary potential within you.
The Alchemyst is correct: you could be the greatest magicians the world has
ever known. But here s the problem, Hekate continued, and now the room grew
a little lighter, and they could see the shape of the woman standing in the
center of the room, directly beneath a tangle of roots that looked exactly
like a clutching hand reaching down from the roof. The humani have learned
to live without their senses. The brain filters so much data from your
consciousness that you live in a type of fog. What I can do is Awaken your
dormant powers, but the danger the very real danger is that it will overload
your senses. She stopped, then asked, Are you prepared to take that risk?
I am, Sophie said immediately, before her brother could protest. She was
afraid that if he made a quip, the goddess would do something to him.
Something ugly and lethal.
The goddess turned to look at Josh.
He sought out his sister in the gloom. The green light lent her face a sickly
cast. The Awakening was going to be dangerous, possibly even deadly, but he
could not allow Sophie to go through it on her own. I m ready, he said
defiantly.
Then we will begin.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
D ee waited until the last of the birds and cats had disappeared into
Hekate's Shadowrealm before he left the car and strolled toward the hidden
opening. Senuhet, Bastet s servant, had left earlier, eagerly following his
mistress into the Shadowrealm, but Dee had not been quite so enthusiastic. It
was always a bad idea to be first into battle. The soldiers in the rear were
the ones who tended to survive. He was guessing that Hekate's guards had
massed just beyond the invisible wall, and he had no inclination to be first
through the opening. It didn't make him a coward, he reasoned; it just made
him careful, and being careful had kept him alive for many hundreds of years.
But he couldn t hang around out there forever; his inhuman masters would
expect to see him on the battlefield. The small man drew his
two-thousand-dollar leather coat tightly around his shoulders the moment
before he stepped into the opening, leaving behind the chill early-morning
air and stepping into
a battlefield.
There were bodies everywhere, and none of them were human.
The Morrigan s birds had changed when they entered Hekate's Shadowrealm: they
had become almost human though not entirely so. They were now tall and thin
like their mistress; their wings had stretched, becoming long and batlike,
connected to human-shaped bodies by translucent skin and tipped with deadly
claws. Their heads were still those of birds.
There were a few cats scattered among the field of feathers. They too had
become almost human when they stepped into the Shadowrealm, and like Bastet,
they had retained their cat heads. Their paws were a cross between human
hands and cat claws, tipped with curved, razor-sharp nails, and their bodies
were covered in a fine down of hair.
Looking around, Dee could see no sign that any of Hekate's guards had fallen
in battle, and was suddenly frightened: what did the goddess have guarding
her realm? He reached under his coat, pulled out the sword that had once been
called Excalibur and set off down the path to where the huge tree rose out of
the morning mist. The sunrise ran bloodred along the ancient black blade.
Birdmen, Scathach muttered, and then added a curse in the ancient Celtic
language of her youth. She hated birdmen; they gave her hives. She was
standing at the entrance to the Yggdrasill, watching the creatures appear out
of the forest. The mythologies of every race included stories of men who
turned into birds, or birds who transformed into half-human creatures. In her
long life Scatty had encountered many of the creatures and had once come
perilously close to death when she d fought a Sirin, an owl with the head of
a beautiful woman. Since that encounter, she d been allergic to bird
feathers. Already her skin was starting to itch and she could feel a sneeze
building at the back of her nose. The Morrigan s creatures moved awkwardly,
like hunched-over humans, dragging their knuckles on the ground. They were
poor warriors, but they often succeeded by sheer force of numbers.
Then Bastet s cat-people appeared. They moved slowly, stealthily, some
standing on two feet, but most moving on all fours. Here, Scatty knew, was
the basis of the great cat legends of Africa and India. Unlike the birds, the
cat-people were deadly fighters: they were lightning fast, and their claws
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