Odin noticed that while the sand about his feet formed smooth circles and spirals, the ground beneath the creature was patterned with jagged lightning bolts. The sand seemed to be flowing toward him but away from this creature. “What do you want?” he called.
The creature’s mouth moved, but it took her a moment to form words, as if she was unused to speech. “I want what you want,” she mumbled. She staggered forward and almost fell on the shifting black sands.
Odin shook his head. “No.”
The creature attempted to climb the mound of sand, but her knees would not bend and she fell forward. Odin knew that the same terrible curse that had robbed her of her beauty had taken the flesh and muscle off her legs, and now they were little more than bare bones, fragile, hardly able to support her weight. Crawling again, painfully slowly, she inched up the hill toward the Elder. “I want what you want,” she repeated. “Justice for the death of my world. Revenge for the dead.”
Odin shook his head again. “No.”
The creature lay on the sand and raised her head to look up. “He destroyed our Shadowrealms. He attempted to loose Coatlicue,” she said, panting. “There are others hunting him. When Isis and Osiris declared Dee utlaga, they offered a huge reward for him. Shadowrealms. Immortality. Incalculable wealth and knowledge to the person who brings him in alive.” The creature attempted to clamber to her feet, but her stiff legs betrayed her and she fell back. “But you and I do not want to bring him back for trial and judgment. Our argument with this immortal humani is personal. He killed those we loved … and we will have our revenge.”
Odin took pity on the creature and stretched out his staff. She caught hold of it, fingers with broken black nails wrapping around the ancient wood. Her aura flared bloodred, and for a single heartbeat Odin caught a glimpse of the woman she had once been: tall, elegant and very, very beautiful, with eyes the color of a morning sky and hair like storm clouds. Then the image faded, leaving the stunted, mottled creature before him. Odin raised her up and set her down beside him. Even with the stacked heels, she barely came to his chest.
“Isis and Osiris came to me—both of them—and offered me my beauty if I would lead them to him.”
“Why did they ask you?”
“They knew I had sent the Torbalan—the Sack Men—after him.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I said I did not exactly know where he was.”
“A lie?” he asked.
“Not the whole truth,” she said. “I did not want them to find him first.”
“Because he would be taken for judgment.”
The creature nodded. “Just so. Once they have him, he would be beyond my grasp.”
“It seems we are both in search of revenge.”
“I prefer to call it justice.”
“Justice. What an odd word to hear coming from you.” Odin put his hand under the creature’s chin and tilted it up. “How are you, Hel?”
“Angry, Uncle. And you?”
“Angry,” he agreed.
“I can help you,” Hel said.
“How?”
The creature produced a cell phone from a pouch on her belt and turned it toward the Elder. The screen showed a photograph of a black car. Dr. John Dee’s face was dimly visible through the darkened glass. “I know where Dr. Dee is right now. I can take you there.”
don’t want you to say anything that is going to upset my aunt,” Sophie said as they drew near the corner of Sacramento Street in Pacific Heights—Aunt Agnes’s house.
“I will say nothing,” Niten promised.
“If I can slip inside and get a change of clothes without seeing her, then that would be great, but she’s usually in the living room in the front of the house watching TV or staring out at the street,” she continued. She was red-faced and a little breathless from the walk from Coit Tower. “So I’ll probably have to introduce you to her. If she remembers you from yesterday, I’ll say you’re a friend.”
“Thank you,” Niten murmured, his features expressionless.
“Then, while you talk to her, I’ll slip upstairs and get a change of clothes. I’ll grab some things from Josh’s closet for you, though they may be a little big on you.”
“I would be grateful,” Niten said. He brought the sleeve of his ruined black suit to his nose and sniffed cautiously. “I stink of smoke and old magic. You too, miss,” he added. “You might think about taking a shower.”
Sophie’s cheeks bloomed red. “Are you saying I smell?”
“I’m afraid so.” Closing his eyes, he tilted his head back and breathed deeply. “But that’s not the only odor in the air. Tell me, what can you smell?” he asked.
Sophie drew in a deep lungful of air. “I can smell the smoke in my clothes,” she said. “Salt in the air … car exhaust …,” she continued, and then stopped. “There’s something else.” She breathed deeply again and looked around at the gardens surrounding the homes they passed. “It’s like roses.”
“Not roses,” Niten said.
“And it’s really familiar,” she said. “What is it?”
“Jasmine.”
“Yes, that’s it—jasmine. Why does it smell like jasmine?”
“It is the odor of ancient power. Tsagaglalal has awakened.”
Unconsciously the girl shivered. Wrapping her arms around her body, she turned to look at Niten. “Who is she? What is she? Every time I try to access the Witch’s memories, nothing will come … not even fragments.”
“Tsagaglalal is a mystery,” Niten admitted. “She is neither Elder nor Next Generation, not immortal and not entirely human, but as old as Gilgamesh the King. Aoife once told me that Tsagaglalal knows everything and has been on this Shadowrealm from the beginning, watching, waiting.”
“Watching what, waiting for what?” Sophie pressed. She tried again to call up the Witch’s memories of Tsagaglalal. But she got nothing.
Niten shrugged. “It is impossible to tell. These are creatures who do not think like humans. Tsagaglalal and others who have been on this earth for millennia have seen entire civilizations rise and fall. So why should they care for individual human lives? We—humani—mean nothing to them.”
They continued in silence down Scott Street and then Sophie breathed the air again. The smell of jasmine seemed to have grown even stronger.
“Immortality changes the way people think,” Niten said suddenly, and the girl abruptly realized that he rarely instigated a conversation. “Not only about themselves, but about the world around them. I know what it is like to live for hundreds of years, I have observed the effect it has had on me … and I cannot help wondering what effect it must have on those who live a thousand, two thousand, ten thousand years.”
“My brother and I met Gilgamesh the King in London. Nicholas said he was the oldest humani on the planet.” She felt a sudden wash of emotion just remembering the King. She had never felt so sorry for anyone in her life.
Niten glanced sidelong at the girl, a rare flicker of emotion on his face. “You met the Ancient of Days? That is a rare honor. We fought together once. He was an extraordinary warrior.”
“He was lost and lonely,” Sophie said, her eyes filling with tears.
“Yes, that too.”
“You are immortal, Niten. Do you regret it?”
Niten looked away, his face impassive.
“I’m sorry,” Sophie said quickly, “I didn’t mean to pry.”
“There is no need to apologize. I was considering your question. It is something I think about every day of my life,” he admitted with a brief sad smile. “It is true that I regret what immortality has cost me: the opportunity for family, for friends, even for a country. It has made me a loner, an outcast, a wanderer—though in truth, I was all of those before I became immortal. But that same longevity has shown me wonders,” he added, and for the first time, Sophie saw the Swordsman become animated. “I have seen marvels and endured so much. The humani lifespan is not long enough to exp
erience a fraction of what this world alone has to offer. I have visited every corner of every continent on this planet and explored Shadowrealms both terrifying and awe-inspiring. And I have learned so much. Immortality is a gift beyond imagining. If you are offered it: take it. The benefits far outweigh the disadvantages.” He stopped suddenly. It was probably the longest speech Sophie had ever heard him make.
“Scathach told me that immortality was a curse.”
“Immortality is what you make of it,” Niten said. “A curse or a blessing—yes, it can be both. But if you are brave and curious, then there is no greater gift.”
“I’ll remember that if someone offers it to me,” she said.
“And of course, it all depends on who is doing the offering!”
Sophie took a deep breath when she saw her aunt’s white wooden house appear on the corner. What was she going to say to Aunt Agnes? First she had gone missing; now she was back, but her brother was gone. Agnes might be old, but she was no fool: she knew the twins were always together. Finding one without the other was very rare. Sophie knew she’d have to be careful. Everything she told Aunt Agnes would go straight back to their mother and father. And how was she going to begin to explain what had happened to Josh? She didn’t even know where he was. The last time she’d seen him, he hadn’t been the brother she’d grown up with. He’d looked like Josh, but his eyes, which had always been the mirror of hers, had looked like those of a stranger.
She swallowed hard and blinked away more tears. She would find him. She had to find him.
Sophie saw the white net curtains twitch as she approached the steps and knew her aunt was watching her. She glanced back at Niten and he nodded slightly. He too had seen the movement. “Whatever you say, keep it simple,” he advised.
The door opened and Aunt Agnes appeared, a tiny frail figure, slight and bony, with knobby knees and swollen arthritic fingers. Her face was all angles and planes, with a sharp chin and straight cheekbones that left her eyes deeply sunk. Steel-gray hair was combed straight back off her face and held in a tight bun at the back of her head. It pulled the skin on her face taut.
“Sophie,” the woman said very softly. She leaned forward and squinted short-sightedly. “And where is your brother?”
“Oh, he’s coming, Auntie,” Sophie said, mounting the steps to the front door. When she reached the top she leaned in and kissed her aunt on the cheek. “How have you been?”
“Waiting for you to come back to me,” the old woman said, sounding tired.
Sophie felt a pang of guilt. Although the twins’ aunt drove them insane, they both knew that she had a good heart. “Auntie, I would like you to meet a friend of mine. This is—”
“Miyamoto Musashi,” Aunt Agnes said very quietly, a subtle change altering her voice, deepening it, making it powerful, commanding. “We meet again, Swordsman.”
Sophie had stepped past her aunt into the darkened hallway, but at the woman’s strange words she stopped and spun around. Her aunt had just spoken in Japanese! And she somehow knew Niten’s name—his real name. Sophie hadn’t even introduced him! The girl blinked: the faintest wisp of white smoke was curling off the old woman. And suddenly the smell of jasmine was very strong.
Jasmine …
Memories gathered.
Dark and dangerous memories: of fire and flood, of a sky the color of soot and a sea thick with wreckage.
“And where is the redoubtable Aoife of the Shadows?” Agnes continued, slipping from Japanese back into English.
Memories of a crystal tower, lashed by a boiling sea. Long ragged cracks raced across the surface of the tower, only to instantly heal again. Lightning wrapped around the tower in huge spirals. And a woman, running, running, running up an endless flight of stairs.
Sophie felt the world shift and spin about her. She reached out to touch the wall and was aware that her silver aura was beginning to sparkle on her flesh.
Jasmine …
Memories of a woman kneeling before a golden statue, clutching a small metal-bound book, while behind her the world shattered into glass and flame.
Niten stepped up to Agnes and bowed deeply. “Gone into a Shadowrealm with the Archon Coatlicue, mistress,” he said.
“I pity the Archon,” Aunt Agnes said quietly.
And Sophie suddenly remembered why the jasmine was so familiar. It was Aunt Agnes’s favorite perfume. And the scent of Tsagaglalal, She Who Watches.
And then the world spun around her and turned black.
n the wild northeast shores of Danu Talis, an impossibly tall, incredibly slender twisting glass spire rose directly out of the sea off the city of Murias. The city was ancient, but the spire predated it by millennia. When the Great Elders had created the Isle of Danu Talis by raising the seabed in an extraordinary act of Elemental creation, the glass spire and the remnants of an Earthlord city had also been wrenched up from the seafloor. Much of the ancient city was fused to enormous globes of melted glass shot through with threads of solid gold, evidence of the terrible battles the Earthlords had fought with the Archons and Great Elders in the Time Before Time.
But the crystal spire was pristine and gleaming, untouched or unaffected by the incredible heat that had melted the surrounding buildings. It occupied a rocky spur of land that became an island at every high tide. The tower of unbroken white quartzlike crystal changed color with the weather and tides, from chill gray to icy blue, to alabaster white, to an arctic green. When the high tides lashed against the smooth walls, the salt water hissed and boiled, so that the tower was perpetually wreathed in steam even though the stones themselves were cool. At night, the spire glowed with a pale phosphorescence the color of sour milk, throbbing to a slow regular rhythm like a great heart, sending pulsing streaks of color—reds and purples—up the length of the needle. During the winter months, when bitter hailstorms sleeted in from the Great Ice at the Top of the World and sheathed the city of Murias in thick snow and solid ice, the tower remained untouched.
The Elder and Great Elder inhabitants of Murias regarded the tower with a mixture of awe and terror. No strangers to wonders, they were masters of Elemental Magic, and there was little that was beyond their powers. They knew that they inhabited an old world, an ancient world, and that remnants of its primeval past still lurked in the shadows. For generations, the Great Elders and the Elders who had come after them had fought the Archons and defeated them, and had even swept away the last of the hideous Earthlords. The Elders’ powers—a mixture of science fueled by auric energy—rendered them almost invulnerable. But even they feared the tower’s solitary occupant. Legend had named the island the Tor Ri. In the ancient language of Danu Talis it meant “The King’s Tower”—but no king lived there.
The crystal spire was the home of Abraham the Mage.
The tall redheaded warrior in shimmering crimson armor staggered through the narrow doorway and leaned forward, hands on thighs, breathing heavily. “Abraham, those stairs will be the death of me,” he panted. “They seem to go on forever and always leave me breathless. One of these days I’m going to count them.”
“Two hundred and forty-eight,” the tall, angular man standing in the center of the room said absently. He was concentrating on a blue and white globe rotating in front of him in midair.
“I thought there were more. Always feel like I’m climbing for ages.”
Abraham half turned, light from the spinning globe spilling over the right side of his face, lending his chalk-colored skin an unhealthy blue glow. “You have stepped in and out of at least a dozen Shadowrealms on the way up here, Prometheus, old friend. Why do you think I’ve told you never to linger on the stairs?” he added with a sly smile. “You have news for me?” Abraham the Mage turned to fully face the tall warrior.
Prometheus straightened, his warrior’s discipline ensuring that when he looked at the Mage, his face was impassive. Before he could speak, the blue globe drifted down and floated directly in front of him, hanging in the air between the
two men.
“What do you see, old friend?”
Prometheus blinked and focused on the ball. “The world …,” he began, then frowned. “But there is something wrong with it. There’s too much water,” he said slowly, watching the globe revolve. Realization struck home when he began to make out the shapes of some of the continents. “Danu Talis is gone.”
Abraham raised a metal-gloved hand and stuck his forefinger into the sphere: it burst like a bubble. “Danu Talis is gone,” he agreed. “This is the world not as it will be, but as it could be.”
“How soon?” Prometheus asked.
“Soon.”
Prometheus found himself looking directly at Abraham the Mage. Even before he’d first met him, the Elder had heard the legends of the mysterious wandering teacher, a figure who was rumored to be neither Elder nor Archon but older than either, older even than the Earthlords. It was said that he was from the Time Before Time, but Abraham never discussed his age. Prometheus’s sister, Zephaniah, had told him that the history of every race mentioned a teacher, a wise seer, who had brought knowledge and wisdom to the natives in the distant past. There were very few descriptions of the scholar … but many stories mentioned a figure who might have been Abraham the Mage.
The Mage’s pale blond hair, gray eyes and ashen skin suggested that he was from one of the distant northlands, but he was much taller than the Northern Folk, and his features were finer, with high prominent cheekbones and slightly uptilted eyes. He also had an extra finger on each hand.
Over the last few decades, the Change had started to overtake Abraham.
Prometheus knew that there were accounts that it happened to all the Great Elders—so perhaps Abraham was of that race—but since so few of them survived and none ever appeared in public, no one knew the truth. Zephaniah had explained to him that when extreme old age overtook the Great Elders, what might have been a disease or mutation, or perhaps even a regeneration, began to work on their DNA.
The Great Elders Changed. And each Change was different.
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