The Sorceress sotinf-3

by Michael Scott

  "Maybe even something better," Sophie said, her voice soft and distant, eyes flashing silver. "I think he's made you a strategist."

  "And that's good?" He sounded disappointed

  Sophie nodded quickly. "Battles are won by men. Wars are won by strategists."

  "Who said that?" Josh asked, surprised.

  "Mars did," Sophie said, shaking her head to clear the sudden influx of memories. "Don't you see? Mars was the ultimate strategist; he never lost a battle. It's an amazing gift."

  "But why did he give it to me?" Josh asked the question Sophie was thinking.

  Before she could answer, the door to the long metal hut suddenly creaked open and a figure in soiled mechanic's overalls bustled down the steps. Small and slight, with stooped shoulders and a long oval face, the man blinked nearsightedly at the cab. He had a wispy mustache, and although the top of his head was bald, the hair over his ears and at the back of his head flowed down onto his shoulders.

  "Palamedes?" he snapped, clearly irritated. "What is the meaning of this?" His English was crisp and precise, each word enunciated clearly. He saw the twins and stopped short. Pulling a pair of oversized black-framed glasses from a top pocket, he pushed them onto his face. "Who are these people?" And then he turned and spotted Nicholas Flamel at about the same time the Alchemyst saw him.

  Both men reacted simultaneously.

  "Flamel!" The small man shrieked. He turned and darted back toward the hut, scrambling and falling on the metal steps.

  Nicholas grunted something in archaic French, tore open Josh's backpack and wrenched Clarent from the cardboard map tube. Holding it in a tight two-handed grip, he swung it around his head, the edge of the blade keening and humming through the air. "Run," he shouted to the twins, "run for your lives! It's a trap!" efore Sophie or Josh could react, Palamedes reared up behind the Alchemyst and his two huge hands locked onto Flamel's shoulders. The two immortals' auras blazed and crackled, the Alchemyst's bright green mingling with the knight's darker olive green. The acrid metal-and-rubber-tainted air of the car yard was suffused with the clean odor of mint and the spicy warmth of cloves. Flamel struggled to swing Clarent around, but the knight tightened his grip and pushed, driving the Alchemyst to his knees, fingers biting into the flesh, pinching nerves. The sword dropped from Flamel's hand.

  Sophie spread the fingers of her right hand wide and prepared to call up the element of fire, but Josh caught her arm and pulled it down. "No," he said urgently, just as the pack of dogs boiled out from beneath the hut and swarmed around them. The animals moved in complete silence, lips bared to reveal savage yellow teeth and lolling tongues that were forked like snakes'. "Don't move," he whispered, squeezing his twin's hand. The dogs were close enough for him to see that their eyes were completely red, without a trace of white or pupil. Teeth clicked, and he felt wet lips brush against his fingers. The animals exuded a stale musty odor like rotting leaves. Although the dogs weren't large, they were incredibly muscled-one bumped against Josh's legs, knocking him forward into Sophie. The twins' auras sparked and the dog pressing against Josh's legs tumbled away, hair bristling.

  "Enough!" Palamedes' voice boomed and echoed across the car lot. "This is no trap." The knight leaned over Nicholas, his huge hands still locked onto each shoulder, pushing him into the ground. "I may not be your ally, Alchemyst," Palamedes rumbled, "but I am not your enemy. All I have left now is my honor, and I promised my friend Saint-Germain that I would take care of you. I'll not betray that trust."

  Flamel tried to shake himself free, but Palamedes' grip was unbreakable. The Alchemyst's aura sparkled and flared, then suddenly fizzled out, and he slumped in exhaustion.

  "Do you believe me?" Palamedes demanded.

  Nicholas nodded. "I believe you-but, why is he here?" With a look of absolute disgust on his face, the Alchemyst raised his head to look at the small man cowering just inside the hut, peering around the corner of the door.

  "He lives here," Palamedes said simply.

  "Here! But he's-"

  "My friend," the knight said shortly. "Much has changed." Loosening his grip, Palamedes caught Nicholas by both shoulders and heaved him to his feet. Spinning him around, the knight straightened his rumpled leather jacket; then he snapped a word in an incomprehensible language and the animals surging around the twins flowed back to the shelter of the hut.

  Josh glanced down at the sword on the ground and wondered if he was fast enough to reach it. He looked up and found Palamedes' deep brown eyes watching him. The knight smiled with a flash of white teeth and dipped down to pluck Clarent from the mud. "I've not seen this for a long time," the knight said softly, his accent thickening, hinting again at his Middle Eastern origins. The moment he touched it, his aura bloomed into life around him, and for an instant he was sheathed in a long hauberk of black chain mail, complete with a close-fitting hood that covered his arms to his fingertips and finished low on his thighs. Each link of the chain mail winked with tiny reflections. As his aura faded, Clarent's stone blade shimmered red-black, like oil on water, and a sound, like the wind through long grass, sighed across the blade.

  "No!" The dark stone blade winked bloodred again, and Palamedes drew in a deep shuddering breath and suddenly dropped the sword, a sheen of sweat on his dark skin. The weapon stuck point-first in the muddy ground, swaying to and fro. The mud immediately hardened in a circle around the tip of the sword, dried and then split and cracked. Palamedes rubbed his hands briskly together, then brushed them against his trousers. "I thought it was Excal-" He rounded on Flamel. "What are you doing with this… thing? You must know what it is?"

  The Alchemyst nodded. "I've kept it safe for centuries."

  "You kept it!" The knight clenched his hands into huge fists. Veins popped out along his forearms and appeared on his neck. "If you knew what it was, why didn't you destroy it?"

  "It is older than humanity," Flamel said quietly, "even older than the Elders or Danu Talis. How could I destroy it?"

  "It's loathsome," Palamedes snapped. "You know what it did?"

  "It was a tool; nothing more. It was used by evil people."

  Palamedes started to shake his head.

  "We needed it to escape," the Alchemyst said firmly. "And remember, without it, the Nidhogg would still be alive and rampaging through Paris."

  Josh stepped forward, pulled the sword from the ground and wiped the muddy tip of the blade on the edge of his shoe. There was the briefest hint of oranges in the air, but the smell was bitter and faintly sour. The moment the boy touched the hilt, a wash of emotions and images hit him:

  Palamedes, the Saracen Knight, at the head of a dozen knights in armor and chain mail. They were battered, their armor scarred and broken, weapons chipped, shields dented. They were fighting their way through an army of primitive-looking beastlike men, trying to get to a small hill where a single warrior in golden armor desperately battled against creatures that were a terrible cross between men and animals.

  Palamedes shouting a warning as a huge creature rose up behind the lone warrior, a creature that was shaped like a man but had the curling horns of a stag on its head. The horned man raised a short stone sword and the warrior in gold fell.

  Palamedes standing over the fallen warrior, gently removing the sword Excalibur from his hand.

  Palamedes racing through a marshy swampland, pursuing the staglike creature. Beasts came at him-boarmen and bearmen, wolfmen and goatmen-but he cut through them with Excalibur, the sword blazing, leaving arcs of cold blue light in the air.

  Palamedes standing at the bottom of an impossibly sheer cliff, watching the horned man climb effortlessly to the top.

  And at the top, the creature turning and holding aloft the sword he'd used to kill the king. It dripped and steamed with crimson-black smoke. And it was almost a mirror of the sword in the Saracen Knight's hand.

  Josh drew in a deep shuddering breath as the images faded. The horned man had been holding Clarent, Excalibur's twin. Opening his eyes
, he looked at the weapon, and in that instant, he knew why Palamedes had snatched up the blade. The two swords were almost identical; there were only minor differences in the hilts. The Saracen Knight had assumed the stone sword was Excalibur. Concentrating fiercely on the gray blade, Josh tried to focus on what he'd just seen-the warrior in the golden armor. Had that been…?

  A stale unwashed smell assaulted Josh's nose and he turned to find the bald man they'd glimpsed earlier standing close to him, squinting shortsightedly behind his thick black-rimmed glasses. His eyes were a pale washed-out blue. And he stank. Josh coughed and took a step back, eyes watering. "Man, you could use a bath!"

  "Josh!" Sophie said, shocked.

  "I do not believe in bathing," the man said in his clipped accent, the voice completely at odds with his appearance. "It damages the natural oils in the body. Dirt is healthy."

  The small man moved from Josh to Sophie and looked her up and down. Josh noticed that his sister blinked hard and wrinkled her nose. Then she clamped her mouth tightly shut and stepped back.

  "See what I mean?" Josh said. "He needs a bath." He brushed dirt off the sword blade and took a step closer to his sister. The man looked harmless, but Josh could tell that something about him angered-or was it frightened?-the Alchemyst.

  "Yeah." Sophie tried not to breathe in through her nose. The stench from the man was indescribable: a mixture of stale body odor, unwashed clothes and rank hair.

  "I will wager you are twins," the man asked, looking from one to the other. He nodded, answering his own question. "Twins." He reached out with filthy fingers to touch Sophie's hair, but she slapped his hand away. Her aura sparked and the stench around the man briefly intensified.

  "Don't touch me!"

  Flamel stepped between the man in the mechanic's overalls and the twins. "What are you doing here?" he demanded. "I thought you were dead."

  The man smiled, revealing shockingly bad teeth. "I'm as dead as you are, Alchemyst. Though I am better known."

  "You two have obviously met before," Josh said.

  "I've known this"-Nicholas hesitated, lines and wrinkles creasing his face-"this person since he was a boy. In fact, I once had high hopes for him."

  "Would someone like to tell us who this is?" Josh demanded, looking from the Alchemyst to Palamedes and back again, waiting for an answer.

  "He was my apprentice, until he betrayed me," Flamel snapped, almost spitting the words. "He became John Dee's right hand."

  The twins immediately backed away from the man, and Josh's grip tightened on the sword.

  The bald man tilted his head to one side, and the expression on his face became lost and indescribably sad. "That was a long time ago, Alchemyst. I've not associated with the Magician for centuries."

  Flamel stepped forward. "What changed your mind? Was he not paying you enough to betray your wife, your family, your friends?"

  Pain flickered in the man's pale blue eyes. "I made mistakes, Alchemyst, that is true. I've spent lifetimes attempting to atone for them. People change… Well, most people," he said. "Except you. You were always so sure of yourself and your role in the world. The great Nicholas Flamel was never wrong… or if he was, he never admitted it," he added very softly.

  The Alchemyst swung away from the man to look squarely at the twins. "This," he said, arm waving toward the small man in the soiled overalls, "is Dee's former apprentice, the immortal human William Shakespeare." tanding framed in the doorway of his impressive town house, Niccolo Machiavelli watched Dr. John Dee climb into the sleek black limousine. The smartly dressed driver closed the door, nodded to Machiavelli, then climbed into the driver's seat. A moment later the car pulled away from the curb, and, as the Italian had guessed, Dee neither looked back nor waved. Machiavelli's stone gray eyes followed the car as it merged into the evening traffic. It was just about to pull out from the Place du Canada when an anonymous-looking Renault took up a position three cars behind it. Machiavelli knew the Renault would follow Dee's car for three blocks and then be replaced by a second and then a third car. Cameras mounted on the dashboard would relay live pictures to Machiavelli's computer. He would have Dee followed every moment he remained in Paris. His instincts, honed by centuries of survival, were warning him that Dee was up to something. The English Magician had been far too eager to leave, refusing Machiavelli's offer of a bed for the night, claiming he had to get to England immediately and resume the search for Flamel.

  It took an effort to push closed the heavy hall door with its thick bulletproof glass, and Machiavelli suddenly realized that it was little things like this that made him miss Dagon.

  Dagon had been with him for almost four hundred years, ever since Machiavelli had found him, injured and close to death, in the Grotta Azzurra on the Isle of Capri. He'd nursed Dagon back to health, and in return the creature had become his manservant and secretary, his bodyguard and, ultimately, his friend. They had traveled the world and had even ventured into some of the safer Shadowrealms together. Dagon had shown him wonders, and he in turn had introduced the creature to art and music. Despite his brutish appearance, Dagon had had a voice of extraordinary beauty and purity. It was only in the latter half of the twentieth century, when Machiavelli had first heard the haunting notes of whale songs, that he had recognized the sounds the creature was capable of making.

  Machiavelli had allowed no one to get close to him for almost half a millennium. He'd been in his early thirties when he'd married Marietta Corsini in 1502, and over the next twenty-five years they'd had six children together. But when he had become immortal, he'd been forced to "die" to conceal the truth that he would never age. The Dark Elder who had made him immortal hadn't told him at the time that such a ruse would be necessary. Leaving Marietta and the children had been one of the hardest things he'd ever done, but he'd looked out for them for the remainder of their lives. He'd also watched them age, sicken and perish: this was the dark side of the gift of immortality. When Marietta finally died, he'd attended her funeral in disguise and then visited her grave in the dead of night to pay his last respects and swear an oath that he would always honor his marriage vows and never remarry. He'd kept that promise.

  Machiavelli strode down a wood-paneled corridor and pressed his palm against a bronze bust of Cesare Borgia on a small circular table. "Dell'arte della guerra," he said aloud, voice echoing in the empty hallway. There was a click and a section of the wall slid back to reveal Niccolo's private office. When he stepped into the room, the door hissed shut and recessed lights came to glowing life. He'd had a room like this-a private, secret place-in every home he'd ever lived in. This was his domain. During their life together, Marietta hadn't been allowed access to his private chambers in any of their homes, and over the centuries even Dagon had never stepped into one. In years past the room would have been accessed via secret passages and protected with spiked and bladed traps, and later with many locks and intricate hand-carved keys. Now, in the twenty-first century, it was safe within a bombproof casing and secured with palm-and voice-print technology.

  The room was a perfect soundproof cube. There were no windows, and two walls were covered with books he had collected down through the centuries. Leather bindings stood beside dusty buckram and yellowed vellum were shelved side by side. Rolled parchment and stitched hide rested alongside brightly colored modern paperbacks. And all the books, in one way or another, had to do with the Elders. Absently, he straightened a four-thousand-year-old Akkadian tablet, pushing it back on top of a printout from a mythology Web site. Whereas Flamel was obsessed with preventing the Dark Elders from returning to this world and Dee was equally determined that the world return to its masters, Machiavelli focused on discovering the truth behind the enigmatic rulers of the ancient earth. One of the lessons he had learned in the court of the Medici was that power came from knowledge, so he had become determined to discover the Elders' secrets.

  The wall facing the doorway was completely taken up with a series of computer screens. Machiave
lli hit a button and they all lit up, each one showing a different image. There were assorted views of Paris and images from a dozen of the world's capitals, and a quartet of screens carried live national and international news from around the world. One screen, larger than the rest, showed a moving grainy gray image. Machiavelli sat down in a high-backed leather chair and stared at the screen, trying to make sense of what he was seeing.

  It was a live video feed from the car trailing Dee.

  Machiavelli ignored the black limousine in the center of the picture and concentrated on the streets. Where was Dee going?

  The Magician had told him that he was heading to the airport, where his private jet was being refueled. He was going to fly to England and resume the hunt for the Alchemyst. The corners of Machiavelli's mouth curled in a smile. Dee was clearly not heading toward the airport; he was heading back into the city. The Italian's instincts had been correct: the Magician was up to something.

  Keeping one eye on the screen, Machiavelli opened his laptop, powered it on and ran his index finger through the integrated fingerprint reader. The machine completed the boot sequence. If he had used any other finger to log on, a destructive virus would have overwritten the entire hard drive.

  He quickly read through the encrypted e-mails coming in from his London-based agents and spies. Another ironic smile twisted his thin lips; the news was not good. In spite of everything Dee had done, Flamel and the twins had disappeared, and the trio of Genii Cucullati the Magician had sent after them had been discovered in a side street close to the train station. They were all in a deep coma, and the Italian suspected that it would be 366 days before they awoke. It seemed the English doctor had underestimated the Alchemyst yet again.

  Machiavelli sat back in the chair and put his hands together, almost in an attitude of prayer. The tips of his index fingers pressed against his lips. He had always known that the image Flamel projected-that of a bumbling, slightly absent-minded, vaguely eccentric old fool-was a smokescreen. Nicholas and Perenelle had survived everything the Dark Elders and Dee had thrown at them over the centuries by a combination of cunning, skill, arcane knowledge and a healthy dose of luck. Machiavelli believed that Flamel was intelligent, dangerous and completely ruthless.