“I know the prophecy,” Hekate snapped, her dress now shot through with red and black veins. “I was there when the old fool made it.”
Flamel was about to ask a question, but kept his mouth shut.
“He was never wrong either,” Hekate muttered. “He knew that Danu Talis would sink beneath the waves and that our world would end.”
“He also predicted it would come again,” Flamel reminded her. “When ‘the two that are one and the one that is all’ have arrived, when the sun and moon are united.”
Hekate tilted her head and her slit-pupiled eyes flickered toward Josh and Sophie. “Gold and silver, sun and moon.” She turned back to Flamel. “Do you believe them to be the basis of the prophecy?”
“Yes,” he said simply, “I do. I have to.”
“Why?”
“Because with the Codex now gone, Dee can begin to bring back the Dark Elders. If the twins are those mentioned in the prophecy, then, with proper training, I might be able to use them to prevent that…and to help me rescue Perry.”
“And if you are mistaken?” Hekate wondered aloud.
“Then I have lost the love of my life, and this world and all the humani on it are lost. But if we are to have any chance of success, I need your help.”
Hekate sighed. “It’s been a long time…a very long time since I took a student.” She turned to look at Scathach. “And that didn’t turn out too well.”
“This is different. This time you would be working with raw talent, pure, untainted power. And we don’t have a lot of time.” Flamel drew in a deep breath and spoke formally in the ancient language of the sunken island of Danu Talis. “Daughter of Perses and Asteria, you are the Goddess of Magic and Spells, I ask you to Awaken the twins’ magical powers.”
“And if I do it—what then?” Hekate demanded.
“Then I will teach them the Five Magics. Together we will retrieve the Codex and save Perenelle.”
The Goddess with Three Faces laughed, the sound bitter and angry. “Have care, Nicholas Flamel, Alchemyst, lest you create something that will destroy us all.”
“Will you do it?”
“I will have to think upon it. I will give you my answer later.”
Sitting in the car on the other side of the clearing, Sophie and Josh suddenly became aware that Flamel and Hekate had turned to stare at them. The twins shivered simultaneously.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“There is something very wrong with this house.” Sophie strode into her brother’s room, holding her expensive cell phone up to her face. “I can’t get a signal anywhere.” She moved around the room, watching the screen, but the signal bar remained flat.
Josh looked blankly at his sister. “Wrong with this house?” he repeated incredulously. Then he spoke very slowly. “Sophie, we’re inside a tree! I’d say there’s something wrong with that, wouldn’t you?”
When Hekate had finished speaking with Flamel, she had turned and disappeared into the woods without saying a word to them, and it had been left to Flamel to bring them to the goddess’s home. Instructing them to leave the car, he led them down a narrow winding pathway that cut through the overgrown woods. They had been so intent on the strange flora—huge bruise-colored flowers that turned to track their movements, vines that slithered and squirmed like snakes as they followed them, grasses that had not existed since the Oligocene era—that they failed to notice that the path had opened out, and that they were facing Hekate’s home. Even when they looked up, it took them several moments to make sense of what they were seeing.
Directly ahead of them, in the center of a broad, gently sloping plain sprinkled with vast swathes of multicolored flowers, was a tree. It was the height and circumference of a large skyscraper. The topmost branches and leaves were wreathed in wisps of white cloud, and the roots that burst from the ground like clawing fingers were as tall as cars. The tree itself was gnarled and twisted, its bark scored and deeply etched with cracks and lines. Long vines, like huge pipes, wrapped around the tree and dangled from the branches.
“Hekate’s home,” Flamel explained. “You are the only living humani in the last two thousand years to see it. Even I’ve only ever read about it.”
Scatty smiled at the looks on the twins’ faces. She nudged Josh. “Where exactly did you expect her to live? A trailer?”
“I wasn’t…I mean, I don’t know…I didn’t think…,” Josh began. The sight was incredible, and from the little he had studied about biology, he knew that no living thing could grow so huge. No natural thing, he corrected himself.
Sophie thought the tree looked like an ancient woman, bent over with age. It was all very well for Flamel to talk about the distant past and a two-thousand-year-old warrior or a ten-thousand-year-old goddess: the numbers meant almost nothing. Seeing the tree was different. Both she and Josh had seen ancient trees before. Their parents had taken them to see the three-thousand-year-old giant redwoods, and they had spent a week camping with their father in the White Mountains in the north of California as he investigated the Methuselah Tree, which, at nearly five thousand years old, was supposed to be the oldest living thing on the planet. Standing before the Methuselah Tree, a gnarled and twisted bristlecone pine, it was easy to accept its great age. But now, seeing Hekate’s tree house, Sophie had no doubt that it was incredibly ancient, millennia older than the Methuselah Tree.
They followed a smoothly polished stone path that led to the tree. As they got closer, they realized that it was more like a skyscraper than they’d first thought: there were hundreds of windows cut into the bark, with lights flickering in the rooms beyond. But it was only when they reached the main entrance that they appreciated just how vast the tree was. The smoothly polished double doors towered at least twenty feet tall, and yet they opened at the merest touch of Flamel’s fingers. The twins stepped into an enormous circular foyer.
And stopped.
The interior of the tree was hollow. From just inside the entrance, they could look straight up to where wispy clouds gathered inside the tree. A gently curving staircase curled up along the inside of the trunk, and every few steps brought them to an open doorway spilling out light. Dozens of tiny waterfalls spouted from the walls and splashed down onto the floor far below, where the water gathered in a huge circular pool that took up most of the foyer. The interior walls were smooth and unadorned, except for the twists and knots of vines that broke through the surface. Josh thought they looked like veins.
And it was completely deserted.
No one moved within the tree, nothing—human or inhuman—climbed the countless stairs, no winged creature flew in the moist air.
“Welcome to the Yggdrasill,” Nicholas Flamel said, stepping back and allowing them to enter. “Welcome to the World Tree.”
Josh held up his phone. The screen was blank. “And have you noticed,” he asked, “there are no power sockets?”
“There have to be,” Sophie said decisively. She walked over to the bed and dropped to her knees. “There are always sockets beside the beds….”
There were none.
The twins stood in the center of Josh’s room and looked around. His room was a mirror image of his sister’s. Everything around them was composed of a honey-colored blond wood, from the highly polished floors to the smooth walls. There was no glass in the windows, and the door was a wafer-thin rectangle of wood that looked and felt like the papery bark of a tree. The only item of furniture in the room was the bed, a low wooden futon covered with heavy fur throws. A thick fur rug lay on the floor beside the bed. It was dappled with an intricate pattern of spots that resembled no animal either of the twins had ever seen.
There was also a tree growing out of the center of the floor.
Tall, thin and elegant, the red-barked tree rose straight out of the wooden floor. No limbs protruded from the trunk until it came close to the ceiling, and then the branches burst out into a canopy that covered the roof. The leaves were a deep, luxuriant green on one side, ash
white on the other. Every so often, some spiraled to the floor, and covered it in a soft, almost furry carpet.
“Where are we?” Sophie asked finally, unaware that she had spoken the thought aloud.
“California?” Josh said softly, but in a voice that suggested he didn’t quite believe what he was saying.
“After all we’ve seen today?” Sophie asked. “I don’t think so. We’re inside a tree. A tree big enough to house the whole University of San Francisco campus, a tree so old it makes the Methuselah Tree look like it was just planted. And don’t try to tell me it’s a building shaped to look like a tree. Everything here is made from natural materials.” She drew a breath and looked around. “Do you think it could still be alive?”
Josh shook his head. “Can’t be. The whole inside is scooped out. Maybe it was alive a long time ago; but now it’s just a shell.”
Sophie was not so sure. “Josh, there is nothing modern and nothing artificial in this room, no plastics, no metals, no paper; everything looks hand carved. There aren’t even candles or lanterns.”
“It took me a while to realize what those bowls of oil were,” Josh said. He didn’t tell his sister that he’d been about to drink what he thought was some sort of sweet-smelling fruit juice when he’d seen the wick floating in it.
“My room is identical to yours,” Sophie continued. She lifted her phone again. “There’s no signal, and look”—she pointed—“you can actually see the battery draining away.”
Josh brought his head close to his twin’s, their blond hair mingling, and stared at the rectangular screen. The battery indicator on the right-hand side was visibly falling, bar by bar. “You think that’s why my iPod has no power either?” Josh asked, pulling it from his back pocket. “It was fully charged this morning. And my computer is dead.” He suddenly looked at his watch, and then he lifted his arm to allow his sister to see it. The face of the chunky military-style digital watch he wore was blank.
Sophie looked at her own watch. “Mine is still working,” she said in surprise. “Because it winds up,” she said, answering her own question aloud.
“So something is draining the power,” he muttered. “Some energy in the air?” He’d never heard of anything that could draw energy from batteries.
“It is this place,” Scathach said, appearing in the doorway. She had changed from her black military-style combats and T-shirt into green and brown camo pants, high-top combat boots and a cut-off camo T-shirt that exposed her muscular arms. She was wearing a short sword strapped to her leg and there was a bow over her left shoulder, with a quiver of arrows just visible over the top of her head. Sophie noticed that there was a Celtic-looking spiral design etched into Scatty’s right shoulder; Sophie had always wanted a tattoo, but she knew her mother would never let her get one. “You have gone beyond your world into a Shadowrealm,” the Warrior added. “The Shadowrealms exist partially in your world and partially in another time and space.” The Warrior remained standing by the door.
“Are you not going to come in?” Sophie asked.
“You have to invite me,” Scatty said, with a peculiarly shy smile.
“Invite you in?” Sophie turned to her twin, eyebrows raised in a question.
“You have to invite me in,” Scatty repeated, “else I’ll not be able to cross the threshold.”
“Just like vampires,” Josh said, abruptly feeling as if his tongue were too thick for his mouth. After today, he was quite prepared to believe in vampires, though he really didn’t want to run into one. He turned to his twin. “The only way a vampire can enter a house is if he or she is invited. Then they can drink your blood….” He turned to look at Scatty, eyes suddenly wide. “You’re not a…”
“I don’t like that term,” Scatty snapped.
“Scathach, please enter,” Sophie said, before her brother could protest further.
The Warrior hopped lightly over the threshold and entered the room. “And yes,” she said, “I am what you would call a vampire.”
“Oh,” Sophie whispered. Josh tried to stand in front of his sister to protect her, but she pushed him out of the way. Although she loved her brother, there were times when he could be too protective.
“Don’t believe everything you’ve read about my race,” Scathach said, moving around the room, peering through the windows into the lush gardens. An enormous yellow-white butterfly fluttered past the opening. It was the size of a dinner plate and had not existed on the earth since the Jurassic period. “Hekate created and maintains this place by an extraordinary use of magic,” she continued. “But magic, like everything else, follows certain natural laws. Magic needs energy, and it takes that energy wherever it can find it, even from the tiny batteries in your electrical toys. If no other source of energy is available, it will take the life force of the magician who created it. That is why every use of magic weakens the magician.”
“Are you saying nothing electrical works in this Shadowrealm?” Sophie wondered aloud, and then she shook her head quickly. “But Hekate used a phone. I saw her showing it to Flamel earlier. Why doesn’t its battery drain?”
“Hekate is immensely powerful and is more or less immune to the effects of the magic she generates. I would imagine that she keeps the phone on her person so it doesn’t drain, or possibly she keeps it in the real world with a servant. Many members of the Elder Race have human servants.”
“Like Flamel and Dee?” Sophie asked.
“Nicholas serves no Elder,” Scathach said slowly. “The Book is his master. Dee, on the other hand…well, no one knows exactly who, or what, he serves.” She glanced over her shoulder, her gaze lingering on each of them. “You’ll probably find yourself feeling exhausted in about an hour, muscles sore, maybe even a little headachy. That’s the magical field feeding off your auras. Don’t be too concerned, however: your particular auras are exceptionally strong. Just drink plenty of liquids.” Scatty moved from window to window and leaned forward, peering out. “I know they are out there, but I cannot see them,” she said suddenly.
“Who?” Sophie wondered.
“The Torc Allta.”
“Are they really wereboars? I mean, men who change into boars?” Sophie asked. She was conscious that her twin hadn’t spoken since Scathach had entered the room. He was staring at her, eyes wide in horror, mouth drawn into a thin line. She knew that expression well: he was scared, and she guessed that he was thinking about all the vampire novels he’d read and movies he’d seen.
“No, not really,” Scatty said. “I know Nicholas has told you that before the humani claimed the earth, this world belonged to other creatures, other races. But even amongst the Elder Race, the Torc clans were special. They could transform from beast shape to man shape and back again.” Scatty sat on the edge of the low bed and stretched her legs straight out in front of her. “When the earliest humani first appeared, the Torc clans taught them how to work wood and stone and how to create fire. The humani worshipped the Torc clans as gods—why do you think so many of the earliest gods have animal shapes? Think of the cave paintings of creatures that are neither man nor beast but something in between. You must have seen statues of the Egyptian gods Sobek, Bastet and Anubis: humani bodies, but with animal heads. Think of the dances where humani pretend to be animals: they are just memories of the time when the Torc clans lived side by side with the humani.”
“Therianthropes,” Sophie said absently.
Scatty looked at her blankly.
“Figures that are made from animal and human shapes mixed together,” Josh explained. “I told you that our parents are archaeologists,” he added. Then he looked quickly at the red-haired woman. “Do you drink blood?” he asked suddenly.
“Josh!” Sophie whispered.
“No, I don’t drink blood,” Scathach said quietly. “Not now. Not ever.”
“But a vampire—”
Scathach surged to her feet and two steps brought her directly in front of Josh. She was not quite as tall as he was, but
in that moment, she seemed huge. “There are many types of vampires, many clans, just as there are many Were clans. Some of my race are blood drinkers, it is true.”
“But not you,” Sophie said hastily, before her brother could ask any further awkward questions.
“No, not my clan. Those of my clan…well, we feed in…other ways,” Scatty said with a wry smile. “And we rarely need to feed,” she added. She spun away. “Everything you have been taught, all the myths and legends of your world, have a kernel of truth in them. You’ve seen wonders today. You will see more in the days to come.”
“What do you mean, in the days to come?” Josh interrupted, voice rising in alarm. “We’re going home, aren’t we?” But even as he was asking the question, he knew the answer.
“Eventually,” the Warrior Maid said, “but not today, and definitely not tomorrow.”
Sophie laid her hand on her brother’s arm, silencing the question he was about to ask. “What were you saying about myths and legends?” she asked.
Somewhere deep in the house a bell chimed, the sound high and pure. It lingered in the still air.
Scathach ignored it. “I want you to remember that everything you know—or think you know—about myth and legend is not necessarily false, nor is it entirely true. At the heart of every legend there is a grain of truth. I suspect that much of your knowledge comes from movies and TV. Xena and Dracula have a lot to answer for. All minotaurs are not evil, the Gorgon Medusa did not turn every man to stone, not all vampires are blood drinkers, the Were clans are a proud and ancient race.”
Josh attempted a laugh; he was still shaken by the revelation that Scathach was a vampire. “You’ll be telling us next that ghosts exist.”
Scathach’s expression remained serious. “Josh, you have entered the Shadowrealm, the world of ghosts. I want you both to trust your instincts from now on: forget what you know—or think you know—about the creatures and races you will encounter. Follow your hearts. Trust no one. Except each other,” she added.