“I have a little left,” he said. “I can lead it away from here.” He started moving toward the door and the crab tracked his movements with its enormous beady eyes.
“No, Mars, you can’t,” she whispered, realizing what was happening.
The Elder’s odor had changed, becoming bitter and sour, and although the aura was still radiating off his flesh, it was flickering wildly. The crab lurched after him, following the rich smell.
“Come taste the aura of Mars Ultor, who was also Ares and Nergal and a dozen other names besides.” Mars concentrated and his aura blazed higher, brighter, stronger. “But before I was Nergal, I was Huitzilopochtli, I was the Champion of Humankind. It is the name I have always been proudest of.”
Then his aura died.
Abruptly, Mars turned and ran through the empty doorway. He barely made it before he exploded into a fine white ash. When his aura had consumed all his energy, it had fed off his flesh.
Nicholas Flamel leaned his head against the shell protecting Areop-Enap. They had lost.
Another wall shattered as the Karkinos ripped apart the remainder of the building.
The Alchemyst looked up to find the orange crab looming over him, claws clicking. Nicholas desperately needed one more spell, one final transformation, one incantation to awaken the Old Spider, but his aura was spent. He had nothing left to give. He was just a tired old man and Perenelle an old, old woman, looking small and frail now, her life force almost finished. Their friends and allies were no more. They had come close, so very, very close, to defeating the Dark Elders. And they had failed.
“I’m sorry,” Nicholas Flamel said to no one in particular. He looked down at the thin crust surrounding the Old Spider and discovered eight tiny bruise-colored eyes regarding him impassively.
Areop-Enap had awakened.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR
Tsagaglalal and her brother had been brought to life by Prometheus’s aura.
Prometheus and his sister Zephaniah had been sent to an abandoned city of black glass and glittering gold at the very edge of the world. The Nameless City sat on the cusp of many ley lines and at the confluence of seven Shadowrealms. There were stories that the city of black and gold existed simultaneously in all seven realms.
Legend had it that the city had been built by the Archons, but Abraham the Mage held that they had simply taken up residence in the massive buildings, which he believed dated from the Time Before Time. Eventually, even they abandoned it, and the forest quickly reclaimed what had once been a vast metropolis.
Every aspect of the Nameless City suggested that it had been built by inhuman creatures. The doors were too tall and too narrow, the windows were small, the steps were shallow, and the irregular angles of the buildings made them hard—almost disturbing—to look at. Most of the buildings were covered with intricately carved whorls and spirals. Elder lore was filled with the stories of individuals who had become entranced by the circles. They had stared wide-eyed and openmouthed at the designs, refusing to move, taking neither food nor water, and when they did speak it was to report both wonders and horrors.
Abraham had sent Zephaniah and Prometheus to the Nameless City with instructions to search for any of the mysterious crystal skulls that sometimes turned up in Archon and Ancient ruins.
It was in an enormous chamber in the heart of the library that they had found the clay statues.
Intricately carved and delicately beautiful, the statues ranged in color from deep black to palest white. Every inch of their perfectly sculpted bodies was covered with archaic script, hieroglyphs from a forgotten language. But their faces were blank, unmarked and unfinished: little more than vague ovals, without eyes, ears, noses or mouths. Male and female stood side by side in identical positions, tall, elegant and otherworldly. They looked not unlike the Elders or even the legendary Archons but were obviously different from those races.
When Prometheus had stepped into the statue-filled chamber, his fiery aura had popped alight, washing over the closest statues. Red sparks ran across the curling script, bringing it to life, and his aura sank into the clay, which shifted and flowed with the heat. Features began to form on their blank faces: clay running off the foreheads into peaks that formed noses and chins, depressions shaping into eyes, cracks hinting at mouths. The ancient texts glowed orange, then red and finally blue, thickening and sinking below the surface like veins beneath skin.
Prometheus was ablaze. His aura streamed from his body in helixes of power, bathing the statues … bringing them to life.
Tsagaglalal had been the clay statue closest to Prometheus. One moment she was without consciousness, and the next she existed. Opening slate-gray eyes, she was instantly aware of her surroundings. The heat awakened memories, thoughts and implanted ideas—she knew who she was. She even knew the name of the figure feeding her raw burning energy.
She was Tsagaglalal.
She lifted her arm and a sliver of hardened clay fell away and shattered on the ground, revealing dark flesh beneath. She brought the hand to her face and flexed her fingers, dirt crumbling from them.
Behind her, a second statue, a male, shifted slightly, and a slab of clay fell away from his torso to expose rich golden skin beneath. She turned stiffly and looked at him. Memories that could never have been hers gave her his name. This was Gilgamesh, and together, they were the first of the First People.
Prometheus’s aura had brought them to life. It had kept Tsagaglalal alive for many, many millennia.
And Prometheus’s aura burned within her still.
Tsagaglalal sat cross-legged on the Golden Gate Bridge, with her back to the city. Prometheus and Niten lay stretched out by her side. She had arranged them with their feet pointing toward the city so that when she sat between them, she would be able to touch their foreheads.
Pressing both hands against her stomach, Tsagaglalal breathed deeply and felt heat bloom within her. Her white jasmine-scented aura was touched by a suggestion of anise and burned with the merest hint of red.
Tsagaglalal’s age was not measured in centuries or millennia, but in hundreds of millennia. She had seen the rise and fall of countless civilizations and had explored endless Shadowrealms, lived entire lives on worlds where time flowed differently. There was so much she had witnessed, so much she had done, and yet there was one great mystery whose answer had always eluded her: who had created her? Prometheus had brought her to life, but who had carved the human-sized clay statues and then placed them in the Nameless City?
After millennia of searching, she was still no closer to the truth. Even her husband, the legendary Abraham the Mage, had been unable to answer the question. “And maybe you will never know,” he’d told her once. “But what I do know is that you are here for a reason. You and your brother were meant to be found. You were meant to be brought to life by Prometheus. Perhaps one day you will discover the reason for your existence.”
And now, sitting on a cold damp bridge on a summer’s evening in San Francisco, Tsagaglalal believed she might have discovered that reason.
Intense heat flowed through her body, down her arms and into her hands, which were cupped, left hand atop right hand, in her lap. Her fingers glowed, the tips burning red, then yellow and finally white-hot. Her fingernails melted and a thin gelatinous fluid leaked from her fingertips and dribbled into her hands.
The smell of jasmine was gone now, replaced by the thick cloying odor of anise.
Tsagaglalal looked down. A puddle of rich bloodred aura shimmered in her palm. With infinite care, she lifted it … and then stopped. It was not enough. She’d used too much of her aura earlier, rejuvenating herself; she only had enough aura for one.
But which one?
Tsagaglalal looked from Niten to Prometheus and then back to the immortal. She liked him. He was quiet and unassuming, and yet she knew he had a reputation as a fearsome warrior and a man of honor. He was remarkable: he had gone into battle against the Spartoi, knowing that he would probably not r
eturn. He’d been prepared to sacrifice his life to save the city. He deserved to live.
Tsagaglalal looked to her right: Prometheus was an Elder. Surely in the battle ahead, his powers would prove more useful? And much more importantly, Prometheus was, in many respects, her father. His aura had given her life, and now it was only right and proper that she should return the gift to him.
Tsagaglalal blinked and suddenly there were tears on her face and the world dissolved into rainbow fractures. She had only ever cried once before, and that was when Danu Talis had fallen and she’d lost her husband.
“I’m sorry, Niten,” she whispered, and poured the bloodred liquid aura down Prometheus’s throat.
The effect was instantaneous.
The Elder’s aura flared bright red around his body. He shuddered and coughed and his green eyes snapped open.
“Hello, Father.”
Prometheus reached up to touch Tsagaglalal’s face. “Just as I remember you,” he whispered, “just as I first saw you, young and beautiful. The Spartoi?”
“Dead. All dead.”
“And Niten?”
She dipped her head. “I could only save one.”
Prometheus struggled to sit up and she caught his arm and eased him upright. “Tsagaglalal, what have you done?”
“Repaid the gift you gave me a long time ago. You brought me to life and now I’ve returned you to life.”
He turned to look at her. “But at what cost to you?” Even as he was talking, her face was beginning to age, wrinkles appearing in her skin. A strand of white hair drifted to the ground between them.
“I think this is what I was meant to do,” she said.
“Without my aura you will not be able to renew your flesh. You will age normally now, and die soon enough.”
“Everything has a price,” Tsagaglalal said. “And this is one I am willing to pay. It seems a small price for countless lifetimes of experiences.”
Prometheus turned to look at Niten’s still form. “But, Tsagaglalal,” he said quietly, “you have brought the wrong one back.”
“No!”
“Yes,” he insisted. “My time is done. My Shadowrealm is dust, and the First People are no more. There is nothing left for me here: it is time for me to go.”
“No …” She shook her head.
“Yes,” he said firmly. “Ten thousand years ago, your husband told me this was how it would end. He said I would die on a bridge wrapped in fog, in a city beyond comprehension, in a time out of time. I knew this when I set out tonight. I knew how it would end. Now let me go,” he pleaded. “Take back my aura. Give it to Niten.”
She shook her head, huge milk-colored tears on her face. “No, I cannot. I will not.”
“Let me ask you as a friend….”
She shook her head again, more hair curling and falling away from her face. Her tears sizzled on the bridge.
“I have never asked you for anything before. So let me ask you this as your father. Do this for me. Please.”
Tsagaglalal bowed her head and wept. Then she placed her right hand on the Elder’s chest and her left on Niten’s.
Prometheus lay back down and looked up into the night, the light fading from his eyes. “I am tired now, so very, very tired. It will be good to rest. And if you come across my sister, tell her who did this; tell her who sent the Spartoi. I have recognized Bastet’s and Quetzalcoatl’s auras on the air. And perhaps you should tell my sister where to find them.” He coughed a laugh. “They will not enjoy a visit from her.”
Niten drew in a deep shuddering breath and the air was suffused with the delicate odor of green tea.
“And, Tsagaglalal …”
“Yes, Father?”
Prometheus closed his eyes. “Tell Niten to find Aoife and ask her the question. Tell him … tell him she will say yes.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Isis and Osiris changed.
The transformation was sudden, sending them from human to beast in a single heartbeat. Ceramic armor burst apart as their pale skin split to reveal something dark and foul beneath. They grew tall, and the human flesh peeled away like torn paper to expose hard scales, rigid with triangular armored plates. Their faces lengthened to long serpentine snouts, and angular mouths filled with teeth. Their eyes flattened along the sides of their faces and turned yellow, while wicked horns curled from their heads. Their fingers grew razor-tipped claws. Barbed tails uncoiled, and wings, huge black batlike wings, unfurled from their backs.
And Sophie suddenly knew what the Witch of Endor had only suspected but could never quite believe. “Earthlords,” she whispered. She pulled out her swords. They shimmered, trembling in her hands. “That’s why the Witch destroyed so much of the ancient knowledge. She was keeping it from you.”
Josh stood frozen. Isis and Osiris had turned into huge lizardlike creatures, and he was terrified of snakes. They were his every nightmare made flesh.
“A hundred thousand years ago your ancestors nearly destroyed our race,” one of the creatures said, speaking with Osiris’s voice.
“But we survived, and we swore a terrible vengeance,” the creature next to it continued in Isis’s voice.
The two creatures advanced on the twins, and Sophie immediately moved in front of Josh, protecting him.
“With your powers—your vast, incalculable powers—at our command,” Isis said, stamping her foot, “on this very spot, the very nexus of this Shadowrealm, we were going to open a portal into the past and bring our people through to this time. How they would have feasted on this world and all the other worlds.”
The Earthlords stepped closer as they spoke.
They exuded a rancid odor, and tiny insects and fat fleas twisted through their scales. Saliva dripping from their fangs seared the stones like acid as it fell. Black wings rose and spread, blotting out the last of the light.
“We will kill you and go back into the Shadowrealms,” Isis said. “We will find other Golds and Silvers. We will not make the same mistakes again.”
“No, you will not,” Sophie breathed. She threw herself forward, slashing out widely with the two swords. The movement caught the Earthlords by surprise, and the blades screamed off their thick plated skin, drawing thin lines of green blood. But the edge of a flailing tail caught Sophie across the back, shattering her gold armor, breaking ribs and an arm, sending her crashing to the ground, her swords spinning away.
One of the creatures stood over her and planted a clawed foot on her stomach, pinning her to the ground. Sophie grunted. Her left arm was completely numb, and the pain in her ribs was excruciating, breathtaking. When she tried to call up her aura, the pain across her back and in her stomach was too much.
Isis raised a claw and leaned forward to rub it against Sophie’s face. “If only you had done what you were told.”
The second Earthlord crowded in. “How did you ever think you could defeat us?” He choked out a liquid laugh. “You are just humani.”
“We are the Gold and Silver!” Josh shouted. Blazing incandescent red and blue-white fire, he plunged Clarent and Excalibur into the Earthlords. “We are the twins of legend!”
A huge circle of white fire detonated off the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, and two vast columns of blinding flames were clearly visible in the night sky all across the island of Danu Talis.
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
Sophie lay on the cold gold ground, and Josh sat cross-legged beside her.
They were both feeling sick and empty.
Excalibur and Clarent lay buzzing on the ground where Josh had dropped them, the blades of the two stone swords running with oily flame, sparkling, crackling and sizzling. Beside the swords were two bubbling pools of liquid gold where Isis and Osiris had been consumed.
Sophie was staring wide-eyed into distance. “Is it over?” she asked. She was focusing on healing her wounds, and the air was rich with the scent of vanilla.
“No,” Josh said sadly. “There’s still one thing to do. Th
ere is the prophecy.”
She nodded. “The twins of legend,” she whispered. “One to save the world, one to destroy it.”
Josh leaned forward and felt something move under his armor. He reached in and took out the emerald tablet Tsagaglalal had given him. At first glance it was nothing more than a slab of slightly greasy stone. He turned it over and over in his hands. “It’s blank,” he said.
“Wait,” Sophie advised.
Josh rubbed his thumb across the surface, cleaning it … and words formed, shimmering gold against the green.
I am Abraham of Danu Talis, sometimes called the Mage, and I send greetings to the Gold.
There is much that I know about you. I know your name and age, and I know you are male. I have followed your ancestors down through ten thousand years. You are a remarkable young man, the last of a line of equally remarkable men.
I am writing this sitting in a tower on the edge of the known world on the Isle of Danu Talis. Within a few hours the crystal tower and the island it stands upon will be no more. The pulse of energy that destroyed it is even now speeding toward the Pyramid of the Sun, toward you. You can choose to harness this energy and use it, or let it seep back into the earth.
This you need to know: your world begins with the death of mine.
Danu Talis needs to fall.
I have always known that the fate of our worlds—yours and mine—is at the mercy of individuals. The actions of a single person can change the course of a world and create history.
And you, like the Silver, are one of those individuals.
You are powerful. A Gold—as powerful as I have ever seen. And you are brave, too. That much is clear. You know what has to be done, and the swords will give you the power to do it, if you so choose, because even now, at this twilight hour, you still have a choice. And you do not need me to tell you that you will pay a price, a terrible price, no matter how you choose.