The Sorceress sotinf-3

by Michael Scott

  In the center of the room was a long rectangular raised stone plinth splashed and spattered with globules of what looked like yellow wax. The ancient slab was cracked in two.

  And on the floor before the plinth was a gray statue partially encased in yellow. It depicted an enormous man on hands and knees, caught as he attempted to climb to his feet. The figure was dressed as a warrior, wearing the metal and leather armor of the ancient past, his left arm outstretched, fingers splayed wide, while his right arm was buried in the floor up to his wrist. His body from the waist down also disappeared into the ground. On the figure's back, two hideous child-sized creatures had been frozen as they'd attempted to leap forward on goatlike hooves. Stick-thin, ribs and bones visible, their mouths gaped to reveal maws filled with jagged teeth, and their outstretched hands were tipped with dagger-sharp claws.

  Gathering up his coat so that it would not brush the floor, and hitching up his trousers, Dee hunkered down for a closer look at the statues. The piece looked like something from a museum, a classical sculpture by Michelangelo or Bernini, perhaps-Phobos and Deimos on the back of Mars Ultor. Dee moved his hand and the ball of light floated over the satyrs' heads. The detail was incredible; every strand of hair had been preserved, the drool caught on their chins, and one of them-Phobos, he thought-even had a cracked nail. But these were no statues; yesterday, they had been savage living creatures, and Mars had loosed them on him. It would have been a terrible death. The satyrs fed off panic and fear… and over the centuries Dee had learned that there was much to fear. The knowledge of what the Elders could do to him always sent queasy swells of panic through his stomach. Phobos and Deimos would have feasted for months.

  The Magician leaned forward to look at the helmet that completely covered Mars's head. Beneath the yellow coating of hardened bone, the gray stone was still visible. It sparkled like granite, but this was no natural rock. For a single instant, Dee felt something like pity for the Dark Elder. The Witch of Endor had caused his aura to become visible and to harden, stonelike, around his body, trapping him within an impossibly heavy crust. If the god peeled it off, his aura bubbled up like lava and hardened again immediately. Mars, who had once roamed the world and been worshipped as a god by a dozen nations under scores of names, had been practically immobile for millennia. Dee found himself wondering what crime the God of War had committed that had so offended the Witch that she had condemned him to this lingering undeath. It must have been terrible indeed. Then the Magician's lips twitched in a smile as a thought struck him. Reaching out, he rapped his knuckles on the helmeted head. The sound was dull and flat in the bone-wrapped chamber. "I know you can hear me," Dee said conversationally. "I was just thinking that this seems to be your destiny," he continued. "First the Witch trapped you in your own aura, and then I wrapped you in solid bone."

  Wisps of black smoke suddenly curled from the Dark Elder's helmet.

  "Ah, good," Dee murmured. "For a moment there I thought I'd lost you."

  Eyes blazed crimson in the blackness behind the helmet. "I am not so easy to kill." Mars's voice was a gravelly rasp, touched with an indefinable accent.

  Dee straightened and dusted off his spotless knees. "You know, every Elder I've killed has said that. But there is blood in your veins. And what lives can be slain." He showed his small teeth in a tiny smile. "Admittedly, you are difficult-in fact, well-nigh impossible-to kill, but it can be done. I know. I've done it. Why, less than a week ago, I slew Hekate."

  The interior of the helmet glowed bright red for an instant and the glow faded. Locked in place by granite and bone, Mars could not move, and yet Dee could clearly feel the Elder's eyes on him. Black smoke curled up out of the slit in his helmet, and where his eyes should have been were now two crimson balls flecked with blue. "Have you come back to gloat, Magician?"

  "Not intentionally." Dee walked behind the trio of statues, examining them from every angle. "But now that I'm here, I might as well gloat anyway." He ran his hands across the Elder's shoulder, and Dee felt his own aura flicker as the merest buzz of energy crackled through him. Even buried beneath a sheath of stone and bone, the Elder's aura was powerful.

  "When I escape," Mars rumbled, "as I surely will, you will be my first priority. Even before I discover the whereabouts of the Witch of Endor, I will find you, and my vengeance will be terrible."

  "I'm scared," Dee said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. "The Witch has kept you locked in stone for millennia. You've not managed to shake off that curse yet. And you know that if anything happens to the Witch, then the spell dies with her, leaving you trapped like this forever." The Magician moved around in front of the Elder again. "Perhaps I should have the Witch killed. Then you will never escape."

  There was a peculiar snuffling sound within the helmet, and it took the Magician a few moments to realize that the Elder was laughing. "You! Kill the Witch? I was called the God of War; my powers were terrible. And yet I could not kill her. If you move against her, Magician, she will do something horrible to you-and ensure that your agony lasts a millennium. She once reduced an entire Roman legion to figures about the size of her fingernail, and then strung them together on a silver wire so that she could wear them as a necklace. She kept them alive for centuries." The Elder chuckled, a sound like grinding stone. "She used to collect amber paperweights; within each one was a person who had displeased her. So yes, go and attack the Witch! I am sure she will be particularly creative with your punishment."

  Dee crouched down before the Elder's head. He laced the fingers of his hands together and stared into the smoking dark interior of the stone helmet. Two crimson dots glowed back at him. The Magician moved his fingers and the globe of yellow light came down and settled behind his head. He hoped the harsh light would blind Mars, but the two red orbs stared at him, unblinking. With a flick of his wrist, Dee dismissed the light, sending it bobbing close to the ceiling, where it softened and faded, painting the room in sepia. "I have come here to make you an offer," Dee said after a long moment of silence.

  "There is nothing you can offer me."

  "There is one thing," Dee said confidently.

  "Did you come of your own accord, or were you sent by your masters?" Mars asked.

  "No one knows I am here."

  "Not even the Italian?"

  Dee shrugged. "He may suspect, but there is nothing he can do." He stopped and then waited. Dee was a great believer in silence. In his experience, people often spoke to fill the quiet.

  "What do you want?" Mars asked eventually.

  The Magician dipped his head to hide a smile. With that single question, Dee knew that the Elder would give him exactly what he wanted. The Englishman had always prided himself on his imagination-it was part of what made him one of the most powerful magicians and necromancers in the world-but even he could not comprehend what it must be like to be trapped for centuries in a hard stone shell. He had heard the desperation in the God of War's voice the previous day when he had pleaded with Sophie to lift the curse, and it had given him an idea.

  "You know that I am a man of my word," Dee began.

  Mars said nothing.

  "True, I have lied, cheated, stolen and killed, but all with one single intention: to bring the Elders back to this world."

  "The end justifies the means," Mars grumbled.

  "Just so. And you know that if I give you my word, my oath, then I will carry through with my promise. Yesterday, you said you could read my intent clearly."

  "I know that in spite of your faults-or possibly even because of them-you are an honorable man, though it is a peculiar definition of honor," Mars said. "So yes, if you give me your word, I will believe you."

  Dee stood up quickly and walked around behind the statue, so that Mars could not see the triumphant grin on his face. "The Witch of Endor will never lift your curse, will she?"

  Mars Ultor remained quiet for a long time, but Dee made no move to break the silence. He wanted to give the Elder time to think through what he'd j
ust said; he needed him to admit that he was doomed for all eternity to wear the stone shell.

  "No," the god finally admitted in a ghastly whisper. "She will not."

  "Maybe someday I will learn what you did to earn such punishment."

  "Maybe. But not from me."

  "So you are trapped… or maybe not."

  "Explain yourself, Magician."

  Dee started walking counterclockwise around the frozen Elder. He kept his voice low and unemotional as he outlined his plan. "Yesterday, you Awakened Josh, the sun twin. You touched him; you are connected to him."

  "Yes, there is a connection," Mars agreed.

  "The Witch touched the moon twin, gifted her with the Magic of Air, and also poured her complete compendium of knowledge into her," Dee continued. "Yesterday, you said that the girl must know the spell that would free you."

  "And she said she did," Mars whispered.

  Dee slapped his hand off the statue's shoulder as he spun to crouch in front of it. Electrical energy snapped around the room. "And she refused you! But would she refuse you if her brother's life-wait, better still, her parents' lives-were in danger? Would she? Could she?"

  The smoke curling from behind the Elder's full-face visor turned white, then gray-black. "Even knowing me, knowing what I am, what I did, what I am capable of, she still faced me down to rescue her brother," Mars said very slowly. "I believe she would do anything to save her brother and her family."

  "Then here is my oath to you," Dee continued. "Find the boy for me, and I swear I will bring the girl, her brother and their parents here to stand before you. When she is faced with their deaths, I guarantee she will free you of this terrible curse." rom the outside, the long metal structure sitting in the middle of the muddy clearing had looked dilapidated and run-down, but like everything else in the junkyard, it was just a fa?ade. Inside, it was neat and spotlessly clean. One end of the room was used for cooking and eating; a sink, a fridge and a stove sat next to a table. The middle section of the hut contained a tiered desk holding a desktop computer hooked up to two matching screens, while at the far end of the hut, a large flat-screen TV faced two leather couches. A trio of low metal towers held dozens of DVDs.

  When the twins followed Shakespeare inside, they realized immediately that they had walked in on an argument. Flamel and Palamedes were standing at either end of the small wooden kitchen table, the knight with his arms folded across his massive chest, Flamel with his hands clenched into fists. The air was sour with their mixed auras.

  "I think you should wait outside," Nicholas said quietly, looking from Josh to Sophie, then turning back to the knight. "We'll be done in a few moments."

  Sophie moved to leave, but Josh pushed her forward into the hut. "No. I think we should wait here," he said firmly. He looked from Palamedes to the Alchemyst. "If you have anything to say, you should say it in front of us. After all, this is about us, isn't it?" He glanced sidelong at his sister. "We're the… what's the word?" he asked.

  "The catalyst," she supplied.

  Josh nodded. "The catalyst," he said, though that wasn't the word he had been hunting for. He looked around the room, eyes lingering on the computer, and then turned to his twin. "I just hate it when adults send you out of the room when they're talking about you, don't you?"

  Sophie agreed. "Hate it."

  "We weren't talking about you," Flamel said quickly. "This has nothing to do with you, actually. This has to do with a little unfinished business between Mr. Shakespeare and me."

  "Right now," Josh said, stepping into the room, concentrating hard on keeping his voice even and preventing it from trembling, "just about everything that happens concerns us." He looked directly at the Alchemyst. "You've nearly killed us. You've changed our lives ir… irev… irevo…"

  "Irrevocably," Sophie said.

  "Irrevocably," Josh said. "And if you two have a problem, then it's our problem and we need to know about it."

  Sophie put her hand on Josh's shoulder and squeezed encouragingly.

  Palamedes grinned, a quick flash of white teeth. "The boy has spirit. I like that."

  Nicholas's face was an impassive mask, but his pale eyes were clouded. A vein throbbed on his forehead. Folding his arms across his chest, he nodded toward Palamedes. "If you must know, then, I have no argument with the Saracen Knight." He moved his head slightly, indicating the smaller man in the stained overalls, who was now standing before an open fridge, pulling out bags of fruit. "I have a problem with this man. A major problem."

  Shakespeare ignored him. "What will you have to eat?" he asked, looking at the twins. "I know you do not want any meat, but we have plenty of fruit, fresh this morning. And Palamedes picked up some nice fish in Billingsgate Fish Market earlier." He dumped several bags of fruit into the sink, then turned the taps on full. Water thundered into the metal sink.

  "Just the fruit," Sophie said.

  Palamedes looked at the twins. "This dispute has nothing to do with you," he said. "It goes back centuries. But yes, I agree that you are affected by it. We all are." He turned back to the Alchemyst. "If we are to survive, then we-all of us-must put aside old arguments, old habits. However," he rumbled, "let me suggest that we discuss this after we eat."

  "We want some answers now," Josh said. "We're tired of being treated like children."

  The knight bowed and looked at the Alchemyst. "They have a right to answers."

  Nicholas Flamel rubbed his hands against his face. There were bruise-colored bags under his eyes, and the wrinkles on his forehead had deepened. Sophie noticed that tiny spots had started to appear on the backs of his hands. The Alchemyst had said that he would age at the rate of at least a year for every day that passed, but she thought he looked at least ten years older than he had a week ago. "Before we go any further," Nicholas said, his French accent more evident now that he was tired, "I must admit I am uncomfortable discussing anything in front of…" He raised his head and looked at Shakespeare. "That man."

  "But why?" Sophie asked, frustrated. She pulled out a wooden chair and collapsed into it. Josh took the chair beside her. The knight remained standing a moment longer, then he too sat. Only the Alchemyst and the Bard still stood.

  "He betrayed Perenelle and me," Flamel snarled. "He sold us out to Dee."

  The twins turned to look at the Bard, who was arranging grapes, apples, pears and cherries on plates. "This much is true," he said.

  "Because of him, Perenelle was wounded and nearly died," the Alchemyst snapped.

  The twins looked at the Bard again. He nodded. "It was in 1576," Shakespeare said quietly, looking up from the table, his pale blue eyes magnified behind his glasses, huge with unshed tears.

  Josh sat back in astonishment. "You're arguing about something that happened more than four hundred years ago?" he asked incredulously.

  Shakespeare turned to speak directly to Sophie and Josh. "I was but twelve years old, younger than you are now." His lips moved, revealing his yellowed teeth. "I made a mistake-a terrible mistake-and I've spent centuries paying for it." He glanced back to Flamel. "I was apprenticed to the Alchemyst. He was running a small bookshop in Stratford, where I grew up."

  Josh turned to look at Nicholas.

  "He did not treat me well."

  Flamel's head rose quickly and he opened his mouth to respond, but Shakespeare pressed on.

  "I was not uneducated; I had attended the King's New School, and I could read and write English, Latin and Greek. Even then, at that early age, I knew I wanted to be a writer, and I prevailed upon my father to find me a position in Mr. Fleming's bookshop." Shakespeare's eyes were fixed on the Alchemyst now, and his language and even his accent were changing, becoming formal, almost archaic. "I wanted to read and learn and write; Mr. Fleming had me sweeping floors, running errands, carrying parcels of books across town."

  The Alchemyst opened his mouth again but then closed it, saying nothing.

  "And then Dr. Dee appeared in Stratford. You should know that h
e was famous then. He had served two queens, Mary and Elizabeth, and survived with his head still on his shoulders, which was no mean feat in those days. He was close to Elizabeth-it was said that he had even chosen the date for her coronation. He was reputed to have the largest library in England," Shakespeare continued, "so it was entirely natural that he called upon the Flemings' bookshop. Surprisingly, the Flemings, who rarely left the premises and never the town, were not at home that day. The shop was in the charge of one of their assistants, a horse-faced man whose name I have never been able to remember."

  "Sebastian," Flamel said softly.

  Shakespeare's damp eyes fixed on the Alchemyst's face and he nodded. "Ah yes, Sebastian. But Dee was not interested in him. He spoke to me, in English first, then Latin, then Greek. He asked me to recommend a book-I suggested Ovid's Medea, which he purchased-and then he asked me if I was happy in my present position." Shakespeare's pale blue eyes locked onto Flamel's. "I told him I was not. So he offered me an apprenticeship. Given the choice between a lowly position as a bookseller's assistant and an apprenticeship with one of the most powerful men in England, how could I refuse?"

  Josh nodded. He would have made the same choice himself.

  "So I became Dee's apprentice. More than that, perhaps: I came to believe that he even regarded me as a son. What is undeniable is that he created me."

  Sophie leaned forward over the table, confused. "What do you mean, he created you?"

  Shakespeare's eyes clouded with sadness. "Dee saw something in me-a hunger for sensation, a yearning for adventure-and offered to train and educate me in ways the Flemings-the Flamels-either would not or could not. True to his word, the Magician showed me wonders. He took me to worlds beyond comprehension, he fed my imagination, allowed me access to his incredible library, which gave me the language to shape and describe the worlds I had experienced. Because of Dr. John Dee I became William Shakespeare the writer."

  "You've missed the bit where he asked you to creep into our home at dead of night and steal the Codex," Nicholas Flamel said icily. "And when you failed, he accused us of being Spanish spies. Fifty of the Queen's Men surrounded the bookshop and attacked without warning. Sebastian was injured and Perenelle was struck with a musket ball in the shoulder, which almost killed her."