Michael Scott - The Alchemyst

Scatty dipped her head in acknowledgment.

And of course, a six-hundred-year-old alchemyst Sophie stopped, a suddenthought crossing her mind. She looked from Flamel to Scatty and back again.Then she took a moment to formulate her question. Staring hard at the man,she asked, You are human, aren t you?

Nicholas Flamel grinned. Yes. Perhaps a little more than human, but yes, Iwas born and will always be one of the human race.

Sophie looked at Scathach. But you re

Scathach opened her green eyes wide, and for a single instant, somethingancient was visible in the planes and angles of her face. No, she said veryquietly. I am not of the race of humani. My people were of different stock,the Elder Race. We ruled this earth before the creatures who became humani climbed down from the trees. Nowadays, we are remembered in the myths of justabout every race. We are the creatures of legend, the Were clans, theVampire, the Giants, the Dragons, the Monsters. In stories we are rememberedas the Old Ones or the Elder Race. Some stories call us gods.

Were you ever a god? Sophie whispered.

Scatty giggled. No. I was never a god. But some of my people allowedthemselves to be worshipped as gods. Others simply became gods as humani toldtales of their adventures. She shrugged. We were just another race, anolder race than man, with different gifts, different skills.

What happened? Sophie asked.

The Flood, Scatty said very softly, amongst other things.

The earth is a lot older than most people imagine, Flamel said quietly.

Creatures and races that are now no more than myth once walked this world.

Sophie nodded slowly. Our parents are archaeologists. They ve told us aboutsome of the inexplicable things that archaeology sometimes reveals.

Remember that place we visited in Texas, Taylor something, Josh said,carefully easing the heavy SUV into the middle lane. He d never drivenanything so big before, and was terrified he was going to hit something. He dhad a couple of near misses and was convinced he d actually clipped someone sside mirror, but he d kept going, saying nothing.

The Taylor Trail, Sophie said, at the Paluxy River in Texas. There arewhat look like dinosaur footprints and human prints in the same fossilizedpiece of stone. And the stone is dated to one hundred million years old.

I have seen them, Flamel replied, and others like them all across the world. I have also examined the shoe print that was found in Antelope Springsin Utah in rock about five hundred million years old.

My dad says things like that can be easily dismissed as either fakes ormisinterpretation of the facts, Josh said quickly. He wondered what hisfather would say about the things they had seen today.

Flamel shrugged. Yes, that is true. But what science cannot understand, itdismisses. Not everything can be so easily brushed aside. Can you dismisswhat you ve seen and experienced today as some sort of misinterpretation ofthe facts?

Beside her, Josh shrugged uncomfortably. He didn t like the direction thisconversation was taking. Dinosaurs and humans living together at the sametime was simply inconceivable. The very idea went against everything hisparents had taught them, everything they believed. But somewhere at the backof his mind, a small voice kept reminding him that every yeararchaeologists including his parents kept making extraordinary discoveries. Acouple of years earlier, it was Homo floresiensis, the tiny people inIndonesia, nicknamed Hobbits; then there was the species of dwarf dinosaurdiscovered in Germany, and the hundred-and-sixty-five-million-year-olddinosaur tracks found in Wyoming and, only recently, the eight newprehistoric species discovered in a cave in Israel. But what Flamel wassuggesting was staggering in its implications. You re saying that humans anddinosaurs existed on the earth at the same time, Josh said, surprised thathe sounded so angry.

I m saying that humans have existed on the earth with creatures farstranger, and much older than the dinosaurs, Flamel said seriously.

How do you know? Sophie demanded. He claimed to have been born in 1330, hecouldn t have seen dinosaurs could he?

It s all written down in the Codex and, in the course of my long life, I veseen beasts that are considered myths, I ve fought beings from legend, I vefaced down creatures that looked like they crawled from a nightmare.

We did Shakespeare in school last term. There s a line from Hamlet. Sophiefrowned, trying to remember. There are more things in heaven and earth

Nicholas Flamel nodded delightedly. than are dreamt of in your philosophy,he finished the quotation. Hamlet, act one, scene five. I knew WillShakespeare, of course. Now, Will could have been an alchemist ofextraordinary talent but then he fell into Dee s clutches. Poor Will; do youknow that he based the character of Prospero in The Tempest on Dee?

I never liked Shakespeare, Scatty muttered. He smelled.

You knew Shakespeare? Josh was unable to keep the disbelief out of hisvoice.

He was my student briefly, very briefly, Flamel said. I ve lived a longtime; I ve had a lot of students some made famous by history, most forgotten.I ve met a lot of people, human and unhuman, mortal and immortal. People likeScathach, Flamel finished.

There are more like you more of the Elder Race? Sophie asked, looking atthe red-haired girl.

More than you might think, though I try not to associate with them, Scattysaid uneasily. There are those amongst the Elders who cannot accept that ourtime is past, that this age belongs to the humani. They want to see a returnto the old ways, and they believe that their puppet Dee and others like himare in a position to bring that about. They are called the Dark Elders.

I don t know if anyone has noticed, Josh interrupted suddenly, but would you say there are a lot of birds gathering?

Sophie turned to stare through the windshield, while Flamel and Scatty peeredthrough the back window.

The spars and pylons, the braces, ropes and wires of the Golden Gate Bridgewere slowly filling with birds: thousands of them. Mainly blackbirds andcrows, they covered all available surfaces, with more arriving every moment.

They re coming from Alcatraz, Josh said, dipping his head to look acrossthe choppy waters toward the island.

A dark cloud had gathered above Alcatraz. It rose out of the abandoned prisonin a dark curl and hung in the air looking like smoke, but this smoke didn tdissipate: it moved and circled in a solid mass.

Birds. Josh swallowed hard. There must be thousands of them.

Tens of thousands, Sophie corrected him. She turned to look at Flamel.

What are they?

The Morrigan s children, he said enigmatically.

Trouble, Scatty added. Big trouble.

Then, as if driven by a single command, the huge flock of birds moved awayfrom the island and headed across the bay, directly toward the bridge.

Josh hit his window button and the tinted glass hummed down. The noise of thebirds was audible now, a raucous cawing, almost like high-pitched laugher.Traffic was slowing, some people even stopping to get out of their cars totake photographs with digital cameras and cell phones.

Nicholas Flamel leaned forward and placed his left hand on Josh s shoulder.

You should drive, he said seriously. Do not stop whatever happens, even ifyou hit something. Just drive. As fast as you can. Get us off this bridge.

There was something in Flamel s unnaturally controlled voice that frightenedSophie even more than if he had shouted. She glanced sidelong at Scatty, butthe young woman was rummaging through her backpack. The warrior pulled out ashort bow and a handful of arrows and placed them on the seat beside her.

Roll up your window, Josh, she said calmly. We don t want anything gettingin.

We re in trouble, aren t we? Sophie whispered, looking at the Alchemyst.