Michael Scott - The Alchemyst

And what about you? Josh demanded. Do you want to return to these oldways?

I never thought they were that great, she said, then added, especially forthe humani.

They found Nicholas Flamel sitting outside on a raised wooden deck set into abranch of the tree. Growing horizontally from the tree trunk, the branch wasat least ten feet across, and sloped down to plunge into the earth close to acrescent-shaped pool. Walking across the branch, Sophie glanced down and wasstartled to see that beneath the green weeds that curled and twisted in thepool, tiny almost-human faces peered upward, mouths and eyes open wide. Onthe deck, five high-backed chairs were arranged around a circular table,which was set with beautifully hand-carved wooden bowls and elegant woodencups and goblets. Warm, rough-cut bread and thick slices of hard cheese werearranged on platters, and there were two huge bowls of fruit apples, orangesand enormous cherries in the center of the table. The Alchemyst was carefully slicing the skin off an emerald green apple with a triangular sliver of blackstone that looked like an arrowhead. Sophie noticed that he had arranged thegreen skin into shapes that resembled letters.

Scatty slid into the seat beside the Alchemyst. Is Hekate not joining us?she asked, picking up a piece of cut skin and chewing on it.

I believe she is changing for dinner, Flamel said, slicing off another curlof skin to replace the piece Scatty was chewing. He looked over at Sophie andJosh. Sit, please. Our hostess will join us shortly and then we ll eat. Youmust be exhausted, he added.

I am tired, Sophie admitted. She d become aware of the exhaustion a littleearlier, and now she could barely keep her eyes open. She was also a littlefrightened, realizing that the tiredness was caused by the magic of the placefeeding off her energy.

When can we go home? Josh demanded, unwilling to admit that he too was wornout. Even his bones ached. He felt as if he was coming down with a cold.

Nicholas Flamel cut a neat slice from the apple and popped it in his mouth.I m afraid you will not be able to return for a little while.

Why not? Josh snapped.

Flamel sighed. He put down the stone arrowhead and the apple and placed hishands flat on the table. Right now, neither Dee nor the Morrigan knows whoyou are. It s only because of that, that you and your family are safe.

Our family? Sophie asked. The sudden thought that her mother or fathermight be in danger made her feel queasy. Josh reacted with the same shock,his lips drawing into a thin white line.

Dee will be thorough, Flamel said. He is protecting a millennia-oldsecret, and he will not stop with killing you. Everyone you know or have comein contact with will have an accident. I d hazard a guess that even Bernice sCoffee Cup will burn to the ground simply because you once worked in it.Bernice might even perish in the fire.

But she has nothing to do with anything, Sophie protested, horrified.

Yes, but Dee doesn t know that. Nor does he care. He has worked with theDark Elders for a long time, and now he has come to regard humans as they do:as little more than beasts.

But we won t tell anyone what we ve seen, Josh began, and no one would believe us anyway. His sentence trailed away.

And if we don t tell anyone, then no one will ever know, Sophie said.

We ll never speak of this again. Dee will never find us. But even as the words were leaving her mouth, she was beginning to realize that it washopeless. She and Josh were as trapped by their knowledge of the Codex sexistence as Nicholas and Perry had been.

He would find you, Flamel said reasonably. He glanced at the Warrior Maid.

How long do you think it would it take for Dee or one of the Morrigan sspies to find them?

Not long, she said, munching on the apple skin. A couple of hours maybe.The rats or birds would track you, then Dee would hunt you down.

Once you have been touched by magic, you are forever changed. Flamel moved his right hand in front of him, leaving the faintest hint of pale green smokedangling in the air. You leave a trail. He huffed a breath at the greensmoke and it curled away and disappeared.

Are you saying we smell? Josh demanded.

Flamel nodded. You smell of wild magic. You caught a whiff of it earliertoday when Hekate touched you both. What did you smell then?

Oranges, Josh said.

Vanilla ice cream, Sophie replied.

And earlier still, when Dee and I fought: what did you smell then?

Mint and rotten eggs, Josh said immediately.

Every magician has his or her own distinctive odor; rather like a magicalfingerprint. You must learn to heed your senses. Humans use but a tinypercentage of theirs. They barely look, they rarely listen, they never smell,and they think that they can only experience feelings through their skin. Butthey talk, oh, do they talk. That makes up for the lack of use of their othersenses. When you return to your own world, you will be able to recognizepeople who have some taint of magical energy. He cut out a neat cube of apple and popped it into his mouth. You may notice a peculiar scent, youmight even taste it or see it as a shimmer around their bodies.

How long will the feeling last? Sophie asked, curious. She reached out andtook a cherry. It was the size of a small tomato. Will it fade?

Flamel shook his head. It will never fade. On the contrary, it will getstronger. You have to realize that nothing will ever be the same for eitherof you from this day forth.

Josh bit into an apple with a satisfying crunch. Juice ran onto his chin.

You make that sound like a bad thing, he said with a grin, wiping his mouthwith his sleeve.

Flamel was about to respond, but glanced up and suddenly came to his feet.Scathach also rose smoothly, silently. Sophie immediately stood, but Joshremained sitting until Sophie caught his shoulder and pulled him up. Then sheturned to look at the Goddess with Three Faces.

But this wasn t Hekate.

The woman she had seen earlier had been tall and elegant, middle-aged maybe,her hair cut in a tight white helmet close to her head, her black skin smoothand unwrinkled. This woman was older, much, much older. The resemblance toHekate was there, and Sophie guessed that this was her mother or grandmother.Although she was still tall, she stooped forward, picking her way around thebranch, leaning into an ornately carved black stick that was at least as tallas Sophie. Her face was a mass of fine wrinkles, her eyes deeply sunken inher head, glittering with a peculiar yellow cast. She was completely bald,and Sophie could see where her skull was tattooed in an intricate curlingpattern. Although she was wearing a dress similar to the one Hekate had worn earlier, the metallic-looking fabric ran black and red with her everymovement.

Sophie blinked, squeezed her eyes shut and then blinked again. She could seethe merest hint of an aura around the woman, almost as if she were exuding afine white mist. When she moved, she left tendrils of this mist behind her.

Without acknowledging anyone s presence, the old woman settled into the seatdirectly facing Nicholas Flamel. Only when she was seated did Flamel andScathach sit. Sophie and Josh sat down also, glancing from Nicholas to theold woman, wondering who she was and what was going on.

The woman raised a wooden goblet from the table, but didn t drink. There wasmovement in the trunk of the tree behind her, and four tall, muscular youngmen appeared, carrying trays piled high with food, which they set down in thecenter of the table before backing away silently. The men looked so alikethat they had to be related, but it was their faces that drew the twinsattention: there was something wrong with the planes and angles of theirskulls. Foreheads sloped down to a ridge over their eyes, their noses wereshort and splayed, their cheekbones pronounced, and their chins recededsharply. The hint of yellow teeth was visible behind thin lips. The men werebare-chested and barefoot, wearing only leather kilts, onto which rectangularplates of metal had been sewn. And their chests, legs and heads were coveredwith coarse red hair.