Michael Scott - The Alchemyst

We re going to be trained as magicians? Sophie asked. She guessed sheshould be more excited, but she kept remembering Scatty s words, that onceHekate Awakened their powers, they would be in grave danger.

As magicians and sorcerers, as necromancers, warlocks and even enchanters.Flamel smiled. He glanced over his shoulder, then turned back to the twins.

Now go inside and do whatever she tells you. I know you are afraid, but trynot to be. Let me tell you, there is no shame in fear. He smiled, his lipscurling upward, but the smile never reached his troubled eyes. When you comeout of that room, you will be different people.

I don t want to be a different person, Sophie whispered. She wantedeverything to be just as it had been a couple of hours earlier, wheneverything was ordinary and boring. Right now, she would give anything to goback to a boring world.

Flamel stepped back from the doorway and ushered the twins inside. From the moment you laid eyes on Dee, you started to change. And once begun, changecannot be reversed.

It was dark inside the chamber, whose walls were composed entirely of knottedand twisted roots. Sophie could feel her brother s hand in hers and shesqueezed his fingers slightly. His hand tightened in return.

As the twins moved deep into the hollow, which was obviously larger than ithad first seemed, their eyes gradually adjusted to the gloom and the roomtook on a greenish glow. Thick, furry moss covered the twisted roots andradiated a watery jade green light, making it appear as if everything wereunderwater. The air was heavy with moisture, and drops of liquid gathered ontheir hair and skin like tiny beads of sweat. Although it wasn t cold, theyboth shivered.

You should consider yourselves honored. Hekate s voice came from the greengloom directly ahead of them. I have not Awakened a humani for manygenerations.

Who, Josh began, and then his voice cracked. He gave a dry cough and triedagain. Who was the last human you Awakened? He was determined not to let his fear show.

It was some time ago in the twelfth century, as you humani measure time aman from the land of the Scots. I do not remember his name.

Both Sophie and Josh instinctively knew that Hekate was lying.

What happened to him? Sophie asked.

He died. There was a peculiar high-pitched giggle. He was killed by ahailstone.

Must have been some hailstone, Josh whispered.

Oh, it was, Hekate murmured. And in that moment, they both knew that shehad something to do with the mysterious man s death. To Josh the goddesssuddenly seemed like a vindictive child.

So what happens now? Josh asked. Do we stand or sit or lie down?

You do nothing, Hekate snapped, and this is not something to be donelightly. For thousands of generations, you humani have deliberately distancedyourselves from what you laughingly call magic. But magic is really only theutilization of the entire spectrum of the senses. The humani have cutthemselves off from their senses. Now they see only in a tiny portion of thevisible spectrum, hear only the loudest of sounds, their sense of smell isshockingly poor and they can only distinguish the sweetest and sourest oftastes.

The twins were aware that Hekate was moving about them now. They couldn thear her move, but were able to track her by the sound of her voice. When shespoke from behind them, they both jumped.

Once, mankind needed all those senses simply to survive. There was a longpause, and when she spoke again, she was so close that her breath ruffledSophie s hair. Then the world changed. Danu Talis sank beneath the waves,the Age of the Lizards passed, the Time of Ice came, and the humanigrew sophisticated. She made the word into a curse. The humani grewindolent and arrogant. They found they did not need all their senses, andgradually, they lost them.

You re saying we lost the powers of magic because we grew lazy, Josh said.

Sophie suppressed a groan; one of these days her brother was going to getthem into real trouble.

But when Hekate replied, her voice was surprisingly soft, almost gentle.

What you call magic is nothing more than an act of the imagination fired bythe senses, then given shape by the power of your aura. The more powerful theaura, the greater the magic. You two have extraordinary potential within you.The Alchemyst is correct: you could be the greatest magicians the world hasever known. But here s the problem, Hekate continued, and now the room grewa little lighter, and they could see the shape of the woman standing in thecenter of the room, directly beneath a tangle of roots that looked exactlylike a clutching hand reaching down from the roof. The humani have learned to live without their senses. The brain filters so much data from yourconsciousness that you live in a type of fog. What I can do is Awaken yourdormant powers, but the danger the very real danger is that it will overloadyour senses. She stopped, then asked, Are you prepared to take that risk?

I am, Sophie said immediately, before her brother could protest. She wasafraid that if he made a quip, the goddess would do something to him.Something ugly and lethal.

The goddess turned to look at Josh.

He sought out his sister in the gloom. The green light lent her face a sicklycast. The Awakening was going to be dangerous, possibly even deadly, but hecould not allow Sophie to go through it on her own. I m ready, he said defiantly.

Then we will begin.

D ee waited until the last of the birds and cats had disappeared intoHekate s Shadowrealm before he left the car and strolled toward the hidden opening. Senuhet, Bastet s servant, had left earlier, eagerly following hismistress into the Shadowrealm, but Dee had not been quite so enthusiastic. Itwas always a bad idea to be first into battle. The soldiers in the rear werethe ones who tended to survive. He was guessing that Hekate s guards hadmassed just beyond the invisible wall, and he had no inclination to be firstthrough the opening. It didn t make him a coward, he reasoned; it just madehim careful, and being careful had kept him alive for many hundreds of years.But he couldn t hang around out there forever; his inhuman masters wouldexpect to see him on the battlefield. The small man drew histwo-thousand-dollar leather coat tightly around his shoulders the momentbefore he stepped into the opening, leaving behind the chill early-morningair and stepping into

a battlefield.

There were bodies everywhere, and none of them were human.

The Morrigan s birds had changed when they entered Hekate s Shadowrealm: theyhad become almost human though not entirely so. They were now tall and thinlike their mistress; their wings had stretched, becoming long and batlike,connected to human-shaped bodies by translucent skin and tipped with deadlyclaws. Their heads were still those of birds.

There were a few cats scattered among the field of feathers. They too hadbecome almost human when they stepped into the Shadowrealm, and like Bastet,they had retained their cat heads. Their paws were a cross between humanhands and cat claws, tipped with curved, razor-sharp nails, and their bodieswere covered in a fine down of hair.

Looking around, Dee could see no sign that any of Hekate s guards had fallenin battle, and was suddenly frightened: what did the goddess have guardingher realm? He reached under his coat, pulled out the sword that had once beencalled Excalibur and set off down the path to where the huge tree rose out ofthe morning mist. The sunrise ran bloodred along the ancient black blade.

Birdmen, Scathach muttered, and then added a curse in the ancient Celticlanguage of her youth. She hated birdmen; they gave her hives. She wasstanding at the entrance to the Yggdrasill, watching the creatures appear outof the forest. The mythologies of every race included stories of men whoturned into birds, or birds who transformed into half-human creatures. In herlong life Scatty had encountered many of the creatures and had once comeperilously close to death when she d fought a Sirin, an owl with the head ofa beautiful woman. Since that encounter, she d been allergic to birdfeathers. Already her skin was starting to itch and she could feel a sneezebuilding at the back of her nose. The Morrigan s creatures moved awkwardly,like hunched-over humans, dragging their knuckles on the ground. They werepoor warriors, but they often succeeded by sheer force of numbers.