Michael Scott - The Magician

“It’s a sword,” Josh whispered in awe, looking at the short narrow weapon nestled on the paper-strewn table. He guessed it was about twenty inches long, its simple cross hilt wrapped in strips of stained dark leather. The blade seemed to be made of a sparkling gray metal. No, not metal. “A stone sword,” he said aloud, frowning. It reminded him of something-almost as if he had seen it before.

But even as he was speaking, Joan and Saint-Germain scrambled away from the table, the woman’s chair falling over in her eagerness to get away from the blade. Behind Flamel, Scathach hissed like a cat, vampire teeth appearing as she opened her mouth, and when she spoke, her voice was shaking, her accent thick and barbaric. She sounded almost angry…or afraid. “Nicholas,” she said very slowly, “what are you doing with that filthy thing?”

The Alchemyst ignored her. He looked at Josh and Sophie, who had remained sitting at the table, shocked motionless by the reaction of the others, unsure what was happening. “There are four great swords of power,” Flamel said urgently, “each one linked to the elements: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. It is said that they predate even the oldest of the Elder Races. The swords have had many names through the ages: Excalibur and Joyeuse, Mistelteinn and Curtana, Durendal and Tyrfing. The last time one was used as a weapon in the world of men was when Charlemagne, the Holy Roman Emperor, carried Joyeuse into battle.”

“This is Joyeuse?” Josh whispered. His sister might be good at geography, but he knew history, and Charlemagne had always fascinated him.

Scathach’s laugh was a bitter snarl. “Joyeuse is a thing of beauty. This…this is an abomination.”

Flamel touched the sword’s hilt and the tiny crystals in the stone sparkled with green light. “This is not Joyeuse, though it is true that it once belonged to Charlemagne. I also believe the emperor himself hid this blade in Andorra sometime in the ninth century.”

“It’s just like Excalibur,” Josh said, suddenly realizing why the stone sword was so familiar. He looked at his sister. “Dee had Excalibur; he used it to destroy the World Tree.”

“Excalibur is the Sword of Ice,” Flamel continued. “This is its twin blade: Clarent, the Sword of Fire. It is the only weapon that can stand against Excalibur.”

“It is a cursed blade,” Scathach said firmly. “I’ll not touch it.”

“Nor I,” Joan said quickly, and Saint-Germain nodded in agreement.

“I’m not asking any of you to carry it or wield it,” Nicholas snapped. He spun the weapon on the table until the hilt touched the boy’s fingers and then he looked at each of them in turn. “We know Dee and Machiavelli are coming. Josh is the only one amongst us without the ability to protect himself. Until his powers are Awakened, he is going to need a weapon. I want him to have Clarent.”

“Nicholas!” Scathach cried, horrified. “What are you thinking. He’s an untrained humani-”

“-with a solid gold aura,” Flamel said coldly. “And I am determined to keep him safe.” He pushed the sword into Josh’s fingers. “This is yours. Take it.”

Josh leaned forward and felt the two pages from the Codex press against his skin in their cloth bag. This would be the second gift the Alchemyst had given him in as many days. Part of him wanted to accept the gifts at face value-to trust him and to believe that Flamel liked him and trusted him in turn. And yet, and yet…even after the conversation they’d had in the street, somewhere at the back of his mind, Josh couldn’t forget what Dee had said by the fountain in Ojai: that half of everything Flamel said was a lie, and the other half wasn’t entirely truthful either. He deliberately looked away from the sword and looked into Flamel’s pale eyes. The Alchemyst was staring at him, his face an expressionless mask. So what was the Alchemyst up to? Josh wondered. What game was he playing? More of Dee’s words popped into his head. “He is now, and has always been, a liar, a charlatan, and a crook.”

“Don’t you want it?” Nicholas asked. “Take it.” He pushed the hilt right into Josh’s grip.

Almost against his will, Josh’s fingers closed over the smooth leather-wrapped hilt of the stone sword. He lifted it-though it was short, it was surprisingly heavy-and turned it over in his hands. “I’ve never handled a sword in my life,” he said. “I don’t know how…”

“Scathach will show you the basics,” Flamel said, not looking at the Shadow, but turning the simple statement into a command. “How to carry it, simple thrust and parry. Try and avoid stabbing yourself with it,” he added.

Josh suddenly realized that he was grinning widely and tried to wipe away the smile, but it was difficult: the sword felt amazing in his hand. He moved his wrist and the sword twitched. Then he looked at Scatty, Francis and Joan and saw how their eyes were fixed on the blade, following its every movement, and his smile faded. “What’s wrong with the sword?” he demanded. “Why are you so scared of it?”

Sophie put her hand on her brother’s arm, her eyes sparkling silver with the Witch’s knowledge. “Clarent,” she said, “is an evil, accursed weapon, sometimes called the Coward’s Blade. This is the sword Mordred used to kill his uncle, King Arthur.”

I n her bedroom at the top of the house, Sophie sat on the deep window ledge and looked down over the Champs-Elysees. The broad tree-lined street was wet with rain and shone amber, red and white in the reflected lights of the cars and buses. She checked her watch: it was almost two a.m. on Sunday morning, yet traffic was still heavy. Anytime after midnight, the streets of San Francisco would be deserted.

The difference emphasized just how far from home she was.

When she’d been younger, she’d gone through a phase when she’d decided that everything about herself was boring. She’d made a conscious effort to be more stylish-more like her friend Elle, who changed her hair color on a weekly basis and had a wardrobe that was always filled with the latest styles. Sophie had collected everything she could find about the exotic European cities she read about in magazines, places where fashion and art were created: London and Paris, Rome, Milan, Berlin. She was determined that she wasn’t going to follow fashion; she was going to create her own. The phase had lasted about a month. Fashion was an expensive business, and the allowance she and her brother got from their parents was strictly limited.

She still wanted to visit the great cities of the world, though. She and Josh had even started talking about taking a year off before college to go backpacking around Europe. And now here they were in one of the most beautiful cities on earth, and she had absolutely no interest in exploring it. The only thing she wanted to do right now was return to San Francisco.

But what would she return to?

The thought stopped her cold.

Though the family had moved around a lot, and traveled even more, two days ago, she’d known what to expect in the coming months. The rest of the year was mapped out in boring detail. In the fall, their parents would resume their teaching positions at the University of San Francisco, and both she and Josh would return to school. In December, the family would take their annual trip to Providence, Rhode Island, where their father had given the Christmas lecture at Brown University for the past two decades. On the twenty-first of December, their birthday, the twins would be taken to New York City to see the shops, admire the lights, look at the tree in Rockefeller Center and then go skating. They would get lunch in the Stage Door Deli: have matzo ball soup and sandwiches as big as their heads and one slice of pumpkin pie between them. On Christmas Eve, they would head out to their aunt Christine’s house in Montauk on Long Island, where they’d spend the holiday and then see in the New Year. That had been the tradition for the past ten years.