The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5) (10 page)

Sophie felt the world shift and spin about her. She reached out to touch the wall and was aware that her silver aura was beginning to sparkle on her flesh.

Jasmine …

Memories of a woman kneeling before a golden statue, clutching a small metal-bound book, while behind her the world shattered into glass and flame
.

Niten stepped up to Agnes and bowed deeply. “Gone into a Shadowrealm with the Archon Coatlicue, mistress,” he said.

“I pity the Archon,” Aunt Agnes said quietly.

And Sophie suddenly remembered why the jasmine was so familiar. It was Aunt Agnes’s favorite perfume. And the scent of Tsagaglalal, She Who Watches.

And then the world spun around her and turned black.

n the wild northeast shores of Danu Talis, an impossibly tall, incredibly slender twisting glass spire rose directly out of the sea off the city of Murias. The city was ancient, but the spire predated it by millennia. When the Great Elders had created the Isle of Danu Talis by raising the seabed in an extraordinary act of Elemental creation, the glass spire and the remnants of an Earthlord city had also been wrenched up from the seafloor. Much of the ancient city was fused to enormous globes of melted glass shot through with threads of solid gold, evidence of the terrible battles the Earthlords had fought with the Archons and Great Elders in the Time Before Time.

But the crystal spire was pristine and gleaming, untouched or unaffected by the incredible heat that had melted the surrounding buildings. It occupied a rocky spur of land that became an island at every high tide. The tower of unbroken
white quartzlike crystal changed color with the weather and tides, from chill gray to icy blue, to alabaster white, to an arctic green. When the high tides lashed against the smooth walls, the salt water hissed and boiled, so that the tower was perpetually wreathed in steam even though the stones themselves were cool. At night, the spire glowed with a pale phosphorescence the color of sour milk, throbbing to a slow regular rhythm like a great heart, sending pulsing streaks of color—reds and purples—up the length of the needle. During the winter months, when bitter hailstorms sleeted in from the Great Ice at the Top of the World and sheathed the city of Murias in thick snow and solid ice, the tower remained untouched.

The Elder and Great Elder inhabitants of Murias regarded the tower with a mixture of awe and terror. No strangers to wonders, they were masters of Elemental Magic, and there was little that was beyond their powers. They knew that they inhabited an old world, an ancient world, and that remnants of its primeval past still lurked in the shadows. For generations, the Great Elders and the Elders who had come after them had fought the Archons and defeated them, and had even swept away the last of the hideous Earthlords. The Elders’ powers—a mixture of science fueled by auric energy—rendered them almost invulnerable. But even they feared the tower’s solitary occupant. Legend had named the island the Tor Ri. In the ancient language of Danu Talis it meant “The King’s Tower”—but no king lived there.

The crystal spire was the home of Abraham the Mage.

The tall redheaded warrior in shimmering crimson armor staggered through the narrow doorway and leaned forward, hands on thighs, breathing heavily. “Abraham, those stairs will be the death of me,” he panted. “They seem to go on forever and always leave me breathless. One of these days I’m going to count them.”

“Two hundred and forty-eight,” the tall, angular man standing in the center of the room said absently. He was concentrating on a blue and white globe rotating in front of him in midair.

“I thought there were more. Always feel like I’m climbing for ages.”

Abraham half turned, light from the spinning globe spilling over the right side of his face, lending his chalk-colored skin an unhealthy blue glow. “You have stepped in and out of at least a dozen Shadowrealms on the way up here, Prometheus, old friend. Why do you think I’ve told you never to linger on the stairs?” he added with a sly smile. “You have news for me?” Abraham the Mage turned to fully face the tall warrior.

Prometheus straightened, his warrior’s discipline ensuring that when he looked at the Mage, his face was impassive. Before he could speak, the blue globe drifted down and floated directly in front of him, hanging in the air between the two men.

“What do you see, old friend?”

Prometheus blinked and focused on the ball. “The world …,” he began, then frowned. “But there is something wrong with it. There’s too much water,” he said slowly, watching the globe revolve. Realization struck home when
he began to make out the shapes of some of the continents. “Danu Talis is gone.”

Abraham raised a metal-gloved hand and stuck his forefinger into the sphere: it burst like a bubble. “Danu Talis is gone,” he agreed. “This is the world not as it will be, but as it could be.”

“How soon?” Prometheus asked.

“Soon.”

Prometheus found himself looking directly at Abraham the Mage. Even before he’d first met him, the Elder had heard the legends of the mysterious wandering teacher, a figure who was rumored to be neither Elder nor Archon but older than either, older even than the Earthlords. It was said that he was from the Time Before Time, but Abraham never discussed his age. Prometheus’s sister, Zephaniah, had told him that the history of every race mentioned a teacher, a wise seer, who had brought knowledge and wisdom to the natives in the distant past. There were very few descriptions of the scholar … but many stories mentioned a figure who might have been Abraham the Mage.

The Mage’s pale blond hair, gray eyes and ashen skin suggested that he was from one of the distant northlands, but he was much taller than the Northern Folk, and his features were finer, with high prominent cheekbones and slightly uptilted eyes. He also had an extra finger on each hand.

Over the last few decades, the Change had started to overtake Abraham.

Prometheus knew that there were accounts that it happened to all the Great Elders—so perhaps Abraham was of
that race—but since so few of them survived and none ever appeared in public, no one knew the truth. Zephaniah had explained to him that when extreme old age overtook the Great Elders, what might have been a disease or mutation, or perhaps even a regeneration, began to work on their DNA.

The Great Elders Changed. And each Change was different.

Some of them transformed completely into monsters, sprouting fur and fangs; others became hybrid creatures, growing wings or fins on their bodies. Some shrank, while others grew monstrously tall. Many went mad.

Abraham was slowly turning into a beautiful statue. His gold aura no longer glowed over and above his skin. It had actually settled onto the surface of his flesh, coating it, turning it metallic. The left side of his face from forehead to chin and from nose to ear was a solid gold mask. Only his eye remained untouched, although the white had turned a pale saffron with threads of gold twisted through the gray iris. The upper and lower teeth on the left side of his face were solid gold, and his left hand was covered in what looked like a golden glove, though Prometheus knew it was actually his flesh.

Prometheus suddenly realized that Abraham was staring at him. A curl of a smile appeared on his thin lips. “You saw me yesterday,” the Mage said gently. “I’ve not changed since then.”

The Elder nodded, his cheeks turning the same color as his fiery hair.

The transformation was both horrible and beautiful. And
although Abraham never spoke of it, both he and Prometheus knew that it could only end one way: the Change would turn the Mage into a living statue, incapable of speech or movement, though his mind would remain alert and curious. He had never asked, but Prometheus suspected that Abraham knew exactly how much time he had left.

“Tell me the news,” Abraham said.

“It’s not good,” Prometheus warned him. He saw the look of pain cross the fleshy part of the Mage’s face but pressed on quickly. “The strangers appeared—as you said they would—on the hills south of the city. But the anpu were waiting for them. They were captured and were taken away in the vimanas. I’ve no idea where they are now, but I’m guessing they’re in the dungeons below the imperial court.”

“Then they are lost to us and we are doomed.” Abraham turned away. He raised both hands and the blue-green globe once again appeared in the air. Wisps of white cloud spun around the sphere, floating over the green and brown landmasses. And in the center of the globe was the Isle of Danu Talis.

“What happens now?” Prometheus asked.

Abraham brought both hands—metal and flesh—together, enclosing the floating world. Then he squeezed. Grains of blue and white, green and brown, dribbled like sand between his fingers. He turned to the Elder, light flowing off the metallic side of his face. “Now the world ends.”

his is Nereus,” Niccolò Machiavelli said quickly to Billy the Kid. His left hand was resting lightly on the young man’s shoulder, but his fingers were locked over the nerve in the side of his neck. Every time Billy opened his mouth to say something, Machiavelli squeezed, silencing him. “Billy, this is the Old Man of the Sea, one of the most powerful of all the Elders.” He released the pressure on the American immortal’s neck for an instant.