The Warlock (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #5) (24 page)

“I know who you are. And I am … Marethyu.”

“I’ve been expecting you,” Aten said.

“Did Abraham tell you I was coming?”

“No,” Aten answered. “I’ve known about you for a long time … a very long time.” He looked at the anpu guards and
then at the stone chains around Marethyu. “Are these bonds necessary?” he asked.

“Your brother seemed to think so,” Marethyu said with a smile that revealed small white teeth. “In fact, he was most insistent.”

Aten’s long teeth pressed against his lower lips. “I assume they are useless?”

“Completely.” The air crackled and soured and a shadow flickered around the one-handed man. The stone bonds cracked and then crumbled to dust around him. The shock sent the anpu guards staggering back, scrabbling to draw their kopesh. Marethyu rubbed his left wrist with his right hand.

Aten looked at the jackal-headed guards. “Leave us,” he commanded, and then turned and stepped back into the room.

Confused, the anpu looked at one another and then at Marethyu, who grinned and waved them away. “Off you go now, like good doggies.” He turned and followed the Elder into the room, then turned to close the doors behind them. Although they were as thick as his body, they fell into place silently and without any effort. “Your brother will not be happy,” Marethyu said.

“Anubis is rarely happy these days,” Aten said. “He tells me I should kill you.”

“Even trying would be a mistake,” Marethyu said, smiling as he turned to face the Lord of Danu Talis. “You have no idea how many have tried.” Folding his arms across his chest, he looked around. He was standing in an enormous circular room that was lit by a tiny artificial sun that floated
just below the high ceiling. He nodded in approval. “I love Archon technology. How long has it burned?”

Aten waved a long-fingered hand. “This is a replacement. It has lit this room for a thousand years and more. However, it is the last of its type. When it burns out, we will have to revert to something a little more primitive.”

The round room was empty of all furniture, the solid gold walls and silver ceiling bare of decoration or writing. However, a circular mazelike pattern picked out in gold and silver tiles took up the entire floor: the map of Danu Talis. Silver tiles had been used to represent the water, and the shimmering light gave the impression that it was moving.

Aten took up a position at the center of the maze and then turned back to Marethyu. His huge yellow eyes glowed golden with reflected light. “I found this floor in an isolated Ancient ruin in the middle of the Great Desert. I believe it was once the ceiling of a cathedral.” His fingers traced the design. “I modeled this city in its image. I rather liked the idea that an Ancient pattern should become the map of a modern city.”

“I’ve seen the design before,” Marethyu said, walking around the edge of the circle. “It turns up across the humani world and into the Shadowrealms and beyond.” He unfolded his arms and clasped them behind his back, his head tilted to one side as he admired the pattern. “It is complete.”

“Every piece.”

“Our ancestors were astonishing,” he said, then looked at the Elder. “Don’t you agree?”

“You do not fear me?” Aten asked, not answering the question.

“I have no reason to fear you.” Marethyu shook his head. “But you fear me, don’t you,” he said quietly.

“I fear what you represent.”

“And what is that?”

“The death of my world.”

Marethyu shook his head. “On the contrary. I am here to ensure that your world—this extraordinary and amazing world that you created—lives on.”

Aten strode across the maze. He towered over the hook-handed man, but Marethyu remained still, regarding him impassively.

The Elder’s yellow eyes narrowed to horizontal slits. “Do you mock me?”

“No,” Marethyu said seriously. He held up his left arm and light dripped off the curved hook. Aten took a step back. “You have no idea what it has cost me to come here,” the one-handed man continued. “I have endured millennia of suffering and have traveled through countless strands of time to be here in this place, at this particular time. I sacrificed
everything
—every single thing I loved—to stand before you.”

“Why?”

“Because between us, we can decide the fate of Danu Talis and the untold generations that will come after it.” Marethyu’s dark aura flickered, briefly taking on the reflected gold in the room. He gestured, and suddenly the huge map beneath the Elder’s feet dissolved, then shattered into ragged pieces. The silver flowed out, across and then over the gold tiles. “If Danu Talis does not fall, then the world to come will never exist.…” The silver tiles tarnished to a dull brown,
then cracked and split apart. Marethyu gestured again; a chill breeze blew across the floor and the pieces of the ancient map scattered, leaving nothing but bare stone beneath. “Your empire, the vast De Danann empire, will destroy not only itself, but this entire planet within a single generation.”

“I was rather fond of that floor,” Aten murmured.

“Trust me, Elder, you are doomed to witness far worse destruction than that!”

Aten pushed his hands into his sleeves and turned away. The Elder strode across the bare floor, the edges of his metal robe striking sparks off the stones. He stepped out onto a flower-and-vine-draped balcony that overlooked the city of Danu Talis. Aten breathed deeply, drawing in the sweet scents of life and growth, dispelling the bitter, slightly sour taste of Marethyu’s aura.

The light was beginning to dip in the west, the buildings burning gold, the canals winking silver. In the lower levels of some of the taller buildings, lights were burning. From far below came the sound of distant laughter and the faintest hint of music.

Marethyu appeared alongside Aten. Leaning his forearms on the balcony, he looked across the island-city.

“Behold the greatest city this planet has ever known,” Aten said proudly.

Marethyu nodded. He raised his head, blue eyes darkening to match the color of the sky as he watched how the dipping sun painted the low-flying vimanas in burnished gold, making them look like streaks of light across the heavens. “It is a wonder.”

“There have been great cities on the earth before this,” Aten continued. “The Ancients had the city-colleges, their great centers of learning, and the Archons and Earthlords built huge cities in glass and metal in the distant past. But there has never been anything like Danu Talis.”

“Its legend will endure for millennia,” Marethyu agreed.

“Danu Talis is a city, a state, a country, and I have ruled it for close to two thousand years. My father, Amenhotep, ruled the town that was here before me, and my grandfather Thoth was one of the Great Elders who had wrested the original island from the seabed, ten thousand years previously.”

“Yes, I know, I saw him do it,” Marethyu said quietly.

“You were there?”

“Yes.”

The Lord of Danu Talis looked at the hook-handed man for a long time. Finally he nodded. “I believe you,” he said firmly. “And perhaps we will have time to discuss some of the things you have seen in your long life and extraordinary travels.”

“We will not,” Marethyu said. “I have very little time left in this place in this time.”

Aten nodded. “Once, Danu Talis was little more than an island state, surrounded by enemies. When I came to the throne we were besieged on every side. Anubis and I changed all that. Now, Danu Talis is at the heart of a sprawling empire that stretches across the globe with outposts on every continent, including the distant icy Northlands. And all who once stood against us—Ancients, Archons and Earthlords—have been defeated or driven to the very edges of the known world.”

“You are a student of history,” Marethyu said. “My father—or rather, the man I believed to be my father—taught me that every empire is ultimately doomed. As I traveled through time and history, I found that he was correct. All great empires are destined to collapse.”

Aten nodded. “I have studied the histories of the world back to the Time Before Time, and the lesson is clear: empires rise and fall.” He turned to face the huge pyramid that dominated the center of the island. One half was lit up by the setting sun, the other dipped in shadow. Tiny fires burned on each of the hundreds of steps that led to the flat top of the structure, which was festooned with colorful flags beginning to flap in the evening breeze.

“Danu Talis is doomed,” Marethyu said. “You don’t need seers or prophecies to predict its future.”

Aten looked at Marethyu. “What are you?” he asked suddenly. “You’re neither Elder nor Ancient, and you’re definitely not Archon or Earthlord.”

“I am none of those things,” Marethyu said seriously. “I am your future. You have ruled this city for millennia,” he continued. “This has truly been the Golden Age of Danu Talis, but the city is destined to crumble into ruin and despair. And if that happens, then everything you have worked for, every sacrifice you have ever made, will have been for nothing. But it does not have to be this way. You can protect the reputation of your city; indeed, you can ensure that it forms the basis for not just one, but scores of civilizations for millennia to come.”

“You know this to be true?”

“I have seen it,” Marethyu said quietly, the evening sunlight now turning his eyes gold. “I swear this to be true.”

“I believe you,” Aten whispered again. “What do you want me to do?”

“I need you to become
waerloga
—an oath breaker. A warlock. I need you to betray your city.”

“To whom?”

“To me.”

omehow, Josh Newman suddenly knew the names of the creatures in the cells: Cluricauns. Oni. Boggarts. Trolls. Huldu. Minotaur. Windigo. Vetala. Before he could wonder how the words had come to him, a coiling movement caught his attention and he stopped to look into a blackened room. He leaned closer and squinted into the darkness. The smell made his stomach lurch, and sour acid filled the back of his throat. He thought he was looking at a monkey, but as his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he realized that while the creature had the head of an ape, it had the striped body of a raccoon, and the legs of a tiger, and in place of a tail, a long black snake twitched on the floor. It was a nue, a creature from the darkest edges of Japanese lore. And one of the most famous nue had been killed by Niten.

Josh’s hands froze on the bars of the cell.

How had he known that?

When he’d walked in, only a few minutes ago, the cells had been full of nameless monsters. Some he’d vaguely recognized from stories his parents had told him—like the bull-headed minotaur—but most of the others looked like they’d crawled out of a nightmare.

Now, not only did he know their names, he also knew that Niten had killed one of the Japanese nue.

Sophie
.

A sudden image of his sister popped into his head. He wondered why he’d thought of her … and then he remembered that the last time he’d seen her, she’d been with Niten. Where she was now? Was she still with the Swordsman? Was she safe?

“Come along, Josh,” Dee ordered as he and Virginia walked past.

“Be right there,” Josh mumbled. He waited until Dee and Dare had moved on and then turned suddenly, almost expecting to find his sister behind him.

Sophie
.

He breathed deeply, searching for the smell of her vanilla aura over the tang of salt and iodine and the heavy zoolike stink of the cellblock.

Sophie
.

He felt a sudden wash of heat and rubbed his tingling fingers together. Was she here, now, watching him? She’d done it earlier, spied for Flamel and Perenelle when he’d been in Dee’s office about to call Coatlicue.

Sophie
. His lips formed her name … but there was nothing,
and for the first time in his life, he realized that he could not
sense
her. For Josh’s entire life, his twin had been his one constant. When his parents were away, when the family drifted from country to country and he and Sophie moved from school to school, the one person he could depend on was his sister. And now she was gone.

“Josh?” Virginia said. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure.”