I m Next Generation not pure Elder like Hekate. I can bear to be around
iron.
Josh licked his dry lips. He was still remembering the green light buzzing in
Hekate's palms. When you said turned into green slime, you didn't really
mean
Scathach nodded. Sticky green slime. Quite disgusting. And I understand the
victim retains some measure of consciousness for a while. She glanced at
Flamel. I cannot remember the last person to cross one of the Elders and
live, can you?
Flamel'stood. Let s hope she doesn't remember in the morning. Get some
rest, he said to the twins. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.
Why? Sophie and Josh asked simultaneously.
Because tomorrow, I m hoping I can convince Hekate to Awaken your magical
potential. If you are going to have any chance of surviving the days to come,
I will have to train you to become magicians.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
when the door had closed behind them did his colorless eyes betray the worry
he felt. That had been close: another heartbeat or two and Hekate would have
reduced Josh to bubbling liquid. He wasn't sure if she would have been able
to reconstitute him in the morning when she had taken on her maiden form. He
had to get the twins away from her before their ignorance got them into
trouble.
Flamel walked away from the ruined table and followed the slope of the tree
limb down to the pool. He stepped off the branch and onto a narrow unpaved
path. There were a multitude of marks in the mud some were boar tracks,
others looked more like human feet and some were a curious mixture of both.
He knew he was being followed, that his every movement was being tracked by
creatures he couldn t see, and he guessed that the Torc Allta were probably
the least of Hekate's guards.
Crouching by the water s edge, he took a deep breath and allowed himself a
moment to relax. It would be true to say that this had been one of the more
eventful days in his long life, and he was exhausted.
From the moment Dee had snatched Perry and the Codex and the twins had
appeared, Flamel knew that one of the first prophecies he had read in the
Book half a millennium previously was beginning to come true.
The two that are one, the one that is all.
The Codex was full of cryptic phrases and incomprehensible sayings. Most of
them were concerned with the annihilation of Danu Talis, the ancient homeland
of the Elder Race, but there was also a series of prophecies that had to do
with the return of the Dark Elders and the destruction and enslavement of the
humani.
There will come a time when the Book is taken
Well, that was fairly self-explanatory.
And the Queen s man is allied with the Crow .
That had to refer to Dr. John Dee. He had been Queen Elizabeth s personal
magician. And the Crow was clearly the Crow Goddess.
Then the Elder will step out of the Shadows
Flamel knew that Dee had been working for centuries with the Dark Elders to
bring about their return. He had heard unconfirmed reports that more and more
of the Dark Elders had left their Shadowrealms and begun to explore the world
of the humani again.
And the immortal must train the mortal. The two that are one must become
the one that is all.
Nicholas Flamel was the immortal of the prophecy. He was sure of it. The
twins the two that are one must be the mortal who needed to be trained. But
he had no idea what the last phrase referred to: the one that is all.
Circumstances had placed the twins in his care, and he was determined that no
harm should come to them, especially now that he believed they were destined
to play a critical role in the war against the Dark Elders. Nicholas knew
that bringing Josh and Sophie to the Goddess with Three Faces had been an
incredible risk especially in the company of Scathach. The Warrior s feud
with the goddess was older than most civilizations. Hekate was one of the
most dangerous of the Elders. Immensely powerful, one of her many skills
enabled her to Awaken the magical powers that existed in every sentient
creature. However, like many of the Elders, her metabolism was linked to a
solar or lunar cycle. She aged during the day, and effectively died when the
sun went down, but was then reborn with the sunrise as a young woman. This
peculiar trait clouded and colored her thinking, and sometimes, as had
happened earlier, the older Hekate forgot the promises her younger selves had
made. Flamel was hoping he would be able to reason with the maiden Hekate in
the morning and convince her to Awaken the twins extraordinary potential.
The Alchemyst knew that everyone had the possibility for magic within them.
Once it had been sparked into life, it tended to become increasingly powerful
of its own accord. Sometimes very rarely children suddenly exhibited
extraordinary powers, usually either telepathy or telekinesis or a
combination of both. Some children realized what was happening and managed to
control their growing powers, while others never fully understood it. Left
untrained and unchecked, magical energy radiated off the children in waves,
moving furniture around, knocking people to the ground, gouging marks in
walls and ceilings. This was often reported as poltergeist activity. He knew
that if Hekate Awakened the twins dormant magical powers, then he could use
what he had learned over six hundred years of study to increase their skills.
Not only would he give them the means of protecting themselves, but he would
also be able to begin preparing them for whatever lay ahead.
Still crouching by the pool, he stared into the green-tinged water. Red and
white koi moved just below the surface, while deeper down, humanlike faces
peered up, eyes huge and blank, mouths filled with needle-pointed teeth. He
decided against dipping his fingers into the water.
It was commonly held in all the ancient magical books that there were four
elements of magic: Air and Water, Earth and Fire. But centuries of study had
revealed to Nicholas that there were, in fact, five elemental forces of
magic. The fifth force was the magic of Time, the greatest of all magics. The
Elders could control all the other elements, but the secret of the fifth was
