Nicholas Flamel 2 - The Magician

the shaft. The mud was icy cold, and she could feel the chill seeping into

her bones. Something crawled over her toes. Which way?

De Ayala s arm appeared, ghostly white, directly in front of her, pointing to

the left. She realized that she was standing at the mouth of a tall, roughly

hewn tunnel that sloped gently downward. De Ayala s ghostly luminescence lit

up the coating of spiders webs that sheathed the walls. They were so thick

that it looked as if the walls were painted silver.

I cannot go any farther, the ghost said, his voice rasping around the

walls. Dee has placed incredibly powerful warding spells and sigils in the

tunnel; I cannot get past. The cell you are looking for is about ten paces

ahead and on your left-hand side.

Although Perenelle was reluctant to use her magic, she knew she had no

choice. She was certainly not going to wander into a tunnel in

pitch-darkness. She snapped her fingers and a globe of white fire winked to

life over her right shoulder. It shed a soft opalescent glow over the tunnel,

picking out each spider s web in intricate detail. The webs stretched in a

thick curtain right across the opening. She could see webs woven on top of

webs and wondered how many spiders were down here.

Perenelle stepped forward, the light moving with her, and she suddenly saw

the first of the Wards and protections Dee had placed along the tunnel. A

series of tall metal-tipped wooden spears had been implanted deep in the

muddy floor. The flat metal head of each spear was painted with an ancient

symbol of power, a square hieroglyph that would have been familiar to the

ancient Maya peoples of Central America. She could see at least a dozen

spears, each painted with a different symbol. She knew that individually the

symbols were meaningless, but together they set up an incredibly powerful

zigzagging network of raw power that crisscrossed the corridor with invisible

beams of black light. It reminded her of the complicated laser alarms banks

used. The power had no effect on humans all she could feel was a dull buzzing

and a tension at the back of her neck but it was an impenetrable barrier to

any of the Elder Race, the Next Generation and the Creatures of the Were.

Even de Ayala, a ghost, was affected by the barrier.

Perenelle recognized some of the symbols on the spearheads; she had seen them

in the Codex and etched onto the walls of the ruins at Palenque in Mexico.

Most of them predated mankind; many of them were even older than the Elders

and belonged to the race that had inhabited the earth in the far-distant

past. They were the Words of Power, the ancient Symbols of Binding, designed

to protect or trap something either incredibly valuable or extraordinarily

dangerous.

She had a feeling this was going to be the latter.

And she also wondered where Dee had discovered the ancient words.

Sloshing through the thick mud, Perenelle took her first step into the

tunnel. All the spiderwebs rustled and trembled, a sound like the whispering

rustle of leaves. There must be millions of spiders in here, she thought.

They didn't frighten her; she d come up against creatures much more

frightening than spiders, but she was aware that there were probably

poisonous brown recluses, black widows or even South American hunting spiders

amongst the mass of arachnids. A bite from one of them would certainly

incapacitate her, possibly even kill her.

Perenelle jerked one of the spears out of the mud and used it to swipe away

the web. The square symbol on the spearhead glowed red and the gossamer webs

hissed and sizzled where the spear touched them. A thick shadow that she knew

was a mass of spiders flowed backward into the gloom. Advancing slowly down

the narrow tunnel, she knocked over each spear she came to, allowing the

filthy mud to wash away the Words of Power, gradually dismantling the

intricate pattern of magic. If Dee had gone to all this trouble to trap

something in the cell, it meant that he couldn't control it. Perenelle wanted

to find out what it was and free it. But as she drew nearer, the globe over

her shoulder throwing a flickering light across the corridor, another thought

crossed her mind: had Dee imprisoned something that even she should be afraid

of, something ancient, something horrible? Suddenly, she didn't know if she

was making a terrible mistake.

The doorposts and the entrance to the cell had been painted with symbols that

hurt her eyes to look at. Harsh and angular, they seemed to shift and twist

on the rock, not unlike the writing in the Book of Abraham. But whereas the

letters in the ancient book formed words in languages she mostly understood,

or at least recognized, these symbols twisted into unimaginable shapes.

She bent down, scooped up some of the mud and splashed it over the letters,

erasing them. Only when she had completely cleaned away the primeval Words of

Power did she step forward and send the globe of light twisting and bobbing

into the cell.

It took Perenelle a single heartbeat to make sense out of what she was

seeing. And in that moment, she realized that dismantling the protective

pattern of power might indeed have been a terrible mistake.

The entire cell was a thick cocoon of spiders webs. In the center of the

cell, dangling from a single strand of silk no thicker than her index finger,

was a spider. The creature was enormous, easily the same size as the huge

water tower that dominated the island above her head. It vaguely resembled a

tarantula but bristling purple hair tipped with gray covered its entire body.

Each of its eight legs was thicker than Perenelle. Set in the center of its

body was a huge, almost human head. It was smooth and round, with no ears, no

nose and only a horizontal slash for a mouth. Like a tarantula, it had eight

tiny eyes set close to the top of the skull.

And one by one, the eyes slowly opened, each the color of an old bruise. They

fixed on the woman s face. Then the mouth widened, and two long spearlike

fangs appeared. Madame Perenelle. Sorceress, it lisped.

Areop-Enap, she said in wonder, acknowledging the ancient spider Elder. I

thought you were dead.

You mean you thought you d killed me!

The web twitched and suddenly the hideous creature launched itself at

Perenelle.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

D r. John Dee leaned across the backseat of the police car. Turn here, he

said to Josh. He saw the expression on the young man s face and added,