The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel #6) (36 page)

“That’s me,” all three said simultaneously.

Josh stepped backward and the three berserkers automatically moved forward. “If I could lure them farther down the room, do you think you’d be able to get past them to the door and open it?” he wondered.

“Not a chance,” Sophie said.

“Try it anyway.”

“Give me the sword,” the biggest of the three berserkers said.

Josh looked at the other two. “Should I?”

“No,” they both grunted.

He looked back to the biggest warrior and shrugged. “Sorry. They said no.”

The three bear warriors started arguing amongst themselves in savage growling voices.

“If they attack, do we split up or stay together?” Sophie asked.

“Split up,” Josh said immediately. “We’ll race halfway down the room, then I’ll turn and engage them. You double back and get to the door as fast as you can. If you can get out into the corridor and raise the alarm, we’ll be fine.”

“We’ve decided,” the biggest berserker announced. “We’re going to kill you both and take the swords. We’ll draw lots for them later.”

“I bet you’re hoping to win this one,” Josh said, holding up Clarent casually. He looked at the other two bears. “You know that if he does win it, then he’s been cheating.”

The largest bear growled, the sound echoing around the empty room. “I’ve never cheated in my life. That is an insult to my good name.”

“Do berserkers have good names?” Sophie asked.

The creature’s jaws opened, showing his massive teeth. “Bad names are better.”

“Before you kill us,” Josh said, “who sent you here? I think we have a right to know who ordered our deaths.”

The three berserkers looked at one another and then nodded. “Anubis,” one grunted. “Jackal-headed Elder. Ugly,” he added. “Real ugly.”

“Though not as ugly as his mother,” another said.

The berserkers nodded in agreement. “Very ugly. She probably put him up to it,” the biggest warrior said, his eyes narrowing on the twins. “Now, enough chitchat!” With that he launched himself forward, knife and ax whirling in a deadly blur before him.

Josh shouted in alarm and brought both swords up in an X in front of his face. More by accident than design, he caught the descending ax. It screamed off the swords in a shower of sparks. But the berserker ducked and with his left hand plunged his knife straight toward Josh’s chest.

Sophie screamed.

And the obsidian knife crumbled to dust on contact with the ceramic armor.

Josh lashed out with Clarent. It scored a shallow scrape across the berserker’s torso, and instantly the sword pulsed. Josh felt it with his entire body—a single heartbeat—and in that moment he knew that if he could feed it blood, the blade would know what to do.

The other two berserkers circled Sophie.

Drawing a deep breath into her lungs, she screamed.

The sound ricocheted across the walls, echoing along the chamber, and both berserkers staggered back, shocked by the noise. She darted between the two creatures, left and right swords lashing out. She missed one of her attackers but caught the other on his meaty rump and he bellowed, a mixture of surprise and pain.

Josh attacked the creature standing before him, blindly hacking and slashing with both swords. Sweat was already
pouring down his back, and his shoulders were starting to ache. Surprised, the berserker backed away, leaving Josh to join his sister.

“Not so tough now,” Josh panted.

“You were lucky,” the bear grunted.

“Oh, I don’t know. Your chest is pretty cut up, and your friend there won’t be sitting down for a week. We’re unscathed.”

“Un-skat-ed?” the bear asked, shooting a confused look at his companions. “What’s skating got to do with it?” The two berserkers shook their heads.

“Unharmed,” Josh explained.

The three berserkers spread out. “We were going to kill you quickly,” one said. “But not now. Now you will have to—” He stopped.

Sophie and Josh looked at one another. “Have to?” Sophie prompted.

“What will we have to do?” Josh asked, and then he realized that the three berserkers were no longer looking at the twins, but behind them.

Sophie and Josh turned together.

A woman stood in the center of the room on the circle of gold and silver sun and moon tiles. Slender, in white ceramic armor, she held the metal-bound Codex in her left hand and a golden kopesh in her right. She raised her head and looked at the children with slate-gray eyes, and they both experienced the same shock of recognition. She was somehow familiar.

The woman walked out of the circle and handed Josh the
Codex. “A gift from Abraham the Mage,” she said. “You have the pages needed to complete it, I believe.” Then she slipped the second kopesh from its sheath and faced the three berserkers. The beast-men were suddenly looking unsure.

“Which of you wants to die first?” she asked. “You?” She pointed to the biggest berserker. “Or you?… Or you?”

“Our quarrel is not with you. We were sent to kill the humani.”

“Then your quarrel
is
with me,” she answered. “They are in my charge. I watch over them.”

“Who are you?” Josh and the berserker asked simultaneously.

“I am She Who Watches. I am Tsagaglalal….”

And even as she was speaking, Sophie realized who she was. “Aunt Agnes,” she breathed.

T
he Council Chamber at the heart of the Pyramid of the Sun took up the entire 314th floor, at the precise midpoint of the building. Rows of tiered seats were arranged in squares and dropped down to a circle at the heart of the room. The chamber was acoustically perfect: conversations on the opposite side of the room, even at its farthest point, more than one thousand feet away, were clearly audible, as if they were taking place at one’s side.

The room, like the rest of the pyramid, also absorbed all auric energies.

When the Great Elders had created the even larger original Pyramid of the Sun, they had recognized that they needed a secure environment in which to conduct their business. One where no Elder could influence another by force of aura. A combination of mathematics and crystal with sheets of gold and silver lining the walls swallowed any auras. Any energies
that leaked from this unique security system were channeled into lighting the vast rooms. Within the Pyramid of the Sun, all the immensely powerful Great Elders and the Elders who came after them were equals.

And most of the modern Elders who ruled over the island empire hated the pyramid for exactly that reason.

“Look at them,” Bastet hissed.

“Who?” Anubis asked, searching the room to see where his mother’s gaze had fallen.

“Isis and Osiris—who else!”

Bastet and Anubis were standing in one of the highest tiers of the chamber. As prominent Elders, they were always positioned in the front row in the square of gilded seats before the circle. But Bastet had insisted that they hang back so they could look down over the huge crowd now filing in.

Most of the figures were still vaguely human, but the rest had grown hideous as age and the cumulative use of their auras had damaged them. Furry animal heads and limbs were commonplace; some figures had wings. Others had begun to warp into creatures of stone or wood, while a few had become tentacled monstrosities.

“Only a handful have not turned up,” Anubis noted. “I don’t see Chronos.”

“Good.”

“Black Annis is missing.”

“Pity, she is a good ally,” Bastet said absently, leaning forward to follow Isis and Osiris’s progress through the crowd. They were easy to track—they stood out, dressed in white
ceremonial armor. She watched them nodding and smiling. “They will do nothing at this time. They’ve created this excitement and will promise to reveal all very soon.”

“How do you know?” Anubis asked his mother.

“It’s what I would do.” She glanced quickly at her son. “The children: are they dead?”

He nodded confidently. “I sent three berserkers.” He grinned.

“Three for two children. That’s overkill, don’t you think?”

Anubis shrugged. “I wanted to be sure.”

Bastet nodded happily. “Good. Keep thinking like that and you’ll make a great ruler. And Aten?”

“On the way. Ard-Greimne said there were humani protesting outside the prison. He just needs to clear them away first.”

“I like him. He is brutal and efficient,” Bastet said. “I’m sure we will find a role for him in the days to come.”

Anubis noted her use of the word
we
but said nothing. He had plans to rule Danu Talis his way … and they did not include his mother.

Tiny Janus strode to the center of the circle. The Change had altered the Elder terribly, and he now had four completely different faces, each one capable of moving and talking independently of the other. Usually he kept them covered under a black glass helmet and revealed only one face at a time to the world, but today he had left off the covering. While horrible to behold, his particular Change meant he could face all four sides of the chamber at once. Raising a
miniature silver triangle, he struck it with a gold hammer. The pure sound cut through the room, instantly silencing all conversations.

“Elders of Danu Talis,” he announced. “Please be seated for this, the first Grand Session in lo these many years.”

There was a hum of movement as everyone began to move into their rows. In some places seats had been removed to accommodate the Elders’ mutated forms.

Janus struck the triangle again. “This is a great and terrible day. A day when we come to choose the next ruler of this city, and a day when we stand in judgment over one of our own.”

Elders continued to wind through the aisles, making their way to their seats. Anubis followed Bastet down through the rows, nodding and smiling as he went. He had many friends here—well, not so much friends, more like allies, really. And in the entire room, there were probably no more than a handful who supported Aten and the humani, but they were powerful Elders and not to be lightly dismissed.

Janus struck the triangle for a third time. “However, I believe this may be the greatest day in the history of Danu Talis.”

Bastet twisted her head at an unnatural angle to look back at her son. “I bet Isis and Osiris paid him to say that.” She smiled nastily at the four-faced Elder and slid into her seat in the front row.

Anubis took up a position beside her. He nudged his mother. The two seats directly opposite belonged to Isis and
Osiris, but only Isis sat there. “Where’s Osiris?” he asked, completely forgetting that his voice carried clearly across the room.

“He has gone to bring us the twins of legend,” Isis said loudly, her voice ringing through the room.

All the gathered Elders sat forward at her words and the vast chamber grew deathly silent.

“Yes, they are here. The rightful rulers of Danu Talis have come home.” Isis was turning to face the doors when suddenly they burst open and a wild-eyed Osiris appeared. “They’re gone!” he shouted, his voice thundering. “There’s blood everywhere!”

“Oh, shame,” Bastet purred.

“Sad,” Anubis agreed. “A tragic loss.”

“There are three dead berserkers in the old museum.”

Bastet gripped her son’s arm again and her nails punctured deep enough to scrape bone as the room erupted with shouts and questions.

A grizzled and scarred anpu ran through the open doors and pushed past Osiris. The room fell deathly silent. None of the beasts or hybrids were allowed inside the Council Chamber. And this one had touched an Elder.

“Defend yourselves,” the anpu barked. “We are under attack! Humani from the skies.”

As the room dissolved into chaos, Bastet turned to Anubis. “I did not know they could talk,” she said.

“Neither did I,” he muttered. “They never spoke to me.”

And then the entire pyramid began to tremble.

“Earthquake,” Bastet breathed. “Oh, can this day get any worse?”

From across the room, Isis and Osiris both turned and looked at her, and their smiles were identical. “Oh yes,” they breathed. “Much worse.”

O
n a tiny island surrounded by bubbling lava, Aten, the Lord of Danu Talis, sat in a cage, waiting to be called to execution.

He was exhausted, burnt and scarred from splashing lava, his robes dotted with singe holes. He was also conscious that the lava was rising, the bubbles getting larger and more regular. The air, already thick with sulfur, was becoming less breathable by the moment. If they didn’t come to kill him soon, they’d find him dead of asphyxiation. And he was guessing that neither his mother nor brother would be too pleased about that.

On the other side of the lava pool, a rectangle of white light appeared as a door opened. Three huge anpu pushed the bridge into place, and then Dagon, the jailer, hurried forward, the protective goggles he wore making his face even more fishlike. Two of the huge guards accompanied him, while the third remained at the door. Even if a prisoner did
manage to overpower the guards, he would never get back across the bridge before the guard at the door had slipped through it and locked it from the other side.

Dagon refused to look him in the eye as he fiddled with the complicated lock. “It is time, Lord Aten.”

“I know.”

“The guards have instructions to kill you if you try to escape.”

“I will not try, Dagon. Where would I go? What would I do? I am where I am supposed to be.”

The jailer bubbled a grim laugh. “Why, Lord Aten, anyone would think you allowed yourself to be caught.” He looked up suddenly. “Oh,” he whispered, as realization dawned. Dagon stepped closer to the bars and lowered his voice. “The humani call for you, Lord Aten. They are protesting outside the jail. There have been disturbances all across the city.” He lowered his voice even more to a breathy whisper. “There are rumors that even now a great army is marching to rescue you.”

“Whose army?” the Elder asked lightly.

“The Goddess with Three Faces has sent Huitzilopochtli to save you.”

“And where did you hear that?”