“That’s because this is the realm of Prometheus,” Nicholas answered from the backseat. “We’re underground, in the Shadowrealm once known as Hades.” He coughed, the sound wet in his chest, and sat back again.
“Everything you see around you is an illusion—remember that,” Perenelle finished.
“Hades …,” Josh began, voice rising in alarm. A flicker of movement distracted him and he turned to look out his window. The car was now creeping along the dirt road, and he saw a figure step out from between the trees on one side. It was followed by a second and a third, and suddenly a long line of vaguely human-looking beings lined the narrow track. They appeared unformed, ill-shaped, with heads too large or one arm longer than the other, big feet on thin legs, hands with too many fingers. The faces were almost blank, with just slight impressions where a mouth or eyes would normally be, and they were all bald and had no ears or noses. As the car drew close, Josh saw that their deep brown skin was cracked and seamed with countless wrinkles … like dried mud. “They’re Golems,” Josh whispered in horror, remembering the mud men who had accompanied Dee when he’d attacked the shop.
“Not Golems …,” Sophie murmured. Memories were tumbling through her head; images had started to flicker, dark, terrifying thoughts of an ancient nameless city. “No, not Golems …”
“Not Golems,” Aoife snapped, twisting in her seat to look at him. “Do not even mention them in the same breath. Golems are mere shadows of these creatures. These are the last remnants of the First People.”
“The First People?” Josh shook his head. “I’ve never heard of them.”
“You haven’t?” Aoife asked incredulously. She looked at Nicholas, Perenelle and Sophie before turning back to Josh. “You do know that my uncle Prometheus created the original humani out of mud?”
The idea was so ridiculous that Josh started to laugh, and then he realized that no one else in the car was even smiling. He looked at his sister and saw her nod slightly. “The First People.”
“He made humans out of mud? That … But that’s just …”
“We’ve seen mud and wax people this week,” Sophie quickly reminded him.
“I know, but they were artificial creations, animated by the power of Dee’s and Machiavelli’s auras. I can—sort of—understand that.” He looked at the misshapen figures lining the road and turned back to Aoife. “But you’re saying that Prometheus created the human race!”
Aoife looked directly at Josh as she spoke. “My uncle appears in the mythology of many races. He has many names, but the story is the same: Prometheus created the first humani out of mud using an ancient technology that was so advanced it seemed magical. Some of the other Elders created beasts, but Prometheus went one step further. A step too far, for many. That was the reason the Elders hated him and banished him, and why he was sentenced to a long drawn-out death in the Hades Shadowrealm.”
Josh twisted around to look at the humanlike figures standing unmoving by the sides of the road. A sudden thought struck him and he twisted in his seat to look at the four people in the back. “So if he helped create the first humani,” he said hopefully, “then that means he’ll help us?”
Aoife’s laughter was ugly.
“What’s so funny?” Sophie demanded.
The warrior’s grin revealed her vampire teeth. “My uncle gave the humani life and taught them the Magic of Fire … but they abandoned him. They have always abandoned and betrayed him. Even your friend Saint-Germain,” she said, and abruptly caught Sophie’s arm, twisting it to expose the tattoo on her wrist. “First he befriended my uncle, and then he stole the secret of fire.” She shook her head. “Prometheus has no time for the humani. He despises them.”
Josh looked back out the window at the creatures, which had begun to crowd ever closer to the car. “So what are these First People doing here?”
“They are the Shadowrealms’ guardians.” Aoife grinned. “And they are hungry. Always hungry.”
The car suddenly jerked, then sputtered and died.
“I guess I don’t want to know what they eat,” Josh muttered.
“No, you don’t,” his sister said.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Niten?” Nicholas asked.
“Battery’s dead.” The immortal turned the key in the ignition, but it clicked uselessly.
Nicholas reached up to turn on the overhead light. Nothing happened. “The Shadowrealm has drained the power.”
“What do we do?” Josh asked.
“We sit and wait,” the Alchemyst said.
With a growing sense of unease, Sophie watched as the mud figures crowded in closer around the car. Wherever they touched it, they deposited streaks of what looked like dried and flaking earth on the shining metal. One flailing arm left a muddy smear across the windshield; another pressed against her door, completely coating the glass in sticky brown-gray mud. There was a thump as something fell onto the roof, and then the car rocked from side to side with the mass of heavy bodies pressing against it.
“What’s happening?” Josh asked, a tremor in his voice. A figure started to crawl across the hot hood of the car, the heat drying out its soft flesh, leaving chunks stuck to the metal.
“Don’t open the windows!” Sophie said suddenly, her voice cracking. She sounded different than usual—old and hoarse, her words heavy with an unidentifiable accent. “They must not touch us.”
Aoife spun in the seat to look at her, green eyes narrowing suspiciously. “How do you know that?”
“The Witch told me,” Sophie whispered. Her blue eyes flickered silver, then turned shockingly green for a single instant. She turned to look out the window. Directly in front of her, its unformed face inches from hers, was one of the muddy creatures. Sophie saw her own face reflected in the glass, superimposed over the blank mask, and she drew back in fright. She knew what had attracted the creatures and what they wanted. “They’re drawn to our auras,” she said very slowly, her voice still touched by the same accent. “Though they move, they are without the spark of true life. If they can but touch us, then they will be able to suck our auras away and wrap them around themselves, giving themselves the semblance of life.”
Aoife’s pale skin had turned ghastly white, her freckles looking like spots of blood across her cheeks and nose. “You sound like … like …” She shook her head. “But that’s impossible.”
Sophie turned to look at Aoife. She brushed strands of blond hair away from her face and looked directly at the warrior. She concentrated hard, and her blue eyes gradually paled, fading almost to white, then settling into a metallic silver. The faintest of glows touched them, and the car was filled with the scent of vanilla.
“Who are you?” Aoife demanded. “What are you?”
When Sophie didn’t answer, Nicholas sat forward and said, “Sophie was Awakened by Hekate, and then your grandmother taught her the Magic of Air. At the same time, the Witch passed on her memories. Sophie knows all that the Witch knew.”
Aoife pulled back from Sophie, her face suddenly blank. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s true,” Josh said.
“Why are you frightened?” Sophie asked. Memories came flooding into her consciousness, and she nodded slowly as she answered her own question. “You fear what I know.”
“I am afraid of nothing!” Aoife said quickly.
“I think you have been afraid all your life.”
“This is some sort of trick,” Aoife snapped, with the tiniest tremor in her voice. “Flamel or the Sorceress has schooled you.” Wisps of her ugly gray aura coiled off her body like steam, leaking from her nose and ears. “If you truly know all that the Witch of Endor knew, then tell me her true name, her secret name.”
“Zephaniah,” Sophie breathed. And even as she said the name, her heart started to hammer as sudden vivid memories washed over her. Closing her eyes, she drew in a deep breath.…
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Zephaniah drew in a deep breath and opene
d her eyes to look across the nameless Archon metropolis.
The city had been an ancient ruin before the Great Elders had stumbled across it and hacked it free of the primeval forest. There was even evidence to suggest that the mysterious Archons had not built the city, but had simply occupied the deserted glass-and-gold buildings, which dated from the Time Before Time. When the Great Elders relocated to the newly created Isle of Danu Talis, the unnamed city had been abandoned once again to the forest. Now the gleaming metal spires were wrapped around with thick vines, and the glass walls and glittering black stone streets were covered with creepers and trailing roots. It was deserted—no animals moved in the tumbled city, no birds flew overhead and the usual jungle noises were completely absent.
“This place frightens me,” she said aloud.
Her huge red-haired, red-bearded companion remained silent. Shading his eyes from the sun, he slowly looked across the city, searching for any signs of life or movement.
Zephaniah unrolled a map etched onto a piece of skin from a long-extinct lizard and pressed it against a green glass wall. Tilting her head to one side, she tried to make sense of the squiggles and arcane script. “We’re here,” she said doubtfully, pointing at the map.
An enormous hand reached over her shoulder, flattened the map against the wall, then slowly turned it upside down. A blunt-nailed finger pointed. “We’re here, sister!”
Zephaniah took hold of the coarse red hair that covered the back of the man’s hand and tugged hard.
“Ouch! What did you do that for?” Prometheus demanded.
“Because.”
“Because?”
“To remind you that not only are you my little brother, I’m in charge of this expedition.”
The warrior in the rust-colored leather armor grinned. “That’s only because Abraham likes you more than he likes me.”
Zephaniah’s smile faded. “To be honest, I don’t think Abraham likes either of us,” she said softly.
Prometheus rested his hand on his sister’s shoulder and brought his head down close to hers, strands of his graying red hair mingling with hers. His solid green eyes were troubled. “I know you like him, but be careful, sister. I have heard rumors that he is mingling Archon technology and Elder magic in ways that have never been used before.” He saw something shift behind his sister’s green eyes and cupped her small chin in his hand, tilting her face upward. “You knew this …,” he said accusingly.
“A little,” she admitted. “He told me that he is creating an encyclopedia of the entire world’s knowledge. He is calling it a Codex.”
“That must be a big book,” Prometheus said with a smile.
“He believes he can get it into twenty-one pages.”
The red-haired warrior started to shake his head. “I was going to say impossible, and then I realized that for Abraham nothing is impossible. Did he tell you why?” Prometheus asked. But before his sister could answer, he spun around to look behind him, quickly scanning the edges of the encroaching forest. All morning he’d had the feeling that they were being followed. Although nothing moved in the city, the surrounding countryside teemed with life: he’d even spotted serpents that he’d thought had died out long ago. There were monstrous lizards in the rivers, and thunderbirds still soared high in the skies. But he didn’t think it was a beast on their trail. On two separate occasions, he’d caught the smell of something rank and rotten, something long dead. He’d seen nothing, yet he knew this was not just his imagination: there was something in the forest, watching them.
“Abraham believes the world will end …,” the slight red-haired woman with the huge round green eyes said.
Prometheus laughed. “He’s been promising that for centuries. If he says it long enough, then one day he’ll be right.”
Even though they were alone in the vast city, Zephaniah lowered her voice. “He has entered into an alliance with Chronos.…”
Prometheus’s face twisted in disgust.
“I believe the Master of Time has given him a date for the end of the world.”
“I would not trust that old monster as far as I could throw him.”
Zephaniah smiled at the sudden image. Her brother, Prometheus, was immensely strong, and Chronos was tiny. Rolling up the map, she stuck it into the metal tube she wore strapped across her back. “This way?” she asked.
Prometheus took a last glance over his shoulder before turning back to his sister. “No, it’s this way. The library should be at the end of this street.”
The two Elders had been traveling for ten days now and were both exhausted, but at last their goal was in sight.
The first part of their journey had been relatively straightforward. Leaving Danu Talis, they had traveled across the world, jumping from leygate to leygate, moving east to west, following the setting sun, until they reached the place where, legend had it, the Earthlords, Ancients and Archons had fought in the Time Before Time. Nothing grew in this devastated place, and intense heat had turned the earth to shining glass. The cataclysmic battle had upset the earth’s magnetic forces so that even the ley lines no longer functioned properly. None of those who had jumped through the final leygate—a perfectly circular hole in a cliff face—had returned; their screams still echoed through the gates even though centuries had passed.
Zephaniah and Prometheus continued south on foot. The same forces that had upset the ley lines also sucked away at their auras, leaving them both weak and practically powerless. It had taken Prometheus—a Master of Fire—three attempts before he’d been able to raise a feeble flame to heat some water. Their auras had strengthened the farther they had moved away from the last leygate, but when they’d entered the forest that ringed the Nameless City, their auras had faded again.
Zephaniah was exhausted. It was an extraordinary feeling, one she had not experienced in hundreds of years. The bone-dry desert around the leygate quickly followed by the rank humidity of the jungle had destroyed her leather-and-metal clothes, and her indestructible boots had proven not so indestructible. Having no access to her aura had been a terrifying revelation. To have to rely on her unenhanced senses was like being deaf and blind, and even her sense of taste was limited, so that everything tasted the same—either sweet or salty. Now she could only smell the strongest—and usually the foulest—of odors. The sooner they got what they were looking for and left the Nameless City, the happier she would be. But Abraham’s instructions had been clear: she was not to return without the records from the library. There was one particular book he needed to complete the creation of the Codex.
Initially, Zephaniah had contemplated making the journey on her own: she was both strong and fast, and her auric powers were incredible. However, her friend Hekate had begged her to bring someone with her, and surprisingly, Abraham had agreed to let her. She had been even more surprised when he had suggested her younger brother, the fearsome warrior-sage Prometheus.
“I’m glad you came with me,” she said suddenly. “I’m not sure I would have liked to make this journey on my own.”
“I have to look out for my sister,” the warrior said with a grin. Then the smile faded. “But I do know what you mean.… There is something about this place … something wrong. No wonder our people abandoned it.”
“I wonder why they never gave it a name,” she said. “On the charts it is simply known as the City and Abraham called it the Nameless City.” The pair continued down the middle of the broad street, following mysterious metal grooves cut into the primeval black stones. Although the age of the city could be measured in millennia, no metal had rusted, and while the glass walls were scratched and scored by the forest, not a single pane was broken.
“Here, I think …,” Prometheus said. He stopped outside an enormous stepped-glass pyramid. The entire front of the building was covered in intricate spirals and whorls. Just looking at them made him dizzy. Squeezing his eyes shut, he shook his head. “Check the map.”
Zephaniah pulled the map from the met
al tube; she held it up, comparing the symbols etched into the glass above the door with the pattern on the skin. They matched. “This is the library,” she said, craning her neck to look at the top of the pyramid. It was topped with a cap of solid gold. “The proportions are wrong,” she said suddenly, stepping back to look at the doors. “The handles are set too high and the doors are unusually tall.”
Prometheus nodded. “And the steps are too shallow,” he said.
“This city was not built for creatures like us,” Zephaniah added.
“But for whom … or for what?” he wondered.
“The Ancients?” Zephaniah suggested.
“Not them: they resembled us to some degree. Legend has it that this city was created for the Earthlords.”
“What did they look like?”
Prometheus shrugged. “No one knows. None survived the last battle, and all record of them was erased from history.” Pulling two short double-headed axes from his belt, he stepped up to the door of opaque black glass and pushed hard, expecting it to be stiff with age.
It swung silently open.
Prometheus quickly stepped inside and put his back to the wall, waiting until his eyes had adjusted to the gloom. Zephaniah remained outside and pulled a coiled metal whip from around her waist. If there was anything inside, she didn’t want to get in her brother’s way, and it was her duty to protect him.
“I’m not sure this is the right place.…” Prometheus’s voice echoed. “There are no books here, just statues. Hundreds—no, thousands of them.”
A flicker of movement at the edge of the forest caught Zephaniah’s attention. A branch had shifted slightly, moving against the wind rather than with it.
“I think we’ve got company,” she said quietly. And then her nostrils flared as she caught the distinctive smell of anise, the odor of her brother’s aura. “Prometheus?”