The Alchemyst

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

D r. John Dee was becoming frantic. Everything was falling apart, and now

there was every possibility that he was going to have to take an active part

in the battle.

Flamel, Scatty and the twins had managed to escape from the interior of the

Yggdrasill and were now fighting on the opposite side of the field, no more

than two hundred yards away, but he couldn t get to them it would mean

crossing a battlefield. The last of the Torc Allta, both in their human and

boar form, fought running battles with the cat-and birdmen. The nathair had

already been defeated. Initially, the winged serpents had brought chaos and

confusion to the cats and birds, but they were lumbering and awkward on the

ground, and most had been killed once they d landed. The massive army of Torc

Allta had thinned considerably, and he guessed that within the hour, there

would be no more wereboars left in North America.

But he could not afford to wait that long. He had to get to Flamel now. He

had to retrieve the pages of the Codex as soon as possible.

From his hiding place behind a clump of bushes, Dee watched the Elders.

Hekate was standing in the doorway to her tree home, surrounded by the last

of her personal Torc Allta guard. While the boars fought the cats and birds,

Hekate alone faced down the combined forces of the Morrigan and Bastet.

The three ignored the half-human animals fighting around them. To the casual

observer it would have seemed as if the three Elders were simply staring at

one another. Dee, however, noted the purple-gray clouds that gathered only

above the Yggdrasill; he saw how the delicate white and gold flowers strewn

around the huge tree withered and died, turning to black paste in an instant;

he had seen the unsightly sheen of fungus that appeared on the smoothly

polished stone path. Dee smiled; surely it would not be long now. How much

longer could Hekate'stand against the two Elders, aunt and niece?

But the goddess showed no sign of weakening.

And then she struck back.

Although the air, now stinking from the burning tree, was still, Dee watched

as an invisible, unfelt breeze whipped the Morrigan s cloak about her

shoulders and buffeted the huge Bastet, making her tilt her head and lean

forward into the wind. The patterns on Hekate's metallic dress whirled with

blinding rapidity, the colors blurred and distorted.

With growing alarm, he saw a dark shadow flowing across the withering grass

and then watched as a swarm of tiny black flies settled on Bastet s fur,

crawling into her ears and up her nose. The Cat Goddess howled and staggered

back, rubbing furiously at her face. She fell to the ground, rolling over and

over in the long grass, attempting to free herself from the insects. More and

more kept coming, and they were joined by fire ants and recluse spiders,

which crawled out of the grass and swarmed over her body. Crouched on all

fours, she threw back her head and screamed in agony, then turned and ran

across the field, rolling and crawling in the grass, splashing through a

little pool, trying to clean the insects from her body. She was more than

halfway across the field before the thick, swirling cloud left her. She

rubbed furiously at her face and arms, leaving long scratches on her skin,

before climbing to her feet and striding back toward the Yggdrasill. And then

the swarm of flies, thicker now, re-formed in the air before her.

In that moment, Dee considered that perhaps just perhaps Hekate could win.

Splitting Bastet and the Morrigan had been a master stroke; ensuring that

Bastet could not get back was simply genius.

Realizing that she could not return to the Yggdrasill, Bastet hissed her

rage, then turned and raced over to where Flamel, Scatty and the twins were

trying to defend themselves. Dee saw her leap an incredible distance and

bring the Alchemyst to the ground. That gave him some satisfaction, at least,

and he allowed himself a slight smile, which quickly faded he was still

trapped on this side of the field. How was he going to get past Hekate?

Even though the Yggdrasill was burning furiously, with whole sections

blazing, burning leaves and blackened strips of branches spiraling down,

sticky streamers of sap exploding from collapsing branches, Hekate's powers

seemed undiminished. Dee ground his teeth in frustration; all his research

indicated that Hekate had brought the tree to life by imbuing it with a

little of her own life force. In turn, as it grew, it renewed and replenished

her powers. Burning the tree had been his idea. He had imagined that as it

burned, she would weaken. But on the contrary: setting the tree alight had

only served to enrage the goddess, and her anger had made her all the more

deadly. When Dee saw Hekate's lips twitch in what might have been a smile and

the Morrigan stagger and then step back, he began to realize that here, in

her own Shadowrealm, the Goddess with Three Faces was simply too strong for

them.

Dee knew then that he would have to act.

Keeping to the shadows of the trees and tall grasses, he moved around the

trunk of the enormous Yggdrasill. He was forced to crouch down and hide as a

Torc Allta in its boar shape crashed through the undergrowth directly in

front of him with at least a dozen cat-people and twice that number of

birdmen clinging to him.

Dee came out of the undergrowth on the opposite side of the tree from where

Hekate and the Morrigan fought. To his right, he could see that something was

happening with Flamel's group; birds and cats were scattering in every

direction and then he realized that he was seeing ordinary birds and everyday

cats fleeing, not the half-human creatures. The Morrigan s and Bastet s

transformation spells were failing: was Hekate that powerful? He had to end

this now.

Dr. John Dee lifted the short-bladed sword in his hand. Dirty blue light

coiled down its length, and for an instant the ancient stone blade hummed as

an invisible breeze moved across the edge. The twisting snakes carved into

its hilt came to twisting, hissing life.

Gripping the hilt tightly, Dee pressed the point of the blade against the

gnarled bark of the ancient tree and pushed.

Excalibur slid smoothly into the wood, sinking right up to the hilt without

resistance. For a long moment nothing happened, and then Yggdrasill began to

moan. The sound was like that of an animal in pain: beginning as a deep

grumbling, it quickly rose to a high-pitched whimpering. Where the hilt of

the sword protruded from the tree, a blue stain appeared. Like dripping ink,

it flowed down the tree and seeped into the ground, then the oily blue light

ran along the veins and seams of wood. Yggdrasill s cries grew higher and

higher, until they were almost beyond human hearing. The surviving Torc Allta

fell to the ground, writhing in pain, clutching at their ears; birdmen

whirled in confusion and the cat-people began to hiss and howl in unison.

The blue stain raced around the tree, coating everything in a thin veneer of

glittering ice crystals that reflected the light. Blue-black and purple-green

rainbows shimmered in the air.

The oily stain shot up the length of the tree and out along the branches,

turning everything it touched to faceted crystals. Even the fire was not

immune to it. Flames froze, fire caught in ornate and intricate patterns,

then spiderwebbed, like ice on the surface of a pond, and dissolved to

sparkling dust. Where the blue stain touched the leaves, they hardened and

broke away from the branches. They did not spiral to the ground: they fell

and shattered with tiny tinkling sounds, while the branches, now solid pieces

of ice, ripped away from the trunk of the tree and crashed to the earth. Dee

threw himself to one side to avoid being impaled by a three-foot length of

frozen branch. Catching hold of Excalibur s hilt, he dragged the stone blade

free of the ancient tree and ran for cover.

The Yggdrasill was dying. Huge slabs of bark sheared off, like icebergs

breaking away from an ice cap, and crashed to the ground, littering the

beautiful Shadowrealm landscape with shards of razor-sharp ice.

Keeping his distance and watching for falling branches, Dee raced around the

tree; he needed to see Hekate.

The Goddess with Three Faces was dying.

Standing quite still before the crumbling Yggdrasill, Hekate was flickering

through her three faces young, mature and old in heartbeats. The change was

happening so fast that her flesh had no time to adapt and she was caught

between phases: young eyes in an old face, a girl s head on a woman s body, a

woman s body with a child s arms. Her ever-changing dress had lost all color

and was the same solid black as her skin.

Dee stood beside the Morrigan and they watched in silence. Bastet rejoined

them, and together the three observed Hekate and Yggdrasill s last moments.

The World Tree was now almost entirely blue, covered with a sheath of ice.

Frozen roots had burst through the ground, destroying the perfect symmetry of

the earth, cutting thick gouges in the soil. Huge holes had appeared in the

massive trunk, revealing the circular rooms within, which were warped and

stained with the blue ice.

Hekate's transformations slowed. The changes were taking longer to

materialize because now the blue stain was slowly creeping up her body,

hardening her skin, turning it to ice crystals.

The Morrigan glanced at the blade in Dee s hand, then quickly looked away.

Even after all these years in our employ, Dr. Dee, you can still surprise

us, she said quietly. I was not aware that you possessed the Sword of Ice.

I m glad I brought it, Dee said, not directly answering her. It seems

Hekate's powers were stronger than we suspected. At least my guess that her

strength was connected to the tree was correct.

What remained of the Yggdrasill was now a solid block of ice. Hekate, too,

was completely covered beneath a frozen sheet, though behind the blue

crystals, her butter-colored eyes were bright and alive. The top of the tree

began to melt, dirty water running down the length of the bark, cutting deep

grooves into it.

When I realized that she had the power to nullify your spells, I knew I had

to do something, Dee said. I saw how the cats and birds were reverting to

their natural shapes.

That was not Hekate's doing, Bastet growled suddenly, her accent thick, her

voice beastlike.

The Morrigan and Dee turned to look at the Cat Goddess. The creature raised a

furry claw and pointed across the field. It was the girl. Someone spoke

through her, someone who knew my true names, someone who used the girl s aura

to wield a whip of pure energy: That'swhat reversed our spells.

Dee looked across the field where he had seen Flamel, Scatty and the twins

gathered around the oak tree. But there was no sign of them. He was turning

to order the surviving cats and birds to find them when he spotted Senuhet

staggering up. The old man was spattered with mud and blood though none of

the blood seemed to be his and he had lost one of his curved bronze swords.

The second had snapped in half.

Flamel and the others have escaped, he gasped. I followed them out of the

Shadowrealm. They re stealing our car, he added indignantly.

Howling his rage, Dr. John Dee spun around and flung Excalibur at the

Yggdrasill. The stone blade struck the ancient World Tree, which tolled with

the solemn sound of a great bell. The single note, high-pitched and serene,

hung vibrating on the air and then the Yggdrasill began to crack. Long

fractures and tears ran the height of the tree. They started small, but

widened as they raced upward in ragged patterns. Within moments the entire

tree was covered in the crazed zigzagging. Then the Yggdrasill shattered and

came crashing down on the ice statue of Hekate, crushing it to dust.