The Magician

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

P erenelle followed de Ayala's ghost as he led her through the maze of

Alcatraz's ruined buildings. She tried to keep to the shadows, ducking under

shattered walls and empty doorways, constantly alert for creatures moving in

the night. She didn't think the sphinx would dare venture out of the

prison despite their terrifying appearance, sphinxes were cowardly creatures,

fearful of the dark. However, many of the beings she'd seen in the

spiderwebbed cells below were creatures of the night.

The entrance to the tunnel was almost directly under the tower that had once

held the island's only fresh water supply. Its metal framework was rusted,

eaten away by the salt sea, acid bird droppings and countless tiny leaks from

the huge water tank. However, the ground directly beneath the tower was lush

with growth, fed by the same dripping water.

De Ayala pointed out an irregular patch of earth close to one of the metal

legs. You will find a shaft leading down to the tunnel under here. There is

another entrance to the tunnel cut into the cliff face, he said, but it is

only accessible by boat at low tide. That is how Dee brought his prisoner to

the island. He doesn t know about this entrance.

Perenelle found a rusted length of metal and used it to scrape away the dirt,

revealing broken and cracked concrete beneath the soil. Using the edge of the

metal bar, she began to dig away at the dirt. She kept glancing up, trying to

gauge how close the birds had come to the island, but with the wind whipping

in over the ruined buildings and keening through the rusted metal struts of

the water tower, it was impossible to make out any other noises. Tendrils of

the thick fog that had claimed San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge had

now reached the island, coating everything in a dripping, salt-smelling

cloud.

When she had scraped back the earth, de Ayala drifted over one particular

spot. Just here, he said, his voice a breath in her ear. The prisoners

discovered the existence of the tunnel and managed to dig a shaft down to it.

They understood that decades of water dripping from the tower had softened

the soil and even eaten away at the stones beneath. But when they eventually

broke through to the tunnel below, it was at high tide, and they found that

it was flooded. They abandoned their efforts. He showed his teeth in a

perfect smile he had not possessed in life. If only they had waited until

the tide turned.

Perenelle scraped away more soil, revealing more broken stone. Jamming the

metal bar under the edge of a block, she leaned hard on it. The stone didn't

budge. She pressed again with both hands, and then, when that didn't work,

lifted a boulder and hammered once on the metal bar: the clink rang out

across the island, tolling like a bell.

Oh, this is impossible, she muttered. She was reluctant to use her powers,

since it would reveal her location to the sphinx, but she had no other

choice. Cupping her right hand, she allowed her aura to gather in her palm,

where it puddled like mercury. She rested her hand lightly, almost gently, on

the stone, then turned her hand over and allowed the raw power to pour from

her palm and seep into the granite. The stone turned soft and soapy and then

melted like candle wax. Thick globs of liquid rock fell away and disappeared

into the darkness below.

I ve been dead a long time; I thought I d seen wonders, but I ve never seen

anything like that, de Ayala said in awe.

A Scythian mage taught me the spell in return for saving his life. It s

quite simple, really, she said. She leaned over the hole and then jerked

back, eyes watering. Oh my: it stinks!

The ghost of Juan Manuel de Ayala hovered directly over the hole. He turned

and smiled, showing his perfect teeth again. I can't smell anything.

Trust me, be glad you cannot, Perenelle muttered, shaking her head; ghosts

often had a peculiar sense of humor. The tunnel reeked of rotting fish and

ancient seaweed, of rancid bird and bat droppings, of pulped wood and rusting

metal. There was another scent also, bitter and acrid, almost like vinegar.

Bending down, she tore a strip off the bottom of her dress and wrapped it

around her nose and mouth as a crude mask.

There is a ladder of sorts, de Ayala said, but be careful, I m sure it s

rusted through. He suddenly glanced up. The birds have reached the southern

end of the island. And something else. Something evil. I can feel it.

The Morrigan. Perenelle leaned over the hole and snapped her fingers. A

slender feather of soft white light peeled off her fingertips and drifted

down the hole, disappearing into the gloom below, shedding a flickering milky

light on the streaked and dripping walls. The light had also revealed the

narrow ladder, which turned out to be little more than spikes driven at

irregular angles into the wall. The spikes, each no longer than four inches,

were thick with rust and dripping moisture. Leaning over, she caught the

first spike and tugged hard. It seemed solid enough.

Perenelle twisted around and slid one leg into the opening. Her foot found

one of the spikes and immediately slipped off. Drawing her leg back out of

the hole, she tugged off her sandals and tucked them into her belt. She could

hear the flapping of birds thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of

them drawing closer. She knew her tiny expenditure of power to melt the stone

and light up the interior of the tunnel would have alerted the Morrigan to

her position. She had only moments before the birds arrived .

Perenelle put her leg into the shaft again, her bare foot touching the spike.

It was cold and slimy beneath her skin, but at least she was able to get a

better grip. Grasping handfuls of tough grass, she lowered herself, her foot

finding another spike, and then she reached down and caught a spike in her

left hand. She winced. It felt disgusting, squelching beneath her fingers.

And then she smiled; how she d changed. When she was a girl, growing up in

Quimper in France all those years ago, she d gone paddling in rock pools,

picking and eating raw shellfish. She d wandered barefoot through streets

that were ankle deep in mud and filth.

Testing each step, Perenelle climbed down the length of the shaft. At one

point a spike broke away beneath her foot and went clanging into the

darkness. It seemed to fall for a long time. She lay back against the foul

wall, feeling the damp soak through her thin summer dress. Holding on

desperately, she sought another spike. She felt the metal nail in her hand

shift, and for a heart-stopping moment, she thought it was going to pull free

of the wall. But it held.

A close call. I thought you were going to be joining me, the ghost of de

Ayala said, materializing out of the gloom directly before her face.

I m not that easy to kill, Perenelle said grimly, continuing to climb down.

Though it would be funny if, having survived decades of concentrated attacks

from Dee and his Dark Elders, I was to die in a fall. She looked at the

vague shape of the face before her. What s happening up there? She jerked

her head in the direction of the opening of the shaft, visible only because

of the wisps of gray fog that curled and dribbled into it.

The island is covered with birds, de Ayala said. Perhaps a hundred

thousand of them; they are perched on every available surface. The Crow

Goddess has gone into the heart of the prison, no doubt in search of the

sphinx.

We don't have much time, Perenelle warned. She took another step and her

foot sank up to the ankle in thick gooey mud. She had reached the bottom of

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.