way? it asked.
This way. Perenelle pointed with the spear. Even though Areop-Enap had
called a truce, Perenelle was not prepared to stand unarmed before one of the
most powerful of the Elders. I wonder why he wanted you prisoner. A sudden
thought struck her and she stopped so quickly that Areop-Enap brushed against
her, almost sending her face-first onto the muddy floor. If you had to make
a choice, Old Spider, if you had to choose between returning the Elders to
this world or leaving it in the hands of the humani, who would you choose?
Sorceress, Areop-Enap said, mouth gaping to reveal its terrifying teeth in
what might have been a smile, I was one of the Elders who voted that we
should leave the earth to the ape-kin. I recognized that our time on this
planet was over; and in our arrogance we had almost destroyed it. It was time
to step back and leave it to the humani.
So you would not be in favor of the return of the Elders?
No.
And if there was a fight, who would you stand with the Elders or the
humani?
Sorceress, Areop-Enap said very seriously, I ve stood with the humani
before. Along with my kin, Hekate and the Witch of Endor, I helped bring
civilization to this planet. Despite my appearance, my loyalties are with the
humani.
And that s why Dee had to capture you now. He couldn't afford to have
someone as powerful as you fight alongside humankind.
Then the confrontation must be very close indeed, Areop-Enap said. But
there s nothing Dee and the Dark Elders can do until they secure the Book
of Areop-Enap s voice trailed away. They ve got the Book?
Most of it, Perenelle confirmed miserably. And you should know the rest of
it. You are familiar with the prophecy of the twins?
Of course. That old fool, Abraham, was always twittering on about the twins
and scribbling down his indecipherable prophecies in the Codex. I never
believed a word of them myself. And in all the years I knew him, he never got
a single thing right.
Nicholas found the twins.
Ah. Areop-Enap was silent for a moment, then shrugged what shoulders it
had, eyes blinking in unison. So Abraham was right about something; well,
that s a first.
While Perenelle slogged through ankle-deep mud, recounting what she had
discovered in the cells above, she noticed that despite its enormous size,
the spider Elder glided over the top of the muck. Behind them, the walls and
ceilings pulsed with millions of spiders as they followed the Elder. I
wonder why Dee didn't kill you.
He couldn't, Areop-Enap said matter-of-factly. My death would send ripples
through myriad Shadowrealms. Unlike Hekate, I have friends, and too many of
them would come to investigate. Dee would not want that. Areop-Enap stopped
when it came to the first of the spears Perenelle had pushed down. A huge leg
turned it over, and the spider examined the faint traces of the hieroglyph
painted on the spearhead. I m curious, it lisped. These Words of Power.
They were ancient when the Elders ruled the earth. And I thought we had
destroyed both them and all record of them. How did the English Magician
rediscover them?
I was wondering the same thing, Perenelle said. She turned the spear in her
hand to look at the single square hieroglyph. Maybe he copied the spell from
somewhere.
No, Areop-Enap said. The individual words are powerful, it is true, but
Dee set them up in the particular pattern that kept me trapped in the cell.
Every time I tried to escape, it was as if I ran into a solid wall. I ve seen
that pattern before, but it was in the days before the Fall of Danu Talis. In
fact, now that I think of it, the last time I saw that pattern was before we
had even created the island continent and dragged it up from the ocean floor.
Someone instructed Dee; someone knew how to create these magical Wards,
someone who d seen them.
No one knows who Dee s Elder is, whom he serves, Perenelle said
thoughtfully. Nicholas spent decades vainly trying to discover who,
ultimately, controls the Magician.
Someone old, Areop-Enap said. As old as me, or even older. One of the
Great Elders, perhaps. All of the spider Elder s eyes blinked. But it
cannot be; none of them survived the Fall of Danu Talis.
You did.
I m not one of the Great Elders, Areop-Enap said simply.
They reached the end of the tunnel and de Ayala winked into existence
directly before them. He had been a ghost for centuries and had seen wonders
and monsters, but he had never seen anything like Areop-Enap, and the sight
of the enormous creature shocked him speechless.
Juan, Perenelle said gently. Talk to me.
The Crow Goddess is here, he said finally. She is almost directly above
us, perched on top of the water tower like a huge vulture. She s waiting for
you to climb out. She had an argument with the sphinx, the ghost added. The
sphinx said that the Elders had given you to her; the Morrigan claimed that
Dee said you were hers.
So nice to be in demand, Perenelle said, looking up the length of the shaft
into the darkness. She glanced sidelong at Areop-Enap. I wonder if she knows
you re here.
Unlikely, Old Spider said. Dee would have no reason for telling her, and
with so many magical and mythical creatures on the island, she ll not be able
to pick out my aura.
Perenelle s lips twisted in a quick smile that lit up her face. Shall we
surprise her?
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
J osh Newman stopped and swallowed hard. Any moment now, he was going to
throw up. Although it was cool and damp underground, he was sweating, his
hair plastered to his skull, his shirt lying icy and clinging along the
length of his spine. He had gone beyond frightened, past terrified and
straight to petrified.
Descending into the sewers had been bad enough. Dee had wrenched the manhole
cover out of the ground without any effort, and they d jerked back as a plume
of filthy, foul-smelling gas vented into the street. When it had drifted
away, Dee had slipped into the opening, followed a moment later by Josh and
finally Machiavelli. They d climbed down a short metal ladder and ended up
standing in a tunnel that was so narrow they had to march single file and so
low that only Dee could walk upright. The tunnel dipped, and Josh gasped as
ice-cold water suddenly flooded his sneakers. The smell was appalling, and he
desperately tried not to think about what he might be wading through.
The rotten-egg stink of sulfur briefly masked the smells in the sewer as Dee
created a globe of cold blue-white light. It hovered and danced in the air
about twelve inches in front of the Magician, painting the interior of the
narrow arched tunnel in stark ashen light and deep impenetrable shadows. As
they sloshed forward, Josh could hear things moving and glimpsed sparkling
points of red light shifting in the blackness. He hoped they were only rats.
I don't , Josh began, his voice echoing distortedly in the narrow tunnel.
I really don't like small spaces.