Part 8 (1/2)

Aoife looked at her in surprise, but before she could reply, Niten stepped up to the edge of the houseboat and looked from the Alchemyst to the Sorceress. ”Give me your word that this is not a trick.”

”I give you my word,” Nicholas said.

”And I,” Perenelle added.

Niten's arms moved and the swords disappeared into matched sheaths he wore strapped to his hip. ”Come aboard,” he said. ”Enter freely and of your own will.”

”Hey...,” Aoife began.

”This is my boat,” Niten reminded her, ”and the Flamels may be many things, but I believe that they have always kept their word.”

”Tell that to the generations of people they betrayed and destroyed,” Aoife muttered, but she stepped back and allowed Nicholas, Perenelle and Josh onto the boat.

”You need to learn how to trust a little more,” the Swordsman said to Aoife.

”And you need to learn to trust the right people,” she snapped. ”And these are not the right people.”

”Your sister likes and trusts them.”

Aoife sneered. ”I am not my sister.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

”None of these things are of any concern to me,” Aoife said finally. Nicholas and Perenelle had just spent thirty minutes explaining the events of the past few days, adding details that Sophie had forgotten or skipped over.

Niten had set up a wooden crate on the center of the deck and arranged an a.s.sortment of mismatched chairs around it. He'd placed a delicately beautiful, almost transparent white china teapot and matching cups on the crate and poured fragrant olive green tea. The Swordsman had not sat, however; he had stood behind Aoife, arms hanging loosely at his sides as Nicholas and Perenelle told their story, starting with the theft of the Codex from the bookshop the previous Thursday.

Aoife shook her head. ”I just want my sister back safely.”

”We all want that,” Nicholas said firmly. ”Scathach is precious to us, too.” He reached for his wife's hand. ”She is the daughter we never had.” He drew in a deep shuddering breath. ”But Scathach's return-Joan's, too-is not our immediate priority. The Dark Elders have gathered together an army in the cells on Alcatraz. They plan to release them on the city.”

”So?” Aoife asked.

Perenelle leaned forward and a static charge rippled down the length of her silver-streaked hair, raising it off her back. When she spoke, her words were as brittle as the look in her eyes. ”Are you so divorced from humanity that you would condemn them to annihilation? You know what will happen to civilization if these monsters are allowed to prowl the city.”

”It has happened before,” Aoife snapped. Tendrils of faint gray smoke leaked from her nostrils. ”On at least four previous occasions that I know of, the humani were almost wiped out, but they rose to repopulate the earth. You are old, Sorceress, but you have experienced only a fraction of what I have endured upon this earth. I have watched civilizations rise and fall and rise again. Sometimes it is necessary to wipe the slate clean and start fresh.” She spread her arms wide. ”Look at what this present batch of humani have done to the earth. Look at what their greed has wrought. They have brought this planet to the very brink of destruction. The polar caps are melting, sea levels are rising, weather patterns are changing, seasons altering, farmlands turning to desert...”

”You sound like Dee,” Josh said suddenly.

”Don't you dare compare me to the English Magician,” Aoife spat. ”He is despicable.”

”He said the Dark Elders could repair all this damage. Could they?” Josh asked curiously.

”Yes,” Aoife answered simply. ”Yes, they could. Tell him,” she said to the Alchemyst.

Josh turned to look at Nicholas. ”Is it true?”

”Yes,” the Alchemyst sighed. ”Yes, they undoubtedly could.”

Sophie leaned forward, her forehead creasing in a frown. ”So that means the Elders, the ones whose side you're on, could also do the same thing?”

This time there was a longer pause, and when Nicholas finally spoke, his voice was barely above a whisper. ”I'm sure they could.”

”So why don't they?” Sophie demanded.

Nicholas looked at Perenelle, and it was the Sorceress who finally answered. ”Because sooner or later every parent must let their children go to live their lives and make their mistakes. That is the only way they can grow. In generations past, the Elders moved among the humani, living with them, working side by side-all those legends about the ancient G.o.ds interacting with humans have some truth in them. There really were G.o.ds on the earth in those days. But humankind did not progress. It was only when most of the Elders retreated to the Shadowrealms and left the humani to their own devices that the race started to grow.”

”Think of all that mankind has achieved in the last two thousand years,” Nicholas continued. ”Think of the inventions, the accomplishments, the discoveries-atomic power, flight, instant worldwide communications, even s.p.a.ce travel-and then remember that the civilization of Egypt lasted more than three thousand years. Babylon was established over four thousand years ago, the first cities in the Indus appeared over five thousand years ago and Sumer is six thousand years old. Why did those great civilizations not achieve what this civilization has accomplished in a much shorter time?”

Josh shook his head, but Sophie was nodding. She knew the answer.

”Because the Elders-what the humani called the G.o.ds-lived with them,” Perenelle said. ”They provided everything. The Elders needed to retreat so that mankind could grow.”

”But some stayed,” Sophie protested. ”The Witch, Prometheus...”

”Mars...,” Josh added.

”Gilgamesh,” Sophie said. ”And Scathach. She stayed.”

”Yes, a few remained to guide and teach the new race, to nudge them along the road to greatness. But not to interfere, not to influence and definitely not to rule,” Perenelle clarified.

Aoife grunted a bitter laugh.

”It is true that some Dark Elders tried to rule the humani, and the Elders fought with them, blocking their efforts. But everyone who remained had a reason to stay... except you,” Perenelle said suddenly, looking at Aoife. ”Why did you choose to remain in this humani Shadowrealm?”

There was a long pause while Aoife's eyes grew lost and distant. ”Because Scathach stayed,” she said eventually.

A series of terrible images swirled through Sophie's mind and a name popped into her head. ”Because of Cuchulain,” she said aloud.

”Cuchulain,” Aoife agreed. ”The boy who came between us. The boy we fought over.”

A young man, mortally wounded, tying himself to a pillar so that his very presence could hold a terrifying army at bay...

Scathach and Aoife together, racing across a battlefield, trying to reach him before three enormous crowlike figures swooped down on his body...

The crows carrying the young man's limp body high into the air...

And then Scathach and Aoife fighting one another with swords and spears, their almost identical gray auras coiling around them, twisting and s.h.i.+fting into a score of beastlike shapes.

”We should never have fought,” Aoife said. ”We parted with angry bitter words. We said things that should have been left unsaid.”

”You could have left for a Shadowrealm of your own creation,” Perenelle said.

Aoife shook her head. ”I stayed because I had been told that one day I would get a chance to redeem myself with my sister.”