Part 22 (1/2)

”As you wish.” He looked at Sophie. ”We need the strength of your aura...”

Numb with shock, Sophie felt as if all the air had been sucked from the room. She had seen this before...

Zephaniah was in the Nameless City again.

She was trying to protect her unconscious brother from the hordes of monsters that were gathering outside. Yet it was just as dangerous inside the library; all around her, the animated clay people moved and shuffled, threatening to crush her.

She was dragging Prometheus deep into the heart of the building. Night had fallen outside, and unseen creatures roamed the deserted streets, claws clicking, flesh slithering and rasping. She could make out their rancid odor: they smelled like crocodiles.

Zephaniah discovered a room deep in the heart of the library. The unusually tall doors were locked, but a section of the gla.s.s wall close to the floor was missing. In ages past, an earthquake must have rocked the city and a section of the floor given way; the wall's gla.s.s blocks had s.h.i.+fted and pulled apart, creating a wide gap.

She crawled through the opening and pulled her brother into the safety of the room just as the monsters surged into the building above. She could hear them hissing and snapping, could hear the sound of clay shattering.

When she straightened, the room instantly lit up with a soft milky glow. The walls were empty-though they must have once held countless books-and all that remained in the center of the room was a crystal skull on a plinth of polished metal.

Zephaniah watched as light flickered through the skull and it started to pulse, and she discovered that it was beating in time with her heart.

And then it spoke to her...

And its revelations were terrifying.

Sophie knew what the skull was, knew its origins and its powers.

This was Archon technology, and they had created the skulls based on even older knowledge. The Witch had spent centuries searching for artifacts just like it, and when she'd found them, she had destroyed them utterly. She had erased countless millennia of knowledge, burning vast caches of metal books; melting into slag the ancient objects and artifacts that looked like swords, spears and knives; shattering crystal b.a.l.l.s and grinding fabulous jewels to powder. Zephaniah had spent fortunes-several fortunes-in search of the Archon skulls. They were impossible to break, impervious to blade or tool, but she had finally discovered that she could destroy them by tossing them into the mouths of active volcanoes, where they were swallowed by the molten lava. Once she had rid the world of as many magical objects as she could find, the Witch had set about killing the storytellers who kept alive the memories of the Archons and the Earthlords who had come before them.

But all that had come later.

Much later.

After the Fall of Danu Talis.

After she had realized just how dangerous the skulls truly were.

”Sophie?” Perenelle leaned forward, eyes fixed on the girl's face. ”We need your aura. Put your hand on the skull.”

Sophie shook her head, a tiny, almost imperceptible movement.

The Sorceress blinked in surprise. ”Do you-or rather, does the Witch-know anything about the crystal skull?”

Sophie looked into the Sorceress's eyes and slowly and deliberately shook her head. Instinct-or was it the Witch's knowledge?-made her lie: ”No,” she said.

Even as she was speaking, there was a pop as the lightbulb shattered and the room plunged into darkness... except for the glowing skull.

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE.

The disc burned red-hot, then white-hot, in waves of s.h.i.+mmering heat. Each square pictograph throbbed and pulsed, red, orange and black, forming patterns, making shapes. The concentric rings turned left and right, the inner circle moving clockwise, the next ring counterclockwise, to create new designs. Josh realized to his horror that the etched designs were like snakes swallowing their own tails. And he hated snakes.

And then the face in the center of the stone moved.

The eyes opened, and they were fire red, flecked with glittering black cinders. The mouth moved, and it spoke in the voice of Prometheus.

”It is said that the Magic of Air or Water or even Earth is the most powerful of all. But that is wrong. The Magic of Fire far surpa.s.ses all others, for fire is both the life-giver and the death-bringer.”

Abruptly the fire vanished, leaving Josh in utter darkness. He couldn't tell if his eyes were open or even where he was. He'd lost all sensation and was conscious only of the weight of the warm stone in his palm. He clutched it with both hands now, holding it tightly, concentrating on it. He realized that he wasn't afraid, yet wasn't excited, either... he was simply curious.

”In the beginning...”

A spot of light, a pinp.r.i.c.k, appeared in the darkness.

”... there was fire.”

The tiny dot suddenly expanded, growing, growing, growing, amber, orange, red, before detonating into a brilliant white-hot globe. The left and right edges of the fireball peeled off into broad horizontal lines speckled with points and streaks of multicolored light. And as the light rolled toward him in a huge slow wave, Josh suddenly recognized it: he was looking at a galaxy... no, he was seeing the universe.

”Before air, there was fire...”

The wave of blazing light flowed over him-or had he fallen into it? Flames and curling threads of plasma washed around him, bathed him. He could see himself now. He was standing, floating, flying, and his skin was the same color as the golden flames. On one level he knew he should be terrified, but he still felt no fear, only a peculiar sense of sadness that his sister was not here to share this with him.

”Before water...”

His skin became translucent. Looking down, he could see the thin twisting veins and arteries, the knots and strands of muscles, the darker ma.s.ses of organs and the lines and curves of bones beneath his flesh.

”Before earth...”

Fire was streaming off his skin in long ropes, thickening, hardening into a sh.e.l.l, trapping him inside a burning sphere.

”Fire is the creator of worlds...”

Suddenly Josh was back in darkness again, but this time the darkness was not complete. On all sides he could see the finest traces of light, wriggling hair-thin cracks of red fire. It was like looking at an eggsh.e.l.l, he realized. The cracks widened and broke apart, and then the fire cascaded downward. He realized then that he was in a cave, standing on the edge of a lava pool, while molten rock flowed past him.

”And at the center of every world is its fiery heart.”

Josh was unsure whether he was moving past the images or standing still while the images raced past him. He felt as if he was rising up through bubbling rock and blazing stones, glutinous boulders and dripping globules of fire. He rose faster, faster, faster, the burning walls streaking by him... and abruptly there was sky above, shockingly, spectacularly blue, though smudged with filthy smoke and boiling clouds.

”Fire created this world... shaped it...”

Josh soared high into the air, shot up in a plume of lava and smoke from the maw of an enormous volcano, one of a line that erupted in sequence, tearing away huge chunks of landscape, forming and re-forming the barren world, giving it shape before ripping it apart again.

”It was fire which ignited the spark of life on this primitive planet...”

Thick gritty clouds swirled around Josh, then suddenly cleared, and he discovered he was walking along the edge of a lake, though it was not a lake of water. The thick souplike substance steamed and boiled with enormous noxious popping bubbles. And floating on the surface of the boiling mud was a sludge of gray algae.