01_-_The_Alchemyst

Josh nodded, unwilling to trust himself to talk to Flamel. He was still
furious with the Alchemyst for endangering his sister’s life, but he also
recognized that Flamel was now fighting for them, placing himself in very
real danger to protect them. Josh stepped up to the wall of twisted roots and
packed earth, closed his eyes…and walked right through. There was an
instant of damp chill and then he opened his eyes to see Scatty directly in
front of him. He was standing in a low, narrow chamber created entirely from
the Yggdrasill’s gnarled roots. Clumps of green moss leaked a dim green
light into the chamber, and he could see that Scatty was standing at the bottom
of a set of narrow, irregular steps that led upward into the gloom. Scatty’s
head was tilted to one side, but before Josh could ask what she was hearing,
Flamel stepped through the wall. He was smiling, and the top of his staff
emitted traces of green gas. “That should hold them for a while.”
“Let’s go,” Scatty called as soon as the Alchemyst appeared.
The stairway was so narrow that Josh was forced to move in a
sideways crab-crawl, head ducked low, with Sophie held close to his body
to prevent her head and legs from cracking against the rough wooden walls.
He tested every step before he took it; he didn’t want to risk falling and
dropping his sister. He suddenly realized that these steps were cut into the
space between the inner and outer bark of the great tree, and couldn’t help
wondering if a tree the size of Yggdrasill was riddled with secret passages,
hidden rooms, forgotten chambers and lost stairways. It must be, he decided.
Did Hekate even know where they all were? And then, his mind racing, he
wondered who had created these steps. Somehow he could not imagine the
goddess carving them out of the living wood herself.
As they climbed, they could smell the bitter stench of burning wood, and
the sounds of battle came clearer. The cat shrieks became even more human,
the bird screeches were completely terrifying, and they mingled with the
bellowing roars of the boars and the hissing of the nathair. Now that the
group was no longer underground, the heat and smoke intensified and they
began to hear another sound—a deep bass groaning rumble.
“We need to hurry.” Scatty’s voice drifted back out of the gloom. “We
really need to hurry now….” And somehow the forced calm in the Warrior’s
voice frightened Josh more than if she had screamed. “Careful now; we’ve