01_-_The_Alchemyst

“A car”—Scatty nodded in agreement—“that he would probably have
left just outside the Shadowrealm.”
Josh was about to ask how she knew he would have left it outside when
he suddenly realized he knew the answer. “Because he knew if he drove it in
here, the battery would be drained.”
“Look,” Scatty murmured.
They watched one of the huge, boarlike Torc Alltas emerge from the
long grass behind Dee. Although it was still in its beast shape, it rose on its
hind legs, until it reached nearly three times the height of the man.
“It’s going to kill him,” Josh murmured.
Dee’s sword flared bright blue, and then the small man threw himself
backward, toward the Torc Allta, bringing the sword around in a short arc.
The sudden movement seemed to surprise the creature, but it easily batted
aside the blade…and then it froze. Where the blade had touched it, a thin
sheath of ice grew up the beast’s arm, tiny crystals sparkling in the earlymorning
sunshine. The ice coated the Torc Allta’s chest and flowed down its
massive legs and up his shoulders and head. Within a matter of heartbeats the
creature was encased in a block of blue-veined ice. Dee picked himself up
off the ground, dusted off his coat and then, without warning, hammered on
the ice with the hilt of his sword. The block shattered into millions of tinkling
pieces, each one containing a fragment of the Torc Allta.
“One of the elemental swords,” Scatty remarked grimly, “Excalibur, the
Sword of Ice. I thought it was lost ages past, thrown back into the lake when
Artorius died.”
“Looks like the doctor found it,” Flamel murmured.
Josh discovered that he wasn’t even surprised to hear that King Arthur
had been real, and he found himself wondering which other legendary figures
had really existed.
They watched as Dee hurried back into the undergrowth, heading for the
other side of the huge tree house, where the sounds of battle were loudest.
The smell of smoke was stronger now. Sharp and bitter, it curled and twisted
around the tree, carrying with it the reek of ancient places and long-forgotten