01_-_The_Alchemyst

Excalibur slid smoothly into the wood, sinking right up to the hilt
without resistance. For a long moment nothing happened, and then Yggdrasill
began to moan. The sound was like that of an animal in pain: beginning as a
deep grumbling, it quickly rose to a high-pitched whimpering. Where the hilt
of the sword protruded from the tree, a blue stain appeared. Like dripping
ink, it flowed down the tree and seeped into the ground, then the oily blue
light ran along the veins and seams of wood. Yggdrasill’s cries grew higher
and higher, until they were almost beyond human hearing. The surviving Torc
Allta fell to the ground, writhing in pain, clutching at their ears; birdmen
whirled in confusion and the cat-people began to hiss and howl in unison.
The blue stain raced around the tree, coating everything in a thin veneer
of glittering ice crystals that reflected the light. Blue-black and purple-green
rainbows shimmered in the air.
The oily stain shot up the length of the tree and out along the branches,
turning everything it touched to faceted crystals. Even the fire was not
immune to it. Flames froze, fire caught in ornate and intricate patterns, then
spiderwebbed, like ice on the surface of a pond, and dissolved to sparkling
dust. Where the blue stain touched the leaves, they hardened and broke away
from the branches. They did not spiral to the ground: they fell and shattered
with tiny tinkling sounds, while the branches, now solid pieces of ice, ripped
away from the trunk of the tree and crashed to the earth. Dee threw himself to
one side to avoid being impaled by a three-foot length of frozen branch.
Catching hold of Excalibur’s hilt, he dragged the stone blade free of the
ancient tree and ran for cover.
The Yggdrasill was dying. Huge slabs of bark sheared off, like icebergs
breaking away from an ice cap, and crashed to the ground, littering the
beautiful Shadowrealm landscape with shards of razor-sharp ice.
Keeping his distance and watching for falling branches, Dee raced
around the tree; he needed to see Hekate.
The Goddess with Three Faces was dying.
Standing quite still before the crumbling Yggdrasill, Hekate was
flickering through her three faces—young, mature and old—in heartbeats.
The change was happening so fast that her flesh had no time to adapt and she