The Enchantress (The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel)

next to it continued in Isis’s voice.
    The two creatures advanced on the twins, and Sophie immediately moved in front of Josh, protecting him.
    “With your powers—your vast, incalculable powers—at our command,” Isis said, stamping her foot, “on this very spot, the very nexus of this Shadowrealm, we were going to open a portal into the past and bring our people through to this time. How they would have feasted on this world and all the other worlds.”
    The Earthlords stepped closer as they spoke.
    They exuded a rancid odor, and tiny insects and fat fleas twisted through their scales. Saliva dripping from their fangs seared the stones like acid as it fell. Black wings rose and spread, blotting out the last of the light.
    “We will kill you and go back into the Shadowrealms,” Isis said. “We will find other Golds and Silvers. We will not make the same mistakes again.”
    “No, you will not,” Sophie breathed. She threw herself forward, slashing out widely with the two swords. The movement caught the Earthlords by surprise, and the blades screamed off their thick plated skin, drawing thin lines of green blood. But the edge of a flailing tail caught Sophie across the back, shattering her gold armor, breaking ribs and an arm, sending her crashing to the ground, her swords spinning away.
    One of the creatures stood over her and planted a clawed foot on her stomach, pinning her to the ground. Sophie grunted. Her left arm was completely numb, and the pain in her ribs was excruciating, breathtaking. When she tried to call up her aura, the pain across her back and in her stomach was too much.
    Isis raised a claw and leaned forward to rub it against Sophie’s face. “If only you had done what you were told.”
    The second Earthlord crowded in. “How did you ever think you could defeat us?” He choked out a liquid laugh. “You are just humani.”
    “We are the Gold and Silver!” Josh shouted. Blazing incandescent red and blue-white fire, he plunged Clarent and Excalibur into the Earthlords. “We are the twins of legend!”
    A huge circle of white fire detonated off the top of the Pyramid of the Sun, and two vast columns of blinding flames were clearly visible in the night sky all across the island of Danu Talis.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX
    SOPHIE LAY ON the cold gold ground, and Josh sat cross-legged beside her.
    They were both feeling sick and empty.
    Excalibur and Clarent lay buzzing on the ground where Josh had dropped them, the blades of the two stone swords running with oily flame, sparkling, crackling and sizzling. Beside the swords were two bubbling pools of liquid gold where Isis and Osiris had been consumed.
    Sophie was staring wide-eyed into distance. “Is it over?” she asked. She was focusing on healing her wounds, and the air was rich with the scent of vanilla.
    “No,” Josh said sadly. “There’s still one thing to do. There is the prophecy.”
    She nodded. “The twins of legend,” she whispered. “One to save the world, one to destroy it.”
    Josh leaned forward and felt something move under his armor. He reached in and took out the emerald tablet Tsagaglalal had given him. At first glance it was nothing more than a slab of slightly greasy stone. He turned it over and over in his hands. “It’s blank,” he said.
    “Wait,” Sophie advised.
    Josh rubbed his thumb across the surface, cleaning it . . . and words formed, shimmering gold against the green.
    I am Abraham of Danu Talis, sometimes called the Mage, and I send greetings to the Gold
.
    There is much that I know about you. I know your name and age, and I know you are male. I have followed your ancestors down through ten thousand years. You are a remarkable young man, the last of a line of equally remarkable men
.
    I am writing this sitting in a tower on the edge of the known world on the Isle of Danu Talis. Within a few hours the crystal tower and the island it stands upon will be no more. The pulse of energy that destroyed it is even now speeding toward the Pyramid of the Sun, toward you. You can choose to harness this energy and use it, or let it seep back into the earth
.
    This you need to know: your world begins with the death of mine
.
    Danu Talis needs to fall
.
    I have always known that the fate of our worlds—yours and mine—is at the mercy of individuals. The actions of a single person can change the course of a world and create history.
    And you, like the Silver, are one of those individuals
.
    You are powerful. A