The Magician

I finish The Magician, the second book in the Secrest of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series by Michael Scott, last night.  It was wonderful.  And here is my probably-not-so-short review.

Enter Niccolo Machiavelli, the famous Italian historian, philosopher and humanist of the Renaissance.  He is a bad guy and serves his own Dark Elder, just as Dr. John Dee does.  Machiavelli was granted his immortality from this unknown Dark Elder and must be loyal to him/her lest he/she take said immortality away.  Machiavelli receives a phone call, forcing him to leave and lose a bid on a Japanese mask at auction.  Dr. John Dee is calling, stating that Flamel and the twins are in Paris and he needs Machiavelli's help.  He agrees, simply because if he captures the twins and the remaining pages of the Codex, his Elder will be most pleased.  And Dee's will not be.  Dee also informs him he is on his way to his personal jet to fly to Paris immediately.

Johs, Sophie, Nicholas, and Scathatch are stuck in Paris after the Witch of Endor had them pass through a Ley Gate to escape Dr. John Dee's clutches.  When trying to leave the ancient building (turning out to be the Sacre-Coeur basilica in Montmartre) they set off alarms and are unable to escape because the front doors are locked.

Machiavelli is already on his way and has a full force of French police and French S.W.A.T teams to cordon the area and capture the "criminals".  It turns out that Machiavelli is the head of the French DFSA and controls most of the police force in Paris.  Great.

After managing to get outside, the group faces Machiavelli partway down the long set of steps in front of the basilica.  The police are still at the bottom.  Nicholas instructs Scathatch, through sign language, to have Sophie conjur up some thick heavy fog.  Sophie, now imbued with the memories of the Witch of Endor, knows just what to do.

They escape.  After the fog rolls in and most police officers are baffled and even scared out of their wits, the group manages to get away.  Nicholas insists that the group splits up to throw off the police.  Scathatch takes the twins to a coffee house, and Nicholas traces his way through the city back to his and Perenelle's original home in the city.  He transmutes the bricks above the awning, retrieves an item from within the bricks, and leaves with it.  He is able to then find a pay-phone and makes a call to the Ojai paper in an attempt to get a hold of the Witch of Endor.

He is able to speak with her, albeit covertly in a slightly coded way, but she instructs him to go to the Eiffel Tower at 8am and to wait ten minutes for a "friend" of hers to arrive to assist them.

He leaves the pay phone for the coffee shop and arrives to find it in near ruins, though still standing, littered with twelve bodies of highly trained French police.  Through the back door he finds Scathatch, Josh, and Sophie attempting to leave.  Rejoined, the group heads for the Eiffel Tower as it is now nearing 8am.

These first few opening chapters were interesting and definitely kept me turning the page.  I was curious as to who would show up to assist Flamel, the twins and Scathatch.  Lo and behold, we discover the German musician and alchemyst Comte de St. Germain arrives just in time to aid them.

And this is the exact man that Dee suspects is going to assist them.  Great. -.-

After a fantastical display of fireworks (Germain, who's first name is Francis, appears to be a master Fire conjurer), the police nearing them are distracted enough that the group is able to escape to Francis' house.  Upon their arrival, Scathatch has an odd reaction to someone standing in the rear doorway of the house, Sophie's aura flares wildly, knocking her down, and the chapter ends.

Most of this time, we're unaware of what has happened to Perenelle.  She was bounced around from different places in captivity, but the last we heard from her, she was in a cell on Alcatraz island.  Now we learn that a sphinx is guarding her.  Sphinxes feed off of auras and Perenelle is completely drained and unable to conjure anything.  Because of this, her aura of pure white is attracting many spirits since she cannot mask it with magic, and is able to contact a ghost, Joseph De Ayala.  I don't remember exactly who he was, but he has a deep-seated love for Alcatraz and is not happy with the state of things.  Perenelle asks him for help, to which his response is to be, in essence, a poltergeist.  He starts opening and slamming shut cell doors, banging on walls, rattling glass in the windows and making all sorts of noise.  This takes the sphinx away from Perenelle for quite some time.  Long enough for her to regain some powers, and escape.

What she finds in the rest of the prison is appalling.  In the lower cells are hideous monsters, most of which any humani would not remember, but were once abound in this world.  Her intense dislike of most of these creatures adds a hint of the extreme problem the world of the humans is facing.  Dee is gathering an army and intends to fight to return the Dark Elders to this world.  We leave Perenelle as she attempts to find a way out of the penitentiary.

We return to the group and Scathatch is screaming as she is running towards the woman in the door way.  It turns out that the reason Sophie's aura flared so wildly was because the woman has a pure silver aura much like Sophie's.

Her name is Joan of Arc.

And she's Francis' wife.

And Scathatch's only friend.  Mainly because Scathatch taught Joan everything she knows.  And she saved Joan's life once ...

o.o

After some talk, the group heads to bed.  Josh is awoken when he hears Sophie screaming in the night.  He ventures to her room and finds Joan trying to calm Sophie, who is catatonic at this point.  Josh's internal monologue goes all pissy again that he's so different from Sophie, when they used to be twins.  The book shifts slightly here.

Dee eventually arrives in Paris and is brought to Machiavelli's house.  Machiavelli is sure of the capture of the twins because he has enlisted the Disir, a.k.a. Valkyries.  The Disir is only interested in killing Scathatch because, we later learn, she killed off most of their kind.  Which, from the readers perspective, killing off the Disir was okay because they were ruthless assholes who endured the Ice Age without a problem and went about raiding and pillaging cities and villages and took control of a large portion of the world doing so.

Jerks.

We find out that the way they're going to kill Scathatch is by releasing Nidhogg on her.  This is bad, apparently.  Why?  Well Nidhogg eats people.  Mainly, Nidhogg consumes bodies and feeds off of their memories.  Nidhogg was being held captive ... in the endless roots of the World Tree, Yggdrasil, but DEE FUCKED THAT UP WHEN HE DESTROYED HEKATE AND HER SHADOWRELM, SENDING IT ALL BACK TO NOTHINGNESS.

Dee, while powerful and seemingly all-knowing, fucks up.  A lot.  And I'm not sure how many times I'd let a supposedly powerful minion of mine fuck up before I say "Okay, that's it, you're benched" and find a new minion to replace him.

Long story short (too late), Joan teaches Sophie how to better manipulate her Silver aura, casting herself in full plate armor and wielding a sword of pure silver, Francis teachers her the art of Fire magic and burns a tattoo in to her wrist with a red orb on it that allows her to call her Fire magic forth at any given moment.  And then Nicholas shows the group what it is that he retrieved from his house.

A sword of stone and a piece of paper.  The sword turns out to be Clarent, Excalibur's twin, a.k.a. the Coward's Blade.  It was used to kill some medieval king, I don't remember who.  And it's got a bad rap.  Mainly because anyone it cuts, it just destroys.  It's a medieval light saber, turning anything it slices into molten lava which cools instantly, encasing the entity in hardened lava rock.

The piece of paper is a map of ley lines in Europe, showing where the most of them cross at any given point, indicating a Ley Gate so they can get back to San Francisco.  But that's all that's said about it at that point.

Nicholas then decides that Josh should hold on to the last two pages of the Codex.  I think he does this for two reasons:

1.)  Josh does not trust Nicholas at all.  So Nicholas thinks that trusting Josh will promote Josh to trust him.
2.)  He doesn't want Josh to feel left out.  Sophie has a huge responsibility now with her powers.  Josh has just about nothing to worry about.  Except getting captured by Dee.

He then gives Clarent to Josh as well.  Joan and Scathatch are entrusted with training him on how to use it.

Several days go by as the group rests.  Cutting out all the boring bits, the Disir, Dee and Machiavelli show up at Francis' house, and attack after summoning Nidhogg.  Nidhogg is immediately out of control and the Disir have no way of regaining it.  Idiots.

Josh is in the kitchen when he hears crashing outside.  Joan is downstairs as well and sees two women approaching the front door.  Josh then sees Nidhogg climbing over the fence, which he compares to a komodo dragon but about ten times the size of one.

Scathach runs in to the kitchen when she hears Josh screaming and as Nidhogg bashes its way passed the back door, she attempts to fight it off.  Josh has Clarent in his hand and futilely lashes out, but apparently does decent bits of damage with the blade due to his aura working with the innate power of the blade.

Joan and Sophie fight off the two Disir that have come through the front door.  Scathatch ends up in a the grasp of the Nidhogg.  Josh is unable to save her, but does stab the damn thing about a hundred times with Clarent which is doing a lot to the beasty.  Nidhogg shakes Scathatch so violently she's rendered unconscious and then leaves with her.  Josh races after without a second thought, as does the third Disir.

Nicholas is awoken by the ruckus but cannot help for he is too weak.  Joan and Sophie manage to freeze the two Disir in a block of ice.  They run in to the kitchen to find Scathatch's swords on the ground and Josh and Scathatch gone.  Nicholas and Francis join them.  Francis was in his music attic, which is sound proof so he had no idea what was going on.

They all jump in Joan's car and leave in pursuit of Nidhogg.

After a strange turn of events, Machiavelli and Dee are chasing Josh as he trails Nidhogg.  Nidhogg appears to be headed for the river Seine.  The third Disir meets Josh and they trade blows, but Josh is able to protect himself for a few minutes.  Dee arrives and protects Josh from the Disir, not because he likes Josh but because he needs the twins so his Dark Elder doesn't kill him.

And then Josh stabs the Nidhogg in the tail violently, which causes the tail to eventually encase in molten lava rock and is unable to reach the river.  It eventually is encased in entirely in molten lava rock and dies.  I don't remember what happens to the third Disir, I think Joan shows up and kicks her in to the river.  Josh leaves with Dee and Machiavelli at the promise of being Awakened.  Nicholas and crew show up and save Scathatch who ends up being grabbed by Dagon, Machiavelli's frog-like driver who wanted revenge on Scathatch for destroying HIS people (she's killed off a lot of races, I've noticed) and drags her in to the river.

Machiavelli, Dee and Josh venture in to the catacombs of Paris.  Nicholas, Joan, Sophie and Francis follow but from a different entrance.  Cutting out more dull bits that don't move the plot along, Machiavelli and Dee are taking Josh to be Awakened by Mars Ultor, the cursed Elder.  As Sophie trails behind them, she uses the Witch of Endor's memories to see that Mars used to be the champion of the humans, but later went on a rampage and was cursed by the Witch.

Josh is willing to pay any price that Mars puts before him as a cost to Awaken him.  Mars asks him if he really wants to be Awakened because it will forever make him different than his twin.  Mars' sons, Romulus and Remus were once loving twins, but once both were Awakened Romulus killed Remus in an argument (over something very stupid) and Mars has never forgiven himself.

Josh doesn't care, he says he's going to love his sister all the same regardless of being Awakened.  Mars says "okay lets do this" and Awakens him.  Josh goes through a very similar experience that Sophie went through with Hekate, and Mars also gives him a gift.  Molten fire is flying every around the chamber, Dee appears to have been hit by some in the face and is writhing on the ground and Machiavelli managed to get out of the room quickly enough to avoid being harmed.

Sophie shows up and stuns Mars with her knowledge of his history, which causes him to stop giving Josh the gift he mentioned (which I assumed was all of Mars' knowledge and memories, just like Sophie has all of the Witch of Endor's knowledge and memories).  Sophie also mentions the curse that the Witch put on him.  Mars' curse is that his aura is encased in molten rock, unable to escape.  Even as his aura melts the rock, it form over itself, keeping his powers limited.

Mars pleads with Sophie to rid him of the curse the Witch put on him in return for anything she wants.  She asks to have her powers taken away, to be un-Awakened.  Mars cannot do this, so she takes her brother and leaves.  Mars threatens her, to which Nicholas responds with turning the floor to muck via transmutation. Mars is stuck in the muck, and cannot escape.  Dee then rises from the floor after the group leaves with Josh, and attempts to leave himself.  Machiavelli sees the confrontation between Dee and Mars, which ends in Mars' death (encased in melted bone that Dee transmuted from it's hardened state, to a melted state, and then it coated Mars.  Dee then transmuted it to a solid state again, and Mars suffocates).

Machiavelli comments on Dee having killed two Elders in a matter of days, to which Dee scoffs.  Idiot.

Nicholas then decides to take the twins to London in an attempt to meet Gilgamesh the emperor, who can train them in the magic of Water.  He doesn't tell them that Gilgamesh is absolutely psycho.  That's the end of the book, but I got side-tracked explaining that plot line and forgot about Perenelle.

Perenelle escapes the main building of Alcatraz with the help of De Ayala and ventures into a tunnel as the Morrigan and her crows are approaching in an attempt to avoid them.  In the tunnel, Perenelle comes across several rune-covered spear heads sticking up out of the water of the tunnel.  Just passed these spears she could feel and old presence, something she was familiar with.  She manages to splash the spears with some water and rids them of their runes, leaving one to hold on to and ventures past their warding lines to a cell with runes covering the thresh hold, and the door open.  Inside, Perenelle finds a gigantic spider with the head of a woman who jumps to attack Perenelle.

The chapter shifts here back to the main story, but later returns with Perenelle slapping the spider woman on the head with the flat of the spear.  The spider woman cowers away with a simple "That hurt!"  It was really quite a comedic scene.  This big scary spider monster is about to eat Perenelle, but a simple slap from the flat of a spear head across the forehead sends the spider monster running off crying.  Of course, the rune on the spear caused the spider monster quite a bit of pain.

Perenelle and the spider lady have a chat, and she turns out to be the Elder Areop-Enap.  Last time Perenelle and Areop-Enap met, Perenelle was trying to kill her.  Oh well.  They put aside their differences and we find the Areop-Enap is actually a good Elder, who had willingly stepped aside as the time of the humans became apparent and the time of the Elders was over.  Areop-Enap and Perenelle venture to the top of the water tower where the Morrigan is waiting and capture the Morrigan turning all of her crows in to spider food and her larger rocs in to eggs with the help of the rune covered spear.  Yay the Morrigan is done with!  I'm glad.  I hated her character.

And that's the gist of the book.  Probably way too in depth and doesn't really analyze much, but it was a great book and I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I'm looking forward to getting through The Sorceress in the next week or so.