Something slumped in the dark. It sounded like a body falling on soft ground.
Jack's eyes opened instantly, his hand on his amberhorn bow. There was cold rain on the air, and a breeze shook the branches overhead. Showering him with icy droplets. In the gloom he could just make out Corriwen and Connor, close to the dying embers.
The heartstone squeezed slowly with its own mysterious energy. Cold tingles ran up and down Jack's spine.
A motion to his left just caught his eye, but he didn't move, not yet.
Something moved slowly. He waited, breath held tight.
Then he saw it. Kerry was on the ground where he had slumped from his position against the tree. Jack let out a slow breath of relief. His eyes began to close again when Kerry moved and suddenly Jack's heart was high in his throat.
Kerry slithered away from the tree.
The sight froze Jack. Kerry simply unfolded where he was curled on the moss and oozed across the ground on his belly. Jack could hear damp leaves scrape under him as he slowly inched forward, black eyes staring.
The heartstone quivered on its own.
Kerry came slowly on, away from the tree, towards the faint glow from the embers. His head turned, left and right and still he never blinked. Jack saw a gleam of reflected red in his staring eye.
Wake up. Wake up! The voice in his head yammered at him to get out of this nightmare.
Kerry's tongue flickered out. Too long to be a human tongue, too fast and reptilian.
And Jack couldn't wake himself.
His friend slithered slowly towards him, eyes like black glass. Jack heard the sibilant hiss of his breathing and watched as his ribs moved in unison, dragging him across the damp earth towards where they lay.
Jack couldn't move a muscle. It was as if he was glued to the spot, paralysed by the creepy horror of this nightmare.
Kerry hissed again and came right up close, swivelling from side to side, as if taking bearings. Jack was motionless, lying on his side. His tunic was half open and the heartstone just visible against his skin.
Kerry's jet eyes fixed on it and he slithered even closer. Jack felt the tickle of his tongue against his skin, and goose pimples crawled where he had been touched.
Slowly and silently Kerry's hands came forward, strangely sinuous and fluid and reached for the stone, and still Jack was paralysed, unable to draw back.
Wake up Now!
His brain shrieked the command to himself but his body still couldn't move an inch.
Kerry's hands drew the heartstone out, still attached to the silver chain and brought his face close. The black eyes scanned it avidly.
"Not black," Jack's mind whimpered. "They're blue!"
The stone was in front of him, between his eyes and Kerry's. And when Jack looked through the translucent talisman, his heart almost gave out completely.
Kerry's face was a mask of scaly plates. His pupils were no longer round, but vertical, like slits in glass. The tongue that flicked out was thin and black and forked at the end. The monstrous eyes peered into the heart of the stone, his whole face devoid of expression.
Then he suddenly dropped the stone and slowly swivelled away, down on his belly again.
A few drops of cold rain pattered the leaved overhead and Jack watched in abject horror as the nightmare that his friend had become in this dream slithered away under the shelter of a big fallen oak, curled into a coil in the shadows and went still.
Jack let out a long, silent breath that seemed to have been backed up in his lungs for hours. He turned slightly and a thorn stabbed him in the knee, cutting so deep it made his eyes water in the flare of pain.
And in that instant he knew he was not dreaming. He was awake with his hand on the amberhorn bow and a thorn dug into his knee, and his friend coiled like a snake under a dead oak.
A friend who slithered on his belly and hissed like a snake.
Jack Flint suddenly felt more afraid than he had ever been in his life.
* * *
He lay in the dark as the damp overtook the fire and finally snuffed it out and he waited until the only sound was the steady drip on damp undercover. Then, very slowly, he crept away from the campsite, inching his way on the ground so as to make no sound and no obvious motion.
In the hollow, Kerry stayed dead still. Jack edged out of sight then quickly got round the fallen oak and eased himself quietly over the trunk. Below him, in the dry hollow, Kerry hissed softly in his sleep. The very sound made the hairs on Jack's neck crawl.
He waited until he was sure that he couldn't be seen. Water was gathered on the ridges on the dead bark. As quickly and quietly as he could, Jack prised away some of the loose wood until he formed a little runnel, and the rainwater slowly began to trickle down to splash on the ground just beside where Kerry lay. Jack watched the drips slowly build into a puddle of cold water, and while he hated to make Kerry suffer, he knew what had to be done.
In his lair below Wolfen Castle, Fainn saw none of this.
In the night he had cast his mind out and found where they lay and then the fuzzy vision of the river and the waterfall came to him.
He exerted his will, chanting under his breath, and he wove his complicated gesticulations.
He watched the sleeping boy, with the bow in his hand, slumped near the glow of the fire, and then he saw the gleam on his chest. He had been about to make his creature search for the harp which he sensed they had with them, but something diverted his attention, some sixth sense. He willed his servant to approach the sleeper.
And he saw the stone. He stopped, dead still. The vision was still indistinct, seen through its veil of shadows, but it was clear enough to make out the heart-shaped stone on the boy's neck.
Fainn let out a long, slow breath.
This was something. This was important. And it was powerful.
Every fibre of his being had been steeped in spellbinding for so many years he had lost count of them, and he could feel the power of this talisman across time and distance. A heartstone of fireglass.
And it was beating.
Somewhere in distant memory, he recalled hearing of such a talisman. Sometime in the far days of the Dagda, there had been a man….
There had been a heartstone. A charm of great power.
Slowly he sat back, eyes closed, seeing with that other creature's eyes.
This, he told himself, was something he had to have.
This was something that could change everything.
* * *
They were up before dawn, though Jack had not slept at all. He had made himself stay awake, though with the image of Kerry's creepy slither across the damp ground in his mind all the time, sleep would have been impossible.
Kerry did not move. And in the morning, when Jack forced himself to his feet and went across to the hollow to check, he was completely motionless. When Jack nudged him, Kerry didn't blink. His breathing was so slow it was just the faintest reptilian hiss. His limbs were stiff and cold.
Jack wasted no time in binding Kerry's hands and feet with some line from the fishing reel, hating himself for treating his best friend this way, but knowing there was nothing else he could do for the moment.
The horror he had seen in the night had not been Kerry. Not the friend he'd known since childhood. Something had got inside him and changed him.
Jack slid Kerry's sword into a scabbard on the horse's saddle and then relit the fire to get some heat into his own stiff muscles.
When Corriwen awoke and saw Kerry tightly bound at the base of the tree, she was horrified. In an instant her knife appeared in her hand and she stalked from the fire, intent on cutting him free. Jack pulled her back and forced her away.
When he finally told her everything that had happened in the night, Connor was awake and listening, nodding all the while, casting superstitious glances across at Kerry who seemed to be in some kind of stupor.
"I made sure he got cold in the night," Jack said. "The rainwater. Cold slows snakes down and it worked. Something's got into him. That snake bite has done something horrible."
"You can't beat Fainn's magic," Connor said sombrely. "He turned weasels on us in the woods and they changed into monsters made of leaves and twigs, but they were alive."
"But we burned them," Corriwen said. "We beat them."
"We can't beat this," Jack said miserably. "I don't know what to do. But I think we must
find Brand and the rest of the troupe. They should know something. Whatever Fainn has done, surely it can be undone."
"There's no cure for snake poison," Connor said. "I don't think there's any for snake magic. He'll be suffering inside all the time, more than anybody should suffer. Maybe it's best you put him out of his misery."
"Don't even think that," Corriwen cried. "Kerry has been a good friend to us in the worst of times. Whatever Fainn has done, he will suffer for it when the time comes. But I will let no harm come to my friend."
Connor took a step back.
"I was only just saying…"
Jack held up a hand and shut him up. It was time to take charge.
"No discussion. We keep him tied up, so he doesn't harm himself. Or us. But we keep him safe until we can help him."
He was about to say more when a clamour of noise in the distance reached them through the trees.
"Dermott!" Connor hissed. "He's come for us."
Jack spun on his heel and scooped Kerry up from the ground, grunting with the weight. Kerry was rigid, as if all his muscles had seized. Jack ignored the shudder of revulsion that ran through him as he heaved his friend over the saddle, lashed his wrists to the pommel and hauled himself up. Connor sat behind Corriwen on the other horse and they were gone with a wild hue and cry behind them as horsemen crashed through the undergrowth in hot pursuit.
They only had a slight advantage, because Dermott's men were all big and strong and carried weapons and armour, and Thin Doolan had picked out two of the best in the castle stables. Even two to a horse they managed to keep ahead of the hunt and when they finally broke through the edge of the trees and onto rough moorland, they were a mile or so in front.
Nobody spoke. The drizzle was grey and soaked through their clothes and Kerry bounced about on the saddle like a dead weight. They reached a rocky pass and went down it, Jack leading the way, heading north-west. At least, he told himself, the compass in his head was still working. Ahead of them the land rose through trailing grey clouds through which they could sometimes see the jagged peaks of black mountains in the far distance. They looked barren and forbidding, but with Dermott's hunters behind them, they had no choice but to head in that direction.
It was mid-morning before they had to stop and let the sweating horses rest a while.
Corriwen examined Kerry closely, concern making her face grim.
"We only found each other," she said, distraught. "And now we could lose him."
"We'll find a way," Jack said, with more conviction than he felt. He could still not shake the memory of Kerry's slither across the ground, and the blank stare of those black eyes.
They were close to exhaustion after a hard ride, but Jack forced them on, through the rills and passes of the foothills, crossing fast streams amber with peat. Every once in a while, they found a ridge they could use as an observation post, and each time, they saw the dogged pursuit through the swirling clouds.
Connor shook his head.
"We're leaving no trail. We've come through water and kept to stony ground, but they follow us at every turn. I don't understand it."
"Maybe they're good trackers," Jack suggested.
"No. They're not that good. Not as good as me and I've been watching to see we don't leave tracks. Something's giving us away."
Jack drew him and Corriwen away from the horses for a moment. He glanced across at Kerry, silent and still where they had put him, his eyes wide and seemingly unfocussed.
"He reached for the heartstone last night," he said. "Kerry would never have done that. Something else was making him do it. And it must have seen the stone."
"Fainn!"
"What if…." Jack paused. "What if he's using Kerry's eyes?"
"Blind him!" Connor said.
"Don't you dare!" Corriwen shot back.
"No. I mean, blindfold him. Cover his eyes so he can't see. We'll soon know if they lose the trail."
"It's worth a try," Jack agreed.
Kerry fought them. As soon as Jack touched him, he swung his head round, fast as a snake and tried to bite. Jack snatched his hand back and heard the teeth close with a snap, and then Kerry squirmed on the ground, body flexing and heaving, trying to sing his teeth into Jack's legs. His eyes were staring and his face contorted with animal ferocity. Connor skipped round behind him and flung his whole weight down, using both hands to pin Kerry's shoulders and force his face into the ground. Kerry bucked and heaved but to no avail. Jack managed to tear a strip of leather and bind it round Kerry's eyes. As soon as the light was cut off, Kerry went completely limp.
Jack turned to Corriwen. Tears trickled down her cheeks and Jack felt her horror and despair.
But an hour later, it was clear they had shaken the pursuit. If Fainn had been using Kerry's eyes to direct the hunt, then he was blinded now. Connor the poacher made sure they left no trace as they travelled up towards old pine forests that clung to the steep hillsides and then down the far side into rugged country that stretched into the distance towards the dark hills beyond.
"I wish we could find a Bard," Jack said as they pushed through the pines. "He would know what to do."
"What do you need a Bard for?" a voice asked, very close to his ear, giving Jack such a fright that he almost fell off the horse.
He spun in the saddle, searching for the speaker.
"You've come a long way." The words came from above their heads. They all looked up.
Sprawled on a thick limb, Dilligan Rune smoked a pipe as long as his arm, and blew hazy rings down at them.
Corriwen's knife was in her hand. Connor was reaching for his sword. Jack clapped him on the shoulder.
"Its okay," he said. "Rune's a friend of ours. I think."
"You've got few enough friends here, my lad," Rune said brightly. "I see you're better dressed than the last time. My cousin Brand tells me you can hop and skip with the best of them."
"Brand's a thief," Jack said flatly. "And now Dermott's after us."
"Dermott's the thief. He stole the harp and the cauldron. Brand and his fellows, they were just taking it back."
"Then they left it with us, so Dermott would hunt us," Connor said. "While they got away."
Rune grinned. He sat upright on the branch and dangled his little feet just out of arm's reach.
"Some things don't travel well in the misty road. And some folk are better fit to hold the harp…for now."
He blew another fancy smoke-ring, tapped his pipe on the branch, then swung himself down to the ground with amazing agility for one so small and round.
"And you're just in time for a spot o' supper. Can't have you all running on empty bellies, can we?"
He led them through the pines to a mound very much like the Drumlin they'd slept in the first time they met Rune. The Cluricaun already had two fat ducks roasting on a spit and Jack's mouth began to water. They dismounted, stiff from the long ride and Jack lowered Kerry down beside the fire, making sure his blindfold was still in place.
"I see you found the girl," Rune said. "And more besides. I knew Brand and his raggle-taggle band would help you out."
"But something's wrong with Kerry."
"Aye, I can see he's been spell-bit. That mad Pict must have got his hooks in him. You did right to cover his eyes."
"How do you know this?"
"I know Fainn of old. If he's not the worst, then he's close to it."
"Do you know anything that will help? Like counter spells or something?"
"I know one thing you could try. But sure, you know that yourself."
Jack looked down at him, puzzled.
"Sure, didn't you have the evil touch on you once before?"
"But it was Finn the Bard who fixed me. With fireglass stone."
Rune stood on tiptoe and tapped Jack on the chest. "And that's what you need. You have to draw it out with fire. And love too."
"How did you know…?" Jack started to ask. Rune chuckled and tapped the side of his nose.
"Cluricauns have their ways."
Jack drew out the heartstone. It glowed almost black, but still translucent. It felt alive in his hand.
"What if it breaks? In the fire?"
"Maybe it will," Rune said with a shrug. "Who knows."
Something cold twisted inside Jack. "I can't lose it."
Corriwen turned on him, eyes blazing. "Can you lose a friend?"
"Fire," Jack told Connor. "We need heat."
He and Corriwen pulled Kerry down from the saddle. He hissed and struggled but to no avail. Jack remembered Finbar's words on Temair when he too had needed a drastic cure from the dark touch which had invaded him.
Be a friend to him now…
They had to be Kerry's friend, no matter what the cost.
Connor had a good blaze going in no time and rolled some logs for them to sit on. They dragged Kerry close to the flames and laid him down.
Connor looked expectantly from one to the other, waiting for an explanation. Jack said nothing. He reached inside his tunic and drew out the heartstone on its silver mount. It glowed almost black, but still translucent. It felt alive in his hand.
"What's that?" Connor asked.
"It was my father's," Jack said.