As soon as they emerged from the mist, eyes high in the sky saw them, and from that moment, they were hunted again.
Finbar the Bard had stood with them, one hand on Corriwen's shoulder as the boat came gliding from below the mighty waterfall. It was long and narrow and slid across the water towards them until it slowed and nudged the bank.
"Has he got a remote control?" Kerry asked. Jack shrugged. Kerry was putting on a brave face, but Jack knew he was very apprehensive about getting back onto the water again. The boat bobbed and Jack saw its ribs were long bones glued together, or maybe just articulated from some great fish. The hull was thin and scaled, and patterned just the way a salmon would be, if a salmon could grow ten feet long. He didn't even ask the Bard.
This world, this Temair, now felt completely alive.
"Where will the river take us?"
"Where you have to go," Finbar said. "The Undine will guide you part way there. From then on, it's not clear. But go west. Safe journey to you three."
Jack was torn between the need be gone and the desire to stay and talk more to Finbar. Kerry had packed his rucksack and stuffed in it the big smoked haunch of meat the bard had cured over his hearth. Corriwen said nothing for the moment and Jack couldn't tell if she was reluctant to leave the protection of Finbar's haven.
She caught his eye and while he couldn't read her expression, something passed between them, something important. As if there was a whole big plan and they were right at its centre. He had promised to help her, though what he could do, he wasn't sure at all. What he really was sure of was that he and Kerry Malone would try their best. And he knew, just as surely, that she would try to help Kerry and him find their way home.
"Don't worry," Finbar said. "Well, try to worry as little as possible. We'll be with you. The bards will watch your progress. Whatever She throws at you, we'll try to catch it. But that doesn't mean you don't look out for yourselves. It's a hard road to the Homeward Gate, and a lot of troubles between here and there."
Jack was sure Finbar knew more than he was saying; he could read it in his eyes, but the Bard wouldn't be pushed further.
"You're mended and whole again," he'd said, and that was true enough. Jack's senses seemed exhilaratingly acute.
Before they got into the boat, the Bard took each of them by the hand. He patted Kerry on the back. "You're a good friend," he said. "And resourceful too. Watch out for both of them. Without you, all fails. They will need your help."
He took Jack's hand. "Set yourself to the road, Jack. You've come a distance and you have ways to go. Use your book. It speaks riddles, but it tells truth. That much I know."
Jack had watched the bard embrace Corriwen Redthorn and tuck her cloak around her, as a parent would a child. He couldn't hear what was said.
It had been a strange night. It might be an even stranger day. He was filled with a mix of excitement and foreboding. Underneath it was the new determination to help Corriwen Redthorn find safety, and then get himself and Kerry to the Homeward Gate, even if Jack himself was unsure now where his true home really was.
The boat barely settled under their weight when, Kerry low in the back, both hands gripping the sides. Jack looked for the oars he assumed would be stacked on the ribs but without a sound the craft slipped away from the bank and they were moving. Under the surface, pale green shapes, just glimmers of motion, were making the boat move. In minutes the bank was far behind them, and Finbar just a silhouette on the shore.
They were silent, each lost in thought while the water creatures moved them on, heading away from the faint glow of the rising sun that tried and failed to pierce the mist. Kerry fell asleep, reassured that the boat would not sink, both feet up on the rim, head on his rucksack.
* * *
Jack and Kerry had sat together outside, each on a smooth stone not far from the river, but far enough from the falls to be able to hear each other. Finbar the Bard had drawn Corriwen aside while he cooked over the coals of an open fire. The two of them talked, heads close, the girl's face angled up attentively while the old man spoke.
"So what do you think of her?"
Jack started out of the memory of the man with the sword and the red gauntlet on the stone.
"Who?"
"Corriwen. I saw you looking at her."
"Well, she's pretty special."
"I never met anybody like her. She's…" Kerry paused. "She's cool."
Jack knew that was not the word Kerry had been searching for. Kerry looked suddenly glum.
"I saw the way she looks at you."
"I never noticed."
"She thought you were the boss. Right away, that's what she thought."
"I'm not the boss. You know that."
"But she thought it," Kerry insisted.
"Well, she was wrong," Jack replied. "Just because I was wearing leather and you were in rabbit skin. Blame the Halloween party for that. Anyway, we've got other things to think about. And we're not going to fall out over a girl. Not you and me, okay?"
Jack didn't want to talk about Corriwen. There was something in the smoke-dream that was important to remember. He didn't know why. He closed his eyes and breathed in the cold, clean air, feeling his strength return with every breath, and the first pangs of hunger begin to stir.
"I think we're in trouble," he finally said. He rubbed a hand on the skin of his chest underneath the jerkin. It tingled a little, not painfully, but with inner heat. That was so much better than the draining cold.
He took a moment getting his thoughts together. "We're stuck here. I need to get us back home again."
"Easy said. I thought it was all a dream, but listen Jack, this place is for real."
"And that's why we have to find the way home. Finbar seems to think I'm supposed to be here for some reason. But I don't want to be here. It's weird and it's dangerous, but that's not it. I have to get back to see if the Major's all right. He said something to me just before we…before we fell into this place, wherever it is. Whenever it is."
"So what did he say?"
Jack fumbled with his jacket and drew out stone heart on its chain.
"He told me to keep this safe, because it used to belong to my father. It's my inheritance. He knew my dad. I need to find out what it's all about."
Kerry's eyes followed damsel-flies dancing over the silvered water.
"Dads aren't all they're cracked up to be. Look at mine!" He turned to his friend. "And anyway, I thought you were an orphan."
"Me too," Jack agreed. "But now I don't know. My father disappeared. The Major said he was on some kind of mission. Like a soldier."
He paused, collecting his thoughts. The smooth obsidian stone gleamed in the firelight.
"Finbar says this is some sort of key. Like for getting through the gateway to get home."
"So?"
"It belonged to my father. And so did the book. I've been thinking hard and it all fits. Maybe he came through the gateway, just the way we did. Or one of them."
Kerry shrugged. "Maybe he did."
"But there's more. When we came out of the trees into the circle. I recognised the stones, even though I never saw them before. At least so I thought. But when I was a kid I used to have these nightmares. Big shapes all around me. I never knew what they were. But I think they were the standing stones."
He lowered his voice. "I think somebody brought me through, when I was a baby."
"What, like from some different place?" Kerry gave him an odd look. "Like here?"
"I think so," Jack said. "I'm not sure where. But it fits. I never knew it before, but thinking on it, I never felt as if I belonged."
"You never looked any different to me." Kerry's eyes dropped. He looked like someone who realised he was losing something special. "We've always been friends."
Jack gripped him by the shoulder. "Always will be. You know that. That won't ever change."
"So what are you saying?"
"I just feel different, that's all. As if I was…sort of waiting for something to happen. Now I've got this stone, that's supposed to be some kind of key. Only I don't know how to use it."
"So, what's the next move?"
"If somebody brought me through, then maybe I can go the opposite direction. All my life I've never known who I really am, and the Major can't say. I've never had the chance to find out."
"You're Jack Flint," Kerry said. He seemed heartened by what Jack had said. "What else is there to know? Me? I'm Kerry Malone." He punched Jack on the shoulder. "And we're both stuck here in fancy dress. Can it get any better?"
Jack managed a smile. "I wish it was so simple. But we have to do what the book says. We keep going west until we find the way back. The Major said curiosity would get me in trouble some day, and he was right. But now I know I wasn't curious about the right things, and I'm going to do my best to find out."
"Okay," Kerry said. "I suppose I should come along and keep you out of trouble."
He grinned. "And make sure you don't get the girl."
"Look, if you feel that way, why don't you just tell her."
"I don't know how I feel," Kerry admitted. "It's kind of confusing. Never thought much about girls before."
He smiled, a real one this time. "But like I said. If you ignore all the crazy stuff, this place could be a whole lot worse."
* * *
Now Kerry was asleep and Corriwen sat beside Jack at the prow.
"Finbar spoke with me for a long time," she said. "It gives me some hope."
"Me too," Jack replied. "But I don't understand half of it. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
Finbar had taken Jack outside when the velvety blue had faded to purple and the stars had come out. Jack did not recognise any of the patterns in the constellations.
He had tapped Jack on his breastbone, where the black heartstone swung on its silver chain.
"That's a powerful talisman," he said. The moonlight gleamed on its polished surface, though it seemed that half its light was absorbed into its depths.
"Probably what kept you alive. A long time ago, this talisman was here."
"It was my father's," Jack told him. "But I never knew him."
"Then he was here before. I think you realise that."
Jack nodded. "I'm beginning to."
"You've stepped between worlds, a long way from Old Caledon."
"But we have to get back." Jack almost said home. Now that word didn't feel right.
"That's easily said," Finbar said patiently. "Mandrake's hordes have taken over Mid-Temair while the folk have been set to work on the dam and digging a tunnel though the mountains. He means to bring water to flood the salt plain."
"To break the geas ?"
Finbar nodded. "Nothing surer. But there's more to all this now. It's no coincidence that you are here with that heartstone. You've been led here, and that can only mean one thing. She means to have the key which will break open the gateways."
"A key?"
"Every gate has a key. And this is the master of them all. Nothing passes a gate without the key. That's what she wants, and that's why the road ahead is full of danger for you."
"Why would this Morrigan want it?"
"To smash the locks between the worlds and let the evil of the underworld loose. The end of Temair will also be the end of Caledon. She is plague and famine and death in one. It's a big burden laid on you Jack, but you are the Keeper of the Key now. The Journeyman. Our future and your world's future is on your shoulders."
Finbar took a suck on the pipe, "Look up," he said, raising a hand to the jewelled sky. That's the direction you have to travel, and it's no coincidence."
"I'm not with you."
The bard opened the leather jerkin. Jack's skin was blue in the light. The air was cool, not cold. He felt more alive than he had ever felt before.
The shape of the hand showed clearly against his skin, almost black in this light. Above it, the five dots that looked like claw marks stood in a semi circle.
"Now look there," the bard said. Jack peered up at the sky. Finbar guided his eyes.
He saw it then. Five bright stars in a perfect semi-circle. Brighter than any others in the night sky, sparkling like diamonds.
"The Corona," Finbar said. "The crown of Temair."
In a moment of clarity, Jack recognised the similarity. "It's a match."
"Yes. And the red hand. Now here's a thing you'll think strange. When the bards put a geas on the Morrigan, they foresaw a day when the shadow would come back, even though the binding they put on the black tor was powerful enough to last these numberless generations. But they knew that nothing is forever. As I can look back, so the five bards together can see what may come, and this is what they passed down to us.
Comes Coronal, from west to east
The Red Hand set to slay the beast
Blood to blood, heart to heart
Cullian's sword replays its part
"That's just like the rhymes in the book."
"Your Book of Ways? That's vital. If your father had the book and the heartstone, then he was a traveller. A journeyman. And the Major, the MacBeth, he is the Guardian of the Ways. Where is your father now?"
Jack shook his head. "I really don't know. He disappeared when I was small."
"Who knows, perhaps he went through a farward gate? But then how did the heartstone get back to Caledon? That's a mystery. But it's here now, and so are you. It's the puzzling out of riddle and rhyme that's the trick. Temair turns and the circle comes back to the start and things that are meant to be, well, we don't have much say in the matter."
"So what's meant to be?"
"Well, you can work it out for yourself. The red hand wielded the Cullian sword that became the Redthorn sword. And you have the mark of the corona on you. No matter what black things brought you here, you were meant to be here."
"What do I have to do?"
"You and Kerry, well, I think you didn't just chance upon Corriwen Redthorn. She's got a big task too, and you must help her."
"She saved my life," Jack said. "I'll help her if I can."
"Nobody said it was going to be easy," the Bard said. "But there's good news in with the bad."
"I hope there is. It doesn't sound good so far."
"Well, here's part of it. We Bards, we're handy for weddings and birthings and the like. A light touch of magic, you could say. But we stay out of the rest of man's troubles mostly, until we get a sign. Waiting for the sign can be a long task, but here's the sign."
He touched Jack on the chest again, between the hand and the marks that matched the stars. "So now I have to call my brothers together and see what we can do to help."
"Is that the good news?"
"That fireglass heart, She means to have it, and she'll send everything she's got at you. But there's more to it than just talisman. This heart is the key to worlds. And the key to time itself."
"I don't understand."
"You will, some day up ahead. Now you get a good nights sleep if you can, so you're fresh for the next step."
* * *
Corriwen Redthorn had listened intently as Jack related the conversation.
"So here we are," Jack said.
"He said I'll figure it all out." Jack shook his head. "I'll give it my best."
"I'll help you if I can. There's always some hope," she said. "I had almost given up until I met you. And Mandrake's Scree had hunted me so long I was ready to give up. You helped give me hope again. And so has Finbar."
* * *
The mist cleared abruptly, as if they passed through a gauze curtain into sunlight. Neither Jack nor Corriwen could say how far they had travelled, but now, after hours in the white stillness, a forest loomed.
The boat arrowed across clear water to a space where trees overhung the shore, and finally bumped against a steep earth bank. Kerry woke with a start and looked around him, rubbing sleep from his eyes.
"We there yet?"
"Wherever it is, we're here." Jack turned to Corriwen. "Recognise this place?"
She shook her head.
They unloaded the things they had brought and stood for a moment on the bank, looking across the water. Without warning, the boat pulled away and as silently as it had come, and glided back into the mist.
Kerry lifted the backpack. Jack slung the bow across his shoulders.
"This is where we begin, I suppose," Corriwen said in a small voice. She was thinking of what the Bard had said. A hard road ahead. She checked the matching knives in their sheaths, straightened her shoulders and regained that resolute expression. "Where now?"
Jack pointed to the track that angled away from the water, perhaps tramped by animals coming to drink.
"That way looks the best bet. It goes west."
They followed the trail for hours unaware that eyes high in the sky had caught the movement in the narrow belt between fog and tree-line.
Sometime in the afternoon, Kerry made a fire and skewered some of the haunch which dripped fat tantalisingly into the embers and they ate with their fingers and drank water from a clear stream. When they had eaten, they walked on, through fern-packed glades and under spreading trees with trunks as wide as houses.
Finally they came to the edge of the forest and found themselves on a wider path that became a hard-pack cobbled road between fields that had been tilled and planted once, but now were overgrown with weeds and nettles.
"The place looks deserted," Jack said, conscious that despite the solitude, he was whispering. Ahead, the sun slid towards the horizon, red in their eyes, casting shadows behind them. They walked together, with Corriwen between Jack and Kerry, watching for signs of movement or attack, but saw nothing, not even animals in the fields. They did not see the flock of roaks circling high above them, mere pin-points in the sky.
They came to a village, a handful of wooden houses, or what was left of them. The ground was trampled, as if a herd of beasts had rampaged through. Walls leant at crazy angles and most of the woodwork was smashed or charred.
"This is Mandrake's work," Corriwen said. "I'm ashamed to have the same blood."
"You can't pick your family," Kerry said. "More's the pity."
As soon as he spoke thunder rumbled in the north and lightning stabbed down on a coppice of distant trees. Jack licked a finger and held it up to the breeze.
"Looks like a storm. And it's coming our way."
"We need shelter," Corriwen said. "But there's none here. There's not a roof left to hide under."
They pushed on, past the ruined hamlet, following the road westwards as the gathering clouds darkened to purple. Thunder cracked, much closer now, and for the first time they saw the roaks wheeling and tumbling in the high wind as if they were dragging the storm down on them. The three travellers quickened their pace, over a slope and into a valley where they saw ruins no more than a mile ahead. There were no lights, but they could see the shape of houses and barns in the gloom. The last rays of the sun peered from under the clouds and tinged the slate roofs the colour of blood.
They were half-way down the slope when the storm hit.
The wind whipped around them, shrieking through the gaps in the wall, and over the wind and thunder, Jack thought he heard the howling of wolves. He couldn't tell from which direction.
The hail started as they ran down the road. At first it was hailstones, driven almost horizontal by the ferocious wind, but in minutes, they were as big as marbles, and bigger still, lashing down as if aimed by a malign hand.
Each time the lightning stabbed and forked, the old houses stood stark against the sky. Kerry put the backpack over his head for protection, grabbed Corriwen and Jack and huddled close under its meagre shelter. Together they raced for the nearest building and threw themselves inside.
A massive roak swooped behind them. Kerry batted it with the bag, so hard it flattened against the stone wall. Corriwen spun and slashed it with her blade. Hailstones battered the roof and shattered slates while lighting struck, so close they could smell the burn in the air. Jack kicked a wicker door closed and jammed a heavy trough against it.
"This is crazy stuff," Kerry said. "It's like somebody's aiming the lightning at us. And them hailstones."
"Mandrake," she said. "And the thing that is pulling his strings. "
Feral howling cut through the drumming hail. Too close.
"Wolves or Scree," Corriwen said. "We're hunted again."
"They might not find us," Kerry said hopefully. "We should sit tight."
They huddled in a straw-littered corner, beside bales of mouldy hay, listening to the hailstorm rage, and the howling get closer still. Abruptly the hail stopped and for a moment an eerie silence stretched out in the darkened barn.
Somewhere in the night they heard muffled voices.
"Scree," Corriwen whispered. Her hand went to her belt and drew out a knife.
Just as she spoke, something moved in the shadows and she twisted towards it, blade ready.
"It's only a rat," Jack whispered.
The black rat scurried from the corner, rustling through the straw. Little red eyes glittered. Another came out from the bales with yet another on its tail. These two stopped and stared at the three fugitives. Another movement caught Jack's eye and he turned to see a rippling wave of dark shadows flowing away from the wall and in an instant the whole floor was alive with rats.
"This is really creepy," Kerry whispered.
Instantly the rats, as if guided by some invisible conductor, began to squeak, hundreds of them, a barnful, all in unison, in a sudden ear-splitting cacophony.
Kerry raised his hands to his ears. "Can't we shut them up?"
"They're calling to the Scree," Corriwen said. The rats moved, surging forward in a black mass, and in seconds they were all over them, squealing and nipping and clawing at their clothes.
Corriwen's blades flashed and rats fell off her.
The door thudded and Jack saw the leather hinges begin to stretch.
"Move," he said.
"Move where?"
A pulley rope dangled from a high rafter. Jack grabbed Corriwen's shoulder, ignoring the rats that were hanging on to his leggings, and boosted her up. Without a sound, she started to climb. He followed as the wicker door bulged and cracked down the centre. A great grey arm shoved through and fumbled at the latch. Kerry grabbed his pack, dug into a pocket and fished out his matches. Without pausing, he struck one and held the flame against the frayed end of the rope. It caught instantly and then he was clambering up, bracing his feet against the stone wall, while below the flames licked up.
The door crashed open and Scree came charging in. The burning rope dripped fire on the dry straw. In moments, the first bale caught and in mere moments, the Scree were blundering and howling, some of them ablaze, in frenzied circles.
Jack urged Corriwen on, towards the gap in the gable wall onto the long barn roof. It was slippery with moss and ice where the hail had gathered and they scrambled on all fours across the ridge, down the other side, using the cover of the farmhouse roofs to get as much distance as possible. Out on the narrow cobbles, the wolf-hounds snarled and strained against their leashes and Jack heard the unmistakeable grunt of a great hog. Kerry led the way, unerringly finding a route across the roofs, sliding down the gutters between them, until they came to a rickety outhouse and managed to drop to the ground.
They ran blindly down narrow alleys. Kerry drew his sword from the back-pack and Jack unslung the bow.
They raced between two dilapidated shacks and suddenly they were in an open square.
At the same time, a horde of Scree, their huge hounds baying, came thundering round the corner. Kerry skidded to a halt and Jack almost bowled him over. Corriwen stood, catching her breath, knives raised for battle.
"Oh-oh," Kerry gulped. They spun, scooted back down the alley, almost reached the end, when a hand shot out and caught Corriwen by the neck.
She yelped as her feet left the ground. She slashed out, razoring a grey forearm from elbow to wrist, fell to the ground and rolled away just as another Scree grabbed her. The knives clattered to the cobbles.
Kerry dived in, swinging his sword like an axe, but it caught the Scree on a metal shoulder plate and the force of that almost sent the sword spinning out of his hands. Jack turned, nocked an arrow, aware now, despite the surge of fear, that his strength was back. He loosed one barb and caught the lead Scree in the chest. He tumbled and the hound held by his companion, turned like lightning, snapping at his master's face. The second handler tripped and Jack managed to set a black arrow into the ridged back of a great hog.
For a moment mayhem reigned, and it looked as if the scrum at the end of the alley was such a tangle that they might get away, when the second wave of Scree came charging in. Corriwen was slung across broad shoulders. She screeched and flailed to no avail. Kerry tried to slice with the sword, but the second Scree warded him off with a stone-headed club.
"Get her," Kerry cried.
Jack saw the Scree approach and in a flash he realised they would be squashed in the middle.
He grabbed Kerry, whipped him around and through the window-space of the nearest shack, then dived through after him.
"No!" Kerry shouted, "They've got her!"
"Too many," Jack gasped. "We can't help her."
"You can't give up on her."
"They'll kill us."
"We can fight for her," Kerry shot back. "If you care about her!"
Jack dragged Kerry with him. They tumbled outside, rolled together on the ground and then, without any warning, dropped into a deep runnel that was ankle-deep in fast-running water.
Jack held on to Kerry, forced him to run and they splashed down the runnel. Behind them, two Scree leapt into the ditch, chain-mail jangling.
The runnel curved to the left and instantly Jack saw the grating that barred the way.
His heart leapt into his throat.
Trapped! He might have said it aloud. Kerry was yelling in fury, trying to shake free of Jack's grip.
The wooden grating was like a gate over the tunnel ahead where the water disappeared into darkness.
Jack couldn't stop. Momentum carried them down the slope. The big grate loomed and they slammed into it.
The Scree were only fifty yards behind, slow and ponderous, but determined.
Jack gripped the grate. Each cross-hatch was more than a foot wide.
"Can you get through?"
"They've got her," Kerry cried, anger blazing in his eyes.
"Get through!" Jack ordered. He grabbed Kerry's arm and used all his strength to force his friend through the grid, It was just wide enough. The backpack snagged. One strap broke, and then Kerry was inside the tunnel. Jack didn't hesitate. He wriggled through and into the dark.
They came out perhaps a furlong downstream, slipping and sliding down a steep weir into a lade where the water deepened. Jack made out a wooden millwheel and they hauled up onto the lade-edge.
Above them a roak called out, alerting a troop of Scree who turned at the culvert and came splashing upstream towards them.
"Do they never give up?"
"You do," Kerry spat. Jack ignored him.
"Wait here," Jack said. He clambered to the edge of the rill behind the wheel. Here a gate held the water back, balanced by a heavy stone attached to a wheel locked by a spar. Jack put his shoulder to it and strained until the spar began to creak outwards. Kerry saw what he was doing and stepped in to help and both of them wrestled the spar free. They jumped back just as the wheel began to spin as the weight fell. The gate rose and all the lade water gushed out in a torrent and slammed into the Scree.
One second they were there, clambering upstream, and the next, they were gone, Scree, beasts and all.
Jack gritted his teeth, raised his fist in gesture of victory.
"Come on," he said. After a while they came to a coppice of trees and ran for the shadows.
When they stopped, heaving for breath Kerry turned to Jack.
"You rat," he snarled. "You left her."
And without warning Kerry swung a fist and punched Jack as hard as he could. His best friend went sprawling into the bushes and Kerry held back sudden hot tears.