The Bards reached them. Finbar put his arm around Jack.
"Is it over?"
Finbar shook his head.
"Only until she recovers," he said. "She can be fought and she can be held, but she cannot be killed."
"You mean, it's not over?"
"Nothing ever is," Finbar said. "The battle between the dark and the light has gone on since the beginning. And it always will."
He laid a hand on Jack's shoulder. "I know you have been through more than anybody has a right to ask, but you must protect the worlds. She must not get the key or your Caledon will be next to suffer, and worlds beyond that. We will do our best to bind her again, while she is weak. We have you to thank for that, Journeyman."
He looked out over the battlefield where the Scree hordes had fallen.
"Your part here is done," Finbar said. "And you have Temair's gratitude. Now, mount up and ride west. "
He raised his staff and pointed towards a path that led to a cleft in the high ground.
"Follow that pass and the trail that leads from it. Stay on the track and you'll find the way home."
Corriwen held up the Redthorn sword. "I think you should have this."
"What would I do with that meat cleaver?" The bard laughed.
"I promised I would find the homeward gate for my friends. Who knows what will happen when we reach it. Temair needs the sword more than I."
Finbar shrugged. He was jollier by far than the other Bards.
"Who knows what will happen? I imagine you'll have a use for a fine blade, no matter its history. After that, if you want me to keep it safe, I've my Undines who will guard it well. Nothing gets past them."
He helped Corriwen into the saddle, slapped the great horse on its high rump.
"Now take the Key Heart, and take heart. Ride like the wind and don't look back."
Corriwen spurred her horse up the track. Jack and Kerry followed. They reached the pass in less than an hour and didn't look back as they descended on the far side, down a rocky slope and by the time they hit the flat, the great horses were moving at a gallop.
The horses kept the pace up all day, never tiring, only stopping to drink at clear streams in land that became greener and more fertile as they headed west and away from the salt barrens.
They passed through green valleys that were empty, waiting for the return of people to farm them and rode on as the land rose again, stopping only to eat whatever Kerry could catch, before they were up and riding again.
There was no sign of pursuit as they travelled rocky ravines festooned with trees, through tall timbered forests and then into hill country again.
It took them three days of hard riding before, on a bright morning, they rode out of a steep cleft and saw the standing stones ahead of them.
Kerry punched the air with a fist. "Yes!"
He banged Jack on the shoulder. "Go for it, man. We're almost there."
The two pillars stood in a wide, circular basin surrounded by dry rocks. The faces were intricately carved with the strange lettering they had seen before
"The Homeward Gate," Jack said. The Book of Ways had not let them down.
As they raced for the stones, Jack leant over in the saddle and grasped Corriwen's belt.
"Will you come with us," he said as the stones loomed closer.
Before she could reply, a black figure came darting out from between two huge boulders and slashed at Corriwen's horse. The black axe hit the beast such a blow that it went down in a heap, shivered and died. Corriwen flew over its neck and landed hard, but she rolled with the momentum, managed to get to her feet and both knives seemed to leap into her hands.
Mandrake barred the way to the Homeward Gate.
His face was wizened and horribly aged. But his axe whistled through the air and the horse reared in fright, throwing Jack and Kerry to the ground. He swung again, and almost decapitated Kerry who rolled under the swipe.
"I'll have it!" he hissed. "By all that's black I'll have it. You cannot deny me this."
"Screw this for a game of soldiers," Kerry snarled. He fitted a sharp stone in his sling and swung hard. It caught Mandrake right between the eyes and he tumbled back against a rock, the stone lodged deep in his forehead. Black cracks appeared to spread across his face.
He raised both hands and chanted in a guttural tongue, ignoring the awful wound that split his face into a spiderweb of black lines.
As he raised his hands, Jack felt himself caught. He couldn't say how, but his motion suddenly slowed, as if he was running through treacle.
Mandrake reached again, screamed, and Jack felt the whoop of some invisible force rush past him, aimed high. It struck the high slope behind them and immediately Jack heard the sound of stones churning and sliding. He tried to turn, but his muscles had frozen. Beside him, Corriwen jerked as if she'd been electrocuted, Kerry was sinking to the ground, falling so slowly it seemed he would never get there.
The Redthorn sword kicked out of Corriwen's hand and stuck in the ground.
Mandrake's raddled face lit up in a grotesque expression of glee.
Jack heard his voice, slowed down so much it sounded as deep as the roar of tumbling rocks.
"Come now, mistress," he boomed. "I have not failed you."
The heartstone on Jack's neck fluttered all of a sudden.
He forced his hand towards his chest, fighting the paralysis all the way. It seemed to take an age as it floated before him, numb and senseless, but with a supreme effort of will, he dragged it back, back and back, until it touched the heart-stone.
As soon as his fingers found the polished surface, he felt a jolt of heat shimmer through him and the paralysis broke instantly.
Without thinking, he grabbed for the sword just as Mandrake's skeletal fingers were closing on the hilt. Jack was a split second faster. He snatched the hilt, pushed Corriwen aside just in time.
A withering bolt of black force hissed through the air and hit the rock ahead of them.
Jack was now moving faster than he could think. All his senses were now razor sharp, and everything else seemed to happen in slow motion. He had the sword, whirled to the left under Mandrake's swing, twisted round as the axe came again in an arc towards Kerry's lowered neck.
Jack didn't pause. Behind him he could sense the Morrigan's foul presence, drawing up from the hole in the slope where the rocks had slid away. He braced his body, put all his strength into it.
Mandrake's axe was only inches from Kerry's neck. Corriwen was tumbling away from the Morrigan's blast.
Jack threw the Redthorn sword. It whipped through the air.
The axe-edge missed Kerry's neck by a fraction and smashed against a rock.
The sword caught Mandrake in the chest. It went right through him and pinned him to boulder.
He groaned and his eyes bulged. Instantly Kerry and Corriwen were unbound from whatever spell he had cast on them. Kerry was on his feet in the blink of an eye. Corriwen caught her balance as Jack half-turned.
Behind them, up on the slope, a gash had appeared in the ground. The rocks on the slope avalanched towards them and a black shape clawed its way into the light.
Jack turned, reaching for Kerry.
Then he saw Mandrake. His eyes were rolled up in his haggard, torn skull. No blood came out of the awful wound in his chest. His arms were spread-eagled against the stone with the sword jammed into his dark heart. And as they watched, his face changed, turned grey. His jaw opened, but no sound came out except the grind of dry stone, and Mandrake, who had wanted to rule Temair began to turn to stone as the rock claimed him for its own.
On the slope Morrigan screamed and more rocks came tumbling. Jack had the obsidian heartstone in one hand, his bow in the other. The heart beat again, hard and powerful. He snatched at Corriwen's belt.
"Come on!" he cried.
Ahead of them the tall stones stood waiting. The sun had swung down behind them and beamed through the space. The light caught the polished heartstone and reflected into Jack's eyes.
Between the stones, the air sparkled like frost.
Corriwen reached for the sword that pinned mandrake's grey shape to the rock, but Jack dragged her away. They had seconds to spare, no more than that. He pushed Kerry in front of him and they ran for the stones.
"Please!" Jack said aloud. "Please be open!"
They went through and something squeezed at them, something soft and yielding. Jack felt that same inside-out sensation he had experienced before. Everything went black as all light vanished. A deep throbbing swelled in their ears. Colours exploded in concentric rings. Time stretched and shrank and they fell and fell.
They hit the ground running, feet pounding soft earth. A low mist pooled about their feet. Jack opened his eyes and saw the ring of standing stones around them. Beyond them tall trees dripped dew. The backpack that had been snatched from him on the night they had fled was still lying on the ground.
"We're back!" he cried. "We made it."
There was a ringing in their ears and the heartstone pulsed slowly. Above them the moon was silver and bright.
"Close it!" Kerry bawled. He had turned to face the gateway they had tumbled through. The air still shimmered like a silvery veil, but beyond that, they could see the rocky basin and the stony shape of Mandrake spiked on the rock.
And beyond that, the Morrigan swept down the slope towards them, faster than an express train, roaring like an avalanche.
"Close the gate!"
"How?" Jack asked. He looked left and right on the two stones. They were thick with intricate carvings, but there was nothing that looked like a lock. He held the heartstone up to each, but still nothing happened.
And that black demonic form was screeching towards them.
"The hub of all ways," he remembered the Bard's words. "She'll break through."
For a second he was frozen, scared to move. Behind them, at the three pillars that held the weight of the flat table-stone, came a sound of rock on rock. Jack turned and saw the darkness there that he had seen on the night they had fled, a darkness that sucked the moonlight into itself and smothered it.
Air rushed past him, picking up leaves and twigs as the black hole under the capstone yawned and sucked them towards its depths. Kerry slipped and rolled, clawed at the ground as the gravity of the empty space pulled at him. Corriwen braced her feet and grasped his hand tight.
"She's coming," she cried. "I can feel her."
"Do something man," Kerry shouted, feet still sliding on the wet earth as the awful suction gained power.
Jack snatched Corriwen's hand, reached and clasped Kerry's fingers.
Instantly something riddled through him, as if he had made a powerful connection.
"Which way?" Corriwen cried, just loud enough to be heard over the roar of wind that sucked everything down into a dark vortex.
Jack tried to remember which way they had come into the ring on Halloween. It had been dark, almost too dark to see. It seemed so long ago.
His sense of direction clicked inside his head and suddenly he knew. They were still holding hands, the three of them, when he pulled them away from the homeward gate and ran across the ring. The black hole under the capstone snared them in its awesome gravity. Jack pushed Kerry and Corriwen with all his strength, resisting the drag with all his determination.
Behind him he felt the approach of the demon queen.
They staggered on, gasping for breath while twigs and leaves and earth whirled around like a tornado. Jack took the heartstone in his hand, desperately scanning the stones for a lock.
"I can't find…" he began to say.
Then the Morrigan erupted from between the pillars and smashed Kerry into the air. A clawed hand lashed out, impossibly fast, smacked Corriwen right off her feet and flipped her away.
Jack leapt back as the Morrigan struck. The talons found the heart stone and snatched it, jerking Jack back into the ring with such force he almost blacked out. The chain round his neck snapped and the Morrigan howled in triumph.
Her shape changed and warped, elongated until features became visible.
Eyes as black as sin gleamed in the moonlight as she changed into the woman he had seen in the Barrow. Evil radiated in waves that froze his heart almost to a standstill.
The woman raised her hands high and the moon turned to dripping blood.
Her mouth opened in a smile that would have been beautiful, had her features not begun to writhe and change again and the perfect teeth narrowed to glassy shards and the nose became a snout that snorted and twisted on a raddled face and the eyes turned red.
Jack lay against the stone, stunned. He was helpless. She had the heartstone key and he could do nothing at all but wait for the end.
She laughed, sending shudders through the ground and then stooped to lay the heartstone on the very centre of the slab. Jack saw it settle into a heart-shaped declivity carved on the rock.
The Key to all worlds. Jack recalled Finbar's words, though his mind was reeling and every muscle hurting.
As soon as the heartstone touched the centre of the slab, the spaces between the thirteen stones suddenly spangled with magical light. Jack got to his knees, gasping for air and saw the light of Temair blaze through on the far side. In another gap he saw a blue ocean, dotted with fabulous islands. In yet another, a world where ice sparkled like diamonds.
The gates were open. The gates to all the worlds.
She stretched a claw towards him.
Then something silver flashed in front of his eyes. It happened quick as a blink, a silver fish that arced from behind where he lay.
The silver shape landed dead centre on the capstone and when he heard the metallic tinkle, Jack knew immediately what it was.
A slender, almost invisible line stretched from the slab back towards the open gate and Jack saw it tighten. The treble fish-hook snagged itself on the heartstone's silver chain and suddenly it flew backwards through the gate.
The Morrigan's claw stopped inches from Jack's head. She turned her monstrous eyes and saw the heart stone fly past her into the darkness of Cromwath Blackwood.
"Told you I never miss," Kerry shouted from the dark out there.
Jack found his voice.
"Run Kerry….she's coming!"
He turned and saw Kerry leap to catch the stone as it flew towards him, snatching it from the air in one easy move. He landed like a cat on his feet and then he was off and running through the forest.
"Get ready Jack," Kerry bawled. "Wait for it. You've got to be Goliath."
Frozen, it took Jack a second to understand.
Kerry jinked left then right, fast as a weasel between the festering trunks and the Morrigan shrieked after him in a blur.
Kerry was fast, but she was faster. Much faster.
He saw Kerry find a clear space and then the sling swung round his head, once, twice. The heart-stone's polished face caught the blood red of the moonlight and Jack ran for it, hands outstretched. It came spinning towards him and he leapt, as Kerry had done, as high as he could.
The Morrigan reached for Kerry and slammed him against a tree with a sickening, pulpy sound.
Jack was in the air, stretched to his fullest and the heart-stone thudded into his palm. His fingers closed around it.
The Morrigan swooped at him and he twisted away as she lunged.
She missed him. All he saw was a blur as she fell past him straight towards the darkness under the capstone.
There was a sudden twist in the fabric of the world and the Morrigan fell headlong into the sucking dark. Claws scrabbled at the upright stones. Another claw snaked out and snagged Jack's leg. He a scream of pain tore through him and then he felt himself dragged down. He dug his nails into the earth, trying to haul himself back into the world, but she was too strong. Jack felt the last of his strength ebb away and darkness begin to engulf him.
Through the gateway to Cromwath Blackwood, he vaguely saw Kerry get to his knees and he shuddered as his nails began to draw scores along the ground.
Then Corriwen Redthorn came dashing in and snatched Jack's hands in her own, bracing both heels in the soft earth.
Jack felt every joint creak as Corriwen desperately hauled at him, while the Morrigan dragged at his leg. He groaned. Corriwen's feet slipped. Her grip broke. Jack felt himself slide backwards into the intense black cold and his vision began to fade.
Then Corriwen was in front of him again, both knives out. She dived headlong and slashed at the claw gripping Jack's leg. The second knife flickered past him and pierced a monstrous red eye. The Morrigan's sudden agony blasted out and the standing stones shuddered in their foundations.
Her grip broke and Jack catapulted forward. The claw lashed out again, caught Corriwen on the side and slammed her away.
Jack scrambled to his feet as the Morrigan began to crawl out of the pit. Without hesitation, he vaulted onto the high capstone. The heartstone glowed in his hand. glowing softly. He bent to the slab, placed the key exactly on the carved heart.
There was a small snick.
The key to where and when . Finbar's words flashed in his mind, and he knew now what to do.
The world spun and for an instant every gateway blazed light. Jack pressed the heartstone down then turned it, just like a key in a lock. The ground shuddered and then everything went grey.
The howling wind stopped and he heard the Morrigan's scream fading as she fell down, down, down into the dark. The black gateway abruptly shrank to a dot and vanished. Jack's hand was still turning as he clambered onto the slab, and the obsidian heartstone turned with it.
All thirteen gateways slammed shut. Above him, the moon sped backwards across the sky. Daylight flickered, then moonlight, faster and faster as sun and moon wheeled one after the other in flashes of light and dark. He kept his hand on the stone, kept twisting and the flickering light became a blur until, without warning, there was a sudden purple flash in the sky.
His hand jerked form the heart stone, and he was back in the cold October night.
Jack Flint fell back on the capstone, arms spread, chest heaving, utterly exhausted.
He was back in his own time.
In his own world.
.