"Thin places," Megrin began.
Jack and Kerry exchanged surprised glances. Major Macbeth, Jack's guardian had spoken of the thin places on that first fateful night when their journey had begun. That night they had fled from the horde of nightshades and come tumbling through the Farward Gate to Temair.
Megrin smiled as if she had read their thoughts. Jack wasn't quite sure that she hadn't.
"Thin places," she repeated. "Where worlds meet. Where there's always the danger that evil things, things from dark worlds, will try to break through to bring their shadows with them. A battle that's been fought forever, and always will be, but I imagine you know all this already."
Jack and Kerry both nodded tentatively. From what the Major had told them, the thin places where worlds joined could sometimes let evil through. And in their travels, they had seen evil a-plenty. They waited for her to go on.
"The thin place on Uaine was breached some time ago, but we, the Geasan didn't know it then."
"What's a Geasan?" Kerry asked.
"Oh, the council of enchanters. Those who know the old ways and keep them alive. Anyway, we had our work cut out, believe you me. But the dark forces, and the nightshades they have unleashed in our summerland, are gaining strength.
"And what we need now is another Journeyman," Megrin said quietly. "To do the Sky Queen's work and stand against those dark forces."
Jack felt as if he'd been punched in the stomach. She looked him in the eye.
"Yes, Jack Flint. Another Journeyman. And that shouldn't surprise you."
"I came to find my father," he blurted, unable to hold it back.
Now Megrin smiled, but there was sadness in her expression.
"You have come a long way, and I don't know if I can help you on that quest. Jonathan Flint. Ah, there was a fine man."
Jack's heart began to hammer. He bit his tongue, forcing himself to listen.
"I met him and his lady, Lauralen, many years ago. They came to the Summerland, deeply in love, to live a while on the edge of the sea where they could watch both sunrise and sunset. It was a peaceful time then.
"But then, oh then, came foolishness and ambition. Greed and envy, and the thin place in a man's mind was breached, and in came the darkness."
"What happened to them?" Jack couldn't hold back. It was the first time he had heard the name Lauralen. Could only be the mother he had never known?
"The Journeyman made it his quest to hold the breach. And for a time the evil was thwarted and held at bay. But then something happened, in a very dark place where even the Geasan cannot see, and Jonathan and his lady, they…"
She paused, searching for the words. "They were no more seen in Uaine."
"Like, they vanished?" Kerry asked. Corriwen just listened entranced.
"They were never seen again. The Geasan-Eril, the enchanters council have worked long and hard to find out why."
"The lady," Jack said almost unable to get the words out through the powerful emotions that flooded him. "Lauralen? Could she have been my…"
"Your mother? Oh, yes. I'm sure of that. You have her grace and your father's eyes.
"But what happened? Who…When?" Questions tumbled in a torrent. Megrin held a hand up.
"We'll get to that before dawn, Jack Flint. Now let me do the talking."
Megrin sat back in her rocking chair and began to speak. Her voice changed, became deeper and more serious than before:
***
For a long time, Uaine had been blessed with peace and harmony.
But as night follows day, darkness always opposes the light. In all worlds it has been so, ever since the beginning. Always, the dark seeks thin places where it can break and wreak its malice. The servants of the Sky Queen use what power they have to hold it at bay.
And when it does break through, the Journeyman is summoned. How, only the Sky Queen knows. She chooses a good man as her champion, and his quest is ever to turn back the dark and preserve the light.
Before he became Journeyman, Jonathan Flint travelled here many years before. A boy not much older than yourself, Jack Flint, on a mission of his own. He came through the Farward Gate, searching for his friend Thomas Lynn, a boy who had fallen into another world, who knows where. He had sought him in other worlds and would not give up. Perhaps that was why he was chosen.
Jack and Kerry exchanged another look. The story of Thomas Lynn who had disappeared in Cromwath Blackwood decades ago, and then reappeared dreadfully injured and completely mad, was a local legend back home. Nobody really believed it was true.
When he returned with his lady, Summer still ruled in Uaine. But not for long. The Copperplates of Uaine, long scattered and hidden in secret places, has fallen into the wrong hands, and now they have been put back together and used to open the dark way down.
The time has now come to remedy that.
Kerry couldn't help himself. "What are the Copperplates?"
"One and twenty leaves of a great book, each hidden and protected by a geas, a powerful spell. One and twenty enchantments woven by a Geasan in ages long past, the enchantments that together brought peace and plenty to Uaine."
"Don't tell me somebody's nicked them?"
She raised her eyebrows in question.
"Swiped…I mean stolen them."
"A good guess, Kerry Malone. Someone has indeed…er, swiped them. The Journeyman took on the quest of bringing them back after night-stalkers brought their foul mischief. Now Uaine lives in terror of the darkness, and that darkness is spreading ever wider. We fear it will flow over the whole world like a tide."
"So why can't you get these Copperplates back?" Corriwen asked.
"Oh, don't think we haven't tried. But the one who found them, and brought them together, he was the most powerful Geasan of us all. Except for one."
"Like a warlock?"
"A spellmaker, spellbinder. The seventh son of a seventh son. Once a good man too, but turned and twisted by the power of the Copperplates to dark thoughts and darker ways. I do know, for I'm the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. And he is my brother."
She sat back and swept her gaze over all three, expecting more questions but they waited for her to speak.
"Now here you travellers are."
"I came to find my father," Jack said, trying to explain that he had plans of his own, plans that didn't involve Copperplates or spellbinders or anything else. Yet, somehow, he knew he was about to get sucked into this world's affairs. The Book of Ways had made it clear that he had to pay his passage.
"And we came to help him," Corriwen said.
"Yeah," Kerry pitched in. "All for one and each for everybody else."
"A good sentiment," Megrin said. "Three friends good and true. And on a quest.
"We have to go west," Kerry blurted. "The Book of Ways said…" He looked at Jack, wondering if he'd said too much, but Jack didn't bother trying to hush him up.
"But we lost it," Corriwen broke in. "It guides us and they stole it. And our swords."
"And something else?" Megrin asked gently.
Jack nodded. "My father's heartstone."
"Ah, the fairyglass heart. I wondered if it would come back. And if it's here, then all is not lost. Not by a long way. Not that it's going to be easy, mind. But that's for tomorrow and the days to come.
"Now I've done my share of talking, its your turn. I want to hear your story."
Jack began to talk, describing the night of the Halloween party when the creeping dark had swallowed Billy Robbins and then hunted them through the passageways under the Major's house to Cromwath Blackwood and through the ring of standing stones to Temair.
"Then we met Corrie," Kerry said. "And she was in big trouble."
They couldn't stop him as he told how they'd fled across Temair, hunted by creatures Jack had only read about in legends, the final apocalyptic clash with the Morrigan, then the other perils when they found themselves in Eirinn.
"And then," Jack said. "I came here to search for my father. I told them to stay behind, because if my father couldn't make it back, then there had to be something stopping him, something dangerous."
He tried to frown, but couldn't.
"But they followed me through and first thing we know is there's things in the dark hunting us down and then the villagers caught us and stole the heartstone and our weapons."
"And the Book of ways," Corriwen said. "They said we were evil and tied us up for the nightshades."
Jack looked at Megrin. "I have to get the heart back, and the Book of Ways. And I want the sword that Hedda the Scatha made. If I find my father, he can use it."
"If..." Megrin shook her head and got up from her chair.
"I think you should get a night's rest by the fire. You've had a hard day."
She laid down thick reed mats near the hearth and began to douse the oil-lamp wicks.
"Get some sleep and give me some quiet time to think. I have a birthing to attend in the early hours. We'll talk in the morning."
She disappeared silently. Jack, Kerry and Corriwen settled down wearily to rest. Very soon they were asleep together by the glow of embers.