The heat was so intense Jack could feel the hairs on his eyebrows twist as they scorched.
Gouts of flame spurted all them and the blast-furnace roar was louder than any jet engine Jack had ever heard. Black fumes rolled over them, clogging their throats and lungs as they dodged pillars of fire, stumbling, half-blinded, choking and coughing.
"Where are we now?" Kerry rasped. Corriwen was bent over in a fit of coughing. Jack held her arm.
"I don't know where this is," Rionna admitted. "I had no time to seek a haven. I sang blind and here we are."
The pillars of fire rose to a blinding white as they watched, then faded to orange before roaring back up to full height and heat as if some monstrous bellows deep underground were pumping in and out.
Beyond where they stood together, Jack saw a fissure which split the chamber from floor to ceiling. With every pulse of flame, billowing smoke was sucked into it. It had to lead somewhere, he thought.
He pulled the others close so they could hear him above the noise, and even then he had to shout. "I think there's a way out. When the flare dies down, we can get through that crack.
"Let's go for it then." Kerry looked Jack in the eye. "Just don't get it wrong, or we're toast."
Jack stood up. He told Corriwen to hold on to his sword-belt. Rionna gripped Corriwen's cape. Kerry had nothing to hold on to, but he stayed only a step behind.
As soon as the flare reached its peak, Jack told them all to run. He led the way and for one moment it looked as if he would run straight into the pillar of fire, but when he was only steps away from the searing heat, the flame shrank back down into the vent. Jack had timed it exactly right. He leapt over it, dragging Corriwen with him. Rionna was swung off her feet. Kerry snatched the neck of her tunic in mid-leap and held her upright, like a rag-doll.
Blistering heat struck Jack's face like a physical wave and the glare was so bright it seared their eyes. Kerry heard a gout of flame explode behind him as he ran after the others. Hot air blasted at his back, pushing all of them even faster into the fissure until it abruptly widened and they stumbled out.
"That was too close," Kerry gasped. "I think my backside's barbecued."
"But we made it," Jack said.
"To where?" Corriwen asked. She was looking out into a vast cavern. In its centre three colossal pillars stood in a triangle and on top of them, like a tabletop, lay a massive flat stone.
Underneath it, a profound darkness.
High above them, like a darkening sky, Jack could see a mass of cloud or smoke turning in a slow circle like the eye of a storm. Bolts of lightning sparked within it.
A sudden blast of wind struck them hard. Corriwen was knocked off her feet before Kerry had a chance to grab her hand. Jack and Rionna were bowled after them, but Kerry managed to snag his fingers in a crack and held on. Corriwen slammed into him, then Jack and Rionna, and still Kerry held tight.
The shrieking gale buffeted them against the rock wall before it began to abate. The storm overhead them kept spinning in a dark spiral.
Corriwen helped Rionna to her feet and looked across the cavern.
"Look there!" She pointed to the far side of the great chamber.
On the wall directly opposite, shimmering lines of blue light spread filaments of luminescence on the wall. From the centre of the light, a small figure emerged, walking slowly. From her posture, even at that distance, Jack recognised Megrin and relief surged through him until he saw what she was up against.
Megrin held her staff raised high in both hands as she walked towards the stone table. The light flickered from its carved head as blinding shards of lightning forked down at her from the vortex. Megrin didn't flinch, but held her staff steady so that the deadly bolts struck an invisible barrier above her head.
The smell of scorched stone drifted thick on the air. Kerry sneezed violently and held a hand over his nose..
"You come to your doom, witch." A voice so loud and deep it made the rock resonate.
"And still I come," Megrin's reply came clear and strong. "I will not leave until I have what you have stolen from Uaine."
"You will never leave this place, spellbinder. This is your final destination."
"Show yourself. Your tricks could not stop me before. They will not now."
He laughed. An unseen presence, but his laugh was powerful and vicious. It did not sound human.
"Where is he?" Corriwen asked, scanning the chamber. On its chain around Jack's neck, the heartstone was thrumming once more. He could hear it loud in his head.
Megrin strode forward, straight towards the stone table in the centre of the chamber.
Between the upright pillars, Jack caught a movement. The dark underneath the table-stone swirled and from its depths he saw another figure appear.
He was tall, much taller than Megrin, and thin, and he clutched a long black staff. His face was hidden in deep shadows under a cowl, but his hands showed white as bone. He reminded Jack of Fainn the mad Spellbinder of Wolfen Castle, and not only in his appearance. Jack sensed evil radiate from him, and an emptiness that was the complete absence of any human quality.
Jack understood now what Rionna had meant. This might have been her father once, but what he was now, Jack couldn't begin to guess.
Megrin continued towards the shadowy figure, her head held high. Her adversary remained in the shadow under the stone. He raised a thin hand and pointed his forefinger. They heard him chant a string of guttural words and then thunder exploded and Megrin was blasted backwards off her feet. Before she could get up, the ground around her began to writhe and buckle. The stone mounds swelled and elongated into slender shapes. They branched at their tips and began to flex.
"Hands!" Jack heard the disbelief in Corriwen's voice.
But they were hands. Hands of moving stone that reached for Megrin, pinioning her arms and legs, smothering her in their grip.
"We have to help her," Corriwen cried. Before Jack could stop her she was off and running, but he knew it was the wrong thing to do. He knew they needed to stop for a moment and think.
Corriwen had forced his hand. She was twenty paces away before he reacted and then he too was running, drawing his sword as he hared after her.
***
Kerry saw the cowled figure turn towards him and Rionna. Its black staff pointed directly at them. Something unseen whickered past his ear and hit the wall behind them. Kerry turned to take Rionna's hand and follow Jack and Corrie across the chamber.
Then he saw Rionna's face was white with shock.
A tall shadow oozed from the stone wall, taking shape as it approached. Kerry saw a wizened woman in tattered rags reach and take Rionna by the shoulders. A face as dry and cracked as old parchment bent towards her as a slit mouth opened.
"My little girl," it said in a voice like shifting sand. "Come back to find your mother."
Kerry saw that what he had thought were deep-set eyes were not eyes at all, just sunken pits in a crumbling skull. Hanks of straggly grey hair had fallen off in patches and stuck to its mouldering hood. The hands were long and skeletal, covered in a thin membrane that looked as if it would flake to powder at a touch.
"Good child…." It hissed. "Loving child."
Rionna stood frozen. She looked as if she might simply faint with fright.
The apparition drew Rionna into its embrace.
"Come and love your mother, child. Be with me now."
Rionna seemed to wilt. Her knees buckled and her body slumped. For a moment Kerry was too stunned to move as he saw Rionna's cheeks draw into hollows. Her skin seemed to dry out like a fallen leaf in hot sun.
"It's killing her!" The thought jolted him out of his paralysis. The thing, whatever it was, whatever it had been, was sucking the life from her. Even as he watched, the gaunt abomination seemed to fill out as if it was feeding on Rionna's very life.
A huge anger, more powerful than any he had felt in his life, surged through him.
"Get your filthy hands off her," he bawled, leaping forward and drawing his short-sword in one practiced motion. He closed the distance in four paces, angling the point upwards and thrusting straight-armed.
The blade went through it with hardly any resistance at all. Dry dust puffed out where the sword had pierced. Kerry drew back and stabbed again. The monstrosity turned its peeling face towards him and its mouth opened, showing a black hole lined with long, brown teeth. Rionna's breathing sounded ragged and desperate as the spectre drew her closer still.
"I said…" He stabbed again, and again and again… "leave…. her…alone!"
The mangy cloak was puckered with holes, but Kerry's attack appeared to have no other effect. It was still turned towards him, sunken sockets regarding him mercilessly. Rionna was sagging now, and disappearing into the tatters and Kerry suddenly knew that if this dead thing enveloped her, she'd be lost forever.
He swung the sword down in a slant, wanting to cut the apparition in half.
A long arm snapped out and bony fingers clenched around his throat.
Kerry gasped as his breath was instantly cut off. And then, shockingly, he was swung right off his feet. The sword spun from his hand and clanged on the floor. The hand that held him drew him forward, right up close to the mummified skull. He could hear the blood pounding in his ears as the fingers squeezed tight. He could smell musty dry rot and mould. Up close, dusty cobwebs hung from the straggly hair. The grip tightened and he felt his vision begin to waver.
The mouth opened even wider, only inches away from his eyes. Cracked lips pulled back to reveal long teeth.
Kerry panicked. He was helpless in the inexorable grasp, hands flailing for anything to use to break free. He fumbled in his pocket, wishing he had his penknife, or a rock, or anything sharp. All he found was the little lighter that he'd used to light the lamp in the tunnel. Like a drowning man, he clutched at it and drew it free. Maybe he could jam it in the eye socket.
But instinct took over. His thumb found the little wheel and snapped down. Sparks jumped. A whoosh of flame leapt from his fingers and raced up the tattered threads of its cloak.
It made a wavery whump sound, the way the marsh gas had ignited in the bogs of Eirinn. In an instant, the shoulders and cowl were wreathed in crackling fire. Flames stuttered along the sleeve of the hand that held him by the throat. He saw them coming straight for his eyes, twisted and kicked, and suddenly he was falling free. He landed on his feet, spun towards the burning shape, ignoring the sudden heat and snatched at Rionna's almost-hidden form. His fingers found her slender arms and he threw them both to the side while the dead thing that had caught them both spun faster and faster, hissing like a steam vent and collapsing in on itself as the updraught fanned the flames.
Rionna shivered against him, and he held her tight as she gasped great breaths and warmth began to return to her body. Then she burst into sudden tears.
"Don't," Kerry said hoarsely. His throat felt as if it had been squeezed flat. "That wasn't your mother."
She sobbed against him.
"It's a trick," he insisted. "It's all a trick. You said yourself….it gets in your head and twists everything."
He felt her nod her agreement into the curve of his neck.
"Don't worry, I won't let anything happen to you. Cross my heart and hope to die."
She raised her head to look at him with those luminous eyes. But before either of them had a chance to speak, on the far side of the chamber Corriwen Redthorn screamed like a banshee.
***
Jack and Corriwen ran a murderous gauntlet, blasted by jagged shrapnel from where bolts of lightning struck the ground. The stone hands were dragging Megrin down. She desperately reached for her staff, but it lay just beyond her grasp.
Corriwen launched herself at the mass of stone imprisoning Megrin and began to hammer at the rocky fingers with the hilt of her knife. Jack went after the staff, but it spun away and he stumbled.
It rolled further away from him, then rose into the air, spinning slowly as it gained height and floated towards the darkness underneath the table stone where her adversary stood.
The cowled figure beckoned silently and Megrin's staff soared towards him. In seconds it would be within his grasp.
Jack knew he had to do something, and fast.
On top the stone slab, something polished reflected light back into his eyes, dazzling him for an instant. He screwed his eyes up against the glare and ran for Megrin's staff.
Corriwen saw a streak of motion. One second Jack was turning. The next he was a blur, given miraculous speed by Rune's boots. He leapt for the staff, hands stretched above him. She saw his fingers snatch at it in the air.
Jack's whole body shuddered as he grabbed the staff just before Bodron reached for it. A huge shock ran through him and he almost lost his grip.
Corriwen heard his cry of surprise and pain, and saw him fall to the ground, the staff firmly clenched in both hands.
The hooded figure roared.