There was danger here, and it was all around. Jack could feel it. Foul images of death and destruction came to him again: bloody battlefields, carrion roaks, mouldering skeletons, all the horrors that had been or might still be to come.
Get out. Get OUT.
A command inside his head sent him reeling and something cold as death enveloped him in a sensation of dank decay. Another image began to form in his mind.
He saw his father with Kerry and Corriwen at his side as a vast army of monstrosities overwhelmed them, biting and ripping and tearing.
Get out. The foul voice screamed. There is nothing for you here. Run! Save them!
Jack couldn't tell whether the voice was real or illusion, but he fought against it. He closed his eyes and forced himself to picture his own thoughts: His friendship with Kerry. The day they saved Corriwen. The touch of his father's hand. The warmth of his mother's heart. It took a great effort of will, but these clean and pure memories began to overcome the foul invasion and the voice and the horrific images began to fade.
Over and above the cold whisperings, he could hear something else, and it sounded like the beat of another human heart.
Jack held Megrin's staff high. Gauzy shapes moved around him, now silent as moths and barely visible. Jack sensed their baleful hatred, but continued into the darkness until a glimmer of other light began to glow ahead of him.
The whispering voices died away. Megrin's light grew stronger and Jack felt the atmosphere change. The ground trembled, but he kept his grip on the heartstone as he edged forward.
In front of him, a silvery light grew in intensity. Tangles of moving darkness surrounded it in coils, but as Jack approached, the glow strengthened.
And then Jack saw her.
His heart leapt into his throat and left him breathless and dizzy. At first he thought it was just a floating illumination, but as he stepped nearer it began to take form. It was a woman, still as death, wrapped in a cocoon of sparkling light.
She was pale, as if carved from marble. She floated, suspended within the light which played on her delicate features, making her long fair hair gleam. Both hands were crossed over her chest and at her throat pulsed another heartstone, cut and polished just like the one Jack held, but this one clear as a diamond and aglow with white light.
Jack felt as if his heart would burst.
Heart of my heart. The gentle voice spoke within him. Soul of my soul.
Jack gripped the heartstone. It beat steadily, matching the pulse of the crystal heart. His feet moved of their own accord and brought him closer.
You come at last…
He heard the words, and felt the joy in them. It matched the joy that swelled inside his own chest.
…to bring me back…
He bent towards his mother. Silver light tinkled as if the dust in the air were charged with power. He took her hands in his. They were cold as stone and there was no sign of life.
Some compulsion made him lean further until he was only inches away from her perfect face.
And the two heartstones touched.
Light blazed so brightly that he felt it sear through every nerve in his body. In that moment Jack was overwhelmed by a flood of images and memories as the white radiance sizzled through every nerve.
He saw his mother and father walking on a beach towards the rising sun. He saw the dark shadow envelop their home and he watched the final, desperate battle with the nightshades. He saw his father lift him from a cradle and fight his way out, while a great pit opened, taking his mother into darkness.
He heard the banshee screeches of the things that hunted them through woodland until they reached the stone gate. He felt again the twist as his father stepped through. He heard him blow on his horn and wrap him tight, with the heartstone and the book of ways secured in the blanket.
The memories streamed through his mind, surging with colour and images, flooding him with knowledge of his mother and father and their lives, and what had brought them both to this place where all roads ended.
In the brilliant radiance, a soft hand cupped his face. In the brilliant light she now stood before him, tall and slender. Wide blue eyes regarded him and in them he saw infinite wisdom. Tears coursed down her sculpted cheeks. Her hands slid around his shoulders and brought him into her warmth.
"My baby," she said, through her tears. "My boy. My journeyman."
He moved into her embrace and the two heartstones came together again. Light soared to such an intensity that all darkness fled. All around them, the prison which had held her all of his life, disintegrated under the force of the heartpower.
They stood together, mother and son, each holding tight to the other, while the Tor surrounding them crumbled to dust and blew away.
Jack's mother closed her eyes. She whispered softly and the blazing light slowly faded and Jack saw they were back in the middle of the amphitheatre.
His father stood tall with the great sword. Kerry, Corriwen and Rionna were behind him.
And the hordes of the obscene, misshapen creatures that had hunched and lurched towards them were still as statues, frozen in a moment of time.
Jack heard a ringing in his ears and sound came back, the growling and chittering of the grotesque army and the scuttle of claws on the ground.