Preview of
The SHADOWMASTER
The final book in the Book of Ways mythic trilogy
Jack swallowed a dry lump in his throat as he turned away from his friends towards the gate between the old stones.
It was his decision to go, and to go alone.
"You don't have to," Kerry protested.
"I do. And Corriwen has to get home again. To her own world."
They were in the ring of stones in Cromwath Blackwood. The heartstone lay on the carved rock, nestled in the niche that had been cut so long ago nobody could remember. Jack knew how to do it now; how to open those gates. They would only stay open for a few minutes more.
"It's that way," he said, pointing to the southernmost opening.
The words of the Sky Queen came back to him. Find the door into summer.
That was his first step. And then after that, wherever he found himself, whenever he found himself, he had to find yet another gateway.
He turned the heartstone in the niche.
Moonlight shone behind him. Twilight before him. On his left he could see the rock in Temair where Mandrake had met his gruesome end. The man-shape could still be made out, covered now with lichen and moss. To Jack's right, was brilliant sunlight and the smell of roses and wild honey sweet on the air.
The door into summer .
There was no time to waste. He snatched up the heartstone and looped the chain around his neck. Faint lights sparkled and danced in each doorway. Time was running fast.
He hugged Kerry and Corriwen tight, blinking back tears, then without a word he turned .
Faint lights sparkled and danced in each doorway. Time was running fast. Without a word he stepped into the unknown.
In an instant he was gone, as if he had never been. Between the stones colours spangled and shifted and an eerie sound whistled, like high swifts in cold air.
Kerry stood with his arm around Corriwen.
"I don't want to go home," he wailed. "There's nothing for me there. Oh freak! This isn't fair."
"But he wants to do it alone," Corriwen replied.
"No he doesn't. He just thinks it would be dangerous."
"We've faced danger before. The three of us together."
"That's right. So we have! We can't let that eejit do it by himself, can we?"
Jack's closest friends clasped hands, looked in each other's eyes.
And then they were running fast towards the door into summer.
Blinding flashes seared Jack's eyes and he experienced that familiar sensation of being turned completely inside out, with every nerve pulled like spiderwebs, every cell split and scattered in a void. Colours raced past him as if he was falling down a well that went on forever. Cold shuddered through him like spears of ice.
Then there was a twisting sensation and he was on his knees, hauling for breath and gagging against the nausea that bubbled up from deep inside.
It took him a moment to realise he was kneeling in the sunshine and the air was warm and clean.
The door into summer.
Behind him, the standing stones stood out against a deep blue sky, each smooth and polished, carved with strange figures and stranger script, but Jack knew each figure and each word was part of the power that let the gates open and close. Between them, the air twisted and warped, spangling with strange luminescence. Beyond the stones, grass swayed in the light breeze. Somewhere high above, a lark soared.
Still gripping the long sword tight, the gift from Hedda the warrior woman, Jack raised himself to his feet and looked around. Pollen scented the air. In the distance, rolling hills faded in summer haze. A perfect day in any world.
Yet Jack Flint thought he had never felt so completely alone in his life.
He let out a slow breath.
"Well," he said to himself. "That's it now. I'm here."
Wherever here was.
He took a tentative step forward, then another, until he reached a stream. There, he knelt down, cupped a hand and took a sip. The water was cold and refreshing. He dabbed at his eyes, wiping away tears that had come unbidden and refused to be blinked back.
Ahead of him, somewhere in this world, was something that would lead him to his goal. It was here, he now believed, that he would find the route to his past. The route to the father he had never known.
This was not Corriwen's quest, nor Kerry's. Though Corriwen's only brother lay dead at Mandrake's hands on the slaughterfield in Temair. Though Kerry's father was clicking his heels in Drumbain Jail back home after his failed poaching attempt almost destroyed the old bridge. They had their own destinies to seek, and he would not lead them into more danger.
Jack's father, Jonathan Cullian Flint might be alive and he might be dead, but his son had to know for sure, had to discover the truth.
He stood again, ready to take the first steps on his journey in this new world.
Before he could take a step, the air was rent apart by a sudden screech. In a second it rose to a crescendo, like a jet racing up a runway. Then something struck him with such force he stumbled back, twisting to grab his sword.
"Wha…?"
Something else hit him and sent him tumbling to land on his backside.
The screech suddenly stopped. A hollow pop sucked out what breath he had left in his lungs. He struggled against the weight and something struggled against him.
"Jeez, Jack," Kerry Malone bawled in his ear. "I'm just never going to get used to going through those gates."
A small hand grabbed his own and heaved him to his feet as his vision cleared.
"Are you all right?" Corriwen sounded concerned.
She spoke softly in his ear. Jack shook his head to steady himself. Corriwen and Kerry faced him on the grass. And beyond the two stones, the spangling lights were gone. All he could see were hills rolling away in the distance. The gate was closed.
"What are you two doing here?"
"Aw, Jack," Kerry said. "What else could we do? You know you'll just get into a mess if we're not here to watch your back."
"One for all," Corriwen said earnestly. "Isn't that what you said?"
"And each for everybody else," Kerry interjected. "Like always."
"You were supposed to go home!"
"Yeah, right. And let you have all the fun?"
Even Corriwen laughed. "We talked," she said. "Temair will still be Temair without me for a while."
"And there's not much for me back home," Kerry added. "I'm a nobody there. Here I'm…hell, I don't even know where this is."
He looked around him, smelling the nectar on the air, feeling the sun on his face.
"But it sure is a whole lot better than the other places you took me to. No bodies, no monsters. And it's warm!"
He knuckled Jack on the shoulder. "It's like being on holiday, and we're due a break, don't you think? This place looks just great."
Jack was speechless. He felt tears prick in his eyes again and this time he just managed to blink them away. Without a word he dropped the sword and swung his arms around both of them, hugging them tight.
"Oh, quit that," Kerry protested. "You'll have me blubberin' for sure."
It was some time in the afternoon, Kerry guessed from where the sun sat low in the sky, and they hadn't wandered far from the two standing stones.
"I love this place," Kerry said. He'd taken Corriwen down to the stream and shown her how to catch fish, poacher-style with his bare hands, tickling them out from under the banks and flat stones.
"They swim right into your hands," he said, between mouthfuls of freshly cooked fish that might have been trout but were as pink inside as salmon. The brushwood fire glowed and gave off a scent aroma of herbs. Above it, in the aromatic smoke, three fat fish were cooking slowly to a rich brown. "This is paradise, I swear."
Corriwen had collected nuts from a grove on the hillside, and black damsons as big as apples from the shrubs alongside the stream. She sighed and leant back against a smooth river-stone.
"It is peaceful," she said. Jack had to agree, but under his thought came another. Yes, but will it stay that way?
As if sensing the thought, Corriwen glanced at him curiously.
"I think we should try to find out where we are," Jack said.
"Yeah," Kerry chuckled. "Get out the old sat-nav!"
Corriwen gave him one of her puzzled looks and both boys laughed.
"You'd never believe me if I told you what that was," Kerry said.
Jack had been putting off the moment, content to be with Corriwen and Kerry. Today had felt like a picnic and they'd needed a break, for sure. But now he reached into his satchel and drew out the old book, feeling its weight in his hands.
The ancient leather binding was as familiar to him now as all the books on the shelf beside his bed back home, though none was as mysterious or nearly as important. It was their guide in the mythworlds, their Book of Ways.
The book twisted in his palm, as if it contained a life of its own and the front cover flipped open to let the leaves whirr of their own volition until they stopped on a blank page. Kerry and Corriwen crowded close, watching intently as old script gradually appeared on the page, line by line. Jack looked at Kerry. "You read it, if you like."
When the words stopped etching themselves Kerry began to speak.
The Farward Gate of Uaine dear
The Summerland so Fair and Clear
But Journeyman should well step light
For mischief stalks the bleak of night.
Spell miscast for binder's gain
Summons shadow, summons bane.
Set face and foot to Westward path
And shelter fast from bale-moon wrath
Journeyman must face his fate
For nowhere now stands homeward gate
In darkness deep waits darkness old
And peril waits who seeks his goal.
Kerry stopped, and for a moment there was silence.
"Not very promising," Jack finally said.
"It never is," Kerry responded. "I wish just once it would tell us straight. And maybe it's got it wrong. This place seems okay to me."
"And Temair was once your oh-kay too," Corriwen interrupted. "But where there's good, there is always bad."
"Maybe not as bad as before," Jack said, though his mind kept repeating the words from the second verse: Nowhere now stands homeward gate.
He felt those fingers of uncertainty creep on the skin of his back. He had come on a quest, hoping he had chosen the right gate. If he was wrong…if there was no way back…
Jack shook the thought away and closed the book
"I think the holiday is over," he said.