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Tom panicked. What if he was going back to his Earth? This would be the absolute worse thing. Or what if it was the Realm of Air again? They might never let him go. Or the Realm of Water, where he might drown? As these thoughts were flashing through his mind he landed with a thump, feeling rock and sand beneath his fingers. He rocked back on his heels and sprang to his feet, pulling Galatine free. In his other hand he held his now extinguished torch.
He found himself in a shadowy room strewn with rubble and suffused with a warm orange glow. It was in fact another cave, with rough walls and stone shelves, similar to Giolladhe’s workshop except that it was fiercely hot. The heat and glow were coming from a pit in the centre, and for a few seconds Tom couldn’t work out what it was. Only when he stood over it did he realise it was bubbling lava.
Lava? Where the hell was he?
He thrust his torch into the pit and it flared to life. As his eyes adjusted to the light he saw that the cave was partially collapsed, a wall of rubble blocking some of it, while the floor was crunchy and blackened in places. At some point the lava must have erupted from this pit and covered some of the room, and if it had erupted once, it could do it again.
Lava could mean only one thing – he was in the Realm of Fire. His panic turned to relief. He was still in the Other.
Herne’s Horns! Was he trapped here? He whirled round and saw that the portal entrance was behind him, the familiar rock archway filled with blackness. Interesting. Giolladhe had a hidden portal that led to the Realm of Fire. A fixed portal too, which suggested he had passed through frequently. Well, Tom wasn’t going back yet.
He examined the wall of rubble ahead of him, and saw a small hole at the top, a faint red glow illuminating its edges. He wedged his torch upright and scrambled up. Within seconds he was filthy and scratched, but was soon able to stick his head through the gap.
On the other side was a much larger portion of the cave, and beyond that was an entrance to an underground cavern. Tom glimpsed rock archways and rivers of lava. But something else caught his eye. A glimpse of white stone on a workbench, partially covered in debris.
The moonstone.
He was so shocked he cried out and hit his head on the roof. He’d found it! Giolladhe must have hidden it here all those years ago.
He eased backwards and started to pull the rocks away to make the entrance bigger, but as he did the roof started to slip and crumble, and in seconds the hole had vanished. Tom fell backwards, landing with a thump. He held his breath as he watched the roof, but after a few seconds the slip stopped and he breathed again.
He had to find another way round – if there was a way out of here.
He leapt to his feet and grabbed the torch, and spotted a shadowy archway in the corner of the room. Passing through it he found himself at the bottom of a flight of steps that rose steeply above him, illuminated by a weak red light pouring through a hole in the smashed door and roof at the top. He rushed up the steps and pushed aside the ruined door, entering a huge cathedral-like building made of dark red sandstone. It was a ruin; a few columns stood upright, the rest had fallen and lay broken and crushed on the floor. Above him, through the fractured roof, he could see a bright sun blazing in deep blue sky.
The place was deserted, his only company the strange faces of unknown beings carved into the walls, watching him through cracked eyes.
He scrambled over the fallen rocks of masonry, taking care not to slip into the gaps between them where he could easily be crushed, and eased his way through a hole in the wall. He immediately shielded his eyes from the intense glare, squinting until his eyes adjusted, and found he was standing on a low rise of a rocky hill. In front of him, all he could see was orange sand, rising and falling in huge dunes, interspersed with rivers of blackened molten rock and the remnants of buildings.
What had happened here? Immediately Tom wondered if it was dragons. He remembered Merlin telling them about the dragon wars, and how the dragons had left the Realm of Fire because of the djinn. He paced round the edge of the massive building he’d exited, stopping in shock when he saw the range of volcanic mountains, so close that Tom was almost on the slopes. They were still belching smoke into the air. Maybe it wasn’t dragons after all.
Nothing moved in this barren landscape. Could this be where Giolladhe had disappeared to? That would have been hundreds of years before. Was that why the key was in the lock? Could he still be here somewhere, alive? If Raghnall had lived that long, maybe Giolladhe had too.
But it seemed nothing could be alive here; the destruction was too absolute. Somewhere below him was the other side of the cave, so somewhere out there was another entrance. As Tom squinted, he thought he saw a shadow on the ground, or rather a black spot, sharp against the red sand. That must be the way down.
