Ciaran followed the crystal maze down and down, to the base of it. There, in the very heart of it, lying at the hub of a shining web, lay something.
Like a black hand slammed across the eyeballs, darkness fell.
For a moment he was blind, and through the blindness came a soft whisper of movement. Then there was light again; a vague smeared spot of it on the pitch black.
It glowed and faded and glowed again. The rusty gleam slid across the half-crouched body of Bas the Immortal, pressed close against the crystal web. It caught in his eyes, turning them hot and lambent like beast-eyes in the dark of a cave-mouth.
Little sparks of hell-fire in a boy's face, staring at the Stone of Destiny.
A stone no bigger than a man's heart, with power in it. Even dying, it had power. Power to build a world, or smash it. Power never born of Ciaran's planet, or any planet, but something naked and perfect—an egg from the womb of space itself.
It fought to live, lying in its crystal web. It was like watching somebody's heart stripped clean and struggling to beat.
The fire in it flickered and flared, sending pale witch-lights dancing up along the crystal maze.
Outside, Ciaran knew, all across the world, the sunballs were pulsing and flickering to the dying beat of the Stone.
Bas whispered, "It's over. Over and done."