They raced across the country and prepared to head him off in the Lake District, where the first of the great betrayals took place. And of all people, the betrayer was Tom, although he was not truly to blame. While a prisoner of the Fomorii, they had inserted a Caraprix into his head; these, as we have all since become horribly aware, are small, shape-shifting creatures with which both the Fomorii and the Tuatha De Danann have some strange relationship. In Tom's case, it attached itself to his brain and controlled his actions, forcing him to lead the others into the hands of Calatin; all, that is, except Ruth, who escaped. Encountering a wise woman, she was shown her destiny as a controller of the powerful forces which came from the moonlit realm of the triple goddess. Within hours she had once more proved her remarkable worth by rescuing the others while Mollecht and Calatin's tribes foolishly fought over their prisoners. With the talismans once more in their possession, they fled for Scotland.

But they had another problem. Only Tom knew how to use the talismans to summon the Tuatha De Danann and he was still under the control of the Caraprix. While Laura grew closer and closer to death, Tom still had enough free will to direct them to another fluid spot where they could cross over to the Far Lands, and there they met Ogma, keeper of wisdom, one of the few Golden Ones to escape the Wish-Hex. Using the medical lore he had learned from the god the Celts called Dian Cecht, he removed the Caraprix from Tom's head and cured Laura. Here the companions also learned of the Fomorii's true aim: to bring back Balor and thereby damn us all. Tom, too, had a revelation which shocked them all: his real identity was Thomas Learmont, a thirteenth-century landowner who became known as that famous figure of Scottish mythology, Thomas the Rhymer, after he fell through into the land of Faerie and was given mystical powers by the Queen of Faerie herself, or so the old legends said.