Confused and acting on instinct, I blew the plume of billowing smoke away from the central aperture, with an expectation of being able to see my own skin through the nucleus of the golden pendant. Instead, I found only murky indistinguishable shadows swirling in the depths of the eyelet, which I knew was impossible because the sun was shining and I was looking into a hole.

Picking the ornate relic up with the fingers of my other hand, I moved it away from my palm, to find, to my relief, my skin was still intact underneath.

The sustained crackling and hissing of burning wood brought my attention back to the pendant. Prominent tendrils of grey smoke continued to seep through the orifice of the golden artifact, and after blowing them away for a second time, I discovered that the sinister darkness endured beyond the opening where I should have been seeing daisies and grass.

But it seemed that wasn't the only surprise the pendant had in store.

Gradually at first, the outer disc, with its multitude of stars, started to rotate clockwise, while the inner circle, containing the engraving of the sun and the moon, started to turn anticlockwise.

Perhaps I should have dropped the enigmatic antique at that point, but fear rooted me to the spot.

Petrified, I watched as the rings turned faster, whirring as they opened the pendant further. Somehow, not only was the central aperture widening, but the whole contraption was enlarging, allowing additional smoke to infiltrate the surrounding air.

Feeling helpless to stop the events unfolding in front of me, I lifted the ornament higher as it expanded, revealing more of the domain that lay beyond.

Wafting the smoke away from my face, with some trepidation I peered curiously through the orifice into the area where Cormac's home once stood, to find that the smoke was emanating from a house that I was watching burn in the darkness of the night. Moving the golden relic vertically and horizontally allowed me to observe more of the horrific scene, as if I were using the eye of the pendant as a viewing lens, superimposing the incident over my current environment.

Staring through the aperture at the blazing inferno while otherwise my environment was at peace, and at a midnight sky when everything else around me was sunny and bright, I suddenly understood that I might be inadvertently using the artifact as a window into the past. Was it possible that my thoughts had subconsciously imparted my interest in this event to it, triggering a response which was enabling me to observe the devastation first-hand?

The more I pondered this notion, the more my fear of the pendant waned. Instead, I focused on the idea that I was using this mystical contraption to observe the history of my locality. The excitement of such an amazing discovery soon diminished, though, as I realised that Cormac was presumably inside the burning hellhole. I winced at the idea that he was suffering alone, even though I knew I was witnessing events from two hundred years ago which had already come to pass.

The pendant continued to grow in size as I moved it around the landscape, peering into the darkness to see whether it would show me the man I knew would rescue him, but I saw no sign of life in any direction.

Where was the 'Fire King'?

The moment I asked myself that question, comprehension hit me so hard in the chest it left me winded.

'I have faith that one day this book will find its way into the hands of the one whose name means 'Fire King.' When that day comes, he will know where to look and what to do. Until then, I wait for him to find me once more.'

It was in that instant, when I recalled that final sentence, and more specifically, those final two words, that a cold shiver shot down my spine in paralysing realisation.

Could it be that there had only ever been one person who bore the name 'Fire King'?

Was it possible that that person was currently standing next to an oak tree on a fine spring morning in the twenty-first century, staring through an eyelet in a golden pendant into events of the past, while Cormac was in serious trouble on the other side?

With the ornament and its orifice still expanding in my hands, I grew increasingly concerned about the reason I couldn't see anybody else dashing to help the man trapped inside his own home, and I started to look at this mysterious relic in a new light.

Perhaps it wasn't just a window – perhaps it was a doorway.

A gateway that I could use to get Cormac out of that conflagration.

While these concepts had been crystalising in my mind, the rotating golden discs had still been enlarging, and had now created an aperture that looked to be just under a metre in diameter.

There could be no doubt that the fire would spread faster now that it had taken hold, and I knew that if my theory was correct, I had to act immediately if Cormac were to survive. I'd have to ponder the consequences later, because I wasn't about to waste time deliberating possible ramifications while this man's life was in danger.

With one hand gripping either side of it, I raised the pendant directly above my head so that when I looked directly upwards, I could see a hazy spattering of stars in the smoke-filled darkness through the widened hole in its centre, in stark contrast to the bright cerulean sky surrounding its outer rim.

The idea of deliberately walking into a fire was daunting, to say the least, and I hesitated as a sense of dread momentarily obscured my judgement.

Taking a deep breath to try to calm my growing anxiety, I bit the bullet and released the contraption.

The spinning rings fell effortlessly to the ground over the length of my entire body, and I found myself standing in a metre-wide circular patch of sunlit, vibrant, green grass while everything else around me had rapidly turned into a dark, harrowing nightmare.

Under the pitch-black sky, thick smoke billowed menacingly through the burning gables and eaves of the fractured roof. It seemed that the flames had already consumed part of the north side of the house, which was on the opposite side to the one I now stood on. But the south side, closest to where I was standing, was yet to be incinerated. If I acted immediately, and entered the building from this end, it seemed rational that I stood a realistic chance of finding Cormac alive.

Stepping out of the swirling golden ring, I swiftly yanked free the sweater that I'd previously tied around my waist and held it against my face, shielding my nose and mouth as much as possible from the toxins that I knew would soon saturate the air around me.

Focused solely on my target, I started to sprint towards an open door on the south side of Cormac's disintegrating abode. I was greeted by an unwelcome surge of stifling heat and the sound of splintering wood as I darted inside what was left of the building. Thick, sulphurous smoke easily penetrated my makeshift mask, and my breathing became painfully shallow as the miasma instantly found the back of my throat.

The smog created by the dense plumes of gas impeded my ability to navigate my surroundings efficiently, but my determination to find the man I knew was the target of this unscrupulous arson attack drove me deeper into the cloudy haze. Desperate for some indication that my irrational hunt for Cormac wouldn't prove fruitless, I stayed alert as I stepped carefully over shards of broken glass and fallen ligneous beams.

A weak cough caught my attention, despite the comparatively loud crackling around me. My adrenaline spiked as I whipped my head round to face the direction it had come from, with my body following close behind as I hurried towards the noise.

Any thoughts that I wouldn't find the target of my search evaporated as a human silhouette emerged before me, slumped on the floor of what was likely to have previously been the kitchen. If he was conscious, it was evident that he wasn't lucid enough to notice I was there.

I bent down, and using my free hand, pulled Cormac's nearest arm over my opposite shoulder, so that I could leverage him onto my back, while simultaneously keeping my face covered. It was a clumsy effort, but after a couple of unsuccessful attempts, I managed to position his arms so that they were around the front of my neck, taking his full weight as he drooped over my back. It was far from the most elegant of rescues, but at least he seemed stable, and that was enough for me to feel confident about initiating our exodus.

Unaccustomed to the additional weight, I stepped carefully over scattered debris as I began retracing the route I'd used to arrive at my intended destination.

It wasn't long before the motivation to vacate the blazing inferno increased dramatically as I heard a rogue piece of timber thunder to the floor somewhere on the east side of the structure. Incentivised by the house's demonstration of its continued gradual collapse, I instinctively picked up the pace.

My increased haste took its toll on my limbs and back, but it paid off when I stepped over the outer threshold and drew in my first breath of fresher, less noxious air. As I allowed myself to feel slightly relieved that our safety was looking infinitely more tangible, I pressed forward, stumbling clumsily in the direction I'd originally come from, trying to locate the familiar the oak tree that had offered me shade only a short time ago.

With the urgency of escaping the threatening flames diminishing with each step, my energy started to wane along with my adrenaline.

As I looked around for a sensible place to collapse, my gaze landed on the faint glimmer of the ethereal pendant. Now motionless and reduced to its original size, it lay innocuously in a patch of short grass.

The golden ornament was not my priority, although it did appear to emphasise a sensible place for us to rest, out of reach of the ongoing fire.

Dropping my sweater, I carefully extracted Cormac from my back. As I laid him gently on the grass, I speculated the reasons why he might have passed out. Was it prolonged exposure to extreme heat? Or perhaps smoke inhalation?

I recalled a statistic I'd learned from a fire safety officer that had visited the school I'd attended when I was around fifteen. He'd told our class that over half of fire deaths are the result of smoke inhalation rather than burns.

I put my ear against Cormac's mouth. I couldn't tell whether he was breathing or not.

Unsure whether this was a good situation in which to attempt CPR, I decided that it was at least worth trying. Although basic first aid had been taught as standard at our school, it had been a couple of years since the class. I reached into the depths of my memories, trying to recollect the technique we'd been shown. As I started implementing the procedure, I just had to hope I was doing it correctly.

With each chest compression and rescue breath I performed on the incapacitated man I'd just dragged from his burning home, my own silent voice chanted through my head.

Come on, Cormac. Don't die on me.