Part one: chapter eight

 

From shadow

__

 

They sat beneath the stars on an ancient hillside.

 

"Why?" Will moaned, as the hunter strode the eastern sky, his sword and bow picked out in jewels. "Why can't they see what's happening?"

 

"Do you want them to see, Old One?" Merriman asked mildly.

 

Will curled his fingers, pressing them into the moist earth. "The Dark is taking over the world. One by one, the governments of mankind are falling..."

 

"Replaced by others that are also of man."

 

He gouged out a handful of dirt. "Yes, but with the Dark behind them. You know that, as well as I do. The Dark engineered this coup. The Dark stands behind this general and all his actions. And no-one does anything. They shrug over their coffee. They bicker with their neighbours about fences. They go to school and to work and on holiday. Why can't they see that the Dark is now amongst them?"

 

"I say again, Old One, why do you want them to see?" Merriman was just a voice in the darkness, a voice in his soul.

 

"Because then they might do something about it." Will threw the earth away. It scattered on the grass, shivered, and was still again.

 

They had walked through the cities of man, Will and Merriman together. They had seen them burn, and they had seen the slow beginnings of rebuilding. They had seen communities mourn the dead, and they had seen the same communities laughing in the snow, pinning up tinsel and lights above their doors. Everything had changed, but for most of the people, nothing had changed. They closed their eyes to the truth, and they danced and they loved, as all around them the world was plunging into darkness inescapable.

 

"I ask you a third time, Will, do you really want them to know?"

 

Will closed his eyes. If they knew the truth, the people would sink into despair. They would cower at home, weeping, or, worse, they would go outside in their fear and their anger, and try to assuage such feelings by hurting someone else. As it was, hope and humanity still clung on to life. Whenever someone declared their love for another, or helped a stranger, or made someone laugh, then the Dark was not entirely victorious. People still had the choice of whether to approach life with hope or despair. The Dark had taken over the government, but it had not yet taken over people's lives.

 

"No." He opened his eyes, and looked at the sleeping world spread before him. "I would want them to stay ignorant for as long as they can. But it will not last, Merriman. One day, and soon, they will no longer be able to be blind. They will know, and then..."

 

"We will be there, Will." Merriman touched his shoulder.

 

Will lay down on his back, heedless of the cold that grasped at him from the earth like a living thing. He thought of all the Old Ones lost beyond the stars, beyond Time. Of the few that remained, only a handful remained in Britain. The others were off fighting battles of their own, against the evils that spanned the globe.

 

"I'm sixteen tomorrow," he said suddenly, without planning to say it.

 

He heard the rustle of clothing as Merriman nodded. "I know. I wouldn't forget your birthday, Will."

 

Will rolled onto his side. "When's yours?"

 

Merriman shook his head, smiling. "It stops being important when you get as old as I am."

 

Sixteen, Will thought. He knew it should not matter. He had stopped being a boy on a midsummer day over three years ago. He had spent those years as an Old One at Merriman's side, hiding and learning, and occasionally fighting. In every important way, he was far older than sixteen. There really was no reason why the date should matter to him.

 

He sat up, pulling his knees up to his chest. "I went home a few weeks ago." But not on his birthday. Never on his birthday again. "Barbara's married. Stephen's come home. James wanted to join the army, but I don't think he will, now that this has happened. The manor's been turned into flats, and Dad's been forced out of business, and I'm sure that's because of the Dark. He's unemployed, but at least only James is at home all year round now, so there's fewer mouths to feed."

 

He had not meant to say all that, either. It came out in a monotone, and he hugged his knees tightly as he said it, and blinked against the sharpness of the night.

 

"Perhaps you shouldn't," Merriman said mildly.

 

Will whirled on him. "Don't try to stop me. I want to. I need to. They think I'm dead. It's only reasonable to want to watch over them."

 

"Yes." Merriman let out a breath. "There are people I watch, too. Simon and Jane and Barnabas. It is hard to let go of love, and neither should you, as long as you are not ruled by it."

 

Will carefully folded his hands together. "I still haven't looked for..."

 

"And you never will." Merriman's voice was a snap of command, harsh at the edges. "Promise me, Will. You will never seek out Bran, not as long as I remain in the world. You will never show yourself to him. You will never speak to him. You will never given him any cause to believe that you are still alive."

 

He had thought of Bran more and more, as the winter drew around him. The Dark was stretching its fingers out across the world, but it had started over three years ago, in the heart of one boy. Bran had been tricked, Will was sure of it. He had been tricked, and was now trapped by it. They were both dead to the world, one growing to adulthood under the guardianship of a lord of Light, and one nurtured by the Dark.

 

"Bran Davies is too far lost to the Darkness," Merriman intoned. "If he saw you, he would tell his masters, and everything would be lost."

 

Will looked at him sharply. "Have you seen something?"

 

Merriman froze, for a moment not even breathing. He seemed to draw everything back into himself. "I am the oldest, Will Stanton, and you are just a child. I am a Lord of Light, and you just its servant. I command you on this, and you will obey without question."

 

"I will." Will swallowed hard. I'm sorry, he wanted to whisper, but he was an Old One, and this was a formal binding. "I bind myself to this promise," he said in the Old Speech. "I will not seek out Bran Davies while you are in this world."

 

"Good." Merriman passed his hand across his brow, and the mask of the stern master came away with his hand.

 

Down in the valley, a church clock struck midnight. Sixteen, Will thought. Sixteen, and binding my life in a promise, on a hillside in the Dark.

 

"When the Dark came Rising," Merriman said, "you were an Old One in your full powers, but you grow still stronger with every year. That is the way of things. Soon you will be ready, and the world will be ready..."

 

Will turned away from him, and gazed across the vale that parted him from his family. He looked at the stars that shone down on Jane Drew and Simon, on Barney, and, somewhere, on Bran, with his dark guardian at his side. No-one was so lost in darkness that they could not see the silver of the stars. The powers of the Dark were bound always to serve the Dark, but no human was beyond redemption. That's what I believe, he thought, and Merriman is wrong.

 

"We are sworn not to interfere in the affairs of man," Merriman said, "but the Dark has triumphed, but the Light still remains, shattered, but still alive. None of the old rules hold any more. While the Dark was still mustering, there was nothing we could do, but now the Dark has shown itself. There are many who hate what has happened to the world."

 

"You said I would soon be ready," Will said, "and the world would soon be ready. Ready for what, Merriman?" He thought he already knew.

 

"Ready for us to step out of the shadows. Only we know the true nature of the enemy. If they band together, these angry children, and fight in ignorance, they will be crushed. For four thousand years, I have watched and guided, and stepped aside, because that was how things had to be. But now the rules have changed. The Dark has changed the way of things. Now the time has come, Will Stanton, for you and I to become leaders of men."

 

Will closed his eyes. I don't want to. I only want...

 

Merriman touched him on the back of his bowed head, and Will felt pity there, in the midst of something else. "Happy birthday, Will," Merriman murmured.