The World to Come

by Eildon Rhymer

 

What if the Dark had won at the end of Silver on the Tree? The world is sliding into darkness, and only tattered remnants of the Light remain. Will, Bran and the Drews grow to adulthood, and each to their own destiny in this World to Come.

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Part three: chapter one

 

Lion in chains

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Merriman had known that this day would come. He had known for quarter of a century that this moment lay in his future.

 

The manner of it, though, and the timing, was hidden. The Dark had triumphed at the tree, and magic was now ruled by the Dark. Merriman could no longer step into the future and see what lay ahead. In many things, he was as blind as a mortal.

 

They cornered him, as they had cornered so many of his kind before him, over the years. He was a lord of Light, but against him stood all the lords of Darkness, and a score of their minions. As soon as he saw them, he knew that he was taken.

 

He did not fight; only a soft, quiet surrendering to the inevitable. This had to be. The future was hidden to him, but some things had always been clear.

 

He had been the first, but he would not be the last. He had to go, for Will to come into his own.

 

But I wish I'd had longer, he thought, as they closed on him, grinning, triumphant. He had lived for such a long time, and had seen so much death and darkness, but he still wanted more time. He did not know if Will was ready. He wanted to tell him…

 

"The old lion himself," they crowed. The lesser ones sneered. The true lords of Darkness just stared impassively, for they were equals to him, although opposite in every way. "The very last one of your kind."

 

He cherished his secret and kept his face impassive. Even defeated, he could protect his mind from the Dark, but part of him remained human, and hope could betray itself in very human ways. 

 

"We have you now," they said. "Too broken even to fight."

 

He looked at them, one, then another, then another. The lesser ones amongst them broke, and looked at the ground. Not broken, his look said. But defeated. Yes, defeated…

 

Perhaps they would think he had surrendered himself to them deliberately, too shattered by despair to live on. They had not captured him on some great enterprise, fighting the Darkness against all the odds. Instead they had come upon him in a wood, when he had gone unguarded to remind himself that the world was beautiful, and to remember great men whom he once had loved. He had bowed his head a while, and raised it to find himself surrounded. It had been a genuine mistake.

 

Or maybe, he thought, as they bound him with bonds of magic and twine, the Light had willed it so. Will was ready. It was time.

 

"No words for us, Lyon?" they taunted. "No pleas? No defiance? The others did, before they were destroyed."

 

"That is a lie," Merriman told him. He knew his Old Ones. They could feel whatever a human could feel, but they would not show it, not at this last extremity.

 

"It matters not," they told him, as they led him away. "You are the last of your kind. The Light has been eradicated forever. The world is ours now. Think on that, in your prison beyond eternity."

 

He did not bow his head, but he went where they led him. His powers were great, but theirs were legion, and there were many of them, and he was alone. He had no chance of escaping his fate. They would send him out of Time forever, but first they would parade him in front of the men who thought they ruled the land, and show him to the masses on television. He was the conquered sorcerer chieftain, the last of his foul kind. They would gloat for a while, but then it would be the end.

 

After four thousand years, he was leaving the world, leaving it in the hands of the Dark.

 

He could have wept then, tears hidden behind his mask-like face. This was inevitable, this was necessary, but this was the end. He left the world in darkness. He would never see the triumph of the Light. After so many years, so many struggles…

 

He was still human enough to care.

 

The only ending he would ever see was darkness, and then oblivion. He could not even cherish hope, in case they saw it in his eyes, and snatched it away from him, and knew.

 

Merriman was defeated indeed.

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Part three: chapter two

 

Before

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"Do you remember?" Barney wondered out loud, as he studied his coarse hunk of bread. "How it was before, I mean. Sometimes it seems like a dream."

 

Simon took a spoonful of soup, and grimaced as he found it too hot. He dropped the spoonful back in the bowl, but the grimace was still there, frozen onto his face.

 

"Six years, we've been in here," Barney said, "and years before that, fighting all this. Years before that, when things were going wrong, but we didn't really understand what was happening. How long has it been like this? Nearly all my life, really, but I still remember what it was like before."

 

"Don't," Simon rasped. He took another spoonful of soup, and swallowed it, though Barney could see that it hurt him.

 

"No," Barney said gently, for they had been through this before. "We have to remember. It reminds us why we're here." He tried some of his own soup, for he understood why someone might seek the simple pain of a burn. "I don't think I could bear it," he said, "if I didn't remember what we were fighting for. We failed, but at least we were right to try."

 

"Twenty-four years," Simon said. He put his bowl down, and started worrying at his hunk of coarse bread, tearing it to pieces. "Twenty-four years ago this September. It's been awful ever since."

 

Barney almost questioned it, then understood. For Simon, it had all started to go wrong when he had started his new school that year. The world had started to decline at about the same time. It was only understandable that the two things were mixed up in Simon's head. Personal things always hit hardest. After all, Barney had turned a blind and innocent eye until Mr Thomas had been killed in front of him.

 

"There's no point talking about it." Simon's bread was nothing but crumbs now. "Nothing's going to change."

 

"We don't know that," Barney had to say. He had been saying it for six years, and he could not stop not – could not.

 

Simon, as always, just grunted.

 

"They don't tell us a thing," Barney went on, as he always did. "The government might be teetering and about to fall, and we wouldn't know anything until the fences get torn down. The Resistance might be winning. And then there's that man…"

 

Another grunt, louder this time.

 

Barney gave up. He could never find much to say about the man who had come to their prison door six years before, and brought them to this place. "I cannot free you completely," he said, "but I can at least save your lives. A lifetime in the camps, yes, but at least you'll live. I did what I promised. I will not need to lie."

 

Barney had fired questions at him. Was he a friend, he had asked, but the man's cold face had answered no. Was he a sympathiser? A tight sucking in of breath had been his answer to that. Was this a trick, a warped tactic to get them to talk?

 

"It is a gift," the man had said, "though not to you. A payment, some might say, but I prefer not to."

 

They had never seen him again. If it was a gift, Barney had no idea who had received it. If it was a payment, he did not know who had paid the price.

 

"He helped us once," Barney pointed out now. "He might…"

 

"If he even existed," Simon grunted. Simon had been unconscious throughout. "We've talked about this hundreds of times before, Barney."

 

Barney picked up his black coffee and swirled it, watching the thick liquid splash against the sides of the chipped mug. "Yes," he said. "I know."

 

He took comfort in the repetition. It was almost a ritual by now. It made him believe that some things did not die. Some things endured, even if everything else was crumbling around them. He was still alive, and so was Simon, and there was continuity and comfort in that.

 

"I wish you wouldn't go on so." Simon turned on him, suddenly fierce. "Always nagging. You won't let it lie. It's easy for you, but I… You're just making it worse. You won't let me forget."

 

"Easy for me?" Some coffee splashed onto his leg, black and scalding.

 

"Because you were so young when it happened." Simon's hand closed into a fist around the remaining crumbs of his bread. "Just a baby, really. You never knew. You never had hopes. You never…"

 

"No," Barney cried sharply. "No."

 

Sunlight dancing on water. Children laughing. A leaf in autumn. A brush moving on canvas, and mother's smile.

 

He let out a slow, careful breath, reminding himself that this was his brother, and they had enemies enough, and must not be angry with each other. "I was nine, Simon," he pointed out. "I have lots of memories of what it was like before. I had lots of hopes. I was going to be an artist."

 

"Forget them, then," Simon said harshly. "It does no good to think about them. Best forget. Best forget all of it."

 

Of course, Barney thought, Simon had had further to fall. Barney had never hoped to change the world, only to do his little bit to lessen the grip of darkness upon it. Simon, the eldest, lordly and confident, had always expected to be a leader. Barney, the youngest, had trotted behind, lost in art and stories. Simon had never known how to cope with failure.

 

It made him feel strange, as if he was the older one now, and Simon was the younger, needing a guide and comfort.

 

But, "No," he said gently, wrapping his hands around his still-warm mug. Above him, thin sunlight seeped through the smoky clouds, warm on his face. "I think it is important to remember. It hurts, yes, but the alternative is worse."

 

The klaxon sounded, marking the impending end of their break. Simon struggled to his feet, but Barney sat there a moment longer, face tilted to the light.

 

"Forgetting is a little like dying, you see," he murmured. "You can't have hope without regret."

 

Simon was limping away, taking his place in front of the stone-faced overseer, and did not answer.

 

The cloud parted completely, and full sunlight shone upon the dingy yard, transforming it utterly.

 

___

 

Part three: chapter three

 

The man in the mirror

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A stranger stared back at him from the mirror.

 

Bran studied him. The stranger was called Pendragon. Sometimes - more and more often, now - Bran thought of himself as Pendragon. The name his mother had given him was fading further away, dying from lack of use. Other times, though, the difference was stark. Mirrors made it the starkest of all.

 

One man stood before the mirror; another man stood within, gazing back.

 

The man in the mirror was strong and sleek. His white hair was raked back severely, and his tawny eyes did not blink. His mouth was pressed into a straight line. It was silent now, though it knew how to shout. Even better, it knew how to be icy cold, to reduce people to grovelling terror just with a few quiet words.

 

No-one laughed at the man in the mirror. Long ago, a boy with tawny eyes and white hair had been laughed at by all the other boys at school. Freak, they had called him, and they had pinched and shouted and laughed. Then had come the Old Ones, who had pretended friendship, like a lifeline in a storm. They had laughed, too - laughed behind their hands at the stupid freakish boy they had tricked and ensnared.

 

Then Bran had become Pendragon. The boy had become a man, and the man had begun to rise through the ranks of the secret police, sustained by his hatred of those who had tried to use him. A few had laughed at him even then, thinking him soft, a fool promoted because he had connections in high places.

 

Those men, too, he had silenced.

 

No-one had laughed at him for years. Neither, too, had the man in the mirror ever laughed. Bran's hand rose to his face. In the mirror, he thought, the movement looked like a threat, but all he did was touch his mouth, pushing the edges gently, testing the feel of a tiny smile.

 

It felt wrong. Cold smiles he could do - the smile of a captain who had caught his man; of a gaoler spreading chill to the heart of the man at his feet. But a true, happy smile… He lowered his hand. He did not know how to do them. He had forgotten how.

 

He knew he was not happy. He was many things, but he was not a man to lie to himself. Circumstance and choice had set him on this path, and one thing had led to another, and now he was captain of the secret police, the most feared and hated man in Britain. He did not like what he did, but the alternative was worse. It was better to be feared than mocked. It was better to be hated than to have people pretend to love you.

 

It was better to be Pendragon than to be the boy who had once been called Bran.

 

"And besides," he told the man in the mirror, "if it wasn't me, it would be someone else, and that would be even worse." There were many beneath him, eager for his job, who were cruel and sadistic and would torture prisoners just because they could. At least Bran only ordered pain when there were genuine secrets to be discovered. They called him merciless, but he spared people when he could, and let their deaths be as clean as he could make them. "I'm helping them, in a way."

 

The man in the mirror blinked. Bran sighed. No, there could be no lies. He could not hide behind that excuse. He did what he had to do. He did not enjoy it, but he could have walked away years ago, and he had not. He had made his choice. They were right to hate.

 

"But I was right, too," he told the man in the mirror. Those lips moved, speaking with the voice of a stranger. You were right, too. He had made his choice. He had refused to be used. He had raised his sword, and the world had fallen into place around him. Much had happened that he had not foreseen, but better this than rule by those deceivers. Better the honesty of Darkness, than the smiles of the Light, that hid only tricks and lies.

 

And now it was over.

 

He half brought his hand to his mouth again, struggling for that smile, but still no smile would come. He felt nothing. A few days before, Merriman Lyon, the chief of the sorcerers, had been captured and sent out of Time forever. The lords of the Dark had been terrible in their jubilation. The last Old One had gone, and the world belonged to the Dark forever.

 

Bran had not been there to witness the last moments of Merriman, master of lies. When they had told him the news, he had frozen, as still and cold as the man painted on the glass of the mirror.

 

Over, he thought. No more sorcerers to hunt. No more. Nothing. The end.

 

But he had not smiled. He had not mourned at the loss of his life's purpose, now achieved. He had paused only for a few seconds, then walked on, his face unchanged. Why? he asked the man in the mirror. He did not understand why. Pendragon, the man in the mirror, carried on unchanged. He led his men, and he ordered death. He hated, even though there was no-one left to hate. The Dark had won, but he still did their work, and still told himself that they had not won his heart.

 

He did not understand it.

 

The man in the mirror stared back, and gave no answers.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter four

 

Go gentle into the night

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It did not feel as if Merriman was gone.

 

That was the strangest thing. For the whole of Will's awakened life, Merriman had been there. Sometimes he had been a voice in Will's mind, and sometimes just a distant presence, impossible to pin down, but always there. Sometimes they had gone for years without seeing each other, and sometimes they had lived in the same room. They had stood side by side, and they had disagreed.

 

They had been master and pupil; mentor and disciple. They had been father and son, and then friends. They had argued and disputed, but they had always been allies, always fighting for the same cause. They were of the Light, and they could not do anything else, or be anything else.

 

They were of the Light, and now Merriman was gone. Will was the only one left, and the Dark reigned supreme.

 

He ought to feel more bereft than he did. Will stood at the broken window, hand pressed into the dust. The rain fell down in a grey mist, and a stray cat sat sulkily beneath the shelter of an overhanging wall. It ought to hurt, a wrenching pain of absence, like James dying in his arms, or the first time he had seen his family after his first death. It ought to be terrible, impossible, dreadful. Instead, all he felt was numb.

 

Merriman was gone. Sometimes he had to say it out loud to believe it. "Merriman…" He could not say the rest of it. It was too absurd, too ridiculous. Merriman was the oldest of them all. He had watched man crawl up from the age of dust and stone, and create civilisations of beauty and gold. He had seen heroes rise and fall, and had lived through wars and battles and the death of kings. He should have been there at the end of it all, as he had been at the beginning.

 

Will had often wondered what it would be like to face the end, to be defeated, captured, blasted out of Time forever. Every other Old One in existence had met that fate, many of them in the original shock of the Dark's victory, and the rest over the years, and alone.

 

Most of Will's dreams were still of the past, but he dreamed, too, of capture. Brought in chains before the lords of the Dark. Kicked to the ground, head bowed. Cold laughter and eyes like ice, but then a figure, approaching from behind. Pale skin, pale hair, and eyes the colour of amber. "Hello, Will." And then a hand reaching out, and after that, nothing.

 

He shivered. Rain drifted through the broken window, falling on the back of his hand in a fine mist. He expected all Old Ones had such dreams, though none of them ever spoke about it. Every single one of them had faced their end alone. One by one, they had all fallen, until only Will and Merriman had remained.

 

Had Merriman, too, dreamed of his end? Had he feared it? Had he known? Will had dreamed of his own end, but never of Merriman's. He had never doubted that he would go first, and that Merriman would remain, last as he was first.

 

"It's wrong," he said aloud, but he said it only as a quiet murmur. He was numb inside and out, frozen by the unreality of the thing. He is not gone, his mind protested. He cannot be.

 

"What do we do now?" Anthony said softly, close behind him. Will had not sensed his approach. This numbness affected more than just his heart.

 

Will swallowed. "I'm the only one left."

 

"They don't know that." Anthony was still behind him, unseen, but close enough for Will to feel his warmth. There was no comfort in it. "They think Merriman was the last one. They think they've won. They don't know we've still got you."

 

Will closed his eyes. "It does no good. Before, when I did things, they thought it was Merriman. Now, the minute I act, they'll know they were wrong, and that there is still an Old One in the world. It… cripples me."

 

"Does it matter?" Anthony persisted. "Let them know that they're wrong. Make them afraid. There they are, gloating over their victory, and suddenly they realise that their enemies aren't all dead after all. Someone's still out there. If there's one, there might be more. Maybe they haven't won after all."

 

But they have, Will thought. They had all along.

 

The Dark had won on a hillside at midsummer, twenty-four years ago. The Light had fought, and had encouraged mankind to fight, too. Hundreds of thousands of people had died who might not have died, because they had joined the Resistance and fought. And, one by one, the Old Ones had been defeated, and the Dark's grip on the world grew steadily tighter and tighter.

 

There's no point, he thought. If Merriman could be defeated, then Will had no chance. The best he could hope was a few more years of enduring, ending in defeat. It would make no difference to the world. It would not dent the power of the Dark entirely.

 

"Will?" Anthony touched him on the back of his shoulder. "Will?"

 

Will opened his eyes. Nothing had changed. Nothing would ever change. Rain fell from a polluted sky, and winter would come and would reign forever. Merriman was gone. The Circle had ended, and now there was nothing but endless Dark.

 

"There's nothing I can do," he whispered.

 

He heard Merriman's voice then, as clear in his mind as if Merriman was standing beside him. This voice, though, spoke only in memory. Long ago, it had been, when Will was just a boy – though he had not really been a boy since the summer he was twelve. Side by side, they had sat, on a green hill above a plain, watching the winter stars, and speaking of past and future. "Never seek out Bran," Merriman had said, "while I am in the world."

 

Merriman was gone now. Will was alone, but Bran remained.

 

Nothing I can do, he thought, but perhaps this…

 

He could not save the world, but perhaps he could save one man, who had once been his friend. Then, after that, whether he succeeded or failed, he would face the end in peace. He would go gentle into the night, because he had at least tried.

 

"No," he said, moving away from the window. "I know what to do." He turned to Anthony at last. "But alone. I need to do it alone."

 

He did not say goodbye, and he did not look back, but he knew what he was doing. He knew that this was, in a way, a kind of suicide.

 

He only whispered it afterwards, when he was out in the dusk. "Goodbye." He meant it to Anthony, to his friends, to those who followed him. He meant it to the people in their locked houses, and those scurrying home in the streets, and people in farms and hillsides that he had never seen. He meant it to the world, to the Old Ones, to the Light.

 

"And, "Goodbye," he said, at the very end of it, pausing to look up at the sliver of the moon. "Goodbye, Merriman. I will see you soon, one way or another."

 

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Part three: chapter five

 

Gilded cage

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Soft music seeped from the room behind her. The light was pale golden, flickering gently as the diaphanous curtains drifted in the breeze. Jane could still taste the expensive chocolates, that had been left for her on a table, wrapped in a red bow. Her head was slightly fuzzy from her afternoon sleep.

 

She rested her forearms on the wrought-iron balcony, hands clasped above the darkness. In the west, the sun was fading, burning like a harvest fire in the smoke and ashes that filled the city sky. Other fires blazed beneath it, set by man upon the earth. Few nights passed without bomb or blaze, without raid or reprisal.

 

Not that Jane saw any of that. She was a princess in a tower, like Rapunzel, set above the world of men. But no prince would climb up to save her. This was her life now, and it would never end.

 

She lacked for nothing. No-one in all the world would ever dare to hurt her. Where other people struggled on the ground, she lived in the air. While they lived in ugliness, she was surrounded by all the beauty that she could ever dream of. There was art and music, soft fabrics and rich food. She lived in light and ease and comfort.

 

Jane leant out over the railing, as if she was straining for something out of reach. "Are you happy?" her husband asked her every night, and she would smile with brimming eyes, and tell him yes. "I want you to be happy," he said, and he was a man who always got what he wanted. She told him what he needed to hear. Sometimes she even believed it. But, at the same time…

 

She drew herself back, and rested her hands on her swollen belly. Six months along, she was. Her little boy, growing inside her, child of a man whom she did not love, but had been married to for six years. She did not love the child yet, but she hoped that she would. It was not the child's fault that the world was as it was. The child was not her prison. Her prison had been locked a long time before that, by her husband and her brothers.

 

"A baby." Her husband had been over-joyed, and had even cried a little. "My baby. A little boy. My son. An heir."

 

"Yes." She had smiled at him. "Your son."

 

He did not seem a stupid man. How, then, could he live this lie? He had forced her to marry him by blackmailing her with the life of her brothers. Did he really think that six years of gentleness could make her forget that? Did he really think that expensive gifts could make her love him?

 

It's because I'm too afraid, she thought, returning to the railing. Too afraid to tell him that he's wrong. He still had the power to kill her brothers. He still had the power to break her mother's heart.

 

The music came to an end. The machine changed to another disc, and started again, seedy and sensual. I should go in, she thought, picturing the open box of chocolates, and the heavy cushions on the velvet couch. Her husband had books only as works of art, and did not like them to be read, but there was always the television. Ordinary people could only watch government-produced propaganda, but her husband was a member of the elite, and their television could receive the full range of entertainment channels, denied to the masses.

 

She did not move. I'm afraid of that, too. It was a shaming admission, but she could not avoid it. I'm afraid of losing all that.

 

She liked the art and the music, the food and the comfort. She had spent years struggling to run a household and cope with her mother's depression, and it was a wonderful thing to finally be free from fear and the need to work. She had sacrificed her education and her future for her mother, and at last she had her reward. Her mother was safe, looked after by a full-time carer in the apartment below, and Jane was free. She spent her days at leisure, and she wanted for nothing.

 

She was terrified of losing it, and she hated herself for feeling that way. I am a coward, she thought. I always have been. She remembered how she had tried to stop Simon from joining the Resistance. She thought of all those days she had scurried through the town with her head down, hiding herself.

 

"Afraid," she murmured out loud, touching her belly, as if by doing so, she could give her son the courage that she lacked. She had been afraid in the dark days, and was afraid still, now that her life was full of light and gold.

 

Gunshots sounded in the street far below her. Holding her breath, she strained to see into the dusk. A man ran past, illuminated briefly by an orange street light, then hidden by the dark. Not long after, four men in black ran through the smear of light. She could hear them shouting, but the height made their voices thin and reedy, more like a plea than a command.

 

She let the breath out slowly, as her hands started to tremble. The men in black were the secret police, Pendragon's men. She had seen them kill a man once, far below her in the street. She had been too far away to see his face, and too far away even to see the blood, but that night she had lain awake for hours, unable to sleep for imagining it. In her dreams, the man had looked like Simon, or Barney, and once even like herself.

 

The guns sounded again. I don't want to watch, she thought. Heart fluttering, she began to turn away. I can't do anything. He'll die all the same, whether I'm watching it or not.

 

She walked towards the light and music of her apartment, but a man was there, standing before her.

 

Jane screamed, but her hands had risen instinctively to her mouth, and the sound was muffled and strangled. Safe! her brain gibbered. I'm supposed to be safe here! It was not her husband, not one of the servants. He was a stranger, tousled and grubby and smeared with blood. His side was bleeding, but there was no sign of pain on his face. Cold, she thought he was. Cold and merciless, a killer who would never feel remorse.

 

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said. He started it like a fact, not like a reassurance. His voice was soft, though. It made her want to believe him. "I just needed somewhere to get away."

 

Her knees gave way, and she sank to the ground, her unconscious mind realising the truth before her conscious mind could do so. This man was a sorcerer. He was the one she had glimpsed in the street-light below. He had ducked into the darkness, and now here he was on her balcony, hundreds of feet in the air, and a world away.

 

She should turn him in, of course. She should scream for help. If she did nothing, and her husband found out… Simon and Barney would die, and Jane would be cast out, or even killed.

 

"Please," she whispered. She raised one hand imploringly. Please, she whispered. Please go away. Please leave me alone. It would break mother's heart, and I… And I…

 

"Please save me," her treacherous voice said.

 

He touched her cheek, cupping her cheek in his hand with a gentleness that filled her heart with a yearning almost too painful to bear.

 

"I have another to save first," he said, and then he was gone. 

 

____

 

Part three: chapter six

 

Second meeting

___

 

This was the end of all his journeying. This was the end of his quest. Everything would end here, or change forever.

 

Will had hidden himself in the bushes, hiding only as a mortal man would hide. His powers he had used earlier, to track Bran down to this place. It had not been difficult. It was still only a week since Merriman's defeat. Midsummer was ten days away, but Will had no idea if he would see it.

 

The sun had set, and thick twilight had descended on the close. No-one had come or gone from the house for over an hour, but Will knew that Bran was still inside. He had to emerge soon. If he came alone, then Will would approach him. If he came out with a crowd, then Will would find a way to follow him from a distance until he was alone again. There had always been an air of solitude about Bran, even as a child, and he had chosen a path that lent itself to loneliness. A man so feared would not have friends.

 

Time passed. Will shifted uncomfortably. He had been hurt a little earlier, when bad luck had caused him to come to the attention of a patrol. He had been forced to use his magic to escape, though they had not realised it, and thought he had merely outrun them. That was when he had met Jane. Jane, so sad, so privileged, so unexpected… It had been all he could do not to blurt out her name.

 

"Help me," she had pleaded, though there had been terror in her face, too. She had looked at him as if he was the bringer of doom, but also bringer of a terrible, painful hope.

 

"I will," he wanted to promise her, or, "I cannot. I cannot even save myself." All that pushed down, by the habitual mask of the Old One. He had another to save first, he told her. Another to save… or maybe himself to destroy, and everything…

 

He tried not to think that way. Today, of all days, he had to be calm. He had chosen to do this, and he still believed that it was right. Perhaps it was a kind of suicide, but it was not suicide without a fight. He would give everything he had to try to bring Bran back to the Light. And, if he did not, at least he would have seen him one more time. At least he would have the chance to ask what went wrong, to know, to understand.

 

Anthony, he knew, would call him brave for this. Will suspected that he was, in fact, a monumental fool. But he had to do it. He had to try.

 

And now was the time. The door opened. Bran came out alone, walked down the small flight of steps, and paused at the bottom. He let out a breath, bowed his head for a moment, then looked up at the shrouded stars.

 

Will stepped out of his hiding place. There was no time to prepare, no time to think. In a way, he had been preparing for this for his entire adult life. The numbness crept over him again. It was as if this was so important, so pivotal, that the heart could not encompass it. It felt as inconsequential as a walk to the shops, and as vital as the walk to the midsummer tree, and the ending of everything.

 

Bran heard him approach. He stiffened, but did not go for his gun. There was something weary about him, Will thought. He was the most feared man in Britain, but his pallor made him look almost fragile.

 

Will did not wait to be challenged. He stopped three paces short of the man who had once been his closest friend. "Hello, Bran," he said.

 

Bran was utterly still for a while, but then he smiled. His smile was the coldest thing Will had ever seen, but his hands, stiff at his sides, started to tremble.

 

"Do you know me, Bran?" Will asked.

 

The smile disappeared, and there was nothing left but ice. "Will Stanton," the Pendragon said. "I have been waiting for you." He brought his hand up, fingers curled, as if in possession. "And now I have you."

 

"Yes." Will nodded, surrendered with open hands. "Now you have me."

 

____

 

Part three: chapter seven

 

Blood

___

 

He moved as if in a dream, wrapped in the unreality of the thing. He drifted up the steps, intending to… what? Summon his men to grab the sorcerer and secure him? Send a message to his dark guardian himself? Or maybe just to tell his men that they should finish up on their own, that he was going home.

 

His hand closed on the door handle. Was Stanton still there? He turned round, suddenly terrified that he was gone, but the sorcerer was still standing there, silent and placid on the edge of a pool of light. Bran half turned away again, almost turned the handle…

 

He could not do it. He could not leave him, even for a moment. It was a trick, an illusion. If he turned his back, Will Stanton would vanish, leaving only the echo of his mocking laughter. He was a shadow slipping through the fingers, a dream, a trick of the light.

 

"No," he said. "I am not letting you go."

 

They walked off together, side by side. Bran fought the urge to grab hold of him and never let him go, but he knew such things were useless in the face of magic. Only the lord of the Dark could secure such a one as this. The only right thing for Bran to do was to send for them.

 

"Where are we going?" Stanton asked.

 

Bran shot a glance at him sideways, hidden by his glasses. Stanton had changed a lot over the years, but Bran would still have known him anywhere. He would have recognised him even in the distance through a crowd. "Do you really expect me to tell you?" he demanded.

 

"I was just wondering," Stanton said, "if it was somewhere where we could talk, just the two of us, or if this is all the time we have, and I should say what I need to say now, even though anyone could hear us."

 

He sounded so calm, so emotionless, that Bran felt the veil of unreality begin to tear, revealing the hatred and anger beneath it. "I should hand you over to the Dark," he hissed.

 

"Yes," Stanton said, "but I need to talk to you first."

 

"More tricks," Bran spat, but still they walked onwards, side by side, not touching. "More lies."

 

"No." Stanton sounded very tired. "Just the truth. There was only ever the truth. Perhaps it was never said aloud, though, or not said enough."

 

Bran clenched his first, forcing himself not to lose control, where people could be watching from behind curtains, hidden by the darkness. His apartment was very close to the house they had been investigating. They would be there within minutes. He would hold off until they arrived, he decided. Once he had lured Stanton inside, then he would contact his guardian and let things unfold as they had to unfold.

 

They walked in silence. He's too far gone even for lies, he thought. He still felt half in a dream, but anger was there now, and something else, too. He felt confused, almost scared, his heart fluttering in his chest, and his hands ready to tremble if he did not clench them tight.

 

Why had Will Stanton come to him? For he had come to him. He had not been captured and dragged here against his will. He had chosen to show himself to Bran, just as he was choosing to walk with him now. Why? It's a trick, he thought, but he could not work out what sort of a trick it was.

 

"I wish you were in chains," he told Will Stanton harshly, "hanging broken in the hands of the lords of the Dark, just like your master."

 

Will said nothing. Bran searched for signs of emotion on his face, but saw only a mask. It reminded him of the man he saw in the mirror.

 

He speeded up, suddenly desperate to get home. As he walked, he thought of all the ways he had dreamed of this moment. He had lived for revenge. He had been sustained for years by his hatred of this man. He had imagined a thousand ways of watching Will Stanton broken, and a thousand more of him grovelling, saying that he was wrong, begging for a forgiveness that Bran would never give.

 

It was not supposed to be like this. This ruined everything. How could you hate someone who came so quietly and so willingly? But, at the same time, Bran hated Will, for robbing him of his hate.

 

In a few minutes, he reached the outer door of his building, and pushed the door open. Will Stanton followed him. The guard in the lobby said a few words, and Bran said a few words back, but a moment later he could not remember what was said, or what he had answered.

 

The lift came. They rode side by side, and then side by side walked down the corridor, feet silent on the blood-red carpet. Bran opened his door, and Will went in.

 

There, Bran thought, as he locked the door. He wanted to bolt it, to lock it again and again. He would wrap it in chains and lock it a thousand times, if that would stop his enemy slipping away. Mine, he thought. In here, and all mine.

 

Will remained standing in the middle of the apartment. It occurred to Bran that this was the first visitor he had ever had, although he had lived here alone for four years. No-one but him had ever sat in his couch. No-one had ever shared the food that he occasionally cooked. No-one had seen his bed, or asked about the painting that hung above it, showing mountains, and a stretch of sand half-revealed by the retreating tide.

 

He could almost have laughed. He fought an absurd urge to ask Will to sit down, to bring him tea and biscuits and chat about whatever it was that normal people talked about, when they had someone round to stay.

 

"Bran," Will said. The sound of his voice was like a fist twisting on Bran's heart. No-one had called him that name for years. Will said it in the Welsh way, but with an English accent, in the way that no-one but Will had ever said his name, and it made him…

 

"Don't," he rasped. "Don’t."

 

Will blinked mildly. "Don't what, Bran?"

 

"Say my name like that," Bran shouted, "as if we were friends."

 

"I was always your friend, Bran."

 

Bran punched Will in the jaw, sending him backwards. He landed on the edge of the coffee table, and slid off it, crumpled on the floor. There was blood on his mouth, and blood elsewhere, too, Bran saw now. He had been hurt already, and, Good! Bran thought. He deserves it. Good! His first hurt, and the pain fuelled the anger, and the anger was good, too. Anger was simple and plain, not like the strange dream-reality of the walk.

 

"You're my prisoner, sorcerer," Bran spat. "You're only here until the lords of the Dark arrive and take you away." He stalked to a drawer, where he kept handcuffs and weapons and worse. He pulled out the cuffs first, and then a knife. "Not much use to chain a sorcerer, is it? But you bleed just like normal men. If you were made to bleed enough, I'm sure you couldn't escape."

 

"No need for that." Will was kneeling now, evidently in pain from his back. "I'm powerless before you, Bran. I daren't use any of my powers here. They're watching you. If I used magic in here, they would know. They would be here in an instant, and then I wouldn't…"

 

"Watching me?" Bran raised his fist again, but Will did not cower. "You're lying. They trust me."

 

"I can feel them," Will said. "I can feel their eyes, although they're turned away now. But they're close. If I did anything, they would come."

 

"So you are powerless." Bran smiled. He grabbed Will by the throat, and hauled him to his feet, rejoicing in the moan of pain that he dragged forth. He searched around for a place to tie him, then remembered the high cupboards in the kitchen. He marched Will there, and cuffed his hands together, then raised them up, securing them to the handle above his head.

 

Will endured it all without a struggle. Once again, Bran felt the hot jet of his anger lessening, replaced by the confusion and the sense of unreality. He wanted the anger back, and so he punched Will in the stomach, to hear him moan. Then he picked up the knife, and held it to Will's throat. "Tell me why you came," he demanded.

 

"To see you," Will replied.

 

Bran hit him again. The blow jolted him to the side, so his neck scraped against the knife, drawing a thin line of blood. Bran drew the knife away a little.

 

"Why did you come?" he demanded. "I will get the truth," he promised. "This is my job."

 

"Torture?" Will said. "I know. But, oh, Bran… I wish you hadn't. You were so good, so pure, so…"

 

"Stop it!" Bran threw the knife away, and slapped him across the face. "Is that it? You came here to play the virtuous saint, telling me how far I've fallen? I know that. I'm not proud of the things I do, but it's all I had. It's all you left me. You wouldn't let me do anything else."

 

"I'm sorry," Will whispered, through bloody lips. "I…"

 

"No, you're not!" Bran screamed. He groped for the knife again, and found it. With the other hand he punched the light switch. For a moment, the kitchen was completely dark, before the lights from outside seeped in and turned it grey.

 

Bran never liked to see the blood of prisoners. He asked the questions, but he did so in the dark, and he never looked down.

 

"I came because I had to see you, before the end." Will sounded as if he, too, was freed by the darkness. "They took Merriman. I'm the only one left. I cannot survive long. But, if the end is going to come, I wanted to see you first before I went, to talk, to explain, to understand…"

 

Bran passed his left hand over his face. It was smeared with specks of Will's blood, and he tasted it, and it was iron, just like any normal man's blood. "I knew," he said, drawing back a step. "I always knew you were still alive. They said you weren't. They said Merriman was the last one. But I knew. Two boys died that day, drowning in the sea, but you didn't die any more than I did."

 

"No," Will whispered. "I didn't want pretend like that. Merriman…"

 

"Why didn't you come back for me, then?" Bran screamed. He grasped the knife, thrust it as hard as he could into Will's stomach. "Why didn't you come?" He twisted the knife. "Why didn't you come?" He was almost sobbing. He pulled the knife out, and let it fall from his nerveless fingers, and heard it thud and clatter on the tile floor. "Why didn’t you come?" he whispered.

 

He had never realised, never known. For so many years, he had lived with this hatred. Will Stanton had pretended to be his friend. He had lied to him and used him, wanting him to become a tool for the false cause of the Light. But first, before that, hadn't there been need? In those early days, hadn't he felt trapped by his decision, and lonely? He had stood at the window for hours, watching for Will to come and fight for him. Even if everything he said was a lie, at least he would be saying it in person. At least Bran would not be alone.

 

"You stayed away," Bran said, his voice broken and hoarse, "and so I knew it was true."

 

"I wanted to come," Will gasped, strangled with pain. His blood fell on the floor in audible drips. "I begged Merriman to let me, but he wouldn't… He never would… Again and again I asked him, but he… It's only now… now he's gone, that I can…"

 

"I thought you were my friend." Bran backed away, and crouched down in the darkness, in a place that was clean and cold and free of blood. "I was so lonely as a child. I'd never had a friend. And then you came… I know it was the quest that brought us together, but I thought there was something more. It meant so much to me, but I was wrong. It was all a lie."

 

"It wasn't, Bran." Will's voice was hardly audible. "None of it was a lie. It's a lie that it was a lie."

 

"No," Bran cried, for he had based his life on this, had made his choices because of this, had fallen so far because of this, and it could not be false, it could not. 

 

"I don't know what they told you," Will whispered, in a fading thread of a voice. "I don't know what they showed you, but it wasn't true. None of it was true."

 

"No," Bran moaned.

 

"I mourned for the world, but I mourned you even more."

 

Bran flailed for the knife, and caught it by the blade, scoring a deep line in his palm. I want… He tried to pick it up, tried to surge to his feet, to bring the knife across Will Stanton's lying throat, to silence him forever. He'd call for the Dark, and let them take him away. He'd keep Will hidden here for weeks, and kill him piece by piece, and then kill him again, because he could not die.

 

"Whatever you saw then wasn't true." Will's voice came to him like soft feathers falling from the air. "Remember, Bran. Remember…"

 

And, with a sob and a cry of anger, Bran did.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter eight

 

Mother

___

 

"The challenge holds," the Lady said, and she raised her hand.

 

The sword slipped from Bran's grip, and he tried to catch it, but his fingers would not move. Then even the will to do such a thing was gone, stolen by a blue mist of forgetfulness, sparkling like a summer dream. For a moment, he saw the others ranged beyond him – Jane, her mouth open in shock, and Will, staring at him with an intensity of pain – but then they, too, were gone.

 

There was nothing but blue. His body did not exist. He heard nothing and felt nothing. The blueness was not something he saw with his eyes, but something that merely was. He was scattered and had become the sky; he was the smallest pebble on the shore, enduring all but seeing nothing.

 

And then there was not even thought, until he heard it, a soft, soft whisper. He blinked, and he had his body again, but he was no longer on the ship. He was in a field of green, and beyond it were stars, silver in a blue velvet sky. He turned round, wondering, and saw that the stars were all around him, as if the field was a disc, floating in space, and there was nothing all around him and beneath him but the emptiness of the night.

 

But he did not feel afraid. This is magic, he thought, some magic of the Light.

 

"Not them," the whisper said, and it became a woman's voice, soft and low. Blodwen Rowlands came walking towards him through the grass. She was small at first, as if she was far away, but she grew with each step, like a candle flame brought towards you in the dark.

 

"Stay away," he warned her. He reached for the sword, but of course he did not have it. The Lady had seen to that.

 

She shook her head sadly. "So lost in lies, cariad. So lost in their lies."

 

Once he had thought it, he could not let it go. The Lady, forcing him to drop the sword… Will, so shocked and betrayed and horrified… The Lady and the Light had snatched him from his friends and now he was here, lost beyond the stars. "Lies?" he faltered. "No, you're the one who lies."

 

"So they told you," she said, "as they had you doing their work for them. Filling your mind so you spoke with a voice not your own. You joined with them to banish me, who had never done you any harm."

 

"You…" He licked his dry lips. "You… pretended…"

 

"Nothing, cariad." She touched his cheek, as he remembered her doing so often when he was young. "There was no pretending on my part. I watched over you. They stole your mother from you, but at least you knew the softness of a woman's touch. Remember, Bran." Another touch. "Remember."

 

He remembered days spent with John Rowlands, listening to songs and stories, while Mrs Rowlands brought him cakes and drinks. He remembered her putting a plaster on his knee when he fell over in the yard, and listening as he poured out the truth about school. "It will get better," she assured him. "Once they get to know you, they'll like you. They couldn't do anything else." Cuddles and comfort from her, when his father had just grunted and turned away.

 

"Lies," he whispered. "You're lying."

 

"I was there," she said, "and where were they? Where were your friends of the Light? They abandoned you to a lifetime of loneliness and mockery. They only turned up when they needed you, but I was there all the time."

 

He tried to edge away from her backwards, but he was too afraid of falling into the darkness. "You weren't who you seemed to be," he stammered. "You're not really…"

 

"Does it matter?" she asked gently. "What is more important: who we are, or how we act? John Rowlands loved me. Was that a lie? It made him happy. The Light stole that from him and broke his heart. So self-righteous, so hypocritical… I gave love and comfort to a lonely boy. Does it become any less real now you know who I really am?"

 

Yes, he wanted to say. Yes. But she had always been kind to him, and all his memories of her were warm, and the Light had never been there when he was young, only her.

 

"But… but the Dark killed my dog," he blurted out, "and he was a better friend than you ever were. If you cared so much, why didn't you save him?"

 

"Bran," she said. "Bran, the Light killed Cafall. I'm sorry, cariad. They killed him, so they could have your whole heart, without distractions. They wanted to rob you of everything you cared for, so you had nothing left but them."

 

"But Caradog Pritchard…"

 

She gave a sorrowing smile. "It is not just the Dark that can control a man's mind, Bran. At least the Dark is honest, and does not lie about it, or try to put the blame on someone else."

 

"No," he whispered. He thought of Will, coming to see him after Cafall's death, refusing to let him grieve in peace, trying to force him back onto the stupid quest. Had Will all alone been…?

 

"It is true," another voice said, soft as the petals of a rose. Bran twisted round, turning a neck that had suddenly gone stiff, and saw a beautiful lady in a flowing robe.

 

"Who…?" His voice died in his throat. He tried to ask again, but only his lips shaped the word. Who…?

 

"You know who I am, my son." The lady smiled, a smile of infinite love.

 

"You…" He moistened his lips. "You're…"

 

"I am your mother." She started to cry, tears pouring freely down her cheeks, although her face remained beautiful and smooth.

 

"My mother…" His own tears answered hers. His strength failed him, and he fell to his knees, but she was there, gently raising him up. Her arms were soft and strong, and everything he had ever dreamed of. She smelled of flowers, and love, and home.

 

"I have longed for this for all these countless years," she murmured into his hair.

 

He could have sunk into her embrace and lived there forever, but there was too much pain in his past. He extricated himself, and stood up, and for a moment he was taller than she was, gazing down at her through the blur of tears.

 

"You left me," he accused her. "You brought me through time, and then left me."

 

"Not by choice." She reached towards him like someone drowning. "Merlin forced me. He tricked me. He stole you and took you through time, and I didn't want him to. I just wanted to keep you. I wanted to bring you up as my own son, just me and your father, a real family. I would have loved you and cherished you. You were my heart. But Merlin stole you. I was ripped away and cast back through time, and the door was locked behind me." She showed him her hands, and each nail was edged with blood. "I clawed and clawed to get back to you, but only the lords of Light can open the doors in time, and they had locked them forever."

 

"You chose it…" He felt as if he was tumbling from the highest rock on Cader Idris, and there was nothing beneath his feet but the pit. "He said… They said…"

 

"They lied." Her eyes turned cold.

 

"But…" He swallowed hard. "But…"

 

"It was all lies," Blodwen Rowlands said from behind him. "They lied to you in every word. They pretended friendship, but only to get you to do what they wanted – the Old Lion, lord of lies; and the Sign-seeker, worst of all."

 

Will, his mind pleaded. It isn't true. He likes me. He's my friend. And the others… Jane, Barney… It's too soon now, but maybe, later…

 

"I have waited an eternity to see you, my son." His mother grabbed his hand and caressed it. "They locked all doors. I can only see you now because the Light imprisoned you out of Time, and the Dark reached out their hand and made this place for us. If they win, I will never see you again."

 

"If they win," Mrs Rowlands said, "the world will be a prison of lies. At least with the Dark, each man is free. We do not hide our true motives in tricks and false words."

 

His mother grabbed him, her voice warm and alive on his cheek. "If you love me," she murmured, the words suffused with the scent of roses, "then you will hate the ones who tore us apart. Of all the people in the world, only I have ever truly loved you."

 

I know, he thought, with a long, slow sag of pain. Then he raised his head, clenching his fists. I know.

 

The Light had tricked him. Will had only pretended to be his friend. They wanted him to wield his sword and destroy the Dark, and then he would be cast aside like unwanted rubbish. But if he failed to play his game… If he failed to grant them total victory…  It wouldn't mean that he had turned to the Dark. Perhaps the Light would win another way, but Bran would not be part of it. Or perhaps nothing would change, and there would still be Light and Dark together, carrying on their petty little squabbles while mankind got on with the things that really mattered.

 

"I will not play their game any longer," he said out loud. He tried for hatred, he really did, but all he could feel was sorrow.

 

He had thought that Will was his friend. He really had, but now…

 

"But be careful," Mrs Rowlands hissed from behind him. The stars above were beginning to fade, the dark blue fading to the light blue of a summer sky. "Until you stand before the tree, let them think you are still a prisoner of their lies."

 

"I will," he vowed, as pale blue swelled and encompassed him, then faded away entirely, leaving him on the deck of a ship, surrounded by the lying eyes of traitors.

 

He raised the sword, and they, too, were suffused in blue.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter nine

 

After the first death

___

 

When he finally opened his eyes, all was silent. "Are you…?" He cleared his throat. "Are you laughing now?"

 

Will said nothing. Something smeared beneath Bran's hand, and he knew that it was blood. He moved the hand, and the blood grew thicker, as if his fingers were wading through it like the sea. It was Will's blood, because he, Bran, had finally taken his revenge on him. It was Will's blood…

 

"I remember how it was," he said, louder than he needed to. If he said it enough, it would be true. It had to be true. "I saw my mother, and she said…"

 

There really was so much blood. But Will deserved it. And he couldn't die, anyway, could he? He could suffer like any mortal man, but he would come back. Bran could hurt him, but only the lords of the Dark could destroy him, and Bran had to contact them now, so they could… He had to…

 

He crawled towards the wall, and pulled himself up by the door frame. He groped for the light switch, and smeared his hand across it, turning the dimmer switch as faint as possible. The first thing he saw was his own bloody handprints on the white-painted wood. The second thing was Will's body hanging limply from his cuffed wrists, his legs bent and his knees close to the blood-stained floor. His face was white, and his eyes were closed.

 

"Faking," Bran said. "Faking to trick me."

 

But he edged forward all the same. Moving like an animal expecting to be bitten, he touched the side of Will's throat. He thought he felt a heartbeat, but then he thought it was just the trembling of his fingers. He tried again with the flat of his hand, and felt nothing at all.

 

He fumbled for the key, and released the cuffs, so that Will slumped to the ground. Bran tried to break his fall, but a human body was heavy, and Will slid sideways, so they both ended up lying in the pool of blood. Bran groaned at a stab of pain from his knee, but Will made no sound at all.

 

"You can't be dead," Bran told him. "You can't die."

 

In the light of a naked bulb, the blood acted like a mirror. He saw Will's slack lips and closed eyes, distorted in the pool of red. Bran himself was only a pale blur, as if he had never been anything more substantial than a dream. He was a thing made of myth and memories. His past had shaped him, and the things he had seen in that place of stars, beyond the blue.

 

"It was real," he told Will now. "It was real."

 

Will opened his eyes, a tiny slit of pale colour. The faintest of breaths disturbed the surface of the blood.

 

Bran curled his hand, blood seeping through the knuckles. "You were dead."

 

Will did not move. His cheek was pressed against the floor, and his mouth distorted. "I can't die. I didn't know before… how it would be. I thought… I wondered…" He rolled onto his back, and wiped his face with shaking hands, so his face was streaked with lurid red and pink. "We do die. We tremble on the edge of Time. But then we come back."

 

Bran did not know what to say. The memory, still so fresh, robbed him of words. "I remembered," he managed. He said it like an accusation.

 

Will clawed himself into a sitting position, his face clenched tight with pain. A tiny moan escaped him, but then he pressed his lips together, and nodded. "What happened, Bran?" he said softly. "Why did you turn against us that day?"

 

Bran's heart started to speed up. "Don't you know?"

 

Will shook his head. "If you remembered it just now, I couldn't see it. I cannot, Bran. We can't see into the minds of others, or make them do anything against their will. Not even the Dark can do that, although they can manipulate, and twist the truth with their lies, and that is almost the same."

 

Bran looked down at his hands, folded, and stained with blood. "I saw my mother." He had meant to shout it as an accusation, but it came out small. "She said that… that Merriman had stolen me from her, and that she wanted… She wanted…"

 

"It wasn't her."

 

He barely heard Will's quiet words, but when he did hear them, they stopped the world from turning.

 

"It wasn't her, Bran. I'm so sorry. It was a construct of the Dark."

 

Bran stopped breathing.

 

"I don't know what she said, but it would have been lies." Will's voice carried on inexorably. "Enough truth to be plausible, but twisted…"

 

"She told me that you'd been using me, every single one of you," Bran burst out. "She said you'd never been my friend. And where was your precious Merriman when I was crying myself to sleep when I was little? You wanted… You wanted to force me… And she said… She said that she was the only person who truly loved me, and it was true. It was true."

 

"No," Will said.

 

"But you didn't come!" Bran screamed. "So I knew it was true!"

 

He saw Will's eyes slide shut, and open again, older than before. "Merriman stopped me, and I know why now. I saw… I drifted to the edge of Time, and I saw…" He let out a long breath. "He had his reasons, and… Oh, but you suffered for it, and so did I, and now…"

 

Will stopped. Bran waited, breathing in, and out; in, and out. "Run out of excuses?" His bitterness tasted awkward in his mouth.

 

"It doesn't make anything all right," Will said. "It is not an excuse, just how it is. You were watched. They're still watching you, but nothing like as much as they used to. That stopped the moment Merriman… went. They thought one of us would seek you out, and they were ready. We would have been captured before we had even said hello. Only when Merriman had gone and they thought their position was secure. Only then… And Merriman knew. He knew it, and I…"

 

There were too many words. Bran crouched on the floor, and his brain felt tired and sluggish. His mother hadn't been real? It had all been a lie? No, he whispered. No… Twenty-four years stretched behind him, shaped by the revelations of that day. He had killed. He had grown cold. He was feared and hated because of that day, and if it was all a lie…

 

"Prove it," he demanded, clutching at a hope, or maybe at a fear. "Show me my mother."

 

Will shook his head. "Would that make a difference? That, too, could be a lie. And I cannot, even so. The doors of Time are almost closed. Too much has passed. All we have left is what we are."

 

"Words," Bran scoffed. He was almost crying, choking on tears he had not shed since he was a child. "Just fine-sounding words, a cloak for lies."

 

"No." Will almost reached for him, but his hand fell to his side again, pale and weak. His voice was clear, but he looked fragile, wrapped in pain. "It was never less than the truth."

 

And Bran knew it. He had known it all along. His life was a tower of cards, built on a lie. He had acted on impulse, out of raw pain, and the Light had come crashing down. The Dark had won, and he was trapped there at the heart of it, unable to see the truth.

 

Because, if he saw the truth, then it was all his fault. If he let himself believe the truth, then he had to live with the knowledge that he had destroyed the world.

 

He hid his face in his hands. "I didn't mean to." A pathetic, childish, stupid excuse. "I thought it would just stop the Light from wiping out the Dark. I thought things would carry on the same as they'd always been, with the Light and the Dark together, and I… I wasn't even thinking properly. I just…"

 

"Bran," he heard. "Bran." Will had been calling his name throughout, he realising. He stopped his flow of words with a sob, but he could not look at Will. He could not look at him ever again. "Bran," Will said, "it wasn't your fault, and it is done. It is past. The Dark is a master of lies, and you were just a child. They tricked you, and…"

 

"I shouldn't have," Bran moaned. "I should have known."

 

"No." Will's hand closed on his wrist, slowly and firmly pulling his hand from his face. "Kings and princes have fallen prey to the wiles of the Dark," Will said. "Wise men and war leaders have been ensnared by their words. The Dark bears the blame, not you."

 

"But…"

 

Will pressed his finger to Bran's lips. "No, Bran, no buts. All that remains is to decide what is to be done about it."

 

"Done?" Bran gave a bitter laugh. "Kill myself, you mean?"

 

"No," Will said, as if he was whole and strong, not mortally wounded and bathed in his own blood. "I mean, how are we going to defeat the Dark?"

 

Bran laughed, a despairing laugh with tears in it.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter ten

 

Homecoming

___

 

He stood for far too long outside the door, and knocked only gently at first.

 

No-one came. Will listened to a blackbird singing loudly in a hawthorn tree, and watched a brindled cat stalk delicately along a wall. He looked at unfamiliar shrubs in the garden, and a skyline that had changed. The smell of the doorstep was different. A small chip in the stonework was suddenly bitterly familiar, but other marks were new, speaking of a life that had carried on without him.

 

He raised his hand to knock again, then lowered it. The coward inside him wanted to run away. The Old One inside him, taught by Merriman, told him that coming here was unnecessary, an indulgence. He was embarking on a course of action that could defeat the Dark forever. This was a distraction. It was a risk. If the Dark discovered his existence because of this…

 

The blackbird flew away, crying in frenzied alarm. The cat lashed its tail, deprived of its sport. A leaf drifted gently down from where the bird had been, and the cat eyed it disdainfully, dismissing it as a replacement toy.

 

He wondered whose cat it was. Perhaps it was some distant descendent of a cat he had once known as a child, or perhaps it was an incomer, brought in by people he did not know. Old houses were empty in the village, and new ones had been built, uncompromising and ugly. The Manor was gone, and the farm, and all trace that the Old Ones had ever existed here, guarding their signs, and waiting for him.

 

He had left it too late, he knew that. Forgiveness was not possible after a lie that had lasted so long. The world had moved on. His family had moved on, and he was no longer part of it. There could be no going home.

 

And yet this was right. It was something he had to do. The cold wisdom of an Old One told him that it was unnecessary, even foolish, but he had been born a human, as part of a human family. Foolishness, not wisdom, had caused him to contact Bran. Emotion, not coldness, had won Bran back from the Dark. He had to do what he felt was right. He could not take on the might of Dark if he did so with this lie on his conscience. He could not risk leaving the world forever unless he undid this wrong.

 

He raised his fist and knocked, hard and firm. Only after he had done so, did he realise that he had unconsciously used the same pattern of knocks that he had used as a child, before he was trusted with a key.

 

His mother answered the door, but her face was blank and wary. She's forgotten my knock, he thought, with a pang that he had no right to feel. His next thought was horror at how old she looked. He had watched his family from afar, but in his mind, they had always worn the faces they had worn when he was young. They had frozen in time for him, but in the world, Time always moved on.

 

"Yes?" his mother said. There was no friendliness in her voice at all. "What do you want?"

 

Will opened his mouth; closed it again. He had travelled here slowly, dragging himself painfully from Bran's apartment, hiding in corners, evading pursuit. He had spent ages wondering what to say, but all the preparing openings vanished from his mind, destroyed by the coldness in the eyes of a woman who was too old.

 

"You look…" His mother frowned, then shook her head. "For a moment, you reminded me of my brother-in-law… But, no, it's forty years since he last looked like that. You wouldn't have been born then. Silly me. My mind wanders, now I… But never mind that. Say what you have come to say."

 

"I…" He could not say it. It could not be said. "I…"

 

Maybe it was the way he turned his head. Maybe it was something in the way he spoke. Maybe it was the light behind him, or a smell, or a nuance in the way he moved his hand.

 

"Will?" Her voice was a raw grate of pain.

 

"Yes." There were tears in his eyes. He was not an Old One at all, but a child who had been lost forever, and now had found their way home. "It's me, Mum."

 

"It can't be…" The blood rushed from her face, and she tottered. He swept inside, supported her, led her to the chair in the hall that had been there for as long as he could remember. "Will?" she whispered, half-fainting. "My boy?"

 

He got her water, and brought it to her. Her hand brushed his, and it was as cold and white as bone. Water splashed on their two hands. She drained the glass, and clutched it with trembling fingers.

 

"You're a trick," she said, but gentle now, and oh so sad. "You're just pretending, to trick us into… Oh…" She shook her head, eyes gleaming with tears. "I'm a mother. I can't believe that. I can’t."

 

"It really is me." He tried to take the glass from her hand, but she resisted. Her other hand found his wrist, and there was as much strength in it as there had ever been.

 

"They never found a body, you see." He could feel her fingers trembling. "Not for Will, and not for that Welsh boy, either. All these years, and they were never found. Everyone told me not to hope, but in this world of ours, with so many bad things happening, if you don't have hope, how can you face each day? How can you live?"

 

He could not speak. He bowed his head and rested it on her lap. After a while, her hand came to lie on his head, like a benediction.

 

"I thought he might have been washed up somewhere," she said, "and not know who he was. Or I thought he might remember us, but not be able to get back to us. He was only twelve. My littlest boy. At least with James I knew he was never coming back. But Will… But… you…"

 

He raised his head, and settled down on his knees on the floor, hands folded on his lap. It was time for confession, but not for absolution, never for that.

 

"I knew who I was," he said. "I was never in the sea. I knew, and I could have come back to you at any time. I did, sometimes, just to watch. I wanted to so much…" He breathed in and out, calming himself. He was not here for pity, just for truth. "There were reasons not to come back. I had to be dead to the world. It was… No, I cannot say it. 'For your own good,' I was going to say, but I know what it did to you all, thinking I was dead. The alternative, though… Someone told me… Someone assured me…"

 

She said nothing. Her face was hidden behind the cold mask again. She had dropped the glass, and it had shattered on the floor. He had not noticed.

 

The whole truth. An end to lies. "I am a sorcerer, mum – or what the Dark calls a sorcerer. An Old One. A wizard, if you like. I was since my eleventh birthday. We were supposed to be defeating the Dark forever, that summer I went to Wales, but everything went wrong. The Dark won. You've seen the results of that in the world. They were determined to hunt us down, the few Old Ones who remained. They would have done anything to get to us. The others were centuries old, without ties in the world, but I had you. If they'd known I was still alive, they would have hurt you, to get to me. Everyone had to think I was dead. Everyone." 

 

She was silent. He had lost the ability to read her face.

 

"And because of that, we have hope," he continued desperately. "Only a slim hope, but hope nonetheless. Because it worked. They think they've won. They think all the Old Ones have gone. They've relaxed their guard."

 

His mother turned to face the open door, and gazed almost placidly at the world beyond this darkened hall. "Why now? If this is true, why come back to us now?"

 

"Because my master is gone," Will told her, tears welling in his eyes again. "He was the one who told me, back then. He wouldn't let me come. He forbade it, and he was the oldest of us, and the wisest, and I had to obey him."

 

"He kept a twelve year old boy from his family." His mother clenched her first. "It's just as well he's already gone, because if he wasn't, I would…"

 

"No," Will said. "Don't blame Merriman. He did what he thought was right. He always did. He always served the cause of Light, no matter what it cost him. He expected no more from me than he would have given himself."

 

"He was cruel, and a fool," his mother said.

 

"No…"

 

"You were a child!" his mother cried. "A child, and he kept you away from your family. We thought you were dead! It tore us apart."

 

"I know. I…"

 

"We wouldn't have told anyone, Will." She stood up with dignity and went to close to door, and stood there afterwards, showing him nothing but her back. "Did he understand a single thing about love? He should have known. You should have known. We would never have betrayed you, Will."

 

She was too calm. "You don't believe me," Will realised. She was calling him by name, but only because she no longer believed. She was humouring him, hoping to trick him into betraying himself.

 

She pressed her hand against the door. "I want to. I have never stopped hoping that Will will come back. I used to dream of the day."

 

"But you don't any more?"

 

She was silent for a while. "I still do," she said quietly. "I will still be dreaming when I die."

 

Will stood up. "I have come back, mum. Everything I've just told you is true, and…" He hesitated. No more lies. "James died in my arms, mum. I was his commander, but he never knew. He died, and I couldn't save him. My powers can't stop death. But afterwards I… I sent a friend to tell you what had happened. I knew what it had done to you all, when I disappeared. I couldn't undo that wrong, because Merriman… But I could stop it happening again. I could give you that much."

 

His mother said nothing. Only the faint shaking of her shoulders showed that she was crying.

 

Will made no effort to hide his own tears. "I wish you could believe me, mum, for your own sake, not for mine. What I want, I can never have. I know that. I can't be a child again. I can't expect you to forgive me. But you… I want you to know the truth. Hate me if you must, but please don't mourn me any more."

 

"Why now?" she said again, still showing him nothing but her back.

 

"Because…" He closed his eyes. "Because there is a chance now that I will be able to defeat the Dark, but if I fail, I will be gone forever, and even if I succeed, I may well be gone forever."

 

"So you come back," she said bitterly, "only to say goodbye. And I said that this master of yours was cruel."

 

"I'm sorry." He stumbled for the door. "Perhaps I shouldn't have come, but I wanted you to know the truth. I knew you wouldn't forgive, but I hoped you would believe."

 

She stepped aside. Will opened the door, and blundered out onto the path. The cat was still there, staring at him with resentful eyes. The garden was silent, with no birds singing.

 

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

 

Will paused between one step and the next. "I was, yes, but it's almost better."

 

It was a lie. In a very real way, he had died in Bran's kitchen, and had been born again with new wisdom, but in his old and battered body. His wound would heal at a human pace, but it could not kill him, and pain could be ignored. But what he had seen, when he had died… What he had experienced… It left nothing behind but a vague memory of awe. He had trembled on the edge of Time, but he had come back. This fragile earth was still his place, until his work was done, or until he failed.

 

She did not call him back. He walked almost to the garden gate, when he heard footsteps behind him. A hand on his arm, pulling him back. A hand on his neck; a kiss on his cheek.

 

"I'm glad you came," she said.

 

"You believe me?" he asked, but she did not answer. You forgive me? That could not be said. "Are you happier than you were?"

 

She took a step back, as if surveying him. "I need to think. You've told me so much. And I need to talk… My husband… The others… If you came back tomorrow…"

 

He shook his head. "I can't. But afterwards, if I can…" He did not want to say it, but it had to be said. "If I don't, then you will know that I have gone. This time, nothing on earth will keep me away, and only that."

 

"Gone?" she echoed.

 

"Not dead," he said softly. "My kind cannot die. We go out of Time and live somewhere else, in a better place. I glimpsed it, the other night, and it is marvellous. It is nothing to mourn."

 

"But not here. Not here with us."

 

He shook his head. "No."

 

"Go, then," she said, as she kissed him one more time, "and hurry back."

 

He walked away beneath trailing roses, but his tears made their petals blur until he was walking through a sea of red, like blood.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter eleven

 

Broken chains

___

 

Just act the way you've always done, Will had told him.

 

It was acting on top of acting. His whole adult life had been about playing a part. He had kept things inside, never showing anyone how he was really thinking. In the end, he had even fooled himself. Now he was Bran again, pretending to be Pendragon, when Pendragon himself had never truly existed. There were masks upon masks, and nothing else had ever been more difficult.

 

Every act, every word, was an indictment of what he had become. Every look, every word, showed how impossibly wrong everything was.

 

He parked outside the prison, in a place reserved for the governor. The Pendragon would do that sort of thing. He strode towards the gate, glaring imperiously at anyone who tried to get him to move his car. When asked for identification, he gave it imperiously, as if the guard was at fault for daring to wonder who he was. They fawned over him and trembled.

 

Pendragon would have thought it was good. Pendragon liked people to be afraid of him, because fear was better than mockery. Bran just wanted to fall to his knees and cry, "It wasn't me! That isn't me!" But it was. He had been Pendragon. He had done those things. He would have to live with that forever more.

 

Or die, he thought, as he let them escort him to the governor, one on either side of him, like honour guards to a king.  He had brought about the ruin of the Light. Millions had died because the Dark had won, and all because of him. Even if Will's plan worked, there was no place in the future for him. He was the most hated and feared man in Britain. No-one would ever forget that. No-one should ever forget that.

 

Most of all, Bran would never forget that. Even if Will said… Even if Will still…

 

"Here you are, sir." They had reached the governor's door. One of the guards announced him, and Bran went in, drawing his Pendragon cloak around him as he did so.

 

Just ask, Will had told him. Don't offer explanations. Pendragon would never have felt the need to offer explanations.

 

He had to act as he had acted for years, but it had never been so hard. Arrogance had become almost a habit, but now he doubted every word.

 

He thrust his shoulders back, kept his head high. No explanations, just a command. "You are ordered to release two of your prisoners to me."

 

******

 

When the guards came marching into the dormitory, everyone stiffened. Barney watched them lying on their pallets, and watched how each one subtly relaxed when the guards marched past, and did not stop at them.

 

He wondered who it was this time. He wondered whether to fight. Someone had fought one night, trying to stop them from taking his friend away, but two men had died in the end, instead of just one. Even so, Barney sometimes thought he would fight, if it wasn't for Simon. Simon had never recovered from the shock of defeat, and sometimes Barney feared that the hopelessness would kill him. There was little that Barney could do to keep his brother's spirit alive, but he did what he could, and thought that perhaps he made a difference.

 

They marched on, past the person two to his left, past his neighbour. There were only two people to Barney's right, and then it was the end of the room.

 

They seemed to walk past him, but he did not let out a breath, not yet. Just after his bed, they stopped. "Prisoner Drew. You're to come with us."

 

A great calmness descended over him. He stood up, and turned to straighten the blanket on the bed. Best make the bed for the person who gets this after I'm dead. He presented his wrists for the cuffs, and the guards fastened them without meeting his eye. The guards never did, except for the cruellest ones, who liked to see your fear and pain when they hurt you.

 

He followed them through the dormitory, back towards the door. None of the other prisoners looked at him, either. Some shifted awkwardly, but most were looking away, pretending that this was not happening. It's as if I'm dead to them already, he thought. He hoped they would be gentle when they told Simon.

 

They led him outside into the yard, still warm and light in the midsummer evening. He took one last look at the sky, wishing for more light, or else for true darkness, with its silver stars. He wished the fence did not obscure the trees. He would have liked to have seen trees again, once more before the end.

 

Another group was approaching from the other side of the yard. His calmness shattered. "Simon!" he shouted. "Simon!"

 

Simon did not look at him. He was trudging, in a posture of utter defeat. "Simon," Barney hissed, when they were closer. "Why…?"

 

"Did you do something?" Simon said.

 

Barney wondered. Had one of them done something to bring this death sentence on them both. Or was it someone outside: Jane, or their mother? They would probably never know. They would be killed, and neither of them would know the reason for it. Perhaps there was no reason, just a whim.

 

"We’ve been dead for years," Simon said. "This is just an end of it."

 

I don't want to die, Barney thought. "I don't want to die!" he cried. He started to struggle. There was hope! He had never given up hope. The Resistance out there, fighting, and the sorcerers, and art, and family, and love. Goodness had to win – it had to. He could not accept a world in which anything else was possible.

 

"I didn't," Simon said, "but…"

 

"Stop talking," the guards commanded. Barney was struck on the back, and Simon on the cheek.

 

I don't want to die, Barney thought. He looked at Simon, and for the first time in years, it seemed that genuine communication flowed between them. So much had gone wrong over the years. If Simon hadn't been bullied at school… If they had told each other when they had joined the Resistance, and fought side by side, with no secrets… If he had listened to his premonition on the day they had been captured… If he had done more, had tried harder, to bring Simon out of his despair…

 

"Good will win," he said, "even if we aren't here to see it. People are decent at heart. They'll overthrow this…"

 

"No," Simon said. "They aren't, and they won't."

 

A fist stopped him, bringing him to his knees. Barney started towards him, but was dragged back. A guard made as if to kick Simon's fallen body.

 

"What's this?" a voice boomed. It was the governor. He was an arrogant tyrant, but peering up at him, Barney thought he could see fear in his eyes. "Bring them straight to me, I said, with no diversions. Lift him up." The guards did so. "And follow me. Our visitor does not like to be kept waiting."

 

******

 

"Here they are," the governor said.

 

Simon glanced at the man sitting in the arm chair, and then could not look away. Pendragon! It was Pendragon, ruler of the school, commander, protector, bully, enemy. Despite everything, despite the years of disappointment and despair, his first thought was that this was a rescue. No, he told himself sadly. Things like that don't happen. This is the end. Things will only get worse.

 

Pendragon sat with his legs crossed, his face a mask of arrogance. "The sentence on you was too light," he said, "for members of the Resistance. The Resistance is mine. Strings were pulled by a traitor to save you from the punishment you deserved. He has been exposed now, and justice will be served."

 

Outside, Simon had told Barney that he wanted to die, because even death was better than this life. Now he fell to his knees. "Please," he begged. "You remember me? We were at school together, and you…"

 

Pendragon stood up slowly. "Unlike some," he said coldly, "I would never put friendship or family connection above my duty. I knew you once; I know you no longer. You are a traitor, and that is all. You are coming with me."

 

"To die?" Barney asked.

 

"It is not for you to question." Pendragon snapped his fingers. "Bring them to the gate." He spoke to the governor as if he was a slave. "If they are well cuffed, I will take them from there." He pushed back his jacket to show the gun at his side.

 

"You came alone?" the governor asked.

 

The look Pendragon turned on him could have frozen a summer's day. "Are you questioning me?"

 

"No, no." The governor shook his head. "I…"

 

"Then have them brought to me." Pendragon went to the door. "You don't want to keep me waiting, do you?"

 

******

 

They were cuffed in the back of the car, locked behind a bullet-proof screen.

 

I have to talk to them, Bran thought. I have to…

 

He was afraid. His hands were shaking as he gripped the steering wheel. He drove through the evening, heading he knew not where. Only the markings on his car kept him from being stopped and questioned by the checkpoint guards, but his progress would be marked.

 

He wondered if the governor was already on the phone to London, reporting what he had done. He knew he had aroused suspicion by driving two prisoners off in his own car, without any guards, but how could he trust any of his men to be party to this? He had awed them into obedience, and could only hope that he had awed them into silence, too. If he had not… If they talked…

 

He could not think like that. Bring them out, Will had said. That's what matters more than anything. Do it, Bran, please.

 

They were there in the mirror, every time he glanced there. Simon and Barney Drew, who had almost been his friends when he was a child, before the world ended. They thought he was going to kill them. He had to reassure them as soon as he could, but how could he? They wouldn't believe him. Even if they believed him, they would hate him.

 

I can’t, he had begged, but Will had said, You have to. His hand had closed round Bran's wrist, leaving blood-stains that he had found afterwards. I know you can. I trust you.

 

He had laughed derisively, then, but it was the only thing keeping him alive. Will trusted him. Will forgave him. Despite everything, Will still…

 

"I'm not going to kill you," he blurted out. "I'm not going to hurt you. I'm rescuing you, but that was the only way I could do it. I'm sorry. I had to… They'd have suspected, otherwise."

 

"It's cruel," Barney said, "to try and fool us with these tricks."

 

"I know you have every reason to hate me," he told them. "I've done terrible things, but I'm sorry. I…"

 

"Sorry," Barney said. He sounded almost like Will, so quiet and detached. "Does sorry make it better? Will you still be saying sorry when your men are torturing us to death?"

 

He looked at the road signs. Hours to go before he met Will. Hours to go before Will could take over, and he could hide.

 

"Why would you rescue us?" Barney said. "Because Simon knew you at school? I don't think so." His voice shook. He was far less calm than he sounded. Glancing in the mirror, Bran saw that Barney was crying. A voice did not have to tell everything, when it spoke in the darkness, from a face that was hidden.

 

They don't remember anything, Will had warned him. "A friend," Bran said. "Someone who knew… who knows your sister. He's called Will. He made me realise all the mistakes I've made. He asked me to get you out, and I did it… I did it for him, and for me, to atone…"

 

"You cannot atone," Simon said harshly. "The past is done. The past is always done."

 

"Yes." Clutching the steering wheel, Bran stared straight ahead, at the never ending greyness of the road. "But you can do what is right, even so."

 

____

 

Part three: chapter twelve

 

The key

___

 

He didn't come back.

 

It was just a foolish dream, Jane told herself. Why would a total stranger risk himself by coming back to her? Why would he care? She was rich and privileged, married to an important man. How he must have laughed, afterwards, that she had begged to be saved.

 

One day passed, and another. She was alone all day with servants who never spoke. In the evenings, her husband came home, with flowers and gifts. He had been in a particularly good mood since the last sorcerer had been destroyed, and he had been bright and gentle, and everything a woman could want in a husband.

 

I imagined it all, she told herself, alone once more in the morning. The sorcerers are all dead. I was lonely. I was still half asleep. She felt trapped, so her mind was conjuring up a saviour who could not exist.

 

He was never coming. There would be no ending.

 

She drifted onto the balcony, and stood there full in the sun, but not even the sun could drive away the shadows. She took a sip of iced water, and wiped her brow against the heat.

 

"Please don't turn around," a voice said. "Pretend you are still alone."

 

It was him. She knew his voice instantly, though she had only ever heard him speak a few words. "Can you read my mind?" she murmured.

 

"No."

 

"But you came back." She felt less joy than she would have expected. The shadows still clung, despite the sun. "You're going to…"

 

"I cannot save you," he said, "but I can tell you this: your brothers are now safe."

 

She gasped, and whirled round. There was no-one there. Of course there was no-one there. She was talking to a ghost, to a voice in her mind, to her own madness. "Please," she whispered. "Please…"

 

A hand brushed hers, warm and real. "People watch in the daylight," he said. "I'm taking a risk, but you needed to know. They're out of prison, and safe."

 

"I don't…" she stammered. "I can't…"

 

"I can't offer you proof," he said sadly. "I wish I could. Simon and Barney, your brothers. Barney liked painting, and dreamed of King Arthur. Simon played Prospero in a school play. I knew them. You won't remember, but I would never lie to you about this."

 

Safe, she thought. She brought fluttering hands up to her face. The world beyond her balcony sheeted into blue and sunlight, until there was only her at the centre of the world, and this soft voice beside her.

 

"How…?" she breathed. "What now?"

 

"I cannot stay." Another touch, this time on her cheek. "I cannot say what I need to say, in case…"

 

"I won't tell anyone!" she burst out. "I won't breathe a word."

 

"You live on the fringes of the Dark here," he said, "and some secrets cannot be said in this place, while you still wear that ring. But if you want to walk away from that, come after me."

 

"How?" she asked, because it was the simplest thing to say. All her other thoughts were impossible to express. 

 

"You will know." She heard his voice smiling. "You are one of the six, and the Light will guide you."

 

"But I…" She turned round desperately, looking from side to side. She wished she could see him. How could you judge a stranger just from his voice?

 

"If you come," he said, "perhaps we can start to change this world for the better. But it has to be your choice. If you come, though, come soon. I cannot hide from them for long, not like this. The pieces have already been set in motion. Simon and Barney…"

 

"They're with you?" she gasped.

 

"I have said more than I should." She heard him move as if to go. She could have grasped at where his hand had been, to keep him there, but she did not. "One thing, though. Your brothers are safe. They have been freed from prison. The only way to do that was to pretend we were taking them to something worse. If you are told that, do not believe it. But do not say that you already know. Then they will ask how you know, and then they will find me."

 

He went. She knew when he had gone, by the emptiness in her heart. She stood, world reeling around her. Minutes had passed before she realised that she could have begged him to take her with him now, but she had not.

 

Save me, she had begged him, but all he had done was given her the key, so she could save herself. She could take her mother, go away, and…

 

She stood. She barely noticed the sun climbing high in the sky, and clouds passing it, bringing patches of cold. A servant asked her what she wanted for lunch. She murmured something; ate it without tasting it.

 

Afternoon came. She could leave at any time, she thought. All she had to do was believe this stranger, this sorcerer. Perhaps he had lied. But why had he come back? To trap her? But why? She was nobody. And the government hated the sorcerers. The sorcerers were leaders of the Resistance, and Barney and Simon had been members of the Resistance. Why would a sorcerer try to get her brothers killed?

 

He was telling the truth. Reason told her that. Her heart told the same tale, even more strongly. There had been truth in his voice. There had been goodness in his eyes, the time she had seen him. Light, she thought. That was the word he had used. He was Light, and those he was opposing were of the Dark. The concept resonated deep within her, as if she had heard them before, but she could not remember where.

 

She was free. If her brothers were safe, then nothing was binding her to her husband. She could walk away. He had given her the key, and…

 

Evening came, though the light remained. It was almost midsummer, the longest day of the year. Her husband came home, and stepped out on the balcony to kiss her on the back of the neck.

 

Too late, she thought. Too late to leave without him knowing. Too late to run away without a word.

 

She realised that she had made a decision after all. She could not simply vanish; that was what her father had done. Did she want to leave him at all? She did not know. It should have felt like a liberation, to know that her brothers were safe. Instead, it felt like… what?

 

"Is something wrong?" he asked her, settling down on the chair beside her. "You look sad."

 

"I was… thinking about my brothers," she told him.

 

He did not like her to speak of them. Their marriage had started with blackmail, but he wanted to pretend that it had started with love. When she spoke about her brothers, the illusion shattered.

 

Today, though, he stiffened, and let out a breath. The authorities thought that Simon and Barney had gone to somewhere far worse, she remembered. Did he know? No, he was sure to know. Would he tell her? No, she decided. Of course he wouldn't. He had bound her to him by threatening her brothers' safety, and he could not so willingly give her the key to her chains.

 

"I…" He passed his hand across his brow. "I had news today. Your brothers… It wasn't any of my doing, but…" A sigh. She had never seen him like this. "Pendragon took them, Jane. I'll do what I can, but…"

 

A great and extraordinary peace stole over her. It's true, then! That was the first thought. But after that, and even louder, was, He truly loves me. He had told her this, though surely he had to know that she would…

 

Leave him. She finished the thought almost aloud. Would he beg now? Would he threaten?

 

"I'm so sorry, Jane."

 

She faced the railing, trailed her hand over the edge. He truly loved her. It was a warped idea of love, of course, because he had won her and kept her by threatening the lives of her brothers, but he had never raised his voice to her. He gave her everything she wanted, except for freedom.

 

Or maybe, she wondered… Maybe he did give her freedom, but she had never taken it. Except for that day she had agreed to marry him, he had never made any threats against her brothers. Perhaps he had changed. Perhaps he truly regretted the way their marriage had begun. Perhaps he thought it a love match, and she only thought it a prison because she had never tested the bars.

 

Would she leave him?

 

She really did not know.

 

"I… don't know what to think," she confessed. "I need… time."

 

"Time?" He looked lost. An imposing man, fond of his own way, he looked small and vulnerable, felled by just her words.

 

She really did not know. She could not decide, not so quickly. The world was not as she had thought it was. The was a possibility – a tiny, incredible possibility – that she might be in love after all.

 

"Just to think. Please…" She realised that her face was pale, that her hands were trembling, that tears were pouring down her cheeks and falling onto the railing. "A few days… I'll stay with a friend from… from when I was young." Because she had no friends now, and had not had friends for many years. "If… If Pendragon's men have my brothers, then they're dead. I need to mourn them."

 

"But with me," he begged her. "Please."

 

She needed to be cold. She had to be cold. She had to remind him that he had won her by threatening their safety, so he had no right to help her grieve. She had to… She needed to…

 

"No." She shook her head, and even managed a laugh. "Maybe it's hormones, with the baby. I just want time. I haven't been away, out of this apartment, for ever. I just need time."

 

"But you'll come back?" His face was naked, like she had never seen it. "You'll come back to me?"

 

She could not answer. She did not know the answer. The sorcerer had given her a key; she still did not know how she would use it.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter thirteen

 

Stories

___

 

"Do you believe him?" Barney whispered.

 

Simon looked up listlessly; not long ago, he had been struggling and fighting. The man called Pendragon sat stiffly in the neighbouring room, clearly visible through the open door.

 

"Are we…?"

 

"I don't know," Simon hissed, as if the whole thing was Barney's fault. "What can we do?"

 

Pendragon glanced towards them, then away, as if the sight of them hurt him. Call me Bran, he had told them, his voice stiff and not at all friendly. My name is Bran. But of course it wasn't. Barney had heard of Pendragon when he was still free, as someone to be feared, someone on the rise. Simon had never mentioned knowing him at school, but Simon never spoke of school. Barney presumed that Pendragon was one of the bullies.

 

"Well…" Barney frowned, struggling to think. In prison, the brain slowly atrophied. You learnt how to survive, but you did not need to think. There was nothing to plan for, and so you lost the ability to plan. "We can…"

 

"Nothing." Simon raised his cuffed hands. Pendragon had a gun; they had both seen that. "This is just…"

 

A sound at the door cut him short. In the next room, Pendragon's head started up. The expression on his face looked like wild hope, or terror, or something in between. Barney's own heart started to thud. You could not spend so long in a harsh prison camp without coming to dread a sound at the door, late at night.

 

A man came in, a stranger with brown hair. He looked deeply tired as the door opened, but as he walked into the light, the tiredness was wiped away, because he doesn't want us to know, Barney thought. He knew about masks.

 

When the man saw Simon and Barney, his eyes widened. Ignoring them, he hurried over to Pendragon, and spoke to him in a fierce whisper. "…left them cuffed?" Barney heard, and Pendragon muttered, "They don't trust me. They would have run away." What came after that, Barney could not hear.

 

"Have you seen him before?" Barney whispered to Simon.

 

"No." Simon shook his head, frowning. "No…" He sounded more doubtful the second time.

 

Barney watched the faces of these two men who held their fate in their hands. You learnt to read nuances in the Resistance, but the body language of these strangers was unexpected. Pendragon, so high in government and so feared, was almost deferent to this stranger, and the stranger, although berating Pendragon, looked almost the same to him.  As if Pendragon's a newly-tamed dog, Barney thought, and he's mastered him, but is scared he'll go wild again, if he makes a wrong move.

 

Then the stranger was heading towards them, leaving Pendragon alone and surly in his grey little room. He crouched beside them; touched their cuffs, but did not open them, not yet.

 

"I am a friend," he said. "You are truly free. When I untie you, will you listen to what I have to say?"

 

Barney studied his face, but you could not tell by appearances. Murderers could look mild, and gentle friends could have eyes that were harsh and cold.

 

"My name is Will," the stranger said. He touched Barney's cuff gently with his fingers, and it parted. Then the same with Simon's, metal slithering and clanking to the floor.

 

Barney rubbed his wrists. A moment later, he realised the meaning of what had just happened.

 

"Yes," smiled the stranger called Will. "I am a sorcerer. An Old One, actually, but that title is not known to people, while that of sorcerer is. I was also your commander in the Resistance, though we never met, as that was the way of things." He said it as simple fact, as if defying them to say anything.

 

Simon said it, though, his voice hostile. "You're too young."

 

Barney looked at Will's eyes, and did not think that they were young. Even when he smiled, his eyes were sad. "Not all wizards have grey beards," Will said. Barney wondered where the sadness came from.

 

Simon seemed about to say something, but Barney interrupted. "Why free us? Out of all the other Resistance members in prison, why us?"

 

"There aren't many others." This time, Barney understood the sadness in Will's eyes. People in the Resistance knew they could hope only for death if they were captured. He had never understood why he and Simon had merely been imprisoned. "But that is not the reason. You and Simon…"

 

There was a noise from the other room. Barney looked up to see Pendragon moving away, the chair falling over in his wake. Will looked after him with sympathy. Barney thought that hatred would be more appropriate. Pendragon must surely have killed many of Will's subordinates.

 

Footsteps sounded on the stairs above. Only when they were quiet, did Will sigh. "Sit down. Make yourselves comfortable." Pendragon had left them on the floor, cuffed to the radiator. Barney moved onto the couch, and Simon, glaring resentfully, settled down stiffly beside him. Will moved to the armchair, where he sat down with the stiffness of someone who was in pain.

 

"I have to tell you something," Will began, "that you might find difficult to believe. It is about a world of… magic, you might call it, but it is more than magic. It is Light and Dark – two poles that all the universe revolves around. On this earth of yours, the Light and Dark has been in conflict for thousands of years, fighting over the world of men. The Dark wants to rule men, and thrives on man's darkest desires. The Light wants man to be free."

 

"Good and evil, then," Simon said harshly. "Like in a little child's story."

 

Will nodded. "All the stories came from truth, and there is truth in all the stories. Light and Dark – a battle older than man."

 

"And let me guess," Simon said. "You're from the Light."

 

"Yes." Will inclined his head, seemingly unconcerned by Simon's hostility. "I am of the Light."

 

Barney knew the reason for his brother's harshness. Simon had always been jealous of people with abilities that he did not share. Barney was glad to see it still there. He had been so defeated in prison. Arrogance was far better than despair.

 

"But why us?" Barney asked. It occurred to him as he said it that he could have asked many other things. He could have asked for proof. He could even have laughed disbelievingly. Magic, in a world like this! But he accepted it. It did not even cross his mind to doubt it.

 

"Twenty-four years ago," Will continued, "the Dark rose up for what was supposed to be the final time. The Light gathered together in defiance. It gathered… champions. There were Signs and portents. The Dark was to be defeated forever, but… something went wrong. The Dark won; the Light was scattered. You see the results in the world today. The Dark is behind your government. The so-called sorcerers were the last remaining Old Ones of the Light, but the true sorcerers have been lording it over you for years, masquerading as men."

 

Barney swallowed. The truth, he thought, and, I believe it, and, Why? He ought to laugh, or cry. He wanted to leap to his feet and march on London, ready to tear down the Dark with his own hands. "Why us?" he asked again. "Why us?"

 

Will closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were still and clear. "You were two of the champions of Light," he said. "You two, Simon and Barney, and Jane, your sister, were the Three from the Track – three children of men who would play their part in the final defeat of the Dark."

 

Simon laughed harshly. Barney just felt cold. "We failed…"

 

"No!" Will cried. "You stood firm. You passed every test. No-one failed. The Dark was… too strong. It struck in a place we did not anticipate."

 

"Then why us?" Perhaps the truth was just too big, too impossible, for him to cope with, so he had to focus only on this question, endlessly repeated. "Why now, if the damage has already been done?"

 

"Because there is… a chance." Will appeared to be choosing his words carefully. "A chance that it can be undone, the thing that happened twenty-four years ago, if the same people are gathered, and on the same day, in the same place…"

 

"You want our help? Us? Me?" Simon sneered it bitterly, but Barney thought there were tears in his eyes, too. "You want us to help save the world?"

 

"Yes." Will nodded solemnly.

 

"But… But it's ridiculous." Simon blinked fiercely. "If this is true, why don't we remember it?"

 

"You were made to forget," Will told them. "It was too much. You were only children. Life was going to be hard enough for you without you knowing quite how much had been lost. Only through ignorance could you be kept safe, at least until you were old enough to make your own choices. As long as you knew nothing, the Dark would leave you alone, but if the Dark thought that you knew…"

 

"Prove it!" Simon cried. "Make us remember again."

 

Will shook his head. Barney noticed how stiffly he was sitting.

 

"Then I'm going." Simon stood up. "I refuse to play this stupid game."

 

Will folded his hands. His eyes were clear, but his knuckles were white with how tightly he was holding them. "Then that is your choice. The Light does not hold people against their will. But I would urge you… I would beg you… The world needs this, Simon."

 

Simon stopped with his hand on the door knob. "Then let me remember."

 

Barney watched Will's face. He saw him think; saw his eyes flicker briefly upwards, to where Pendragon was, on the floor above. "I can return your memories," he said at last. "I couldn't, before, because it was not my spell, but now… I can do it, but… Do you really need memory to believe?"

 

It was Barney who answered; it was Simon who froze. It was Barney who remembered the memories of beauty, and how they had sustained him in prison. And it had been Simon, then, who had turned his back on memories, because memories of past happiness only made the present more unbearable.

 

"Yes," Barney said. "If we are to be whole, we need our memories. We need memories if we are to be free."

 

Sighing like one shouldering a heavy burden, Will raised his hand.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter fourteen

 

Forgiveness

___

 

Some things could never be forgiven.

 

Bran sat in the darkness of an upstairs room in a dingy house. He could not hear what was being said downstairs, but he did not need to hear it.

 

They were drawing together, these brothers and their childhood friend. They were bonding, these men who had never wavered from the Light, who had never failed a test.

 

They were excluding him, and he hated it, and he hated them for it, and he deserved it.

 

He started to pace. You will never be forgiven, said the creak on the floorboards with every step. Never be forgiven, breathed the air outside. Never be forgiven.

 

He stopped at the window, leaning on the windowsill, staring at the darkness outside. If he let his mind drift, he could hear the voice of his dark guardian. If he let himself drift even further, he could almost see his mother, calling him back.

 

Come back to us, Pendragon. Come back to the Dark. We will forgive. You will have power as if none of this has happened. You will be loved…

 

Love. He bowed his head. The Dark had never loved him, had never shown him tenderness. His mother had spoken of love, but he had never seen her again, and it had been a lie anyway. The Light could not love him now, but the Dark offered nothing better. Only power. Only blood. Only fear.

 

It is better to be feared than cast aside.

 

He pressed his forehead to the glass. "Will," he whispered. "Help me. I'm so alone." Words never to be said out loud. Words that could never even be thought again.

 

Blindly, he pushed away from the window, and headed for the dim light of the stairs. Two steps down he managed, then, faltering, a third. "I remember!" he heard Barney gasp, and, "It was Bran! He betrayed us." That was Simon, horrified, triumphant.

 

Bran crept back into the darkness. They knew. Will had given them their memories back, so they knew the full horror of what he had done. There could be no hiding behind ignorance. They knew that the Light had fallen because of him. Will might speak soft words that pretended forgiveness, but Barney and Simon never would.

 

He sank down beneath the window, his knees to his chest as he curled up against the wall. He would never be forgiven if he stayed with the Light. He would never have peace of mind. He would never be free from this guilt. He would never be happy. He would never be loved.

 

Were the laughing downstairs now? He pressed his hands to his ears so he would not hear them. Will had known the Drews before he had known Bran, and the Drews had never betrayed him. Old friendships would win over new ones. Unblemished ones would conquer those that were rotten to the core.

 

If he stayed with the Light, he would be despised forever. If he stayed with the Light, he would despise himself forever.

 

If he returned to the Dark...

 

"No!" he moaned. "No!" He drove his forehead against the wall, and longed for and dreaded footsteps on the stairs.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter fifteen

 

Leaving

___

 

She learnt to keep her mind blank. When she stopped to think, the doubts came, leaving her clutching at the steering wheel in panic. What have I done? Oh, what have I done? Once, she pulled blindly into a lay-by, and sat there trembling, thinking of her luxurious home, and the man she had left, who loved her. Almost, then, she turned back. Almost…

 

When she stopped to think, she lost all sense of direction. She floundered, not sure whether to turn left or right, whether to go on, whether to go back.

 

She had no idea where she was going. When she stopped thinking with her conscious mind, she knew which direction to turn. Some distant magic was guiding her, tugging at her heart. It took her to places she did not know, through towns with names that were strange to her. She remained in England, but it took her to places she had never dreamed of.

 

It took her to a place where such things were true.

 

She was terrified of being stopped by the authorities. She had all the proper papers, but dreaded having to show them, in case her husband had issued commands that she was to be brought back. She trembled whenever she passed a checkpoint, conspicuous in her expensive car. Her husband had paid for her to have driving lessons years before, but a chauffeur usually drove her on the rare occasions she went out. She was sure she was committing errors. She was terrified that she would crash.

 

She drove along a street that reminded her so much of her childhood home, that she drove the next few miles with tears drenching her cheeks, thinking of her brothers, of her father, longing for a time when the future had been full of hope. She drove through an estate where soldiers patrolled, and blank-eyed children stared out from burnt-out houses. She drove on a motorway, and remembered when they had been full of traffic, and children have waved from the backs of cars, overjoyed at the start of the holidays.

 

And all the while, the call within her heart grew stronger and stronger, telling her that this was right.

 

Afternoon was heading into evening when she reached a small town, and then a hamlet, and then a shadowed, leafy lane. This is the place. She drove along the bumpy road. A short terrace of nineteenth century houses appeared on the left, overgrown with shrubs, and dingy with the air of neglect. The first one she passed, and the second. Here, she thought. She stopped the car. Here.

 

There were two other cars outside, one of them as expensive and sleek as her own. The other was dull and entirely nondescript, the sort of car that no-one would look at twice. That is his, she thought, but the other car worried her. It looked like government. It looked like the police.

 

Jane scraped her hands across her face. I should go. But that was the fear talking. That was the conscious thought. The thing inside her, calling to her, still told her that this was the right place. It still told her that this was right. It told her to go on.

 

She got out of the car, and pushed her hair back with shaking fingers. She felt like a child, diving into a swimming pool for the first time, sustained only by her mother's reassurance that everything would be well. Only faith sustained her. Everything else in her life screamed at her to run, but there was that kernel of certainty at the heart of her, telling her to go on.

 

Something flickered at the upstairs window, and she snapped her head up, but it was gone. A face? she wondered. Him?

 

 Too late to run. The door started to open. For an eternity, the gap grew bigger and bigger, until there was the sorcerer, smiling at her, but with weary eyes. "You came."

 

"You knew." It was not what he had intended to say, but she knew it was true.

 

"Yes." He nodded. "I knew you were coming. I did not know if you would reach the door. You could have turned back at any point. I did not know that. I could not have stopped that."

 

"You could." This, too, she knew.

 

"Yes," he admitted, "but I would not have done so, not without betraying what I am."

 

She peered beyond him. It was a dull house, smelling a little of damp and neglect, but something intangible about it shouted of home. She wanted to go in, she realised. To go in was to commit herself to this sorcerer and his cause. It was to ally herself with her husband's enemies. It meant closing doors forever, and never going back. But she wanted to. It spoke to her, called to her.

 

"Come in." This time even his eyes were smiling. He stepped aside to let her walk through the door, and stayed behind her as she went into the front room. One step in, then two, and she entirely forgot about the sorcerer. Two men were there, and they were… Barney! That was Barney! And Simon… They were here! They were safe!

 

She stumbled forward, falling into their arms. She babbled; she did not know what she said. They were thin, they were drawn, and she worried about that. They exclaimed about her pregnancy. She wept because she had feared every day that they would be killed. They told her, and she told them. There were tears and laughter and hands clasping tight.

 

Light faded outside. She found that she was sitting down, a mug of tea clasped between her hands. Simon and Barney were on either side of her, but the sorcerer was gone. Her throat was sore from talking, but there was so much she had not said. They did not know who she had married. They did not know the cost she had paid for their lives, but perhaps they would hate her, and not think it a cost after all.

 

Her elation faded, and it was then that the sorcerer made his appearance, slipping in quietly from the stairs. But another man was behind him, awkward and stiff.

 

"Him!" Jane gasped. "You!"

 

She could have screamed. It was all for nothing. Pendragon had found them all. He had tracked them down, and this was the end of everything. She was caught in treachery, consorting with sorcerers. This was it. They would all die here. Her baby – my baby! - would never be born.

 

"It's all right, Jane," the sorcerer said.

 

Then he was in league with Pendragon, too, a traitor to his kind.

 

"It's alright, Jane," Barney said. "He… Will says…"

 

She looked at Simon, appealing to him to support her, but she was just glowering down at his hands. Of course, she realised, Simon and Barney had gone to prison before Pendragon had risen to prominence. They didn't know what he was capable of. They didn't know him.

 

"Jane." The sorcerer crouched down in front of her. "He is who you think he is, and I am who you hoped I was. But anyone can repent. Anyone can change. It is now that matters, Jane, not the past. It is now."

 

No, Jane thought sadly, it's the past. It's always the past.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter sixteen

 

The gathering

___

 

They were gathered in a circle, unconsciously echoing the Circle that had gone. But that Circle had been united and true, forged by Light. This circle was fragmented already. There was no time for it to be forged as one. Each of them would have to face the battle disjointed and alone.

 

I wish I had more time, Will thought. Time was nothing to an Old One, but here, at the end of things, Time was the most important thing of all. Time for Simon to recover the confidence he had lost so many years before. Time for Bran to forgive himself. Time for the others to accept Bran. Time for Will to spend with his family. Time to say farewell.

 

There was no time. This fractured group was all he had. These fractured hearts would have to heal themselves, afterwards. He could not hide for another year, waiting for another midsummer. It had to be now.

 

He took a deep breath. Jane and Barney were looking at him expectantly, but Bran was looking down at his hands, and Simon was pointedly looking anywhere but at Bran. "You all now remember," he began, "how it was last time. What we hoped. How it… ended."

 

"Because of him." Simon spat the words out like poison.

 

"Because of the Dark." Will had said it so many times, and he was tired of it. "The Dark chose Bran as its target, because he was the greatest prize. If it had chosen you, Simon, you would not have been able to resist."

 

"I would have," Simon protested.

 

"No." Will looked at him until Simon was forced to meet his gaze. "You would not have. I know the Dark better than you ever will. You would not have resisted, nor you, Barney, nor Jane."

 

"But you would have," Simon said bitterly.

 

"I am of the Light," Will told him. "The Light is my nature. I cannot turn against my nature, but even so, the Dark has made me… waver, once in a while. With fear, with threats… once with my sister's life. The Light always offers choice. The Dark offers no choice, or else twists the choice so it becomes no choice at all. That is how it was with Bran."

 

"But…" Simon was clearly furious. Bran was gazing at Will with misery and desperate hope.

 

No time, Will thought. No time…

 

"I still don't think…"

 

Will raised his hand, cutting Simon off. He made himself tall, his voice terrible. "But we will not speak of this again. The Light forgives Bran, and who are you to question the Light? You will work together for the cause of the Light. I will not have the future of the world thrown away because you cannot rise above your past resentments."

 

He was weary when he had finished. So they will hate me now. He sat still, and did not blink. And I probably deserve it, but it matters not at all.

 

"The Light and the Dark," he spoke into the silence, "have fought for thousands of years over the world of men. Much came down to choice, but some was foretold. Some things had to be. When the time came for the final Rising of the Dark, either the Dark would win and banish Light forever, or the Light would win and banish the Dark, and then…" He stopped. No need to tell them yet what would come after.

 

"But the Dark did win," Bran said hoarsely. Will glanced at him, surprised, knowing what it had cost him to speak.

 

"No." Will shook his head. "The Light won every stage of the battle. The six were in place; the signs were gathered. But then, right at the end, the Dark tricked… they cheated, if you like. It was enough to scatter the Light and banish many of them, but some of the Light remained. It was not a proper victory."

 

"You mean it doesn't count?" Simon said incredulously.

 

"Yes," Will said. "I mean just that. It was not a complete victory. The Light won every other battle. As long as just one of the Light remains, there is still a chance to undo that final moment, that final slip."

 

"Then why wait twenty-four years," Barney asked, "if we could have tried again at any time?"

 

"We couldn't." Will shook his head. "While the Old Ones remained, the Dark was always on their guard. Bran was too well guarded. We could never have reached him successfully. We would never have had a chance to do what I am planning to do. But now… They think the Light has gone. They think they have won. They don't know that I am still here."

 

How much had Merriman foreseen, he wondered. Merriman had made him fake his death, saying it was for his family's protection, and perhaps it was, in a way. But had Merriman known, even then, that this chance would come one day? Had he known that the future of the world would one day hinge on the existence of one last Old One, when the Dark thought that all Old Ones had gone?

 

"Tomorrow is Midsummer's day," he told them. "Every year, the Midsummer tree blooms, although there are none to see it. There is still a chance to set things right. The Light had almost won. At the very end, things went wrong, but we will undo that error and…"

 

He faded out, eyes closing. "Will," Jane said quietly. "There are only five of us."

 

Will opened his eyes. "You three are what you were. Bran is still the Pendragon; nothing has changed that. But I am not what I was. I…" He could not look at Bran. "I died."

 

"But an Old One can't…"

 

"No." He looked at Jane, not at Bran, who had spoken. "We die, and we come back, changed."

 

Was this true for all the Old Ones? It was the one thing that the Book of Gramarye had been silent on. Did all Old Ones only come into their full powers after they had died as a man, and come back? Dying, he had hovered on the edge of Time and eternity. He had seen and understood things that had always been veiled to him. Merriman was part of him now. All the Old Ones who had ever gone out of Time were part of him, and he of them. He was no longer a boy called Will Stanton; he was Light.

 

His eyes were brimming with unexpected tears. "And there is a seventh." He looked at Jane until her hand, faltering, moved to her belly. "In the eyes of the Light and the Dark, the unborn can play their part, Jane. But not a harsh one. Whatever happens to the world, your son will be safe."

 

"But… But how…?"

 

"What are we going to do?"

 

He let them question him. His mouth opened, and spoke words, answering them. Inside, though, his mind was drifting.

 

He thought of his lies. Hinting to his mother that he would come back… And Bran, who thought he could face the future with Will at his side, championing him even when the rest of the world was hostile. And Simon, who needed help, and the baby…

 

"Do we really have a chance?"

 

He looked at their faces – at the lines etched in them by years of fear and misery in a world ruled by Darkness.

 

He had no words. He could not answer true. He breathed in, and out again. "It is better than no hope at all."

 

____

 

Part three: chapter seventeen

 

The tree

___

 

Simon wanted to burst out laughing. The only alternative to that was to sob.

 

It was ridiculous. Why was he still following? It was not even light, on a misty morning, colder than was normal in the summer, and here they were, climbing a hill in the middle of nowhere, readying themselves to take on the dark sorcerers who were the secret rulers of the world.

 

It was ridiculous. If it wasn't for the memories that Will had awakened in him, Simon would be walking as fast as he could in the opposite direction. But the memories were true. He wanted to be able to denounce them as a trick, but deep down he knew that they were not. They were true, and he had once played his part in the fight against the Dark, and this was a chance that he had to take.

 

But with such company…! Will, who led them, looked shattered with exhaustion, and Barney had pointed out to Simon the night before that Will moved as if he was hurt. Simon and Barney were muscled from their labours in the prison camp, but run down from poor diet and captivity. Pendragon was Pendragon, and Simon refused to think about him any more than that.

 

And as for Jane… Jane was pregnant, for crying out loud. Pregnant, and she wouldn't tell them anything about the father, except to say that she had married him, and he loved her, and she would tell them everything one day, afterwards.

 

Afterwards, he echoed. If we survive. If the world survives.

 

He did not like to think of that. Instead, the laughter came bubbling out.

 

He thought of himself as he had been the last time they had stood on this hillside, so many years before. He was the firstborn, the oldest son, quick to lord himself over his siblings, and quick to defend them, too. He had been the tallest at his school, leader of a large group of friends. And then the Light, too, had chosen him, singled him out. He and his brother and sister had been given a vital part to play in defending the whole world from evil, and it was wonderful, it was joyful, it was special, it was him.

 

But what had it led to? The Light had been defeated. Hope had led to despair. He had changed schools, and had suddenly and inexplicably gone from class leader to victim. He had been bullied, and it had shattered everything he had ever known about himself. Unhappy, he had drifted, until the Resistance had found him. For a while, he had relished the prospect of glory in its ranks, but even that had led only to disappointment. He had been captured, defeated, humiliated, broken.

 

Better not to hope. Hope led only to disappointment. Hope only meant that you could not cope when disappointment came. A more humble boy, who had kept his head down in his younger days, could perhaps have coped with the bullying at school. One who had hoped less could have coped better with being captured.

 

"What?" Barney drew alongside him. "Why are you laughing?"

 

"This." Simon thrust his arm out, indicating their sorry little group. "How ridiculous it is. How… doomed."

 

"Is it?" Barney blinked at him. "I do not think so."

 

He even sounded like Will now. Simon's laughter died; it had been closer to tears, anyway. "I have to," he found himself confessing. "I have to think like this. Earlier… When I didn't… I…"

 

Barney looked at him with sympathy. He's wise, Simon realised. Wiser than I am. Perhaps he's always been, and I've just never thought to notice. He wondered if people were doomed by their childhoods. He was the oldest; Barney was the youngest. It made all the difference in world when you were ten, but no difference at all when you were in your thirties. The difficulty came in realising this, and learning how to be friends.

 

"I think…" Barney bit his lip, as if struggling with a hard truth. "I think this is where it went wrong, for you, Simon. I think part of you remembered. You remembered defeat, and it made you lose confidence. We noticed it, Jane and I, from that summer onwards. It started when we woke up outside the hotel, and didn't know how we'd got there. It wasn’t the school that started it. It was there already."

 

Simon gaped. It felt as if Barney had thrust a fist in his stomach, winding him. It felt as if Barney had opened a door to the light, freeing him.

 

"Or maybe it was the Dark itself," Barney continued. "Maybe it was the Dark's way of punishing you for opposing it. It made you doubt yourself, and everything came from there."

 

"Don't," Simon rasped. He didn't want to hear any more. Barney understood him too well, and he couldn't bear it, he couldn't bear it.  "It's too late."

 

Ahead of them, a dark strip was growing out of the mist. It revealed itself as a line of trees, but ahead of them, shimmering a little with unreality, was the enormous pillar of the Midsummer tree, just as it had been when they were children, and Merriman had walked at their side, old and wise and infallible.

 

Barney must have been remembering the same. "We were too young to grow up," he murmured. "We were too young to lose our innocence. Merriman made up forget, hoping we could stay innocent for a little longer, but it was too late. The damage was done."

 

Ahead of them, Will and Pendragon had reached the tree, and had stopped at its base, close enough in the mist that Simon could barely see the gap between them. A fist of hatred closed itself around his heart. Pendragon had betrayed them all. He had no right to be there at Will's right hand.

 

"When you are young," Barney said, "you think that people older than you have all the answers. You know they will make sure everything has a happy ending.  But then you grow up."

 

"Then why are we following him, then?" Simon gestured fiercely towards Will.

 

"Because faith does not need to be blind," Barney said, "and he has given us hope, not promises."

 

Simon did not understand. Jane had almost reached the tree, but paused to wait for them. Simon walked forward, frowning. Each step felt slow and terrible, but Jane was smiling nervously. He made himself smile back, and the nervousness left her smile. For a moment, she looked almost happy. 

 

"Like the old days," she said.

 

Barney took her hand. Simon hesitated briefly, then took her other hand, and squeezed it. The three of them walked to the tree together, and even when they reached it, they did not drop their hands. 

 

"We are here," Will said. "We five, we six, we many." He pointed up at the tree, to a place that chimed with newly-awakened memory. "Watch for the moment, Bran. Silver on the tree."

 

Simon watched Pendragon. He wanted to rage at him. All the things he had done… All the terrible, dreadful things… But Will had forgiven him as if they were nothing. The Light forgives him, and who are you to question the Light?

 

I have every right! Simon wanted to scream. I was there, too. I was betrayed, too. We did everything the Light asked of us, and he betrayed us, but you still treat him as more important than us.

 

The mist was slowly clearing. Low in the east, the sky was turning yellow with the rising of the midsummer sun. There was no sign of the Dark. The five of them, so tiny beneath the enormous tree, stood still and silent, and none of them had any idea of what to say.

 

Last time, Simon remembered, there had been Lords of High Magic, and heroes of old, and armies. Last time, the whole universe had seemed to centre on this one tree in the middle of England. Now, they seemed to stand in a patch of land bypassed by time, watched by no-one. It would all end in a whimper.

 

I want to say something, Simon realised. I need to say something.

 

The tree exuded calm. It had been here for ever, showing itself only when needed, and only to those with eyes to watch. The Light had dedicated itself to fighting the Dark for a thousand lifetimes of man, and they had lost everything by this tree, but still they fought on.

 

I'm so small, Simon realised. So little. For twenty-four years he had been wrapped up in himself, concentrating on his own misery, or trying to prove that he was not the victim that the bullies had turned him into. Even now, just moments before, he had looked at Pendragon, and fumed with furious jealousy.

 

But he, Simon, had been chosen by the Light, and had fought well, even though they had been defeated.

 

And he, Simon, could play a part in the final defeat of Dark – a wild, impossible hope, yet a hope nevertheless. Against that, what did anything else matter? The future of the world was far more important than one man's pride and despair and regrets.

 

He was nothing against the might of the tree, and he was everything. He was a tiny speck on the face of the world, and he was the man who could change the world. Everyone could change the world, in big ways, or small.

 

"I want the Light to win," he said out loud. "I want us to win."

 

As soon as he said it, he felt silly, sure that they would laugh, but when he dared to look at them, he realised that they were all smiling. Some had tears in their eyes. Pendragon – Bran, he corrected himself – looked almost awed. Will looked pleased, even relieved, though Simon could not understand why.

 

They felt like an army. Before, they had been a rag-tag collection of individuals, with their own hatreds and flaws. Now, in their smiles, they were forged. They became a group, and this time, when Simon laughed, there was no bitterness in it at all.

 

"But now," Will said, when the smiles had faded, "the time has come."

 

He pulled a box out of his coat pocket, and behind him, in the west, the sky turned grey.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter eighteen

 

The Dark is Rising

___

 

The Dark came rising.

 

It was not like the last time, when the final confrontation had been foretold for a thousand years. Then, the Light and Dark had gathered their forces, and the Light came en masse, and the Dark was an army that filled the earth and the skies. This time, the Light was one Old One and a small group of mortals, one of whom had already betrayed him. But the Dark, too, was weakened, caught off guard.

 

Can we really do this? Bran thought.

 

A moment later, he realised that he had thought, "we", and he trembled, knowing that he had no right to claim to be one of the Light, even though he was fighting on Will's side in this final, desperate battle.

 

Will had opened the box and handed out the Signs. Bran dimly remembered dropping his, twenty-four years before, when he made his decision to turn from the Light. The children perhaps had clutched on to theirs, but Merriman must have taken them when the children lay forgetful and sleeping, and had kept them as a secret all these years.

 

"Merriman kept them," was all Will had offered in explanation. "I only knew about them afterwards."

 

After he had died – that's what Bran thought he meant. After I killed him. He could not forget the sight of his knife, stained with Will's blood. He could not forget the rage and the hatred that he driven him. He could not forget Will lying so still on his floor. Now Will said that his death had brought him wisdom, and this wisdom brought them hope, but that changed nothing. He had killed Will. He almost wished that Will would hate him for it.

 

They each held a Sign, and Will held two. Bran felt sick as he raised his high, clutching it in whitened fingers. The intervening years faded to nothing. He felt as if he was looking into a mirror, looking at his younger self, holding Sign and sword, staunch in the Light, determined to conquer the Dark. He had been so sure, both in hope and in friendship, and it had all come crashing down.

 

"Please," he whispered. "Please… Let me pass the test this time."

 

The Dark came in ones and twos at first. Some ambled up surprised, as if they could not believe that this was happening. Some came storming up in all the majesty of their fury. They brought storms with them, and a terrible, crushing darkness, like a giant fist pressing down on the earth and everyone upon it.

 

As the light faded, only the Signs shone true. Bran felt himself falling into the maelstrom, and he pinned himself to the shining sign of fire in Will's right hand, and the glistening black in his left. "I can't," he whispered. "I can't."

 

"Old One," a voice hissed, louder than the thunder, more intimate than a lover. "So it is you, Sign-seeker."

 

"Yes." Will inclined his head. "It is I."

 

"How clever you must think you are, Old One," Bran's dark guardian sneered. "To have existed this long, without us knowing. To have seduced my little Pendragon there. You think you are winning, do you not, Old One?"

 

The Rider raised his hand. Behind him, lost in the darkness, were other lords of the Dark, their bone-like fingers emerging from the mist to point at Will.

 

Will did not waver as he held the Signs aloft. "You cannot," he said. "I am protected by the Signs and the Circle. You took my master, but you cannot take me."

 

Laughter swelled from the darkness like the tearing sound of thunder directly over head. The hair stood up on Bran's arms, and the Sign of Light tingled against his fingers, almost enough to hurt.

 

"I have been to the edge of Time, and back," Will said, quite calmly. I have seen secrets. I am no longer a child, to be cowed with threats."

 

The Rider's eyes darkened. "Don't," Bran gasped in sudden horror. "Don't provoke him, Will."

 

"Ah, but I am provoked already, Pendragon." The Rider's mouth curled into a thin smile. "It is my nature, as it is his. It is not something you mortals can understand."

 

All the while he was speaking, Will was gazing fiercely at Bran. There was some desperate message in his eyes. The tree! Bran thought he heard. Watch for the blossom. Don't let him take your attention from the tree.

 

Bran tried to wrench his eyes back to the tree, but something was pressing down on him. The Sign in his hand grew heavy, and he had to hold it up with both hands. Darkness swirled in his head like madness. Dimly, he heard Jane moan. Barney was sobbing. Simon was on the far side of the tree, a lifetime away.

 

"Petty signs," the Rider laughed. "Relics of the past, and useless now. What ever were you thinking, Old One?"

 

Will did not reply. His face was white with the strain of holding up two Signs, and perhaps he was using his magic, too, to hold the Dark at bay.

 

"We have already won," the Rider sneered. "And now, because of this foolish attempt, you are flushed out. You fell into our trap, Old One. We have you now, and these traitors you have seduced. Our Pendragon laid a pretty trap, did he not?"

 

"I didn't!" Bran lunged towards Will.

 

"No!" Will screamed. "Keep in the Circle! Hold the Sign!"

 

Bran was rocked back to place by the force of Will's voice. "I didn't," he pleaded. "It wasn't…"

 

"I know," Will said.

 

"He lies," said the Rider.

 

Bran closed his eyes. As soon as he did so, the pressure on his mind lifted. The weight in his hands fell away. He was on a smooth green hill, sloping down to a golden beach. Silver waves rippled on the sand, and the soft breeze whispered through his hair.

 

"Bran," his mother crooned. "At last you have come back to me."

 

Bran looked at her. She raised her arms, offering love and sanctuary. She was beautiful, and she was his, and she loved him. She forgave everything, for he had done nothing that she needed to forgive. Everything he had ever done had been for the love of her.

 

"Bran." She spread her arms wider. "Won't you come?"

 

The sea was a silver mirror, and things shimmered beneath it, like a lost land, a paradise. He had dreamed of this place, he realised. He had dreamed of swimming here with Will, and dying with him, side by side.

 

"Don't think about him," his mother snapped. Then her smile returned again, but now that Bran had seen her angry, he thought he could see the coldness that always lurked beneath her smile.

 

"You are not my mother," he said. Tears welled up in his eyes as he said it. "You never were. I have never seen my mother. I never will."

 

"Does it matter?" His mother's face changed, and became the face of a Lord of the Dark, with silver eyes, and cheekbones like a knife blade.

 

"Yes." Bran backed away, but something lunged out and tripped him up, and he landed hard on his back on the ground. It hurt him, and he realised that it was no longer grass, but paving stones, made of grey marble. A castle was in front of him, with people lining the ramparts, but he was completely alone.

 

"As alone as you will be if you persist in aiding the Old One," a voice said in his mind.

 

There was no-one around him, no-one. He struggled to his feet, and hard laughter rattled from the distant walls. Gunshots fell short of him. A beggar shambled into sight, then turned away. The loneliness inside him was a clawing, rending hunger than could not be eased.

 

"You will never be forgiven," hissed the voice. "After everything you have done for the Dark, only the Dark will welcome you. In any other future, you will be an outcast."

 

He thought of himself sobbing at school, a five year old shunned by the others because he was strange. He thought of a boy who spent whole days running with his dog, exchanging barely a word with anyone human. He thought of Simon and Barney and Jane, recoiling from him in horror when they saw him at Will's side. He thought of himself, cowering in a dark bedroom, hating himself and what he had done.

 

"The Dark will forgive," the voice said, "for you have brought us such a prize as Will Stanton. The Dark will greatly reward such a service."

 

An army rode from the castle, but when it reached him, it stopped and honoured him. Ten thousand men bowed towards him, and a servant brought him a richly-caparisoned horse, and he mounted it, taking his place at the head of an army who feared him and lauded him and followed him. His sword had blood on it, but he could not feel guilt. He did what he did, and he reaped the rewards, and he never trembled.

 

"What future would you want for yourself?" the voice asked. "Power without remorse, or a lifetime of guilt and self-loathing, shunned by the people who tried to help?"

 

The army vanished. Bran fell to his knees on the marble, and pressed his fists into his eyes.

 

The Light has forgiven him, and who are you to question the Light? He had shuddered with awe and gratitude. Who am I? Who am I? Because he had not been able to forgive himself, but Will forgave him. Will would stand by him. Will would help him. And one day… Perhaps one day soon… He lowered his hands. "Perhaps, one day, I will even be able to forgive myself. Perhaps I can even be happy. Will says…"

 

"Will will be gone," the voice said. "He knows this. If the Light wins, you will be utterly alone."

 

"But…" He turned a full circle, seeking the source of the voice, desperate to see a lie on its laughing face. The castle faded away. He was alone forever, on an endless slab of stone.

 

He fell forward, and there was grass beneath him again, and he was staggering under the weight of the Sign, and Will was calling to him to stand firm, to be strong, not to listen, Bran, please, don't listen…

 

Bran's eyes were gritty. "Is it all lies?" He mouthed it, unable to speak. He could barely see Will's face through the darkness.

 

Barney, he saw, had fallen, but Simon was at his side, helping him up, and Jane had staggered round to fill the gap, decreasing the size of the circle. They were still standing, so small, so doomed, so valiant.

 

This is right, he thought, but there was no triumph in it. This was the cause he had to fight. Nothing else mattered. If he had to spend the rest of his life shunned and hated, then so be it. Let his life be dull, empty years of guilt and self-hatred, but at least he would know that here, at the end of everything, he had made the right choice.

 

"Now!" Will gasped.

 

The darkness grew until it was as black as midnight. The only light left came from the signs, and there, above them all, a tiny speck of silver, blossoming on the tree.

 

Bran had no sword. He watched the blossom opening, and it seemed as if all the powers  in the world were watching, too, for the darkness grew still, and air grew silent. Bran breathed in, and out, and it seemed to take an hour. On the edge of his vision, he saw Will sag forward, drifting gracefully towards the ground, with dark shadows entwined round his throat. He saw Jane's mouth open in a silent scream, and Simon laughing in frozen defiance.

 

The blossom opened, pure and silver. Bran leapt. For the Light! he thought, and his hand closed round it, and oh, it hurt! It was cold, like ice, like silver, like virtue in the heart of someone clothed in sin. Bran sobbed, and clung onto it. For Will! It hurt, and the tears that fell from his eyes were molten silver, and the pain inside him was like a sword of crystal through his heart.

 

Please, he whispered, as the darkness rose up screaming, and the world came to an end.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter nineteen

 

High Magic

 

____

 

Darkness absolute crashed down on the hillside, and then even the hillside itself crumbled, and there was nothing but Light.

 

Will floated, a pinprick at the heart of the universe. All around him, like statues carved out of hard grey stone, were Lords of High Magic. He did not know their faces. It was only the human part of him that gave them faces at all. Beings such as these did not have human form, except in the eyes of one who still remained human.

 

"We have been here before," they said.

 

The Light faded, and became the grey of a misty summer morning. The tree was there, and Bran, hunched over the blossom. Gasping darkness melted from Will's throat, and around him, held in a ragged circle, the Signs blazed with defiant light.

 

"The last time we were gathered here," they said, "it was supposed to be the ending of the struggle for this world, but it was not."

 

"Twenty-four years of man," said another. "Twenty-four years of wrongness."

 

"A world should have both Light and Dark," they said, turning to the hosts of the Dark, "or it should have neither. All worlds must one day be ceded to their children. What you sought was wrong." 

 

"Are we not allowed to use any tools we choose?" the Rider asked. "We acted within the law. You cannot stop us."

 

The lords inclined their heads. "True. But the Light, too, has acted within the law, to try to restore what should have been, to try to undo this wrong."

 

Grey mist sheeted across the sky, settling on everything like a quiet blanket. The Dark fell silent. Even Will was still. The only one moving was Bran, who slowly raised his head, the blossom clutched to his chest with one blistered hand.

 

A lord walked towards him, bare feet in the grass. "Which do you choose, my child?"

 

Bran's eyes flickered, but this was not Arthur. He stood up slowly, and his eyes met Will's, and there was something in them that Will could not read.

 

"The Light," Bran said. He said it as if it was a defeat.

 

The lord turned from Bran, and came to Will, a question in his infinite eyes.

 

Will looked at Bran, then met the eyes of this lord who looked wholly human to him now, but would never look like that again. "Yes," he said, in answer, and the deed was done.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter twenty

 

One goes alone

___

 

They woke up slowly, rubbing their eyes against the sunlight. Bran's hand was burnt; for a moment, he could not remember how he had done it. Jane groped for the Sign, but the Signs were gone. Barney dimly remembered them blazing with fire, then fading away to nothing, but Simon had forgotten the Signs entirely. His mind was brimming with memories of the lords who had appeared from nowhere, spoken, then gone away again, leaving the world changed.

 

It was Barney who spoke first. "Are they…? The Dark… Is it gone?"

 

"Yes."

 

They turned towards Will, each in their own manner. Why is he still here? That was Barney. Simon had to struggle to remember his name. Jane wept with joy. Only Bran looked at him steadily, knowing the truth, but still daring to hope.

 

"Then we've won." Jane felt subdued, rather than happy. She had dreamed of her husband, and he was the first thing she thought of on waking.

 

Will shook his head. "The Dark has gone, but the mortal rulers of your world remain. The Dark pulled the strings, but the puppets are still powerful. Governments are weakened, not overthrown. There is no magic wand to undo what has been done. There is much hard work, and years to go before things are restored to what they were before."

 

"They will never be restored," Barney said sadly, thinking of all those who had died. "The world is changed forever."

 

"But maybe for the better," Simon said, surprising himself. "You can learn through mistakes. People will know what's really important now."

 

"And we've got your magic," Barney said. "It will be easy."

 

Will looked away. The sun had risen revealing a day so beautiful it could have been the first day in the world. And in a way it is, he thought. This was how the world would look without Dark or Light. It was a world in which these people – my friends – would live and love, but it was not a world that Will would ever see.

 

Bran, though, saw nothing of the sunlight. He clutched his burned hand, and thought of his choice, and knew that he would be alone forever. I chose the Light, he wanted to cry. Isn't that enough for you to stay with me?

 

Will turned to Jane. "You need to know one thing. Your child will be… different. I know this. I have seen this."

 

Jane pressed her hand to her belly. "A sorcerer?" Her heart started to beat very fast.

 

"No." Will smiled. "Not an Old One. Not Light, although his mother was touched by the Light, and not Dark, although his father was touched by the Dark. There will be a new Circle for a new world. They will have power, but they will be human, too. They will live a normal life, and die in their time. They will be bound to their world by family and love. They will belong to the world they are fighting for, and not live apart from it, as we did. They will be human, and your son will be the first."

 

My son, Jane thought. "He needs his father." She looked not at Barney or Simon, but at Will. "I think I… I'm going back to him. He isn't a bad man. He…"

 

"I know." Will touched her cheek, and then the baby inside her body. He wanted to say more. He wanted to be an Old One, giving his blessing, but the human part of him just wanted to cry.

 

He's leaving, Bran thought. Is he going to tell us? Will I get a goodbye, or will he just go?

 

"Take me with you," he blurted out.

 

Will turned towards him, his grey eyes wide, as if he was afraid.

 

"My father…" Bran took a deep breath. "Before I… Last time, he… I mean… He was going to go out of Time, wasn't he, with Merriman? So if he can, why can't I?"

 

Will looked at him, walked to him, touched his palm gently, with cool hands that soothed the burn there. "They told you, didn't they," he said quietly. "They taunted you. You told you that no-one but me would ever forgive you for what you did, and that I was abandoning you."

 

"They said…" Bran clawed at the shameful tears. "They tell lies, though, don't they? They said I'd helped to trap you, and that was a lie. This was a lie, too, wasn't it?"

 

Will wished with all his heart that he could say yes. Instead, he touched Bran's cheek. "You know it is not, Bran. All worlds must be ceded to its children. You heard them say that. The Dark has gone, but so must the Light. I cannot stay. I only have these minutes because I begged them."

 

"Then let me come," Bran pleaded. "I don't want to stay here. They'll all hate me. They'll never forgive me, never."

 

"No," Will had to say. "I cannot. Your father could have done it, maybe, but that time has gone. I…" He sighed. "Oh, Bran, I can't do it. I can't play the Old One, not to you. I wish I could stay with you. I wish I could ease things, but I can't. I have to go. I can't stay, and you…"

 

"I can't go on," Bran whispered.

 

"You have to." Will grabbed him by his shoulders. "Think, Bran. Governments will be reeling at the moment, with their puppet-masters gone. You have followers and influence. You'd be in a position to really made a difference. You can take the police and lead it back to justice."

 

"But no-one will trust me," Bran said. "The people…"

 

"Barney and Simon will testify for you," Will said. "There are commanders in the Resistance who knew who I was, and will believe any message passed on from me. Put it out that you were enchanted, or that you were a Resistance agent who was secretly working from within to bring the government down. Say…"

 

"No." Bran raised his head, looking Will full in the eye. "If I have to stay, I will not do it with a lie. If they hate me, then they hate me."

 

Over Bran's shoulder, Will could see the Lords of High Magic lingering, waiting for him. They had no human form at all now, and only Will could see them. The others – friends and companions – saw only with mortal eyes. Will would never see with mortal eyes again.

 

I want more time, he wanted to sob - his last, human urge.

 

"Bran," he whispered, then stepped back, and hoped his eyes could say everything that his voice could not.

 

The others gathered round, drawn by something that they could not see. "It is time for the Light to depart," Will told them. "I will not take your memories of this. There is no-one left to guard this world, but neither are there enemies to attack it, except the enemies that lie in the hearts of men. But you have suffered much, each one of you. I lay nothing on you as I leave. Rest and forget, if you wish. Fight for the world, if you would. Return to loved ones. Be happy, and find hope."

 

He embraced each one of them, Jane first, and Bran last of all. Even Simon accepted it, caught up in the solemnity of the moment.

 

The last wizard. Barney thought of Merlin, in his childhood tales, and Merriman, who had guided them.

 

There is no magic left, just us. Simon shivered, not with dread, but with anticipation.

 

I will live through this, Bran told himself. I will.

 

"Goodbye," Will said, and, smiling, turned away, and was never seen again by mortal eyes, or on the earth that bore him.

 

____

 

Part three: chapter twenty-one

 

The world to come

___

 

Slowly, gradually, life resumed.

 

Governments toppled. Popular risings tore open the gates of prison camps, and for a while total anarchy seemed likely, until the police, with Pendragon at their head, asserted order with a firm yet gentle touch. Talks were convened. Trust was slowly built, where before there had only been hostility. The new leader of the Resistance met with Bran Pendragon in private, and much was said, and, months later, everyone was more or less agreed that things had started to turn around at that point.

 

On a warm day in autumn, Jane gave birth to her son. She looked deeply into its eyes for signs of magic, but she saw only love. "I want to call him Will," she told her husband, and he let her have her way. He did that often, now. He had lost his job and they had lost their rich apartment, but she was fairly sure now that she would stay with him, at least for a while. She still did not say so, though, just in case.

 

When the first elections were held, Barney Drew was amazed to be elected to Parliament. He saw Bran briefly at the inauguration ceremony, but few people saw Bran after that.

 

"I don't think he's dead," Simon said one night, almost nine months after the midsummer morning that had been both the ending and the beginning of a world.

 

Barney frowned. "I hope not."

 

Bran had been vital to the smooth changeover of government, but there had never been a place in the new world for him. The people were ready to forgive him his worst sins, but they could not see a man like that continue in power. Nor, Barney suspected, did Bran want to stay in power. He had briefly taken control only because Will had wanted it. As soon as the country was stable again, he had vanished.

 

Simon, much to everyone's surprise, had decided to stay at home and look after his mother, while studying at home through one of the newly-re-established universities. "I don't know what I want to do," he admitted, "but I mean to find out." One night, after a few drinks, he confessed more. "I've been trying to prove something all my life, you see, but now I can just be me, whoeever I am."

 

Jane's baby had its first birthday, and his parents were still together. I can leave at any time, Jane had told herself, every single morning for nearly a year. But now, on the morning of her child's birthday, she realised that she had not needed to tell herself that for months. I'm going to stay, she thought. This time she said it, and her husband's smile almost broke her heart.

 

Christmas approached, but, before that, the darkest night of the year. In a house in Buckinghamshire, an old couple raised a glass. "To Will," they said. "To our son."

 

The pale-skinned man on the other side of the hearth raised his own glass in return. "To Will."

 

He had come a year before, terrified of his welcome, but knowing only that he had to bring them news of Will's final hours. Instead, he had found himself embraced. He had stayed one night, and then two. Yes, they knew who he was, but they were too old to bear grudges, and Will had always spoken so fondly of Bran when he was young. They were lonely, it seemed, since all their children had left home, and they had this great huge house, just crying out for someone to stay.

 

"To Will." Bran lowered the glass, and afterwards, he stood in his room, in the room that had once been Will's, and looked out over the dark treetops, to the stars that shone in the night, each one a gleam of purest Light.

 

******

 

END

 

******

 

Thank you for reading. I hope you liked it. I can tell from my website stats that quite a lot of people have been following this, but have you been enjoying it? Yes, I know common sense ought to tell me that people wouldn't bother following a story through 51 parts and 3 weeks unless they were getting at least something from it, but, still… I'm just insecure as a writer, and always have been.

 

Feedback would be lovely. You can email me here. You can drop me a note on my Livejournal. (Anonymous comments are fine, too, so you don't have to be a LJ user to do this.) You can add a review on fanfiction.net.

 

Once again, thanks for reading!

 

******

 

Rambling author's note

 

This was the most challenging thing I've ever written. When I wrote the original drabbles, I had never planned them to lead to a long story. The drabbles were set 24 years after the end of Silver on the Tree. In other words, they were set very near the end of the story. While I saw certain things very clearly – Simon and Barney in their prison camp, Jane in her gilded cage, Bran as head of the secret police – I didn't know how they'd got to those positions.

 

This meant that when I decided to expand the drabbles into a longer story, I was effectively writing the story backwards. I knew where the characters ended up, but I did not yet know how they'd got there. Normally I start a story with only a vague idea of where it's going. The characters take over and usually end up taking the story to places I'd never expected them to. I couldn't let this happen in this story. Simon and Barney had to end up in that prison camp. Bran had to end up head of the secret police. And so on.

 

This was rendered even more complicated by my decision to adhere to anything that I'd written in the drabbles, and to change nothing. I wanted "The World to Come" to be a story expanded out of those drabbles, not a story loosely inspired by them. A single word in those drabbles could lead to a whole plot arc in the long story that resulted from them, which usually was great, but sometimes caused me trouble.

 

For example, Simon's entire plot arc grew out of his listlessness in the original drabble. He seemed so defeated – more so than Barney. Why? I mused about the answer, and his entire story emerged – his awful experiences at school, his high hopes in the Resistance etc. Another example comes from Jane's drabble, when she thought that Will was "one of those Resistance sorcerers." From this came the whole storyline of the Old Ones in the Resistance. From this also came the whole "sorcerer" issue – i.e. the Dark going public about the Old Ones, branding them as "sorcerers." Even though I was never entirely happy with this, I had to stick with it. Jane had thought "sorcerer" in the drabble, and this needed to make sense.

 

The other challenging thing about the story was the sheer length of time it covered. I normally write fairly intense stories, that cover only a few days. I rarely have more than a few hours between scenes. In this story, however, I had 24 years to cover, from 6 different viewpoints. If I wrote in my usual way, I would end up with a 10,000 page story.

 

I decided to write it as a collection of vignettes and short stories, each one focusing on one character alone. I felt that this was the only way I could cover the time properly, and also this fitted in with the feel of the original drabbles. However, this caused its own problems. I was seeing a snapshot of a character aged 17, and was then not seeing them again until I glimpsed them aged 26. It was a challenge to keep hold of the characters. It also meant that every single chapter was like chapter one of a new story. I always find beginnings hard, but in this story, I had 51 beginnings.

 

Yet, at the same time, it was a really enjoyable experience to write. It took me a long time, but I made it.

 

I am now jumping into Diana Wynne Jones fandom to write a sequel to "A tale of two wizards." After all this angst, some quirky comedy-adventure is just what I need.

 

___

 

Original drabbles:

 

Memories

 

"Do you remember," Simon asked, "what it was like… before?"

 

Barney chewed his dry bread. Sunlight. Colour. Smiles.

 

"Of course, you were just a child. I envy that, sometimes. It's worse, remembering."

 

Barney smiled. "But you're wrong, Simon."

 

Sunlight dancing on water. Children laughing. A leaf in autumn. A brush moving on canvas, and mother's smile.

 

"Memories are like paintings," he said. "They make the world seem less bleak."

 

"Or make the darkness seem darker." Simon curled his chained fist. "Things won't change. Better not to hope."

 

"Never think…"

 

But the overseer returned, and there was no more talking that day. 

___

 

Chains

 

He was chained at last.

 

The lords of Darkness lurked behind every throne. The four who stepped from behind the curtain were a power not even he could resist.

 

The least of them turned to the brown-haired general who thought he ruled the land. "Oh, well done, sir. This will shatter them forever. Their last sorcerer." His grabbed Merriman's chin. "The last of your kind, Old One. Think on that, in your eternity of despair."

 

Laughing, they blasted him out of time, but they never touched his secret, locked in his heart. It, too, was chained. 

 

Not the last. One remains.

___

 

In the mirror

 

Once, he had been unloved. Once, he had been powerless.

 

Then the foul sorcerers had come, to make him their slave. They wanted the world to stay as it always had been, but why on earth would he want that? That world was teasing and loneliness, and so he had raised his sword, turned on those false friends…

 

And the world had fallen into place around him.

 

Those who had once teased him now fawned on him, or trembled. "It's better this way," he said.

 

The face in the mirror looked back at him, and did not know how to smile.

___

 

Gilded cage

 

Far below her golden balcony, a man was on the run, shot at by Pendragon's men.

 

Jane turned away, and the same man appeared before her, dirty and bloodied. Jane clapped her jewelled hand to her mouth. "How did you…?"

 

Sorcery. It had to be. But weren't the sorcerers dead? A sorcerer from the Resistance. But her brothers had already… It would break her mother's heart if she… That's why she had married…

 

"Please…" Leave me, she meant to say, but, "Please save me…" The words wrenched out of her throat.

 

He nodded once. "But another first." And then he was gone.

___

 

Second meeting

 

The most feared man alive stood alone on a threshold.

 

Will readied himself in the shadows. For years, Merriman had forbidden Will from doing this, but Merriman was gone. Will was leader of the Resistance now, the only Old One left in the world…

 

And very possibly a monumental fool.

 

Fifteen years ago, the Dark had come rising, and the Dark had won. Cruelty and terror had claimed the world, but Will had never given up hope, and never would, until… Unless…

 

Taking a deep breath, he stepped forward. "Hello, Bran."

 

Bran raised his hand. "Will Stanton," he said, and he smiled.