And the fire went out.
All at once the room was chill — and darker. The ring of candle flames on the table burned on, in a small cold pool of their own light only. Will spun round, staring in consternation at the hearth; there was no hint of smoke, or water, or of any way in which the fire could possibly have died. But dead it was, cold and black, without a spark. He moved towards it slowly. Merriman and the old lady said no word, and did not stir. Will bent and touched the blackened logs in the hearth, and they were cold as stone — yet furred with a layer of new ash that fell away under his fingers into a white dust. He stood up, rubbing his hand slowly up and down his trouser-leg, and looked helplessly at Merriman. The man’s deep eyes burned like black candle flames, but there was compassion in them, and as Will glanced nervously across at the old lady, he saw a kind of tenderness in her face too. She said gently: “It’s a little cold, Will.”
For a timeless interval that was no more than the flicker of a nerve, Will felt a screaming flash of panic, a memory of the fear he had felt in the dark nightmare of the snowstorm; then it was gone, and in the peace of its vanishing he felt somehow stronger, taller, more relaxed. He knew that in some way he had accepted the power, whatever it was, that he had been resisting, and he knew what he must do. Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and stood straight and firm there in the great hall. He smiled at the old lady; then looked past her, at nothing, and concentrated on the image of the fire. Come back, fire, he said in his mind. Burn again. And the light was dancing over the tapestried walls once more, and the warmth of the flames was back on his neck, and the fire burned.
“Thank you,” the old lady said.
“Well done,” said Merriman softly, and Will knew that he was not speaking merely of the extinguishing and relighting of a fire.
“It is a burden,” Merriman said. “Make no mistake about that. Any great gift or power or talent is a burden, and this more than any, and you will often long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done. If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law. And it is just as well, young Will, that you have only a glimmering of an idea of the gift that is in you, for until the first ordeals of learning are over, you will be in great danger. And the less you know of the meaning of your power, the better able it will be to protect you as it has done for the last ten years.”
He gazed at the fire for a moment, frowning. “I will tell you only this: that you are one of the Old Ones, the first to have been born for five hundred years, and the last. And like all such, you are bound by nature to devote yourself to the long conflict between the Light and the Dark. Your birth, Will, completed a circle that has been growing for four thousand years in every oldest part of this land: the circle of the Old Ones. Now that you have come into your power, your task is to make that circle indestructible. It is your quest to find and to guard the six great Signs of the Light, made over the centuries by the Old Ones, to be joined in power only when the circle is complete. The first Sign hangs on your belt already, but to find the rest will not be easy. You are the Sign-Seeker, Will Stanton. That is your destiny, your first quest. If you can accomplish that, you will have brought to life one of the three great forces that the Old Ones must turn soon towards vanquishing the powers of the Dark, which are reaching out now steadily and stealthily over all this world.”
The rhythms of his voice, which had been rising and falling in an increasingly formal pattern, changed subtly into a kind of chanted battle cry; a call, Will thought suddenly, with a chill tightening his skin, to things beyond the great hall and beyond the time of the calling. “For the Dark, the Dark is rising. The Walker is abroad, the Rider is riding; they have woken, the Dark is rising. And the last of the Circle is come to claim his own, and the circles must now all be joined. The white horse must go to the Hunter, and the river take the valley; there must be fire on the mountain, fire under the stone, fire over the sea. Fire to burn away the Dark, for the Dark, the Dark is rising!”
He stood there tall as a tree in the shadowed room, his deep voice ringing out in an echo, and Will could not take his eyes from him. The Dark is rising. That was exactly what he had felt last night. That was what he was beginning to feel again now, a shadowy awareness of evil pricking at his fingertips and the top of his spine, but for the life of him he could not utter a word. Merriman said, in a singsong tone that came strangely from his awesome figure, as if he were a child reciting:
When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back,
Three from the circle, three from the track;
Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone;
Five will return, and one go alone.
Then he swept forward out of the shadow, past the old lady, still and bright-eyed in her high-backed chair; with one hand he raised one of the thick white candles out of the burning ring, and with the other swung Will towards the towering side wall.
“Look well, for each moment, Will,” he said. “The Old Ones will show something of themselves, and remind the deepest part of you. For one moment, look at each.” And with Will beside him he strode long-legged round the hall, holding the candle aloft again and again beside each of the hanging tapestries on the walls. Each time, as if he had commanded it, one bright image shone for an instant out of each glowing embroidered square, as bright and deep as a sunlit picture seen through a window-frame. And Will saw.
He saw a may tree white with blossom, growing from the thatched roof of a house. He saw four great grey standing stones on a green headland over the sea. He saw the empty-eyed grinning white skull of a horse, with a single stubby broken horn in the bony forehead and red ribbons wreathing the long jaws. He saw lightning striking a huge beech tree and, out of the flash, a great fire burning on a bare hillside against a black sky.
He saw the face of a boy not much older than himself, staring curiously into his own: a dark face beneath light-streaked dark hair, with strange cat-like eyes, the pupils light-bordered but almost yellow within. He saw a broad river in flood and beside it a wizened old man perched on an enormous horse. As Merriman whirled him inexorably from one picture to the next, he saw suddenly with a flash of terror the brightest image of all: a masked man with a human face, the head of a stag, the eyes of an owl, the ears of a wolf, and the body of a horse. The figure leapt, tugging at some lost memory deep within his mind.
“Remember them,” Merriman said. “They will be a strength.”
Will nodded, then stiffened. All at once he heard noises growing outside the hall, and knew with a dreadful shock of certainty why it was that he had felt such uneasiness a short time before. While the old lady sat motionless in her chair, and he and Merriman stood again beside the hearth, the great hall was filled suddenly with a hideous mixture of moaning and mumbling and strident wailing, like the caged voices of an evil zoo. It was a sound more purely nasty than any he had ever heard.
The hair prickled at the back of Will’s neck, and then suddenly there was silence. A log fell, rustling, in the fire. Will heard the blood beating in his veins. And into the silence a new sound came from somewhere outside, beyond the far wall: the heart-broken, beseeching whine of a forsaken dog, calling in panic for help and friendliness. It sounded exactly as Raq and Ci, their own dogs, had sounded when they were puppies crying for comfort in the dark; Will felt himself dissolve into sympathy, and he turned instinctively towards the sound.
“Oh, where is it? Poor thing —”
As he looked at the blank stone of the far wall, he saw a door take shape in it. It was not a door like the huge vanished pair by which he had entered, but far smaller; an odd, pinched little door looking totally out of place. But he knew he could open it to help the imploring dog. The animal whined again in more acute misery than before; louder, more pleading, in a desperate half-howl. Will swung impulsively forward to run to the door; then was frozen in mid-step by Merriman’s vo
ice. It was soft, but cold as winter stone.
“Wait. If you saw the shape of the poor sad dog, you would be greatly surprised. And it would be the last thing you would ever see.”
Incredulous, Will stood and waited. The whining died away, in a last long howl. There was silence for a moment. Then all at once he heard his mother’s voice from behind the door.
“Will? Wiii — iill. . . .Come and help me, Will!” It was unmistakably her voice, but filled with an unfamiliar emotion: there was in it a note of half-controlled panic that horrified him. It came again. “Will? I need you . . . where are you, Will? Oh, please, Will, come and help me — ” And then an unhappy break at the end, like a sob.
Will could not bear it. He lurched forward and ran towards the door. Merriman’s voice came after him like a whiplash. “Stop!”
“But I must go, can’t you hear her?” Will shouted angrily.“They’ve got my mother: I’ve got to help — ”
“Don’t open that door!” There was a hint of desperation in the deep voice that told Will, through instinct, that in the last resort Merriman was powerless to stop him.
“That is not your mother, Will,” the old lady said clearly.
“Please, Will!” his mother’s voice begged.
“I’m coming!” Will reached out to the door’s heavy latch, but in his haste he stumbled, and knocked against the great head-high candlestick so that his arm was jarred against his side. There was a sudden searing pain in his forearm, and he cried out and dropped to the floor, staring at the inside of his wrist where the sign of the quartered circle was burned agonisingly red into his skin. Once more the iron symbol on his belt had caught him with its ferocious bite of cold; it burned this time with a cold like white heat, in a furious flaring warning against the presence of evil — the presence that Will had felt but forgotten. Merriman and the old lady still had not moved. Will stumbled to his feet and listened, while outside the door his mother’s voice wept, then grew angry, and threatened; then softened again and coaxed and cajoled; then finally ceased, dying away in a sob that tore at him even though his mind and senses told him it was not real.
And the door faded with it, melting like mist, until the grey stone wall was solid and unbroken as before. Outside, the dreadful inhuman chorus of moaning and wailing began again.
The old lady rose to her feet then and came across the hall, her long green dress rustling gently at every step. She took Will’s hurt forearm in both her hands and put her cool right palm over it. Then she released him. The pain in Will’s arm was gone, and where the red burn had been he saw now the shiny, hairless skin that grows in when a burn has been long healed. But the shape of the scar was clear, and he knew he would bear it to the end of his life; it was like a brand.
The nightmare sounds beyond the wall rose and fell in uneven waves.
“I’m sorry,” Will said miserably.
“We are besieged, as you see,” Merriman said, coming forward to join them. “They hope to gain a hold over you while you are not yet grown into your full power. And this is only the beginning of the peril, Will. Through all this midwinter season their power will be waxing very strong, with the Old Magic able to keep it at a distance only on Christmas Eve. And even past Christmas it will grow, not losing its high force until the Twelfth Day, the Twelfth Night — which once was Christmas Day, and once before that, long ago, was the high winter festival of our old year.”
“What will happen?” Will said.
“We must think only of the things that we must do,” the old lady said. “And the first is to free you from the circle of dark power that is drawn now round this room.”
Merriman said, listening intently, “Be on your guard. Against anything. They have failed with one emotion; they will try to trap you through another next.”
“But it must not be fear,” she said. “Remember that, Will. You will be frightened, often, but never fear them. The powers of the Dark can do many things, but they cannot destroy. They cannot kill those of the Light. Not unless they gain a final dominion over the whole earth. And it is the task of the Old Ones — your task and ours — to prevent that. So do not let them put you into fear or despair.”
She went on, saying more, but her voice was drowned like a rock submerged in a high-tide wave, as the horrible chorus that whined and keened outside the walls rose louder, louder, faster and angrier, into a cacophony of screeches and unearthly laughter, shrieks of terror and cackles of mirth, howlings and roars. As Will listened, his skin crept and grew damp.
As if in a dream he heard Merriman’s deep voice ring out through the dreadful noise, calling him. He could not have moved if the old lady had not taken his hand, drawing him across the room, back towards the table and the hearth, the only cave of light in the dark hall. Merriman spoke close to his ear, swift and urgent, “Stand by the circle, the circle of light. Stand with your back to the table, and take our hands. It is a joining they cannot break.”
Will stood there, his arms spread wide, as out of sight beside him each of them took one of his hands. The light of the fire in the hearth died, and he became aware that behind him the flames of the candle-circle on the table had grown tall, gigantic, so high that when he tilted back his head he could see them rising far over him in a white pillar of light. There was no heat from this great tree of flame, and though it glowed with great brilliance it cast no light beyond the table. Will could not see the rest of the hall, not the walls nor the pictures nor any door. He could see nothing but blackness, the vast black emptiness of the awful looming night.
This was the Dark, rising, rising to swallow Will Stanton before he could grow strong enough to do it harm. In the light from the strange candles, Will held fast to the old lady’s frail fingers, and Merriman’s wood-hard fist. The shrieking of the Dark grew to an intolerable peak, a high triumphant whinnying, and Will knew without sight that before him in the darkness the great black stallion was rearing up as it had done outside the hut in the woods, with the Rider there to strike him down if the new-shod hooves did not do their work. And no white mare this time could spring from the sky to his rescue.
He heard Merriman shout, “The tree of flame, Will! Strike out with the flame! As you spoke to the fire, speak to the flame, and strike!”
In desperate obedience Will filled his whole mind with the picture of the great circle of tall, tall candle-flames behind him, growing like a white tree; and as he did so, he felt the minds of his two supporters doing the same, knew that the three of them together could accomplish more than he ever imagined. He felt a quick pressure in each hand from the hand holding it, and he struck forward in his mind with the column of light, lashing it out as if it were a giant whip. Over his head there came a vast crashing flash of white light, as the tall flames reared forward and down in a bolt of lightning, and a tremendous shriek from the darkness beyond as something — the Rider, the black stallion, both — fell away, out, down, endlessly down.
And in the gap cleft in the darkness there before them, while he still blinked dazzled eyes, stood the two great carved wooden doors through which he had first come into the hall.
In the sudden silence Will heard himself shout triumphantly, and he leapt forward, tugging free of the hands that held his own, to run to the doors. Both Merriman and the old lady cried out in warning, but it was too late. Will had broken the circle, he was standing alone. No sooner did he realise it than he felt giddy, and staggered, clutching his head, a strange ringing sound beginning to thrum in his ears. Forcing his legs to move, he lurched to the doors, leaned against them, and beat feebly on them with his fists. They did not move. The eerie ringing in his head grew. He saw Merriman moving up before him, walking with great effort, leaning far forward as though he were straining against a high wind.
“Foolish,” Merriman gasped. “Foolish, Will.” He seized the doors and shook them, thrusting forward with the strength of both his arms so that the twisted veins beside his brows stood up from the skin like thick wire; and as he did s
o, he lifted his head and shouted a long commanding phrase that Will did not understand. But the doors did not move, and Will felt weakness drawing him down, as if he were a snowman melting in the sun.
The thing that brought him back to wakefulness, just as he was beginning to drift into a kind of trance, was something he was never able to describe — or even to remember very well. It was like the ending of pain, like discord changing to harmony; like the lightening of the spirits that you may feel suddenly in the middle of a grey dull day, unaccountable until you realise that the sun has begun to shine. This silent music that entered Will’s mind and took hold of his spirit came, he knew instantly, from the old lady. Without speech, she was speaking to him. She was speaking to both of them — and to the Dark. He looked back, dazzled; she seemed taller, bigger, more erect than before, a figure on an altogether larger scale. And there was a golden haze about her figure, a glow that did not come from the candlelight.
Will blinked, but he could not see clearly; it was as if he were separated from her by a veil. He heard Merriman’s deep voice, gentler than he had yet heard it, but wrung with some strong sudden unhappiness. “Madam,” Merriman said wretchedly. “Take care, take care.”