by Susan Cooper
Will sat very still, watching the shadows move on the strong, stern face above him; then he gave his head a shake, as if to wake it, and opened the book. He said, “But it’s in English! You said —”
Merriman laughed. “That is not English, Will. And when we speak to one another, you and I, we do not use English. We use the Old Speech. We were born with it in our tongues. You think you are speaking English now, because your common sense tells you it is the only language you understand, but if your family were to hear you they would hear only gibberish. The same with that book.”
Hawkin was back on his feet, though there was no colour in his face. Breathing unevenly, he leaned against the wall, and Will looked at him in concern.
But Merriman, ignoring him, went on, “The moment you came into your power on your birthday, you could speak as an Old One. And did, not knowing that you were doing so. That was how the Rider knew you, when you met him on the road — you greeted John Smith in the Old Speech, and he therefore had to answer you in the same, and risk being marked as an Old One himself even though the craft of a smith is outside allegiance. But ordinary men can speak it too — like Hawkin here, and others in this house who are not of the Circle. And the Lords of the Dark can speak it too, though never without a certain betraying accent of their own.”
“I remember,” Will said slowly. “The Rider did seem to have an accent, an accent I didn’t know. Only of course I thought he was speaking English, and that he must just be someone from another part of the country. No wonder he came after me so soon.”
“As simple as that,” Merriman said. He looked at Hawkin for the first time, and laid a hand on his shoulder, but the small man did not stir. “Listen now, Will. We shall leave you here until you have read the book. It will not be an experience quite like reading an ordinary book. When you have finished, I shall come back. Wherever I may be, I know always when the book is open or when it is closed. Read it now. You are of the Old Ones, and therefore you have only to read it once and it is in you for all Time. After that, we will make an end.”
Will said: “Is Hawkin all right? He looks ill.”
Merriman looked down at the small drooping figure in green, and pain crossed his face. “Too much to ask,” he said incomprehensibly, drawing Hawkin upright. “But the book, Will. Read it. It has been waiting for you for a long time.”
He went out, supporting Hawkin, back to the music and voices of the next room, and Will was left with the Book of Gramarye.
• Betrayal • Will was never able afterwards to tell how long he spent with the Book of Gramarye. So much went into him from its pages and changed him that the reading might have taken a year; yet so totally did it absorb his mind that when he came to an end he felt that he had only that moment begun. It was indeed not a book like other books. There were simple enough titles to each page: Of Flying; Of Challenge; Of the Words of Power; Of Resistance; Of Time through the Doors. But instead of presenting him with a story or instruction, the book would give simply a snatch of verse or a bright image, which somehow had him instantly in the midst of whatever experience was involved.
He might read no more than one line — I have journeyed as an eagle — and he was soaring suddenly aloft as if winged, learning through feeling, feeling the way of resting on the wind and tilting round the rising columns of air, of sweeping and soaring, of looking down at patchwork-green hills capped with dark trees, and a winding, glinting river between. And he knew as he flew that the eagle was one of the only five birds who could see the Dark, and instantly he knew the other four, and in turn he was each of them. . . .
He read: . . . you come to the place where is the oldest creature that is in this world, and he that has fared furthest afield, the Eagle of Gwernabwy . . . and Will was up on a bare crag of rock above the world, resting without fear on a grey-black glittering shelf of granite, and his right side leaned against a soft, gold-feathered leg and a folded wing, and his hand rested beside a cruel steel-hard hooked claw, while in his ear a harsh voice whispered the words that would control wind and storm, sky and air, cloud and rain, and snow and hail — and everything in the sky save the sun and the moon, the planets and the stars.
Then he was flying again, at large in the blue-black sky, with the stars blazing timeless around his head, and the patterns of the stars made themselves known to him, both like and unlike the shapes and powers attributed to them by men long ago. The Herdsman passed, nodding, the bright star Arcturus at his knee; the Bull roared by, bearing the great sun Aldebaran and the small group of the Pleiades singing in small melodic voices, like no voices he had ever heard. Up he flew, and outward, through black space, and saw the dead stars, the blazing stars, the thin scattering of life that peopled the infinite emptiness beyond. And when he was done, he knew every star in the heavens, both by name and as charted astronomical points, and again as something much more than either; and he knew every spell of the sun and moon; he knew the mystery of Uranus and the despair of Mercury, and he had ridden on a comet’s tail.
So, down out of the heavens the Book brought him, with one line.
. . . the wrinkled sea beneath him crawls . . .
And down he came plummetting, down towards the creeping wrinkled blue surface that changed, as he grew closer and closer, into a rearing sequence of great buffeting waves. Then he was in the sea, down out of the turmoil, through the green haze, into an astonishing, clear world of beauty and pitilessness and bleak cold survival. Each creature preyed on another, nothing was safe from all. And the Book taught Will here the patterns of survival against malevolence, and the spells of sea and river and stream, lake and beck and fjord, and showed him how water was the one element that could in some measure defy all magic; for moving water would tolerate no magic whether for evil or good, but would wash it away as if it had never been made.
Through deadly sharp corals the Book sent him swimming, among strange waving fronds of green and red and purple, among rainbow-brilliant fish that swam up to him, stared, flicked a fin or tail and were gone. Past the black unkind spines of sea-urchins, past soft waving creatures that seemed neither plant nor fish; and then up on white sand, splashing through gold-flecked shallows — into trees. Dense bare trees like roots ran down into the sea water all around him in a kind of leafless jungle, and in a flash Will was out of the tangle and blinking again at a page of the Book of Gramarye.
. . . I am fire-fretted and I flirt with wind . . .
He was among trees then, spring trees tender with the new matchless green of young leaves, and a clear sun dappling them; summer trees full of leaf, whispering, massive; dark winter firs that fear no master and let no light brighten their woods. He learned the nature of all trees, the particular magics that are in oak and beech and ash. Then, one verse stood alone on a page of the Book:
He that sees blowing the wild wood tree,
And peewits circling their watery glass,
Dreams about Strangers that yet may be
Dark to our eyes, Alas!
And into Will’s mind, whirling him up on a wind blowing through and around the whole of Time, came the story of the Old Ones. He saw them from the beginning when magic was at large in the world; magic that was the power of rocks and fire and water and living things, so that the first men lived in it and with it, as a fish lives in the water. He saw the Old Ones, through the ages of men who worked with stone, and with bronze, and with iron, with one of the six great Signs born in each age. He saw one race after another come attacking his island country, bringing each time the malevolence of the Dark with them, wave after wave of ships rushing inexorably at the shores. Each wave of men in turn grew peaceful as it grew to know and love the land, so that the Light flourished again. But always the Dark was there, swelling and waning, gaining a new Lord of the Dark whenever a man deliberately chose to be changed into something more dread and powerful than his fellows. Such creatures were not born to their doom, like the Old Ones, but chose it. The Black Rider he saw in all times from the begin
ning.
He saw a time when the first great testing of the Light came, and the Old Ones spent themselves for three centuries on bringing their land out of the Dark, with the help in the end of their greatest leader, lost in the saving unless one day he might wake and return again.
A hillside rose up out of that time, grassy and sunlit before Will’s eyes, with the sign of the circle and cross cut into its green turf, gleaming there huge and white in the Chiltern chalk. Round one arm of the white cross, scraping at it with curious tools like long-bladed axes, he saw a group of figures dressed in green: small men, made smaller still by the width of the great Sign. He saw one of these figures whirl dreamlike out of the group towards him: a man in a green tunic with a short dark-blue cloak, and a hood pulled over his head. The man flung wide his arms, with a short bronze-bladed sword in one hand and a glinting chalice-like cup in the other; spun round, and at once disappeared. Then, caught up by the next page, Will was walking along a path through a thick forest, with some fragrant dark-green herb under his feet; a path that broadened and hardened into stone, a well-worn, undulating stone like limestone, and led him out of the forest until he was walking along a high, windy ridge under a grey sky, with a dark, mist-filled valley below. And all the while as he walked, though no one walked with him, firmly into his mind in procession came the secret words of power for the Old Ways, and the feelings and signs by which he would know, henceforth, anywhere in the world, where the nearest Old Way ran, either in substance or as the ghost of a road. . . .
So it went, until Will found that he was almost at the end of the Book. A verse was written before him.
I have plundered the fern
Through all secrets I spie;
Old Math ap Mathonwy
Knew no more than I.
Facing the cover, on the very last page, was a drawing of the six circled-cross Signs, all joined into one circle. And that was all.
* * *
Will closed the book, slowly, and sat staring at nothing. He felt as though he had lived for a hundred years. To know so much, now, to be able to do so many things; it should have excited him, but he felt weighed down, melancholy, at the thought of all that had been and all that was to come.
Merriman came through the door, alone, and stood looking down at him. “Ah yes,” he said softly. “As I told you, it is a responsibility, a heaviness. But there it is, Will. We are the Old Ones, born into the circle, and there is no help for it.” He picked up the book, and touched Will’s shoulder. “Come.”
As he crossed the room to the towering grandfather clock, Will followed, and watched him take the key again from his pocket and unlock the front panel. There still was the pendulum, long and slow, swinging like the beat of a heart. But this time, Merriman took no care to avoid touching it. He reached in with the book in his hand, but he moved with an odd jerkiness, like an actor over-playing the part of a clumsy man; and as he pushed the book in, a corner of it brushed the long arm of the pendulum. Will had just the flash of a moment to see the slight break in the swing. Then he was staggering backwards, his hands flying up to his eyes, and the room was filled with something he could never afterwards describe — a soundless explosion, a blinding flare of dark light, a great roar of energy that could not be seen or heard and yet made him feel for an instant that the whole world had blown up. When he took his hands from his face, blinking, he found that he was pressed against the side of the armchair, ten feet from where he had been before. Merriman was spread-eagled against the wall beside him. And where the grandfather clock had been, the corner of the room was empty. There was no damage, nor any sign of violence or explosion. There was simply nothing.
“That was it, you see,” Merriman said. “That was one protection of the Book of Gramarye, since our time began. If the thing protecting it should be so much as touched, it and the book and the man touching it would become — nothing. Only the Old Ones were immune from destruction, and as you see” — he rubbed his arm ruefully — “even we, in the event, can be bruised. The protection has taken many forms, of course — the clock was simply for this century. So now we have destroyed the Book, by the same means that through all these ages we used to preserve it. That is the only proper manner for using magic, as you have now learned.”
Will said shakily, “Where’s Hawkin?”
“He was not needed this time,” Merriman said.
“Is he all right? He looked —”
“Quite all right.” There was a strange tight note in Merriman’s voice, like sadness, but none of his new art could tell Will the emotion that put it there.
They went back to the gathering in the next room, where the carol that had begun as they left was only now coming to an end, and where nobody behaved as though they had been away for more than a moment or two, or for any real time at all. But then, Will thought, we are not in real time; at least, we are in past time, and even that we seem to be able to stretch as we wish, to make it go fast, or slow. . . .
The crowd had grown, and more people were still drifting back from the supper-room. Will realised now that most of these were ordinary folk, and that only the small group who had remained in the room earlier were Old Ones. Of course, he thought: only they would be able to witness the renewing of the Sign.
* * *
There were others, and he was turning to study them when suddenly astonishment and horror caught him up out of all reflection. His eye had caught a face in the very back of the room, a girl, not looking at him but busy in conversation with someone unseen. As he watched, she tossed her head with a bright self-conscious laugh. Then she was bent listening again, and then she was gone, as other guests blocked the group from view. But it had been long enough for Will to see that the laughing girl was Maggie Barnes, Maggie of Dawsons’ Farm a century hence. She was not even a foreshadowing, as this Victorian Miss Greythorne was a kind of early echo of the Miss Greythorne that he knew. This was the Maggie he had last seen in his own time.
He swung round in consternation, but as soon as he met Merriman’s eyes he saw that he already knew. There was no surprise in the hawk-nosed face, but only the beginnings of a kind of pain. “Yes,” he said wearily. “The witch-girl is here. And I think you should stay beside me, Will Stanton, for this next while, and watch with me, for I do not greatly care to watch alone.”
Wondering, Will stood with him in the corner, unobserved. The girl Maggie was still concealed in the crowd somewhere. They waited; then saw Hawkin, in his dapper green coat, thread his way through the crowd to Miss Greythorne and stand deferentially beside her, in the way of a man accustomed to making himself available for help. Merriman stiffened slightly, and Will glanced up; the lines of pain had deepened on the strong face, as if Merriman were anticipating some great hurt about to come. He looked across again at Hawkin and saw his gay smile flash at something Miss Greythorne had said; showing no sign now of whatever had afflicted him in the library, the small man had a brightness, like a precious stone, that would bring delight to any gloom. Will could see why he was dear to Merriman. But at the same time he had all at once a dreadful, rushing conviction of hovering disaster.
He said huskily, “Merriman! What is it?”
Merriman looked out over the heads at the lively pointed face. He said, without expression, “It is peril, Will, that is to come to us through my doing. Great peril, through all this quest. I have made the worst mistake that an Old One may make, and the mistake is about to come down on my head fullfold. To put more trust in a mortal man than he has the strength to take — it is something that all of us learned never to do, centuries ago. Long before the Book of Gramarye came into my charge. Yet in foolishness I made that mistake. And now there is nothing that we can do to put it right, but only watch and wait for the result.”
“It’s Hawkin, isn’t it? Something to do with the reason why you brought him here?”
“The spell of protection for the Book,” Merriman said painfully, “was in two parts, Will. You saw the first, the protection
against men — it was the pendulum, which would destroy them if they were to touch it, but would not destroy me or any Old One. But I wove another part into that spell that was a protection against the Dark. It set down that I could take the Book out past the pendulum only if I were touching Hawkin with my other hand. Whenever the Book was taken out for the last Old One, in whatever century, Hawkin would have to be brought out of his own time in order to be there.”
Will said: “Wouldn’t it have been safer to make an Old One part of the spell, not an ordinary man?”
“Ah no, the whole purpose was to have a man involved. This is a cold battle we are in, Will, and in it we must sometimes do cold things. This spell was woven around me, as keeper of the Book. The Dark cannot destroy me, for I am an Old One, but it could perhaps by magic have tricked me into taking out the Book. In case that happened, there had to be some way in which the other Old Ones could stop me before it was too late. They too could not destroy me, to stop me from doing the work of the Dark. But a man can be destroyed. If it had come to the worst, and the Dark had forced me by magic to take out the Book for them, then before I could begin, the Light would have killed Hawkin. That would have kept the Book safe forever, for in that case, I could not have worked the spell of release by touching him while taking out the Book. And so I should not have been able to reach the Book. Nor would the Dark, nor anyone else.”