by Susan Cooper
Jane saw wonder and incomprehension on John Rowlands’ strong weather-lined face. Blodwen Rowlands gave a sudden whimper of fear; she scrambled to her feet, dropping her knitting on the floor, and lurched over to sit by his side. Rowlands put a comforting arm around her, the support of long affection. “There now, cariad,” he said. “There now, don’t be afraid. Just rest easy, and trust them. Will’s Mr. Merriman will keep us out of harm.”
But both Will and Merriman now, Jane saw in astonishment, were on their feet and standing before Blodwen Rowlands; both motionless, yet giving an impression of immense silent menace, the menace of accusation. Behind them, Bran stood up slowly, and with the same curious play-acting gesture that Jane remembered from the beach, he drew the invisible sword from the invisible scabbard at his side. And suddenly the sword was there, terrible, naked, gleaming, and the length of its crystal blade was flickering with blue fire.
Blodwen Rowlands shrank back, pressing against her husband’s side.
“What is it?” said John Rowlands in angry distress, staring up at Merriman’s silent towering form.
“Keep them away from me!” Mrs. Rowlands cried. “John!”
John Rowlands could not stand up, with the weight of her pressing him back, but he seemed to grow more upright as he stared up at them, accusing, reproachful.
“Leave her alone now, you people, whatever you are doing. What has she to do with your concerns? She is my wife and I will not have her frightened. Leave her alone!”
Bran stretched out the tip of the sword Eirias, with the blue flames dancing up and down all its length, and held it so that the tip was between Will and Merriman, pointing at Blodwen Rowlands’ contorted face.
“Cowardly it is,” he said in a cold adult voice, “to shelter behind those who love you, without giving love in return. Very clever, of course. Almost as clever as being in the right place to help the growing up of a strange pale boy out of the past—and making sure he never does or says or thinks anything without your knowing all about it.”
“What is the matter with you, Bran?” said John Rowlands in anguished appeal.
The brightness carried them on, singing like the train, hollow in the hill.
Merriman said in his deep voice, expressionless, “She belongs to the Dark.”
“You’re mad!” John Rowlands’ hand tightened on his wife’s arm.
“Our hostage,” Will said. “As the White Rider of the Dark took Barney hostage thinking to get Bran and the sword in exchange. A hostage for our safe running, now.”
“Safe running!” Blodwen Rowlands said in a new soft voice, and laughed.
John Rowlands sat very still, and Jane winced at the horrified disbelief beginning to dawn in his eyes.
Mrs. Rowlands’ laughter was cold, and her voice was all at once oddly different, soft and sibilant but with a new force behind it. Jane could not believe that it was coming from the familiar warm friendly face she could still see.
“Safe running!” said the voice, laughing. “You run to your destruction, all of you, and the sword will be no saviour. The Dark is massed and waiting, with your hostage here to guide it. Risen and waiting, Lyon, Stanton, Pendragon, risen and waiting. And not all your Things of Power will help you to the tree, when you rush out of the earth in a moment now and the Dark force falls upon you.”
She stood up, John Rowlands’ hand dropping limp away from her, to lie on the seat like a discarded glove while he sat there appalled and staring. She seemed to Jane taller, gleaming in the misty brightness with a light of her own. Deliberately Blodwen Rowlands moved toward the point of the sword Eirias, and Bran slowly put up the sword, letting the point rise so that it would not touch her, and Will and Merriman moved aside.
“Eirias may not destroy the Lords of the Dark,” Blodwen Rowlands said triumphantly.
“None but the Dark may destroy the Dark,” Will said. “That is a part of the law that we have not forgotten.”
Merriman took one step forward. Suddenly he was the focus of everything around them; of all the Six, of all the power and intention of the Light driving, driving through the stone and the land towards its mysterious goal. He stood tall in the brightness, his white hair gleaming above the long cloak of dark blue that he wore now, and he raised one arm and pointed at Blodwen Rowlands.
“The Light throws you from this stream of Time,” he said, his voice ringing as the song of the train had rung through the hollow land. “We drive you before us. Out! Out! And save yourself as best you can, when you fly forth ahead of this great progress, and the terrible force of your Dark falls upon you thinking to ambush the Light.”
Blodwen Rowlands gave a thin cry of rage, the sound of it clutching Jane by the throat with horror; and she seemed to spin round, and change, and whirl away into the dark space around them as a white-robed form on a galloping white horse. Leaping high, caught up in fury and fear, the White Rider rose out of the brightness in which they travelled and was gone, ahead of them, into a misty darkness where nothing could be seen.
• The River •
The great formless vehicle of the Light rushed on through the mountain as if it were a vessel carried along by an underground river. John Rowlands sat still and silent with a face like stone, and they did not look at him for more than an instant; it was not bearable.
At last Jane said, “The tree. Gumerry? What did she mean? She said, Not all your Things of Power will help you to the tree.”
Merriman stood tall and imposing in his dark cloak, its hood falling like a cowl over his neck. His white hair gleamed in the brightness all around, and so did Bran’s, beside him; they looked like two figures from some unknown race.
“The midsummer tree, in the Chiltern Hills of England,” Merriman said. “The tree of life, the pillar of the world…. Once every seven hundred years it may be seen in this land, and on it the mistletoe that will bear its silver blossom on that one day. And whoever shall cut the blossom, at the moment when it opens fully from the bud, shall turn events and have the right to command the Old Magic and the Wild Magic, to drive all rival powers out of the world and out of Time.”
Barney said, almost whispering, “And we’re going to the tree?”
“That is where we are going,” Merriman said. “And so is the Dark, following the path it has been planning all along, to make the final moment of its last and greatest rising the moment when the silver is on the tree.”
“But how can you be sure we shall cut the blossom, and not the Dark?” Jane could see nothing but the rushing brightness all around them, but for an instant she had a fierce image of the grey sky filled with riding Lords of the Dark, with Blodwen Rowlands, the White Rider, laughing long cold laughter at their head.
“We have the sword Eirias,” Merriman said, “and they do not. And although it is two-edged and may be possessed by either Light or Dark, yet it was indeed made at the command of the Light. If Bran can keep the sword safe, and if the Six and the Circle can keep Bran safe, then all will be well. And where the midsummer tree grows tall,” his voice deepened with the lilt of the verse, “by Pendragon’s sword the Dark shall fall.”
Will glanced automatically at the crystal sword, glinting in Bran’s hand. The blade was clear now, the blue flickering fire gone. But as he looked, it seemed to him that on the very point of the blade the dancing blue fire again began to grow—very faint and dim at first, but growing, creeping inch by inch up the blade towards the golden hilt. And the movement of the rushing river of light about them began to change; it became more pronounced, as though they were indeed tossing upon a river. They seemed to be in a boat, the six of them and John Rowlands; Will knew it even though he could see nothing tangible around them at all.
His eye came to Barney, and stopped, and he smiled to himself. The younger boy was sitting oblivious to anyone around him, grinning a private grin of pure pleasure in the sensations swirling through his mind. The fear put into him by Glyndwr’s men had evaporated, and there was no ounce of nervousness
in him now, but only wonder and astonishment and delight.
Barney looked up suddenly as if he knew Will was looking at him; the grin widened and he said, “It’s like the best kind of dream.”
“Yes it is,” said Will. “But don’t … relax into it. You can’t trust what will happen.”
“I know,” Barney said equably. “Honest. I know. But all the same … woo!” It was a head-back, beaming, yelping shout of joyful excitement, spontaneous and startling, and every face turned; their apprehensiveness faded for a moment, and even Merriman, stern for the first instant, laughed aloud. “Yes!” he said. “We need that as much as the sword, Barney.”
And then suddenly they were out into the day, into grey skies with a watery sun trying in vain to break through thickening cloud, and they could see that their boat was a long high-prowed deckless vessel set with thwarts, and that there were other boats before and behind them of the same shape, filled with figures who could not properly be seen. The mist hovered about them again, and with it a wavering of the air like the tremor of heat, though there was no heat. Will heard a faint familiar music in the air, delicate and fleeting. He looked out at the water and saw glimmering wavelets and an indistinct shore, with green fields beyond, and the shadowy figures of men and horses. For an instant the mist parted, in drifting tatters, and he saw hills rising behind, and the smoke of fires, and an army gathered there waiting, rank after rank of men, many of them on horseback, on small sturdy muscular animals that looked as tough and dark and determined as the riders they bore. It was a cavalry armed with glinting swords, waiting, tense. Then the mist closed again and there was only grey-white space.
“Who are they?” Simon said hoarsely.
“You saw them, then?” Will glanced round; the three of them were grouped beside him, with Bran and Merriman standing remote in the bow of the boat, and John Rowlands a grim hunched figure in the stern.
“Who are they?” Jane said. All three Drews seemed deeply intent, staring vainly into the mist. Will could see Barney’s hands convulsively opening and closing, as if longing to be put to use.
Sounds came out of the greyness suddenly, vague, confused, from every direction at once: the clash of weapons, the neighing of horses, the shouts and screams and triumphant yells of men fighting. Simon spun about, his face twisted with frustration. “Oh where are they, what is it? Will!” It was a cry for help, pleading.
Merriman’s deep voice said from the bow, with an ache of the same desperation, “You may well yearn towards it. It is the first making and breaking of your land, this long-worked land so many centuries on the anvil. It is Mons Badonicus, the Battle of Badon, where the Dark comes rising and…. How goes the day?” The voice rose into a searching shout, a question asked of no one visible, thrown at random into the grey mist.
And out of the mist as if in answer a long shape loomed: a boat longer and larger than their own, taking shape nearer the bank as they drifted towards it on the stream. It was decked with weapons, filled with armed men, with plain green flags flying at stem and stern; it seemed the boat of a general, rather than a king. But there was the bearing of a king in the figure at its prow: a square-shouldered man with sunburned face and clear blue eyes; brown hair streaked with grey, and a short grey beard. He wore a short bluegreen cloak the colour of the sea, and beneath it armour like that of a Roman. And round his neck, half-hidden but glittering with a light like fire, he wore Will’s linked circle of Signs.
He looked at Merriman, and raised a hand in triumphant salute. “We go well, my lion. We have them, now, at last; they will go back to their own lairs and settle, and leave us to live in peace. For a while….”
He sighed. His bright eyes moved to Bran, and softened. “Show me the sword, my son,” he said.
Bran had been gazing at him, unwavering, since the boat had first appeared. Now without a flicker of change in his intent gaze he drew himself upright, a slim pale figure with his colourless face and white hair, and raised the blue-flaming blade of Eirias in a formal salute.
“And still it flames for the Dark. Still the warning.” The words were another sigh.
Bran said fiercely, “But in this time too we shall drive out the Dark, my lord. We shall come before them to the tree, and then drive them out and away, out of Time.”
“Of course. And I must return something that was brought to my aid, and that has served its purpose and must now serve yours.” He put back his cloak and lifted the linked Signs from around his neck. “Take them, Sign-seeker. With my blessing.”
Will came to the edge of the boat and took the gleaming chain from the strong brown hands; he put it about his own neck, feeling the weight pull at his shoulders. “Thank you, my lord.”
Mist whirled round the two boats on the grey river; lifted for a moment to give a glimpse of the crowded armada of shades behind and before; then fell again, leaving all indefinite and vague.
“The Circle is complete, but for the one,” Merriman said. “And the Six are strong together.”
“Indeed they are, and all is well done.” The keen blue eyes flickered over Jane and Simon and Barney, standing silent and awed, and Arthur gave them a nod of greeting. But his head turned again to Bran, as if by compulsion, back to the pale vulnerable figure standing there holding the sword Eirias, his white hair sleek in the mist and the tawny eyes creased a little against the light.
“And when all is done, my son.” The voice was soft now. “When all is done, will you sail with me in Pridwen, my ship? Will you come with me to the silver-circled castle at the back of the North Wind, where there is peace beneath the stars, and the apple orchards grow?”
“Yes,” said Bran. “Oh yes!” His pale face was alight with joy and a kind of worship; Will thought, looking at him, that he had never seen him fully alive before.
“And it will be an easier rest than the last, and without end. Unlike the other.” Arthur looked away into the mist, his bearded face sorrowful, looking at the time past from which he spoke to them. “For our great victory against the Dark at Badon does not last so very long. We British stay untroubled in our own parts of these islands, and the English peaceably in theirs, and the Pax Arturus thrives for a score of years. But then the Saxons come again, those bloody pirates, a trickle and then a flood, battering westward through our land, from Kent to Oxford, from Oxford to the Severn. And the last of the old world is destroyed, our cities and our bridges and our language. All vanishes, all dies.”
There was anguish in the voice now; it was a long aching lament. “Lost, all lost…. The savages bring in the Dark, and the servants of the Dark thrive. Our craftsmen and our builders leave, or die, and none replace them except to deck out barbaric kings. And on our roads, on the old ways, the green grass grows.”
“And men flee westward,” Merriman said gently, out of the bow of their vessel, “to the last corners of the land where the old tongue lives, for a while. To those places where the Light waits always for the force of the Dark to ebb, so that the grandsons of the invaders may be gentled and tamed by the land their forefathers despoiled. And one of those fleeing men carries a golden chalice called a grail, that bears on its side the message by which a later time will be able better to withstand the last and most menacing rising of the Dark—when it will rise not through the spilling of blood but through the coldness in the hearts of men.”
Arthur bent his head in a kind of apology. The mist blew round him; he seemed fainter now, the sea-blue cloak less bright. “True, true. And the grail is found, and all the other Things of Power, by the six of you, and the Light thus fortified so that all of us in the Circle may come to its aid at the end. I know, my lion. I do not forget the hope promised by the future, even though I weep for the pain suffered by my land here in the past.”
The river began to swing the boats apart; the sound of battle and of triumphant shouting rose again from the mists around them. Arthur’s voice grew distant, rising in a last call.
“Sail the river. Sail on. I shall be
with you in a little while.”
And the ship and its flags and armed men were gone into the bright mist, and instead a darkness came whirling around them, on both sides of the gleaming stream, a darkness as deep and vast as the sea, battering at their minds, rising, enveloping.
John Rowlands rose slowly to his feet in the stern of the boat where he had been silently sitting. Will could see him only as a vague shape; he could not tell how much Rowlands saw of what was happening.
Rowlands reached out an arm into the darkness, standing pressed against the gunwale of the boat, and with fear and longing in his voice he called out something in Welsh. And then he called, “Blodwen! Blodwen!”
Will closed his eyes at the pain in the voice, and tried not to hear or think. But John Rowlands came stumbling up the boat towards them, his head turned for guide towards the blue-flaming blade of the sword in Bran’s hand, and when he reached them he put out one hand and grasped Merriman by the shoulder.
Light glimmered round them as if they carried the moon in their vessel, sailing through clouds, yet the light came only from the sword, burning like a cold torch. John Rowlands said, taut with anguish, “Was she always so? Always … from outside the earth, like yourself?” He was gazing at Merriman like a man begging for his life, pleading. “Was not one part of it ever real?”
Merriman said unhappily, “Real?” For the first time since Will had come to know him, his voice was without authority, seeking, lost. “Real? When we live in your world as you do, John, those of the Light or those of the Dark, we feel and see and hear as you do. If you prick us, we bleed, if you tickle us, we laugh—only, if you poison us we do not die, and there are certain feelings and perceptions in us that are not in you. And these in the last resort have dominion over the others. Your life with your Blodwen was real, it existed, she felt it just like you. But … there was another more powerful side to her nature as well, of which you never had sight.”