The Lady said clearly, “The High Magic confirms it, and thanks you, John Rowlands. And the Light accepts that this is the law.”
She turned a little towards the bank of the river, to the churning darkness behind the mist; the brightness seemed to grow around her, and her voice rose. “And the Dark, Rider?”
The wind was rising, tugging at her long blue robe; somewhere far off, faint thunder rolled.
The Black Rider said in quiet fury, “It is the law.” He came a little way out of his dark refuge, and put back his257hood, and his blue eyes glinted in the scarred face. “You are a fool, John Rowlands! To choose to destroy your home, for the sake of a nameless cause—”
“For the sake of a boy’s life,” John Rowlands said.
“He was always a fool, always!” Blodwen Rowlands’ voice came out of the darkness, strident, stronger than before; it was again the voice of the White Rider, and suddenly, listening, Will knew that he had always heard the likeness of the two but never thought to add them together, and he saw from Jane’s face that she had in her mind the same fearful parallel.
The thunder rumbled again, closer.
“A soft one, yn ffwl mawr!” Blodwen Rowlands cried. “A shepherd and a harp-player! Fool! Fool!” And her voice rose high into the whine of the rising wind and was carried away into the darkening sky. All around them the mist was darkening now, and the sky above was solid with clouds so dark a grey as to be nearly black.
But the Lady raised her arm and pointed the five fingers of her hand at Bran, where he stood motionless in his cage of bright mist. There was a hint of music in Will’s ears, though he did not know if anyone else heard, and then Bran was standing there clear, with the sword Eirias in his hand, and the blade of the sword was flaming with cold blue light.
Bran raised Eirias in the air like a brand. Swelling behind him and all around, Will felt the company of the Light advancing, driving on, and he saw that their boat was moving again, the water lapping past the bow, choppier now, with small waves raised by the rising wind. He knew that the other vessels of their shadowy fleet were moving too. But at the same time the sky was growing darker, darker yet, filled with great billowing clouds.
The wind gusted suddenly higher; he saw the Lady’s robe swirl round her slender form and Merriman’s dark cloak billow out like a spinnaker over the bow. And then for an instant all light was blotted out around them, as with a roar the whirling tornado of the Dark rose into the sky, travelling over and before them, circling the horizon to collect its final strength.
Only one streak of light still glowed. Standing in the bow of their boat, Bran swept the crystal sword before him in a blue line cutting the air, and the dark mist parted in a ragged, widening gap. They saw green fields rising before them, and suddenly they were all standing on a smooth green slope, on grass, with the river no more than a distant murmur in their ears.
“Stay close, all Six,” Merriman said. He led them up the grassy slope. The chain of Signs rang musically round Will’s neck. He could feel the myriad shadowy forms of the Circle all about them, shielding them, pressing them on. John Rowlands moved beside the Lady, blank-faced, as if in a trance. Thunder growled overhead.
Then the last of the mist blew away, and in the dim light beneath the lowering sky they saw a line of trees before them, a wood of beech trees capping a round chalk hill—and, gradually appearing on the slope in front of the wood, a single huge tree. It took shape under their eyes, a shadowy outline becoming steadily more solid and real; it rose and filled out and its broad leaves rustled and tossed in the wind. Its trunk was as thick as ten men, its branches spread wide as a house. It was an oak tree, more vast and ancient than any tree they had ever seen.
Overhead, lightning ripped one of the dark clouds, and the thunder came thumping at them like a huge fist.
Barney said, whispering, “Silver on the tree … ?”
Bran pointed Eirias up into the tree, in a sweeping triumphant gesture. “See, where the first branch divides—there!”
And through the swaying branches they could see the mistletoe, the strange invading clump of a different green than the green of the oak: the twining stems and the small leaves, growing upon the tree, glimmering a little with a light of their own. Will gazed at the plant and seemed to see it changing, flickering; he blinked in vain to make out something in the middle of the clump.
Merriman’s dark cloak blew round him in the rising wind. “There will be one spray of blossoms only,” he said, his deep voice rough with strain. “And we shall see each bud break, and when every small bright flower on that spray is in bloom, only then do we cut the spray. Then, and not before and not afterwards, but only in that one moment, does the great spell have force. And in that moment too, he who cuts the mistletoe must be kept from attack by the Six, each with one of the Signs.”
He turned his deep-shadowed eyes on Will, and Will reached to his neck to take off the gold-linked circle of the Signs.
But before he could touch them, white lightning suddenly flashed far closer than before from the dark cloud-base overhead. Will saw Merriman’s tall form stiffen, facing the great tree. He too turned, seeking the mistletoe, and saw all at once that a glint of light fierce as fire came from the middle of the strange green clump. The moment was coming; the first bud on the spray of the mistletoe flowers had broken into bloom.
And with it, the Dark came rising.
Will had never, by any enchantment, known what it would be like. Long afterwards, he thought that it must have been like what happens to a mind that goes instantly and totally mad. And worse, for here the world went mad. Like a soundless explosion the immense force of the Dark’s power rocked everything round him, rocked his senses; he staggered, reaching blindly for support that was not there. The appearances of things ran wild; black seemed white, green seemed red; all flickering and throbbing as if the sun had swallowed the earth. A great scarlet tree loomed over him against a sky of livid white; the others of the Six, flashing in and out of sight, were like negative images, blurred forms with black teeth and empty white eyes. The endless dull roar of thunder filled his ears and his mind; he felt sick and ill, cold and hot at once, his eyes closing to slits, a constriction growing in his throat.
Unable to move any limb, he saw through leaden eyelids that Simon and Jane and Barney had collapsed to the ground; moving with tremendous effort, as if held down by weights, they struggled in vain to get up. Darkness loomed over them; slowly turning his heavy head, Will saw in sick horror that half the sky, half the world, behind him was filled with the whirling black tornado of the Dark, spinning between cloud and earth, more vast than his senses could comprehend. He saw Bran, staggering, holding up a blue streak of flame as if for support. Bright blue, he thought, I’ve never seen a brighter blue, except the Lady’s eyes. The Lady, where is the Lady? And he could not move to look for her, but crumpled to his knees while the world wove to and fro in his spinning gaze. It was only by simple accident that his feeble hand hit the circle of Signs hanging from his neck.
Then all at once he could see clearly, and wonder caught him as he saw. Down across the storming sky, cleaving the monstrous grey-black clouds, came six horsemen, riding. Three on either side they came, silvery-grey glinting figures on horses of the same strange half-colour: galloping, cloaks flying, with drawn swords in their hands. One of them wore a glinting circlet about his head, but Will could not clearly see his face.
“The Sleepers ride!” Bran called to him. Will saw him leaning back in an intent curve, staring upward, clear against the green grass with his white hair and blue-flaming outflung sword. “The seven Sleepers, changed now to Riders, just as I said they would be!”
“But still I remember there were six Sleepers,” Will said softly to Merriman, so softly that he knew Bran could not hear. “Six Sleepers, oldest of the old, that once we woke out of their long sleep beside the lake, with the golden harp.”
Merriman neither moved nor spoke, but stood looking at the terri
ble sky. And as Will gazed up at the wheeling Riders of the Light, a long brightness began to glow in the east. And like a white sun rising, another figure came leaping across the sky: a different rider of a different shape, like no shape ever born on the earth.
He was a tall man riding a brilliant white-gold horse, but his head was horned like the head of a stag, with shining antlers curving out in seven tines. As Will gazed, he raised his great head, yellow light flashing from tawny round eyes like the eyes of an owl, and he gave a call that was like the halloo a huntsman blows on the horn to call up hounds. And through the sky after him, belling and baying, came flowing an endless pack of huge ghostly white hounds, red-eared, red-eyed, fearsome creatures running inexorable on a trail no living power could turn. They milled round the feet of the Huntsman’s horse, high up there in the sky, as he laughed dreadfully over them in delight of the chase; they thronged round the silver-grey horses of the Sleepers waiting restlessly to join their hunt.
And then the Huntsman in a wild shout gave the call to let loose the chase, and he and the ghost-grey swordsmen, seven riders, were leaping through the clouds with the Hounds of Doom flooding after them, red eyes burning, a thousand throats giving tongue like the whickering of migrant geese: the Wild Hunt, in full cry against the Dark for the last time.
The vast storm-cone of the Dark lashed and thrashed about the sky as if in agony, and its tip seemed to split away. A horrible flailing filled the sky, until with one last convulsive lunge that seemed to bring half the clouds in the heavens down to the earth, the huge tornado-like black pillar rushed away and upward, out into nowhere, with the Sleepers and the Wild Hunt in howling merciless pursuit.
But great Herne Hunter reined in his white-gold mare, leaping high in the heavens with the force of her arrested speed, and he turned seeking through the torn and rushing clouds with his tawny wild eyes. And in sudden new terror Will saw what he sought, the peak of Dark power that would never flee: the two huge figures, indestructible now in their full power, of the Black Rider and the White Rider of the Dark, curving out of the sky on a long rushing lunge down to the grassy Chiltern hill and the enchanted tree.
Will heard Simon shout from beside the tree, the first sound any one of the Six had made in all their breathless watching, and he turned back to see flashing on the tree new small brilliant points of light as more buds on the green patch of mistletoe burst into their magical bloom. His hands went to his neck, in the same instant that he heard Merriman’s silent cry of command in his mind, and he tore off the circle of Signs. High in the sky the Riders, grown now to huge size, came rushing closer towards the earth. Will shouted to Simon and Barney and Jane, “Six Signs shall burn! Take one for each, and circle the tree!”
They were at his side, eager, reaching, and in the goldlinked chain each Sign in turn came easily away from the rest as the gold seemed to melt and vanish like wax. Simon took the smooth black Sign of Iron and rushed with it to the tree, to stand against the gnarled enormous trunk holding it high in challenge; Jane followed with the gleaming Sign of Bronze, Barney with the rowan-bom Sign of Wood. There they stood, brave and quivering, staring terrified at the monstrous Riders galloping headlong down from the high clouds, down to consume them. Swiftly Merriman joined them with the brilliant gold Sign of Fire, Bran holding the crystal Sign of Water with the Sword, to leave Will swinging round last of all with his back to the tree, holding up in defiance the glittering black flint Sign of Stone. And the Riders were upon them, with bright lightning and deep thunder that came from no cloud but out of the dark air; their huge horses reared up, screaming, lashing out with wild deadly hooves. Herne’s great horned figure rode at the Dark Lords in attack from above, and the force of all the unseen shades of the Circle was holding, barring, wrestling them below, with the Lady as its shining focus, but the strain was near to breaking-point. And in a burst of brilliance, the last flower on the mistletoe burst into bloom.
Bran reached up, his white hair flying, swinging Eirias over his head to cut the spray; but with the Sign of Water in his left hand he had only one arm for the long crystal blade, and his balance would not hold. He cried out in desperation. The Black Rider’s eyes blazed blue as sapphires and he lunged forward in triumph, straining to break through the strength of the Circle and reach the shining bloom with his own sword. But suddenly John Rowlands was at Bran’s side, pale and grim; he seized the Sign of Water and thrust it out against the rearing attack, the shimmering crystal circle frail in his big brown hand.
And Bran, free now to use both arms, swung the glittering blade of the sword Eirias at the green mistletoe within the oak, and cut the stars of bright blossom from the tree. As the spray parted Merriman turned, tall and triumphant, and caught the blossom before it fell; he swept round, blue cloak billowing, and in a swift breathtaking movement flung it up into the sky. And the mistletoe blossom changed in that instant into a white bird, and the bird flew up into the sky and away, away through the broken white clouds scudding now across the blue, away into the world.
Each of the Signs held there in each of six hands blazed suddenly with a cold light like fire, too bright for eyes to watch, and with two mingling voices crying out in fear and despair the great rearing figures of the Black Rider and the White Rider of the Dark fell backwards out of Time and disappeared. And each of the six hands suddenly was empty, as each Sign burned with its cold fire into nothing and was gone.
• One Goes Alone •
They stood in silence about the tree, unable to speak.
High up where a last few tatters of storm cloud blew dark across the sun, Herne the antlered Hunter put back his fierce head and gave a long triumphant cry, the gathering call that is lifted up by the horn when the quarry is slain. His white mare leapt across the sky, whinnying high and clear like the singing of the wind on the hill, curving down to a place where a stream of high wind-blown cloud lay like a river across the sky.
Out and down the Hunter leapt, and in the very instant that he seemed to plunge into the river of the sky and disappear, instead they saw sailing out from that same point the great ship Pridwen, graceful and high-prowed, with the green standard of the Lord Arthur rippling out at bow and stern. Closer and closer she came, sailing on the wind, and among the Six beside the tree Will saw Bran slowly raise the sword Eirias and thrust it down into the scabbard visible now at his side. It was a strange reluctant gesture that Will could not interpret. He stared at his friend, at the pale face and the tawny eyes beneath the white hair, but he could see no expression there as Bran watched the long ship sail towards them, down the sky. He found himself reflecting instead, not for the first time, that Bran’s golden eyes were curiously like those of the Wild Huntsman, Herne.
And then the ship Pridwen was upon them, and he was looking instead at the blue-grey eyes and weathered, brindle-bearded face of the leader-king, Arthur.
Arthur was looking past him, at the fragile slim blue-robed figure of the Lady, standing a little apart from them all. He stepped from the prow of the boat where he stood, and down to the land, and he knelt on one knee before the Lady and bent his head. “Madam,” he said, his voice as warm with the pleasure of living as when Will had first heard it, “your boatman awaits.”
Will stood with his head singing in bewilderment, feeling the baffled awe of the three Drews beside him.
The Lady came forward to the boat, with a beckoning touch on Arthur’s arm in the casual closeness of those who belong to the same family. “It is done,” she said. Suddenly there was a deep weariness in the music of her voice, that spoke of great age in spite of the calm ageless beauty of her fine-boned face. “Our task is accomplished, and we may leave the last and longest task to those who inherit this world and all its perilous beauty.”
She looked back at them all, and as if in farewell she smiled at Barney, at Simon, and more lingeringly at Jane. Then she looked at John Rowlands, standing empty-eyed and stiff beside the broad oak tree, and she moved swiftly to him and took both his hands. br />
Rowlands looked at her, his dark Welsh face drawn down by lines at nose and mouth that had never seemed so marked before.
“John,” the Lady said softly. “In all this great matter you have done more for your world than any of us, even before your courage at the end—for you could have retreated into an unseeing happiness of your own and yet gave it up. You are a good and honest man, and for a time now you must be an unhappy man. But—it is only for a time.” She released his hands, but still gazed commandingly into his eyes, and John Rowlands looked back at her without awe or subservience, and shrugged. He said nothing.
“You have made a hard choice,” the Lady said, “and lost the pattern of your life thereby. I cannot give you back your Blodwen, that ambitious fallen figure. But I can give you another chance gentler than the first. In a moment you will be back in your own world and time, and there you will find that the… appearance of your wife has had some tragic accident, and died. It is for you to decide whether or not, in that moment, you want still to remember all that has happened to you. You may indeed remember the hard truth about the Light and the Dark, and the true nature of your wife, if you wish.”
John Rowlands said, expressionless, half to himself, “It is very strange, there was one thing she would never tell me. It was a joke with her—she never would tell me where or when she was born.”
The Lady reached out a hand in pity, then let it fall. “Or,” she said gently, “instead you may forget. You may, if you wish, forget all that you have seen ever of the Lords of the Dark and the Light, and although you will then have perhaps a deeper grief at the loss of your wife, you will mourn her and remember her as the woman you knew and loved.”
“That would be living a lie,” John Rowlands said.
“No,” Merriman said from behind him, very strong and deep. “No, John, for you did love her, and all love has great value. Every human being who loves another loves imperfection, for there is no perfect being on this earth—nothing is so simple as that.”