The Dark Is Rising (3 page)

The room was at once a cosy cave of yellow light, and he lay back in shame, feeling stupid. Frightened of the dark, he thought: how awful. Just like a baby. Stephen would never have been frightened of the dark, up here. Look, there's the bookcase and the table, the two chairs and the window seat; look, there are the six little square-riggers of the mobile hanging from the ceiling, and their shadows sailing over there on the wall. Everything's ordinary. Go to sleep.

He switched off the light again, and instantly everything was even worse than before. The fear jumped at him for the third time like a great animal that had been waiting to spring. Will lay terrified, shaking, feeling himself shake, and yet unable to move. He felt he must be going mad. Outside, the wind moaned, paused, rose into a sudden howl, and there was a noise, a muffled scraping thump, against the skylight in the ceiling of his room. And then in a dreadful furious moment, horror seized him like a nightmare made real; there came a wrenching crash, with the howling of the wind suddenly much louder and closer, and a great blast of cold; and the Feeling came
hurtling against him with such force of dread that it flung him cowering away.

Will shrieked. He only knew it afterwards; he was far too deep in fear to hear the sound of his own voice. For an appalling pitch-black moment he lay scarcely conscious, lost somewhere out of the world, out in black space. And then there were quick footsteps up the stairs outside his door, and a voice calling in concern, and blessed light warming the room and bringing him back into life again.

It was Paul's voice. “Will? What is it? Are you all right?”

Slowly Will opened his eyes. He found that he was clenched into the shape of a ball, with his knees drawn up tight against his chin. He saw Paul standing over him, blinking anxiously behind his dark-rimmed spectacles. He nodded, without finding his voice. Then Paul turned his head, and Will followed his looking and saw that the skylight in the roof was hanging open, still swaying with the force of its fall; there was a black square of empty night in the roof, and through it the wind was bringing in a bitter midwinter cold. On the carpet below the skylight lay a heap of snow.

Paul peered at the edge of the skylight frame. “Catch is broken — I suppose the snow was too heavy for it. Must have been pretty old anyway, the metal's all rusted. I'll get some wire and fix it up till tomorrow. Did it wake you ? Lord, what a horrible shock. If I woke up like that, you'd find me somewhere under the bed.”

Will looked at him in speechless gratitude, and managed a watery smile. Every word in Paul's soothing, deep voice brought him closer back to reality. He sat up in bed and pulled back the covers.

“Dad must have some wire with that junk in the other attic,” Paul said. “But let's get this snow out before it melts. Look, there's more coming in. I bet there aren't many houses where you can watch the snow coming down on the carpet.”

He was right: snowflakes were whirling in through the black space in the ceiling, scattering everywhere. Together they gathered what they could into a misshapen snowball on an old magazine, and Will scuttled downstairs to drop it in the bath. Paul wired the skylight back to its catch.

“There now,” he said briskly, and though he did not look at Will, for an instant they understood one another very well. “Tell you what, Will, it's freezing up here — why don't you go down to our room and
sleep in my bed ? And I'll wake you when I come up later — or I might even sleep up here if you can survive Robin's snoring. All right?”

“All right,” Will said huskily. “Thanks.”

He picked up his discarded clothes — with the belt and its new ornament — and bundled them under his arm, then paused at the door as they went out, and looked back. There was nothing to see, now, except a dark damp patch on the carpet where the heap of snow had been. But he felt colder than the cold air had made him, and the sick, empty feeling of fear still lay in his chest. If there had been nothing wrong beyond being frightened of the dark, he would not for the world have gone down to take refuge in Paul's room. But as things were, he knew he could not stay alone in the room where he belonged. For when they were clearing up that heap of fallen snow, he had seen something that Paul had not. It was impossible, in a howling snowstorm, for anything living to have made that soft unmistakable thud against the glass that he had heard just before the skylight fell. But buried in the heap of snow, he had found the fresh black wing-feather of a rook.

He heard the farmer's voice again:
This night will be bad. And tomorrow will be beyond imagining
.

He was woken by music. It beckoned him, lilting and insistent; delicate music, played by delicate instruments that he could not identify, with one rippling, bell-like phrase running through it in a gold thread of delight. There was in this music so much of the deepest enchantment of all his dreams and imaginings that he woke smiling in pure happiness at the sound. In the moment of his waking, it began to fade, beckoning as it went, and then as he opened his eyes it was gone. He had only the memory of that one rippling phrase still echoing in his head, and itself fading so fast that he sat up abruptly in bed and reached his arm out to the air, as if he could bring it back.

The room was very still, and there was no music, and yet Will knew that it had not been a dream.

He was in the twins' room still; he could hear Robin's breathing, slow and deep, from the other bed. Cold light glimmered round the edge of the curtains, but no one was stirring anywhere; it was very early. Will pulled on his rumpled clothes from the day before, and slipped out of the room. He crossed the landing to the central window, and looked down.

In the first shining moment he saw the whole strange-familiar world, glistening white; the roofs of the outbuildings mounded into square towers of snow, and beyond them all the fields and hedges buried, merged into one great flat expanse, unbroken white to the horizon's brim. Will drew in a long, happy breath, silently rejoicing. Then, very faintly, he heard the music again, the same phrase. He swung round vainly searching for it in the air, as if he might see it somewhere like a flickering light.

“Where are you?”

It had gone again. And when he looked back through the window, he saw that his own world had gone with it. In that flash, everything had changed. The snow was there as it had been a moment before, but not piled now on roofs or stretching flat over lawns and fields. There were no roofs, there were no fields. There were only trees. Will was looking over a great white forest: a forest of massive trees, sturdy as towers and ancient as rock. They were bare of leaves, clad only in the deep snow that lay untouched along every branch, each smallest twig. They were everywhere. They began so close to the house that he was looking out through the topmost branches of the nearest tree, could have reached out and shaken them if he had dared to open the window. All around him the trees stretched to the flat horizon of the valley. The only break in that white world of branches was away over to the south, where the Thames ran; he could see the bend in the river marked like a single stilled wave in this white ocean of forest, and the shape of it looked as though the river were wider than it should have been.

Will gazed and gazed, and when at last he stirred he found that he was clutching the smooth iron circle threaded onto his belt. The iron was warm to his touch.

He went back into the bedroom.

“Robin!” he said loudly. “Wake up!” But Robin breathed slowly and rhythmically as before, and did not stir.

He ran into the bedroom next door, the familiar small room that he had once shared with James, and shook James roughly by the shoulder. But when the shaking was done, James lay motionless, deeply asleep.

Will went out onto the landing again and took a long breath, and he shouted with all his might: “Wake up! Wake up, everyone!”

He did not now expect any response, and none came. There was a total silence, as deep and timeless as the blanketing snow; the house and everyone in it lay in a sleep that would not be broken.

Will went downstairs to pull on his boots, and the old sheepskin jacket that had belonged, before him, to two or three of his brothers in turn. Then he went out of the back door, closing it quietly behind him, and stood looking out through the quick white vapour of his breath.

The strange white world lay stroked by silence. No birds sang. The garden was no longer there, in this forested land. Nor were the outbuildings nor the old crumbling walls. There lay only a narrow clearing round the house now, hummocked with unbroken snowdrifts, before the trees began, with a narrow path leading away. Will set out down the white tunnel of the path, slowly, stepping high to keep the snow out of his boots. As soon as he moved away from the house, he felt very much alone, and he made himself go on without looking back over his shoulder, because he knew that when he looked, he would find that the house was gone.

He accepted everything that came into his mind, without thought or question, as if he were moving through a dream. But a deeper part of him knew that he was not dreaming. He was crystal-clear awake, in a Midwinter Day that had been waiting for him to wake into it since the day he had been born, and, he somehow knew, for centuries before that.
Tomorrow will be beyond imagining
. . . . Will came out of the white-arched path into the road, paved smooth with snow and edged everywhere by the great trees, and he looked up between the branches and saw a single black rook flap slowly past, high in the early sky.

Turning to the right, he walked up the narrow road that in his own time was called Huntercombe Lane. It was the way that he and James had taken to Dawsons' Farm, the same road that he had trodden almost every day of his life, but it was very different now. Now, it was no more than a track through a forest, great snow-burdened trees enclosing it on both sides. Will moved bright-eyed and watchful through the silence, until, suddenly, he heard a faint noise ahead of him.

He stood still. The sound came again, through the muffling trees: a rhythmical, off-key tapping, like a hammer striking metal. It came in short irregular bursts, as though someone were hammering nails. As he stood listening, the world around him seemed to brighten a little; the woods seemed less dense, the snow glittered, and when he looked upward, the strip of sky over Huntercombe Lane was a clear blue. He realised that the sun had risen at last out of the sullen bank of grey cloud.

He trudged on towards the sound of hammering, and soon came to a clearing. There was no village of Huntercombe any more, only
this. All his senses sprang to life at once, under a shower of unexpected sounds, sights, smells. He saw two or three low stone buildings thick-roofed with snow; he saw blue wood-smoke rising, and smelt it too, and smelt at the same time a voluptuous scent of new-baked bread that brought the water springing in his mouth. He saw that the nearest of the three buildings was three-walled, open to the track, with a yellow fire burning bright inside like a captive sun. Great showers of sparks were spraying out from an anvil where a man was hammering. Beside the anvil stood a tall black horse, a beautiful gleaming animal; Will had never seen a horse so splendidly midnight in colour, with no white markings anywhere.

The horse raised its head and looked full at him, pawed the ground, and gave a low whinny. The smith's voice rumbled in protest, and another figure moved out of the shadows behind the horse. Will's breath came faster at the sight of him, and he felt a hollowness in his throat. He did not know why.

The man was tall, and wore a dark cloak that fell straight like a robe; his hair, which grew low over his neck, shone with a curious reddish tinge. He patted the horse's neck, murmuring in its ear; then he seemed to sense the cause of its restlessness, and he turned and saw Will. His arms dropped abruptly. He took a step forward and stood there, waiting.

The brightness went out of the snow and the sky, and the morning darkened a little, as an extra layer of the distant cloudbank swallowed the sun.

Will crossed the road through the snow, his hands thrust deep into his pockets. He did not look at the tall cloaked figure facing him. Instead he stared resolutely at the other man, bent again now over the anvil, and realised that he knew him; it was one of the men from Dawsons' Farm. John Smith, Old George's son.

“Morning, John,” he said.

The broad-shouldered man in the leather apron glanced up. He frowned briefly, then nodded in welcome. “Eh, Will. You're out early.”

“It's my birthday,” Will said.

“A Midwinter birthday,” said the strange man in the cloak. “Auspicious, indeed. And you will be eleven years grown.” It was a statement, not a question. Now Will had to look. Bright blue eyes went
with the red-brown hair, and the man spoke with a curious accent that was not of the South-East.

“That's right,” Will said.

A woman came out of one of the nearby cottages, carrying a basket of small loaves of bread, and with them the new-baked smell that had so tantalised Will before. He sniffed, his stomach reminding him that he had eaten no breakfast. The red-haired man took a loaf, wrenched it apart, and held out a half towards him.

“Here. You're hungry. Break your birthday fast with me, young Will.” He bit into the remaining half of the loaf, and Will heard the crust crackle invitingly. He reached forward, but as he did so the smith swung a hot horseshoe out of his fire and clapped it briefly on the hoof clenched between his knees. There was a quick smoky smell of burning, killing the scent of the new bread; then the shoe was back in the fire and the smith peering at the hoof. The black horse stood patient and unmoving, but Will stepped back, dropping his arm.

“No, thank you,” he said.

The man shrugged, tearing wolfishly at his bread, and the woman, her face invisible behind the edge of an enveloping shawl, went away again with her basket. John Smith swung the horseshoe out of the fire to sizzle and steam in a bucket of water.

“Get on, get on,” said the rider irritably, raising his head. “The day grows. How much longer?”

“Your iron will not be hurried,” said the smith, but he was hammering the shoe in place now with quick, sure strokes. “Done!” he said at last, trimming the hoof with a knife.

The red-haired man led his horse round, tightened the girths, and slid upwards, quick as a jumping cat, into his saddle. Towering there, with the folds of his dark robe flowing over the flanks of the black horse, he looked like a statue carved out of night. But the blue eyes were staring compellingly down at Will. “Come up, boy. I'll take you where you want to go. Riding is the only way, in snow as thick as this.”

“No, thank you,” Will said. “I am out to find the Walker.” He heard his own words with amazement.
So that's it
, he thought.

“But now the Rider is abroad,” the man said, and all in one quick movement he twitched his horse's head around, bent in the saddle, and made a sweeping grab at Will's arm. Will jerked sideways, but he would have been seized if the smith, standing at the open wall of
the forge, had not leapt forward and dragged him out of reach. For so broad a man, he moved with astonishing speed.

The midnight stallion reared, and the cloaked rider was almost thrown. He shouted in fury, then recovered himself, and sat looking down in a cold contemplation that was more terrible than rage. “That was a foolish move, my friend smith,” he said softly. “We shall not forget.” Then he swung the stallion round and rode out in the direction from which Will had come, and the hooves of his great horse made only a muffled whisper in the snow.

John Smith spat, derisively, and began hanging up his tools.

“Thank you,” Will said. “I hope —” He stopped.

“They can do me no harm,” the smith said. “I come of the wrong breed for that. And in this time I belong to the road, as my craft belongs to all who use the road. Their power can work no harm on the road through Hunter's Combe. Remember that, for yourself.”

The dream-state flickered, and Will felt his thoughts begin to stir. “John,” he said. “I know it's true I must find the Walker, but I don't know why. Will you tell me?”

The smith turned and looked directly at him for the first time, with a kind of compassion in his weathered face. “Ah no, young Will. Are you so newly awake? That you must learn for yourself. And much more, this your first day.”

“First day?” said Will.

“Eat,” said the smith. “There is no danger in it now that you will not be breaking bread with the Rider. You see how quickly you saw the peril of that. Just as you knew there would be greater peril in riding with him. Follow your nose through the day, boy, just follow your nose.” He called to the house, “Martha!”

The woman came out again with her basket. This time she drew back her shawl and smiled at Will, and he saw blue eyes like the Rider's but with a softer light in them. Gratefully, he munched at the warm crusty bread, which had been split now and spread with honey. Then beyond the clearing there was a new sound of muffled footfalls in the road, and he spun fearfully round.

A white mare, without rider or harness, trotted into the clearing towards them: a reverse image of the Rider's midnight-black stallion, tall and splendid and without marking of any kind. Against the dazzle of the snow, glittering now as the sun re-emerged from cloud,
there seemed a faint golden glow in its whiteness and in the long mane falling over the arched neck. The horse came to stand beside Will, bent its nose briefly and touched his shoulder as if in greeting, then tossed its great white head, blowing a cloud of misty breath into the cold air. Will reached out and laid a reverent hand on its neck.

“You come in good time,” John Smith said. “The fire is hot.”

He went back into the forge and pumped once or twice at the bellows-arm, so that the fire roared; then he hooked down a shoe from the shadowed wall beyond and thrust it into the heat. “Look well,” he said, studying Will's face. “You've not seen a horse like this ever before. But this will not be the last time.”