The World to Come

by Eildon Rhymer

What if the Dark had won at the end of Silver on the Tree? The world is sliding into darkness, and only tattered remnants of the Light remain. Will, Bran and the Drews grow to adulthood, and each to their own destiny in this World to Come.

Part two: chapter eight

Secrets

The sea was calm and grey. Waves broke gently on the shore, and pulled away, making the shingle chatter like distant voices. Children played on the thin stretch of sand beneath the sea wall, their parents hovering anxiously. Even the play was muted. Even the sea air was marred ever so slightly by smoke.

Will was sitting on a rusty bench on the promenade, watching the waves rise and fall. He had been there for over an hour. Sometimes he watched the scene before him, and sometimes he closed his eyes.

His eyes were closed when the man came. Will felt him at first only as a touch of cold on his face, from a figure walking between him and the sun. He opened his eyes in time to see a young man settling down beside him, arranging his jacket carefully so it would not crumple unnecessarily.

Will did not look at him, and no words were said. They looked at the waves together for a while, in silence. A helicopter passed low above them, and a car roared down the esplanade, chased by the police. Not far away, a gunshot sounded. The children playing on the sand did not react in any way.

"Sorry I'm late," the man said at last. He was fair-haired, and probably older than Will, though Will constantly forgot that he was only twenty-seven. His name was Anthony, or maybe that was just the name he went by. Will went by his real name, but no surname had ever been given, or asked for.

"It doesn't matter," Will lied. He remembered reading once that immortals did not feel the passage of time like ordinary people, but it was not true for him. He felt every minute, and endured every hour. The past fifteen years felt like a lifetime, not like the twinkling of an eye.

"Has anyone noticed you?" Anthony asked.

Will shook his head. "Or, if they have, they don't think it's suspicious."

Anthony gestured with his chin at the half-naked children playing in the sand. "Probably think you're a child-molester, or something innocent like that." There were barbs in his voice. Such behaviour was all-but condoned by the government. The truth - that they were two men meeting as part of a struggle for light and freedom - was far more dirty than any lie.

Will sighed. "Or that I was planning to kill myself." A solitary man, staring sadly out to sea… It had happened many times. He had felt that pull.

Anthony chuckled. "Must have been disappointed when I appeared, then."

They did not normally banter. They should not. Very occasionally, Will wondered if they could be friends, of a sort. Usually, he knew that they could not.

Anthony was his principal voice in the Resistance, his second-in-command. Merriman had left Will in command of the whole south-east. He was slowly learning what that meant. He hardly ever saw Merriman now, and sometimes he went a whole day without wondering what Merriman would do or say in a particular situation.

Anthony stood up, and lurched to the railing. "Do you ever think about it, though?" His voice was almost lost in the breeze. "I do."

Will thought of two boys, swimming together out into a starlit ocean, and never coming back. He still dreamed of that. He still dreamed of Bran, and of a world in which he could die. He still dreamed of paths beyond the furthest ocean, that led to happiness and light, in a place without tomorrows.

"No," he said, his voice husky.

"Of course not." Anthony returned to his seat. For a moment, Will thought he saw resentment in his eyes. "You're not one to give in. That's why you started all this. We were all sitting around moaning and complaining, but too afraid to do anything, but you…"

"No," Will rasped. "No."

"And you're never bothered by things," Anthony continued, as if Will had not spoken. "You're always so sure of everything, and it keeps me going, but sometimes I wish…" He stopped, shaking his head, and Will was grateful. He lived too many lies. It was even worse, hearing them.

Will pressed his hands together on his lap. "We need to talk about the solstice."

The midwinter solstice was the night when ancient man was celebrated the gradual return of the light, and the ending of night's suzerainty. Will was not the one who had come up with the idea of choosing that night for a special performance by the Resistance, but he approved of it. It was a good day to strike a blow. It was also his birthday.

"What are people proposing?" he prompted Anthony, when no reply came.

Will was their leader, but he seldom led. An Old One existed to guide, not to command. Merriman had forced them to take on a more active role, but it was the ordinary people whose world was at stake. Will allowed them as much freedom as he could. He had the power of veto, however, over all plans. Only he knew what was really at stake. Only he knew when an easy, tempting target was actually guarded by a lord of the Dark.

"Several promising strategies…" Anthony sounded distracted. He sucked in a breath, and said in a rush, "Will, are you a sorcerer?"

Will stopped breathing. A wave broke on the shore, and then another. He breathed in again, and out. "I am," he admitted.

Anthony said nothing.

There were too many things Will could have said. He could have asked Anthony how he had found out, or what he was going to do about it, now he knew. He could have launched into an apology, explaining that the Old Ones were a world away from the dark sorcerers of government propaganda. He could even have raised his hand, spread his fingers, and made Anthony forget.

Instead, he sat there, completely still. Two boys entered the sea, paddling first, and then wading. They went further out, and soon they were swimming. One head was fair, and one was brown. Will blinked, but they were still there. Not a dream, he thought. This is real.

"I…" Anthony smoothed the creases from his sleeves. Will knew him enough to know that he did it the way other men might wring their hands. "I'm glad you said yes," he said. "Glad that you are one? I don't know. Glad you said yes, though, and didn't try to lie, or deflect the question."

"You're deflecting now, aren't you?" Will said softly.

"Yes." Anthony smiled. "It's just… It's like something out of a story, Will. It's not real life. Sorcerers, real? It's absurd. But…" He pressed his hands together, brought them to his mouth. "But everything's absurd. I would never have dreamed that Britain would fall like this. I never thought to see prison camps in English villages. I never thought to see people shot in public parks. Really, magic seems less absurd than that."

"Yes," Will said, but it was a lie. There was nothing absurd about the Dark. Everything Anthony talked about had long been a possibility. It was what the Light had strived against for so long. "Don't call me a sorcerer, though," he said. "None of those things they say about us are true."

"Well, I knew that." Anthony shook his head incredulously. "Nothing they say is true. If they say something's black, then I know it's white. If they say left, then I know it's right."

Too simple, Will thought, but he did not say it. "Was it really obvious?" he asked. "I don't want others…"

Anthony shook his head. "Not obvious at all, to be honest. I was just watching one of those broadcasts, disbelieving it like everyone else does, when I started thinking. Why would they say something so ridiculous, I thought, if it wasn't true? Then I started wondering where these sorcerers are. If they're working with us, surely I'd have met one by now. And as soon as I thought that, I knew that if anyone I knew was a sorcerer, it was you. You're not like anyone else."

No, Will thought, but that was something he had mourned long ago, and it was useless to be hurt by it. "I've been wondering whether to tell people," he confessed, "once the broadcasts started."

Anthony thought about it for a while. "Not yet, perhaps," he said. "Most people don't believe it yet. They'd think you were deluded or mad. That wouldn't be good."

"I was thinking that it might be best to tell people sooner, rather than later," Will said, "before the propaganda has properly taken root."

"Lynch mobs in the street, and burnings at the stake, you mean?" Anthony grimaced. "Nothing to worry about. Our people are too clever for that. If they've joined us, then they know how to see through the propaganda. They won't fall for any of the lies."

Will found himself feeling lighter, all of a sudden. It was as if the sun had appeared through a gap in the clouds, and everything sparkled just a little. To have someone to talk to about this... He had borne this secret for so long. Not since Bran…

"There's something else," he blurted out. "The reason they know about us… They have sorcerers, too. True Dark sorcerers, like in the worst children's nightmares. We've been opposing them on earth for as long as man has existed, and they won. Lords of Darkness lurk behind every government. Creatures with magic masquerade as men, and march with the police or the army, or just on corners or in fields on in gardens, beneath the window."

Anthony swallowed hard. He looked paler than Will had ever seen him. "You're joking?" He raked his hand through his thick hair. "No, you're not joking, are you? That's why…"

"Why I've forbidden things that you thought were easy," Will finished for him, "because I knew they were not. I've always known the true face of your enemies. You see only masks."

Anthony brought his fist up, as if to strike. "Then you should have told us…!"

Will met his glare placidly. "Would you have believed me?"

Very slowly, Anthony lowered his fist. "No." He shook his head. "No."

Will studied the backs of his hands. "Will the others believe yet, do you think?" He said it very quietly.

Anthony let out a breath. "No," he whispered. He sounded strangely broken. "Some of them, maybe. We can tell a few. More, as time passes. But go public with it? Tell the world? We'd be a laughing stock. People secretly disbelieve it when the government talks about sorcerers, but they daren't laugh out loud. If we start up with the same talk… We're safe to laugh at. We're beginning to become heroes. That's what the whispers say, when people don't think anyone's listening. If we started to tell this tale, we'd become idiots, the lunatic fringe."

"Yes." Will stared out at sea. He did not know why he felt as if another little piece of himself had just died.

Several times, Anthony seemed to be about to speak. At length, he said, "Are you upset?"

Will started.

"That I guessed," Anthony said. "That it's not a secret any more."

"I've known since I was eleven," Will found himself saying. The words came from somewhere within him, and he did not try to stop them. "I've known since then that I'd spend my life alone, that no-one would ever know. Someone did, for a while, but that ended. My family… They think I'm dead. I died at twelve, and this is all just a dream."

"At twelve," Anthony echoed. He spoke as if the words hurt his throat. He half reached towards Will, almost touching his hand, then withdrew. His hands clasped together, then parted. "And you've never… Will, you should…"

Will thought he knew what was coming. He stood up, and went to the railing. It was cold beneath his hands, almost shockingly so. The sun was behind its clouds again, and the beach was clearing. Soon only the waves would remain, and then the night would claim even them.

"I think," he said, "that we should meet again in a week. There have been too many revelations. We need to talk about the things that we do with a heart untrammelled with emotion."

His voice was completely level. But Anthony touched him briefly on his back before departing, and the touch went through him like cold fire, promising friendship, but offering none.

End of part two: chapter eight