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 eleven

Ruined

Shadows clung thickly in the ruined church, but shadows could only survive where there was also light. Faith had its own power. For centuries, people had worshipped here, and their faith had seeped into the stone. It still remained, as strong as it had ever been, even though darkness had outlawed that faith and tumbled that stone.

It was warm. Will's breath turned to steam in the cold, but the presence of power warmed him in the places that really mattered. He liked to meet in churches. They were not watched in the way that the ancient places of the Light were watched. The Dark dismissed the power of human faith. They thought they had triumphed by turning such places into empty shells of rubble and shadows. They did not see how thoroughly the power in those places defied them.

Anthony waited beside him, sitting neatly on the step that led to the choir. Will preferred to stand. The pews and the rood screen had been ripped out, taken for fuel or perhaps just for trophies. There was nowhere to sit, but that also meant that there was nowhere for the enemy to hide.

"They're late," Anthony said, glancing at his watch.

Will said nothing. He walked across the nave and looked up at a window. A saint raised his hand in fierce benediction, while angels looked on with distant eyes. He looks like Merriman, Will thought. He wondered if that meant something, but he knew it did not.

Anthony pushed himself painfully to his feet. He had almost died in a raid a few months before, and would never be free from pain. Will had not been there. If he had been, things might have ended differently, but if he had been there, then he would not have been elsewhere. Someone else, somewhere else, would have died or suffered or been hurt. Will could only save a few. It was something he still found so hard to live with and accept.

The side door opened silently, bringing in a wave of colder air and a swelling of the faint sounds of evening. Will and Anthony both whirled round, instinctively ready to fight, but it was one of their own. "Sorry I'm late," Phil said, when the door was safely closed again. He walked towards them with the silence that had become second nature to everyone in the Resistance.

"You're not the last." Anthony's voice was soft, but Will could sense how taut he still was. His near death had shaken him. He was quick to react to possible threats, but slow to calm down afterwards. Will could hear the pounding of his heart, and see it, pulsing in the air around him.

Phil walked to the empty space that had once been the Lady Chapel, where a pillar obscured him from Will's view. There was a soft grating sound. When Phil came back, he was carrying a gun. "That's better," he said. "I know it would be suicide for us to carry them outside, but still…" He grimaced. "It's the last few yards that are the worst. Approaching the meeting place, knowing that they could be watching, and without any way to fight back."

Anthony nodded with feeling. Will, who had his weapons with him always as part of himself, said nothing. He could not remember what it felt like to be fragile and mortal. People like Anthony and Phil, he thought, were far braver than him. Will was doing the thing he was made for, but they had made a choice. Will had already lost everything, but they could still lose.

"Who else is coming?" Phil asked.

"A good man," Anthony said. "He's been one of my seconds for a few years, but he's capable of a lot more. He has knowledge of the target, though, which is why he's coming tonight."

Will nodded distractedly. He had personally met so few of the people who were out there risking their life, under his ultimate command. Most of them now knew that their commanders possessed magic, but it was told as a secret, not to be passed on. The public still quietly laughed at such talk. No-one had publicly breathed a word about the true nature of the power that lurked behind all thrones.

Anthony and Phil carried on talking, exchanging news about this and that, sometimes even chuckling. Will found himself drifting away from them. He took one step towards the door, and then another. Something's coming. The thought tickled against his mind. Something I used to know.

"Something's coming."

He was not aware of saying it aloud, but Anthony and Phil stopped talking, and flanked him, guns ready.

"But not a threat," Will murmured. But, if that was so, why was his heart pounding so? Why was he fighting the sudden urge to turn and run? Walk away while you still can.

The main door opened. "It's him," Anthony gasped, his voice cracking with relief. He lowered his gun, laughing with the nervous relief of tension. Phil stood ready, still cautious.

The newcomer approached, moving from shadow to twilight, but Will would have known him even in the dark. He breathed his name, the sound hidden by Anthony's louder calling of the same name. Will's hand fluttered uselessly almost to his face, as if he could create a mask and hide behind it, then fell to his side again.

James walked briskly down the nave. He nodded at Anthony, and looked more warily at Phil. Will received the same look. There was no recognition there at all. It was ridiculous, but that hurt.

Anthony introduced them quickly. "James, this is Phil. And here's the boss."

James looked at Will more closely. Will looked back. He tried to keep it cool and level. He tried not to give in to the urge to look away. He tried not to give into the urge to devour James with his gaze. He wanted James to know him. He wanted James not to recognise him. He wanted this to go on, and he wanted this to be over.

"Good." Will nodded, and looked away. "We can start…"

"You…" James rasped. Will had missed the moment of recognition. Maybe it was something in the way he turned his head, or the way he stressed his words. Maybe it was the way the light had fallen on his face when he moved. When he looked at James again, his brother's eyes were wide with doubt and horror. "You're a sorcerer," he breathed.

"I told you that." Anthony sounded impatient.

"You…" James staggered back, almost falling. He reached for the support of something that was not there, and snatched his hand back to his chest. "You look like… No, it's magic. Don't. Please…"

"James," Will begged. He could not help himself.

"So cruel." James made a visible effort to collect himself. He stood tall, face wiped of emotion, and cold. "Was that a test?"

"What are you talking about?" Anthony strode to James' side, plainly embarrassed by him. "Stop it," he hissed. "You're making a fool of yourself."

No, Will thought sadly. I'm making a fool of him. I shouldn't have…

The door burst open again. The air tore apart with the sound of a gunshot, hollow, harsh, echoing. James fell forward onto his face.

"They followed him!" Phil shouted. He dropped to one knee, and started returning fire. Anthony threw himself to the ground, and reached for James. He was only able to touch his arm.

I didn't hear them, Will thought. I should have…

He plunged forward, hurling himself to his knees, scrabbling for James' body. "Keep them off us!" he shouted, commanding the air and the stone and the men beside him. "Keep them away from him!"

Anthony's face was a bleached mask, but he pushed himself up to his knees, and raised his gun. There were only three attackers, and one was already down. Will saw that much. After that, all he could see was James.

His brother was still breathing, but the breaths were horrible and tortured. His pulse fluttered weakly. Blood was bubbling from his mouth, pooling on the stone floor. His outstretched hand looked white and frail, and the fingers twitched as if searching blindly for help.

Will turned him on his back, supporting his head on his lap. His hands turned red with his brother's blood.

"Stop…" James whispered. "Them…" His dimming eyes were not focused on Will, but beyond him. Will could not turn his head, but he knew that Phil was wounded, blood spilling in drops from his right arm. Anthony was crying out wordlessly, a sound that could have been fury, but could have been terror and pain.

Will heaved a wrenching breath, and raised his blood-stained hand. The air responded, and joined with sound and light and memories of flame. With the tearing sound of an explosion, fire erupted through the middle of the church, forming a solid wall that separated Will's friends from the enemy. "Burn," he willed it. "Keep us safe. Keep him safe."

"Really a sorcerer, then," James whispered. "I never saw…"

"Don't speak," Will urged him. He tried to seek the wound, but James cried out, grasping his wrist hard enough to hurt.

"Is he…?" That was Anthony, his face lurid in the light of the flames. "Can you…?"

He could not. Against death, Will had no more power than any man. He could not heal another's wounds, and he could not save the life of any living thing. Death was necessary for life, and life was necessary for death. The Light was beyond and apart from the domain of living things.

The grip of Will's wrist tightened, then went slack. "Is it really you?" James whispered.

"It is," Will told him, smiling, weeping, holding him back.

James turned his face away. "Can't be." His lips moved, barely a whisper of sound coming out. "Will would never have been so cruel."

His eyes slipped shut. Will felt the moment of his death. It tore through him like a hurricane. It exploded in fire in his back and his chest, and someone was shouting, and someone was screaming. He heard his name called, and gunshots sounding. He saw fire, and James' face so close to his, and an outstretched hand on the stone floor, blood smearing on the tiles.

"They came through!" Anthony screamed. "Will! Will!"

Will pushed himself up on his hands and knees. I've been shot, some distant part of his mind registered, but that did not matter at all. He blinked, and there were no tears now, only clarity. James was dead, and Phil was down. Another of the enemy lay dying on the ground, but the final one remained, his gun raised.

Anthony stood defenceless before him, fumbling desperately to reload. "Will!" he pleased. "Kill him. Please…"

Will shook his head. He could not kill with magic. The power of the Light could not be used to end a life. Instead, he pointed his figure, and froze the man out of Time. "Shoot him," he told Anthony. He made his voice cold. He had to make his heart cold, too.

Anthony finished reloading, and raised the gun. He did not question, and did not hesitate. The moment he pulled the trigger, Will released the man from his spell. He returned to life only to die.

It seemed like the most unforgivable thing of all.

Anthony holstered his gun. "We have to get out." He looked wildly at the fire.

Will shook his head. "No." The fire vanished as if it had never been there. It left no scars on the fabric of the church. Everything else remained. There were scars from tonight that would never heal, and death could not be erased by a word.

He returned to James' body. Anthony tugged at his arm, trying to pull him back. "We do need to go," he insisted. "What if they reported this?"

Will pulled himself free. He huddled over James' body, his hand ghosting over his face. Cruel, James had called him. He supposed it was true. He wanted to blame Merriman, but he could not. If Will had not been distracted, James would still be alive.

"I have to see to them," Anthony said, "to make sure they're really dead, and if they're not..." Will only vaguely glanced up as he walked away. He was only dimly aware of the killing shots, and the silence that came from dying men ceasing their struggles. He was more aware of Anthony's return, but only because he felt the urge to grab hold of James and hold him defensively, against this stranger who would steal his family from him a second time.

"They're all dead." Anthony's face was cold, but Will knew it was just a mask of hide his guilt and disgust. Anthony hated killing. The Resistance only recruited people who could kill when they had to, but took no joy in it. "I had to do it," Anthony said, his voice cracking a little. "They'd seen you. They would have told."

"Yes." Will nodded. This, too, was true.

"You're hurt, Will." Anthony knelt beside him, and started worrying at him with his hands. "Come on…"

"No." Will shook his head. "I'll heal. I can't die. Everyone else can, and they keep on…"

He snapped his mouth shut. His wound hurt horribly, but not as much as grief. He was trying to claw himself back up to the high and lonely path that he walked, but he had fallen too far. He was not an Old One tonight, but a child who had been torn from his family. He hurt, and he wanted his mother to kiss things better. He wanted her to soothe him and tell him that it wasn't his fault, that he'd done everything he could. He wanted to curl up to sleep, secure in the knowledge that his big brothers would make everything alright. He just wanted to sleep.

Phil shuffled up to them, a tall shape against the dappled twilight of the windows. He was bleeding from his arm, and clutching a lump on his forehead. "Hit my head on the step," he slurred. "We've got to go."

Will shook his head. "I can't leave him." The authorities would identify the body. When they captured someone from the Resistance, they made their whole family pay.

"No." Anthony sighed. "I know he's got family. He talked about them a lot. He said once that he wasn't afraid of dying himself, as long as they…"

"They will not find him," Will vowed. He tried to pick James up, but although he was an Old One, who was still bound by the limits of his human body. Scarlet pain flared through his body, from a fiery sun in the middle of his back. He staggered, but Anthony was there, half supporting him, half holding James. Anthony's face was twisted with pain, but he was surprisingly strong.

"Where?" Phil asked.

Will moistened his dry lips. "I've got a room nearby." It was not his home. He did not have a home. There were half a dozen places where he regularly slept, and this was one of them. No-one else had ever been inside it.

He remembered little of the long walk from the church. He remembered pausing at the door, and whispering the command that would wipe all blood and traces from the church. He remembered arms beneath his, and the way James' head sagged forward, and how he was no longer bleeding, and that was the most terrible thing of all, because it meant that James was dead.

He remembered turns and pauses, and how the sound of a helicopter had gone through him like a spear. He remembered how fast Anthony's heart had been beating, as their bodies were pressed together, side by side. He remembered Phil muttering words that made no sense, but Anthony groaning only once, when they jolted down a kerb.

He kept them hidden all the way with magic, because there was no choice. His magic was a beacon if the right people were watching, but unshielded, they would be a beacon to all. Out a every thousand men in uniform, only one could see him as he truly was.

He tried to explain a little of this to Anthony – how he could be dooming them all. Anthony just grunted, but later he laughed in wonder when they met a young woman, scurrying anxiously home to beat the curfew. She passed within inches of them without even seeing them. "I never grow tired of your marvels," Anthony said, eyes shining despite the pain.

But then the blankness of grief and exertion, and the next he knew it was almost dark, and they were stumbling through a doorway he had walked through so many times before, always alone. Anthony took James from him, and he cried out, but Anthony did not falter. Will leant against the wall, and watched Anthony lay James on the floor. "That might be concussion," Anthony said to Phil. "Stay here where we can watch you."

Will blinked. When he opened his eyes again, Phil had gone, and the room was lit with flickering candlelight. Anthony was standing in front of him. When he saw Will looking at him, Anthony started, and looked away, his face shuttering over. Will wondered dimly what expression it had worn a moment before, when his eyes had been shut.

"You need to sit down, Will," Anthony said. "I would have made you tea, but you don't seem to have any electricity, and I wasn't sure if it was safe to light a fire."

Will let himself be led to the couch. He reminded himself again that he could not die from this, no matter how badly it hurt. It would get better in time. He had to ignore it and carry on. There was no other choice.

"Phil's asleep in the other room," Anthony said. He lowered himself onto the couch beside Will, his careful breathing betraying how much it hurt him. "What are we going to do now?"

Will looked at James' face. It looked like the face of a stranger. Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw instead the face of the bright and vibrant thirteen year old boy James had once been. It seemed impossible and absurd that he had turned into this adult lying dead on the floor.

He passed his hand across his face, and shivered at the damp feel of smearing blood. "Destroy this place," he said. "Destroy all trace of me here. There's too much of a trail now." It was not what Anthony had meant, and he knew it. He raked his hand again across his brow. "We'll have to…" He swallowed. "Destroy his body. If they find him with a government-issue bullet in him, they'll know."

"And go after his family," Anthony finished for him. He touched Will briefly on the back of his hand. Will did not know which of them was trembling, and which one was still.

Will nodded. "But better for them… Better for his family if they know. He can't just disappear."

Anthony leant back against the couch. "He had a brother. He told me that once. A younger brother. He disappeared when James was thirteen. They had to assume he was dead, but they never really knew for sure. It was bad enough that he was gone, James said, but the thing that really tore the family apart was that little seed of hope that perhaps he was alive after all."

Will turned his face to the side, so Anthony could not see it. He had to keep his hands entirely still. He could not betray the slightest emotion.

"That's what James was most afraid of." It sounded to Will as if Anthony's voice was coming from a very long way away, but there was no other sound in the world, so it was as loud as a shout. "That his family would be targeted because of him. That was part of it. But even more than that, I think, it was the fear that he would become one of the disappeared, and they would never know. But he still joined us. Even with the risk to them, he said, he couldn't sit back and do nothing. His family would understand that, he said."

Oh, James… Will blinked back the tears that could not be allowed fall. You were braver than me. You were braver by far.

"His brother was called Will," Anthony said. It was said so casually that Will knew beyond all doubt that Anthony knew. He tried to prepare something to say, tried to decide how his face would look when he turned round. He tried for denial, and struggled for truth. Seconds passed, and he remained frozen.

Anthony touched his hand, and this time he lingered. "You've been alone since you were twelve."

Will nodded. Even that movement hurt, as if it was wrenched from his soul. "I didn't want to, but everyone was just beginning. If the enemy had had any inkling that I was still alive, they would have…"

Anthony silenced him with a finger to his lips. "We don't have to be alone, Will."

He touch was fire and ice. The look in his eyes held Will pinned, unable to move towards it, unable to move away.

"It's comfort in the darkness, Will," Anthony whispered. "Everyone needs to know that they're not alone."

Will wanted to close his eyes and sink into arms that understood him and forgave everything. He struggled for speech. "I'm not…"

"Neither am I," Anthony said with a smile. "But that's not what it's about. Soldiers share blankets in the valley of the shadow of death. Comrades give comfort. There's girls where I live and sometimes I… but it's nothing. It doesn't mean anything. They don't know what I do, and I can't tell them anything. Everything that matters is locked away. Comfort comes from sharing and trust. Without that, it's nothing – just tawdry bodies in the dark."

He moved his hand to Will's face, caressing his cheek. It was the closest human contact Will had enjoyed since he was a child. Part of him craved it with a hunger that defied all thought. James was dead, and he was hurting so badly, and Anthony knew so little of him, but at least he knew enough.

Enough… The word caught, like a feather plucked from the wind. Enough, he echoed to himself. It was not enough. Anthony had seen a little beneath the surface of him, but he would never understand his heart. A snatch of comfort in the dark was no substitute for total trust. It would not bring James back. It would not change a thing.

Will took hold of Anthony's wrist, and gently pushed him away. "No," he said softly. "I can't do that."

Anthony did not snatch his hand back, or recoil in anger. He twisted his hand so he could briefly grasp Will's fingers. "You should," he said. "If not with me, then with someone."

Will looked away. He saw a figure, dark against the sun, turning towards him, smiling… He blinked, and saw only his small bleak room, that had never been a sanctuary, and now was only a prison.

He passed his hands across his face, as if scraping away all emotion. "I need you to do something for me," he said.

End of part two: chapter eleven