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 three: chapter nine
After the first death
When he finally opened his eyes, all was silent. "Are you…?" He cleared his throat. "Are you laughing now?"
Will said nothing. Something smeared beneath Bran's hand, and he knew that it was blood. He moved the hand, and the blood grew thicker, as if his fingers were wading through it like the sea. It was Will's blood, because he, Bran, had finally taken his revenge on him. It was Will's blood…
"I remember how it was," he said, louder than he needed to. If he said it enough, it would be true. It had to be true. "I saw my mother, and she said…"
There really was so much blood. But Will deserved it. And he couldn't die, anyway, could he? He could suffer like any mortal man, but he would come back. Bran could hurt him, but only the lords of the Dark could destroy him, and Bran had to contact them now, so they could… He had to…
He crawled towards the wall, and pulled himself up by the door frame. He groped for the light switch, and smeared his hand across it, turning the dimmer switch as faint as possible. The first thing he saw was his own bloody handprints on the white-painted wood. The second thing was Will's body hanging limply from his cuffed wrists, his legs bent and his knees close to the blood-stained floor. His face was white, and his eyes were closed.
"Faking," Bran said. "Faking to trick me."
But he edged forward all the same. Moving like an animal expecting to be bitten, he touched the side of Will's throat. He thought he felt a heartbeat, but then he thought it was just the trembling of his fingers. He tried again with the flat of his hand, and felt nothing at all.
He fumbled for the key, and released the cuffs, so that Will slumped to the ground. Bran tried to break his fall, but a human body was heavy, and Will slid sideways, so they both ended up lying in the pool of blood. Bran groaned at a stab of pain from his knee, but Will made no sound at all.
"You can't be dead," Bran told him. "You can't die."
In the light of a naked bulb, the blood acted like a mirror. He saw Will's slack lips and closed eyes, distorted in the pool of red. Bran himself was only a pale blur, as if he had never been anything more substantial than a dream. He was a thing made of myth and memories. His past had shaped him, and the things he had seen in that place of stars, beyond the blue.
"It was real," he told Will now. "It was real."
Will opened his eyes, a tiny slit of pale colour. The faintest of breaths disturbed the surface of the blood.
Bran curled his hand, blood seeping through the knuckles. "You were dead."
Will did not move. His cheek was pressed against the floor, and his mouth distorted. "I can't die. I didn't know before… how it would be. I thought… I wondered…" He rolled onto his back, and wiped his face with shaking hands, so his face was streaked with lurid red and pink. "We do die. We tremble on the edge of Time. But then we come back."
Bran did not know what to say. The memory, still so fresh, robbed him of words. "I remembered," he managed. He said it like an accusation.
Will clawed himself into a sitting position, his face clenched tight with pain. A tiny moan escaped him, but then he pressed his lips together, and nodded. "What happened, Bran?" he said softly. "Why did you turn against us that day?"
Bran's heart started to speed up. "Don't you know?"
Will shook his head. "If you remembered it just now, I couldn't see it. I cannot, Bran. We can't see into the minds of others, or make them do anything against their will. Not even the Dark can do that, although they can manipulate, and twist the truth with their lies, and that is almost the same."
Bran looked down at his hands, folded, and stained with blood. "I saw my mother." He had meant to shout it as an accusation, but it came out small. "She said that… that Merriman had stolen me from her, and that she wanted… She wanted…"
"It wasn't her."
He barely heard Will's quiet words, but when he did hear them, they stopped the world from turning.
"It wasn't her, Bran. I'm so sorry. It was a construct of the Dark."
Bran stopped breathing.
"I don't know what she said, but it would have been lies." Will's voice carried on inexorably. "Enough truth to be plausible, but twisted…"
"She told me that you'd been using me, every single one of you," Bran burst out. "She said you'd never been my friend. And where was your precious Merriman when I was crying myself to sleep when I was little? You wanted… You wanted to force me… And she said… She said that she was the only person who truly loved me, and it was true. It was true."
"No," Will said.
"But you didn't come!" Bran screamed. "So I knew it was true!"
He saw Will's eyes slide shut, and open again, older than before. "Merriman stopped me, and I know why now. I saw… I drifted to the edge of Time, and I saw…" He let out a long breath. "He had his reasons, and… Oh, but you suffered for it, and so did I, and now…"
Will stopped. Bran waited, breathing in, and out; in, and out. "Run out of excuses?" His bitterness tasted awkward in his mouth.
"It doesn't make anything all right," Will said. "It is not an excuse, just how it is. You were watched. They're still watching you, but nothing like as much as they used to. That stopped the moment Merriman… went. They thought one of us would seek you out, and they were ready. We would have been captured before we had even said hello. Only when Merriman had gone and they thought their position was secure. Only then… And Merriman knew. He knew it, and I…"
There were too many words. Bran crouched on the floor, and his brain felt tired and sluggish. His mother hadn't been real? It had all been a lie? No, he whispered. No… Twenty-four years stretched behind him, shaped by the revelations of that day. He had killed. He had grown cold. He was feared and hated because of that day, and if it was all a lie…
"Prove it," he demanded, clutching at a hope, or maybe at a fear. "Show me my mother."
Will shook his head. "Would that make a difference? That, too, could be a lie. And I cannot, even so. The doors of Time are almost closed. Too much has passed. All we have left is what we are."
"Words," Bran scoffed. He was almost crying, choking on tears he had not shed since he was a child. "Just fine-sounding words, a cloak for lies."
"No." Will almost reached for him, but his hand fell to his side again, pale and weak. His voice was clear, but he looked fragile, wrapped in pain. "It was never less than the truth."
And Bran knew it. He had known it all along. His life was a tower of cards, built on a lie. He had acted on impulse, out of raw pain, and the Light had come crashing down. The Dark had won, and he was trapped there at the heart of it, unable to see the truth.
Because, if he saw the truth, then it was all his fault. If he let himself believe the truth, then he had to live with the knowledge that he had destroyed the world.
He hid his face in his hands. "I didn't mean to." A pathetic, childish, stupid excuse. "I thought it would just stop the Light from wiping out the Dark. I thought things would carry on the same as they'd always been, with the Light and the Dark together, and I… I wasn't even thinking properly. I just…"
"Bran," he heard. "Bran." Will had been calling his name throughout, he realising. He stopped his flow of words with a sob, but he could not look at Will. He could not look at him ever again. "Bran," Will said, "it wasn't your fault, and it is done. It is past. The Dark is a master of lies, and you were just a child. They tricked you, and…"
"I shouldn't have," Bran moaned. "I should have known."
"No." Will's hand closed on his wrist, slowly and firmly pulling his hand from his face. "Kings and princes have fallen prey to the wiles of the Dark," Will said. "Wise men and war leaders have been ensnared by their words. The Dark bears the blame, not you."
"But…"
Will pressed his finger to Bran's lips. "No, Bran, no buts. All that remains is to decide what is to be done about it."
"Done?" Bran gave a bitter laugh. "Kill myself, you mean?"
"No," Will said, as if he was whole and strong, not mortally wounded and bathed in his own blood. "I mean, how are we going to defeat the Dark?"
Bran laughed, a despairing laugh with tears in it.
End of part three: chapter nine