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 ten

Homecoming

He stood for far too long outside the door, and knocked only gently at first.

No-one came. Will listened to a blackbird singing loudly in a hawthorn tree, and watched a brindled cat stalk delicately along a wall. He looked at unfamiliar shrubs in the garden, and a skyline that had changed. The smell of the doorstep was different. A small chip in the stonework was suddenly bitterly familiar, but other marks were new, speaking of a life that had carried on without him.

He raised his hand to knock again, then lowered it. The coward inside him wanted to run away. The Old One inside him, taught by Merriman, told him that coming here was unnecessary, an indulgence. He was embarking on a course of action that could defeat the Dark forever. This was a distraction. It was a risk. If the Dark discovered his existence because of this…

The blackbird flew away, crying in frenzied alarm. The cat lashed its tail, deprived of its sport. A leaf drifted gently down from where the bird had been, and the cat eyed it disdainfully, dismissing it as a replacement toy.

He wondered whose cat it was. Perhaps it was some distant descendent of a cat he had once known as a child, or perhaps it was an incomer, brought in by people he did not know. Old houses were empty in the village, and new ones had been built, uncompromising and ugly. The Manor was gone, and the farm, and all trace that the Old Ones had ever existed here, guarding their signs, and waiting for him.

He had left it too late, he knew that. Forgiveness was not possible after a lie that had lasted so long. The world had moved on. His family had moved on, and he was no longer part of it. There could be no going home.

And yet this was right. It was something he had to do. The cold wisdom of an Old One told him that it was unnecessary, even foolish, but he had been born a human, as part of a human family. Foolishness, not wisdom, had caused him to contact Bran. Emotion, not coldness, had won Bran back from the Dark. He had to do what he felt was right. He could not take on the might of Dark if he did so with this lie on his conscience. He could not risk leaving the world forever unless he undid this wrong.

He raised his fist and knocked, hard and firm. Only after he had done so, did he realise that he had unconsciously used the same pattern of knocks that he had used as a child, before he was trusted with a key.

His mother answered the door, but her face was blank and wary. She's forgotten my knock, he thought, with a pang that he had no right to feel. His next thought was horror at how old she looked. He had watched his family from afar, but in his mind, they had always worn the faces they had worn when he was young. They had frozen in time for him, but in the world, Time always moved on.

"Yes?" his mother said. There was no friendliness in her voice at all. "What do you want?"

Will opened his mouth; closed it again. He had travelled here slowly, dragging himself painfully from Bran's apartment, hiding in corners, evading pursuit. He had spent ages wondering what to say, but all the preparing openings vanished from his mind, destroyed by the coldness in the eyes of a woman who was too old.

"You look…" His mother frowned, then shook her head. "For a moment, you reminded me of my brother-in-law… But, no, it's forty years since he last looked like that. You wouldn't have been born then. Silly me. My mind wanders, now I… But never mind that. Say what you have come to say."

"I…" He could not say it. It could not be said. "I…"

Maybe it was the way he turned his head. Maybe it was something in the way he spoke. Maybe it was the light behind him, or a smell, or a nuance in the way he moved his hand.

"Will?" Her voice was a raw grate of pain.

"Yes." There were tears in his eyes. He was not an Old One at all, but a child who had been lost forever, and now had found their way home. "It's me, Mum."

"It can't be…" The blood rushed from her face, and she tottered. He swept inside, supported her, led her to the chair in the hall that had been there for as long as he could remember. "Will?" she whispered, half-fainting. "My boy?"

He got her water, and brought it to her. Her hand brushed his, and it was as cold and white as bone. Water splashed on their two hands. She drained the glass, and clutched it with trembling fingers.

"You're a trick," she said, but gentle now, and oh so sad. "You're just pretending, to trick us into… Oh…" She shook her head, eyes gleaming with tears. "I'm a mother. I can't believe that. I can't."

"It really is me." He tried to take the glass from her hand, but she resisted. Her other hand found his wrist, and there was as much strength in it as there had ever been.

"They never found a body, you see." He could feel her fingers trembling. "Not for Will, and not for that Welsh boy, either. All these years, and they were never found. Everyone told me not to hope, but in this world of ours, with so many bad things happening, if you don't have hope, how can you face each day? How can you live?"

He could not speak. He bowed his head and rested it on her lap. After a while, her hand came to lie on his head, like a benediction.

"I thought he might have been washed up somewhere," she said, "and not know who he was. Or I thought he might remember us, but not be able to get back to us. He was only twelve. My littlest boy. At least with James I knew he was never coming back. But Will… But… you…"

He raised his head, and settled down on his knees on the floor, hands folded on his lap. It was time for confession, but not for absolution, never for that.

"I knew who I was," he said. "I was never in the sea. I knew, and I could have come back to you at any time. I did, sometimes, just to watch. I wanted to so much…" He breathed in and out, calming himself. He was not here for pity, just for truth. "There were reasons not to come back. I had to be dead to the world. It was… No, I cannot say it. 'For your own good,' I was going to say, but I know what it did to you all, thinking I was dead. The alternative, though… Someone told me… Someone assured me…"

She said nothing. Her face was hidden behind the cold mask again. She had dropped the glass, and it had shattered on the floor. He had not noticed.

The whole truth. An end to lies. "I am a sorcerer, mum – or what the Dark calls a sorcerer. An Old One. A wizard, if you like. I was since my eleventh birthday. We were supposed to be defeating the Dark forever, that summer I went to Wales, but everything went wrong. The Dark won. You've seen the results of that in the world. They were determined to hunt us down, the few Old Ones who remained. They would have done anything to get to us. The others were centuries old, without ties in the world, but I had you. If they'd known I was still alive, they would have hurt you, to get to me. Everyone had to think I was dead. Everyone."

She was silent. He had lost the ability to read her face.

"And because of that, we have hope," he continued desperately. "Only a slim hope, but hope nonetheless. Because it worked. They think they've won. They think all the Old Ones have gone. They've relaxed their guard."

His mother turned to face the open door, and gazed almost placidly at the world beyond this darkened hall. "Why now? If this is true, why come back to us now?"

"Because my master is gone," Will told her, tears welling in his eyes again. "He was the one who told me, back then. He wouldn't let me come. He forbade it, and he was the oldest of us, and the wisest, and I had to obey him."

"He kept a twelve year old boy from his family." His mother clenched her first. "It's just as well he's already gone, because if he wasn't, I would…"

"No," Will said. "Don't blame Merriman. He did what he thought was right. He always did. He always served the cause of Light, no matter what it cost him. He expected no more from me than he would have given himself."

"He was cruel, and a fool," his mother said.

"No…"

"You were a child!" his mother cried. "A child, and he kept you away from your family. We thought you were dead! It tore us apart."

"I know. I…"

"We wouldn't have told anyone, Will." She stood up with dignity and went to close to door, and stood there afterwards, showing him nothing but her back. "Did he understand a single thing about love? He should have known. You should have known. We would never have betrayed you, Will."

She was too calm. "You don't believe me," Will realised. She was calling him by name, but only because she no longer believed. She was humouring him, hoping to trick him into betraying himself.

She pressed her hand against the door. "I want to. I have never stopped hoping that Will will come back. I used to dream of the day."

"But you don't any more?"

She was silent for a while. "I still do," she said quietly. "I will still be dreaming when I die."

Will stood up. "I have come back, mum. Everything I've just told you is true, and…" He hesitated. No more lies. "James died in my arms, mum. I was his commander, but he never knew. He died, and I couldn't save him. My powers can't stop death. But afterwards I… I sent a friend to tell you what had happened. I knew what it had done to you all, when I disappeared. I couldn't undo that wrong, because Merriman… But I could stop it happening again. I could give you that much."

His mother said nothing. Only the faint shaking of her shoulders showed that she was crying.

Will made no effort to hide his own tears. "I wish you could believe me, mum, for your own sake, not for mine. What I want, I can never have. I know that. I can't be a child again. I can't expect you to forgive me. But you… I want you to know the truth. Hate me if you must, but please don't mourn me any more."

"Why now?" she said again, still showing him nothing but her back.

"Because…" He closed his eyes. "Because there is a chance now that I will be able to defeat the Dark, but if I fail, I will be gone forever, and even if I succeed, I may well be gone forever."

"So you come back," she said bitterly, "only to say goodbye. And I said that this master of yours was cruel."

"I'm sorry." He stumbled for the door. "Perhaps I shouldn't have come, but I wanted you to know the truth. I knew you wouldn't forgive, but I hoped you would believe."

She stepped aside. Will opened the door, and blundered out onto the path. The cat was still there, staring at him with resentful eyes. The garden was silent, with no birds singing.

"Are you hurt?" she asked.

Will paused between one step and the next. "I was, yes, but it's almost better."

It was a lie. In a very real way, he had died in Bran's kitchen, and had been born again with new wisdom, but in his old and battered body. His wound would heal at a human pace, but it could not kill him, and pain could be ignored. But what he had seen, when he had died… What he had experienced… It left nothing behind but a vague memory of awe. He had trembled on the edge of Time, but he had come back. This fragile earth was still his place, until his work was done, or until he failed.

She did not call him back. He walked almost to the garden gate, when he heard footsteps behind him. A hand on his arm, pulling him back. A hand on his neck; a kiss on his cheek.

"I'm glad you came," she said.

"You believe me?" he asked, but she did not answer. You forgive me? That could not be said. "Are you happier than you were?"

She took a step back, as if surveying him. "I need to think. You've told me so much. And I need to talk… My husband… The others… If you came back tomorrow…"

He shook his head. "I can't. But afterwards, if I can…" He did not want to say it, but it had to be said. "If I don't, then you will know that I have gone. This time, nothing on earth will keep me away, and only that."

"Gone?" she echoed.

"Not dead," he said softly. "My kind cannot die. We go out of Time and live somewhere else, in a better place. I glimpsed it, the other night, and it is marvellous. It is nothing to mourn."

"But not here. Not here with us."

He shook his head. "No."

"Go, then," she said, as she kissed him one more time, "and hurry back."

He walked away beneath trailing roses, but his tears made their petals blur until he was walking through a sea of red, like blood.

End of part three: chapter ten