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 thirteen

Stories

"Do you believe him?" Barney whispered.

Simon looked up listlessly; not long ago, he had been struggling and fighting. The man called Pendragon sat stiffly in the neighbouring room, clearly visible through the open door.

"Are we…?"

"I don't know," Simon hissed, as if the whole thing was Barney's fault. "What can we do?"

Pendragon glanced towards them, then away, as if the sight of them hurt him. Call me Bran, he had told them, his voice stiff and not at all friendly. My name is Bran. But of course it wasn't. Barney had heard of Pendragon when he was still free, as someone to be feared, someone on the rise. Simon had never mentioned knowing him at school, but Simon never spoke of school. Barney presumed that Pendragon was one of the bullies.

"Well…" Barney frowned, struggling to think. In prison, the brain slowly atrophied. You learnt how to survive, but you did not need to think. There was nothing to plan for, and so you lost the ability to plan. "We can…"

"Nothing." Simon raised his cuffed hands. Pendragon had a gun; they had both seen that. "This is just…"

A sound at the door cut him short. In the next room, Pendragon's head started up. The expression on his face looked like wild hope, or terror, or something in between. Barney's own heart started to thud. You could not spend so long in a harsh prison camp without coming to dread a sound at the door, late at night.

A man came in, a stranger with brown hair. He looked deeply tired as the door opened, but as he walked into the light, the tiredness was wiped away, because he doesn't want us to know, Barney thought. He knew about masks.

When the man saw Simon and Barney, his eyes widened. Ignoring them, he hurried over to Pendragon, and spoke to him in a fierce whisper. "…left them cuffed?" Barney heard, and Pendragon muttered, "They don't trust me. They would have run away." What came after that, Barney could not hear.

"Have you seen him before?" Barney whispered to Simon.

"No." Simon shook his head, frowning. "No…" He sounded more doubtful the second time.

Barney watched the faces of these two men who held their fate in their hands. You learnt to read nuances in the Resistance, but the body language of these strangers was unexpected. Pendragon, so high in government and so feared, was almost deferent to this stranger, and the stranger, although berating Pendragon, looked almost the same to him. As if Pendragon's a newly-tamed dog, Barney thought, and he's mastered him, but is scared he'll go wild again, if he makes a wrong move.

Then the stranger was heading towards them, leaving Pendragon alone and surly in his grey little room. He crouched beside them; touched their cuffs, but did not open them, not yet.

"I am a friend," he said. "You are truly free. When I untie you, will you listen to what I have to say?"

Barney studied his face, but you could not tell by appearances. Murderers could look mild, and gentle friends could have eyes that were harsh and cold.

"My name is Will," the stranger said. He touched Barney's cuff gently with his fingers, and it parted. Then the same with Simon's, metal slithering and clanking to the floor.

Barney rubbed his wrists. A moment later, he realised the meaning of what had just happened.

"Yes," smiled the stranger called Will. "I am a sorcerer. An Old One, actually, but that title is not known to people, while that of sorcerer is. I was also your commander in the Resistance, though we never met, as that was the way of things." He said it as simple fact, as if defying them to say anything.

Simon said it, though, his voice hostile. "You're too young."

Barney looked at Will's eyes, and did not think that they were young. Even when he smiled, his eyes were sad. "Not all wizards have grey beards," Will said. Barney wondered where the sadness came from.

Simon seemed about to say something, but Barney interrupted. "Why free us? Out of all the other Resistance members in prison, why us?"

"There aren't many others." This time, Barney understood the sadness in Will's eyes. People in the Resistance knew they could hope only for death if they were captured. He had never understood why he and Simon had merely been imprisoned. "But that is not the reason. You and Simon…"

There was a noise from the other room. Barney looked up to see Pendragon moving away, the chair falling over in his wake. Will looked after him with sympathy. Barney thought that hatred would be more appropriate. Pendragon must surely have killed many of Will's subordinates.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs above. Only when they were quiet, did Will sigh. "Sit down. Make yourselves comfortable." Pendragon had left them on the floor, cuffed to the radiator. Barney moved onto the couch, and Simon, glaring resentfully, settled down stiffly beside him. Will moved to the armchair, where he sat down with the stiffness of someone who was in pain.

"I have to tell you something," Will began, "that you might find difficult to believe. It is about a world of… magic, you might call it, but it is more than magic. It is Light and Dark – two poles that all the universe revolves around. On this earth of yours, the Light and Dark has been in conflict for thousands of years, fighting over the world of men. The Dark wants to rule men, and thrives on man's darkest desires. The Light wants man to be free."

"Good and evil, then," Simon said harshly. "Like in a little child's story."

Will nodded. "All the stories came from truth, and there is truth in all the stories. Light and Dark – a battle older than man."

"And let me guess," Simon said. "You're from the Light."

"Yes." Will inclined his head, seemingly unconcerned by Simon's hostility. "I am of the Light."

Barney knew the reason for his brother's harshness. Simon had always been jealous of people with abilities that he did not share. Barney was glad to see it still there. He had been so defeated in prison. Arrogance was far better than despair.

"But why us?" Barney asked. It occurred to him as he said it that he could have asked many other things. He could have asked for proof. He could even have laughed disbelievingly. Magic, in a world like this! But he accepted it. It did not even cross his mind to doubt it.

"Twenty-four years ago," Will continued, "the Dark rose up for what was supposed to be the final time. The Light gathered together in defiance. It gathered… champions. There were Signs and portents. The Dark was to be defeated forever, but… something went wrong. The Dark won; the Light was scattered. You see the results in the world today. The Dark is behind your government. The so-called sorcerers were the last remaining Old Ones of the Light, but the true sorcerers have been lording it over you for years, masquerading as men."

Barney swallowed. The truth, he thought, and, I believe it, and, Why? He ought to laugh, or cry. He wanted to leap to his feet and march on London, ready to tear down the Dark with his own hands. "Why us?" he asked again. "Why us?"

Will closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, they were still and clear. "You were two of the champions of Light," he said. "You two, Simon and Barney, and Jane, your sister, were the Three from the Track – three children of men who would play their part in the final defeat of the Dark."

Simon laughed harshly. Barney just felt cold. "We failed…"

"No!" Will cried. "You stood firm. You passed every test. No-one failed. The Dark was… too strong. It struck in a place we did not anticipate."

"Then why us?" Perhaps the truth was just too big, too impossible, for him to cope with, so he had to focus only on this question, endlessly repeated. "Why now, if the damage has already been done?"

"Because there is… a chance." Will appeared to be choosing his words carefully. "A chance that it can be undone, the thing that happened twenty-four years ago, if the same people are gathered, and on the same day, in the same place…"

"You want our help? Us? Me?" Simon sneered it bitterly, but Barney thought there were tears in his eyes, too. "You want us to help save the world?"

"Yes." Will nodded solemnly.

"But… But it's ridiculous." Simon blinked fiercely. "If this is true, why don't we remember it?"

"You were made to forget," Will told them. "It was too much. You were only children. Life was going to be hard enough for you without you knowing quite how much had been lost. Only through ignorance could you be kept safe, at least until you were old enough to make your own choices. As long as you knew nothing, the Dark would leave you alone, but if the Dark thought that you knew…"

"Prove it!" Simon cried. "Make us remember again."

Will shook his head. Barney noticed how stiffly he was sitting.

"Then I'm going." Simon stood up. "I refuse to play this stupid game."

Will folded his hands. His eyes were clear, but his knuckles were white with how tightly he was holding them. "Then that is your choice. The Light does not hold people against their will. But I would urge you… I would beg you… The world needs this, Simon."

Simon stopped with his hand on the door knob. "Then let me remember."

Barney watched Will's face. He saw him think; saw his eyes flicker briefly upwards, to where Pendragon was, on the floor above. "I can return your memories," he said at last. "I couldn't, before, because it was not my spell, but now… I can do it, but… Do you really need memory to believe?"

It was Barney who answered; it was Simon who froze. It was Barney who remembered the memories of beauty, and how they had sustained him in prison. And it had been Simon, then, who had turned his back on memories, because memories of past happiness only made the present more unbearable.

"Yes," Barney said. "If we are to be whole, we need our memories. We need memories if we are to be free."

Sighing like one shouldering a heavy burden, Will raised his hand.

End of part three: chapter thirteen