“What task is that?” asked Thomas. Then he frowned, for he wished he had instead said: I am ready.
“Know you why, out of all the years and seasons of the world, the Dark chose this day to come forth from the Winter Country?”
“No.”
“It is because the Wise Old Man of this World sleeps.”
“Sleeps?”
Thomas saw a reflection of light in the surface of the broken blade in his hand. He held the hilt nearer to his eye and looked into the silvery steel, and it was as if he saw into the surface of a still lake of water. In a small chapel nestled in a green valley, behind the tall mansion where, long ago, Thomas and his four friends had spent a summer's afternoon, was a graveyard. There was a headstone, and the words CEDRIC PENKIRK were written on it.
“Professor Penkirk!”
“He was your squire, for he armed you children with the heart you needed to prevail; he was your nurse, for he comforted you when you returned; and one thing more he was — your herald! He went before you into the land of Vidblain, into the Lost Kingdom, and told the animals and dryads of your coming. He was not permitted to strike the blow against the Winter King. That was the task of the Four. His task was to guide, and to advise, and to open the way.”
Thomas whispered. “The Key! This key is what opened the Way of the Well, and let us through the Hidden Door into Vidblain. He meant us to find it. I had always wondered…”
“Now it falls to you to become what Cedric was, for he has gone into my Father's realm. There he has another task you cannot have described to you as yet; but it is a work of long-abiding joy. They have given him a crown and a robe of white, and anointed his head with oil.”
“What am I supposed to do, then?” Thomas grinned. “Find some English schoolchildren and get them into trouble?”
“You will have many roads to walk, and there will be many worlds under your care. There will come a child who leads a Star by the hand, whose voice can still the Lion's rage. It is for him you carry the shards of Angurvadel, the great sword. It is a weapon none may use until he reforges it and makes it anew himself, as with all such weapons of my Father's Kingdom. Now, come! You will find this child is in a world beyond the Pleiades, considered young for his ancient and supernal race, but, compared to humans, old and wise beyond all reckoning: he is rash and eager, and he will come at your word to save this green Earth and all its inhabitants from the Dark Master.”
“Beyond the stars?”
“In his own land, the child is neither prince nor sage, but a humble blacksmith's apprentice: yet men would call him magic, for his art is to forge the stars and set them in their constellations. You will find your way with the book you hold and the key you bear. Say farewell to this land, Thomas. No world will be your home hereafter, but every place the light of the stars can touch!”
“And where I go, shall I see you there?”
“That is for you to say. For I have been with you all these years, my friend, with the signs of my Father's power all around you—you forgot to look.”
“Is this a darker world than Earth? Or brighter?”
“Dark or bright, you shall make it brighter than it was.”
And the great cat swelled into gigantic size, growing dim and bright and vast. He was somehow larger than the whole museum above and around him, and yet he did not touch the walls. He was larger than the night sky, and yet he did not scatter the stars. Then he vanished from sight, and the note of a trumpet rang out overhead, traveling from the west to the east.
Thomas blinked, seeing only the museum room around him again, dark and solid. He raised his hand. The book, fell open to a certain page and he knew it was the correct one. He found the diagrams in an appendix in the back of the volume, with images of zones and tropics and belts of constellations, and the Latin was easy enough for him to puzzle out. He spoke the words and used the key, and a shining doorway, surrounded with stars, appeared wide-open before him, and the music of the stars poured out from it, dreamlike, terrifying, and wondrous.
The newly-anointed Wise Old Man, who felt much too young for the task and not very wise at all, squared his shoulders and strode forth into the doorway, his eyes upon a solitary shining star.
Without a backward glance, he left Earth and childhood behind.
Books by John C. Wright
CASTALIA HOUSE
Awake in the Night Land
City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis
One Bright Star to Guide Them
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth
THE GOLDEN AGE
The Golden Age
The Phoenix Exultant
The Golden Transcendence
WAR OF THE DREAMING
Last Guardian of Everness
Mists of Everness
CHRONICLES OF CHAOS
Orphans of Chaos
Fugitives of Chaos
Titans of Chaos
COUNT TO THE ESCHATON
Count to a Trillion
The Hermetic Millennia
Judge of Ages
OTHER NOVELS
Null-A Continuum
SCIENCE FICTION
Awake in the Night by John C. Wright
Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright
Big Boys Don't Cry by Tom Kratman
The Stars Came Back by Rolf Nelson
City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright
Hyperspace Demons by Jonathan Moeller
On a Starry Night by Tedd Roberts
QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day
QUANTUM MORTIS A Mind Programmed by Vox Day
Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation War by Thomas Hobbes
FANTASY
Somewhither, Book One of The Unwithering Realm by John C. Wright
One Bright Star to Guide Them by John C. Wright
The Book of Feasts & Seasons by John C. Wright
A Throne of Bones, Book One of Arts of Dark and Light by Vox Day
A Magic Broken by Vox Day
The Wardog's Coin by Vox Day
The Last Witchking by Vox Day
Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy by Vox Day
The Altar of Hate by Vox Day
The War in Heaven by Theodore Beale
The World in Shadow by Theodore Beale
The Wrath of Angels by Theodore Beale
CASTALIA CLASSICS
The Programmed Man by Jean and Jeff Sutton
Apollo at Go by Jeff Sutton
First on the Moon by Jeff Sutton
NON-FICTION
Equality: The Impossible Quest by Martin van Creveld
The Art of War: A History of Military Strategy by Martin van Creveld
On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009 by William S. Lind
Four Generations of Modern War by William S. Lind
Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright
Astronomy and Astrophysics by Dr. Sarah Salviander
AUDIOBOOKS
A Magic Broken, narrated by Nick Afka Thomas
Four Generations of Modern War, narrated by William S. Lind
TRANSLATIONS
Särjetty taika
QUANTUM MORTIS Un Hombre Disperso
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravedad Mata
Una Estrella Brillante para Guiarlos
QUANTUM MORTIS Um Homem Desintegrado
QUANTUM MORTIS Gravidade Mortal
Uma Magia Perdida
Mantra yang Rusak
La Moneta dal Mercenario
I Ragazzoni non Piangono
QUANTUM MORTIS Тежина Смрти
QUANTUM MORTIS Der programmierte Verstand
Grosse Jungs weinen nicht
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Table of Contents
Cover
Copyright
Dedication
Tommy
Richard
Kicktoad
Sally
Penny
The Knight of Shadows
The Healing of Harms
Awake in the Night Land
City Beyond Time
Books by John C. Wright
Castalia House
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One Bright Star to Guide Them Page 6
