Dark Rise: Dark Rise 1

by C. S. Pacat

  ‘“Enter only those who can”,’ quoted Violet.

  ‘We can’t get in. It’s solid stone.’

  ‘So?’ said Violet. Shouldering him out of the way, she put her palms on the stone. Then she used her strength to push at the door.

  To his amazement, the door opened, with a low, echoing sound. The torch he held allowed them to see in the blackness that there were steps that led downward.

  Violet had a hint of smugness in her voice. ‘They think only Stewards are strong enough to get through this door.’

  ‘Where are we?’ said Will.

  He lifted the torch as they descended the steps into a dark underground chamber. Moving forward, they were a small circle of light. Around them was illuminated a ghostly library, with shelves stretching three or four storeys high, disappearing up into the dark. The books were bound in leather but were so ancient that the leather had faded to white. Their spines were bleached like bones, so that the room looked half graveyard. Alicorni, read the black ink written on the spine of one; Prefecaris, said another. They walked through the vast chamber, which had the stillness of a tomb.

  ‘These were animals,’ said Violet in a soft, shocked voice as they entered a second room. Here they were surrounded by remnants of beasts: a handful of scales far too large to have come from any snake, a claw that shone like glass, an immense beak, a scattering of strange-looking teeth, hooves, bones, internal stones. Will saw a few fragments of hunting equipment, a spear tip, two hooks, part of a trident. On the wall above hung a horn meant to be brought to the lips to sound a single note. A horn, he thought, to summon animals that no longer exist.

  Holding the torch aloft, he led the way into a third room. This one was filled with artefacts. There were stones mounted on the walls that showed pieces of carved inscriptions. He saw part of a bell. Half of a marble statue, its white arm outstretched. A disembodied arch that was not part of the room but had been brought in from somewhere else.

  ‘What is this place?’ said Violet, her voice hushed.

  Will said, ‘This is what’s left.’

  His skin prickled as he realised it, the eerie statues and pieces of architecture around him all that remained of a lost world.

  There were fragments of weapons: a hilt with no blade; a knob of ivory; a halved helm; a gauntlet like the one he had seen wither leaves on the vine. What of the great armies who fought to protect the world? But he knew the answer. Gone. Gone like the traces of footsteps after a storm. There were more poignant items: a phial in shards; a drinking bowl; a child’s comb.

  At the far end of the room, a beam of moonlight was filtering down from the ceiling, and it struck a stone plinth, as if what lay there was precious and rare.

  Will could read the words:

  The horn all seek and never find.

  On the plinth lay a lacquered wooden box open to show the white horn of an animal he knew only from myth. It was longer than both his arms outstretched, a pearlescent spiral that whorled from a thicker base to a sharp pointed tip. Unlike the other artefacts in the room, it shone, like a spear of light. Clean and untarnished by dust or time, it was like a bolt to the heart.

  ‘A unicorn,’ said Violet in a soft, awed voice, and he remembered that she was a Lion.

  She was reaching out.

  ‘It looks like humans sawed it off …’ Her fingers touched the wide base of the horn that was smooth and then spiked and jagged, as though it had been partway sawn and then snapped off.

  Like a tree stump, Will thought, and a vision overwhelmed him, a battlefield charge of white horses like a crashing wave, some of them bearing armoured riders with flashing swords, others with their long horns lowered like deadly spears. They were charging into an oncoming rush of black shadows, and Will’s heart was pounding knowing they wouldn’t survive but were charging anyway, impossibly brave. There was an answer here, as somewhere in the distance he heard Violet say, ‘Will.’

  He looked up, but not at her. At a black archway cut into the stone of the wall. There was another room.

  He took his torch and walked towards it, drawn as if by a force. He could hear Violet behind him, saying, ‘Will? Where are you going?’ He ignored her. There were steps leading downward to a room that was smaller than the others, and pitch-black.

  It wasn’t an ordinary darkness; it was tangible and surrounding, eerily darkening the torch rather than being lit by it. Violet raced down the stairs after him, then stopped short at the bottom, as if the thick, stifling dark repelled her.

  There was something else here.

  That’s what the Steward had said on the ship, moments before the Corrupted Blade had cracked open its container. This felt the same, but thickly worse, as if whatever was here was darker and more dangerous than the black flame of the Blade could ever be. But he was drawn to it too, as if he sensed a presence that called to him. He took another step forward.

  Will could feel what repulsed Violet, a roiling wrongness. Yet he couldn’t stop. His heart was pounding. Every answer sought seemed to lie in the promise of what hung in the air before him.

  It wasn’t the Blade. It was something else.

  It looked simple at first. A piece of black rock. As if suspended, it hung right in the centre of the chamber, rotating slowly. He raised the torch to look at it, but the light had no effect.

  It was so black that it seemed to suck all the light out of the room. An endless void, a terrible hole that wanted to consume everything in the world. It called to him as a chasm calls to one who might throw himself over, bringing him right to its edge and whispering to him to jump.

  He wanted to touch it. He reached out his hand, and as his fingertips brushed its surface he felt a terrible stab of cold. He gasped as the shock of it went through him. He saw a vision of the four empty thrones of the Hall, but there were four resplendent figures sitting in them, great kings in bright, shining robes. But as he watched, three started to change, their faces sloughing off, their bones turning transparent, until they were horrific shadow versions of themselves. And then he saw a figure rising above them all, with a pale crown and eyes of black flame—

  ‘Stop!’

  He gasped as a hard grip on his arm wrenched him back, and he found himself staring instead at the face of the Elder Steward, her eyes flashing and stern. Her hands were on his shoulders, holding him back. ‘You must never touch it. That stone is death.’ Her voice was as unrelenting as her eyes, an expression he had never seen her wear before. ‘Even the briefest touch will kill.’

  He blinked, and looked around the chamber. He felt like he had been snapped out of a dream, or a spell. The Elder Steward had come in behind them, sweeping past Violet, who was looking on from the stairs with concern.

  ‘Kill?’ he said dazedly. The Elder Steward’s hands on his shoulders made him feel warmer. Her presence had the opposite effect of the stone. She seemed to emanate a reassuring warmth, like the fire of a welcoming hearth. Near her the torchlight was brighter.

  He looked back at the suspended stone. He could have sworn that he had touched it … hadn’t he? He could still feel the chill of its cold, see those figures transforming in their thrones. Had he imagined it? He had an overwhelming urge to place his palm against the stone to make sure.

  ‘That is why we keep it locked away, where no one can enter,’ said the Elder Steward, with a rather pointed look.

  Still half caught up in the stone, it was a moment before Will recalled that he and Violet weren’t supposed to be in this chamber. He flushed. ‘We were just—’

  ‘Yes, I know. The two of you have a habit of being in places that you don’t belong.’ But her tone was friendly. With a kind hand on his arm, she began to steer Will back towards the archway where Violet waited. Violet immediately drew in close to the circle of light from the Elder Steward’s torch, as if it were a sanctuary that sheltered all three of them from the stone.

  ‘What is it?’

  Will turned for a last look at it, the flame from their to
rch touching its surface and disappearing utterly, as if falling into endless depths. He could still feel its pull, not wanting to look away.

  ‘That is the darkest and most dangerous object we possess,’ said the Elder Steward, her own eyes growing troubled again as she followed the direction of Will’s gaze. ‘That is the Shadow Stone.’

  ‘The Shadow Stone …’ said Will.

  The words sent their shiver down into him. He remembered the white horses galloping into an army of roiling black shadows, the last, desperate charge of the light.

  The Elder Steward nodded. ‘You once asked what happened to the four kings.’

  The thrones. Those four empty thrones. Long ago, there were four great kings of the old world, Justice had said. It wasn’t always the Hall of the Stewards. It was once the Hall of Kings.

  ‘Justice said that three of them joined the Dark King,’ said Will, ‘and the fourth fled and was lost forever.’

  ‘That is only part of the story,’ said the Elder Steward.

  Surrounded as she was by the broken stones and displaced architecture of the old world, her words took on an extra weight.

  ‘The three made a terrible bargain. They swore to serve the Dark King in exchange for power. He granted them strength beyond that of any human for the span of a single mortal life. But on their death … they transformed. They became monstrous creatures of shadow utterly obedient to the Dark King’s will.’

  ‘Creatures of shadow … ?’

  ‘Insubstantial as the night. Unable to be touched. No wall could keep them out. No warrior could fight against them. You cannot strike a shadow; your blade would pass through its form like smoke. But a shadow can strike you … strike you down and kill you. It made them invincible.’

  The Shadow Kings … He could almost taste it, dust, death and horror: an endless darkness that would swallow them all. The circle of light where the three of them stood felt suddenly very small.

  ‘How were the Shadow Kings stopped?’

  ‘No one knows,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘But they are trapped in that stone. And they must never be allowed to get out.’

  In his vision of the Shadow Kings he had seen an even more terrible figure, rising above them all. The Dark King, the King of Kings, greater than any shadow, wearing his pale crown. It was as though the Shadow Kings walked before him, clearing a path for their master. And suddenly Will understood why they could never be let out. A moment later, the Elder Steward spoke the words.

  ‘They are one of the portents,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘They will herald the return of the Dark King.’

  Like James, thought Will, and shivered. The Elder Steward searched his face for a long moment, and then continued, her eyes grave.

  ‘Simon seeks to conjure a shadow of his own. It is the first step to returning the Dark King,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘The Dark King made many such creatures. They swelled the ranks of his armies, invincible on the battlefield. Only the most powerful magic users could fight them.

  ‘If Simon managed to conjure even a single shadow, it would be a devastating opponent, and with magic all but gone from the world, no mortal now alive could stand against it.

  ‘But the Shadow Kings were far worse. Faster, stronger, and with a deadlier desire for destruction. The Shadow Kings led the army of shadows on their nightmare steeds. They broke the defences of the great cities of Light, and spread the dark across the lands, for neither might nor magic could stop them. A single shadow might seem terrifying to us, but they were nothing to the merciless horror of the Shadow Kings.

  ‘If they get out?’ said the Elder Steward. ‘Night will fall forever, and in the darkness He will rise, a final eclipse that will end our world.’

  ‘It’s Marcus,’ said Will.

  They were back in his room; its circular walls and the orange light from the lamps felt safe and familiar after the eerie depths of the rooms beneath the Hall.

  Will spoke with his heart racing. He had barely been able to hold the words back until he and Violet were alone. Now, as she clambered onto the bedcovers where they sat together so often, it spilled out, blurted with urgency.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The reason why Simon’s close to returning the Dark King. Marcus knows. He knows how to conjure a shadow.’

  Violet’s eyes went wide. They had spent so many nights together in her room or his, Violet with a sword and him with a candle, practising their separate lessons. It all seemed so naive now that he’d guessed the truth.

  Will said, ‘You heard the Elder Steward. She said that conjuring a shadow was the first step to summoning the Dark King. Simon must be trying to get the secret from Marcus.’

  Stewards were strong, but how long could they hold up under torture? And if the Stewards couldn’t fight James, how could they fight a shadow that no weapon could pierce? You cannot strike a shadow … But a shadow can strike you.

  ‘How desperate they all are to get him back,’ said Violet slowly. ‘All of the missions beyond the wall, sacrificing dozens of Stewards—’

  Will couldn’t stop seeing that vision of the three Shadow Kings on their thrones, great and terrible creatures, subservient to one greater than all of them, the Dark King, who seemed to tower over their thrones like a god over the heavens.

  Simon was the Dark King’s descendant. Simon wanted a shadow army of his own.

  And if he learned from Marcus how to conjure it …

  He will rise. The final eclipse.

  It made sense of all the tense looks, the broken-off conversations, the fear that underlay them. The Stewards were scared. But they were riding out anyway. To their deaths. Their Order had lasted for centuries, guarding the secrets of the old world, so that if the Dark King ever returned, someone would remember, and be there to stop him.

  ‘They have to get Marcus back. It’s the only way to stop Simon.’ The Stewards believed that they were now in the final days, with Simon right on the cusp of returning the Dark King. ‘But they can’t,’ said Will. ‘They can’t even find him.’

  And if they couldn’t get Marcus back, Simon would unleash that terrible darkness, that cold … Will felt it down to his bones.

  ‘How do you rescue a man you can’t find?’ said Will, looking up at Violet.

  Abruptly, Violet pushed herself up off the bed and stalked to the window, which looked out at the gate. It wasn’t dawn yet, so the view was still dark, the only points of light the torches on the battlements and the bright flare of the Final Flame.

  ‘Violet?’

  She seemed to be struggling with something. Her silhouette at the window had changed since their first days here. She was still boyishly slender, but constant training had broadened her shoulders a little. She held her head higher too, and her posture was straighter.

  When she turned back to face him, her eyes were very dark, as though she was torn by a painful choice.

  ‘They can’t find him,’ she said. ‘But maybe I can.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SHE MET WILL in the east courtyard at dusk.

  Her stomach was roiling with nerves, her senses on high alert, even as she tried to stay calm. The thought of what she was about to do made her feel sick, nauseous and feverish, as if chills had set her teeth chattering. She forced it down, determined to go through with this. It was her chance to make a difference, to show the Stewards she could do what was right. I can do this.

  In the end, it was simple.

  The Stewards needed to find Marcus, and she had access to Simon’s inner circle that no one else had.

  I can do this. I can prove myself. I can fight for the Light.

  The Stewards couldn’t know. She couldn’t tell them, I can find Marcus because I’m a Lion. But if she went home to her Lion family, she could find out where Simon was keeping Marcus before he told Simon how to conjure a shadow.

  Will was leading two white Steward horses, beautiful creatures with arched necks and delicate fluted noses. Violet had stolen two sets o
f Steward whites from the washroom. It had been her idea to sneak out in secret, to keep the Stewards from finding out where she was going.

  Will had argued against it. ‘You can’t. You can’t go back to them.’

  ‘My father’s one of Simon’s closest confidants,’ she had said to him, feeling the ugly truth of it. ‘I know that if I go back home, I can find out where he’s keeping Marcus. I can sneak into my father’s office, get access to his records …’ She had lowered her voice to a whisper. Talking about her father in the Hall made her nervous. She half expected the Stewards to burst in, forcing her to the ground, shouting, Lion.

  If they ever found out what she was—

  ‘Your father wants to kill you,’ Will had said. ‘Remember? He needs to kill a Lion so Tom can come into his power.’

  ‘I can handle my family,’ she’d said.

  Can you? a voice in her mind had niggled back at her. But she’d squashed it down. She had a chance to help the Stewards, and she was going to do it.

  A Lion doesn’t have to fight for the Dark, she thought. And I’ll prove that.

  ‘You’re the one who shouldn’t leave the Hall,’ she had said to Will. ‘It’s you Simon’s after.’ In her mind the three hounds of Simon’s crest were like the swarm of black dogs that had hunted Will across the marsh. Simon wanted Will badly and wouldn’t stop until he had him.

  ‘If Marcus tells Simon how to conjure a shadow,’ said Will, ‘it won’t matter where I am. Are you sure you can’t just tell them?’

  Tell the Stewards. Tell Justice. I’m a Lion. Tom’s my brother. The boy who killed all your friends. Her stomach clenched.

  ‘I can’t. You know what they’d do to a Lion. They’d lock me up’ – at best – ‘and then we’d lose our chance to find out what Simon has done with Marcus.’

  They quickly put on the white Steward uniforms she’d stolen and mounted the two Steward horses. Then they rode to the gate looking as much like Stewards as possible.