by Susan Cooper
“Everything the right shape,” Will said.
“That’s right. I mean, look at that!” Bran leaned forward, pointing. Set among the houses was the high curving entrance to a magnificent pillared courtyard. But the coach had passed before they could see what lay inside.
The world seemed to dim a little; Will saw that the sunlight was gone. They sat swaying in the coach, hoofbeats loud in their ears. Still the light seemed to die.
Will frowned. “Is it getting dark?”
“Must be clouds.” Bran stood, braced between seats, and gazed out, clutching the door. “Yes, there are. Big grey clouds, up there. Looks like a real summer storm cooking up.” Then his voice rose a little. “Will—there were riders dressed in blue in front of us, weren’t there?”
“That’s right. Like in a procession.”
“No one there now. Nothing ahead. But something … following.”
The tightness in his voice brought Will jerking to his feet, to peer out past the white head. Outside their rocking small space the broad street had grown so murky now that it was hard to see clearly; a dark group of figures seemed to be moving behind them, keeping the same speed, coming a little closer perhaps. He thought he could hear other hoofbeats behind the clatter of their own. Then instinct struck at him and his hand tightened on the window-frame: something was coming, something back there, of which he should be afraid.
“What’s the matter?” Bran said; and gasped, as a sudden lurch sent him sprawling back onto the seat of the coach. Will staggered back, dropping beside him. The noise of the coach grew, jingling, thundering; they were flung to and fro, from side to side, as the coach pitched and tossed like a boat on an angry sea.
Bran yelled, “We’re going too fast!”
“The horses are frightened!”
“What of?”
“Of … of … back there.” Words would not come; Will’s throat was dry. Bran’s white face danced before him; the Welsh boy had pulled off the sheltering glasses again in the gloom, and there was fear in his strange tawny eyes. Then the eyes widened; Bran clutched Will’s arm.
Outside, a flurry of dark figures came whirling past, on either side; horses furiously galloping, manes and tails flying on the wind, and dark cloaks streaming out behind the figures of hooded men riding. Here and there one figure was white-cloaked among the dark mass. They saw no faces inside the hoods. Nothing but shadow. There was no telling whether any faces were there to be seen.
But one figure, taller, came galloping past to the window of the flying coach, swaying out there in the grey half-light. The head turned towards them. Will heard Bran’s stifled gasp.
The head tossed, flicking back the side of the flowing hood. And there was a face: a face which Will recognized with dread as it stared at him, filled with hatred and malevolence, bright blue eyes burning into his own.
Will heard a husky croak that was his own voice.
“Rider!”
White teeth flashed in the face, in a dreadful mirthless smile, and then the hood fell back. The cloaked figure leaned forward, urging on its horse, and vanished ahead of them into the dark mass of riding shadows. Hoofbeats thickened the air, beat at their hearing; then began to fade.
The world seemed to grow a little less dark, the frantic tossing of the coach to slow gradually down.
Bran was staring at Will, rigid. “Who was that?”
Will said emptily, “The Rider, the Black Rider, one of the great Lords of the Dark—” Suddenly he sat straight, fierce-eyed. “We mustn’t let him go, now he’s seen us, we must follow him!” His voice rose, shrill and demanding, calling as if to the whole coach, as if it were a live thing. “Follow! Follow him! Follow!”
The coach lurched faster again, the noise grew, the horses flung themselves frantically forward. Bran grabbed for support. “Will, you’re mad! What are you doing? Follow … that?” His horror brought the word out in a half-shriek.
Will crouched in a swaying corner, his face set. “We must … we have to know…. Hold on. Hold on. He makes the terror, by his riding—if we chase, it grows less. Hold tight, wait and see….
They were moving fast now, but without the wildness of panic. The horses kept up a steady strong gallop, swinging the coach like a child’s toy on a string. The light grew and grew as if no cloud were anywhere near, and soon sunlight was shafting in again at them through the open windows. Arched stone buildings still edged one side of the broad street, but on the other side now they saw tall trees and smooth grass, stretching into a green distance; paths and gravelled walks criss-crossed the sweep of the grass, here and there.
“It must be … that park.” Bran’s voice swung in gulps between one bounce and the next. “The one we saw … at the beginning … from the roof.”
“Perhaps it is. Look!”
Will pointed; ahead, two riders had turned from the road and were cantering, without apparent haste now, down one of the small roads across the park. A strange pair they made, two ritualistic figures like images from a chessboard: a rider in black hood and cloak on a coal-black horse, a rider in white hood and cloak on a horse white as snow.
“Follow!” Will called.
Bran peered back up the long empty sweep of the road as they turned from it. “But there were so many—like a big dark cloud. Where did they go?”
“Where the leaves go in autumn,” Will said.
Bran looked at him and seemed suddenly to relax; he grinned. “There’s poetic, now.”
Will laughed. “It’s true. Of course, the trouble with leaves is, they grow again….”
But his attention was on the two tall riding figures starkly outlined ahead against the soft green of the park. In a few moments the White Rider, as he felt he must call him, dropped aside and trotted quietly away. The coach went on, following the black upright form of the other.
Bran said, “Why should some of the Riders of the Dark be dressed all in white and the rest all in black?”
“Without colour….” Will said reflectively. “I don’t know. Maybe because the Dark can only reach people at extremes—blinded by their own shining ideas, or locked up in the darkness of their own heads.”
The wheels made a crunching sound on the path. They began to see formally patterned flowerbeds laid out at either side, with white stone seats set between them, and here and there people sitting on the seats, or strolling, or children playing. Not one of these gave more than a brief glance of mild interest at the Black Rider stalking ahead on his tall black horse, or the plumed stallions pulling the swaying blue coach with its gold-crested door.
Bran watched one old man glance up, look at the coach, and turn back at once to his book. “They can see us, now. But they seem … they don’t care.”
“Maybe they will, later,” Will said. The coach stopped. He opened the door, pushing the step down with his foot. They jumped down to the crunching gravel of the white path; then, as they saw what was all around them, both paused, held for a moment by delight.
The air was heavy with fragrance, and everywhere there were roses. Squares, triangles, circles of bright blossom patched the grass all around, red and yellow and white and all colours between. Before them was the entrance to an enclosed circular garden, a tall arch in a high hedge of tumbling red roses. They walked through, almost giddy with the scent. In the great circle of the garden inside, formal balustrades and seats of white marble were set round a glittering fountain where three white dolphins endlessly leapt, spouting a high triple spray of tasselled drops with a faint arching rainbow caught over all by the sun. And as if to offset the cool lines of the marble, mounds of roses billowed everywhere, enormous bushes growing rampant, tall as trees.
Before one of the largest shrubs, a spreading sweetbriar with small pink flowers and a fragrance wafting from it sweet as apples, there stood like a black brand the figure of the Rider on his tall dark horse.
Will and Bran drew level with the fountain and paused, facing the man and horse a little way off. The black hor
se side-stepped, stamping, restless; the Rider twitched sharply at his rein. He put back his hood a little way, and Will saw the fierce, handsome face that he had seen earlier in his life, and a glint of the red-brown hair.
“Well, Will Stanton,” said the Rider softly. “It is a long road from the valley of the Thames to the Lost Land.”
Will said, “And a long road from the ends of the earth, to which the Wild Hunt harried the Dark.”
A grimace like pain flicked over the Rider’s face; he turned his head a little so that it was shadowed by the hood, though not quickly enough to hide a dreadful scar across all his further cheek. But the turning was brief; in another instant he was erect again, his back a straight proud line.
“That was one victory for the Light, but one only,” he said coldly. “There will be no other. We have reached our last rising, Old One; we are at the flood. You have no way of stopping us now.”
“One way,” Will said. “Just one.”
The Rider turned his bright blue eyes from Will to Bran. He said formally, almost chanting, “The sword has not the power of the Pendragon until it is in his hand, nor does the Pendragon exist in his own right until his hand is on the sword.” The blue eyes shifted back to Will, and the Rider smiled, but the eyes stayed cold as ice. “We are before you, Will Stanton. We have been here since first this land was lost, and you may try as you will to take Eirias the sword from the hand that holds it now, but you will not succeed. For that hand is ours.”
Will could feel Bran turn to him in quick baffled concern, but he did not look at him; he was studying the Rider. The confidence in the man’s face and bearing was immense, seeming a total arrogance, and yet something in Will’s instincts told him that it was not altogether complete. Somewhere vulnerability lay; somewhere there was a crack, a tiny crack, in the Dark’s certainty of triumph. And in that crack was the only hope the Light had left, now, to check the rising of the Dark.
He said nothing, but stared at the Rider for a long time, steadily, holding his gaze, until at last the blue eyes flickered briefly aside like the eyes of an animal. Then he knew that he was right.
The Rider said lightly, to cover the movement, “You would do well to forget the foolishness of pursuing impossible ends, while you are here, and instead enjoy the wonders of the Lost Land. There is none here to help the Dark, and equally there is none here to help you. But there is much to enjoy.”
The black horse shifted restlessly, and he twitched at the rein, turning the horse a few steps towards a climbing rose brilliant with enormous buds and full, down-curved yellow flowers.
With an assured, almost affected gesture the Rider bent and broke off one yellow rose and sniffed it. “Such flowers, now. Roses of all the centuries. Maréchal Niel, here, never such a scent anywhere … or that strange tall rose beside you with the small red flowers, called moyesii, that goes its own way. Sometimes blooming more heavily than any other rose and then perhaps for years not blooming at all.”
“Roses are hard to predict, my lord,” a voice said easily, conversationally; then a small edge came into it. “And so are the people of the Lost Land.”
And Gwion was there, suddenly, a neat dark figure standing beside the fountain. They could not see where he came from; it was as if he stepped out of the rainbow floating over the glittering drops.
The Rider’s horse stepped uneasily once again; he had difficulty stilling it. He said coldly, “A hard fate will come to you, minstrel, if you give aid to the Light.”
“My face is my own,” Gwion said.
The black stallion tossed its head; it seemed now, Will thought, to be straining to get away from the high-hedged garden. He glanced over his shoulder at the rose-bright arch through which they had come in, and saw, standing out there, dazzling in the sunlight, the still form of the whitecloaked rider on the white horse.
Gwion’s gaze followed him. He said softly, “Oho.”
“I am not alone in this land,” the Rider said.
“No,” Gwion said. “Indeed you are not. The word was about that the greatest Lords of the Dark were gathered in this Kingdom, and I see it is true. Indeed you have all your strength here—and you will have need of it.” He spoke lightly, without stress, but the last few words were dragged deliberately slowly, and the Rider’s face darkened. With an abrupt gesture he pulled his hood about his face, and only the voice, hissing, came from the shadow.
“Save yourself, Taliesin. Or be lost with the useless hopes of the Light! Lost!”
He wheeled his horse round, the black cloak swinging; his words flickered out like stones. “Lost!” He gave rein to the restless horse and it sprang towards the arch, the White Rider wheeling in greeting as it approached; a thunder grew suddenly, rapidly out of the distance, and the horsemen of the Dark who had passed Will and Bran earlier came rushing through the park like a great cloud marring the bright day. They bore down on the waiting horses of the two Riders, the Lords of the Dark, and enveloped them and seemed to carry them off; the dark cloud disappeared along the road and the thundering died. And Will and Bran and Gwion stood alone among the roses, in the City, in the sweet-scented garden of the Lost Land.
• The Empty Palace •
Will said, “Taliesin?”
“A name,” Gwion said. “Just another name.” He put his hand out caressingly to a spray of white roses beside him. “Do you like what you see of my City, now?”
Will did not quite return his quick smile. Something had been nibbling at his mind. “Did you know we should see the Rider, when you sent us off in the coach?”
Gwion grew sober, fingering his beard. “No, Old One, I did not. The coach was simply to bring you here. But perhaps he knew that. There is little the Dark does not know in the Lost Land. Yet also there is little that they can do.” He swung abruptly towards the fountain. “Come.”
They followed him to a spot before the centre of the fountain, where the water flung up in a glittering spiral from the intertwined white dolphins. Nearby climbed the biggest of all the great sprawling rose-bushes, a tall mound of delicate white dog-roses as broad as a house. A fine spray from the fountain spangled their hair and dampened their faces; Will could see the sparkling drops caught even in Gwion’s grey beard.
“Look for the arch of the Light,” Gwion said.
Will gazed at the dancing water, the gleaming dolphins, the four-petalled roses; everything blurred together. “You mean the rainbow?”
It was there again suddenly, a sun-born curve of hazy colour within the fountain, with the hint of another faint rainbow arching above.
Gwion said softly, behind them, “Look well. Look long.”
Intent and obedient they stared at the rainbow, gazed and gazed until their eyes dazzled in the sunlight reflecting from the marble and the leaping water. Then suddenly Bran cried, “Look!”—and in the same instant Will started forward, clenching his fists. They could see, faintly outlined behind the rainbow, the figure of a man seeming to float in the air; a man in a white robe with a green surcoat, head drooping, every line of his body drawn down by melancholy—and in his hand a glowing sword.
Will strained to see more clearly, hardly daring to breathe. The figure half-raised its head, almost as if it sensed their gaze and were seeking to look back; but then lethargy seemed to overtake it again and the head drooped, and the hand….
… and nothing was there but the rainbow, arching through the fountain’s glittering spray.
Bran said, his voice tight, “Eirias. That was the sword. Who was the man?”
“So sad,” Will said. “Such a sad man.”
Gwion let out a long breath, breaking his own tension. “Did you see? You saw clearly?” There was anxious appeal in his voice.
Will looked at him curiously. “Didn’t you?”
“This is the fountain of the Light,” Gwion said. “The one small touch of the Light’s hand that is allowed in the Lost Land. Only those who are of the Light may see what it has to offer. And I am … not quite of
the Light.” He was looking keenly at Will and Bran. “You will know that face again? The sorrowful face, and the sword?”
“Anywhere,” said Will.
“Always,” Bran said. “It was—” He stopped, perplexed, and looked at Will.
Will said, “I know. There’s no way of describing. But, we shall know him. Who is he?”
Gwion sighed. “That is the king. Gwyddno, Lost King of the Lost Land.”
“And he has the sword,” Bran said. “Where is he?” A curious intentness seemed to take possession of him, Will saw, whenever there was any mention of the crystal sword.
“He has the sword, and perhaps he will give it to you if he hears you when you speak to him. He has not heard anybody for a long time—not because he cannot hear with his ears, but because he has shut himself up in his mind.”
Bran said again, “Where is he?”
“In his tower,” Gwion said. “His tower in Caer Wydyr.”
As he spoke the Welsh words, Will realized suddenly that the faint lilt to his speaking of English had all along been the accent of a Welshman, though less pronounced than Bran’s.
“Caer Wydyr,” Bran said. He looked at Will, his forehead wrinkling. “That means, the castle of glass.”
“A glass tower,” Will said. “Which you can see in a rainbow.” He looked back at the spiralling jets of the fountain shooting up, breaking, falling in diamond rain over the shining backs of the dolphins. Then he paused, peering more closely. “Look down there, Bran. I hadn’t noticed. There’s something written on the fountain, right down low.”
They both bent to look, hands shielding their faces from the spray. A line of lettering was incised in the marble, half hidden by grass; the letters were patched green with moss.
“I am the …” Will parted the grass with his hands. “I am the womb of every holt.”
“Bran frowned. “The womb of every holt. The womb is where you come from in the mother, so that must be—the beginning, right? But holt? What’s a holt?”
