Read Online The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper - Free Book Online Page B

drift into a kind of trance, was something he was never able to describe — or even to remember very well. It was like the ending of pain, like discord changing to harmony; like the lightening of the spirits that you may feel suddenly in the middle of a grey dull day, unaccountable until you realise that the sun has begun to shine. This silent music that entered Will’s mind and took hold of his spirit came, he knew instantly, from the old lady. Without speech, she was speaking to him. She was speaking to both of them — and to the Dark. He looked back, dazzled; she seemed taller, bigger, more erect than before, a figure on an altogether larger scale. And there was a golden haze about her figure, a glow that did not come from the candlelight.
    Will blinked, but he could not see clearly; it was as if he were separated from her by a veil. He heard Merriman’s deep voice, gentler than he had yet heard it, but wrung with some strong sudden unhappiness. “Madam,” Merriman said wretchedly. “Take care, take care.”
    No voice replied, but Will had a feeling of benison. Then it was gone, and the tall, glowing form that was and yet was not the old lady moved slowly forward in the darkness towards the doors, and for an instant Will heard again the haunting phrase of music that he could never capture in his memory, and the doors slowly opened. Outside there was a grey light and silence, and the air was cold.
    Behind him, the light of the candle-ring was gone, and there was only darkness. It was an uneasy, empty darkness, so that he knew the hall was no longer there. And suddenly he realised that the luminous golden figure before him was fading too, vanishing away,like smoke that grows thinner, thinner, until it cannot be seen at all. For an instant there was a flash of rose-coloured brilliance from the huge ring that had been on the old lady’s hand, and then that too dimmed, and her bright presence faded into nothing. Will felt a desperate ache of loss, as if his whole world had been swallowed up by the Dark, and he cried out.
    A hand touched his shoulder. Merriman was at his side. They were through the doors. Slowly the great wooden carved portals swung back behind them, long enough for Will to see clearly that they were indeed the same strange gates that had opened for him before on the white untrodden slope of a Chiltern hill. Then, at the moment that they closed, the doors too were no longer there. He saw nothing: only the grey light of snow that reflects a grey sky. He was back in the snow-drowned woodland world into which he had walked early that morning.
    Anxiously he swung round to Merriman. “Where is she? What happened?”
    â€œIt was too much for her. The strain was too great, even for her. Never before — I have never seen this before.” His voice was thick and bitter; he stared angrily at nothing.
    â€œHave they — taken her?” Will did not know what words to use for the fear.
    â€œNo!” Merriman said. The word was so quick with scorn it might have been a laugh. “The Lady is beyond their power. Beyond any power. You will not ask a question like that when you have learned a little. She has gone away for a time, that is all. It was the opening of the doors, in the face of all that was willing them shut. Though the Dark could not destroy her, it has drained her, left her like a shell. She must recover herself, away alone, and that is bad for us if we should need her. As we shall. As the world always will.” He glanced down at Will without warmth; suddenly he seemed distant, almost threatening, like an enemy; he waved one hand impatiently. “Close your coat, boy, before you freeze.”
    Will fumbled with the buttons of his heavy jacket; Merriman, he saw, was wrapped in a long battered blue cloak, high-collared.
    â€œIt was my fault, wasn’t it?” he said miserably. “If I hadn’t run forward, when I saw the doors — if