FIRST TALES

By CLIVE BARKER

An Otherside Press Production

Otherside Press is an Imprint of Crossroad Press

Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

Digital Edition Copyright 2013 by Clive Barker & Seraphim Ink

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CONTENTS

The Wood on the Hill

The Candle in the Cloud

i – In the Brambles

ii – Hoof Prints in the Night

iii – The Candle is Lit

iv – Darach

v – Maggot-Cloud

vi – The Horseman

vii – Under the Stars

viii – The Beacon

ix – The Queen

x – The Beacon Burns

xi – Siege

xii – Hooves and Arrows

xiii – Hot Air

xiv – Over the Mountains

xv – In the Hall of the Black Wolf

xvi – Desolation's Edge

xvii – The Boy

xviii – Through the Window

xvix – Desolation

xx – Return

Author's Note

These two stories represent the two essential structures of fantastique literature. ’The Wood on the Hill’ is about an incursion of unearthly elements into an approximation of our world. ’The Candle in the Cloud’ is about a journey taken by people from our world into another reality. Yin and Yang, if you like. Forces pulling in opposing directions but to achieve the same end: Revelation.

Clive Barker (2013

The Wood on the Hill

Once upon a time in a land far from here, there grew a wood. This wood was dark and very old for it could remember the times before there were any people on earth, when the sky was always filled with fire, and there lived great birds, more terrible than I have words to tell. It could remember the years when the dragons lived in the valley, until the Great Winter came and they were all driven away by the snow. It was only a small wood then, and a little frightened by the world...

But, by the time I write my story, the wood had grown up, and the people had come to the valley and built cottages where once the dragons had roamed and stomped. It was content, watching the slow passing of the years. The warm summers filled with laughter, the ripe autumns, the cold winters, the springs when the snow melted and hope came again into the world. It watched the children who played in its branches grow to be strong men and graceful women, and, in their turn, have children of their own. It watched the brook grow to a stream, and thus to a rushing river. The years passed peacefully, and each day was a joy greater than the last, for the world was still waking.

Now not all that far from the wood stood a large white house with marble pillars, surrounded by tall yew trees and great gardens, all neatly set out with paths of pink gravel and fountains with cupids in the middle. This house belonged to a Duchess who owned all the land around her house, for she was very rich. It said, on a piece of paper which she always kept locked safely away in a box somewhere, that every leaf, every blade of grass, every flower, bird, animal and tree belonged to her. This pleased the Duchess greatly, because I am afraid she was not a very nice person. In fact, at times her manners were absolutely frightful, and she had a very quick temper. When she flew into a rage, which she did quite often, she would scream at the servants (she had thirty-one) until the windows rattled and the china tinkled. And sometimes, if she was particularly vexed, she would kick the furniture or the footman (whichever was nearby at the time). As if that were not bad enough, she was also exceedingly vain. Sometimes she would spend hours sitting in front of the mirror and looking at herself. I must admit that she was indeed very beautiful, but that did not make her vanity any the less dreadful.

Having told you how horrible the Duchess was at times, you might think that she had no friends. But you would be quite wrong. In fact she had lots of friends, all members of the aristocracy (which means they had lots of money and weren’t quite sure what to do with it). The Duchess’ friends, however, were the most hateful people you could imagine. They were either very fat because they ate too much, or very thin because they would not eat at all, in case they marred their beauty. Beauty! I may truly say that the Duchess’ friends were quite the ugliest people in all the world.

Four times a year at Christmas, on her birthday in April, on Midsummer Night and at Hallowe’en, the Duchess would throw a party, and invite all her friends. Her parties were always wildly successful and were great social occasions. Why they were so successful I cannot possibly imagine, for if you or I were to have gone to one I am sure we would have hated it. All the guests ever did was stand around, talking about the war and the trouble they were having with their servants, and how awful everybody else looked and how boring everybody else’s conversation was. I fancy the Duchess knew in her heart how hateful all the guests were, but still she threw her parties, because it was all she had to do.

Now one day, in late September, when the leaves were just beginning to fall in the wood, the Duchess was out riding on the hills. It was a fine, clear afternoon, and she was thinking about what colour she ought to have her new pet dove dyed. You see, she hated it being so white, because she thought it might make her look less beautiful.

The Duchess was so deep in thought, that she rode further from the house than she had ever ridden before, and the servants were just about to pluck up enough courage to tell her, when, quite suddenly, they found themselves at the foot of the hill whereon grew the wood that I told you about. The Duchess had never seen the wood before, and, calling to her servants to help her dismount, she demanded that she be taken to it. At this the servants muttered to each other under their breath, but they feared the Duchess too much to disobey. So Michael, the oldest one, bowing low, said:

‘As Your Grace commands,’ and led the way up the hill.

The other servants followed some way behind, but finding the Duchess too concerned with the wood to notice their tarrying, they halted half-way up and stood, watching in silence.

The evening was drawing on now, and the wood stood quiet and beautiful, a thousand shades of gold and red. When Michael and the Duchess reached the top of the hill, they found that the wind was quite strong, murmuring through the trees and blowing dead leaves about. The Duchess stood for a moment on the edge of the wood, thinking. Then suddenly, she turned to Michael:

‘This wood! she cried, shattering the stillness, ‘shall hold my next party here. It will be a Hallowe’en party, such as none have ever seen before, and I shall invite everybody.’

Michael was silent.

‘What is it — you miserable old owl?’ the Duchess cried. ‘Is it not a brilliant idea? Everybody else throws their parties in their Grand Halls — oh but not I! No indeed! I shall throw my party here — in the wood on the hill. It will be the greatest celebration the crowd has ever seen.’

‘Tut, your Grace,’ stammered poor old Michael, suddenly frightened, not by the Duchess, but by something much more terrible, ‘— you can’t!’

‘Can’t?’ cried the Duchess.

‘Can’t??’ screamed the Duchess.

‘Can’???’ exploded the Duchess.

‘Why can’t I?’

‘Well. .’ the old man halted, ‘well . . . because. ..’

‘What?’

‘It’s haunted, m’am.’

‘Haunted?’ the Duchess said quietly, her anger suddenly gone. ‘Haunted?’ repeated the Duchess slowly, and looked at the wood through her spectacles, as if she were looking for the ghosts. ‘Really?’ she said after a moment. ‘Haunted, eh? How quaint!’

(Which was a very silly thing to say, but then again, as I have explained, she was a very silly Duchess.)

‘How quaint! she said again, ‘Ha! I do . . . er . . . so love . . . er . . . these peasant superstitions.’

Michael shook his head sadly. But the Duchess wasn’t looking. She was far too busy talking to herself and making plans.

‘It will be the social event of the decade,’ she said excitedly. `Everybody who is anybody will be there. And it’s all so original. Nobody has ever had a ball in the middle of a wood before. I shall be the toast of society for absolutely ages. Oh, why am I so clever? It just isn’t fair on the rest of the world!’

She turned to Michael.

‘Find the best woodcutters in the country, do you understand?’

‘Woodcutters, Your Grace?’

‘Yes fool. I want a large clearing cut in the middle of the wood. .

‘What?’ cried Michael, his eyes wild with anger and fear, ‘You’re planning to chop down part of the wood?’

‘Of course, replied the Duchess, ‘I’m not going to have my guests dangling from the branches like apes!’

‘But you can’t! You mustn’t. The wood isn’t yours.’

‘Isn’t mine?’ the Duchess laughed. ‘Of course it’s mine. I own all this.’ ‘Yes,’ said Michael slowly, you own it all as far as lawyers and pieces of parchment are concerned . . . But —’

‘But what?’

‘Oh, Your Grace, the wood isn’t — yours. I mean, it is yours legally — but there are others-’

‘Who?’ snapped he Duchess.

‘Just others,’ the old man replied, avoiding the Duchess’ eyes, his hands shaking with fear.

‘You’re speaking nonsense, you old bat. You’re mad.’

‘Very well then, Your Grace, I am mad. But still —’

‘Still nothing. You will do as I say or I’ll have you hanged for your silly ramblings.’

Michael had no choice but to nod meekly.

Well, he thought to himself, what more can I do? It is foolish to meddle with such things, but I can do nothing. What happens now is not my fault.

Then the sun slipped behind the horizon, and darkness fell. Suddenly, the beautiful trees became strangely menacing in the half-light, looming grey and huge above the Duchess and the bowed figure of Michael. The night was upon them, and they were far from home.

‘Come —,’ said the Duchess hurriedly, for she was a little unnerved by this strange transformation. ‘Let us return.’

As they walked down the hill Michael smiled a little to himself. Not a happy smile, you understand, but a resigned smile of one who knows what is about to happen, and who also knows that he may do nothing about it.

Even if the Duchess was vain, she was certainly no coward, and once she had an idea in her head she flatly refused to let it go. So, although she still had a few lingering doubts about the woods, she was nevertheless resolved to throw her party there. She had long since convinced herself that there was nothing to fear. Well, nothing a bonfire and an orchestra would not cure. Thus, the preparations began.

Invitations written in the finest copper-plate were sent to all the neighbouring lands, with the words:

The Duchess

Requests the pleasure of your company

at a grand Halloween Ball

on October 1st

R.S.V.P.

Meanwhile, in the woods, the clearing was being made, the bonfire piled up, the tables set out, the entertainers rehearsed and a thousand and one other arrangements made. All kinds of people, each with his or her separate task, and each believing that their job was the most important, and that they were working the hardest.

Hallowe’en grew nearer. In the house, the Duchess was busy picking off names on her guest list and ordering wine and food. One morning, about a week before Hallowe’en, the old sorcerer who had been ordered to make the fireworks arrived with his creations, arms full of brightly- coloured squibs and rockets and ripraps and Catherine wheels and Roman candles and dragon-flames and snow-flowers and some that even he had not got a name for, because he didn’t know what they would do. When he heard where the Duchess was planning to hold her party, however, he became most upset.

‘The woods?’ he exclaimed in alarm, dropping the fireworks everywhere, ‘but that is forbidden!’

‘By whom?’ the Duchess demanded angrily. ‘Who forbids it?’

‘They do. Those who own it. It is most foolish to hold your party there. It will be a failure!’

At this the Duchess flew into a rage. How dare this tatty old magician suggest one of her parties might be a failure! The arrogance of the fellow!

`Old man!’ she screamed, ‘I suggest you take that remark back. I have but to snap my fingers and you will die.’

‘Oh,’ said the sorcerer, undisturbed by the Duchess’ tantrums.

‘Cower in fear, idiot! I threaten you with a death so horrible that men will talk of it a hundred years hence! I repeat myself — take that remark back!’

‘Shan’t,’ said the sorcerer, and yawned.

‘Why you — Guards! Guards! Seize him!’

‘I think not,’ the sorcerer said calmly, and disappeared in a puff of smoke. By the time the guards arrived, therefore, the room was empty save for the Duchess, still quivering with anger and a few dead leaves that the sorcerer had left on the carpet where he had worked. But long after he had gone, the Duchess could hear his soft laughing, and in the end she ordered the room to be locked up and never to be entered again.

Well after that, as you might have guessed, the Duchess began to doubt the cleverness of her plan, and regret her decision. But by that time it was far too late. All the guests had been invited. The wine and the food ordered. The masks and fireworks made. There was nothing she could do.

On the morning of October 31st, the Duchess woke after a terrible nightmare in which she had been chased by something she could not see, through a forest in which the trees were as big as mountains, or else she was the size of a butterfly, one of the two. And in the dream she had met all of her friends, the ones I told you about, only they had become monstrously misshapen and horrid. First she had met Lady Boswell-Humphries, who had apparently swapped bodies with a pig because that way, she said, she could eat more. Beside her, sitting on a toadstool, was the Admiral’s wife, whose head was slowly turning into a gramophone, her nose becoming the huge black horn. Further along she came upon the Archbishop, dangling from a convolvulus, and trying, so he explained, to fly.

She saw the Marquis’ wife too, who had become a spider during the night and was busy drinking the blood of the peasants that had become trapped in her dark web. But worst of all was the General, whom the Duchess discovered in the blackest part of that terrifying forest, trampling on beautiful white flowers and muttering `tut-tut, terrible waste,’ to himself as he did so.

His head was bowed so the Duchess could not see his face until he looked up at her. But when he did the Duchess collapsed to the cold ground in a dead faint, for she saw with horror that he no longer had a face, but had instead, a grinning skull with no eyes, white in the darkness of that forest.

At that moment the Duchess had woken from her nightmare to find that the sun was streaming through her window, and there were birds singing in the yew tree outside. The day could not have been nicer. Dismissing her nasty dream as the result of something that had disagreed with her, and making a mental note to sack the cook, she got dressed and went downstairs.

She was too excited for any breakfast, or lunch, or tea, and spent the morning making a few final adjustments to her hair and then, in the afternoon, having a long, warm bath and getting dressed. She had a beautiful gown, which had been made by a hundred seamstresses especially for the occasion. It was the colour of a silver birch, and was stitched with thread of gold. As evening approached, and   the shadows lengthened, she boarded her golden coach and, with her servants riding close behind, was driven to the woods.

By the time she reached the hill, the sun had almost set. The wood looked rather as it had that first day, five months ago, when she and Michael had climbed the windy hill. But now, she thought to herself, there was something different about it. It seemed, somehow, darker. She shivered for a moment, though the evening was not cold. Then, putting on her mask, which was a beautiful, intricate design of silver leaves, she made her way between the trees to the clearing, ready to receive her first guests.

Over five hundred guests had been invited to that party, and every single one of them came. Thus, by ten o’clock the clearing was filled with people, all talking or drinking or eating or dancing or laughing or trying to do all those things at the same time. The noise was dreadful. What with the fireworks, the guests and the orchestra playing, the party must have been heard miles away.

Outside the wood, in the white moonlight, the footmen and servants and coach-drivers sat and listened to the assorted sounds of laughter and merry-making, and looked up occasionally from their card-games to catch a glimpse of the bonfire or the fireworks between the trees. The horses all seemed strangely uneasy. They shuffled and neighed and some whimpered in the way horses do. But the coach-drivers merely went on playing cards and envying their masters.

About 11:30 p.m. Mrs. Fortesque fainted - ‘Probably the heat,’ her escort said - but really because she had drunk too much. She had to be attended to by her friends and then taken home long before the party was due to finish. For long years afterwards Mrs. Fortesque would talk of that night and how divine providence had seen fit to save her alone.

The party continued. The laughter became more hysterical, the music louder and more insistent. Logs were heaped on the bonfire. It crackled and roared. Case after case of champagne was opened and emptied, tray after tray of food prepared and devoured. Beneath their Hallowe’en masks, fat faces dissolved into rolls of hysteria, disdainful faces sneered, military faces looked grim. Each played his or her part better than ever before. And above their heads, unknown to the guests, the trees were whispering to each other softly, whispering in a language as old as the world itself. Whispering of a vengeance planned.

Someone carved his initials in the trunk of an old oak.

He will die, said the whisperer.

Another man threw a living branch on to the blazing bonfire and smiled as it burned.

He too, said the whisperer.

And in the midst of her guests, the Duchess laughed beneath her mask of silver leaves, and forgot all that had been told her. And the whisperers hated her the most — for she had begun it all, caused these murders, these desecrations. For her there could be no death too terrible.

The Duchess had arranged that at the stroke of midnight all lights should be extinguished (except for the bonfire of course) and that everybody should take off their masks and reveal who they were (everybody knew really, but it was still fun). So, as midnight grew near, the Duchess told the orchestra to stop playing, which they did. As soon as they stopped, of course, the talking stopped too, and all the guests turned to look at her.

‘My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen,’ she began (a solitary cheer from the Admiral, who had had a little too much to drink). ‘It is almost midnight’ (another cheer from the Admiral; this time halted abruptly by the Admiral’s wife pushing a gooseberry tart inside his mouth). ‘If we are silent,’ the Duchess continued, ‘we shall be able to hear the striking of the church in the valley. Then, on the twelfth stroke, let us all make merry until the dawn!’

The clearing was silent except for the bonfire’s cracklings. No one moved. The Admiral had fallen asleep, gooseberry tart smeared round his mouth. Then, far, far away, the bell chimed.

One...

Two...

...The Duchess thought something moved in the trees...

Three...

Four...

...Dark forms shifting and gathering...

Five...

Six...

...The sorcerer was right...

Seven...

Eight...

...The woods were alive...

Nine...

Ten...

...And seeking vengeance...!

Eleven...

Twelve!

On the twelfth stroke, the woods attacked!

From out of the shadows appeared creatures forgotten since the world was young. Black, hideous creatures with eyes of fire and wings of death. Screeching, flapping monstrosities defying description.

The Duchess screamed. A great wind sprang up. The torches were blown out. In the flickering light of the bonfire the guests fled, scattered by huge claws. The wind whistled, colder than ever before, bringing back on its shrieking darkness the dragons from the north, to wreak a terrible vengeance. . .

The tables were overturned. Screaming people ran everywhere, but there was no escape. The trees were alive! Branches became arms which tightened about men’s throats, roots seemed to wrench themselves from the earth to halt the guests’ hysterical flight.

For a single, terrible moment, the Duchess caught sight of the General, silhouetted against the blazing fire, crying out.

‘No! Don’t panic. For goodness sake don’t —’ Then a great claw struck him, ripping his mask off. And the Duchess saw that he really did have a skull instead of a face. Then, in madness, she fled from that place of horror. It was almost as if the wood wanted to let her go, for though she feared that at any moment a flapping monstrosity would descend from the trees upon her, none did. Thus half-weeping and half-laughing in madness, she fled from the wood into the moonlight and ran until the tormented screams were faint on the cold night wind. . .

The Duchess was never seen again. And when the villagers ventured into the wood they found only the smouldering bonfire, nothing more. No — that’s not quite true. They found one other thing. A mask of silver leaves, torn by huge talons, not of our world.

Some say that the Duchess still lives, an old woman now, quite mad since that unholy night. Others say that she ran away to Ireland with an officer in the Hussars, but some people would say that.

But in the valley, the villagers are free now of their masters and run in the woods as of old, and dance and sing of endless summers to come. They do not fear the woods. For they planted young trees where the old ones were cut down, thus destroying the last remains of that grim celebration, so that none should ever know of it again.

Old Michael still lives to this day, in a cottage built for him on the edge of the woods, and he is the woods’ guardian. Only he remembers truly the events of that night, only he knows the fate of his proud mistress, the Duchess. Some say that what he saw turned his mind, and that now he is quite mad. But they are the unbelievers. The villagers know Old Michael is not mad, they know he speaks the truth.

The dragons he mutters about are not figments of his imagination, nor are the whisperers in the trees. Old Michael knows the woods, and the woods know him. For Michael talks to the trees, especially a very beautiful silver birch that appeared, quite inexplicably, in the middle of that dark clearing. A shining silver tree, which Michael tends with great care, even in the deep winter.

And the woods will never be dark again, for each day is a joy greater than the last, and the world is at peace.

THE END

The Candle in the Cloud

In the Brambles

It was a cold day in early January. The sky had threatened snow since the first grey light of morning, but so far only a few, dismal flakes had drifted down, powdering the crazy-paving in the garden and then hardening into crusty ice. The birds sat silently on the bare branches of the apple tree, looking chilly and miserable. Occasionally, one of them would fly down and peck vainly at the frozen soil, then, giving it up as a bad job, flutter up into the apple tree again. The iron sky frowned, and the day was long and heavy.

"I wish it would snow," muttered Graham, half to himself.

Mrs. Bedford, his mother, stood at the sink, peeling potatoes and looking out into the garden.

"Heaven preserve us if it does. Your father will get his twinges again and then where'll we be? We're supposed to be going to your Auntie Stella's on Sunday."

"Oh no."

"Oh yes. What are you pulling faces for now? I thought you liked going to Auntie Stella's. You hardly ever see them."

"It's Mandy."

"What's wrong with Mandy? She's growing into a proper young lady."

"Yeah. She's a snob. All she ever talks about is riding school and the boys she met at the tennis club."

"Oh really, Graham -"

"Anyway, I'm fed up. I wish I was back at school. Oh –no I don't. We'd be doing physics now – Hey! It's beginning to snow."

"Oh my goodness. Your father'll go mad. Here, take the peelings up to the top of the garden will you dear? Hurry up, before it comes on heavy."

"Yes Mum."

"– put your shoes on. You'll get your slippers wet."

"Yes Mum."

"And put your anorak on too."

"I'm only going -"

"– you heard me."

"Yes Mum."

Graham slipped on his old anorak and took the dripping colander from his mother.

"Don't dawdle up there - there's half a blizzard coming up." Graham slammed the kitchen door behind him.

"– and don't slam the door! Really – that boy –"

She dried her hands and went into the front room.

The path was slippery and Graham half ran, half slid his way up the garden. His breath hung in misty clouds at his lips. He ducked under the low branches of the apple tree, and as he did, his anorak became caught in the brambles.

For some reason, nobody had bothered to touch the bramble patch this year, and it had already begun to take over the strawberry bed and the lettuce frames. Not that Graham minded. He had always disliked gardens in which the plants were all in neat rows and the grass was cut just to the right height to see the plastic dwarves. The tangled mass of brambles at the top of the garden made the place look a little more exciting. Indeed, there was something about the twisted thicket against the dark sky that was a little frightening. But today it was just annoying.

Graham yelled as he scratched the back of his hand on the thorns trying to free his anorak. The colander tipped and the peelings were scattered all over the path.

"Damn!"

He pulled at his anorak in a sudden fit of anger and it tore. "Oh blimey, now I've done it."

Freed, he examined the damage to his hand and his anorak, neither of which was irreparable, and bent down to pick up the spilt peelings.

Suddenly, something moved behind him. At first he thought it was a cat, or even a bird, in the brambles, but from the way the entire mesh of brambles was shaking, it seemed to a bigger animal than that. He stopped gathering up the peelings, and stood up, watching.

The sky had darkened. The snow was falling more heavily than ever.

Curious, and not a little unnerved, by the horrid stillness that had fallen, Graham scanned the bramble-patch, not moving a muscle in case he frightened whatever it was away. Nothing. The patch was absolutely still.

Wait! There, in the thickest, darkest part of the patch his eyes met the gaze of another two eyes, large and shining. Graham drew a quick breath with surprise. He knew the eyes were human. They looked back at him with intelligence and not a little enmity.

His first thought was to turn and run for it - but suppose he got caught in the brambles again and whoever it was jumped from their hiding place and caught him? On the other hand, he could hardly stand there and gaze like an idiot at the mysterious eyes until one of them froze to death, so he said, in a very low and hoarse voice:

"Who – are – you?"

No answer. Maybe he can't speak, Graham thought. The figure moved a little in the shadows, and Graham discerned the hunched shape of a thin little man.

"What are you doing in our bramble patch?" The eyes stared back, unblinking.

"Are you hurt?"

Graham made to approach the man, but suddenly the expression in the large eyes changed and a wiry brown arm shot out from the brambles, seemingly unharmed by the thorns, and dragged a fistful aside. A head emerged, with a long and wizened face, brown and seamed like bark, with a small, scrawny beard. He had rings in his slightly over-large ears.

Graham stepped back, and the man darted from the bramble patch and started to scramble over the fence at the bottom of the garden. As he ran, he dropped something which fell amongst the strawberry plants. Graham picked it up. It was a candle, a white candle.

"Hey wait! You've dropped –"

The little man turned, poised with expert, almost cat-like balance on the top of the fence. His eyes were wide with fear and confusion. Graham proffered the candle.

"Here – take it."

The man looked at him, and then, slowly and warily, climbed down the fence and started towards Graham. Suddenly, muted by the ever-thickening snow, there came a strange and unearthly sound. It might have been a man blowing on a horn; it might have been an animal bellowing. The sound made Graham shudder, but the little man, having been momentarily transfixed by terror, gave one last look at Graham and the candle and then turned and disappeared over the fence. Graham ran after him and put his foot through one of the lettuce frames. The glass shattered and cut his ankle. Yelling with pain and anger, he managed to hop to the fence, and, sticking his head over it, looked to see where the man had gone.

By now the snow was thick and he couldn't see farther than a few yards. There was a school playing field at the bottom of the garden, but it was almost completely obliterated by the swirling snow. The man had gone.

Then Graham heard the bellowing again and for just the briefest of moments the snow made the shapes of two horsemen, galloping off across the field, to be lost into the wall of white. His bleeding ankle stung him back to this world, and gritting his teeth, he hopped and limped his way back to the kitchen door. As he turned the door-knob he remembered the candle, which he still clutched in his hand. For some reason he did not want his mother to see it, so hastily stuffing it into his anorak pocket he opened the door, and fell inside with a yell that brought his mother running.

"You'll survive," his mother said unsympathetically, when the ritual of washing and bandaging the cut was completed. "But I shouldn't be surprised if your father doesn't make you pay for the glass."

"It wasn't my fault, it's those brambles. You can't get to the compost heap without tip-toeing through the vegetable patch. They're everywhere."

"Well nobody else manages to put their foot through the lettuce frames. You are clumsy, you know."

"Yes, Mum."

Hoof Prints in the Night

The incident was soon forgotten, by all except Graham. He still had the candle to remind him. And when, some time later, he examined it more closely, he found it was by no means an ordinary candle. It had upon it three eyes, each with a beam shining from it. It was an odd design, and had been carved in the wax and the grooves filled with what looked like gold. Graham buried the candle in amongst his sweaters and left it there.

But that was not the end. Far from it. That January was a windy one, and the branches of the apple tree creaked and the telephone wires whistled, and sometimes, far-off, there would seem to drift across the playing field the distant, eerie sound of the horsemen's horns. It was a month of sudden snow and sudden sun, which broke through the dark, massed clouds a pale lemon, melting the icicles on the gutter only for them to form again in frost-silent night.

One morning, two or three weeks later, Graham was breaking the ice from the birdbath in the garden. His mother was talking to the next-door neighbour over the hedge, and what he heard made a shudder run down his back.

"Well," said the lady next door, "I can't say I've seen anything. I don't know where he gets his stories from."

"He's getting on a bit," Graham's mother put it.

"Yes, well he's lost it. I mean, horses. Dear, oh dear, it's a bit much isn't it? Horses. We'd have seen them, backing on to the field. We'd have seen them horses."

"You'd think so. Still, it's very strange. Graham?" his mother called across to him.

"Yes Mum?"

"You haven't seen anybody riding round the field have you?"

"Anybody in particular?"

"He didn't say," said the lady next door. "That's just it. I mean, who's going to ride round there? They'd ask permission wouldn't they?"

"No – I haven't seen anybody," Graham said, almost truthfully. He had put down the horsemen he had seen to a trick played by the snow. Now he was less certain.

"Still, it's very strange," said Mrs. Bedford.

"Yes, oh yes, it's strange all right. I mean, it's not like he'd seen the horses. Just the hoof-prints in the frost, like, on the grass. Well, that's what he said. Been riding round and round he said. It's his turf he's bothered about, with the new term starting next week. He's proud of his turf. Doesn't want it messed up by horses. And in the night. Now who'd ride round the field in the middle of the night, he said? Vandals, I said. Must be vandals.

Graham stood and listened to the next-door neighbour chatter on for a few more minutes, but it was clear that she was as much in the dark about who the horsemen were as the grounds man. But Graham knew, and his heart beat faster when he thought about it. The horsemen he thought he had seen galloping away into the snow had been real. Who they were and what they had been doing there, he could only blindly guess at. What was more important was the fact that they had returned, who could say how often, to gallop around in seemingly meaningless circles in the field at the bottom of their garden. Why do that, he wondered, unless they were searching for someone, or something? The man in the brambles had plainly been in mortal terror of them, to judge by the expression on his face when the horn had first sounded. Were they in pursuit of him? Or perhaps they sought what he carried.

Graham slipped up to his room, opened his drawer and rummaged through his sweaters with his heart beating like a hammer in his chest. The candle was still there. He took it out, suddenly fiercely possessive, and studied it again. From that moment on, he never let it more than a few yards from him. He felt like the wizened little man had entrusted the candle's safety to him, and it was his duty to keep it from the horsemen's grasp.

At night he hid the candle under his pillow, and the first thing he did in the morning was to make sure it was still there. He carried it around with him all day, looked at the shining eyes on it and pondered for hour upon hour what they could mean.

Then, overnight, he had a dream. He was on the field, and the snow was falling heavily, and he could hear the pounding of the horsemen's hooves in the murk. They rode round and round, though he couldn't see them, and he knew they were closing in. Suddenly the whole world lurched. He felt himself dragged up and over the field, over the city. He could see the houses and the docks, the dirty river creeping to the sea, far, far below him. The factories belched smoke into the heavy sky and the millions of city people went their many ways. All this he took in, as a hawk might, leaning on the wind. Then he felt a great fear rush into him, flooding his mind, numbing his limbs. A wall of impenetrable darkness unfolded before him and plucked him from the light.

He reeled and swam in black air, suffocating. Abruptly the darkness died, and he emerged from his dream sweating and kicking on his bed. He lay still for a moment, trying to piece together the visions. But he could only part-remember what he had seen within the wall of darkness. There was glass, shattering, slowly. There was a cold wind biting at him, a sound like wings. There was a distant rumbling, and, in the darkness, a blacker black that was like a pit in the earth. That was all, except for a single word muttered like a growing thunder in the blackness: Desolation.

The Candle Is Lit

When Graham told Gwen and Colin about the candle and the horsemen he was greeted with the reaction he had rather expected he would receive: laughter. It was, after all, a difficult story to swallow. They were walking up the hill out of Woolton Village, passed St. Peter's Church. It was the middle of February but it was still quite chilly, and the sun was glinting palely on the frost-rimmed windows and roofs. Everything had a clear-cut edge to it. It was hardly a day to believe in Graham's misty fears.

Colin and Gwen were brother and sister, and Graham's best friends. Colin, who was nearly seventeen, was the elder of the two boys by two years. He automatically dismissed everything that Graham had described as nonsense, which is what he usually did.

"You're having us on, aren't you?" he said. "I mean, you can't be serious. Horses, all right – but little men at the bottom of the garden. Oh, come off it!"

"It's true," insisted Graham. "Why do you always make everything anybody else says sound so daft?"

There was a silence. Graham didn't lose his temper very often.

"Are you joking, Graham?" asked Gwen, after a pause to let him calm down. "Don't mess about."

"I'm not messing about. It's true. How many times have I got to tell you - it's true. I've got the candle to prove it."

"Anybody can buy a candle," said Colin.

"With gold on it?"

"What?"

"Ah, now you're beginning to believe me, aren't you?"

"Have you really got a candle with gold on it?"

"I don't see why I should show you. You don't believe me anyway."

"Oh don't be such a baby, Graham," snapped Colin.

"No. Why should I show you? All you ever do is make nasty remarks."

"Let's go and sit in the churchyard," suggested Gwen. "I'm fed up with walking."

There were benches in the churchyard so that people could sit and look over the houses to the woods. They sat down and there was another long silence. All three were thinking their different thoughts. Inside the church the organist started practicing the hymns for the following Sunday.

"Have you got the candle with you?" said Colin at last.

"Yes."

"Let's see it."

"No."

"Please."

Graham unzipped his anorak and took the candle from the inside pocket. He handed it to Colin. The older boy examined it carefully.

"That's real gold," he said after a moment.

"I know," said Graham with a grin.

"Are you sure, Colin?" asked Gwen.

"Of course I'm sure. It's real gold. And the wax, it isn't ordinary.

Look, it's got all sorts of shapes and swirls in it. There are colors inside. And it smells funny."

Gwen sniffed it.

"It's a kind of perfume. Like incense."

"Maybe it's been stolen. From a church," suggested Colin.

Now it was Graham's turn to laugh.

"What sort of church would have a candle with three eyes on?"

Colin shrugged.

"Let's light it," said Gwen.

"What for?" her brother asked.

"What do you mean - what for?"

"Well I mean what's the use in lighting it. It'll only burn down."

"Then I won't have a candle," said Graham.

"Yes, but there's no use in you having it unless you do something with it, is there?"

"I suppose -"

"– And candles are for lighting, aren't they?"

"But I don't want to light it," Graham replied, with a note of finality in his voice. "It's my candle, at least I picked it up, and I don't want to light it."

"What are you going to do with it then?" asked Colin.

"Keep it. Keep it until the man comes back for it."

"Suppose he doesn't come back?"

"He will," said Graham.

"Suppose your phantom horsemen got him," suggested Colin.

Graham fell silent.

"I mean, if he wanted it that badly–" Colin continued, "–and if the horsemen didn't get him – surely he would have come back for it by now?"

"Anyway," Gwen went on, "what's the use of having the stupid thing if you don't light it?"

Graham was unconvinced. "It isn't even dark," he said.

"Well, we'll wait until tonight then," Gwen replied.

"We can't light it in one of our homes, in case someone smells it. They'll find out."

"Find out what?" said Colin.

"That we lit it."

"Oh big deal," said Colin sarcastically. "Let's be children about it then, if you must. We can light it in the woods."

Graham sighed. He didn't want to spoil his candle. Perhaps it wasn't even his to spoil. But Colin was older than him, and he didn't want to be laughed at. Besides, they could blow it out very quickly, and maybe the wax wouldn't run at all, and his candle would stay as perfect as ever.

"All right," he said, after a long debate with himself. "We'll light it."

That evening, just as it was beginning to get dark, they reconvened on the edge of Woolton Woods. It was rather a depressing place. The trees all had initials carved on them, and the bark had been pried off with penknives. The men from the Corporation pruned them every year, just to make sure they did not get out of control, but the higher branches, out of reach of the electric saw, formed a thick and elaborate mesh which made the place gloomy and rather damp. The autumn leaves had long turned to soggy mush, smelling of decay, and the rusty remains of discarded bicycles stuck up out of the water-filled hollows, like drowned things.

There was very little wind that evening, and they soon found a place behind a rhododendron bush in which there was not even a breeze. Graham had a half-full box of matches. They stuck the candle in the earth, so that it would not fall over.

"Suppose it explodes or something?" said Gwen.

"Don't be ridiculous," her brother replied. "It's only a candle."

"No," said Graham. "It isn't. There's something special about this candle."

"Something's going to happen," said Gwen quietly.

"Get on with it Graham," said Colin.

Graham struck a match and touched it to the wick. They held their breaths. The wick blackened and caught. The flame guttered for a moment and flickered in the wind, which had, at that very instant, sprung up from somewhere. The rhododendron bushes sighed. The branches of the tree shook. The wind grew. The flame, feeding upon it, flared unnaturally, and the colors in the candle twisted the woods blue and green and red.

"Put it out," said Gwen in a hoarse and frightened whisper. "Please put it out, Graham."

"Yes," agreed Colin uneasily. "I think perhaps you'd better."

"No," answered Graham strangely. "We must not."

The trees roared. The steep forest sang a great chord, remembering its birth. The children felt sleepy. The sky boiled purple and red through the tall black trees. Something took hold of them, threw them into the air, and let them fall. The flame burned in their minds. Then they were asleep.

Darach

Who can say where dreams begin? As the three figures slept in the grass, the woods changed around them. The bleak greys and muddy browns of the old trees disappeared, and from the burning candle came new colors, new life. Roots spread out and down into the rich earth, branches grew and wove together, buds swelled and burst on every twig, leaves opened to the sun. In a few moments there was a forest where there had only been a handful of sad trees, and there was a singing summer afternoon where there had been only a gloomy winter's evening.

The sun, darting through the branches to gild dandelion seeds on the breeze, threw strange and shifting patterns onto the children's sleeping faces; ever-moving patterns that brushed across their lidded eyes. Then a voice drifted between the trees – an old, rather cracked voice. This is the song it was singing:

Where shall I find thee, yellow primrose? Nodding in the breeze?

In the woods or in the hedgerows, Sleeping 'neath the trees?

And where art though, enchanter's nightshade?

Where the ivy clings?

In some dark, ensnared wood-glade, Ruled by eleven kings?

Where shall I find thee, woodbine-sweet, Where foxgloves proudly grow?

Or dost thou lie 'neath taloned feet, Where wandering breezes blow?

Where shall I spy thee, summer flowers? Beside a rushing stream?

Wilt thou pass away the hours, Lost, as if in dream?

Between the sprawling roots of the trees came an old man, wearing a tattered and faded patchwork gown, tied at the waist with a dirty piece of string. He looked like an eccentric tramp, and as he wandered along singing, he surveyed the forest through grubby spectacles. Eventually, he came across Graham, Gwen and Colin.

He picked up the candle that still burned in the grass and blew it out.

Then, clearing his throat, he spoke several long, blossoming words. The trio woke and looked around. Where Woolton Woods had been there was a thick and thriving forest, and it was summer.

"Blissful slumbers, eh?" said the old man.

The children all looked round at once. "Who are you?"

"Darach."

"Who?"

"I had to wake you."

"How long have we been asleep?" said Gwen.

"I couldn't really say."

"Is this Woolton Woods?" asked Colin.

"A good question!" the old man replied. "But I'm afraid I can't help you. It is – and then again –"

"– It isn't," said Colin.

"That's about it."

There was a pause.

"I don't understand," said Gwen after a moment.

"The candle brought you here."

"The candle," said Graham suddenly. "Where is it?"

"I have it," said the old man. "It's mine."

"But there was a little man. With rings in his ears."

"Wake-Robin," said Darach. The man from Graham's front yard dropped from a branch to land beside the old man. "May I introduce my good friend and tireless colleague, Michelmas Wake-Robin. You, I presume," he pointed at Graham, "are the candle-finder?"

"Yes. And these are my friends, Colin –"

"Good afternoon."

"And Gwen."

"Charmed, I'm sure. Well, now the introductions are done with, we can be off."

"Where to?"

"Questions, questions. Why do they breed such inquisitive children these days? Education has severe drawbacks."

"I think we'd better go home now," said Colin to the others, and added in a low voice, "I think he's a bit doolally."

"Home?" Darach said. "No. I think you'd better come with me."

They followed Darach and the man-creature to the edge of the forest, and looked out across a counterpane of fields and hills melting into the mist-blue distance.

"Where's Woolton gone," cried Graham disbelievingly.

"It has never been here."

"Is this a dream?" Gwen said slowly.

"How should I know?" snapped Darach. "I am Darach the Wise, and I have a job to do, responsibilities to the Queen and the realm. Shall I know if I am living a dream or dreaming a life? No time for fruitless speculation. Well, are you coming or aren't you?"

They followed, and came at last to a tiny, peat-roofed cottage in the deepest part of the forest, its grey walls covered with a choking mass of creepers. Inside, it was dark and smelt of damp earth. While Wake-Robin lit a fire, Darach did his best to make room for the children to sit down, removing a pile of books from one of the two chairs and dumping them on the other. The walls were lined with cages, out of which peered bright- eyed creatures.

"You'll have to stay here for a while, until we can get you to somewhere safer. The roads are watched of course, and there are men about who have dark ideas. We have to be wary. Mulled wine all right? Some bread, perhaps, and a little cheese. A local wine naturally. Sit down on the hearth. Wake-Robin'll get some bracken for you to sleep on." He paused for a moment. "I'm writing a book you know. Well, we've been waiting for you. A bit reticent about lighting the candle, eh?"

"We didn't know – that is –"

"Never mind. It wasn't intended for you."

"Who was it meant for?"

"We were going to select somebody by astrology. Looks like fate did the selecting for us. Just hope she was right."

"What's it about? The book," asked Gwen.

"What's any book about? The same old things. Being born, falling in love, and dying of course. What else is there?"

Evening came. The sun poured from the sky like liquid gold. The wine had gone to the children's heads and once they lay down on the bracken they were asleep. Darach sat by the fire, and having attempted and failed to come to an amicable agreement with his last chapter, gave up and sat gazing into the embers for the rest of the night, thinking.

The Maggot Cloud

They woke in gloom. It felt like morning, but there was no sun, just an unnatural murk, a suggestion of light which came from nowhere in particular, but by which the children could just see one another. Though they called Darach, they got no answer and decided he must have gone out.

"We'd better stay here until he gets back," said Graham.

"Why?" said Colin. "I'm sure it's morning. There's a sort of light outside.

They stumbled to the door. The eerie gloom was outside too. What a difference from the summery beauty of the day before. Now the trees seemed unreal in the murk. There were no birds singing, but from time to time they heard blind scurryings and frightened encounters in the undergrowth. The forest-animals, like them, had woken instinctively at dawn, only to find there was no dawn.

"Which way is East?" Colin asked.

"That way," Graham pointed through the trees.

"Are you sure?"

"No. But that's where this queer light is coming from."

Graham was right. The grey illumination was filtering through the trees in the direction in which he had pointed.

"Come on then," said Colin. "Let's go and see."

The path would have been difficult enough to follow in the day, but in the gloom it was virtually impossible even though their eyes were gradually becoming more used to it. They stumbled over logs, and wandered away from each other, while all the time the forest-animals made strange noises in the darkness.

"I think we're going round in circles," said Gwen, after a few minutes. "No, we can't be, we've kept the light ahead of us all the time," said Colin. "Look! The trees are thinning out in a few yards. We're coming to the edge of the forest, we must be."

Whatever they had been expecting to see when they got to the other side, the sight that met their eyes was even more awesome.

Before them was spread the landscape of fields, forested hills, rivers, roads and so on, stretching to a distant horizon. And then, at the edge of the visible world, beyond the mountains, where the sun should have been rising, there towered in the sky a cloud so vast and dense that the sun could not penetrate it. The cloud had not totally arrested the sunlight, however, for spreading out and over the sky around the edge of the cloud was a muted, greyish light, which was the source of the gloom.

"I've never seen a cloud like that before," said Graham.

"I don't think it's an ordinary cloud," said Colin. "No normal cloud is that thick."

They watched the cloud in silence for a few minutes, but it didn't move, although there was a wind blowing. Slowly, however, the light in the sky around increased, as the sun rose higher behind it.

It was then that Gwen noticed Darach, standing with Wake-Robin crouched beside him, watching the grim spectacle like themselves.

"Darach," she called.

The old man twitched and looked round. "What? Oh it's you." He was clearly displeased.

"What's going on?" asked Graham, "Is it morning?"

"Yes."

"Well why's it still dark then?"

"We are in shadow," the old man replied, and even in gloom they could see the troubled look that crossed his face. Suddenly he had become like a man broken with grief. "Our land is in shadow."

"Look!" cried Gwen, "It's the sun! It's the sun!"

The sun emerged from the edge of the cloud, and it was so bright that they all had to look away. It rose from out of the darkness slowly and majestically, taking its own self-measured time, not hurrying for those who lived in the shadow of the cloud. And then, as a King might throw gold and silver coins to his people as he passed them by, so the sun gave the gifts of life and color for another day - browns and greens and yellows, and blue-grey, mist-hung forests, and shining rivers.

"We take it for granted, don't we?" said Gwen, half to herself.

"Suppose we do," said Graham.

"Look at the cloud now," said Colin. "It seems to be alive."

"Like it was full of maggots," suggested Graham.

"What a revolting thing to say," said Gwen. "Well that's what it looks like."

The description was extremely accurate, for even as they watched, the innards of the clouds seemed to boil and seethe and thrust themselves further over the world. The cloud was getting bigger.

"I want to go home," said Gwen quietly. Colin put his arm round her, something which he seldom did. This time he sensed and shared his sister's fears. The cloud was repulsive, like a spreading disease.

They made their way back through the forest with Darach. In the branches the birds were singing morning songs.

Back at the cottage, Darach made a pot of porridge for breakfast and Wake-Robin brought in a basket of fruit which he had gathered.

"Simple fare, I'm afraid," Darach said.

"That cloud -" began Colin.

"Hmm?"

"That cloud we just saw –"

"Any particular cloud?"

"What do you mean: 'Any particular cloud'? There was only one cloud - the one that stopped the sun."

"Likely a thunder-cloud," said Darach.

"I know what thunder-clouds look like," replied Colin, "and that wasn't a thunder-cloud."

"Wasn't it?" Darach paused.

"You said the land was in shadow. What did you mean?"

Darach said nothing.

"What did you mean?" insisted Colin.

"Why can't you tell us?" demanded Gwen.

"Tell you what?"

"About the cloud."

"I'm afraid I know no more than you."

There was another pause. Graham broke the tense silence. "I've seen that cloud before -" he said slowly.

Darach stopped stirring the porridge, and stiffened but didn't turn round.

"Where?" asked Colin. "When?"

"In a dream. At home. When I had the candle under my pillow."

"What did you see?"

"Graham!" Darach's voice was sharp and commanding. "I forbid you." The old man's eyes bore into Graham.

Graham bit his lip and looked away.

"I - I - there's nothing to tell," Graham said. "I think I've forgotten."

There was a terrible silence. Darach began to stir the porridge again. "Well now," he said, "let us break our fast together. There will come a time for explanations, no doubt. But, as I have said, I have a job to do. We must wait, all of us. Meanwhile, you must all remain here, out of harm's way. And believe me, there is a great deal of harm, even here. Different to your world, but harm nevertheless."

"We're not children, you know," exploded Colin.

"I'm well aware -" began the old man.

"– and there's no need to treat us like children. We didn't ask to come here. If we want to put our fingers in the fire, you're not going to stop us."

"No," said Darach sourly. "Youth will have its way. But believe me, child, there will be time aplenty for finger-burning in the not too distant future. Until then, I suggest you do as I say."

Colin didn't reply, but sat and looked into the fire with tight-pressed lips, not even touching his breakfast.

The Horsemen

Colin didn't forgive Darach for calling him a child in front of the other two. It had hurt his pride, and he couldn't forget it. The next few days were therefore extremely difficult ones. Colin was almost always broody and silent, and Darach rather quick-tempered. The children wandered in the forest as far as its edge, which was the invisible boundary Darach had set. From the trees' edge they could see other cottages, roads and fields of corn, even rough fortifications in the distant hill-tops. They only went once to the eastern edge of the forest, where the cloud still towered over the mountain-tops, seething and threatening.

Their favourite spot was a small glade on the western edge, for from there, on a clear day, they could just glimpse the sea, glinting far off.

"What would happen if we went down there?" mused Graham one afternoon, as they sat in the shade of the trees, gazing out towards the sea.

"Darach said there's danger down there," said Gwen.

"Danger he won't tell us about," said Colin, remembering the insult. "Danger which probably doesn't even exist."

"Why should he warn us against it then?" asked Gwen

"I don't know," said Colin. "Maybe he's nuts. I mean, he could be, couldn't he? Living here on his own writing his book. We might never move from here if we go on listening to him."

"I thought that," said Graham.

"We're prisoners in this infernal place - just because he says so."

"He said he'd explain, when the time came," said Gwen.

"When we're as old and crabby as him you mean?"

Everyone fell silent for a moment, then Colin said, "Graham?"

"Hmm?"

"You know when you said you'd seen the cloud before?" Silence.

"You remember?"

"Yes."

"What did you see?"

"Blackness. A sort of pit. I can't remember much more. There was a tower, I think, shining."

"What else?"

"Don't push me. I can't remember. It's all confused. I'm sorry Colin, I've tried to remember, often. But I can't."

"Do you think Darach knows?" asked Gwen. "About what's in the cloud?"

"About everything."

"I don't think he knows everything, no," said Graham. "He says he's got a job to do. Keeping us here."

"Well I'm fed up with him and his job. I want to go down there," said Colin.

"Maybe if we asked him -" began Gwen.

"You know what he'd say," said Colin.

"He's right, Gwen. If we ask him he's sure to say no," said Graham.

"Let's go now," said Colin suddenly. "What can he do to stop us? He hasn't got any right."

"Yes," said Graham enthusiastically. "Why not? We won't go far. Just a little way. We might meet some people."

Gwen wasn't sure. Then she looked out from the shadowy forest over the sunlit hills to the sea.

"All right," she said. "It can't do any harm."

They made their way down the hill and came to a winding track that led down into the valley, which they followed. The sun was warm, and the breeze was gentle. In the fields to either side of the track, or upon the hillsides, they saw people working, the brown men naked to the waist, sweating and laughing, the women with jugs of ale to slake the workmen's thirst. In the yard in front of the cottages, wimpled women scattered grain to hens, or shooed pigs, shouting in high voices. The children's dirty jeans and pullovers weren't at all out of key with the rough clothes the farmers were wearing. They could have been taken for local kids with ease.

Once they were across the valley and Darach's forest was well behind them, they began to take full advantage of their newfound freedom. They made a great deal of noise scrambling up the flowered banks to either side of the road and swooping down them. They stopped to talk with an old man who was half-lying in the shadow of tree at the roadside, with his dog beside him, who showed them the quickest way to get to the other side of the valley. Very soon they were climbing the hills beyond which, far off, lay the sea. And it was here they found the field.

When they first came upon the field they could hardly believe it was real. It was a meadow entirely carpeted with buttercups – thousands and thousands of long-stalked buttercups, knee-height, like a yellow sea with the sun on it, shining.

"Look at them!" exclaimed Graham.

"Beautiful," said Gwen.

"That's quite a lot of buttercups."

"You're telling me."

"C'mon," yelled Graham. "Last one there's –"

He never finished his challenge. A moment later they were all scrambling over or through the gate into the field. It was a wonderful feeling, running through the flowers, as if you were floating in a yellow mist. They picked handfuls of flowers to right and left and made chains of them, wearing mock-gold crowns and bracelets for them all.

From the shifting blue shadows of a beech-copse that grew at the edge of the field, unnoticed by the three children, a man sat quite still upon a black horse, watching them, and fingering his sword. Beneath his black helm his face was a face no longer, and in his chest his heart was ice. He was only one of many, sent out to locate the candle-finder and his companions, and once they had been located, to dispose of them. Now the quarry was found, the light that was threatening could be quenched.

Three children. What were they? Three strokes of his huge sword, and the danger was passed.

The young boy had seen him. The horseman flinched.

Graham was standing in the buttercups with flowers in his hair, his eyes now glued to the rider. A deep and growing horror chilled him, as he recognised the shape of the horseman, and saw the bellowing horn that hung at the rider's belt.

"Col–" he said quietly.

"What?"

"There's somebody over there. In those trees."

Colin was sitting in the buttercups, laughing. When he heard the frightened tone of Graham's voice he slowly got up.

"Where?"

"Over there. It's – it's one of the horsemen."

Before Colin could do anything, Gwen, who hadn't been listening to what the boys were saying, but who had also seen the rider, walked across to him.

"Hello," she said simply, planting herself within easy sword's-length of the horseman.

"Gwen – Gwen – don't..." Graham murmured.

"Come here, Gwen," said Colin.

She took no notice.

"Isn't it a beautiful horse," she said delightedly. "You have a very beautiful horse."

The rider said nothing, but sat watching the girl through the eye-slots in his blank helmet. She came even nearer.

"May I stroke him?" she asked.

His gauntleted fist moved to his sword-hilt.

It would be so easy to cut them down where they stood. A single stroke for each.

"It's such a lovely horse. Has it got a name?"

Colin and Graham stood amongst the buttercups as if as deep-rooted as the flowers themselves. Something – fear, perhaps, or the horseman's stare – prevented them from putting one foot in front of the other. The moments passed like hours. Every action seemed to be happening in slow motion.

The horseman began to draw his sword. Dull iron reflected a sunlit field as he pulled it from its scabbard. Gwen didn't notice.

Slowly, slowly, she extended a flower-wreathed arm to stroke the horse. As she did so the horse tossed its head, showing the whites of its eyes. The sword slid from its scabbard, ringing, as the rider fought to quieten his mount.

The flowers were everywhere. They shone in the sunlight, the horrid sunlight, in the girl's hair, in her hands, in her eyes. They suffocated him with their beauty and brightness.

The horseman shrieked! The sound made the hills ring. A sound of unearthly evil. The rider bore down on Gwen, his huge sword raised. But the black horse was seized by uncontrollable panic and reared before the blow could fall.

Gwen staggered back into the beech copse, out of harm's way. By now the rider was in the sunlight, fighting to control his maddened horse, swinging his sword wildly at the boys' heads.

Weaponless, they threw the flowers.

The buttercups seemed to hang in the air, like fragments of the sun. The horse reared again.

The iron-black hooves rose and fell and rose again.

The rider cried out again, but this time it was not a battle cry that left his lips. He was tossed from the saddle by the rearing horse, and fell into the sun-lit buttercups. The terrified horse galloped off, leaving its master groping like a blind man for his sword.

His helm had been thrown off him as he fell, and the boys could see a mane of long black hair that fell across his face and his shoulders. He knelt in the flowers, one hand over his face, the other groping for his sword, making strange whimpering noises as he did so.

Then he shuddered, his noises ceased abruptly. Still clutching his face, he made one final effort to support himself, but his arms buckled beneath him, and he collapsed, facedown, into the flowers.

The moments passed by. He didn't move. "Gwen, are you all right?" murmured Colin.

"Yes – yes –" she replied from the trees, half-weeping.

"The horsemen-" said Graham. "The horsemen who were after the candle. This is one of them."

"We should have listened to Darach," sobbed Gwen.

"Will they find us now?" asked Graham suddenly. "Will they, Col?"

"How should I know?" He stared at the crumpled figure in the flowers.

"What shall we do, Col?"

"Go back to Darach. Come on!"

Colin backed away, taking Gwen's hand, still watching the rider, as if at any moment he might rise up and attack them again.

"What about him?" said Graham, who looked at the horseman as well.

"Leave him."

"Is he dead?"

"I don't know. I don't think he's a man, so maybe he isn't. Maybe things like that don't die."

They climbed the gate slowly, still watching the horsemen and then, once they were out of the field, ran off as fast as they could.

In the meadow behind them, the buttercups swayed in the warm breeze, and the creature with the black mane lay in their midst like a drowned man upon the face of the sea.

Under the Stars

"You are discovered," said Darach quietly.

Colin didn't look at him, because he knew it was his fault. If he hadn't wanted to spite the old man, he would never have suggested that they go down into the valley in the first place.

"The horseman is dead," said Graham. "At least he wasn't breathing. I don't think. He can't tell anyone where we are."

Darach sighed.

"When the servant dies," he said, "the master knows. The riders are difficult to destroy, because they are not human. They are made of darkness, and can only be destroyed by certain pieces of alchemy, or by light."

"Did we destroy him?" said Gwen.

"You have powers here you did not have in your own world. And the Cloud's evil will not work on you. Now, we must leave here – and quickly. They will soon locate us. There are many horseman."

"Where are we going to go?"

"The Beacon. Wake-Robin - you go now and warn the keeper that we are coming. How soon? How soon? Before tomorrow morn. If not then, not at all. When you have told the keeper this, you will go to the Palace, and tell her majesty that if she wishes to send one of her infernal courtiers, we will be waiting."

Wake-Robin nodded and disappeared through the door.

"Can he speak at all?" asked Gwen.

"He used to be able to," explained Darach, "but when he was only small he began to realise most people did more harm than good with what they said. He came to the conclusion that talking was a curse, so he gave it up. I should think by now he's lost the knack."

"How will he give the keeper your message?"

"With signs. Now all of you must help me gather my books. It will soon be dark and we must begin our journey." Darach looked round sadly. "I want you to open all the cages please."

One by one the children unlatched the various cages while Darach collected together a selection of books and bric-a-brac. The animals and birds, many of which Darach had been in the process of healing, disappeared into the gathering darkness.

The cottage grew very still without the customary squeals and scratchings. A solitary blackbird sat on the hearth and refused to budge.

"Go on," said Darach, "get out of here. Your leg's mended anyway. Go on - get out."

The blackbird hopped back and forth on the hearth, making soft chirps.

"Faker!" said Darach. "You're as well as the rest of them. Off with you."

The blackbird cocked its head and regarded Darach with shining eyes. It obviously had no intention of leaving.

"When they come here," the old man threatened, "they'll burn this place to the ground, you flea-bitten bird. So go on - go on. Shoo!"

The blackbird flew up and perched on one of the cages.

"Oh I can't be wasting time with the likes of you," said Darach finally. "Stay and wait for the horsemen if you must. Good day."

He took up his bag and his staff and strode across the threshold with the deliberate step of a person who fears his strength may falter, and he may turn back.

"Come along now -" he said, not looking behind him. The children followed him.

"Oh," he said suddenly, stopping in his tracks, "leave the door ajar. Just in case that blasted bird changes its mind."

As darkness crept into the crevices in the tree-trunks and the places between the roots, as the owl woke and the moths came out, they left the forest, with Darach leading at a fiery pace. Presently, it was just a silhouette against a pale sky that was filling with stars.

What a long night that was to be. They forced themselves to stay awake, though their bodies told them they should be sleeping.

Darach led them south-southwest until they came to a large river. Here they turned east and traced the river up to its source in the hills.

It was very quiet. In the valley below them they could see the lights in the cottages. Otherwise there was only the starlight, for the new moon had not yet risen very high.

The river began as a tiny stream bubbling up from a cleft in the lichened rock. They drank from it and sat down to rest for a while.

The stars were on the water, and the wind in the reeds at the water's edge. They sat in silence for a long time, and Darach half-spoke, half-sang a kind of song:

There came to me a fa'ry-light, Bright shining like a fallen star. And in the stillness of the night, It sang to me of lands afar.

'O follow, follow me,' it sang

'The world is not for such as we, The broken heart, the mortal span, Are hurts for other men but thee.

Half-dreaming from my cot I rose, Before the dawn had hit the sky,

And followed where the sea-wind blows, And mournfully the grey gulls cry.

'Where is this land, o light?' I said, And unto me it answered true,

'Where empty hopes and dreams are few, Over the sea so wild and blue.'

'O follow, follow me,' it sang,

'Unto the sea so wide and deep.' But in my ear the loud waves rang,

And woke me from my deathly sleep.

And lo! Upon the cliff I stood

Where pounds the dark and awful sea,

Below me roared the ceaseless flood Where but for God I dead should be.

What fools men are to hope and dream When all must crumble down the years, And finally such fancies seem

As worthless as a maiden's tears.

When he had finished singing the song, except for the wind, there was utter silence.

"What does the song mean?" Gwen asked.

"It's a song of leading," he replied. "It tells that all is not what it may seem. That we walk believing we know where the world ends, but we delude ourselves. Look at the stars. Some say that they are holes in heaven, others that they are candles lit in a great darkness. But I have talked with some men who believe that they are bigger than candles by far."

"They are," said Graham. "They are. They're like the sun, and some of them are being born, and others are dying. They are all suns like our sun, but they look small because they are so far away."

"Indeed."

"I've got a book on astronomy at home."

"The science seems more advanced in your world."

"It is. We know what the stars are made of, and how many light-years they are away from us."

"Light-years. I don't know what that can mean, but it is a fine sounding word. You must tell me more of these matters, my boy, if we have a moment."

A shooting star flashed in the sky, burning out abruptly. They watched it fall.

Suddenly, from the direction in which they had come, there drifted a sound like the shrieking of many birds. For a few breathless moments it stained the night, and then sank away.

"What was that?" whispered Graham.

"They have discovered that we have eluded them," said Darach simply, "and they are angry. Come. We have some way to go yet, and the hour approaches..."

They set off once again, striding through the night. Presently the moon fell away and the stars began to fade. The gloom that the children had seen on that first morning crept over the world.

"We must be more careful than ever at this time," said Darach, "for the night is holy, and we were safe after a fashion. The moon is a power of light. But here, in this darkness, when there is no sun or moon, we are unsafe. Don't speak at all if you can avoid it. In the unnatural hush our voices will carry miles, and the horsemen have sharp ears. If anything does happen, obey me to the letter, if you care for your lives. The horsemen are close."

Now there was a nightmarish quality to their journey. The land that they were crossing was marshy, and each step was soggy and uncertain. Often they were up to their knees in clinging, oozing mud. As they became accustomed to the gloom, they could just see the expanses of flat marshland they were crossing, to right and left of them, but though they strained both eyes and ears they neither saw nor heard the dreaded pursuers. Occasionally a marsh-bird would screech, a blood-curdling cry which froze them in their tracks. Then they would all sigh and plod on through the mud.

A cool wind had sprung up, smelling of the sea. It was a fresh, clean smell, and although the wind chilled them, they were glad of it.

Now they had left the marsh behind them and were walking on dry sand, which hissed beneath their feet. Softly, on the wind, came the lisping of the sea. They walked on. Finally Darach called a halt.

"This dismal gloom," he whispered. "I can't find my way in it. The Beacon can't be that far. But it's the tide. It plays tricks. Comes in quickly and surrounds you. We must be careful."

Now the sand beneath their feet was no longer soft and dry, but damp and hard-packed. Though they tried to keep the sound of the sea to their right they could tell by the ripples on the sand that tide would soon cover the place where they stood. Though they scanned the horizon as hard as they could for the beacon tower, the gloom seemed deeper and more impenetrable than ever before.

"It isn't just the gloom," whispered Colin to the others. "There's a sort of sea-mist."

"We'd better hurry," said Darach. "The tide's coming in."

"If we can't find the Beacon – we'd better go back the way we came and wait for the sun to come up," suggested Colin.

"A sensible idea. Come on."

They turned back. But they had only walked a few yards when they were up to their ankles in water.

"We've come the wrong way," said Graham. "We're walking into the sea."

"This way then!"

They headed in another direction. But the water was encroaching that way too.

"The wind is off the sea," said Darach. "Therefore, if we sprint with the wind to our backs –"

"It is to our backs," said Gwen, "but there's water ahead of us."

"Maybe it isn't very deep. Just a stream perhaps," said Colin, and taking hold of Darach's staff, he waded in up to his knees.

The Beacon

Suddenly the sun broke above the edge of the maggot-cloud and flooded the world with light.

The tide was still rising, and they were marooned on a large sandbank in the middle of the estuary. Ahead, a stone's throw away, stood the Beacon-tower, grey and squat, rising above the sea mist on a small rocky island. But between them and it was a swirling and eddying stretch of water.

"We can swim it," said Graham.

"Never!" said Darach. "The current will pull you under in a flash."

"What can we do then?"

"Hope that the Keeper has an eye out for -" he stopped suddenly.

"What is it?" asked Graham.

Darach said nothing, but stared at a spot not four yards in front of the party. The sand was liquefying for something below the surface was moving. Two stick-like objects reared from out of the sand.

"What on earth -"

"Too late! Too late!" yelled Darach, "Back! Back!"

"Which way?"

"Any way!"

"But the water! We're surrounded!"

The sticks were eyes. The sand shifted and the shiny green back of a huge crab emerged. Like some ghastly machine, it dragged itself from its sandy bed and stood in the swirling water upon its many-jointed legs, huge claws clicking, mouthparts dripping.

"What kind of crab is this?" cried Colin. "It's as big as a man!"

"And it's between us and the tower."

They backed off slowly, while the crab lowered its eyestalks into the forty-five degree position and cleaned them with its claws. Behind them, the channel had widened, and the current was fast.

"Water all round – and that thing ahead of us."

"Maybe if we confused it –" suggested Graham.

"Had you any confusing tricks in mind?" replied Colin sarcastically.

"No! I mean, if we were to yell and wave our arms and –"

The crab had stopped cleaning itself. It was watching them. They stared back.

"Surely they must be able to see us from the tower. Why don't they get a boat and do something?" cried Gwen.

"Maybe the horsemen got here first," said Colin grimly.

Suddenly Darach cried, "Stay where you are!" And throwing down his bag and taking his staff in both hands he ran towards the crab making the most terrifying noise, which became a sort of chant:

Beware, O crab, I see thee! Hear thee!

When I catch thee I shall eat thee! I shall tear thy limbs from off thee! O thou monster!

Beware, I, waiting,

In the early light of morning! Waiting! Waiting! Waiting!

The crab scuffled sideways, bewildered by this attack, its claws snapping the air. Darach seized his advantage, and swung round on the creature, landing it a resounding blow on the leg. There was a crack, but the crab was unbowed.

It seized the end of Darach's staff in a vice-like grip. Darach tightened his grip on the other end, and there followed a mock-dance, with man and crab waltzing round and round each other with only the staff's length between Darach and the deadly claws.

"Quickly!" yelled Graham. "We've got to help him." And the three of them rushed forward.

"Get out of the way," Darach commanded, but they took no notice.

They ducked under and around the six scuttling legs, kicking and yelling. But the crab's shell was all but impenetrable.

Suddenly Gwen said, "Turn it over! Turn it over like a turtle! Turn it over!"

Darach was now tiring of the struggle and the crab's free claw was snapping dangerously close to his head. Colin grabbed hold of the staff with him, and tugged. The crab, suddenly presented with another enemy, seized the staff with his other claw. The struggle became furious and confused. The crab scuttled to right and left, legs moving like pistons.

"Graham!" Colin yelled. "Get hold of the staff with us. Gwen - get out of the way!"

"Not likely," Gwen said, and grabbed hold of the staff with the others. The crab's attempts to wrestle with the staff became more furious. "Tip it over to the right!" cried Darach. "Now!"

Suddenly all four of them wrenched the staff over, and the crab, refusing to let go, went with it. Its legs sprawled in all directions, and it fell over sideways.

"On to its back!" Darach cried, and with one final heaving of the staff the crab was thrown on to its back, legs vainly pedalling the air.

It relinquished its grip on the staff in order to get up again. As it did so, Colin seized the staff and brought it down on the crab. Once. Twice. Three times.

Suddenly a voice said, "Stand back!"

And before they knew it, a figure had stepped forward, and with a harpoon, dispatched the struggling crab.

"Hardly a timely entrance," said Darach to the Keeper.

"Get into the boat," the Keeper said, not smiling, "or you'll be drowning. The tide's still rising."

Though the battle had seemed to last hours, it had in fact encompassed no more than a minute or two, and the sand-bank on which they were standing was now no more than a few feet across, and disappearing rapidly.

They got into the boat and the Keeper began to row towards the Beacon. He was a burly, low-browed man, with a short, greying beard, and the expression on his face was like thunder. He didn't look at Darach or the children, but pulled on the oars, and kept his eyes down. Eventually, the keel of the bow grated on the shingle of Beacon Island.

"Get out," the Keeper ordered.

One by one they get out of the little boat and stood on the beach while the Keeper dragged it out of the water and tied it up.

"You'd best come inside," he said sullenly. "Get those clothes dry."

He swung open the heavy oak door and led the way up a flight of slippery stone steps in a large, single-windowed room. A small fire was burning in the grate.

"Sit down," he said.

"I'd better introduce you," said Darach. "Gwen - Colin – Graham, this is the Keeper of the Beacon."

"How d'you do?" said Gwen.

"Pleased to meet you," said Colin.

"Likewise I'm sure," added Graham.

The Keeper said nothing, but sniffed and set about cooking some fish for breakfast. Darach did not seem surprised by his strange silence, but took the books out of his bag, which had begun to float as the tide came in, and dried them in front of the fire. Only when the Keeper went out for some more driftwood for the fire did Colin say:

"He's a bit odd isn't he? He hasn't said more than half a dozen words since we arrived."

"He lives alone," explained Darach. "Doesn't need to talk much."

"But what about the sailors and the captains, all the ships that come up the estuary?"

"No ship has been up the estuary for the past fifty years. Too much silt."

"Is the Beacon still lit?"

"No. There's no reason to light it. And there never will be. Eventually the sea will recede completely, and this place will be left in the middle of the dunes."

"An island in the sand?"

"That's right."

"How strange."

They breakfasted well, and dried their clothes. Just as they were settling down to catch up on some of their lost sleep they heard the rhythmic beating of a large drum. They ran to the window. Coming up the estuary, born on the rippled surface of the water like a magnificently plumed bird, was a barge. It was painted in gold and red, and two huge banners furled and snapped from poles at its stern. The prow was carved like a three-headed dragon, bright green and gold, and the six oarsmen were also in those colors. Sitting forward of the oarsmen was a gentleman with a feathered hat, beating out the rhythm on a huge drum. But the most arresting figure in the barge was that of a lady wrapped in furs, sitting towards the stern of the boat, looking neither to right or left, with Wake-Robin sitting beside her.

"Oh no, " said Darach, turning away from the window.

"What's wrong?" asked Graham.

"She said she was just going to send an official –"

"Who did?"

"But she's here! That's her!"

"Who has? Who is?"

"The Queen, my boy, the Queen herself!"

The Queen

A shout. The oars were raised, dripping, from the swirling water. The barge glided in under its own momentum and grated up the shingle, coming to a shuddering halt. The man sitting in the bows of the barge stood up, unrolled a manuscript, and announced to the empty beach:

"Her Majesty The Queen."

The door of the Beacon Tower was flung open, and Darach and the Keeper emerged, followed by the children. They all bowed as the Queen stepped from the barge, trailing her long robes in the water. The man in the bows, seeing this unfortunate circumstance, and yet not wishing to get his feet wet saving the robes, leaned over the side of the barge and took hold of them. Unfortunately, at this very moment, the Queen, oblivious of his efforts to preserve the splendour of her attire, carried on up the beach, dragging the gallant gentleman over the side and into the water.

The oarsmen, who had been watching this comic mime with spreading smiles, broke into laughter, which was immediately suppressed when the Queen turned her eyes on him.

"Benedick?" she said slowly, addressing the unfortunate gentleman in the water. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I – well –I – you – dropped your – er –"

"Well don't," the Queen said.

"No, ma'am."

"And do get up. We really haven't any time for acrobatics."

"I apologise, ma'am."

He struggled out of the water, muddied from head to foot, the ostrich feather in his hat looking like a wilted flower.

"You look wet," the Queen said.

The gentleman sneezed.

"Go in and change."

"Yes, ma'am."

He waddled up the beach.

"Benedick?"

"Yes ma'am?"

"Dismiss the men first."

"Of course, ma'am. Er – right men – er – dismiss."

The oarsmen lowered the oars and placed them in the bottom of the barge, while Benedick hurried up the beach, wringing out his cloak, and trying his best not to look undignified. He encountered the children at the tower-door, coughed, bowed, turned crimson with embarrassment, and hurriedly squelched up the stairs.

Darach was speaking with the Queen.

"We weren't expecting you, your Majesty."

"What you mean is you were praying I wouldn't come."

"Oh, your Majesty –"

"I know I'm a cantankerous old lady, there's no need to ply me with compliments. Are these the children?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Approach," she commanded. They did so.

"Hello," said Graham.

"Bow," hissed Darach through clenched teeth.

"What?"

"Bow."

"Oh."

Graham and Colin bowed very low, and Gwen curtsied. The Queen regarded them with eyes as clear and blue as a young girl's. Her high cheekbones, wide, slightly pinched mouth and long, pale neck gave her a look of great nobility. Everything about her person spoke of Queenship; her features, her voice, her graceful bearing, and the way her long-fingered, many-ringed hands fluttered here and there like careless birds.

"I don't know what we can be thinking of –" she said, a look of deep concern altering her face completely, "believing they can help us."

"They can, ma'am," replied Darach.

"Well, well, we shall see. It's really very much a question of what alternative we have, isn't it? Never let it be said that I didn't examine all the possibilities. I should prefer open warfare of course. I have never found intrigue very palatable. I may very well get a chill coming here."

"Your majesty does a great honour -" began Darach.

"Oh, away with you, you old flatterer, you're sick of the sight of me already!" She smiled at Darach. It was the kind of smile you give to an old friend. Darach smiled a little too.

"We couldn't risk the palace, ma'am."

"All the same you might have chosen a slightly less obscure rendezvous. It may appeal to your sense of drama, but really -"

"I'm sorry, ma'am"

"You're not sorry in the slightest."

"If you say not, ma'am. Shall we go in?"

"That's the first sensible thing you've said. My feet are like blocks of ice."

They went into the tower and up the steps, the Queen's wet train flapping behind her and sounding rather like a wet frog following her up the stairs.

Benedick was seated in front of the fire, shivering.

"Benedick!" said the Queen as she swept through the door.

The poor man leapt to his feet.

"Ma'am."

"Arrange for the men to feed and so on."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

He exited.

"Close the door, will you?" she said.

Colin did so.

"Now, what about him?" She pointed to the Keeper.

"He's trustworthy," said Darach.

"Very well, sit down, will you? I could do with a glass of wine." The Keeper poured out a cup of wine.

"How much have you told them, Darach?" she said.

"Very little."

"Well, where shall I begin? I want you to listen carefully to what I have to tell you, my dears. You see, at this moment, this land and the one which you once lived in, are in great peril."

"From the cloud?" said Gwen.

"Yes, my dear. From the cloud. A time ago now, in a country that lay, but lies no longer, to the East of here, over the mountains, there ruled a lord by the name of Elz-raal-hiam. It has been said of this gentleman, though I never knew him personally, that there never ruled a man with a colder heart. What he desired was dominion over as many lands as he could get his hands on, including this. He waged war on all his borders, and gradually his empire spread. But it wasn't enough apparently, for he turned to summonings and magic to mount further wealth and power. It is an old story. Many men have done so, and been consumed in their madness."

"Like Dr. Faustus," put in Colin. "A man in a play we did at school. He did that."

"As I said, it is a common story. Well, at length Elz-raal-hiam over- stepped the bounds of his magic. In his towers he called things that have no form, but only names and natures, into the breathing world. He attempted more and more dangerous summonings, until the stone upon which his Fathers built their kingdom split. You see, magic cannot be flung around willy-nilly. One has to preserve the balance. Elz-raal-hiam ignored that basic rule and the earth revolted. A large pit appeared in the ground, and the Fathers disappeared into it, with Elz-raal-hiam in it. What happened in the depths of that pit, no one can say, but there issued out of it a great darkness, like a cloud."

"The maggot-cloud," said Colin breathlessly.

"It billowed into the air and blocked out the sun, it was so thick and poisoning."

"Like the film of Surtsey coming out of the sea," said Graham. "Remember, Col, we saw it at your house?"

"I remember," said Gwen.

"What is Surtsey?" Asked the Queen.

"It's an island," explained Graham, "that suddenly appeared out of the sea. The smoke and ashes covered the sun."

"It was terrifying," Gwen said.

"So it was on the day the cloud issued from the pit. That, however, was not a birth-day – as your island was born – but, we have been warned, the day that the end of the world began. At first the darkness spread only very slowly. But now it grows faster each day, and we can doubt no longer. The time will come when it will cover the world."

"What happened to the people?" asked Gwen.

"As it falls upon the land, all that walks or crawls or flies returns to the slime from which the world was made, when the Darkness was everywhere."

"How do you know?"

"Men have been to the very edge of the darkness, and looked into it with seeing-glasses."

"What's to be done then?" asked Graham. "You have just predicted the end of the world."

"You have heard the story before, you said. Then you also know that such evils may be averted."

"Is there some way?"

"You are the way."

"Us?" they all chorused.

"The candle fell to you, though not by intention: Wake-Robin was pursued."

"By the horsemen."

"Yes."

"Who are they?"

"Elz-raal-hiam's guard. They fell into the pit when the Fathers fell, but emerged again. The darkness rules them, and they will kill you if they ever find you. They pursued Wake-Robin across the bridge into your world."

"They were after the candle," Graham said grimly. "They came back every night to search for it. But I don't see why."

"The candle was made by the joint powers of a number of wizards, both here and in your world. Oh yes, there are a few wizards there too. It is a dispeller of darkness, a bringer of life, and we were going to consult the stars as to who should wield it. But fate chose you, apparently. It may be that you are here because you alone can make good the evil done. But I won't deceive you. It may be that it was an accident the candle came to you, and you are not fitted to wield the light. Still, we must take that risk, if you will."

"It wasn't an accident," said Gwen. "I know it wasn't. We're meant to be here."

"Good. Always be sure. It will make the task easier in the doing, sweeter in the fulfilling."

"The task?" repeated Colin. "What task?"

"The shadowed lands are known as Desolation," the Queen replied, "If you will trust to whatever brought you here, cross into Desolation, and bring the light to the Darkest Places; then we may be safe. You alone may make this journey unharmed by the Cloud's evil. But the dangers are many and great, I couldn't blame you if you refused."

The Beacon Burns

There was a long, long silence.

"How far is it?" asked Colin, after a pause. "To Desolation?"

"Several days' travel over difficult terrain," said Darach, "over the mountains and across the desert."

"We'd better start right away then, hadn't we?"

"You will go?" said the Queen.

Colin looked at Gwen and Graham. "Did you ever doubt it?" he said.

"No," she replied. "Never. Darach will go with you as far as the edge of Desolation. Benedick!"

There was a patter of feet outside. Benedick came in. "The maps, if you please."

"Ma'am."

He took a rather damp cloth-map from a small pouch at his belt. "Here, Ma'am."

"Good. Now, if you please Darach, explain this infernal map."

It was late afternoon when at last all the explanations were finished.

The Queen rose.

"Rouse the men, Benedick, we will return to the Palace this evening."

"Yes, Ma'am" He exited in a business-like manner.

"Where is the Keeper? I must thank him for his hospitality."

"He went out before," said Gwen.

"Gone fishing, most probably," said Darach. "He has to eat, Royalty or no."

"Oh well, thank him anyway. He cooks a delightful bloater."

"I'm sure he'll feel suitably honoured ma'am," said Darach with a small grin.

"Ma'am! Ma'am!" Benedick burst in crimson-faced. "What is it?"

"The barge, Ma'am – it's gone!"

"Gone?"

"On the tide ma'am. Drifted off."

"What?"

They all rushed to the window. The barge was a speck on the horizon. The Queen muttered something not very regal under her breath.

"I don't relish remaining here all night. Dispatch some men and get them to find me another barge."

"From the Palace, Ma'am?"

"Anywhere, blast you! Just find me another barge. And bring me the man who was supposed to have tied up my royal vessel."

"Nobody will admit to it, ma'am."

"I see."

"There's always the fisherman's boat," suggested Graham. "You could go in that if you're in a hurry."

"I never hurry," said the Queen. "And I don't intend to arrive at the Palace smelling like a fish-wife. Dispatch the men immediately."

"Wake-Robin knows the land around here," said Darach. "He can go with them. They'll soon find a boat."

"Good."

Benedick disappeared down the stairs.

"Well I suppose we'd better make ourselves comfortable," said Darach. "We may have to wait a while."

The Keeper came in with a fistful of fish.

"Her Majesty will be staying for supper," said Darach.

The Keeper said nothing, but he slapped the fish down on the table and gutted them in silence.

Night fell, and the two men who had gone off in search of a boat with Robin had not returned. The supper was long finished, the fire only embers. The children were asleep on the floor, and in the chair the Queen was snoring. Beside the fire, Benedick slumbered in a most ungainly position, while Darach sat, head bowed, eyes closed, in a chair next to him. The Keeper extinguished the candles and left them all sleeping. Downstairs, in the storeroom, the four remaining oarsmen lay in exhausted sleep. The Keeper closed the door gently behind him and turned the key, then stealthily crept up the stairs again, past the main chamber and up another flight to the top of the tower. He opened the trap door on to the roof. The stars were shining clearly above him and the wind off the sea was strong.

He started as a marsh-bird screeched in the night, and held his breath until the last reverberation had faded into the darkness.

Moving quickly and quietly he pulled back a sheet of oilcloth, under which lay a pile of driftwood and dried Marram grass from the dunes.

Fifty years ago the Beacon had been lit to save the lives of sailors. The fire twinkling in the night warned of sandbanks, of treacherous rocks and currents. Now the sea had retreated, and the sons of the sailors passed the Beacon no longer.

Yet tonight, the Beacon would flare again, not as a warning but as a signal. Not to prevent death, but to summon it.

The Keeper drew a flint out of his pocket, and was about to strike it when a voice behind him said, "What are you doing?"

He turned.

"Eh? Oh - it's you, Darach."

"Yes."

"I – I came up here to look at the stars. I often do when I can't sleep."

"Unpleasant dreams?"

"Yes."

"Of treachery, perhaps?"

The Keeper knew he was discovered. He reached down and picking up a large piece of driftwood from the pile, brought it down on Darach's head. The old man fell to the floor without a sound.

The Keeper struck the flint. By the flickering yellow light it threw onto to his face, the marsh birds, had they been watching, might have seen the strange look in his eyes, and set up a warning. But nobody saw that look, and there was nobody to warn of the Keeper's possession. For on a night not unlike this one, not long ago, a wisp of the cloud had come out of the sea on a wind, and made him its unknowing servant. His mind was in shadow, all his memories locked in darkness, and he did not know what he was doing.

He lit the kindling wood. The flames leapt up to lick the stars.

Darach's slumped form was close to the fire. The sudden heat stirred him.

He lifted his head, shook away the dizziness and moaned a little, but the Keeper did not hear him above the crackle of the fire. He was staring out over the pitch-black marsh, listening for the sound of hooves. Darach kept his eyes on the Keeper's back, and slowly slid on his belly towards the trap door. The Keeper did not look round. Darach reached the trap door, slipped down on to the top step and slammed the door above him, bolting it from the inside. Then he ran down the stairs as fast as his spinning head would safely allow him, yelling:

"Treachery! Treachery! Arm yourselves! The Beacon is lit! Prepare for attack!"

There was chaos!

In the cellar the oarsmen were beating at the door, shouting. The Queen was demanding of Benedick why she had been woken at this ridiculous hour, and what time was it anyway? The children, still only half-awake, stood looking at Darach with confused expressions on their faces. Hastily, Darach explained, "The Keeper is with them."

"What?"

"He's lit the Beacon?"

"What for?"

"To summon the horsemen I should think. A signal."

"Treachery," said the Queen.

"Precisely," said Darach.

"Where is he? A traitor to Queen and country."

"He's on the roof, locked up there. Unfortunately, I was rather indisposed when he lit the fire. Couldn't prevent it. Somehow the darkness is on him, he's doing the will of the cloud."

"So what do we do?" asked Graham.

"Arm ourselves. Prepare for siege."

At that moment there was the sound of splintering wood and a great deal of shouting downstairs.

The company looked at each other with horrified stares. "They're here!" said Benedick. "They're here already!"

The door burst open and four sweating oarsmen collapsed into the room, all shouting at once.

"What's going on?"

"Who locked us in?"

"I can smell burning!"

"What's all the noise?"

"It's the Keeper -" Darach began.

"Listen!" said Gwen.

"What?"

"Listen!"

The room fell silent.

There came the sound of rumbling hooves. Hooves in water, hooves on sand. They were close.

"Barricade the door!" ordered Darach.

Two of the oarsmen rushed back downstairs.

"Are there any other windows in the tower besides this one?" said Graham.

"Go and look," said Darach. "We've got to hold out until dawn. They'll only attack in the dark after their last encounter."

"I can see them," said Gwen, peering out of the window, which had no glass in it.

"Keep away from there!" shouted Darach. "Put out the candles!"

"How many are there, Gwen?" said Colin.

Gwen took a quick peep. The moon had risen. The sand was pale gold, the water silver and black. Six shapes pounded over the sand towards the tower.

"Six," she said. "Six against – one, – two, – three, – ten of us. They're outnumbered."

"They have swords, arrows, and the powers of darkness on their side," Darach pointed out grimly.

"We'll be slaughtered," wailed Benedick.

"Be quiet," said the Queen.."

"Yes, Ma'am."

The pounding stopped.

"Away from the window, everyone," whispered Darach.

Everybody was now gathered in the one room. They could hear the hooves on the shingle outside the window. The horsemen were all around the tower. They could feel the eyes through the slits in their helmets trying to penetrate the walls. Never before had stone seemed so flimsy a defence, and never before had dawn seemed such a long, long way away.

The Siege

The horrid silence from outside the window continued for a long while. The children could feel the goose flesh on their arms.

Then the horsemen began to ride around the tower, trying to find a way in. Inside, in the darkness, the rumble of their hooves as they galloped 'round seemed to shake the very foundations of the tower. All the occupants of the room, including the Queen, were lying on the floor, in case one of the horsemen should try to fire an arrow through the window.

"What are they doing?" whispered Colin.

"Trying to confuse and scare us I shouldn't wonder," said Darach.

"Well, they're succeeding," whispered Benedick. "Is there nothing we can do?"

"Not really."

"But there's only six of them when all said and done," exclaimed one of the oarsmen. "Me and the lads, we'd make mince of 'em, wouldn't we?"

The others murmured their support.

"Brawn is little use against these creatures," said Darach.

"What – you mean – they use magic?"

"I'm afraid so."

"We destroyed one though," said Graham.

"There you go, gov'ner. I mean, if a few kids –"

"There was only one of them, in daylight. It was the sun that destroyed it, though the children were instrumental."

"Will they – disappear at dawn?" asked the Queen.

"No, Your Majesty, they won't – poof! – disappear just like that. I'm afraid that sort of magic is only fairy-tale stuff. But the odds are for us in daylight, and most heavily against us in the hour when the moon has disappeared, and the sun is behind the cloud. No light – just the gloom. They know the gloom – it is their master. Their powers are at full height then."

"I see," replied the Queen. "So you are suggesting that we lie in this highly uncomfortable position until they make up their minds to dispose of us?"

"Yes. Until anybody comes up with an alternative."

"Well hurry up," she said. "I'm aching from head to foot." The galloping stopped.

A voice drifted up through the window, and when it entered the room it was like a phantom touching them all with icy fingers.

"You are trapped, Wizard" it said. "Give up your charges, and remain unharmed. Your Majesty, we know you too are in the tower. Command him to let the children down to us through the window, and live to preserve your line."

"Young man –" began the Queen.

"Young?" returned the haunting voice. "I'm not young. Nor am I a man, if you were to look at me."

"Well I am sure that's your misfortune. I shall not give up these children to you now or ever. I suggest you and your hoodlum companions depart forthwith."

Silence.

"Is that your final word?"

"It is."

Another silence.

Suddenly there was a resounding crash and a splintering sound.

"They're trying to break in!"

One of the oarsmen leapt to his feet. "I'll stop 'em," he cried.

"Down!" yelled Darach.

Too late! An arrow cut through the moonlight and hit him in the shoulder. He fell to the floor with a cry.

Gwen screamed.

There was a moment's quiet, then they heard the riders hacking at the door again.

"Is he all right?" said Gwen.

"Yes, he'll survive," one of his companions said, removing the arrow and staunching the wound with a large handkerchief.

"They'll break through for sure," said Colin. "We can't just lie here."

The door lay directly opposite the window. Anyone who tried to open it was an easy target, especially for a creature who was used to firing in the dark.

"We could cover the window," suggested Graham. "Good," said Darach. "Ma'am, your cloak, if you please."

"What on earth -"

"Your cloak. And kindly hurry."

The Queen unclipped the brooch at her neck and slipped off her cloak.

"Graham," said Darach, "keep well down, and take the other side of the cloak - that's it - now, you slide over to that side of the window, and I'll position myself on this side. Keep your head down, boy."

Darach and Graham crouched either side of the window, with the heavy cloak between them.

Downstairs, the door was already giving under the storm of blows. "Now," said Darach, "this is the plan. If anybody tries to leave this room he's an easy target for the marksman outside. So, when Graham and I cover up the window, I want you to get outside as quickly as you can and wait on the landing. Probably they'll fire a couple of arrows at the cloak, so keep well clear of it. Now, which of you is going to volunteer to go outside?"

"I will, sir," said the wounded oarsman's companion.

"Very well," said Darach, fumbling in one of his pockets. "Now where are we? Ah! There we are - catch!"

He threw a silver bottle across the room. The man caught it. "What's this for?"

"Once you're outside the door, take out the stopper and make a trail of the stuff in the bottle down the stairs, and leave the bottle on the next to last step. Do you understand?"

"Yes."

"Good. Ready Graham?"

"Ready."

They hoisted the cloak over the window. Darkness. Three arrows pierced the heavy material and thudded into the door. But the man was outside.

The sound of breaking wood continued. Then there was a sound from outside the door.

"I've done it. Can I come in?"

"Yes - but don't close the door completely." There was a scuffling in the darkness.

"I'm in!" the man's voice said.

Graham and Darach dropped the cloak, and the moonlight poured in. Seven arrows hit the door, one after the other.

The sound of chopping and splintering from down the stairs ceased. "They're coming up," said Colin.

"Quickly man!" ordered Darach. "Light the trail and hurry."

They could hear hushed whispers, and boots on the stone steps. The oarsman fumbled with the flint.

"Hurry, man!"

The oarsman reached through the door and touched flame to the trail of powder leading down the stairs to the silver bottle.

At that moment, the first horseman reached the top of the stairs, and grabbed the oarsman's arm. The well-muscled oarsman pulled his assailant's hand through the door and closed it on the black-gloved wrist as hard as he could. There was a muffled yell, and the horseman released his grip. The hand was hastily withdrawn.

Immediately, the oarsman slammed the door, and as he did so a handstroke cleft the wood three or four inches above his head.

"Did you light the powder?" said Darach.

"I think so!"

Another handstroke. The wood split.

"Close your eyes everyone. Tight! And keep them closed."

There was a short, sharp explosion and a high-pitched shattering sound. Even with their eyes tightly closed the company momentarily saw a flash, with thousands and thousands of tiny fragments of pure light spiralling off in all directions.

Something heavy slumped against the opposite side of the door, and slowly slid down it.

There was a great deal of confused shouting from outside the tower. "A light!" one voice cried. "They have alchemy!"

"Back! Back!" shouted another. "They may attack again."

"It is the wizard's doing," cried a third.

They opened their eyes, the flash still making strange patterns in front of them, as if they had been staring at the sun. A few wisps of pale blue smoke drifted in from under the door. "Three down," said Darach, "three to go."

"What did you do?" asked Colin.

"A little alchemy," he explained. "As the rider said. Light is their enemy. It can destroy them if it touches them."

"Have you any more?"

"Unfortunately no. Still, perhaps we've scared them off." His optimism was short-lived.

Presently a voice was heard calling up through the window.

"You are armed, wizard," it said, "but your tricks have only won you a temporary respite. We can wait. The hour is close at hand when all light will be extinguished. Then we will destroy you - not with swords, but with hooves!"

[The Tower Falls!]

Hooves & Arrows

On the top of the tower the Keeper watched the events below with glazed eyes.

He saw the arrows fly, the horsemen hacking at the door, heard the explosion, and saw the shaft of light that poured out of the door. He staggered back as if struck by an arrow, the tiny pieces of light flashing before his eyes like the shards of a broken mirror.

He sat down on the cold stone while the moon slipped away westward, and he knew the hour was approaching when the horsemen would gather their powers and destroy the very tower on which he stood.

The tide had turned, and was safely edging in. He sat like a child on the top of the tower and the fragments of light whirled in his head.

The gloom was upon the world. The horsemen set up an eerie chant, and began to ride around the tower, quite slowly.

The Keeper knelt by the grey embers on the tower-top, which glowed when the breeze passed through them, and saw ash fly up into the sky, but his mind was in shadow.

The chanting was louder now, and the riders were spurring their horses on to a faster pace.

Then, it seemed, a fragment of light in the old Keeper's mind lit a memory. He gazed into the embers, and though the darkness forbade him to do so, he made faces of the embers, faces familiar to his old self.

Darach, he thought, he is a friend.

No, no, the darkness said, you are a shadow, you hate him. Children, there are children, good children.

No, no, the darkness demanded, the children are vile, they will destroy me.

I will help them, thought the Keeper.

No, cease this immediately, the darkness told him, or you will be punished.

The horsemen were now galloping around the tower, and their unearthly chanting filled the night. The hooves of the horses began to smoke, and hiss as they touched the sand.

Round and round they rode, while the Keeper fought with the darkness on the tower-top.

Round and round, until the hooves burned with black heat and turned from hooves to engines of destruction.

Round and round, while the sea whispered closer and there was a smell of burning in the air.

Still they chanted. Still they rode. And the minutes passed. Suddenly they stopped, and the horsemen surrounded the tower.

They screamed one final chant to the sky, the horses reared and the hooves of doom came down upon tower walls. The tower shuddered as if it had been hit by a huge wave. The stone cracked. The beams shook and creaked.

The horses reared again. The hooves connected with the stone and it shattered. The tower lurched.

Then there was a voice in the gloom. "I renounce you, darkness!" the Keeper yelled, and stood upon the tower and hurled stones and branches from the top, in blind and hopeless anger.

"Stand away, Keeper," said one of the horsemen.

The Keeper didn't listen, but continued to throw bits of stone down.

The horses shied away, and the riders all came round to the front of the tower once more

"Very well," said the horseman, and the three riders took out their bows.

On the other side of the tower, now out of sight of the horsemen, the occupants slipped out into the darkness.

As they pushed the Keeper's little rowing boat into the water they heard the sound of arrows flying. The Keeper made no sound, but fell back dead into the cold ashes of the beacon-fire.

Then the hooves rose and fell against the tower once again, and it toppled and fell with a great roar. There was absolute silence for a moment, and then the sun rose from behind the Cloud.

On the island, the horsemen were standing around the smoking ruins of the tower. The men pulled on the oars for their lives.

"They'll see us," said Benedick. "They're bound to."

He was right. One of the riders chanced to look up from the ruins to see the tiny, over-laden boat escaping from the shore. He let out a shriek of fury.

"Hurry up!" said the Queen.

The boat was small and very low in the water. It rocked and lurched dangerously.

The horsemen galloped down the beach, swords raised, but they had lost their advantage. The sun was up and they were weak. As they tried to coax their mounts into the water, the horses reared and kicked the air, mad with magic, their hooves steaming. One of them managed to drive his horse forward and bore down on the boat, but the water swirled around him, and he was pulled from his mount, and sank beneath the icy tide. The remaining two horsemen watched from the beach as their companion was lost, unwilling to share his fate.

"We've escaped," cried Graham. "We've escaped!"

"Yes," said Darach grimly. "With one dead and one wounded. Remember that before you grow too jubilant."

"I'm sorry."

"We had best head towards the coast," said Darach, "and not risk deep water with such a full cargo."

"I resent being referred to as cargo," said the Queen. "And I'm most uncomfortable."

"Well, Ma'am, I shall arrange for you to disembark as soon as is possible."

"Thank you. Benedick, beat a rhythm for the oarsmen. If we have to travel in such an undignified vessel, let it at least be with a little style."

Benedick began to beat a rhythm on his knees. Slowly the boat edged out of the estuary, until the ruins of the Beacon-Tower were lost behind them.

Hot Air

They sailed on around the coast for about an hour when Gwen saw, coming towards them, a small fishing-boat.

"It's Wake-Robin!" said Colin. "With the oarsmen."

"Hardly a timely arrival," commented the Queen.

They came alongside.

"We bought this from a fisherman, ma'am," one of the men explained. "It was all we could find."

"Bought?" said the Queen.

"Yes, Your Majesty. It was the only way we could get him to part with it."

"I see."

"So as you were so desperately in need of a vessel, we purchased it for the Crown."

"You mean it's mine?"

"Yes," replied the oarsman with a grin. He was clearly proud of himself.

"Where did you get the money?"

"We didn't. The fisherman is going to the Palace to collect it."

"Very well. If you will kindly assist me, I shall now take charge of the Crown's newest acquisition," she said, with a raised eyebrow. "Will you and the children come too, Darach? You all have a long journey to make."

"Time, Ma'am. Time," said Darach. "It is our enemy from now on. We really dare not linger."

"Of course. Well, this is goodbye then. At least a temporary one."

"Let us hope it is temporary, ma'am."

"It will be, it will be," said the Queen, and turning to the children said, "When I came here I didn't really believe there was anything you or anybody could do. I was quite prepared to witness the end. Now I think perhaps that end may be averted. I have faith in you all. God bless you."

She shook hands with them all, and made the move between the boats with as little loss of dignity as she could manage. Benedick contrived to put his foot into the water and lose his hat, which floated off before it could be retrieved.

"Can I lend you my oarsmen?" offered the Queen.

"Thank you, but no," replied Darach. "The smaller our party, the safer, I think. Colin and Wake-Robin can row."

By now the two boats had drifted apart. The Queen with the oarsmen and Benedick in the fishing boat. Darach, Wake-Robin and the children in the Keeper's little rowing boat.

"Goodbye," said Gwen.

"Goodbye, my dears, and look after that old fuddy-duddy in the boat with you. He really used to be a charmer once upon a time, and he makes me feel young again. God speed, my dears, God speed."

The boats were now quite a distance apart.

"I think she's rather sweet," said Gwen.

"Yes. She certainly must have been beautiful once," said Graham.

"She was," said Darach, gazing after the disappearing boat rather sadly.

The children all looked at him. He turned, feeling their smiles.

"Well - what I mean is -" he coughed and looked embarrassed. "Well - I was young once, you know."

They headed North up the coast, with the cloud on their right, Colin and Graham taking turns at rowing with Wake-Robin, who never seemed to tire.

Imperceptibly, the wind began to rise. Rain-clouds began to drift across the sun. The sea-smell grew heavier.

"I feel sick," said Graham, after a while.

"Yes," said Darach, "I feel a little queasy myself. I've never been a good traveller."

"There are clouds coming up," said Gwen. "Can't we land? The sea is getting rougher."

"Not just yet," said Darach. "The further from the estuary and the horsemen, the better, even if it does mean a little sea-sickness."

Quite suddenly a grey veil of rain swept across the face of the sea, and the wind began to whip the waves into a white fury.

"Oh dear," said Darach, the rain dripping off his nose. "I think we'd better head for the beach."

But the sea was too strong, and however hard Wake-Robin and Colin rowed, they could get nowhere. The coast was lost in a haze of rain.

"Hold on!" said Darach, as the tiny boat was pitched mercilessly from wave to wave. "It's just a squall!" he assured them.

"Squall, my foot," shouted Colin above the wind. "It's practically a force nine gale."

On and on they were swept by the wind and water, until at last, after almost an hour of tossing and whirling, the sea subsided and the wind died down.

The coast was now a distant line on the horizon – an unfamiliar line. "Drat it," said Darach. "We've been blown too far North. Where on earth are we, Wake-Robin?" The little man shrugged.

"Oh that's a blow," said Darach. "If he doesn't know, who does? Well we'd better make for the land and try and find someone to tell us."

A few minutes later they had landed on a sandy beach, with a fly- infested line of seaweed stinking in the sun.

The cloud was still directly inland, so they set off over the dunes towards it, leaving the battered boat on the sand.

The wind whistled in the grass as they walked, and hares bounded up in front of them.

"I'm hungry," said Graham, after a while.

"I'm starving," said Colin.

"Me too," agreed Gwen.

"I must admit I'm rather peckish myself," said Darach, "but I'm afraid -" He stopped. "What on earth -"

Rising up over the next dune was a vast green and yellow shape, undulating and flapping.

"What's that?" asked Colin.

"It's like a huge jellyfish," said Graham.

They stood and watched the thing grow bigger and bigger, becoming rounder all the time. Then Colin began to laugh.

"It's a balloon," he said. "It's a hot air balloon."

He ran up the dune and sure enough, not a hundred yards ahead of him was a large green and yellow painted balloon, being inflated by means of a fire.

Two men were trying to control its antics as it swelled, but they were quickly losing their mastery over the monster. "Marius," cried one, "I can't hold her!"

"Nor I, Montgomery, she's going," the other replied.

"Quickly," said Colin to Graham, who had by now joined him on the top of the dune. "Let's give them a hand."

They sprinted across the sand to where the men battled with the balloon.

"Can we help?" asked Colin.

"Good man," came the breathless answer. "Grab a line and fasten it to one of the mooring pegs. And you too, sir."

With a great deal of struggle they tamed the bucking creature, which was by now fully inflated. While one of the men extinguished the fire that had provided the hot air to inflate the balloon, and roped up the basket, the other thanked Colin and Graham profusely.

"I'm Marius, by the way," he said, "and that's my brother Montgomery."

The brothers were almost identical, both tall and skinny, with slightly vacant expressions and weak chins, each with a long scarf wrapped around his neck, blowing in the wind.

"We're explorers," Montgomery explained.

"Hopping here and there," said the other.

"Free as a bird."

"Devil may care."

"Catch us if you can."

Darach had joined them towards the end of the conversation. "Can you tell us where we are?" he asked hurriedly.

"I believe I can, sir," said Marius.

"I'm very much afraid this is the Northern Marches, the realm of the Black Wolf. We landed, you understand, to make a few repairs, and have no intention of staying. They'll have seen us land, of course."

"We're rather conspicuous," said Montgomery. "Quite."

"So we'll have to be off." Darach turned to the children.

"So will we. It's as I feared. We've come too far north for safety. Back to the boat!"

"But why?" said Gwen.

"The Black Wolf is in league with the Cloud. He'll be on the lookout for us – the horsemen will have warned him. Come on!"

Suddenly there was a shout.

"Halt!"

"Whoops a daisy!" said Marius.

"Surrounded," said Montgomery.

"On all sides," added the other.

Soldiers appeared from over the dunes, dozens of them. Each of them bore the design of a wolf's head upon his chest.

"What now?" hissed Colin.

"The balloon," whispered Darach. "Back off towards the balloon." Slowly they edged towards the balloon. The soldiers advanced. "Don't make a move if you want to live!" the leader of the soldiers ordered. "You're a fine catch. I think the Wolf'll be pleased with you lot."

"Now!" yelled Darach, and bundled the children into the basket.

"The ropes, Robin! Cut the ropes!"

Wake-Robin slipped a knife from his belt and cut the nearest of the four ropes.

The soldiers rushed down the dunes, but the dry, loose sand gave way under their heavy boots and many of them fell flat on their faces.

Marius and Montgomery ran around in circles shouting: "Stop thieves! Our balloon! What are you doing? Stop it!"

The second rope was cut. The basket lurched, and the balloon pulled at the remaining ropes, sensing freedom.

The third rope was cut. Graham nearly fell out of the basket.

Robin began sawing at the final rope. A soldier ran towards him, his sword slicing the wind.

"Stand away from that rope," he shouted. Robin took no notice. Darach looked on, helpless. Suddenly he remembered something.

He rummaged in his pocket and, yelling "Catch!" to the children, threw a white object into the air.

Colin leaned out of the lurching basket and caught it. It was the candle.

At that moment the soldier swung his sword at Robin's head. The little man ducked between the soldier's legs and his sword blade slashed through the final mooring rope.

The balloon surged upwards.

"Light the candle in the Darkest Places!" cried Darach, as the soldiers swarmed around to overwhelm him. "To the pit! Go!" He went down in a sea of uniforms.

The last thing they saw before they were swept off Eastwards was Robin sprinting away across the dunes, pursued by a horde of soldiers.

Over the Mountains

The journey now before the children inspired awe, fear and excitement in them.

From the balloon, the Cloud looked even larger and more ominous than ever, because for the first time, they could see how all- encompassing it was, stretching into the distant haze to right and left; now they could see how dark its seething depths actually were.

Below them the ordinary clouds had cleared a little, and they could look down upon a beautiful patchwork-quilt landscape of fields and hills and rivers. They watched the ground go by under them in silence, the wind blowing in their hair.

"I've just realised," said Graham after a few minutes.

"What?" said Colin.

"The wind is blowing in a different direction to the way we're going."

"It can't be."

"It is, Col. Look at the clouds."

Graham was right. Though the wind was from the South, they were travelling East.

"It's the Maggot-Cloud," said Gwen with a note of fear in her voice.

"What do you mean?" said Colin.

"Can't you see, Colin?" she said. "It's dragging us towards it. It knows who we are, it knows we have the Candle, and it's dragging us into it to destroy us."

"That's ridiculous," said Colin. "The Cloud can't do that."

"How do you know?"

"It's a black cloud, nothing more or less. It came out of the earth during an earthquake, that's all," said Colin. "It can't drag us anywhere."

"You mean you don't believe what the Queen said about Elz-raal-whatsizname?" said Graham.

"I don't know. I mean, I believe he existed all right, and I believe the Fathers disappeared into the earth - but I don't know about all the rest," said Colin.

"Don't you believe the Cloud was created by magic?" said Graham.

"I wouldn't bet on it," replied Colin. "Remember what Darach said about the stars being holes in heaven – we didn't believe that, did we?"

"No," said Graham.

"Suppose this cloud were some sort of poisonous gas escaping from the earth - like all the smoke when Surtsey was born - that would explain it, wouldn't it?"

"I suppose it would. But what about the horsemen?" Graham said. "You can't explain them away with science, can you?"

"They're strange, admittedly, but why shouldn't they be men? Maybe all this stuff about them being made of darkness is just superstitious nonsense."

"What about the one the sunlight killed in the field?" said Gwen. "Did it, Gwen? Why couldn't he just have hit his head when he fell?"

"And that 'magic' of Darach's in the tower looked like a shrapnel-box"

"But Col," said Graham, "if your theories are right, and the Cloud is made of poison gas – what are we doing trying to destroy it with a candle?"

"That's just it," he replied. "If Darach and the others are right, and the Cloud was made by magic – then we stand half a chance of surviving – perhaps even winning.

"But if they're wrong, and all this can be explained by science and common sense, then we're risking our lives without a chance of saving this world or ours!"

There was a long silence.

"We've got to try," said Gwen. "We've got to."

"Yes, yes," said Colin. "Let's not talk about it any more."

They didn't, but the damage was done. The seed of doubt was well and truly sown.

"Look what I've found," cried Graham jubilantly.

At the bottom of the basket was a bundle of bread and fruit. "Food!" they all yelled.

"We'd better not eat it all at once," said Gwen. "We don't know how long it'll be until we have another proper meal."

"Always the sensible one, my sister," said Colin with a mock grimace.

They all laughed.

It seemed ages since they had laughed together, and it was to be a long time until they laughed together again.

They drifted on towards the Cloud, and the sun began to go down. Now there were mountains below them, and beyond the sharp peaks, a desert.

"I hope we get beyond the mountains before night falls," said Graham. "I don't like the looks of those mountain-tops."

"We'll be all right," said Colin.

Almost before the words had left his lips the balloon suddenly fell a few feet. Gwen shrieked. They all felt as if they had left their stomachs behind them.

"What's happening?" said Gwen.

"The hot air in the balloon is cooling," said Graham. "We're going down."

The mountains loomed, grim and forbidding.

"We'll be smashed to pieces if we hit one of those," said Graham.

"Shut up!" shouted Colin. "And start chucking out those sand-bags."

As they threw the sandbags out of the basket the balloon stopped falling. But the sharp, misted mountaintops were very much closer.

"Never a dull moment," said Colin.

Graham whistled through his teeth. "That was close," he said.

"If we can only get over the mountains," said Colin, "we can make a landing in the desert safely enough."

The balloon had begun to descend again, more slowly than previously, but still too quickly for safety. They threw out some more sandbags but it did little good. Soon there were no more bags to throw out. Now they were so close to the mountaintops they could almost have reached out of the basket and touched them. Twice the bottom of the basket scraped the razor-sharp rocks, and on the second occasion the impact tore a hole in it.

The balloon was now sinking rapidly. Small, misty clouds flew past. The mountain crags seemed to reach for them with sharpened fingers, to pluck them from the sky and dash them to the ground.

Though they were descending, they were still moving at quite a speed between the peaks, hurried on by the air currents. A sheer rock face loomed immediately in front of them. There was nothing they could do that would prevent the balloon smashing into it. All they could do was cling to the basket, frozen with fear, as the slate-grey face came closer and closer.

Then, quite suddenly, an air current caught them and lifted the balloon up and over the mountain. It was as if a giant hand had appeared from out of the mist and carried them over the threatening rock face.

They all breathed a sigh of relief, and the sight that met their eyes on the other side of the mountain was the most welcome one of their journey. Before them, the mountains gave way to a wide and empty plain, over which brooded the face of the Maggot-Cloud on the horizon.

Out of the thermal, the balloon began to descend again, more rapidly than ever.

"Hold on," said Colin. "We're going to land with quite a wallop."

The sandy plain rushed up to the meet them, as the balloon plummeted like a dying bird. The wind whistled in their ears. They closed their eyes as they hit the ground, bounced and hit it again. The children were flung out of the basket on to the sandy ground, taking in great gulps of air, and feeling for broken limbs. But they were unharmed. They had landed, safely, on the other side of the mountains.

In the Hall of the Black Wolf

In the Great Hall of his castle on the edge of the Wastelands, the Black Wolf, Lord of the Northern Marches, sat back in his huge throne, stroked his black beard, and studied his three prisoners carefully.

"You," he said, pointing at Darach. "I know you."

Darach said nothing.

"You are Darach the Wise, aren't you?" he turned to the leader of the soldiers who had captured them. "You say there were children with him?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"How many?"

"Three."

"The Light-Wielders, no doubt," he mused. "Well, well – we may not have the children yet – but we've got you, Darach, and your two acquaintances."

"We've never seen him in our lives before, have we, Marius?" said Montgomery.

"No, Montgomery. Never clapped eyes on him. And, sir, he stole our balloon."

"Curse your balloon!" said the Black Wolf. "The children escaped in it."

"It wasn't our fault," whimpered Marius, his chin receding even further into his neck.

"Shut up," said the Black Wolf. "You can be set to work usefully for the realm. But you, Darach, you will make a fine hostage. Somehow I think her most regal majesty the Queen will pay handsomely for your life."

"No," said a voice.

The Black Wolf looked up, eyes blazing with anger. "Who dares -" he began.

It was a horseman. He had entered the chamber without a sound and stood at the great, oak-hewn doors in a pool of shadow that he seemed to weave around him. The guards and members of the court withdrew as he soundlessly approached the Black Wolf's throne down the hall.

"No," he said again. "You will not have him as a hostage."

"Will I not?" said the Black Wolf with a humourless smile. "My soldiers captured him – therefore he is my prisoner to dispose of."

"Not this one," said the horseman. "He is ours."

"Finders Keepers," said the Black Wolf, with a mocking smile. "Losers –" replied the horseman, with his hand on his sword-hilt, "–Weepers. Do not argue with me, or you may lose your life."

"Threats?" said the Black Wolf with the same smile.

"Yes."

"Why's he so important to you?"

"He is responsible for the destruction of several riders."

"You ought to be more careful," replied the Black Wolf, and looked a little bored.

"And he holds the secret of the candle. We must wrest it from him. Once we have the secret of its power, we can take steps to destroy it."

"Very well," said the Black Wolf. "What will you give me for him?"

"You dare to play games with a servant of the Cloud?" said the horseman, a dangerous tone creeping into his voice.

"I dare anything," replied the Black Wolf. "You can have the old man - if you guarantee me the thrones of all the lands from here to the Northern seas when the Cloud has conquered the earth."

"There won't be anything left to rule, Black Wolf," said Darach, breaking in.

"What are you mumbling, old man?" said the Wolf, impatiently.

"There won't be anything left," repeated Darach. "The Cloud destroys everything in its path. And that will include you."

"No," said the Wolf. "Not me. I'm safe. I've served the Cloud well."

"That means nothing," said Darach. "You will be wiped out the same as the lowest servinglad in your kitchens."

"You seek to frighten me with fancies, old man," said the Black Wolf with a smile, but his dark eyes betrayed a glimmer of fear. "But you won't succeed. If the Cloud tries to double-cross me I shall raise up my army and destroy it."

"How?" said Darach. "You can't fight with shadows."

"What do you mean?"

"This creature beside me is not a man. He is only darkness."

"How can that be?"

"By magic."

"I don't believe you," said the Black Wolf, but his smile vanished.

"Then prove it. You said you'd dare anything. Well command him to take off his helm."

"What for?"

"To see if I tell the truth. To prove if he be man or shadow."

"I will not," said the Black Wolf.

The courtiers and guards murmured to each other.

"Frightened, my lord?" said Darach. "Or do you fear that he will not obey you?"

"He will obey me," said the Black Wolf.

"Then command him!" said Darach.

The hall was hushed. The Black Wolf looked around at the waiting faces, and passed a dry tongue over drier lips.

"Very well, old man," he said at length. "I am not afraid.

He looked at the rider, who had neither spoken nor moved. "Remove your helm," the Black Wolf said.

The rider stood motionless. "Remove your helm, horseman."

The rider shook his head very slowly.

"Well then - Guards! Remove his helm for him!"

The guards closed in and seized the rider's arms, pinning him back. He didn't struggle. Slowly the Black Wolf stepped down from his high- backed throne and approached the rider.

"You will obey me in my own realm," he said, "however powerful your master," and he removed the helm.

The guards let the rider go and fell back, covering their eyes with horror. Even the Black Wolf, scourge of the Northern Marches, sank back, into his throne, eyes wide and staring. A mane of black hair fell from the helm on to the rider's shoulders. But where his face should have been was a slowly moving mask of mist, grey and seething, like a miniature version of the Maggot-Cloud. It had no form, but curled into the air about his head as if alive. The rider spoke, and a dark hole appeared where his mouth should have been.

"Now you have seen, Black Wolf, what you would dare to oppose. The Cloud will give you nothing – except your life. And even that you will lose when your land is overwhelmed by the Darkness. Give me my helm."

The black Wolf handed it back to the rider with white and trembling hands. He put it on.

"Now, old man," he said, turning to Darach and drawing his sword. "We want your secret, and we shall have it."

At that moment, the stunned silence of the Great Hall was broken by a mounting roar accompanied by shouting and the clash of arms.

The Black Wolf rose from his throne, the sweat glinting on his white brow.

Soldiers burst in, swords drawn, faces blackened by smoke.

"Surprise attack, my lord, from the South. The Main Gate is breached – battering rams at the doors! We can't hold them off much longer!"

Judging by the noise of battle, the fighting was getting closer by the minute. Smoke drifted through the open door of the Hall.

The Black Wolf took up the two-handed broad sword at the side of his throne with the light of battle shining in his eye, and ignoring the three prisoners and the horseman, summoned the soldiers in the Hall to follow him. He had just got to the door when a trumpet was sounded outside and he and his men found themselves surrounded by enemy soldiers.

"Drop your weapons," one of them ordered. "Your castle is taken in the name of the Queen."

The soldiers' weapons clattered to the ground but the Black Wolf stood firm. At that moment, in swept the Queen herself, accompanied by Benedick.

She addressed the Black Wolf.

"Sir," she said, "your villainies have gone far enough. You have constantly sent raiding parties across the borders into my realm, have ignored all my ambassadors, sending them back to me beaten and humiliated. This I will not tolerate! Furthermore I believe you have in this mildewed little fort of yours a subject of mine whom you have had the presumption to arrest. May I suggest you release him immediately."

The Black Wolf padded down the Hall.

"There," he said with a half-smile, "is your prisoner!"

At the far end of the Great Hall the rider put his sword-point to Darach's neck.

"Don't come a step closer, Your Majesty," he said, "if you want the wizard to remain alive.

The Queen stood quite still as the rider backed towards a door to the right of the throne with his prisoner.

"Shall we rush him?" one of the soldiers whispered.

"No," replied the Queen. "The wizard would be dead before you got within striking distance."

Then the unexpected happened.

Marius and Montgomery, who had been standing within a few feet of the rider throughout this tense scene, leapt forward and grabbed hold of him. The servant of Darkness let Darach go to shake them off, and the wizard slipped out of sword-range.

The rider spun round and aimed a savage blow at Marius, who lost his balance in the fury of the struggle, fell over backwards, and avoided the blade by inches. Now the Queen's soldiers were rushing down the Hall towards the rider, swords at the ready. But someone was there before them.

The Black Wolf stood in front of the rider with his broad-sword in his hands and said, "You threatened me, shadow-thing. You dared to threaten the Black Wolf, you, who are only marsh-mist."

He lunged with the broadsword and ran the rider through. The Black Wolf let out a cry of triumph.

"Nobody threatens me!" he cried, dragging the sword out of the rider.

The helmed creature stood in front of the Black Wolf unharmed. The sword had no effect.

"Do you think to kill marsh-mist with swords?" said the rider, and with one stab of his own blade laid the Black Wolf dead at his feet.

"So!" the rider screamed to the echoing Hall. "So perish those who obstruct the will of the Darkness!"

"Capture him!" cried the Queen, "We will have this mist in chains!"

The soldiers rushed forward, but the rider was too quick. He ran to the tall window in the Hall and leapt through it with a shriek.

His cry died away and he hit the ground. When they went to examine the body later, they found only his clothes, gloves, boots and helm. The mist had gone.

Darach thanked the Queen for his rescue.

"Well," she said, "it's about time somebody around here did something constructive. Anyway, that lout had to be dealt with."

"He died fighting the Darkness," said Darach. "It was a brave ending, in its way."

"In its way, perhaps. But I'll have no sympathy for him. He was quite willing to have the Cloud destroy us all, if it suited his ends," said the Queen. "It was your friends here who tipped the scales in our favour.

May we be introduced?"

"Of course," said Darach. "This is Marius and, er –"

"Montgomery."

"Quite so."

"Bravely done, gentlemen," said the Queen. "Will you return to the palace with us?"

"We'd be honoured," said Marius.

"Nay, overwhelmed," said Montgomery.

"Very well, it is agreed then. Let us leave this disgusting place and return to the Palace."

"What about the children?" said Darach.

"Well, there's nothing we can do about them, is there? They could be anywhere. We shall return to the Palace and wait there," the Queen said, then, after a pause, "I have faith in these children, Darach. The victory will yet be ours."

"I pray so, ma'am," Darach replied, and looking down at the still form of the Black Wolf sprawled upon the floor, he added, half to himself, "If they fail - we'd be better off like him."

Desolation's Edge

The day was long and heavy, and the children were hungry. They had left the wrecked balloon far behind them now, walking through the night and the following morning.

Now it was mid-afternoon, and the landscape around them was sere and unwelcoming. Paper-thin, dry leaves crackled underfoot, the remains of trees long dead. The dusty wind caught in their throats, and made their eyes water.

Still they kept on walking, saying nothing, but all thinking of what lay before them.

The sun was beginning to sink behind them when they saw a towered palace in front of them, dwarfed by the Cloud, on the edge of which the palace seemed to stand. It was made of pure white stone and was so caught by the light of the sinking sun that it seemed to burn with an unconsuming fire.

"What is it?" said Graham, squinting against the brightness of the shining stone.

"It looks like some sort of temple, or palace," said Colin.

"Look how it's shining," Gwen said. "It's the most beautiful place I've ever seen."

"Perhaps it isn't there," said Graham. "Perhaps it's some sort of mirage."

"Don't be daft," said Colin. "It's real all right."

"Should we go there?" said Gwen.

"I suppose we've got to," her brother replied. "Personally I've never been so thirsty."

"Nor me," said Graham. "Anyway, maybe whoever lives there knows the way to the Darkest Places? Come on."

They walked on towards it. As they approached the Palace, the splendour of its towers and pillars became clearer. They could see the twisted golden spires, which erupted from each tower, and they began to pick out the windows, all shapes and sizes, reflecting the sun and gleaming like jewels.

Night was closing in, and torches had been lit within the palace, flaring through the stained-glass windows with blood-reds and rich yellows, blues as changing as the sky, vivid greens, purples and violets.

The children stood before the palace on Desolation's edge and wondered at its beauty, as many travellers had done before, from the time that an ancient and unknown King had built it. They were lucky, being able to see it, for they were the last travellers to witness its many miracles.

There was no sound from within the Palace. The gates were open and unguarded.

"We might as well go in," said Graham.

"There's no use in waiting for an invitation." Colin agreed.

"Suppose there's nobody here," said Gwen suddenly. "I mean, maybe it's deserted."

"It's certainly quiet," said Graham.

"Still the torches are lit," Colin said.

"Well maybe they all left in a hurry. Like the Marie Celeste!"

"Sometimes," said Colin, beginning to lose his nerve, "I could do without your comments."

"Sorry."

Colin slipped through the gates, followed closely by the other two. They found themselves in a deserted courtyard in the middle of which stood a fountain made of white marble like the rest of the Palace, from which the water had long-since ceased to cascade. Several white doves sat in a dead tree and watched them with pink eyes.

"Which way?" asked Gwen. There were endless arches leading into pillared shadows.

"Straight ahead," said Colin determinedly.

They passed under the arch into a sort of corridor, lit by flickering torches, which made their shadows leap and flit grotesquely on the walls. "Hey, all the walls are painted," said Graham.

"They're frescos," said Colin.

"Eh?"

"Paintings on walls are called frescoes."

"Oh."

The frescoes were very beautiful. In them, the artists had painted graceful and happy people dancing and hunting and feasting.

"There are mosaics on the floor," said Gwen. "Hundreds of little stones. And there are jewels in the people's eyes. And jewels for stars."

They passed under another soaring arch, and another. Each time the hallway grew larger, the paintings more magnificent, the shadows more grotesque. But there were no people to be seen anywhere.

"There are doors at the end. Look!"

Graham's voice echoed eerily in the empty space. Then, from behind the great golden doors at the end of the hallway, set with jewels and tiny mirrors, and beaten into intricate patterns, there came the murmuring sound of a crowd.

"People!" whispered Gwen.

"People! People! People!" the walls echoed.

"Shall we go in?" said Graham.

"Well we haven't come this far to turn back again."

Between them, Colin and Graham just managed to push one of the huge doors open wide enough for the three of them to enter.

Inside, it was gloomy and oppressive, and the crowd filled the vast chamber. The atmosphere was like that of a theatre before a play begins; filled with excitement and a sort of awe. The children pushed through the crowd to get a better view of what was going on. The people were all dressed finely, but were painted like dolls, with china-white faces, and rouged cheeks. Even the men wore make-up, so that they looked rather like pathetic clowns.

"These aren't the happy people in the paintings," said Gwen.

"Maybe they were," said Colin. "A long time ago."

"What are they doing here?"

"How should I know? They all look as if they're all waiting for something to happen."

"Maybe it's a play," suggested Gwen.

"Oh for goodness sake," said her brother, "in a few days, perhaps even hours, this place is going to be destroyed by the Cloud. Who in their right minds would be watching a play?"

"Perhaps they're arranging a mass evacuation," said Graham. "Perhaps –"

"Look!" hissed Graham. "Something is going to happen."

At the far end of the chamber, a large number of brilliant, firework-like flares had been lit. The light was dazzling.

The murmuring died away, and an expectant hush fell. Into the light thrown by the flames walked the figure of a boy. He looked about the same age as Graham, and he was dressed from hand to foot in white, with a high collar set with red and green jewels rising behind his dark hair. His skin was the color of the moon.

As soon as he appeared, the crowd went mad with excitement. They screamed and yelled and stamped their feet, many of them weeping openly, making their dolls faces run with tears. Then the boy half-spoke, half-sang, but the crowds meant nothing to the children. The crowd did not cease their screaming when he sang, but redoubled it when the song came to an end.

"What's so special about him?" said Graham.

"He'll never make the charts, whoever he is," said Colin.

The boy sang again. The song was the same, but the crowd reacted with wilder singings and more impassioned screeches. People were fainting to right and left, and nobody bothered to pick them up. Gwen tried to help up a woman who collapsed near her, but it was impossible. The crowd was surging forward so much that she could not get to the woman.

Then it was over. The flames began to splutter and go out. The boy in white retreated into the darkness, his moon-pale features sparkling with sweat. The audience subsided, exhausted, and began to make their way out of the chamber by various doors, shaking their heads as if they could hardly believe what they had seen; men, women and even children with tears streaming down their faces.

Colin, Gwen and Graham followed the flood of people out of the chamber.

"What now?" asked Gwen.

"I don't know," Colin murmured, looking at the floor.

"What's wrong, Col?" asked graham.

"Leave me alone."

"What's wrong?"

Colin looked up. There were tears in his eyes.

"I don't know why," he said, "but when he sang, I wanted to cry like the rest of them. It's stupid."

"Do you think they know about the Cloud?" said Graham. "I mean, if they don't, hadn't we better tell them?"

"Oh, they know all right," said Colin. "But they don't care."

"How do you know?"

"It's in their faces. A sort of resignation. And that boy, he was telling them that it would all be all right again," Colin said.

"But I couldn't understand a word he was saying."

"Neither could I. But it was about the people in the paintings, I know. And the men with jewels for eyes."

Gwen and Graham looked at Colin, confused. It was unlike him to be so dreamy. Usually he laughed at that kind of thing, said that it was rubbish.

The people had drifted away into the shadows between the pillars to drink wine from delicate goblets.

"Shall we speak to them?" said Gwen. "We can try," said Colin.

But it was as if the children were ghosts, and the people could not see or hear them. Though they tried, nobody would listen, or answer their questions.

"They're all mad," concluded Graham after half a dozen fruitless attempts. "Or brainwashed."

"What shall we do? Just take some food and drink and leave?" said Gwen.

"No," said Colin quietly. "What then?"

"Which way leads to the place where we saw the boy?"

"That way, I think, but -"

"Come on, then. Perhaps he can explain all this to us. Before I leave here I want to know who they were –"

"Who who were?" said Graham.

"The people with jewels for eyes," Colin replied, and ran off down the pillared hallway.

The Boy

They returned to the chamber. It was empty. At the far end, at the back of the stage on which the boy had sung, there was a small door. It opened on to a winding stairway.

"This must go up one of the towers," said Colin. "Come on."

They started to climb. Graham gave up counting the worn marble steps after five hundred. It was dizzying and frightening climbing so high, and in the dark, for there were no torches to light the stairs.

Finally they came to an end, and the children arrived at the top of the tallest tower in the Palace. There was only one door in front of them.

"No guards," said Graham.

"Why should there be?" said Colin. "None of that lot down there look as if they could climb the stairs."

"Shall we knock?" said Gwen.

"No."

Colin turned the handle of the beaten-gold door. The lock clanked, and the door swung open ponderously on huge hinges.

Inside, there was chaos. The white outfit the boy had been wearing was strewn across the floor. A number of other spectacular costumes had been flung into a corner. There were upset wine cups on the floor, staining the exquisitely woven carpet with purple dregs. A large, round window dominated one wall, but it was so dark outside that no light passed through it.

Lying on a pile of cushions, dressed in a gown of cream-colored silk, lay the boy, his limbs splayed in exhausted sleep.

He seemed to feel their eyes upon him, and he woke. His dark eyes looked at the children imperiously.

"What are you doing in here?" he demanded. "I –" Gwen began. "We came – I mean –"

"We want to speak to you," said Colin, determinedly, "in the hope that you have a little more sense than the others."

"You're not from the Palace," said the boy.

"No. We're just passing through," said Colin, with a grim smile.

"Where are you going?"

"Into Desolation," said Colin.

"To the Darkest Places," said Graham.

The boy said nothing. His eyes fell.

"I know nothing of such a place," the boy said. "Please go."

"Oh come on now -"

"I said -"

"I heard what you said!" replied Colin. "But I don't believe you."

"I don't want you here," said the boy. "I don't know you and I don't wish to. You will go!"

He rose, eyes blazing.

"We've got to know how we get to the Darkest Places," said Gwen. "Tell us, and we'll go."

"I don't know. I've never heard of them."

"Don't you understand?" Gwen said, tears in her eyes. "If you stay in here, the Cloud will cover this Palace, and there'll be nothing here but slime."

"Leave him, Gwen," said Colin. "He knows as well as the rest of them. But he wants to die."

"I don't," said the boy.

"Then why stay?"

"For my people. I am their King."

"You? A King?" said Graham.

"Yes. I have been King ever since my father disappeared into the Cloud."

"Why don't you lead your people away?" said Graham. "You could escape."

"No. This is where my people have always lived, even in the years of the Old Kingdom, when they knew the stars. And this is where they will die."

"But we have the means to stop the Cloud," said Graham.

"It isn't any use," said the boy.

"What do you mean?"

"You can't turn back the Darkness. I know that, and so do you."

"We can try," said Graham.

"Of course," said the boy, "but why die failing to accomplish the impossible? It is wiser to realise the ridiculousness of your quest, and put an end to it now."

"We've not come this far just to give up," said Gwen. The boy smiled.

"There is a difference," he said, "between the wise man who gives up because the task is beyond him, and the coward who does not even consider trying. You are brave, but bravery is not enough. Sit down – I will pour some wine."

They drank the wine from silver cups. Colin drank his first cup off all at once, and the boy poured him another.

"I know that Desolation approaches," the boy-King went on, "but it will, in time, encompass the world – and it is a vain and heart-straining gesture to run from it. Such foolishness does not befit my people, who were once the wisest and most beautiful on earth."

"Why do you sing?" asked Gwen.

"To remind them of the days of the Old Kingdom, and to tell them not to be afraid. They are weak now, and a sort of madness has come upon them. They are only half-awake," the boy said sadly, "Stay with me here. I do not want to be alone when the Cloud comes upon us. Even Kings can be frightened."

"We can't stay," said Gwen. "They're all depending on us. In this world and at home."

"Do you still believe in your power to withstand the Cloud?" said the boy.

"Yes," answered Graham, but the old doubts returned to him.

"I too once believed in my power," said the boy. "I thought that Kings could work miracles. But persuasion comes easily when it is to convince you of your own importance."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh, come on, Gwen," said Colin softly. "He's telling us we only think we can do anything because it makes us feel important. Because we fancy ourselves world-savers."

"But Darach said –" began Graham.

"Darach said the stars were holes in heaven! Isn't it about time we stopped making idiots of ourselves? Let's stay here – at least we'll have the frescoes to look at when the end comes."

There was a long, long silence, broken only by Gwen's stifled sobs.

The boy traced the patterns on the carpet, with the familiarity of someone who has been idle enough to do so a hundred times a day.

"If we're not any use," said Graham, "why did the candle bring us here? Why aren't we at home?"

"Home?" said Colin. "Where's home? A long way off. Perhaps it doesn't exist. Perhaps we dreamt it all. Perhaps," he laughed strangely, with the wine making his head spin, "perhaps we're still dreaming!"

Through the Window

Night turned gradually to day, and so to night again.

The boy sang his song of the Old Kingdom in the chamber below the tower, and his people gathered to listen to him, to weep, and to drift away into the pillared halls again.

In the East, the Maggot-Cloud seethed and boiled and grew nearer and nearer the beautiful Palace.

Up in the tower with the boy-King the, children drank the rich wine that dulled their minds, and fell into a despairing sleep, waking to glimpse the mournful, silent boy standing by the window, with the blood- red light from the stained glass on his skin.

In their fitful sleep, strange and distant images appeared to tease them, only to disappear down black and echoing corridors.

Faces emerged from the darkness over and over again, and then sank into the night-black sea. Darach, the Queen, Benedick, the Keeper, the horsemen and the boy.

They glimpsed in sleep the marshlands, mist-bound, and the Beacon, fought the crab again, and ran in the forest, or in the field of buttercups where they had met with the rider.

And sometimes they caught hints of more distant places, places they had almost forgotten.

Rows of semi-detached houses on a bleak November morning, with the frost on the lawns and hedges, on the dead leaves in the gutter. Rain running down the window, blurring the street outside.

Memories of when they were small. The swing in an Aunt's back-garden, the smell of new-mown grass, a day at the sea-side with sand in the sandwiches, school playgrounds, a nosebleed, a loose tooth, 'All things bright and beautiful' sung in the Infants' school, with the dust caught in the sun through the window. Sad days and happy days. Warm feelings of Christmas, and the first day of the holidays.

All these things and a hundred more came to the children as they slept, and they woke with the Cloud nearer than ever, and the boy still standing by the window.

Another day passed.

Now the Cloud was very close. Outside the Palace, it was creeping across the ground. Cracks ran in the earth, opening by slow degrees into smoking fissures. Within the Cloud, the gloom was deep and all- pervading. It was like the end of the world; a landscape of slime and stone and smoke-belching crevices. All species of life were returning to the forms of their predecessors, and eventually to the mire and the tar pit.

Birds took on scales and teeth, as their fearsome forefathers had worn.

The great lizards returned to stamp the earth for a brief span, before they, in their turn, disappeared as the darkness deepened, and only the slime remained.

Thus the Cloud made an end to all life which its shadow fell upon.

Inside the Palace, the children wandered the echoing halls without purpose, their eyes unseeing, their minds unthinking. The Palace, the mosaics, the sweet wine and the boy had all worked their magic on the children, so that they had no will left in them.

Now even their dreams of their former lives had faded, and they could not remember how they came to be in the Palace. Darach, Desolation – they were just names, and meant nothing.

And the boy-King was pleased, for he had companions at last, although they were his unknowing prisoners. He had been lonely and frightened since he had become King.

Now, he thought, though the Cloud will overwhelm us, I will have friends beside me at the last.

They were in the boy-King's room at the top of the tower when finally the end began. Graham was sitting on the floor in front of the window, looking out with sightless eyes to the dark wall of Cloud not fifty yards from the Palace walls. Suddenly a shadow fell across the window.

The boy, who was sprawled in the corner, stood up. "Graham!" he said. "Come away from the window!"

"What?" Graham turned slowly, sleepy with the wine. Colin shook his head to try and clear it.

Something was hovering outside the window. They could all hear the beating of its wings. The children stirred from their stupor, woken by fear.

"Look out Graham!" yelled Colin.

The window was smashed inwards, the colored glass exploding into a million pieces, spiralling and tumbling with a horrid slowness. Time seemed to freeze.

In that moment Graham remembered where he had seen all this before. In a dream, a long, long time ago.

His wine-cup flew from his hand as the claws closed around him. The children rushed forward, but the wings dragged backwards, and Graham disappeared through the window. Colin reached for him but their hands missed touching by inches. For a moment, however, he caught sight of the winged creature that had captured Graham before it bore him into the wall of Cloud.

"Eyes," he said when it had gone. "It had hundreds of eyes."

He knelt in the shattered glass from the window and was silent. The spell, if spell it had been, was broken.

"We must go after him," said Colin. "How could we have stayed here so long, after coming so far?"

"I feel as if I've just woken from a long sleep," said Gwen.

"Me too."

"What about him?" Gwen pointed to the boy-King, who had shrunk back against the wall in fear, and was still frozen there, staring through the window.

"The Cloud is very close," said Gwen gently to the boy-King, "but you and your people can still escape. Or come with us -"

"Yes," said Colin, "come with us. We can win - I know we can. And with you to help us."

The boy-King didn't move.

"I must stay," he said after a moment. "I am a King, and this is my only place. When it falls, then so must I. I am unable to feel what you feel, and I would be lost. I envy you your belief, your courage, and your strength. I'm sorry I detained you from your task. I was lonely and wanted companions with me when -" he stopped, and tears cascaded down his cheeks. At last he said, "I will believe there can be other dreams and lives. Next time I will share yours. For now - I must be a King."

"Goodbye," said Gwen.

"Goodbye," said the boy. "I hope you succeed."

He turned his face away from them, and said no more. Gwen ran out of the room, and started down the stairs.

"Come on Colin!" she shouted.

"All right," said Colin. "I'm coming." Then he spoke very quietly.

"Boy -" he said.

The boy looked up.

"I won't forget you," said Colin, "or the people with stars for eyes! I think there'll be other dreams."

"Yes," said the boy softly.

"I'll be seeing you," said Colin. The boy understood. He smiled.

They stood for a moment, in the high tower on Desolation's Edge, a boy from this world and a King from that, and smiled at each other.

Then Colin was leaping down the stairs, five or six at a time. When he and Gwen were at the bottom he took her by the hand, and the two of them raced out of the Palace by the Eastern gate, and into the darkening air.

The Maggot-Cloud reeled before them. The world seemed to shake. Colin looked at his sister, and tightening his grip on her trembling hand, said, "Come on, Gwen. We're all the world has got left."

Then they raced across the shaking ground, and plunged into the darkness.

Desolation

The darkness with the Cloud was all around them. At first they stood on the edge of the Cloud, growing more accustomed to the dreadful gloom, and slowly the shadowed landscape became clearer.

Even here, on the edge of the Cloud, all beauty had disappeared. The ground under their feet was sinking and shifting like a swamp. On the horizon they could see mountains crumbling and disappearing as they watched, with a noise like distant thunder. There were creatures of all shapes and sizes everywhere, hunting and being hunted, killing and being killed, changing under the influence of the Cloud to new shapes both strange and ugly. Colin and Gwen began to run, stumbling and slipping in the swampy ground, tripping over creatures half-recognisable, half-misshapen. Above them, in the thick air, two monstrous flying lizards were fighting each other, screeching and snapping. Something like a huge butterfly flew at Colin, but he ducked just in time. They ran on.

Ahead of them they could now see the source of the Cloud, a column of seething darkness pouring from out of the earth.

"That must be the pit," said Colin, "where the cloud comes out."

"The Darkest Places," said Gwen.

"Yes," said Colin, "Come on!"

"We'll never reach it," said Gwen.

A huge, long-necked lizard reared in front of them, thrashing and roaring, and disappeared without a trace beneath a bubbling lake of mud.

"It's such a long way," said Gwen. "We'll never get there."

Colin knew she was right. Before they reached the Darkest Places they too might share the fate of the lizard they had seen. Then he turned to her with a yell.

"Look!" he cried. "Look where the mud's draining to."

There was a river of black mud ahead of them, gurgling and bubbling. It was drawing towards the pit.

"If we can find a log or something," said Colin, "we can hitch a ride on that."

"Sail on the mud?"

"Why not? It's running pretty fast and it's going our way."

"No, Colin, I don't want to. We don't know what's in the mud."

"We don't even know what we may fall over if we walk it," said

Colin.

"One's as bad as the other."

He searched around in the gloom and found the remains of a decayed tree trunk which he launched into the river.

"Get on!" he ordered his sister. "And hold on to me."

They sat astride the log with their legs in the warm mud. Almost immediately the log was caught in the current and the two of them began the strangest and eeriest journey of their lives.

The river hurried them on, and they clung to the log for their lives.

"Colin," said Gwen after a few moments.

"Yes?"

"What'll happen when the Cloud begins to work on us? Will we turn into monkeys or something?"

"No," replied her brother. "That's why we're here. We come from a different world. The Cloud's magic can't work on us."

"How do you know?"

"Darach said so, remember? After we met the horseman in the field."

"Yes," said Gwen, "I remember." She paused, "But I'm still frightened."

"So am I," her brother admitted, "But we'll be all right."

They began to sing to give themselves courage. Hymns and songs they had learnt at school mostly, though they couldn't always remember the words properly. They sang 'Hills of the North, Rejoice' twice through, snatches of 'Greensleeves' and 'Oh soldier, soldier, won't you marry me?'; the bits they could remember from 'When a Knight Won his Spurs', and a slightly off-key rendering of No. 565, 'Lord of All Hopefulness'.

On the banks of the mud-river, the lizards had now died away and were gone. The world was getting emptier. Only scaly, dull-witted creatures watched them from the ooze, as they sailed past on the log, singing at the top of their voices. The Darkest Places were now much closer.

"We'd better get off this thing pretty soon," said Colin. "The current's getting faster, and we don't want to go over the edge of the –"

"Don't even say it," said Gwen.

They paddled the log to the side of the mud-river and climbed up the bank. The landscape was bleak and empty. All the animals and plants were now just slime and rock beneath their feet.

It was the most depressing sight they had ever seen.

They walked towards the pit, hand in hand, wondering about Graham, but not saying anything.

"I wish we could see properly," said Gwen quietly. "If we could see, I wouldn't mind. Can we light a match, Colin?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"We haven't all that many left. I don't want to waste them."

"We're not wasting them. I want to see. Please, please Colin."

"No, Gwen."

"But –"

Suddenly the earth rumbled and lurched, and they were flung to the ground. Cracks began to open up all around them. They clung together as earth and slime were rent apart. Awesome crevasses yawned open to right and left. The Cloud boiled above their heads.

Then as abruptly as it began, the earthquake came to an end. But the smoke billowing from the fissures around them choked and blinded the children.

"We daren't go on, Col," said Gwen. "We'll fall down one of the cracks. Light a match. We'll be able to see better."

Colin didn't know what to do. He realised that going any further without a light of some sort would be foolish. Perhaps they should light the candle? But no, only in the Darkest Places should they do so, Darach had said.

"Alright Gwen," he said after a moment. "I'll light a match."

He got to his knees and fumbled in his pocket for the box of matches. His hands shaking like a man with shell shock. Nothing seemed quite real any longer.

He found the matches, opened the box, and took out a match in his shaking fingers.

He struck it.

The match sparked but didn't light. Again he struck it. And again.

Suppose the slime had seeped into his pocket. Suppose they were all damp and useless. What then?

He struck it again. It lit.

At that moment two things happened:

Gwen screamed, for by the light of the flaring match, she saw that they were not six inches from the crumbling edge of a smoking crevice. And at that moment, Colin dropped both match and matchbox from his trembling grasp.

"Gwen!" he cried. "I've dropped the matches. Back off - go back the way we came."

"No," his sister sobbed, "I can't move. I'm too frightened."

"Go on, Gwen. The ground's not solid. It might give way any minute.

Hurry up!"

"I can't. I can't," his sister wept.

"Please, Gwen," Colin begged. "I've got to find the matches."

Gwen slid back on her stomach until she was a few feet from Colin, whom she could just see through the smoke, kneeling close to the edge of the crevasse, searching for the matchbox. Inch by trembling inch he covered the ground, ash soft under his fingers, breathing as softly as he could, knowing that any moment the earth beneath him might give way.

His fingers touched the dead match. Or was it dead? No, it hadn't burnt down at all. It was live. That meant the box had opened, and the matches would be scattered. He cursed under his breath.

"Are you all right, Colin?"

"Yes - stay where you are."

He found another live match. And another.

By carefully scouring the ground he collected up four altogether, but the box had gone. He reached to the edge of the crevasse, his palms wet with cold sweat. As he touched the edge, and put his weight on it, there was a pattering sound, and the fragile earth gave way beneath his hand. He flung himself back towards Gwen.

There was a rush of earth from under him, and his legs were dangling in space.

"Gwen!" he yelled. "Give me your hand!" She reached. He clung. The ash crumbled. "Pull!"

She dragged her brother towards her, breath coming in agonized gulps. He reached solid ground and clung to her, sobbing.

"It's all right," he said. "I've got some matches."

"What about the box?"

"No. I couldn't find it. I'll have to light them on a stone."

He found a rough piece of stone and struck one of the matches.

There was no wind, and it burned steadily and slowly.

The earth was reduced to grey ash all around them. They made their way along the lip of the crevasse to a place where it narrowed sufficiently for them to jump. Ahead of them, not a hundred yards ahead, was the great pit into which the Fathers of Elz-raal-hiam had fallen. And issuing out of it like a living poison was the black column of Cloud, twisting and writhing as if made of countless demons, screaming silent curses as they leapt from the pit to overwhelm the earth. Faces formed in the column, snarling and hideous, grinning and spitting and biting, eyes wild and evil, but the children could not tell whether they were actually there, or whether it was just the way the Cloud seethed that made them appear.

This was indeed the darkest place on the face of the earth.

Suddenly there came a laughing, wailing scream so horrid Colin and Gwen fell to the ground, covering their ears to shut out the sound. But they couldn't. It rose, inhuman and blood curdling, mournful and terrible.

"Light the Candle, Colin!" yelled Gwen.

Colin was lying on the floor, shaking from head to foot. "Light it! Light it!" yelled Gwen.

Her brother took out the Candle and the four matches, and struck one of them on the stone he had put in his pocket.

As he did so, a bitter wind blew up out of the depths of the pit and extinguished it. And on the wind rose the creature with the many eyes that had taken Graham from the Palace on Desolation's Edge, its boneless wings flapping.

A hundred eyes or more all watched the children, filled with hatred and evil, as the creature hovered above them, like an ancient bird of doom, new-risen.

Light-Wielders, a voice said in the children's minds, know that I am Elz-raal-hiam, he who was once a mere man.

Colin didn't look up, but struck another match. It blew out.

And the third.

"It's no use," he murmured, half in tears. "It's no use."

The fourth and final match failed. The darkness howled its victory.

The hundred eyes turned blue and green and purple with madness.

Suddenly there was a figure in the gloom. A familiar figure. It was Graham.

"Give me the candle," he said.

No! No! the voice cried in their heads. The eyes flashed and descended.

Graham took the candle from Colin and held it at arm's length. "Now!" he said. "Your hands on mine."

Colin put his hand on Graham's, and Gwen too. Three hands held the candle. Three wills fought to light it against the darkness.

They closed their eyes. The Cloud clutched at them, trying to drag them apart. They felt as if a thousand hands were pulling at them. Then, the candle flickered, and was lit. Not a normal flame, but a flame, a fire, a star. Graham threw it into the air.

The creature with the hundred eyes recoiled before the light, dragging its tentacles of darkness into itself. The candle hung in its midst for a moment.

An unearthly wail of agony rose, and in the children's minds, the voice cried, Back! Back! The Light! The Light!

There was a blinding flash and a crack of thunder above the children's heads.

The eyes flew apart and were extinguished. The candle turned and turned and turned in the air, then disappeared into the black depths of the pit. For one terrible moment the children thought the Light had been defeated. Then, from the pit, there came a flickering, which grew and grew and grew, sending great shafts of surging light up the column of darkness which boiled and screamed. The Light grew brighter and brighter, until a wave of white fire exploded from the pit, parting the Cloud before it, and shooting into the air like a fireball.

The Cloud was torn apart.

The fireball became the Sun, bursting through the Cloud, golden and victorious. The darkness was defeated. There was light in the sky again.

Return

It was like the beginning of the world.

A vast curtain of gloom was drawn back, and rays of sunlight fell through the tears in the Cloud, piercing the dark, and yet healing it with wounds of light. The children watched the sunlight falling, breathless. Then, without a sound, Graham pitched forward, pale and shaking, and fell to the ground.

Colin knelt at his side.

"Graham?" he whispered. "Are you all right?"

There was no reply. Gently, they turned him over. There were claw marks on him, and a black stain, like a scorch, on his forehead.

"We must get him back," said Colin. "Maybe Darach can help him."

"What's wrong with him?"

"I don't know. Perhaps there's a sort of poison in him, from that thing with the eyes."

"Well, will he be all right?" said Gwen, close to tears.

"How should I know?" said Colin, shaking his head slowly. "I don't understand anything any longer."

They picked him up between them and set off back the way they had come, half-carrying, half-dragging their silent burden.

Three figures on a grey horizon, with the sun upon them, wandering through the ashes and the curling smoke, as if without purpose. They seemed to walk for hours, but time meant very little to them any longer. They began to doubt if there was anywhere to go back to, to doubt if they were even real at all.

They were so tired, and Graham's slumped form was becoming heavier and heavier. All around them the earth heaved and trembled with new life. There was a warm, fresh breeze blooming, smelling sweet. But they didn't notice.

Now the earth made new hills to right and left, upon whose slopes moss and lichen were growing, and tall grass swayed. There were small flowers starring the ground beneath their feet, and stunted trees struggled to grow in the still infertile earth. The world was being re-made, more beautiful and varied than ever. Everywhere, the rituals and miracles of birth were happening again.

Still they wandered on, and Graham made no sound or movement, for the poison was deep inside him. And if Colin and Gwen thought at all, it was of him, not of the worlds that they had saved. After all, what is a world?

At last night fell and the stars were white above them. They lay down in the sweet new grass and slept, with Graham pale and silent between them. In the night, it began to rain. Not the grey and bitter rain that falls upon cities, but a warm and living rain that fell so softly the children didn't even wake. Through the night it fell, until the clear dawn stirred Colin and Gwen from sleep.

Graham was gone.

The growing grass still bore the print of his body, but he had disappeared. Colin and Gwen got up, bewildered. The landscape had completely altered around them. There were mountains and rivers, animals, birds and insects everywhere. And not far from where they stood, a small wood had grown up in the night, jewels of rain hanging on every branch and leaf, shimmering. And there, in a patch of brilliant sunlight amongst the trees, stood Graham, smiling and well.

They said very little, but ran and ran into the first morning of the New World. And there were people now, running like themselves upon the hills. And so they finally came to the border of the New World and the Old, and the mountains which they had crossed in the balloon were in front of them.

"Oh great," said Colin. "What do we do now? Grow wings?"

"There must be some sort of pass between them," said Graham.

"I daresay there is, but I don't fancy exploring that lot without a map."

"Yes, it's a bit dodgy," agreed Graham.

Suddenly the mountains rang with a magnificent fanfare. On the crags, eagles rose screeching from their eyries.

"I'd recognise that din anywhere," said Colin with a grin.

"The Queen," said Gwen, and as the words left her lips, a long and colorful procession emerged from between the mountains, banners snapping in the wind, trumpets blaring.

"There they are," cried Benedick, and rushing forward in excitement, fell flat on his face.

The Queen descended from her coach with a great deal of dignity, and then yelled, "Yoo-hoo! Over here!" at the top of her voice. She nearly stifled them with embraces. "I knew," she said, "all along! I knew you would succeed. Didn't I say so, Darach?"

"Yes Ma'am," replied Darach.

"Of course I did. Now! Into the coach and back to the Palace."

Wake-Robin let out a whoop of sheer joy. Everybody turned and looked at him.

"I thought you'd forgotten how," said Darach with a smile. Wake-robin grinned and bounded off down the procession, whooping and yelling as loud as he could. The mountains rang with cheers and trumpets as the procession wound its way back to the Palace.

On the journey all the adventures were recounted. The children told about the mountains and how the balloon crashed, of the Palace on Desolation's Edge, which was now no more, of the boy-King, of how Graham was stolen by the many-eyed creature that had once been Elz-raal-hiam, of the journey on the mud-river and the final battle at the pit. The Queen, for her part, described with a great deal of drama how they had stormed the walls of the Black Wolf's fortress and how the horseman leapt from the window.

"What about the rest of the horsemen?" said Gwen. "Where are they now?"

"Gone," said Darach, "when the Cloud was destroyed. Gone to be marsh-mist and shadow, from which they were made."

So they feasted and danced and told their stories over and over again in the Palace, until Darach whispered in their ears:

"It is time to go. The bridge must be closed behind you, or we'll have trouble on our hands."

They said goodbye to the Queen and Benedick.

"Come back again, won't you my dears?" she said, sniffing. "Do promise, or I shan't let you go. Goodbye, goodbye. God bless."

They left the Palace in the Queen's coach and drove through the night and the following morning to the forest. Darach's peat-roofed cottage was destroyed, as he had known it would be, but the stubborn blackbird stood on the blackened threshold and sang a welcome. No goodbye was ever as difficult as that with Darach and Wake-Robin, no parting ever meant so much. But the children felt their own world in them again, and it was sweeter than they remembered. Darach left them on the edge of the sunlit glade in which he had first found them.

"Take three steps," he said, "and the bridge will be crossed."

"I don't want to," sobbed Gwen.

"Neither do I," said Colin.

"I want to stay," said Graham. "You cannot," replied Darach.

"Even a few days?" said Colin. "Just a few?"

"No," said the old man, "but remember what you told the boy-King on Desolation's Edge, Colin."

"What was that?"

"Only that there will be other dreams. You were right."

"Wait a minute," said Colin. "How did you know that?" Darach smiled.

"I'll be seeing you," he said. Three steps. The world changed.

It was a chilly winter's evening, and it was beginning to snow in Woolton.

"I wonder if he'll ever finish his last chapter?" said Gwen. "I don't think he wanted to," said her brother.

They looked out over the city. They could see the river in the distance and the lights from the airport flashing green and white. The sickly orange from the sodium lamps along the dual carriageway tinted the sky. "I never told him about the stars," said Graham. "I said I would."

"It doesn't matter," said Gwen softly. "Perhaps he was right.. Perhaps they are holes in heaven after all."

"Yes," said Colin, looking up to see the stars sailing between the clouds. "Perhaps they are."

During the summer of 1971, Clive finished writing his first full-length novel. It was a story that he had been working on for some time, bringing it to meetings with his friends to read aloud to them, shaping and reshaping the story as he gauged their reaction across several drafts. The manuscript pages presented here – complete with an illustrated title page dedicated: ‘To Julie, Sue, Ann, Lynne, Phil, Doug and Graham, being a book for you all’ – are the culmination of those drafts. The working title of the story was The Company of Dreamers, named after his description of this group of friends. In crafting the narrative for their entertainment, he also incorporated aspects of their personalities into the characters and the finished novel, renamed The Candle in the Cloud, included a number of coded messages for them

about their fears and ambitions.

“Yes, the working title for The Candle in the Cloud was Company of Dreamers; it was this idea that we were all these dreaming characters,” Clive recalls. “Us as a little gang, a little group; people dreaming with their eyes open is

how I would now understand it – shaman – I didn’t have that vocabulary back then. But we definitely figured out there was something about this dreaming thing which was eloquent and important to us. I suppose we got it from Yeats. We got it from all kinds of romantic poetry and you can go back to painting; we were very much into symbolist painting and into pre-Raphaelites and there are constant references there to sleep and to dreams.”

The novel had evolved out of a short story called The Three Red Sails, written over six pages of lined A4 paper – much like the pages which follow – and a short story called The Last Horseman. The central idea of The Three Red Sails

– that sleeping children can create a dreamscape in which adventures become real – was developed in the next version of the story, removing the idea that dreams might facilitate the crossing of a bridge to another physical world and re- placing it with the conceit that adventures occur within a collective dream.

“One of my major obsessions is the idea that we live in worlds within worlds,” agrees Clive. “Beneath the suit- and-tie exterior, there’s an erotic and a theological and an imaginative life that all exist simultaneously. In its purest state, the dream life, we live entirely through symbols – of forbidden and hoped-for things.”

Note: extracted from ‘Liverpool Lives’ by Phil & Sarah Stokes

Table of Contents

The Wood on the Hill

The Candle in the Cloud

i – In the Brambles

ii – Hoof Prints in the Night

iii – The Candle is Lit

iv – Darach

v – Maggot-Cloud

vi – The Horseman

vii – Under the Stars

viii – The Beacon

ix – The Queen

x – The Beacon Burns

xi – Siege

xii – Hooves and Arrows

xiii – Hot Air

xiv – Over the Mountains

xv – In the Hall of the Black Wolf

xvi – Desolation's Edge

xvii – The Boy

xviii – Through the Window

xvix – Desolation

xx – Return