The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper Page A

quite soon to be less fun than he had expected. Will’s ankles ached from the strain of kicking a way through the snow. The parcels were awkward to carry. The red-golden glow from the sun died away into a dull greyness. He was hungry, and he was cold.
    Trees loomed high on his right: mostly elms, with an occasional beech. At the other side of the track was a stretch of wasteland, transformed by the snow from a messy array of rank weeds and scrub into a moon-landscape of white sweeping slopes and shaded hollows. All around him on the snow-covered track twigs and small branches lay scattered, brought down from the trees by the weight of snow; just ahead, Will saw a huge branch lying right across his path. He glanced apprehensively upward, wondering how many other dead arms of the great elms were waiting for wind or snow-weight to bring them crashing down. A good time for collecting firewood, he thought, and had a sudden tantalising image of the leaping fire that had blazed in the fireplace of the great hall: the fire that had changed his world, by vanishing at the word of his command and then obediently blazing into life again.
    As he stumbled along in the cold snow, a sudden wild cheerful idea sprang up in his mind out of the thought of that fire, and he paused, grinning to himself.
You gonna fix it?
Well, no, friend, I probably can’t get you a warm Christmas Day really, but I could warm things up a bit here, now. He looked confidently at the dead branch lying before him, and with easy command now of the gift he knew was in him, he said to it softly, mischievously, “Burn!”
    And there on the snow, the fallen arm of the tree burst into flame. Every inch of it, from the thick rotted base to the smallest twig, blazed with licking yellow fire. There was a hissing sound, and a tall shaft of brilliance rose from the fire like a pillar. No smoke came from the burning, and the flames were steady; twigs that should haveblazed and crackled briefly and then fallen into ash burned continuously, as if fed by other fuel within. Standing there alone, Will felt suddenly small and alarmed; this was no ordinary fire, and not to be controlled by ordinary means. It was not behaving at all in the same way as the fire in the hearth had done. He did not know what to do with it. In panic, he focused his mind on it again and told it to go out, but it burned on, steady as before. He knew that he had done something foolish, improper, dangerous perhaps. Looking up through the pillar of quivering light, he saw high in the grey sky four rooks flapping slowly in a circle.
    Oh Merriman, he thought unhappily, where are you?
    Then he gasped, as someone grabbed him from behind, blocked his kicking feet in a scuffle of snow, and twisted his arms by the wrists behind his back. The parcels scattered in the snow. Will yelled with the pain in his arms. The grip on his wrists slackened at once, as if his attacker were reluctant to do him any real harm; but he was still firmly held.
    â€œPut out the fire!” said a hoarse voice in his ear, urgently.
    â€œI can’t!” Will said. “Honestly. I’ve tried, but I can’t.”
    The man cursed and mumbled strangely, and instantly Will knew who it was. His terror fell away, like a released weight. “Walker,” he said, “let me go. You don’t have to hold me like that.”
    The grip tightened again at once. “Oh no you don’t, boy. I know your tricks. You’re the one all right, I know now, you’re an Old One, but I don’t trust your kind any more than I trust the Dark. You’re new awake, you are, and let me tell you something you don’t know — while you’re new awake, you can’t do nothing to anyone unless you can see him with your eyes. So you aren’t going to see me, that I know.”
    Will said: “I don’t want to do anything to you. There really are some people who can be trusted, you