The Dark Is Rising (The Dark Is Rising, #2)

by Susan Cooper

“So the Walker is abroad,” the farmer said softly to himself. “Ah. He would be.”

“The Walker is abroad,” he said again. “And this night will be bad, and tomorrow will be beyond imagining.”

Will saw what looked like a kind of ornament, made of black metal, a flat circle quartered by two crossed lines.

The iron was cold to his hand.

“Keep it safe, Will. And the less you happen to talk about it, the better. You will need it after the snow comes.”

“After the snow comes.” The sky looked as if it were about to fall on them. He thought: what’s happening?

In the midst of all the din and the flurry, he had suddenly had a strange feeling stronger than any he had ever known: he had been aware that someone was trying to tell him something, something that had missed him because he could not understand the words. Not words exactly; it had been like a kind of silent shout. But he had not been able to pick up the message, because he had not known how.

His fingers closed round the iron circle in his pocket and held it tightly. This time, the iron felt warm.

And he was suddenly convinced that it could in some way be dangerous to have so many people thinking about him, all at the same time. As if someone unfriendly might hear. . . .

It was then, without warning, that the fear came.

He had never known a feeling like this before. It was growing worse every minute. As if some huge weight were pushing at his mind, threatening, trying to take him over, turn him into something he didn’t want to be.

Any great gift or power or talent is a burden, and this more than any, and you will often long to be free of it. But there is nothing to be done.

If you were born with the gift, then you must serve it, and nothing in this world or out of it may stand in the way of that service, because that is why you were born and that is the Law.

“For the Dark, the Dark is rising. The Walker is abroad, the Rider is riding; they have woken, the Dark is rising. And the last of the Circle is come to claim his own, and the circles must now all be joined. The white horse must go to the Hunter, and the river take the valley; there must be fire on the mountain, fire under the stone, fire over the sea. Fire to burn away the Dark, for the Dark, the Dark is rising!”

When the Dark comes rising, six shall turn it back, Three from the circle, three from the track; Wood, bronze, iron; water, fire, stone; Five will return, and one go alone.

a masked man with a human face, the head of a stag, the eyes of an owl, the ears of a wolf, and the body of a horse.

They seized you, through your impatience and your hope. They love to twist good emotion to accomplish ill.”

“You see, Will,” he said, “we of the Circle are planted only loosely within Time.

He’s been frightened for so long, Will thought, that he’s forgotten how to stop. How awful, to be so absolutely lonely.

Will closed the book, slowly, and sat staring at nothing. He felt as though he had lived for a hundred years.

“He will have a sweet picture of the Dark to attract him, as men so often do, and beside it he will set all the demands of the Light, which are heavy and always will