Seaward (22 page)

Westerly and Cally did not look at one another, but each was as fiercely conscious of the other's hand as if all the blood of both their bodies circulated through those two joined palms.

“Oh, you will be happy enough,” Lugan said, “because you will not know. Where there is no change, there is neither promise nor disappointment—only content. And the wisdom of not wanting more than it is possible to have.”

Westerly said slowly, “I don't know that I want to be wise. Or contented. At any rate not yet.”

“Nor do I,” Cally said. “Maybe not ever.”

Lugan said nothing. The sun had dropped below the
horizon; the daylight was dying. The long beam of the lighthouse swept across the dark sea, flashed brightness at them for a second, and was gone again. In its light Cally saw that Lugan was smiling.

She said, “If we don't go to the islands —what then?”

He turned his head to her; she could see the tawny eyes glinting even in the half-light.

“Then you will go back to the world from which you came,” he said, “and it will be as if you had never left. You will each go back to grief and loss, but you will have the strength to survive them, for echoing at the back of your minds —not quite seen or heard, not quite apprehended—will be all those things that you have learned on your journey here. Like the leaves on the trees each year, you will grow and change. And indeed, you may never find wisdom or contentment in that world into which you were born—but you may if you are lucky see a light that blazes far more brightly, even though it must in the end burn itself out.”

Westerly said persistently, “But will we be—”

“Together?” Lugan said. “No. Not at first. You go back to the different countries from which you came. You each have your own lives to attend to. Neither of you will be conscious of missing the other, because the memory of what has happened through this gap in time, in this country, will be buried deep in your minds.”

His cloak flapped in the breeze blowing out to sea. The lighthouse beam swept over them once more.

“But I promise you,” he said, “that you
will
meet, in that world, before long. And that when you meet, you will remember—and begin again. To live together through all the discoveries and lovely astonishments that go with the grief and the pain, in a land ruled by Death.”

Cally said, “That was what she meant, wasn't it?
It is the endings which make the beginnings. Sunrise, flowers in the desert, blossom on the apple trees.”

“Yes,” Lugan said. “As dust blows from a mountain ledge, so that two children may live.”

Westerly said suddenly, “Peth would have wanted us to go back.”

“Peth
knew
we'd go back,” Cally said. “Lugan—” She could see his face again; there was a curious brightening in the sky above the rocks. “What happened to Peth?”

“He wished for sleep,” Lugan said. “He was very tired. Peth was the oldest of my folk, as old as the desert itself—he had been in life for a long, long time. So he sleeps in his desert, under the stars.”

Brightness was all around them suddenly, as the moon rose gleaming over the dark rocks at their side. Cally saw Lugan's shadow lying long and black on the flat sand; then she clutched Westerly's hand more tightly.

He turned to her. “What's the matter?”

“Look. You and I—we have no shadows.”

The sand at their feet was bright and empty. Lugan laughed softly. “The moon belongs to the Lady Taranis,” he said, “and knows that already, in your hearts, you are no longer here. Come then, travellers. Have you really both decided to go back to your own world?”

“Yes,” Cally said.

“Yes,” said Westerly. He reached his other hand across and gently touched her cheek.

“I am glad,” Lugan said. “The islands are there forever, waiting for you, but life within time comes only once, and not again.”

He stepped out onto the beach in the moonlight. Its cold glow took all colour from his golden hair and cloak; his hair seemed white, and they saw much more strongly now the likeness of Taranis in his face. He touched each of them briefly on the shoulder. “Go well—until I see you again.”

He raised one arm, the cloak billowing down from it like the sail of a boat, and pointed at the rockface before him, and where there had been rock there was a door. The beam from the lighthouse swung towards them over the sea, glinted on a heavy metal handle, and was gone.

Westerly reached for the handle and opened the door wide. They could see nothing beyond it. He took a deep breath, and looked at Cally. “Goodbye, Cal.”

She was laughing at him. “Hallo, West.”

Together they walked through the door, without looking back.

The lighthouse beam swung round again, over the waves, over the sand and rocks, like a slow pulse steadily beating, like the long unending swell of the sea.

ALSO BY SUSAN COOPER

T
HE
D
ARK
I
S
R
ISING
S
EQUENCE

Over Sea, Under Stone

The Dark Is Rising

Greenwitch

The Grey King

Silver on the Tree

Ghost Hawk

Green Boy

Victory

The Boggart

The Boggart and the Monster

King of Shadows

The Magician's Boy

The Silver Cow

MARGARET K. McELDERRY BOOKS

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1983 by Susan Cooper

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

M
ARGARET
K. M
C
E
LDERRY
B
OOKS
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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.

Jacket illustration by Paul Youll

The text for this book is set in Archetype.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Cooper, Susan.

Seaward. (An Argo Book)

“A Margaret K. McElderry book.”

Summary: West and Cally, who speak different languages and come from different countries thousands of miles apart, are wrenched by catastrophe out of reality into a perilous world through which they must travel toward the sea.

I. Title.

PZ7.C7878Se 1983

[Fic] 83-7055

ISBN 978-1-4424-7327-0

ISBN 978-1-4424-8140-4 (eBook)