One Bright Star to Guide Them Read online

  “What task is that?” asked Thomas. Then he frowned, for he wished he had instead said: I am ready.

  “Know you why, out of all the years and seasons of the world, the Dark chose this day to come forth from the Winter Country?”

  “No.”

  “It is because the Wise Old Man of this World sleeps.”

  “Sleeps?”

  Thomas saw a reflection of light in the surface of the broken blade in his hand. He held the hilt nearer to his eye and looked into the silvery steel, and it was as if he saw into the surface of a still lake of water. In a small chapel nestled in a green valley, behind the tall mansion where, long ago, Thomas and his four friends had spent a summer's afternoon, was a graveyard. There was a headstone, and the words CEDRIC PENKIRK were written on it.

  “Professor Penkirk!”

  “He was your squire, for he armed you children with the heart you needed to prevail; he was your nurse, for he comforted you when you returned; and one thing more he was — your herald! He went before you into the land of Vidblain, into the Lost Kingdom, and told the animals and dryads of your coming. He was not permitted to strike the blow against the Winter King. That was the task of the Four. His task was to guide, and to advise, and to open the way.”

  Thomas whispered. “The Key! This key is what opened the Way of the Well, and let us through the Hidden Door into Vidblain. He meant us to find it. I had always wondered…”

  “Now it falls to you to become what Cedric was, for he has gone into my Father's realm. There he has another task you cannot have described to you as yet; but it is a work of long-abiding joy. They have given him a crown and a robe of white, and anointed his head with oil.”

  “What am I supposed to do, then?” Thomas grinned. “Find some English schoolchildren and get them into trouble?”

  “You will have many roads to walk, and there will be many worlds under your care. There will come a child who leads a Star by the hand, whose voice can still the Lion's rage. It is for him you carry the shards of Angurvadel, the great sword. It is a weapon none may use until he reforges it and makes it anew himself, as with all such weapons of my Father's Kingdom. Now, come! You will find this child is in a world beyond the Pleiades, considered young for his ancient and supernal race, but, compared to humans, old and wise beyond all reckoning: he is rash and eager, and he will come at your word to save this green Earth and all its inhabitants from the Dark Master.”

  “Beyond the stars?”

  “In his own land, the child is neither prince nor sage, but a humble blacksmith's apprentice: yet men would call him magic, for his art is to forge the stars and set them in their constellations. You will find your way with the book you hold and the key you bear. Say farewell to this land, Thomas. No world will be your home hereafter, but every place the light of the stars can touch!”

  “And where I go, shall I see you there?”

  “That is for you to say. For I have been with you all these years, my friend, with the signs of my Father's power all around you—you forgot to look.”

  “Is this a darker world than Earth? Or brighter?”

  “Dark or bright, you shall make it brighter than it was.”

  And the great cat swelled into gigantic size, growing dim and bright and vast. He was somehow larger than the whole museum above and around him, and yet he did not touch the walls. He was larger than the night sky, and yet he did not scatter the stars. Then he vanished from sight, and the note of a trumpet rang out overhead, traveling from the west to the east.

  Thomas blinked, seeing only the museum room around him again, dark and solid. He raised his hand. The book, fell open to a certain page and he knew it was the correct one. He found the diagrams in an appendix in the back of the volume, with images of zones and tropics and belts of constellations, and the Latin was easy enough for him to puzzle out. He spoke the words and used the key, and a shining doorway, surrounded with stars, appeared wide-open before him, and the music of the stars poured out from it, dreamlike, terrifying, and wondrous.

  The newly-anointed Wise Old Man, who felt much too young for the task and not very wise at all, squared his shoulders and strode forth into the doorway, his eyes upon a solitary shining star.

  Without a backward glance, he left Earth and childhood behind.

  Books by John C. Wright

  CASTALIA HOUSE

  Awake in the Night Land

  City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis

  One Bright Star to Guide Them

  Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth

  THE GOLDEN AGE

  The Golden Age

  The Phoenix Exultant

  The Golden Transcendence

  WAR OF THE DREAMING

  Last Guardian of Everness

  Mists of Everness

  CHRONICLES OF CHAOS

  Orphans of Chaos

  Fugitives of Chaos

  Titans of Chaos

  COUNT TO THE ESCHATON

  Count to a Trillion

  The Hermetic Millennia

  Judge of Ages

  OTHER NOVELS

  Null-A Continuum

  SCIENCE FICTION

  Awake in the Night by John C. Wright

  Awake in the Night Land by John C. Wright

  Big Boys Don't Cry by Tom Kratman

  The Stars Came Back by Rolf Nelson

  City Beyond Time: Tales of the Fall of Metachronopolis by John C. Wright

  Hyperspace Demons by Jonathan Moeller

  On a Starry Night by Tedd Roberts

  QUANTUM MORTIS A Man Disrupted by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day

  QUANTUM MORTIS Gravity Kills by Steve Rzasa and Vox Day

  QUANTUM MORTIS A Mind Programmed by Vox Day

  Victoria: A Novel of Fourth Generation War by Thomas Hobbes

  FANTASY

  Somewhither, Book One of The Unwithering Realm by John C. Wright

  One Bright Star to Guide Them by John C. Wright

  The Book of Feasts & Seasons by John C. Wright

  A Throne of Bones, Book One of Arts of Dark and Light by Vox Day

  A Magic Broken by Vox Day

  The Wardog's Coin by Vox Day

  The Last Witchking by Vox Day

  Summa Elvetica: A Casuistry of the Elvish Controversy by Vox Day

  The Altar of Hate by Vox Day

  The War in Heaven by Theodore Beale

  The World in Shadow by Theodore Beale

  The Wrath of Angels by Theodore Beale

  CASTALIA CLASSICS

  The Programmed Man by Jean and Jeff Sutton

  Apollo at Go by Jeff Sutton

  First on the Moon by Jeff Sutton

  NON-FICTION

  Equality: The Impossible Quest by Martin van Creveld

  The Art of War: A History of Military Strategy by Martin van Creveld

  On War: The Collected Columns of William S. Lind 2003-2009 by William S. Lind

  Four Generations of Modern War by William S. Lind

  Transhuman and Subhuman: Essays on Science Fiction and Awful Truth by John C. Wright

  Astronomy and Astrophysics by Dr. Sarah Salviander

  AUDIOBOOKS

  A Magic Broken, narrated by Nick Afka Thomas

  Four Generations of Modern War, narrated by William S. Lind

  TRANSLATIONS

  Särjetty taika

  QUANTUM MORTIS Un Hombre Disperso

  QUANTUM MORTIS Gravedad Mata

  Una Estrella Brillante para Guiarlos

  QUANTUM MORTIS Um Homem Desintegrado

  QUANTUM MORTIS Gravidade Mortal

  Uma Magia Perdida

  Mantra yang Rusak

  La Moneta dal Mercenario

  I Ragazzoni non Piangono

  QUANTUM MORTIS Тежина Смрти

  QUANTUM MORTIS Der programmierte Verstand

  Grosse Jungs weinen nicht

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  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Tommy

  Richard

  Kicktoad

  Sally

  Penny

  The Knight of Shadows

  The Healing of Harms

  Awake in the Night Land

  City Beyond Time

  Books by John C. Wright

  Castalia House

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