‘That is why we keep it locked away, where no one can enter,’ said the Elder Steward, with a rather pointed look.
Still half caught up in the stone, it was a moment before Will recalled that he and Violet weren’t supposed to be in this chamber. He flushed. ‘We were just—’
‘Yes, I know. The two of you have a habit of being in places that you don’t belong.’ But her tone was friendly. With a kind hand on his arm, she began to steer Will back towards the archway where Violet waited. Violet immediately drew in close to the circle of light from the Elder Steward’s torch, as if it were a sanctuary that sheltered all three of them from the stone.
‘What is it?’
Will turned for a last look at it, the flame from their torch touching its surface and disappearing utterly, as if falling into endless depths. He could still feel its pull, not wanting to look away.
‘That is the darkest and most dangerous object we possess,’ said the Elder Steward, her own eyes growing troubled again as she followed the direction of Will’s gaze. ‘That is the Shadow Stone.’
‘The Shadow Stone …’ said Will.
The words sent their shiver down into him. He remembered the white horses galloping into an army of roiling black shadows, the last, desperate charge of the light.
The Elder Steward nodded. ‘You once asked what happened to the four kings.’
The thrones. Those four empty thrones. Long ago, there were four great kings of the old world, Justice had said. It wasn’t always the Hall of the Stewards. It was once the Hall of Kings.
‘Justice said that three of them joined the Dark King,’ said Will, ‘and the fourth fled and was lost forever.’
‘That is only part of the story,’ said the Elder Steward.
Surrounded as she was by the broken stones and displaced architecture of the old world, her words took on an extra weight.
‘The three made a terrible bargain. They swore to serve the Dark King in exchange for power. He granted them strength beyond that of any human for the span of a single mortal life. But on their death … they transformed. They became monstrous creatures of shadow utterly obedient to the Dark King’s will.’
‘Creatures of shadow … ?’
‘Insubstantial as the night. Unable to be touched. No wall could keep them out. No warrior could fight against them. You cannot strike a shadow; your blade would pass through its form like smoke. But a shadow can strike you … strike you down and kill you. It made them invincible.’
The Shadow Kings … He could almost taste it, dust, death and horror: an endless darkness that would swallow them all. The circle of light where the three of them stood felt suddenly very small.
‘How were the Shadow Kings stopped?’
‘No one knows,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘But they are trapped in that stone. And they must never be allowed to get out.’
In his vision of the Shadow Kings he had seen an even more terrible figure, rising above them all. The Dark King, the King of Kings, greater than any shadow, wearing his pale crown. It was as though the Shadow Kings walked before him, clearing a path for their master. And suddenly Will understood why they could never be let out. A moment later, the Elder Steward spoke the words.
‘They are one of the portents,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘They will herald the return of the Dark King.’
Like James, thought Will, and shivered. The Elder Steward searched his face for a long moment, and then continued, her eyes grave.
‘Simon seeks to conjure a shadow of his own. It is the first step to returning the Dark King,’ said the Elder Steward. ‘The Dark King made many such creatures. They swelled the ranks of his armies, invincible on the battlefield. Only the most powerful magic users could fight them.
‘If Simon managed to conjure even a single shadow, it would be a devastating opponent, and with magic all but gone from the world, no mortal now alive could stand against it.
‘But the Shadow Kings were far worse. Faster, stronger, and with a deadlier desire for destruction. The Shadow Kings led the army of shadows on their nightmare steeds. They broke the defences of the great cities of Light, and spread the dark across the lands, for neither might nor magic could stop them. A single shadow might seem terrifying to us, but they were nothing to the merciless horror of the Shadow Kings.
‘If they get out?’ said the Elder Steward. ‘Night will fall forever, and in the darkness He will rise, a final eclipse that will end our world.’
‘It’s Marcus,’ said Will.