The Grey King

Part of Susan Cooper's fantasy sequence The Dark Is Rising, the novel follows Will Stanton, an eleven-year-old English boy who is secretly the last-born of the Old Ones, a circle of immortals sworn to defend the world against the forces of the Dark. Hepatitis has erased from Will's memory a set of prophetic verses guiding his quest: finding a golden harp and using it to wake six legendary warriors called the Sleepers. The story opens with Will delirious in bed, grasping at fragments of the lost verses. His doctor prescribes an extended convalescence, and his mother arranges for him to stay with relatives in Wales.

Will arrives at Clwyd Farm in the Dysynni Valley, beneath the peaks of Cader Idris. Driving from the station, his grown cousin Rhys identifies ragged cloud on the mountaintops as the breath of the Brenin Llwyd, the Grey King. The phrase stirs a powerful sensation of nearly recovered memory. A farmer named Caradog Prichard stops to mock Rhys and stares coldly at Will. At the farm, Will meets John Rowlands, a shepherd and harpist who works for his uncle. Visiting St. Cadfan's Church in nearby Tywyn, Will finds the church's name triggers a memory fragment about Cadfan's Way, a forgotten pilgrim road over the mountains.

Walking the farm's upper slopes, Will encounters a white sheepdog with extraordinary silver-white eyes that herds him onto a specific path. When Will falls, the dog catches his sleeve. Looking into those silver eyes, Will's memory is fully restored: the prophetic verses, his identity, and the quest. A pale, white-haired boy appears: Bran Davies, who has albinism and lives on the farm with his father Owen Davies, a farmworker. Bran's dog is named Cafall. Bran recites the opening lines of Will's lost verses, taught to him by a mysterious old man Will recognizes as Merriman Lyon, his master and the first of the Old Ones.

Will explains that a great confrontation between the Light and the Dark approaches. The prophecy names Bran "the raven boy." Bran identifies Hallowe'en, only days away, as "the day of the dead" mentioned in the verse, and names Cader Idris as the stronghold of the Grey King, a Lord of the Dark. His albinism links him, in local superstition, to the Tylwyth Teg, the old fairy spirits, and Prichard is particularly hostile toward him.

Will senses mounting malevolence from the peaks. His masters send him an image of three enormous grey foxes, the milgwn, supernatural creatures serving the Grey King. Sheep begin to die with their throats torn. Fire drives Will and Bran onto Craig yr Aderyn (Bird Rock). The milgwn appear on the ridge, trapping the boys between foxes and flames. Cafall charges the foxes and creates an opening. Will recognizes Bird Rock as "the door of the birds" from the prophecy and, speaking words of command in the Old Speech, opens a hidden door in the rock.

Inside, they descend into a vast torchlit hall where three robed lords sit on slate thrones. The lord in a sea-blue robe addresses Bran tenderly as his son and warns that only his own human race will ever truly harm him. The lords pose three riddles, which Bran and Will answer together. The third lord reveals himself as Merriman. Will opens a carved chest and lifts out a small, gleaming golden harp, while one lord, revealed as a Lord of the Dark, vanishes in rage. Merriman explains that the harp's music protects anyone within its sound and that Bran, a trained harpist, should play it.

As they exit Bird Rock, Bran plays the harp for protection. On the descent, the king fox attacks, and Cafall chases it toward Prichard's farm. In the farmyard, the grey fox, invisible to ordinary humans, attacks a sheep. Cafall leaps at the fox, and Prichard shoots Cafall dead, believing the dog was the killer. Bran is devastated. Rowlands quietly notes that Cafall's chest is shattered but there is no blood on the dog's mouth.

Consumed by grief, Bran refuses further involvement. Rowlands, who reveals he has long suspected Will is one of the Old Ones, tells Will the story of Bran's origins: Years ago, Owen was a young shepherd when a mysterious woman named Gwen appeared from the mountains carrying a white-haired baby. Owen fell in love. Prichard tried to assault Gwen, and Owen beat him severely. After three days, Gwen vanished, leaving only a brief note giving the child's name and thanking Owen. Owen adopted Bran and never told him the truth. Rowlands cautions Will that the Light can be as ruthless as the Dark, urging him not to forget ordinary people who can be hurt.

Will retrieves the harp and discovers the king fox can change color to mimic Rowlands's dog Pen, framing Pen as the sheep-killer. The Grey King confronts Will, demanding he leave, but Will refuses. Back at the farm, Prichard accuses Pen of another killing, and Rowlands hides the dog at a farm near Tal y Llyn lake. Will learns the lake's old Welsh name, Llyn Mwyngil ("the lake in the pleasant place"), and recognizes it as the site where the Sleepers lie.

Bran, shaken from grief by urgency, races to warn that Prichard has found Pen's hiding place. The boys and Pen take refuge in a deserted cottage, but inside, a warestone, a small white pebble that channels the Dark's power, pins Pen to the floor. Will leaves to fetch the harp, warning Bran to resist the stone's influence. Alone, Bran initially holds firm but gradually succumbs as the warestone amplifies his grief and isolation. Owen arrives at the cottage; Will had told him Bran was somewhere up the valley. Owen reveals the truth: This cottage was his old home, Bran is not his biological son, and Gwen vanished from this very place. Reeling, Bran experiences a vision, and something awakens deep within him. With sudden authority, he commands Pen to rise, breaking the warestone's hold.

Will returns to the empty cottage and, using the freed warestone, receives visions revealing Bran's true origin. The lord in the sea-blue robe is Arthur, the Pendragon, or high king of legend. Gwen is Guinevere, who brought Arthur's infant son out of the deep past through Merriman's aid to escape a betrayal. Bran is Arthur's son, carried forward through time and entrusted to Owen Davies.

At Tal y Llyn, Prichard intercepts Will, and the Grey King channels Dark energy through the farmer's mind, using him as a human shield. Will plays the harp, and a luminous glow fills the valley. Six silvery-grey horsemen ride out of the slopes of Cader Idris across the lake: the Sleepers, awake at last. They salute Bran, who stands on the hillside with Pen and Owen, and Bran receives their homage with innate authority before the riders vanish through the mountain pass.

Prichard snatches the harp and hurls it into the lake, then runs for his gun. Rowlands arrives and wrestles the weapon away. Owen publicly reveals what he has always known about Gwen's identity and Bran's heritage. Bran goes to Owen and puts his arm around him, the first open gesture of affection between them, accepting Owen as his true father. Prichard shrieks as the Grey King's protection withdraws and his mind collapses. A howl echoes from peak to peak as the Grey King's power departs from Cader Idris. The milgwn plunge into the lake and vanish. Mist rolls down and covers the valley in cold silence.