The Seeker



The dark is rising .

VISIT THE SITE

Will Stanton is a day away from his fourteenth birthday. His older brothers tease him about girls. Will has a crush on an older girl whom he sees on the bus from school. While walking home, Miss Greythorne – the local mistress of the Manor – and her assistant Merriman Lyon invites the siblings to a Christmas party. Two farmers whom Will does not know arrive at his house with a large Christmas tree. The farmers know Will’s name, wish him a happy birthday, and predict bad weather. Will’s birthday is so close to Christmas that everyone in his large family ignores it except for his little sister Gwen.

The family has moved from the United States to a small English village and a brother has arrived home for the holidays and displaces Will to the attic. For a Christmas present, Will buys Gwen an enigmatic stone pendant at the local mall. Security guards accuse him of shoplifting. Alarmingly, the guards metamorphose into rooks. Will begins to experience more odd incidents and receives a strange and exotic belt from his oldest brother. At the Manor Christmas party, Will again sees the two farmers who seem to know him well.

When Will leaves the Manor, an ominous figure mounted on an evil white horse chases Will. Miss Greythorne, Merriman, and the two farmers suddenly appear and save Will. Merriman names the threatening figure The Rider who warns them all that in five days time his power – The Dark – will rise. The four adults are the last of the Old Ones - ancient warriors who serve The Light - and take Will on a walk through time and space to a place called the Great Hall. Will is the last of the Old Ones to have been born: he is the seventh son of a seventh son whose power begins to ascend on his fourteenth birthday.

Will is The Seeker: the sign-seeker who must locate six signs whose possession will grant The Light power over The Dark. Merriman instructs Will on his powers, which include great strength, the command of fire, the ability to move objects at a distance and the unique knowledge to decipher an ancient text. Will returns home to his attic room and discovers he has a lost twin brother named Tom. Will is the seventh son of a seventh son. Will falls and twists his ankle. The doctor who calls is The Rider in disguise. The doctor/Rider demonstrates his powers on Will’s ankle by alternately healing it and making it much worse before restoring it to its injured state.

Will returns to The Great Hall, and learns the form each sign will take. Will reveals the first sign within Gwen’s pendant. As the sign-seeker, Will travels through time to find the next four signs. By the fifth day, The Dark that The Rider commands has now gained tremendous power and begun to attack the village with a terrible blizzard. Will locates the fifth sign but without the sixth sign, the Dark continues to rise. The Old Ones and Will seek sanctuary in the Great Hall. The Riders final trick gains him access inside The Great Hall. The Rider reveals that he has trapped Tom, whom The Rider mistook for The Seeker, within a glass sphere. He sends Will into an evil dark cloud. As he enters, Will solves the riddle of the sixth sign: he is the sixth sign. Using his power over the dark, Will banishes The Rider and The Dark. Will and Tom are reunited and return to their family.