Narnia fic: "Dust in the Air" (3)
Oct. 23rd, 2008 11:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedlamsbardTitle: Dust in the Air 3
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bedlamsbard
Fandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: PG-13
Summary: And the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started. An AU of The Last Battle, some five years after that book begins.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and quote from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Little Gidding.
Author's Notes: This is part three, obviously, and this is also the first WIP I've posted since 2006. (And that WIP was abandoned, so one can see I'm understandably nervous about posting another one.) The structure of this lends it to being posted in sections, though, so that's how it's going up. Because of this, however, it's not getting posted to any comms until the whole thing is done. Thanks tolassiterfics for the beta.
He’s still trembling with the echo of the High King’s touch, the aftershocks of Peter’s hand on his face and the look in Peter’s eyes when he’d spoken. I withhold judgment. Before his eyes, the lion’s head on Rhindon’s hilt and the High King’s face seem to melt together, shifting in and out of focus. At one point it’s the man he sees; at another the lion.
“Tirian,” he hears, and blinks, clearing the shimmer of gold from his vision. Eustace is standing over him, extending a hand. Tirian clasps his fingers around Eustace’s wrist and lets the boy – man now, by the Lion, has it been so long? – pull him upright, his trousers soaked through from the knee to the top of his boots.
“What the hell was that?” Eustace mutters to him as Tirian stands still for a moment, indecisive. As he’s seen in most such stone circles – there are several dozen scattered across Narnia, all in various states of disrepair; this one is in some of the best condition he’s seen – there’s a stone slab in the center that rises to waist-height. An altar, maybe, according to some of the books he’s read, but no one knows for sure. The High King and his siblings, as well as the dwarf Arnau, a centauress, a faun, and a minotaur, have all gathered around it, a map spread across its surface. Tirian’s not sure whether his presence is welcome or not.
Jill, on Eustace’s other side, is sneaking looks at the High King, though most of her attention is on Tirian. “I don’t understand,” she whispers. “Why does Lieutenant Pevensie –”
“He’s just Peter,” Eustace snaps, but even he, usually unruffled by all but the worst disasters, seems disquieted. “I mean, he’s not a pilot here, or any of that. He’s just Peter. Isn’t he?”
He looks at Tirian at this juncture, and Tirian says quietly, “He is Peter the Magnificent, High King over all Kings of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel of old, Emperor of the Lone Islands, his crown given by the grace of Aslan and the will of Narnia alike. I owe him my allegiance. I suppose,” he adds reluctantly, “that you do not, not being born of Narnia, but for my sake I ask that you obey him.”
“Obey Peter?” Eustace says. “But he’s –” He bites his lip. “He’s Peter,” he says at last. “And seriously, what the hell was that? It looked like you were offering yourself up for sacrifice or something.”
The words remembered in all the history books aren’t what Peter the High King had said when he left Narnia; Tirian grew up reading the memoirs Caspian had written in the nearly twenty year span between Rilian’s disappearance and his disenchantment, and he knows the High King’s words by heart. If you destroy my country, Peter of Narnia had promised Caspian the Seafarer nearly three hundred years earlier, Aslan or not, I will come back and kill you.
Narnia is burnt and her fields salted, her people murdered, foreigners squatting in Cair Paravel. Tirian can’t think of anything nearer to destruction than that, than this. “I was,” he says. “I am King of Narnia; I am at fault for what has happened here.”
“So what, you should just die for it? That doesn’t accomplish anything!”
“The blood of the king is the blood of Narnia,” Tirian says softly. “A life for a life; I can offer nothing more as I am now.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Eustace spits, and Tirian shrugs; this is the way things are and have always been, ever since Peter put a crown on Caspian’s head.
He hesitates in the snow, outside the circle of trusted advisers but still within the boundary of the stones. They loom over him, easily twice his height. Tirian’s not a tall man, but he’s seldom felt smaller than he does now, beneath the ancient, weathered stones that have seen the ages pass, kings rise and fall, Narnia in her glory and her despair. They’re too far away to hear what’s being said at the altar, then Peter raises his head and glances around, gaze settling on the three of them.
“King Tirian!” he calls, raising one hand to beckon him nearer. “Come here.”
Tirian goes obediently, snow crunching beneath his boots. They’re closer to the mountains of Archenland here than they were at his camp – Haven, they’d called it, as a joke that first miserable year and as less of one as time went on – and the snow is a surprise. There hadn’t been snow on the ground at Haven when he’d left four days ago. It’s farther north, closer to Lantern Waste, but in a valley, not nestled in the foothills of the mountains of Archenland like this camp is.
“Your majesty?” he asks as Queen Susan moves aside to make space for him between her body and Peter’s. Tirian hesitates briefly before stepping forward to fill the space. It’s a tight fit; they’re packed around the altar shoulder to shoulder, and he can feel the warmth of both Peter’s and Susan’s bodies against his sides, heat leaching into his frozen legs. “How can I be of service?”
“You know this area?” Peter says, sketching out the western edge of Narnia on the map before him.
“As well as any other Narnian here, your majesty,” Tirian says. “I have been living here for some five years now. Before the Calormenes came, it was not occupied.” He won’t meet Peter’s eyes, doesn’t dare look at his face – though he can’t quite keep his gaze from straying to Peter’s body, watching the High King out of the corners of his eyes while he looks elsewhere – but next to Peter King Edmund’s brows draw together.
“You mean no one lived here?”
“Not since Caspian the Seafarer sat at Cair Paravel three hundred years past, King Edmund,” Tirian says. “When his son King Rilian ordered the Ban, all Narnians living in these lands either left the west or left Narnia.”
“The Ban?” Queen Lucy asks curiously, a little of the light back in her eyes. Tirian had been watching them all during their argument – hadn’t been able to help himself, because how could he have dared look away from the kings and queens of old, let his attention stray, not when the fate of Narnia hung in the balance – and he’d seen her expression darken, the sorrow fall across her striking face as Peter made his decision. He doesn’t understand why, but he wants that light back, wants the enthusiasm he’d glimpsed earlier at the fort. “What’s the Ban?”
“In the second year of his reign, King Rilian ordered that all Narnians reside within three days travel of Cair Paravel,” Tirian says, although he looks at Arnau first, expecting the dwarf to answer with some outburst against the Telmarine kings. Arnau is silent, though, with his anger writ plain across his face. He’s turning nearly purple from holding his tongue, but he doesn’t speak. He does glare at King Edmund like Edmund’s had something to do with Rilian’s decision, and Tirian doesn’t understand why. “He enforced it with the power of the army – some of the army,” he adds reluctantly, because he might as well be honest; not all of the army had followed Rilian when Caspian died, “and mercenaries hired from Shoushan. Thousands packed up and left their homes; those that resisted were forcibly moved.”
“Or killed,” the centauress says bitterly; she doesn’t seem to share Arnau’s compunction about speaking out of turn in front of the High King. “Hundreds dead because they didn’t see fit to abandon the lands they’d lived in for a thousand years, all for the word of a human –”
“A king of Narnia,” Tirian feels compelled to point out, though he knows the protest will fall on deaf ears. “Whatever his faults, Rilian the Disenchanted was Caspian’s trueborn son, and a king of Narnia. If a royal decree is given, then it should be followed, whether it’s right –”
“Or wrong?” King Edmund finishes archly. “I know – knew – Caspian; I’ll give him credit for some brains, but I won’t do the same for his son. What exactly led to him making this extraordinary decision?”
The others are silent, but Tirian can feel the weight of their gazes upon his face, though he doesn’t look away from Edmund. If he pretends the High King isn’t here beside him, weighing judgment upon his every word, then perhaps – perhaps this will be easier. It’s ancient history, after all; not Tirian’s fault. But Rilian’s blood flows in his veins just as Caspian’s does, and he’s already invoked Caspian’s memory once. There are seven other Telmarine kings between him and Caspian, and some of them are crueler than others.
He closes his eyes to better remember the words in the books he’d had stacked up on the floor of his bedroom and decide how not to phrase the truth; most of the books aren’t particularly flattering towards the Narnians involved, and it’s always been said that the High King was more sympathetic to native Narnians than to Telmarine Narnians. “There was some disorder in the country following Caspian’s death,” he says carefully. To be more exact, there were half a dozen factions of Narnians, none of them in agreement about anything except that the man who claimed to be Prince Rilian – now King Rilian – wasn’t really Caspian’s son at all, and all of them virulent, angry, and violent. “King Rilian wanted the country’s population close at hand.”
There. That’s concise and to the point, suitably vague; if they want to know more, he can certainly go into detail, though he’d rather not. The centauress is right to an extent. It wasn’t hundreds who died, but there were those who fought back against Rilian’s troops and died for it. Rilian hung some two dozen men and creatures for high treason during the enforcement of the Ban alone. The High King doesn’t need to know that – unless he asks. There are some things that Peter doesn’t have to know just yet. Judgment withheld can still be given.
“What?” Eustace says, making Tirian jump. He’s just behind Tirian, trying to use his superior height to see the map over Tiran’s shoulder, but his attention’s distracted now. “You never told me that. Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
Tirian blinks, a little surprised by this proposed breach of trust. He’d never considered it relevant. “You never asked,” he says.
“What about Puddleglum?” Jill asks. “You mean he had to leave his home – the marshes –”
“The marshes alone were excused from the Ban,” Tirian says, “out of gratitude to the marshwiggle Puddleglum. I suppose you’d know him better than I,” he adds, trying to make a joke of it. He can’t see Eustace’s face, but he can imagine it; the look of hurt and surprise there as the boy tries to make sense of something else that’s changed in three hundred years, the Narnia he knew erased and forgotten. He’s seen it too many times in the past five years.
“Now isn’t really the time for Narnian history,” the High King says shortly. “When was this land resettled?”
“It wasn’t,” Arnau says flatly, apparently judging that speaking up now won’t be an unforgivable insult by Peter’s standards. He’s certainly not going by Tirian’s. “Absalian the Blind lifted the Ban, but only a handful of Narnians ever came this far west afterwards. Easier to stay close to Cair Paravel and grow soft in the towns.”
“The far west of Narnia has always been wild,” Tirian corrects, biting his tongue on the old familiar argument. Narnia had been debating this when he’d sat on the High Council alongside his father and again the year before the Calormenes invaded; he doubts a generation has passed since Absalian’s time where the matter hasn’t been in question.
He goes on in an even tone, “The border guard patrolled this area, but they were spread thin, and there’s no incentive for Narnians to live here. There are wild beasts out here, monsters that despise all civilized creatures and murder all that venture into these lands. A few families try to move here every few years, but they’re either never heard from again, or they return inland, to the towns. Even in the camps we’ve been losing people.”
Peter’s brows draw together. “How many?” he asks, as Queen Susan shifts her bow to a better position on her shoulder, closer to her hand, easier to draw, her expression uneasy.
“Maybe a dozen every few weeks,” Tirian says, bitter with honesty. His people, his failure. “We kill all the monsters that we can find, but no one wants to go looking for them, not when we have the Calormenes to worry about. Most of them must have been Narnians once, a long time ago, but they’ve lost whatever civilization they knew. They’re just ravening killers.”
Jill, who’s moved to the other side of the altar to get a better look at the map, shudders visibly at the memory, and Tirian feels a chill descend on the circle of standing stones that has nothing at all to do with the spring snow. They’d killed the latest one only a week ago, just a few days before their ill-fated attempt at highway robbery, and it’s a less than reassuring memory. The creature had come in the night, when the camp was sleeping, descending on one of the upper level treehouses with a scream of pure rage, pieces of shattered wood falling to the ground as it ripped the roof off with beak and claws. The camp had surged instantly to life, bows and swords close to hand, and the severed head of the huldra that lived in the treehouse had barely missed Tirian when he came out with his sword in his hand. The monster had landed in the clearing, its eyes brilliant and red in its blood-spattered face, and ripped a too-brave fox apart with one blow when it had leapt forward. Tirian remembers the rank smell of the creature’s blood when his sword sunk into the cleft between wing and body, that vulnerable spot where eagle front met lion back, and the heat of it as it splattered across his face, the way it tasted in his mouth when he’d tried to moisten his chapped lips. Jill had put three arrows in its chest and still it kept on coming, leaving death and destruction behind in its wake. It had tossed Eustace aside like he was nothing; he still has the bruises. It had been Jewel and Tirian working in concert who finally killed it, the unicorn a brilliant flash of white fur, obscenely matted with blood as he drew the monster’s attention away long enough for Tirian to plunge his sword into its heart. The body count for the night’s work had been four dead, a dozen badly wounded; not atypical for a monster attack.
“Ravening killers,” Peter repeats flatly.
“Remember the bear?” Edmund murmurs to him, bending his head close to his brother’s. “On the shore, about eight years ago, Trumpkin –”
“Yeah, I remember,” Peter says, the words short and abrupt. He turns his considerable attention from Tirian to Arnau. “Have any of these monsters ever come here?”
The dwarf looks smug. “Never,” he says. “This is sacred ground. They do not dare –”
The centauress throws him an irritated look and tosses her hair before transferring her gaze to he High King. “They come sometimes, my king, but never inside the bounds of the ruins. It is the will of the gods.”
“No,” Edmund says, sounding bemused, “just the will of a wandering magician that decided the best way to get into Pete’s trousers would be to enchant Arn Abedin to protect it from –” He glances around, “– certain types of harm.”
“Ed,” Peter says. His voice is long-suffering, but it’s the first humor he’s shown yet, and Tirian feels relief for no reason he can put his finger on. It’s good to hear that warm tenor in the High King’s voice; he’d begun to think that there was nothing there but ice and steel.
“Although obviously that enchantment doesn’t do a damn thing against time or Telmarines,” Edmund goes on, blandly oblivious and grinning around the edges of it, “considering the state of the castle.”
“Two thousand years, Ed,” Susan points out, her eyes twinkling, and Edmund throws her an irritated glance. Her shy smile falls away abruptly.
“Neither one of those ever touched the treasury,” he says, ignoring her. He turns to face his brother, as if they’re having a private conversation just between the two of them. “And I know Recared never went near that, just the walls.”
“It’s the same magic that kept the little treasury at Cair Paravel safe for thirteen hundred years,” Peter says absently. “Arn Abedin’s as Narnian as Cair Paravel; there’s no reason that anything below ground would be harmed so long as the seals weren’t removed.” He snaps his fingers. “Back on subject, please. King Tirian, you said that this area was never resettled?”
“No,” Tirian says, his thoughts sharp with concern on the single point magic. There has been no true magic in Narnia since the Golden Age itself. He gathers his thoughts together and continues, “No one lived here until people started fleeing westward to get away from the Calormenes. The thought was that if the Telmarines had been afraid of the west, then there was no reason that the Calormenes wouldn’t be as well.”
“The Telmarines were also afraid of their own shadows,” Edmund points out, turning back to the map. “And they were afraid of the west for good reason: the western woods were filled with angry Narnians that were all too happy to kill any Telmarine that ventured past the Great River. Unless you’ve been doing the same –”
“The Calormenes hold the Great River,” Tirian says. They’ve certainly tried to kill any Calormene that enters the western woods, but the Calormenes never come singly, and those Narnians that remain here aren’t trained fighters; they can’t withstand the relentless Calormene soldiers that travel in troops of a dozen or more.
“It’s a figure of speech,” King Edmund drawls, “not an exact demarcation point. Look, the Telmarines were afraid of the west because they were afraid of the people that lived there, none of whom were anything like what they knew as people. They were afraid of the north because of the giants that came down every few months to do some raiding and some looting and some killing, and they were afraid of the sea because a hundred and seventy years before Caspian was born, the saltwater Narnians rose up and destroyed the Telmarine fleet, killed three thousand sailors, and gave them a damn good reason not to go anywhere near the eastern seaboard ever again. That fear got heightened by the fact that the woodland Narnians weren’t content with just killing Telmarines; they were eating them too. Unless you’ve been doing the same thing with the Calormenes, there’s no reason they’re going to be afraid of the west the way the Telmarines were, and even then it’s only been five years and the Calormenes have faced far worse in the past few millennia than a little murder and cannibalism. You’d have to do something a damn sight scarier than that.”
“We haven’t been doing any of that,” Tirian says, “that I know of.”
“Pity,” the High King says. “That kind of reputation is always good to work with.” He drums his fingers on the stone, the afternoon sunlight catching the ruby set in his signet ring and making it sparkle. Tirian stares at it, wondering how it found its way back into Peter’s possession – wondering how all the gifts, the ancient treasures of Narnia left in Caspian’s care when the kings and queens had left all those years ago, have come to be here. Like Cair Paravel itself, these should be in the hands of the Telmarines, under lock and key in Cair Paravel’s treasury, or even taken out of the country, south to Tashbaan for the Tisroc to gloat over as proof that he’s finally done what no other Tisroc has, not in two thousand years. And yet they’re here, safe in the hands of those that were destined to carry them. A miracle, perhaps.
“If it’s not fighters living in the camps,” Peter says at last, and Tirian jerks his gaze away from the glowing red heart of the ruby, “and it doesn’t seem to be, from what I’ve seen –”
“It’s not,” the centauress says. “The army of Narnia is dead or enslaved, every last one of them, from the highest general to the lowest foot soldier.”
Peter’s mouth tightens, but he finishes, “– then who’s here?”
“Most of the camps that I know of are mixed humans and non-humans,” Tirian says. “Some families, but mostly not; it’s too dangerous to live out here, like this, for parents to risk their children.”
“Our children are here,” the female faun scowls. “Better to live like outlaws than to be indoctrinated into the vile filth the Calormenes are preaching, them and those traitor Narnians who value their own skins more than they do their faith.”
Tirian spreads his hands out on the stone, feeling the map crinkle beneath his fingers, cold leaching through to his skin, and meets her eyes. “I would rather have my people alive and lying than dead and faithful,” he says.
“They are not your people any longer,” the faun corrects, her tone bitter and spiteful. She looks at Tirian with nothing but disdain in her eyes. “Now they are Calormen’s, and the Tisroc’s, and Tash’s.”
“Whatever their betrayals, they are Narnians,” Tirian snaps. “And I was a king of Narnia once.”
“You still are,” Peter says evenly from his side, then taps the map with one finger. “Arnau says that a Calormene caravan is scheduled to travel the roseroad this week to resupply the forts at Whitetree and Bearhome.”
“I’m pretty sure that was last week,” Eustace says. “Actually, I know it was last week; I was there.”
“That was a decoy,” Arnau says. “Either the Calormenes have gotten smarter – they’ve lost a dozen wagons to Narnians in this year alone – or someone set you up…King Tirian.” He sneers his disdain.
Tirian’s cheeks heat as he looks down, studying the path of the westward roseroad. Last week’s caravan had been a trap; there’s no other explanation. Calormene soldiers and Narnian traitors had been hidden inside the wagons instead of the food they’d so desperately needed, and they’d gone straight for him, Eustace, and Jill. He fingers the shallow, healing slash that stretches from the back of his neck down across his collarbone, his only wound from the short, pitched battle. Someone had told the Calormenes that he would be there.
“If this is a trap, then we’ll be ready for them,” Peter says, shoulder bumping against Tirian’s as he traces the roseroad with one finger. On the map, it vanishes into the west, beyond the border; there must have been something there once, something important enough for a road, but now there’s only woods and death. “Here,” he says, stopping and tapping a spot on the map. “This is a good spot for an ambush; Telmarine bandits used it all the time when they were still jumping the border and testing our troops. Lu?”
She leans over past Edmund and Tirian’s eyes fall immediately to the press of her breasts against her high-necked dress. He looks away quickly, fixing his attention on the map.
“It could have changed, but – the road’s narrower here, just wide enough for one wagon and two riders to pass abreast. The forest used to come up right to the sides of the road. The dryads would keep the road itself clear, but beyond that – you used to be lucky if you could see an arm’s length into the wood from the road.” Lucy glances up at Tirian and smiles. “King Marroquin used to send soldiers over into Narnia all the time from Telmar and pretend they were bandits since they weren’t carrying banners. I spent months at Arn Abedin one year fighting them off.”
“I see,” Tirian says. This is not in any of the histories he’s ever read.
“If your information’s good, then they’ll reach this point tomorrow afternoon,” Peter says, bending back down over the altar. “We’ll meet them there. Dismissed.”
“My king, a word,” Arnau says as the group begins to disperse. Tirian watches Eustace watch Peter with sullen eyes and feels the glow of warmth start in the pit of his stomach. You still are, Peter had said to him, without pretension or pity.
“What?” Peter says, looking up from the map, which he’s touching with just the tips of his fingers, running them over the thick parchment. Tirian should go – the man he will call king until the end of his days has given an order – but instead he stops at the edge of the stones and waits. There are so many things he wants to say to Peter of Narnia, and not all of them are forgive me for my crimes.
Arnau sees him, glances at him, and Peter looks over his shoulder at the motion but doesn’t seem surprised to find Tirian there. “He should not be here,” Arnau says, loudly enough for Tirian to hear. “He should be dead.”
“Regicide?” Peter says evenly, looking down at him with all seriousness in his blue eyes. “Is that what you want?”
“It’s what you promised Caspian three hundred years ago, isn’t it, your majesty? If you destroy my country, I’ll come back and kill you. And Narnia is destroyed, isn’t she?”
“Narnia isn’t destroyed until every last one of her people is dead and the Lion holds no sway over these lands,” Peter snaps, his hand abruptly falling to his sword-hilt. “You are talking treason, Arnau. Think carefully on your next words before you speak them.”
The dwarf’s glare is sharp and unforgiving, betrayed. “You were summoned to champion Narnia against the Calormenes –”
“You presume too much,” Peter says. “I am no man’s lapdog; I am the High King of Narnia. Be wary of what you assume; my duty is Narnia and Narnia alone. And when that duty is done –” He swallows, and for a moment Tirian sees the exhaustion writ clear on his handsome face, the frustration and old bitterness. It’s gone as quickly as it appears and Peter looks back down at Arnau without real emotion. “When that duty is done,” he says, “then I and my family will leave Narnia until Aslan calls upon us once more. You have a king: see that you treat him as such.”
He turns away before Arnau can answer, gaze settling on Tirian without surprise. “King Tirian,” he says. “Join me.”
“Your majesty,” Tirian says warily, inclining his head slightly and falling into step behind Peter.
The High King doesn’t say anything, just drums his fingers against his sword-hilt and paces off, threading the ruins of Arn Abedin without seeming to look around at all. He must have known this castle when it was still a castle, still more than a memory in the earth of Narnia and words upon the pages of Cair Paravel’s books.
Tirian can hear the inhabitants of the Arn Abedin camp flee for cover, crouching within homewood trees, behind the edges of wall that remain, within the branches of the forest that has overtaken the old castle. Now and then he catches the bright gleam of eyes from the shadows, a flicker of brown fur as a doe or a hound moves, the creamy expanse of a huldra’s skirt. Peter doesn’t seem to notice.
They stop at a point where the trees grow thick together, vines and undergrowth forming a seemingly impenetrable wall. Peter strides right up to it and snaps his fingers, and Tirian watches in astonishment as the vines pull aside, forming a doorway tall and wide enough for a grown man to walk through without hesitation. This is magic. This is genuine magic like nothing he’s ever seen before, like nothing Narnia has seen in a thousand – two thousand – years.
“He’s with me,” Peter says casually, though Tirian can’t see who to, and then strides forward. Tirian follows, and the vines draw closed again behind him. Tirian shivers slightly at the feeling of enclosure that suddenly overwhelms him.
They’re in a wide clearing surrounded on three sides by thick walls of vines and undergrowth; the fourth is a tall, rough wall of stone, curved slightly, with a door in its center. It’s the most complete wall that Tirian has seen yet and it reminds him of the ruins on the nameless island for some reason, the shattered white walls of Cair Paravel of old, though this wall is gray and weathered and so little like Cair Paravel that they have nothing in common but the shared value of not quite utterly destroyed. Queen Susan is sitting on a little ridge of wall that remains beside it, her bow in her hands and her head against the wall. She looks tired.
“Peter,” she says, starting to straighten.
“It’s all right, Su,” the High King says. He turns toward Tirian. “Draw your sword.”
“What?”
Peter draws Rhindon. The blade glitters coldly in the sun, runes flickering like white fire down the tang of the blade. “Draw your sword,” Peter repeats. “Unless you’re afraid.”
Tirian can’t think of any rational reason why he wouldn’t be afraid – this is the High King of Narnia, the greatest swordsman the world has ever seen, and Tirian has seen him face down charging Calormene horsemen without flinching – but he draws the longsword on his hip with a rasp of steel. His king has given him an order.
Peter notes his stance, then raises his head and his sword. “Come at me,” he invites. “Come on, Tirian.” When Tirian hesitates, it’s Peter who attacks.
Tirian slams his sword up on sheer instinct and muscle memory, but Peter’s already disengaging, sweeping Rhindon around in a butterfly cut that Tirian barely manages to block. He parries the High King’s attack and lunges for the opening Peter’s left on his right flank, but too late; it’s a feint, and Rhindon’s hilt chops into the space between neck and shoulder, forcing Tirian to his knees as he bites his lip on a shout of pain.
“Good,” Peter says, and offers him a hand up. “Again.”
Three bouts; Peter beats him in every one of them, shockingly fast and shockingly good. He doesn’t fight like anyone Tirian’s ever sparred with before – there’s a hint of Eustace’s style in it; they both fight brutally, without wasted motion or energy, but Eustace always hesitates in practice and in combat, and Peter doesn’t hesitate once, not even when he pulls his blows and merely sends Tirian sprawling instead of slicing him open. When they’ve finished, Tirian is panting and soaking wet from the snow, and Peter is grinning.
“Good,” he says again, and this time sheathes Rhindon before he pulls Tirian to his feet. “Not as bad as I expected.”
“I’m glad,” Tirian says faintly as Peter leans down to pick up his sword and hand it to him. His fingers clench spastically on the hilt as he takes it, cramped and sore. He forces the blade into the scabbard.
“Well, that was an amazing display of testosterone, Pete,” Queen Susan says, standing up and crossing the clearing to her brother. “Should I offer to best him at archery now?”
“Not unless you feel it’s necessary,” Peter says, turning his grin on her. “If you do feel so inclined, though, I’m hardly one to protest.”
Susan punches him in the arm. “If you aren’t wasting your breath on that, then, I’m assuming that Tirian would appreciate an explanation of why you just beat him around.”
“Curiosity,” Peter says. He turns to Tirian, his grin with a hint of apology in it now. “I did the same thing to Caspian once. I wanted to see –”
There’s a shout, the sound of a horn hastily muted, and Rhindon is in Peter’s hand before Tirian can put his own hand to the hilt of his sword. There’s already an arrow on the string of Queen Susan’s bow as she follows her brother’s breakneck run past the vines, which draw aside without prompting. Tirian follows, and the vines snap shut as soon as he’s clear of them.
The shouting is coming from the wide clearing that marks the camp’s heart. The gathered crowd scatters before Peter and the sword in his fist, Susan and Tirian following in his wake, and Tirian’s heart lightens at the familiar faces he sees. Narnians from Haven, at least two dozen of them, all armed and lightly armored.
“Ourente!” he calls.
The centaur pivots neatly on his hind hooves, dour expression brightening. “Your highness,” he says, relief audible in his voice, and sweeps a bow. “You are safe.”
“Sire!” Jewel cries, darting out from the knot of Haven Narnians in the center of the clearing. He bumps his nose against Tirian’s shoulder and Tirian puts his arms around Jewel’s neck, breathing in the sweet, clean scent of unicorn. “After you were taken, I feared the worst,” Jewel says against his ear. “The bounty on your head – the Calormene rabble went straight for you and the young ones.”
“They are safe,” Tirian assures him as the unicorn pulls back, nosing him to check for wounds. “We are all safe, thanks to the High King. He –”
“The High King?” Jewel says, astonished. He looks around wildly, gaze finally settling on Peter.
“What the hell is going on here?” Peter demands, Rhindon still bare in his hands.
“Who is he?” Ourente spits at Arnau, who’s facing him with his body squared away, defensive. “You and I both know that you would have no humans in Narnia if it could be avoided. What dark magic have you done, dwarf? We felt it in the earth twenty leagues away, heard the sound of a horn in the air – Narnia trembled, and I know you had something to do with it. Your proclivities are well-known.”
“We have done what should have been done five years ago when that foul ape first spoke his lies,” Arnau snarls. “If that weak bastard of a Telmarine had had the courage –”
“He is the King of Narnia and you owe him –”
“We owe him nothing!”
“Shut up!” Peter thunders, the ring of command that Tirian has never been able to muster in his voice. King Edmund and Queen Lucy slip out of the crowd to join Queen Susan at his back, and Peter tilts his head up. “Do you know me?” he asks, and his words fall upon dead silence. One of the Haven centaurs digs his hoof into the ground, and the sound is raw, shocking.
“I do not,” Ourente says flatly, looking down at him. “But I know you should not have that blade in your hand; that sword is for no one but Peter the High King himself.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Peter says.
“This is the King of Summer,” Arnau declares triumphantly. “Peter the Magnificent, High King over all Kings of Narnia! This is who you owe your allegiance to, centaur, not some trumped up Telmarine whose ancestors stole this land –”
“The King of Summer is a myth, and Peter of Narnia is dead history! Just because you bring in some golden-haired human boy and call him Peter does not mean we are all fools, son of earth, so cease your lying and your dark witchery –”
“Ourente,” Tirian calls stepping forward with his hand on Jewel’s neck. “He is the High King, and Queen Susan, King Edmund, Queen Lucy with him. I swear it on my father’s grave.”
“Majesty,” Ourente says, looking to him, “I know how badly you want to believe, but the High King cannot return to Narnia. He is barred by Aslan himself –”
“More of a myth than the King of Summer –” Arnau begins.
“There is no way to Narnia that does not come from Aslan,” Peter says. “What proof do you want that I am who I say I am?”
“Your blood,” Ourente says without hesitation. “I have not seen your coming in the stars –”
“No centaur has read the stars truly for two hundred years,” Arnau spits.
Ourente ignores him. “– but legend says that the earth of Narnia will recognize the blood of the High King or his kin.”
“So be it,” Peter says, and closes his fist around the blade of his sword.
Blood drips from his hand down to the wet earth beneath, the snow melted away around the half-burned timbers of the fire, and Narnia shivers, the earth stirring beneath their feet. Squirrels chatter wildly in alarm and birds take to the air; Tirian sees a dryad clamp her hands to her mouth and bend over, her shoulders shaking. He feels the magic rush through his veins and turns his head up, eyes slanting closed. If he had doubted the truth of Peter’s name before, he does not now. This is a country whose king has come home.
He opens his eyes. Ourente is pale and shocked with surprise. He breathes, “Your royal majesty,” and bows low. Behind him, the Haven Narnians drop to their knees. Next to Tirian, Jewel does likewise, bowing his magnificent head down to the ground. Tirian stays standing despite the fact that every nerve in his body is screaming for him to go to his knees again, bare his neck for Rhindon’s blade once more.
Peter sheathes his sword. “Get up,” he says, voice infinitely gentle. “You are welcome here, and I’m glad to have you.”
----------
Peter's threat is from Once More for the Ages.
Part One 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
Part Two 00 | 000 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Interlude | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
Author:
bedlamsbardFandom: Chronicles of Narnia movieverse/bookverse
Rating: PG-13
Summary: And the end of all our exploring / will be to arrive where we started. An AU of The Last Battle, some five years after that book begins.
Disclaimer: The Chronicles of Narnia and its characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to C.S. Lewis. Certain characters, situations, settings, etc., belong to Walden Media. Title and quote from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets: Little Gidding.
Author's Notes: This is part three, obviously, and this is also the first WIP I've posted since 2006. (And that WIP was abandoned, so one can see I'm understandably nervous about posting another one.) The structure of this lends it to being posted in sections, though, so that's how it's going up. Because of this, however, it's not getting posted to any comms until the whole thing is done. Thanks to
lassiterfics for the beta.He’s still trembling with the echo of the High King’s touch, the aftershocks of Peter’s hand on his face and the look in Peter’s eyes when he’d spoken. I withhold judgment. Before his eyes, the lion’s head on Rhindon’s hilt and the High King’s face seem to melt together, shifting in and out of focus. At one point it’s the man he sees; at another the lion.
“Tirian,” he hears, and blinks, clearing the shimmer of gold from his vision. Eustace is standing over him, extending a hand. Tirian clasps his fingers around Eustace’s wrist and lets the boy – man now, by the Lion, has it been so long? – pull him upright, his trousers soaked through from the knee to the top of his boots.
“What the hell was that?” Eustace mutters to him as Tirian stands still for a moment, indecisive. As he’s seen in most such stone circles – there are several dozen scattered across Narnia, all in various states of disrepair; this one is in some of the best condition he’s seen – there’s a stone slab in the center that rises to waist-height. An altar, maybe, according to some of the books he’s read, but no one knows for sure. The High King and his siblings, as well as the dwarf Arnau, a centauress, a faun, and a minotaur, have all gathered around it, a map spread across its surface. Tirian’s not sure whether his presence is welcome or not.
Jill, on Eustace’s other side, is sneaking looks at the High King, though most of her attention is on Tirian. “I don’t understand,” she whispers. “Why does Lieutenant Pevensie –”
“He’s just Peter,” Eustace snaps, but even he, usually unruffled by all but the worst disasters, seems disquieted. “I mean, he’s not a pilot here, or any of that. He’s just Peter. Isn’t he?”
He looks at Tirian at this juncture, and Tirian says quietly, “He is Peter the Magnificent, High King over all Kings of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel of old, Emperor of the Lone Islands, his crown given by the grace of Aslan and the will of Narnia alike. I owe him my allegiance. I suppose,” he adds reluctantly, “that you do not, not being born of Narnia, but for my sake I ask that you obey him.”
“Obey Peter?” Eustace says. “But he’s –” He bites his lip. “He’s Peter,” he says at last. “And seriously, what the hell was that? It looked like you were offering yourself up for sacrifice or something.”
The words remembered in all the history books aren’t what Peter the High King had said when he left Narnia; Tirian grew up reading the memoirs Caspian had written in the nearly twenty year span between Rilian’s disappearance and his disenchantment, and he knows the High King’s words by heart. If you destroy my country, Peter of Narnia had promised Caspian the Seafarer nearly three hundred years earlier, Aslan or not, I will come back and kill you.
Narnia is burnt and her fields salted, her people murdered, foreigners squatting in Cair Paravel. Tirian can’t think of anything nearer to destruction than that, than this. “I was,” he says. “I am King of Narnia; I am at fault for what has happened here.”
“So what, you should just die for it? That doesn’t accomplish anything!”
“The blood of the king is the blood of Narnia,” Tirian says softly. “A life for a life; I can offer nothing more as I am now.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Eustace spits, and Tirian shrugs; this is the way things are and have always been, ever since Peter put a crown on Caspian’s head.
He hesitates in the snow, outside the circle of trusted advisers but still within the boundary of the stones. They loom over him, easily twice his height. Tirian’s not a tall man, but he’s seldom felt smaller than he does now, beneath the ancient, weathered stones that have seen the ages pass, kings rise and fall, Narnia in her glory and her despair. They’re too far away to hear what’s being said at the altar, then Peter raises his head and glances around, gaze settling on the three of them.
“King Tirian!” he calls, raising one hand to beckon him nearer. “Come here.”
Tirian goes obediently, snow crunching beneath his boots. They’re closer to the mountains of Archenland here than they were at his camp – Haven, they’d called it, as a joke that first miserable year and as less of one as time went on – and the snow is a surprise. There hadn’t been snow on the ground at Haven when he’d left four days ago. It’s farther north, closer to Lantern Waste, but in a valley, not nestled in the foothills of the mountains of Archenland like this camp is.
“Your majesty?” he asks as Queen Susan moves aside to make space for him between her body and Peter’s. Tirian hesitates briefly before stepping forward to fill the space. It’s a tight fit; they’re packed around the altar shoulder to shoulder, and he can feel the warmth of both Peter’s and Susan’s bodies against his sides, heat leaching into his frozen legs. “How can I be of service?”
“You know this area?” Peter says, sketching out the western edge of Narnia on the map before him.
“As well as any other Narnian here, your majesty,” Tirian says. “I have been living here for some five years now. Before the Calormenes came, it was not occupied.” He won’t meet Peter’s eyes, doesn’t dare look at his face – though he can’t quite keep his gaze from straying to Peter’s body, watching the High King out of the corners of his eyes while he looks elsewhere – but next to Peter King Edmund’s brows draw together.
“You mean no one lived here?”
“Not since Caspian the Seafarer sat at Cair Paravel three hundred years past, King Edmund,” Tirian says. “When his son King Rilian ordered the Ban, all Narnians living in these lands either left the west or left Narnia.”
“The Ban?” Queen Lucy asks curiously, a little of the light back in her eyes. Tirian had been watching them all during their argument – hadn’t been able to help himself, because how could he have dared look away from the kings and queens of old, let his attention stray, not when the fate of Narnia hung in the balance – and he’d seen her expression darken, the sorrow fall across her striking face as Peter made his decision. He doesn’t understand why, but he wants that light back, wants the enthusiasm he’d glimpsed earlier at the fort. “What’s the Ban?”
“In the second year of his reign, King Rilian ordered that all Narnians reside within three days travel of Cair Paravel,” Tirian says, although he looks at Arnau first, expecting the dwarf to answer with some outburst against the Telmarine kings. Arnau is silent, though, with his anger writ plain across his face. He’s turning nearly purple from holding his tongue, but he doesn’t speak. He does glare at King Edmund like Edmund’s had something to do with Rilian’s decision, and Tirian doesn’t understand why. “He enforced it with the power of the army – some of the army,” he adds reluctantly, because he might as well be honest; not all of the army had followed Rilian when Caspian died, “and mercenaries hired from Shoushan. Thousands packed up and left their homes; those that resisted were forcibly moved.”
“Or killed,” the centauress says bitterly; she doesn’t seem to share Arnau’s compunction about speaking out of turn in front of the High King. “Hundreds dead because they didn’t see fit to abandon the lands they’d lived in for a thousand years, all for the word of a human –”
“A king of Narnia,” Tirian feels compelled to point out, though he knows the protest will fall on deaf ears. “Whatever his faults, Rilian the Disenchanted was Caspian’s trueborn son, and a king of Narnia. If a royal decree is given, then it should be followed, whether it’s right –”
“Or wrong?” King Edmund finishes archly. “I know – knew – Caspian; I’ll give him credit for some brains, but I won’t do the same for his son. What exactly led to him making this extraordinary decision?”
The others are silent, but Tirian can feel the weight of their gazes upon his face, though he doesn’t look away from Edmund. If he pretends the High King isn’t here beside him, weighing judgment upon his every word, then perhaps – perhaps this will be easier. It’s ancient history, after all; not Tirian’s fault. But Rilian’s blood flows in his veins just as Caspian’s does, and he’s already invoked Caspian’s memory once. There are seven other Telmarine kings between him and Caspian, and some of them are crueler than others.
He closes his eyes to better remember the words in the books he’d had stacked up on the floor of his bedroom and decide how not to phrase the truth; most of the books aren’t particularly flattering towards the Narnians involved, and it’s always been said that the High King was more sympathetic to native Narnians than to Telmarine Narnians. “There was some disorder in the country following Caspian’s death,” he says carefully. To be more exact, there were half a dozen factions of Narnians, none of them in agreement about anything except that the man who claimed to be Prince Rilian – now King Rilian – wasn’t really Caspian’s son at all, and all of them virulent, angry, and violent. “King Rilian wanted the country’s population close at hand.”
There. That’s concise and to the point, suitably vague; if they want to know more, he can certainly go into detail, though he’d rather not. The centauress is right to an extent. It wasn’t hundreds who died, but there were those who fought back against Rilian’s troops and died for it. Rilian hung some two dozen men and creatures for high treason during the enforcement of the Ban alone. The High King doesn’t need to know that – unless he asks. There are some things that Peter doesn’t have to know just yet. Judgment withheld can still be given.
“What?” Eustace says, making Tirian jump. He’s just behind Tirian, trying to use his superior height to see the map over Tiran’s shoulder, but his attention’s distracted now. “You never told me that. Why didn’t you ever tell me that?”
Tirian blinks, a little surprised by this proposed breach of trust. He’d never considered it relevant. “You never asked,” he says.
“What about Puddleglum?” Jill asks. “You mean he had to leave his home – the marshes –”
“The marshes alone were excused from the Ban,” Tirian says, “out of gratitude to the marshwiggle Puddleglum. I suppose you’d know him better than I,” he adds, trying to make a joke of it. He can’t see Eustace’s face, but he can imagine it; the look of hurt and surprise there as the boy tries to make sense of something else that’s changed in three hundred years, the Narnia he knew erased and forgotten. He’s seen it too many times in the past five years.
“Now isn’t really the time for Narnian history,” the High King says shortly. “When was this land resettled?”
“It wasn’t,” Arnau says flatly, apparently judging that speaking up now won’t be an unforgivable insult by Peter’s standards. He’s certainly not going by Tirian’s. “Absalian the Blind lifted the Ban, but only a handful of Narnians ever came this far west afterwards. Easier to stay close to Cair Paravel and grow soft in the towns.”
“The far west of Narnia has always been wild,” Tirian corrects, biting his tongue on the old familiar argument. Narnia had been debating this when he’d sat on the High Council alongside his father and again the year before the Calormenes invaded; he doubts a generation has passed since Absalian’s time where the matter hasn’t been in question.
He goes on in an even tone, “The border guard patrolled this area, but they were spread thin, and there’s no incentive for Narnians to live here. There are wild beasts out here, monsters that despise all civilized creatures and murder all that venture into these lands. A few families try to move here every few years, but they’re either never heard from again, or they return inland, to the towns. Even in the camps we’ve been losing people.”
Peter’s brows draw together. “How many?” he asks, as Queen Susan shifts her bow to a better position on her shoulder, closer to her hand, easier to draw, her expression uneasy.
“Maybe a dozen every few weeks,” Tirian says, bitter with honesty. His people, his failure. “We kill all the monsters that we can find, but no one wants to go looking for them, not when we have the Calormenes to worry about. Most of them must have been Narnians once, a long time ago, but they’ve lost whatever civilization they knew. They’re just ravening killers.”
Jill, who’s moved to the other side of the altar to get a better look at the map, shudders visibly at the memory, and Tirian feels a chill descend on the circle of standing stones that has nothing at all to do with the spring snow. They’d killed the latest one only a week ago, just a few days before their ill-fated attempt at highway robbery, and it’s a less than reassuring memory. The creature had come in the night, when the camp was sleeping, descending on one of the upper level treehouses with a scream of pure rage, pieces of shattered wood falling to the ground as it ripped the roof off with beak and claws. The camp had surged instantly to life, bows and swords close to hand, and the severed head of the huldra that lived in the treehouse had barely missed Tirian when he came out with his sword in his hand. The monster had landed in the clearing, its eyes brilliant and red in its blood-spattered face, and ripped a too-brave fox apart with one blow when it had leapt forward. Tirian remembers the rank smell of the creature’s blood when his sword sunk into the cleft between wing and body, that vulnerable spot where eagle front met lion back, and the heat of it as it splattered across his face, the way it tasted in his mouth when he’d tried to moisten his chapped lips. Jill had put three arrows in its chest and still it kept on coming, leaving death and destruction behind in its wake. It had tossed Eustace aside like he was nothing; he still has the bruises. It had been Jewel and Tirian working in concert who finally killed it, the unicorn a brilliant flash of white fur, obscenely matted with blood as he drew the monster’s attention away long enough for Tirian to plunge his sword into its heart. The body count for the night’s work had been four dead, a dozen badly wounded; not atypical for a monster attack.
“Ravening killers,” Peter repeats flatly.
“Remember the bear?” Edmund murmurs to him, bending his head close to his brother’s. “On the shore, about eight years ago, Trumpkin –”
“Yeah, I remember,” Peter says, the words short and abrupt. He turns his considerable attention from Tirian to Arnau. “Have any of these monsters ever come here?”
The dwarf looks smug. “Never,” he says. “This is sacred ground. They do not dare –”
The centauress throws him an irritated look and tosses her hair before transferring her gaze to he High King. “They come sometimes, my king, but never inside the bounds of the ruins. It is the will of the gods.”
“No,” Edmund says, sounding bemused, “just the will of a wandering magician that decided the best way to get into Pete’s trousers would be to enchant Arn Abedin to protect it from –” He glances around, “– certain types of harm.”
“Ed,” Peter says. His voice is long-suffering, but it’s the first humor he’s shown yet, and Tirian feels relief for no reason he can put his finger on. It’s good to hear that warm tenor in the High King’s voice; he’d begun to think that there was nothing there but ice and steel.
“Although obviously that enchantment doesn’t do a damn thing against time or Telmarines,” Edmund goes on, blandly oblivious and grinning around the edges of it, “considering the state of the castle.”
“Two thousand years, Ed,” Susan points out, her eyes twinkling, and Edmund throws her an irritated glance. Her shy smile falls away abruptly.
“Neither one of those ever touched the treasury,” he says, ignoring her. He turns to face his brother, as if they’re having a private conversation just between the two of them. “And I know Recared never went near that, just the walls.”
“It’s the same magic that kept the little treasury at Cair Paravel safe for thirteen hundred years,” Peter says absently. “Arn Abedin’s as Narnian as Cair Paravel; there’s no reason that anything below ground would be harmed so long as the seals weren’t removed.” He snaps his fingers. “Back on subject, please. King Tirian, you said that this area was never resettled?”
“No,” Tirian says, his thoughts sharp with concern on the single point magic. There has been no true magic in Narnia since the Golden Age itself. He gathers his thoughts together and continues, “No one lived here until people started fleeing westward to get away from the Calormenes. The thought was that if the Telmarines had been afraid of the west, then there was no reason that the Calormenes wouldn’t be as well.”
“The Telmarines were also afraid of their own shadows,” Edmund points out, turning back to the map. “And they were afraid of the west for good reason: the western woods were filled with angry Narnians that were all too happy to kill any Telmarine that ventured past the Great River. Unless you’ve been doing the same –”
“The Calormenes hold the Great River,” Tirian says. They’ve certainly tried to kill any Calormene that enters the western woods, but the Calormenes never come singly, and those Narnians that remain here aren’t trained fighters; they can’t withstand the relentless Calormene soldiers that travel in troops of a dozen or more.
“It’s a figure of speech,” King Edmund drawls, “not an exact demarcation point. Look, the Telmarines were afraid of the west because they were afraid of the people that lived there, none of whom were anything like what they knew as people. They were afraid of the north because of the giants that came down every few months to do some raiding and some looting and some killing, and they were afraid of the sea because a hundred and seventy years before Caspian was born, the saltwater Narnians rose up and destroyed the Telmarine fleet, killed three thousand sailors, and gave them a damn good reason not to go anywhere near the eastern seaboard ever again. That fear got heightened by the fact that the woodland Narnians weren’t content with just killing Telmarines; they were eating them too. Unless you’ve been doing the same thing with the Calormenes, there’s no reason they’re going to be afraid of the west the way the Telmarines were, and even then it’s only been five years and the Calormenes have faced far worse in the past few millennia than a little murder and cannibalism. You’d have to do something a damn sight scarier than that.”
“We haven’t been doing any of that,” Tirian says, “that I know of.”
“Pity,” the High King says. “That kind of reputation is always good to work with.” He drums his fingers on the stone, the afternoon sunlight catching the ruby set in his signet ring and making it sparkle. Tirian stares at it, wondering how it found its way back into Peter’s possession – wondering how all the gifts, the ancient treasures of Narnia left in Caspian’s care when the kings and queens had left all those years ago, have come to be here. Like Cair Paravel itself, these should be in the hands of the Telmarines, under lock and key in Cair Paravel’s treasury, or even taken out of the country, south to Tashbaan for the Tisroc to gloat over as proof that he’s finally done what no other Tisroc has, not in two thousand years. And yet they’re here, safe in the hands of those that were destined to carry them. A miracle, perhaps.
“If it’s not fighters living in the camps,” Peter says at last, and Tirian jerks his gaze away from the glowing red heart of the ruby, “and it doesn’t seem to be, from what I’ve seen –”
“It’s not,” the centauress says. “The army of Narnia is dead or enslaved, every last one of them, from the highest general to the lowest foot soldier.”
Peter’s mouth tightens, but he finishes, “– then who’s here?”
“Most of the camps that I know of are mixed humans and non-humans,” Tirian says. “Some families, but mostly not; it’s too dangerous to live out here, like this, for parents to risk their children.”
“Our children are here,” the female faun scowls. “Better to live like outlaws than to be indoctrinated into the vile filth the Calormenes are preaching, them and those traitor Narnians who value their own skins more than they do their faith.”
Tirian spreads his hands out on the stone, feeling the map crinkle beneath his fingers, cold leaching through to his skin, and meets her eyes. “I would rather have my people alive and lying than dead and faithful,” he says.
“They are not your people any longer,” the faun corrects, her tone bitter and spiteful. She looks at Tirian with nothing but disdain in her eyes. “Now they are Calormen’s, and the Tisroc’s, and Tash’s.”
“Whatever their betrayals, they are Narnians,” Tirian snaps. “And I was a king of Narnia once.”
“You still are,” Peter says evenly from his side, then taps the map with one finger. “Arnau says that a Calormene caravan is scheduled to travel the roseroad this week to resupply the forts at Whitetree and Bearhome.”
“I’m pretty sure that was last week,” Eustace says. “Actually, I know it was last week; I was there.”
“That was a decoy,” Arnau says. “Either the Calormenes have gotten smarter – they’ve lost a dozen wagons to Narnians in this year alone – or someone set you up…King Tirian.” He sneers his disdain.
Tirian’s cheeks heat as he looks down, studying the path of the westward roseroad. Last week’s caravan had been a trap; there’s no other explanation. Calormene soldiers and Narnian traitors had been hidden inside the wagons instead of the food they’d so desperately needed, and they’d gone straight for him, Eustace, and Jill. He fingers the shallow, healing slash that stretches from the back of his neck down across his collarbone, his only wound from the short, pitched battle. Someone had told the Calormenes that he would be there.
“If this is a trap, then we’ll be ready for them,” Peter says, shoulder bumping against Tirian’s as he traces the roseroad with one finger. On the map, it vanishes into the west, beyond the border; there must have been something there once, something important enough for a road, but now there’s only woods and death. “Here,” he says, stopping and tapping a spot on the map. “This is a good spot for an ambush; Telmarine bandits used it all the time when they were still jumping the border and testing our troops. Lu?”
She leans over past Edmund and Tirian’s eyes fall immediately to the press of her breasts against her high-necked dress. He looks away quickly, fixing his attention on the map.
“It could have changed, but – the road’s narrower here, just wide enough for one wagon and two riders to pass abreast. The forest used to come up right to the sides of the road. The dryads would keep the road itself clear, but beyond that – you used to be lucky if you could see an arm’s length into the wood from the road.” Lucy glances up at Tirian and smiles. “King Marroquin used to send soldiers over into Narnia all the time from Telmar and pretend they were bandits since they weren’t carrying banners. I spent months at Arn Abedin one year fighting them off.”
“I see,” Tirian says. This is not in any of the histories he’s ever read.
“If your information’s good, then they’ll reach this point tomorrow afternoon,” Peter says, bending back down over the altar. “We’ll meet them there. Dismissed.”
“My king, a word,” Arnau says as the group begins to disperse. Tirian watches Eustace watch Peter with sullen eyes and feels the glow of warmth start in the pit of his stomach. You still are, Peter had said to him, without pretension or pity.
“What?” Peter says, looking up from the map, which he’s touching with just the tips of his fingers, running them over the thick parchment. Tirian should go – the man he will call king until the end of his days has given an order – but instead he stops at the edge of the stones and waits. There are so many things he wants to say to Peter of Narnia, and not all of them are forgive me for my crimes.
Arnau sees him, glances at him, and Peter looks over his shoulder at the motion but doesn’t seem surprised to find Tirian there. “He should not be here,” Arnau says, loudly enough for Tirian to hear. “He should be dead.”
“Regicide?” Peter says evenly, looking down at him with all seriousness in his blue eyes. “Is that what you want?”
“It’s what you promised Caspian three hundred years ago, isn’t it, your majesty? If you destroy my country, I’ll come back and kill you. And Narnia is destroyed, isn’t she?”
“Narnia isn’t destroyed until every last one of her people is dead and the Lion holds no sway over these lands,” Peter snaps, his hand abruptly falling to his sword-hilt. “You are talking treason, Arnau. Think carefully on your next words before you speak them.”
The dwarf’s glare is sharp and unforgiving, betrayed. “You were summoned to champion Narnia against the Calormenes –”
“You presume too much,” Peter says. “I am no man’s lapdog; I am the High King of Narnia. Be wary of what you assume; my duty is Narnia and Narnia alone. And when that duty is done –” He swallows, and for a moment Tirian sees the exhaustion writ clear on his handsome face, the frustration and old bitterness. It’s gone as quickly as it appears and Peter looks back down at Arnau without real emotion. “When that duty is done,” he says, “then I and my family will leave Narnia until Aslan calls upon us once more. You have a king: see that you treat him as such.”
He turns away before Arnau can answer, gaze settling on Tirian without surprise. “King Tirian,” he says. “Join me.”
“Your majesty,” Tirian says warily, inclining his head slightly and falling into step behind Peter.
The High King doesn’t say anything, just drums his fingers against his sword-hilt and paces off, threading the ruins of Arn Abedin without seeming to look around at all. He must have known this castle when it was still a castle, still more than a memory in the earth of Narnia and words upon the pages of Cair Paravel’s books.
Tirian can hear the inhabitants of the Arn Abedin camp flee for cover, crouching within homewood trees, behind the edges of wall that remain, within the branches of the forest that has overtaken the old castle. Now and then he catches the bright gleam of eyes from the shadows, a flicker of brown fur as a doe or a hound moves, the creamy expanse of a huldra’s skirt. Peter doesn’t seem to notice.
They stop at a point where the trees grow thick together, vines and undergrowth forming a seemingly impenetrable wall. Peter strides right up to it and snaps his fingers, and Tirian watches in astonishment as the vines pull aside, forming a doorway tall and wide enough for a grown man to walk through without hesitation. This is magic. This is genuine magic like nothing he’s ever seen before, like nothing Narnia has seen in a thousand – two thousand – years.
“He’s with me,” Peter says casually, though Tirian can’t see who to, and then strides forward. Tirian follows, and the vines draw closed again behind him. Tirian shivers slightly at the feeling of enclosure that suddenly overwhelms him.
They’re in a wide clearing surrounded on three sides by thick walls of vines and undergrowth; the fourth is a tall, rough wall of stone, curved slightly, with a door in its center. It’s the most complete wall that Tirian has seen yet and it reminds him of the ruins on the nameless island for some reason, the shattered white walls of Cair Paravel of old, though this wall is gray and weathered and so little like Cair Paravel that they have nothing in common but the shared value of not quite utterly destroyed. Queen Susan is sitting on a little ridge of wall that remains beside it, her bow in her hands and her head against the wall. She looks tired.
“Peter,” she says, starting to straighten.
“It’s all right, Su,” the High King says. He turns toward Tirian. “Draw your sword.”
“What?”
Peter draws Rhindon. The blade glitters coldly in the sun, runes flickering like white fire down the tang of the blade. “Draw your sword,” Peter repeats. “Unless you’re afraid.”
Tirian can’t think of any rational reason why he wouldn’t be afraid – this is the High King of Narnia, the greatest swordsman the world has ever seen, and Tirian has seen him face down charging Calormene horsemen without flinching – but he draws the longsword on his hip with a rasp of steel. His king has given him an order.
Peter notes his stance, then raises his head and his sword. “Come at me,” he invites. “Come on, Tirian.” When Tirian hesitates, it’s Peter who attacks.
Tirian slams his sword up on sheer instinct and muscle memory, but Peter’s already disengaging, sweeping Rhindon around in a butterfly cut that Tirian barely manages to block. He parries the High King’s attack and lunges for the opening Peter’s left on his right flank, but too late; it’s a feint, and Rhindon’s hilt chops into the space between neck and shoulder, forcing Tirian to his knees as he bites his lip on a shout of pain.
“Good,” Peter says, and offers him a hand up. “Again.”
Three bouts; Peter beats him in every one of them, shockingly fast and shockingly good. He doesn’t fight like anyone Tirian’s ever sparred with before – there’s a hint of Eustace’s style in it; they both fight brutally, without wasted motion or energy, but Eustace always hesitates in practice and in combat, and Peter doesn’t hesitate once, not even when he pulls his blows and merely sends Tirian sprawling instead of slicing him open. When they’ve finished, Tirian is panting and soaking wet from the snow, and Peter is grinning.
“Good,” he says again, and this time sheathes Rhindon before he pulls Tirian to his feet. “Not as bad as I expected.”
“I’m glad,” Tirian says faintly as Peter leans down to pick up his sword and hand it to him. His fingers clench spastically on the hilt as he takes it, cramped and sore. He forces the blade into the scabbard.
“Well, that was an amazing display of testosterone, Pete,” Queen Susan says, standing up and crossing the clearing to her brother. “Should I offer to best him at archery now?”
“Not unless you feel it’s necessary,” Peter says, turning his grin on her. “If you do feel so inclined, though, I’m hardly one to protest.”
Susan punches him in the arm. “If you aren’t wasting your breath on that, then, I’m assuming that Tirian would appreciate an explanation of why you just beat him around.”
“Curiosity,” Peter says. He turns to Tirian, his grin with a hint of apology in it now. “I did the same thing to Caspian once. I wanted to see –”
There’s a shout, the sound of a horn hastily muted, and Rhindon is in Peter’s hand before Tirian can put his own hand to the hilt of his sword. There’s already an arrow on the string of Queen Susan’s bow as she follows her brother’s breakneck run past the vines, which draw aside without prompting. Tirian follows, and the vines snap shut as soon as he’s clear of them.
The shouting is coming from the wide clearing that marks the camp’s heart. The gathered crowd scatters before Peter and the sword in his fist, Susan and Tirian following in his wake, and Tirian’s heart lightens at the familiar faces he sees. Narnians from Haven, at least two dozen of them, all armed and lightly armored.
“Ourente!” he calls.
The centaur pivots neatly on his hind hooves, dour expression brightening. “Your highness,” he says, relief audible in his voice, and sweeps a bow. “You are safe.”
“Sire!” Jewel cries, darting out from the knot of Haven Narnians in the center of the clearing. He bumps his nose against Tirian’s shoulder and Tirian puts his arms around Jewel’s neck, breathing in the sweet, clean scent of unicorn. “After you were taken, I feared the worst,” Jewel says against his ear. “The bounty on your head – the Calormene rabble went straight for you and the young ones.”
“They are safe,” Tirian assures him as the unicorn pulls back, nosing him to check for wounds. “We are all safe, thanks to the High King. He –”
“The High King?” Jewel says, astonished. He looks around wildly, gaze finally settling on Peter.
“What the hell is going on here?” Peter demands, Rhindon still bare in his hands.
“Who is he?” Ourente spits at Arnau, who’s facing him with his body squared away, defensive. “You and I both know that you would have no humans in Narnia if it could be avoided. What dark magic have you done, dwarf? We felt it in the earth twenty leagues away, heard the sound of a horn in the air – Narnia trembled, and I know you had something to do with it. Your proclivities are well-known.”
“We have done what should have been done five years ago when that foul ape first spoke his lies,” Arnau snarls. “If that weak bastard of a Telmarine had had the courage –”
“He is the King of Narnia and you owe him –”
“We owe him nothing!”
“Shut up!” Peter thunders, the ring of command that Tirian has never been able to muster in his voice. King Edmund and Queen Lucy slip out of the crowd to join Queen Susan at his back, and Peter tilts his head up. “Do you know me?” he asks, and his words fall upon dead silence. One of the Haven centaurs digs his hoof into the ground, and the sound is raw, shocking.
“I do not,” Ourente says flatly, looking down at him. “But I know you should not have that blade in your hand; that sword is for no one but Peter the High King himself.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Peter says.
“This is the King of Summer,” Arnau declares triumphantly. “Peter the Magnificent, High King over all Kings of Narnia! This is who you owe your allegiance to, centaur, not some trumped up Telmarine whose ancestors stole this land –”
“The King of Summer is a myth, and Peter of Narnia is dead history! Just because you bring in some golden-haired human boy and call him Peter does not mean we are all fools, son of earth, so cease your lying and your dark witchery –”
“Ourente,” Tirian calls stepping forward with his hand on Jewel’s neck. “He is the High King, and Queen Susan, King Edmund, Queen Lucy with him. I swear it on my father’s grave.”
“Majesty,” Ourente says, looking to him, “I know how badly you want to believe, but the High King cannot return to Narnia. He is barred by Aslan himself –”
“More of a myth than the King of Summer –” Arnau begins.
“There is no way to Narnia that does not come from Aslan,” Peter says. “What proof do you want that I am who I say I am?”
“Your blood,” Ourente says without hesitation. “I have not seen your coming in the stars –”
“No centaur has read the stars truly for two hundred years,” Arnau spits.
Ourente ignores him. “– but legend says that the earth of Narnia will recognize the blood of the High King or his kin.”
“So be it,” Peter says, and closes his fist around the blade of his sword.
Blood drips from his hand down to the wet earth beneath, the snow melted away around the half-burned timbers of the fire, and Narnia shivers, the earth stirring beneath their feet. Squirrels chatter wildly in alarm and birds take to the air; Tirian sees a dryad clamp her hands to her mouth and bend over, her shoulders shaking. He feels the magic rush through his veins and turns his head up, eyes slanting closed. If he had doubted the truth of Peter’s name before, he does not now. This is a country whose king has come home.
He opens his eyes. Ourente is pale and shocked with surprise. He breathes, “Your royal majesty,” and bows low. Behind him, the Haven Narnians drop to their knees. Next to Tirian, Jewel does likewise, bowing his magnificent head down to the ground. Tirian stays standing despite the fact that every nerve in his body is screaming for him to go to his knees again, bare his neck for Rhindon’s blade once more.
Peter sheathes his sword. “Get up,” he says, voice infinitely gentle. “You are welcome here, and I’m glad to have you.”
----------
Peter's threat is from Once More for the Ages.
Part One 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17
Part Two 00 | 000 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | Interlude | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-24 05:24 am (UTC)I love that Peter has gentleness in here! I feel really bad for Tirian even though he has not done a good job as king, and I'm glad that Peter defends his place as king, for the time being. Tirian seems like the kind of guy who was born into his position but was never quite cut out for it. Then again, probably everyone would look like that next to Peter.
Your exposition and world-building, as always, is fascinating.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:12 am (UTC)Tirian's done the best he can with what he has, or at least he's been doing so ever since the invasion, and he is genuinely a good guy. He's just got really horrible luck, and Narnia never expected to be menaced by any human threats. (Which is, uh, another bit of exposition/history that got cut.)
(no subject)
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Date: 2008-10-24 05:45 am (UTC)I love the subtext, subtext everywhere and the Narnian factions arguing and real magic.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:15 am (UTC)Seriously, apparently my second goal in this story is to put in loads of subtext everywhere. *grin* It amuses me.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-24 06:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-24 06:34 am (UTC)He seems a lot less unbalanced here. And am I *supposed* to like Tirian? Because I like Tirian...
You've been rereading the Keladry books, haven't you? *grin* Not that there's anything wrong wit that...
Jill had put three arrows in its chest and still it kept on coming, leaving death and destruction behind in its wake.
I thought Jill said she'd never shot anyone? Or do monsters not count?
Anyway. Fabulous :D That was definitely not death by exposition- my inner historian wants to know MOAR PLS! (which means it's just about right for fiction...)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:19 am (UTC)I have not, actually. They are back in Washington; I am two thousand miles away in Louisiana. Alas.
Jill's never shot a human. She may or may not have shot at sentient Narnians.
One should also note I cut over a thousand words of exposition/history. *sheepish* Look, at the point when Tirian is telling Peter the exact number of Narnians hidden in the woods, it's too much.
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Date: 2008-10-24 08:09 am (UTC)I thought it won't be up for another few days but when I came it was such a pleasant surprised to see it already posted! I almost squeal in glee. *cough*
Tirian/Peter is so much awesomeness! But I somehow feel that Tirian has a crush on every single one of the Pevensies. *facepalm* Maybe I think too much, but at least definitely Peter and Lucy!
And the history. Oh the history! The curiosity demon in me is screaming, "I wan to know more!" And so you know, I would never complain about too much exposition.
And the Narnians we met today are those that not-so-crazy ones, aren't they? It is nice to meet them, and I am sure the Pevensies would be, too. Even if only because those Narnians do not think the kings and queens are going to eat them when they turn their back?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-24 08:10 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:22 am (UTC)We haven't had much Tirian and Edmund/Susan/Eustace/Jill interaction yet, but oh, it will come. My goal is to put subtext everywhere.
At the point where Tirian is detailing the specifications of the Narnians hiding in the west, it is far too much. The other main bit that got caught was about Bahadur of Calormen, the prince who's ruling Narnia, but that'll come up later.
They are indeed the not-so-crazy Narnians! Or at least the non-zealot fanatic ones, anyway.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-24 10:30 am (UTC)We need to work on that pessimism though - can't do anything for your people if you're dead.
I'm glad you were able to finish this chapter since you were having so many troubles. *hugs*
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-24 06:18 pm (UTC)OH Tirian, if only you knew! I do wonder what your Peter would think of Aslan's ending Narnia in the Last Battle.
Susan! *hugs*
And Jewel! I wonder how the Pevensies will take to the unicorn. Peter rode one in movie!verse LLW. A *unicorn*! ^_^
Tirian is a woobie and Peter is totally awesome-- that is, Peter is totally Magnificent! :)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:25 am (UTC)My Narnian unicorns don't have the virginity thing -- there were two of them in my PC-era fics, Llamrei and Hengoern. Narnian unicorns are kind of badass! Although the Telmarines treat them differently than they were treated during the Golden Age, when they went to war with the army.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-24 07:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:28 am (UTC)Tirian, Eustace, and Jill ended up with the crazy Narnians because the Pevensies were with the crazy Narnians, and that's where they brought them after they rescued them from the Calormene prison; Tirian, Eustace, and Jill were originally with the Haven Narnians before they were captured.
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Date: 2008-10-24 08:28 pm (UTC)YES, the exposition was crazy amazing.......I SWEAR, THIS FIC IS ALL KINDS OF GORGEOUS. META! META! META! XD
Hahahah, I love the scene at the end where Peter gives his blood to Narnia. LOL, I am totally seeing Tirian crushing on Peter and lusting over Lucy here (what happened to Susan? Isn't she supposed to be the one renown for her beauty? The most beautiful Queen since Swanwhite?). Hahahahah, I almost want to see Tirian crushing on Edmund. But then I'm just an Edmund freak. XD
WAAAAAAAAH, THIS IS UTTERLY AMAZING!
au ;lawutr 90awue5rtlajfdsf ♥
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:31 am (UTC)Susan damn well precedes Swanwhite, if I remember correctly. But -- I think she scares Tirian a little bit; she's too distant for him to really focus on. Lucy's more earthy and real.
We will get Tirian and Edmund at some point. *grin* Like I said -- subtext, subtext everywhere!
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Date: 2008-10-24 08:42 pm (UTC)And *oh* the Narnians! And Peter! <3 (Is it just me, or is Tirian totally fangirling all the Pevensies?)
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 03:32 am (UTC)Tirian: worst luck ever. And yet...
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 04:30 am (UTC)oh huh, once more for the ages. yes! good thing you linked to it. forgot about that.
When Tirian hesitates, it’s Peter who attacks. <33! peter and tirian swordfighting yaaaaaay
TIRIAN/PETER omfg. and peter/tirian/lucy?!? I THINK SO.
HEY BABY YOU WANNA GO BACK TO MY MAGIC CLEARING?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-25 04:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-10-27 12:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 01:04 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 03:43 pm (UTC)Didn't anyone ever do a good job and are the only succesful reigns the reigns of the pevensies?
And yeah... Tirian seems to have a thing for both Lucy and Peter... Does that spell Threesome or Heroworship?
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-27 04:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 12:38 am (UTC)There's a huge amount of misdirected anger at Tirian. He is NOT to blame for all the historic crap they want to load on him, just for being Telmarine! He feels loyalty and duty towards the people, even the ones who down't own *him*; and he's brave; and honest. There's some good potential there-I just don't think he got much chance to learn confidence. His mother died when he was little right? And from what somebody replied to me previously, his dad was away fighting the giants a great deal...he'd be left in tutors' hands, or in the care of a regent. *ponders*
I imagine it must have felt extremely weird for the dryads, in particular, when Peter's blood hit the ground...they're connected to the earth, so it must have been like a direct rush. Though everyone got it to some extent.
I don't think it's so much a Peter/Tirian context as it is just...Tirian being awed and overwhelmed by meeting the kings and queens of old. Peter's the leader (and the one who might KILL him) so he gets the most attention.
I like the hints of friendship among Tirian, Eustace, and Jill-they *have* known each other for a long time, and under tough conditions. I think if it comes down to it, those two would follow Tirian, even though they *know* the Pevensies and they're Eustace's cousins...he doesn't seem much impressed, and Jill barely knows them.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-11-04 01:08 am (UTC)Tirian's no more to blame for all the crap directed at him than Caspian was in PC, but he's an easy target, and unfortunately, he's willing to take the blame just because that's his nature. He's a peacemaker -- not a pacifist, not a coward, but a peacemaker. And it's not necessarily a bad thing, except that it makes people think he's kind of a pushover. He's the kind of guy who wants everyone to have their fair say, wants to compromise -- but that doesn't always (or, uh, ever) work out.
Tirian spent a lot of time with his cousin's family; as we speak, his cousin (and heir, by the way; Vespasian is six years older than Tirian) is hitting on Peter.
There's a very good chance that Jill and Eustace would choose Tirian over the Pevensies, yes, although I'm reasonably certain they'll never have to. Although I should probably figure out what the hell Eustace and Jill are doing.
bunch o' griping, 'cause I have a headache :(
From:Re: bunch o' griping, 'cause I have a headache :(
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Date: 2009-04-16 03:39 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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