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bedlamsbard'sup, y'all. This is another piece of concept-writing, like The Midnight Man, that I should probably sit on since it has some familiar faces in it, but come on, who doesn't want to read 5K of creepy god shit in post-Dust Narnia? (Anything tagged "gods and monsters" -- this is unrelated to my tumblr tag of the same name -- is post-Dust and pre-Revelations.)
Quick note on characters: Louhanna and Sidonie are, respectively, the first and last Heads of the Royal Guard from the Golden Age. Louhanna first appears in In a Dry Month and died in the Caves of Angrisla; Sidonie appears in The Bone's Prayer and died in Cair Paravel after the White Stag incident.
You may recognize Emma's surname somewhere on this Revelations headcast. That is deliberate.
the sun king
Emma crept in through one of the small side doors that the priests used to enter the temple. She could have gone in through the front doors – they were closed for the night, but there was a smaller door inset (just large enough for a centaur or a minotaur to pass, but not a giant – not that any of those ever came to Cair Paravel anyway) that was left unlocked in case any petitioners wanted to visit – but she didn’t like the idea of going in that way, where anyone could see. She had spent several days lurking around the temple, trying to work up the courage to go in at a time when it wouldn’t be so packed with worshipers that she doubted the King of Summer would hear a prayer she got in edgewise, and that was how she had seen the side doors. They were small, discreet, designed to blend in with the walls so that a casual onlooker wouldn’t notice them. They were also not, as Emma discovered when she tried one, locked.
She pushed the small door open slowly and went inside, her soft-soled shoes silent on the polished marble floor. The door had let her in at the side of the temple, into the porticoes that surrounded the cella. She found herself looking up at the back of one of the many statues of the High King – an equestrian one, so that she was eye-level with the hind hooves of his rearing unicorn, the High King himself lost in the shadows above her. There were few lights in the temple at this hour, just enough that she could make her way forward towards the dim glow in the cella, the sharp smell of the pine-scented lamp oil making her sneeze. The sound was lost in the hugeness of the temple.
Emma moved forward slowly, going from column to column. She couldn’t see the cult statue in the cella; it was swallowed up by the shadows of the temple, lost in the dark depths of the pool that lay before it. The water sat still and quiet, seemingly bottomless. Emma took a breath and stepped forward, moving away from the shelter of the columns. There was no point in trying to hide from the King of Summer.
She touched the edge of the pool as she stepped forward, letting her fingers trail along the cool marble, over the letters engraved there. She didn’t know what they said; no one did. The rumor was that they hadn’t been cut by the stonemasons at all, but by the god himself after the temple had already been built.
There was a light in the corner of the cella, behind the cult statue. Emma kept it in the corner of her eye as she went up the center of the temple beside the pool, up towards the massive base of the cult statue. She stopped at the end of the pool and looked up, expecting to see the chryselephantine figure of the King of Summer looking down at her, sitting crowned in his throne with his sword in his hands, his shield by his feet. Emma looked up and saw…nothing. The throne was empty.
Emma drew in a sharp breath.
From the corner behind the statue, where the light was, she heard a laugh.
Her first instinct was to run, but she had come this far after all. Emma fisted her hands in her skirts and stepped forward, her heart hammering in her chest. She went around the edge of the massive plinth, towards the light in the corner, and stopped.
There was a man sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. He was barefoot, wearing trousers and a loose blue shirt open at the collar, holding an old-fashioned looking sword out in front of him as he ran a whetstone down the blade. On either side of him was a great cat – a leopard lying down at his right hand, her head raised up off her paws, and on his left a jaguar who was sitting up, looking intently at Emma. He was, Emma realized belatedly, very handsome – golden hair and blue eyes and a strong, familiar face. She had seen him before. The last time she had seen him, he’d been sitting in the now-empty throne.
He smiled at her and let the tip of the sword drop to touch the floor, setting the whetstone aside. He raised a hand to rest it lightly on the jaguar’s head, his fingers pale against the great cat’s dark fur. “Hello, Emma,” said the High King of Narnia.
Emma wasn’t aware of falling to her knees, but suddenly she was there, the marble cool even through the thick fabric of her skirts. She flattened her palms against the floor, staring at the King of Summer only a few feet away from her, and the great cats – two of the members of his famous Guard, who were preserved in art all around his temple and those of his siblings – on either side of him. She felt her mouth move silently, unable to speak.
The leopard got to her feet and padded over to Emma. Emma sat frozen, watching her approach, until the leopard was close enough to nuzzle delicately at her, her fur very soft against Emma’s cheek. She was uncomfortably aware of the sharpness of the great cat’s teeth, the muscles moving beneath her spotted fur.
“It’s all right, you know,” said the leopard. “You’re quite safe here.”
“Louhanna,” said the High King, and the leopard turned to look at him. Emma raised her head, trying and failing not to stare. He hadn’t moved since he had last spoken.
There was a tenderness in the leopard’s eyes as she looked at the High King that Emma was surprised to see. She looked at him as if he was her whole world – as if she had never seen anything like him, and never would again. As if she had lost him once and couldn’t bear to be apart from him in case it happened again.
The High King gestured with one crooked finger. She padded back to him, nuzzling her head against his arm, resting her chin on his knee. He ran his hand over her head, curving his palm over the back of her skull, stroking his thumb slowly against the base of one ear.
“Do you want to tell me why you’re here, Emma?” he asked. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. We can just sit. Do you want something to drink? Or something to eat?”
Emma pushed herself – slowly, so slowly – up off her hands, sitting back on her heels. “My mother told me not to take sweets from strangers,” she said, the words coming out before she could tell herself to stop. One didn’t tell the High King of Narnia no.
The High King’s mouth twitched a little. “So did mine. I’m afraid my brother didn’t listen to her, though.”
Emma looked down, smoothing the fabric of her skirts over her knees. “But you aren’t really a stranger, are you?” she said. “So it would be all right. Unless –” she started, as the thought struck her, “– you’re not trying to – I mean, you wouldn’t trap me or anything, would you? Like the Queen of Winter and…”
“My brother Edmund,” the High King finished for her. He stroked the leopard’s head. “I give you my word, on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill and on my sacred honor as High King over all Kings of Narnia, that nothing you eat or drink here will entrap or bind you in any way. Now: would you like tea, coffee, or something stronger?”
He sounded sincere enough. “Tea, please,” Emma said after a moment. She looked around, not really certain how the tea in question was meant to appear – would the High King snap his fingers and it would be there? Would a pot come walking out of the shadows? Would it descend from above?
When she looked up at the High King there was a low table on the floor between them, with a cushion on either side of it. Sitting on the table was a red ceramic teapot, two cups and saucers, and a plate of small cakes. Emma drew her breath in, trying to conceal her surprise.
The High King smiled a little. He stood up, sheathing his sword in a red leather scabbard, and walked over to the table, folding himself onto the cushion. He laid his sword down beside him on the floor with a slight click. The two great cats followed him, their paws soundless on the marble floor.
“Come and sit down,” he invited.
Emma got up, slowly, and went over to the table. It took her a few moments to get herself decently arranged, pulling her skirts down over her knees. The High King reached for the teapot and poured for both of them, steam purling up from the two cups. “Milk?” he asked, pushing the tray of cakes towards her. “Sugar?”
“Thank you,” Emma said shyly, putting two cakes on her plate.
The High King stirred sugar into his cup, spoon clicking quietly against the ceramic, and took what seemed to her eyes to be a cursory sip of his tea, then dug his fork into the corner of one cake and took a bite of that.
The jaguar made a soft noise and looked up at the High King, who laughed and took two saucers from – Emma didn’t see from whence he had grabbed them. He poured tea into both and set them on either side of the table, adding milk to the leopard’s and two lumps of sugar to the jaguar’s. Emma watched as the two great cats bend their heads to the saucers, long tongues delicately lapping up the tea.
Belatedly, she picked up her own tea cup, curving her hands around it as she inhaled the lightly floral scent of the tea. When she tasted it, she was surprised to find that it wasn’t as grassy as she had expected, with a rounded, fruity mouth feel that she curled her tongue thoughtfully around as she sipped. She didn’t think that she had ever tasted a tea like this before. She supposed that she would have been surprised if she had.
Conscious of the High King’s gaze on her, Emma set down the cup carefully down and applied herself to the nearest of the two cakes she had taken, which turned out to be gingery with a distinct orange taste.
“There,” said the High King after she had swallowed, “now we can conduct business like civilized people.”
Emma looked up at him in alarm. She didn’t remember anything from temple or, probably more helpfully, the stories about having to eat and drink before making a bargain with a god. “Is this business?” she said, not liking the way her voice wavered on the last syllable.
The High King tilted his head to one side, looking vaguely curious. “What do you think it is?”
“I – I don’t know,” Emma admitted. “I’ve never heard about anything like this before. And – you said it wasn’t binding.”
“I said the food and drink wasn’t,” said the High King. “I didn’t make any promises about anything else.”
Emma drew back a little, bracing to gather her legs under herself and make a dash for the door, but she saw the leopard and the jaguar switch their gazes to her. They would be on her before she got more than a few feet, she thought, dragging her down like prey. Like lionesses bringing down an antelope so that their pride leader could feast on the remains.
She looked up at the High King.
He was smiling a little, amusement dancing in his blue eyes. Emma noticed for the first time that there was no source for the light that illuminated the space around them, no lantern or candle; it seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. It seemed to be coming from the High King.
King of Summer, she thought, Sun King.
There were other names for him, but in the end it all came back to the first and greatest: High King over all Kings of Narnia.
“You cannot be bound unless you make a bargain,” said the High King, taking pity on her. “And you cannot make a bargain without offering something in return, do you understand? But if you do and I accept it, then we shall both be bound, you and I, until the sea rises and the sky falls.”
Emma made herself nod. “I understand,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry, and picked up the teacup again, wetting her lips nervously with her tongue before she drank.
The High King took another bite of his cake. “Now,” he said, “what is it that you want?”
“What do I want?” she heard herself repeat, puzzled by the question.
“Everyone wants something,” said the High King matter-of-factly. “Mortal or otherwise. The Summer Priest wants his hairline to stop receding. The King wants to sleep with his sister’s lover – and with her, for that matter. The butcher down the street from you wants her hound bitch to whelp. My sister wants to be in Castlejoy for the grape harvest. Cybele wants to snare my brother for one of her daughters. Everyone wants something.”
“What do you want?” Emma asked, then clasped a hand over her mouth, staring at him in horror.
The High King didn’t seem offended, though. He put his head to the side again, considering the question. “I want the life we should have had,” he said finally. Then he smiled a little. “Or one of them, anyway.”
Emma didn’t know what to say to that. She drank some more of her tea, taking the time to collect her thoughts. “What if someone comes in?” she asked tentatively.
“They won’t.”
Emma opened her mouth to ask how he did, but then decided that if anyone knew what they were talking about, it was probably the High King. She demolished the gingery orange cake instead, the tines of her fork – the handle was shaped like an oak leaf – ticking against the plate, and moved on to the other small cake, which turned out to be chocolate marbled with strawberry. She had eaten half of it before she had decided what to say. The whole time, the High King just sat there, drinking his tea and sharing occasional inquisitive looks with the two great cats.
“My mother has this problem,” she said finally, looking down at the remaining triangle of cake. She took the corner of it off with her fork, but didn’t raise it to her mouth.
“I don’t usually have much to do with mothers,” said the High King, with vague interest. “Parents are really more my brother’s realm.”
The King of Evening was the only one of the four who had fathered a child during his mortality, Emma remembered from temple. The priests said that he had a soft spot for parents because of it, while his siblings were much less likely to be interested.
Emma took a deep breath, a little shaken – jarred loose from her carefully constructed speech. The High King reached over, picking up the seemingly endless teapot, and poured her another cup of tea. Despite the time that had passed, steam still rose from the golden liquid.
“Go on,” he said.
Emma cupped her hands around the cup, letting its warmth leech through to her skin. “My mother has this problem,” she repeated. “Do you know – there’s a gaming house down in the Black Pearl, the Haunt –”
“I know it,” the High King said, to her surprise. At her raised eyebrows, he added, “I go out sometimes. The Cair can get a little claustrophobic.”
So you decide to go down into the inner city? Emma thought, but she didn’t voice the thought. It probably wasn’t healthy to talk back to the High King of Narnia, even if she couldn’t imagine how the overcrowded streets and pubs of Cair Paravel could be any relief from the city’s celestial namesake.
“Right,” Emma said, “well. My mother goes there sometimes – well, she used to go sometimes, and she’s been going a lot more over the past few months.” She looked down at the shimmering surface of the tea. “Every day, recently. I followed her a few times. You don’t go to those places because you’re going to win. You go because you hope you’re going to win, but they mean for you to lose.”
“The house always wins,” said the High King.
Emma nodded. “We’ve got money – my father is in shipping – but I did some digging and – and we don’t really have it any more. It’s all gone. She’s even borrowed against the house and my father’s ships.” She bit her lip against the bitterness in her voice.
“Does your father know?”
She shook her head. “Papa’s with one of his ships in – I think Calormen. My mother started after he left.”
“I can’t change someone’s nature,” the High King said, his voice gentle. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“I understand,” Emma said, though she felt disappointment flare in her chest. She had hoped it would be that easy – well, on the High King’s part; she didn’t know what he might have asked for in return. You cannot make a bargain without offering something in return. She licked her lips, focusing on the reason that she had come to the King of Summer instead of one of his siblings or a member of his Court. “I have two younger sisters and a younger brother. Most of the business belongs to Papa, but my mother has loans out on it. I’m meant to inherit it, but I – I probably won’t be able to. My sisters need dowries, and my brother needs school fees. But there’s no money.”
“Ah,” said the High King, as if her appearance here finally made sense to him, “you’re the eldest.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you want from me.” His voice was light, but steady, and he met her eyes without blinking. It was the first time that he had done so since she had seen him.
Emma felt hot, suddenly, the suffocating wet heat of a Narnian summer, humidity making sweat bead up on her skin and her brown curls start to frizz, threatening to break free of their tie. The leopard hissed softly, her ears flicking back as she turned to look at the High King.
Emma wanted to shut her eyes, wanted to stop and collect her thoughts again, but she couldn’t break the High King’s gaze. “I want my mother to stop gambling,” she said. “I want to regain our family’s fortune, without ending up in a debtor’s prison. I want my sisters and brother to have futures that won’t be injured because of what my mother has done. I want my father to come home safely to his business intact.”
The High King didn’t answer immediately. After a moment where she sat panting softly in the heat, he said, “And nothing for yourself? No rich, handsome husband to sweep you off your feet? You don’t want to catch the eye of the Queen and become one of her ladies? I think she’d quite like you.”
“I want what I said,” Emma said.
The High King sat back, stroking his close-clipped golden beard idly. Emma found herself suddenly able to look away and did so, gasping. The heat lay heavy around her; she pulled at the collar of her gown, desperate for some relief.
“Do you love your mother?”
“What?”
The High King repeated his question, looking at her curiously. He reached out with one hand to scratch the jaguar’s ears.
“Yes,” Emma said. “I love my mother. But she’s hurting my family and if there’s any chance that I can stop that, then I have to take it.” That was why she had come to the temple to pray. It was only the High King that she thought might listen to her, an elder sibling’s prayer for her family: it was too much to ask for from the Queen of Spring, what she wanted for wasn’t the justice that the King of Evening governed, and the Queen of Morning – she couldn’t trust the Queen of Morning, not for this. The Queen of Morning was a trickster, and Emma didn’t want any tricks. There was too much at risk for that.
“And what do I get in return?” the High King inquired.
This was the part that Emma hadn’t wanted to think about. “I’ll make sacrifice to you every year, until the end of my days?” she offered tentatively. Blood sacrifices weren’t common anymore, but they had been once, and everything that she had ever heard said that there was nothing that the gods liked better than fresh blood.
“No, thank you,” said the High King, surprisingly politely. “I get quite enough of that already. I don’t need one more and anyway, it would be inadequate.”
Emma shut her eyes. She didn’t know what else she had to offer that the High King could possibly want. “My life,” she said, resigned.
“Tempting,” said the High King, “but rather a waste – and a cheat, anyway, at least on your part.”
Emma opened her eyes and looked up at him indignantly. “Dying for my family wouldn’t be a cheat!”
“Who said anything about dying?” said the High King. “I don’t need to kill you to have your life for my own. I’m sure that I could find something for you to do at the Cair, if I pressed myself.”
Emma felt her eyes widen. “I –”
“But that is not what is on offer,” he went on calmly, as if he hadn’t heard her interruption. “You know, I think I shall send you to the Queen. It will be very good for you and Arianne and very amusing for me.”
“Is that the price?”
“No. It isn’t part of the bargain. It’s purely for my own amusement.” He ran one finger around the edge of his teacup, his expression thoughtful. “You’ve made your offer. I will make my counter-offer. You may agree, or you may leave. Is that fair?”
Emma nodded. These weren’t prayers anymore.
“I will do as you ask,” said the High King, “and in return you and your kin from now unto the breaking of the world will owe your allegiance to me and mine.”
“Is that –”
He held up a finger to stop her. Gold glinted from the wide ring he wore. “Do not think this a light price, Emma Dayne. My allegiance is no easy thing to bear. One day I will come to redeem it. Your blood will be bound to mine. When you speak, you speak not just for yourself, but for all your children and all of their children to come, and for your brother and sisters and their children. Now and unto the breaking of the world. And if, when I come to redeem your oath, I am refused or forsaken, I will take back everything that I have given and your family, whether it be tomorrow, or next year, or a thousand years from now. It may be never. Tell me that you understand what that means before you make your decision.”
“I understand,” Emma whispered.
“Good. Now make your choice.”
Emma looked down at her hands, but there was no choice to make, not really. She had come to the temple to make her prayers knowing that it was the last chance she had, and sat down at the High King’s table knowing that she was playing with fire.
“Yes,” she said, “you have your bargain. You’ll do as I asked and in return I will give you my allegiance and that of my descendants, now and unto the breaking of the world.”
She expected something – a thunderclap or a lion roaring, something like that – but instead the High King just nodded and sat up, picking up the sheathed sword that he had lain down by his side. Emma had to force herself not to jerk back as he drew it, tossing the scabbard aside. The leopard and the jaguar both stood up, backing a little ways away from the table, their gazes fixed on the High King.
“I’d tell you not to be afraid,” said the High King, closing his left fist around the sword-blade and dragging the blade down in one quick motion that made Emma flinch, even though he didn’t show any pain, “but you should be afraid.”
He dropped the sword on the edge of the table and leaned forward to grasp Emma’s chin in his right hand. She froze, her gaze fixed on the blood springing from the deep gash on his other hand. It looked as red as any man’s.
“You and all your blood are mine, Emma Dayne,” he said, and she flinched as he dragged his bloody hand across her cheek. It was hot, hot like summer, and his eyes were very blue as she looked up at him. As blue as a summer sky. “Now and unto the breaking of the world. So I swear upon the fire-stones upon the Secret Hill. I will keep your bargain if you and yours keep faith with me.”
He let go of her. Emma sat frozen, feeling the High King’s blood dripping down her cheek where he had touched her.
The High King glanced at the wound on his hand in mild irritation and shook it, flecks of blood spattering across the table and the front of Emma’s gown. Six drops fell on her left hand and wrist, and she flinched, because they burned like fire. The cut on the High King’s hand closed before her eyes as if it had never been, not even leaving a scar behind.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
Slowly, Emma extended her right hand. The High King reached out, his touch not ungentle, and turned it palm-up. He reached up, seemingly into thin air, and curved his fingers around the golden light that had first drawn Emma’s attention when she had entered the temple.
Even though she was watching, she didn’t see what happened. One moment the High King was holding nothing, and the next her hand was dipping under the weight of a pendant, the chain falling down after it to coil in the palm of her hand.
“That’s for you,” the High King said.
The chain had fallen on top of the pendant. Emma poked it aside and found herself staring down at a perfect miniature of the High King’s sword, caught in a circle of golden oak leaves. She raised her gaze from it to meet – and then glance away from – the High King’s eyes. “What is it for?”
“Remembrance,” he said.
He snapped his fingers. Emma jumped as the table and tea service vanished, his sword suddenly falling through empty air. The High King caught it neatly in one hand, reaching for his scabbard. “Now,” he said, “go home. Sidonie will see you back to your house.” He indicated the jaguar, who looked a little aggrieved. When he smiled, it was with an edge of sharp white teeth, a lion’s smile. “It’s not safe to be out on the streets alone at this hour. And our bargain had nothing in it about your good health.”
Emma didn’t know whether it was his smile or his words that made the shiver run down her spine. She stood up slowly, pushing the cushion she had been sitting on away. The jaguar stood up too, bending in a long stretch and extending her claws before straightening up.
“Well, let’s not waste time, shall we?” she said, and Emma blinked. The jaguar – Sidonie, the High King had said – flicked an ear at her, her expression suggesting amusement. “It will be dawn soon, and I doubt you want to be caught out by the sun.”
“Why not?” Emma asked automatically. “Can’t you be out in daylight?” She had the sudden mental image of the jaguar disappearing with the rays of the rising sun, exploding into a thousand glittering dust motes, and shook her head to clear the picture.
Sidonie gave her a withering look, and the leopard laughed. “Of course we can,” she said. “But it might raise eyebrows in your household if you were caught trying to sneak in after dawn.”
“Oh,” said Emma, but she was right. Her mother might not notice, but the servants certainly would. She looked down at the High King, who had remained seating, one hand buried in the thick fur of the leopard’s neck.
“Remember,” he said. “There is no walking away from this.”
“I understand,” Emma said. She hesitated a moment, then she said awkwardly, “Thank you.”
To her surprise, the High King said, “You’re welcome.”
He almost sounded like he meant it.
*
The sky was beginning to lighten by the time Emma and Sidonie made it back to the townhouse. Emma hesitated with her hand on the garden gate and said, a little nervously, “Will I ever see you again?”
She had been surprised to find that she quite liked the jaguar; she had been with the High King for a long time – maybe back to the Golden Age, like some of the more obscure stories claimed – and she seemed to have a never-ending collection of anecdotes. Emma had been afraid to ask if any of them – or all of them – were true.
Sidonie sat down, raised one paw to her mouth, and licked it, the same way the housecats did. “Maybe,” she said. “I don’t have to be with the High King all the time, since I suspect you don’t want to see His Majesty again.”
Emma shuddered, quite without meaning to, and Sidonie nodded as if that was what she had been expecting the whole time. “Maybe,” she said again, then got up and went trotting off into the early morning mists that had come in off the sea. She was gone an instant later, as if she had never been.
The house was still quiet as Emma made her way upstairs to her room. She locked her bedroom door behind her and went to sit down at her vanity, taking the pendant out of her pocket and looking at it more closely. Part of her wanted to put it in her jewelry box and forget about it, but she didn’t think that that was what the High King had intended when he gave it to her. She found the clasp on the chain and undid it, pushing her hair out of her way as she raised the necklace to her neck. She looked up at the mirror for the first time.
The necklace and chain slid out of her hands and fell to the floor.
Emma almost knocked over her chair scrambling for the water basin, which was on a stand near the door. She splashed water hastily over her face, scrubbing at it with her washcloth, watching the dried flakes of the High King’s blood fall into the basin, until all the water there was a thin rusty color. She ran the washcloth over her face one last time, then touched her smooth cheeks and went back to the vanity, meaning to pick up the fallen necklace. But she couldn’t seem to move, frozen there in front of the vanity.
In the mirror, as clear as day, she could still see the handprint that the High King had left on her now freshly scrubbed face.
Quick note on characters: Louhanna and Sidonie are, respectively, the first and last Heads of the Royal Guard from the Golden Age. Louhanna first appears in In a Dry Month and died in the Caves of Angrisla; Sidonie appears in The Bone's Prayer and died in Cair Paravel after the White Stag incident.
You may recognize Emma's surname somewhere on this Revelations headcast. That is deliberate.
the sun king
Emma crept in through one of the small side doors that the priests used to enter the temple. She could have gone in through the front doors – they were closed for the night, but there was a smaller door inset (just large enough for a centaur or a minotaur to pass, but not a giant – not that any of those ever came to Cair Paravel anyway) that was left unlocked in case any petitioners wanted to visit – but she didn’t like the idea of going in that way, where anyone could see. She had spent several days lurking around the temple, trying to work up the courage to go in at a time when it wouldn’t be so packed with worshipers that she doubted the King of Summer would hear a prayer she got in edgewise, and that was how she had seen the side doors. They were small, discreet, designed to blend in with the walls so that a casual onlooker wouldn’t notice them. They were also not, as Emma discovered when she tried one, locked.
She pushed the small door open slowly and went inside, her soft-soled shoes silent on the polished marble floor. The door had let her in at the side of the temple, into the porticoes that surrounded the cella. She found herself looking up at the back of one of the many statues of the High King – an equestrian one, so that she was eye-level with the hind hooves of his rearing unicorn, the High King himself lost in the shadows above her. There were few lights in the temple at this hour, just enough that she could make her way forward towards the dim glow in the cella, the sharp smell of the pine-scented lamp oil making her sneeze. The sound was lost in the hugeness of the temple.
Emma moved forward slowly, going from column to column. She couldn’t see the cult statue in the cella; it was swallowed up by the shadows of the temple, lost in the dark depths of the pool that lay before it. The water sat still and quiet, seemingly bottomless. Emma took a breath and stepped forward, moving away from the shelter of the columns. There was no point in trying to hide from the King of Summer.
She touched the edge of the pool as she stepped forward, letting her fingers trail along the cool marble, over the letters engraved there. She didn’t know what they said; no one did. The rumor was that they hadn’t been cut by the stonemasons at all, but by the god himself after the temple had already been built.
There was a light in the corner of the cella, behind the cult statue. Emma kept it in the corner of her eye as she went up the center of the temple beside the pool, up towards the massive base of the cult statue. She stopped at the end of the pool and looked up, expecting to see the chryselephantine figure of the King of Summer looking down at her, sitting crowned in his throne with his sword in his hands, his shield by his feet. Emma looked up and saw…nothing. The throne was empty.
Emma drew in a sharp breath.
From the corner behind the statue, where the light was, she heard a laugh.
Her first instinct was to run, but she had come this far after all. Emma fisted her hands in her skirts and stepped forward, her heart hammering in her chest. She went around the edge of the massive plinth, towards the light in the corner, and stopped.
There was a man sitting on the floor, his back against the wall. He was barefoot, wearing trousers and a loose blue shirt open at the collar, holding an old-fashioned looking sword out in front of him as he ran a whetstone down the blade. On either side of him was a great cat – a leopard lying down at his right hand, her head raised up off her paws, and on his left a jaguar who was sitting up, looking intently at Emma. He was, Emma realized belatedly, very handsome – golden hair and blue eyes and a strong, familiar face. She had seen him before. The last time she had seen him, he’d been sitting in the now-empty throne.
He smiled at her and let the tip of the sword drop to touch the floor, setting the whetstone aside. He raised a hand to rest it lightly on the jaguar’s head, his fingers pale against the great cat’s dark fur. “Hello, Emma,” said the High King of Narnia.
Emma wasn’t aware of falling to her knees, but suddenly she was there, the marble cool even through the thick fabric of her skirts. She flattened her palms against the floor, staring at the King of Summer only a few feet away from her, and the great cats – two of the members of his famous Guard, who were preserved in art all around his temple and those of his siblings – on either side of him. She felt her mouth move silently, unable to speak.
The leopard got to her feet and padded over to Emma. Emma sat frozen, watching her approach, until the leopard was close enough to nuzzle delicately at her, her fur very soft against Emma’s cheek. She was uncomfortably aware of the sharpness of the great cat’s teeth, the muscles moving beneath her spotted fur.
“It’s all right, you know,” said the leopard. “You’re quite safe here.”
“Louhanna,” said the High King, and the leopard turned to look at him. Emma raised her head, trying and failing not to stare. He hadn’t moved since he had last spoken.
There was a tenderness in the leopard’s eyes as she looked at the High King that Emma was surprised to see. She looked at him as if he was her whole world – as if she had never seen anything like him, and never would again. As if she had lost him once and couldn’t bear to be apart from him in case it happened again.
The High King gestured with one crooked finger. She padded back to him, nuzzling her head against his arm, resting her chin on his knee. He ran his hand over her head, curving his palm over the back of her skull, stroking his thumb slowly against the base of one ear.
“Do you want to tell me why you’re here, Emma?” he asked. “You don’t have to if you don’t want to. We can just sit. Do you want something to drink? Or something to eat?”
Emma pushed herself – slowly, so slowly – up off her hands, sitting back on her heels. “My mother told me not to take sweets from strangers,” she said, the words coming out before she could tell herself to stop. One didn’t tell the High King of Narnia no.
The High King’s mouth twitched a little. “So did mine. I’m afraid my brother didn’t listen to her, though.”
Emma looked down, smoothing the fabric of her skirts over her knees. “But you aren’t really a stranger, are you?” she said. “So it would be all right. Unless –” she started, as the thought struck her, “– you’re not trying to – I mean, you wouldn’t trap me or anything, would you? Like the Queen of Winter and…”
“My brother Edmund,” the High King finished for her. He stroked the leopard’s head. “I give you my word, on the fire-stones on the Secret Hill and on my sacred honor as High King over all Kings of Narnia, that nothing you eat or drink here will entrap or bind you in any way. Now: would you like tea, coffee, or something stronger?”
He sounded sincere enough. “Tea, please,” Emma said after a moment. She looked around, not really certain how the tea in question was meant to appear – would the High King snap his fingers and it would be there? Would a pot come walking out of the shadows? Would it descend from above?
When she looked up at the High King there was a low table on the floor between them, with a cushion on either side of it. Sitting on the table was a red ceramic teapot, two cups and saucers, and a plate of small cakes. Emma drew her breath in, trying to conceal her surprise.
The High King smiled a little. He stood up, sheathing his sword in a red leather scabbard, and walked over to the table, folding himself onto the cushion. He laid his sword down beside him on the floor with a slight click. The two great cats followed him, their paws soundless on the marble floor.
“Come and sit down,” he invited.
Emma got up, slowly, and went over to the table. It took her a few moments to get herself decently arranged, pulling her skirts down over her knees. The High King reached for the teapot and poured for both of them, steam purling up from the two cups. “Milk?” he asked, pushing the tray of cakes towards her. “Sugar?”
“Thank you,” Emma said shyly, putting two cakes on her plate.
The High King stirred sugar into his cup, spoon clicking quietly against the ceramic, and took what seemed to her eyes to be a cursory sip of his tea, then dug his fork into the corner of one cake and took a bite of that.
The jaguar made a soft noise and looked up at the High King, who laughed and took two saucers from – Emma didn’t see from whence he had grabbed them. He poured tea into both and set them on either side of the table, adding milk to the leopard’s and two lumps of sugar to the jaguar’s. Emma watched as the two great cats bend their heads to the saucers, long tongues delicately lapping up the tea.
Belatedly, she picked up her own tea cup, curving her hands around it as she inhaled the lightly floral scent of the tea. When she tasted it, she was surprised to find that it wasn’t as grassy as she had expected, with a rounded, fruity mouth feel that she curled her tongue thoughtfully around as she sipped. She didn’t think that she had ever tasted a tea like this before. She supposed that she would have been surprised if she had.
Conscious of the High King’s gaze on her, Emma set down the cup carefully down and applied herself to the nearest of the two cakes she had taken, which turned out to be gingery with a distinct orange taste.
“There,” said the High King after she had swallowed, “now we can conduct business like civilized people.”
Emma looked up at him in alarm. She didn’t remember anything from temple or, probably more helpfully, the stories about having to eat and drink before making a bargain with a god. “Is this business?” she said, not liking the way her voice wavered on the last syllable.
The High King tilted his head to one side, looking vaguely curious. “What do you think it is?”
“I – I don’t know,” Emma admitted. “I’ve never heard about anything like this before. And – you said it wasn’t binding.”
“I said the food and drink wasn’t,” said the High King. “I didn’t make any promises about anything else.”
Emma drew back a little, bracing to gather her legs under herself and make a dash for the door, but she saw the leopard and the jaguar switch their gazes to her. They would be on her before she got more than a few feet, she thought, dragging her down like prey. Like lionesses bringing down an antelope so that their pride leader could feast on the remains.
She looked up at the High King.
He was smiling a little, amusement dancing in his blue eyes. Emma noticed for the first time that there was no source for the light that illuminated the space around them, no lantern or candle; it seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. It seemed to be coming from the High King.
King of Summer, she thought, Sun King.
There were other names for him, but in the end it all came back to the first and greatest: High King over all Kings of Narnia.
“You cannot be bound unless you make a bargain,” said the High King, taking pity on her. “And you cannot make a bargain without offering something in return, do you understand? But if you do and I accept it, then we shall both be bound, you and I, until the sea rises and the sky falls.”
Emma made herself nod. “I understand,” she said, her mouth suddenly dry, and picked up the teacup again, wetting her lips nervously with her tongue before she drank.
The High King took another bite of his cake. “Now,” he said, “what is it that you want?”
“What do I want?” she heard herself repeat, puzzled by the question.
“Everyone wants something,” said the High King matter-of-factly. “Mortal or otherwise. The Summer Priest wants his hairline to stop receding. The King wants to sleep with his sister’s lover – and with her, for that matter. The butcher down the street from you wants her hound bitch to whelp. My sister wants to be in Castlejoy for the grape harvest. Cybele wants to snare my brother for one of her daughters. Everyone wants something.”
“What do you want?” Emma asked, then clasped a hand over her mouth, staring at him in horror.
The High King didn’t seem offended, though. He put his head to the side again, considering the question. “I want the life we should have had,” he said finally. Then he smiled a little. “Or one of them, anyway.”
Emma didn’t know what to say to that. She drank some more of her tea, taking the time to collect her thoughts. “What if someone comes in?” she asked tentatively.
“They won’t.”
Emma opened her mouth to ask how he did, but then decided that if anyone knew what they were talking about, it was probably the High King. She demolished the gingery orange cake instead, the tines of her fork – the handle was shaped like an oak leaf – ticking against the plate, and moved on to the other small cake, which turned out to be chocolate marbled with strawberry. She had eaten half of it before she had decided what to say. The whole time, the High King just sat there, drinking his tea and sharing occasional inquisitive looks with the two great cats.
“My mother has this problem,” she said finally, looking down at the remaining triangle of cake. She took the corner of it off with her fork, but didn’t raise it to her mouth.
“I don’t usually have much to do with mothers,” said the High King, with vague interest. “Parents are really more my brother’s realm.”
The King of Evening was the only one of the four who had fathered a child during his mortality, Emma remembered from temple. The priests said that he had a soft spot for parents because of it, while his siblings were much less likely to be interested.
Emma took a deep breath, a little shaken – jarred loose from her carefully constructed speech. The High King reached over, picking up the seemingly endless teapot, and poured her another cup of tea. Despite the time that had passed, steam still rose from the golden liquid.
“Go on,” he said.
Emma cupped her hands around the cup, letting its warmth leech through to her skin. “My mother has this problem,” she repeated. “Do you know – there’s a gaming house down in the Black Pearl, the Haunt –”
“I know it,” the High King said, to her surprise. At her raised eyebrows, he added, “I go out sometimes. The Cair can get a little claustrophobic.”
So you decide to go down into the inner city? Emma thought, but she didn’t voice the thought. It probably wasn’t healthy to talk back to the High King of Narnia, even if she couldn’t imagine how the overcrowded streets and pubs of Cair Paravel could be any relief from the city’s celestial namesake.
“Right,” Emma said, “well. My mother goes there sometimes – well, she used to go sometimes, and she’s been going a lot more over the past few months.” She looked down at the shimmering surface of the tea. “Every day, recently. I followed her a few times. You don’t go to those places because you’re going to win. You go because you hope you’re going to win, but they mean for you to lose.”
“The house always wins,” said the High King.
Emma nodded. “We’ve got money – my father is in shipping – but I did some digging and – and we don’t really have it any more. It’s all gone. She’s even borrowed against the house and my father’s ships.” She bit her lip against the bitterness in her voice.
“Does your father know?”
She shook her head. “Papa’s with one of his ships in – I think Calormen. My mother started after he left.”
“I can’t change someone’s nature,” the High King said, his voice gentle. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“I understand,” Emma said, though she felt disappointment flare in her chest. She had hoped it would be that easy – well, on the High King’s part; she didn’t know what he might have asked for in return. You cannot make a bargain without offering something in return. She licked her lips, focusing on the reason that she had come to the King of Summer instead of one of his siblings or a member of his Court. “I have two younger sisters and a younger brother. Most of the business belongs to Papa, but my mother has loans out on it. I’m meant to inherit it, but I – I probably won’t be able to. My sisters need dowries, and my brother needs school fees. But there’s no money.”
“Ah,” said the High King, as if her appearance here finally made sense to him, “you’re the eldest.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me what you want from me.” His voice was light, but steady, and he met her eyes without blinking. It was the first time that he had done so since she had seen him.
Emma felt hot, suddenly, the suffocating wet heat of a Narnian summer, humidity making sweat bead up on her skin and her brown curls start to frizz, threatening to break free of their tie. The leopard hissed softly, her ears flicking back as she turned to look at the High King.
Emma wanted to shut her eyes, wanted to stop and collect her thoughts again, but she couldn’t break the High King’s gaze. “I want my mother to stop gambling,” she said. “I want to regain our family’s fortune, without ending up in a debtor’s prison. I want my sisters and brother to have futures that won’t be injured because of what my mother has done. I want my father to come home safely to his business intact.”
The High King didn’t answer immediately. After a moment where she sat panting softly in the heat, he said, “And nothing for yourself? No rich, handsome husband to sweep you off your feet? You don’t want to catch the eye of the Queen and become one of her ladies? I think she’d quite like you.”
“I want what I said,” Emma said.
The High King sat back, stroking his close-clipped golden beard idly. Emma found herself suddenly able to look away and did so, gasping. The heat lay heavy around her; she pulled at the collar of her gown, desperate for some relief.
“Do you love your mother?”
“What?”
The High King repeated his question, looking at her curiously. He reached out with one hand to scratch the jaguar’s ears.
“Yes,” Emma said. “I love my mother. But she’s hurting my family and if there’s any chance that I can stop that, then I have to take it.” That was why she had come to the temple to pray. It was only the High King that she thought might listen to her, an elder sibling’s prayer for her family: it was too much to ask for from the Queen of Spring, what she wanted for wasn’t the justice that the King of Evening governed, and the Queen of Morning – she couldn’t trust the Queen of Morning, not for this. The Queen of Morning was a trickster, and Emma didn’t want any tricks. There was too much at risk for that.
“And what do I get in return?” the High King inquired.
This was the part that Emma hadn’t wanted to think about. “I’ll make sacrifice to you every year, until the end of my days?” she offered tentatively. Blood sacrifices weren’t common anymore, but they had been once, and everything that she had ever heard said that there was nothing that the gods liked better than fresh blood.
“No, thank you,” said the High King, surprisingly politely. “I get quite enough of that already. I don’t need one more and anyway, it would be inadequate.”
Emma shut her eyes. She didn’t know what else she had to offer that the High King could possibly want. “My life,” she said, resigned.
“Tempting,” said the High King, “but rather a waste – and a cheat, anyway, at least on your part.”
Emma opened her eyes and looked up at him indignantly. “Dying for my family wouldn’t be a cheat!”
“Who said anything about dying?” said the High King. “I don’t need to kill you to have your life for my own. I’m sure that I could find something for you to do at the Cair, if I pressed myself.”
Emma felt her eyes widen. “I –”
“But that is not what is on offer,” he went on calmly, as if he hadn’t heard her interruption. “You know, I think I shall send you to the Queen. It will be very good for you and Arianne and very amusing for me.”
“Is that the price?”
“No. It isn’t part of the bargain. It’s purely for my own amusement.” He ran one finger around the edge of his teacup, his expression thoughtful. “You’ve made your offer. I will make my counter-offer. You may agree, or you may leave. Is that fair?”
Emma nodded. These weren’t prayers anymore.
“I will do as you ask,” said the High King, “and in return you and your kin from now unto the breaking of the world will owe your allegiance to me and mine.”
“Is that –”
He held up a finger to stop her. Gold glinted from the wide ring he wore. “Do not think this a light price, Emma Dayne. My allegiance is no easy thing to bear. One day I will come to redeem it. Your blood will be bound to mine. When you speak, you speak not just for yourself, but for all your children and all of their children to come, and for your brother and sisters and their children. Now and unto the breaking of the world. And if, when I come to redeem your oath, I am refused or forsaken, I will take back everything that I have given and your family, whether it be tomorrow, or next year, or a thousand years from now. It may be never. Tell me that you understand what that means before you make your decision.”
“I understand,” Emma whispered.
“Good. Now make your choice.”
Emma looked down at her hands, but there was no choice to make, not really. She had come to the temple to make her prayers knowing that it was the last chance she had, and sat down at the High King’s table knowing that she was playing with fire.
“Yes,” she said, “you have your bargain. You’ll do as I asked and in return I will give you my allegiance and that of my descendants, now and unto the breaking of the world.”
She expected something – a thunderclap or a lion roaring, something like that – but instead the High King just nodded and sat up, picking up the sheathed sword that he had lain down by his side. Emma had to force herself not to jerk back as he drew it, tossing the scabbard aside. The leopard and the jaguar both stood up, backing a little ways away from the table, their gazes fixed on the High King.
“I’d tell you not to be afraid,” said the High King, closing his left fist around the sword-blade and dragging the blade down in one quick motion that made Emma flinch, even though he didn’t show any pain, “but you should be afraid.”
He dropped the sword on the edge of the table and leaned forward to grasp Emma’s chin in his right hand. She froze, her gaze fixed on the blood springing from the deep gash on his other hand. It looked as red as any man’s.
“You and all your blood are mine, Emma Dayne,” he said, and she flinched as he dragged his bloody hand across her cheek. It was hot, hot like summer, and his eyes were very blue as she looked up at him. As blue as a summer sky. “Now and unto the breaking of the world. So I swear upon the fire-stones upon the Secret Hill. I will keep your bargain if you and yours keep faith with me.”
He let go of her. Emma sat frozen, feeling the High King’s blood dripping down her cheek where he had touched her.
The High King glanced at the wound on his hand in mild irritation and shook it, flecks of blood spattering across the table and the front of Emma’s gown. Six drops fell on her left hand and wrist, and she flinched, because they burned like fire. The cut on the High King’s hand closed before her eyes as if it had never been, not even leaving a scar behind.
“Give me your hand,” he said.
Slowly, Emma extended her right hand. The High King reached out, his touch not ungentle, and turned it palm-up. He reached up, seemingly into thin air, and curved his fingers around the golden light that had first drawn Emma’s attention when she had entered the temple.
Even though she was watching, she didn’t see what happened. One moment the High King was holding nothing, and the next her hand was dipping under the weight of a pendant, the chain falling down after it to coil in the palm of her hand.
“That’s for you,” the High King said.
The chain had fallen on top of the pendant. Emma poked it aside and found herself staring down at a perfect miniature of the High King’s sword, caught in a circle of golden oak leaves. She raised her gaze from it to meet – and then glance away from – the High King’s eyes. “What is it for?”
“Remembrance,” he said.
He snapped his fingers. Emma jumped as the table and tea service vanished, his sword suddenly falling through empty air. The High King caught it neatly in one hand, reaching for his scabbard. “Now,” he said, “go home. Sidonie will see you back to your house.” He indicated the jaguar, who looked a little aggrieved. When he smiled, it was with an edge of sharp white teeth, a lion’s smile. “It’s not safe to be out on the streets alone at this hour. And our bargain had nothing in it about your good health.”
Emma didn’t know whether it was his smile or his words that made the shiver run down her spine. She stood up slowly, pushing the cushion she had been sitting on away. The jaguar stood up too, bending in a long stretch and extending her claws before straightening up.
“Well, let’s not waste time, shall we?” she said, and Emma blinked. The jaguar – Sidonie, the High King had said – flicked an ear at her, her expression suggesting amusement. “It will be dawn soon, and I doubt you want to be caught out by the sun.”
“Why not?” Emma asked automatically. “Can’t you be out in daylight?” She had the sudden mental image of the jaguar disappearing with the rays of the rising sun, exploding into a thousand glittering dust motes, and shook her head to clear the picture.
Sidonie gave her a withering look, and the leopard laughed. “Of course we can,” she said. “But it might raise eyebrows in your household if you were caught trying to sneak in after dawn.”
“Oh,” said Emma, but she was right. Her mother might not notice, but the servants certainly would. She looked down at the High King, who had remained seating, one hand buried in the thick fur of the leopard’s neck.
“Remember,” he said. “There is no walking away from this.”
“I understand,” Emma said. She hesitated a moment, then she said awkwardly, “Thank you.”
To her surprise, the High King said, “You’re welcome.”
He almost sounded like he meant it.
*
The sky was beginning to lighten by the time Emma and Sidonie made it back to the townhouse. Emma hesitated with her hand on the garden gate and said, a little nervously, “Will I ever see you again?”
She had been surprised to find that she quite liked the jaguar; she had been with the High King for a long time – maybe back to the Golden Age, like some of the more obscure stories claimed – and she seemed to have a never-ending collection of anecdotes. Emma had been afraid to ask if any of them – or all of them – were true.
Sidonie sat down, raised one paw to her mouth, and licked it, the same way the housecats did. “Maybe,” she said. “I don’t have to be with the High King all the time, since I suspect you don’t want to see His Majesty again.”
Emma shuddered, quite without meaning to, and Sidonie nodded as if that was what she had been expecting the whole time. “Maybe,” she said again, then got up and went trotting off into the early morning mists that had come in off the sea. She was gone an instant later, as if she had never been.
The house was still quiet as Emma made her way upstairs to her room. She locked her bedroom door behind her and went to sit down at her vanity, taking the pendant out of her pocket and looking at it more closely. Part of her wanted to put it in her jewelry box and forget about it, but she didn’t think that that was what the High King had intended when he gave it to her. She found the clasp on the chain and undid it, pushing her hair out of her way as she raised the necklace to her neck. She looked up at the mirror for the first time.
The necklace and chain slid out of her hands and fell to the floor.
Emma almost knocked over her chair scrambling for the water basin, which was on a stand near the door. She splashed water hastily over her face, scrubbing at it with her washcloth, watching the dried flakes of the High King’s blood fall into the basin, until all the water there was a thin rusty color. She ran the washcloth over her face one last time, then touched her smooth cheeks and went back to the vanity, meaning to pick up the fallen necklace. But she couldn’t seem to move, frozen there in front of the vanity.
In the mirror, as clear as day, she could still see the handprint that the High King had left on her now freshly scrubbed face.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-01 08:21 pm (UTC)(PS the headcast link goes to Bone's Prayer)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-01 08:46 pm (UTC)And the link is fixed, thank you!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-01 11:54 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-02 12:02 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-02 01:06 am (UTC)And who has the pendant?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-02 04:18 pm (UTC)I'm not sure. I don't think Torrhen does, so probably a relative. (Rev is several centuries on from this, so there are probably quite a few relatives.)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-02 05:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-04 05:49 pm (UTC)Peter's a god now, he can play a long game if he wants...in this case, he doesn't necessarily know how it's going to play out, but he knows he's definitely getting the better part of this bargain.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-03-30 05:50 pm (UTC)~ Laughing Collie