Water Witch

O0O0O0O

She leaned in low over the neck of her mare, and wondered why it seemed so imperative to gallop when she did not even know where they were going.

The ground beneath Rya's hooves was hard and slippery, made dangerous by frost. If the mare were to stumble . . . but still, she could not persuade herself that it was not necessary to run, run, run.

The winter was closing in. Not a winter such as they had ever seen before, but a winter such as they would never see again . . . or perhaps see for all time.

But no. Not that. He had been quite clear about that when she had tried to turn back earlier that day, and found her way blocked by an angry Lion the size of a small cottage.

"Why do you defy me, daughter?" he had roared. She had seen him gentle as a newborn lamb, with her little brother climbing all over him, nestling safe between the velvet paws. She had seen him flay skin from the backs of the monsters who had set upon her first hunting party that day, so very many years ago . . . she had been such a child, then. But looking on his face at that moment, seeing his wrath in the face of her defiance, she felt ever so much worse than a child.

"My home," she had pleaded, "my home, I must go back, I must warn them—"

"You must press on or your home will be lost forever." His tail had whipped his flanks with dangerous impatience. "Do you think I do not know? Do you think any of this is hidden from Me? I know how it must be, but it will not be so if you do not do as I say."

"And it will save them? You promise it will save them?"

"I make no promises."

"But— my mother, my brother . . . and Narnia! What of Narnia?"

"What of Narnia?" His eyes seemed to see through her, to pierce every pretence and expose her indecision for what it truly was. "Is it ever other than my own?"

Never.

She had not said it, but he knew she thought it.

"Only please . . . please, what is to become of it?" she had asked. Please, she hoped, please give me any excuse, any reason not to go on . . .

"Narnia will sleep." He was gentle even in reproof. "Then it will waken."

"Yes, but— when? For how long?"

"Daughter, do you really need to know?"

"No, I— I don't suppose, only . . . please, please, will I be there to see it?"

There were no secrets from him, no questions he could not answer— only ones he did not choose to. He chose to answer this. He stared at her, and his reply was both a weight in her chest and lightness in her head.

"You will be there. You will see it. But not as you imagine. Now," and there was to be no defying that command, she could not have kept herself from obedience even had she still wanted to, "GO."

And so they went, she and Rya, fleeing like fugitives from their own home. On they went, ever farther North, ever deeper into the cold. She had thought Rya a wonderful thing before today, but now she knew it to be so. The mare was relentless, never flagging, never stopping. Whether it was because she expected rest to come or because she knew there would not be any rest, ever, for them . . .

It didn't bear thinking.

And then, suddenly, it was done. As surely as something had laid a hook in her belly, drawing them on, that something was released and they stood still, two shaking, silent shadows of what they had once been. Young pine trees rose around her. The water before her was clear as glass. Ice was edging it even now.

The winter was almost there.

Something about that water . . .

Rya felt it too. She stepped forward, nose extended. Smelling it.

"This is the place. This is where it ends."

And then it PULLED, pulled them in, whatever it was they could not resist. It was cold, so cold, like knives stabbing all over, all at once, and then . . . dark.

O0O0O0O

Peter stood, and swayed, and thought of dying.

He wondered why he wasn't dead. He wondered how soon he might be. He knew for sure that he would be, and not, he thought, too long from now. He cursed himself for a feeble coward to wish that death might come quickly. Then he looked down at his side, where blood flowed far too freely, and suddenly all the world around him was dim and far off. A howling wind seemed to blow through his head, the ground gave way and Peter found he was suddenly just not there, anymore— his body fell, darkness closed in, and his mind drifted free of the battle that raged all around.

It wasn't supposed to go like this. When the petition for Narnian aid had come, it had seemed a simple enough thing to marshal troops and ride to the North; the ruler of the borderland, he who had enlisted Peter's help, had promised that the Narnian forces would be providing an invaluable service by freeing many people from the tyrannical rule of a despot.

What the border ruler had not mentioned — what Peter had not learned until it was too late — was that the tyranny was greatly exaggerated and the people in question actually didn't mind a bit of despotism, provided the despot managed to keep them all healthy and safe and generally thriving in their own way. Nor had the border ruler mentioned that the despot in question had in his possession a rich trove of mining land, which the border ruler had for years longed to call his own.

Too late Peter learned that Narnia had been made a pawn in a much bigger, uglier, older battle than he had been aware existed. Too late did he realise this, and so was forced to see his own people sell their lives dearly for a cause that was neither noble or even their own.

Peter had for days now longed for nothing more than to call for retreat. Let the quarrelling rulers sort this out amongst themselves, if they cared to. Let the Narnians only go home, and let them — oh, please, let them — forgive him for his part in all this.

But there were battles yet all around them, with no sure route of escape. And Peter, truth be told, feared the retaliatory anger of the arrogant ruler who had summoned him there. And so Peter had done what he could, casting aside his marked shield in favour of a plain wooden one that bore no device to identify him. Thusly equipped he had joined the troops that day on the field, and there had caught a deep blow from one opponent which had opened his side and knocked the king from his horse. Tarva, left riderless, had taken it upon himself to see an end to the one who had struck Peter— one brutal, precise blow of his hoof had felled the attacker, who did not rise again.

Now Peter, all these memories clouding what should have been the soundest sleep he'd had in a month, lay flat on the blood-soaked field with Tarva mounting a ruthless guard over him. And there he stayed, unaware, until both sides fell back, leaving behind only those who could no more rise— and Tarva, who struck out at any who dared approach him, until at last the Narnians decided he was going to be more trouble than he was worth, and took themselves back to camp.

Only as night fell did Peter wake once more. The wound in his side had stilled the worst of its flow, and though he was weak, and pale as death, he was able to take hold of Tarva's bridle when the horse lowered his head to nuzzle the King.

"Back," Peter gasped, "back," and Tarva obliged, stepping back and lifting his head, dragging the King to his feet.

For a moment Peter thought he would not be able to stay on them. But then his horse was beside him, bearing him up, and Peter leaned heavily on Tarva until his head settled once more.

There were no humans standing on the field save Peter himself, but there was activity aplenty. Birds descended to feast and pick small, shiny treasures from the armour of those who had fallen. Peter, seeing this by the light of a full moon, found it was beyond him even to feel revulsion at this; he had already felt revulsion enough at the betrayal his people had suffered since their arrival. Now he cared only to find the encampment, and determine if there was a safe way for them to retreat. If that was the last thing he did, he would consider his final hours well-spent.

"Tarva," he rasped, and Tarva's ears swivelled back in anticipation, "forward."

The stallion picked his footing as daintily as a maid making her first curtsey at court. He stepped with exquisite care, deeply conscious of how much of Peter's weight he bore, and Peter, leaning heavily on the horse, was glad of it. He needed first to reach the creek and wash his side; then he would return to camp.

The creek, which cut its own path through the rocky hillside, was cold and welcoming. Peter dropped to his knees beside it, stripped off stiffened, blood-soaked gauntlets and plunged his hands into the rushing waters. He first rinsed his hands, then raised water to his face and drank, lapping it from his hands with such urgency that he might have been a week in the desert. Then, in the act of bending to scoop up more, he froze— for the sound of drinking went on.

"Who goes there?" he demanded. His voice broke twice before he got the whole query out, and by that time he had his answer already— a hulking, dark shape on all fours had sped along the banks in answer to his challenge.

Peter groped for his sword, found his strength unequal to the task of drawing it, and simply laboured to raise his shield. Yet ere he could do so the thing spoke— a breathless, galloping sort of voice it had, and Peter knew at once what it was.

"Your Majesty!" the Dog panted. "Your Majesty is alive!"

"After a fashion," Peter said, and fell to coughing. "Which— who are you? I'm sorry, it's just so dark . . ."

"Oh yes, yes, of course— rum little noses you humans have, begging your Majesty's pardon, I'm sure. No need of daylight when you've a nose like mine, though— it's Two Shakes, Sire. From the stable pack, you know."

Peter did know. Cair Paravel had once had a single Hound pack, but when some of the Hounds had confessed their preference for life within the Cair and nearer the people they best loved, the pack had divided. Now the members of the castle pack were back at the Cair, while the stable pack had come north and made many futile sacrifices for the sake of a kingdom that wasn't even theirs.

"Two Shakes," Peter murmured. "You've been back to the camp, then?"

"Oh, yes, Sire. But you must come! Come, come, and they'll be so glad to find you well!"

"Only I'm not, now, am I?" Peter said. "Bleeding out my side, and— ho!" he hiked up his shield with such speed that it made his side scream in agony. But the hawk had not dived to strike— it sought only the familiar comfort of the King's glove, and was annoyed to instead skid along the surface of the makeshift rowan-wood shield.

"Why, that's Orison, isn't it then?" marvelled Two Shakes.

"'Tis," said Orison, still a little miffed at his rocky landing.

"Sorry," said Peter. "I thought—" and he looked over to the field where the ravens continued to feed.

"I," said Orison, "am no raven." He did not scold the king for thinking he was, of course, but it was plain he wished that he might.

"And what's wrong with being a Raven, I'd like to know!" came a raspy, affronted challenge from the field.

"I am sure I couldn't say," said Orison, and Peter began to cough again. He reached for the water in the creek once more but the raspy voice spoke out again, stopping him.

"Wouldn't do that, if I were you."

"Who are you, then?" challenged Two Shakes. Like the rest of the stable pack he was a big, brawny, brindled creature, and the hackles raised along the back of his neck made him look bigger still as he addressed the birds on the field at large. "Are you friend or foe of this knight of Narnia?"

For it was Peter's own rule that he not be identified as King on the field.

"I am not friend or foe to anything," retorted the Raven, one from among hundreds of his kind on the field, both Talking and dumb. "I take what I can get where I get it. And I know if I were a knight, of Narnia or anywhere else, as badly wounded as your knight, there— I'd not waste my time with a bit of stinking backwater. Won't help you, no, it won't."

"What, then, do you suggest?" Peter wondered. He thought again that he must be dying. He certainly did not feel as though he could live very much longer. If the Raven were not going to peck his eyes out while he yet lived, then he supposed he might at least spend a few of his last minutes alive hearing it out— it certainly seemed more inclined to honesty than the ruler who had lured Peter to the North in the first place.

"I," said the Raven, "would seek the witch."

For one moment the listeners were struck dumb. Then they all (save Tarva, of course, who understood none of this) reacted at once, and in great anger. Orison rose in furious flight, circling and screaming. Two Shakes bared his teeth and gave such a snarl that his whole body seemed to rattle from the force of it. For his part, Peter grabbed Rhindon and wished he had the strength to draw it— lacking that, though, he simply hissed "you cannot be a friend to Narnia if you give such advice."

"Suit yourself," croaked the Raven. "Suit yourself. You die here and more for me, more for me. But you've not died yet and if you'd rather not, there's none but the witch can restore you now."

"And how do you imagine that this treason would be accomplished?" Orison asked, fluffing his feathers in great anger. "Do you not know that she who bound us in ice is dead these many years?"

"Not that witch," jeered the Raven. "Take me for a hatchling chick, do you? She is dead, certainly. But they say as there's a witch lives by the western mere, you know. Never seen her myself, but I expect she must be there, else where'd the stories come from? And they do say as she'll give aid to any knight who makes his plea in a manner that pleases."

"I will beg no favours from any enchantress," Peter growled. The Raven was unperturbed by this declaration.

"Suit yourself, suit yourself," it said, then fell silent and, presumably, to eating.

"We must get you back to camp, Sire," Orison decided, having at last found purchase on the pommel of Tarva's saddle. "Else I fear you will indeed be breakfast for these ravens."

But Peter felt more keenly than ever how it was with his side, and he knew there was no "else" about it. He was dying. It only remained for him to choose where he was and what he was doing when he died— and Peter, who had ruined so much by his choice to march them all north, now found that he did not want to die tended by those he loved, whom he had doomed.

"No," he said. "No, we will seek the witch."

This declaration shocked both hawk and hound to silence.

"We will seek the witch," said Peter, "and I will make an end of her if it's the last thing I do."

No point, he thought, in telling them he knew that it would be.

"But Sire . . ." Orison danced uneasily from one foot to the other.

"No," said Peter. "This is what I will do. However—" he had already rallied far too many to follow him into destruction. "You need not accompany me, Orison. Nor you," to Two Shakes, "if you do not care to."

"What, not care to follow our king?" Orison was indignant.

"No indeed, indeed," Two Shakes said, and gave an energetic shake. "We will come, Sire, and if we can lend aid then we will aid you— need a bit of help, there?" For Peter was struggling to mount, but could not.

"Yes, thanks, I— hold on, though." And, with careful, painful movements he eased off as much of his armour as he could manage. The heaviest and most cumbersome pieces he cast down by the water, retaining only his breastplate with the Narnian standard of the red lion passant. His sword he kept strapped to his waist, and his horn as well; the wooden shield he held too, but the rest he left behind. Then he consented to put his foot to Two Shakes's head and be boosted up high enough to fit his other foot to the stirrup.

The pain of swinging his leg over Tarva's back was such that Peter would not even remember it afterward— his mind would not let him. The wound . . . was it still bleeding? Surely not, for if so he would be dead by now. But Peter could not shake the sensation that it was indeed still bleeding as he sat awkwardly on Tarva, and Orison took off from the saddle to seek out a Raven that might direct them to the western mere of which that first Raven had spoken. When he returned, his instructions were brief but more than sufficient for their purposes.

"She may be found beyond the Two-Stone pass," said the Hawk. "Whatever that may be. But he says if we keep to the path along the river, it will eventually feed out into the mere and we will have found her."

"Good enough," said Peter, and although he did not say so, he wondered if he would even live long enough to reach their destination.

I wish, for the reader's sake, that Peter's quest along the path that night had been the sort of journey about which ballads are sung. I wish that nearly every stride of the horse beneath him had not caused the king to cry out or gasp in pain, or even that Peter had been something other than alarmingly wild-eyed and single-minded in his quest. But I am afraid that Peter was on that night well beyond the steadiness that so characterised most of his rule; his failure to make the best choice for the people he led was doing a fine job of killing him all by itself, without any help from the deep cut in his side. The thought that he might at least rid the land of one vile thing before he died . . . it consumed him and spurred him on when he might ordinarily have fallen from Tarva's back due to sheer exhaustion. If he did nothing else before he left that world, he was determined that he would find and kill the witch.

For their part the animals focused mostly on the journey, rather than the idea of what lay at its end. Tarva moved with as much grace as any of the Southern-bred horses can; had Peter sat any other creature I am sure his life's blood would have been jarred from him in short order, but Tarva's pace was such that the Narnian king was even able to think through the pain.

Two Shakes coursed with his head held high, his nose in the air to sample the breezes. He smelled everything that could not been seen save in daylight, and more besides. As they left the stinging odours of the battle behind them he could better appreciate the moist, earthy scents of the forest and the sweet, bubbling freshness of the river.

Orison flew out in front of them, wings extended as he caught and coasted on the air currents passing by. He saw nothing to give him alarm, although he did spy a vole that he swooped down upon with a shriek of triumph.

They had been journeying some time when they were cut off suddenly by a great grey owl, a thing of such size that, when it swooped down from the sky, Orison was forced to cede space to it rather abruptly. As the Owl settled ominously on a branch that hung in their path, Orison flew down to join Peter, who had drawn Tarva to a halt. The Hawk chose to light on Peter's shoulder, the king's strength being unequal to the task of extending his glove.

"Hullo," he called to the Owl, "will you not let us pass? We have business further on."

The Owl craned its head to the side at a spectacular angle to study the travellers.

"Why do you wish to pass?" it asked. "Why have you come to this place? None ever come to this place."

"We seek the witch of the mere," said Peter.

"Oh, dooo you now?" the Owl hooted softly, and seemed to stare even harder. "And why do you think there is a witch at the mere?"

"Isn't there?" Orison ruffled up around his neck. "We were told there was a witch."

The Owl ruffled its own feathers in reply. "Believe everything you are told, do you? There are stories, yes, many stories. I have heard most, or all. I have never seen a witch."

"So— there's nothing there?" Peter found he could not even process the words. You see, he had been so focused on this goal that he could not accept it might not be so. The Owl, unaware of Peter's investment in the quest, was undismayed.

"There is Something," it said.

"What?" Peter demanded.

"Something," the Owl repeated. It craned its neck again to study Peter. "If you can reach the water; if you can make the mere give up its secrets . . . then you will know."

"Know what?" Peter roared, then abruptly bent forward, coughing. His side burned as though on fire.

"Nobody knows," said the Owl. "But you will." And then it took wing, leaving the path clear and the travellers sorely confused as well as footsore.

"Onward, then," said Peter, and they continued not much further along the path before the land dipped down before them, and a pass of two tall, straight stones rose up, guarding the entrance to a small valley. And there, framed between the pair of stones, lay the waters of a wide mere. The river fed into it, the shores splitting to allow the water to pool into the body of the lake. It sparkled brilliantly beneath the light of the moon, and for just one moment Peter forgot his quest and his pending death in order to marvel at the silent beauty of the scene before him.

Then they pressed on, continuing down through the narrow pass and into the valley below. Not much later they reached a soft expanse of lush grass, with the mere only yards away. Tarva came to a gentle halt of his own accord, and Peter, with great pain and much help from Two Shakes, eased himself out of the saddle and down to the ground.

"Might as well have a bite to eat," he breathed, resting a fond hand on the stallion's neck. "You've more than earned it . . . and you, my friend," nodding to Two Shakes, "please, do lie down. Orison, rest you well." He stood back from them all, feeling almost like an onlooker in his own exchange with them. "I think . . . this part must be done alone. But if you hear my call," he pressed one hand to the horn strapped to his waist, "answer at once, for I fear that before this night is done I will once again find myself in need of your service."

"And you shall have it, Sire," Orison said. Two Shakes, though he had collapsed in a heavy heap of large, weary, winded dog, also added his promise to that of the Hawk.

Then Peter left them there, finding his way from the grassland down to the shore of the little lake. Ringed as it was by tall pine trees and limed in moonlight, for just a moment Peter could imagine it as it must have looked during that long enchanted winter. He wondered if the witch he had come to kill was a witch such as he would recognise, or if the mysterious Something of which the Owl had spoken was perhaps one last remnant of the original Witch's forces.

Not that it mattered, really; he doubted he would survive to see the end of it, whatever it was, but at least he would die fighting to bring that end about— and not on the field of a battle in which nobody should have taken a part. He trusted that Orison, Two Shakes and even Tarva would be able to finish what he would begin here. As for how best to begin it . . .

He studied the water thoughtfully. Make the mere give up its secrets, the Owl had said. As to how best to do that . . . he cast around and his gaze lit on a small clump of flowers growing on the shore. In the daytime they would be a bright, sunny golden colour, but the moonlight was still bright enough that Peter was left no doubt as to what they were— the same flowers whose petals they crushed and steeped in water to make a serum which often persuaded captured opponents to make free with their secrets. The flowers didn't offer anything like a certainty, even when used on humans, but there was something undeniably handy about them being there tonight. Indeed, the little patch almost seemed to have been planted expressly for this purpose.

With great difficulty Peter bent, caught hold of the flowers and plucked them. The aroma was heady, especially for such small blossoms; one flower was crushed in his palm, and the scent of it made Peter's head lighten still further. He nearly blurted out, to the silent lake, that he had accidentally freed Susan's kitten from her room, causing it to wander the Cair all night until it was found in one of the castle guard's boots the next morning.

He wondered what the mere would make of that.

Satisfied, then, with the potency of the flowers and supposing that this had at least as good a chance of working as anything did, Peter drew back his arm and cast the petals onto the water.

"Let's see what you're hiding, then," Peter murmured, his eyes fastened on the mere.

Whatever he had expected, it was not what happened next. For one minute he almost thought nothing would happen at all— the petals drifted aimlessly, seeming only to float as ordinary flowers would do. But then the tiny ripples they cast deepened, and brightened, and there came from the shallow depths of the mere a golden light that made it seem for a moment as though Peter looked not into the bottom of a lake, or even at a reflection of the world above, but rather at a picture of how the world above must have looked on a late autumn afternoon long ago when the pines were young and the ground in which they were rooted had never known such a thing as interminable winter.

And then suddenly the picture was gone, shattered as the water erupted in a geyser of confusion, some great, wet, heavy THING surging up from its depths, foundering a moment on the bank and then finding purchase on the rocky soil on the far side of the water.

Peter struggled to understand what it was that he saw— for the very briefest of moments he mistook her for a Centaur, but the girl wore a cloak of some kind, and no Centaur anyone has ever met would ever consent to such an indignity. His own disbelief heated Peter's face— was she truly half human, half horse? But the dripping wet apparition was fleeing, so there was no more time to wonder. He grabbed the horn, put it to his mouth and blew with breath he hadn't known he possessed. The clarion call echoed 'round the hills and before it had fully faded he heard the thunder of Tarva's approach, the scream of the Hawk and the bay of the Hound.

How Peter found the strength to swing onto Tarva's back will probably always be a mystery. The horse did not slacken his pace, and just as well, for the little mare-girl ahead of them had already nearly vanished from sight. The king had no strength to urge Tarva on, but Tarva did not require urging. The instinct for the race was bred deep within him and he bent his very soul to the sport, extending himself long and low over the ground and pounding after the fleet-footed thing ahead.

"The mare," Peter shouted in the general direction of Two Shakes. "Take the mare!" And to Orison, who wheeled and screamed over head, he shouted, "the maid!" Though he did not know what sort of maid she must be, to be melded with a horse that leaped from the water like a fish.

Two Shakes did indeed leap at the mare, teeth bared, and Orison dove for the maiden, but mare and maid were having none of it. The horse wheeled and struck out, baring her teeth and rolling her eyes in true horsy panic. She screamed a warning to her attackers, and the girl on her back — Peter could see, now, they were joined no more permanently than he and Tarva were joined — screamed, too.

It was Tarva who reacted first, skidding to a dead stop. He was as much possessed of his instincts as any stallion can be, and the sound of the mare's terror and rage warned him that he would be risking his life to come any closer. Peter, so drained of his very self, was not equal to the task of staying on during such an abrupt halt and so went flying over Tarva's head.

Had he landed on the path, he would likely have broken his neck and that would have been the end of him. Instead he chanced to land on the soft, springy shoulder, which hurt him horribly but did not kill him— at least, not any more than he had already been killed that night. As he lay there, groaning, he was vaguely conscious of the maid and mare detaching themselves from one another. The mare was prancing in high agitation, but the girl in the cloak seemed almost unspeakably calm.

Two Shakes did not lunge for her. Orison did not dive at her.

She stood on the ground, in the middle of the path, and she stared at Peter where he lay. Peter, staring back, felt his heart grow cold and heavy within him.

This was a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake. And he knew he would regret it all the more ere he ever saw home again.

O0O0O0O

O0O0O0O

A.N.: This has been brewing for a while, now. Stan Rogers has got a wild, wonderful song called "Witch of the Westmorland" and from the first time I heard it, I knew I was going to have to write fic for it! If you can track it down and listen to it, by all means do.

This is part one of two, with the second part due to follow shortly after I post the next chapter of Kingdoms Come. In the meantime, please know that Narnia, love it though I do, is not mine; CS Lewis loved it first.