Where have all the young men gone?
Long time passing.
Where have all the young men gone?
Long time ago.
Where have all the young men gone?
Gone to become soldiers every one.
When will they ever learn?
Order
Eight-year-old Erebus, only son of Cirius and Nanaia, huddled under a mound of thick woolen blankets that weren't quite heavy enough to block out the chill that seeped in through the canvas tent that he had erected with his father. The wind howling down the river made him fear that the tent might collapse upon their heads, but, he consoled himself, in the past two years he had accompanied his father on these ice-fishing expeditions, the tent had yet to fold in upon them. Trying to distract himself from his cold bones and the blood that felt as if it had frozen in his veins, he burrowed even deeper into his blankets, and said through chattering teeth, "Da, I'm not complaining but—"
"Go on," his father told him wryly when he paused to gather his thoughts and figure out the best way to express the question that had been hovering in the back of his mind more and more recently. Cirius reached out from a second mountain of blankets to pat Erebus on the head. "I know that whatever you're going to say will be bad if you feel the need to preface it with a warning that you aren't complaining. Consider me braced."
"Da, don't you ever get tired of the cold, the snow, and the ice?" Erebus burst out before he could lose his courage. "Don't you ever get bored with ice-fishing every two or three weekends? Don't you ever wish you could do something—anything—else with that time?"
As soon as the last word poured out of his lips, Erebus ducked his head, ashamed. He knew that he shouldn't even be thinking such things, nevertheless saying them aloud to his father. After all, it wasn't an issue of wanting to go ice-fishing all the time; it was a matter of having to go ice-fishing frequently if the family wished to survive. They couldn't live off the scant vegetables and fruits that the White Witch's government agents, mostly dwarfs, provided them every month as rations. Nor could they survive off the food (mostly other family's rations) that they traded for in the marketplace. They had to supplement those meager sources of food with fish and any game that happened to leave hibernation long enough to be hunted.
His cheeks flaming, he opened his mouth to apologize, but, before he could speak, his father answered softly, "Yes, yes, I do."
When his son stared at him in astonishment, Cirius sighed and went on grimly, "I hoped to never have to explain this to you, Erebus. I thought that I only missed the other seasons because I knew what they were like, and I hoped that if you didn't know what the other seasons were like, you wouldn't feel their absence, but your question proves that this eternal winter is plain unnatural and that creatures instinctively long for the changes that the seasons bring."
"Seasons?" His forehead knotting, Erebus repeated the unfamiliar word. "What were the seasons called and what were they like, Da?"
"Winter was cold, snowy, and icy as it is now, but it was filled with dances in the snow, skating on ponds and rivers, and sledding down hills." A ghost of a smile flickered across Cirius' face. "As impossible as it might be for you to imagine, when I was a lad, the first snowfall was a great delight for everyone, especially children. In fact, when the first flakes of this endless winter came, your mother and I celebrated, because it was a rare treat to have such an early snowfall, and we were excited by the prospect of school being cancelled the next day."
"I can't imagine that." Not sure whether his father was pulling his leg, Erebus shook his head and wrinkled his nose.
"Well, then you'll have an even harder time believing in a season called spring." The rapturous expression that slid across his father's features made it impossible for Erebus to doubt his honesty. "Spring meant the melting of snow, the blooming of flowers in every color, the sowing of plants, the eating of picnics in glades, the hunting of non-Talking animals, and spring dances celebrating rebirth. Oh, and you definitely wouldn't believe in a season called summer. Summer meant swimming in gloriously cool rivers, running through the woods, laying in the meadows and feeling the sun—much warmer and brighter than in the winter—heating the skin, and eating juicy fruit with sunburned lips. You probably wouldn't believe in autumn either, but autumn meant harvesting crops, watching green leaves change into every color, raking up fallen leaves, jumping in leaf piles, and making fresh apple cider. There were so many different colors, tastes, and textures that defined each season. I can't even describe them to you. It would be like trying to explain daylight to a mole."
"Seasons sound nice." Wistfully, Erebus sighed, and then buried himself still more deeply in his blankets, trying to pretend that he was lying in a meadow with the summer sun blazing into his back and feeling fresh berries—fruit he had never tasted because trading for them was prohibitively expensive—burst against lips chaped from heat, not cold. "I wish they still came to Narnia."
"So do I, Erebus." With a callused palm, his father patted his cheek. "I haven't experienced anything but winter since I was twelve, and that's a very long time to live without springtime, summertime, or autumn."
Determined to do anything to erase the wrinkles of sorrow creasing around his father's eyes and to give himself the chance to bask in a sunny field filled with bright flowers, Erebus said, "Da, I'll do everything that I can to bring the seasons back."
"Don't do anything foolish, son," Cirius said sharply, shaking Erebus by the shoulder. "Promise me that you won't get yourself killed fighting a battle that you can't win against the White Witch."
"I want to fight the White Witch." Rebelliously, Erebus lifted his chin. "She's evil."
"You don't understand how evil she is." His father eyed him sternly. "She turns her enemies into stone, and she placed the curse of eternal winter upon this land because doing a cruel thing like that brings her pleasure. She derives joy from the suffering of others. Her greatest delight is to commit terrible crimes. She likes the power of controlling the seasons and the market, but being able to do evil is her ultimate goal. We can't even begin to understand the blackness inside her, so we cannot even begin to fight against her. We can refuse to cooperate with her in small ways, but we cannot battle her when she has every advantage. We'd just get ourselves killed achieving nothing."
"I hate her," Erebus snarled, pummeling his knee with his fist and wishing that his knee were the White Witch, who was surely the vilest creature in Narnian history. "She's a monster, and I hate her every gut."
"Don't talk like that, Erebus, or I'll wash your mouth out with soap," his father scolded. Then, seeing Erebus' striken expression, he went on in a voice that was more sympathetic but still uncompromising, "Hating the White Witch damages your own soul and doesn't hurt her at all. When you loathe her, you make her victory more complete. Hatred doesn't drive out hatred; only love can do that. Fight her in your heart and your mind. Carry around the memory of the seasons she has tried to erase in the core of your being. Hold onto the hope of spring, the freedom of summer, and the plenty of autumn in your heart. Then she will never be able to defeat you. Fight the battle on your terms, not hers."
"But, Da, I thought I wasn't allowed to fight her?" Bewildered, Erebus cocked his head inquiringly.
"Physically, no; metaphysically, use every weapon at your disposal." Smiling slightly at his son's consternation, Cirius tapped the boy's nose with his finger. "Now, son, promise me that you won't get yourself killed doing anything foolish."
"I promise," Erebus whispered, his eyes big and solemn, and his mouth as dry as the desert dividing Calormen and Archenland. He could feel the weight of the words shaping his life already, and he couldn't help but wonder if he would crush beneath them like a house built on an unstable foundation would crumble in a blizzard.
Restoration
Humming a nonsense tune to himself, Erebus sat at the kitchen table, salting fish, while in the chair opposite him, his girlfriend of three years, Theia, worked on her patchwork quilt. She was making the blanket in the hope that it would provide Erebus' ailing father, who was always cold now, with some warmth.
Since Cirius was presumably asleep in the next room, and Nanaia had left to battle the snow down to the marketplace, where she wanted to trade some candlesticks for a few vegetables, Theia, whom Erebus knew to be involved in the underground resistance movement against the White Witch, dared to broach the topic and question that was taboo in Erebus' house.
"Erebus," she said, managing to keep her stitches perfect, even as she locked her gaze on his, "why don't you involve yourself in the rebellion when I know that you hate the Witch and the perpetual winter as much as I do?"
"I promised Da long ago that I wouldn't do anything foolish in an attempt to bring an end to the White Witch's tyranny and to restore the seasons," answered Erebus softly, remembering how wonderful it had been to hear his father describe the other seasons so many years ago when they were on one of their many ice-fishing expeditions. Sometimes he had gotten bored with the frequent ice-fishing trips they had been forced to make to sustain their family, but now he wished that they could huddle together in a tent assaulted by icy gales just one more time.
"You're a grown faun, Erebus." Sighing, Theia shook her head. "You're ready to make your own decisions, and you're father is hardly in a position to thrash you for being too much of a risk-taker."
"So, you suggest that a real faun should just disobey his father and break his promises to the faun who raised him—who taught him everything he needs to know to live and act morally- because that faun isn't strong enough to knock him into shape?" Erebus hissed, his eyes blazing at the very implication that he should show such blatant irreverence to the dying faun in the next room. Spraying too much salt on a fish he was preserving in his vehemence and temper, he finished in a tone laced with bitter irony, "That sounds like a great way to honor my father. Instead of trying to comfort him in his last days, I should be doing everything in my power to distress him. Thank you for pointing that out to me."
"Don't take offense so easily," Theia huffed, sticking her snub nose in the air. "I was just saying—"
"Well, next time you're just saying something you can remember that Da was never much for thrashing—it was always a last resort with him and he preferred washing my mouth out with soap or assigning me extra chores or just giving me a stern lecture—and he raised me right," snapped Erebus. "He taught me that real fauns keep their words and don't get killed accomplishing nothing."
"Dying in the fight to end oppression and endless winter isn't achieving nothing," Theia retorted, her cheeks burning as hot as her voice. "I hate to say it, but the reason that evil has been able to maintain its icy grip on Narnia for all these decades is because good fauns—like you and your father—sit safely around your hearths and refuse to fight the Witch and her terrible winter. Now that your father is old and sickly, he has an excuse not to join the battle, but what's your excuse—young and fit as you are—for not participating in the resistance? Are you really such a coward that fear of dying prevents you from doing everything you can to restore a free Narnia?"
"If you think me a coward, I suggest that you court a different young faun brave enough and strong enough to meet your exacting tastes," snarled Erebus, pounding his fist on the table, so that the salt shaker toppled over, scattering white grains all over the table that would be a nightmare to clean up before his mother came home and lamented the disarray her kitchen had fallen into during her brief absence.
"Lucky for you, I believe that, buried inside you, is the young faun brave enough and strong enough to meet my exacting tastes," Theia replied with a wry smirk.
An acerbic comment that questioned just how fortunate he was that Theia harbored under this delusion was cut off before it could even begin to leave Erebus' lips when his father called in a rasp from the next room, "Erebus!"
Rising and hurrying into his parents' bedroom, Erebus tried not to think about how he had once obeyed that same implicit order to come to his father's side when he was a rambunctious faun whose greatest skill had been finding trouble wherever it could possibly be located. It was hard to reconcile the full-throated shout his father had once been capable of with the choked voice that represented the man's incredible struggle to speak. It was even more difficult to accept that the giant of Erebus' childhood—whose knee had been large enough to accommodate his son, whose arms had been strong enough to bend a crossbow, and who had towered over Erebus for so many years—was now a hunched, frail creature with bones too weak to allow him to move out of bed without assistance.
"Son, would you carry me over to the chair by the fire?" whispered Cirius, and Erebus could see, in the tightening of the wrinkles lining his father's cheeks, how much energy and effort each syllable cost the elderly faun.
"Of course, Father. Anything for you." Gently and firmly, Erebus lifted his father-who was now so light that it seemed like a strong gust of wind could carry him all the way to Calormen without any strain—and carried him over to the seat by the roaring fire.
Tears welled up in Erebus' eyes as he thought of how, so many years ago now, it had been his father who carried him into bed when he was a toddler who had probably weighed no more than Cirius did now. Blinking the moisture out of his eyes, because his father didn't need to see him upset when he should be filling the old faun's last days with as much joy as possible, Erebus busied himself with grabbing some blankets from his parents' bed and arranging them around his father. Not permitting himself to recall how it had once been Cirus who had done the tucking in, he observed with as much cheeriness as he could muster, "Theia is making you a new quilt, you know. Won't it be wonderfully warm when it is done?"
Nodding with an oddly content and serene expression on his face, Cirius closed his eyes and whispered, "The heat of the fire reminds me of what it was like to feel the sun on my cheeks in the summer."
Watching his father's face—aged and wrinkled by the winter that had been his entire adult life—turning to the fire as a weak imitation of a mighty summer sun, and hearing the dreadful yearning for warmth that winter could never give that was etched into the elderly faun's tone, Erebus swore to himself that he would not allow himself to spend his whole life as his father had—waiting for seasons that would never return unless he acted to bring them back. It would be better, he resolved, to die fighting for the return of the seasons than to die waiting in the vain hope that they would come back of their own accord or through the sacrifice and valor of others.
Prophecy
Huddled in a quilt on a sofa before his cackling fire with his five-year-old son, Tumnus, balanced on his knee, and the sounds of his wife of seven years, Theia, washing the supper dishes as a pleasant background music, Erebus tried to pretend that everything was right in his world. That was so hard to do, though, when his little boy was shivering against his chest.
"I'm freezing, Da," said Tumnus, rubbing his hands along his legs in what was probably a vain attempt to warm himself. He didn't phrase it as if it were a complaint, but rather as though it were an unalterable fact and an unchangeable reality of his existence.
The defeatism infused in his son's words hurting him more than any mutinous grumble or shrill whine could have, Erebus felt, once again, the burning shame that came from the terrible realization that all the fire, blankets, and warmth he could provide were not enough to keep Tumnus moderately comfortable.
Thanking Aslan that at least the heart broke so quietly that nobody could hear because he didn't need any more of his child's innocence shattered by that sound, Erebus hugged Tumnus still more tightly and promised, "Son, one day Narnia will be warm again because your mother and I are fighting to make it so."
"How do you know that winter will ever end?" Tumnus bit his lip, and Erebus wondered what would happen to the next generation if spring and the seasons didn't return soon. The only memory of good plentiful, and free times they would have were stories told to them second-hand by tellers who couldn't imagine what it would be like to feel so hot that jumping into a cold, babbling brook would be a glorious relief and couldn't imagine the wonderful crunch made when a young faun leaped into a pile of crisp, colorful leave. That had to be comparable to being weaned on poisoned milk.
"Centaurs, who are never wrong in their predictions, have prophesied that at the sound of Aslan's roar, winter will be no more, and when Aslan shakes His mane, it shall be spring again," murmured Erebus, sharing with his son the prophecies he had first heard when he joined the resistance. He held these predictions close to his heart as assurance that the war he fought would eventually be won even if he didn't live to see the victory.
"When Aslan comes will it be spring for those the Witch has turned to stone?" asked Tumnus, sounding as if he believed this to be as impossible as raising the dead.
"It's said that those the Witch has made statues are only asleep, and when Aslan returns to Narnia, He will breathe upon them, they will awaken, and they will join Him in His battle against the White Witch, in which He will emerge triumphant." Smiling, Erebus tapped his son on the nose. "Speaking of sleep, it's time for young fauns to go to bed."
"I'm not young, and I'm not tired, either, Da," Tumnus protested, trying and failing to conceal a massive yawn behind his hand.
"You're going to bed, anyway, Tumnus," countered Erebus firmly, sliding his child off his knee. "Good night, son."
"Good night, Da." Admitting defeat, Tumnus bent over to give his father a hug and a swift kiss on the cheek.
Watching his son walk over to say good night to Theia, who was still scrubbing the supper dishes, Erebus prayed silently and fervently, Come, Great Lion, free Your beloved creatures from the Witch's tyranny. Come cheer our spirits by Your arrival here. Destroy the cold of winter, and bring the statues to life. Fulfill every prophecy about You sooner than we could hope and more deeply than we could possibly imagine. Save my son, Aslan, because I can't even keep him warm.