The Chronicles of Narnia: Narnia Isle

Part 2: The True King

וגם אתה אריה.

Johann had found nothing in the cave. It wasn't as dark as he had expected, nor as deep. He heard Helena's scream just as he had started back towards the cave entrance. The only thought that came into his head was that he needed to get to her as fast as he could.

His bare feet stomped against dirt and stone as he sped out of the cave and onto the grass. His head darted from side to side; Helena was nowhere to be seen. But what was that sound...? It was the sound of something beating against air. Each beat came in quick succession. It was so strange.

It came from over the cliff. He saw where the ground had fallen. He headed towards it, but he didn't make it. The source of the sound showed itself before he could get there.

It was a horse! A flying horse! It was mostly white with large brown splotches in some places. Johann had little experience with horses, but it looked to be very strong. It landed, its wings affecting the grass beneath somewhat like a helicopter would.

Helena was holding on to its neck, looking almost as stunned as Johann felt.

She let go slowly, allowing her feet to touch the floor as it lowered its neck and tucked its huge, powerful wings away at its side.

"Are you alright?" the horse asked her. Was there anything in this world that didn't talk? According to Jel and Yanu, there was, but it didn't seem so to Johann.

Helena nodded slowly, then said something softly that Johann did not hear. She held in her hand a single white feature that came from one of the horse's wings.

"My name is Enden-Fledge Yeremtere Ularni," the Flying Horse said. "And if I am not mistaken, you..." – he studied her closely, perhaps finding her appearance sufficiently foreign to him to warrant his conclusion – "are a daughter of Eve, are you not? And you" – he indicated Johann with his snout – "are a son of Adam."

"Yes," they both said.

"What are your names? May I ask why you have come here?"

"I am Johann Jalloh," the dark-skinned boy introduced as he stepped closer.

"And my name is Helena Kensington, Your Majesty," the English girl said, almost fully recovered from the near-death experience. If Enden had not saved her...

"You call me by a royal title," said Enden. "If this is a matter of state, you had best go before my brother, Erya. He is the king of Ularni."

"You see, that is why we are here," Helena told him. "Aslan sent us. He says that you must reclaim your throne."

"Aslan? He has come here?" Enden turned his body away from them. "First, colts of Adam, then Aslan." He chuckled slightly. "To think I had begun to doubt the tales." He faced them over his shoulder and asked, "You are from another world, aren't you, not from the Northern Lands? That world of humans."

He turned again away at their nods. He did not look back at them as he spoke this time.

"You must be mistaken. Aslan knows I haven't the strength to rule a nation now."

"But you must," Helena burst out, not knowing what else to say. "Aslan says your brother is a usurper, and your people say that he is a wicked king –"

"Now, that's enough!" the horse yelled with a command that was certainly reminiscent of the king that he had once been. "I will not allow you to disparage my family!" He reared on them, spreading his wings to their full span. "I will not!"

Helena started backing away for fear, but Johann held her hand, stopping her. He gave her a look of determination that was intended to give her strength. It did.

"Family is important to you, isn't it?" he said to the Beast that could no doubt render him severely injured or dead with a single beat of a wing or a kick from those strong legs. "Without your son, you don't feel the strength to do it."

Enden looked at him with angry eyes as black as tar. He pulled back his wings a little as he glared at this small creature.

"My... my parents died recently," Johann continued. "I saw them die. Both of them. I lay there in the cold, wanting all life to pass me by and leave me behind with my parents. And then, I found myself in this world. Helena told me that Aslan gave me a quest." He looked at her briefly as he corrected himself. "Gave us a quest. I realized that I have more strength than I thought I did. I found something I had to do, and I could, even though I felt weak, even though it hurts.

"Look at yourself, King Enden." Enden's wings were almost fully retracted now. "You have kept strong. You have not stopped living completely because of your son's death. You can do it."

Enden looked at Johann intently for some time. They knew he was looking at him because his face was pointed straight at Johann, so both his eyes could focus on him. (Horses have their eyes at the sides of their heads so they can see considerable more of the world around them than humans.) Enden backed away a bit, slowly.

"Those eyes," he muttered.

He sighed. His wings were fully retracted now. Now, he looked like a graceful, powerful creature, but not a threatening one.

"I do not expect you to know, brave Johann and Helena, that you and I have something in common," Enden said to them, slowly turning away again. He spoke clearly so they could hear him. "My bloodline, like yours begins not in this world, but in yours.

"The people of this kingdom look to the Northern Land as the Land of Aslan. Well, second to his Country across the sea. It is there that Aslan stood as he sang his song that created all that we see. And it is there that he first chose creatures to give the gift of Voice.

"But there was one that the song did not create. My ancestor, called Fledge, was a Horse that came to this world from your own. Aslan chose him to become the world's first Flying Horse, the father of all Flying Horses. My ancestors remained friends with the first kings of Narnia for generations. Soon, Flying Horses grew in number among the Talking Horses. My father was a Flying Horse, but not my mother.

"The lands between my kingdom and Narnia grew hostile against beings like us. Travel between the lands grew increasingly difficult. Flight and the ocean served as the most viable routes between the two lands. And eventually, most of what we possessed of the Land of Aslan were those stories that were passed down over the generations. We guarded them.

"In the past, a human army from the north attacked our land. We were not going to let them make our world void of our kind as they had done to the Northern Lands. An ancestor of mine called Ularni led the battle and was victorious. They named him king." He let out a small horse sound as he flicked his tail. "He became king of one of the few strongholds of our kind, perhaps one of the only two places in the world where people still lived by Aslan."

He turned towards them again, slowly, meditatively. "That is my heritage. I would be a disgrace to my line if I chose to dismiss the rule of Aslan now. But how can I believe that my brother is wicked?"

The two children kept quiet. Johann had said all that he could think to say and Helena thought it best if Enden answer that question himself. She glanced at her companion. His parents... that must be why he was so distant, almost cold.

"Please, leave me now," Enden requested. "I need time alone."


The children walked along the same path they used before. They didn't know whether they had been a success or a failure in their attempt to convince Enden. They intended to return to Jel and Yanu and just... wait.

As they walked, Helena plaited the white feather into her hair. She wanted it as a keepsake and she had no pockets. Suddenly, she got an idea. "Johann," she called to the boy who led the way about two metres ahead. At his small vocalised reply, she continued, "Do you have an e-mail address? I don't use the internet much and my parents prefer I not have an e-mail address yet, but I could use one of theirs."

Johann stopped and turned, saying the English word slowly: "Internet?"

Helena stopped, too, quickly understanding that it must have been the language barrier. "Yes, internet. You know the network of computers that allows people to access information, communicate with each other?" She added jokingly: "It has been around since the 1970s maybe."

She saw the look on Johann's face as his mouth fell open and she was perplexed by it. Did she not explain well enough?

Johann said the number in his head, over and over, hoping that it was his English that was wrong. But it wasn't. After a time, he was sure of it.

"Nineteen... seventies, you say?" the German boy said, more slowly still.

Helena nodded. "Yes..."

Johann rested his back against the tree, wondering if in his bewilderment, he would faint. "When I came here, it was approximately forty years before that." He didn't look at Helena as her confusion was somewhat displaced with understanding.

According to her grandmother's journal, time in Narnia's world had little to do with that of England, of Earth. After Susan and her siblings left Narnia the first time, they returned after maybe a year or so. But centuries had passed in Narnia. Could the time discrepancy explain why they were both here, separated by decades in their world, but in the same time in Ularni? Didn't the two worlds both move forward in time, even if at different speeds?

Johann had a question of his own. But he thought he should explain something before asking it.

And so, he began:

"I grew up in Deutschland." (The German word for Germany. Johann always had difficulty remembering to say the English word and he was not interested in thinking hard enough to remember at the time.) "My father came from one of the colonies in Africa but my mother spent most of her life in England.

"They, the people had... ideas of who should be..." he stopped, trying to figure out how to say it. Johann remembered the campaigns, the posters. There was one that stuck out to him: a picture of two ladies, one 'Aryan', one black. They were smiling at each other; friends. The caption on the picture? 'The result! Loss of racial pride.'

Helena finished it for him. "They had ideas of who was the Germanic race and who wasn't..."

Johann looked at her briefly. He wouldn't have put it that way, but he was sure she understood, so he continued. "My friends Aaliyah and Jahdiel – they are twin; at first, they had to wear that yellow thing that had Jude on it. All of us could not go to school. We joked about it. I told them they were afraid more of them because they looked so much like them. But I... they were less afraid of me because they could see the difference easy. So I did not have to wear that yellow star.

"And then, they came for them. Jahdiel and Aaliyah and their family... gone." He was struggling to keep himself still now, to prevent himself from shaking. He didn't know how effective it was. "And then they came for us."

His father had been smart. They'd had an old fowl coop on their property that had not been used in a while. It hadn't taken long to dig under it. The perfect hiding place, very well hidden. All one would see were the wooden planks on the floor of the coop. They looked perfectly nailed in place. No one would ever guess that three of the planks were nailed together and could be lifted to make way for them to hide.

It was a pity that Johann had been the only one outside when they arrived. Through the window, his mother told him to hide under the coop. He'd obeyed. He hid there for hours. His father had lined the hiding place with wood so his clothes didn't get too dirty as he lay there patiently, listening.

It was so ironic that as they questioned them as to the location of their son, they placed the Jallohs right before his hiding place. Kneeling and quivering before the coop, they said nothing. They had already been badly beaten by then and the men, soldiers, punched and slapped them even more during this interrogation. With the trap door opened just slightly so he could see out, he watched in silence. His parents would have been proud of him. He was even silent when they were shot in the head; both of them.

Well, technically, he dropped the door, which made a sound audible to him, but apparently not audible to anyone else, perhaps because of the gunshots. He had been too stunned for any sound to slip out of his mouth.

"They killed my parents," was all her told her about the event. Well, almost all: "All that I have of them is this." His hand reached for the object that hung around his neck. He showed her the wooden cross, about four centimetres long, that this mother almost always wore.

"Johann, some dangerous men are here!" his mother had whispered to him in as much of a shout as she dared. "Go, hide!"

"No," he'd answered. "What about you?"

He saw her darting around her thoughts for some way to get him to obey. Then, as quickly as she could, she took off her pendant and tossed it to him from the open window. "Hold on to that. And I will take it back from you later. Now, go!"

She'd been wrong, of course. Or she lied. Whatever the case, both she and his father were gone.

Helena was speechless. It was a horrible thing that Johann had witnessed, had gone through. And yet, somehow, she felt in him a connection to her grandmum: Susan and her siblings first went to Narnia during World War II, around the same time from which Johann came to this world. She suddenly realised what had seemed strange to her about Johann's clothes. Somehow, they seemed... old-fashioned and lacked the look of something mass-produced.

They were both silent for a while, then Johann broke the silence. "We should go." He looked at her with eyes filled with so much sorrow that they couldn't even cry. Then, he turned again and Helena followed.


Yanu surfaced to take a breath. He'd just had a bite to eat. Fishing alone wasn't the easiest thing in the world; it was easier with the teamwork of his school, but with surprise and speed, he'd been able to snag some.

It was then that he saw the Flying Horse. This one was grey: King Erya. What was he doing there?

There was someone on his back. That was strange. Talking Horses, Unicorns, Centaurs... no one would even dream of riding noble beats such as those. Even he, a creature of the sea, knew that.

Yanu gauged their trajectory and realized that they were heading to a large rock next to the island that stuck out of the water. If he was quiet, he could listen to them without them noticing him.


When the children got back to Jel, he was eating some flat green seaweed, but Yanu was nowhere in sight. Helena gave him the two fruits she'd picked for him from the plateau. It hadn't been very easy to get them down to the beach with all the climbing they had to do, but they did it.

"Why, thank you," the Tortu said. "How did you know I'm an herbivore?"

Helena shook her head with a shrug and smiled, "I didn't, really."

"Where is Yanu?" Johann asked as the two children sat on the sand beside Jel.

Between mouthfuls of seaweed and fleshy fruit, Jel answered, "He brought me some food, but went out to eat some himself. But he did say he'd take me some more seaweed."

Johann sat still, looking at the strips of seaweed on the sand before Jel who wiped off the sand with his hands them off before eating them. He absently stared at the imprints in the sand that Jel had made as he pulled himself onto the beach. What a day this had turned out to be.

Johann had been the first to see Yanu coming, but Jel had been the first to realize that he wasn't approaching with his usual playful demeanour. He was swimming to them from their right, as quickly as his fins could carry him. The three hurried into the water, Jel leaving behind a half-eaten strip of seaweed. The water splashed them wet again, Jel's snow-white hair and Helena's strawberry-blonde hair sticking to their heads.

"He killed him!" Yanu was saying. "He killed him!"

"Who?" his lifelong friend asked, making a gesture with his hands that told him get him to steady his thoughts. "Who killed whom?"

"Erya! He killed his own nephew!"

The children's eyes widened slightly, but Jel's didn't. "Explain," he said succinctly, keeping his head as clear as he could. "How do you know?"

"I saw Erya flying along. I followed him and he landed on a big rock just off the island. They didn't see me."

"They?"

"Yes, Erya was travelling with another. I didn't see him clearly, but I think he's a Dwarf. I overheard them talking. He was preparing poisoned arrows for King Enden. They're going to kill him, too! Erya said that they were going to have to kill him just as he killed King Enden's son!"

Jel looked to the two children with his bright-purple eyes and they knew what his eyes were telling them. They turned immediately and struggled against the waist-deep water as fast as they could until they could run and they kept running. They knew now that the two marine creatures could provide no further help for them in this quest. It was all up to them now.

They ran as fast as they could, climbed as quickly as they could, getting quite a few cuts and bruises in the process that stung a little as the salty water dripped unto them from their clothes.

They rushed past the trees, hoping they were going the right direction. They were trusting that the king had not moved from where they had left him; they had no choice but to do just that.

But they were right. They burst from forest into the clearing and saw the two brothers standing before each other. Erya had grey, almost silver fur and feathers with eyes as black as Enden's. He looked as strong as his brother, and just a little taller.

"Helena, Johann," said Enden as both Flying Horses looked to the children. "Is something the matter?" Their hurry and expressions much have revealed much to Enden.

The children looked from Erya to Enden before Johann said, "Your Majesty, Erya has come to kill you."

"He killed your son and now, he's come for you," added Helena.

"What? Preposterous!" Erya exclaimed with a horse snort. "As I said, I came here to visit my brother. It has been so long." Four dark eyes exchanged stares as the brothers studied each other.

"Children," Enden said, not facing them, "are you sure of this?"

"Yes," Helena said.

"A dolphin overheard him telling someone, a..."

"Dwarf," Helena finished while Johann searched for the word. "Yanu didn't see him, but he thinks he was talking to a Dwarf."

Enden let out a monosyllabic chuckle. "Ah, my dear friend Yanu. He and Jel visit me ever so often on this island, this self-imposed exile of mine. I trust them. Which is more than I can say for you, my brother."

Erya echoed his older brother's laugh. "I knew you children of Adam would be trouble." He whinnied and reared up on his hind legs, the sign of the start of a battle.

Enden did not miss a beat. With a snort of anger from the rightful king, the battle was underway. Kicks, bites, slaps of their wings, any kind of onslaught was used in this battle. Johann thought he understood Enden's rage. He was betrayed by his brother; his son was murdered, all for the sake of a kingship. Johann knew that someone who was so corrupt, who would do such things for power, did not deserve it.

"The Dwarf!" he said to Helena. "Where is he?"

They knew he could be anywhere. He had a bow, a long-range weapon. He could have been anywhere with a good vantage point. And he could remain hidden until it was too late...

"The trees!" Helena said. She turned rushed to the trees that lined the clearing. "Please!" she said to them. "There is a Dwarf around here somewhere! He is going to hurt the king! Please find him!"

Helena was a smart girl. She had paid attention to Susan's journal. The trees of Narnia Isle had lacked communication with the mainland for so long that they did not understand its artefacts. They hadn't realized that the object the Dwarf had in his hand was an offensive weapon. But now, they knew.

Just a few yards away from the children, Torc, a Black Dwarf, the best archer in Ularni, had taken aim and was about to let the poison arrow loose right into the muscle of Enden's hind leg. He never did see the low-lying branch that swiped at the back of his head.

But, the arrow was sent flying nonetheless. It careened towards the battling brothers, not precisely on its mark, but still leaving a deep gouge in the Enden's leg. Unfortunately for Erya, the arrow found a new mark, burying itself into his side. He yelled out in pain: "No!"

He immediately regretted suggesting to Torc that particular poison. Extracted from a rare frog found only in Ularni, the poison worked very quickly. He became disoriented fast, stumbling and stumbling until...

He heard his brother calling his name as he moved over the edge, but he could say nothing. As he fell, he could not flap his wings strong silver wings. He could no longer even breathe as he crashed into the sea.

The children rushed over to Enden. They saw the sorrowful look in his eyes.

"My brother," he muttered. His legs were shaking. "My brother." Those huge black eyes grew misty. "That arrow... it was poisoned."

Johann and Helena couldn't believe it. That gouge, however deep it was, couldn't have been enough to leave sufficient poison behind to hurt Enden... could it?

But it seemed it was. Enden began lowering himself to the grassy ground. Soon, he was lying on his side, his breathing was becoming laboured. He must have been in pain, the children thought.

"Johann..." the king said. "Come here."

The boy came closer to Enden's face sitting beside him and put a hand on the noble creature's head, feeling helpless. Helena sat beside them, a hand on the king's chest.

"Those eyes. They both face me directly, but they look so much like my son's. Before you came to this island, Aslan came to me in a dream. He told me that what was mine would be returned to me. And he said that the one who would take my place as king would have eyes like my son's.

"I did not believe at first, but then, you came... and how could I disbelieve then?"

Johann was silent, stroking Enden's mane. A quivering white-and-brown wing touched Johann gently.

"I do not think I will survive this," Enden said. "But I take you as my son, Johann Jalloh. You will be king after me." The image of the king in Johann's sight grew slightly distorted as the tears welled up. "You are the one who was chosen. You... will be a fine... king." The wing fell limp. The king fell silent. They could no longer hear his breathing.

"His heart isn't beating," Helena whispered, not feeling anything where her hand had just felt his heart.

The tears flowed freely down Johann's dark cheeks now. His son? He'd taken him as his son? That meant... that another parent was dead...

Johann sobbed loudly, burying his head in Enden's white neck. "Nein! Nein!" he whimpered. This king had been a good, brave creature. He had not deserved this fate. And yet... here it was.

He felt Helena tapping on his shoulder as she said his name. He almost shrugged her off, but he didn't. Instead, he sat up to face her. But she wasn't looking at him; she was looking past him to something else. Johann turned to follow her gaze and there he was.

Aslan.

He knew him instantly. No description would have been sufficient; and yet one must be given nonetheless. Johann saw a lion that seemed not only larger than any lion of his world, but intelligent, and far more regal. In the late afternoon sunlight, it looked like every strand of his fur had been spun from pure gold. His mane looked brilliant, wild and radiant as if the sun's light had been captured within it. His eyes were a cerulean that was deeper than the deepest ocean, purer than the purest spring.

Aslan called their names. Johann breathed slowly, feeling... what was he feeling...? Whatever it was, it was overwhelming. He got to his feet and Helena followed suit. Aslan walked towards them. He left behind the unconscious Dwarf that he must have carried into the clearing.

"You have been successful," the Lion said.

"How?" Johann asked, the tears still flowing. "We did not restore anything to Enden."

"No, son of Adam, you are wrong. You returned to him confidence in his strength to live, something that he hadn't had since the death of his son."

"You could have saved him," Johann said. He could not believe how bold he was being before this being that was so powerful. If with a song Aslan created this world, he could have protected Enden, yes, but he could easily and severely punish Johann for such insubordination.

The cerulean eyes came towards him and looked directly into Johann's brown orbs. Johann found there a reflection of his own sorrow; tears dripping from that impossibly deep ocean. No, not a reflection. It was as if Aslan's sorrow were as deep as that ocean. "There is so much for you to understand, dear Johann. So much. And you will learn. That is my promise to you."

Johann's eyes widened slightly as she stared at him. "You..." His hand strayed to his mother's pendant. "You..." He swallowed a lump in his throat. "I am not ready to be a king."

Aslan smiled. Johann was sure that was a smile. "I know." He brought his head down towards the head of the Flying Horse. "But you will be." The children watched intently as Aslan nudged Enden's face with his nose. "Wake up, my friend."

The king of Ularni obeyed. Slowly, he stirred. Seeing Aslan, he got to his feet as quickly as he could. In a few seconds, the king was on his feet, wings spread in excited realization. "Aslan," he said as he bowed his head before the lion.

Aslan nodded in response. "Welcome back, King Enden." He turned towards the children. "King Enden's will to live proved too strong for the poison. He lived, however weakly."

Helena saw that the wound on his leg was sealed, leaving just a pink scar. Aslan had healed him.

"Prince Johann," Aslan said. "You are given a choice. You may stay as crown prince of Ularni or you may return to your own world."

Johann turned to Helena. She smiled at him. Then, he turned back to Aslan and Enden. After a while, he asked Enden, "Do you really want me as your… son?" His eyes were looking to the ground.

The king chuckled gently and said, "Of course I do. You are bold and noble, Johann. You saved my life. Both of you did. You will make a fine prince and a worthy king."

"What about Helena?" Johann asked.

Enden looked to Aslan, who answered, "Princess Helena, you must return to the world your grandmother returned to."

Helena and Johann looked at each other for a while. This meant they would part ways. They both knew that. The taller boy reached out a hand to shake. Helena smiled with misty eyes and hugged him tightly.

"Goodbye," she whispered.

"Goodbye," he repeated as they released each other. Prince Johann stepped toward King Enden as Princess Helena drew closer to Aslan.

"I would be glad to be your son," Johann said as he wrapped his hands around Enden's neck.

The scene suddenly changed around Helena and Aslan. Everything grew green, just like the light that she'd seen when she first went into that world. They moved away from the ground and into the sky. Before she knew it, she was somehow standing between an aerial view of each of the two worlds. Before her, behind Aslan, was the world that she had just left: Johann and Enden looking around in confusion for her and Aslan and then settling down as if to talk. The boy and his adoptive father ignored the unconscious Dwarf, perhaps confident that the Trees would ensure that he did not escape. Behind Helena was her bedroom as it would look from the ceiling.

"Helena," Aslan began, "you and Johann were given a rare privilege. You both were taken though time to the world of Ularni and Narnia. You see, time passes linearly for the two worlds, although the speed of that passing relative to each other does vary. In your time, the world you just left no longer exists. You were brought to Ularni to see that Queen Susan the Gentle was never forgotten by the people of that world, even in a land as distant as Ularni."

Helena looked into his eyes, as emerald as the light around them, still unsure as to the full motive for sending her there. The journal appeared before her and floated into her hands.

"Do not make your grandmother's mistake. If you do, you will live a life of regret just as she did. Return to your world now, Princess Helena, daughter of Eve."

Helena began to turn away, her long reddish-blonde hair (still a little wet from the salty waters of Narnia Isle's beach) brushing against her back and shoulder. But, she stopped, looked to the Lion and rushed towards him, wrapping her arms around his head, wishing she could immerse herself in that warm, soft mane forever.

"Thank you," she said to him as she let go slowly.

"You are very welcome," was the reply.

She tore herself away from him and walked towards the room. It was so strange seeing it from above. Soon, without warning, she found herself seated on her bed, the journal in her hand. She was perfectly dry and all the cuts and bruises she'd received her gone. Other than the memory of going there, there was nothing that told her that she had left this spot since she'd returned from dinner and settled down to read.

Was all that just a dream...? she thought, feeling disappointed. Suddenly she realized something that gave her the answer. She felt something against her shoulder. She lifted her hand to the left side of her head and found it. The feather from King Enden's wing! It was large, white and beautiful, locked in place in a single plait on the left side of her head. No! It was real!

She turned her attention immediately to the journal in her hands. She intended to spend the entire night reading the rest of it if she had to.

What a story was contained therein. Susan had written of her and her siblings' return to this world, but not much of what happened in between. She'd skipped ahead to their second visit to Narnia, which hadn't lasted as long. And then, the tone changed. Susan admitted that she had denied the existence of Narnia, or at least tried to. When her siblings and the others who had been there spoke to her about it, she would say they had just been games, make-believe.

Helena now understood the look of longing and sorrow that Grandmum Susan had had in her eyes when she'd spoken of her old home of Narnia. All the Friends of Narnia (that was the term they had used) died in a tragic train accident, leaving her behind, alone. It jarred her somehow and she had such regret.

You were brought to Ularni to see that Queen Susan the Gentle was never forgotten by the people of that world, even as distant as the land of Ularni... She was never forgotten, even though she had tried so hard to forget.

Oh, my grandmum Susan, Helena thought. Thank you for this. I promise I will heed your warning. Yours and Aslan's.

It was Susan's final entry that was Helena's favourite, the one that she'd read most often after that night. It began like this:

'On their last visit to the world of Narnia, Lucy and Edmund saw Aslan right before coming back. Lucy told me something that he had said to them, something that she said she would never forget. I was just about ready to start ignoring those things, but I listened anyway.

'He'd said that he is present in our world, too; just known by a different name.

'I heard her rant about that so long that I grew tired of it. But after they died, I started thinking about it very deeply. I kept hearing Lucy's voice. My dear Helena, now, near the end of my life, I think I finally understand.

'I always wondered if Narnia would forget me as I have forgotten it. But as Lucy had told me so often, it was never Narnia that mattered, it was always Aslan.

'You see, I think I know the name he has in this world. And that one fact changes everything…'


The sunset fired lovely hues across the heavens of twilight, summoning the stars into visibility to display their dance to the earthbound creatures below. It had been a fair day and King Johann was standing near the beach after a day with his family.

He could hear the voice of his youngest child overhead. Prince Enden Caspian Ularni was pleading with his grandfather to go higher. The flap of powerful wings answered the plea, much to the delight of the seven-year-old.

The twins, Anna and Stefan, named for Johann's biological parents, were at the beach, enjoying a game with Yanu and Jel, longstanding friends of the family.

Johann stood silently, looking at the monument before him.

"It still hurts me that I was not able to save her," he said. A light-coloured hand squeezed his gently as a head of long brown hair rested on his shoulder. "I let her down, just as I did my parents."

"No, you didn't," the brunette told him. "You did what they wanted. You lived. You continued to live, and you lived a life that would make them proud. And you continue to do so today."

Johann's brown eyes looked into her grey ones. His wife, Lyrian, was daughter of the former king of Narnia and brother to the current, who'd taken the throne near young Enden's third birthday. They'd met when Johann had accompanied his father on a royal sea voyage to Narnia to rekindle the old friendship between the two lands. Four years later, they were married.

Perin's trunk had long rotted away, of course. According to Ularni tradition, though, the stump she had left behind had been reproduced in stone and her name embossed on it. It stood as a monument to the brave Dryad who was instrumental in changing the nation.

Johann smiled and gave Lyrian a soft kiss on her forehead. They stood quietly for a few more moments. Soon, he heard the sound of hoofs and little feet as the King Father came with the young Princes and Princess to meet them. The three children, their tan skin and dark-brown hair almost identical in colour, had heard the story of Perin many times. They knew her importance to their father and grandfather and indeed all of Ularni.

The Flying Horse snorted a bit and looked to the skies through the branches of Palm Dryads, who remained silently within their bodies out of respect for the memory of Perin which the king had come to honour. "We should retire," Johann's father said softly. "It is getting dark."

Johann and Lyrian looked to Enden and with smiles aimed at him and their children, they turned and the family headed for home. Their palace was nearby, a seaside home that allowed them to be close to where they could meet Jel and Yanu.

Johann thought of Helena every once in a while. The time he'd shared with her was so distant, just as the world that they'd both been a part of. The world and life he knew now, he knew, was as it should be and he felt a renewed joy each day here with his family.

Laughing and talking amongst each other, the family did not see the set of eyes watching them. The invisible cerulean eyes followed them as they past where the four large paws rested on the grassy earth. Aslan smiled and sung a gentle song, a recollection of the one he'd sung in the very beginning and all the others he had sung since.

Yes; this was a good day.