Friends and Foes

Presenting chapter 4! This is where we, as the audience, find out what has become of Terence. Warning: darkness and depression ensues in this chapter, so brace yourselves, mates!


Terence © unicorn-skydancer08

Other Characters and Narnia © C.S. Lewis and Disney/Walden Media

All rights reserved.


Chapter 4

Terence struggled through the layers of unconsciousness that enveloped him, like an underwater swimmer fighting to reach the surface. Very slowly, like maple sap on a freezing day, the youth became aware that he lay on some hard, flat, smooth surface, and he also perceived that it was cold—quite cold. His face felt oddly stiff on one side.

And his head was killing him.

What had happened? He could not remember. It was all so vague…

Without even realizing it, a low moan escaped from the youth's lips. His body ached all over, but it was his head that undoubtedly hurt the worst; his head felt like it had just been clobbered by a two-ton boulder.

Like a butterfly beating its wings, Terence's eyelids fluttered open.

Where he was, he did not know right away, for everything before his eyes was swimming about in an obscure sea of color and shadow; not to mention the fact that the fire in his head was burning so badly he could hardly think straight. Terence tried to move, but found he could not. His arms and legs seemed to be tied, for some strange reason.

Like a fish out of water, the young man began writhing and wriggling about.

"Keep still, you witless worm," a sudden harsh voice growled, "or you'll never move again!"

"Wh-who…who said that?" Terence asked thickly.

"I did, you miserable maggot." The voice seemed to be coming from above him. Terence looked up bemusedly, blinking to clear his hazy vision, and realized someone was standing over him.

At first, he could not tell whether this was a man, or an animal. The creature that towered over him looked like a wolf that had begun to change into a man—or a man that had begun to change into a wolf—but then had stopped about halfway in the process. The creature's flesh had a rather sickly grayish tinge to it. Like Terence, his hair was silver, but his hair was more of a dull, drabbled soap-gray. His eyes were bright scarlet, with vertical black slits for pupils, like a serpent, and they looked cold and fierce.

Just the sight of the creature alone sent a dreadful chill through Terence's heart. "Wh-who are you?" the youth asked, now stammering with fear.

"My name is Ardat," the beast snarled, revealing a number of jagged yellow teeth. "And I suggest you save your breath, you mangy dog, while you yet have it."

Wincing from the throbbing pain in his head, Terence glanced around at his surroundings, and realized he was lying on the icy stone floor of some prison chamber. His hands were bound behind his back, and his ankles were also bound together, so that he could not escape.

It was rather dim in that room; the only source of light came from a meager torch mounted on the wall. Its flickering light cast grotesque shadows in all directions, and made the beast named Ardat appear even more menacing than ever—if such a thing were possible.

"Where am I?" Terence gasped. "How did I get here? And what do you want with me?"

"Either you're hard of hearing, you rundown rat, or you simply refuse to listen," Ardat growled, his teeth flashing ominously in the torchlight. And then he added gruffly, "But I condescend to answer those three questions. You're at the bottom of a prison citadel in the middle of the Northern Marshes, near the border of Ettinsmoor. You're here, as my prisoner. As to how you got here, my henchmen Avicus and Flavius were responsible for that."

He motioned toward the two beastly minotaurs, who were present in the chamber at that time. Avicus, the minotaur who'd struck Terence down in the beginning, curled his upper lip in an unpleasant leer.

Terence grimaced as the sharp pain in his head intensified for a brief moment.

"Oh…my head!" he murmured through tightly clenched teeth.

"Yes, well, we had to knock you down for the time being," said Ardat remorselessly, paying no heed to the twisted look of agony on Terence's face, "as we had no desire to struggle with you, and also we could not risk having anyone else find us out. Consider yourself lucky that you're yet alive…for now."

"What do you want with me?" Terence asked again, when he could speak.

"As I have mentioned before, you are here as my prisoner," Ardat answered.

"Prisoner? Why? What have I done? What was my crime?"

"Crime?" Ardat echoed, his red eyes blazing like two fiery coals. "Your crime is treason, and murder!"

"Treason? Murder?" Terence repeated the words like they were alien. "What are you talking about? I have betrayed no one, and I never murdered anyone in my life!"

"You are responsible for the death of Jadis, formerly known as the White Witch, and sovereign queen of all Narnia!" Ardat yelled, so loudly he was practically howling. "It is because of you that she perished! And for that, you must suffer, as all traitors and murderers must suffer, just as the laws of justice demand."

Terence blinked in disbelief. "What? Now, now, hold on, there, Abrax—or whatever you said your name was—you've got it all backwards. Jadis was never the rightful queen of the land. It was she who was the traitor. She obtained dominance over Narnia as a result of treachery and manipul—ahhhh!" The rest of Terence's sentence came out in a cry of anguish, for Avicus had just struck him in the head with the blunt end of a lance, to silence him.

Avicus actually didn't hit him all that hard, but due to the severe pain Terence was already experiencing at the moment, it made stars appear before the youth's eyes.

"Silence!" Ardat commanded. "You ill-disciplined, insubordinate imbecile! Jadis had the legitimate authority over us all, and you rebelled against her and participated in bringing about her downfall! Therefore, you are as guilty as anyone!"

And with that, he kicked Terence pitilessly in the ribs, which were unfortunately bruised at the time, and Terence cried out again.

"You've got it all wrong," Terence gasped, when he'd regained sufficient breath to speak. "I wasn't even present at the time when Jadis was destroyed. How can you blame me for her demise? And besides, I do not even hail from this part of the land. I'd never even known Jadis. It was Tumnus who knew her personally—not I!"

"Tumnus?" repeated Ardat, and this time there was incredulity displayed in his tone and countenance. "Tumnus, the faun? Jadis's former ally and confidant? The faun who rescued Queen Lucy, and therefore helped bring to pass the ancient prophecy concerning the descendants of Adam and Eve, who would overthrow Jadis and take possession of the land?"

Realizing he'd spoken too much, Terence promptly held his tongue and said nothing more.

Ardat furrowed his charcoal-gray brow, and his crimson eyes narrowed into slits. "Where?" he demanded, in a low-toned, sinister growl. "Where is he? Where is Tumnus?"

Terence said nothing.

"I said, where is Tumnus?" Ardat repeated, after a time.

Again, Terence said nothing, biting down hard on his tongue for good measure.

Ardat hissed in exasperation. "Fool! You speak when you are told to remain silent, and yet you remain silent when you are commanded to speak! I shall ask it a third time. Where is Tumnus? Answer me quickly, and truthfully. Reveal to me the location of the faun, Jadis's one true betrayer; and I shall set you free, without any further trouble, and take him instead."

Despite himself, and despite the way Tumnus had treated him earlier, Terence still refused to speak. Though he continued to sting inwardly from his unfriendly encounter with the faun, he knew he would never hand the faun over to someone like Ardat. Not if he could help it.

"You are trying my patience." There was a foreboding note in Ardat's tone.

Terence knew he was provoking Ardat's anger, and getting himself into further trouble, yet he refused to give Tumnus away.

When Ardat saw that Terence was not going to confess, he curled his upper lip in contempt and growled, "So be it, then. Until you inform me of the faun's whereabouts, you shall be left to rot in this dungeon. I will find out where Tumnus is, no matter what it takes. I'll torture you to obtain the appropriate information, if I must. But one way or the other, the score will be evened, and Jadis will be avenged."

"Good luck with that." The words were out of Terence's mouth before he realized it.

"Courage." Ardat spoke the word with dry wit. "Well, we shall see just how long your courage will last, how long your backbone will hold before it finally breaks."

Eventually he departed from the chamber altogether, leaving Avicus and Flavius to guard Terence through the night. "Keep a close watch on him, every second," were his last words to the minotaurs before he withdrew his presence.

Despair now washed over Terence like a tidal wave, and he closed his eyes. Whichever way he looked at it, he had never been in a worse fix. He was all alone, in a lonely, miserable cell, in deep trouble with a sadistic man-wolf and a couple of sadistic minotaurs, and there was nothing he could do to help himself—especially considering the condition he was in.

Maybe he would die now. He surely couldn't see how he would manage to get out of this alive.

As Terence lay there, he thought of Tumnus, and all his other friends.

They probably didn't know where he was…and they probably didn't even care.

This added to the burden of sorrow already weighed down on Terence's heart, and a single tear leaked out from beneath a sealed lid and rolled steadily down the young man's cheek, dripping off the end of his goateed chin and landing upon the stone floor, where it shone like a liquid jewel for a time before slowly evaporating into thin air.