7 - In The Ruins

Jaelyn's heart lurched at the overwhelming sorrow in Silas's eyes. He didn't scream, as she might have. As she had done, if she remembered right, when she lost her parents to the fever. Nor did he break down into tears, which she'd also have done ... and had done, more recently. She had thought herself alone on this task. What must it feel like to be alone in the world, your only ties murdered and their home sacked? It would have been thirteen centuries ago, to her ... but to him, only yesterday.

She stared into the woods and found a crumbling bit of stone wall. "Is there anything here you might ... recover?" she asked. Salvage sounded so final.

His fist clenched convulsively. "My father's sword. And Rhindon, the sword of the High King. If ... If they still exist."

She opened her mouth to ask how they might find such artifacts underneath thirteen hundred years of decay, but bit the question back at once. Silas's eyes remained unfocused with pain. She couldn't bear to add to it with fumbling questions.

"Right, then," she said firmly, grabbing up her traveling pack and shouldering it. "Let's get to it." She started off past him without a clue where to go, knowing only that the look in his eyes stabbed at her like a knife.

Her motion seemed to thrust him back to the present. He strode into the woods with her, and was soon leading the way with purpose in his step. Several times, he stopped and appeared to listen—or maybe he was doing something dryad-y with that strange, motionless stance—and they changed direction. Gradually the ground sloped upward, and they soon found themselves in the middle of what, to Jaelyn's eyes, was a pile of rubble and the remains of damaged walls.

Silas clearly saw something else in the broken stones. His head came up, and he navigated the ruin as if it were not in pieces around his feet. Presently they walked between two rows of broken columns, then mounted what was left of a stone dais.

Silas went straight to a row of four crumbling platforms. "This is what's left of the Four Thrones," he said softly. To the second seat, he gave a deferential bow, as if a king still sat there.

Next, he bent to the first ruined platform. Gently, he brushed the stone base. "My father's seat," he murmured, and she barely heard it. Jaelyn stared, uncertain what to say and somehow feeling it would be shameful to disturb him with words.

From there, he strode to the end of the dais. All Jaelyn saw was a wall. "Help me," he said.

She went forward, not knowing what she was to do, but he pushed at the wall. She hurried to help. To her shock, it gave and rolled back to reveal a rotting wooden door.

Silas pulled at the wood, and it came away with ease. She followed his example, until they'd revealed a stairway leading down into the gloomy depths. "Are you sure we must go down there?"

"This is the treasure house." Silas took a couple of steps downward, then held up a hand. A cluster of silvery leaves materialized in his palm, spinning like a little whirlwind.

Silver, she saw with astonishment. Just like a handful of birch leaves, but sparkling when they caught reflected light. It didn't take much; what little illumination there was in the stairwell reflected off the leaves and bounced off the marble walls, enough to provide visibility down the steps. She gaped in wonder.

He noticed her look, and flashed a smile. "A trick my mother taught me. Birch dryads' leaves carry a silver shine."

"There are kinds of dryads?"

"Of course. As many as there are kinds of trees. Narnia is ... was ... full of them." The smile disappeared, swallowed again by that troubled look which tugged at her. "Come down."

She followed. At the bottom of the steps was a gate. And through that ...

A fortune. Golden candelabras, golden coins, jewels, armor. Even a small golden statue of a lion, which could have bought and sold her entire existence a thousand times over. "Ohhhhh," she breathed.

Silas went straight to the second of four large, golden chests at the perimeter of the room. Behind it stood a regal marble statue of a handsome, bearded man. "Is that ... ?" she started to ask.

"My uncle, High King Peter the Magnificent. Aslan himself appointed him." Silas found a torch, leaning crookedly in its bracket on the wall, and instructed her to light it using his tinderbox. She did, and set it into a bracket still mounted securely.

Silas put away the little whirlwind of leaves in his palm, and the glitter dancing along the ceiling ceased. In the fire's glow, he opened the High King's trunk to a veritable stockpile of wealth in weapons and armor. "It's here. Thank the Lion, it's here." He lifted a sword from the chest. His eyes never moved from it as he pulled it from its scabbard to study the etching on the blade.

"What does it say?" she asked.

"It's part of the legend of the coming of Aslan," he murmured. "He who broke the Hundred Year Winter."

Jaelyn stole a look at the golden lion statue by the fourth chest. She still had trouble reconciling the creature that Silas spoke of so reverently with a beast, even one as intimidating as a lion. "And who are these?" she asked, seeing statues of two women, similarly placed behind chests of their own. How regal they looked! Jaelyn tried to ignore her own stained robes, and failed utterly. Even cast in marble, the women gave off a grace she couldn't hope to imitate. She had never before cared about such things ... but she'd never been acquainted with a prince.

Silas re-sheathed the blade of his uncle's sword. "My aunts, Queen Susan the Gentle, and Queen Lucy the Valiant." He turned to the first chest in the row, and the statue behind it. "This one," he finished, and now his voice had gone hoarse, "is my father, King Edmund the Just." He stood motionless for a while, still with that isolated, drifting look in his eyes.

Carefully, Jaelyn picked her way through the rubble on the floor to stand beside him. She examined the statue, and saw at once the similarities between the features in the marble face, and those of the man beside her. She could no longer doubt it, even if she'd wanted.

Silas came back to the present and lifted the lid of this new chest. Inside, he laid hands on a shield, still bright with red and gold paint and the emblem of a lion on its face. Next came a sword, simply but masterfully crafted, with a fan-shaped hilt and a birch-leaf pattern embossed into its scabbard. King Edmund's things, she guessed.

Silas's face was grim. "Their weapons are all here. They wouldn't have known the castle was being attacked. What happened?"

He seemed not to require an answer, but Jaelyn squirmed with guilt. His arrival here must be her fault. How could it be otherwise? She'd read that spell.

Silas tied the swords carefully into a bundle using a velvet robe and heavy silk cord from the trunk, then slung the works across his back. "Can you carry the shield?" he asked, holding it out to her.

The way he held it, it looked lightweight enough. She eyed the bundle across his back—two heavy swords, plus his own weapons. He'd buckle under all that weight ... eventually. She held out her hands for the shield.

He handed it over, and she dropped it at once with a thud that echoed in the chamber. "Sorry!" she cried, feeling disrespectful in the extreme.

She was astonished to find him laughing quietly. "Now you know how I felt when I held my first sword and shield."

"How old were you?"

"Five," he said.

"Five!" she cried. "The shield would nearly have been as big as you!"

He smiled. "Dryad children grow quickly. I was about as tall as a human child of ten summers. Stronger than a human, as well." He started toward her, reaching for the shield as if to take it back.

"I can do this," she countered. She hefted it up and buckled it across her back. It felt strange, a bit ungainly, but less so now.

The corner of his mouth tilted upward. For a few seconds, that pleased look in his eyes held her to the spot as if she were a deep-rooted tree. All at once, the space between them seemed impossibly small. She noticed little things about him; the way he stood, lightly, as if to dart off in any direction at any given moment. The way his forelock seemed forever untamed. That slight dimple in his chin, and even the way the stubble shadowed his face in the firelight.

He was looking, too. His stare softened, warmed, traveled over her in a way that made her shiver. There was admiration there, and something more. She held her breath. For several seconds, the world stopped existing.

Silas broke their gaze first, jerking away to the remaining two chests. From these, he pulled a little belt with a pouch and dagger. "Buckle these around your waist," he said gruffly. "It's my aunt's healing cordial. We could meet with anything out there, and Aslan knows, we may need it." As she followed his instructions, he went to Queen Susan's trunk and withdrew a bow and arrows. He frowned and pawed through the rest of the contents. "Aunt Susan's horn is missing."

The consternation in his tone pricked her anxiety. "Is that bad?"

"They blew it only in times of great danger." His worried eyes met hers. "I need to find out what magic brought me here, and if it can be reversed. I may be able to go back and stop whatever happened here."

Jaelyn shifted uneasily. "What was this ... horn ... like?"

"A gift from Father Christmas, when my father and his siblings first came to Narnia. A magical horn, carved with the face of a lion, that would bring help whenever the horn was blown. An ivory horn."

A chill poured through Jaelyn's body, and along with it, another flood of guilt. "We should get out of here," she said quickly.

He was across the space in an instant, stopping her retreat with a firm hand on her arm. "What are you not telling me?"

"Nothing. Nothing," she blurted.

His nostrils flared. "You're not a very good cheat, Jaelyn. I can smell a lie when you tell it."

That rattled her. "Take your hand off me ... please."

He snatched it back, but his eyes had gone hard. "Are there any Narnians left, or is this land now just full of humans?" He said human as if it were a curse word.

She shook her head helplessly. "I don't know! If there are, they'll have retreated from Lord Miraz's grasp. Far north, maybe, or into the forests."

Silas watched her with narrowed eyes, and she felt he could almost reach down inside her with that stare and shake out every lie she'd ever told. At last, he hefted the bundle of swords into a better spot on his shoulder, then snatched the torch from its bracket. His eyes flashed in the flickering light. "Then into the forests we'll go."