Tash's Nightmare Chapter 10

The door shut and disappeared, leaving them in a great hallway with no escape. Though they could only see about fifteen feet in all directions, as they moved forward, so did the light, yet they could see no source. It was as if a bubble of light stayed centered on them, sliding along the hallway as they moved.

What they could see was all the same, even after walking in the one—and only—direction they could for fifteen minutes. Nothing but decrepit brick walls, lined on either side with the stone statues, and occasionally a rotting corpse or a skeleton. Sometimes swords or arrows protruded from the corpses, some clad in parts of armor, and still some on the floor embracing a smaller corpse. "This isn't a house," said Susan, "we're going down, into the earth. It's a tunnel, or a tomb, rather." She looked at another corpse, this one leaning against the wall with a sword at its left and a round wooden shield at its right hand. An arrow protruded from its eye socket and Susan shivered, quickly looking away.

Charlie sniffed the air and disagreed. "No…" he said slowly, hesitantly. "I've been near dead bodies—piles of them, and they always reek. I can't smell a damn thing." Susan sniffed the air and agreed with him, and he continued, "besides, something about this place feels…false. Like it's not really here."

"It is called the House of Illusion," she reminded him. For quite a while, that was the last thing said, as the couple was too unsettled to attempt any further conversation. After a long while the hallway came to an end rather suddenly, running into a wall made of the same yellow bricks that confined them on either side of the tunnel.

"Well now what?" said Charlie.

Susan put her hand on the wall. "It's solid," she declared.

"Thanks, eagle-eye."

A cold, biting draft hit them from behind. Susan shivered, pulling her sundress closer to her body. Charlie turned around as his face went pale. "We can't get out," he announced.

"How do you know, Love?"

"I just know," he snapped. "That draft wasn't normal."

Not knowing what else to do, and struggling not to panic, he struck Liar's Laugh against the wall, and a loud clang reverberated through the air. Susan stepped back as Charlie stuck the wall again and again, becoming angrier with each strike. Sparks flew from the wall as thin scratches were drawn on the bricks.

"Stop for a minute," she said as she grabbed his arm. She pulled him back and pointed at the top of the wall. "Look."

"What? What am I looking at?"

"Don't you see that...stuff...coming out of the walls?"

Charlie strained his eyes, seeing something shimmering in the dim lighting. "It looks like slime," he noted.

"I think it looks like moss," said Susan. Whatever it was, it grew from the bricks in vine-like patterns, branching out to form strange glyphs neither could recognize. Susan said, "it's some kind of foreign language. Do you recognize it?"

"Nope," he answered. "Actually, wait a sec—"

"I think I can—"

"It's kinda familiar…"

"See through me, for I am nothing," they read aloud at the same time.

Then they laughed.

"How did we—how did we read that?" asked Susan, wiping a tear from her eye.

"Magic, maybe," said Charlie. "But it still doesn't mean anything," he lamented. He walked forward, thinking he'd hit the wall. "I mean, what are we supposed to do? Just walk—"
He vanished, seemingly walking through the wall as if it weren't there. Then the wall itself vanished, and Susan was greeted by the sight of a very confused Charlie, stammering out the rest of his statement: "walk…right…through…?" She stepped in after him.

Jadis, the White Witch

-and-

Nightmare Edmund

They were in a small throne room. Torches lined the walls of the circular chamber, providing a dim light. The bricks were the same color as the hallway. In the center, on a raised marble platform, there was a silver chair, and upon it sat someone Susan never hoped to see again.
"It's the White Witch!" she shouted in alarm, quickly aiming her rifle.

The White Witch laughed a weak, sputtering, but undeniably malicious, laugh. "Edmund, come, greet your sister!" she croaked. Her voice had changed since her reigning days in Narnia, becoming horribly withered and worn out. But at her command, a huge lurking figure emerged from the shadows. This thing was, undeniably, King Edmund the Just, plucked straight from Cair Paravel, but his face was scarred and stitched, looking like a twisted Frankenstein's Monster rather than a king in his glory days. He wore faded leather armor, and a two-handed longsword was sheathed on his back. "There's a good Turkish Delight in it for you, that's a good dear!" croaked the Witch as Nightmare Edmund drew his sword. He lumbered towards them, as if he had forgotten to walk and only just recently begun to learn again.

Susan and Charlie drew their weapons. "Do you have a plan this time?" asked Charlie sarcastically.

"Hit him till he falls," answered Susan, just as sarcastically.

And with that, she ducked under Edmund's first swing, quickly coming back up and responding with a quick stab in the back. Edmund lurched in shock, groaned, and turned rather quickly. He swung down, narrowly missing Susan as she ducked out of the way, and Charlie came up behind him with Liar's Laugh, drawing a cut across the leather. Hot blood dripped onto the cold stone floor, and Edmund seemed to move quicker, lumbering less as his movements became more coordinated. His next swing missed Charlie, who ducked under it, but rather than pause and reorient himself, Edmund quickly stepped to the side and swung it back around at Susan.

It was too quick for her to dodge. The only thing she could do was block the blow with her rifle, swinging the barrel of the gun to her side to lessen the blow when it hit, but rather than splinter into millions of pieces as she expected (the rifle was made of lightweight metal and wood) the great sword hit with a large clang, sending shockwaves through her body, and Edmund's as well, it seemed, as he stood there stunned in place.

As this happened, Charlie was thrown back by a gust of wind, hurtling towards a spike of ice that had grown from the wall behind the Witch, who now stood as she directed her magic. With a mid-air swipe of Liar's Laugh, the tip of the spike was blunted and he hit his head instead, fell on the floor and saw stars. The White Witch was sauntering towards him, her tattered dress sweeping around dirt and filth on the floor until she stood above Charlie, smiling and reveling in her near-victory. Beneath him, the ground turned cold and a blue circle appeared as her magic took effect, then disappeared again as the Witch screamed in pain and fright. "AIIIIEEEE!"

Charlie slashed her legs at the last second, giving him enough of an advantage to stand up and stab her through the heart. Her teeth seemed to grow, but soon it became apparent that her skin and muscles were peeling back and melting away, starting from inside her mouth, over her face, revealing her skull, then traveling down and exposing her spine, ribs, arms, and finally her legs, and she collapsed, the tattered dress billowing around her as the old and yellowed bones fell in a haphazard heap.

Susan was still battling Edmund, but his mistress's death had freed him, falling to one knee as the Nightmare's effect took hold of him, turning him into a beast as if the Witch's magic had held it back. He groaned and looked up in pain, his skull elongated, his teeth sharpened to a point, and as his groan turned into a snarl, Susan jabbed him with the butt of her rifle and shot him, then stabbed him through the neck as he lay on the floor. His transformation was incomplete; he was somewhere between half-"man" and half-wolf.

Charlie came over to her side. "That was intense," he said.

Susan nodded in agreement. "I need to rest," she said.

"Me too," he agreed, "so let's get this curse thing over with so we can get out of here."

"You can both sleep on the boat," said Azaroth's voice from behind them. They both jumped, startled at her presence.

"I thought we had to clear the curse from this place before you could enter!" exclaimed Susan.

Azaroth looked at the pile of bones that was once the White Witch of Narnia. "That was the curse," she said, looking back at them. She began to groom herself yet again. "I expected something more of my brother," she lamented in disappointment. "Perhaps a song to sing or a riddle to solve, but not a sparring match. There's no class in dog fighting."

"A dog fight?" Charlie repeated angrily. "We're both covered in blood and bruises, and you think it's a dog fight? We could've been killed!"

"So, what? I'm on your side, but I find just as much entertainment in this as Tash," she fired back.

"It's a game to you," said Susan in a glum tone of voice, her eyes downcast. "You're on Aslan's side simply because He's not Tash, because He's something new. You're drawn to Him like a harlot, a mistress who's bored of her husband."

"That is exactly what I am, lovely," chimed Azaroth, brushing off the insult. Before the conversation could go any further, she continued: "go back to the boat while I destroy this island."

The walls of the House of Illusion began to crumble as the ground began to shake, and the two humans fled.

A/N: School started back up. Updates will not be rare, but they will be slightly longer in coming.