The iron chain continued to hold fast in spite of Peter's hardest pulling and tugging; if he missed anything about being a bear at that moment, it was the extra strength needed to pull chain off the wall. Nothing worked; he beat at the chain with the hilt of his sword, resulting in nothing more than nearly chipping part a scrap of iron not much thicker than a hair off. Ugh, useless! Peter shoved the sword back into it's scabbard and moaned. The husky dog gulped and looked up at him sadly.
"Don't worry, I wont leave you." Peter promised, reaching out and lightly stroking the side of the husky dog's head.
"Peter, I'm really scared." the husky dog admitted, tears shinning brightly in her eyes.
"You don't have to be." Peter whispered, squatting down as low as possible so that they were eye-to-eye. "I'm here now, I wont let them hurt you anymore..." his voice trailed off started quivering but the look on his face remained determined. "...we're going to get out of this just fine, I-I promise you, Susan."
"What about the chain?" her voice was so timid that it came across as almost childlike and only made Peter feel even more anger towards the dwarfs-to make such a mature, brave, grown-up, practical young woman speak like that out of fear; it was nothing short of utterly despicable!
"There must be some way to get it off." said Peter, looking around the room for anything that might be useful; a hot poker, a very strong hammer that could take more of a beating than his sword hilt could, anything really. But there was nothing. No fireplace-thus no need for a poker. No signs that any of the dwarfs used this room for blacksmithing or mining-thus no hammer.
The husky dog shifted her eyes every which way, too, but they didn't land on anything useful either. A mournful, hopeless sigh came from her throat and she looked up at Peter despairingly. Oh, what was the use? It seemed that there was no way he was going to be able to set her free and the longer he stayed there, the more chance he had of getting caught if one of the dwarfs came back in.
"Did you see how they got it on?" Peter tried, thinking that perhaps there might be a clasp or a weak link holding the stronger parts together.
The husky dog shook her head. "No, I was unconscious. They'd already locked me in here and left when I woke up." looking over at the pile of shields, she added, "I wouldn't have even known what they'd turned me into if I hadn't gotten a glimpse of my reflection when I moved a certain way in the cage."
There came the sound of the door opening and Peter stationed himself in front of the beautiful husky dog, pulling his sword out of his scabbard again, ready to fight for her if he had to.
A dwarf entered, but he wasn't one that Susan had seen before. He was a little taller and slimmer than Nikabrik and Ginarrbrik were, but not by much, and his long waist-length beard was red like a fox's tail. His face was physically just as strong, weather-beaten, and hard-looking as any of the others she had met that day, however, the expression on it was far gentler and did not come across as being quite as dangerous or bitter.
Peter started to lower his sword but he didn't relax it all the way until the dwarf had come close enough for him to be sure. "Trumpkin!" he breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness, it's only you."
"Yes, just me. Lucy and Jill are right outside the door; for some reason we took a wrong turn in one of the tunnels that led us in circles until we ended up here and I thought I heard your voice so I came in to help." Trumpkin explained, noticing the husky dog now and raising an eyebrow curiously.
"I can't get this chain off." Peter told him shortly, not because he was cross but because he needed help and he knew that Trumpkin understood dwarf-made things better than he did.
"What a lovely dog." said Trumpkin, taking a step closer, approaching cautiously because he wasn't sure if it was wild or not.
"It's alright, she wont hurt you." Peter smiled weakly and put his hand on her back to steady himself as he started to stand up. "Look more carefully at her face."
Trumpkin did so and his eyes widened with shock and disgust at his fellow dwarfs. "This isn't a natural animal, she's like...well, like you were before..."
"It's Susan." his eyes closed for a moment and then opened again. "They made her drink something."
"They'll pay for this somehow, your majesty." swore Trumpkin, unable to tear his eyes away from the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' latest victim. How could they? Killing Peter and Edmund's parents had been wrong and teaming up with Nikabrik to take over Narnia had been very stupid of them, but kidnapping a human lady with no political power over them-her only connection to the fays being that Peter loved her-struck him as an even greater evil.
"We'll have to wait and see about that." Peter's eyes glanced nervously at the door, which was still open a crack. "Right now, let's just focus on getting Susan out of here."
"I think I can undo the chain, your majesty." Trumpkin said, nodding gravely in the direction of the back of the cage where the chain ended. "It's a dwarf-chain, only a full-blooded dwarf can remove it."
"Then in the name of Aslan, please be quick about freeing her." Peter said, breathing a sigh of relief thinking that perhaps everything was going to be alright after all. Yes, the dwarfs were still wicked and Susan was now a husky dog, but those things could hopefully be fixed in time. If there had been a way for his enchantment to end, there had to be a way for Susan's to be reversed, too, all he had to do was to figure out what it was. In the meantime, he decided he would get her back above ground and take her to the hidden manor, she would be safe there until everything was sorted.
Trumpkin bowed and put his hands on the chain, unhooking it as smoothly as if he was cutting off a sliver of butter. "There you are, dear."
"Thank you." Susan leaned against Trumpkin's side gratefully; if she had still been a human, she would have given him a hug and a kiss on the cheek to thank him. After meeting up with so many cruel, unreasonable, heartless dwarfs, it was good to know there were still good ones out there who were willing to help her.
Peter smiled as the husky left the red dwarf and came back over to him; she rested her head on his slightly bent knee before standing up straight on her four paws with a little help from Trumpkin who came forward again and took off the collar which was so heavy it had been throwing off her balance.
"Come on, let's get out of here." Trumpkin swung open the door and came face to face with Ginarrbrik and two dwarfs standing on either side of him.
"You have got to be kidding me." Peter muttered. The husky dog hid behind him and let out her most petrified whimper yet, her tail going right between her legs as if she really was just a tormented animal as opposed to the wonderful, brave-hearted lady he knew her to be.
"Thieves!" wheezed Ginarrbrik, breaking into a faint cough (I hope he chokes on his own spit and expires, thought Trumpkin). "First our unicorn and now our dog?"
"Dog indeed!" Peter snarled, looking so furious that Susan couldn't help but be glad that he was on her side; she would have hated to have to go up against someone who wore an expression like that on their face. "You think I don't know her for the maiden you kidnapped and transformed?"
Ginarrbrik didn't answer; rather, he took a step back to reveal two more dwarfs that they hadn't noticed before, standing behind Jill holding her wrists together and binding them tightly with thick black cords.
"Let her go!" the words burst from the husky dog; her tender heart couldn't bear to watch another girl get captured and hurt like she had been. "You already have me."
"No they don't." Peter cut in, glaring at Ginarrbrik, breathing so hard from his anger that his chest was heaving up and down while he spoke. "You don't have Susan and you wont have Jill either. Your game is up, let my courtiers and subjects free and even now I swear on the Lion himself I will show you mercy." Of course mercy was the last thing he wanted to show to those evil creatures after all the pain and suffering they had caused but he had to do what was right for Narnia; that was what kings did, they put the well-being of their country before their own hurt emotions.
"If anyone should be asking for mercy it's you, little king." sneered the first dwarf that was binding Jill's hands. "You're in our kingdom now."
"Ah, yes, perhaps we should show our guests how we deal with thieves and traitors here." Ginarrbrik's raspy laugh echoed off of the dark walls and seemed to hang over them long after he had shut his mouth.
Trumpkin shook his head and pulled out his sword. "I will fight to the death to save Narnia's true high king."
Eustace and Edmund arrived from another direction (having been lucky enough to have escaped and hid from the dwarfs who'd caught Jill and then having had the luck of meeting up with one another and getting something like a plan made, however rushed it was) and stood behind Trumpkin, pulling out their own swords and proceeding to fight. They rescued Jill and struck down a few of Ginarrbrik's best dwarfs, but then more came in greater numbers and things got harder.
At first, Edmund had managed to hold off anyone from getting close to Peter with a weapon but somehow a dwarf with a curved Calormene blade reached him and was about to strike when the husky dog finally regained a level of courage and bit him. He would have swiped her head clean off as repayment but Trumpkin hit him first and Peter kicked him down, knocking the blade out of his hand.
The fays that had come down into the dwarf's realm with Peter, heard all of the commotion and attacked. However unimpressive they'd seemed before, they all appeared to be decent fighters after all, protecting their kings and the Lady Jill from harm.
But where was Lucy during all of this? Put simply, she was lost. She had managed to get away unseen by the dwarfs-who'd through Jill was the only lady in the group-when they'd attacked and had been meaning to go look for Edmund. Unlike Eustace, she hadn't been fortunate enough to find him; rather, three or for wrong turns later, she was in a dark, sort of smelly, tunnel that at first seemed so small she wasn't sure she would be able to keep on going down it, but then it widened out further along.
When it came to an end, Lucy saw a filmy black curtain no thicker than a spider's web. She gently moved it aside and stepped through a round russet-coloured archway into a very strange little room.
In the centre, there was a very funny-looking sort of box-thing so large that a person could have fit into it-not just a dwarf person, either, it was big enough for humans or fays as well. The sides were see-through and reflective like the tinted shop windows in the near-by villages and the border was such an intensely dour shade of black that just looking at it almost made you feel like you were dying inside. In the very middle, there seemed to be a sort of split with a large square-shaped piece of crystal-glass that-to Lucy, at least-looked quite crude. There was a smaller box attacked to it with four holders, round like little rings. Lucy's eyes widened and she gulped, nearly stumbling over her own two feet as she took a step backwards; she thought she knew exactly what would fit in those holders.
From the corner of the room, there suddenly came a giggle. Startled, Lucy quickly spun around on her heel, her eyes locking with those of a very tipsy black dwarf holding a long-necked bottle of strong ale. He swayed back and forth and then muttered something about having to vomit before even noticing her presence.
"Hello there!" He swayed again, taking another sip from the bottle and going, "Ah!" six times in a row.
"Hullo." Lucy's voice came out slowly, not sure if he was dangerous or not.
A burp and then a slurred, "Excuse me...I'm drunk as a...now then, stop swaying so I can think of a simile, will you?" reassured her that this dwarf wasn't a real threat at the moment.
"You're the one swaying." said Lucy.
"Am I now?" The dwarf's eyes widened with shock and he slapped his knee. "How about that!" he lifted the bottle up and took a long swig from it. "Sway, sway, go away..." he then proceeded to laugh and cackle to himself as if it was the most witty piece of poetry ever written. "Heh heh..."
Even though he was drunk-or perhaps even because he was-Lucy decided to ask him about the box in the room and the dwarf's plans for the yellow and green rings. She had to repeat herself six times and the third time, he only looked down at his hands and said, "I have twenty fingers." but finally she managed to get an answer out of him. It was a terrible answer and Lucy felt her body shuddering violently with complete and utter horror as she learned all about it.
If and when the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' got those four rings, they planned to put them in the holders and power up the box; after putting Edmund on one side of the middle-glass and then Peter on the other.
"But what does it do?" Lucy had to know; she couldn't warn Peter and Edmund properly if she didn't even know for sure what the dwarfs meant to do to them.
"It throws them into separate worlds at the same exact time." the dwarf burped and wiggled his arms in the air like a child playing catch with a toy ball.
Lucy crinkled her forehead; she didn't quite understand what good it would do the dwarfs. Yes, sending Peter and Edmund out the Narnian universe would benefit them, but something about the way the drunk dwarf was saying, 'separate worlds at the same time' made her sense that there was more to it than just that.
"I can burp the entire Archenland anthem!" the dwarf announced randomly, beaming up at Lucy rather idiotically.
She ignored that and asked, "But why would they want to throw them into separate worlds? Wouldn't it be easier to throw them into the same one, killing two birds with one stone?"
"Don't know much about fays, do you, young one?" he slurred, blinking up at her and sighing deeply. "So young and beardless, yet so freakish tall for your age and no one's explained it to you, poor little dwarf-child."
So that's why he hasn't attacked me, Lucy realized-everything starting to make just a little bit more sense now, he's so intoxicated that he thinks I'm a dwarf myself!
He prattled on, "You see, fay brothers-usually twins, but not always-have an interesting sort of connection not really found in brothers of other species."
For some reason, Lucy's felt her hands shaking and her lips trembling, already feeling afraid for the royal fay brothers. "What sort of connection?"
"Well..." the dwarf rolled his eyes and burped twice before going on. "I don't really understand the whole gist of it myself...but I know it weakens 'em a bit when one of them travels into another world leaving the other behind 'ere in Narnia..." He burped again. "That's why Edmund sent Trumpkin to give the box to Mrs. Lefay instead of going himself...didn't much like the thought of being all weakly and stumbling around that new world till he got used to it, I guess."
"But what has that got to do with that?" Lucy pointed over at the horrid box which seemed now to be looming over them like death itself.
"You're not very bright, are you?" he giggled merrily and tossed the bottle back up facing downwards so that the last drops of alcohol could fall into his mouth-he was so tipsy that they mostly just dampened his beard. "Think about it, if it weakens them when one leaves our world without the other, what do you think would happen to them if they were both being pulled out in opposite directions at the same time, eh?"
Involuntarily, Lucy's hand flew to her mouth. The dwarfs meant to kill them by putting them in that box and making them weaker and weaker until they expired!
The dwarf realized his ale bottle was empty. "Hey! Someone's gone and drunk all my ale!"
I have to warn Peter and Edmund, Lucy's mind raced-she had to get to them before it was too late.
Suddenly the dwarf started crying into his sleeve. "Nobody loves me." tears streamed down his face like rain for a moment while he sobbed about the injustices of life and love and death and ale-thieves until he suddenly passed out, snoring on the floor.
At least it would be easier for Lucy to get out without the drunken dwarf asking questions-or so she'd thought before the curtain was suddenly pulled aside again and Ginarrbrik stormed in. His dwarfs having defeated and captured the fays-in spite of their best efforts-having tied up the survivors. The husky dog had another heavy collar and chain she was being led in by; cords were tied around her mouth to form a muzzle so she couldn't try to bite any of them. Trumpkin was in chains, too, and the other dwarfs were spiting on him, calling him a traitor.
As for Peter and Edmund, Lucy-who had just gotten a chance to hide in the corner of the room so that Ginarrbrik hadn't seen her-watched in horror as they were lifted into the box, one on each side of the middle-glass.
They don't have the rings, Lucy reminded herself-trying to keep from crying out loud, they can't do anything to them without the rings, they're just sitting in a box...they're going to be alright.
Trumpkin was saying very nearly the same thing to the dwarf closest to him, but in a very different tone. That dwarf, however didn't seem upset or taken back in the least. Ginarrbrik wore a dangerously secretive smile on his face.
After a moment of silence, he wheezed, "Did you know that moles don't have very good eyesight?"
Edmund scowled out at him through the tinted sides of his half of the box.
"You know we have some red dwarfs on our side, still, and what's to stop a mole on your side from mistaking one of ours for Trumpkin?" laughed the dwarfs.
"So that's what you did with the rings isn't it? Nikabrik couldn't find them because you hired the moles who worked in your apple orchard back at Cair Paravel to burry them." Ginarrbrik's smile widened until it seemed long enough to connect both of his ears together. "And so I sent one of my dwarfs-while you were all too busy planning a rescue-to go to the moles and say you needed them back...poor little things, they didn't know, didn't know..." his voice echoed and became more sing-song like. "I knew everything because moles come underground and they sing like nightingales when they mistake us for persons in your-humph-majesty's army...of course, I had just put the pieces of this puzzle you set out for us together mere moments after capturing the human lady...not bad timing, huh?"
"You'll never get away with this!" cried Jill, trying-and failing-to free herself from the dwarfs who had re-captured her. "Never!"
"See, I thought Nikabrik would have found them and that's what threw me off, but when you said he hadn't...well...it occurred to me that the one place you wouldn't expect us to look was the one place we ourselves know so well, underground." Ginarrbrik ignored Jill and laughed out the rest of his explanation wildly.
Lucy's heart beat like a drum...so they did have the rings after all? No, it had to be a bluff, it just had to! Mere hours before, they'd been asking about them. How could fate be so cruel as to let them get their way so quickly?
Ginarrbrik took something out of a leather pouch; four glittering rings, two yellow and two green. "The dwarfs are for the dwarfs!"
Peter gulped and gave one last broken glance through his half of the side-glass to his dear courtiers before letting his gaze shift over to the husky dog, he wanted to meet her eyes one more time.
"I'm sorry..." Peter mouthed to her, knowing that he had failed and broken his promise that everything would be fine. Everything was ending; this was it, the 'dwarfs for the dwarfs' had won. "I'm so sorry."
The rings were slipped into the holders and the sides of the box began to flash white-blue like starlight; Edmund winced and pulled his knees to his chest.
Peter let out a groan and kicked at the bordering panels; trying in vain to crack them open.
Like a sudden burst of lightning, the middle-glass started flashing yellow and green. First, Peter's side was yellow and Edmund's was green, then it switched. They could see the two coloured lights sliding down side by side, one going on top of the other. Both felt a sudden sharp tugging at the back of their tunics.
Edmund's face went ghostly pale almost immediately and his eyes started to look glazed seconds later.
Realizing what was happening to his brother on the other side of the middle glass, right before his own aching, tired eyes, Peter could no longer calmly accept defeat. "No! Ed!"
"Pete," he thought he heard his brother's voice croak faintly for a moment-though it could hardly be heard over his own shouting-before his eye-lids started to get lower, beginning to close.
In spite of the fact that he felt like he was being ripped apart, Peter mustered up the last of his strength and pounded his fists on the middle-glass. "Edmund, stay awake, whatever you do, don't go to sleep!"
On the other side of the middle-glass, Edmund's lips quivered. "I'm trying...I just feel so weak..."
Peter pressed the soles of his boots against the middle-glass and pushed with all his might. It wouldn't break and the flashing lights made his feet hurt, even with his shoes on. He happened to look away from his brother over to Ginarrbrik. "Stop it! Turn the thing off, please! He's dying."
Ginarrbrik shrugged his shoulders. "And we win, funny how that works, isn't it?"
Peter was starting to fade a little himself now; his cheeks lost their colour and he was beginning to feel rather light-headed. There was a sharp buzzing in his ears, like a thousand flies getting caught in them at the same time. Now he started to labor for breath as the tugging became even more intense.
As for Edmund, his eyes were now shut all the way and he seemed to be having trouble holding his head up.
Lucy felt that she must do something but her legs and arms were paralyzed with fear; she told them to leap up and pull the rings out of the holders, but they wouldn't listen. They felt as useless as jelly.
There was no longer any screaming or kicking coming from Peter; he was so desperate for air now that his mouth hung open like a cod fish and he appeared to be hyperventilating.
Unable to bear seeing him like that, Lucy's eyes flickered over to Edmund. He was even further gone than his brother. Unable to fight anymore, his body gave into sleep completely. His head fell over to one side, resting helplessly on his shoulder.
It was seeing this that somehow gave Lucy the ability to leap up from her hiding place-fighting against her fear-run passed the startled dwarfs who hadn't known she was there in the first place and rip the rings out of the holders.
Everyone gasped and for a split second before any action could be taken, they all stared at Lucy in complete and utter amazement.
AN: Thoughts? Please review!