Author's Note: Yes, yes, I know- nearly a five month delay. There's not really much of an excuse for that... unless I'd died or something. To tell you the truth, I'd sort of dropped this again. But I have ideas again (finally), and an ending in mind, and yes, dear readers, I'm officially back.
;)
=Chapter 21: Recollecting and Re-Collecting=
The White Witch, of course, had expected the three absentee Pevensies to fall right into her icy clutches.
It just didn't work that way.
No one had bothered to inform Jadis that Susan's horn was an extremely non-specific magical artifact. Its call merely summoned the kings and queens of Narnia back to somewhere in Narnia, rather than a certain, preplanned spot. Furthermore, if the Narnian royals were not actually holding onto each other when they were called, they got scattered to all corners of the Narnian map, absolutely randomly.
Well, perhaps not absolutely randomly, Lucy thought, as the pricking sensation ceased, and she felt her socked toes sink into warm sand. She curled them blissfully, ignoring the blisters she'd gotten from tramping across the Calormen desert the last time she'd been in Narnia.
The late sunset light was sultry and mellow, and low on the horizon, and the caressing breeze smelt of apple blossoms. Even with her eyes closed, Lucy knew exactly where she was. The beach beside Cair Paravel castle. She opened her eyes to verify the fact. Yep, dillapidated, once-grand stone ruins, perched high on a seaside cliff.
"Thank you, Aslan," Lucy breathed gratefully. Slinging the broken lantern she'd been fighting under pirates with only moments ago over her shoulder, Lucy began the short trek up to the ruins of her old home, where she'd once reigned as queen. A very much adult queen. It was the strangest thing in the worlds to be in a child's body again, to be under five feet again... I'm going to have to relive puberty, she thought with a grimace.
But nothing could get her down now. Ever since Will Turner got tortured, she'd been praying and pleading for her healing cordial, and here she was, exactly where she'd left it. That was no accident.
Lucy had a sort of feeling that Aslan was looking out for her more than she'd realized, even when she wasn't in Narnia. This thought warmed her heart with an internal sunshine, and her fingers stopped quivering- she hadn't even noticed they were quivering until they stopped, quelled by the wave of calm sweeping over her.
But calmness aside, she still had plenty to worry about. The mop Grassroot had been fighting with had just gotten snapped by a hefty blow from a pirate's cutlass when Lucy got called back to Narnia; and Will, of course, was practically a walking zombie corpse; and Edmund and Su and Caspian had probably drowned way back when the raft broke up, and if she'd been summoned to Narnia now, it meant Narnia was most likely in danger again- or the same group of rogue supporters of the White Witch had simply blown the horn again- or who knew, perhaps thousands of years had passed, and there was some far pricklier danger than Jadis awaiting her.
Looking at things positively though, Lucy knew the pirates would much rather sell Grassroot as a circus attraction than kill him and even though Will looked like the walking dead, he actually was the walking dead, on account of taking a cursed immortality coin, so at least he couldn't die- for now. And lastly, if there was even the slightest chance of her siblings still being alive, Lucy would have an easier time finding them here than in the Caribbean, since Su's horn would've summoned them back to Narnia too.
Lucy wasn't sure about Caspian, though.
Rage clutched Susan like crabs. She knew what the pinching meant.
Obviously, Narnia needed her- But at the moment, I daresay Caspian needs me more! she thought furiously. Dropping her cutlass, her hand reflexively jerked out and seized Caspian's gauntleted one. Her fingers laced desperately through his, and she squeezed hard against the rusty, grimy metal- so hard that, if not for the gauntlet, she'd be bruising Caspian's fingers as well as hers.
Caspian was like... like a sapphire. Like finding a sapphire on the beach, staring and admiring it a little while, and then just... abandoning it, simply walking away- and then by and by, you start to regret it, but by the time you turn around, look back, a wave has crashed over the sapphire and tugged it back into the sea, and then the beach gets shut down because of something absurd like, oh, say... a crocodile infestation, so you can't even go back, you can't even look for it; it's lost to you forever. Then, by chance, you stumble across the same sapphire on a different beach, and at first, as much as you long to, you don't believe it, but finally, you accept it is real, and well, this time you're smarter. This time you grab it, you treasure it, you never let go.
Susan realized that this was sort of a garbled, run-on analogy, which likely wouldn't have gotten her stellar grades in an English class. But for her and Caspian, it fit.
As she opened her eyes to a dusty orange and indigo, leaf-framed Narnian sky, Susan could still feel the memory of Caspian's iron-clad fingers woven and crushed between hers, as clearly and solidly as if they were really still there.
And luckily, they were, considering the seventy-foot drop.
"Susan!" Caspian gasped, as they shuddered to a sudden stop.
Susan's right arm felt like it'd been yanked out of its socket, and all her breath was knocked out of her chest, so she couldn't answer at first.
Hastily, she tried to piece together the situation. She and Caspian had fallen about ten feet, and landed in the branches of an enormous tree. She couldn't tell exactly how tall the tree was, because, the bottom trunk was shrouded in thick, white mist. One thing Susan did know though, was that if she hadn't grabbed Caspian's hand, they'd likely both be dead now. They'd fallen on either side of a branch as thick as an apple barrel, with their hands still clasped on top of the branch- the only thing keeping them both from plummeting to their dooms.
But even as she realized this, Susan could feel her fingers slipping off the cold, rusty iron gauntlet. Suddenly, never letting go of Caspian seemed about a trillion times harder.
"Caspian," Susan struggled to say, as she dropped her neck down towards her left shoulder, trying in vain to catch a glimpse of Caspian's face under the gigantic branch, "you- have- to grab my hand!"
"Trying," Caspian replied haggardly, "but I can't get any proper grip in the accursed gauntlet-"
"No, your other hand!" Susan gasped, straining to throw her free arm up over the branch. "You have to grab my other hand with your other hand! Quick!" she added, as she felt the strain in her right knuckles magnify, and clawed deep into the bark with her left fingernails, totally decimating what was left of her last coat of nail polish.
Caspian tried. He wrenched the limp side of his body up with effort, and swung his free arm far up over the branch, catching the wrist of Susan's free hand.
She twisted her wrist sharply, and grabbed his wrist too, just as his gauntleted hand and hers broke apart.
Then, with several more tries and swings, they managed to catch each other's wrists on that side as well, so they were both supported by both arms.
Susan drew in a deep, therapeutic breath of relief. Letting her neck drop forward, she rested her forehead against the branch's scratchy, mossy bark, and felt a slow grin creep up under her nose. "It worked!" she exclaimed delightedly. "I didn't let go, so I dragged you back to Narnia too, and- oh wait- oh, oh I get it now. You're a king of Narnia too, aren't you? I suppose my horn just summons back Narnian royalty of all sorts. Oh, I am glad you're here!"
"Uh- urgh- yes, as am I," Caspian replied in a strained mumble, between heavy, puffed breaths. "Um, Susan, I can't- I, my eyes- everything is glimmering black, and-"
"Oh drat it all," Susan sighed. She'd forgotten how bad off Caspian was from that dose of gauntlet poison- he'd probably be blacking out from the strain any instant now, and then Susan's grip would be the only thing keeping them both from falling.
Yet if she could possibly drag Caspian up atop the branch before then...
"Look," Susan gasped, "I'm going to try to swing my foot up, and get atop the branch, okay?"
"Mmm. Sure," Caspian grunted, in a hazy, hardly-there mumble. "Tally-ho."
Trying to summon all the strength and momentum she could, Susan lurched her left leg up, and tried to grip the branch with her knee and ankle- but the branch was much too slick with moss for her buckled military shoe and smooth white stockings that one of the navy officers had insisted on lending to her- since apparently, 18th century men had some absurd, archaic notion of it being highly improper for a female to show her bare ankles.
After the second try, when her foot dropped down yet again with a dangerous jerk, Susan scraped her left shoe against the heel of her of her right one, and managed, with difficulty, to pry the left one off. It made little crackling sounds as it hit into small branches on the way down, frightening some tiny, topaz-blue birds into flapping upwards past Susan's ear, fussing and chirping madly. Kicking of the stocking next, Susan swung her foot up- it was bare now, since she'd removed her torn nylons back on the Dauntless.
Yes! she thought, as she finally snagged the knob in the top of the branch with her toes and heel. "Caspian, I got it!" she gasped, as she strained to pull her shoulder and hip upwards, "I think I've really-"
At that precise moment, something roughly the size of a mutated alligator scampered over the branch, trampling Susan's straining fingers and toes with scaly footpads and clicking claws.
Shocked senseless for half a second, Susan reflexively let go of Caspian's wrists, and felt herself plummeting, felt the wind whishing up under her arms, and her black hair and red jacket-flaps flying up into her face in a tangle. She failed to breath, infinitely annoyed that her last mortal thought would be, Golly, that was stupid...
Her back thudded hard against something soft and scratchy, and she blinked open her eyes, afraid to look. Unsettled dust and feathers floated mindlessly in the air above her, swishing lazily downwards in the green-tinted forest sunset. One of the feathers landed on her nose, and she stared at it cross-eyed- it was golden, and flecked with still-fresh, sticky, blood droplets.
"These are griffin feathers, or I am sore mistook," mumbled a muted voice.
Susan's neck and shoulders jolted up, and the petrified feeling stopped clutching her innards. Caspian was alive, face-forward, with his cheek crushed into a thick wall of feathers, fur, and twigs, and one leg still dangling over the side of the-
"It's a nest!" Susan exclaimed in amazement, as she grabbed Caspian's shoulder, and rolled him the rest of the way in. "A gigantic nest! Is it a griffin's nest then, d'you suppose?"
Rolling up to a low crouch, Caspian stared motionlessly at something half-hidden behind one of the watermelon-sized, cracked eggshells, which were pale aqua, and speckled with blue-and-yellow dots. Drawing in a ragged breath, he limped forward on his knees and one elbow, then cautiously brushed away some of the dinner-plate-thick chips of eggshell, and picked up.. a humanoid skull. With horns.
"This could've been Grassroot..." Caspian whispered in a hoarse, horrified breath. "If he'd gone on that addled quest I forbid... just imagine... and Reepicheep said I was just being stuffy and paranoid."
"But- but griffins don't eat fauns!" Susan protested weakly, and as she spoke, she noticed a dead, half-chewed otter- one of the talking sort- on the other side of the nest. She realized that the fur lining the nest wasn't just pale, tawny, griffin down-feathery fur, no it was also fox-fur, and cheetah-fur, and horsehair, and-
A screeching, nickering, hyena-like laugh pierced the still air of the forest canopy, and Susan's and Caspian's eyes jerked up simultaneously.
About twenty feet up, smiling and cackling down at them from the branch they'd just dropped from, was the alligator-like creature which had startled them into falling. From its back, a magnificent set of pearly lemon, translucent, veined wings stretched outward luxuriantly, revealing a bat-like bone structure, and opposable claws.
Neither teenage royal breathed the word 'dragon', but they were both thinking it.
It was obviously a juvenile, and its tail was lashing and bouncing with vim, which meant it was feeling playful.
Which means we can expect to be chased and nibbled and toyed with before it devours us, and adds our skulls to its nest as new playthings, Susan concluded bleakly.
Wondering vaguely why she kept getting drawn back to places in Narnia with dragons, Susan reached a hand towards a long, white, sharp, gnawed-at bone, keeping her eyes on the frisky dragonling all the while.
But Caspian's hand sharply gripped her wrist, and he thrust his lips close to her ear, and whispered, "We mustn't attempt to injure nor affright it! If screeches but once for its mother, our dooms are sealed. Sealed in flame," he added unnecessarily.
"So what do we do? Susan whispered back, not exactly relishing the idea of trying to climb down the branches of this titanic tree with a frolicsome dragonling in close pursuit.
Caspian's helpless, hazy-eyed silence seemed to seal their dooms as surely as any dragon-flame.
Technically, Edmund shouldn't have felt the pinching sensation. Or anything, period.
But after all, Deep Magic was involved.
Everything simply went black, and at first, Edmund wondered who'd hit him. He'd been alone in the Black Pearl's captain's cabin with Captain Sparrow and Barbossa, hadn't he? Maybe one of the pirates had snuck up on him from behind... Edmund took an experimental step forwards- staggered blindly and tripped to his knees, disproving the theory of being knocked-out. He heard pebbles plunking into something that sounded wet, and started wishing again that he hadn't lost his electric torch in Narnia.
Then he blinked a few more times, and as his eyes adjusted, he saw green water below his knees, and gold reflections flickering off stone overhangs.
And then it hit him- he probably was in Narnia.
Thinking that perhaps the only way out of the circle of towering, shadowy cliffs would be to wade through the glinting, jade-hued pool, Edmund stuck his navy cutlass down into the water, trying to gauge the depth. The hilt started getting heavier and heavier in his hand, and Edmund dropped it on the bank of the pool in surprise, as it swiftly crackled into solid gold, from point-to-pommel. Leaning over cautiously, Edmund peered into the depths of the pool... and couldn't stop staring. Everything within was gold- gold birds, gold spiders, gold mosquitoes, gold sticks, gold crabs, gold monkeys... even a gold person.
Edmund recoiled backwards a step. He knew the pool was magic, and he knew it was the wrong sort of magic. But, he reasoned, if I'm stuck someplace with the wrong sort of magic, I jolly well aught to have a weapon, right? It hadn't caught up with him yet that he couldn't die.
So Edmund cautiously tossed a pebble against the sword-hilt, and then a second, and when the sixth pebble clittered harmlessly away without turning to gold, Edmund finally guessed it was safe to pick the sword up. He knew right away, from the weight of the weapon, that it'd be pretty unwieldy in an actual fight, but at least he might be able to use it to scare unfriendly creatures away. And Narnia had scads of those.
Getting to his feet, Edmund backed away towards the rocky canyon wall, and started edging along the rim of it, trying to find a way out that didn't include setting foot in the perilous golden pool. He inched along the uneven wall, warily watching the lapping green water just past his toes.
And finally, he made it out of the cliff-circle, and emerged into the darkening, open air of what appeared to be an island, judging by the swaying fronds of palm trees. Thick, swirly clouds and opalescent seafog obscured what was left of the dimming orange sunlight, draping the beach in shadow.
Edmund thought it odd that he didn't feel the same breeze that was swishing the palms... Maybe the cliffs are just blocking the wind, he guessed, glancing at the rock formation he'd just exited.
But as he walked slowly towards the boulder-strewn shore, and still felt nothing, Edmund wasn't so sure.
His uneasy speculations were cut short, though, when he saw a ship's bow cutting through the seafog, and made out puffing square sails.
Edmund's first impulse was to climb atop one of the sandy boulders and shout, 'HEY, OVER HERE!' at the top of his lungs. But since the ship was coming towards the island anyway, and he didn't see any distinguishing flags or pennants flying from the ship's masts, he decided to play it safe. Lingering behind the boulder he'd almost jumped up on, Edmund peered around the edge of it, watched and waited.
They were all men, he saw, as they debarked onto the gloomy shore- no Talking Beasts among them- but from this distance, Edmund couldn't tell if they were Telmarines, Calormenes, or Archenlanders. But as best he could figure, the sailors looked respectable enough. From what he could see, they were just collecting coconuts and careening their ship to scrape off the hull, so it would sail better. Edmund remembered the last time he'd helped careen the Splendor Hyaline, back when he was a king, and well... older. It had been hard work, but kind of fun, actually... apart from that one time he and the crew had been attacked by shrieking eels, lurking in the shallows of the tide. Messy business, that.
Finally, Edmund decided the sailors were probably alright folk- and besides which, he had to get off this island if he was ever to find Susan and Lucy, and besides which, he was bored.
He slowly stepped out from behind the boulder. "Um, ahoy there!" he said, not really sure what was the correct way to address them.
Jerkily, one of the sailors swung his long neck around, took one look at Ed, and hurled a jagged knife his way.
Edmund ducked behind the boulder a moment too late, and the dagger hit him in the outer edge of his arm, stabbing straight through his bicep.
Gasping shallowly, Edmund stared at the sadistically serrated weapon impaled in his bloody, gashed flesh in horror... and morbid curiosity. Something was missing. Something was wrong. There was no logical reason on Earth, Narnia, Heaven, or Hell that this wound shouldn't hurt excruciatingly. But there was nothing, no sensation whatever. It didn't even tickle.
Nothing.
As Edmund freaked out about this absurdity, he heard footsteps thudding softly across the sand, coming nearer and nearer and-
-Edmund spun around, and started climbing the boulder as fast as he could manage with a knife wedged in his arm.
As he'd predicted, the sailors who'd come after him- three of them, Edmund counted, came back around both sides of the boulder at once, trying to corner him in. It didn't take long before they thought to look up, but by that time, Edmund had already made a wild leap to a taller nearby boulder, about six feet away. Amazingly and bizarrely enough, even with all the joggling motion, the knife still didn't hurt a bit.
But as unnerving as that fact was, Edmund was presently more concerned with escaping the sailors, who were looking less and respectable by the instant.
Two of them started climbing up the tall boulder after him, while the third lurked at the bottom, humming quietly.
Edmund shortly decided to risk skidding down the side of the boulder, and dexterously slipped past the lurker, who lunged out to grab Ed, and ended up tripping, and catching merely sand.
Edmund ran madly, with his head low, and his fists swinging. Annoyingly, his feet kept sinking into the soft, powdery grey sand- and then someone threw a rock at him.
Whoever it was, his aim was good- the rock hit Edmund squarely on the ankle, knocking it out from under him, making him flop flat on his face, which jammed the knife an extra two centimeters into his arm. His gold sword went skidding across the sand.
The next coherent thing Edmund knew, both his arms were being brutally wrenched behind his spine, and someone was tying something tightly around his wrists- but he couldn't tell the texture; whether it was smooth or rough, knotty or bristly.
The heel of a boot kicked into his ribs, rolled him over onto his back, and then stepped crushingly on his chest, pinning him to the sand.
The long-necked man looming above him was tall- or at least looked tall from Edmund's angle, and wore an odd hat with a wide assortment of grey, aqua, and yellowed shark teeth dangling down by little round silver earrings, looped together into short chain-links. It shadowed the man's face, so Ed couldn't see anything besides his pointy, frowning jaw.
Crouching down threateningly, and putting even more weight on the boot he was neatly pinning Edmund with, the captor took one look at the dagger embedded in Ed's bicep- and then yanked it out savagely.
It should've hurt. It dang well should've hurt.
Then the captor seized the top of Edmund's wavy black hair, and thrust his head backwards onto the sand, leaving Ed's neck very exposed.
Holding the bloody knife directly over Edmund's eyes to spook him, the man calmly ordered another, heftier, nearby sailor to,
"Check his teeth."
As specks of blood trickled off the knife and onto Edmund's nose, and as the wind he couldn't feel jangled aimlessly through the shark teeth strung on his captor's hat, the hefty crewmate leaned down and pried Edmund's lips, then jaws open.
"He looks healthy enough to my eye, captain," the hefty sailor concluded. "Kinda scrawny and sinewy, though."
"Tell me about it," Edmund muttered. Like Lucy, he too was starting to really miss being a grown-up just now.
Standing up, the captain finally stepped off of Edmund's ribcage. Then, dusting off his tattery, mismatched clothes, and adjusting his shark-tooth hat, he said, "Bring him. Oh- and do patch him up before he bleeds to death, won't you." Spotting Edmund's solid-gold sword in the sand, the captain picked it up curiously as he strolled off to his ship.
The burly sailor nodded, and then grabbed Edmund's shirt, pulling him to his feet. First, the sailor tugged Edmund's sleeve up, bunching the fabric around his wounded upper arm. Then, un-knotting the striped school tie headband from around Edmund's ears and forehead, the sailor re-tied it tightly around the wound. He had some difficulty threading it in and out of Ed's armpit though, since Ed's hands were still so tightly tied behind his back.
"Not bleeding much, is it then?" the sailor muttered, staring uncertainly at the patched-up wound. "Guess you've not got much blood then, have you?" He smirked nervously. "You wouldn't happen to be a vampire or nothing, would you?"
"Maybe," Edmund retorted mysteriously, grinning back darkly.
"But vampires have pointy fangs, right? And you don't," the sailor recalled, sounding relieved.
"Some vampires have retractable fangs, like cat's claws," Edmund made up on the spot. "So you never know until it's too late..."
"Pack up an' weigh anchor, lads!" the captain hollered from across the beach.
Being careful to keep his neck as far away from Edmund's teeth as possible, the hefty sailor dragged him to the ship.
Deciding he wouldn't get far negotiating with a lackey, Edmund waited until he'd been pulled up onto the nondescript ship's deck. As soon as he spotted the captain, he said accusingly, "You're slavers, aren't you? Might I inform you the slaving trade is outlawed in Narnia? Boy, have you made a big mistake. Honestly, d'you have any idea who I am?"
"Only clues, the captain admitted, holding up the gold sword and sliding a fondling finger up the long, curved blade. "This is a princely weapon. Yer rich, I wager? High-bred? Bit of a snobbish toff? Nobility, even?"
It occurred to Edmund now that maybe just maybe, telling a bunch of slavers that he was King Edmund the Just of Narnia, Duke of the Lantern Waste, Count of the Western March, and Knight of the Noble Order of the Table, might not be the brightest. Especially if Jadis was still on the loose and out for his blood. "Or maybe," he replied finally, staring at the glistering sword, "I'm just a very lucky robber."
"Oh, I think not," the captain replied pleasantly. "Robbers 'ave guilty eyes. Yers are jus' shifty. Yer naught but a liar. Still, you'll fetch a fine price at market, to be sure, but what I wants ter know is, is there anyone who'll pay even more fer ya? And yer gonna tell me, boy."
"Wishful thinking," Edmund scoffed back.
The captain prowled forwards dangerously, sword in hand.
The sailors around Edmund scattered like cockroaches fleeing a bright light.
Edmund didn't back away- he stood his ground, keeping his head high -but the captain simply thumped a hand into his chest, shoving him backwards. Edmund staggered, dangerously close to losing balance.
The captain shoved him again.
Edmund's lower spine hit into the ship's rail, and the slaver captain leaned in, forcing Ed to bend precariously backwards at the waist. Ed reflexively tried to steady himself by grabbing the rail behind him, but since his wrists were tied, all he could do was press his elbows down hard atop it.
"So wha's yer name, boy?" the captain demanded, jabbing the tip of the gold sword up under Edmund's chin, forcing him to lean even further backwards on the rail.
Edmund could hear the waves sloshing and churning below, and hoped they wouldn't rock the boat and plunge the dangerously placed blade up through his jaw by accident. "What's yours?" he answered slowly.
"I ax'ed ya first," said the captain.
"I asked you with better pronunciation."
"Insolent weevil!"
At that moment, just when it looked like the captain was about to waste even the chance of getting a fair market price for Edmund, the moon crept up on one horizon, just as the sun was sinking behind the sea on the opposite horizon, and ghost-blue moonlight filtered faintly through the old, rat-chewed sails...
...And Edmund turned into a corpse.
The captain jumped back two steps, his face frozen in shock.
"Well, I- I'm jiggered!" Edmund exclaimed, staring down at his bony knees, and his foot without a stocking, which was now extremely skeletal, with only a few rotten strands of flesh and ligaments left.
"Aaaahh! A demon! hollered one of the shaken and freaked sailors, who promptly fired a barbed harpoon through Edmund's chest,
"Demon vampire!" the hefty one yelped.
"Knock the evil specter overboard!"
"Consign it to the deeps!"
"This island is cursed!"
Daggers, throwing stars, buckets, and a frypan were hurled at Edmund, making him lose his balance, and toppling him over the rail.
He hit the water headfirst- er, well, skull-first, and sank, and sank, and sank...
People normally floated in water, but 'normally' generally included having a chest cavity and lungs that were not pockmarked with great, gaping holes.
This is sorta like what Captain Sparrow said happened to his mutineering crew after they cursed themselves, Edmund realized, as he struggled to tug his skeleton hands free of the ropes. It was much easier now, without the extra flesh and friction of skin, and in only moments, he could move his arms. But wait, how could that be? he wondered. I mean, it's not as if I took any of the cursed coins, I... oh. Edmund's mind flicked back to that one coin he'd picked out of the chest and spun atop the lid... But I didn't actually steal it! Edmund mentally protested. But obviously, the cursed gold couldn't pick up on specifics like that.
Well, now what? Edmund thought, as he tried desperately to swim, and soon realized how impossible it was to paddle in water with no flesh between your palms. At least I can't drown, that's an upside, he thought as he sank further and further under the weight of all the metal weapons stuck between his bones.
I suppose I'll just have to find that cave portal on the borders of Archenland, or possibly just go to Cair Paravel, and hope Su and Lu will find me there... eventually.
Finally, his bony toes hit the silty sand on the seafloor.
Edmund had a feeling he was in for a long walk.
"Well, somehow," Peter said smugly, "I don't think that worked."
Jadis scowled viciously at him. And her scowl was astronomically scarier now that the moon was up, and she'd transformed to wer-wolf form.
Peter just smirked back defiantly, though honestly, he didn't quite know whether he should be worried or relieved about the delay. A half-hour had passed, and still, there wasn't a trace of his siblings anywhere.
"Perhaps try a second time, my queen," the armadillo suggested nervously, twiddling its claws. "Once for the summoning, once for the collecting. Perhaps it works like such."
"Or perhaps..." Jadis speculated in a stiff, throaty growl, while twisting Susan's horn thoughtfully between her long, dark nails, "...perhaps they died already, lost forever in the throes of their Other World. That 'twould be most convenient, if not rather a supreme letdown. Yet I shall make a trial of your theory, armadillo." Lifting the horn to her fanged snout, the Witch inhaled slowly, then wedged it between her long tongue and gleaming fangs, and blew a second time.
And just like that, in answer to the mystical call, all of the absentee Royals were were collected right in front of her- Lucy with a backpack and all prepped for travel, Su and Caspian with torn clothes and leaves and feathers stuck in their windblown hair, and Edmund sopping wet, with tons of weapons stuck in him. He was practically a pincushion.
In a stroke of luck, Peter was also re-summoned- to about five feet closer to Jadis. He just instantly vanished out of the metallic grip of his chains and Arnald's gloved fists, and right into the center of the tight group of Narnian royalty.
"Edmund!" Lucy shrieked, as she saw the weapons jutting out of her brother at all angles. Then the clouds shifted overhead, and she shrieked again, louder.
Batty shrieked too, and promptly fainted into a ball of limp, speckled, owl feathers inside his cramped birdcage; and Arnald Macready jumped in shock, his eyes looking dangerously close to popping out.
"It's alright!" Edmund protested, holding up skeletal hands, and staring out of hollow skull eye-pits. "It's just a curse, see?"
"The Aztec curse?" Lu gasped.
"Oh Ed, you didn't take a coin, did you?" Su moaned.
"Susan!" the skeleton that was apparently Ed replied brightly. "Gosh, you look like a jaguar scratching post!"
"Something like that," Su retorted dryly. "Ever tried babysitting a dragon, Ed?"
"Um- Aztec coin?" Peter repeated bewilderedly, feeling lost, and rather left out.
"Huh? Peter?" Ed added, confused. "You're here too? But I thought Aslan said-"
"So did I," Peter cut in briskly.
"At least King Edmund cannot perish," Caspian pointed out optimistically, as the White Witch's minions closed in on their little group. "And we have all found each other- Welcome back, High King Peter! And," he added softly, "we are no longer weaponless."
Caspian glanced at Su, Su glanced at Lu, and Lu glanced at Peter.
Nodding simultaneously, they each pulled a wet weapon out of Edmund.
And so the battle began.