Chapter Five: Meeting the Legends

Disclaimer: Own Narnia I do not. To quote Yoda.

A/N: The next chapter takes up a whole chapter in Lewis's book, so it'll be one in mine. Again, a lot of re-reading for those who read Prince Caspian recently, but since it's a work of beauty it should still be enjoyable. All dialogue from this chapter is lifted straight from Prince Caspian the book. I'm not underlining it this time because I find that distracting, and since there's a clear delineation between what I write and what's word-for-word Lewis's, I'm just putting this statement at the beginning.

OK, on writing the rest of the story I changed my mind. There's two descriptions as well, the descriptions of the hag and werewolf voices where I used Lewis's words as well. Sorry—he just writes so much better!

OOOOO

They waited days. It was hard to wait; particularly for a young boy, and it made his temper short. But Aslan had granted him a gift he hadn't known would be a gift; he had been waiting for Old Narnia most of his life. It made him able to wait with hope now.

It was not so easy for others. They did not go to battle again in those few days. The wounded lay in pain, trying to heal. The more able-bodied had nothing to do but sit in the halls of Aslan's How and wait. Wait with an enemy nearby and limited resources dwindling. That took what hope some of Old Narnians had, even though they waited where Aslan had won Narnia's greatest victory yet. The past victory wasn't enough proof for the present trouble, not when the past didn't respond to summons in the present, and some of the Old Narnians, particularly the fauns and Black Dwarves, began to leave, slipping away in the night for new, lonely hiding places far from Miraz's army. Finally, the council called a meeting.

It did not begin well; Nikabrik, already accusatory, told Caspian perhaps he would have seen results by now if he'd just blown the horn at the proper time.

Caspian struggled to keep his own temper, especially in front of the two new people Nikabrik had brought with him. "You know well enough why the Horn was not blown at sunrise that morning. Have you forgotten that Miraz fell upon us almost before Trumpkin had gone, and we were fighting for our lives for the space of three hours and more? I blew it when first I had a breathing space."

He'd tried keeping his temper in vain; Nikabrik lost his anyway. "I'm not likely to forget it, when my Dwarfs bore the brunt of the attack and one in five of them fell." They'd all fought that day; but Caspian remembered the dwarf he'd helped back to the How first; he had died the next morning. Trufflehunter stepped in before Caspian could respond.

"For shame, Dwarf. We all did as much as the Dwarfs and none more than the King."

"Tell that tale your own way for all I care." Nikabrik was nearly growling now, as much as a badger would. Prince Caspian sometimes wished he had an easier council. "But whether it was that the Horn was blown too late, or whether there was no magic in it, no help has come. You, you great clerk, you master magician, you know-all;" and here Caspian firmly clenched his hands and bit his tongue; he had seen what happened when a King refused to let others voice their opinions, and he'd promised himself that wouldn't be him as king, "are you still asking us to hang our hopes on Aslan and King Peter and all the rest of it?"

The council-plus-two turned as one to look at Doctor Cornelius, who was, after all, the one who knew the most about these things. Please, Caspian begged inside, tell them what you told me when I wanted to be a king as a little boy, and you told me Aslan brings things in good time. I wasn't ready to be a king then, I know that now. Tell them they have to wait.

But Doctor Cornelius looked old, older than Caspian was used to thinking of him. "I must confess—I cannot deny it—that I am deeply disappointed in the results of the operation." Caspian's heart sank. Surely he couldn't be the only one who still believed Aslan would come? He looked around; no, there was Trufflehunter, whose faith was even stronger than his own. And the two new people he knew nothing about, who were watching and listening even more than he was. But Nikabrik was speaking again.

"To speak plainly, your wallet's empty, your eggs addled, your fish uncaught, your promises broken. Stand aside then and let others work. And that is why—"

"The help will come," interrupted Trufflehunter. "I stand by Aslan. Have patience, like us beasts. The help will come. It may be even now at the door." Surely not, Caspian said, glancing at the darkness of the passageway, filled with shadows. If help was there, surely it would have ridden in by now, sword flashing, and making Miraz's army run in fear.

"Pah!" snarled a voice that interrupted his thoughts. "You badgers would have us wait till the sky falls and we can all catch larks. I tell you we can't wait. Food is running short; we lose more than we can afford at every encounter; our followers are slipping away."

"And why?" responded Trufflehunter. "I'll tell you why. Because it was noised among them that we have called on the Kings of old and the Kings of old have not answered. The last words Trumpkin spoke before he went (and went, most likely, to his death)," and Caspian's eyes fell to the floor, surely not, surely Aslan would keep even skeptical, loyal Trumpkin safe, he wasn't ready to be a king who sent his friends on missions to their deaths, "were 'If you must blow the Horn, do not let the army know why you blow it or what you hope from it.' But that same evening everyone seemed to know."

"You'd better have shoved your grey snout in a hornets' nest, badger, than suggest that I am the blab. Take it back, or—"

"Oh, stop it, both of you." He'd had enough of fighting among his council; there was enough of that outside. And it wasn't helping solve the problem. "I want to know what it is that Nikabrik keeps on hinting we should do. But before that, I want to know who those two strangers are whom he has brought into our council and who stand there with their ears open and their mouths shut."

The black dwarf stiffened. "They are friends of mine," he snapped. "And what better right have you yourself to be here than that you are a friend of Trumpkin's, and the badger's? And what right has that old dotard in the black gown to be here except that he is your friend? Why am I to be the only one who can't bring in his friends?" Caspian looked at him wearily. Nikabrik's hatred for all things Telmarine had been growing, ever since the battles started, and it hurt more than the cuts on his arms and the one on his face sometimes.

But Trufflehunter again jumped to his defense, saying sternly: "His Majesty is the King to whom you have sworn allegiance."

"Court manners, court manners," was the sneering response. "But in this hole we may talk plainly. You know—and he knows—that this Telmarine boy will be king of nowhere and nobody in a week unless we can help him out of the trap in which he sits." Caspian was silent. For all his hatred, Nikabrik wasn't wrong.

"Perhaps," his tutor asked, and Caspian took heart at the gentle, wise tone, "your new friends would like to speak for themselves. You there, who and what are you?"

"Worshipful master doctor," and Caspian shuddered at the thin, whining voice, "So please you, I'm only a poor old woman, I am, and very obliged to his Worshipful Dwarfship for his friendship, I'm sure. His Majesty," and Caspian's hand almost went to the hilt of his sword when the old, cold eyes looked at him, "bless his handsome face, has no need to be afraid of the old woman, that's nearly doubled up with rheumatics and hasn't two sticks to put under her kettle. I have some poor little skill—not like yours, master doctor, of course—in small spells and cantrips that I'd be glad to use against our enemies if it was agreeable to all concerned. For I hate 'em. Oh yes. No one hates better than me." Caspian's hand held the hilt of his sword. Hate already haunted the council enough; he didn't need more spilling into his ears. King Peter wouldn't have let her stay. But his Tutor speaking.

"That is all most interesting and—er—satisfactory. I think I now know what you are, madam," and Caspian turned slightly, he knew that tone in the Doctor's voice, and he'd heard it used with the lords in his uncle's court who Doctor Cornelius had called snake-like. "Perhaps your other friend, Nikabrik, would give some account of himself?"

If the old woman's voice had made Caspian shudder, this one made him want to run and hide and never come out. It was dull, grey voice to make flesh creep, saying in a slow way, "I'm hunger. I'm thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy's body and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me your enemies." For a moment Caspian pictured his uncle, his father's killer, the one who ripped his Nurse from him, at this being's mercy—but turned resolutely away from the picture. King Peter wouldn't, King Edmund wouldn't, and neither would he. He turned back to Nikabrik.

"And it is in the presence of these two that you wish to disclose your plan?" he asked.

"Yes," the Black Dwarf responded. "And by their help that I mean to execute it."

King Caspian felt a hand on his arm; Doctor Cornelius was trying to draw him back. He stood and took Trufflehunter's arm, drawing the two of them away from the hearing of the other three. Doctor Cornelius, in a low voice, warned him to remember the monsters in the old Narnian stories; he looked over, and could see the man-like creature's nose lengthening, mouth filling with sharp teeth, and dead eyes staying the same; he could hear the evil magic running in the old woman's voice, and bending over her shoulders. But he also told the two they had no choice, and no help; they owed it to Nikabrik at least to listen. The three went back, sitting again in their chairs.

"Well, Nikabrik," he said, trying to be fair, as he imagined King Edmund would be, "we will hear your plan."

Nikabrik, for the first time since the first battle, didn't take offense. He explained, instead, his reasoning. Caspian listened. Nikabrik wasn't demanding they say the dwarfs suffered the most, wasn't screaming his pain at them; he was explaining himself. He believed the legends of the past happened, too; he believed their powers could carry over to today.

But he was done waiting for Aslan's kings and queens, or even Aslan Himself. "He was not always a good friend to Dwarfs by all that's told. Not even to all beasts. Ask the Wolves. And anyway, he was in Narnia only once that I ever heard of, and he didn't stay long. You may drop Aslan out of the reckoning. I was thinking of someone else."

Caspian thought back to other legends, to King Frank, Corin ThunderFist, Gale the Dragon-Slayer. But they had all stayed in Narnia till they died, and they had nothing to call them back. "Whom do you mean?" he asked finally.

"I mean a power so much greater than Aslan's that it held Narnia spellbound for years and years, if the stories are true."

Caspian jumped to his feet, feeling Trufflehunter and Doctor Cornelius doing the same on either side. "The White Witch!" It was cry that came from them all, and he remembered with a pounding heart the cruelty of her reign, the stone statues he'd heard decorating her courtyard. Aslan's blood dripping from the broken table only a few feet away. Never, ever, ever, would he deal with a Witch who killed Aslan.

"Yes." Nikabrik's answer was slow, firm, and studied in determination. "I mean the Witch. Sit down again. Don't all take fright at a name as if you were children. We want power: and we want a power that will be on our side. As for power, do not the stories say that the Witch defeated Aslan, and bound him, and killed him on that very stone which is over there, just beyond the light?"

"But they also say that he came to life again." Trufflehunter's voice cut through Nikabrik's argument.

"Yes, they say, but you'll notice that we hear precious little about anything he did afterwards. He just fades out of the story. How do you explain that, if he really came to life? Isn't it much more likely that he didn't, and that the stories say nothing more about him because there was nothing more to say?"

"He established the Kings and Queens," Caspian said. He must have done; all good Narnian kings ruled by the permission of Aslan alone.

"A King who has just won a great battle can usually establish himself without the help of a performing lion." It was Aslan who killed the Witch and brought her power to an end! Caspian thought. Trufflehunter growled fiercely beside him.

"And anyways," the dwarf continued, "what comes of the Kings and their reign? They faded too. But it's very different with the Witch. They say she ruled for a hundred years: a hundred years of winter. There's power, if you like. There's something practical."

Caspian couldn't listen silently any longer. "But, heaven and earth! haven't we always been told that she was the worst enemy of all? Wasn't she a tyrant ten times worse than Miraz?"

Nikabrik looked up at him with disdain in every inch of his bearded face. "Perhaps. Perhaps she was for you humans, if there were any of you in those days. Perhaps she was for some of the beasts. She stamped out the Beavers, I daresay; at least there are none of them in Narnia now. But she got on all right with us Dwarfs. I'm a Dwarf and I stand by my own people. We're not afraid of the Witch."

"But you've joined with us," the badger interrupted.

"Yes, and a lot of good it has done my people so far. Who is sent on all the dangerous raids? The Dwarfs. Who goes short when the rations fail? The Dwarfs. Who-"

"Lies! All lies!" Trufflehunter was up and growling, claws extended.

Nikabrik was nearly screaming now. "And so, if you can't help my people, I'll go to someone who can!"

Caspian drew his sword, heart racing. "Is this open treason, Dwarf?"

The dwarf sneered. "Put that sword back in its sheath, Caspian. Murder at council, eh? Is that your game?" It wasn't, but if Nikabrik could only see his own pain and chose evil because he thought there was less pain in it, as Aslan's King Caspian had no choice but to fight evil wherever it came. This went beyond listening to a subject's plan. "Don't be fool enough to try it. Do you think I'm afraid of you? There's three on my side, and three on yours."

"Come on, then" snarled the badger, and Caspian brought his sword up, before-

"Stop, stop, stop," his Tutor interrupted. Caspian lowered his sword but didn't sheath it. "You go on too fast. The Witch is dead. All the stories agree on that. What does Nikabrik mean by calling on the Witch?"

"Oh, is she?" It was the voice that sounded like despair had been given a body, joined by the shrill, high, shuddery one.

"Oh, bless his heart, his dear little Majesty needn't mind about the White Lady—that's what we call her—being dead." She was grinning at him, a fearful grin under a crooked nose. "The Worshipful Master Doctor is only making a game of a poor old woman like me when he says that. Sweet master doctor, learned master doctor, who ever heard of a witch that really died? You can always get them back."

The man-creature stepped forward. "Call her up. We are all ready. Draw the circle. Prepare the blew fire."

By Aslan, this would not happen. Over his followers objections, Caspian thundered "So that is your plan, Nikabrik! Black sorcery and the calling up of an accursed spirit. And I see who your companions are—a Hag and a Wer-Wolf!" The wolf leaped at him, beginning to change in the air, and he brought up his sword and slashed, calling on all tricks he'd learned in the past battles. He dodged the claws. Turn. Slash. There was more movement than there should be; then something hit the light and everything was dark. He cried out as something sunk deeply into his arm, pain running up through his arm and shoulder. He stabbed with his sword, and the teeth released. He listened; most of the movement had ceased; there was only breathing. His was shuddering, trying not to cry at the pain of this wound. A voice he didn't know called out in the dark,

"Are you all right, Ed?"

"I—I think so," said another voice, human by the sound of it, maybe young? "I've got that brute Nikabrik, but he's still alive." Someone on their side, then. It was hard to think through the pain.

"Weights and water-bottles!" Trumpkin? That sounded like- "It's me you're sitting on. Get off. You're like a young elephant." It was Trumpkin.

"Sorry, D.L.F." said the second voice. Maybe it wasn't—DLF? "Is that better?"

"Ow! No! You're putting your boot in my mouth. Go away."

"Is King Caspian anywhere?" It was the first voice, also human, commanding and clear.

"I'm here." He tried not to sound weak. "Something bit me."

Someone struck a match, and a face appeared, a boy's face, pale, dirty, but...not like the Telmarine boys Caspian had seen. It was hard to describe, but it was a face Caspian felt like trusting, even following. The face moved around for a few moments till its owner found a candle and set it on the table.

Six faces had been there before the fight; six were there now. Doctor Cornelius and Trufflehunter, Caspian saw with relief, and yes, it was Trumpkin with his red beard, and two boys he didn't know. One was already looking around.

"We don't seem to have any enemies left. There's the Hag, dead." He passed by her with barely a glance. "And Nikabrik, dead too. And I suppose this thing is a Wer-Wolf. It's so long since I've seen one." Caspian looked at him closely; where had he been, that he'd seen one? And how long could it be, since he was a boy in years? "Wolf's head and man's body. That means he was just turning from man into wolf at the moment he was killed." He turned to look at Caspian. "And you, I suppose, are King Caspian?"

"Yes. But I've no idea who you are." He offered it partly as apology, partly as a question.

"It's the High King, King Peter." That was Trumpkin, the skeptic, who didn't believe. Caspian looked from him back to the boy, barely older than himself, who regarded him with a steady look. Caspian realised his hands were shaking. He called on all the training from his uncle's court; how did one greet a returning king?

"Your majesty is very welcome." That—that didn't seem like enough. Not for the legend come to save them. But the High King Peter responded kindly.

"And so is your Majesty. I haven't come to take your place, you know, but to put you into it." King Caspian looked at him in wonder.

"Your Majesty." It was Trufflehunter, faithful, believing Trufflehunter, who had the same wonder in her eyes as Caspian. High King Peter kissed her head in blessing, a High King to his subject.

"Best of badgers. You never doubted us all through." Caspian smiled; like all the legends said, the faithful were rewarded. And it was humbling, to see the High King as King with Narnians.

"No credit to me, your Majesty. I'm a beast and we don't change. I'm a badger, what's more, and we hold on." Caspian's eyes went from her to his other council member, dead, because he hadn't been able to hold on. One who had believed the legends, but all the wrong ones. Because he'd given up on the right ones.

"I am sorry for Nikabrik." He wiped his sword and sheathed it, taking a step towards the Black Dwarf's body. "Though he hated me from the first moment he saw me. He had gone sour inside from long suffering and hating. If we had won quickly he might have become a good Dwarf in the days of peace. I don't know which of us killed him. I'm glad of that."

"You're bleeding." It was High King Peter. It was the High King Peter. And he sounded concerned; Caspian looked down at his arm.

"Yes, I'm bitten. It was that—" he glanced at the Wer-Wolf body and shuddered. "That wolf thing." The other boy—King Edmund, it must be—took a white square he called a "hanky" out of one pocket and asked for water; he and Doctor Cornelius bound it up.

"Now," Trumpkin said, "before everything else we want some breakfast" And Caspian smiled, because Trumpkin was back, and he might believe in the legends now, but he certainly hadn't lost his practical side.

And the High King, remembering his duties, designated what should be done with the bodies in Aslan's How, and once the duties were done, he and his two companions brought out some meat they had in their pockets, Trumpkin lit a fire, and King Caspian found himself sitting down to a meal with the kings his nurse had told him about.

If that was possible, then so was winning Narnia.

OOOOO

A/N: Six pages. Thank you, Lewis, for making such a long chapter, which resulted in so much writing.
Well, actually, I'd much rather have more of his Narnia than less, so I shouldn't be complaining. But that was long.

Response to Anonymousme: Thanks so much for your kind words, and encouragement! It makes writing a lot more fun.