Chapter Twenty-Nine : Icestorms at the Gates of Doorn

Winter had come with a vengeance to the Islands and the walls of Elizabeth's heart.

It had been raining all night, and only a few hours after dawn it had begun to solidify and freeze to snow as the great circular winds of the Bight inexorably turned and brought a driving icestorm to the Islands. Elizabeth stood imperious on a raised promontory of rock and set her face to the stinging hail, feeling the blood flee her face and her white-trimmed cloak stream in the wind

She had always – until Aslan – prided herself on having a heart like a fortress – guarded by two very impressive turrets had slurred one of her fellow executives shortly before she had slapped him off the stool of the Sushi bar in Hamburg. For twenty-six years, since the day her father shoved her ten-year-old body out of the way and into the wall and left her and her mother for ever, nothing had managed to penetrate the icy walls she had built around it. She had worn adamant armor on her heart and carved her own personal empire in the heady days of personal excess and limitless ambition of the 1980s with her unstoppable will to dominate.

But that ice on her heart had done both more and less than protect her from the hurts and barbs of the world. Yes, it was true the ruin of the men whose hearts and dreams she had shattered hadn't even scratched her, and, yes, it was true the slings and arrows flung against her had frozen and shattered on her permafrost defenses – but nothing warm had washed into or out of her for those long years. While her friends were getting married and having children she was buying the flat in Mayfair and negotiating deals that broke the economies of countries. When her schoolmates were spending honeymoons in the Lake District she was eating indigestible food in foreign restaurants and meeting in smoky boardrooms. On birthdays and anniversaries and Christmas her focus was on those successes she thought she desperately needed, but now – after Narnia – realized were just the whisperings of the ice around her heart. Make us thicker, make us harder, make us more.

And you never need be hurt again.

She knew the flaws in this argument – she had learned this in a freezing dawn on the road back from the Silver Citadel when Aslan had melted stone to flesh. She knew the icy shields would protect her, but what was the point of the armor if it kept the love away, too?

I'd rather bleed with cuts of love than live without any scars.

And now she stood here, gazing down on a patrol of two hulking Minotaurs and a squat Ogre which still towered over the dozen or so humans under their command who shifted nervously in the early morning chill, wrinkling her fine nose in not-altogether-unfeigned distaste and wondering why she was considering this.

She was Jadis – the White Witch, the Ice Queen, the Northern Sorceress of wind and snow and hail. Elizabeth knew Jadis – knew her in a way few others in Narnia now might be able to. She could see in her the same flaws that had marked her; the grabbing of power for power's sake, the encroachment of Winter without the love of Christmas, the harsh cruelties of emotionless command. Jadis was Winter – a living expression of that season; by turns numbing and shattering, hard and cold and eternal and immortal.

Elizabeth, frankly, wasn't that any more. The walls of ice around her heart were melted to chattering streams of living water, and – even if she had wanted it – nothing she could do would freeze them again.

But, she could pretend, couldn't she?

"This," she sniffed, "is a sordid, dreary refuge." More than once, she had begun contract negotiations like this – the coffee was bad, my hotel bed was uncomfortable, the flight was delayed – I'm in a bad mood so don't push me.

"Well?" she demanded. "Needs must I be kept here waiting, Minotaur? Or shall I have my Dwarfs find your tongues with their whips?" On cue, the half-a-dozen Red Dwarfs voted 'most likely to pass for a Black Dwarf in dim light' (a democratic process which might have resulted in more than one bloodied nose and black eye had it not been for the civilizing influence of Edmund and Elizabeth) gripped whips in horny hands and twisted them with an ominous creaking of leather. Soot and animal fat had been rubbed into hair and beards to make them spiky and black. Their bright livery had been discarded in favor of dark woolen tunics and their hoods were drawn over their heads, casting their faces into shadow. Around her, the rest of her entourage – a few of Edmund's elite lupine bodyguards from the Lantern Waste, serious wolves with steel-trap jaws, opal eyes and lean bodies; some bramble-Dryads, spiky and studded with prickles and harsh of expression, writhing female figures in bleak green – moved forward to stand level with the Dwarfs. She had about a score of soldiers with her – all specifically chosen to appear, at a casual glance, as something that might side with the Witch willingly.

Elizabeth and they had come over from Felimath on one of the ships' boats in the dead of night – their vessel now sunk beneath the waves thanks to a few strategically drilled holes and large rocks. It would not do to let the monsters guess they were part of their Narnian enemies. It had been a simple matter to walk inland from the coast of Doorn and locate – thanks to the wolves' senses – one of the Governor's patrols to present themselves to.

Elizabeth gazed down her nose at one of the Minotaurs, sighting along it as if it were a rifle barrel, and stitched an incurious expression on her heavily-kohled eyes. Chanel lipstick gleamed flawlessly as her lips curled into a crimson holly leaf, another rebuke being prepared.

Make-up had, ironically enough, taken longer than she had yet spent on it in Narnia and yet less time than she had otherwise spent since she was fifteen. Her face was powered to sugar whiteness with a thick, caking mixture of vinegar, chalk and things best not guessed at. Despite the offer from crucible-bearing Dwarfs, she had flatly refused to have ceruse plastered over her cheeks. "My name may be Elizabeth, but I draw the line there," she had quipped, and only Edmund had laughed. The rest of her Witch-visage she had personally accomplished with her compact – a process the Narnians seemed to find fascinating. She had had to dismiss them at the end as they were getting in her light and jogging her arms.

The Dwarfs had taken a great pile of Narnian Trees and melted the coins down into a gleaming pool of silver simmering in a cauldron. Wet sand from the beach had been packed tightly together and a long channel scraped in it. The silver poured into this groove had been left to solidify and cool, then the eldest of the Dwarfs had taken the rough bar of sand-smirched silver and – with files and awls and heavy knives – carved it into such a beautiful, elegant, delicate wand that Elizabeth would not have believed it possible. Working while the metal was still warm, paring off layers, heating them and bending them back, drilling holes and inscribing intertwining patterns in minutes, the Dwarf had finished by polishing the wand with sea-water, gritty-ashes from the fire and a soft cloth. Declaring himself satisfied, he had stood and bowed as he presented it to the silver-white figure of the pseudo-Jadis, her face imperious and immobile. She had taken the wand and twirled it lightly in her hands – it seemed as weightless as air, the gleaming sunlight shining through cut-outs and holes in the metal – and gazed down at the Narnians around her.

"Will I pass?"

The answer she had received was – she reflected as she stood in front of Minotaurs and felt the crossroads of decision around her – not the most encouraging. To someone who has never seen Jadis was, frankly, not what she had wanted to hear. Sweet Aslan, she silently prayed, let this petty deception work. All I've got to do is lie – I've been doing that for years. Let me do it for you just this once.

"Your Majesty?" asked one of the Minotaurs, notches akin to sergeant's stripes cut into one of its horns. Its rumbling voice was incredulous – yet Elizabeth got the impression it genuinely believed she was the Witch, it simply found it hard to believe she was actually here. These creatures were kept under the control of the Governor out of fear of that name, and it was ultimately with her their loyalty lay. The Governor was a human distraction – a weak, delicate Son of Adam who, by rights, they had been born and bred to kill. The presence of their mistress might very well mean a shift in power, a return to greater and more enjoyable times.

Elizabeth rolled her neck and let the driving sleet and snow stream her hair behind her, pushed back off her face by a couple of strategic hairgrips and Edmund's thin circlet. The caking effect of the make-up she was wearing did more than bring her tone down to that of Jadis – it immobilized her face to a frightening degree, making it little more than a mask of flesh – which itself made telling the lies she had to easier.

"Yes - we are the Empress Jadis, slave," she said evenly. Something told her to not press the issue – she had passed as Jadis to an inhabitant of the Islands without the makeup, crown and wand (much to her chagrin – and probably Queen Swanwhite's) and she realized if the lady doth protested too much it might very well lead to unfortunate questions.

One of those unfortunate questions, unfortunately, came. "How do we know you're Jadis?" asked one of the humans. Elizabeth snapped her head towards him, running her eyes over him with what might pass for disdain but had worry behind it. "She's never been to the Islands and we've never seen her! You could be anyone!" Elizabeth raised a single eyebrow.

The wolf Rapine, Edmund's expert tracker and hunter who – it was said – could smell a guttering candle in a hurricane and run from Tashban to Harfang in a day and a night, rubbed his long-jawed head along her hand, making a contented growling deep in his muscular chest. Her gauntleted hand toyed with the rough fur of his head and ears, him rolling his massive neck to enjoy it. He yawned, exposing his cavernous mouth, red as blood and with knife-white teeth guarding it, his hot breath fogging in the icy air. It was a gesture not lost on the Governor's troops – several of the humans paled and tried not to be too obvious about backing away.

Holding her hand out for the Minotaur to assist her in stepping down, Elizabeth moved with sensual strides down from the promontory, her face turned towards the morning light and her beauty catching the sun. The Minotaur – as delicate as such a brutish beast could be – released her hand as she turned to the human and smiled a terrible smile, assessing what she saw there.

The Minotaur clearly at least half-believed she was who she said she was – she could practically hear the simple thoughts of the monster turning over in its mind as if it were chewing a piece of meat. She supports my kind and hates against the humans. That is what we want – and so she must be Jadis. The humans on the other hand, typified by this man, would be less-willing to believe her deception. His race, after all, had the most to lose - it was they who held the reins of power and they who were responsible for the evil in the islands.

Ultimately, this was the make-or-break moment – as she had done in a hundred boardrooms in a dozen countries she had to make them believe everything she said was true. The maxim of Lincoln came back to her – but with a slight modification. You don't need to fool all of the people all of the time – fool most of 'em and destroy the rest.

"If you have never seen me, how do you know I am not Jadis?" she purred seductively, running her hand along his jaw. Of all the things that she had done so far, this made her feel sickest – it was something just so base and tawdry, made all the worse by the fact she had relied on her beauty so many times before. She had to admit she owed as much to the softness of her flesh as the hardness of her heart.

Swallowing down her revulsion, she slid back into her Jadis persona and toyed idly with her wand, "And can you afford such insolence if we are indeed her Imperial Majesty?" Her black-lined eyes narrowed and the smile vanished as if it had been switched off.

"And how did you get here?" asked the soldier contemptuously, "No ships have been reported save those of the Narnian traitors." Elizabeth – wondering if she might be losing her touch and knowing this question was the most deadly of all – performed a reverse moulinet with the three-feet of gleaming silver in her right hand and then pointed the head of the wand at the human. He stiffened nervously and took an involuntary step backwards.

"It does not please us to herald our coming with anything other than our presence, slave," she sneered, "We have come here through our own enchantments." A thought struck her. "By my magic I have brought myself and this storm," she gestured with her wand at the howling ice-tipped gale that only seemed to intensify as she did so, "to the Islands." Elizabeth had no idea where the storm came from – nor if it were usual for this time of year – but she was not about to let such a fortunate happenstance pass her by unexploited. At least fifty percent of success is luck was a favorite maxim of hers, and fifty percent of luck you make.

The man did not seem impressed. "Enchantments? We've seen none of that – this storm has been blowing up for the past day and a half. It takes more to make a Queen than a crown and a few followers!"

If Elizabeth's face had been blank and void of expression before, it now assumed a visage that simply sucked emotion out of the air. She was under absolutely no illusion about what was about to happen to this man – she had thought this through before and had made a cold, rational decision about it. She wished it didn't have to be this way, but he had left her no choice. It was him or hundreds.

But that did not make what she had to do any easier.

She drove her knee into his crotch without warning or pretense. He collapsed to his knees with a scream of pain, scrabbling at himself and curling into a fetal ball.

"I have no need to waste magic on the likes of you!" she snarled. She snapped her fingers and there was the slightest pause before she abruptly ordered, "Kill him."

With a howl, Rapine leaped forward and lunged with his ivory teeth. A single bite and a shake of his massive head and the human's neck snapped and tore. Elizabeth closed her eyes for a second, allowing herself a moment of grief and guilt over the dead human. Perhaps he wasn't truly evil, said a voice in her head, perhaps he was simply following orders. Do you know what lies and promises made him do what he did, or even what he has done? He might have joined the army this very morning. She breathed in to center herself, falling deeper within herself and stretching her awareness along roads she had not walked for years – if indeed she ever had. What she met there – a rolling ocean of golden fur and a sense of calm surety – told her the answer she needed. These were humans – they were not native to Narnia. They, or their ancestors, had been brought here for the highest purpose possible by Aslan – to rule the world in his name. And, like it or not, that was their duty and their humanity could never be taken away; they had responsibilities as well as privileges.

They had simply looked at the privileges and not the responsibilities, they had cast those aside for their own gain. They had retained their humanity while accepting the lure of the world – yet they could not expect to escape punishment. But neither would it be justified to tar all humans with this brush – Elizabeth knew there were decent men and women in Narnia; Edmund, Susan, Peter – even herself, although she was unwilling to place herself in either camp. To look at these people and say what they did was inevitable was wrong, even if it was what humans tended towards. With the strength and help of Aslan, humans could be what he intended and expected them to be.

Her eyes snapped open. Around her, the soldiers were staring with shock and horror at the cooling corpse, almost fumbling for weapons. Her own troops were ready for battle – bows half-bent and hackles raised. The monsters were caught between laughing terrible laughs and righteous indignation someone had slain one of their own. Now, she willed herself, even as she felt herself mired in indecision and the horror of what she had just had to do, This is the window of opportunity!

"Well?" she snapped, "This is not the welcome we expected!" She raised her wand, realizing this was an unpardonable gamble but feeling, deep within herself, it was called for. "You will all pay for your insolence!"

There was a splintered moment of time, a fractured second, of consideration on the faces of the Islanders – Is she really Jadis? And then that was replaced by, Do I want to risk it?

And that was it, realized Elizabeth, as horror ran over the faces of Minotaurs, Ogre and humans alike – the Narnians with whom she had fought and slept and danced and drunk would have risked it. Because it wasn't about I to them – it was about us. To them, it would have been worth it – for she could not have killed them all before one of them killed her. There was simply no selfishness in them – the terror of individual death would not have stopped the collective duty of responsibility.

Selfishness was ultimately a form of cowardice and, while Narnians might be many things, they were not cowards.

"Your Majesty!" bellowed the Minotaur in desperate entreaty. "We beg of you!"

"You doubt who I am, slave?" she roared, her wand still raised and Rapine and his cohorts standing snarling next to her, ready to leap forward. The Minotaur shook his head.

"No, your Majesty!" he moaned in a voice close to a terrified whimper. "We do not doubt you, nor have we ever!" He cast a terrible glare at the rest of his patrol, who nodded enthusiastically. "Hail Jadis," they stuttered in stunned tones.

Elizabeth straightened and let the rage drain out of her, appearing to relent and lowering her wand. She swept her face over the humans and sniffed contemptuously, turning to face the Minotaur sergeant again. "Is this how the Governor of the Lone Islands is ruling in our name? Allowing humans such freedoms?" Elizabeth's whole strategy was to play to the violent and destructive nature of the monsters, to appear as the cruel Witch hell-bent on crushing freedom and light and joy – even the dribs and drabs that were left in the Islands. That was what the Minotaurs and Ogres expected and – more importantly – wanted from the Queen of Narnia. By being that her deception would be believed. The Minotaur growled.

"Your Majesty, the presence of humans as free soldiers of Narnia sickens me – but these are the orders of the Governor." It paused. "He does rule in your name." The final statement was caught halfway to a question, and Elizabeth treated it as one.

"For now, yes," she said. "It is something I will have to discuss with him." She paused and seemed to consider. "Perhaps it is time for a new leader in these Islands?"

Swallowing her distaste and disgust for the second time that day, she slunk closer to the bull-headed horror, running her hand along the matted hair of its arm, trying not to inhale the rotting-meat stench of its coagulating breath and foetid fur. Its coat was knotted and black, hanging in clumps as if the creature had rolled in tar, and its horns were covered in a thick coat of blood. "Such power as your kind have, Minotaur," she purred sensually, "might very well be what Narnia is looking for." She held its eyes in hers for a second, a forced smile on her face.

It was not revulsion, but rather the remembrance of how she had done this – and more – before with men no less repulsive in their own way than this monster in order to get what she wanted, and the sickening shame that occasioned, that caused her to turn away.

The monster's liquid eyes shone with eager pleasure. "Your Majesty, you know very well that we live to serve you and only you – we obey the Governor for he rules in your name. Tell me your will and it shall be done." It glared at the humans, who – with fearful glances at the Witch's wand, their dead companion and the growling wolves – nodded vigorously. Elizabeth smiled.

"We have come here to pursue the deluded human styling himself King Edmund of Narnia and his traitorous allies. Though our own enchantments we know that he and his rabble have come here – we desire to speak with the Governor concerning this situation." The Minotaur bowed deeply before her.

"Your Highness," it said, "it will please her Majesty to know we have slain the armies of the human traitor and captured him and those who remain of his armies." Elizabeth felt within herself – and could feel from the Narnians around her – the wince that those words occasioned. Dear Edmund, she thought, Where are you and what is being done to you?

The monster paused, and then continued. "It was by the skills and guile of the Minotaurs in service to your Majesty this capture was affected." The humans looked like they had something say on the subject, but a glare from the other Minotaur stopped them dead. The Ogre, who was lurking on the edge of the group drooling and following one word in five, didn't appear to have anything to add. Elizabeth smiled behind the make-up and laid her ploys on as thick as it was.

"Brave Minotaur," she replied, "the Crown of Narnia understands the weakness you perceive within the human rabble, and devoutly wishes to make it plain to its truly loyal subjects that neither Narnia – nor her dominions – are countries for the Children of Adam." She stitched a look of regret into her eyes. "But, it pains me to admit, there have been times when the brood of Eve have been a necessary evil. We appreciate the skill and guile of the Minotaurs, on which we have long relied in Narnia." The Minotaurs gave a dreadful chuckle which chilled the Narnians – and the human soldiers – to the bone.

"What does the Governor plan to do with this boy?" continued Elizabeth with as much disdain as she could muster, the strain of hiding her concern flexing the mask of her face and nearly shattering it. The Minotaur's blunt-toothed mouth split in a dreadful parody of a smile.

"Your Majesty, Gallowgore the Minotaur – the leader of our people here – has issued an order from his Sufficiency the Governor that all the inhabitants of Doorn are to be gathered in Narrowhaven at noon tomorrow to witness a spectacle." The soldiers of the Governor laughed in an ugly, broken fashion and Elizabeth struggled to manage a smile as she realized just how horrific a 'spectacle' must be to be considered so by a man who kept order among creatures as terrible as this. "It is for that purpose that my patrol is gathering the villagers."

Elizabeth nodded – the gamble Edmund had set her on appeared to have paid off; this patrol of the Governor's soldiers was convinced that she was Jadis the White Witch. This deception would not, of course, last if the Governor or his sorcerous lieutenants were met – and neither would the loyalty to the Witch allow Elizabeth to make any changes to the government of the Islands; if she asked for the humans to be set free or for the monsters to return to Narnia her illusion would be shattered. But, and this was the key component of the plan, it would allow her – and her twenty elite troops – to get into Narrowhaven for the spectacle of execution that Edmund predicted.

More importantly, it would allow them to get in armed and without wearing chains.

"It pleases the Crown of Narnia," she said with a bloodless smile, "to be taken to Narrowhaven to witness this 'spectacle'." The Minotaur growled a smile and bowed his great horned head before her.

"As her Majesty wishes it."