Chapter 17
(Caspian POV)
This strange vessel glides through the water almost silently, so unlike the merry splashes the Dawn Treader would toss up. But these are dark waters, here so far beneath the world. In every direction, there is only the dark sheen of this sunless sea, vaguely illuminated by the Warden's strange lamp. Though the water is smooth as glass, the reflections of the lantern, the boat, and Caspian's own face are hardly more than nebulous wisps on the water's surface.
"Whatever will become of us?" Jill whispers, despair bending her words into unsteady syllables.
Eustace is apparently finding the adventurer's bravery that swept him after his time as a dragon. "Bucker up, Pole," he murmurs back. "We're following Aslan's directions now, remember? We found an old friend, we found the City Ruinous, and we are under it now."
Jill pinches her mouth into a half-smile, the comfort apparently not so helpful as it might have been above the surface with the sunlight to bring her hope and renew her spirit. The girl scoots closer to Rose, pulls her knees to her chest, and stares vacantly out at the endless stretch of the sunless sea.
The silence of the sea miles beneath the earth gives Caspian time aplenty to ruminate, time he would hardly have minded going without. Part of the beauty of questing and worrying about Rose and wrangling Jill and Eustace has been that he was constantly kept busy. And now their endless, mindless journey through the heart of the earth has enveloped him in the cocoon of silence and distance, the very thing he has so cherished avoiding these past weeks. Grief does not choke him so badly when there are needs outside of himself that need tending to.
But here, adrift on a black mirror sea with the light and heat of the sun a distant memory, Caspian has only his own reflection and the sleeping forms of his companions to stave off the impossible press of all he has lost. Neither one offer solace.
The silence of the trip has done little favors for Rose. Cave by cave, Caspian has seen the chill settle into her, the bone-deep dread he's felt sinking into his own body. The green cave with scales flashing across its walls had shaken her more than he, though he thought the opposite might happen when first he caught the eerie glow from afar.
Rose looked as though she'd seen a ghost, and the guilt around her had been so thick Caspian could taste it in the air between them, even without the heart-seeing he still wishes he'd learned from her faeries.
Her guilt had outweighed her grief, and that was no small thing.
He's doing it again, he knows. Rose's troubles are a distraction from his own. And yet, how much can he be faulted for wanting to help his friend? How wrong can it be to push aside the fear and dread and despair from his own heart so he can reach to comfort hers?
Rose warmed to him, at Harfang. The ice of grief caging her away from him had thawed a bit in their need to rescue the children. How fares it now, however, is a question Caspian would much rather answer, though he can't say if his desire to know is yet another attempt at distracting himself from their present course or if his love and friendship for Rose is strong enough to push away the other worries bearing down on them.
Soon they will all face this witch, likely as not. And while Caspian has never felt more ready to confront this evil again, a part of him – a foolish one, perhaps – wonders if Rose is ready. Wonders if it would have been better to insist she return to Tanssi Kuun, sheltered from the quest and her grief and the very real danger they've found themselves in. That he led them into.
Presently, the Earthmen hand them four flat, flabby cakes with hardly any taste and even less texture. Rose picks at hers, but to Caspian's surprise, she does finish it over the course of an hour. Or at least, what feels like an hour here on this timeless sea. It could just as easily be a quarter hour or a quarter day for how imperceptibly the time seems to flow.
The children fall asleep soon after – first Eustace, then Jill, both of them curled up like kittens on either side of Puddleglum. The Marshwiggle finds his own sleep with soggy snores that whistle under the brim of his hat, one of the few remaining originals from their traveling clothes.
But Rose's eyes are open, though she leans heavily against the bow's raised tip as if sound asleep. Perhaps it would be wise to let her be, but the weight of the journey presses in on Caspian's heart and he finds that he can't stay silent. Grief is now a thing they share in common. In some strange way, Caspian is glad to no longer be alone in it.
They have weathered many things together, and their friendship has only ever grown stronger for it. Perhaps grief over the ones they have lost will be one of those things too. Perhaps this sunless sea has brought the urgency of connection to Rose's mind too.
He inches closer to the bow, the wooden bench firm against his thighs. Rose does not move, but her voice pierces the silence between them before he can gather his own words.
"Don't. Don't, Caspian." The dip and drip of the oars nearly steals away her whisper, but Caspian understands just the same.
His heart sinks. Her solitude holds still, it seems. Harfang was only a matter of necessity. Or the sunless sea is affecting her differently. There is grief in the set of her jaw, the blank stare of her eyes, but the loneliness there is not the same as the loneliness piercing Caspian's heart. Hers is one of resignation; his is desperation.
Hope edges Caspian's grief. But try as he might, Caspian cannot find that hope in Rose. And is it then that Caspian begins to truly understand that when the quest is over, he will lose her. He has lost her already, but for the shroud of duty that brought her back to finish this journey with him. Duty keeps her here, not hope.
Even so, there is something he must say.
Caspian swallows against his hesitation and speaks. "You saved my life. Thank you."
Against his better judgment, Caspian finds himself reaching for her, fingers outstretched toward her hand as it rests against her knee. His fingertips nearly brush the back of her hand, but at the last moment he remembers himself and pulls his hand away. This is her grief. He cannot help her.
The stillness of the unbreakable distance brought on by this strange sea consumes them. Caspian finds that even breathing becomes an effort, something difficult that requires his concentration so he remembers what his lungs need. There is no sign of magic that he can see, but he fights to stay awake, keep his breaths regular, keep his eyes open. It would not be wise to sleep, though the children already are.
Some time later, when Caspian is fighting a losing battle against his eyelids after the Warden hands them each another tasteless cake, cool fingers brush against his own. They retreat before Caspian's eyes adjust enough to see them, but it's not so very difficult to guess whose they are.
Rose is glancing away by the time Caspian looks to her face, but his heart is just the slightest bit lighter than before.
In spite of the foreboding that has kept him awake for many, many hours, Caspian must fall asleep eventually. The whisper touch of Rose's hand is what wakes him. Still, all is the same.
Rose has not moved that he can see, Jill and Eustace are sitting on either side of Puddleglum staring into nothing, Puddleglum is slumped over with his chin resting on his chest, and the Earthmen are still rowing at the same pace as ever. Everything about this sea seems unending, unchanging. It's as if they are all frozen in time, forever repeating the same motions on a sea with no shore. There must have been a shore, for Caspian knows they haven't always been on this same boat, but the memory is hazy and strange in his mind.
And yet, without warning, ahead there comes a light much like their own, a pale blue orb giving off barely enough luminescence to pierce the darkness. Then, ahead and further to the right, comes another, and another just beyond that one. The lights are dreary, but they are still a change. They are still something to break up the monotonous drip of the oars and the gentle splishes of the waves against the boat.
One of the lights comes suddenly closer, and when it passes by Caspian finds himself staring at another boat just like their own. Earthmen pull at the oars and the slip glides along, with the leader standing by the pole lantern. No passengers, though Caspian strains his eyes in case his son might be held captive among these strange creatures.
Eustace and Jill peer ahead with the sudden, wakeful curiosity only children can possess, eyes wide and pupils blown in the shadow-ridden land.
"By Jove," says Eustace, "a city!"
Caspian's nerves jump. It's been so long since he's heard the boy's voice that he forgets the sound of it until he hears it. Jill twitched in her seat too, so at least he's not alone in his momentary confusion.
There is no sign of Rilian, but there are more and more ships as their own draws nearer to a more orderly line of lights off in the distance. As the Earthmen's oars take them further in, Caspian can just make out the shapes of docks and towers and walls and even, in some of these lackluster islands of light, motion and life. Crowds of Earthmen fill the wan patches of pale blue, bustling about with such a silent fuss and hurry that Caspian can barely make out what some of them are doing. Some load and unload wooden crates from larger ships, some bustle through and around temple-looking buildings, and still others ferry bales and boxes between warehouses. The temples are sad, dreary things, most listing off to one side just enough for the eye to see with the bases of their columns sinking into the earth below. Perhaps these were once buildings from above that have sunk down to these dismal shores. They have further still to sink, it seems.
"Now this is just the sort of gloomy place I could learn a thing or two from," says Puddleglum. His words are slow, halting, as if fighting a trance, and Caspian does not like how the Marshwiggle is staring at this strange city. Puddleglum has a dangerous kind of gleam to his eyes.
But when Caspian glances down to catch the shadowy contours of his own reflection in the water, he finds the same odd light in his own gaze. What new devilry is this?
He finds Rose unmoved still at the bow, but her blank stare is absent the disquieting twinge Caspian has found in his companion's faces. Hers is one of emptiness. But as he regards her, it occurs to Caspian that perhaps the emptiness before him is every bit as dangerous as the odd thing pressing behind his ribs and burning just behind his eyes.
"Magic," Rose whispers. "It's strong here."
Caspian finds that he cannot manage words as they sail into the harbor. The city emits a soft murmuring sort of noise the closer they draw in. That sound alone would be quite enough to fog the mind.
Their boat arrives at last, where two Earthmen on the docks tie it fast and haul the vessel close to the worn wooden planks. Caspian finds himself shuffled off-board with his four companions in short order. The Warden takes up his place at the front of their little party, absent the lantern he's left on the boat, and marches them through the bustling, whispering city.
The Earthmen seem wholly unconcerned with the strangers in their midst; most do not even break their stride or the angle of their gaze as they go padding about their business, whatever it is. Set deep in every single countenance is the inescapable sadness that already clings to Caspian's body like a thick second skin.
Caspian reaches for Rose's hand, for surely they can yet find some comfort in each other even in a place such as this. But his hand finds cold flesh and fingers that hang limply, as if they've forgotten how they have curled around his in the past – for comfort, for companionship, for absolution. For trust. Rose is still adrift on that sunless sea, and he cannot reach her.
Their long hike through the city brings them past the established workings of the docks and into sections overtaken by ruins and rubble. It's as if the city was nothing more than rocks and memories until some strange will or magic bid the old shapes to bring themselves upright again, but that the command did not reach beyond the shores. Here in the heart of the city, there is not even a path for their feet to follow, save the invisible one the Warden follows.
But the Warden does know the way, for they come at last to a castle set on a hill above the city with a few candles winking out from the windows. They are not proper candles, though Caspian can hardly recall what a proper candle really looks like. He only knows that these are wrong somehow, that there is too much blue and sadness lingering in the flame.
This place could nearly be Harfang, if Harfang had sunk miles and miles beneath the earth. The courtyard they pass through is laid out the same, though Caspian isn't entirely sure how he knows that. He cannot recall the image of Harfang in his mind, but he knows that the pattern of the bushes and stones is familiar even if everything else about this place is not.
The stairs at the end of the courtyard, however, are not of Harfang. Caspian finds little shame in huffing and puffing as he ascends, for even the children are struggling to catch their breath by the time their glum party reaches the top. It takes the entirety of the walk through a great long hall lit by more weak, wrong candles for their party to breathe more quietly. But oh, in an instant the whole long journey is worth it, for at the corner of the hall lies a proper golden light spilling from an archway. It seems to Caspian that the light is coming from up the stairs just inside, where two Earthmen stand on either side as mournful sentries.
The Warden stops between the two. "Many sink down to the Underworld," he says.
They answer in perfect, monotone unison as if in countersign. "And few return to the sunlit lands." Then the three Earthmen put their heads together and murmur too lowly for Caspian to understand.
His legs ache from their trek and climb, but he dares not let his guard down. Something strange is afoot. Caspian's head is ever foggier by the second, though he can't pinpoint the cause. Is the haze before his eyes of his mind's making, or magic's? Presently, Caspian is entirely unsure he could tell the difference.
The children stand with slumped backs where moments ago they were straight and tall at the first glance of the real light. But the light is shifting, growing heavier somehow, thicker with that same invisible fog clinging to Caspian's skin.
The very air itself is sadness and decay, but fighting against it seems a useless endeavor.
Rilian. He must stay awake to search for Rilian. Could his son be here in this dismal place? Is this the…something Rose spoke of when she first insisted his son was alive? What was that word she used? Something with an e, he's sure of it.
"Rose?" Caspian tries to speak her name, but his tongue is like iron in his mouth and he can't form even the single syllable properly.
Strange afoot indeed.
The Warden breaks from his threeway head huddle and plods up the stairs. It dawns on Caspian then that something about the light has shifted. It seemed…alive, golden, when first they came to it after the long dreariness of the great hall. But now the color is different, just slightly green. Or is that a trick of this sunken world?
Green. The color is important, somehow. Green, Rilian, a quest.
The Warden turns into the doorway at the top of the stairs and vanishes. There's no denying it now. The light that formerly shone such promise of hope is sliding away, drifting into a bright emerald, and now fading into a soft, sad green much like this land's gloomy blue lanterns all awash in despair.
Rose, Eustace, Jill, Puddleglum, where have they gone? Caspian tears his gaze away from the haze overtaking the one thing that could remind him of the sunlit lands of his birth and finds his companions in similar states of muted confusion. Puddleglum regards the Earthmen sentries with the curiosity akin to a drunkard pretending to be a scholar. Eustace picks at his right hand's cuticles, never mind the stairs or the light. He's so singularly focused that Caspian nearly glances to his own cuticles, certain he'll find a hangnail demanding attention. Jill stares into the light, unmoving and loose-jawed as the slow creep of the color shift plays over her face. Rose's gaze is locked straight ahead, but her eyes are unseeing, glazed over such that Caspian could swear she isn't truly here with them. More than ever, she has the look of a ghost.
A soft strumming floats from the top of the stairs at the same moment a sickly sweet smell invades Caspian's nostrils. The air thickens, but the haze is so gradual that Caspian can't recall if the walls have always seemed so far away, or if it's his mind playing tricks.
The Earthmen guards step aside and the path up the stairs is clear. Caspian slowly realizes that his feet are carrying him closer and closer. Jill and Eustace have gotten there first, so he follows their slow ascent. Rose and Puddleglum must be somewhere behind him, but their footfalls seem miles away. Even his own take too long to reach his ears.
The doorway approaches, and the children's faces are awash in that pale green now that they're staring right into whatever lies beyond.
"Welcome, travelers," comes a melodious trill in possibly the loveliest voice Caspian has ever heard. He follows the children into the light and the room beyond. Only when he sees the lady who spoke does he remember that the shiver deep under his skin means something is not right here.
There is no Rilian here, but there is a lady with long curling hair, fair skin, and an emerald gown that flows around her more perfectly than any painting could capture. She sits with a mandolin in her lap and a fire blazing behind her, strumming away steadily. Her countenance is, by all accounts of beauty and loveliness Caspian has ever heard, perfect. But just the same, he feels in his bones that there is some wrongness about her that his tongue cannot name. And yet in the haze and heavy sweetness of the air, it seems to Caspian that his bones themselves are quite far away.
No, this simply will not do! Caspian blinks until his eyes burn and jostles Jill in his attempt to shake these strange airs from his head. He casts his left hand behind him. Where is Rose? Has she the strength to see through this haze? But Jill speaks before he can find her, and Caspian has not the energy to tear his eyes from this lady of green.
"May it please, ma'am," says Jill, "but I believe the last time I saw you, you sent me and poor Scrubb off toward a gruesome end."
"Gruesome end?" says the lady, with the loveliest smile in all the worlds. "No indeed, little sister, for here you stand. Pray tell, to what end could you be referring?"
Eustace, whose head has been starting to hang ever since they came to the top of the stair, finds his voice, though Caspian cannot yet find his. "Harfang, if you'll recall. Those Gentle Giants were not quite so gentle as you had suggested. And we didn't much fancy being cooked into a pie."
Strum, strum, strum.
The lady laughs, the sound clear as the spring's first birdsong. "Harfang, say you? What a pretty name! I cannot imagine any place with such a lovely name could bring anything but comfort, little travelers."
"Begging your pardon, madame." Ah, and there is Puddleglum, behind Caspian but stepping forward and now nearly shoulder to shoulder with him. "But stewpots and pie dishes are not quite our idea of comfort."
"Stewpots and pie dishes!" trills the lady. "How delightful. What nourishment came from these pots and dishes, pray tell?"
Caspian reaches behind himself again, between himself and Puddleglum. While Jill mumbles that they themselves were about to be the nourishment, his fingers close at last around Rose's wrist. He finds her fingers limp and her pulse sluggish, like a bee on a bitter winter morning.
"Mean you to imply that this Harfang offered you no food or lodging?" comes the cloying voice.
When Jill speaks, Caspian could swear that some of this haze has got into her mind, for it hangs on her words like a blanket. "Well," Jill murmurs, "they did give us the loveliest meals."
Now the strumming seems to have faded, and the warning itch in Caspian's skin begins to lessen.
"And lodging?" prompts the lady.
Eustace's head is still aloft, but his shoulders slump as Caspian's must be. "T'was a relief to sleep in a bed again," he admits.
The lady's fingers are moving across the mandolin, but Caspian cannot tell if the instrument is making any sound at all. "I see the trouble," she says. "The hospitality of this Harfang was not to your liking. Mayhap after so much adventuring, there was no rest to calm your wits. But it is so very rude to speak ill of hosts who tended to your every comfort."
Caspian cannot say why, but this lady's words are slowly making sense. Yes, perhaps Harfang was indeed some horrid misunderstanding. It would be just like those children to be ungrateful, complainers that they are.
"Yes," parrot the children. "It is so very rude to speak ill of our hosts."
What? What sorcery is this, to coax such agreement from the lips of these two troublemakers? Sorcery, enchantment, devilry, for only such things could get Jill and Eustace to parrot along.
And at once, the itch in his bones returns and Caspian hears the strumming again. The haze in the room seems thicker; for the first time, Caspian sees the smoke pouring from the fire and filling every crevice of the room.
Caspian takes his right hand to his thigh and pinches until the skin breaks even through his breeches, and with his left he grips Rose's forearm and digs in his nails until her pulse leaps against his fingertips. His mind clears, just enough for the color of this lady's dress to really sink in.
Green. The greenest, brightest shade of emerald Caspian has ever seen.
His right hand goes to his left hip. The moment his fingers close around the hilt of his sword, Caspian remembers the strength that has brought them all this far. Aslan. Narnia. Rilian. His son, the last living piece of family he has left. Narnia's last hope, and his.
Metal rings clear and true as Caspian draws his sword and points the deadly tip at the witch, for of course she must be so. This is a creature stinking of enchantments; how could he not have seen it before now?
More metal rings out, and Rose's short sword, never used on the journey but a sight for sore eyes, glides into his line of vision.
This, at last, reminds Caspian of his own voice. "Man pies and Giants were mere trifles along our journey." Strength bleeds into his voice, and somehow in this smoke-choked room Caspian finds the voice to shout. "Where is my son? Tell me now, witch, and tell me true!"
The witch's strumming picks up, just for a few passes. "I cry you mercy, weary traveler. How am I to know your son when I have not known you?"
Caspian grips his sword ever tighter, for already the metal seems heavier by the moment. Beside him, Rose's blade trembles.
"If you know me not yet, madame, before the day is done you shall know me as you shall know the defeat that long has awaited you." Caspian wills his feet to step forward, but they will not obey. "This shall be your final defeat."
"Final defeat, say you?" she cries, but ever in the most dulcet intonations. "May it please you, Sir, not to barge into a lady's home with empty threats of violence and mayhem." The strumming softens. "It is most unseemly."
Caspian's arms ache, his sword trembling in his hands. He can't give in now, can't let the enchantment take hold. But for all that, it has never been so difficult to keep a grip on his own sword before. Would it not be easier to just let it fall, or perhaps to lower it just a little? Surely Rilian is not here, for there is no laughter of youth or cry of grieving boy here. The only creatures in this strange land are listless Earthmen and this lady.
"Goodness sakes, Caspian, she has a point," cries Eustace, the weight of his hand falling on Caspian's sword arm. The same wrongness permeating the room and the lady and the fire and the mandolin is in his voice, and it is a heavy thing as it falls upon Caspian's ears.
Jill peers at him from behind Eustace, the light of fear and indignation bright in her clouded eyes. "Really, Caspian, you needn't be a bully. You shouldn't threaten a lady, after all."
The strumming fades again, until the sweet notes are barely a whisper at the edge of hearing.
Caspian lets his sword drop, though his fingers still grip the hilt with stubbornness he cannot banish. Perhaps he ought not be so rude, but there are still questions to be answered. There is still the stink of magic in the air.
The lady glances to the door from whence they came, where the Warden stands guard. In all the hurry to see what was afoot at the top of the stairs, Caspian must have forgotten to look for the Warden, who steps forward now on silent, padded feet.
"Warden, escort these two children to their supper. I think they shall be glad of a proper meal after such arduous travels as they have endured." Her smile is beatific, but there is a cruelness in the curve of her mouth. "My guest will be glad of their company."
The Warden bows and starts off to another door to the left of the lady's fire. Jill and Eustace make to follow, calling muted thanks to the lady and relieving Caspian of the weight of Eustace's hand.
Puddleglum steps after the children, his steps far surer than Caspian feels. "May it please your Ladyship," the Marshwiggle says in a voice that sounds exactly the opposite, "but that I may accompany the children to supper. For they are prone to quarrel and I should not like to leave unseemly impressions upon any of your guests."
Jill and Eustace are halfway across the room to this second door, Puddleglum hot on their heels.
"That will be well," says the lady, hardly sparing him or the children a glance.
The three disappear. Caspian has the sudden notion that he ought to have said goodbye, for now that they've done he knows not where to trade pleasantries with a servant of the lady – a guest, said she, but this does not seem the sort of lady who will suffer any but servants of her own to reside within her halls – he begins to feel he will never see them again.
Caspian's sword is pointed to the floor now, the tip barely hovering above the stone. It seems an impossible task to hold onto it anymore. His fingers slip.
"Yes, it is most unseemly." Rose speaks without warning as she steps beyond him, and her blade is strong and steady as she holds it aloft. Her voice burns, and the flame of it reminds Caspian of the strength of his own hands.
"It is unseemly," she continues, "to lay claim to a world that is not your own. It is unseemly to wage war to take things of beauty and replace them with death. It is unseemly to slither from one world to the next, never satisfied, always taking. It is unseemly to tarnish a spring picnic with a poisonous death, to strike a lady with the blood of stars in her veins and leave her cold in the field. It is unseemly to invade another's home and strike in the middle of the night, to take another innocent life for the sake of your revenge. It is unseemly to steal a most precious item meant to give passage to a world of dreams and starlight, that you may once again try to steal its light. It is unseemly to steal away a boy, his father's pride and joy, a kingdom's hope and future, for your own wicked schemes. And it is unseemly to sit there so haughtily, casting enchantments as if your magic could ever make you a queen."
As Rose speaks, she draws nearer to the witch step by step until she stands nearly within arm's reach. And Caspian at last remembers how to raise his sword, how to wrap his fingers tight around the hilt and feel the sure press of the hilt against his palm. His pulse thrums unsteadily, as if his very blood is shaking off the enchantment. He is a man waking from a wicked sleep, but there is no time to appreciate the rising freedom in his bones.
For just as Caspian comes back to himself, the hiss of a serpent splits his ears.
