Sopespian led Armix through to a secluded place, under the balcony where he remembered the king and his wife looked out on the city, son in their hands. That was why Caspian had left, and for his sakes Armix hoped that he had escaped. They hardly even spoke to each other, but Armix had sensed the potential of a leader in Caspian.
"Where did you find Caspian in the woods?" Sopespian hissed.
Armix had allowed him to escape. In the heat of the battle, when it had seemed that the prince was surrounded, he had intentionally let him slip away. It cost him a few choice words (more of which would surely come from Sopespian now) and a few bruises, but then it had been worth it. "In the woods," he said, distracted.
"Don't test me."
"What should I say then? Go right, left, then watch for the tree with the squirrel?"
Sopespian looked about ready to do something, then thought better of it. "Is it true, what they say, that there are... Old Narnians involved when they attacked you?"
"That isn't true. They were men, wearing disguises. In the middle of battle they must have mistaken them for fauns or centaurs."
"Do you take me for a fool?"
Armix shrugged. "I did not see any otherwordly terrestrial creatures, sir." Actually, yes.
For a moment Sopespian was about to pry when Merry and Pippin popped out of nowhere, wearing their squire's uniforms and looking quite... dirty. They exchanged glances with Sopespian, who gave Armix a warning glare and, with a billow of his cloak, walked away.
"The horse would not cooperate," Pippin said. "Hard-headed."
"Like you," Merry said, dodging a punch from his friend, then glancing at the form of Sopespian walking away. "Got scolded again?"
"He was asking about Caspian, and the attack made on us few days ago."
"Oh, Caspian!" Pippin said. "Who's Caspian?"
Aragorn took a break from speaking for a while.
"Then what?" Edmund asked. After everything, he was not about to be left hanging waiting for the conclusion of a story. Speaking of which, what happened to the Ring?
He was about to ask Legolas when Caspian cleared his throat. "I'll continue, if that's not too much for you."
No one seemed to be of a different mind, so Caspian dived into the story, this time from his point of view. "There, in the bright moonlight, the truth hit me rather oddly—I was afraid, seeing that the Doctor was a half-Dwarf, and yet I rejoiced at the thought that there were real Dwarves, and wondered if there were more of them."
"Did you not notice it before?" Legolas asked. "His stature, his gauntness, as you've said."
"I was young at the time, and only half-convinced of Old Narnia. And once again, I'd never seen even one of them."
"I had my doubts," Aragorn muttered to himself.
"Nevertheless, the Doctor reassured that he meant me no harm at all. 'You have guessed it right, finally,' he said, with a tinge of disappointment in his voice. 'I thought you'd know sooner. Yes, there are still remnants of our kind.'
"'You've seen them?' I asked. 'Where?'
"Aragorn seemed to be thinking deeply and he looked up, realization dawning on his face. 'The forest...'
"'Yes. Sometimes I see a faun dancing in the woods or a centaur amidst the forest and yet...! The vision fades away. And sometimes I can almost hear the pounding of dwarves at work, the trees almost move—but if I look directly they always, always disappear. But I never have completely discounted the fact that there may still be Old Narnians in hiding, somewhere. Something always happens to get my hopes up once again.'
"'Did they—Peter and Edmund and Lucy and Susan live here long ago, Doctor?' I asked, even though I thought that our castle would be ill-fitting for the Kings and Queens of Narnia.
"'No, not at all. This palace of yours is but a thing of yesterday. No, the castle of the Kings and Queens are there, by the mouth of the Great River, the star at the shore of the sea. Ruins they may only be now, but once Cair Paravel was a most majestic palace, the crowning jewel of the whole of Narnia.'
"I reeled back at that time at the mention of the sea. 'You mean...'"
At this Caspian smiled and shook his head.
"'Ghosts?' Both Aragorn and the Doctor chuckled at this.
"'I believe that in my many sojourns in the forests that those are mere stories by your uncle, Your Highness,' Aragorn said. 'You speak as you are taught.'
"'There are no ghosts there—it is a story the Telmarines have manufactured to embody their fear of the ocean, for Aslan and all the Great Kings and Queens long ago always come from over the sea. They have never quite forgotten it.
"'That is why they have let forests and woods grow wild and free there, to cut off whoever may try to get to the sea. In doing so, however, they have quarreled with the trees, and it is also that they fear. And, as it is a cowardly thing to fear forests, they have imagined ghosts there, and placed their fear on wispy spirits. They deem it safer that no one gazes upon the ocean's glassy surface, toward Aslan's land and to the eastern end of the world.'
"For a long while we kept silent, Aragorn smoking his pipe in thought, I looking up at Tarva and Alambil and wondering, what now?
"'We've been here long enough,' Aragorn said. 'If we do not want to be caught speaking here, we must go.'
"My countenance fell. 'I would have wanted to talk on and on about these things...'
"'Someone is bound to look for us if we do that,' the Doctor said. So we went down, Aragorn taking his post back and the Doctor leading me back to my bed. I thought that I would not be able to sleep—my dreams were filled with fauns and satyrs and dryads the whole night that time."
TBC...