I love the fourteenth prompt, but I'm going to do a little interlude with a different prompt instead. This means that I've done all the prompts up til the fourteenth prompt, and also one of the Amnesty prompts, I forget which.

Prompt #7: Where did the Calormenes come from? The Telmarines were pirates, the Narnians (and probably Archenlanders) from King Frank and Queen Helen - how did the Calormenes begin?

"Edmund..."

How had she come to be here so quickly? He had wandered, in a largely straight line, through a bare, misty valley floor, once jumping a narrow trickling thread. Yet the vampire was whispering to him again.

"Edmund... listen to me."

"I said no." His voice was muted, half defeated already. The evil of the place clung and stank, and he felt a thousand baths would never clean him. "Get away from me!"

"You remember the Witch," said her voice, softly, and he jerked like she had delivered a physical blow. "You remember everything she ever told you. You wake to it, sometimes, in the night. I know you stare at your ceiling and think of Prince Edmund, and King Edmund the Just, and try to reconcile your night thoughts with your true self, or whether they are your true self. I know all this."

No longer trying to fight the desire, Edmund stepped slightly forward, and said, "How?" in a voice soft as a breath.

"I know everything, Edmund. I see everything. I hear the whispers of the trees and the song of the birds. I know."

"But do you know Aslan?" he asked, in weak defiance.

A hiss, but whether approving or disapproving he was unsure. "I know Aslan."

"You are a vampire." Edmund took a breath, cold and clammy and profoundly unsatisfying. "Vampires are dark creatures, fit for the ranks of the Witch and nowhere else. Why else would you live in this," he glanced around, "this horrible place?"

"Dark for dark business," said the vampire, sounding a little closer. Edmund jerked around to check if he was being stalked, but the mist-filled shadows, while menacing, did not seem to contain her. "Dark business is not always bad business. Once there was great power found (yes, and used for good and the darkness finally defeated) from a company that started in darkness to discuss their matters."

"Darkness brings only grief."

"And in the dark, cold dawn I fancy great things happened, once. A Table, broken. Death itself, turned backwards. A boy, redeemed. Darkness is not all bad."

Edmund released a breath, a puff of smoke in the chilly valley, and considered. "Can I trust you?" It was a useless question, spoken more for his own peace of mind than anything else, for he could not even see the vampire to assess the subtle clues he always used to ascertain the motivations of others.

A surprisingly gravelly laugh, for a voice that had sounded as hers had. "You must make that choice in your own heart."

"I shall listen, but it does not mean I shall trust you." Not yet.

"Let me delve into your past, little king," said the vampire. "Let me tell you of times long gone by, and ages forgotten by all but me, and trust me; and then I shall tell you of that more relevant and necessary to you. Once I have, perhaps, gained your trust a little."

"Say on," he said, scarcely unclosing his lips for the terse reply.

"One of the vital peoples you must know something about, in order to truly understand Narnia (the land you are governing), the Witch and the Dark Heart itself (to say nothing of myself), is the Calormene people."

Edmund was drawn to speech in pure surprise. "The Calormenes?" How could they be at all connected with the fate of Narnia?

"You know that there are chinks in the worlds, such as the one through which you came?"

How did she know these things?

"There are more worlds than merely these two: this the Lord Digory and the Lady Polly discovered, when they put on the rings made from the dust of a long-dead world. And from that world came those once known as Atlanteans; yet due to some strange quirk of time (or perhaps they were tossed into another world and there they abided for a time), they only came to this world shortly after the Witch rose truly to power. You are shivering, small king. Are you cold?"

"A little," he said, feeling in his bones that he would never be warm again. The wound from the Witch was heavy at his side, as if to drag him to the ground, nevermore to rise. "But say on."

"Something of the Witch's magic ensnared them, as they arrived, and warped them, fundamentally. Not all of them; little king, this you must understand and know. It is not all of them. But it made it easier for them to succumb to their dark desires, and some of them can wield magic. Not good magic, white magic, like some of your own can; but dark, black magic, the kind that shrivels the very soul, and sometimes swells the life force, so that one can scarcely be killed, and become an abomination."

Why was she telling him this?

"They became the Calormenes, who by and large are an evil race, diametrically opposed to Aslan himself. And from them..." She paused, and he could hear her breathing, as if trying to calm herself. "From them I came; or rather, they harnessed memories, memories that feel as like my own as those I am creating speaking to you, now. I was an ordinary Calormene, small king. And I was chosen to be part of the great, dark magical web as they harvested the memories of those long dead. I do not know how they did it. How did they leap from one world to another? How did they send a box of dust to the world of your birth? You leaped through a chink, for the wardrobe was made of Narnian wood. Yet they made their own path, and with nothing of the magic to create a path as you had. I was chosen to be the recipient of those memories, chosen to be the receptacle of every piece of history they could not trust memories or books for. And I agreed; but it was only when it was revealed to me that I knew the true darkness of the Calormenes."

Edmund cleared his throat. "Oh?"

"They serve Tash, the strange, twisted abomination. Chills and mist stride in his wake, and his beak is ready to devour. I see you react, little king. I see you understand. I see you know, at last, that Tash himself created the Dark Heart of Narnia, the weak point that could tear all Narnia asunder."

I have no idea what I'm doing. If you could possibly review...