Disclaimer: I own only Mallory Johnson and a certain few animals.
Chapter 1: An Enchanted Chest and What Mallory Found in it
This is the story of Mallory Johnson. She was eleven years old when this story took place, and this happened just a little before Pevensie children's first adventures in Narnia.
Her Uncle Bertram was an active hiker who loved hiking the mountains. That very summer he decided to explore the Scottish Highlands, and he decided to bring Mallory along and see if he could arouse in her a passion for mountain-hiking. At that time, there were air raids in London where Mallory lived, so her parents consented to allow her to go with her Uncle; hiking was a lot safer compared to air raids.
So it was with a lot of excitement, at the prospect of a little highland adventure, and a little sorrow for leaving her dear parents behind, Mallory packed up and set off for Scotland with her Uncle Bertram.
Uncle Bertram was the sort of grown-up who would let children have their way, which pleased Mallory up to no end. In his big house in Little Bammery, quite near the beautiful Scottish Highlands, there was no end of exploring to do. While her Uncle did all sorts of arrangements with his merry pack of fellow hikers, Mallory was told to do whatever she liked, as long as she didn't bother the grown-ups, so she opened all the doors and windows in the big house, and every night she tried a different bedroom and once on an excursion into the attic (which was extremely dusty), she found a beautifully made trunk decorated with strange runes.
She opened it (it was strangely unlocked) and found first a rolled-up map.
And what a peculiar map it was! It was very beautifully illustrated and coloured too, at that. The details were painstakingly recreated on the yellowed parchment, but the names of the places were nothing that she had ever heard of!
"Ooh, what names! Here's Tashbaan, what a beautiful city it looks like! And there's a great desert, I say, are the sands really moving? On to Anvard and hullo! that's a funny mountain, what's its name? Mount Pire . . . and then up to Stormness Head? Is that a mountain now? Up, up, up, ooh, look at those lovely green forests! What's this place now? Shuddering Wood . . . Dancing Lawn . . . hmm . . . Stone Table . . . up, up, up, what a lovely castle! Cair Paravel . . . and what a funny name too! But, oh, how familiar all these sound!"
And indeed she felt as if she had known these places, visited them and loved them in fact, (except for Tashbaan, she remembered with a sudden feeling of repulsion). But how could it be? She couldn't have gone into this land before. Anyway, she had no memory of it. She shrugged and rolled the map up carefully and looked into the trunk to see what else was inside it.
"What ever is this?" she exclaimed as she drew out an ivory object, after some studying she realised that it was a bow and attached to it was a quiver full of arrows. "Lovely!" she stroked the bow and tested its string. A gentle twang rang out, the bow was in good condition and the arrows were slender and as pale as ivory too. As she tested the bow, she felt how right it was to be holding it this way, even though she had never touched one before, let alone use it, but it was so natural to put an arrow to the bow and draw back its strings.
"Super!" she placed the bow and the quiver on the floor and returned her attention towards the trunk.
Mallory saw a glint of steel and touched it. It felt cold. Her hands traced the line of the object and grasped a hilt. "A sword?" This time she was truly astonished. She pulled at the hilt and indeed it was a sword, still intact with its magnificent scabbard. She removed the sword from its scabbard and gasped at the length and the glory of its gleaming blade. The most surprising was that even though it was very heavy, she had no trouble holding it up at all. Thoroughly astounded, she sheathed the sword and put it on the floor next to the bow.
After that, she found many more amazing weapons: a shield with a crimson lion gloriously melded onto it; a beautiful and slim dagger, an ivory horn laced with golden runes, and another sword that was much, much longer than the first sword she found, and the blade of this sword was carved with fine runes that looked a lot like the ones found on the trunk and the horn. Curious now, she took a closer look at the runes, and found, to absolute wonder, that she could read them.
The ones on the second sword read: "Marcaras of Princess Alvarya at the Hour of Doom slayeth (what's that?) the Enemy and all Narnia will be saveth and Aslan appeareth at the Hour of Glory." She shrugged, not having the faintest idea of what it meant, but she felt that she had heard of the name Narnia and Aslan somewhere before.
Meanwhile, the runes on the horn said, "The blower of this Horn, the Horn Limaerya will find help at once, though none knows what help it bringeth, know only that the help is blessed of Aslan, Lord of all Narnia." Aslan and Narnia again.
Last of all were the runes on the trunk, which said simply: "This Enchanted Chest do belongeth to the Princess Alvarya of all Narnia and Archenland."
"Who's that, I wonder?" she asked aloud, but just as a bell had rang in her head, Uncle Bertram was calling her down for tea.
