The Beast Must Die: Chapter 12
When in total darkness, when it's impossible to tell when one's eyes are open or shut, how can one know the difference of whether they are indeed awake…or simply still dreaming? For Lucy, this deciding difference was pain.
This was not a dream. She hurt too much to be dreaming.
White-knuckled searing pain shot through her entire shoulder, it was like nothing she'd ever felt before, she wanted so bad at that moment to just tear her arm right off, if only that would make it stop!
She needed help, and fast! The solid pitch black before her eyes started turning white, as if a curtain were being drawn across it…she was going…slowly going…she didn't feel the pain so much anymore…
"No! She needed to live! She needed help! Drawing in the deepest breath she could muster, she gave her loudest scream
"Suusss…the cry caught in her throat, and gargled away, indeed it hadn't even been much more than a whisper…she was too weak, just to weak… she closed her eyes…
Aslan…please…help me… she would have said the words out loud, but she was no longer breathing. The white curtains closed, and she felt as if she were floating…floating away…so white…so light…she let go.
Black! Blackness tore back into her vision again…white seemed to cry protest…Let me go! Let me just float away! She pleaded with the black to release her, it only smirked and clawed faster…relentlessly the black clawed at the white, tore the curtain to shreds, till it once again held control, Poor Lucy almost wanted to cry…she was so close…so close to being free…now she'd have to hurt again…
But instead of pain, Lucy felt soft, warm, familiar hands grab her and pull her up…and she heard her sister's voice.
"Lucy! Oh dear Lucy, that was so close…you were so close to being…Susan's voice caught, broke, and she could do nothing more than hold her dearest, dearest little sister. If Lucy had been able to see in the dark, she would have seen Susan's bosom right above her face as she cradled her gently on her lap, she would have seen Peter putting the cap back on her cordial…the cordial that just saved her life…and she would have seen Edmund, perhaps still in shock, but crouched up in a corner of their cell about six or seven feet from them all, doing nothing, just rocking back and forth…but, since she could not see in the dark, Lucy, indeed all four of them couldn't even tell if their eyes were open or closed.
"Well, I suppose we found Lucy, but where in Aslan's name are we?" Peter put the cordial back in Lucy's dress pocket as he spoke.
"The darkness has come, Peter" Edmund finally spoke.
"What do you mean?"
"Remember the prophecy? The darkness shall reign when the darkness has won. It's come true, Peter!"
"That's ridiculous! Didn't it also say something about an ambassador and darkness filling it?"
"Couldn't that have been that dead weasel perhaps? I don't know all of it, but I'm not blind!" Peter smirked at the irony of his brother's remark "we may as well be, it's so dark here…where are we?"
"For Darkness shall reign when the Darkness has won, The beast then must answer for all it hath done." A new voice broke into the pitch blackness. The three looked around themselves feverishly, but Lucy cried out happily at the familiar voice.
"Varina! Oh Varina is that you?" Her favorite maid, the one who had come to the castle a mere orphan of unknown origin, the one who would tuck her in at night and tell her stories about a forest home she once had lived in…it was her! Varina's voice again trailed towards them.
"Hello, Lucy, are you well? And Peter, Edmund, don't look so surprised to hear me quote prophecy."
Peter was sure he'd heard this name before…Varina…Varina…Of course!
"Wait, you were to appear before the court! But you disappeared…that must have been days ago, how long have you been down here?"
"Oh I can't tell, it's not like we can see the sun from here…oh it's felt like an eternity, I wonder if there even is a sun left anymore…Has the darkness won already? Is there no hope for any of us?"
Edmund suddenly sat bolt upright, and smacked his head in frustration, and epiphany. "The flint! I still have the flint from the torches in my pocket!" Reaching into his coat, he dug out the flint and, after finding a dry stone on the wall, struck it hard. Sparks flew everywhere, and for a flash, like dull orange lightning, the room in which they were all sitting was illuminated. Again Ed hit the wall, and again, and again. In the flashing sparks of light Peter was able to discern where the girl's voice was coming from. A small, furry girlish shadow of a creature was chained to the wall directly across from them. Her sad eyes, accustomed to the total darkness, were squinting now, flinching almost painfully each time a spark illuminated them. Peter gasped in surprise…she was a Racomine just like that General!
"Why…why are you here?" Peter finally asked her.
"It's a long story…but I suppose we do have ample time...oh very well."
"It all began when the White Witch came to our village and called all the men out to a town meeting. Father took me along; I was but a baby at the time. The White Witch told the men they would join her army that night or die. Many tried to run, they died, others simply chose death…and it was given them. Varrus, our neighbor and friend chose to fight, and, over time won the eye of the Queen of Ice herself. Father also worked for her, bearing the hope of someday getting back home to Mother and the rest…but it was not to be. One day, Father overheard the Queen and Varrus talking. She told him she would make him a general if he could prove his loyalty to her…by razing his…our own village. She had some Centaur mercenaries at the ready, she told him to make it look like a Centaurian purge, to blame it on Aslan zealots. When Father heard of his plan he stole a horse from the camp we were in and made for the forest back home, in hopes of warning them before it was too late. I was older then, nearly as old as I am today…either ways I was old enough to understand what was going on. Father got as far as the edge of the camp before they caught him. His horse was shot out from under him, and before they got to him, he told me to run…run and never look back…and I did. I heard Father scream but I kept running…I heard him stop screaming, but still kept running. I ran, and ran, and ran so far, eventually I was found by a Jaguar from Cair Paravel, and the rest is history…" she let her voice die away, and eventually her echoes stopped reverberating in the dark hallways. Peter, Edmund, Susan and Lucy all sat in silence for a while. Edmund, who had been gathering dry straw from the dungeon floor absentmindedly now spoke up.
"So that bastard torched his own village, blamed it on the centaurs and Aslan, now when he has to answer for it, his only witness 'disappears'…and I do suppose we can assume we're just as…disappeared…as you?" It doesn't make any sense…"
"Lucky for you it doesn't have to make sense, poor wretch!" They all jumped at the harsh words spoken loudly from an unknown source…again, they were not alone. Edmund set again to furious flint-striking, and in the dim flashes of light, on the other side of the bars of their cell they all beheld an old man, his grey locks flowing out from under a black hood. The Old man on the Road, The Order's aged Seer, the Hooded Figure in the Courtyard, the Librarian; one and the same man! He looked back at them smiling.
"Welcome, my children, to the End of the World."