Chapter Seventeen: The Lake King's Daughter

I sat on the stone chair between the Lake King and his beautiful daughter and watched silvery fish of all sizes swim this way and that to form shimmering patterns and shapes. The light was faint and I found seeing difficult, unlike my lady who clapped with delight at the show. Not far behind us musicians played their percussion instruments in a traditional tune as the fish danced. I listened, trying to pick out the rhythm and melody, but in truth all I heard were rocks of different pitches striking together. Why couldn't I hear the music?

I felt Lasa's eyes upon me and I faced her. Her smile faded as she saw that I was brooding yet again and she reached out and laid her small hand on my arm.

"Is something troubling you, my lord?" she pressed.

I gazed at her green eyes and the halo of green hair that floated around her pretty face. She had nothing but sympathy for me and my moodiness.

Yes, I wanted to say, everything troubles me. If I am your betrothed why don't I know you? How did we meet? Why don't I look at you and feel love? My skin is pale and yours is yellow and you say we're of the same people. How can that be? Why can't I see clearly, and why isn't there ever enough light for me? You move so freely through the water, but it feels like all the weight in the world pressing down upon me and I struggle to move. The food is not to my taste, the music does not please my ears, I am a stranger among what you say are my people. Why don't I remember anything? Why is nothing familiar? What is my name?

"I see sadness in your heart," Lasa cooed. She took my warm hand in her cold one. "I fear this enchantment weighs heavily upon you, my love." She brushed my hair behind my ear with her webbed hand, caressing my neck in the same gesture. "We will be wed soon, just as you wished before you ventured forth to battle the Kraken. Nothing but joy awaits us here in my father's realm. Let go this sadness, my lord."

I looked back at the dancing fish. "How did we meet, Lasa?"

She cast me an indulgent smile and giggled sweetly. We had carried out this conversation before. I knew we must have. When? Where? "We were raised together here in my father's court, of course. You are the only son of the Master of Currents and his consort, my father's cousin. We've been friends all our lives."

How long had my life been? How long had this day been?

"It was only a few seasons hence that we realized friendship had turned to a deep, boundless love."

I sat back, trying to ignore the music. Why did I know this was wrong? Love? Marriage? Wasn't I too young for such things? But why would Lasa, Daughter of the Lake King, tell me an untruth? I tried to think, think back to a time before I woke up in this murky realm. There was nothing there, as if a wall had been built to keep my memories at bay.

Or confined.

"What is my name?" I asked, keeping my voice calm and mannerly. I knew to do that much, at least.

Her green eyes dropped and she sighed. "My love, until this enchantment is lifted, we Lake People cannot say your name aloud lest the Kraken hear and know you survived. They would do you and us greater harm."

"Spell it for me."

"Spell?" she echoed, puzzled. "An incantation?"

I stared at her, wondering. If I could spell, if I could understand letters, why couldn't she? Why was the notion of a written language alien to her yet natural to me?

"Tell me again why I can't remember the past," I said, forcing a smile as I changed the subject.

She looked at her mighty father, who patiently gestured for her to give me answer.

"Krakens, washed down from the lakes above by the winter rains, threatened my father's kingdom with magic and famine. Just days before we were to be wed, you lead our army out against the beasts. You fought a valiant battle and slew many of them, but the greatest of them cast a powerful enchantment upon you, making you forget everything you knew and loved, and poisoning your body and spirit."

But I wasn't Valiant.

The performance ended. Lasa clapped for the fish and their trainers. I frowned into the darkness. The entertainment seemed to have lasted forever to me. What was this place? I spread my fingers across my knee. No webbing, and no indication that they ever had been webbed. Was I enchanted? And If I was, by whom?

She stood up and playfully pulled me to my feet by both hands. When I stood up I was no longer in the amphitheater. I was in a garden on the roof of the underwater palace with no memory of how I had reached it. I stared hard at her and blurted out, "Are you sure you want to marry me, lady?"

Her expression and voice were sincere. "I love you, my lord, even if you can't remember me. I can remember enough for us both. We are in love. And you did seek my hand most ardently. I knew from the start you would not need to seek long. I am yours, and I have always been yours. For truly, who would want an unwilling consort?"

"The Night did," I said with a finality that startled even myself. In my heart stirred a vague, uncertain awareness. Light seemed to penetrate the lake deeply as Lasa gazed at me with a little frown on her face. For a long moment she said nothing. Where had the darkness gone? Whence this light? The water wasn't as deep as at the ampitheater, but it seemed night had given way to day in an instant. I felt anger growing in me. Something was wrong beyond her words. My concept of time was distorted. I wanted my memories and my senses back. I did not believe her anymore, and that pained me.

"Who are you?" I demanded. "What is my name?"

She gasped, looking at her father who stood nearby. I knew I was being unkind but I no longer cared. I knew things she did not, things that had no place in the Lake Kingdom. I had no place here.

Looking crushed by my turn to coldness, Lasa controlled her trembling lip and tried to gather herself. Calmed by her father's touch, she forced herself to give me a sad smile.

"Gentle lord, your words do me pain."

"I am not Gentle," I replied.

"You are distraught. Perhaps I push you too quickly towards marriage. Do not despair, my lord, for I have waited an eternity for your love, and I can wait another."

Despair.

Despair!

What did I know of despair?

...If ever you come to despair on your journey, remember this moment, remember me, and that I love you...

I turned away from her. Who had said those words to me? They rang clear and true in my mind. Why did I know them when I knew nothing else? What moment was I supposed to remember? Who was I supposed to remember?

...And if I despair, I'll think of you and remember you love me...

Who did I love? Not Lasa. I could never love her. She had…

Despair.

...pulled me down here...

The loss of all hope was my saving grace.

…remember me…remember you love me…

Who are you?

…and that I love you…

Aslan, do you love me?

My own voice echoed in my mind.

Aslan.

"Aslan!" I cried, remembering all. In one terrible and triumphant instant, the spell slipped away. I had been yanked under the lake by Lasa, overpowered, almost drowned, and finally enchanted so that I could live here with her, the last of the Lake People. She had stolen my memory and she had stolen me away from my life and quest and family for her own selfish ends. She was alone here in the lake and she wanted to keep me as her consort by means both magical and dark. Everything I had experienced and seen here was an illusion.

At the sound of the Lion's name Lasa and her father seemed to change. She was no longer the beautiful princess she had seemed. There was a harshness about her now, something haggard and unclean. I glared at them both, and under my hard look her father seemed to fade into the stirring currents until he was nothing more than a rotting tree trunk. All around me the trappings of the Lake Kingdom faded to murky shadows until we stood alone on a rock slimy with algae at the bottom of the lake.

"Return me to the shore, Lasa. In the name of Aslan, Son of the Emperor-Over-Sea, I command you free me now." I gazed at her sternly.

She flinched, then rallied herself and laughed. "This realm is mine, my lord."

"All of Creation is Aslan's and his Father's. And my name is Peter," I snapped. "You have no right to bring me here or to hold me."

"I have every right, for I do love you," she said, and in the saying she only seemed uglier to my eyes, and far, far older than I had imagined. Her golden yellow skin looked more like old ivory, uneven and stained. Her face became fish-like, pug-nosed and with tendrils like a catfish and I hoped to heaven I never remembered if I had ever kissed her. "Stay with me. I will give you a kingdom to rival your emperor's."

I stared, scandalized as she ignorantly invoked the Emperor himself. "You couldn't possibly. This is not love." I thought of Aslan and his boundless love, my family and our devotion to each other, Edmund and his possessive protectiveness. "Love is given, not taken. Don't make oaths by names you don't revere. Let me go, Lasa. By Aslan and the Emperor, let me go."

Her eyes, no longer so green but muddy and dull, narrowed sharply. She knew then and there I was not going to be held by any means. I didn't know if she recognized Aslan's name, but it clearly had an effect on her, and not a pleasant one. She grew uglier still, older and more twisted as the last of her enchantment eroded away leaving an ancient crone made bitter and angry by her loneliness and isolation.

"Begone, Peter," she hissed.

And suddenly I was drowning at the bottom of the lake.