Disclaimer: Lewis once had it pointed out to him that the tales of sacrifice for the life of others ran in almost all legends. I am but retelling a tale told often.
Beta'd by trustingHim17
OOOOO
The boys had found a use for Khonat in the kitchen. After watching the Kings try to stab the soft meat with very large forks, Khonat had simply stuck his stone hand into the boiling water and grabbed the birds. The two Kings were staring at him, nonplussed, and Lucy and Susan began laughing at the looks on their faces.
"Should have thought of that," Peter admonished himself, straightening. "All right, laugh it up, you two. Dinner's ready. Put the birds on the two plates, if you would, Khonat."
The Telar obliged, and Susan swiftly swept a pile of nuts onto each plate as well. In a low voice, she filled in Peter (Edmund listening intently from near the fire while Lucy distracted Khonat by asking him to lift her to the utensils drawer) on all Khonat had said. She finished her summary just in time to see Lucy trying to lift a handful of enormous forks.
"Bring the things that look like toothpicks, Lucy," Susan called, halting Lucy's struggling. "We'll use them like single forks. Through here, Edmund, Peter." She opened the door, and the boys brought the plates through, holding them high above their crowns like platters. The others followed Khonat put the plates on the table for the Four and lifted each one of them onto its surface. Peter gave Susan his hand to help her sit down, mindful of her still-aching body, only to see her quickly turn towards the door, where Khonat was leaving.
"Surely you will stay and eat with us?" she asked.
"It would be our pleasure to have your company," Edmund added quickly, picking up on her cues.
"Stone cannot eat."
"But you can stay and talk with us," Lucy responded. "There is so much we have to learn about you."
Khonat hesitated.
"We are here as strangers, and children. Your guidance would be much appreciated," Peter put in gravely. He was not quite sure what his sister intended, but he trusted her judgement. Khonat bowed and took a seat.
Peter and Susan shared a plate while Edmund and Lucy shared the other. Susan glanced at Edmund, not sure where to begin. Edmund saved her the trouble by beginning with a question of his own.
"How can your people be helped, Khonat?"
Peter paused in lifting a portion of the bland cooked meat, listening. There was much that was wrong here, and he longed to put it right. He could see his siblings felt the same. But the high-handed, almost desperate actions of the Telar made him wary. Desperate people seldom made good choices. And the horror they felt on learning of the Narnian rulers' ages made Peter distinctly uneasy.
Khonat looked at Edmund and sighed. "It is not wise of you to offer your help when you do not know what we would ask of you."
Edmund smiled, a little grimly. "I did not offer my help. My fair sister has told me what your people face, and I am curious to learn how they intend to save themselves."
The Telar said nothing.
"Why can't you tell us?" Susan gently prodded. "You told us the hurts of your past, your friend, the heedlessness of your race—what can be left that you do not want to say?"
"It is easier to speak of past sins than future ones." Khonoat looked down at his hands. "We need a king."
"Tell us why," Peter commanded. He was done with the avoidance of this race!
"Our king is still."
"But no one here treats as a ruler, but a captive," Edmund frowned. "You cannot mean to make me your king in his place."
"No, we do not." Khonat stared at Edmund, measuring him, as if to test his courage. Edmund looked back calmly, as calmly as he'd looked at the witch after seeing the power of Aslan. The Telar half-smiled, but it curled into pain in the corners. "You remind me of my prince. I was his jedeha—the old word for guard. But to be jedeha is more than that. It is what Jumak was to the king. It is one-who-gives-his-life. We have no other meaning, no other purpose. We live at his side, we counsel him in worry, calm him in rage, and bear as many of his burdens as we can. We give our life for his, if his is threatened." Khonat shook his head. "Our old king had little of rage in him, and perhaps Jumak felt it instead. I am sorry for the hurting of your face," he said to Susan, and Peter's eyes flicked to her. She was calm, but there had been lines of pain on her forehead since the morning. "The moment we found out you could be the king's salvation, Jumak decided it was the king's life or yours, and therefore you were enemies." The feathers on Khonat's wing ruffled. "He is a fool, and a better jedeha should have been chosen, all those years ago." Khonat's eyes turned back to Edmund, who had reached out to cover Susan's hand with his own. "And I am sorrier still you are like my prince, for I know what it is to lose such a one."
"What do your people intend to do to me?"
"Ours is a magic based on sacrifice. There is one sin, one of few, that my race did not fall into in the old days. We did not force the sacrifice from another. Dark would that have made us, if we had! I know not what grace kept us from it, but we had our laws. If another forced someone into submission and took from him unwillingly, the spell-caster was killed. We have made few exceptions—a drop of your blood while you were in our power helped you to speak our tongue, and we did not ask first. Yet we saw the fear grow on your faces, and heard your tones—so high, it was the fear of children, and it cut me to the heart—when we took that first drop."
"That is forgiven," Peter said gravely. "It was taken in good faith, with no intent to harm, and to help us understand—to end our fear."
"Yes." Khonat looked at his hands. "It was. And so I could live with that act on my hands, my wings. But I came to care for you with food and with stone strength, but also to force myself to acknowledge what we are doing. Many of those left do not. They stay on the ground, in the King's court, digging deep the lines of the spell around him, so they may not face what they are doing. That they are committing the last crime of magic we have never, as a race, committed. But I could not see the lines and not force myself to face—this." He looked back at Edmund. "To face you. We need our king, and we need him to live. A king for a king; a life for a life. Tomorrow they fly you to the courtyard of our King, release your crown from your head, and touch it to his. Your life will be given to him. That is Zedekah's plan."
"You are going to what?" Peter did not mean for his voice to rise till it thundered, but it had, and he stood.
"Peter."
"That is murder."
"And if a murder is the price to save our race, most of us agree to it."
"Most of us?" Susan asked, hope and caution warring in her tone, but Peter wasn't done.
"You have the stomach to do that? To look at him now, and take his life tomorrow?"
"Peter."
Khonat looked at Edmund, at the boy whose eyes were fixed on his older brother, and back at Peter. He spread his hands wide. "I do not. But Zedekah is as ruthless as he is selfless. His will be the words that take the life from this one for another. As the one who brought peace between my group and Jumak's, the only one with a plan to save us, it is his right-"
"It is no one's right."
"Peter!" Peter paused, finally looking at Edmund. His brother was waiting for him to start listening, telling him without words there had to be a conversation between them about this.
Edmund did not deserve his anger. And Peter could listen. For now. He looked back to Khonat. "Excuse us."
The Telar looked from one King to the other, then at each Queen. He rose, bowing a different bow—bending till his back was parallel to the ground, his wing dragging on the floor, his hands meeting before his bowed head.
"I leave you to your meal." He straightened, looking at each once more, lingering on Edmund. "I am sorry." He left, and they let him, the wind blowing through the open door after he vanished.
Peter looked back at Edmund. "We need to get you out of here. "
Edmund smiled ruefully. Peter did not particularly care for that smile. "Can we talk for a minute first?"
"A minute," Peter granted curtly.
Edmund took a deep breath. "Has anyone stopped and considered that this might actually be a good option?"*
"No," said Peter flatly.
"No, Edmund, it isn't," objected Susan when Edmund looked about to argue. "You can't just go and offer them your life. It isn't...it isn't right."
"But that's just it, Su. It might be. I mean, look at the situation. It's not just my life for another king's, it's one person for an entire race. A dying race. One life for many."
"But you can't, Edmund."
"You can't," Peter echoed his sister, his voice stern. "Aslan died to make you a King of Narnia, remember?** You cannot take the life He saved and offer it up."
"Like He did for me?" The others paused. "Don't you see that's why I'm thinking about it? If I did, it would fit—fit the whole pattern of what He did for me. Isn't that what we're supposed to do? Act like Him?"
"But not for them!" Susan burst out.
"You are a King of Narnia, not of the Telar. A King can be required to die for his people, but when he dies for them, he is offering up what they already own. Narnia owns your life, Edmund, and you cannot give it away as if you were a soldier. Besides, can't you see it's unjust? What if you heard of the Telar taking another person—one of us, then—against our will and taking our lives. How would you judge their actions then? Innocent or guilty?"
"Yes, all right, all right. But it's not the same, if I offer my life! If I surrender it—but I'm just discussing," Edmund back tracked as Lucy bit her lip, Susan paled, and Peter took a furious step forward. He held up his hands. "Just—just talking. Can't you see, Peter, Susan, Lucy—can't you see how it might be a good thing? To follow Aslan this way, to do for them what He did for me."
"But why for them?" Susan's voice was shaking, and she brought her knees up and wrapped her arms around them. "They're a corrupt race dying of their own corruption. Why should you save them?"
"Because Aslan saved me when I was." Peter and Susan went quiet, furiously thinking, and in the silence Lucy spoke.
"But Aslan did more than that." She looked back at Edmund, eyes opening wide as she realised. "He didn't just save your life. He made you better. Can you do that, Edmund? Yes, I could see one person giving himself up for a race. Or even one person for another, like Aslan did. But none of them—or few of them—are actually sorry they used magic. They still do. They still become still. They used magic to attack us, and now they're digging lines for more magic. They're not giving it up."
"Before you heal someone, ask him if he's willing to give up the things that made him sick," Susan quoted the oldest healer at Cair Paravel, Hippocrates.*** "They aren't willing to give up magic. You won't really be helping them."
Edmund looked around at the three, and his shoulders sagged. "What other options do they have, though?" he tried.
"They could have called on the Lion," Peter reminded them, and Lucy nodded. "But they chose their own strength and the need to save themselves instead."
"It's not an easy thing to trust Aslan, but it's become a choice between that and murder," Susan pointed out. "You can't help them with murder, Edmund."
"Because a trust in Aslan would have trusted even if the entire race died," Lucy reminded them all, thinking. "Trust in Aslan goes beyond death."
Edmund smiled at them all—a rueful smile Peter rather approved of this time. "Then at least if I do die, you will still trust Him?" The other three scowled at him and he held up his hands. "I surrender!"
"We follow where He leads," Peter agreed. "But that path does not lead you to willingly become a lifeless body for an unrepentant people. Give me your word, Edmund, as a knight and a king, that you will fight for your life."
Edmund looked up at Peter, reading the command as well as the request. The younger King rolled into a kneeling position, hands braced on his knee since he lacked a sword.
"I swear by my love of Aslan and the life that He gave me that I will not surrender willingly; that is, unless the Lion Himself tells me to."
"I hold you to that oath, and swear in return to protect you with all that I am and to strive to bring the Four of us home."
"Which means we'd better find another way out," Susan said after a short pause. "But I don't like our chances, because we haven't a way to the ground."
"Could we at least hide?" Lucy asked. "There's so many empty places—we might stay hidden for days! At least till we find a way to the ground, and maybe back to Narnia."
"Ed and I looked while we cleaned the birds, there's not a way down for us, not without monkey tails to swing by. And if we have to stay on this level we wouldn't stay hidden for long. Not with 50 of them searching."
"Can we make the tapestries a rope and lower ourselves down?"
"They're threadbare and wouldn't hold us," Susan interjected. "And while magic might have made very small stitches, it didn't make very strong thread. I don't think we can trust our lives to them." She waited, but no one said anything, and she sighed. "I don't like this plan, but it might be the best we have. Lucy and I tomorrow will ask to go exploring again, and either find the lines for the spell they made and erase them, or make our way back to Narnia as we can, and get help.
"You'd never arrive back in time," Peter objected, frowning, and Susan nodded.
"I know. But it's the best I've got. They won't take us exploring in the dark, it'd be nonsense to ask."
"Peter should go with you," Edmund interjected.
"Peter will do no such thing," the High King shot back.
"They'll need protection."
"So do you."
"Peter-"
"I will not forswear my oath, Edmund. Forget it."
At this point Susan and Lucy had tuned them out, looking at each other.
"Pray to Aslan we make it in time?" Lucy asked, and Susan nodded. The two girls held hands and bent their heads, asking for help. By the time they finished, the boys had observed them and were asking for Aslan's help as well. Then the Kings helped the Queens down, and the four of them pulled down some of the dusty, threadbare tapestries in the other rooms and made what beds they could.
Khonat stood shuddering outside the still-open outer door. He had heard all their conversation, though by the time they were discussing escape he'd stopped listening. For this younger King—he was far too much like Khonat's prince. And like Khonat's prince, he would spend his life to teach the Telar a lesson they would only half-learn.
No. No, Khonat could not allow that. If the Telar could only live half-lives through the murdering of kings and princes like that—no.****
He closed his eyes. He needed a moment, a heart-killing moment, to bear the sadness of the death of his kind. To adjust to the weight of that idea, without seeing the last remnants all around him.
He opened them. He looked to the stars, reading the direction, and readied his magic to fly.
OOOOO
*I am blaming this entire debate entirely on WillowDryad, as that lovely writer advised me to listen to how Edmund wanted the story to go when I got stuck. He and I got into an argument, and it ended up playing itself out in the story. I'd also like to thank SouthwestExpat, who helped me actually beat Edmund, because for a while there I was stumped as to how I was going to stop Edmund from walking up in the courtyard and offering his head. Those of you who like Edmund fighting to survive, thank her, because I was losing.
**For anyone who is reading who wishes to debate whether or not Edmund knew of Aslan's sacrifice for him, my opinion, book quotations, and help from other authors was hashed out in "What Would Have Happened" and you're welcome to discuss it over there, please.
***This was actually said by the human Hippocrates, but shhhh! I'm pretending!
****Inspired by NausicaA: of the Valley of the Wind, where Obaba says (paraphrasing, because it's from memory) "We know it is wrong for us to survive, if we have to depend on a monster like that."
Response to Anonymousme: I'm afraid I can't give away the ending, so I can't answer your confusion about how this is going to resolve itself! The one-shot stemmed from a reddit quote, "i think villains in general provide better, more epic romances because they're allowed to go to extremes. they're allowed to put their love over the greater good. they're allowed to be selfish. the best a hero can offer you is number two, because their duty comes first. villains, though. villains will burn down the world for a last kiss goodbye" ~bauliya. I read that and I wanted to prove them wrong, to prove that the kind of love that would burn down the world is never a gift to the loved one, but my two page story about a protective older sister and a lame younger one in a different world told itself much more in depth than I was expecting! Since it's not a fanfiction, however, I can't post it here. The other stories are technically fanfiction of fairy tales, and I'll admit I had two more stories develop off of the Swan Princess retelling, one of Ava going to find her father, and yes, that one will be tied to Red Riding Hood (though there are two wolves, and the first one keeps wanting me to tell his story before I tell the story of Ava's father), and another one about Jaana, and how a fairy godmother ended up as a castle housekeeper in a place where magic is banned. But writing both of those is a long way in the future; I've too much Narnia and that 22 page story that my writing group thinks should be a novel. So please try your hand at it if you'd like to!