Chapter 2 – Unfamiliar Territory
At Cair Paravel…
Sir Eric stood upon the beach beneath the keep of Cair Paravel and breathed in the salty sea air deeply. His sword was kept in the room where he first awoke in the castle, but he felt no need of it in that place. Nearby, the faun Banion stood watching over him and their surroundings, but did not appear to be expecting any serious trouble.
True to the king of Narnia's word, they had provided him with a richly inlaid forest green tunic with golden threads, a fine cloak made from seal skin, leather belt with brass buckle, woolen breeches and soft leather boots which were detailed and well made. If he were to be honest however, the clothes he now wore were more fine and expensive than he would have ever chosen for himself. His first thought was that they had dressed him from the king's own wardrobe until his escort had led him through the castle and he saw that his manner of dress was not terribly different from even the servants.
The beach and scenery reminded him much of his home in Belfalas, west of Minas Tirith on the south coast where his lady wife, Adora, young daughter, Mila, and squire son awaited his return. The thought of them struck his heart with some pain. It had been four months since he had seen them last. Duty to his kingdom was paramount. When the Steward called him, his oaths to Gondor demanded he respond, and they understood that. It was a virtue he had tried to instill in his son as he prepared for knighthood. The boy, Aidan, was still several years away from such an eventuality, being only of sixteen years, but he was already strong, a capable swordsman, and a proficient rider. Nevertheless, Sir Eric had instructed him to resist the urge to answer the Steward's call for more soldiers to be thrown at the orcs, remain at home on their lands and protect his mother and sister. Duty to Gondor was paramount, but the protection of their family was of the utmost importance with his absence.
The ongoing conflict with Mordor was not going well. It had never gone well since even the days of the kings of Gondor centuries before. He had not exaggerated the orcs' advances, or the threat they posed with the king of Narnia. He knew his history well enough to know that Minas Morgul had not always been in dark hands. The Black Gate had originally been built by his people to keep the orcs in, and the forces of the enemy had turned the tables and used it as a fortification against those who built it. And he had heard of a time when Osgiliath did not lie in ruins, fought over endlessly by men of Gondor and the hellspawn of Mordor. He had no idea how orcs bred, or if they were created by the whims of dark sorcerers fully formed, but Mordor seemed to have an endless number of them. For every orc head which Gondor took, ten more seemed to rise up and fill in the gaps. Mordor continued to throw them at Gondor, and Gondor, unable to replenish their own forces as quickly continued to lose ground. It only grew worse as news of the return of the dark lord Sauron spread.
But here, far away from his homeland, he could imagine just for an instant that there was no war. There was only the peaceful crashing of waves against rocks and beach sand, the crying of seagulls, and the amiable companionship of his non-human guide. He couldn't have imagined any of it barely a week ago combing through the wastes and gray, desolate landscape of eastern Mordor. He certainly never imagined after he had felt the arrow hit his shoulder blade and puncture through that he would survive to see it.
Briefly he imagined that he hadn't actually survived, and somehow he had actually awoken in the lands to the far west, where white shores welcomed the virtuous and just. He could imagine that well, and a smile crossed his lips at the equally morbid and pleasant, but somewhat silly thought.
"What amuses you, friend?" Banion asked him, allowing the grin to spread to his own features.
"It was a silly thought. This place is so pleasant, I imagined for an instant that I had died from the arrow, and had instead awoken triumphantly in Valinor." Sir Eric replied, picking up a stone for no reason and throwing into the waves.
"Valinor? Where is that?" The faun asked. "I know nothing of the geography of the west."
"Valinor is as far west as one can go, I suppose. It's far across the sea, to the utter west. It is the home of the valar, and the ancient home of the elves to which I have heard they have received the call to return in these times. It is to where the virtuous and righteous travel when the bonds of life have been cut." Sir Eric explained. He had been himself taught about Valinor, the valar, the elves and more by loremasters when a youth. It hadn't occurred to him that anyone civilized would not know.
"This sounds like Aslan's country." Banion observed, though appeared quizzical at the mention of "elves." "It lies that way however, to the utter east and where the salty waters end and turn sweet." The faun pointed with his hand out across the ocean eastwards. "No one from Narnia has ever made the attempt to sail there and returned."
Sir Eric stopped and looked at the faun, considering his words. "I should wonder that we are not talking of the same land."
The faun considered this and then replied, "Perhaps, but if this Valinor is to the west, and Aslan's country is to the east, then the world would have to be round like a ball if they were the same land, wouldn't it?" He gestured with his fingers, bringing them around in a circle.
They both laughed at the silliness of the thought. Of course everyone knew the world was flat.
When the chuckling died down, Sir Eric asked, "I have heard this name several times, Aslan. Who is he? What role does he play here. As I have heard people speak, it seems your kings and queens do everything in this Aslan's name."
"Now it is my turn to be surprised. I have never been asked that question before." Banion replied. "Aslan is the true king of Narnia, the son of the Emperor-across-the-sea or so it is told. It is said that in the ancient past, he created everything you see here with his roar and breath alone; every rock, every tree, every animal, faun, and centaur. He is the Great Lion whose image you see on our banners and standards. It is he who crowned our kings and queens forty years ago after the defeat of the White Witch, though he has been seen in these lands little since. The kings and queens rule in his absence, and in his name."
"Aslan is a lion?" Sir Eric asked, a tone of incredulousness entering his voice. "He is a beast who is called your true king?"
"He is the king of beasts, friend." Banion responded, his tone becoming harder and more serious at the potential insult to the Great Lion. "I fought alongside him at that battle forty years ago, and under his banner. If you were to meet him in person, you would not use such an insolent tone."
The knight stared for a minute, the grin on his face slowly disappearing as he saw the deadly seriousness of belief and faith in the faun's eyes. This creature, his amiable and capable escort, would die at Aslan's command without the merest hint of hesitation or question. He knew the kind of leader it would take to instill such fanatical devotion in a subject even when absent for decades. It was a king worthy of such reverence, and a devotion not to be mocked or trifled with.
"My apologies, sir." The knight said with sincerity. "I meant no offense to your sovereign be he beast, faun, or man. It was only unusual to me, like much that I have encountered since waking here. We have no talking beasts of any kind in my country. I have rarely seen any other races but my own, and these only the occasional elf from Rivendell, dwarf of the Lonely Mountain, or hobbit of the Shire when they are friendly. Darker and more sinister things like orcs, goblins, or trolls in the service of Mordor when they are not."
"Most of our people are not sons of Adam and daughters of Eve like yourself and their majesties," the faun responded, "but there are a few who live peaceably enough within our borders. Most of them have come from Archenland, or some come having escaped from slavery among the Calormens. There are far more talking animals, fauns, centaurs, dryads, naiads, dwarves..."
"Dwarves? There are dwarves here in Narnia?" Sir Eric interrupted.
"Yes. They mostly keep to themselves and live in and under the mountains. They are good blacksmiths and miners." Banion told him, curious at the knight's interest in the sturdy but diminutive people. "Decades ago, many were in the service of the White Witch but after her defeat, they have become peaceable with us and we trade with them often."
The knight considered the similarities with the dwarves he had known and heard of. Then, something the faun said struck him. "Why do you call humans 'Sons of Adam and daughters of Eve?' Who are they, this 'Adam' and 'Eve'?"
Banion then scrunched up his face in thought. In truth, no one had ever asked that question either. "I honestly don't know, friend! I've never been asked that before. It is the name which Aslan himself gave your people. I do not know why. Perhaps they were the first of your race, or at least people of importance to him?"
"Hmm. Adam..." Sir Eric tested the name on his tongue, thinking back to all of his instruction by his tutors in the ancient lore and history of Middle Earth. His own father, a nobleman had wanted more for his son than just the knowledge of how to wield a sword and so had spared no expense in educating him in how to read and write in the elvish tongues as well as the common, and to be familiar with the history and lore of the world. "This word sound much like the name the elves give us. They call us 'Atani' in their ancient tongue, and 'Edain' in the more recent for our people as a whole, or 'Adan' for just one of us. I wonder if, at some point in time, they all came from the same word. Maybe the same name. It is said that when Eru first created my people, we awoke in a land far to the east that the loremasters and scholars call 'Hildorien,' and from there followed the sun west. I wonder that I am now standing as far east as one might travel before needing a ship to set sail. Perhaps I have indeed come to legendary lands after all. Only the true names have been forgotten over the millennia."
The knight became quiet at his new insight, and a kind of reverence fell over him at the thought of where he now stood, perhaps the very origin and ancient homeland of all the race of man. The thought was profound as he looked once more upon his surroundings with fresh eyes which began to tear. It was, perhaps, a little silly, but a feeling came over him at the thought as if he too belonged to that land in the far east, a son of Adam, a child of Narnia who had finally found his way home to paradise.
And then he realized, he had led the orcs straight there to that ancient paradaisical homeland as well. Should their fellows come looking for them, the fault would be his, and any deaths of these good and noble people here would be on his conscience. The thought of Sauron's eye being turned on the east because of him weighed so heavily on him it was almost more than he could bear.
"All that is holy, forgive me. What have I done?" He asked himself, his stomach turning to a knot.
"Are you well, friend? Do we need to return to Elise and her medicines?" Banion asked, not understanding the change which had come over him. A sincere concern crossed his features.
Feeling the weight of responsibility for his actions, intended or not, the knight put his palm to his face, a look of pain crossing his countenance. "I need no medicines, friend faun. But no, I am not well. I am not well at all." he replied.
Elsewhere in the Castle…
High King Peter, surnamed like his siblings in another life "Pevensie," King Edmund, Queen Susan, and Queen Lucy stood overlooking a map of their known world spread out on a table in a chamber off to the side of the great hall and throne room of Cair Paravel. It had been nicknamed "the war room," by Edmund once upon a time in jest, though it had never seriously been used for anything like that purpose until recently with the revelations of Tisroc Rabadash of Calormen's hostile intentions. The desert king had been banned by Aslan himself thirty years prior from traveling more than ten miles from Tashbaan, his capital, upon pain of permanent transformation into an ass for his plotting of an invasion of Archenland. He had sued for peace with Archenland and Narnia after that, but Calormen's more recent troop movements had opened the kings' and queens' eyes once more to the desert kingdom's military ambitions.
All four pairs of eyes now were not drawn to the southern desert on the map, but to the green and growing western woods, and the regions farther west where their maps ended completely.
"How is it that no one from Narnia ever traveled far west than these woods? How did no one know of what was out there?" Lucy asked. "It seems incredible that there should be such a larger world that we know nothing about."
"I don't know." Peter responded. "Maybe they did. Maybe they traveled there and came back, and the maps were lost. It was a perpetual winter in Narnia for a century under Jadis."
"She didn't exactly encourage free thought or new exploration as I recall." Susan remarked.
"No, she didn't. And she had a penchant for murdering those who defied her." Edmund added somberly, remembering their own experiences with the White Witch only too well.
"And we were busy rebuilding Narnia afterwards. We never had the time to look west. There was always too much to do right here at home." Peter continued, answering his own question. "And now it feels like we might pay the price for our lack of vision." He closed his eyes, as if a deeply buried memory had insistently surfaced. "Do any of you remember England? Our home before we came here?"
His brother and sisters looked up from the map at him, puzzled looks on their faces accompanied with attempts at recollection. He felt for them. It had been decades since they had been made to think about where they had been born and raised until puberty. Narnia had been their home for the vast majority of the years they had been alive, but there had been a time before. His encounter with the lamppost once more had brought those buried memories to the surface.
"Images have been coming to my mind more and more since that day we found the lamppost again." Peter told them. "I hadn't forgotten that it was there really, I had just never been given cause to think about it much since taking the crown, and England even less so. I've begun to remember being taught as a child with other children about the world we lived in then. I remember the tutor describing us as living in only a very small part of a huge globe of land and water, and yet at the time England seemed like the whole world when I was a small boy. Narnia seems so big to us now, just like England then. I feel stupid for not realizing the world had to be bigger."
"England..." Edmund repeated the name. "I remember… buildings, and playing a game with a bat and a ball, and… and explosions all around us and having to take shelter underground. There was a war then in that world, wasn't there?"
"I think so." Peter replied. "It seemed like no matter how far we've come, war always finds us. Even here in Narnia." He turned his gaze to the map again. "I don't believe we can ignore the plight of this kinght or his country. Not when we might be able to help."
"But that's just it, isn't it, brother dear?" Susan replied. "Are we really able to help? And should we? Would Aslan want us to?"
"What do you mean?" Peter questioned, standing up straight and looking at her directly.
She explained, "While our people will fight bravely to defend our own country, as they did before, we are not a warring kingdom. We are a kingdom of peaceful farmers, tradesmen, and talking animals who go about their own business, and leave others to theirs. We provide refuge for the escaped slaves from Calormen, but it has never been our wish or desire to march into the southern desert to free their brethren outright, and we certainly don't keep a standing army capable of doing so in any event. In truth, it is the threat of Aslan's retribution which continues to keep Calormen at bay. Not our military prowess."
"All valid points, sister." Peter conceded.
"And then there is the fact that just as we know nothing of the west, they too know nothing of us." She continued. "In the centuries or even millennia of our existences, neither side has heard of the other. Don't you think that strange? Shouldn't someone from this kingdom in the west from where the knight comes, whose people seem to be far more curious and exploratory than our own, have found his way here and even established trade and commerce with Narnia long before we or even the White Witch began our rule here?"
"It is strange. Unbelievable even." Lucy agreed.
"My only explanation is that Aslan kept them away in order to protect these lands from their wars and this dark lord. If we go marching west, we may be defying Aslan's own will in the matter, being our isolation from them." Susan concluded.
The other three considered her words well. As usual, the oldest sister presented her reasoning well. She was of course right on nearly every count. Even if they wanted to send troops against this unknown enemy, they would have to call for volunteers, almost none of whom had wielded a weapon much less used one in a battle for a very long time, if ever. And there was the question of Aslan's will in the matter. She was right on this count as well. It was Aslan who really protected their kingdom while leaving the day to day governance to them. And for all they knew, it was Aslan who had kept prying eyes from the west away from them this entire time intending them to have no traffic, and to not become involved with their matters. Taking in refugee slaves was one thing. Invading another country was something else entirely.
"So what is your council then, sister?" Peter asked with humility.
"I say we should render all assistence in sending this knight home with enough supplies as he needs for the journey." She told them. "Perhaps one of the griffins might even be willing to fly him to this Gondor. The griffins fly many times faster than even a horse can run, and can stay aloft longer than a horse can maintain a gallop. It would see him safely home without any danger of having to return by foot, and shave weeks off his journey at the very least. We can certainly do him this kindness. But more than this, without Aslan's express blessing on the endeavor, I would be extremely hesitant to support, especially an invasion of a country, no matter how horrible, that has never once wronged Narnia itself, or even paid any attention to us."
Peter looked thoughtfully between his brother and sisters. They were not the children they had been when they had been given their crowns. The rule and rebuilding of this land had wizened them all, and given them a perspective on such matters they never could have imagined at their coronations. They had learned the lesson children struggled with, that is, not to leap before they looked.
"What about about you, Ed? What are your thoughts?" The High King asked his co-ruler.
"I feel for this knight and his people. I feel that it would be right to help him in every way we can. But Susan is right. Aslan tasked us with protecting the people of this kingdom first, not the whole rest of the world. And any such conflict would cost lives. Narnian lives, as well as the lives of Archenlander soldiers should they choose to join us, which they would if we asked for their aid. King Lune and Prince Cor wouldn't hesitate for a moment, especially if Calormen means to have this Mordor repay the favor of their help. Calling upon our people to protect this country from invasion is one thing, calling on them to fight a war for a kingdom and people they know nothing about is another. And we know next to nothing about this enemy's strengths or weaknesses, how many troops they have, what weapons are at their disposal, not to mention what magical forces they might have at their disposal."
Peter nodded his understanding, then turning to their youngest sibling, he asked, "Do you have anything to add, Lucy?"
The youngest of the Pevensie siblings had been mostly quiet this whole time, listening to her older brothers and sister and glancing down at the map of their world in thought as they spoke. She saw their reason and rationale, and did not disagree with it. She detested warfare, possibly more than any of them. She had no desire to see any of their friends march off to fight possibly never to return. The thought alone of the injuries which they might sustain sickened her as images from the final battle with the White Witch came to her mind and the wounds she had been called on to cure. And yet…
"I don't know." Lucy said, choosing her words carefully as she tried to describe the jumble of thoughts and emotions running through her mind. "I agree with you all of course. I hate war. You know this. I have no desire for Narnia to be dragged into one. But I have this feeling I cannot shake. I don't know. I feel as though we cannot just turn a blind eye to a cry for help. Like Aslan wouldn't want us to. And I feel like if we do choose to become deaf to this knight's plea, all of Narnia and Archenland will regret it. I do not argue to charge blindly into war, but I too have a memory of childhood that is coming to my mind. A thing I have not thought on in more than forty years. I have a memory of mother and father talking about our country making peace with a horrible man, who then later broke all his promises and then father had to go off to war, and the bombs began falling on our house, and..."
She stopped herself at the terrible memories as tears came to her eyes from the feelings of terror which she had experienced so many years before. The images and sounds of the explosions echoed in her mind just then as fresh as the night when they happened, and she felt as frightened and terrified as she did when she was a little girl.
Her siblings were stunned at her words and her reactions. But they had triggered within them as well childhood memories of a night filled with terror when they had not known if they were going to live or die.
"I- I remember too." Peter told her, moving to stand near his sister and put his arm around her shoulder in sympathy. "I… I remember the horrible man's name. Mother had said it was the German leader, a man named Hitler. The Prime Minister had made a peace agreement with him, and Hitler broke it and then attacked England."
"Yes." Lucy confirmed. "And our house was ruined, and we had to go live in the country away from mother, and father went to war… and we never saw them again."
How could we have forgotten all of it? Peter seriously questioned himself. How could we have forgotten the events which led us to Narnia in the first place? Our parents? The war? Everything?
They were all quiet for some time, giving the younger queen a chance to shed what tears needed be and compose herself. Rather than say anything, Peter looked once more towards the map of Narnia and studied it further, hoping to gain some new insight from it which could help them decide. He had hoped that the consensus of the four would show the way forward, but he knew what they really needed then was Aslan's guidance on such decisions. He did not want to move without knowing the will and mind of the Great Lion on the weighty subject, and this he had not yet been expressly given.
Just then, the heavy wooden door to the war room opened and a familiar and welcome aged faun wearing spectacles and dressed in a smart scarlet vest, white shirt, and blue jacket entered. He was carrying a long parcel wrapped in leather, and a distressed look was written across his features.
"Your majesties!" Mr. Tumnus, their oldest and dearest friend, as well as their chief of staff addressed them. Seeing the youngest queen's distraught disposition, his expression took on a note of concern for his dear friend as well, and he looked abashed that he had interrupted them at such a moment, but still he persisted. "Your majesties, I apologize for the rude interruption to your private counsels, but I fear this can not wait."
"It's alright Tumnus." The High King responded. "We know you wouldn't have done so without good reason."
"Yes, your majesty." Tumnus continued. "A centaur came just now from the western woods having run since last night to bring us the dire news. He said there had been an attack! Evil creatures emerged from the wood and attacked a peaceful gathering of stargazers! They murdered three of those gathered before the centaurs dispatched the attackers, though the messenger believes at least one escaped back through the woods to the west."
Peter felt a pit in his stomach at the news, and then looked to meet the eyes of Susan and Edmond before returning his attention to Tumnus. Knowing in his heart what the faun's answer would be, he nevertheless asked the question, "What did these creatures look like?"
"The centaur told me himself, your majesty," Tumnus began, "that they looked like misshapen humans with cruel eyes and pointed ears. He said their skin was as black as pitch, and their blood when spilled was like petroleum oil which comes up from the ground. He brought these as proof of the attack."
The faun unraveled the leather bundle in his hands. Wrapped in the leather were the broken shafts of thick black arrows along with the bloodied, barbed arrowheads which had once been joined with them. The blood on them was centaur blood. Narnian blood.
Peter's voice was tinged with anger and raspy as he asked, "How many were there? Does he know?"
"They counted over half a dozen which they had killed, your majesty." The faun replied. Sensing that his news was not entirely unexpected, he then asked, "Do your majesties have an idea where these creatures came from?"
"Unfortunately, yes." Edmond replied. "It was the very thing we were just discussing, Mr. Tumnus."
"I see. What are your instructions, then, your majesties?" The faun asked, steeling himself and not missing a beat.
Peter looked into the eyes of his siblings one more time. First to his brother Edmond whom he knew would be of one mind with him now. Narnian blood had been shed. Edmond met his brother's eyes resolutely and nodded. Then he looked to Susan to find shock and horror written there. They exchanged all they needed to without words in those glances and Susan too nodded her assent. He then looked to Lucy, and did not need to discern her mind. Her eyes were angry, and determined. Narnians had now been attacked while they had been discussing it like an academic problem. Narnia itself was now under threat from this new enemy. There was no more discussion to be had.
"Instruct everyone living along the western borders to take up arms." Peter instructed. "See to it that regular patrols along the Western Woods are set. Send to the dwarves for weapons and armor, enough to equip an army. Contact King Lune at once to request military aid." He then turned once more to his siblings to ensure that they were still in accord. He saw no dissent in them. "And send out the call for volunteers. We muster an army."
"At once, your majesty." Tumnus responded, then taking the parcel with him, and understanding the seriousness of the situation, he turned to swiftly execute his king's commands to the best of his abilities.
"We need no further proof of what future we look forward to if we do nothing. Whether we like it or not, this Sauron has brought his war to our borders. And even if today it is only a raiding party, who's to say tomorrow it won't be a full regiment? I for one will not wait to see if it happens. I will not turn a blind eye and make peace with an evil that would so casually murder our citizens for sport. I will not be that king." Peter told his siblings as he turned to face them. "I will not make peace with Hitler." He nodded towards Lucy as he said this last part, and she reciprocated.
"Nor will I, brother." Edmond agreed.
"And Aslan?" Susan asked, fully aware that her reasoned argument had been thoroughly discarded. Indeed, the blood on the arrowheads had horrified her as well. But still, she had to ask, "What of his will and wishes in the matter?"
"He entrusted the governance and protection of Narnia to us." Peter answered. "I must trust that if we take the wrong action in good faith, that he will show us this and correct our mistake. As High King I will take full responsibility before him if that time comes. But Narnians have died. We can no longer afford to wait."