"Zombie people with gas-masked heads," Susan said slowly, as if tasting the words.
Nancy nodded. "According to the Doctor the nano-whatsists thought that was what a human was supposed to look like."
Edmund rubbed his eyes. "And if this…Doctor," he imitated Nancy and capitalized the title, "hadn't told the nano-things what they were doing wrong…"
"Then your majesties would have been really surprised when you came back through the wardrobe."
After a short discussion they decided that going back to their cabin was out of the question for the moment. As they didn't want to loiter about in the corridor they had made their way to the dining car. A dining car that was empty. That fact wasn't heartening but at least they had some privacy.
Nancy had listened patiently to their story. It was fantastic and unbelievable. Which was exactly why she believed it— if someone was going to make up a story it would have gaps and would not be so detailed. Also, it explained so much about the Pevensies. If they seemed older then their years it was because they were older.
Although, she wondered why this Aslan of theirs seemed so familiar? It was like the memory of a song heard from another room; she could hear the melody but the lyrics were just out of reach.
The royal four, on the other hand, were astounded that this kind of thing happened here on Earth. In London!
"The bit I can't quite wrap my head around is that Jack fellow riding the bomb in a magic beam of light," said Peter in a daze.
"Who is the Doctor?" Lucy said with a puzzled frown. Something there sounded recognizable…like something she'd read in the royal archives.
Nancy shrugged, "According to Rose he's a traveler in space and time. Don't know how he manages that. He wouldn't tell me much about himself…although he did talk a lot." About every conceivable subject under the sun. "They wanted to leave right away, swan off after the day was saved. So I bullied them in staying for a cuppa."
"And Rose was from fifty years in the future?" Lucy grinned a bit at Nancy's eye roll. During the time they'd taken explaining Narnia she'd continually interrupted and peppered them with questions. Turnabout was fair play.
Nancy's smile grew as she remembered the vivacious blond, "Yeah, it was weird. Here I am in the middle of a military camp with a strange girl with a Union Jack all over her chest and I was only surprised she wasn't German."
"And this sort of thing happens a lot?" Asked Susan.
Nancy gave a shrug. "According to the Doctor the Earth is just about always in peril." At the Pevensies' off looks Nancy broke into a peal of giggles. "If it helps I think that the Doctor is one of the people that sort it out. Though according to Rose sometimes 'e starts it…" She paused thoughtfully at this less then reassuring statement.
Lucy let out a snort. "Yeah, we know someone like that."
"Lucy!" exclaimed Susan in a horrified voice.
"What? You know it's true."
"While this is all very interesting, how does it help our current situation?" interjected Edmund.
"The problem is that little Jack doesn't speak English." said Lucy. "If he did we could just ask him about the thing in the mist."
Susan sighed. Lucy was right. They were at something of an impasse. It was difficult to fix a problem if you did not know what it was.
"It's a Vul' nash' ic assassin," Jamie said in his quiet voice.
Nancy stared at her son. "How do you know that?"
"Shiny Jack told me," Jamie said and rolled his eyes.
All eyes traveled to Jamie and Jack and back again. Jack had spent the entire debriefing (that's what Peter called it anyway) poking doubtfully at a muffin. Now the mysterious little boy was looking at Jamie with a hint of hope on his normally impassive face.
"Did he say why the assassin was after him?" asked Susan gently.
Jamie nodded seriously. "His Mummy is a famous scientist who made a way to sidle into other Rooms/Worlds. The bad people want it so they can go to other worlds and steal stuff, but his mummy hid it. That made the bad people mad so they took shiny Jack to get his mummy to give it to them, and then he got away." He stumbled a bit on the big words.
"Spare 'Oom," whispered Lucy.
Peter rubbed his chin reflectively. Besides being the most that he'd heard Jamie say for the length of their short acquaintance, it wasn't the best news. Still, assassins were something they'd dealt with before.
"How do you know what he's saying?" Nancy asked.
"I just do," Jamie rolled his eyes, as if to say, grownups can be thick sometimes.
Edmund bit his lip. "Jamie, does Jack know what the assassin can do? Its abilities and weapons and such." He clearly remembered having to fight off several assassins from Calormen who had strange and deadly powers. It had been nightmarish of Dream Isle proportions.
Jamie tilted his head and listened. "Shiny Jack says the Vul' nash' ic is from Room/World Blue-5.2. It can make mist that can put life forms into a cr-cr-yogenic state…"
"Hold up," said Lucy. "What's a cryogenic state?"
"Frozen sleep," Jamie said, still concentrating shiny Jack's words. "It can halt all kinds of machinery and it has limited ability to hear thoughts."
"That's not good," Lucy murmured into her teacup.
"Shiny Jack wants to get onto the top of this snaky transport," Jamie said.
"Snaky transport…the top of the train?" Susan supposed. "Whatever for?"
Jamie rubbed his eyes. "So, he can go from here to there. From this Room/World to another; Jack says he's sorry. He never wanted to put anyone else in danger."
"From here to there…Jamie, what did Jack's mum do with her sidle thing?" Nancy asked.
"Now he's being quiet," Jamie stated.
Edmund looked at Nancy, who nodded.
"Jack," said Edmund, addressing himself to the shiny child directly. "Your mum gave you the…er, device? Didn't she?"
Jamie wrinkled his nose. "Still quiet."
"Well, that answers that," said Susan with some asperity.
There was a small silence that bounced off the sides of the larger silence that engulfed the train. The smaller silence popped like a balloon as a steady, methodical booming shattered the larger silence.
Jack jerked to his shiny feet and began to shout cymbals and ringing bells.
"He says the assassin's back," Jamie said helpfully.
Peter unfolded himself and stood. "So we gathered."
"Mummy, what's an assassin?" Jamie said with a frown. A great deal of the proceeding conversation had gone over his head and he didn't like not understanding things.
"I'll tell you when you're older."
"You said that when I asked where babies come from!"
Lucy stood, barely concealing giggles.
Nancy looked down her nose at the diminutive queen. "Just wait until you have children, your majesty. Then we'll see who's laughing."
Jack let out a shriek like a falling German bomb and tried to run down the car in the opposite direction of the booming.
With a few fast strides Peter caught up with him and nimbly grabbed him up. The last thing they needed was to have to chase the child down.
"They're coming!" shouted Jamie. "And they know where his mummy put it!"
"They?" said Nancy, sounding greatly disturbed.
"That does rather make it sound like there are now more than one," Edmund muttered.
Lucy marched over and pulled sharp on the emergency break pulley.
The subsequent momentum slammed into them as the train screeched to a stop.
"Lucy! You might have warned us." Susan clambered to her feet
"Why did ya do that?" Nancy pulled a protesting Jamie into her arms.
"Jack said he needed to get to the top of the 'snaky transport,' remember?" Lucy airily replied.
"Climbing to the top of a moving train could have been problematic," Edmund said agreed. His head tilted. "They're getting closer."
The booming was echoed. And with each clang came more mist that chilled the air and frosted the windows.
Climbing up the side of a train at three in the morning during an English winter is difficult enough but if your skin is made of plastic then it's just that much harder. Jack kept slipping of the rungs.
Peter groaned and tossed Jack onto his shoulders and began climbing. He'd tried to get Nancy to take Jamie and get off the blasted train but instead she just looked at him like he was stupid and then she ignored him.
Edmund was no help; he'd just said something about mothers outranking kings. Peter had to admit that Ed had a point…at least he was certain that Helen Pevensie outranked him and his siblings. He was less sure about other people's mothers.
Soon they were all standing on top of the dining car. Nancy had herded Jack, Jamie and a protesting Lucy away from the sides.
From the top of the train you could see that one end was dark metal and that the other was stark white.
"Do you suppose they died quickly?" Susan asked with a shiver as she gazed on the slowly approaching white frost.
"Who?" Nancy said, valiantly keeping down the squeak she wanted to release for the sake of the children.
"The people in that part of the train; I don't want them to have suffered."
"Maybe they're not dead," Nancy ventured after a moment. "Remember what Jack said about its powers?"
Susan blinked at her.
"It can make people fall into a frozen sleep. They could be just sleeping, yeah?" Nancy said, patting the other girl on the arm.
Susan's eyes lit up. "Do you really think...?"
"I have hopes," Nancy said carefully.
The queen's lips quirked up. "Sometimes that's all we have."
Jack in the meantime was rooting through his seemingly endless pockets and a pile of their contents littered the roof around his feet. There was a wooden horse, a pile of coins (if coins were translucent and blue), a wind up sail boat, a broken silver device (that would in the future send a scientist named Toshiko Sato into spasms of joy), a yellow towel, a copy of a comic book with a picture of a blue 1950's Police Box on the cover, a flier advertising 'Zathura! Not just an amusement park; It's an adventure!' that was immediately snatched up by the wind off the moors and a pink plush naked rodent doll.
Lucy just stared. The child's never-ending pockets reminded her of a story her cousin Jane told her about a remarkable nanny who had came and went with the wind. Maybe it really happened. Who was she to disbelieve?
A moment later Jack fished out what looked like a yoyo from his pocket with a look of satisfaction; it resembled a yoyo in that it was two round bits and a piece of string, only here the two round bits were made up of honey golden crystal that glowed and the piece of string a thread that glittered in moonlight.
"Why it's lovely," said Susan in some surprise.
"But why is it a yoyo?" asked Peter. "If I were going to make a key into other worlds a yoyo isn't the first shape I'd think of."
Edmund rolled his eyes. "Would a ring be a better shape?"
"No," said Peter after casting his memories back to Professor Kirke telling them the story of himself as a boy and his friend Polly's journey into the beginnings of Narnia. Rings were referenced. "No. Yoyos are good."
Edmund snorted in response to this.
Peter let out a hiss as the car directly in front of them frosted over. If he were anyone else he might have cursed.
"Jack, I wouldn't want to hurry you but…could ya hurry?" Said Nancy looking nervously at the ice-covered car.
Jack slipped the looped end of the yoyo string around his middle finger and began to move the yoyo up and down its strings. Each slow roll made the dark countryside light up brighter than day.
The ominous booming was coming closer and each breath felt like a knife of ice in the lungs.
The dining car was shaking you could make this active voice "the dining car shook with each discordant thump"--it makes us feel the action more strongly with each discordant thump. The metal underneath them was slowly being eaten up by hoarfrost.
Jack had switched from simple yoyo patterns to something that looked like a cat's cradle made of strings of light.
Lucy yanked Jamie into her arms and tried not to slip as the train car shook like a boat in a storm.
The five children who were not children stared into the ever changing pattern that Jack was weaving into the sky with a wonder they never lost. They could see moments from other worlds, a flickering picture show without an end:
a young woman swan diving off a tower, a small Japanese man with arms outstretched in victory (Yatta!), a wedding (on a pirate ship, in a storm), six circles bisected by crosses being held up against a great tree, a sword wielding man being hit by lightning (a beheaded corpse at his feet), a child sized man with furry feet holding out a gold ring to a woman with flowing blond hair, a boy and a winged unicorn riding the wind through time, a man with a newspaper, three powerful sisters, a silver ankh and the beating of wings, a small green creature hitting a farm boy with a stick, 'The time war ends' said a girl who glowed like the sun…
"Rose?" Nancy stepped forward automatically at the sight of Rose, the girl who had given her back hope when all seemed lost lit up from within.
Another step towards the image of a girl she'd known for less then a day but would be a friend for a lifetime.
The dangers was no longer near, it was here. In a fog three indistinct figures hovered, backlit by the light of Jack's yoyo.
Lucy clung to Jamie who whimpered and pressed his face into her stomach.
Jack let out a keening wail as the fog converged on them.
Nancy stepped on a translucent blue coin and slipped. Jamie's shrill yell merged with Jack's wail and the ever-present booming.
Peter acted on pure instinct and all but leapt over the side of the train and just managed to snag Nancy's ankle. Edmund pounced and grabbed onto Peter's legs and Susan grabbed onto him.
As the world grew black around her, Nancy heard four voices yelling a name into the cold dark.
When Nancy awoke she found herself under a blossoming apple tree, in a field covered with a multitude of flowers. Jamie was pressed to her side, a content smile on his small face. She pushed herself up on her elbows and squinted at the lazy afternoon sunlight. She was warm! Nancy had thought she'd be cold forever.
She ruffled her son's hair happily and let out a content sigh as she caught sight of a small pile of slowly awaking royalty.
It took some time to pull together the energy to get to her feet and a bit more to get Jamie to his.
Susan was the first Pevensie to awaken and to stand up. Su was surprised but pleased when she found herself in an enthusiastic hug from Nancy. The others who rose found themselves in a similar position.
"Are you all aright? Where are we?" Nancy babbled.
Peter let out a chuckle. "We're fine. And not in England." The High King looked from the emerald green fields to the amethyst shadowed mountains up to the azure sky. "No. Not England. It's far too real."
Nancy looking around found that he was right. This place was solid. It made the world of her birth look as though it were made of transparent tissue paper with pictures painted on them in water colors. This was a real place.
"So the yoyo worked?" Nancy queried.
Edmund answered. "Seems so."
"But where is this?" Nancy said in wonder.
"You never stop questioning do you?" Susan said with a smile.
Nancy blinked at her. "How else will I learn anything? Anyway, where is Jack?" A hint of worry tinged her voice.
They looked around the meadow, not finding any sign of the child.
Lucy climbed up a pile of rocks. "There he is! He's talking to Aslan!" This last was said with such great delight that Nancy felt her own heart leap.
"Aslan!" Susan let out a joyous laugh and spontaneously hugged Edmund and sloppily kissed his cheek. At this Edmund pushed her away and rubbed his cheek with the back of his hand.
Nancy turned and looked in the direction that had so transfixed the attention of the others and her jaw dropped open.
Sure enough, there was Jack, even shinier in the light of the sun. Sauntering lazily at his side was…a lion.
A huge lion. This wasn't just a lion. It was a Lion.
"It's a lion!" Shouted Nancy as every maternal instinct she possessed screamed in her ear. She put a foot forward and started to run only to find that Peter had grabbed a hold of an arm and pulled her back.
"Yes. That's Aslan. He's a lion." Peter said calmly as if this were the most sane, rational thing in the world.
"Aslan's a lion?" Nancy said after a moment's contemplation.
"Yes," said Susan struggling not to laugh at the dumfounded expression on Nancy's face. Throughout this whole adventure not one time had the dauntless girl lost her nonchalant air…so this was kind of nice. "We didn't mention?"
"No. I think I would remember that…" Nancy's voice trailed off as Jack and the lion who was Aslan came before them. Her eyes widened. How could she have possibly had mistaken this person for a mere beast.
Nancy found herself staring into tawny eyes that looked through her skin and into the secret places of her heart. He knew all about her, Nancy knew without asking, all her shadows and secrets and yet…he loved her anyway. The same boundless, relentless love that she had for Jamie, Aslan had for her."
"Well met and welcome to my country," said a voice like thunder and sunlight.
"Come forward Peter and Edmund, sons of Adam." The boys walked forward and knelt.
"Sire," breathed Edmund with reverence.
"Even in the world of your birth without the trappings of royalty, and in the guise of children you neither faltered nor hesitated when an innocent needed your help. I am well pleased."
The two kings smiled at his approval.
"Susan and Lucy, daughters of Eve, come forward."
The girls stepped forward. Susan curtsied and Lucy all but leaped forward to hug the greatest of beasts around the neck.
"Oh, Aslan!"
Nancy blinked at that. No wonder they called her the Valiant.
"With you also, am I pleased, you kept faith when others may have despaired."
Both girls beamed at this.
Nancy wondered happened to people who didn't please him and immediately decided not to think about it.
"Nancy, daughter of Eve, come forward." Nancy started and gripped Jamie's had a bit tighter then necessary. For the first time in her life she felt overwhelmed with shyness. She came forward pulling Jamie along. She attempted to curtsey; it came out as an awkward bow over crossed ankles.
Aslan rumbled out a laugh. "Fear not, little mother I will not harm you."
"You're a lion."
He laughed again. "I am."
Jamie just smiled. "Big kitty." And he patted Aslan on the nose.
Nancy wondered how exactly she was to talk to him. Asking him about the weather seemed trite and well politics and religion were out…
Susan took in Nancy's befuddled expression with concern. Maybe she should have a moment to compose herself.
"Aslan, what happened with the assassins and the mist and all that?" Susan asked.
Aslan looked from Susan to Nancy with an expression that suggested that he knew exactly what she was doing and didn't at all mind.
"With their prey gone they returned once more to their own world."
"As for young…" The name spoken here sounded like a tune played on a panpipe. "He will be returned to his mother."
Nancy smiled. "So…everybody lives."
Aslan let out a resounding laugh. "Yes! Everybody lives!"
Nancy laughed and for the first time since she'd become acquainted with the Pevensies, it was untinged with irony or sarcasm. Pure joy. Her giggles trailed off as something occurred to her.
"Sir, do you know the Doctor?" Nancy asked.
"Very well." The tone in Aslan's voice sounded as if he were speaking fondly of an old friend who was frequently exasperating.
"Thought so," Nancy said with a nod. "Wait!" The young woman's eyes widened as she remembered why she'd fallen off the train. "Rose! I saw Rose and she was glowing…oh I hope she's alright."
"Peace, wolf cub. Rose is so alive! And is living a fantastic life…and not as lost as she thinks."
"Why did ya call me a wolf cub?" Nancy said wondering a bit about the part about Rose being lost. She decided not to worry about it if Aslan wasn't going to.
Aslan smiled. "Didn't you take Rose's name as your own?"
Nancy nodded. She did take the last name Tyler as her own. She certainly didn't want to keep her father's name.
Aslan indicated 'There you go' with a slight nod of his majestic head.
Nancy didn't see how that explained it.
"Oh, and Captain Jack Harkness…the last I saw of him he was riding off onto of a bomb in a magic beam of light. That couldn't have been safe."
Aslan snorted a bit indelicately, "Time's Scoundrel is well enough; a pirate and a good man."
Peter wondered at that description. He had met many pirates and none could be depicted as good men. Seemed a bit contradictory that.
"Everybody lives," Nancy said holding the words to her heart.
"Now, my dears it is time you returned."
"Already?" Susan said plaintively.
"But, Aslan we've missed you. We miss Mr. Tumnus and the beavers and …" said Lucy folding her hands together.
"And Phillip," added Edmund.
"And Roonwit," Peter put in.
"I know. And you are missed as well. But you must go on."
"And be children?" Susan muttered in frustration.
"Just be," suggested Aslan. "Don't pretend to be anything you're not. Remember; once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a king or queen."
"This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man." Edmund recited with satisfaction.
"Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy," At the sound of their names spoken by that voice they looked up and focused their attention on the greatest of kings. "Know that I am always with you."
"Nancy, mother of Jamie, mother of many," said Aslan. "You will have a fantastic life. You will do great things and your children will follow in your footprints."
Nancy smiled uncertainly. Children? She only had the one!
The Pevensies and the Tylers made their goodbyes to the unearthly child who had set them on their strange little adventure. The little boy hugged them all fiercely in return. Someday when he was old he'd tell of the two kings and two queens who with the help of a great lady and her little boy had saved him.
And then it was time to go.
"Fare you well."
"Not goodbye?" asked Susan.
"Never goodbye," Aslan said gently.