2

What They Found There

Edmund heard footsteps, too light to be Caspian's. "Lu, don't look—"

"Oh." Lucy's voice was pale. "...that's a lot of blood."

Edmund cringed. He glanced up at his little sister and tried to evaluate her expression. Her mouth hung open and her eyes bulged slightly. Edmund stood swiftly to his feet and pulled her to him, gently pressing her face into his shoulder to shield her from the gruesome sight. She pushed him away.

"What happened to him?" Lucy asked.

Turning his attention back to the corpse, Edmund frowned slightly in concentration. The torso had been torn to ribbons, although little blood had pooled in the wounds. The head was split through at the centre—don't think about the grey stuff, don't think about it don't think about it it's just some bizarre sort of jam don't think—and the arms and legs had been torn roughly at every joint. The skin was uneven and splotched with brown and red.

Edmund pressed the back of his hand to his nose. "I don't know," he confessed.

He turned back to the open door, through which a frowning Caspian walked. Caspian's eyes went wide as they scanned the remains, and he immediately knelt beside Edmund to look at them more closely. His hands hovered over the body, searching. For what, Edmund did not know.

"What are you doing?" asked Lucy.

"I want to know who he is." Caspian paused. "Was," he corrected himself. "Edmund, could you help me turn him over?"

Swallowing his nausea, Edmund nodded. He cringed as he slipped his hands beneath the torso, trying to ignore the slick squelch it made as it moved. The same red and brown abscesses that plagued the rest of the flesh were present on the face, rendering it unrecognisable. The mouth hung open slightly, revealing white teeth.

Edmund glanced at Caspian. Hesitated. "Do you know who he was?"

Caspian frowned and shook his head.

Lucy tip-toed towards the lamp at the window and blew it out. She began to inspect the parts of the room not covered with gore. After a moment's hesitation, Edmund stood to join her.

"What are you looking for?" he asked quietly.

"I don't know," Lucy confessed. She gestured to the corpse. "I just don't want to look at that."

Edmund chuckled weakly. He glanced back at the dead man and his living observer. "I wonder..." He stepped back to the corpse and went down on all fours, searching the body for some way to identify it.

His inquisitive fingers found a coin purse on the blood-stained belt, a set of throwing knives and a short sword a short distance away from the right leg. The blade of the sword was covered in a thin, fleshy film that, when touched, made a soft squelching sound. Edmund crawled over the torso, disregarding the blood that was now smeared across his knees, and inspected one of the hands.

"Caspian!" he hissed. He jerked his head towards the severed extremity. When he knew for certain that Caspian was close enough to see, he lifted up the hand for Caspian to take a look. Voice hushed, Edmund said, "Do you see this?" He indicated the ornate ring at the base of the forefinger.

Caspian leaned in to inspect the hand, squinting slightly. His eyes widened, and he swallowed, reaching out to brush his fingertips against the ring and the emblem it carried.

"Do—do you recognise the symbol?" Edmund whispered. Caspian nodded mutely. "...what is it?"

Caspian said nothing for several long moments, instead staring, dumbfounded, at the ring. He barely breathed, though his mouth hung open. Concerned, Edmund rested his free hand on Caspian's shoulder. After a moment, Caspian blinked, apparently pulled from his brief stupor, and swallowed.

"Lord Bern," he whispered.

Edmund frowned. "Is he—" He wetted his lips before correcting himself. "Was he one of the seven?"

Caspian nodded. "What did this?" he said, voice crisp.

No one could answer. Edmund looked up at Lucy, who had taken up the task of exploring the dead lord's desk. Her hands pressed into every indentation in the wood before she moved on to opening the drawers. She pulled out bottles of what appeared to be medicine, sheets of blank parchment, several dozen scrolls with official-looking marks in the seals, and a vial full of a salt-like substance.

Lucy glanced in Edmund's direction and held up one of the scrolls. "D'you think we should look?" When he nodded, she gently tossed the scroll to him.

Edmund dropped the severed hand to catch the scroll, wincing slightly at the dull thump it made as it struck the mud-brick floor. He hesitated before breaking the seal. The wax split easily in his grip. Quickly, he slipped a finger under the parchment and unrolled it. Within was a shipment chart for various spices and dried fruits, which was of no interest to him.

He rested the scroll beside the lord's torso, somewhere near where the arm once met the shoulder. "Can I have another?" he asked Lucy, rather like a child requesting seconds on pudding.

Lucy tossed a second scroll, the seal of which Edmund swiftly broke. He unrolled it and scanned the parchment. A summary of the town's fiscal year. The numbers rather made his head spin, but none of them looked particularly useful.

Five scrolls later, and still they knew nothing about what had torn Lord Bern asunder. They did know that trade in the Lone Islands was flourishing, and that the population had been decreasing—wait. Edmund unrolled one of the scrolls again and stared at the figures depicted therein. The population had rapidly decreased over the past two years. In comparison to years prior, the death rate had nearly doubled, while the birth rate remained almost exactly the same.

"Caspian, did you see this?" he asked, handing the scroll over. As Caspian's eyes ran down the page, Edmund said, "Did you know this was happening?"

"...no," Caspian replied grimly. "I only once received a full census from the Islands."

"And you never asked about that?" Lucy said, voice full of incredulity.

"When I did, the governor avoided the subject." Caspian wrinkled his nose. "To be honest, I had other matters occupying my mind at the time."

Under other circumstances, Edmund might have pointed out that the rapid population decline of his country's territory was a matter that should have occupied a king's mind just as fully as a war. At this point in time, however, he didn't feel like starting an argument of policy. He simply focussed on finding out if any of the remaining scrolls explained this chilling death rate and tried to suppress his frustration at finding so little information.

Edmund wetted his lips and huffed at the pile of already read scrolls. He turned his attention back to Caspian. "Did you ever hear anything about a disease, or a wave of animal attacks, or...?"

Caspian shook his head. "No, nothing."

Edmund frowned and continued looking through the scrolls. Tax documents, tax documents, complaints from citizens, tax documents... Lucy found a single scroll that bore no seal buried amongst the others. She glanced at the two men.

"I think it's a letter," she said.

Caspian blinked. "To whom?"

Lucy squinted at the page. "Governor... Gumpas." She wrinkled her nose at the name.

"What does it say, Lu?" asked Edmund, frowning.

Lucy took a deep breath and cleared her throat.

"To Our Esteemed Governor, regarding the matter of the vanished sailors." She blinked several times in rapid succession, staring at the words for a moment before continuing. "…regarding the matter of the vanished sailors.

"It has come to my attention, despite your impressive attempts at sweeping the matter beneath a carpet, that fisher-citizens from these isles have been disappearing—with their boats, no less—for the better part of a year. I have also been informed by reliable sources that you have contributed to the deaths of your own people by offering them up to the sea!

"I do not seek to accuse; I only ask for some explanation of your behaviour, a reason for these... sacrifices, or whatever you wish to call them.

"Regards, Lord Bern."

Lucy rolled the scroll back up, her brows pulled together slightly. "...sacrifices?"

Edmund took the scroll and unrolled it, staring at each individual word to make sure she hadn't made somehow misread the lord's letter. Read it again. And again. She hadn't misread a single word. He felt his gorge rise at the thought of any ruler committing such an act—killing his own people, and for what?

"Perhaps Lord Bern was misinformed," Edmund murmured, passing the scroll to Caspian.

"I intend to find out," said Caspian. "But why is the message here and not in the hands of Gumpas?"

Lucy glanced at the mutilated corpse with unease in her eyes. "I don't think it was ever sent."

"Or," said Edmund, standing and crossing the room to retrieve the last remaining scroll. "…or…" He peeled away the seal, which had already been broken before, and glanced down the page. Swallowed. "Or he got something that made sending it pointless." He tossed the scroll to Caspian.

"To the Honourable Lord Bern," Caspian read, "If you are reading this, then I am more than likely dead. If, by some miracle, I have survived the coming night, disregard what I am about to say and, if you would, burn this message.

"It has come for me. The sacrifices should no longer be necessary—I give you full authority to end them. I am sorry." Caspian visibly tensed as he read the next three words. "Signed, Gov. Gumpas."

A/N: Aaagh, NaNo is going to be the death of me. Thank God it's nearly over. Anyway. Uh. Chapter two, yo. I promise the next few whatnots will be more exciting than this.