Last chapter! I only own Professor Anderson, Old Oak, and Peter's roommates. The Narnian word "La," meaning yes, belongs to Elecktrum. Enjoy!
I was walking down the hall at Hendon House Boarding School, after a very enjoyable conversation with an old friend who teaches history at the school. Someone came out of the registrar's office after I passed it. This young man-for I could tell he was that from his firm, confident stride-walked along behind me without saying anything until I reached for the doorknob to leave the building.
"Let me get that for you, sir," a familiar voice offered, and Peter Pevensie stepped up beside me to open the door.
"Peter!" I exclaimed.
"Professor Kirke! I did not expect to see you here."
"Nor I you. I came to visit Professor Anderson, who is a good friend of mine. Is this your school?"
"La. Ed and I are both here. Su goes to St. Finbar's, across the road, but she won't come until tomorrow."
"And Lucy?"
"Lu isn't considered old enough for boarding school yet, and we're quite glad of it, because the environment is not very good here. Besides, this way somebody can take care of Father and Mother while the rest of us are here."
"I see. How is normal English life treating you?"
Peter grimaced. "I'd really like to talk to you about that, and other things as well, but this is not a good place for it. Would you come up to my room with me?"
"Of course."
As he closed the door of his dorm room behind us and offered me a chair, Peter seemed to be gathering his thoughts. When he spoke, the words came slowly and cautiously.
"Professor, I have been thinking about a lot of things that happened at your house. The way you knew before I said it that Lucy was more truthful than Edmund was. Your quickness to believe her incredible story. The presence of the wardrobe in your house. Your knowledge about other worlds and what they're like. The carved lion I saw on your desk."
"Has your thinking led to any conclusions?" I asked quietly.
"You said that if we ever met anyone who had had adventures like ours, we would know it. I assumed that adventures like ours meant journeys to other worlds."
I nodded without speaking and he went on.
"Sir, have you ever been to Narnia?"
Again, I nodded. "I saw Narnia created and the coronation of her first king and queen. I brought the first evil into that lovely new world, and I planted a tree to protect the people-"
"-For a time," Peter interrupted in an awed tone, "until Narnia could be established as a full-fledged country, and begin to found sister kingdoms in the lands around her." His voice began to take on the sound of a skillful bard re-telling a much-loved tale. "In the beginning, on the day that Aslan created Narnia, the Lord Digory accidently entered the land, bringing with him a great evil, a witch of terrible power, from whom he was attempting to rescue his own world. This witch escaped from Lord Digory's clutches into the Great Northern Plain, where he could neither find her nor prevent her from carrying out her evil schemes.
"Accordingly, at Aslan's command, Lord Digory traveled with his friend and companion the Lady Polly, and a winged horse called Fledge, to the far-off Garden of the West. There, at great cost, he took an Apple of Youth from the Garden and brought it back to Narnia. With that Apple, he planted the Tree which would protect Aslan's people for a time, until Narnia could be established as a full-fledged country, and begin to found sister kingdoms in the lands around her.
"For nine hundred years, the Tree of Protection stood beside Cauldron Pool, and the evil witch Jadis did not dare to approach it. But all the care of the dryads could not keep old age from its wood forever, and at last a day came when it could no longer stand under the storms of winter, but fell with a crash that has echoed through the years in the hearts of all good Narnians.
"Scarcely a week had passed after the fall of the Tree when Jadis, the White Witch, swept into our beloved Narnia, driving an army of evil creatures before her. They conquered Cair Paravel and murdered every Son of Adam and Daughter of Eve who did not flee into the neighboring lands. Then they laid waste to our lovely countryside and terrified the Narnians into submission. The Witch cast a spell of everlasting winter upon the land, and her enchantments kept Father Christmas from entering. For a hundred years, Narnia was held in her iron grip, as all who revolted were turned to stone.
"So great was the fear of her that some Narnians, even among those who had served the line of King Frank faithfully before she came, chose to join her service rather than risk her wrath. The rest of us clung to the memory of Aslan and the hope of his return. 'Wrong will be right, when Aslan comes in sight,' we whispered to our young ones when we were sure her spies could not hear. 'At the sound of his roar, sorrows will be no more. When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death. And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again!' We remembered the four thrones at Cair Paravel, and we murmured the prophecy of Queen Swanwhite: 'When Adam's flesh and Adam's bone sits in Cair Paravel in throne, the evil time will be over and done.'
"How long those hundred years seemed to us who lived through them! Even the Beasts wondered sometimes if the winter would ever end, or the four thrones ever be filled. Yet we held on, and at last our faith was rewarded as winter's spell began to lift. The air grew warmer moment by moment, the birds sang with a joy they could not explain, and the voices of the river god and his daughters were heard again. The trees suddenly remembered how to leaf, and flowers lifted their half-forgotten loveliness above the quickly melting snow. Spring unfolded before our very eyes.
"Then we knew that Aslan had returned at last, and we gathered by unspoken consent at the most sacred place in all of Narnia, the Stone Table. There he came to us. Oh! The wonder and joy of that moment when he first appeared! As long as any of us lives it will not be forgotten, yet none can describe it to any who were not there. When we gazed into his golden eyes, we thought no more of the long hard winter we had just endured, nor even of the glorious spring that he had brought back to us, but only of the Lion himself. Our one burning desire was to serve him in anything he asked of us.
"In the hours that followed, he made of us an army that would follow to the death him or anyone he told us to follow, without a second thought. Then he introduced us to the High King Peter and his royal sisters, and later the Just King his brother. When the time came for battle against the Witch and her forces, it was our Kings who marched at our head, for Aslan had other work that he and the Queens must do. Though they were young and this was not yet their land, yet they risked their lives to lead us in battle, and King Edmund's lifeblood was shed as surely as was the lifeblood of the true-born Narnians who fell beside him.
"In the end, however, it was not the Kings who brought us victory, but the Lion. He charged into the battle when all seemed lost, followed by every citizen of Narnia who had ever been turned to stone by the Witch. All were alive and well once more, but they were not needed to turn the tide of the battle. That was done by Aslan himself when he slew the Witch who had so long oppressed his people, and all her evil followers fled for their lives, closely pursued by the reinforcements Aslan and the Queens had brought us.
"Then our Valiant Queen Lucy began her work. Child though she was, she went fearlessly among the dead and wounded, giving a drop of her precious cordial to all who needed it. Many who would have died on that field are still among us today because she reached them in time, our Just King Edmund being one of them. Meanwhile, our Gentle Queen Susan and the healers ministered to the needs of those were still within their aid, and Aslan himself restored those who had been turned to stone.
"The coronation of the Four was not long in coming, since they had already so abundantly proven themselves worthy of it. Then the Lion left us in their capable hands, and right well have they ruled us ever since."
Peter gave a long sigh as he finished the story. "So the tale was told every year, if not more often, by Old Oak, the patriarch of the forest. I never thought that I would actually meet the Lord Digory whose name was always spoken with such respect."
"I think over the years Narnia has forgotten certain parts of the story," I put in, thinking heavily of how much Jadis' presence in Narnia had been my own fault. "This Old Oak makes me sound much more honorable than he would if he remembered all. Several Narnians were present when Aslan made me confess how Jadis got into this world in the first place, and that I was the one who woke her from her long sleep."
But Peter was shaking his head. "Whatever they did not tell was left out on purpose because of their respect for you. I have heard the same tale from the Badgers, and they forget nothing unless they willfully decide not to remember it. I am certain the first storytellers made you sound just as honorable in the ears of King Frank as their descendants made you sound in my ears. After all, Old Oak did the same for Edmund, urging that his listeners love and honor the Just King as he did himself. He spoke no word of the treachery that Edmund committed when he first entered Narnia, because in Narnia's eyes Aslan's forgiveness erased that from Edmund's story."
For a long moment, I sat speechless, unable to find words to express how I felt. The burden of guilt that I had carried for so long was gone. I had brought a deadly enemy to the pure and innocent people of Narnia, and they had purposefully chosen to forget that. Instead of hating me for all that the Witch had done to them, they honored me for the little good that Aslan had enabled me to do for them.
Just then, two boys stumbled into the room, the smaller one supporting the other and both groaning.
"Smith! Armsby!" Peter jumped to his feet and helped them sit down on one of the beds. "What happened?"
"Your hypocrite brother, that's what!" the bigger one snapped with surprising energy. "He'll catch it one of these days!"
Peter glanced at me with worry in his eyes, and I quickly found myself promising to find Edmund and make sure he was all right. As I left the room, my young friend turned his attention to patching up the two bullies who had just fought his beloved brother. Magnificent indeed!