Ch 3 - Calm And Storm
Another week into the voyage, the strange wintry winds stopped completely. The Luna's crew found themselves stranded in the ocean with no breeze, no wave, not a breath of motion to carry them on. "It's as if the Witch's hold on the weather stops here, in this very spot," Lucy murmured to Arrow. She walked amidships with him, her hands stretched out in wonder toward the bow and stern. One felt cold-the one she held west-while she could almost imagine that the hand she stretched east felt the warmth of what should have been spring.
Perhaps, she thought with a thrill of hope (and not a little wistfulness), it echoed the feel of Aslan's Country to the utter east.
"You look like you're about to fly off, my lady. It's best there's no wind to catch you," said Arrow with amusement.
"Oh, don't make fun," she protested, but she lowered her hands anyway. "If I could, I would. I'd carry us to Selbaran, find Edmund, bring him home, and have my family together again. And we'd stop these invaders and the Witch, and Narnia would be whole." She laid a hand on the griffin's feathery ruff, and Arrow didn't object. "I miss the Narnian spring. Many of the naiads and dryads have gone to sleep under all that snow." She sighed and turned her face to the weak sun. "I wonder if the dryads of Selbaran are doing well. I wonder if Asha ..." Lucy stopped, frowning, unable to think on the heartbreak her sister-in-law must be enduring. If Edmund had truly disappeared, Asha must feel sundered in two.
A pair of satyrs passed them, nodding respectfully as they went about their work. Lucy nodded back, automatic, thinking of loved ones far away.
"Shall I tell you a story of my people's trials that long winter?" Arrow asked. "Shall I tell you how we came to believe Aslan was coming to end the Witch's power at last?"
Lucy smiled again, drawn out of her gloom. Arrow pretended gruffness, but the griffin bore as kind a heart as his eyes were perceptive. "Yes, please."
The griffin regaled her with a tale that had passed into the histories of his race, of one of his kind who had rejected the solitude of the mountains to ally himself with the free people of Narnia. Rook believed an end could be found to the Witch's cruel reign. His bravery inspired all the clan to remember the legends of Narnia's creation, and rejoin those who awaited the return of the Great Lion. By the time the Battle of Beruna came, it was Rook who led the griffins' aerial charge. He died a hero among all Narnians.
Arrow was too young to have seen the battle, but from the look in his eyes when he spoke of it, Lucy realized Arrow held her in awe for having seen the great Rook. "What a shame you never got to meet him," she said.
"Yes," agreed Arrow. "But we honor him every day. When the sun shines on our faces, it reminds us of the gleam of his wings as he battled the Witch's army." So saying, the griffin turned toward the setting sun and spread his wings in a graceful bow.
He turned to her then with a more serious look. "You should get below and catch your rest, Your Majesty. This calm is at least good for something. I believe I'll go fish while there's light left."
She waved him off, watching as he swooped over the water. It was almost as disrespectful to ride a griffin as to ride a unicorn anywhere outside of battle, but Arrow allowed her on his back now and then. You're such a slight thing, it's next to carrying air, anyway, he'd told her. Lucy suspected he enjoyed her amazement at whooshing through the air with him.
She followed his advice and found her berth, in a cabin specially prepared for her journey by the captain's orders. For a ship's cabin, it was as roomy as anything she could have wanted. The bed was quite comfortable and, encouraged by the fresh air and exercise of the day, she fell asleep almost as soon as she lay down.
- # -
She woke later to the disconcerting sensation of lying on a steep slope. The height of the slide almost tumbled her out of bed. Leaping out of the berth, she gathered her cloak and cordial, then raced up to the deck.
She almost lost her footing on the slick, groaning wood. Lightning speared the inky sky amid driving rain. They'd gotten their wind back, and far too much of it. Lucy grabbed a rail as the Luna pitched so hard it almost lay flat against the churning waves. Her stomach whirled in sympathy. The tang of ozone lay thick over the smell of the sea.
"Get below, Your Majesty!" shouted a faun. He fought to tie down a sail, but the ropes lashed away from him on the growling wind.
Ignoring the water spray spitting in her face, Lucy rushed to help him. Other sailors scrambled across the deck. The captain howled orders left and right. Most of the Luna's sails had been made fast, but their efforts made no difference to the raging sea. Lucy helped tie off the faun's sail and squinted through the storm. "Arrow? Nalis? Darius!" she called. Her words tore away on the wind, useless.
She struggled toward the port rail and held on for her life. "Arrow!" Shielding her eyes, she scanned the rigging. The griffin liked to perch there when he rested, but she saw no sign of him.
"Go below, my Queen!" urged a torn-eared satyr as he lashed a flailing shroud. "This is Phoenix weather, to be sure!"
As soon as he said it, a bell from the crow's nest began clanging over the noise of thunder. "It's her!" shouted the lookout. "Dead behind us, and coming fast!"
A badger rushed toward the rear guns. Lucy hurried after him, horror-struck and holding an arm over her eyes to block the pelting raindrops. Her cloak was no proof against the angry storm.
In a staccato volley of lightning, she saw it. First the fore mast, then the top sail, then the bowsprit and the massive bow of the ship itself. The Phoenix crested a swelling wave as if she were indeed rising from the water itself. She ran full sail. The sheets flashed in the lightning glare, looking for a moment like the ship really was aflame. She sloped down the wave and crashed into the trough with a great wave of her own, then climbed the next wave as if it were no obstacle at all. The wind was nothing to it. She gained on the crippled Luna as if the frigate stood still.
"Cover yer ears, missie," the badger said, and lit the fuse on his cannon. A deafening boom sounded across the rear deck. A cannonball soared toward the gaining Phoenix. An instant before it hit, Lucy swore she saw the missile turn white. It crashed against the bow of The Phoenix and shattered into nothing.
"Don't shoot, fool, there's nothing we can do but run!" called a voice. Lucy turned to look. Kamus clung to a capstan, his wide eyes on their pursuer.
A shadow appeared at the bow of the approaching ship. An instant later, Lucy saw a smoking flash of light. She heard a boom, then a horrible rushing whine.
"She's fired her warning!" Kamus cried. "We're lost!" The poor faun's eyes rolled with fright.
Lucy struggled toward him. "We must use what wind we can!" she called. "Tell the captain-"
Lightning flashed again. Lucy saw it strike the mast. She shut her eyes against the blinding light, then heard a snap and crash that made her ears ring and her teeth rattle. Muffled shouting followed it, and then she pitched into the air. Water surged over her head. Panicking, scrabbling at wet fabric trapping her arms, she struggled to hold her breath.
The water. She was in the water. She was going to drown. Lucy tumbled over, her eyes stinging with salt, unable to tell which way was up. Her heartbeat drummed frantically for air. I can't die like this, she thought desperately. I can't leave my family.
Endless seconds passed. She thought she heard shouting, but the treacherous waves distorted all noise and any hope of orienting herself. Something swished by her arm and she seized it.
Rope.
Lucy snatched it and hung on, hoping with all her might that it would lead her to the surface. And it did. Waves sloshed off her, and she could hear again. There was indeed shouting. Male voices, one louder than the rest. With a grateful heave of breath, she clung to the netting as she was hauled from the plunging waves. She looked up.
Into the face of a stranger. In a flash of lightning, she made out a tall, human man with broad shoulders and a three-cornered hat. Another day-bright flash revealed bronze eyes (Bronze! she thought, wondering if her wits had failed her), and a jagged scar across his cheek. He shouted again to two more men, who hauled the net up the side of The Phoenix.
Terror flashed through Lucy. She thought for an instant of letting go the net, but her only retreat was the boiling sea. She risked a look behind her and muffled a cry of distress. The Luna lay broken in two on the water, burning as it sank.
Grimly, she clutched the net in her frozen fingers. Her breath steamed in front of her, and she stared at the frost-crusted hull of The Phoenix as they pulled her up to the deck. She spilled out of the net, shivering, onto cold, slippery wood.
The bronze-eyed man stood over her, somehow keeping his balance on the heaving deck. He gave her a wicked smile, and it seemed his eyes flashed with a light of their own. "My, what a pretty fish we've caught, lads."