A/N: Hello again dear readers! We are finally up to chapter five of Seeing Shadows (gasp!) and there is still so much more to come, so keep on reading as much as you have been doing already because I still can't believe how many people read this :) This chapter contains a lot of Edmund finally being the one leading everyone about (you can guess I'm a huge fan of Edmund!) and a lot of "boys being boys" if you know what I mean! It also contains some more Narnia History extracts (trust me, you'll understand why they're there soon.)
I also want to use this as an opportunity to promote my other ongoing Narnia multichap fanfiction Lying in Wait, which is an AU set in Movieverse Prince Caspian where Edmund is captured during the raid in Miraz's castle. The first chapter is already up and it promises to be very Edmundcentric, so if you're into that sort of thing please do read it!
Anyways, as usual enjoy the story!
Disclaimer: The only thing I own related to either the Narnia books or the films is a huge obsession with them...
Extract from "A History of Narnia" written and bound during the illustrious Golden Age of our High Kings and Queens, by their royal advisor and most trusted companion Tumnus, the faun:
On the night of the annual Midwinter Ball of 1013, our noble kings and queens rejoiced like they did every year as they celebrated with their loyal subjects the eventual coming of spring, and the upcoming wedding that would follow. The lucky man himself and his bride, Queen Lucy, were the stars of the party, and were dancing together for most of the night. It couldn't have been a happier time for the chosen Kings and Queens.
However, amidst the joy and happiness of the festive season there came unto the great hall a loud cry of pain which came from the midst of the room, where it was seen by all present that the Valiant Queen Lucy suddenly fell from her lover's arms like a marionette cut from the string.
The High King instantly rushed to her aid as her fiancée wept over her unconscious body, but it soon became evident that the queen would not awaken from her slumber. She was taken that very night to the palace healers, where they gave her a dose of her own cordial to try and revive her, but to no avail. It soon became apparent that she was the victim of a great and powerful curse, for although she was not dead she was caught in a deep and enchanted sleep from which she refused to wake.
The kingdom was bound in sorrow from that day forth; both the queen's betrothed and her brothers King Peter the Magnificent and King Edmund the Just set off on numerous quests to exotic places as far as they knew existed, but from Ettinsmoor to Calormen, and from the Lantern Waste to the Eastern Sea, not one cure was to be found. The court prayed for the return of Aslan so that he may save the queen, but Aslan did not come. So the days and months passed by, the Narnians shallow in fear for the growing insanity of their monarchy and for their own welfare, until finally the next winter rolled into the land of Narnia, and with it a cold and bitter wind that chilled the very souls of the Narnian people…
Edmund Pevensie shivered as he fought against the strong London breeze that hit him like a brick wall as the late night cabs drove past his shivering form. He looked at his watch; it was now half past one, which meant that they had exactly six hours to find Lucy and get back home before anyone realised that they were missing. He mentally face palmed himself for not taking this into consideration; his plan wasn't looking so clever after all. He knew that if his Mother woke up to find all four of her children were missing she would almost definitely call the police, which would make finding his sister even more awkward. He just had to hope that Lucy hadn't got too far, or this could take a lot longer than he expected.
He saw a glimpse of Peter and Susan over the other side of the road, both madly trying to get his attention. He waited for the traffic to ease a little and ran across to them, thinking to himself as he did so that he must try to hurry them up a bit more. He gasped slightly as he reached them and realised how much sleep he was missing out on. His brother tried desperately to tell him something but he was panting heavily, and so Susan had to speak instead.
"The footprints lead into the Underground." Edmund had sent the older Pevensies on a scout for more clues as to where their sister was, and it seemed that Susan at least had come back with some very useful information, "At first we thought she had been forced onto a train or something (Peter talked to the ticket seller, but he hadn't seen her) but I found out that she wasn't. Follow me." Susan Pevensie turned back down the stairs leading to the train station, and her brothers followed, even though Edmund was still unsure about what his sister meant.
They followed the small trail of muddy footprints which Lucy had left unintentionally for them, avoiding as they did so the drunk students and other partygoers that were exiting the station at the same time. Susan caught the attention of a couple of unruly lads as she passed, and the leader of the group (who the siblings could see was completely wasted) yelled drunkenly, "Hey there gorgeous! Fancy ditching Blondie and Spider and coming home with us?" Edmund grabbed Peter's wrist as he saw his brother flinch, knowing how much his die hard sibling would want to confront them, and stopped him with a glare. Susan merely sighed and ignored the boys, urging her overprotective brothers forward.
They went deeper and deeper into the station, running down numerous flights of stairs, and carried on walking until they reached the ticket booth, where Susan swerved sharply to the left and Edmund had to quickly dodge the passengers coming the other way in order to follow. He glanced down at the floor and saw that the footprints now led them down a small abandoned corridor and into a room. As they walked closer Edmund could now see it was plated with a faded plaque reading Women's Lavatory. He heard Peter protest behind him.
"Jesus Christ, Su! You expect me and Ed to follow you into the girl's toilets?"
"Oh pull yourself together, they're just toilets!" Susan retorted, to which Peter gave her an exasperated look and backed even further away from the door. Edmund rolled his eyes at his brother's embarrassment; it was a sure sign that they hung out with boys way too often. Still, he didn't dare to enter either. What if there was a girl in there doing, well, something…? The thought made his cheeks turn bright red, and he quickly turned his head to avoid Peter noticing.
Susan growled angrily at the two of them and, as if she knew what they were worried about, slammed the door open and yelled, "Hello, anyone in there?" There was nothing but silence.
She turned to her elder brother and smiled sarcastically at him. "See, its fine. Grow up!" Peter chuckled nervously but still hesitated, leaving a frustrated Edmund to push past him and follow his sister as she walked inside. The magnificent king blushed at the thought of being seen in a girl's toilet, but he knew that he had to do this to save Lucy and so he entered after them, his stomach sinking as he noticed the absence of urinals.
"Girls have been in here…and they've done girl stuff…"
"I know what you're thinking Pete, so stop it. You're making me feel sick" his younger brother grimaced, before turning to his older sister, "Okay, what now Susan?"
"Well that's just it. This is where the trail stops!"
She was right. All three Pevensies could see that the string of muddy footprints led right up to one of the sinks along the bathroom wall, and then just stopped suddenly, as if she had just stood there all this time. There were no windows in the room, or anywhere she could've escaped from, so where had she gone? It was as if she had vanished into thin air. The Pevensie siblings stared almost helplessly at the spot where they knew their sister had once been, Edmund all the while aware that precious time was slipping fast through their fingers. After what seemed like an eternity, Peter spoke up.
"Do you think the White Witch gave her teleportation powers or something?"
"Peter that's stupid," Edmund muttered, and tried to shrug it off when Peter turned and glared at him, "The Witch can't teleport, or she wouldn't have had to ride about in her sleigh all the time would she?"
"Then how do you explain Lucy suddenly disappearing off the face of the Earth?"
"There must be something we've missed…" the dark haired youth suddenly jumped forward and stood directly in his sister's footprints. He began to feel around the wall, touching everything that he knew would have been within his sister's reach, and then he knelt down and began scaling his hands around the back of the sink, trying to pull and push at everything he could get his hands on. Everything seemed to be ordinary…everything except…
"Ed, what are you looking for?"
His fist knocked against a long steel pole that he could tell was out of place from the dull metals that made up the tubes at the back of the sink. He tugged at it, and to his delight it moved towards him. He kept pulling at it until he heard from deep within the wall a great clunk! And so he let go and took a step back as the sink and a good chunk of wall grinded backwards, revealing behind it a long hidden passageway, where the siblings could now see that the long line of irregular muddy boot prints continued.
"Secret Door," the youth answered as he squirmed his way past the sink and into the corridor, Peter and Susan looking bemusedly after him as they too wriggled through the gap.
"How did you know?" Peter asked his brother as they finally joined him.
"Let's just say that was why I was in charge of battle strategy in Narnia, and you weren't."
"Are you saying I'm dumb?"
Edmund could just about make out his brother's cocky smirk in the dim light of the passageway and he laughed, turning back around again to continue on walking. What he didn't notice, however, was his brother's smile falter as he noticed the dark shadow looming behind him.
"Ed, Look out!"
A long greasy hand shot out of nowhere and covered Edmund's mouth before he had a chance to scream. His eyes widened in horror as he saw the same fate befall his two siblings, who were also attacked from behind and restrained, both of them shaking violently and trying to escape.
He heard a voice from behind him, and realised that it came from his captor.
"You know what to do with them. I'll take the boy."
"Edmund, No!"
He heard his brother yell and saw him try to struggle free from the man who held him. The captor behind him suddenly shoved what appeared to be a white handkerchief against the youth's face, forcing him to breathe in the foul smelling toxin which it was coated in. Edmund gasped for air, and he felt his conscious mind fail him and his vision blurred as he fell to the floor. The last things he knew and heard were Peter's wails and a cold, but somehow strangely familiar voice, laughing in his ears.
What do you think of chapter five? Who cursed Lucy in Narnia and how will she wake? How does the Narnian History have anything to do with the story? And what the hell is happening to the Pevensies now? Keep reading to find out!