A Tale of a Voyage

Disclaimer: I think you get the picture by now…

Chapter 8: Cousins and Un-dragoning

"Look at what?" Edmund asked.

"Look at the device on the gold!" Caspian exclaimed.

"A little hammer with a diamond above it like a star. Why, I've seen that before," Drinian answered.

"Seen it! Why, of course you have. It is the sign of a great Narnia house. This is the Lord Octesian's arm-ring."

"Villain, have you devoured a Narnian lord?" Reep asked. The dragon shook its head.

I saw Rose face-palm. "Guys, that's Eustace!" The dragon nodded viciously.

I slid over to her side. "They would have figured that out in a few minutes, Rosie."

"Oh. Oh, well."

Meanwhile, Eustace was crying and thumping and his boiling tears made everyone jump back. Lucy immediately tried to console him and even got up the courage to kiss his scaly face. We all said, "Hard luck," and most of us said that we would stand by him, and many assured him that we would find a way to disenchant him soon. We all also wanted to hear his story. After several writing attempts that didn't exactly work, I finally had to fill in what blanks I remembered, which weren't many. I did remember something about sleeping on gold and eating another dragon (but I didn't mention that part).

And of course, everyone wanted to know how I knew except Edmund and Lucy, who already knew, though they had kinda forgotten. So, the girls, Art, and I had to explain about coming from a time after the Pevensies' time and reading books about Narnia. (James, Will, and Jade weren't much help.) Caspian, and everyone else, too, was shocked that there were books written about them in other worlds.

After all this furor was over, we discovered that Eustace was now quite willing to help and be useful. He flew over the whole island and determined that it was uninhabited except for wild goats and pigs, which he killed and brought back for us to eat. And one day, slowly but victoriously, he returned bearing a tree for our new mast. On cold nights, he made a great hot water bottle. Sometimes, he would take some of us on his back and fly around. I could tell that he loved being liked and liking in turn. Some nights (when he wasn't being used as a hot water bottle, that is), he would disappear for a while, and Reep and Rose would go sit with him and keep him company.

About six days after we had landed on Dragon Island, Edmund and I woke very early. After he untangled himself from Lucy and I untangled myself from Rose and Faith, we looked around and saw someone moving. "Are we sure there are no natives here?" he whispered.

"Yes."

"Could it be Caspian? Or Art? Or Will?"

"No, they're still here."

"Shall we go investigate?"

"Sure." We checked for our swords before wandering over there to see who it was. "Is that you, Edmund and Hannah?" he asked.

"Yes. Who are you?" Ed answered for both of us.

"Don't you know me? It's me- Eustace."

"By Jove, so it is. My dear chap-"

"Hush," Eustace said, and he nearly fell.

We quickly steadied him. "Hello! What's up? Are you ill?" Edmund asked.

Eustace was silent for a few minutes before he finally said, "It's been ghastly. You don't know… but it's all right now. Could we go and talk somewhere? I don't want to meet the others just yet."

"Yes, rather, anywhere you like. We can go and sit on the rocks over there. I say, I am glad to see you-er-looking yourself again. You must have had a pretty beastly time."

We went to the rocks and sat down, looking out over the sea. "I won't tell you exactly how I became a-a dragon till I can tell the others and get it all over. By the way, I didn't even know it was a dragon till I heard you all using the word when I turned up here the other morning. I want to tell you how I stopped being one."

"Fire away."

"Yeah. We're listening," I added.

"Well, last night, I was more miserable than ever. And that beastly arm ring was hurting like anything-"

"Is it all right now?" Edmund interrupted.

Eustace laughed, a real laugh and slipped it off of him arm. "There it is, and anyone who likes can have it as far as I'm concerned. Well, as I say, I was lying awake and wondering what on earth would become of me. And them- but mind you, it may have all been a dream. I don't know."

"Go on."

"Well, anyway, I looked up and saw the very last thing I expected: a huge Lion coming slowly toward me. And one queer thing was that there was no moon last night, but there was moonlight where the Lion was. So It came nearer and nearer. I was terribly afraid of it. You may think that, being a dragon, I could have knocked any lion out easily enough. But it wasn't that kind of fear. I wasn't afraid of It eating me, I was just afraid of It- if you can understand. Well, It came close up to me and looked straight into my eyes. And I shut my eyes tight. But that wasn't any good because It told me to follow It."

"You mean It spoke?"

"I don't know. Now that you mention it, I don't think It did. But It told me all the same. And I knew I'd have to do what It told me…."

Once he was done with his story, he added, "That makes me think it was a dream."

"No. It wasn't a dream," Edmund answered.

"Why not?"

"Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been, well, un-dragooned, for another."

"What do you think it was then?"

"I think you've seen Aslan."

"So do I," I inserted.

"Aslan! I've heard that Name mentioned several times since we joined the Dawn Treader. And I felt- I don't know what- I hated It. But I was hating everything then. And by the way, I'd like to apologize. I'm afraid I've been pretty beastly."

"That's all right. Between ourselves, you haven't been as bad as I was on my first trip to Narnia. You were only a pain the neck, but I was a traitor."

"Well, don't tell me about it, then. But Who is Aslan? Do you two know Him?"

"Well, He know us. He is the great Lion, the Son of the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea, Who saved me and saved Narnia. We've all seen Him. Lucy sees Him most often. And it may be Aslan's country we are sailing to."

"He isn't a tame Lion, but He is good," I couldn't help but say. We fell silent for a few minutes. Soon enough, the camp was awake. We returned, and everyone was excited to see Eustace back to being himself. He filled the blanks I had left when I told them roughly what had happened to him. A few days later, we left. Before that, though, Caspian had these words carved into a cliff:

Dragon Island
Discovered by Caspian X, King of Narnia, etc.
In the fourth
Year of his reign.
Here, as we suppose, the Lord Octesian
Had his death.

As we looked at it, Eustace remembered the arm-ring. He offered it to Caspian. He didn't want it, so he offered it to Lucy. She didn't want it either, so he said, "Very well, then, catch as catch can." He threw it into the air, and it got caught on a little projection in the rock. It was too high to reach from the ground and too low to reach from the top. As C.S. Lewis said, "And there, for all I know, it is hanging still and may hang till that world ends."