Chapter 2: The Dwarf

"THIS wasn't a garden," said Susan presently. "It was a castle and this must have been the courtyard."

"You're right," Dawn agreed. "Even though I've never been in Narnia before now. Something seems familiar about this place."

"How so?" Buffy asked having a feeling the place was familiar to her as well.

"Maybe something you described to me?" Dawn said with a shrug.

"This place gives me a queer feeling," said Lucy.

"I think I can honestly say we all have the feeling," Buffy said turning to look at her husband, sister and in-laws. "This place seems awfully familiar.

"I wonder where we are and what it all means?" Peter said.

While they were talking, they crossed the courtyard and went through a doorway into what had once been the hall.

"I wonder, was it really the hall?" said Susan. "What is that terrace kind of thing?"

"Why, you silly," said Peter, "don't you see? That was the dais where the High Table was, where the King and the great lords sat. Anyone would think you had forgotten that we ourselves were once Kings and Queens and sat on a dais just like that, in our great hall."

"Peter is right," Buffy said. "We five Pevensies were the Kings and Queens of Narnia."

Dawn chuckled. "You haven't used your married name in a while."

"Haven't had a reason to," Buffy admitted with a shrug.

"In our castle of Cair Paravel," continued Susan in a dreamy and rather sing-song voice, "at the mouth of the great river of Narnia. How could I forget?"

"How it all comes back!" said Lucy. "We could pretend we were in Cair Paravel now. This hall must have been very like the great hall we feasted in."

"But unfortunately, without the feast," said Edmund. "It's getting late, you know. Look how long the shadows are. And have you noticed that it isn't so hot?"

"We should set up a campfire," Buffy said. "Then Dawn and I will take turns keeping watch."

"Why Dawn?" Susan wondered.

"I'm a Slayer like my sister," Dawn replied.

"Anyways," said Peter. "I've got matches. Let's go and see if we can collect some dry wood." And for the next half-hour they were busy. The orchard through which they had first come into the ruins turned out not to be a good place for firewood. They tried the other side of the castle, passing out of the hall by a little side door into a maze of stony humps and hollows which must once have been passages and smaller rooms but was now all nettles and wild roses. Beyond this they found a wide gap in the castle wall and stepped through it into a wood of darker and bigger trees where they found dead branches and rotten wood and sticks and dry leaves and fir-cones in plenty. They went to and fro with bundles until they had a good pile on the dais. At the fifth journey they found the well, just outside the hall, hidden in weeds, but clean and fresh and deep when they had cleared these away.

The remains of a stone pavement ran half-way round it. Then the girls went out to pick some more apples and the boys built the fire, on the dais and fairly close to the corner between two walls. Finally, all six sat down with their backs to the wall and their faces to the fire.

Shortly after the last apple had been eaten, Susan went out to the well to get another drink. When she came back, she was carrying something in her hand.

"Look," she said in a rather choking kind of voice. "I found it by the well." She handed it to Buffy and sat down.

Buffy looked at it as everyone gathered around her for a closer look. "It's a chess piece," she said.

"Why!" said Lucy, "it's exactly like one of the golden chessmen we used to play with when we were Kings and Queens at Cair Paravel."

"Cheer up, Su," said Peter to his other sister.

"I can't help it," said Susan. "It brought back - oh, such lovely times. And I remembered playing chess with you, Buffy."

Dawn chuckled. "Buffy playing chess, that's funny."

"And true," Buffy said. "After all this world doesn't have the modern conveniences you and I are used to. No microwave, no TV, no indoor plumbing. So, I actually did a lot of reading, playing chess with Susan and Lucy, and of course spending time with my husband."

"Now," said Peter in a quite different voice, "it's about time we all started using our brains."

"What about?" asked Edmund.

"Have none of you guessed where we are?" said Peter.

"Go on, go on," said Lucy. "I've felt for hours that there was some wonderful mystery hanging over this place."

"Buffy," Peter said looking at the oldest member of the Royals. "You should remember. After all you drew a picture of this very room that you included in your letters to Dawn."

Dawn's eyes went wide as she reached into her pocket and pulled out said drawing. She looked at it and then looked around. "This is your throne room, Buffy," she said excitedly. "This is Cair Paravel."

Buffy took the drawing from her sister and then looked at it before looking around. "Your right," she realized. "This is Cair Paravel. Or what's left of it anyways."

Buffy handed the drawing to Edmund who sat next to her. "Compare it, you will see that everything matches the drawing. That the hall is exactly the same shape and size as the hall at Cair Paravel." No one said anything. Then she thought of something as she stood up and strode toward the door that led to the castle well. "The castle well is exactly where our well was, a little to the south of the great hall; and it is exactly the same size and shape."

Again, there was no reply from Susan, Lucy or Edmund.

Buffy then turned and looked at Susan and smiled. "You found one of our old chessmen."

Still nobody answered.

"I remember distinctly planting the orchard outside the north gate of Cair Paravel," Peter said.

"But look here," said Edmund. "This must all be rot. To begin with, we didn't plant the orchard slap up against the gate. We wouldn't have been such fools."

"No, of course not," said Buffy. "But it has grown up to the gate since."

"And for another thing," said Edmund, "Cair Paravel wasn't on an island."

"Ah," Dawn said with a chuckle. "Depending on how much time has actually passed. A river could have eroded enough of the land away to create an island, especially if we were on what was once a peninsula.

"What do you mean depending on how much time as passed," said Edmund. "It's only been a year since Peter, Susan, Lucy and I came back from Narnia."

"And two for me, Edmund," Buffy said. "I don't think time has any meaning between our world and Narnia. If it did, I don't think Dawn and I would be here at the same you would be."

"There's one thing," said Lucy. "If this is Cair Paravel there ought to be a door at this end of the dais. In fact, we ought to be sitting with our backs against it at this moment. You know - the door that led down to the treasure chamber."

"I suppose there isn't a door," said Peter, getting up.

The wall behind them was a mass of ivy.

"We can soon find out," said Edmund, taking up one of the sticks that they had laid ready for putting on the fire. He began beating the ivied wall. Tap-tap went the stick against the stone; and again, tap-tap; and then, all at once, boom-boom, with a quite different sound, a hollow, wooden sound. "Great Scott!"

"Dawn and I will clear the ivy away," Buffy said.

"Oh, do let's leave it alone," said Susan. "We can try it in the morning. If we've got to spend the night here, I don't want an open door at my back and a great big black hole that anything might come out of, besides the draught and the damp. And it'll soon be dark."

"You four get some rest," Dawn suggested. "Buffy and I can go with less sleep than you four."

"Dawn's right," Buffy said.

"I've been meaning to ask, how did that happened," Peter said looking at his sister-in-law. "I've heard you both mention that you, Dawn, are a Slayer."

"The battle in the future," Buffy said. "We had an army of girls who had the Potential to be the next Slayer. A friend of ours, a powerful witch, a good witch mind you, cast a spell activating all the Potentials. Dawn was a Potential so when the spell was cast, she became a Slayer. Not something I ever wanted for her, but here we are. Now as Dawn said, get some rest. Dawn and I will work on the vines and wake you when their cleared. "

Peter, Edmund, Lucy and Susan did as they were instructed as Buffy and Dawn worked at the ivy with their hands and with Peter's pocket-knife till the knife broke. After that they used Edmund's. Soon they had a large pile of ivy and at last they had the door cleared.

Dawn tried the door and sighed. "Locked," she whispered. "But we might be able to remove the door with a little bit of Slayer strength. The wood is after all rotten."

"Good call," Buffy agreed. It took the sisters longer than they expected and, before they had done, the great hall had grown dusty and the first star or two had come out overhead. They then woke Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.

"Now for a torch," said Peter.

"Oh, what is the good?" said Susan. "And as Edmund said –"

"I'm not saying it now," Edmund interrupted. "I still don't understand, but we can settle that later. I suppose you're going down, Buffy?"

Buffy nodded. "To put to bed once and for all, yes," she informed them.

They tried to use long sticks as torches but had no success keeping them lit as breeze from the doorway kept blowing them out. In the end they had to use Edmund's flashlight; luckily it had been a birthday present less than a week ago and the battery was almost new. Buffy went first, with the light. Then came Peter, then Edmund, then Lucy, then Susan, and Dawn brought up the rear.

"I've come to the top of the steps," said Buffy.

"Count them," said Peter.

"One - two - three," said Buffy, as she went cautiously down, and so up to sixteen. "And this is the bottom," she shouted back.

"Then it really must be Cair Paravel," said Lucy. "There were sixteen." Nothing more was said till all six were standing in a knot together at the foot of the stairway. Then Buffy flashed the flashlight slowly round.

The five Royals could all see that this was indeed the ancient treasure chamber of Cair Paravel where they had once reigned as Kings and Queens of Narnia.

"I wonder how long it's been since you guys have been here," Dawn wondered.

"Centuries by the looks of things," Buffy admitted as they walked down the corridor passing rich suits of armor and shelves covered with precious things.

The five Royals began picking things up to look at. It was like meeting very old friends.

Suddenly Edmund said, "Look here. We mustn't waste the battery: goodness knows how often we shall need it."

"I think we need our gifts, first Edmund," said Buffy.

They all agreed with Buffy and walked up the path to the wall at the far end of the treasure chamber, and there, sure enough, the gifts were still hanging.

Dawn walked up beside Buffy and stared at the scythe that had hung there. "Outside you said there had been two. But till now I had wondered how that was possible. But seeing this one…"

"I know," Buffy said as she smiled at Dawn. "And since I have one," she said as she held up the scythe she had found in Sunnydale. She smiled at her sister. "That one can be yours."

Dawn smiled as she reached up and took the Narnia scythe. And like the one Buffy held at that very moment and that she had used in Sunnydale during the battle with the First, the Narnia scythe felt like it belonged to her. "It's got the same feeling as that one," she said nodding at Buffy's.

"I know," Buffy said. "Just like this one. It's a Slayer's weapon."

Lucy said nothing and looked very solemn as she took her gift down from its place and slung the belt over her shoulder and once more felt the bottle at her side where it used to hang in the old days.

Susan's gift had been a bow and arrows and a horn. The bow was still there, and the ivory quiver, full of well feathered arrows, but - "Oh, Susan," said Lucy. "Where's the horn?"

"Oh bother, bother, bother," said Susan after she had thought for a moment. "I remember now. I took it with me the last day of all." She looked at Buffy. "The day you were ill and we went hunting the White Stag with your permission."

"I was never ill," Buffy admitted. "I thought I was at the time since I was five months pregnant. But the nausea and headache were a result of the spell that took me back to my sister."

"Anyways It must have got lost when we blundered back into that other place - England, I mean."

Edmund whistled. "Just the sort of thing that might come in handy in a place like this," he said.

"Never mind," said Susan, "I've still got the bow." And she took it.

"Won't the string be perished, Su?" said Peter.

"Doubtful," Buffy interjected. "Just like your sword and Dawn's scythe will very likely still be sharp, the string will still be intact. Their magical weapons after all."

When Susan tested the bow, they all found Buffy was right.

Next, Peter took down his gift - the shield with the great red lion on it, and the royal sword. He blew, and rapped them on the floor, to get off the dust. He fitted the shield on his arm and slung the sword by his side. He was afraid at first that it might be rusty and stick to the sheath. But it was not so. With one swift motion he drew it and held it up, shining in the torchlight.

Then, after a little pause, everyone remembered that they must save the battery.

They climbed the stairs again and made up a good fire and lay down close together for warmth. The ground was very hard and uncomfortable, but they fell asleep in the end.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

The next morning after a breakfast of apples and a drink of water from the well they went down the stream again to the shore and stared at the channel which divided them from the mainland.

"We'll have to swim," said Edmund.

"It would be all right for Su," said Peter. "But I don't know about the rest of us."

"I can swim," Dawn said. "Can't be a Cali girl and not know how to swim. Right, Buffy?"

"Right, Dawn," Buffy replied.

"Anyway," said Susan, "there may be currents. Father says it's never wise to bathe in a place you don't know."

"But, Peter…Buffy," said Lucy, "look here. I know I can't swim for nuts at home - in England, I mean. But couldn't we all swim long ago - if it was long ago when we were Kings and Queens in Narnia? We could ride then too, and do all sorts of things. Don't you think -?"

"She does have a point," Buffy said. "Those of you who didn't know how, did learn."

"My love," said Peter looking at Buffy. "You have to remember that when Edmund and Lucy learned to swim, they were adults."

"So," Dawn said. "How is that different than learning to ride a bike? It's not. You have the memories of that time do you not?" Peter, Susan, Lucy, Edmund and Buffy all nodded. "So why would you have forgotten how to swim when you've forgotten nothing else."

"Oh!" said Edmund in a voice which made everyone stop talking and listen to him. "I've just seen it all," he said.

"Seen what?" asked Peter.

"Why, the whole thing," said Edmund. "You know what we were puzzling about last night, that it was only a year ago for us and two years ago for Buffy since we left Narnia but everything looks as if no one had lived in Cair Paravel for hundreds of years? Well, don't you see? You know that, however long we seemed to have lived in Narnia, when we got back it seemed to have taken no time at all?"

"Well actually," Buffy interjected. "For me five months passed in our world. But that was because I came a different way than you four. But I think see where you are going, Edmund. Go on."

"And that means," continued Edmund, "that, once you're out of Narnia, you have no idea how Narnian time is going. Why shouldn't hundreds of years have gone past in Narnia while only one have passed for us in England?"

"Or two in Sunnydale?" Dawn added.

"By Jove," said Peter. "In that sense it really was hundreds of years ago that we lived in Cair Paravel. And now we're coming back to Narnia just as if we were Crusaders or Anglo-Saxons or Ancient Britons or someone coming back to modern England?"

"How excited they'll be to see us -" began Lucy, but at the same moment everyone else said, "Hush!" or "Look!" For now, something was happening.

There was a wooded point on the mainland a little to their right, and they all felt sure that just beyond that point must be the mouth of the river. And now, round that point there came into sight a boat. When it had cleared the point, it turned and began coming along the channel towards them. There were two people on board, one rowing, the other sitting in the stern and holding a bundle that twitched and moved as if it were alive. Both these people seemed to be soldiers. They had steel caps on their heads and light shirts of chain-mail. Their faces were bearded and hard.

"Back!" Buffy ordered. Other than the White Witch, her husband and her in-laws, she had never seen another human in Narnia. So, seeing these two was cause for some concern. They drew back from the beach into the wood and watched without moving a finger.

"This'll do," said the soldier in the stern when the boat had come about opposite to them.

"What about tying a stone to his feet, Corporal?" said the other, resting on his oars.

"Garn!" growled the other. "We don't need that, and we haven't brought one. He'll drown sure enough without a stone, as long as we've tied the cords right." With these words he rose and lifted his bundle.

"Is that," Dawn whispered at what they all saw.

"A dwarf," Buffy and Peter said in unison.

Next moment there was a twang, and all at once the soldier threw up his arms, dropping the Dwarf into the bottom of the boat, and fell over into the water. He floundered away to the far bank and they knew that Susan's arrow had struck on his helmet.

Dawn and Buffy looked at each other as they reached for their scythes. Behind them Susan was fitting a second arrow to the string. But it was never used. As soon as he saw his companion fall, the other soldier, with a loud cry, jumped out of the boat on the far side, and lie also floundered through the water and disappeared into the woods of the mainland.

"Quick! Before she drifts!" shouted Peter.

Buffy and Dawn plunged in, and before the water was up to their shoulders their hands were on the side of the boat. In a few seconds they had hauled her to the bank and lifted the Dwarf out, and Edmund was busily engaged in cutting his bonds with the pocket knife. When at last the Dwarf was free, he sat up, rubbed his arms and legs, and exclaimed:

"Well, whatever they say, you don't feel like ghosts. Anyway, ghosts or not, you've saved my life and I'm extremely obliged to you."

"But why should we be ghosts?" asked Lucy.

"I've been told all my life," said the Dwarf, "that these woods along the shore were as full of ghosts as they were of trees. That's what the story is. And that's why, when they want to get rid of anyone, they usually bring him down here and say they'll leave him to the ghosts. But I always wondered if they didn't really drown 'em or cut their throats. I never quite believed in the ghosts. But those two cowards you've just shot believed all right. They were more frightened of taking me to my death than I was of going!"

"Oh," said Susan. "So that's why they both ran away."

"Eh? What's that?" said the Dwarf.

"They got away," Dawn said. "To the mainland."

"I wasn't shooting to kill, you know," said Susan.

"It's alright, Susan," Dawn said as she placed a comforting hand on the older girl's arm. "Buffy and I are Slayers, Buffy has taken a human life, she didn't like it any more than you would. It's okay to shoot to disarm."

Susan looked at Dawn appreciatively.

"Hm," said the Dwarf. "That's not so good. That may mean trouble later on. Unless they hold their tongues for their own sake."

"What were they going to drown you for?" Buffy asked.

"Oh, I'm a dangerous criminal, I am," said the Dwarf cheerfully. "But that's a long story. Meantime, I was wondering if perhaps you were going to ask me to breakfast? You've no idea what an appetite it gives one, being executed."

"There's only apples," said Lucy dolefully.

"Better than nothing, but not so good as fresh fish," said the Dwarf. "It looks as if I'll have to ask you to breakfast instead. I saw some fishing tackle in that boat. And anyway, we must take her round to the other side of the island. We don't want anyone from the mainland coming down and seeing her."

"Buffy, we ought to have thought of that ourselves," said Peter looking at his wife.

"Well we were more concerned about our new friend, my love," Buffy said giving her husband a knowing look.

"You are of course correct, Buffy," said Peter.

They went down to the water's edge and Buffy and Dawn pushed off the boat with relative ease, and they all scrambled aboard. The Dwarf at once took charge. The oars were of course too big for him to use, so Buffy and Dawn rowed and the Dwarf steered them north along the channel and presently eastward round the tip of the island.

When they had come round into open sea on the east of the island, the Dwarf took to fishing. They had an excellent catch of fish which Buffy, Peter, Edmund, Lucy and Susan all remembered eating in Cair Paravel in the old days. When they had caught enough, they ran the boat up into a little creek and moored her to a tree.

The Dwarf cut the fish open, cleaned them, and said:

"Now, what we want next is some firewood."

"We've got some up at the castle," said Edmund.

The Dwarf gave a low whistle. "Beards and bedsteads!" he said. "So there really is a castle, after all?"

"It's only a ruin," said Lucy.

The Dwarf stared round at all six of them with a very curious expression on his face. "And who on earth—?" he began, but then broke off and said. "No matter. Breakfast first. But one thing before we go on. Can you lay your hand on your hearts and tell me I'm really alive? Are you sure I wasn't drowned and we're not all ghosts together?"

When they had all reassured him, the next question was how to carry the fish. They had nothing to string them on and no basket. They had to use Edmund's hat in the end because no one else had a hat. He would have made much more fuss about this if he had not by now been so ravenously hungry.

At first the Dwarf did not seem very comfortable in the castle. He kept looking round and sniffing and saying, "Hm. Looks a bit spooky after all. Smells like ghosts, too." But he cheered up when it came to lighting the fire and roasting the fresh fish in the embers. When everyone had finished off their meal with a drink from the well and an apple or so, the Dwarf produced a pipe about the size of his own arm, filled it, lit it, blew a great cloud of fragrant smoke, and said, "Now."

"You tell us your story first," said Peter. "And then we'll tell you ours."

"Well," said the Dwarf, "as you've saved my life it is only fair you should have your own way. But I hardly know where to begin. First of all, I'm a messenger of King Caspian's."

"Who's he?" asked six voices all at once.

"Caspian the Tenth, King of Narnia, and long may he reign!" answered the Dwarf. "That is to say, he ought to be King of Narnia and we hope he will be. At present he is only King of us Old Narnians—"

"What do you mean by old Narnians, please?" asked Dawn.

"Why, that's us," said the Dwarf. "We're a kind of rebellion, I suppose."

"I see," said Peter. "And Caspian is the chief Old Narnian."

"Well, in a manner of speaking," said the Dwarf, scratching his head. "But he's really a New Narnian himself, a Telmarine, if you follow me."

"We don't," said Buffy.

"It's worse than the Wars of the Roses," said Lucy.

"Oh dear," said the Dwarf. "I'm doing this very badly. Look here: I think I'll have to go right back to the beginning and tell you how Caspian grew up in his uncle's court and how he comes to be on our side at all. But it'll be a long story."

"All the better," said Lucy. "We love stories."

So, the Dwarf settled down and told his tale.

Author's Note: For the Dwarf's story, please read the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. I see no point for me to retell it here.