Warning for minor character death.
We had lost too much. Caspian, this conquering king, slaughtered Narnian after Narnian with all the determination of a man razing a civilization to its roots.
There was one thing I, Tilfire the Dwarf, was determined not to lose. One thing I would not let this race of men take.
The table where Aslan had once been slain for one of the race of men.
The promise that evil's power could be broken.
I went there every restday, stumping myself up the hill, crawling through the hole in the underbrush, just to see it. Sometimes to touch it, to run my hand in the letters carved deep into the stone; to remember they'd been wet with the Lion's blood, once.
But He'd won. Somehow, by that death, He'd won over a great power. This Caspian—his time would come. The table reminded me that his time might not come for a hundred years, but it would come. The table was the promise.
I wouldn't let us lose it.
But I knew too, that too many Narnians together would bring the army down on us. We were already fading into hiding, trying to preserve what was left. It might be a choice between preserving the table—or preserving our lives.
It was time to talk to the neighbours. To gather them into my house, as it was the only one large enough.
Ally the Mole, and her six brothers; three Black Dwarfs, who didn't set their short swords down when they entered the door; Basil the Stag; the six timid Fauns; a Badger; and a family of Rabbits I didn't see often.
I didn't have food for us all, but we passed around fresh water and some berries, and people calmed a bit. The Rabbits especially; their ears and noses stopped twitching.
After everyone had a mouthful, I stood up. "Caspian's army is a six day march away," I said quietly, and the room went silent. "The scouts are three days out. They seem to be heading away from us, at least for now."
"Keep our heads down," Digen the Black Dwarf growled. "We might survive this."
"We could," I answered slowly. "But there's something I want to do. And none of you need help, if you don't want to. Only it's fair to give you warning. The last time the army came by, they nearly found the Table."
"We know," a Faun interrupted. "You say that every time!"
"I don't want them to find it, so I intend to hide it. I don't think I'll get a better chance than this."
The room fell silent.
"For a broken table?" Digen's brother demanded, voice getting louder. "For the broken sign of a broken promise? You'd risk all our lives?"
"The promise isn't broken!" I yelled back, and then tried to calm myself. "I know you don't agree. You don't have to help. And I've put a good bit of food away; if any of you want to stay here, and not go out, I'll stay away. But you should know to be careful."
"And if we want to help?" the Badger Leafseeker asked, voice deep but soft.
"Then I'd welcome it."
"The more of you that help, the bigger the fuss!" Digen's brother shot back, though Digen laid a hand on his arm to calm him.
"Fighting among ourselves is doing Caspian's work for him." Turning to me, Digen held my gaze. "You're going to be stubborn about this?"
"I've decided," I answered quietly.
"How?" Basil asked, voice quavering. "How are you going to hide it? It's too heavy to move, unless all of us—"
"We won't," three of the Fauns said at once. "It's not worth the risk."
"I don't think it was meant to be moved. But I intend to raise a hill over it. I can get the dirt from the nearby shore, once I've built the pillars for a room, and laid some planking down over the top. I don't know how long it will take me, to get it up the hill, but I mean to raise the top over the table."
"I—I can help carry it." Basil flushed, ducking his head. "I'd be glad to help."
"I'll help arrange the stone pillars," Leafseeker offered.
"All of us will help dig the dirt, and carry it if Basil needs the help." Ally looked round at her brothers. "Won't we?" I couldn't help the smile—my first in a while—as they nodded. Moles would make the digging go much, much faster.
"You won't need to help Basil carry it; that'll be our job. Dwarfs have legs made for marching." Digen nodded to them. He shook his brother's arm as his brother opened his mouth. "It's going to happen anyway; the faster it's done, the safer we are," he pointed out, and his brother closed his mouth, scowling. "We begin tomorrow?"
"But that doesn't let us help," the quietest of the Fauns interjected, though quietly. Two of the others nodded.
"You can be our lookouts," I said, voice quiet. "Eat and walk outside, keeping an eye out for any movement, any Son of Adam, in the woods. If they come, we stop—for the time being."
"Halfway through? You think they won't notice a great big thing being built?" Leafseeker objected.
"That'll be Aslan's business," I rejoined quietly. "If He wants it done, He'll keep it safe."
No one had anything to say to that, so one by one the guests slipped out, leaving only the family of Rabbits. They'd been murmuring to each other, and now the father hopped forward. "There's not much we can do," he said, glancing over his shoulder with one wide eye. "We'll fetch what stones we can, and bring them. But after—after it's built—let us know. We'll bring clover seeds, roots from grass, and other things. We will water it. If we grow it over the hill—"
"No one will ever find it." I stooped down to one knee and smiled at him. "It's very well thought of." He nodded and his family hopped off.
I hadn't thought I'd get that much help. But maybe others had been making the pilgrimage too. Maybe they knew how much we needed hope.
When Narnians—Old Narnians, maybe I should call them—went to work, they worked with a will. Within three days, with Basil, the Rabbits, and even the three Fauns fetching stones, we had pillars in place, and Leafseeker and I put the planks over them. We didn't dare nail them in place, but Digen had a glue he'd made that would last for two or three years—long enough for the dirt to harden, we hoped.
Then we brought the dirt. Up and down the hill, up with a heavy sack of dirt on my back, down with an empty one to go get more.
The first day we covered the top of the planking. The Fauns hadn't seen anyone, and I began to hope there wouldn't be a problem.
The second day we had a thin layer over the entire mound, barely enough to cover it.
The third it was a little thicker, and Leafseaker began building the foundations for the tunnels. The other three Dwarfs lined them with stone, while the rest of us kept bringing dirt. The Rabbits jumped on it, up and down all day long, packing it in place. But we were slowing, tired, for the hill was very long.
The fourth, the three Fauns came running up. They'd seen a scout riding in the forest. All of us stopped, silently making our way back to my house. None of us talked about it; we just all ended up there, and I thanked Aslan for the stockpile of hard, dried food. We wouldn't go hungry.
The next morning, we knew we needed news, but also that it was dangerous to go out. Basil and the father Rabbit went out, in the end, arguing they blended in better than any Faun or Dwarf; and Leafseeker couldn't move quickly.
They came back safely, Basil having seen two scouts riding half a day away through a valley. We thanked Aslan—even Digen's brother—for their safe return, and asked for their safety tomorrow.
They went out, but Mr. Rabbit came back at noon. He'd met a Robin, and the Robin said the army was moving past us, should be gone in two days. They'd stayed south, and we should be fine, if we stayed hidden.
We sighed in relief, and waited for Basil.
When he came, blood dripped from his flanks. An arrow wound, he said. The scouts wanted food. But he cried as he said it, and told us that they'd caught the other three Fauns, the ones who weren't with us.
The three remaining Fauns burst into tears, hands over their mouths to muffle the noise. We all wept together, though Digen turned towards the wall. He asked if there was any chance of rescue, and Basil shook his head. We didn't ask more. But the Rabbits, Basil, and Leafseeker slept around the three Fauns that night.
For two days, we mourned together. Leafseeker guided it best, having us tell stories of the three that were no longer here; helping us to remember them.
On the third, Mr. Rabbit went out again. He went cautiously, keeping hidden at all times, he told us later. And he saw that the army had moved on. He didn't see any scouts, nor the Robin.
We waited one more day, just to be sure, and went with trembling hands to the mound. Would it still be there? Would it be gone?
The walk up the hill had never seemed so long. Basil could not take it for long, despite his wound, for halfway up he started running, and the rest of us could not keep up. But his cry of joy, It's here! It's here! brought the rest of us running as well, panting, bent over when we reached the top. There it stood, and it had rained, some of the dirt had washed away, but not much. All of the stones were still in place, and the Black Dwarfs went to them at once. But I noticed that now they nudged Leafseeker as well as each other; and I saw that the others made their way up and down the hill with easier strides. We had needed rest. I tried to remember that, to remember that even out of very evil things, Aslan can work good.
We had five days of work, the dirt thick enough it looked like a hill instead of a building, and I decreed a day of rest. The Black Dwarfs, especially grumbled at this, but I said we could eat at the mound, or in the mound, if the tunnels were ready, but we needed rest.
That day, staring at the sky, or at our work, or inside, looking at the table, quiet sometimes and talking at others—it felt more like peace than any day since Caspian's invasion.
The next day we worked again. The Rabbits, especially the kits, began bringing seeds, eating half of them, but sowing the others and watering them. Most of us moved to the inside of the mound, working on tunnels, shoring up walls, pushing dirt in so nothing would collapse, and bringing in trees for pillars.
Or, most of us did. But one time, as I dragged a large rock in, grunting, I paused to lean my sweaty self against it and heard something. A soft, regular scratching, or dragging, and I pushed myself off the rock and went to see if a tunnel had collapsed.
I found Digen's brother, a bag of tools behind him and a torch stuck between two rocks, carefully etching the inside of the rock. He whirled when he saw me, froze, and then glanced down at his hands. I paused, considering him, and then walked up behind him to look at what he was etching.
He was carving the story of Aslan singing Narnia into creation into letters, sometimes pictures, on the stone.
I opened my mouth, and hesitated. Any encouragement I said might make him stop. So I closed my mouth, patted his shoulder, and went on my way.
We worked on the mound for the next week. As it grew more stable, more of the Dwarfs stopped working and began etching. The third copied the broken words from the table; Digen, who had more talent for pictures, tried to portray Aslan. His brother kept writing stories.
I didn't join in. I liked what they were doing, but my work was the mound itself, and I kept at it. Aslan had sent us days of good sunshine, nights where the dew fell, and the grass and clover were springing up over the top. Already the hill wouldn't be noticed from the distance. Many would say my work was done.
But I had a nagging sense it wasn't, and so I began tunnelling into the existing hill. Ally and her brothers joined me without asking, and I thought they might have the same sensation. We'd built this to hide the Table, to save it, but now I thought it might be more, a hiding place for the Old Narnians, the ones who believed. Maybe even the ones who didn't; Digen's brother, whose name I finally learned was Doldum, had carved all our names and the names of the three Fauns into the largest tunnel, running in a straight line one after the other. Underneath, at the beginning, he'd carved the family of workers.
We'd made three large rooms, supported with pillars, when a shout from Basil brought us running to the top tunnel. At first I couldn't see anything, and the ones behind me kept pushing, but then I saw the Sparrow, panting on the floor.
"The army's coming," he panted. "I flew as hard as I could to reach you—the Robin told me just before he died, that you were here—they're a day and a half away, and the scouts are already out!"
We looked at each other in silence for a moment.
"I've got one last word to carve," Doldum said slowly.
"I wanted to dig one more tunnel," Ally's youngest brother added.
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath. Then I stepped forward and scooped the Sparrow up in my hands. "We wanted to hide the Table," I told them all, my back turned so I didn't have to see their faces. Their pain would not be made any easier by seeing mine. "It is hidden. Now it is time for our lives. Take everything you want and put it in the bags we used for dirt—but only what you can carry on a march. Basil, Leafseeker, hide the largest entrance with dead limbs. Mr. Rabbit, you and your family hide the smallest with bushes. Digen, you take the others and hide the third. Use stones if you need to. But hide them. We'll meet by this entrance in an hour."
"Where are you going?" Digen growled, even as I heard him turn to obey.
"I'm going to get food." I put the Sparrow on my shoulder. "Rest, friend. And thank you for your warning. You'd be welcome to go with us, if you wish." I felt his head nod against my hair.
It wasn't a long walk to my house, and I kept an eye out for scouts. I'd gotten very good at carrying a weight in a bag, and so I filled three of them to the brim with food, thanking Aslan while I did that Basil had healed enough to go with us at a good pace. I knew the work would be done when I got back.
I didn't take anything else from my home, just pulled the door shut and disguised it. Aslan had given me a family to take with me, and that was enough.
I just prayed we'd all make it farther north alive.
Ten generations later, the How contained not only the promise of the past, but the hope of the future. If he could have seen it, Tilfire would have been so thankful.
Prompt 19: The Stone Table is an odd piece—words of justice carved into it, a How raised over it, vanishing from history—pick a point in time and tell a tale where the Stone Table makes an appearance.