Chapter Text
The idea of launching a covert attack on the Witch and her creatures as they squat in the murky dells below the ford is tempting. One of the centaurs might even take her out with an arrow from the sheltering juniper above, and it would all be over. Neither Edmund nor I would have to climb that slab of granite.
But what price does a witch's lifeblood carry? Cosmic upheaval or simple realignment of a few heavenly bodies?
I, for one, do not care to test that particular strain of deep magic.
I attempt to explain it to Peter, the eldest, whose clothing still reeks of the wolf Maugrim's blood. He sits cross-legged in the grass beside me, his fingers resting along the hilt of his sword, his eyes steady but distant.
"Narnian magic is a balancing act," I tell him, and he listens but I know his young mind is on the battlefield (of Narnia or of his anathematized Europe? I do not know, nor does it concern me, not now). I continue regardless: "What is owed cannot be denied without cost. The Witch is a part of that balancing act."
"She's a murderer."
"A receptacle. The price of treason in Narnia is blood; the very land beneath you stakes its integrity on prices paid, cosmic balance achieved. And payment must be received by someone."
The human boy looks ready to take a swing at me. His grip tightens around the hilt of his sword. His freckled cheeks, which have barely begun to slim into their adult shape, flush ruddy. "She wants to kill my brother."
"I know."
"And you'd let her try? For some old spell you don't even believe in?"
He's a petulant youth, much like I was, I suppose. Perhaps that's why emotion licks so warmly in my chest at his words. Why I give him the gentlest hint of a growl, no more than a guttural thud in the back of my throat. Why he doesn't shrink from me at the sound.
"I could kill her," he says, and for the first time he's looking me squarely in the eye. Until now, I hadn't been certain he had it in him. "She's just sitting down there in her camp."
"Surrounded by hags, minotaurs, ogres, and ghouls."
"Your soldiers would follow me. I know they would. We could do it together, we could end this whole thing tonight."
I rise up then, and the human boy mirrors me, jumping to his feet. He's tall for his age, I think, but his sandy mop of hair still only comes up to my whiskers. He's skinny, and the pale knees showing below the cuff of his old brown shorts are mottled with bruises.
He is a child, and I think he has forgotten this. Not his fault, I remind myself.
"I won't let her take Edmund," he says.
I tell him: "After tonight, the Witch will have no use for Edmund."
The boy's expression falters. His narrow shoulders sag beneath his loose sweater. "You're really going through with it? You'll trust the future of Narnia to this... this... " He scowls, searching for the term I've given him.
"Deeper magic," I say. "And I'm not trusting the future of Narnia to magic; I'm trusting it to you."
He looks away again, turning his back, though not before I glimpse the flash of his tears. He does not speak again, and I leave him to think it through on his own. He really is as stubborn as I, and there's no use arguing with him. Humans are like that, so very like gods without the faculty, the integrity.
Don't try to fool yourself, you old housecat... you haven't felt like a god in a good long time.
I spend the rest of the afternoon embroiled in the heart of camp, conferencing in passing with the centaurs and fauns. Here, along the burgeoning ford, flags crack the breeze and the youngest human, Lucy, follows me around like a puppy more often than not. She doesn't speak much, which is all right by me, though I wish she wouldn't hover quite so close. Were she just a little younger, I think she might have been trying to catch and tug my tail.
Passing the children's tent, I can hear Edmund whimpering in his sleep, no doubt with his head nestled on his older sister Susan's lap. He has been with us since morning, sleeping off and on, his bony body shifting between bouts of cold sweat and burning fevers. Susan and the Beavers have remained near him always, towels on hand, spoon-feeding him gulps of water between rests. Mr. Beaver ducks out of the tent now, wiping his brow and carrying Edmund's discarded clothing.
"He's sleeping as peacefully as he can now," Beaver informs me with a weary smile. "He's washed and dressed in something much softer and kinder than this old sackcloth from... whatsitcalled again, Lucy m'dear?"
Lucy, from her haunt near my left elbow, replies, "England."
"Ing-Land, of course. Well, meaning no offense to poor old Ing-Land, naturally, but these rags will make better tinder for a fire to warm our Edmund through the chilly spring night than they made clothes suitable for a young lad."
"How is his fever?" I ask.
The Beaver's whisker's twitch in thought. "Er... up and down. M'lord, perhaps you could have a look at him? Just to make sure there's nothing else we might be doing for him?"
I leave Lucy to help the Beavers gather some supper things for their group. I duck into the children's tent, where Susan has also dozed off, slumped on the cot beside her younger brother. Edmund, a skeleton beneath a wool blanket, shudders in fitful slumber, his knees tucked into the crook of his body. He's blanched but shiny with sweat. He hasn't slept a full night, I suppose, in over a week. Subsisted on whatever scraps the Witch had tossed into his cell (what does a half-giantess eat anyway? Her icy reign hadn't exactly cultivated a land rich in agricultural possibility).
Looking at Edmund now, I see the damage of days spent in captivity, frostburned and unfed, with several cuts and bruises left untreated long enough to harbor infection. Then he stiffens and whimpers against his pillow, and I realize that some of the damp on his face comes not from sweat but tears, and then all I can see is the fear.
This child has been through hell even I cannot fathom. Not yet.
But night is drawing in around Narnia's weary shoulders. The last night. It won't be long now.