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[fic] Along the Midnight Edge 6/14
Title: Along the Midnight Edge
Rating: 18
Genre: drama, romance
Pairings: Edmund/Caspian
Wordcount: 80k
Warnings: it is rated 18 for potentially disturbing themes
Summary: Narnia ended a mere two hundred years after Caspian’s reign, as though he was the climax of her 2,500 years’ history. He was. There were stories unfolding in Narnia of which none of her rulers were aware, and stories must run their natural course, even though their heroes are dead.
[CHAPTER SIX -- I Dream’d in a Dream]
Edmund opened the bathroom door expecting to find Caspian and Lucy conversing about some secret matter, over a bubble bath, likely drawing lots for who would be the first to use it. Instead he found them submerged in a steaming, emerald pool, which made him recall the hot springs of Archenland from Narnia’s golden age.
“Edmund!” Lucy called joyfully. “Come on in, the water is wonderful.”
“I can see that.”
“I’m done, but you are welcome to take all the time you need,” she said, standing up.
Edmund nearly tripped in attempting to avert his eyes, first from Lucy’s naked body, then from Caspian’s face. Then it proved to be confusing, so he closed his eyes and ceased moving. “Please tell me you’re decent, Lu.”
“I’m always decent.”
“Walking naked out of a bath in the presence of men is not what most people would describe as decent.”
“No, running out of a bath into a crowded room naked wouldn’t be decent,” Lucy said.
Edmund dared to open an eye. He was relieved when he found her securely wrapped in a large, fluffy towel.
“Besides, you two don’t count as men.”
“You know, I think that merits a challenge.”
Lucy laughed. “Oh, you know what I mean.”
“Yes. Thank you. Now go.”
“Of course.” She went, locking the door behind her. “Key’s under the door!” she yelled from the other side.
“I hate my family.”
“I hate her family too.”
“Do shut up,” Edmund said, casually peeling the shirt off his back. It was moist, and stiff, as though the rain had been cold enough to freeze it solid. The bandages on his chest were no better. They gave him a moment’s pause, but beneath the bandages the wound was a narrow, red mark, not quite healed, but closed.
Edmund entertained the notion of having to wring himself like a damp rag, should the wound open underwater, but decided not to bother with it. He was in no danger of bleeding to death, which was a small mercy, and Coriakin, being a wizard, should have some healing magic handy. “Would you look away please?”
“No.” Caspian folded his arms on the edge of the pool, rested his chin atop them, and stared up at Edmund. It was small consolation to have him fixate on the scar when Edmund shed his clothes, but it was something.
“Peter tells me I was being unfair,” Edmund started, when the hot water enveloped him and drove the last of the cold rain out of his bones.
“This is why Peter is useful to have around. Sometimes.”
“As opposed to you, who is useful to have around never.”
“I’m always useful to have around,” Caspian whispered, directly into Edmund’s ear. Fingers skimmed the mark on Edmund’s chest, inciting a flutter of sparks within, as though something infinitely soft and gentle reached into his chest to stroke his heart. “Dare to deny it.”
Edmund didn’t. “Caspian…”
“You are being unfair. You are an idiot. You are missing things that are obvious.”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Then why do you insist on devaluing what I feel for you?” Edmund frowned, but Caspian didn’t let him speak. “Do you think I would be sad if I should lose you? Do you think I would be hurt?”
“I do, yes.”
“Then you are wrong. Ed-- honestly. If what Coriakin says is true and a promise whispered in the throes of passion, ages ago, when we were but boys, is strong enough to rival the magic of a star, is still strong enough to keep us together in death, how do you think I would feel if I lost you?”
Edmund found no reply, though whether it was because the argument was compelling, or because Caspian was looking at him as though he wished to convey the untold misery that would become his life, he wasn’t sure. He wanted to say a hundred things -- that the promise made was honest, when the marital vow was not; that the affection was strong and true, but this was heaven, it was bound to enhance what they felt. That perhaps it was wishful thinking that led them to this place; that they spent their lives remembering a friendship and love that, through the virtue of being doomed from the start, grew in their minds so no other could rival it.
Fortunately Caspian pulled him underwater just then, to the bottom of the pool. They kissed and reason evaporated. Edmund might have forgotten how to feel, then, surrounded by water, and light, and Caspian, or he was nothing but feeling. He was the water against his own skin, bubbles of air escaping his lips, Caspian’s hands in his hair, Caspian’s hard body against his, Caspian and him, and warmth, and nothing whatsoever in the universe but the two of them, tangled in liquid emerald.
When they surfaced, Edmund discovered he was terrified. Just as he had known on the bridge that should he fall Caspian would follow, he knew now that the promise was irreversible, and that there was no recovery for either of them.
“I can’t think any other way,” he said. “Sorry.”
Caspian smiled at him tenderly, brushed the wet hair out of his eyes. “I know,” he said softly and the smile, the radiance of his eyes, was such that Edmund found himself stripped of all but the want and need. How could he ever live without Caspian, he wondered as he rested his forehead against Caspian’s collarbone and breathed him in. His fingers skimmed the edge of the water, brushing against Caspian’s chest. Edmund pressed his lips to the place where his fingers had been, flicking his tongue at the skin, already made sensitive by the heat of the water.
It was gratifying to hear a moan, feel the shudder that accompanied it.
In the old days, this had been the power that he exuded over his lovers. It had been a game, a test, a learning experience, very rarely fun. He learned so much by watching people come undone at his hands, while he retained a clear head, even when the pleasure had been overwhelming.
It was so different with Caspian. He felt he was just as lost as those others must have been, because the control was never fully his. He could have walked away from anyone, leave them begging and desperate, just leave, and not look back. With Caspian the need to touch was as strong as the need to be touched in return. He couldn’t even contemplate leaving, no matter the price he would have to pay. He understood now, truly, what it meant to put his life in another’s hands, something that had eluded him previously.
They tried to remain standing, but sheer enthusiasm kept toppling them over and this, too, was fine, when there was no worry about running out of breath, or even needing to breathe. Edmund smiled. Caspian’s hand was in his hair, the other trailing everywhere he could reach, but that was fair, when Edmund himself couldn’t decide where he wanted -- where he needed -- to touch and be touched.
There was wonder and terror and love and fear and with the terror there had to be a little bit of hate, because Edmund hated this, hated being out of control, hated feeling like he was drowning and losing himself, even when it was by his own choice, even if it was to Caspian, even if he could no longer live without having this.
*****
Coriakin was a gracious host, but with each hour spent in his home the tension grew exponentially. By the morning after their arrival tempers were flaring.
“There must be somewhere to go,” Peter said, after Lucy succinctly ended Caspian’s diatribe against womenfolk, by insulting his parentage. “Anything at all. Let us hunt dragons, even.”
“I concur,” Edmund said. He chose to remain mostly silent. Something still nagged at him, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. Lilliandil’s zeal was understandable and he would take the chance to destroy her, should he get one (surely Rilian would balk from taking two lives without his mother to guide him through it), but there seemed to be a piece missing from the tale.
“We’ll be having company,” Coriakin said then. He spent little time away from his crystal ball. “Soon.”
All present shot to their feet. “Is it Lilliandil?”
“No, not her. Your friends, instead -- I recognise Eustace, and he is accompanied by a young lady and a dark-faced man.”
“They are fine then!” Lucy said, clapping her hands in glee. “That is wonderful!”
“When will they arrive?”
“Within the hour, though they must be welcomed outside, otherwise they will walk right past here.”
“I shall go,” Edmund said immediately.
“No,” Caspian and Peter said in unison.
“I would thank you not to make an invalid of me. I am perfectly capable of walking, and I didn’t say I need to go alone.”
“It is better to play it safe,” Peter said.
“Safe? We are speaking about venturing outside for ten minutes, while our friend the magicians looks to it that we are not surprised by actual peril, unless I’m much mistaken!”
Coriakin laughed at that. “Such assistance as I can, I will provide. A fair warning you can count on.”
“There is your hideous bad luck to consider,” Caspian pointed out, sensibly, in an unwelcome change from his usual hot-headed demeanour. “You have been attacked by everything that crossed our path since last morning.”
Edmund wondered at that, for the dragon clearly did not intend to attack him. It wasn’t possible that he was the only one to notice, was it? “That is hardly fair,” he said meanwhile. “Neither Jill nor Emeth had done nothing to indicate they were against me as well, unless I am even less liked than I anticipated.”
“Certainly you have no friends among his family,” Peter said, indicating Caspian.
“Possibly because the only member of my family Edmund has had the pleasure of meeting was my uncle, who counted very few among his friends and would kill them all regardless, were it to his advantage.”
“Caspian, denial is said not to be healthy for the mind. I wish you would confront reality now and then.”
This went on for some time. Edmund retreated into the corner to observe as his brother and Caspian exchanged pleasantries. This never ceased to amuse him, how much genuine (though exasperated) affection and mutual respect they had to battle to stand against one another delivering insult after insult.
He wondered how would anyone even bother with television, when they could have such entertainment available in colour and with much better reception.
Coriakin approached, taking great care to choose a seat next to Edmund, but no so close that there would be danger of physical contact. A fat kettle of hot tea drifted their way, following the magician. Behind it trailed cups and a plateful of biscuits.
“Thank you,” Edmund said, raising a freshly poured cup to his lips.
“You know why the dragon avoided you,” Coriakin said quietly.
“I can wager a guess,” Edmund said.
“I mustn’t speak too much. I’m sorry. You must remember, however, that what happened to you is unnatural, and wrong. There shall be many creatures that would avoid your touch.”
Edmund turned to the arguing pair in the middle of the room. “They don’t.”
“They are not threatened by it.”
“Yet you are.”
Coriakin started and shook his head. “Aye. I am. You must forgive me for the distance. I speak to you in warning, too. It is important that you not press the issue, if you stand against a creature that recoils from you, for were you to break, you would be destroyed along with the one who did the breaking.”
“Can it be healed?”
“Not here, certainly not now. Maybe, were the country whole again… But I dare not speculate on the matter. Souls are foreign to me.”
Edmund closed his eyes and let his mind drift. “What Rilian did -- what he tried to do. Was it safe for him?”
“I can say little. He is a strange creature to me, stranger even than he is to you. Although he has no soul, he has a human heart, and that is to me inexplicable, for I was taught that the heart and the soul of a living creature are one. He feels, that much is certain. He feels not with the cold affinity of the stars, but with the passion and mindless zeal that is so characteristic of your species.”
“How else but ‘mindless zeal’ would you describe Lilliandil’s actions, I wonder.”
“She is a mother,” Coriakin said again and Edmund had it in mind to protest, for Lilliandil’s actions went beyond what most mothers he’d met would do, but he refrained from voicing his doubts. Coriakin had the air of a man who speaks the words he doesn’t fully understand, because he feels that it is the only explanation, even though he cannot fully comprehend it himself.
“In many ways Rilian is stronger than a star would be. He stands to be here without consequences, when myself and Lilliandil die a little for every day we spend in your heaven.”
Edmund looked to him in horror. “Surely not!”
“This is quite true, unfortunately. This is not a place meant for the stars -- we are as shadows in the land of fire. Lilliandil is here, because she had chosen the human life and must therefore see it to the end, though through what magic she was delivered here, I cannot tell. Rilian… your guess is as good as mine.”
“Why are you here?”
“Punishment,” the magician said wryly. “It is not for me to tell why.”
“Well, for whom is to tell, then?” Edmund asked with a quirk of his brow.
Coriakin laughed, avoiding the question altogether.
Before them, Peter and Caspian progressed to the geographical stage of their fight: to insults overheard on markets and streets of the foreign lands they have both visited in their time. They would usually start this stage in the fish markets of Beruna, then proceed to Archenland and from there to Calormen’s crowded alleys. The progression was always linear, and always unanimous, as though it was important to use only the epithets that matched the chosen region.
“You both realise that Lucy went out ten minutes ago, right?” Edmund said casually, interrupting a carefully woven string of elaborate metaphors that would bring shame to the dirtiest lowlife of a slavers’ den.
“She wouldn’t have!” Peter said.
“Shows the respect you get among your consorts.” Caspian folded his hands across his chest.
“At least none of mine wish to kill me.”
“They prefer to pretend you aren’t there, instead.”
“I confess, I often wondered about there being two kings, ruling side by side, even with queens to balance them out,” Coriakin said. “I am not too knowledgeable on the subject of the human mind, but from what I glean two men in position of power must clash, more often than not.”
Edmund smiled. “It does confuse most people. Certainly it would result in tears and regicide in most cases. Me, I thought it was a splendid way to have my will done while my brother had to sign for it.”
“I see.”
Presently, the door opened and Lucy walked through, followed by Jill, Eustace and Emeth. All three of them looked like they had no good news.
“Please say you have a solution in store,” Peter said. “Because we only managed to learn that it is worse than it seemed.”
“Welcome,” Edmund said, stepping in front of his brother. “I trust your trip was less eventful than ours?”
“We were attacked by a dragon, if that’s what you mean. Thankfully it went after someone else.”
“I’m sure the other person appreciated it.”
“Well, there were more of them, and they were better armed. I have no regrets,” Eustace said, instantly betraying he was worried sick about the unfortunate armed party.
“How did it go?”
“We didn’t get to England,” Jill said. “The bridge was closed on the other side, so we couldn’t get through.”
“There’s no way out?”
“It’s worse,” Eustace said. “The bridge is gone. It started folding when we were close to the other side, and then we had to run to make it back. It disappeared completely once we were back here.”
Peter looked troubled. “Then there is no place to go, regardless of Edmund.”
“Thank you.”
“I would thank you to quit speaking altogether. We are in a fair amount of trouble and your attitude helps no one.”
“It makes me feel better.”
“In that case, can you utter your comments where no one can hear them?”
“But where would the improvement of my mood come from, then?”
“We did find out something,” Eustace said reluctantly. “If you can call it that.”
“Which was?”
“We met a centaur. Can’t recall his name; it was ridiculously complicated. He said that this is part of a grander scheme, much grander than we could hope to understand.”
“That’s all?”
“He said he himself had no idea. That’s what it sounded like to me. He said he’d been considering the movement of the stars all his life, back in Narnia, and that there was opportunity for the study to continue here; he said he watched them move across the sky from the beginning of Narnia to her end, and that that there was something he couldn’t understand, that happened when Rillian was living. It was as though the stars were watching, he said.”
“Of course they would,” Jill said. “His mother was one of them. Why wouldn’t they watch?”
“What would Rilian have to do with it?” Caspian asked. “He is… Well, whatever he is, he lived as a human and he died as a human.”
“What did you mean by worse?” Eustace sat down, accepting a cup of tea. “Can it be worse?”
“It can, apparently. It turns out it’s not about hating Edmund, but that Lilliandil wants Caspian’s soul for Rilian’s sake, and Edmund owns it presently,” Lucy said.
Edmund would gladly hide under the table, when the three newcomers turned to look at him with horror and pity in their eyes. Peter had, thankfully, taken it upon himself to flesh out the tale, and by the end Eustace was whistling through his teeth.
“That doesn’t bide well,” he said. “I wonder, why would Rilian go through with it at all? He’s a fair bloke. He wouldn’t just decide to kill someone, especially not his own father.”
“He seemed almost normal when we were there. Friendly, too. But that at least, shouldn’t be surprising,” Jill said. “I mean, he was enchanted for ten years, wasn’t he? There’s no way a man can be wholly sane, not after something like that. Sometimes I worry I still hear the witch’s voice, and I have seen her maybe twice. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was still enchanted.” She paused and then spoke in a hushed, frightened voice. “You don’t suppose he is still under the spell?”
“The witch is long dead,” Eustace said.
“Yes, but you’ve seen her! She was poison and he was there for ten years! I rather think one day spent there would be enough for her to seep into him enough poison, to last a lifetime. Maybe he’s still wrong for it, somehow, and that’s why it was so easy for Lilliandil to get him to go along with her revenge.”
Edmund smiled, though inwardly he felt as though he was back in the white sled, with his fingers and lips dusted with white sugar, while Peter and Lucy gasped and waved their arms in an effort to quiet her. Jill was more right than she could suspect. The poison never quite went away. It lay dormant until the darkest hour, when it rose from its bed and seeped into a man, taking his peace away, taking on the face of a woman, offering everything he wanted, the world at his feet, if he would just submit. He saw the witch’s face many times in his life and through her words he had seen it all slipping away, torn, bloodied, beaten, by his owns hands and the world drowned in blood and tears.
“I am fine,” he said eventually in response to Caspian’s worried stare.
“What did I say?” Jill whispered to Eustace, who shrugged.
“So, what do we do?” Peter asked, pacing around the room. “We can’t fight Lilliandil. Even if she wouldn’t kill, she is fully capable of getting past the lot of us. We have no idea how to stop her. We have no idea how to kill her. We have nothing whatsoever to bargain with. Does anyone have any ideas?”
Edmund opened his mouth.
“Anyone who isn’t Edmund?”
“I resent your disregarding my contribution, before you actually hear it.”
“I don’t have to listen to it, to know what you were going to say.”
“Really? Because what I was about to say is that there is merit in going to the dead world, still.”
Peter stared at him, speechless.
“I am not a martyr, Pete, honestly. Where did you get that idea?”
“Why the dead world, though?”
“Lucy said there were spells written before the world was made. If there’s anyone who’d bother writing things down before a world is made, then I imagine the same person would find it necessary to conclude its existence with words as well. Maybe there is something there that we can use.”
“That’s a pretty large assumption, Ed.”
“Would you like to consider my other ideas?”
“Do you have other ideas?”
“None that you would like.”
“If my opinion is of any value,” Coriakin said, “I would say Edmund’s plan is wise. Narnia is a world of stories; they had been written throughout her existence, they must be written down somewhere. There may well be something to bargain with.”
“Where would they be written?” Peter started asking, but Lucy was already speaking.
“The Stone Table!” she said. “That’s where the spells were written, Aslan said so.”
“Any nays?” Peter looked around the room, but there was nothing. “It is settled, then.”
There were things to consider, before their departure. They were dead, naturally -- there was no fear that anything but the knife Rilian carried could hurt them. Yet there was wisdom in making sure discomfort was kept to a minimum.
“I nearly froze, or I thought I would, when I closed the door. We need clothes, lots of them,” Peter said in no uncertain terms.
Thankfully, though heaven no longer sought to provide everything they desired, there were benefits to being in a magician’s care. Coriakin was willing to give them whatever equipment they found necessary; weapons they already had.
“Have you a map of Narnia, perhaps? And a compass?” Peter asked, and it turned out that indeed, there was one, as detailed as he could only hoped to find.
“We are not mules, Peter,” Lucy said, curbing her brother’s enthusiasms for packing everything and then some, which could conceivably be of any use. “I grant you, fire and tea and a pot is a good idea; wood and blankets and sleeping bags and tents not necessarily. We need no sleep, and I don’t think we shall need shelter.”
“There’s no telling what may accost us.”
“The world is dead.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s empty.”
This went on for some time. Edmund, for the most part, chose to stay out of it. He didn’t like admitting it, even to himself, but Jill was right. The little time he had spent in the witch’s power had been enough to last a lifetime. Certainly enough to burn her face across his memory, her voice into his heart.
And even then, he knew it was just an illusion, and that the visage he deluded himself into seeing was not her, but his own fear, given form.
Perhaps Rilian was the same way. Perhaps Lilliandil had him convinced that a soul is the only way he could ever be forgiven.
“Edmund?”
“Ten minutes of solitude, if that is not too much to ask,” Edmund said to Caspian, when his hands ached to feel the warmth of his skin, a reminder that he was not so tainted as to drive away all that he held dear. Thankfully, Caspian, even if he did not understand, disregarded all words and sat by his side.
“You are not well.”
“I am not.”
“Are you upset about Jill’s words? I don’t think it’s quite as simple as she wishes to make it seem, though I do see the allure of this simple solution.”
“Do you think she’s wrong?”
Caspian sighed. “No. I don’t think she is.”
“What a wonder. How so?”
“Because I know you are still haunted by the witch,” Caspian said seriously. “Even though you have said naught, I know there have been bad dreams, when there were dreams, and that even now you’re fretting.”
“This still hasn’t scared you off.”
“I never feared you. I never shall. I know you are haunted, but I know that she doesn’t rule you. Even if I am hoping Jill is right, to tell you the truth, because I would rather believe it was the enchantment that turned Rilian against you.”
Edmund found himself stripped bare before Caspian’s gaze, stripped of all secrets and half-truths and carefully constructed facades. Caspian said no more, but instead wrapped an arm around him and Edmund rested against his shoulder, grateful for the support.
“Can we fix this?” Caspian whispered, and it was the frightened boy Edmund barely knew, a child thrust to the forefront of an army, on whose shoulders expectations were piled up so high they threatened to topple him over, along with his cause.
“Do you wish me to lie?”
“If you would be so kind.”
“Then yes, we shall conquer, and then we shall return to heaven, restored to its blissful glory. Aslan will make it right; he will step out of the shadows and make things right, so that you can have your son back, and your wife, and there will be no more fear or despair.”
Caspian laughed. “You almost sound convincing.”
“Ah, I confess, I don’t consider the situation as worthy of despair as it would appear.”
“No? Pray tell, what holds up your spirits, and do you have enough to share?”
Edmund closed his eyes and breathed. The clothes Coriakin had fitted them with were simple, plain dark shirts and trousers, and mail over them. The smell of leather, linen and steel was strong in his nostrils, bringing with it the memories of times long past, when he would ride to battles or to the courts of foreign kings, to negotiate the terms of peaceful surrender.
“I think I dislike bliss,” he said eventually. “I think it wearies me.” Certainly, this land was peace itself, all adventure, no matter the excitement, was pure joy and security and love, and yet… He felt something was lacking.
Caspian watched him, and when Edmund turned to look he found him cross-eyed, as the distance between them was so short. “I think I understand,” Caspian said at last. “You miss her.”
It should be a shock, to hear the words, Edmund thought. It wasn’t. It should be a shock to hear them spoken so casually. It wasn’t.
“You miss her, you miss having to rebel every day,” Caspian said with neither judgement nor fear, and Edmund smiled at him. Caspian smiled back, the smile of a young king who finds his way by balancing on the edge of a precipice between two warring nations, but stumbles on even ground.
They spoke no more. Edmund found Caspian’s hand and squeezed it, trying to say with the gesture more than he was willing to say with words.
Rating: 18
Genre: drama, romance
Pairings: Edmund/Caspian
Wordcount: 80k
Warnings: it is rated 18 for potentially disturbing themes
Summary: Narnia ended a mere two hundred years after Caspian’s reign, as though he was the climax of her 2,500 years’ history. He was. There were stories unfolding in Narnia of which none of her rulers were aware, and stories must run their natural course, even though their heroes are dead.
[CHAPTER SIX -- I Dream’d in a Dream]
Edmund opened the bathroom door expecting to find Caspian and Lucy conversing about some secret matter, over a bubble bath, likely drawing lots for who would be the first to use it. Instead he found them submerged in a steaming, emerald pool, which made him recall the hot springs of Archenland from Narnia’s golden age.
“Edmund!” Lucy called joyfully. “Come on in, the water is wonderful.”
“I can see that.”
“I’m done, but you are welcome to take all the time you need,” she said, standing up.
Edmund nearly tripped in attempting to avert his eyes, first from Lucy’s naked body, then from Caspian’s face. Then it proved to be confusing, so he closed his eyes and ceased moving. “Please tell me you’re decent, Lu.”
“I’m always decent.”
“Walking naked out of a bath in the presence of men is not what most people would describe as decent.”
“No, running out of a bath into a crowded room naked wouldn’t be decent,” Lucy said.
Edmund dared to open an eye. He was relieved when he found her securely wrapped in a large, fluffy towel.
“Besides, you two don’t count as men.”
“You know, I think that merits a challenge.”
Lucy laughed. “Oh, you know what I mean.”
“Yes. Thank you. Now go.”
“Of course.” She went, locking the door behind her. “Key’s under the door!” she yelled from the other side.
“I hate my family.”
“I hate her family too.”
“Do shut up,” Edmund said, casually peeling the shirt off his back. It was moist, and stiff, as though the rain had been cold enough to freeze it solid. The bandages on his chest were no better. They gave him a moment’s pause, but beneath the bandages the wound was a narrow, red mark, not quite healed, but closed.
Edmund entertained the notion of having to wring himself like a damp rag, should the wound open underwater, but decided not to bother with it. He was in no danger of bleeding to death, which was a small mercy, and Coriakin, being a wizard, should have some healing magic handy. “Would you look away please?”
“No.” Caspian folded his arms on the edge of the pool, rested his chin atop them, and stared up at Edmund. It was small consolation to have him fixate on the scar when Edmund shed his clothes, but it was something.
“Peter tells me I was being unfair,” Edmund started, when the hot water enveloped him and drove the last of the cold rain out of his bones.
“This is why Peter is useful to have around. Sometimes.”
“As opposed to you, who is useful to have around never.”
“I’m always useful to have around,” Caspian whispered, directly into Edmund’s ear. Fingers skimmed the mark on Edmund’s chest, inciting a flutter of sparks within, as though something infinitely soft and gentle reached into his chest to stroke his heart. “Dare to deny it.”
Edmund didn’t. “Caspian…”
“You are being unfair. You are an idiot. You are missing things that are obvious.”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Then why do you insist on devaluing what I feel for you?” Edmund frowned, but Caspian didn’t let him speak. “Do you think I would be sad if I should lose you? Do you think I would be hurt?”
“I do, yes.”
“Then you are wrong. Ed-- honestly. If what Coriakin says is true and a promise whispered in the throes of passion, ages ago, when we were but boys, is strong enough to rival the magic of a star, is still strong enough to keep us together in death, how do you think I would feel if I lost you?”
Edmund found no reply, though whether it was because the argument was compelling, or because Caspian was looking at him as though he wished to convey the untold misery that would become his life, he wasn’t sure. He wanted to say a hundred things -- that the promise made was honest, when the marital vow was not; that the affection was strong and true, but this was heaven, it was bound to enhance what they felt. That perhaps it was wishful thinking that led them to this place; that they spent their lives remembering a friendship and love that, through the virtue of being doomed from the start, grew in their minds so no other could rival it.
Fortunately Caspian pulled him underwater just then, to the bottom of the pool. They kissed and reason evaporated. Edmund might have forgotten how to feel, then, surrounded by water, and light, and Caspian, or he was nothing but feeling. He was the water against his own skin, bubbles of air escaping his lips, Caspian’s hands in his hair, Caspian’s hard body against his, Caspian and him, and warmth, and nothing whatsoever in the universe but the two of them, tangled in liquid emerald.
When they surfaced, Edmund discovered he was terrified. Just as he had known on the bridge that should he fall Caspian would follow, he knew now that the promise was irreversible, and that there was no recovery for either of them.
“I can’t think any other way,” he said. “Sorry.”
Caspian smiled at him tenderly, brushed the wet hair out of his eyes. “I know,” he said softly and the smile, the radiance of his eyes, was such that Edmund found himself stripped of all but the want and need. How could he ever live without Caspian, he wondered as he rested his forehead against Caspian’s collarbone and breathed him in. His fingers skimmed the edge of the water, brushing against Caspian’s chest. Edmund pressed his lips to the place where his fingers had been, flicking his tongue at the skin, already made sensitive by the heat of the water.
It was gratifying to hear a moan, feel the shudder that accompanied it.
In the old days, this had been the power that he exuded over his lovers. It had been a game, a test, a learning experience, very rarely fun. He learned so much by watching people come undone at his hands, while he retained a clear head, even when the pleasure had been overwhelming.
It was so different with Caspian. He felt he was just as lost as those others must have been, because the control was never fully his. He could have walked away from anyone, leave them begging and desperate, just leave, and not look back. With Caspian the need to touch was as strong as the need to be touched in return. He couldn’t even contemplate leaving, no matter the price he would have to pay. He understood now, truly, what it meant to put his life in another’s hands, something that had eluded him previously.
They tried to remain standing, but sheer enthusiasm kept toppling them over and this, too, was fine, when there was no worry about running out of breath, or even needing to breathe. Edmund smiled. Caspian’s hand was in his hair, the other trailing everywhere he could reach, but that was fair, when Edmund himself couldn’t decide where he wanted -- where he needed -- to touch and be touched.
There was wonder and terror and love and fear and with the terror there had to be a little bit of hate, because Edmund hated this, hated being out of control, hated feeling like he was drowning and losing himself, even when it was by his own choice, even if it was to Caspian, even if he could no longer live without having this.
*****
Coriakin was a gracious host, but with each hour spent in his home the tension grew exponentially. By the morning after their arrival tempers were flaring.
“There must be somewhere to go,” Peter said, after Lucy succinctly ended Caspian’s diatribe against womenfolk, by insulting his parentage. “Anything at all. Let us hunt dragons, even.”
“I concur,” Edmund said. He chose to remain mostly silent. Something still nagged at him, though he couldn’t put his finger on it. Lilliandil’s zeal was understandable and he would take the chance to destroy her, should he get one (surely Rilian would balk from taking two lives without his mother to guide him through it), but there seemed to be a piece missing from the tale.
“We’ll be having company,” Coriakin said then. He spent little time away from his crystal ball. “Soon.”
All present shot to their feet. “Is it Lilliandil?”
“No, not her. Your friends, instead -- I recognise Eustace, and he is accompanied by a young lady and a dark-faced man.”
“They are fine then!” Lucy said, clapping her hands in glee. “That is wonderful!”
“When will they arrive?”
“Within the hour, though they must be welcomed outside, otherwise they will walk right past here.”
“I shall go,” Edmund said immediately.
“No,” Caspian and Peter said in unison.
“I would thank you not to make an invalid of me. I am perfectly capable of walking, and I didn’t say I need to go alone.”
“It is better to play it safe,” Peter said.
“Safe? We are speaking about venturing outside for ten minutes, while our friend the magicians looks to it that we are not surprised by actual peril, unless I’m much mistaken!”
Coriakin laughed at that. “Such assistance as I can, I will provide. A fair warning you can count on.”
“There is your hideous bad luck to consider,” Caspian pointed out, sensibly, in an unwelcome change from his usual hot-headed demeanour. “You have been attacked by everything that crossed our path since last morning.”
Edmund wondered at that, for the dragon clearly did not intend to attack him. It wasn’t possible that he was the only one to notice, was it? “That is hardly fair,” he said meanwhile. “Neither Jill nor Emeth had done nothing to indicate they were against me as well, unless I am even less liked than I anticipated.”
“Certainly you have no friends among his family,” Peter said, indicating Caspian.
“Possibly because the only member of my family Edmund has had the pleasure of meeting was my uncle, who counted very few among his friends and would kill them all regardless, were it to his advantage.”
“Caspian, denial is said not to be healthy for the mind. I wish you would confront reality now and then.”
This went on for some time. Edmund retreated into the corner to observe as his brother and Caspian exchanged pleasantries. This never ceased to amuse him, how much genuine (though exasperated) affection and mutual respect they had to battle to stand against one another delivering insult after insult.
He wondered how would anyone even bother with television, when they could have such entertainment available in colour and with much better reception.
Coriakin approached, taking great care to choose a seat next to Edmund, but no so close that there would be danger of physical contact. A fat kettle of hot tea drifted their way, following the magician. Behind it trailed cups and a plateful of biscuits.
“Thank you,” Edmund said, raising a freshly poured cup to his lips.
“You know why the dragon avoided you,” Coriakin said quietly.
“I can wager a guess,” Edmund said.
“I mustn’t speak too much. I’m sorry. You must remember, however, that what happened to you is unnatural, and wrong. There shall be many creatures that would avoid your touch.”
Edmund turned to the arguing pair in the middle of the room. “They don’t.”
“They are not threatened by it.”
“Yet you are.”
Coriakin started and shook his head. “Aye. I am. You must forgive me for the distance. I speak to you in warning, too. It is important that you not press the issue, if you stand against a creature that recoils from you, for were you to break, you would be destroyed along with the one who did the breaking.”
“Can it be healed?”
“Not here, certainly not now. Maybe, were the country whole again… But I dare not speculate on the matter. Souls are foreign to me.”
Edmund closed his eyes and let his mind drift. “What Rilian did -- what he tried to do. Was it safe for him?”
“I can say little. He is a strange creature to me, stranger even than he is to you. Although he has no soul, he has a human heart, and that is to me inexplicable, for I was taught that the heart and the soul of a living creature are one. He feels, that much is certain. He feels not with the cold affinity of the stars, but with the passion and mindless zeal that is so characteristic of your species.”
“How else but ‘mindless zeal’ would you describe Lilliandil’s actions, I wonder.”
“She is a mother,” Coriakin said again and Edmund had it in mind to protest, for Lilliandil’s actions went beyond what most mothers he’d met would do, but he refrained from voicing his doubts. Coriakin had the air of a man who speaks the words he doesn’t fully understand, because he feels that it is the only explanation, even though he cannot fully comprehend it himself.
“In many ways Rilian is stronger than a star would be. He stands to be here without consequences, when myself and Lilliandil die a little for every day we spend in your heaven.”
Edmund looked to him in horror. “Surely not!”
“This is quite true, unfortunately. This is not a place meant for the stars -- we are as shadows in the land of fire. Lilliandil is here, because she had chosen the human life and must therefore see it to the end, though through what magic she was delivered here, I cannot tell. Rilian… your guess is as good as mine.”
“Why are you here?”
“Punishment,” the magician said wryly. “It is not for me to tell why.”
“Well, for whom is to tell, then?” Edmund asked with a quirk of his brow.
Coriakin laughed, avoiding the question altogether.
Before them, Peter and Caspian progressed to the geographical stage of their fight: to insults overheard on markets and streets of the foreign lands they have both visited in their time. They would usually start this stage in the fish markets of Beruna, then proceed to Archenland and from there to Calormen’s crowded alleys. The progression was always linear, and always unanimous, as though it was important to use only the epithets that matched the chosen region.
“You both realise that Lucy went out ten minutes ago, right?” Edmund said casually, interrupting a carefully woven string of elaborate metaphors that would bring shame to the dirtiest lowlife of a slavers’ den.
“She wouldn’t have!” Peter said.
“Shows the respect you get among your consorts.” Caspian folded his hands across his chest.
“At least none of mine wish to kill me.”
“They prefer to pretend you aren’t there, instead.”
“I confess, I often wondered about there being two kings, ruling side by side, even with queens to balance them out,” Coriakin said. “I am not too knowledgeable on the subject of the human mind, but from what I glean two men in position of power must clash, more often than not.”
Edmund smiled. “It does confuse most people. Certainly it would result in tears and regicide in most cases. Me, I thought it was a splendid way to have my will done while my brother had to sign for it.”
“I see.”
Presently, the door opened and Lucy walked through, followed by Jill, Eustace and Emeth. All three of them looked like they had no good news.
“Please say you have a solution in store,” Peter said. “Because we only managed to learn that it is worse than it seemed.”
“Welcome,” Edmund said, stepping in front of his brother. “I trust your trip was less eventful than ours?”
“We were attacked by a dragon, if that’s what you mean. Thankfully it went after someone else.”
“I’m sure the other person appreciated it.”
“Well, there were more of them, and they were better armed. I have no regrets,” Eustace said, instantly betraying he was worried sick about the unfortunate armed party.
“How did it go?”
“We didn’t get to England,” Jill said. “The bridge was closed on the other side, so we couldn’t get through.”
“There’s no way out?”
“It’s worse,” Eustace said. “The bridge is gone. It started folding when we were close to the other side, and then we had to run to make it back. It disappeared completely once we were back here.”
Peter looked troubled. “Then there is no place to go, regardless of Edmund.”
“Thank you.”
“I would thank you to quit speaking altogether. We are in a fair amount of trouble and your attitude helps no one.”
“It makes me feel better.”
“In that case, can you utter your comments where no one can hear them?”
“But where would the improvement of my mood come from, then?”
“We did find out something,” Eustace said reluctantly. “If you can call it that.”
“Which was?”
“We met a centaur. Can’t recall his name; it was ridiculously complicated. He said that this is part of a grander scheme, much grander than we could hope to understand.”
“That’s all?”
“He said he himself had no idea. That’s what it sounded like to me. He said he’d been considering the movement of the stars all his life, back in Narnia, and that there was opportunity for the study to continue here; he said he watched them move across the sky from the beginning of Narnia to her end, and that that there was something he couldn’t understand, that happened when Rillian was living. It was as though the stars were watching, he said.”
“Of course they would,” Jill said. “His mother was one of them. Why wouldn’t they watch?”
“What would Rilian have to do with it?” Caspian asked. “He is… Well, whatever he is, he lived as a human and he died as a human.”
“What did you mean by worse?” Eustace sat down, accepting a cup of tea. “Can it be worse?”
“It can, apparently. It turns out it’s not about hating Edmund, but that Lilliandil wants Caspian’s soul for Rilian’s sake, and Edmund owns it presently,” Lucy said.
Edmund would gladly hide under the table, when the three newcomers turned to look at him with horror and pity in their eyes. Peter had, thankfully, taken it upon himself to flesh out the tale, and by the end Eustace was whistling through his teeth.
“That doesn’t bide well,” he said. “I wonder, why would Rilian go through with it at all? He’s a fair bloke. He wouldn’t just decide to kill someone, especially not his own father.”
“He seemed almost normal when we were there. Friendly, too. But that at least, shouldn’t be surprising,” Jill said. “I mean, he was enchanted for ten years, wasn’t he? There’s no way a man can be wholly sane, not after something like that. Sometimes I worry I still hear the witch’s voice, and I have seen her maybe twice. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he was still enchanted.” She paused and then spoke in a hushed, frightened voice. “You don’t suppose he is still under the spell?”
“The witch is long dead,” Eustace said.
“Yes, but you’ve seen her! She was poison and he was there for ten years! I rather think one day spent there would be enough for her to seep into him enough poison, to last a lifetime. Maybe he’s still wrong for it, somehow, and that’s why it was so easy for Lilliandil to get him to go along with her revenge.”
Edmund smiled, though inwardly he felt as though he was back in the white sled, with his fingers and lips dusted with white sugar, while Peter and Lucy gasped and waved their arms in an effort to quiet her. Jill was more right than she could suspect. The poison never quite went away. It lay dormant until the darkest hour, when it rose from its bed and seeped into a man, taking his peace away, taking on the face of a woman, offering everything he wanted, the world at his feet, if he would just submit. He saw the witch’s face many times in his life and through her words he had seen it all slipping away, torn, bloodied, beaten, by his owns hands and the world drowned in blood and tears.
“I am fine,” he said eventually in response to Caspian’s worried stare.
“What did I say?” Jill whispered to Eustace, who shrugged.
“So, what do we do?” Peter asked, pacing around the room. “We can’t fight Lilliandil. Even if she wouldn’t kill, she is fully capable of getting past the lot of us. We have no idea how to stop her. We have no idea how to kill her. We have nothing whatsoever to bargain with. Does anyone have any ideas?”
Edmund opened his mouth.
“Anyone who isn’t Edmund?”
“I resent your disregarding my contribution, before you actually hear it.”
“I don’t have to listen to it, to know what you were going to say.”
“Really? Because what I was about to say is that there is merit in going to the dead world, still.”
Peter stared at him, speechless.
“I am not a martyr, Pete, honestly. Where did you get that idea?”
“Why the dead world, though?”
“Lucy said there were spells written before the world was made. If there’s anyone who’d bother writing things down before a world is made, then I imagine the same person would find it necessary to conclude its existence with words as well. Maybe there is something there that we can use.”
“That’s a pretty large assumption, Ed.”
“Would you like to consider my other ideas?”
“Do you have other ideas?”
“None that you would like.”
“If my opinion is of any value,” Coriakin said, “I would say Edmund’s plan is wise. Narnia is a world of stories; they had been written throughout her existence, they must be written down somewhere. There may well be something to bargain with.”
“Where would they be written?” Peter started asking, but Lucy was already speaking.
“The Stone Table!” she said. “That’s where the spells were written, Aslan said so.”
“Any nays?” Peter looked around the room, but there was nothing. “It is settled, then.”
There were things to consider, before their departure. They were dead, naturally -- there was no fear that anything but the knife Rilian carried could hurt them. Yet there was wisdom in making sure discomfort was kept to a minimum.
“I nearly froze, or I thought I would, when I closed the door. We need clothes, lots of them,” Peter said in no uncertain terms.
Thankfully, though heaven no longer sought to provide everything they desired, there were benefits to being in a magician’s care. Coriakin was willing to give them whatever equipment they found necessary; weapons they already had.
“Have you a map of Narnia, perhaps? And a compass?” Peter asked, and it turned out that indeed, there was one, as detailed as he could only hoped to find.
“We are not mules, Peter,” Lucy said, curbing her brother’s enthusiasms for packing everything and then some, which could conceivably be of any use. “I grant you, fire and tea and a pot is a good idea; wood and blankets and sleeping bags and tents not necessarily. We need no sleep, and I don’t think we shall need shelter.”
“There’s no telling what may accost us.”
“The world is dead.”
“That doesn’t mean it’s empty.”
This went on for some time. Edmund, for the most part, chose to stay out of it. He didn’t like admitting it, even to himself, but Jill was right. The little time he had spent in the witch’s power had been enough to last a lifetime. Certainly enough to burn her face across his memory, her voice into his heart.
And even then, he knew it was just an illusion, and that the visage he deluded himself into seeing was not her, but his own fear, given form.
Perhaps Rilian was the same way. Perhaps Lilliandil had him convinced that a soul is the only way he could ever be forgiven.
“Edmund?”
“Ten minutes of solitude, if that is not too much to ask,” Edmund said to Caspian, when his hands ached to feel the warmth of his skin, a reminder that he was not so tainted as to drive away all that he held dear. Thankfully, Caspian, even if he did not understand, disregarded all words and sat by his side.
“You are not well.”
“I am not.”
“Are you upset about Jill’s words? I don’t think it’s quite as simple as she wishes to make it seem, though I do see the allure of this simple solution.”
“Do you think she’s wrong?”
Caspian sighed. “No. I don’t think she is.”
“What a wonder. How so?”
“Because I know you are still haunted by the witch,” Caspian said seriously. “Even though you have said naught, I know there have been bad dreams, when there were dreams, and that even now you’re fretting.”
“This still hasn’t scared you off.”
“I never feared you. I never shall. I know you are haunted, but I know that she doesn’t rule you. Even if I am hoping Jill is right, to tell you the truth, because I would rather believe it was the enchantment that turned Rilian against you.”
Edmund found himself stripped bare before Caspian’s gaze, stripped of all secrets and half-truths and carefully constructed facades. Caspian said no more, but instead wrapped an arm around him and Edmund rested against his shoulder, grateful for the support.
“Can we fix this?” Caspian whispered, and it was the frightened boy Edmund barely knew, a child thrust to the forefront of an army, on whose shoulders expectations were piled up so high they threatened to topple him over, along with his cause.
“Do you wish me to lie?”
“If you would be so kind.”
“Then yes, we shall conquer, and then we shall return to heaven, restored to its blissful glory. Aslan will make it right; he will step out of the shadows and make things right, so that you can have your son back, and your wife, and there will be no more fear or despair.”
Caspian laughed. “You almost sound convincing.”
“Ah, I confess, I don’t consider the situation as worthy of despair as it would appear.”
“No? Pray tell, what holds up your spirits, and do you have enough to share?”
Edmund closed his eyes and breathed. The clothes Coriakin had fitted them with were simple, plain dark shirts and trousers, and mail over them. The smell of leather, linen and steel was strong in his nostrils, bringing with it the memories of times long past, when he would ride to battles or to the courts of foreign kings, to negotiate the terms of peaceful surrender.
“I think I dislike bliss,” he said eventually. “I think it wearies me.” Certainly, this land was peace itself, all adventure, no matter the excitement, was pure joy and security and love, and yet… He felt something was lacking.
Caspian watched him, and when Edmund turned to look he found him cross-eyed, as the distance between them was so short. “I think I understand,” Caspian said at last. “You miss her.”
It should be a shock, to hear the words, Edmund thought. It wasn’t. It should be a shock to hear them spoken so casually. It wasn’t.
“You miss her, you miss having to rebel every day,” Caspian said with neither judgement nor fear, and Edmund smiled at him. Caspian smiled back, the smile of a young king who finds his way by balancing on the edge of a precipice between two warring nations, but stumbles on even ground.
They spoke no more. Edmund found Caspian’s hand and squeezed it, trying to say with the gesture more than he was willing to say with words.