28Author Notes: Again, I'm not sure if I'll continue this or leave it as a oneshot.
Chapter 1: Peter Wiggin, a.k.a. "Locke"
Okay, I hadn't anticipated this.
Ender's favorite piece of furniture had never interested me much. I suppose it was impressive enough, if you're into 19th century home furnishing: a wardrobe five feet wide and nearly ten feet high, carved from rosewood. Lions' heads peered from each corner like gargoyles on a cathedral, sitting atop pseudo-Doric false columns. Whiplike branches from carved trees spiraled around wardrobe's edges. Think Celtic knotwork reimagined by Tim Burton and you have a pretty good idea.
It creaked a bit, sometimes of its own accord. The sound usually resembled the sort of cracks you'd expect from old wood, but once in a while, it seemed a bit more like hands tapping the interior. Apparently, the thing had passed down our mother's side of the family for a while; long enough to qualify as a Venerable Family Heirloom…
Two moons shone in the sky above me. Normally, this would have seemed a bit peculiar. They bathed the forest in far more moonlight than I would have seen on earth. Everything glared white. Snowfall that I could charitably describe as a blizzard enshrouded everything so thoroughly that at some moments it seemed like daytime.
I shivered. Despite the fur jacket I'd wrapped around my shoulders earlier, the wind in this place bit hard. It screamed through trees' branches. Snow whipped against my face until I hunched inward. The coat smelled of mothballs.
…I admit that I'd spared the wardrobe a moment of research when I was seven. It must have been acquired somewhere in New England during the 1850's, since Josiah Brown brought it with him when he came to Utah and started Mom's branch of the family.
From there, I was on mistier ground.
I knew from dinner-table conversation and archival research that Josiah had joined Murray Spear's Association of Beneficence. That would have placed him – and the wardrobe - in Massachusetts sometime between 1848 and 1853. Family tradition held that he'd participated in the cult's attempt ill-fated attempt to construct a god-machine. He'd left shortly thereafter. Usually, I would have discounted the story as romantic nonsense, but the details seemed to fit. The wardrobe resembled nothing I'd seen in antebellum New England. A connection to the early Spiritualist movement would explain a lot.
…At the moment, though, the wardrobe's exterior was the least of my worries.
I walked along a row of knotted black trees. When I say "black", I'm not speaking poetically: the trees were blacker than iron railings. Their limbs twisted in the wind. Once in a while, though, the branches swayed in the wrong direction, as if they were pushing against the breeze.
Bells jingled in the distance. Snow lashed my face; I looked down the path, but could only see a white haze. A whip cracked.
I jumped behind a snow-lump that I suspected was a log, and backed against it. If I couldn't see anything a few feet in front of me, I doubted that anyone else could, either. Just to be certain, though, I allowed the snow to accumulate on my hair and clothes. Part of the snow-pile against my back melted on my clothes. I felt damp.
A minute passed. Another…
My hands hurt. I tried to clench them. The fingers refused to bend, as if they were swollen. No time for that now, though. I held my breath as the bells came closer.
Some sort of vehicle was passing me. An animal snorted. I heard the crunch of hoofbeats on the snow. Horses, perhaps? They were dragging something on skids. It made a gentle shhlleeesshh.
It stopped.
"Stand up."
Don't even breathe…
"I said stand up!"
I'd like to say that I emerged from hiding because I realized that the jig was up. Unfortunately, it wasn't that simple. Something about that voice…every muscle in my body felt antsy, twitchy, as if they wanted to move. I jolted to my feet in spite of myself.
A pale woman appraised me from a perch in a sleigh drawn by eight white reindeer. She was pale; unnaturally so. Even sitting down, the woman towered over me. Although a foxskin blanket hid her legs from view, I was fairly sure she was well over six feet tall. She wore a crown, crudely wrought, and cradled a long white scepter in her hands that could have been painted wood. Her dress only added to the bleached glare: like seemingly everything else in this place, it was white. The dress sparkled when she moved. Someone had sewn clear stones or glass into the fabric. The dress's shoulders puffed out in slashed frills, like a swan's wings. And something else…
I looked closely.
Yep. The snow curved around her. None of the flakes touched her skin.
A filthy little man glared from the driver's seat. He wore a wool coat with embroidered sleeves and a golden pendant around his neck. A greasy gray beard completed the ensemble. He looked remarkably like a Cairn terrier.
He leaped down and shuffled toward me. I found myself rooted where I stood. Not ideal, but under the circumstances, I didn't like my chances of running for it anyway. The manikin drew a knife and held it to my throat. It had a single edge, nine or ten inches long, with pattern welding on the other side. While I absently noted the rust on the blade, the little man looked to the woman. Waiting.
The woman sneered.
"You," she said. "What are you, and how dare you hide from your Queen?"
This would require some finagling…
The great advantage of being my age is that you have an enormous edge when playing dumb. I pitched my voice high, with just a hint of weepy fear. Stupid Peter, my sister had called him – a useful character to have around in a pinch. For once, the cold worked in my favor, lending my stammer an extra air of authenticity.
"I…I beg your pardon…I didn't know—er—Your Majesty."
The woman tilted her head slightly. She looked me up and down.
"What are you?" she repeated.
Notice: "what" was I, not "who" was I. Of course, that could suggest any number of things. I prepared an answer that I hoped was simultaneously stupid enough and broad enough that it could give me more information.
I racked my brain, and a name came up.
"I…er…Hyrum, Your Majesty. My name's H-Hyrum Graff."
The woman's lips thinned, and I noticed her hands tighten around her scepter.
Careful, Peter…
"A beardless dwarf of some sort?" she said.
Hmm…
She'd rapped out the question quickly, but with a coating of honey on the edges that she must have assumed would disguise her impatience. Mustn't disappoint the girl, though…I gave her my best hopeful look.
"I…I'm not sure what you-"
Her eyes widened.
"Human?" she snapped.
Well, that didn't sound promising. On the other hand, I doubted that I could impersonate a "beardless dwarf" very well…
"Y-Yes, Your Majesty."
A normal child might have believed that the woman's demeanor changed. That child wouldn't have noticed how fake the smile was (forgot to contract your orbicularis oculi, dear…), or the tightness of her jaw, or the way that her shoulders remained stiff as she held out her hands and welcomed me onto her sled.
Needless to say, I put on an oblivious grin and hopped aboard.
The woman wrapped me in a fur blanket and cuddled next to me, patting me on the head as she did so. The gloves were rough. They seemed like animal skin of some kind, but I couldn't place it. She flashed me a smile – the sort of smile you'd give a child when you sneak them cookies past their bedtime. I noticed that the snowflakes no longer touched me.
"Tell me…Hyrum," she said. "How did you come to Narnia?"
So…it was Narnia after all. I mentally ran through the stories my younger brother had told me before he left for Battle School – the stories I'd dismissed as lies.
"I…er…I came in through the wardrobe, Your Majesty."
The woman furrowed her brow. She tweaked my nose gently, and I suppressed my indignation long enough to conjure an idiotic giggle. This seemed to please her.
"Call me Jadis," she said.
"Yes, J-Jadis," I repeated, making sure to stumble over the word.
Jadis smirked, and I breathed an inward sigh of relief. In my experience, when heads of state ask you to treat them informally, they expect you to be uncomfortable about it. Besides, it never hurts to lay flattery on thick when they believe you're too stupid to be subtle.
Ender had said he'd met a creature of some kind here…Greek mythology…What was it?
"Hyrum, do you have any brothers or sisters?"
"I…er…well, there's my brother Ender, Your Majes…Jadis," I said.
She leaned forward. I noticed that, while the ends of her sleeves were purple, the rest of her dress was white. The purple was rich and deep, unlike the not-quite-purple on her servant's shirt. For a moment, I wondered whether the pair's clothing-makers had used cockles and lichens, respectively. Industrial dyes seemed unlikely in this place; everything appeared hand-carved, and even the woman's jewelry was crudely wrought. From the rust on the dwarf's knife, I was guessing they didn't have much steel, either.
Ender had mentioned something about a pretender to the throne, and some sort of war…
"Would you like something to drink, Hyrum?" she said.
"I…"
The woman widened her eyes and ringed her mouth in an "o" as if she'd just had the grandest inspiration in the world.
"You look so very cold, Hyrum…Something warm? Tea, perhaps?"
Before I could answer, she withdrew a glass phial from her seat cushion. It contained white liquid with a red substance of some sort suspended in it – an almost-liquid, like hot wax. It moved around in clumps, rather like a lava lamp's bubbles, except that the clumps were twisted triangles instead of soft blobs. She removed the stopper. Whatever the stuff was, it smelled like a mixture of Pepsi and blood. Jadis tapped the bottle with her index finger.
Dap. Dap.
Two drops fell. The snow around them melted and reformed just as quickly into crystalline domes of ice. Steam obscured their interiors. She nodded to the dwarf, and he waddled over and shattered each of them. The first contained a hot drink of some sort, and the second…
"Those…do not look very edible," she said.
I blinked. Yep. A pile of Hershey bars, complete with plastic wrappers. For the first time in an already unusual evening, I realized just how surreal this situation was. The dwarf bowed and stretched his arms above his head, holding the plate like some groveling emissary on an ancient Near Eastern tomb painting.
And just like that, my situation assessment went from "very bad" to "completely screwed". Still, I could at least confirm a hunch…
I gasped loudly.
"Oh, my…Can everyone here do that?" I said.
If she'd been dealing with an equal, a firm "NO" would have been the correct answer regardless of the truth of the matter. I had two things in my favor, though: her arrogance and her audience. Jadis ran her fingers through my hair.
"Of course not," she said. "Only very, very special people like me can do that. Would you like me to teach you sometime?"
I nodded.
"Your Maje…er…Jadis?" I said.
"Mmm?"
"W-would you like one?"
I held out a Hershey bar, and Jadis took it. For a moment, she just stared at it. She raised her eyebrow.
Okay. First, she didn't seem to know what plastic was, which further confirmed that this place's technological level fell pretty far down the Kardashev scale. I don't care how isolated you are back on Earth: even the !Kung and Kayapo use plastic buckets. It had been a reasonable mistake, I suppose – if you'd never seen plastic before and believed you'd just summoned your guest some rare delicacy. Which brought me to my second point...
"Did—did you just—er…magic that information out of my mind, Your Majesty?"
For the first time in our interview, her eyes narrowed. She'd shed the fake smile now; she was looking at me very closely. I felt a cold lurch in my stomach.
"Have some tea, Hyrum."
"My…um…begging your pardon, Maje—"
"Jadis!" she snapped.
"Begging your pardon, Jadis, but my mother always told me never to accept treats from strangers…"
Her jaw tightened. I could swear I heard her teeth grinding.
"…No matter how beautiful," I finished.
Sadly, it didn't help. She snatched the goblet from the dwarf and held it to my lips. The cup was alabaster, with four rubies inlaid along the base.
"Drink. Up."
Well, nothing for it. I took a sip. As soon as the tea passed my lips, I felt my body melt into the seat, limp and tingly. Completely calm, as if I was enjoying a massage. I'd felt something like it once before – back when they removed the monitor. Back then, it had been pain killers. Whatever this stuff was, I was guessing it had narcotic effects. Never mind; I'd handle it later.
When she saw me drink, Jadis's shoulders relaxed slightly.
"You say you have a brother," she said. "Any others?"
I took another sip. Mental processes seemed fine so far – I ran through a few square roots without any hassle. Still…
"Er…" I said. "There's, um…"
That's right! Ender had met someone here: Mister Tumsey, or Tomney, or something. He'd told Ender that he was an agent of some sort for the "White Witch"…and three guesses who that might be. He'd kept asking how many of us there were.
The woman waited. She stroked a brass brooch on her neck. It was crudely cast, probably from a wooden impression in clay. Her earrings, also a copper alloy of some sort, seemed to have been made of thin bronze sheets stamped with a sixteen-pointed star. By the look of it, Narnian craftsmen wouldn't put up much of a fight if we started shipping modern jewelry in any quantity. One thing at a time, though.
Let's start at three, shall we?
"…Ah, there's me, and…"
Had Tomney reported back to Jadis? He'd let Ender leave Narnia unharmed. That argued for "no" – no bureaucrat, magical or otherwise, would go out of his way to report failure to his boss, let alone treachery. Then again, maybe she monitored her subordinates closely enough to…
Best err on the safe side.
"…and Ender," I said.
She nodded.
"…and Valentine…"
A long pause. My patience paid off – she grabbed me roughly by the shoulder.
"And a fourth?" she hissed.
I grabbed a Hershey bar from the dwarf and unwrapped it. As piggishly as I could manage, I stuffed it into my mouth and spoke at the same time. The renewed show of stupidity seemed to relax her.
Four. She wanted four of us, for some reason.
Well, then…
"Umshh….Yesh….mmm…" I said. "Yesh…Peter. Peter'sh his name."
Ender had mentioned that the time streams between this place and Earth worked a little weirdly. If Jadis had heard anything from Tomney about my family, I'd just dealt with the inexplicable missing brother. "Hyrum", after all, could have been born after Ender's first visit. Now as long as she hadn't heard Ender's last name...
I jammed another piece of chocolate into my mouth and tried not to gag. My face felt sticky. I jumped to my feet like Fontleroy on caffeine pills.
"Ooh!" I said. "Yoush could meet ush all! If I told 'em, you could give ush all shweetsh...urfsh om monmn…."
The fake smile returned. She cradled my face with her hand. I restrained my satisfied grin when I saw the momentary curl of her lip after she accidentally touched a chocolate smear.
"You would bring them to me?" she said. "Really? I would very much like that, Hyrum. I live all alone in a beautiful house, you see…"
Gingerbread, perhaps? I thought.
Jadis sighed dramatically. She pouted.
"…and I have no one to share my kingdom with," she said. "I need a prince. Very, very badly."
She twiddled my fingers between her own. I swallowed the chocolate. It felt like gulping down a block of wood. Time to play the obnoxious middle schooler from the A.D.D. generation to the hilt…
"Oh, yeah!" I said. "Of course! We could help you fight Aslan!"
Her smile disappeared, and her hand froze next to mine. Her whole body stiffened. I hadn't thought it possible for her to whiten more than she was, but she did.
"Where did you hear—"
"Oh!" I chirped. "Ender told me. I didn't think this place was real at first, so I didn't ask questions…My brother can be a little numskull sometimes…A-a-a-a-a-nyway, he said this horrible 'Aslan' person was invading, and you needed to stop him…"
I suddenly got serious.
"You do have guns, right?" I said. "I mean, swords are nice and all, but I don't think I could swing one."
"Guns…?"
"Yeah, you know," I said. "You point 'em, and they make a loud noise, and the other guy drops dead."
I raised my thumb and pointed my index finger at the forest. As I regaled my new acquaintance with peew!—peew!—peew! noises, I reflected that perhaps Valentine's absence wasn't such a bad thing after all.
I looked up.
"So…you got any?" I said.
"No."
No firearms! Hahahahahaha!
I hung my head and lowered my voice to a groan.
"…Aw," I said. "That's too bad."
Jadis took the bottom of my chin again and pulled me up until I met her eyes. They were gray all over; the irises were only a darker shade. The saccharine-sweet voice returned.
"Let me deal with Aslan," she said. "Just bring your family, Hyrum…and you can have all the sweeties you want."
I brightened up.
"Oh, yes, your Majesty! Of course, your Majesty! Er…Jadis."
"Do you see those two hills?" she said. "My house is between them."
Ivory beads on the bottom the hem of her dress clicked together as she stood up and pointed. I followed her finger to a valley. A cluster of towers rose in the distance – they were white, and slick, and polished. Barbs jutted out the sides. The entire complex looked a bit like a giant piece of coral growing from a snowy plain. Green fires burned at its base. I saw enormous shadows move along the walls. Nothing was casting them.
"Looks…beautiful," I said.
I figured some final reassurance was in order, so I whipped up my best impression of the junkies I'd seen hanging out in the bathroom during school. My voice cracked a little. Sadly, it wasn't entirely an act…but again, I'd deal with that later.
"Could I have a just little more tea, please?"
"I wouldn't want to spoil your appetite," she said.
Jadis gently pushed me from the sleigh and patted my head. That smooth, superior smile flashed once more – a true smile this time, the "I've-got-you-now-and-you're-too-stupid-to-realize-it-yet" smile. I knew it well; a personal favorite.
"Until then," she said.
The whip cracked. Eight white reindeer thumped through the snow far faster than they should have been able to. A cloud of white rose around me, and they disappeared into the gloom. I felt inside my pocket. The piece of chocolate was melting in my palm, and I withdrew my hand quickly. While I didn't need an infinite supply to get it analyzed, I wasn't taking chances. I started the long walk back. With any luck, the portal was still open. Pine needles prickled. Tree branches rasped my hands.
I wondered: was this how Cortez felt when he met Montezuma's emissaries? Pizarro as he watched Atahualpa's ransom fill a room with gold? Clive after Plassey?
Tree branches turned to coats again. With a creak, the wardrobe's doors swung open. I tumbled out, laughing.
The 'chocolate' had turned to icy slush as soon as I'd left the wardrobe.
I found my sister in the dining room, curled over a green laptop. The tic-tic of her typing didn't miss a beat when I entered; her eyes remained on the white glow of the monitor. Even when she slurped from the coffee mug beside her, her attention never wavered. She saw me, though.
"Nice coat," she said.
I looked down. Oh. Right.
"…Normally, I wouldn't have thought you'd go for mink, but I guess with all the squirrels already dead—"
I waved a hand and shushed her before leaning over the monitor. Demonsthenes' contacts. Where were…I snapped my fingers.
"Val," I said.
"Yeah?"
"Do we have anybody on our list who could provide us – discreetly, mind you – with a number of machine pistols and ammunition?" I said.
"What, you mean here?"
I found myself pacing, my hands behind my back.
"Yes, here. We wouldn't need to store them for long. This'd just be a trans-shipment point, so we could schedule the deliveries in small batches on sick-days before Father and Mother come home. Christmas is around the corner, so with proper packaging and a disguised UPS truck…No, on second thought, too small. We'll move the wardrobe. Rent out a storage space... easier to conceal. A huge risk either way, with Graff watching us, but-"
Valentine raised an eyebrow.
"Trans-shipment point to where?" she said.
"Vally, dear," I said. "How would you like to play kingmaker in a preindustrial civil war?"
Valentine rolled her eyes and resumed typing.
"Sorry I asked," she muttered.