The Land of Silent Seas 1/2 - for animus_wyrmis
Title: The Land of Silent Seas (1/2)
Author: bedlamsbard
Recipient: animus_wyrmis
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: The Magician’s Nephew, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; includes fantasy violence
Summary: And then the head of the monster came out of the book, growing as it did so until it was at least the size of Polly herself, covered in iridescent green and gray scales. There are more things in heaven and earth, Polly Plummer, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to [my betas] for beta! Title is from T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
He told how King Gale, who was ninth in descent from Frank the first of all Kings, had sailed far away into the Eastern seas and delivered the Lone Islanders from a dragon and how, in return, they had given him the Lone Islands to be part of the royal islands of Narnia forever.
− C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
Part One
Polly sneezed. They’d finished the first cutting of hay yesterday, the same hay that she’d spent the past month staring at in fascination, entranced by the seemingly endless waves of green, like a sea, only miles from the seashore and on dry land. She’d been sneezing since they’d starting cutting and the smell had risen up into the air, sweet and rather itchy, making her nose run and her eyes water. Even Digory had looked rather green by the end of the first day. Now, instead of standing upright, the hay was lying in rows in the field, turning golden in the summer sun. She’d asked at the dinner table what was going to happen to it, and got the answer that it was going to lie out for a few days more to dry, and then it was going to be baled and stored away for winter. Some of it might be sold.
“I told you you’d like the country,” Digory said from behind her, sounding rather smug, and Polly turned away from the window, choking back another sneeze.
“I never said I wouldn’t,” she protested, and he raised an eyebrow.
Polly sneezed again. It was hard to tell through her stuffed nose, but she thought she smelled something other than hay. She eyed the heavy leatherbound book in Digory’s hands suspiciously. “What’s that?”
“I found it in the library,” Digory said, hefting it. “I finally found the ladder, and this was up at the very top of the shelves, not in any order or anything. Look, there’s no title and no author.” He showed it to her, and Polly opened the cover gingerly, sneezing again as a cloud of dust flew up. The first few pages of the book had been torn out, a ragged line of thick creamy paper showing where they’d been. The first page remaining was the dedication page, but the inscription had been viciously scratched out and a single line scrawled beneath it in thick black letters: caveat viator.
“What does it mean?” Polly asked.
“It’s a warning,” Digory said after a moment. “It means, ‘traveler beware.’” He shifted the book, then carried it over to the desk and put it down, stretching out his arms.
Polly rubbed a hand under her nose and followed him. “What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know,” Digory said. He grinned at her. “It’s a mystery!”
“Not a mystery like last summer, I hope,” Polly said. “Although the rings are still in London, so we should be safe.”
Digory didn’t look as relieved by this as she felt. “Wouldn’t that be fun, though? If we could go back to -” He paused for a moment, then went on in an undertone, “that place?”
“It would,” Polly agreed, “but -” They didn’t talk about it often. It was as if some kind of spell of silence fell over them every time one of them brought it up, as if Narnia and Aslan and all the things that had happened during those mad hours were too sacred to be spoken of lightly, especially in London. But the country felt different somehow, as if it were a shade or two closer to Narnia, and the Wood Between the Worlds. Maybe it was the hay.
Polly looked down, the words dying on her lips, and turned the page. There was more writing scrawled in the space before the first chapter of the book began. My name is − This had been scratched out so violently the tip of the pen had torn through the paper. If you are reading this, then you must be careful, I have tried my best to protect you, but there is no such thing as surety, and you are responsible for your own safety, I cannot do everything and - The next sentence was blotted so badly as to be unreadable, the ink spreading halfway down the page and drowning out the top of the printed text.
Polly and Digory both peered at it in fascination. “I wonder what this is all about?” Digory said.
“Some great mystery,” Polly said. “Look, she must have been awfully scared when she was writing this, I wonder if it was the only paper she could find?”
“What makes you think it’s a girl?” Digory said indignantly. “It looks like a boy’s handwriting to me!”
“I think it’s a girl,” Polly said firmly, and turned the page before he could protest. The script began at the bottom of the page, curling up around the margins of the text, which began mid-sentence. Digory reached to turn the book around so that they could both read it. There were no blots this time, and it looked like the writer had been calmer.
I will get out of way the assumption that I am mad, because surely if I was not mad before, I have become mad now. However, since you and I are both aware of this, dear Reader, then the fact of the matter can be set aside and we can proceed onwards. I would not like to take away your time by deliberations upon whether or not I am mad when that time could be better spent elsewhere.
“Definitely mad,” Polly said.
“As mad as Uncle Andrew,” Digory agreed. “All right: I think it’s a girl’s handwriting.”
“What, because she said she was mad?” Polly said, indignant again.
“I thought you said it looked like a girl’s handwriting!”
“No, you were the one who said it looked like a boy’s -
“Hmmph!” Polly said, and sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, since she - or he - wrote this down in a book, she must have been mad. She certainly sounds mad.”
“She did say she was mad,” Digory pointed out. They looked at the next page, which was blank except for the text of the book itself, which began rather sedately, ἀλλά μοι ἀμφ᾽ Ὀδυσῆι δαΐφρονι δαίεται ἦτορ, δυσμόρῳ, ὃς δὴ δηθὰ φίλων ἄπο πήματα πάσχει νήσῳ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, ὅθι τ᾽ ὀμφαλός ἐστι θαλάσσης.
“It’s from The Odyssey,” Digory said, when Polly frowned at it. “When the goddess Athena is talking to king of the gods about Odysseus, who’s trapped on the island of Calypso. She’s another goddess, a sea-goddess, and she wants to marry him, but he wants to go home to his wife.”
“Oh,” Polly said thoughtfully, looking at the scribbling on the previous page. A sudden breeze came in through the open window, carrying with it the heady scent of drying hay, and Polly sneezed three times in rapid succession, her eyes watering. She barely heard Digory’s shout of alarm and the sound of pages flipping rapidly as she rubbed at her running nose.
His hand closed around her wrist. “Polly, look!” he said. “The book -”
Polly sneezed again and looked up. The breeze was still running through the room, sending the drapes to flapping and knocking over a candlestick with a sudden burst of wind. It lifted her hair off her shoulders, and the pages of the book were still turning, the Greek letters and the mad writer’s script blurring. She noticed abruptly that there were ink sketches in the corners of the pages, beginning halfway through the book; as the pages turned they appeared to be moving. A six-headed monster lunging at a ship -
Abruptly, the smell that the breeze carried changed. Polly sneezed once more, reflexive, but it wasn’t hay she smelled anymore, it was the fresh salty smell of the ocean, familiar from summers spent at the sea, and something else, a sharp, spicy sort of scent.
“Polly, the book!” Digory yelled, his grip tightening on her wrist.
She looked down. The breeze stopped as abruptly as it had begun, the room suddenly silent except for the sound of her and Digory’s harsh breathing, and something else - almost a clanging, and a faint yelling, muffled as if it was coming from a long ways off. The book’s pages had stopped turning, and she looked down at the small ink sketch in the corner. The six-headed monster was looming over the tiny ship, five of its six heads clutching men in their mouths. The sixth head shoved its way down into the ship, scattered the crew amidst shouts, and Polly stared. The pages weren’t moving anymore, there was no reason for -
And then the head of the monster came out of the book, growing as it did so until it was at least the size of Polly herself, covered in iridescent green and gray scales. Its eyes were huge and orb-like, the size of Polly’s fist and the same color as her cat’s, only much madder. It opened its mouth and roared, spattering sea water across Polly and Digory and revealing far too many, far too sharp teeth.
Polly squeaked, then gathered her senses together and knocked Digory aside. The monster’s head came down on the chair she’d been sitting on instead, shattering it into fragments of dark wood, and she grabbed Digory’s hand and dragged him under the table, which groaned under the weight of the monster and the book. Surely someone else would hear the sound and come running - she knew Mr. Kirke kept a rifle for bird-hunting, and she’d seen the swords over the mantle in the study -
The monster’s teeth closed fruitlessly on empty air, a sharp snapping sound, and it roared again, making the table creak. Polly resisted the urge to curl up and whimper, which wouldn’t do anyone any good, and instead took a deep breath and tried to think. The monster had come out of the book. That had to have happened by magic, somehow, so - so the monster was from another world, like the Witch, and didn’t really belong in England. They must have called it out of another world somehow through the book, and that meant they’d have to send it back. But the rings were in London.
Digory swore and tugged at her hand. “Polly, look -” he said, and Polly looked up from her knees, staring at the enormous clawed foot that had just scratched five deep marks into the wooden floor. A second foot thudded down, making the room shake and the table jump. The monster was coming out of the book.
“We’ve got to send it back!” Polly said. “Maybe Uncle Andrew -”
“He’ll just run away,” Digory pointed out, shuddering as the monster roared. There was another creak, and the monster twisted down, forcing its head down beneath the table to snap at them.
Polly shrieked, scrambling backwards and dragging Digory with her. There was barely enough room for the monster to open its mouth, but it gnashed its teeth anyway, its hot breath panting in their faces.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Digory said. “Before any more of it comes out -” He turned towards the other end of the table. “If we can make it to -” His words trailed off and he finished in a small voice, “…the door.”
“What -” Polly began, looking over her shoulder, but the words died in her mouth.
There was no way out of the table, just a seemingly endless wall of gray stone darkened with seawater, moss sprouting out of it at odd angles. For a moment, Polly was too astonished to do anything more than stare, then the monster roared again. Polly could feel it in her bones, a deep thudding and pounding like a train going past, and it left her breathless. She scrambled back up against the stone wall, peering up at the ceiling, which joined the wall seamlessly - it looked like they were in a small sea-cave, like the ones she’d explored the last time she’d gone to the shore. Only the last time she’d gone to the sea, there hadn’t been a monster trying to eat her, and she hadn’t accidentally ended up in another world.
There was a sound from outside the cave, another roar, and the monsters head thudded into the side of the cave as if it had been pushed. It withdrew, and Polly had only a heartbeat to draw a breath of relief before it shoved back inside, making her and Digory both scream. Only - she realized belatedly - this wasn’t the same head. It was a different head, a little narrower, with one front tooth broken in two.
The monster in the book had had six heads, she remembered, and firmly instructed herself not to cry, that wouldn’t help anyone.
She heard Digory’s voice in her ear. “Here,” he said, and shoved a rock into her hand, rounded from years on the shore. He pressed his shoulder against hers, reassuring. Polly took a deep breath, then another. They could wait for it to go away or they could try and make it go away. Neither option was a particularly attractive one; small chips of rock were beginning to cascade down from the entrance of the sea-cave where the monster was trying to press its head further inside, scraping its skull against the top and sides of the cave. Polly had an unpleasant feeling that it wouldn’t take very long for the monster to enlarge the entrance enough that it get its entire head in, and then it could eat them both in two bites.
“Ho!” The shout came from outside the cave. Polly clutched her rock with renewed fervor, seeing the flash of Digory’s pen-knife in the thin light.
Two of the monster’s other heads roared in bad unison, making the cave shake and sending a fresh flurry of rocks down on their heads. Polly could hear more shouting from outside the cave, along with a horrible sound like metal scraping on rock.
“What’s going on?” she said in a small voice, and Digory shook his head nervously.
They both winced as one of the monster’s heads screamed, a terrible sound of pain and anger and fear all mixed up together. Polly pressed her hands against her ears, trying to drown it out. The rock in her right hand was a hard pressure against the side of her skull.
She saw the monster’s head withdraw from the cave, teeth snapping in the air before it struck up, vanishing from her sight. Light spilled in through the entrance. It was a thin, grayish sort of light, the way the sunlight looked on a cloudy day, and Polly thought it might be the most reassuring thing she’d ever seen. She drew in a breath of cold sea air, listening to the shouts outside, then swore and grabbed at Digory’s ankle as he crawled forward.
“Don’t! That thing might come back -”
Digory tugged his foot out of her hand and leaned forward, bracing himself on the floor of the cave. “Poll, you’ve got to see this!” he exclaimed, sounding amazed. “This is - by Jove -”
He ducked back, but not in time to avoid the splash that sprayed them both with seawater. Polly spat it aside inelegantly, shaking her wet hair out of her face, and said, “What’s going on?”
“It’s gone,” Digory said. His voice sounded slightly strangled.
Polly took a deep breath, tucking her hair behind her ears, and crawled up beside him, putting her head out of the cave to look around. She could see the ocean down below them, almost the height of her house away. The cave was set in a rocky cliff-face; by turning her head from side to side, Polly could see several other sea-caves like this one at varying intervals on the cliff. There were marks in the rock where the monster had climbed up to try and get at them. The ocean stretched out before them, stormy gray and restless; Polly couldn’t see where it made landfall. Most shockingly of all, there was a ship moored beneath them, a fine sailing ship like the ones she saw in her schoolbooks, with miles and miles of rope and billowing green sails. There was a huge tear in one of the sails, and the bow of the ship had been broken off, along with a section of the taffrail. Men were crawling over the ship, shouting at each other as they did so, though Polly couldn’t quite make out the words. She stared at them in delight.
“Blimey,” Digory breathed.
There was a shout from below, and Polly looked down to see a man standing on top of the jagged rocks at the base of the cliff. He waved at them. “Hallo! Is there someone up there?”
“Yes!” she shouted down. “Yes, we’re up here!” She waved at him. He was dressed in what she thought of as the oddest kind of clothes, like something out of a play, weather-beaten green-and-red silks and what looked like chainmail.
“Can you come down? The beast’s gone away and it’s quite safe now.”
Polly and Digory looked rather dubiously at the cliff-face beneath them. Polly had gone climbing all over the shore the last time she’d gone to the sea, but she’d never ventured more than a few feet up the cliffs, and those had seemed much more approachable than this particular cliff. Digory looked even more dubious.
The man looked up at them, one gauntleted hand raised to shade his eyes, and added, “I can send someone up -”
“No!” Polly shouted down. “We can come down on our own,” she said with more surety than she felt, gave the cliff one more dubious look, and swung herself over the side before she could think better of it, jabbing the toes of her shoes into a niche in the rock. The breeze blew her skirts against her legs.
“Polly!” Digory said in alarm.
She looked for a handhold and found one, then another, climbing slowly down. “It’s all right,” she said, turning her head up to look at him. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
Digory squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again and nodded. Polly climbed down a few more feet, feeling the ache begin in her arms and legs, and started to climb faster, vaguely aware that if her arms froze up then she’d fall to her death. She saw Digory climb out of the cave above her and start to clamber down as well.
The rock was cold beneath her fingers, a little slippery from the damp, and Polly clung to it determinedly, becoming a little more reckless the closer she got to the bottom. Her feet slipped more than once, but she managed to jab her toes back into the cracks in the rock, clinging to it for dear life. The tension in her arms was making her shake, her fingers going numb from the cold, and she bit her lip, trying not to panic. Just a little further - just a little further, and then -
Her frozen fingers slipped off the hold she’d found. Polly cried out, feeling herself fall back as she tried to scrabble at the wall, but her hands were crooked into claws, too stiff to move as quickly as she needed them to. She heard Digory shout her name.
Instead of hitting sharp rocks or cold water, she fell backwards against body-warm silk covering mail, the man who’d yelled up at them catching her with a slight grunt of effort. For a moment all Polly could do was peer up at him in bemusement. He had an open, honest face, familiar for no reason she could put her finger on, with curly blond hair and warm blue eyes.
“Do you think you can stand?” he asked her.
“I - I think so,” Polly did, and he put her carefully upright, holding her steady until she found her footing on the slippery rock. She looked up and saw Digory up above them, still clinging to the cliff and looking frantically over his shoulder.
“Poll!” he shouted. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” she yelled back up, and saw him nod slightly to himself before he started back down again. He made it all the way to the bottom of the cliff, then stopped, turned around, and leaned against it, looking exhausted, then lifted his chin and looked around, judging the distance between the mostly flat rock he was perched on and the rock that Polly and the stranger were standing on, next to which a small boat was rocking in the waves. There was blood in the bottom of it.
“Are you all right?” the stranger said anxiously.
“Yes,” Digory said. He looked at the man dubiously, then started forward, moving cautiously from rock to rock.
Polly looked up at the stranger. He was younger than she’d thought originally, about the same age as her cousin Albert, who’d caught diamond fever and run off to Africa three years ago. Not that much older than she and Digory were. Behind them, the ship creaked in the ocean, its rigging shuddering in the wind. A flag snapped against the map; Polly turned to peer up at it, making out a red lion on a green field.
Digory finally made his way over to their rock, and the stranger said politely, “You two must be exhausted. Here, we can take you back to the port, and you can get warm and dry -” He moved to hand Polly down into the small boat that was tethered to the rock, empty except for what appeared to be a cat curled up in the bottom.
“What port?” Polly said curiously.
He looked surprised. “Why, Narrowhaven, of course. Or if you’re from one of the villages, we can take you back there -” He gave them a thoughtful look, frowning at Digory’s Norfolk suit.
“We’re not from one of the villages,” Digory said. “We’re from much further away than that.”
The stranger frowned, then said, “This is no place to discuss that. Come and get warmed up, I can provide hot food and spiced wine, as well as fresh clothes.” He stepped down into the boat, offering Polly his hand.
She took it, the metal of his gauntlets cold and a little slippery beneath her bare fingers, and clambered awkwardly down into the boat, looking around for the cleanest seat before she finally perched on one that was wet with water, but not blood. The stranger reached for Digory as well, but Digory ignored his hand, climbing down awkwardly down and sending the boat rocking as he stepped into it. For a moment he wavered, then got his footing and sat down next to Polly. The cat on the other bench opened one eye and looked at them.
“Who’s this, then?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure of their names,” said the stranger, leaning over to untie the boat. He coiled up the rope neatly, then dipped both paddles into the water. Polly grabbed at the side of the boat as it pulled away from the rock.
“They don’t look like Lone Islanders,” said the cat, standing up and stretching, elegant. She - its voice was undoubtedly feminine - was a slim, pretty cat like a Siamese, with one ragged ear and the tip of her tail missing. She padded over to sniff at Polly’s feet.
“Hello,” Polly told her solemnly. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” said the cat.
“Rionet,” said the stranger wearily. “Be polite.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” the cat said, trotting over to the front of the boat and putting her paws up on the side.
They bumped against the side of the ship, and Polly looked up and up at it, her mouth suddenly dry. It wasn’t particularly large compared to some of the ships in England, but she wasn’t used to seeing those up close, and this was close enough to touch. The stranger began the business of tying the boat up to the side of the ship as a rope ladder rattled down over the side, followed by a sailor who swarmed down it and landed in the bottom of the boat, barely missing the cat, who spat protest.
“Go on up, your highness,” said the sailor. Polly barely heard his words; she was too busy staring at him. She’d seen fauns the last time, of course, but she hadn’t been paying much attention then, and Aslan had overshadowed everything around him.
“Ladies first,” said the stranger courteously, gesturing at the ladder.
Polly climbed up, her arms spasming again at the effort, and grabbed the railing to haul herself onto the deck. Her hands came away sticky with blood, and she scrubbed them furiously on her skirts, trying to get it off. She stepped quickly away from the rail, looking around at the ship. The huge sails spread out above her, the thin sunlight filtering down green through them, while sailors walked on the masts and lines as calmly as though they were walking on solid ground. Some of them didn’t look human.
She turned around as Digory came over the side, opening her mouth to warn him about the blood. He put his hand in it before she could speak.
“Ugh, what -”
“Scylla took seven of my sailors,” said the stranger, clambering onto the deck. He avoided the blood, Polly noticed, but what she’d taken for water-stains on his tunic and rust on his mail turned out to be splashes of blood. She took a cautious step away, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “She’s never taken so many before.”
“Scylla?” Digory repeated. “Like - from The Odyssey?”
“What is The Odyssey?” said the stranger, curious, then shook his head and said, “I’m sorry - I’ve been discourteous. My name is Gale. And you are -”
“I’m Digory and this is Polly,” Digory said swiftly, then grinned. “I can’t believe we’re in Narnia again!”
“You must certainly are not!” an aggrieved female voice exclaimed, and Polly turned to see a tall dark woman standing on the ship’s poop deck. She swallowed; she didn’t think the woman had been there before.
The woman came quickly down the steps to the waist. She was even taller than Polly had thought originally, nearly as tall as she remembered the Witch being, and with something of the same air around her, though while the Witch had been cold and dark, somehow sickening, this woman seemed different somehow. As if she brought life rather than death. Her hair fell loose over her bare shoulder, thick and black, with strands of what looked like seaweed caught in it. She was wearing a chiton like the statues Polly saw in her schoolbooks, only this one, instead of being the plain white that the marble statues wore, was all the colors of the sea, from stormy gray to deep blue to tranquil green, seeming to shift as Polly looked at it. The woman’s bare feet left pools of water on the deck as she approached them.
“Ignore the prince,” she said, her voice reverberating slightly, the way someone’s did when they stood in a small room and spoke. It hurt Polly’s head. “The fool doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Calypso -” said Gale, raising his gauntleted hands in a placating sort of way.
“Be quiet!” she spat, turning on him. “Already you trespass upon my lands and my waters, and you think that gives you allowance to dictate your law here? You forget that you are nothing more than a visitor, here upon my sufferance!”
Gale opened his mouth to reply, but Calypso - if that was her name - was already turning away from him, leaping up onto the ship’s rail and into a long clean dive. Polly let out a cry and raced to the side of the ship, expecting to see the woman battered on the rocks beside them, but the water was still and calm except for the waves that lapped at the stained wood of the ship’s side. There weren’t even ripples. She realized abruptly that she didn’t think she’d even heard a splash.
“Don’t take offense, I beg you,” Gale said swiftly, his boots clicking softly on the deck as he crossed to her side. He looked shaken. “Calypso is - my purpose here is not what she thinks.”
“What is it?” Digory asked. “Why are you here? You - are Narnian, aren’t you? You’re King Frank’s son?”
“I am the ninth in descent from King Frank,” Gale said. “And I believe I know who you are, as well. The stories speak of the two children who came from the same world that the King and the Queen did at the beginning of Narnia, who went into the Western Wild to fetch the seed of the Warden Tree that grows on the banks of the Great River.”
“That was us,” Digory said. “But that was only last year -”
Gale frowned slightly. “The books say that travel between worlds is a chancy thing, and that time bends strangely in the space between my world and the others - our worlds are only two of many.”
“Have there been others?” Polly said eagerly. “Are there many travelers?”
“Not that I will speak of,” Gale said, his gaze suddenly shadowed. “As I said: you must be weary, and ready for hot food and drink, and fresh clothes. We are somewhat short on women’s clothes at the moment, milady Polly, but my manservant will find something that will suffice, never fear.” He gave their clothes a dubious look. “What you wear now seems uncomfortable. Is it necessary for travel between worlds?”
Digory blinked. “No,” he said, “this is just what we wear -” He trailed off as a faun came hurrying up, hooves clicking gently on the deck.
“Your highness?” said the faun. Its - his, Polly reminded herself firmly - hairy legs were the color of fresh-churned cream, the same as his curly hair and the line of hair down the straight line of his spine. A pair of short horns stuck up out of his hair, above pointed ears that stuck out at right angles to his head, like a - well, like a goat’s.
“Icarion, this is the Lord Digory and the Lady Polly,” said Gale. “Take them to -” He paused briefly. “Well, I suppose Ivar won’t be returning to his cabin. Take them there, and see that they are given fresh clothes and some hot drink to warm them up. They will join me for dinner.”
“Very well, your highness,” said the faun, dipping a short bow to Polly and Digory.
The cabin where Icarion left them was even smaller than Polly had pictured, barely wide enough for Digory to stand with his arms out to either side, his fingertips just brushing the walls of canvas that blocked it off from the cabins on either side of them. There was a hammock for sleeping in, long enough for a much taller person than either of them, and a small sea chest tucked discreetly against the wooden wall of the ship, which curved in slightly. After a moment of looking around, Polly sat down on top of it, rather gingerly, while Digory stood by the hammock, rubbing the fabric between his fingers. Icarion had told them that he was going to find them proper clothing and flitted off, his hooves clicking on the wooden floor.
“Does this all seem rather odd to you?” Polly said finally.
Digory looked up from the hammock. “What do you mean?”
“Well - we didn’t have any rings this time. So do you think - maybe the book was like the rings?” She said this last slightly dubiously; it certainly hadn’t felt anything like the rings had. Travel with the rings had been slow and dream-like, like swimming in a dream, but this had been so quick that she hadn’t even noticed it. And there had been the monster - Scylla, Gale had called it.
“The book didn’t come with us,” Digory pointed out. He sat down on the edge of the hammock and leapt up almost immediately as it threatened to tip him over. Polly laughed slightly, relieved by it, and Digory grinned sheepishly at her.
“And Scylla came out of the book,” he added. “She was in our world -” He stiffened suddenly. “What will Dad think if he comes up to get us for dinner? Or Mother - or the servants - or Uncle Andrew!”
“Mr. Ketterley will probably be able to guess,” Polly said dryly. “Unless - do you think he did it?”
Digory considered this, then shook his head. “It’s not really his style, is it? And he did say he was going to give up magic and take up drinking.”
“‘Take up’?” Polly said dryly, and he laughed.
“Right,” he allowed. “So probably not Uncle Andrew. It must have been the book, though - do you think that was what the mad woman was going on about?”
“But that was written a long time ago,” Polly protested, then stopped as Icarion pushed back one sheet of canvas.
“Clothes, milord, milady,” he said, as Digory went over to take them from him. “His Highness will see you for dinner at eight bells.”
“When is -”
“I will send someone to fetch you,” said Icarion, and left.
Digory looked down at the clothes he was holding, then at Polly, and blushed. “I -”
“We can just turn our backs,” she told him firmly. His ears were scarlet.
He dropped the clothes hastily on the hammock and started sorting through them. “I think these are for you,” he said, holding them out to her.
Polly took it from him, holding the gown by the shoulders and watching the skirts fell down. She had to struggle not to smile - the fabric was soft against her hands, like wool but softer, and a beautiful pale blue color with embroidery picked out on the sleeves and hem in a darker blue, with a panel of embroidery over the bosom. It looked like flowers, and Polly stroked it gently with one finger
“Poll,” Digory said anxiously, clutching his clothes to himself, and Polly turned around, putting the dress down on the chest while she undressed. She could hear Digory behind her doing the same.
She kept her underthings on, then shimmied into the blue dress. It laced up the back, which she tried to tug at rather awkwardly before giving up. The hem of the dress dragged on the floor; she thought it had been made for someone much taller than her. Polly thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever worn in her life, and resisted the urge to twirl; she’d probably just trip over the hem.
“Poll?” Digory said. He sounded cautious. “Are you done?”
“Mostly - can you lace me up?” she asked.
“Er, yes,” he said, sounding a little worried, and came over to do so. His hands were light through the fabric, a little cautious. “Is that tight enough?”
“That’s fine,” Polly said, and he tied it off and stood back. She turned around and looked at him.
He was wearing the sort of clothes that she usually saw on play-actors, a long, loose green shirt and brown hose, which looked awkward over his Oxford shoes. “I look ridiculous,” he grumbled.
“You probably look like everyone else,” Polly pointed out, folding up her frock and putting it aside.
Digory sighed and buckled the belt he’d been given on over the shirt, which managed to make him look marginally more serious, instead of like a boy playing dress up. “So this is a little odd,” he said.
“I’ve been saying that all along,” Polly said, sitting down on the chest. She tugged her skirts out of the way to keep them from bunching up. “Do you think Aslan brought us here?”
“Well, we didn’t come here with the rings.” He sighed. “We’re retracing our steps. Maybe we should just wait.”
“For what? For Scylla to eat us?”
“Well, Aslan didn’t let the Witch kill us,” Digory pointed out, awkward. “So maybe not -”
“What do you think happened to the woman who wrote in the book?” Polly asked. “She was mad. Whatever happened to her made her mad - and Mr. Ketterley, too!”
“I think Uncle Andrew was mad before he got all mixed up in magic.”
Polly considered this. The Ketterleys had bought the house next door to hers when she’d been only a little girl - she had a very vague memory of the family that had lived there before them, a very nice couple, or so her mother liked to say. They’d kept chickens in the garden, and brought over eggs and the odd fryer. But they’d moved away under mysterious circumstances - illness, maybe - and then Mr. and Miss Ketterley had arrived, to her mother’s everlasting distress. She liked to claim that they’d lowered the standards of the entire neighborhood. The rumors about Mr. Ketterley had started soon after that, when the Smiths’ cat had gone missing.
“I wouldn’t know,” she told Digory, instead of any of that, and he shrugged doubtfully.
“We should go up,” he decided. “Have a look around. If this is really Narnia or - or some version of it, I don’t know - then we need to get our bearings. Find out what’s going on, you know. I have the feeling that if we’re here, we must be here for a reason.”
“What kind of reason?”
“I don’t know. An important one.”
“Do you think it had to do with her?” Polly asked.
Digory raised his head. “Did she remind you of her - the other her - too?”
Polly nodded. “She did. And then - she didn’t, too. I think they’re the same, but - not the same, I don’t think she came from that place. Charn,” she added, and shuddered.
Digory looked grim. “Let’s go up,” he said again, and held out his hand. Polly clutched it, and felt a little better.
When they got up top, the ship seemed to have recovered from its former damage. The gaping hole in the railing was still there, but the crew seemed to be going cheerfully about their business, at least so far as Polly could tell in her decided limited experience of such things. To one side of the ship was the open sea, gray and choppy. To the other was an island, gray and rocky, with patches of snow clinging stubbornly to the small rolling hills of the inland.
“Winter,” she said in surprise. “It’s winter!”
“Is it not winter where you come from?” said Prince Gale curiously, coming towards them. He had two cloaks slung over his arm, and he passed one to Polly and the other to Digory. Polly put it on slowly, fastening the pin at the neck with quickly numbing fingers.
“It’s not,” Digory said. “It’s high summer.”
“Indeed.” The prince sounded intrigued by this.
“Please,” Polly said, wrapping the folds of the cloak around her hands, “if we’re not in Narnia, then where are we?”
“We are rounding the cape of the island of Felimath, the westernmost of the Lone Islands,” said the prince. “Some month’s sail from Narnia. We have had trade with the Lone Islands for some time now and our relations have always been friendly; I hope that you do not believe what Calypso believes. My intentions here are only good. I hope to beg indulgence of Duke Garin and winter upon the Islands, then venture further east when spring comes.”
“What’s east of here?” Digory asked.
Gale’s eyes lit up. “No one knows,” he said. “Some of our legends say that the world gets younger the further east one goes, that Galma and Terebinthia are younger than the Narnia and the Lone Islands younger still. Perhaps east of the Lone Islands, there are younger lands yet, lands that have been untouched and unshaped by the hands of either men or other powers. In the furthest east - the home of the Emperor-over-the-Sea, if the stories are true. Or perhaps nothing. Perhaps the world ends entirely.” He looked at the island they were passing and sighed, sounding deeply aggrieved. “To venture so far beyond the boundary of our maps would be something, would it not? A way to make my name.”
“I suppose,” Polly said, leaning on a section of undamaged rail. “I know all these questions must seem terribly irritating, but do you mind if I ask another?”
“Ask away, and I shall do my best to answer,” Gale said. “As my tutor is fond of saying, there is no such thing as a stupid question.”
“It’s about -” Polly began, and then broke off at a cry from the lookout in the crow’s nest.
“She comes! Scylla comes! There, on the land!”
The prince snatched a looking glass from his belt and extended it, putting it to his eye. “She means no harm to us, Evrard,” he called up to the lookout. “The beast hunts other prey this hour.”
“Aye, your highness,” said the lookout doubtfully.
Polly looked around. The air on the ship was tense, every sailor suspended in the action they’d been previously engaged in, each one of them waiting. She took a breath, and looked back at the island.
Scylla was a tiny dark shape on one of the further hills, each of her six heads focused on the herd of sheep fleeing before her - small fluff balls of gray and brown from this distance. One of the heads snapped forward, snatching up a sheep whose legs churned briefly in the air before stopping abruptly.
“Scylla is Calypso’s creature,” Gale said quietly, passing the looking glass to Digory. “The protector of the Lone Islands - the six-headed dragon is the Duke’s sign. To her the Duke has given the island of Felimath, for Felimath is the point that all travelers from the east must pass to come upon Doorn or Avra. She is not supposed to harm any traveler but those who mean harm to the Lone Islands.”
“But she attacked you,” Digory said. He handed the looking glass to Polly.
“Yes,” said Gale wearily. “I do not know if it is because she knows something I do not, or because she has slipped Calypso’s bonds, or some other, even more obscure reason. I swear to you, I did not leave Narnia and come upon this voyage to harm the Lone Islands! My father would never have countenanced such a thing, and see, if I had, I would have brought more men, soldiers rather than sailors, and more ships, and siegecraft. I want to make my name, but not that way.”
Polly raised the looking glass to her eye, watching Scylla spring into clarity. Four of the heads had sheep now, the fifth was trying to steal from another head, and the sixth appeared to be trying to propel the body forward as the remnant of the herd fled, its teeth snapping futilely at mid-air. She lowered the glass quickly and handed it back to Gale, not wanting to see anymore.
“Who’s Calypso?” she asked.
“A sea-goddess, patron of the Lone Islands,” Gale said, absent.
“Is she from - another world?”
“All gods are, I suppose,” said the prince. “She, and Aslan, and all the others. The stories say that the home of the gods is another world entirely, one utterly different from all that we know here.”
Polly and Digory looked at each other, and this time neither of them said anything.
“Come!” said the prince, bright with forced cheer. “We shall dine together, and in the morning, if Scylla lets us round Felimath, we shall arrive at Narrowhaven and meet the Duke.”
*
end Part One
Part Two
Original Prompt:
What I want: Here is just a list of interesting prompts I would want to read about--feel free to pick and choose whatever you like. In general I like girls more than boys and bookverse forever!
-Susan and Lucy, Lucy can't remember and Susan can't forget, but nothing will stop them from being sisters.
-What did Polly do with her life?? What was her relationship with Digory like, did she ever fall in love with anyone, what other adventures did she have? Did she learn anything more about magic?
-Who painted that picture in the spare room at Eustace's house?
-Susan, after LB: some people never stop adventuring, no matter how hard they try (alone? with people? in England? in another world?). I'd love to see her with a group of good, loyal friends after the crash.
-How does the narrator know these stories?
-What was Ramandu's Daughter like? How did she decide to leave with Caspian? How does she like her new home? (if she talked to Lucy when Lucy was on her island I would LOVE to see that story!)
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: A book and the sea
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Smut and incest; dark fic.
Author: bedlamsbard
Recipient: animus_wyrmis
Rating: PG-13
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: The Magician’s Nephew, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; includes fantasy violence
Summary: And then the head of the monster came out of the book, growing as it did so until it was at least the size of Polly herself, covered in iridescent green and gray scales. There are more things in heaven and earth, Polly Plummer, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
Author’s Notes: Thanks to [my betas] for beta! Title is from T.S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”
He told how King Gale, who was ninth in descent from Frank the first of all Kings, had sailed far away into the Eastern seas and delivered the Lone Islanders from a dragon and how, in return, they had given him the Lone Islands to be part of the royal islands of Narnia forever.
− C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle
Part One
Polly sneezed. They’d finished the first cutting of hay yesterday, the same hay that she’d spent the past month staring at in fascination, entranced by the seemingly endless waves of green, like a sea, only miles from the seashore and on dry land. She’d been sneezing since they’d starting cutting and the smell had risen up into the air, sweet and rather itchy, making her nose run and her eyes water. Even Digory had looked rather green by the end of the first day. Now, instead of standing upright, the hay was lying in rows in the field, turning golden in the summer sun. She’d asked at the dinner table what was going to happen to it, and got the answer that it was going to lie out for a few days more to dry, and then it was going to be baled and stored away for winter. Some of it might be sold.
“I told you you’d like the country,” Digory said from behind her, sounding rather smug, and Polly turned away from the window, choking back another sneeze.
“I never said I wouldn’t,” she protested, and he raised an eyebrow.
Polly sneezed again. It was hard to tell through her stuffed nose, but she thought she smelled something other than hay. She eyed the heavy leatherbound book in Digory’s hands suspiciously. “What’s that?”
“I found it in the library,” Digory said, hefting it. “I finally found the ladder, and this was up at the very top of the shelves, not in any order or anything. Look, there’s no title and no author.” He showed it to her, and Polly opened the cover gingerly, sneezing again as a cloud of dust flew up. The first few pages of the book had been torn out, a ragged line of thick creamy paper showing where they’d been. The first page remaining was the dedication page, but the inscription had been viciously scratched out and a single line scrawled beneath it in thick black letters: caveat viator.
“What does it mean?” Polly asked.
“It’s a warning,” Digory said after a moment. “It means, ‘traveler beware.’” He shifted the book, then carried it over to the desk and put it down, stretching out his arms.
Polly rubbed a hand under her nose and followed him. “What do you think that means?”
“I don’t know,” Digory said. He grinned at her. “It’s a mystery!”
“Not a mystery like last summer, I hope,” Polly said. “Although the rings are still in London, so we should be safe.”
Digory didn’t look as relieved by this as she felt. “Wouldn’t that be fun, though? If we could go back to -” He paused for a moment, then went on in an undertone, “that place?”
“It would,” Polly agreed, “but -” They didn’t talk about it often. It was as if some kind of spell of silence fell over them every time one of them brought it up, as if Narnia and Aslan and all the things that had happened during those mad hours were too sacred to be spoken of lightly, especially in London. But the country felt different somehow, as if it were a shade or two closer to Narnia, and the Wood Between the Worlds. Maybe it was the hay.
Polly looked down, the words dying on her lips, and turned the page. There was more writing scrawled in the space before the first chapter of the book began. My name is − This had been scratched out so violently the tip of the pen had torn through the paper. If you are reading this, then you must be careful, I have tried my best to protect you, but there is no such thing as surety, and you are responsible for your own safety, I cannot do everything and - The next sentence was blotted so badly as to be unreadable, the ink spreading halfway down the page and drowning out the top of the printed text.
Polly and Digory both peered at it in fascination. “I wonder what this is all about?” Digory said.
“Some great mystery,” Polly said. “Look, she must have been awfully scared when she was writing this, I wonder if it was the only paper she could find?”
“What makes you think it’s a girl?” Digory said indignantly. “It looks like a boy’s handwriting to me!”
“I think it’s a girl,” Polly said firmly, and turned the page before he could protest. The script began at the bottom of the page, curling up around the margins of the text, which began mid-sentence. Digory reached to turn the book around so that they could both read it. There were no blots this time, and it looked like the writer had been calmer.
I will get out of way the assumption that I am mad, because surely if I was not mad before, I have become mad now. However, since you and I are both aware of this, dear Reader, then the fact of the matter can be set aside and we can proceed onwards. I would not like to take away your time by deliberations upon whether or not I am mad when that time could be better spent elsewhere.
“Definitely mad,” Polly said.
“As mad as Uncle Andrew,” Digory agreed. “All right: I think it’s a girl’s handwriting.”
“What, because she said she was mad?” Polly said, indignant again.
“I thought you said it looked like a girl’s handwriting!”
“No, you were the one who said it looked like a boy’s -
“Hmmph!” Polly said, and sat back, crossing her arms over her chest. “Well, since she - or he - wrote this down in a book, she must have been mad. She certainly sounds mad.”
“She did say she was mad,” Digory pointed out. They looked at the next page, which was blank except for the text of the book itself, which began rather sedately, ἀλλά μοι ἀμφ᾽ Ὀδυσῆι δαΐφρονι δαίεται ἦτορ, δυσμόρῳ, ὃς δὴ δηθὰ φίλων ἄπο πήματα πάσχει νήσῳ ἐν ἀμφιρύτῃ, ὅθι τ᾽ ὀμφαλός ἐστι θαλάσσης.
“It’s from The Odyssey,” Digory said, when Polly frowned at it. “When the goddess Athena is talking to king of the gods about Odysseus, who’s trapped on the island of Calypso. She’s another goddess, a sea-goddess, and she wants to marry him, but he wants to go home to his wife.”
“Oh,” Polly said thoughtfully, looking at the scribbling on the previous page. A sudden breeze came in through the open window, carrying with it the heady scent of drying hay, and Polly sneezed three times in rapid succession, her eyes watering. She barely heard Digory’s shout of alarm and the sound of pages flipping rapidly as she rubbed at her running nose.
His hand closed around her wrist. “Polly, look!” he said. “The book -”
Polly sneezed again and looked up. The breeze was still running through the room, sending the drapes to flapping and knocking over a candlestick with a sudden burst of wind. It lifted her hair off her shoulders, and the pages of the book were still turning, the Greek letters and the mad writer’s script blurring. She noticed abruptly that there were ink sketches in the corners of the pages, beginning halfway through the book; as the pages turned they appeared to be moving. A six-headed monster lunging at a ship -
Abruptly, the smell that the breeze carried changed. Polly sneezed once more, reflexive, but it wasn’t hay she smelled anymore, it was the fresh salty smell of the ocean, familiar from summers spent at the sea, and something else, a sharp, spicy sort of scent.
“Polly, the book!” Digory yelled, his grip tightening on her wrist.
She looked down. The breeze stopped as abruptly as it had begun, the room suddenly silent except for the sound of her and Digory’s harsh breathing, and something else - almost a clanging, and a faint yelling, muffled as if it was coming from a long ways off. The book’s pages had stopped turning, and she looked down at the small ink sketch in the corner. The six-headed monster was looming over the tiny ship, five of its six heads clutching men in their mouths. The sixth head shoved its way down into the ship, scattered the crew amidst shouts, and Polly stared. The pages weren’t moving anymore, there was no reason for -
And then the head of the monster came out of the book, growing as it did so until it was at least the size of Polly herself, covered in iridescent green and gray scales. Its eyes were huge and orb-like, the size of Polly’s fist and the same color as her cat’s, only much madder. It opened its mouth and roared, spattering sea water across Polly and Digory and revealing far too many, far too sharp teeth.
Polly squeaked, then gathered her senses together and knocked Digory aside. The monster’s head came down on the chair she’d been sitting on instead, shattering it into fragments of dark wood, and she grabbed Digory’s hand and dragged him under the table, which groaned under the weight of the monster and the book. Surely someone else would hear the sound and come running - she knew Mr. Kirke kept a rifle for bird-hunting, and she’d seen the swords over the mantle in the study -
The monster’s teeth closed fruitlessly on empty air, a sharp snapping sound, and it roared again, making the table creak. Polly resisted the urge to curl up and whimper, which wouldn’t do anyone any good, and instead took a deep breath and tried to think. The monster had come out of the book. That had to have happened by magic, somehow, so - so the monster was from another world, like the Witch, and didn’t really belong in England. They must have called it out of another world somehow through the book, and that meant they’d have to send it back. But the rings were in London.
Digory swore and tugged at her hand. “Polly, look -” he said, and Polly looked up from her knees, staring at the enormous clawed foot that had just scratched five deep marks into the wooden floor. A second foot thudded down, making the room shake and the table jump. The monster was coming out of the book.
“We’ve got to send it back!” Polly said. “Maybe Uncle Andrew -”
“He’ll just run away,” Digory pointed out, shuddering as the monster roared. There was another creak, and the monster twisted down, forcing its head down beneath the table to snap at them.
Polly shrieked, scrambling backwards and dragging Digory with her. There was barely enough room for the monster to open its mouth, but it gnashed its teeth anyway, its hot breath panting in their faces.
“We’ve got to get out of here!” Digory said. “Before any more of it comes out -” He turned towards the other end of the table. “If we can make it to -” His words trailed off and he finished in a small voice, “…the door.”
“What -” Polly began, looking over her shoulder, but the words died in her mouth.
There was no way out of the table, just a seemingly endless wall of gray stone darkened with seawater, moss sprouting out of it at odd angles. For a moment, Polly was too astonished to do anything more than stare, then the monster roared again. Polly could feel it in her bones, a deep thudding and pounding like a train going past, and it left her breathless. She scrambled back up against the stone wall, peering up at the ceiling, which joined the wall seamlessly - it looked like they were in a small sea-cave, like the ones she’d explored the last time she’d gone to the shore. Only the last time she’d gone to the sea, there hadn’t been a monster trying to eat her, and she hadn’t accidentally ended up in another world.
There was a sound from outside the cave, another roar, and the monsters head thudded into the side of the cave as if it had been pushed. It withdrew, and Polly had only a heartbeat to draw a breath of relief before it shoved back inside, making her and Digory both scream. Only - she realized belatedly - this wasn’t the same head. It was a different head, a little narrower, with one front tooth broken in two.
The monster in the book had had six heads, she remembered, and firmly instructed herself not to cry, that wouldn’t help anyone.
She heard Digory’s voice in her ear. “Here,” he said, and shoved a rock into her hand, rounded from years on the shore. He pressed his shoulder against hers, reassuring. Polly took a deep breath, then another. They could wait for it to go away or they could try and make it go away. Neither option was a particularly attractive one; small chips of rock were beginning to cascade down from the entrance of the sea-cave where the monster was trying to press its head further inside, scraping its skull against the top and sides of the cave. Polly had an unpleasant feeling that it wouldn’t take very long for the monster to enlarge the entrance enough that it get its entire head in, and then it could eat them both in two bites.
“Ho!” The shout came from outside the cave. Polly clutched her rock with renewed fervor, seeing the flash of Digory’s pen-knife in the thin light.
Two of the monster’s other heads roared in bad unison, making the cave shake and sending a fresh flurry of rocks down on their heads. Polly could hear more shouting from outside the cave, along with a horrible sound like metal scraping on rock.
“What’s going on?” she said in a small voice, and Digory shook his head nervously.
They both winced as one of the monster’s heads screamed, a terrible sound of pain and anger and fear all mixed up together. Polly pressed her hands against her ears, trying to drown it out. The rock in her right hand was a hard pressure against the side of her skull.
She saw the monster’s head withdraw from the cave, teeth snapping in the air before it struck up, vanishing from her sight. Light spilled in through the entrance. It was a thin, grayish sort of light, the way the sunlight looked on a cloudy day, and Polly thought it might be the most reassuring thing she’d ever seen. She drew in a breath of cold sea air, listening to the shouts outside, then swore and grabbed at Digory’s ankle as he crawled forward.
“Don’t! That thing might come back -”
Digory tugged his foot out of her hand and leaned forward, bracing himself on the floor of the cave. “Poll, you’ve got to see this!” he exclaimed, sounding amazed. “This is - by Jove -”
He ducked back, but not in time to avoid the splash that sprayed them both with seawater. Polly spat it aside inelegantly, shaking her wet hair out of her face, and said, “What’s going on?”
“It’s gone,” Digory said. His voice sounded slightly strangled.
Polly took a deep breath, tucking her hair behind her ears, and crawled up beside him, putting her head out of the cave to look around. She could see the ocean down below them, almost the height of her house away. The cave was set in a rocky cliff-face; by turning her head from side to side, Polly could see several other sea-caves like this one at varying intervals on the cliff. There were marks in the rock where the monster had climbed up to try and get at them. The ocean stretched out before them, stormy gray and restless; Polly couldn’t see where it made landfall. Most shockingly of all, there was a ship moored beneath them, a fine sailing ship like the ones she saw in her schoolbooks, with miles and miles of rope and billowing green sails. There was a huge tear in one of the sails, and the bow of the ship had been broken off, along with a section of the taffrail. Men were crawling over the ship, shouting at each other as they did so, though Polly couldn’t quite make out the words. She stared at them in delight.
“Blimey,” Digory breathed.
There was a shout from below, and Polly looked down to see a man standing on top of the jagged rocks at the base of the cliff. He waved at them. “Hallo! Is there someone up there?”
“Yes!” she shouted down. “Yes, we’re up here!” She waved at him. He was dressed in what she thought of as the oddest kind of clothes, like something out of a play, weather-beaten green-and-red silks and what looked like chainmail.
“Can you come down? The beast’s gone away and it’s quite safe now.”
Polly and Digory looked rather dubiously at the cliff-face beneath them. Polly had gone climbing all over the shore the last time she’d gone to the sea, but she’d never ventured more than a few feet up the cliffs, and those had seemed much more approachable than this particular cliff. Digory looked even more dubious.
The man looked up at them, one gauntleted hand raised to shade his eyes, and added, “I can send someone up -”
“No!” Polly shouted down. “We can come down on our own,” she said with more surety than she felt, gave the cliff one more dubious look, and swung herself over the side before she could think better of it, jabbing the toes of her shoes into a niche in the rock. The breeze blew her skirts against her legs.
“Polly!” Digory said in alarm.
She looked for a handhold and found one, then another, climbing slowly down. “It’s all right,” she said, turning her head up to look at him. “It’s not as bad as it looks.”
Digory squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again and nodded. Polly climbed down a few more feet, feeling the ache begin in her arms and legs, and started to climb faster, vaguely aware that if her arms froze up then she’d fall to her death. She saw Digory climb out of the cave above her and start to clamber down as well.
The rock was cold beneath her fingers, a little slippery from the damp, and Polly clung to it determinedly, becoming a little more reckless the closer she got to the bottom. Her feet slipped more than once, but she managed to jab her toes back into the cracks in the rock, clinging to it for dear life. The tension in her arms was making her shake, her fingers going numb from the cold, and she bit her lip, trying not to panic. Just a little further - just a little further, and then -
Her frozen fingers slipped off the hold she’d found. Polly cried out, feeling herself fall back as she tried to scrabble at the wall, but her hands were crooked into claws, too stiff to move as quickly as she needed them to. She heard Digory shout her name.
Instead of hitting sharp rocks or cold water, she fell backwards against body-warm silk covering mail, the man who’d yelled up at them catching her with a slight grunt of effort. For a moment all Polly could do was peer up at him in bemusement. He had an open, honest face, familiar for no reason she could put her finger on, with curly blond hair and warm blue eyes.
“Do you think you can stand?” he asked her.
“I - I think so,” Polly did, and he put her carefully upright, holding her steady until she found her footing on the slippery rock. She looked up and saw Digory up above them, still clinging to the cliff and looking frantically over his shoulder.
“Poll!” he shouted. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine!” she yelled back up, and saw him nod slightly to himself before he started back down again. He made it all the way to the bottom of the cliff, then stopped, turned around, and leaned against it, looking exhausted, then lifted his chin and looked around, judging the distance between the mostly flat rock he was perched on and the rock that Polly and the stranger were standing on, next to which a small boat was rocking in the waves. There was blood in the bottom of it.
“Are you all right?” the stranger said anxiously.
“Yes,” Digory said. He looked at the man dubiously, then started forward, moving cautiously from rock to rock.
Polly looked up at the stranger. He was younger than she’d thought originally, about the same age as her cousin Albert, who’d caught diamond fever and run off to Africa three years ago. Not that much older than she and Digory were. Behind them, the ship creaked in the ocean, its rigging shuddering in the wind. A flag snapped against the map; Polly turned to peer up at it, making out a red lion on a green field.
Digory finally made his way over to their rock, and the stranger said politely, “You two must be exhausted. Here, we can take you back to the port, and you can get warm and dry -” He moved to hand Polly down into the small boat that was tethered to the rock, empty except for what appeared to be a cat curled up in the bottom.
“What port?” Polly said curiously.
He looked surprised. “Why, Narrowhaven, of course. Or if you’re from one of the villages, we can take you back there -” He gave them a thoughtful look, frowning at Digory’s Norfolk suit.
“We’re not from one of the villages,” Digory said. “We’re from much further away than that.”
The stranger frowned, then said, “This is no place to discuss that. Come and get warmed up, I can provide hot food and spiced wine, as well as fresh clothes.” He stepped down into the boat, offering Polly his hand.
She took it, the metal of his gauntlets cold and a little slippery beneath her bare fingers, and clambered awkwardly down into the boat, looking around for the cleanest seat before she finally perched on one that was wet with water, but not blood. The stranger reached for Digory as well, but Digory ignored his hand, climbing down awkwardly down and sending the boat rocking as he stepped into it. For a moment he wavered, then got his footing and sat down next to Polly. The cat on the other bench opened one eye and looked at them.
“Who’s this, then?”
“I haven’t had the pleasure of their names,” said the stranger, leaning over to untie the boat. He coiled up the rope neatly, then dipped both paddles into the water. Polly grabbed at the side of the boat as it pulled away from the rock.
“They don’t look like Lone Islanders,” said the cat, standing up and stretching, elegant. She - its voice was undoubtedly feminine - was a slim, pretty cat like a Siamese, with one ragged ear and the tip of her tail missing. She padded over to sniff at Polly’s feet.
“Hello,” Polly told her solemnly. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t see how that’s any of your business,” said the cat.
“Rionet,” said the stranger wearily. “Be polite.”
“I shall do nothing of the sort,” the cat said, trotting over to the front of the boat and putting her paws up on the side.
They bumped against the side of the ship, and Polly looked up and up at it, her mouth suddenly dry. It wasn’t particularly large compared to some of the ships in England, but she wasn’t used to seeing those up close, and this was close enough to touch. The stranger began the business of tying the boat up to the side of the ship as a rope ladder rattled down over the side, followed by a sailor who swarmed down it and landed in the bottom of the boat, barely missing the cat, who spat protest.
“Go on up, your highness,” said the sailor. Polly barely heard his words; she was too busy staring at him. She’d seen fauns the last time, of course, but she hadn’t been paying much attention then, and Aslan had overshadowed everything around him.
“Ladies first,” said the stranger courteously, gesturing at the ladder.
Polly climbed up, her arms spasming again at the effort, and grabbed the railing to haul herself onto the deck. Her hands came away sticky with blood, and she scrubbed them furiously on her skirts, trying to get it off. She stepped quickly away from the rail, looking around at the ship. The huge sails spread out above her, the thin sunlight filtering down green through them, while sailors walked on the masts and lines as calmly as though they were walking on solid ground. Some of them didn’t look human.
She turned around as Digory came over the side, opening her mouth to warn him about the blood. He put his hand in it before she could speak.
“Ugh, what -”
“Scylla took seven of my sailors,” said the stranger, clambering onto the deck. He avoided the blood, Polly noticed, but what she’d taken for water-stains on his tunic and rust on his mail turned out to be splashes of blood. She took a cautious step away, hoping he wouldn’t notice. “She’s never taken so many before.”
“Scylla?” Digory repeated. “Like - from The Odyssey?”
“What is The Odyssey?” said the stranger, curious, then shook his head and said, “I’m sorry - I’ve been discourteous. My name is Gale. And you are -”
“I’m Digory and this is Polly,” Digory said swiftly, then grinned. “I can’t believe we’re in Narnia again!”
“You must certainly are not!” an aggrieved female voice exclaimed, and Polly turned to see a tall dark woman standing on the ship’s poop deck. She swallowed; she didn’t think the woman had been there before.
The woman came quickly down the steps to the waist. She was even taller than Polly had thought originally, nearly as tall as she remembered the Witch being, and with something of the same air around her, though while the Witch had been cold and dark, somehow sickening, this woman seemed different somehow. As if she brought life rather than death. Her hair fell loose over her bare shoulder, thick and black, with strands of what looked like seaweed caught in it. She was wearing a chiton like the statues Polly saw in her schoolbooks, only this one, instead of being the plain white that the marble statues wore, was all the colors of the sea, from stormy gray to deep blue to tranquil green, seeming to shift as Polly looked at it. The woman’s bare feet left pools of water on the deck as she approached them.
“Ignore the prince,” she said, her voice reverberating slightly, the way someone’s did when they stood in a small room and spoke. It hurt Polly’s head. “The fool doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
“Calypso -” said Gale, raising his gauntleted hands in a placating sort of way.
“Be quiet!” she spat, turning on him. “Already you trespass upon my lands and my waters, and you think that gives you allowance to dictate your law here? You forget that you are nothing more than a visitor, here upon my sufferance!”
Gale opened his mouth to reply, but Calypso - if that was her name - was already turning away from him, leaping up onto the ship’s rail and into a long clean dive. Polly let out a cry and raced to the side of the ship, expecting to see the woman battered on the rocks beside them, but the water was still and calm except for the waves that lapped at the stained wood of the ship’s side. There weren’t even ripples. She realized abruptly that she didn’t think she’d even heard a splash.
“Don’t take offense, I beg you,” Gale said swiftly, his boots clicking softly on the deck as he crossed to her side. He looked shaken. “Calypso is - my purpose here is not what she thinks.”
“What is it?” Digory asked. “Why are you here? You - are Narnian, aren’t you? You’re King Frank’s son?”
“I am the ninth in descent from King Frank,” Gale said. “And I believe I know who you are, as well. The stories speak of the two children who came from the same world that the King and the Queen did at the beginning of Narnia, who went into the Western Wild to fetch the seed of the Warden Tree that grows on the banks of the Great River.”
“That was us,” Digory said. “But that was only last year -”
Gale frowned slightly. “The books say that travel between worlds is a chancy thing, and that time bends strangely in the space between my world and the others - our worlds are only two of many.”
“Have there been others?” Polly said eagerly. “Are there many travelers?”
“Not that I will speak of,” Gale said, his gaze suddenly shadowed. “As I said: you must be weary, and ready for hot food and drink, and fresh clothes. We are somewhat short on women’s clothes at the moment, milady Polly, but my manservant will find something that will suffice, never fear.” He gave their clothes a dubious look. “What you wear now seems uncomfortable. Is it necessary for travel between worlds?”
Digory blinked. “No,” he said, “this is just what we wear -” He trailed off as a faun came hurrying up, hooves clicking gently on the deck.
“Your highness?” said the faun. Its - his, Polly reminded herself firmly - hairy legs were the color of fresh-churned cream, the same as his curly hair and the line of hair down the straight line of his spine. A pair of short horns stuck up out of his hair, above pointed ears that stuck out at right angles to his head, like a - well, like a goat’s.
“Icarion, this is the Lord Digory and the Lady Polly,” said Gale. “Take them to -” He paused briefly. “Well, I suppose Ivar won’t be returning to his cabin. Take them there, and see that they are given fresh clothes and some hot drink to warm them up. They will join me for dinner.”
“Very well, your highness,” said the faun, dipping a short bow to Polly and Digory.
The cabin where Icarion left them was even smaller than Polly had pictured, barely wide enough for Digory to stand with his arms out to either side, his fingertips just brushing the walls of canvas that blocked it off from the cabins on either side of them. There was a hammock for sleeping in, long enough for a much taller person than either of them, and a small sea chest tucked discreetly against the wooden wall of the ship, which curved in slightly. After a moment of looking around, Polly sat down on top of it, rather gingerly, while Digory stood by the hammock, rubbing the fabric between his fingers. Icarion had told them that he was going to find them proper clothing and flitted off, his hooves clicking on the wooden floor.
“Does this all seem rather odd to you?” Polly said finally.
Digory looked up from the hammock. “What do you mean?”
“Well - we didn’t have any rings this time. So do you think - maybe the book was like the rings?” She said this last slightly dubiously; it certainly hadn’t felt anything like the rings had. Travel with the rings had been slow and dream-like, like swimming in a dream, but this had been so quick that she hadn’t even noticed it. And there had been the monster - Scylla, Gale had called it.
“The book didn’t come with us,” Digory pointed out. He sat down on the edge of the hammock and leapt up almost immediately as it threatened to tip him over. Polly laughed slightly, relieved by it, and Digory grinned sheepishly at her.
“And Scylla came out of the book,” he added. “She was in our world -” He stiffened suddenly. “What will Dad think if he comes up to get us for dinner? Or Mother - or the servants - or Uncle Andrew!”
“Mr. Ketterley will probably be able to guess,” Polly said dryly. “Unless - do you think he did it?”
Digory considered this, then shook his head. “It’s not really his style, is it? And he did say he was going to give up magic and take up drinking.”
“‘Take up’?” Polly said dryly, and he laughed.
“Right,” he allowed. “So probably not Uncle Andrew. It must have been the book, though - do you think that was what the mad woman was going on about?”
“But that was written a long time ago,” Polly protested, then stopped as Icarion pushed back one sheet of canvas.
“Clothes, milord, milady,” he said, as Digory went over to take them from him. “His Highness will see you for dinner at eight bells.”
“When is -”
“I will send someone to fetch you,” said Icarion, and left.
Digory looked down at the clothes he was holding, then at Polly, and blushed. “I -”
“We can just turn our backs,” she told him firmly. His ears were scarlet.
He dropped the clothes hastily on the hammock and started sorting through them. “I think these are for you,” he said, holding them out to her.
Polly took it from him, holding the gown by the shoulders and watching the skirts fell down. She had to struggle not to smile - the fabric was soft against her hands, like wool but softer, and a beautiful pale blue color with embroidery picked out on the sleeves and hem in a darker blue, with a panel of embroidery over the bosom. It looked like flowers, and Polly stroked it gently with one finger
“Poll,” Digory said anxiously, clutching his clothes to himself, and Polly turned around, putting the dress down on the chest while she undressed. She could hear Digory behind her doing the same.
She kept her underthings on, then shimmied into the blue dress. It laced up the back, which she tried to tug at rather awkwardly before giving up. The hem of the dress dragged on the floor; she thought it had been made for someone much taller than her. Polly thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever worn in her life, and resisted the urge to twirl; she’d probably just trip over the hem.
“Poll?” Digory said. He sounded cautious. “Are you done?”
“Mostly - can you lace me up?” she asked.
“Er, yes,” he said, sounding a little worried, and came over to do so. His hands were light through the fabric, a little cautious. “Is that tight enough?”
“That’s fine,” Polly said, and he tied it off and stood back. She turned around and looked at him.
He was wearing the sort of clothes that she usually saw on play-actors, a long, loose green shirt and brown hose, which looked awkward over his Oxford shoes. “I look ridiculous,” he grumbled.
“You probably look like everyone else,” Polly pointed out, folding up her frock and putting it aside.
Digory sighed and buckled the belt he’d been given on over the shirt, which managed to make him look marginally more serious, instead of like a boy playing dress up. “So this is a little odd,” he said.
“I’ve been saying that all along,” Polly said, sitting down on the chest. She tugged her skirts out of the way to keep them from bunching up. “Do you think Aslan brought us here?”
“Well, we didn’t come here with the rings.” He sighed. “We’re retracing our steps. Maybe we should just wait.”
“For what? For Scylla to eat us?”
“Well, Aslan didn’t let the Witch kill us,” Digory pointed out, awkward. “So maybe not -”
“What do you think happened to the woman who wrote in the book?” Polly asked. “She was mad. Whatever happened to her made her mad - and Mr. Ketterley, too!”
“I think Uncle Andrew was mad before he got all mixed up in magic.”
Polly considered this. The Ketterleys had bought the house next door to hers when she’d been only a little girl - she had a very vague memory of the family that had lived there before them, a very nice couple, or so her mother liked to say. They’d kept chickens in the garden, and brought over eggs and the odd fryer. But they’d moved away under mysterious circumstances - illness, maybe - and then Mr. and Miss Ketterley had arrived, to her mother’s everlasting distress. She liked to claim that they’d lowered the standards of the entire neighborhood. The rumors about Mr. Ketterley had started soon after that, when the Smiths’ cat had gone missing.
“I wouldn’t know,” she told Digory, instead of any of that, and he shrugged doubtfully.
“We should go up,” he decided. “Have a look around. If this is really Narnia or - or some version of it, I don’t know - then we need to get our bearings. Find out what’s going on, you know. I have the feeling that if we’re here, we must be here for a reason.”
“What kind of reason?”
“I don’t know. An important one.”
“Do you think it had to do with her?” Polly asked.
Digory raised his head. “Did she remind you of her - the other her - too?”
Polly nodded. “She did. And then - she didn’t, too. I think they’re the same, but - not the same, I don’t think she came from that place. Charn,” she added, and shuddered.
Digory looked grim. “Let’s go up,” he said again, and held out his hand. Polly clutched it, and felt a little better.
When they got up top, the ship seemed to have recovered from its former damage. The gaping hole in the railing was still there, but the crew seemed to be going cheerfully about their business, at least so far as Polly could tell in her decided limited experience of such things. To one side of the ship was the open sea, gray and choppy. To the other was an island, gray and rocky, with patches of snow clinging stubbornly to the small rolling hills of the inland.
“Winter,” she said in surprise. “It’s winter!”
“Is it not winter where you come from?” said Prince Gale curiously, coming towards them. He had two cloaks slung over his arm, and he passed one to Polly and the other to Digory. Polly put it on slowly, fastening the pin at the neck with quickly numbing fingers.
“It’s not,” Digory said. “It’s high summer.”
“Indeed.” The prince sounded intrigued by this.
“Please,” Polly said, wrapping the folds of the cloak around her hands, “if we’re not in Narnia, then where are we?”
“We are rounding the cape of the island of Felimath, the westernmost of the Lone Islands,” said the prince. “Some month’s sail from Narnia. We have had trade with the Lone Islands for some time now and our relations have always been friendly; I hope that you do not believe what Calypso believes. My intentions here are only good. I hope to beg indulgence of Duke Garin and winter upon the Islands, then venture further east when spring comes.”
“What’s east of here?” Digory asked.
Gale’s eyes lit up. “No one knows,” he said. “Some of our legends say that the world gets younger the further east one goes, that Galma and Terebinthia are younger than the Narnia and the Lone Islands younger still. Perhaps east of the Lone Islands, there are younger lands yet, lands that have been untouched and unshaped by the hands of either men or other powers. In the furthest east - the home of the Emperor-over-the-Sea, if the stories are true. Or perhaps nothing. Perhaps the world ends entirely.” He looked at the island they were passing and sighed, sounding deeply aggrieved. “To venture so far beyond the boundary of our maps would be something, would it not? A way to make my name.”
“I suppose,” Polly said, leaning on a section of undamaged rail. “I know all these questions must seem terribly irritating, but do you mind if I ask another?”
“Ask away, and I shall do my best to answer,” Gale said. “As my tutor is fond of saying, there is no such thing as a stupid question.”
“It’s about -” Polly began, and then broke off at a cry from the lookout in the crow’s nest.
“She comes! Scylla comes! There, on the land!”
The prince snatched a looking glass from his belt and extended it, putting it to his eye. “She means no harm to us, Evrard,” he called up to the lookout. “The beast hunts other prey this hour.”
“Aye, your highness,” said the lookout doubtfully.
Polly looked around. The air on the ship was tense, every sailor suspended in the action they’d been previously engaged in, each one of them waiting. She took a breath, and looked back at the island.
Scylla was a tiny dark shape on one of the further hills, each of her six heads focused on the herd of sheep fleeing before her - small fluff balls of gray and brown from this distance. One of the heads snapped forward, snatching up a sheep whose legs churned briefly in the air before stopping abruptly.
“Scylla is Calypso’s creature,” Gale said quietly, passing the looking glass to Digory. “The protector of the Lone Islands - the six-headed dragon is the Duke’s sign. To her the Duke has given the island of Felimath, for Felimath is the point that all travelers from the east must pass to come upon Doorn or Avra. She is not supposed to harm any traveler but those who mean harm to the Lone Islands.”
“But she attacked you,” Digory said. He handed the looking glass to Polly.
“Yes,” said Gale wearily. “I do not know if it is because she knows something I do not, or because she has slipped Calypso’s bonds, or some other, even more obscure reason. I swear to you, I did not leave Narnia and come upon this voyage to harm the Lone Islands! My father would never have countenanced such a thing, and see, if I had, I would have brought more men, soldiers rather than sailors, and more ships, and siegecraft. I want to make my name, but not that way.”
Polly raised the looking glass to her eye, watching Scylla spring into clarity. Four of the heads had sheep now, the fifth was trying to steal from another head, and the sixth appeared to be trying to propel the body forward as the remnant of the herd fled, its teeth snapping futilely at mid-air. She lowered the glass quickly and handed it back to Gale, not wanting to see anymore.
“Who’s Calypso?” she asked.
“A sea-goddess, patron of the Lone Islands,” Gale said, absent.
“Is she from - another world?”
“All gods are, I suppose,” said the prince. “She, and Aslan, and all the others. The stories say that the home of the gods is another world entirely, one utterly different from all that we know here.”
Polly and Digory looked at each other, and this time neither of them said anything.
“Come!” said the prince, bright with forced cheer. “We shall dine together, and in the morning, if Scylla lets us round Felimath, we shall arrive at Narrowhaven and meet the Duke.”
*
end Part One
Part Two
Original Prompt:
What I want: Here is just a list of interesting prompts I would want to read about--feel free to pick and choose whatever you like. In general I like girls more than boys and bookverse forever!
-Susan and Lucy, Lucy can't remember and Susan can't forget, but nothing will stop them from being sisters.
-What did Polly do with her life?? What was her relationship with Digory like, did she ever fall in love with anyone, what other adventures did she have? Did she learn anything more about magic?
-Who painted that picture in the spare room at Eustace's house?
-Susan, after LB: some people never stop adventuring, no matter how hard they try (alone? with people? in England? in another world?). I'd love to see her with a group of good, loyal friends after the crash.
-How does the narrator know these stories?
-What was Ramandu's Daughter like? How did she decide to leave with Caspian? How does she like her new home? (if she talked to Lucy when Lucy was on her island I would LOVE to see that story!)
Prompt words/objects/quotes/whatever: A book and the sea
What I definitely don't want in my fic: Smut and incest; dark fic.