CHAPTER 4: Deadwood
And then there was light, and a heck of a lot of it, too.
Susan, who had been sitting alone in the dark for what seemed like ages (she had long since given up calling her companions), was momentarily blinded, and shielded her eyes from the sudden glare.
And then, the light became less intense. Susan lowered her hands and opened her eyes. Her jaw dropped. "Impossible!"
Susan Pevensie, who was, only minutes before, in the middle of a party in modern London, now found herself standing in the middle of a crowded city.
Her jaw dropped. She ogled at the sight. The city was so strange... Everything seemed to be made of some strange reddish rock. Where in the world was she?
Suddenly, someone grabbed her hand and yanked her away from the crowded streets. She couldn't break free. The two of them ran and ran past the crowds, past houses, until they reached a deserted street.
The mysterious hand-yanker stopped and dropped her hand.
"Who are you?" gasped Susan. "Why… Why did you…?" She was out of breath – it was extremely hot. Her feet were bruised – she'd lost her pumps several streets ago and the streets were unfortunately cobbled - and she was bathed in sweat. On top of that, she was still reeling from shock.
The Person was tall – almost as tall as her brother Peter had been. He or she was wearing queer clothes made of coarse wool and cotton. The head was veiled and hooded, so the face was not visible.
"Come with me," said a deep male voice coming from within the veil.
"Excuse me?"
"I promise I will not hurt you. You are not safe here in the open. We must go to the Tavern…"
Tavern? "Listen, buddy, or whatever your name is," said Susan indignantly. Who did he think she was, anyway? Some tavern-girl? A prostitute? "I am a decent woman and I don't go into Taverns!"
"We must go. Else, the Queen will have you killed. It is obvious you come from strange lands, and she does not allow any foreigner into Helion. The Tavern is a decent place, lady. 'Tis not what you think it is."
The man's words triggered something deep within Susan's mind: a memory of another Queen in another land; a queen of snow and ice, and her sanction against humans.
The man grabbed her arm, gently this time. "Lady?"
"Yes," said Susan, dazed from that memory. "Yes… Let's go."
"We're in some weird desert place," said Will blankly, his back turned on his cousin. "We're stuck in your room in the middle of the Atacama of wherever this place is. And your cat talks."
"Toulouse can talk ever since I can remember," said Nia, who was putting on a white cotton shirt and a pair of beige slacks.
"I'm dreaming."
Nia reached out and pinched her cousin hard.
"Ow!"
"Still dreaming?"
"All I can see is desert," said Toulouse, who was still looking out of the window. "Miles and miles of desert."
"Great. And we've little supplies here," said Nia. "We've only a pitcher of water and some crackers." Nia was a thirsty person and frequently got up to drink at night. "We've got to check this place out. Who knows? Maybe there's an oasis here or something…"
The place outside was a depressing sight. The ground was dry and cracked, and no sign of life could be seen for miles. The horizon was a haze… Nia thought it would not be long before all of them would begin hallucinating.
"There's an umbrella here somewhere," said Toulouse, diving into Nia's open wardrobe.
"Are you sure we have to go out?" asked Will. "I don't like this place… I mean, aside from its being a desert."
Nia, too, felt a sense of foreboding. There was something unearthly in this place. It was not the hazy horizon… It was almost as if the place was cursed. She shrugged it off and reached inside the wardrobe for her umbrella.
"You hold the fort," Toulouse said to Will. "We'll go out and look around."
"Excuse me, but I'm the man here. Besides, it doesn't look safe…"
"Look, bud, we've done this before. You can step outside, if you want, and be on the lookout for us. That way, we can make sure this room stays here, and at the same time we can discover what kind of place this really is."
Nia opened the door, expecting to see the familiar corridor leading to her room, and finding herself staring at the same view outside her window: miles and miles of sheer drought.
"You're right, Tou," said Nia as she traipsed along the dry, cracked earth. "This is no Narnia. The desert in that world resembles the Sahara. It's sandy and orange. But this place is no Sahara. It's nothing like I've ever seen before." By the Lion, it was so hot! Nia felt beads of sweat trickling down her face and wiped them away with a hand towel.
"I can't help but think over what Will said before we left," said Toulouse, plodding beside her. "This place doesn't feel right. It's not like the Atacama… This drought isn't natural at all."
"Do you think Will will be alright?" Nia was seized by a sudden, overwhelming anxiousness for her cousin. "We shouldn't have left him alone."
"He wanted to stay," said Toulouse. "He'll be fine." The Cat's tone was a half-hearted attempt at comforting Nia. He failed miserably.
Nia bit her lip and looked ahead. "Hey, what do you think is that?" she asked, pointing at what appeared to be a mass of dried wood, extending far to the left and far to the right, as far as Nia could see.
"Let's have a look." Toulouse rushed ahead and stopped short before the mass. "By the Lion!" he exclaimed, obviously surprised.
"It's a forest," Nia gasped, examining the wood, almost afraid to touch it.
"It was a forest, Nia. I was right. This isn't natural. I ask you, is there a forest of dead trees in the Atacama? I don't think so."
Nia folded her umbrella and touched one of the trees with its tip. The tree promptly turned into dust and collapsed into the ground. "Oops…"
"What kind of trees do you think these had been?" asked Toulouse, padding amongst the trees, moving deeper and deeper into the dead forest.
Nia looked up and down as she walked amidst the dead plant life. "I'd say these were deciduous trees once, a lot like the trees in Kent. Look at those branches," she said, pointing at the branches of one tree. "And the bark of that tree. That must've been a magnificent oak... Tou, we've got to get back to Will!"
Toulouse nodded, and the two of them walked carefully, avoiding contact with the trees, until they neared the front.
That was when they heard voices.
"Who are you?" Will demanded.
One of his captors grinned, showing teeth of what appeared to be solid gold. "Why, we're the Queen's Guards, boy – I mean, man."
The rest of his captors laughed rather wickedly, sending chills down his spine. He closed his eyes and tried to detach himself from the world, trying to imitate those Indian fakirs he'd heard about.
He failed miserably.
A few hours earlier, after Nia and her amazing cat had left to explore, Will decided to go out of the room and made the foolish mistake of closing the door (it was his habit to close the door after him, and he was distracted today). The click of the door jolted him out of the myriad thoughts running through his mind. He turned around, and there was no sign of the door, the room, or anything from Kent.
That was how the Queen's Guards found him a few minutes later, cursing himself for his stupidity, trying in vain to find the door back to his cousin's bedroom. All he could remember was something hard hitting his head, and the next moment, he was already tied to a pole, like some pig, with two men carrying the pole, one on each end, and four other men ahead and behind them.
It was lucky, though, that he wasn't gagged or blindfolded.
And now, after a few miles of trudging under the burning sun (for the sun was burning), the Queen's Guards stopped for a while several meters short of what appeared to be a forest of dead trees. Will noticed that the Guards had shied away from it, though, and avoided looking at it, whether from superstition of from a terrible memory, he didn't know. There was, however, fear in their eyes.
The troupe dropped him on the ground like a sack tied to a stick, and then sat on the ground and drank from some sort of skin. Will stared at them.
The Queen's Guards were tall – very tall. Will was considered very tall himself, but these men were more then seven feet tall! Their skin color varied from olive-skinned to coal black, but all of them were bald, their heads shining like burnished wood in the sun. They were all wearing some sort of orange-ish, brownish hooded uniform made of coarse wool. The neckline at the back of their necks was low enough to reveal some queer sort of tattoo at the napes of their heads.
Will shivered. Was this some sort of a cult?
"Who are you?" By Jove, was he thirsty!
"I told you already," said the Guard who'd already spoken to him – the olive-complexioned Guard, "we are the Queen's Guards. Now shush!"
"Where are you taking me?"
"Why, to the Queen, of course. Now shush, or I will be very angry!" The Guard really meant it. Will bit his lip. Had they caught Nia as well?
He saw a flash of black amongst the dead wood. It was Toulouse, the Talking Cat. Nia was nearby… Will couldn't decide whether she was safe, or in danger.
Nia desperately wanted to step forward and save Will, but the sight of his captors (six humongous men), who appeared to be almost two feet taller than she was, frightened her extremely.
It was a good thing the Guards seemed to not want to enter the woods. She was hardly breathing. The Guards seemed to be tense to the point that they would jump at the slightest sound. She moved deeper into the woods to conceal herself, careful not to let her cousin's party out of her sight.
The Guards stood up, and two of them lifted the pole to which Will was tied. The tiny procession then proceeded, following the course of the forest to the east (or at least it seemed to be the east – it was obviously morning, and they went in the direction of the sun) yet carefully avoiding getting too close.
Nia, carefully making sure that she could not be seen, began to follow them. Toulouse had gone somewhere, but she was sure the Cat would be able to catch up.
Sure enough, Toulouse appeared some moments later.
"Where have you been?" Nia whispered, fanning herself. She was already bathed in sweat, and probably stinking, too.
"Exploring. What are we going to do about your cousin?"
"We follow them. We have to know where they're taking Will."
Susan didn't remember much of the way to the Tavern. She was in a daze… Where was she? She could find no logical explanation as to how she got where she was. All she knew was that, somehow, during the mass blackout, she had ended up in a desert-city called Helion, which, apparently, was ruled by a tyrant queen.
You're in another world, girl. It was that stupid voice again.
That's impossible, Susan told herself. You can't be in another world. There are no other worlds… It's just not logical.
Well, you're nowhere near London, when, only minutes ago, you were in the middle of a Londoner party. Face it, Susan. Your situation is anything but logical.
"We're here," said the man suddenly, stopping before a door that blended against the sandstone walls so well, Susan had to look closely to see it. He looked up and down the street, and up the buildings, to see of anyone was watching.
No one was. He knocked on the door loudly and slowly four times, and then softly and rapidly three times. After a few seconds, the door opened. The hooded man let Susan enter first, and then closed the door after him.
The Tavern looked like, well, a tavern. It looked – and felt – Scottish, actually (which was strange because they were surrounded by arabesques and minarets). It was a fairly large room (by country standards) with a low ceiling. It was well-lit, and there was a bar (or what appeared to be a bar) and a bartender. The room was crowded with both men and women, of all shapes and sizes; all of them wearing the same coarse wool the hooded man wore.
And they were all staring blankly at her. Susan wondered whether she should curtsy or not. She turned around to look at the hooded man for help.
She gasped, struck dumb at the sight of the hooded man's unveiled face: a handsome, regal face with greenish, bluish eyes framed by a mass of blond curls.
"Caspian…" she whispered. No… Caspian was just a story. Somehow, she could not bring herself to believe that.
"Welcome to the Tavern," said the man who resembled Caspian, "Lady…?"
Susan's mouth felt dry. "Susan," she managed. "Susan Pevensie."
"She is a foreigner!" exclaimed one of the women. Everyone suddenly broke into whispers, until the man standing behind the bar said, "Oh, shush all of you! She may be who we're looking for."
Susan looked at them, bewildered. What could they mean?
"The Lady is tired," said Caspian's look-alike. "She would like to request a room, father."
Apparently, the Tavern was an inn as well.
The bartender immediately came forward, a copper-skinned, stout man in his fifties (Susan couldn't find some trace of paternity in the man). "I apologize, Lady Susan," he said, bowing again and again. "I forget myself. Not many foreigners come to Helion, you see." He led her up a narrow flight of stairs and into a narrow corridor with rooms on each side. Susan took it all in, amazed. She'd never seen anything like it!
"This is your room, Lady," said the bartender (who also was the owner), stopping beside the third door on the right side and fumbling for the key. "It's the largest in the lot." He opened the door.
The room was not that large – not by earthly standards, anyway. It was larger than Susan's room in Finchley, but way smaller than her room at the Ritz. It looked like a room in a backwoods cabin: small, low-ceilinged, and extremely cozy. The bed was large enough for her, anyway; Susan Pevensie was never particularly picky about rooms.
"As for your clothes, Lady, we will lend you some. I understand you have brought no possessions. You will find some slippers under the bed. If you want, we will send someone here to massage your feet."
"Thank you, sir," said Susan, smiling warmly. Her feet hurt terribly, but she didn't want to abuse these people's hospitality. Besides, something was up. She had to know what that was. "I just need rest."
"Well then, I shall tell Laila to bring you some nightclothes."
"Oh, er, sir?"
"Yes, Lady?" The bartender paused by the door and looked back at her. "What is it?"
"That man… the one who brought me here. What is his name?"
"Oh, you mean Clavo? He is a foreigner as well, or of foreign blood, anyway. Found him in Deadwood some thirty years ago and adopted him." The man grinned. "He's my son."
"Deadwood?"
"Oh, 'tis the woods outside the city. It has been called 'Deadwood' for as long as I can remember. Anyway, it is a dead forest." He shrugged nonchalantly – a bit too nonchalantly, Susan noticed. Something was up. She had to find out what that is.
But for now, she was content to lie here and think.
And let the memories she had long kept at bay wash over her.
The woods stopped short of what had once been a wide, deep, and mighty river. Well, it was a river basin, anyway; there was no water.
Several feet away, Nia saw the Guards descend carefully into the basin with her cousin (and the pole). She carefully walked to the edge of the forest and saw where the Guards were heading. The sun was setting and the light was a bit dim, but it was enough to let Nia see where Will's captors were heading.
The river basin appeared to begin right smack in the middle of a city on a gentle, sloping hill. She could see the spires and turrets of what appeared to be the palace of that city.
"A city," Toulouse whispered. "We've got to get in there."
"Well then, lets…"
"We've got to get in there, Nee, but it won't do Will any good if you get caught as well," said Toulouse. "I'll scout ahead and then I'll come back here, hopefully with something that will help you enter the city unnoticed."
"But…" Nia took a deep breath. She badly wanted to go as well, but Toulouse was right. "Be careful, Tou."
"See you, Nee. Your supplies will last the night, will it?"
Nia nodded. She still had enough water and crackers to last the night. It was lucky she thought of bringing some. Her pouch was practically bulging with packs of crackers.
"Well then, I'll see you, Nee."
"May the Lion watch over you, Tou." Nia watched as Toulouse nimbly jumped into the basin and darted upriver, into the city. May the Lion watch over us all.
END OF CHAPTER