Epilogue

They had one last command to fulfill; one last task. They had to flee.

"How?" asked Sarah practically, sitting against the wall of the empty great hall. They'd woken up and were hungry for breakfast; but going outside without a plan was something they both agreed was foolish. "The seas are currently frozen, at least a long way out. And we're not sure there's a ship there anyway."

The carpenter was sitting beside his wife, looking at the four thrones. It still seemed a miracle that they were there, whole, beautiful, having been placed there by stars. "If Aslan told us to go, there will be a way."

"We should find you some wood," Sarah said. "That way, if we get to the open ocean, you'll at least have made us a boat or raft."

The carpenter paused and looked down at his hands. He had not told Sarah yet. It would be harder for her to hear of his hurts, he knew. "I cannot make it," he said quietly. He felt, rather than saw, Sarah's sharpening attention.

"What? Why?"

He did not know how to tell her. He did not know how to process it himself yet.

He held both hands out to her, black and leathery to the touch, he would guess; and she took them.

"I cannot feel that," he told her quietly. "I cannot feel anything in my hands." He couldn't meet her eyes. He could see her hands, see them wrapped around his dark burnt flesh; but he could not feel anything.

And his work was often measured by the touch of his hands.

"But we got out. We got out, and you were alive, and-" Sarah broke off. He could see her hands holding his tighter, her fingers turning white with pressure, but still could not feel a thing. But she was holding herself still, holding off her doubts and anger, holding them to listen. It was more than she had done. "What will you do if you cannot feel in your hands?" she asked, and though there was pain, straining her words high, shaking her voice, there was not anger.

"I do not know," he responded. "But if I cannot make us a way out, it will be Aslan who provides one." He swallowed. The next words – they hurt, more than setting down his tools, more than the embers he'd clutched as they burned.

But less than losing Sarah.

Aslan had granted that request, the dearest to his heart.

"If the last thing I work on was the four thrones-" he broke off. He still couldn't finish.

"Then it's an honor beyond what we dreamed of," Sarah finished for him. She looked at the four thrones, and swallowed. "Back to fleeing," she said, and the carpenter shoved aside the heart-pressing grief to deal with this. Both of them could mourn later.

"We cannot flee from in here; our first step would be to go outside."

"And the first step is all we need to begin," she agreed, rising. "And there's another thing I want to do outside anyway."

They found their way outside. Eventually. Cair Paravel was empty, echoing, and a maze of corridors of stone. They ended up following glimpses of ice from windows, remembering a door that faced the sea. Once outside, Sarah took two mittens out of her pocket, filled them with snow, and gently slid them over her husband's hands. "Healing can begin here, and it's all I can do for now," she said firmly. He let her; this hope was important to her.

The sun was brilliantly shining; a different light from the stars, but warm. Sarah had her own mittens on, keeping the snow out, and together the two of them left Cair Paravel and the hope they'd suffered so much to give.

They walked towards the shore, and looked out over the frozen ice.

"I wonder," Sarah said, and the carpenter glanced at her warily. That tone was too often followed by something he did reluctantly. Often very reluctantly.

"How solid do you think the ice is?" she asked, and lifted up on foot and placed it on the white sea.

It was ice. She slipped, fell forward, and rammed into the ice on one knee. "Ow! Ow, ow, ow, ow" she griped, going from very loud to muttering as the pain diminished. She looked down without getting up. "Well, we know it's solid," she said, pointing; the carpenter looked. There wasn't a single crack on the ice. "Come on," she said, reaching up past his mittens to grasp his wrist. He smiled, and slowly, warily, slid his foot onto the cold ice. Step by slippery step, he inched forward, his wife right beside him. Preoccupied with their footing (and with getting up when they fell), they didn't think about how visible they were, two upright humans on a layer of flat, white ice. But visible they were, and very quickly seen, and from in front of them, not behind, came shouts, and at last they looked up (1).

There, beyond the ice, a hundred feet beyond where the water met its frozen form, was a ship, anchored; a familiar ship, one the carpenter knew the ribs of. And coming from it was a small boat.

The shouts increased, carrying across water and ice, and still the two fleeing Narnians inched forward, forward, towards the water; the ice began cracking under their feet. The other Narnians hastily threw them a rope, and the carpenter clumsily tied Sarah to it before lashing the end around himself, and the Narnians pulled them forward, right to the edge of the cracking ice, and the two tumbled into the boat. Hugs, from all they knew – and suddenly Sarah was lonely for the other types of hugs, short arms and furry paws, and it was wrong to be with Narnians that were solely human – but they returned them, dark green mittened hands patting friends on the back and pulling themselves up onto a bench. The oarsmen were already rowing back to the ship, and soon the two were on board, exiles, not a tool or pack on their backs, but alive, tasks completed, and heading for a new home, where it was summer. The other exiles were generous, friends and neighbors lending from what little they had, and soon the small room set aside for the two (Aslan had sent a centaur to tell the boat to wait for them, before the winter fell – and the two were not the only ones to obey) was covered in gifts. The healer on board attended to the carpenter's hands, testing them for feeling; there was nothing in the palms. The healer did not know what would happen when the dead flesh fell off and new grew in its place; and the carpenter tried very hard to hope.

But his hope seemed worn out. Sarah, however, was hoping for him; she would, he knew, until he could hope again, or their hope was turned to something else.

It took a full day to sail to Galma, the island they were hoping would shelter them. In that time period the exiles told the carpenter they still needed him; they all had new homes to build, and if he could not make them himself, he could certainly teach them how to make their own. And he would be a good teacher, they agreed, and before he could quite get used to the idea they had it settled that he would be the teacher for the children at the new settlement, and a teacher for the adults when he wasn't busy otherwise. And that was easy to hope for, a purpose in his new life.

The next day they arrived, sailing for the other ships anchored beneath the cliffs, and rowing to shore, where many of the former exiles waited to greet them. One stepped forward, introducing himself as Pereth, a former lord of Narnia. The carpenter greeted him back.

"My name is Joseph. I am – I was a carpenter. I might be again some day." Pereth glanced down at his bandanged hands, then back up at his face.

"Jo-sep?" he questioned, sounding the name out.

The carpenter nodded. "It's a name from some forgotten stories the first king and queen told. I think he was a carpenter too."

OOOOO

(1) It is, by the way, entirely possible to pay so much attention to not slipping on ice that one may walk into doors, walls, cars, or decorative bricks on walkways. Probable, even, for naturally clumsy people. It's the funniest tunnel vision I've ever experienced, and I've had vertigo.