Warning for readers: This is not a fluffy story.

The fields were grey, the grass yellow, the air brown with dust. The Fords of Beruna were cracked and drying mud, and even Lucy could wade across the delta of the Great River south of Cair Paravel without getting wet above her knees.

"If only it would rain," said Susan, looking out to sea, where clouds gathered, and piled, and never came to shore.

"I don't understand," said Lucy, turning away from the door. "Why hasn't Aslan done anything? It's been months!"

Peter didn't look up from the table in the corner, where he sat hunched over more of the old records. "More like a year," he corrected, and turned a page. "There was very little snow last winter, and it was a mild autumn."

Lucy moved a chess piece distractedly. "Vernus says there's a lion down by the Glasswater, getting into the pens."

"Not a Talking Lion?" asked Susan, but Lucy shook her head.

"Did you tell Larus?" Edmund asked. Lucy nodded. "Good, he'll take care of it." He took one of Lucy's pawns; she pouted, then grinned and took one of his rooks.

Peter frowned at the page in front of him.

"Find something, Pete?" asked Edmund. When they had first come to Cair Paravel, Edmund had looked at some of the old records, but they were hard to read, smelly and verminous-and a lot of the content was disturbing. Edmund had enough bad dreams already. "What is it?"

Peter shrugged and shut the book. "Nothing." Susan glanced at Edmund, who shrugged in his turn.

Peter kept his own counsel now: he was much closer than he used to be, before Narnia, before the day he killed the Witch. Edmund dreamed of that moment sometimes: he felt the melting snow seeping through his hauberk, and the growing pain in his side, and then Peter's sword swept across the Witch's shoulders.

They had thought Aslan dead: Susan and Lucy, crouched behind a snowbank, had seen the Witch kill him on the Stone Table. But something had broken the hold the Witch had over Narnia, had weakened her enough that even a schoolboy with two days of training could bring her down.

It had been necessary; Edmund would have died in the next instant, if Peter had not killed the Witch. But ever since then, Peter had been quieter, his eyes shadowed and his words more measured. Not that he had spoken of it to any of his siblings (although Edmund suspected he had talked to Aslan, when the Lion returned at the end of the battle).

Narnia had changed them all; Edmund wondered how much more change they would endure.

Narnia wasn't quite what Edmund had expected. It was green and lush, full of Talking Beasts and walking trees, water-spirits and magical creatures. But it was also secretive and mysterious: the Centaurs held a ceremony before the gates of Cair Paravel after their coronation, and Peter came away from it unsettled and silent, a smear of blood on his forehead. The household Dryads and Fauns would sometimes disappear for hours at a time-usually, but not always, at the full moon-and return exhausted, filthy, and silent. Edmund soon learned not to ask too many questions about anything that happened after dark.

The older creatures-the Centaurs, Dryads, and Naiads-paid little attention to the younger Pevensies. All their interest was in Peter. "I don't understand, you're a king, too, Ed, and Su and I are queens!" Lucy whispered one night, as they sat late in front of the fire in the hall. "It's like we don't even exist!"

Edmund shrugged. "Maybe they're just used to one king at a time." But he noticed the way the Centaurs watched Peter, and touched him as often as they could, and he wondered.

The castle itself wasn't a castle like in the fairy tales: it was a rugged old keep of wood and stone, with soot smeared on the ceiling of the main hall, and sheds built against the back for the livestock to winter in. There was little privacy, for the Pevensies and their people (Edmund couldn't call them courtiers) ate all together in the hall, and the boys shared a bed of rushes and straw.

Despite its roughness, the castle was richly decorated, with lions embroidered on blankets and hangings, and carved onto the ends of the rafters. Weapons were everywhere, and nobody went about unarmed. On the wall behind the High King's chair hung a great spear: its bronze point shone in the firelight, and the feathers bound about its head looked fresh, but there were dark stains on the wood. Edmund never saw anyone touch it, nor even look at it for more than a moment, but it dominated the room nonetheless, an object of greater power and antiquity than Peter's bright Rhindon.

He meant to ask Brightrune, the eldest of the Centaurs, about the spear, but never remembered to do so. There was always something else to be done, and it wasn't important.

Although the drought started in the winter, the worst effects did not hit until the summer. The Dryads and Naiads began to disappear, and game grew scarce as animals left their normal ranges in search of water. The fields planted in the spring by the Fauns and Dwarfs-and the Pevensies-lay brown and bare, the sprouts shriveled to the root. The Centaurs culled their herds, and then again, and brought some of the meat to the castle, but it was stringy and dry. The well at Cair Paravel began to dry up; water rations were cut, and then cut again. The stone fruits ripened small and sour, and the apples were eaten green by the birds, squirrels, and bears before anyone had a chance to pick them.

No pool in the lush Narnian forest was more than a puddle, surrounded by a widening belt of earth trampled into mud by hooves and paws. Messenger Birds reported back that even Cauldron Falls was reduced to a trickle.

Harvest was approaching, after the first full growing season in a century, but the crops had withered, where they had sprouted at all. Very little was left of last year's grain.

The Pevensies did everything they could, which was little enough. They suffered with their subjects, growing gaunt and hungry as well. Peter and Edmund fished and gathered shellfish along the shoreline. Lucy walked the castle walls, beseeching Aslan, when she wasn't gathering nuts in the wood. Susan went into the Great River and petitioned the river-god, but he would not respond. The Naiads buried themselves in the mud and slept, refusing to answer to any calls.

The sky was yellow like brass, and Aslan did not appear.

At the end of summer, a week before the equinox, a ship was spotted off the coast. Susan wanted to send them a signal, but Edmund stayed her. He had been doing some reading, and that ship, whatever it was, was far too low and lean to be a trading vessel.

Erlein the Osprey went out to reconnoiter, and reported that it was a galley, with the men pulling the oars in chains. "But, sire, as many men again were on board, and they were all armed."

Edmund took the word to Peter, who had been spending most of his time either in the library, or under an enormous oak some distance from the castle, near the dusty track that was the road to Beruna. (It was too hot and water was too precious to spend much time training.) He found Peter under the tree, despite the hammering heat of the sun. As he approached, he saw Peter wave someone away: it was an elderly Dryad, who turned and left without acknowledging Edmund's presence.

Peter took the news about the galley calmly. When Edmund stopped talking, Peter didn't respond, and instead pulled up some dead grass and shredded it in his fingers. Withered oak leaves scattered the ground about them, unseasonably fallen and colorless in the drought.

"Do you remember," Peter said, as if he were speaking of something from decades in the past, "how the snow melted after Aslan died on the Stone Table?" He didn't look at Edmund; his gaze was fixed on something in the middle distance, somewhere in front of the outer walls of the castle.

"Of course," Edmund replied. It was, some days, the one thing that reminded him that his own presence in Narnia had done some good. Without Edmund's petty treachery, Aslan would not have traded himself for Edmund, and the Witch would not have killed the Great Lion on the Stone Table. But he had, and she had, and the Witch's hold on Narnia had been broken. The battle itself had been a foregone conclusion: it was Aslan's power that had saved Narnia.

"Do you think," Edmund suggested, "that Aslan will come back?" To save us, he meant, but he wasn't a child anymore.

Peter dropped his handful of grass on the ground. "No," he said, and climbed wearily to his feet. Although he had put on several inches since they had come to Narnia, he looked desperately thin, and Edmund wondered if Peter had been eating anything. Their food stores were low, but it was water that was the biggest problem, not food-not yet, anyway. They could still fish. Winter would be harder.

"Whatever is done," said Peter, "we shall have to do it."

He clasped Edmund on the shoulder as he walked past him, and squeezed so hard Edmund felt it in his bones.

Edmund bit his tongue, and followed him.

Two more ships appeared off the coast in the next week.

Lucy suggested calling up the levies, but it was hard to know what to do with them. "It's not like we can feed them here," said Susan, looking worried. "And those ships haven't done anything."

"Yet," added Edmund. He sent a Magpie up and down the coast, asking for news. But no word came; the galleys continued to cruise the coast, like vultures hovering over a camel dying in the desert. It felt like he was waiting for something to happen, something to break the terrible tension of the drought. But the sun beat down, hotter than usual for the season, according to the Dogs, and the storms stayed offshore.

The castle staff began to disappear, returning to their families, according to Susan. "We can hardly stop them," she said one evening, serving out the paltry meal of fish and griddle cakes. The hall was nearly empty, but for the Pevensies and half a dozen Dogs and Great Cats. Six months ago, nearly forty people had taken the evening meal with them.

"Nor should we," said Peter. He took a bite of his fish and then set it aside. "I'm going to talk to Brightrune tomorrow," he said. "I'll be gone all day."

Edmund raised an eyebrow; Brightrune the Centaur lived in an ancient grove of oak trees, and was considered to be a seer of great power. "Do you want-" he offered, but Peter shook his head quickly. "All right," Edmund said, keeping his suspicion to himself, and ate his dinner quickly.

After the meal, he went to the library, which was too proud a name for a small room cluttered with scrolls and stacks of bound volumes. For once, Peter wasn't there, and Edmund spent several hours reading-with difficulty-through musty compilations of agricultural records and genealogical charts.

He fell asleep there, face-down on parchment, and woke to find his candle cold and the moon casting long silver shadows through the tall windows. He looked down at the book he had been reading: it was a Tale of Years.

In the spring of that year, the Galman pirates struck again, at the same time the Giants surged down from the North. Great was the suffering throughout the land. So it was that in the first moon of spring, King Bane went to his lion. The King's son Berend threw the Giants back, and a great storm came up and destroyed the pirates' fleet. On his return to the royal keep, Berend was crowned, and wed the Dryad Aricia, who bore him two sons.

There were other tales in the old records. Edmund wondered why he had not seen them before.

Dawn was breaking before he was disturbed. "Edmund," said Lucy, from the doorway. "That lion in Glasswater killed a Faun child last night, the Magpie said."

Edmund closed the book. "Did you tell Peter?"

"Yes, he said he would send someone." Lucy had not suffered as much as the rest of them had: she was still a child, and needed less food. But her face was thin, and her hair hung lank and greasy. She fingered her dagger nervously.

"I'm going to see Broadstripe today," Edmund decided. "Do you want to come?" Broadstripe was a Badger, and he lived several miles north of Cair Paravel in a rocky den in the forest. Edmund didn't know him well, but he knew that Badgers remembered. He didn't want to talk to any of the Centaurs, not yet. And he was sure that Peter would give him no answers.

"Oh, yes!" said Lucy, and ran to get her boots. It was good to see her smiling, at least for a little while.

Peter was gone already when they left: Susan said he had left before dawn. The sky was the same hammered-brass color it had been for weeks, with a grey line on the eastern horizon where the storms sat, tantalizingly out of reach. Edmund and Lucy walked for some hours, escorted by Dallin, a taciturn Wolfhound, and after some searching, found the Badger's set in a jumble of rocks surrounded by thorn bushes.

Broadstripe was elderly but courteous: he gave them the scrapings of his honey-jar, and some stale biscuits he had clearly meant for his own lunch. Lucy would have refused, but Edmund shook his head-the Badger would be sorely insulted if they rejected his hospitality.

At length, after the few crumbs had been brushed away, Edmund said, "Broadstripe, is it true that the Badgers hold the memory of Narnia?"

"Aye, that we do, sire," said the Badger. He was quite elderly: the stripe for which he was named was half-hidden in the grey on his muzzle. But his mind seemed sharp enough. "Centaurs do, too, but they're more interested in the rituals and the duties. Badgers tell what happened, help folks know where we come from."

"What kind of rituals?" Lucy asked.

Broadstripe frowned. "Well, m'dear, I mean your majesty, that'd depend. Centaurs know what needs to be done, and how. But there'd be the singing back of the sun on the Longest Night, the green rites at the first of spring, and the blooding of the king, of course."

"Of course," repeated Edmund. He saw, in his mind's eye, the book he had been reading last night. All those kings, and so many had died young, and unexpectedly. "And ... the king's lion?"

Broadstripe tensed, looking nervously from Edmund to Lucy and back. "Well, now, that's right enough, sire. Centaurs would know about that as well."

"The king's lion?" repeated Lucy. "Do you mean Aslan?"

But Broadstripe shook his head. "No, queen, not Aslan. Though He's in it, too, for sure He's the Son of the Emperor-Over-Sea. And all lions carry part of Him with them."

"And that's what the spear is for," pursued Edmund, his heart beginning to race. "The one behind the high seat, with the feathers."

"So they say, but this is all Centaur's business, sire." Broadstripe looked away, and dug uncomfortably in the dirt with his long, cracked claws. "But I'll say this, and then no more: it's a good thing for Narnia that your brother has his full growth upon him. No lion would come for a child king."

Edmund scrambled to his feet and seized Lucy's hand. "Thank you, good Badger, but we have to go now."

"What? Edmund, what is it?" Lucy asked, as he dragged her out of the thorn bushes and headed back through the trees at a trot. Dallin followed them, as silent as ever.

Edmund didn't answer Lucy. "Dallin," he said, settling into an easy pace that he knew they all could keep up for hours, "do you know anything about the king's lion?"

There was a long silence from the Wolfhound. Finally he said, "It's not something we talk about, sire. It's not for Dogs."

"But you know about it," Edmund insisted.

Dallin gave an affirmative rumble.

"And nobody told us!"

"Told us what, Edmund?"

Edmund couldn't bring himself to answer. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe. But he looked at the brassy sky, and the dust hanging in the air about the silent sleeping trees, and feared he was not.

When they came out of the forest and saw Cair Paravel perched above the sea, Edmund stopped. "Lucy, I want you to go home, and send Susan, can you do that?" If he was right-oh, Aslan, may he not be right-Lucy shouldn't be there, but Susan i to be.

Lucy stomped one foot, making dust billow up about her. "Send Susan where? What is going on?"

He bit his lip. His throat was parched and dry, and he had miles yet to go-maybe all the way to Glasswater. "I'm going to Glasswater, to see about that lion. Tell Susan to bring Arna and Fadel with her, and her bow. And give me your cordial. Can you do that? And send a Magpie, too-I may need to get a message to you."

"I don't see why you aren't telling me things, but fine. I will send Susan, with her bow, Arna, Fadel, and a Magpie, to meet you at Glasswater." With reluctant fingers, Lucy unbuckled the cordial from her belt and handed it to Edmund. "You will explain everything later, Edmund."

"I will, I promise. Now, go, Lu. Run!" Edmund took a step, and then stopped and hugged her. "Hurry!" He turned and raced away across the fields, heading due south.

Dallin paced him, keeping Edmund moving even when his legs revolted against taking one more step. As they forded the dry wash of the Great River, the Wolfhound said, "It's not for you to decide, king. You know that."

"He's my brother," gritted Edmund. Dallin said no more, clearly thinking he had said too much already.

There was no sign of a Magpie, or of Susan. The track they followed was empty of traffic, although in better seasons it was used to bring supplies north along the coast. If Peter had passed this way, the dust was too soft to hold his footprints, and Dallin said that if any Humans had been on this road, they had been riding rather than walking.

But they got confirmation in mid-afternoon: a Dwarf trudging north with his axe and pick on his back said that he had seen a Centaur carrying a Human with a spear just an hour before. They had cut east off the road, into the scrubland north of the creek.

Dallin was able to find the spot where Peter had left the road, but even with the Wolfhound's nose, it was heavy going in rough country. The rocks were sharp, the brush dense, and there were few paths to be used. As the sun fell into the west, the shadows lengthened and their pace slowed.

The sun was just above the horizon when Dallin's ears perked. "Did you hear that, king?"

"No." But then he did hear it-the coughing roar of a lion. And then a shout, wordless and distant, but Edmund was sure it was Peter's voice. "Come on!"

"This way!" cried the Wolfhound, bounding through the brush and over a low rise.

Just then, a Magpie swept overhead, the white patches on its wings glowing gold in the sunset. "King! Your sister follows!"

"Send her fast!" gasped Edmund, plunging after Dillon.

The very last rays of the sun were in the sky when they found Peter and Brightrune.

It was a small clearing, perfectly round, with a great flat stone at its center. Brightrune stood to one side, his head bowed and his arms folded. He might have been a statue, for he did not move when Edmund stumbled into the clearing, although the light evening breeze stirred his long grey tail.

The lion lay on its side, its coat splotched and darkened with blood. An enormous spear stood upright from its torso, the wood of its shaft too dark to see any blood in this poor light.

High King Peter reclined against the rock, his sword in his hand. His tunic and his jerkin were dark: Edmund couldn't see any blood on him.

"Pete!" Edmund threw himself to his knees at his brother's side. He put out a hand, and then stopped. There was blood on Peter's face, and as Edmund looked closer, all over his chest and side. A great gash had been torn in his left thigh, and blood was pooled all about him. Edmund was kneeling in Peter's blood, thick and sticky.

Peter's eyes were closed.

"Oh, god," said Edmund, and fumbled for the cordial.

"No, sire," said Brightrune, his deep voice rumbling in the silence. "You are come too late for the Winter King's gift to work."

"No," said Edmund, choking on the word. "I have to-Pete! No!"

Dallin sniffed at Peter's face, and then shook his grey head. "He has met his lion, king."

"The sacrifice is complete," intoned Brightrune.

"Sacrifice!" Edmund spat-and then stopped.

Something wet touched his hand. Then again. And then more, and the forest night filled with the pattering sound of raindrops on leaves, the air growing rich with the smell of rain on dry earth.

Edmund Pevensie sat, hunched over his brother, and watched the rain wash clean Peter's face.

So Susan found them, an hour later, and they wept in each other's arms. At length, Brightrune lit a torch and called Susan forward to stand next to the High King. The Cats and Dallin withdrew to the edge of the clearing, their eyes glittering.

"The King is dead," said Brightrune.

"The King is dead," repeated the watchers.

Rain pounded down on them all, turning the dry soil to slick and bloody mud. Edmund could barely see Susan's face: it was a pale shape between the dark strands of her soaked hair. "The King is dead," she said, her voice thin.

"Now, Queen," said Brightrune.

Susan stepped across to the dead lion and put her hands on the shaft of the spear. With one smooth movement, she wrenched it out of the lion and spun it upright, so that the point glimmered in the torchlight. "This is the King Spear," she said, her voice stronger. "The king my brother carried it, and I shall carry it until Aslan calls me to his Country, or I go to meet my lion."

Brightrune bent down and touched Peter; when he rose, his hand was dark with blood. "You carry the King Spear, and so you are bound to all who carried it before you, and all who will carry it after. You are the point of the spear, the torch for the pyre, the steel in the forge. You are Narnia, and the blood you shed for Narnia calls the Deep Magic to her aid. You will remember this."

"I will remember," said Susan, steadily. Thunder rumbled behind her words.

Edmund caught his breath, his skin crawling with the sense of Narnia waking about him. The power of the moment nearly crackled: he felt like lightning was about to strike. Or that he was about to vomit.

Brightrune swiped his hand across Susan's face, striping her skin with Peter's blood. She staggered, and only kept from falling by bracing the spear against the ground.

Edmund felt it, the surge of power, of knowing, coming not only from the ground, but from everything about them-the stone, the thorny brush, the air itself. It was enough to dizzy him-he wasn't surprised Susan nearly fell.

But she didn't, and when she turned to him with her face white, he stepped forward and took her hand. His skin prickled when she touched him, as if electricity ran up her arm and into his.

"Edmund," she said, her voice shaking, and he realized she was about to collapse completely. He got his shoulder under hers as she sagged.

His sister in his arms, and his brother dead at his feet, Edmund lifted his head to face Brightrune, the architect of this transfer of power. "Are we done now? I should like to take my brother-" Home was no longer possible. "-back to the castle. There are things to be done."

It was well over one hundred years since a monarch of Narnia had been formally mourned, for the last Queen had died alone when the White Witch took the castle, and none ever learned where her body came to rest. So the Centaurs had Vernus bring some of the records out of the castle library, and they consulted at length with Broadstripe and the River-God.

The crowd gathered on the great field north of Cair Paravel, hundreds of Narnians standing quietly in the darkness before dawn. Very few spoke, and those only in whispers, as they waited in the chill autumn air, which was still damp from the previous days' rain.

At length, a light was seen, bobbing along the track from the castle gate. It was a torch carried by King Edmund, who was clad and armed for war, with his greatsword on his back.

Behind the king paced six Fauns, also helmed and armed, carrying the bier of the High King. Peter had been washed and dressed, his wounds bound. He wore, by his sisters' command, the clothing he had come to Narnia in. Some Narnians stirred and murmured, but under Edmund's stark and grieving gaze, they fell silent. Two Dwarfs with torches on long poles accompanied the bier.

Following the bier walked Queen Lucy, in a dark dress that swept the grass behind her. In her outstretched arms, now quivering with the effort, she carried upright the sword Rhindon, its golden pommel shimmering in the torchlight.

And last, followed only by one more torch-bearer, came the High Queen. Like Edmund, she was dressed for war, in mail, with her dark hair loose about her shoulders. Her white surcoat bore the red Lion of Narnia. On her shoulder was her bow, but in her hands was the King Spear, its feathers still draggled and stained from the blood of the lion.

Funeral rites in Narnia vary widely. Dwarfs are buried in Earth, but secretly, and none have ever witnessed those ceremonies. Fauns build platforms, or lay their dead in trees; Centaurs will not say. Only Humans use fire.

The Dryads, as was their part, had supplied the wood, and the great pyre bore fuel from every type of tree and bush in Narnia. Fauns from southern Narnia had brought oil for the pyre, and the Dwarfs of Red Hill had prepared the ground. As the High King's bier was set down next to the great stack of wood, a Fox came forward and dropped something on a pile nearby: gifts, to accompany the King into death.

For this was, as Brightrune had warned, the true death. If a king sacrifices himself for the land and its people, he does not go to Aslan's Country. For if one dies, sure that one will be reborn into a better place, free from care or strife, of what value is that sacrifice? The death must be permanent, or the gift is wasted.

Queen Lucy handed King Edmund the sword she carried, and went forward to the bier. She wept, as she had done since leaving the castle, and kissed her brother's face. When she returned to her siblings, King Edmund moved to return the sword to her, and Queen Susan stopped him.

"The sword Rhindon is yours, Edmund. I carry the King Spear, but the sword is for a King. Peter would have meant it for you."

Edmund bowed in acknowledgement. But then he set the blade aside, and went to the bier to bid his brother farewell. No one heard whatever words he spoke, but his face was dark when he came away, and his sisters embraced him.

At last the High Queen stepped forward, the King Spear still in her hands. She bent over the king, and kissed his his hands, his lips, and his brow. And then she stood, and spoke to the gathered Narnians.

"We bid farewell this dawn to High King Peter the Magnificent, who is also Peter Pevensie of Finchley, and my brother. By his sacrifice, Narnia lives again. We shall not see him again. Great is our loss, and great is his gift. Hail!"

"Hail!" cried the crowd, and the shout echoed from the walls of the castle to the hills in the north.

So passed High King Peter of Narnia, and long did his people remember him.

END

Notes: This is what happens when one reads Sir James George Frazer's The Golden Bough, and Bulfinch's Mythology, at a very young age, in fact before reading C.S. Lewis. One might also blame far too much Rosemary Sutcliff and Mary Renault at a young age. Many thanks to Snacky for aiding and abetting.

The title is from Dessa, "Children's Work":

You've learned how to hold your own
How to stack your stones
But the history's thick
Children aren't as simple as we'd like to think