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Narnia Fic Exchange 2023
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Published:
2023-09-10
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Raise Me Up

Summary:

Come now Gentle Beasts and Birds, Good Centaurs and Dwarfs, come now Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, that might you hear of The Raising of Cair Paravel.

Notes:

Work Text:

“Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.”

Sam Rayburn

"Come now Gentle Beasts and Birds, Good Centaurs and Dwarfs, come now Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, that might you hear of The Raising of Cair Paravel. To my pups I told this tale, as I learned it from my Dam, as she from hers, back generation upon generation. The Gentle Beasts tell the tale in cave, nest, and den, in wood, mountain, meadow, and pond, so that we might remember it. For though Dwarfs build, and Birds fly, and Fauns dance, Naiads flow, and Dryads green, the Good Beasts of Narnia remember. So, Friends, heed my words. Stop and listen with your sensitive hearts so that all may know of Aslan’s Power and The Raising of Cair Paravel of Narnia. Harken to me now."

I managed to not shudder and set a beam loose. It wasn’t that Kozbar was a bad bard. Moles were, despite what the Hounds claimed, generally superior storytellers.

There was a faint, protesting moan from the North Tower but she was always a cranky bitch.

Queen Melia glanced away from her polite attention to Kozbar and raised an eyebrow. I knew Human mannerisms well enough after so long and regardless I could hear her as plainly as if she’d shouted.

Hush you.

And then, It’s quite stuffy. Would you mind?

Not that this was in any way a surprise. Get two Narnians together and it tends to get close, warm, and odorous if you couldn’t open the doors and windows. Tonight, we were a ten-day from Yule and the snow drifts had risen up the windows.  With roaring fires in the hearths and everyone in and around Cair Paravel crammed into every corner and up to and in the rafters, the Great Hall was dim, smoky, smelly, and very close.

I didn’t have to obey the Queen, of course, but it could raise uncomfortable dissonance when I didn’t.  And we all liked her.

I let out a little sigh and the Great Hall expanded; I couldn’t open anything without letting the frigid air in, but I breathed and drew some of the heat and smoke out.

Thank you, Friend.

The Queen turned her apparent attention back to the Court and her storyteller.

Kozbar was getting to the part of the story where Aslan brought King Frank III and Princess Vellama to the edge of the Sea and breathed on the Eastcliff.

This time I could not suppress the shudder. The stone walls groaned. Kozbar paused and one of the Satyr guards murmured something about the wind.

“And then the Great Lion spoke a Word of Deep Magic and the ground split. From the roots of the Earth rose the first tower of Cair Paravel…”

Deep Magic my horse, as an Ass would say. Over the thousands of years, I’d heard thousands of stories, and heard how they changed and fell in and out of favor. They were mostly fine. But this one – the Raising of Cair Paravel. This one was just wrong.

I was there, or, well, I was eventually. Like most things in Narnia, it began with a quarrel.

The first Queen and King of Narnia, Helen and Frank, enjoyed a long reign blessed by a magic in the land of Narnia that still ran deeply. Things planted in the rich earth would grow overnight, structures would nigh on build themselves, game would conveniently fall at your feet and fish would obligingly swim into your net. Without that magic, many Narnians might have died, including her first Queen and King. They were very much alone. Narnia would become known to other lands and eventually there would be more Humans. During those years, though, Helen and Frank’s children bonded and mated with near-humans - Dwarfs, Satyrs, Dryads, and the River Naiads.

The peoples of the Sea and their gods, however, were another matter. We – they – never had much use for humans. Humans were primitive and uncouth, shambling about on legs, indifferent and weak swimmers, unable to breathe in water or even hold their breath for long enough to get anywhere, and they wore the furs and fibers of dead things. They dumped their wastes in our waters without a care for where and how. The sirens did think humans were delicious. The Mers would fight over the wealth that ships carried but the Narnians were poor and uncivilized even by the standards of other humans and just were not very good sport.

And then Ahti, the eldest spawn of the Eastern Sea Witch, began following the boat of Princess Vellama of Narnia. Mutual curiosity became infatuation which became love that the rulers of neither the Sea nor the land supported. Queen Iku raised a storm that lashed the Narnia coast for 10 days and destroyed every building upon it. King Frank III took five Mers hostage and one died.

The negotiation between the King and the Witch lasted a year. Queen Iku eventually relented lest she lose Ahti forever. She also knew what her spawn did not – that humans were short-lived and Ahti would return to the Sea very soon.

The love between Ahti and Vellama, though, was true and happy. Vellama was wise and a skilled fighter. They lived always within sight and sound of the Sea and Narnia prospered and grew stronger. Humans though, are frail, and Queen Vellama took a wound in a skirmish with shore raiders. Ahti summoned a waterspout that destroyed raiders’ boats and fed their bodies to the sharks and sirens. Vellama’s wound festered. She passed too soon into the Shadowrealm and all Narnia mourned.

Ahti’s grief was as deep as the Sea and more powerful. In her memory, from the Queen’s bones, Ahti raised a beautiful monument at the place where Narnia and water would always meet.

Ahti, though, was dissatisfied. The stone was beautiful but cold and, though it glimmered like oyster pearls, the castle he had grown from the ocean floor did not breathe. It was not alive as the coral realms of the oceans were. A castle could not grow, or change, it would only, eventually, decay.

So, Ahti began the great work, calling upon the powers of the Sea Witches and their gods, and wove the magic of the water and the memories of the loving and fierce Queen into the very bedrock of the Castle. He named me Paravel, that is, Guardian, in the language of the Sea Witches. Aslan came to bless Cair Paravel and then Ahti cast himself into the waters of the bay to forever guard the Queen and the land she had died to protect.

All rightful kings and queens of Narnia sit by Aslan’s grace and authority. That seat can be very uncomfortable if Cair Paravel does not cooperate and a Castle will keep her own counsel. Doors will not open, stairs become slippery, the morning light always seems harsh, and needed objects have a way of being misplaced. On the other paw, as a Narnian would say, fires never spread in Cair Paravel and at least one assassin from Queen Swanwhite’s time tripped and pitched right out a window and died on the rocks of Paravel Bay. King Gale never could open the windows in his rooms. The North Tower Library still misses King Edmund and anyone since can find it very cold and damp, though the books and scrolls remain undamaged.

Sea witch blood runs nearly true in Queen Melia so she knows our quirks and opinions. I’ve not heard anyone so well since Queen Susan. We even showed Queen Melia the retreat we had grown for Queen Susan outside the southern tower. A Queen needs her solitude and a place to pace and talk strategy to herself.

At the beginning of the Long Winter, Jadis’s armies and spies killed the royal family and every other human who did not flee Narnia. We did not give Jadis the satisfaction of throwing down our walls. Cair Paravel sank into the sea and nearly took her with us. Our doors opened so Jadis could get one last view, and we made sure she saw it, of the throne room, with four golden thrones, just as the Sea Witches had prophesied.

Kozbar was finishing. "Friends, here is where the Raising of Cair Paravel ends. Aslan is the Creator, first and last. And as Cair Paravel rose from the Earth with His Word, so too can it sink back if we do not heed His Word.”

In that respect, the Mole was mostly correct.  Narnia’s enemies have all hated the Sea. The Narnians believe it is because it is a reminder that Aslan comes from over the Sea. That is not wrong but neither is it the full story.

Should someone make an illegitimate attempt to gain the Narnia throne, the waters will again rise and reclaim Cair Paravel which is ours. The Sea Witches say, also, that when the last night falls upon Narnia, the Sea will rise, in a foaming wall of water, and drown all the land. That night, though, is a long time from now.