Beyond the Horn

CHAPTER 12: ANNALIESE

Annaliese had followed Caspian to talk to him. She didn't understand the familiarity and bond she felt with him, but she knew he needed someone. Despite the shyness pounding through her, she was fully ready to talk about what had happened.

The only problem was, Trumpkin's other dwarf friend—Nikabrik, Annaliese remembered his name now—had gotten to him first.

"You tried one ancient power. It failed. But there is a greater power still; one that kept even Aslan at bay for near a hundred years."

Nikabrik sounded so odd. So evil. It made her shiver.

She hid around the corner, having followed Caspian and Nikabrik when they went into the room with the Stone Table. Both were facing the carving of Aslan, but neither seemed to be looking at it.

From on the other side of the Stone Table there came a low growling noise.

"Who's there?" Caspian drew out his sword, and Annaliese had to marvel at how smoothly he did so.

A werewolf-like creature emerged, draped in a long black cloak. "I am hunger," it growled out. "I am thirst." It moved silently, slowly toward Caspian, who backed up slightly. "I can fast a hundred years...and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice...and not freeze."

The air was growing colder, and Annaliese began to shiver.

"I can drink...a river of blood!" the werewolf snarled. "And not burst. Show... Me... Your enemies!" and it threw back its hood to glare at Caspian with beady black eyes.

"What you hate so will we," an old, creaky voice dripping with malice and evil materialized out of nowhere. A strange hag with no hair, and a beak, wearing ripped clothing hanging off of its skinny body, loomed from the shadows. Annaliese had to cover her mouth to keep from gagging at the stench. "No one hates better than us."

"And you can... you can guarantee Miraz's death?" Caspian asked, and here Annaliese nearly cried out. What was he doing? What had suddenly made him so vengeful? Her mind was spinning, but she remained where she was, poking her head into the doorway again, just enough to see but not enough to draw attention.

"And more," the hag hissed, with a terrifying glint in her eye.

"Let the circle be drawn!" the hag added after a moment, and, as Nikabrik and the werewolf watched, the hag dug its long fingernail into the ground and began to trace a line around Caspian, chanting in a strange, frightening language. Annaliese immediately sensed the evil in the room before the hag completed the circle, then slammed a long, detailed stick into the ground. Immediately a wall of ice formed, and in that wall of ice floated a white woman with pale, billowing hair and an awful smirk on her face. She blocked the carving of Aslan from view.

Aslan. At the thought of his name, the fear left Annaliese and was replaced with a sudden urgency and determination. She jumped to her feet and full out sprinted away from the room to find her sister.

"Kara!" she shouted, searching the main entrance, ducking in between and around Narnians. They gave her curious looks, but she ignored them, grabbing a random bow and quiver of arrows, just in case she needed them. Kara wasn't there, so Annaliese ran outside. "Kara!"

Kara was sitting just outside the Howe with Edmund and Lucy, but at Annaliese's voice she leaped up. "What is it?" she asked urgently.

"Where's Peter? And Susan?" Annaliese gasped. "The—The White Witch! She's back! In the Stone Table room. I don't know how I know who she is—I don't even know how—but Nikabrik brought her back somehow. He's tempted Caspian into giving in, and—"