Whisked Away

35. Golden Pools

Shifra's POV
It had been three days since the encounter with the serpent and the days were clear and quite pretty. When we did spot land, it began to rain heavily. When we had refilled all the water casks and each taken a long drink ourselves, the rain had stopped. Caspian, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, Reep, and I all decided to climb the steep slope to see more of the island.

When we had reached it, the wind had picked up and it had become rather cold. Lucy suggested going the other way down to see more and this was quickly agreed to, but we came across a deep pool that was at least fifteen feet wide and twenty long. As everyone else was sitting down and commenting on the things they found, I was staring hard into the pool.

Something about it made me uneasy. As we began to head back, we crossed another pool that was connected to the first by a long, narrow channel. Eustace had knelt down to take a drink when Lucy exclaimed, "Look!" She was pointing at the bottom where a golden, life size figure of a man lay. Then I remembered what this was.

"Step back!" I suddenly shouted sharply, "All of you at once!"

"What's up?" Edmund asked after everyone had backed away.

"Do not touch that water!" I shouted. They were all looking at me with curious expressions. I took from Edmund his hunting spear and dipped it carefully in the water, pulling it back out and dropping it to the ground.

"By Jove," whispered Edmund. He tried to pick up the spear, but I was too quick for him. I flung it into the water before he could reach it, memories of Edmund and Caspian's temptation in the book and movie flashing before my eyes.

Caspian was the next to speak. His voice was slow and his face flushed as he said, "The king who owned this island, would soon be the richest of all the kings of the world. I claim this land for ever as a Narnian possession. It shall be called Goldwater Island. And I bind all of you to secrecy. No one must know of this. Not even Drinian...on pain of death, do you hear?"

"Who are you talking to?" Edmund asked, "I'm no subject of yours. If anything it's the other way round. I am one of the four ancient sovereigns of Narnia and you are under allegiance to the High King my brother."

"So it has come to that, King Edmund, has it?" Caspian said, laying hand on sword hilt.

"Has it, King Caspian?" Edmund asked, also laying his hand on his sword. "You have no right here to rule. You are nothing but a barbarian playing to people's desires."

"Oh am I?" Caspian retorted, "I'm not the one who abandoned Narnia! If you had not left we 'barbarians' would never have taken Narnia!"

"Caspian!" I shouted. Neither paid attention to me.

"You are a spineless sap!" Edmund countered, "You are a coward!"

"Edmund!" Lucy and I shouted together.

"I'm tired of dealing with your rules!" Edmund continued, paying the two of us no mind, "I deserve to rule on my own! This was my country before it was yours because it was never yours!"

Both drew their swords and began to fight. After a few clashes of swords, I cried out, "Enough!" I pushed them away from one another with my wind abilities and using the same thing flung their swords away from them. Both were fighting against me and as I looked into their eyes. "Enough, both of you! You are acting like children."

They still looked with hate at one another and Edmund cried, "Well if he wasn't..."

"I said, enough!" This time when I yelled, my voice echoed around the entire island and wind flew swiftly from my mouth. "Edmund, you were the king of Narnia, but now it is Caspian so you need to let go of the past. Aslan approves of him and so should you!" Realization seemed to cross his face and Edmund seemed to look rather ashamed of himself. "Caspian, Edmund had no choice in leaving Narnia. That was Aslan's choice, not his! And this water, is dangerous. We are all getting out of here and boarding the ship right now!"

Eustace picked up both of their swords and after I had dropped them, he handed them back to their owners. Reep was sitting rather meekly on Lucy's shoulder, and Lucy herself was also looking quite meek. I saw Caspian out of the corner of my eye trying to catch up to me, but I took flight going far ahead of them.
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Edmund's POV
I watched the pain in Shifra's face as she flew away. "I'm sorry," Caspian said softly, voice full of shame, "I didn't mean what I said."

"It's alright," I replied, "I didn't mean what I said either. It's a good thing Shifra knocked some sense into us."

"Yes," Caspian replied, "but I fear she may be angry with me. Not that I don't deserve it."

"If she's angry with you then she's defiantly going to the angry at me," I replied grimly.

"Well can you blame her?" Eustace asked. "Look I know I'm not the kindest person yet, but you're her fiancé and you're her best friend. She wants you to get along and also..."

"Those were really low blows," Lucy finished for him. "I mean seriously." It was an odd thing, but the further we got away from the water the more confused about the last hour we seemed to get. Shifra did not seem to remember it at all when we saw her again and she was acting normally towards all of us.

We were all on the ship again in less than an hour and soon were sailing off. The waters we sailed on seemed to be getting more and more uninhabited, for we saw neither shore nor gull nor ship until our stores began to get low once again. We had come to a wide bay in a new island and here we let down anchor.