The Shattered Horn - Ch. 5

                                               THE SHATTERED HORN
                                         written by unicorn-skydancer08
                                                     (a.k.a. "Mel")

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This next chapter is my favorite, mainly because it includes a character I did not expect to include when I was first writing this. Out of all the chapters thus far, this is probably the most emotional. Due to the recent death of one of my friends and watchers, portraying the emotion here was practically a piece of cake.

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                                                          Chapter 5</u>

A dead silence fell over the stall. Tumnus could feel an icy chill envelop him, as could Lucy and Susan. Even Oreius felt his heart trip a beat, and a rock-like lump of dread settle in his stomach.

Die, Terence had said. He said it just like that, pure and simple, without sprinkling a speck of sugar.

Without his horn, he was going to die.

Lucy was the first to break the ominous silence. “No,” she protested. “No, that can’t be!” Her tears that had sprung up spilled over and gushed freely down her freckled cheeks. “No, Terence, no—you can’t die!” she wailed, flinging her whole body across the unicorn’s neck and clinging fiercely to him, so that her tears fell upon his skin. “You just can’t—you mustn’t!”

Now both Tumnus and Susan were shedding tears abundantly, and Oreius himself became misty-eyed. Tumnus’s chest gave a violent heave, and he felt he was going to be horribly sick on the spot. In pure anguish, the faun closed his eyes and dropped his face into his hands, while Oreius covered his own face with one hand, and Susan leaned over and joined Lucy in hugging Terence.

Over and over, Lucy kept sobbing to Terence that he could not die, and Terence only replied huskily, “I’m sorry, Lucy…but unless my horn is restored, there is nothing left for me.”

“But how, Terence?” Susan managed to ask the hornless unicorn at one point, her voice thick with tears. “How can we possibly fix your horn? We’re not magicians, or wizards. None of us has any real experience in the field of magic. We can’t make miracles. What can we do?”

Terence seemed at as much of a loss as the rest of them did, and Lucy tightened her grip on his neck and wept harder.

A sense of terrible loss bled through Tumnus, as though Terence were already dead. In addition to his grief and despair, the faun felt the crushing weight of guilt rest upon his shoulders. He knew this was all because of him. If what Terence was saying was true, and the unicorn was going to die, how would Tumnus be able to live with himself?

How could he ever make it, knowing his one true friend’s death was upon his hands?

They had to save him—but how? Tumnus couldn’t see how they could do it. Terence had said so himself; a unicorn’s horn was not easily restored. They couldn’t just reattach it; it had to be joined as one to the rest of Terence’s body, so that Terence could receive its full energy and strength.

It all seemed far too great, much too impossible a task to accomplish.

Much as they all wished it were not so, things looked pretty hopeless for Terence. It would take a miracle to save the poor beast, now.

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Later that same night, Tumnus and Lucy slept with Terence in his straw-pillowed stall. Neither could bear to leave his side; and Terence, even though he knew there was nothing his friends could do for him, hated to be alone. No one made an objection to the three spending the night together. Susan even brought an armload of extra blankets and pillows from Cair Paravel into the stable for Tumnus and Lucy, as well as for Terence, for the night was cold. Peter also brought Tumnus and Lucy some hot tea, though they could hardly drink it, and Oreius gave Terence some warm gruel that helped make the unicorn a little more comfortable.

Rather than sleep on the pillows, Lucy opted to sleep on Terence’s neck, while Tumnus curled up against the stallion’s silky flank.

Lucy, quite worn out from crying and the grueling events of the past few days, fell asleep almost immediately. Tumnus, on the other hand, lay forlornly against Terence’s side and wept for hours, until exhaustion got the better of him in the end, and the faun slipped into a leaden sleep himself.

As Tumnus slept, he dreamed that he was standing alone in a vast field, where the lush green grass grew well past his hocks, and the sky overhead was a clean, sharp, cloudless blue.

He thought he spotted Terence, in the near distance—but before Tumnus could get to him, a sudden veil of darkness settled over the field, and Terence disappeared completely in a wave of swirling blackness. It all seemed so vivid, so real, and Tumnus’s own piercing scream awoke him.

His face drenched in sweat and tears, the faun jerked upright and glanced frantically about the dark stall, breathing harshly, his heart beating a mile a second within his breast. He could feel Terence’s reassuring presence beside him; the sweet smell of hay and alfalfa tickled his nostrils, and his ears caught the faint sound of Lucy’s breathing. Neither Terence nor Lucy stirred, or gave any indication of having heard Tumnus’s cry. In fact, the only ones who seemed aware of the faun were the royal horses, for some of the animals poked their heads out over the tops of their own private stalls, their ears pricked forward, their eyes wide and alert.

For one fleeting second, Tumnus experienced warm, glorious relief when he realized that it was only a dream, as convincing as it had been…but then reality came crashing down on him.

Remembering Terence, and the sacrifice he made for Tumnus’s sake, and the unicorn’s imminent doom, brought the agony back full force. For a moment, Tumnus literally couldn’t breathe, and he was more than sure he would die himself, right there in the stall. Fresh, hot tears burned and stung his eyes, fogging his surroundings, and his throat closed up, making it nearly impossible to swallow.

Unable to stay with Terence and Lucy, loath to disturb their idyllic sleep with his weeping, even though both the girl and the unicorn appeared dead to the world—and it seemed even a blast of cannon fire would not have awakened them—Tumnus somehow managed to rise to his hooves, and stumble over the threshold. Despite the lateness of the hour, and notwithstanding the bitter chill that was in the air, Tumnus staggered all the way out of the stables, into the night. The faun ventured a short distance, before suddenly stopping and crumpling to the ground. Rather than get up again, he simply lay there, allowing his emotions to gush out of him along with his tears.

He was only vaguely aware of the chill wind that swept over him, and there was a metallic smell in the air, indicating the presence of rain. Sure enough, several icy drops pelted against Tumnus’s skin, and the flow increased steadily by the minute. Within a short time, Tumnus was quite soaked, but he hardly noticed, much less cared.

He couldn’t very well speak aloud, but inwardly, he groaned, Oh, Terence…Terence…what am I going to do? And, almost without realizing it, his heart cried out to the heavens, Oh, Aslan, help me!

“Tumnus,” a sudden voice spoke, like the peal of a golden bell, sounding astonishingly close.

Nothing but the sound of that one voice could have persuaded Tumnus to open his eyes and lift his streaming face from the ground, and who else stood before him but Aslan, the Great Lion himself? The magnificent lion stood enfolded in a soft, almost ethereal glow; and though the rain was pouring on every side of him, for some reason he didn’t look a bit wet.

Whether this was for real, or whether it was merely an illusion, Tumnus knew not, but he felt his bones melt at the sight of his lord.

“Oh, Aslan, it’s you!” the faun said with a strangled sob. “You’re here!”

“I am always here, Tumnus,” Aslan reassured him lovingly, his wise amber eyes emanating piercing tenderness. “Even when you can’t see me, I’m always with you. You have only but to call for me.”

“Oh, Aslan,” Tumnus wept, holding his hands out imploringly to the Lion, “will you help me? Can you help me? Terence, my best and most beloved mate, has been horribly wounded. He has lost his horn, which was broken off when he was saving my life. He may very well be dying—and it’s all my fault. Oh, please, Aslan, I beseech you, with everything that is in me, tell me there’s a way to save him! Tell me there is a way to reverse his fate. I could never bear it, if Terence died!” He reached out for Aslan as he made his earnest plea, and when he found he could touch him, he bent into a ball at Aslan’s feet and pressed his forehead abjectly to the Lion’s paw. “Please,” he begged again, “please, Aslan…I’ll do anything. I’ll gladly die in Terence’s place, if I have to. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”

Aslan did not shift from the spot, nor did he answer Tumnus right away. But when the Lion did speak again, at length, he told Tumnus in a quiet, gentle tone, “There is a way, my son.”

Hearing these glorious words, Tumnus promptly raised his head to face Aslan directly, rainwater mingling with his tears, hope shining in his eyes. It was almost too much to believe, too good to be true—yet if there was any chance whatsoever of saving Terence, however wild or slim, Tumnus was ready to seize it. “What, Aslan?” the faun gasped. “What must I do? Tell me! Tell me!”

“You must take Terence to the Stone Circle,” Aslan instructed him. “An ancient and exceptionally rare magic abides within that place.”

And Tumnus didn’t know if it was just the rain dripping in his eyes, but the faun thought he could see a vision of that Stone Circle the Great Lion spoke of. For one brief moment, he could see, in surprisingly clear detail, a sloping green valley flanked by dense green trees and rising purple mountains, and within the center of that valley stood a group of lofty obelisks, each one shaped of solid gray stone, and forming an almost perfect circle. Even when Tumnus blinked and there was nothing there, he could still remember what he had seen, as if the image had been burned into his brain. Looking toward Aslan again, he questioned, “How can we get there, Aslan? And when we make it, if we ever do, how would we be able to help Terence?”

“You will find a way,” Aslan reassured him, placing his front paw on the faun’s bare shoulder, and Tumnus found both strength and comfort in the Lion’s touch. “Have faith, Tumnus. Only through your faith and your courage will you be able to help your friend. What becomes of Terence depends on how far you are willing to go, for his sake.”

Tumnus could feel the warmth of new tears upon his cheeks again, and his voice broke as he replied humbly, “I’ll do anything for him, Aslan. Anything. It’s the only way I can truly compensate for what I’ve done to him. Besides, if my life were at stake at this time, Terence would risk life and limb to help me. How could I ever call myself his friend, if I weren’t willing to do the same?”

Aslan lowered his face to Tumnus’s, pressing his nose lightly to the faun’s brow, as a sign of blessing.

“Then go, my son,” said the Lion, his voice reduced to a soft, creamy purr, “and may the stars watch over you on your way.”

Tumnus closed his eyes when he felt Aslan brush his forehead, and when he opened his eyes again not a minute later, the Lion was gone, as though he had never been there to begin with.

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