Chapter Text

As Haley spoke I found myself floating in a void. It was breathtaking- an infinite crystalline space filled with a million tiny threads of light. I watched from some indeterminate position that was not quite any one place as they looped around one another, merged and split and began and ended altogether. It was as if I’d looked behind the sky, and seen the fiber-optic cables running to every star in the firmament, and known that they were intelligent . Full of joy and curiosity and wonder, they danced through the endless expanse. Each point of light carved through the black, leaving a streaked and flashing history of its past movement.

After some unimaginable length of time one of the points of light pulsed, at the head of its personal thread, and a dense sphere of swirling colors bloomed around it. Others swooped towards the new sensations and flew through them, interacting within that space. With time they emerged, and some flew off and began pulsing themselves, sending out new spheres of color and light. Soon the infinite black was full of them, in every size and variety. Very few of the sentient threads avoided them entirely- most seemed drawn to them, looping from one to another in every direction, the most complicated tangle of interlocking hyper-dimensional strings ever formed.

As I watched they continuously invented new games to play. Some threads began to run in packs, bundling together to run through the spheres simultaneously. Some began experimenting with pulses inside spheres, new splashes of color and light emerging one inside the other. Many began to form spheres that didn’t intersect with their threads at all, curating experiences for others. Everywhere I looked there was something wonderful and different. I saw one spawn a sphere and loop through it again and again, thousands of times. Another began winding itself through multiple disparate orbs of color, binding them together, pulling them into each other where before they were separate. I couldn’t look away. I saw every part with perfect clarity. It was infinite. It was overwhelming. Even as my senses strained, my attention was called to one specific pairing. Two threads, twined so tightly for as far back as I could see that they might as well have been one, and one had been pulsing out the splashes of color and light, but now the other was taking it up, and I leaned in, fascinated-

---

Ultimately we got bored of the road trip, and Sean was getting a little nervous about the sheer number of war planes overhead. I was running quite a few defenses these days, but even I would struggle to survive a direct hit from an air-to-ground missile, and the others were much more vulnerable. There was no sense driving in a war zone when we didn’t have to, so I opened a gate to our destination and Sean drove through it.

Aslan had chosen the site, in the middle of the state. A strategic nuclear waste dump. I hadn’t known what to expect when I scryed the address, but it was surprisingly scenic. The truck drove out of my gate at the base of a giant mound of crushed granite. It was a man-made hill hundreds of feet wide and fifty or more high, like the barrow mound of an ancient king. Or the resting place of a civilization, I supposed, which it might well be after today. A single concrete staircase ascended to the top, stark against the tumbled chaos of blank white rock. The dark storm clouds stood overhead in ominous contrast. We got out of the truck and I cancelled my shift, returning to my normal draconic self and applying further spells.

It was strange, I thought, how quickly I’d come to consider human form a “Shift” away from the norm. I spent more time human than not, but I had become… used to the dragon body. Oh, I wasn’t accustomed to the strength yet, it had grown too fast. I still bent virtually every door knob and utensil, not that I’d ever admit it to anyone. Mom had drilled me far too hard on ladies being ‘Delicate’ for me to alter that self-image. But standing twelve feet tall, or more? The wings, the feeling of heat boiling inside me, power ready to release at any moment? It had become very comforting, in moments like this. My husband wanted to take the lead on this one. I would have to back him while he stood against the avatar of a god. I did not know how much would be required from me but I wanted to be ready. Taking advantage of Pathfinder’s silly rules, I polymorphed myself into myself, becoming an even larger gold dragon with Form Of the Dragon- surely elephantine, now. I applied haste, and shields, and contingencies on contingencies. If Sean was right we would win this without firing a shot. But if he wasn’t- I’d be ready.

He turned to me as he was climbing the stairs- halfway up put him eye-level with me, now- “Damn cat’s got a flair for the dramatic, huh? You think we should introduce him to ours? I bet they’d get along well.”

I laughed at that. “I think I’d like this one a lot better if all he did was eat my food and scratch my face up at night.” Sean always managed to lighten the mood, but it couldn’t last long. Cresting the hill, I saw them waiting for us. The top of the mound had a small concrete observation platform, twenty feet wide. A concrete plinth marked the center, a plaque engraved with some choice quote about man’s ability to make a monument of his own toxic disasters, no doubt. Aslan stood on the far side with the other three children. They were looking out across a vast stretch of farmland. The portion of his army not involved in the immediate assault was gathered below- armored vehicles and fighting men and women of every description, I saw. He had drawn a substantial militia together in mere days, by the look of it. No wonder he seemed to be rolling towards Midland City so quickly.

I settled on the stairway side of the platform, ready to jump up if things turned sour. Sean huffed and puffed off the staircase, with Skylar in tow.

The Lion spoke without turning. “So, you return to us, Daughter of Eve.” Hearing him speak, the other three kids jumped and then spun around to find their sister. They shouted and ran to her, and she hugged all of them. They made much to-do about how she’d been turned back to her old self. They assumed she must have learned whatever lesson he set out to teach her- I gave Aslan a smug grin over that one. Not on your life, asshole . The torture of Eustace Scrubb had always been a sore spot for me, in the books. Even after he’d learned his “Lesson,” he’d been helpless to free himself from the curse until Aslan came and literally tore him open. It had never come across for me in the way that CS Lewis intended it. Well, big kitty wouldn’t be eviscerating any little girls today. If there was one thing about the events of the last day I could feel accomplished about, it was that.

Sean stepped forward. We’d rehearsed this bit in the car, just like my pitch to the stadium a week ago- but hopefully with a better outcome. He walked forward, hands spread out to his sides, and I swelled with pride. He had no powers, but he was going to- “Aslan. I’ve come to bargain.” God damn it Sean don’t quote Marvel movies at the deity.

Aslan turned to him while I was still facepalming internally. “I do not bargain, son of Adam. Your wife is the whore of Babylon and the seven-headed beast. She will be destroyed. You may submit, or not. Your life is your own to forfeit.” I wasn’t going to sit still for talk like that, but then I realized what he’d just said-

Sean grinned evilly. I really did enjoy when he got like this, the little theatrical flourishes he started displaying. “That sounded an awful lot like the kind of statement you can’t take back.”

Aslan frowned at him, puzzled. “My word is my bond. Step aside or no, but delay me no further. The time for games is over.” Behind him, with my recently heightened perception, I heard Skylar telling the others that their father was still alive, and fighting for them. They didn’t seem as excited by this as she was- they were still heavily under the influence of Aslan’s story, then. Or perhaps he’d become a bit of a surrogate father- Skylar hadn’t really given me the impression that she was close to her dad.

Sean put his hands in his pockets, still standing between Aslan and myself. If it came to it, I really didn’t know if I could take a divine avatar. But we had plans. “Well, about that. See, now that you’ve committed not to flat-out kill me, I think it would be rude to keep this from you. Haley? Hand-over, please.” The narrative power tugged and I let it slide from me, back to him. Above us the clouds rumbled and drew closer.

I winked at Aslan and held up a finger. “See, the problem with your plan is, as of two seconds ago Haley’s not the narrator of this story. I am.”

Aslan twitched in an extremely unnatural way. It was like a video game model encountering a bug. One second he was oriented towards her, the next recentered on me, and there was no movement in between. It was extremely unnerving. Actually, having a regular Lion look at me like that would be unnerving. This guy was giving me a full on Brown Alert but I worked hard to keep my cool. He crouched low, like he was about to pounce, and thought better of it. “ Interesting . You’ve handed over your pawn-”

Haley interrupted him from behind me. “Her name is Skylar. She wanted to see her family.”

He waved it away with one paw. “- and you’ve placed yourself at my mercy. You have trapped yourself in a blind corner, Son of Adam. I have sworn only to spare you so long as you submit your will and control to me. Do so, or be destroyed.”

I made a show of considering, for a moment. I had to keep him off balance a little longer. “Conor.” He cocked his head to the side. “You keep calling me Son of Adam. My father’s name. It was Conor.” He shook his great mane, clearly irritated, and prepared once more to end my life with a single leap. “I submit. If- ” he rumbled, long and low, the warning growl of a predator that had had enough of my shit. “ If, you prove to me that you are worthy of my submission. I, Sean of Blackwood, challenge you, Aslan of his Own Country, to a debate .”

He rose from his crouch and stared. I held my breath and it seemed, for a time, that the world did too. Then he laughed- the first I’d ever heard of him showing humor. It was a wheezing, chuffing boom that started slow and grew full throated until the sky rang with it. “Ahhhh, you surprise me, Son of Conor. So rare that anyone manages that, these days. But a debate over my very existence would seem to be decided before it has begun. Very well, I accept, and name as my champion in this duel…”

He trailed off, and stepped to one side. My heart froze. Behind him, most definitely not dead, was the Man in Black. He grinned and tossed me a casual wave. “Hey again, kids.” Aslan finished his sentence, “Walter O’Dim, The Faceless Stranger, The Midnight Rambler, He Who Walks Behind The Rows. My one time opponent and now, my advocate. And who will the judge of this debate be?”

I looked at Flagg. He was an unknown here, but I thought- I hoped - he wouldn’t guess my intent. He considered me, silently, for a long moment. Finally he turned to Aslan. “Oh I think we’re all agreed on that. The youngest among us see you most clearly, after all. Your little field-trip crew, there. They’ll be the judges.” I breathed out. Still a chance.

I stepped forward. “Prosecution first, then. Kids, have a seat and let us talk to you, okay?” Skylar shepherded the other three, physically pushing her older brother and sister until they came and sat in front of Flagg and myself. I’ve got one on board, I need to convince two of the remaining three. “We need you to decide something for us. Aslan and I are having a… disagreement, about whether or not he is really everything he says he is. If he is, then I have to submit to him, and he’ll have my life and your lives and everyone else’s on earth to do what he wants with. If you decide he isn’t, well- then I don’t have to submit, and maybe we get to tell our own story. With me so far?” They nodded mutely, though the little boy, Boden, looked rebellious. He was by far the most heavily in the Lion’s camp.

Flagg scoffed from the sidelines. “ Nobody gets to tell their own story. You’re deciding between paradise under a strong leader, and a chaos of your own making.” I shooshed him, he shot me a nasty grin.

I stood in front of them, head up. “I’ll begin. Aslan is not Jesus. You are familiar, from your homeschooling, with the person to whom I’m referring.” They nodded. “The biblical character of Jesus is, in effect, unknowable. Mystical. He has lots of virtues, some of them inconsistent with each other. He is full of glory and high majesty, but also the greatest humility. He has the strongest commitment to justice, but also astonishing mercy and grace. He is transcendently self-sufficient, and yet his faith and dependence upon his Father is absolute. You can read about him and see any combination of virtues you wish. As testament to this, I refer you to the past two thousand years of mankind’s disagreement about him.”

Flagg made a “get-on-with-it” gesture, and I flipped him the bird behind my back, out of sight of the children. He snickered and subsided for the time being. “But Aslan, the creature we see before us, is not unknowable. At best, he represents one facet of the classic interpretation of Jesus. He is strong, and glorious, and convicted, but he lacks tenderness, mercy, or humility. He is Jesus as conquering king. Which means he is not Jesus at all.” They looked confused at this, so I elaborated. “The Jesus of the stories has no need to conquer. He explicitly denies the offer to do so- he wants to teach, it’s up to others to follow him. Aslan has no interest in education- it is his way, or instant death. As you know.” That set them to thinking, at least. But it was time for a rebuttal.

Flagg stepped up. “Hey, munchkins. Look, this whole thing is silly. We don’t need any high handed arguments about metaphorical truth and virtue and blah, blah, blah!” He made a “Flapping gums” hand gesture and the kids giggled. Shit, I’d gone too heavy and lost them. “The Bible’s pretty clear on this. This is the Rapture- all those people disappeared, right? And the Rapture says the Big Guy’s gonna come back, and hey look at that- it calls him a Lion right there in Revelations 5:5! Now you’ve got a Lion, right here in front of you, who says he’s the real deal. I don’t see any other contenders, and you’ve seen how people flock to him. Ipso Facto, he’s the real deal!”

He was playing to the kid’s attention span, but I was seeing red. He wanted to do biblical literalism now? I crossed my arms. “Alright, let me ask you this. Have any of you seen him open any books?” They shook their heads. “How about loose-ing any seals, he done any of that?” Again, a round of head shaking from the panel. “Then why is it that the first part of that passage in Revelations is literal, and the last is metaphorical? There’s also a part that calls him a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes, a paragraph later. Revelations is nuts and we can’t trust just anyone who comes up to us and says ‘Look, I match this sentence, and this one over here- worship me!’” This was such an obvious rejoinder that I wasn’t sure why Flagg had raised the point.

That was when he turned it on me. “You know what, he’s right. Stories are real, right? That’s your whole thing now, Sean, isn’t it?” I nodded. “Well, if they’re so real, and Aslan’s not the real deal, where’s God? Why didn’t he swoop in here straight out of the Bible and save all these kids? Wouldn’t be any room for pretenders if he just showed up!” He caught me out on that one. It had been puzzling me- but then, we didn’t seem to get every story, just the ones people were feeling the most affinity for. It did seem pretty statistically unlikely that not one of the million-or-so people hit by the whammy was heavily devout, though. So where were the gods and buddhas? As I pondered, Flagg took advantage. “You got no answer, cowboy, because he did show up and he’s right over there .” This last, pointing at Aslan.

But this twigged another thought. I stepped forward again. “All of this from the defense, of course, begs the question- Was this actually the rapture? Their entire argument so far rests on the idea that this is the biblical interpretation of the end time, and such an event calls for a savior. Well that seems pretty easy to refute. Do all of you love Jesus, in your hearts?” They all, at various speeds, nodded. “ Then why are you still here? If the night of the Swap was actually the rapture, it should have taken you!” I gestured at the army gathered on the plains below. “Look at all of these followers, still here to form his army! Half the world disappeared, from every faith and walk of life- many of them had never even heard of Aslan, and it sure didn’t seem like it had much to do with their virtue, because half of all our prisons and our politicians disappeared too! Meanwhile here you kids are, still on earth. Do you really think you were so much more sinful than three billion other people, that you’d be left behind ? ” Tentative head shakes. “Then it can’t have been the Rapture! If it had been, there wouldn’t have been anybody left to bring Aslan here. Something else was happening that night, and we have to conclude that Aslan was taking-” Boden held up a hand, and I paused.

“I really need to pee!” With that, round one of court was adjourned.

---

I stood with Sean at one end of the platform. Aslan and Randall Flagg were on the far side, and our juvenile jury had been sequestered in between until they waved us back over. It wasn’t hot, but Sean was sweating like it was a hundred and ten degrees out. I looked at him with a bit of concern, and threw some enchantments on him. He breathed in relief “Thank you. Am I just dying out there?” We’d agreed telepathically, earlier, that I would monitor them with Detect Thoughts but not relay anything to him during the debate.

I shook my head. “You haven’t convinced any of them, I think you’re being too indirect. They’re just kids, Sean, they aren’t going to grasp high handed theology. You asked a lot of good questions but you need to get back out there and really lay out some evidence instead of just logical traps.” He nodded. I had an idea. “Listen, Detect Thoughts is really imprecise, but I’m picking up a lot from the Lion. Here’s what I think you need to do…”

---

I returned to center stage when the kids waved us back over. They were looking at me expectantly, so I launched in before Flagg could unbalance me. “I’m going to change my approach. For our first witness, the prosecution would like to call Aslan to the stand.”

Flagg leapt in immediately. “Objection! Prosecution has already ceded the first argument- if Aslan is the lord then this farce of a trial is over, we don’t need to hear what he-”

Piper spoke up, surprising me. “Overruled.” She seemed to be getting into the courtroom drama at play here. “The prosecution did no such thing. Not all of us on this panel are ten years old, you know.” Thank you, I mouthed silently. She glared at me. “He hasn’t told us anything about his plans, just that we’ll have thrones and a golden age. I want to know more.” We all paused and looked at the great golden cat, sitting to one side. He looked back, and finally nodded.

I said to him “Do you consent to allow the prosecution to scan your thoughts and project them via illusion, for all to see?” Flagg was about to speak up again, when Aslan simply nodded for a second time. He really isn’t hiding what he is . Haley cast the spells, and an image sprang into life in the air between the children and myself. At the moment it was simply a cat’s-eye-view of the current proceedings. There was an interesting infinite-mirror effect when he looked at the illusion itself. I tore my thoughts away from it and cleared my throat. First up, a clue handed to us by Skylar. “Ahem. Please detail to us what you were saying on the night of the Swap to your associate Mr. Flagg, here. In English, please.”

He stilled at that, but the image shimmered and rearranged itself until it showed his perspective of the plains of Tel-Megiddo. The rumble of distant guns, now all too familiar to me, sounded in the background. The Man In Black had just pulled up at the head of a convoy of special forces, and was approaching. “Welcome, Walter,” rumbled the voice. What followed was still in Hebrew, but apparently overlayed by an English translation. “Do the preparations go according to plan?”

The man in the cowboy hat and hoodie smiled evilly. “You don’t leave a lot of room to work, friendo. Just six hours to bribe, threaten or outright replace the leaders of three separate nations? I ought to charge you double.” Behind him, the special forces unloaded the trucks, no logos or insignia visible.

“But I hear by the sounds of oncoming war that you have succeeded. The world has come for Israel, and the prophecies are fulfilled, one by one.”

The man in black spit on the ground, and looked sideways. “Yeah, well. For certain interpretations. We got your bomb here, it’ll go off after we leave. That ought to kick the hornet’s nest something fierce.”

I stepped forward and ended the first playthrough. “There you have it. Aslan and Randall Flagg conspired, after his arrival, to set events resembling the bullet-points version of the Rapture in motion.”

Randall stepped up and cut me off. “Yet they still happened! The ‘Good book’ was never specific as to how . It even indicates that ‘The Lion’ is gonna do some of that work himself, and now he has. What did this prove? Absolutely nothing. Aslan will go to any lengths, to bring about the golden age. You’d do the same if you thought it was righteous.”

I wouldn’t, not any lengths, but- “Then on to the second question for you, Aslan. Please show us the nature of your plans for this golden age.”

He closed his eyes, and the image before us shimmered again. This time it was a fantasy scene. A high angle shot of three children, Skylar being noticeably absent, seated on golden thrones in a high white tower. Spinning from them, the camera raced out the door of their throne room onto a balcony where Aslan was seated. Millions knelt before him, in unison, stretching as far as the eye could see.

“And after the kneeling and scraping is done?” I asked.

The view blurred, recentered, a white and shining city being built from the ground up. Like a pyramid made out of the purest stone, it surrounded the grand tower. Outside the city grounds, fields of grain and corn waved on to the horizon. “A city to unite mankind,” intoned his voice, “to bring them together in one place, in glory and worship.”

I looked at it for a moment. It was beautiful, a wonderful dream. But… “ How many ?” I asked, quietly. “How many does it hold? How many survive?”

“A hundred million humans,” intoned the voice, emotionless, lost in distant thought on the glorious architecture the camera now swooped and panned around. “No more, no less.”

I nodded. “Three billion on Earth today, not counting the infomorph race. You’d kill or allow to die two billion, nine hundred million of the remaining people on this planet, to see your vision through to reality.” The camera in the image zoomed, then, into the corn fields. At the base of the stalks was not dirt, I realized. The foundation of the city was not white stone. It was bone . I looked at Haley- she shook her head at me, puzzled. She was not embellishing the image. This was him, lost in his dreams of the future. The children were growing increasingly horrified. Even Randall was shocked into silence, for once. Aslan either didn't care about the impact he was having or simply did not understand human psychology well enough to notice .

Trying not to wake him from whatever this trance was, I prompted him softly. “The golden age of the Kings and Queens of Narnia only lasted 13 years. What happens when the age ends here?”

The vision changed, again. That same city, emptied, fallen to ruin. It zoomed out. The whole earth, barren- devoid of all life, a cratered moonscape sailing dead through an infinite void. The voice continued, dreamlike. “I leave, of course, having gathered to me the faithful. The planet is immaterial, now.”

I made a “kill it” gesture to Haley and the vision cut off. I turned to the kids. “The evidence mounts. Not your savior. Not even a predator of men. He eats worlds. He will save one in thirty, for a decade, and then he will consume you all and leave your home a charred husk. That is the salvation he offers you.”

Randall had rallied and now he stepped forward, all thunder and fury. “It is his right! He owns this world and it is his to do with as he will. He promises life eternal for those who follow him- what do you care what happens to this place when you are all in paradise?” Silence reigned, for a time.

Then Piper spoke up. “ I care. Even if it is his right, I don’t want to see this world ended. The people who can’t go to paradise deserve to live here.”

We’re tied for judges then, two to two. I needed a final blow. “And for those who don’t follow him, Mr. Flagg? Piper expressed concern for them, too. The prosecution calls a final witness. We call Skylar Kaur to testify. Could you come up here, please?” She hesitated, glanced at the other children. They nodded.

Flagg attempted to interject again. He seemed to be doing his best ‘Tweedy southern lawyer’ impression but I couldn’t help but notice he wasn’t really trying to rebut, anymore. What was his game? “Now this is completely outrageous, you can’t ask the judge to testify!” He walked over as if to physically stop her, but Haley twisted space and he found himself pacing in the wrong direction. He glowered and lightning flashed from the full storm clouds. Tension was beginning to mount.

But Skylar took the center of the observation platform. “I can and I will. What do you want to know?”

I smiled at her. “I’m sorry for this, dear. Can you let us project your memories of the night Aslan came here? The time in the attic? The prosecution would like to show as its final evidence Aslan’s ‘Concern’ for those that do not immediately bend the knee.” She shuddered, but nodded. The great cat rumbled but did not object.

The light of Haley’s illusion flared, and we were in the attic of their home, amid a different thunderstorm. She stood to one side of Aslan, facing a brother I’d never met. He held a hunting rifle in shaking hands, pointing it at the great cat. “In the moment, all of this happened in a flash,” she said. “But later on, after I joined Miss Haley’s story, I started to… remember . More of what… he did.” Rain began to pelt us, standing on that mount above the plains, and the scene rolled on. The boy, nearly an adult, fired a shot. It sank into Aslan’s mane, doing nothing. The Lion stalked forward, slow as he pleased, and the boy racked the slide back and chambered another round. He raised the rifle to shoot again, and the lion simply swatted it out of his hands. The great claws tore horrible gashes across his chest and arm, and he fell back, crying out, hands over his face.

Aslan simply… ate him, then. Slowly. Cruelly. A bite, and the right arm was gone at the wrist- he shrieked, and blood jetted. In Skylar’s mind the other children stood with her and stared into the distance, glassy eyed. The boy reached for them. The lion swatted him again, casually, knocking him far from aid. Another bite and he lost a good portion of his back. His cries were more feeble now, getting weaker as he lost blood. The lion did not finish him. It waited, tail twitching. It was a cat after all, playing with a mouse. The most sadistic possible game. When the end came, it came in blood, and sudden violence. A flicker of claw and his neck broke under that unstoppable paw. The Lion took time to clean himself then, in Skylar’s mind’s eye, and turned toward the children. He allowed them to recover some sense of consciousness, and he spoke to them. “Do not mourn…” The vision faded out.

“Monster.” I thought I’d spoken, at first. It was certainly the thought on my mind. But no- it was Boden . “He’s a monster. I knew, but he wouldn’t let me remember. What he did to Hunter…”

I finished. “He’ll do to everybody on earth, if you let him. This is your choice. The prosecution rests.”

Randall Flagg stood, silent and serious for the first time since I’d met him. Stared at the kids, for a long minute as the rain fell like tiny hammers and soaked us all. Eventually he shrugged his shoulders and put on that old saucy grin. “Welp,” he said, winking at me. “Can’t win em all, I guess!” Whistling cheerfully, hands in pockets as if all was right with the world, he wandered away. As he passed me he winked . I really fucking hated when he did that.

Aslan stood, the picture of pride and dignity, at the edge of the observation platform. His glorious gold fur seemed untouched by the storm. “I do not apologize for my actions. Your people summoned a man eater, needed a devourer of souls to worship. No lesser violence would do. I am what you have made of me, my nature is what it is. You have not called into question my right, only my actions, and they are not for you to judge. Make your decision now, children, and remember the fate that awaits those who stand against me.”

He might as well have stayed silent. One by one, the children turned towards me. Piper looked at them, then summoned her courage. “If it’s not for us to judge, then who ever could? We find for the prosecution.” Lighting crashed, and the world began to shake. But everyone on the platform stayed where they were. Even Randall, mid-stride. All but myself. And Aslan. It took me a second, then, to realize he was padding towards me. To notice the glassed-over look in the eyes of everyone else, even my wife.

“You have pulled a trick worthy of song and story, Son of Conor. I do not often lose the argument over Law at the Table. But not all victories are clean. Strip me of my pawns as you might- I am still in this world, and I will make an example of you. Even if I must be forsworn to do so.” What- no, this didn’t make sense, without his narrators he should have- I backed up, fell down on that rain-slick surface. Scrabbled backwards, toward the stairway. He marched on, inexorable. Inevitable. They weren’t his narrators. They were never his narrators. Oh fuck. “Run, if you like. I enjoy a chase, before the kill.” I couldn’t run. I couldn’t fight. I had my ridiculous enchanted pistols and I’d just seen what good those would do. Still, I drew them, and held them out. One shot, and a roiling pinpoint of thunder and flame snapped out. Two, from a shaking hand. They passed into him without a trace. I screamed, wordlessly. He just kept coming.

I felt Sherriff doing the equivalent of bracing my shoulders, from the back of my mind. “ <Stand tall now, son. You did good work. We’ll die on our feet.>” The death I feared. The divergence of our paths. This must be it. I’d known when the Dog first made me aware that I was telling Haley’s story that some day I’d have to stop, and what that might mean to be merely human in this world, to no longer have that fiat invulnerability. For her freedom, for the sake of the world… I accepted it, and willed the narrative to her if I died. Better me in this place, than her. The fear passed through me at last. I held my head high and the lion came on.

But as he passed the center platform there came a shout. “NO! NEVER AGAIN!” Skylar ripped free of his mental binding, faster even than Haley could shake it off, and grabbed the dagger that always killed what it struck from the sheath strapped to her youngest brother’s waist. Before Aslan could whirl on her, she plunged it into his side. He roared, shatteringly loud, loud enough that everyone else was startled awake, and collapsed bonelessly in the center of the platform.

Despair gripped me. “Oh, Skylar, no.” Haley was whipping her head around frantically, trying to figure out what had happened. Flagg had disappeared altogether. The rain was torrential now.

Skylar looked at me, panting heavily, soaked through and covered to her elbows in his blood. “What? What did I do? He was going to kill you!”

I nodded. “Someone had to die here. He wanted it to be him. Wanted you to do it, I think. It’s part of his story, he dies at the table and comes back, becoming master of Narnia. If all of you refused to participate in his story, it might have broken his power-” I think- “he would have killed me, but Haley would have finished him.” I fell to my knees. “It was worth it. It would have been… worth it.” A golden light was emanating from the body of the slain lion. We had seconds, at most.

Haley said behind me, worriedly- “Sean? What-” I turned my head towards her, but it was Randall Flagg that I saw. He stood over me, red-dipped knife in his right hand. There was no smile on his face now. “Don’t worry, kids. I’ll finish where he started.” I had no time to react. He leaned in close, in a second timeless moment. “I threw that debate, you know.” he whispered conspiratorially. The knife flashed and Haley screamed and I felt my throat open. I fell to the ground.

She was shouting something, casting spells. An explosion, a flash of heat- I couldn’t hear anymore. The world was falling away in a pool of warm liquid, driving away the chill of the water. Sherriff spoke in my ear then, comforting. “ <A good ride, Sean. It was a good ride. Let her finish it.>” I had enough strength, enough presence of mind, to pass my narrative control back to Haley.

And then the sky crashed, and my heart died, bleeding on a hill in a summer storm.