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wingedflight21
Sep. 27th, 2013 07:29 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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narniaexchangeTitle: Light To The Misled and Lonely Traveler
Author:rthstewart
Recipient:wingedflight21
Rating: K+/PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Crackfic! Cross-over madness. No warnings; minor plot and character spoilers for the following: Voyage of the Dawn Treader ; Artemis Fowl series; Thursday Next series; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; BBC’s Merlin Series 3-4; Series 4, Doctor Who (10th Doctor and Donna Noble); Warehouse 13 (minor plot hints from The Big Snag and The Sky’s The Limit); The Hobbit (film 2012; character spoilers); The Lord of the Rings (book). (Also there are nods to Struthious’ Oi, None of Your, a Donna Noble AU and another favorite Narnia fic).
Title is taken from John Milton, “The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveler.”
Summary: From The Time and Space Traveler’s Guide, Entry for Coriakin’s Island, V 2.0:
Should your journey to or from Aslan’s Country (excellent food and top notch accommodation – see entry for Aslan’s Country above) or the Sweet Sea (delicious but be sure to brush your teeth after partaking to prevent decay!) take you through the Eastern Sea, you will find there are few places in the archipelagos worth the bother of leaving the time stream. No establishments offer notable refreshment, sights, or entertainment. Some of the Islands are very dangerous whilst offering no commensurate excitement and are best avoided entirely. (See entries for Dark Island, Lone Islands, Deathwater below). As for Coriakin’s Island, do not be lulled by the prospect of the pleasant greenery, homely house, and fine, sandy and pristine beaches. The magician who lives there is a cantankerous coot with a habit of giving uninvited guests extra appendages or turning them into a squid. AVOID.
Light To The Misled and Lonely Traveler
ooOOoo
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
“There is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.”
John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
ooOOoo
Stars, even former Stars, do not count time as mortals do. Even so, Coriakin knew his time of exile on the lonely island would be a very long one. Stars would be born and burn out their lives before he would be able to return to the skies.
And he would endure this alone. Some Stars, who were lone, preferred the solitude. But Coriakin had burned in the Great Scythe of the crowded southern skies. He had lived in the sky amidst his brothers and sisters. The Stars of your family constellation would rise in the sky together, dance through the night together, and finally fall together, always together.
Long exile was, therefore, the worst possible fate for a Star such as he.
For the first 27 years, he was alone and very angry at Aslan. He passed the time cooking scones, perfecting custard creams, causing it to rain with every frown, and otherwise honing his magic. Then the Duffers arrived, washed ashore from a great calamity at sea. He never could get the straight story from the Chief but assumed they had sunk their own boat through sheer incompetence. The Duffers were entertaining for 9 years. Eventually, though, he grew weary of them and their stupid, stiff-necked ways. He wished they would take to the sea again and go somewhere else, preferably the ocean floor, but it seemed Aslan believed this caretaker role was good for him. Teach them wisdom, the Lion said. But how did one teach wisdom to rocks and tree stumps? He was as far above them as an eagle from a worm.
He had magic but to what end? For what purpose?
And so in the 68th year of his exile, he went to bed and did not rouse himself as the sun rose and fell 33 times. He could not die; he could not burn out or burn up. He was a former Star, magical to his core but without the need of the things that sustained mortals. He just existed, like a stone, though even stone wore away to dust, eventually. Outside his window he could hear the Duffers worry, fret, and parrot the Chief.
“I say he’s dead.”
“Surely is, then, Chief.”
“Dead as doorknobs.”
“That’s right, Chief.”
“Ding dong dead.”
The Lion spoke to him in the mirror. “My son, this self-pity does not become you.”
“No,” Coriakin agreed, staring at the ceiling he had enchanted. The points of light moved as he and his brothers and sisters had in their constellation of the Great Scythe.
“What ails you, my wayward Star?” the Lion asked.
“Former Star,” Coriakin corrected. He ignored Aslan’s growl of correction.
“Tell me,” the Lion ordered.
“I miss my family,” Coriakin eventually admitted to the Lion in the mirror after another three nights passed as he lay in the bed and watched his brothers and sisters dance across the sky and waited for them to return. “And I know what you will say. That I should have considered what it meant to be alone before I so wronged.”
“If you say it, there is no reason for me to do so.”
“The inevitable problem of speaking to the divine. There is no point to it since you already know what I shall say before I do.” Coriakin turned his back to the mirror and stared at the wall for another two nights and days.
“Visitors you shall have,” Aslan said.
The visitor was in the shape of a female human and she arrived the next day. She called herself Dawn and she was Ramandu’s Daughter. You could hear her capitalize it. Ramandu’s Daughter.
This wasn’t auspicious.
Coriakin thought Ramandu very stuck-up. Ramandu always wanted to be the one sailors navigated by and priestesses prayed to. He, Polaris, and Eärendil were very good friends. And of course Ramandu had drawn Table duty for the last 500 years. He was insufferable.
“My father is not young enough to travel though he can tend Aslan’s Table alone,” Dawn said, sticking her head in his bedroom and wrinkling her human nose in disapproval. She was barefoot – not surprising as most magicians and Stars in human form didn’t wear shoes. Coriakin could never find anything large enough.
“I have come all this way, the least you can do is make me a cup of tea.” Dawn then left. He could hear her wandering down the hallway and laughing at the Bearded Glass. “I enjoy leaving our island to see the sights,” she called. “But if you will not bother to bestir yourself, Coriakin, I will just make myself at home in your library until something more interesting turns up.”
Even more humiliating, the Duffers loved her. He could hear their voices outside, gaily laughing and teasing. The shame of being abed whilst Dawn amused herself finally roused him. She was a bright thing, young and strong, and her impertinent challenges kindled his mortal form with a Star’s fire he’d not felt in years. She lit the dark places and whilst she was not as old nor as beautifully shining as his brothers and sisters of the Scythe, she was the only being he had spoken to in nearly 100 years who was neither a parrot nor a Lion. He didn’t want Dawn to turn up her human nose at the stink of a stale home and his unkempt state. He could do better than this. So he bestirred himself.
Whilst Dawn read in his library and explored the attics, Coriakin tidied the house, waving his arms, and murmuring spells. The broom was sweeping, the mop was mopping, and the rags were dusting and washing the dirty windows to let the Sun in. He changed to a fresh robe, washed his bare feet, combed his cobwebby beard, made tea, brewed a pineapple wine, and made cream cakes with strawberries.
Dawn stayed four magical days. It was almost like being again with his young, gay sister, Chitra, who had been the brightest Star in the Great Scythe. He and Dawn told stories to one another and he taught her the magiks that he knew old Ramandu would not approve of.
They sat together on the beach at dusk and when the Stars came out to begin their dance, Dawn would raise her arms and sing.
For the first time since his exile, Coriakin joined in the Star song. His voice was harsh and unlovely. Though Dawn had wrinkled her human nose at his slovenly habits and housekeeping, she was nothing but kindness as he followed her lead and stumbled through melodies that again hummed through his being.
“I miss them so much,” he told Dawn.
“And they miss you,” she said.
Sand between their toes and fingers, dirtying the hems of their robes and snarling their hair, they sang the whole night until their brothers and sisters faded again and the Sun rose.
They drank tea and ate crumbly pastries with butter and raspberry coulis and he knew Dawn was leaving.
“You are not yet healed, Coriakin,” she said, admiring her human fingers and licking away the jam. “The very nature of the Star is to give of herself, to give light unstintingly to others, to burn and burn for others until at last our flame dies.” She poked him in the chest with a sticky finger. “You hid your light and tried to keep it all for yourself. You must learn to give as a Star should.”
Coriakin slammed the teacup down – he’d summoned them from a place beyond the borders that brewed excellent tea. “Give to whom?” he demanded. “There is no one here but the Duffers. They do not desire my wisdom.”
The Chief popped his dim, red-cheeked face in the window. “We’re just fine, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome!”
“Sure are, fine, Chief.”
“You’ve seen to that, Chief.”
“Truer words never spoken.”
Coriakin reigned in the urge to throw a teapot at the Chief, lest he make Dawn’s point for her. With this prickle of his old temper, the clouds around his island exile grew darker and there was a rumble of thunder.
The Duffer Chief yelped and disappeared from the window.
With a glance out the window at the darkened sky, Dawn sighed, brushed the crumbs from her lap, and summoned a broom to sweep them away – a spell he had taught her. “You’ve done well. You have made a good beginning. But you are still prideful, Coriakin, and selfish. “
From outside, they could hear the Duffers’ loud complaints of rain being powerfully wet stuff. With a wave of his hand, Coriakin conjured umbrellas and shot them out the open window.
“Oi! Watch it, Magician! You could’ve killed us!”
Another weary wave, and the window slammed shut. With an extra squint, he could make it rain harder, too. Maybe the lightning would strike the umbrellas and kill all the Duffers.
Dawn dabbed the raspberry from her lips and rose from her seat at the table. “I admit that your skills could be put to better us serving those with needs more complex than what the Duffers typically require.” Dawn’s final words before she disappeared in a flash of light were as firm as any order of Aslan, “The Stars touch many lands and are seen by many eyes. Aid those who come to your shore. Learning to give will shorten the path that leads to your return to the skies.”
ooOOoo
The Time and Space Traveler’s Guide, Entry for Coriakin’s Island, V. 3.0:
A recent report submitted to the Guide recommends that Eastern Sea travelers give Coriakin’s Island a try. Should you find yourself in truly dire need of magical assistance and are willing to risk magically-added tentacles (the Guide of course fully supports those who already have tentacles or desire to acquire them!) the Guide revises its previous AVOID recommendation and now cautiously suggests Coriakin’s Island. PROCEED WITH CAUTION
ooOOoo
Three days later, just as he was cracking an egg over toast, there was a loud POP, a flash of green light, and two men stepped out of his fireplace. One was tall and thin, the other shorter and burlier, both with shockingly red hair, now suitably filthy.
With their manner of arrival and the crackle in the air, the young men were certainly powerful wizards, though they both wore boots -- certainly advisable since they evidently got about by traveling through fireplaces. With their strange trousers and flimsy shirts in bold (though now very dirty) patterns and writing, they looked like vagabonds.
“Blimey, George, that was bad! What is in that joke shop Floo powder?”
“Sphagnum moss gives it an extra kick in the arse,” George replied, dusting off his peculiar shirt, Keep Calm And Mind The Gap. George pulled out a -- by the Lion, was that a wand!? -- confirmed when Coriakin felt the telltale spark as the man waved the wand, muttered a word, and the ash coating them both disappeared. Coriakin could now see that the other man, apparently George’s older brother given the similarity of appearance, was wearing a shirt that said, Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
“Thank you for not tracking soot on my hearth rug,” he said to them. “I’ve not seen a spoken Scourgify spell in years.”
Coriakin was suddenly staring down the shafts of two very steadily held wands who owed their allegiance to the two very competent wizards who held them.
He gestured to his breakfast table laid out with eggs, toast, and kippers. “Would you like something to eat?”
George, and his brother, Charlie, were very good company. Charlie was gruff and good-natured, George was very amusing but given over to the occasional vacant stare or morbid observation. Over tea and buttered toast, Charlie explained the reasons for their sudden emergence from the dining room fireplace (and good thing it wasn’t lit). Someone had apparently hooked up his hearth to the Floo Network.
“There’ve been reports about a rogue dragon,” Charlie said. “We heard you could help us find him.”
“Or her,” George said, sounding gloomy again and stabbing a kipper with his fork. “Remember Norberta?”
Charlie rolled up a sleeve to show an impressively puckered scar on his arm. “I still have the burns.”
After breakfast, Coriakin unfurled his maps of the Eastern Sea. Though he knew little about dragons, he could describe the islands, which allowed Charlie to guess where one might be hiding. They narrowed the search to an archipelago to the west. He warned them of the Dark Island. Though the wizards were not traveling that way, the Dark Island did have a way of wandering and he could not imagine what might happen if a dragon were drawn into the Island’s influence.
“But you say dreams come true there?” George asked, in a queer, hopeful way that boded very ill to Coriakin’s’ mind.
“Not the happy ones, not day dreams and not fond wishes,” Coriakin sternly told the young man, wondering what dream George thought to reclaim. “You lose the good and the very worst become real.” Seeing the solemn, sad faces of the brothers, he added, “If you have a bad dream, the Dark Island will make it real.”
“We’ve got plenty of real darkness of our own,” Charlie said firmly. “We aren’t going to go looking for any more it and especially when a dragon might be in the other direction.”
Getting to the western archipelago proved to be an obstacle as there was no guarantee of a Floo hearth and wizards needed a concrete destination before trying to apparate anywhere. Coriakin enspelled two of his brooms so the wizards could fly over the sea rather than pop in and out and end up Aslan knew where, but certainly not safe.
As thanks, Charlie gave him a bottle of poisonous spirits, aptly named firewhiskey. George showed him an exceedingly clever disillusionment charm that could be extended and expanded in marvelous ways. Coriakin was looking forward to adding it to his spell book and amused himself considering appropriate colourful illustrations and what blank pages would reveal when the counter-spell, aparecium revelio, was spoken.
After the wizards flew off, Coriakin realized that George had charmed the tea kettle to explode in fireworks whenever the water in it began to heat and had added a swamp to the second floor hallway outside the bathroom.
It was a very good bit of magic.
ooOOoo
A few days later, while conjuring a little bridge over the swamp into the bathroom, Coriakin heard a great ruckus outside. The Duffers were making a most dreadful racket. Fearing some harm to them, Coriakin hurried out onto the beach. Truly the sight was so remarkable that even he was startled and Coriakin had shined from the southern night skies on the lands below for a thousand years.
In the bay, an outlandish and profoundly magical being, for the moment looking like a short human male in shabby, sopping brown robes, was standing and swaying in a little coracle that was being vigorously towed to shore by sea turtles.
“Oi! Coriakin! I couldn’t get the Rabbits to swim me out here from Narnia. Be nice to the turtles, or you’ll never get rid of me!”
Coriakin bowed low, ever so grateful now for the gift of the firewhiskey. “Thank you noble Turtles for escorting our friend Aiwendil so far and so well.”
“Don’t call me that! I hate that name. No one calls me that on this side of the Blessed Realm!”
The turtles dropped the ropes they had been carrying in their beaked mouths but didn’t say anything so Coriakin could not be sure if they were regular turtles or were simply taciturn Talking Turtles. They flapped their flippers at their ragged passenger and swam away as Aiwendil – Radagast – shouted his thanks in a garbled, aquatic language.
Why did it have to be Aiwendil? Why not Olórin or even Curunír? Not that Curunír would ever come here. He and Ramandu were as close as clamshells.
Radagast hopped out of his little boat and landed with a splash in the shallows. Coriakin had certainly let himself go before Dawn arrived – maintaining a mortal form was hard when you were not been born into it and so you forget to do things like trim your nails or comb your hair. Radagast was a stinking ruin of bird excrement, sea salt, fish scales, seaweed, and brambles.
“Hey! We there yet?”
A pointy brown nose peaked out from under Radagast’s hat. The rest of the Mongoose followed and slid down Radagast’s arm and landed on the sand. “Where’re the squirrels?”
“In the woods, I should think,” Coriakin said, pointing. “They don’t talk, though. And there are no Talking Mongooses.”
“I’m not a Mongoose, I’m a Squirrel,” the Mongoose said defiantly. He swished his little tail that, while hair-covered, was not the least bit bushy and ran toward the trees. “Hey Cousins!”
“Setevin was born a Mongoose but is certain it is a cosmic mistake and that underneath he really is a Narnian Talking Squirrel,” Radagast explained after he’d washed in the second floor bath – though judging from the bracken clinging to his beard and the delighted squeals Coriakin had heard, he suspected the Brown Wizard had made it no farther than the swamp. Having only just gotten the house clean after Dawn and the Weasley wizards, he decided to feed and water Radagast out on the beach. He reasoned that Radagast would prefer to be out of doors regardless.
Coriakin became distracted watching Radagast earnestly comb insects and shellfish out of his beard and feed them to the circling shore birds.
“I apologize, what did you say, Radagast?” he asked as the Brown Wizard flicked a shrimp to a sandpiper dancing at his (bare) feet.
“I had the turtles tow me out here because I thought you might be able to help Setevin,” Radagast repeated.
“Help him how?” What could he possibly do for a Mongoose with an identity crisis?
Radagast flopped inelegantly to the ground and began plucking squirming worms from one pocket and feeding them to a hedgehog in another pocket. “Sorry you had to wait so long, Sebastian, I know you’re hungry.”
Sebastian climbed out of Radagast’s coat, shook himself, and began slurping up and earnestly chewing on the worms. Coriakin was very glad they were out of doors.
“What could you do?” Radagast mused. He rubbed a finger atop the hedgehog’s head and smiled at Sebastian’s contented chirping noises. “You’ve always been very good at glamours and concealments. I thought you could do something useful and kind with the skill for a change and help poor Setevin.”
The very mild comment stung deeply; it was a rebuke as strong as Dawn’s had been. Radagast knew how Coriakin had jealously concealed his Starlight from others. Radagast was eccentric – but he was no fool and a very talented wizard in his own sphere. Coriakin could certainly have never managed a sea voyage by turtle.
They sat on the beach until very, very late, smoking Radagast’s excellent pipeweed and drinking firewhiskey. Radagast had met the Weasley brothers for Island-hopping and dragon searching. Radagast described so colourfully splendid a time, it made Coriakin wish he could have joined them, surely an effect of the firewhiskey. The evening turned very hazy and pleasant as he and Radagast swapped ever more improbably outrageous stories. The Chief appeared periodically in his nightshirt to complain that their laughter was keeping the Duffers awake. Radagast kept offering the Chief pipeweed but the Duffer would huffily refuse and stomp off again.
Setevin returned from his foray to the woods, hungry and grumbling about how none of the squirrels would talk to him. He was gnawing on walnuts that his narrow mouth and sharp, pointed teeth could not crack. Feeling badly for the hungry Mongoose, Coriakin conjured a pincer nutcracker Setevin could manipulate with his clever front paws. “Try this. It might help.”
It was tricky to manoeuvre, but Setevin managed it with the smaller nuts and was happily cracking the shells and chewing on the meats. While the Mongoose-Squirrel was distracted, Coriakin cast a charm.
It was a silent one, but as the wave of magic crackled in the air, Radagast, of course, sensed what Coriakin had done for the Mongoose. Radagast flailed upright and looked around. “I say, Setevin! This sea air has been very good for you! I’ve never seen your tail so bushy!”
“Gar! What’re you talking about?” Setevin sat up on his hindquarters, and looked over his shoulder. He was so startled he tipped over then excitedly jumped to his feet, chirping. He circled around, happily chasing his new, fluffy tail. He was able to twist and swing his tail about in ways that were almost squirrel-like. With discreet wave of his fingers, Coriakin added extra fluffiness.
It wasn’t a bad look at all for a Mongoose.
They drank the rest of the firewhiskey. Radagast taught him some reprehensible songs about Moose mating and licentious Dryads that he’d learned after spending far too much time in the Narnian woods with Bacchus. They fell asleep on the shore as the fire burned low. The next morning, Radagast, Sebastian, Setevin, and the coracle they had traveled in, were gone, back to Narnia, presumably.
Radagast left behind a pair of nesting ducks for the second floor swamp.
ooOOoo
The Time and Space Traveler’s Guide, Entry for Coriakin’s Island, V. 4.0:
The Guide is happy to fully recommend a visit to Coriakin’s Island. Travelers report Coriakin is a dab hand at repairing magical damage, offers a full range of concealment and appendage services, and serves a terrific Devon cream tea (though one reviewer indicated it was akin to consuming a kilo of M&Ms and a bucket of Cadbury Roses). The second floor swamp (though awkward when needing to use the bathroom to be sure) is not to be missed. It’s the only one of its kind outside of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and good luck finding that on your Time Vortex GPS. The Duffers provide excellent stand up impromptu comedy, however their humour is not to every taste so bring appropriate ear protection. Coriakin is happy to provide an excellent, magically-enhanced ear plug muffler should the Duffers prove irritating to your sensibility. The Hogwarts Squid gives Coriakin’s Island an enthusiastic eight legs, two tentacles, thumbs up. RECOMMEND
ooOOoo
Coriakin was almost disappointed with the next visitor. Gaius and Merlin had, between them, thoroughly botched an aging spell. Perhaps it was the poor quality of the spell but old age was not a good look for Merlin – Arthur must be blind to not see it.
For a Star, inadvertent aging was a simple problem to fix. Stars knew all about aging and were particularly adept at aging backwards. Merlin’s misapplied spell was quickly remedied and he was, once again, the awkward, gangly young servant to a young Arthur. Coriakin made sure to instruct him on how to remedy the error should he wish to try to fool a very thick Arthur by pretending to be an aged, spellcasting lunatic again.
Honestly, if they were ever hoping to restore legitimate magic to Camelot, it would help if Merlin and his fellow magic users could manage to represent magicians as something other than homicidal fanatics with maniacal cackles.
Coriakin swept up the mess of the swamp Radagast had made and—he had to do it himself since George and Charlie had taken his two enchanted brooms. The ducks did very well and hatched four ducklings. Coriakin escorted the waddling family outside once they were ready for a space larger than the second floor hallway. Since it was lonely without the ducks, he persuaded some loons to relocate to the swamp.
He was in the middle of preparing tea when a young, slight, dark-haired, dreadfully serious young man appeared and introduced himself as Friday. He explained that he was supposed to invent time travel and wished to blow up something called the Chronoguard, and needed aid with both endeavors before his mother woke him up from his nap. Coriakin didn’t see how he could help with the actual mechanics of time travel – he was very much stuck in the here and now at the moment. He did offer Friday some tea; when he returned to the parlour with a plate of chocolate biscuits, strawberries, and crème anglaise, Friday was gone and had taken George’s exploding tea kettle with him.
No sooner had Friday left than an Elf and her pale, black-haired human associate stepped out of the time stream and into his parlour. He recognized Holly Short from her time in LEPrecon and knew of her companion by reputation. Coriakin immediately uttered a silent lockdown spell; he did not want his valuable magical items purloined by a morally bankrupt adolescent criminal mastermind.
The pair was not, however, in a state to do much damage, squint-eyed and off-kilter as they were.
“I want my eye back!” the elf demanded. (There were different varieties of elves, of course. Holly was of the type that was short and almost pixie-like, though Coriakin knew to never say so offensive a thing aloud.) “And I don’t like blue!”
“I certainly do not want green, either,” Artemis Fowl replied coolly.
Unless you could extort some money from a victim in exchange for it.
Coriakin put his tea cup down so loudly it rattled in the saucer and interrupted their quarrel. Holly and Artemis whirled about to face him.
“Good afternoon, Holly. It’s a pleasure to see you again.” Coriakin knew his voice turned a shade cooler as he added, “And you must be Artemis? Tea?”
“Coriakin!” Holly cried. “No thanks to Artemis messing us up in the time stream, I’m so glad I found you!”
“Oh dear, yes, I quite see the problem,” he told them, examining their respective faces carefully. One of Holly’s elfish green eyes was in Artemis’ face; one of his cold, blue eyes stared out from Holly’s face.
“I think’s it really bad that he’s got an elf eye and I can barely see.” To Artemis, Holly said, “How do you see with these things? They’re ridiculous!”
“I assure you, I feel the same way,” Artemis said, looking casually about the room.
Coriakin did not like to see Artemis’ mismatched eyes focus on the collection of scrying glasses he kept in the (now locked) glass case and the Faun art on the walls. He knew art was something Artemis would time travel to steal and he was very fond of the Bacchus-inspired works.
He cleared his throat. “And you are hoping I can put you both to rights?”
Holly nodded.
“We heard you were good with appearance spells,” Artemis said.
“I am,” Coriakin told them. “I could easily turn your eyes the proper colour so, Holly, yours would be green…”
“Hazel,” Holly interrupted. “They’re hazel.”
“Hazel,” Coriakin repeated. “And Artemis, I could make both your eyes blue. But…”
“But Holly’s eye would still be in my head,” Artemis concluded.
“I can handle the cosmetics once we get out of here,” Holly said with a touch of asperity. “The problem now is the moon – it’s out of phase and not where it should be for my magic to work. I think it must be because this is a flat world.”
“Oh yes, I quite understand,” Coriakin replied. As a former Star, he sympathized with the moon phase problem. It really made no sense at all when you stopped to think about it.
“Or perhaps you are worried that trying a spell on our eyes might blind us?” Artemis retorted.
“I’m not worried,” Holly said with a shrug. “I’d practice on you first.”
“I’m only a magician, not a surgeon,” Coriakin injected before the mostly good-natured bickering escalated. “I can add things, like a third eyeball or a bushy tail, or take away a leg you don’t want, not that that would be useful to your present predicament. And tentacles. I’m clever with those as well.” After Setevin’s success, word had gotten out and even the Hogwarts Squid had become a regular visitor.
“So we should see a doctor? Holly, where do you suppose you might have heard that before?” Artemis spoke in a long-suffering tone at which the elf bristled.
“I suppose,” Coriakin said. “A magical physician might be helpful. Or you could go back into the time stream and see if it scrambles you back?”
“And risk ending up with his pale skin?” Holly scoffed.
“Or your height?”
Holly and Artemis continued to squabble as he poured the tea – using the old service which seemed to annoy Artemis but was certainly safer to use around Artemis. He also did not offer to let them wash up or see the flourishing wetlands in the upstairs hallway. If there was a way to make off with a magician’s plumbing or swamp, Artemis would surely find it. He was sorry that he could not help them and did offer a potion and simple spell for the headaches and eyestrain they were both developing until Holly’s own magic was working better or they found someone who could put them right.
Though the bickering was irritating, Holly and Artemis were intelligent, interesting, and good company. He was sorry when they dusted off the crumbs and reentered the time stream to find a solution to their eye problem.
During the clean-up, he realized that two of his old teaspoons were missing. He found a note tacked on the wall near the swamp. Nice swamp. If you had used the nice tea set, you might still have all of it.
Coriakin was so impressed, he thought about changing the spell on the stolen spoons. Ultimately, he decided against it for obviously Artemis had a twisted sense of humour. He wondered how long it would be before Artemis noticed that the two spoons he had taken had turned into leeches.
ooOOoo
One evening he argued with the Chief that apples on the branch could never bake themselves into a dumpling and that no matter how long they waited, a fish would not leap out of the water into the hot frying pan.
“That’s right, Chief.”
“We’ve gotta watch out for that water.”
“And monsters.”
“We’ve seen that squid!”
“No fishing for us in that wet stuff.”
“Apples are mighty dangerous when they land on you.”
“And worms.”
So much for trying to teach them to feed themselves. He conjured apple tarts and fried fish just to shut them up.
A whirring, thunka thunka thunka noise interrupted them and the Duffers scattered.
A large, gleaming, glass, silver and white box appeared on the lawns. It was utterly foreign and like nothing he’d ever seen before. He could not imagine what it was made of, but it was certainly nothing natural.
The thunka thunka faded; the box shuddered and was quiet. Through a round glass in the side he could just make out that there was someone inside – appearing to be a human female.
The box’s door swung open with a bang. “Oi!” the woman exclaimed. She peeled herself out of the box and jumped to her feet. “I hoped the Guidebook is right. I was worried I’d overshot it and the Time Vortex would dump me off on Raxacoricofallapatorius and I’m sick of the place. Me and the dryer need to disappear, now, before he finds us!”
A dozen questions raced through his mind, beginning with Guidebook? and ending with Raxacorfalipus… what?
There was shimmer of distortion on the lawn next to the box and a sharp, clicking sound, like that of a flag snapping in the wind.
“Please! Hurry!”
With a wave of his hand, the woman and her “dryer” disappeared just as a tall, human male stepped out of the distortion.
“Hullo!” he said cheerfully, looking around. “I’m Captain Jack Harkness of the Time Agency. I’m looking for a dangerous criminal and I think she just landed her. Have you seen anything peculiar?”
“I’m a magician and former Star,” Coriakin replied. “I have a swamp and thriving estuary on the second floor of my house, I live with fifty of the stupidest Dwarfs imaginable, and someone once came to see me in a boat towed by turtles. Nothing is peculiar anymore.” He studied Captain Harkness and found the man’s smile off-putting. “And you are a liar,” he concluded.
“No need to get so angry, Gramps!” Captain Harkness raised his arm and punched buttons on a device on his wrist that Artemis would have loved and certainly stolen. Coriakin wished he could introduce them. He thought Captain Jack Harkness and Artemis Fowl deserved each other.
“I’ll be on my way,” Captain Harkness said.
“Yes, you do that,” Coriakin replied.
The clicking, whirring noises began again, and then, with a pop, Captain Jack Harkness disappeared.
He waited a few minutes, but Captain Harkness didn’t return. Coriakin muttered the aparecium revelio counter-spell and the dangerous criminal and her dryer reappeared.
“That’s great, thanks,” she said and held out her hand.
Coriakin stared at it, wondering what he was supposed to do with it. She withdrew her hand with a shrug.
“Right then. I’m Donna. Well, not just Donna, but Donna will do for now. You aren’t the Doctor, are you? Not sporting another look?”
“No, I’m not a doctor,” Coriakin said. “I couldn’t even swap out the eyes between a human and an elf.”
“The Doctor,” Donna said. She peered at him and in the intense gaze, Coriakin had a powerful sense of not-human. Donna wasn’t a magical being; but she wasn’t completely human, either. “It’s seeing you that put me to mind of it. There are all those stories of good wizards and magicians and, somehow, they’re always about him!”
“Oh, I’m not a good magician. Certainly not a nice one.”
“Well, you saved me a world of trouble, Magic Man, so thanks again for the disillusion.”
“Would you like to stay for some tea? I tried a new éclair recipe.”
“Thanks, but I’m already late for a picnic date on Felspon. Or, Asgard. I think. And since I have a time machine, I really shouldn’t be late, you know?”
“Yes, quite.”
She opened the door of her dryer and began to climb in.
“That doesn’t look comfortable,” Coriakin said.
“It’s better than it was and it’s larger inside than it looks,” Donna replied. She wedged her body through the round opening and then looked back out at him. “Say, you want to go for a spin? How about a picnic on Felspon?”
He didn’t know where Felspon was but it was surely far away. “No, I can’t leave here. It’s not allowed.”
“Well that’s no good at all!”
“No, it’s not,” Coriakin agreed. “I’m finding it has its compensations, though.” He helped Donna shut the door of her dryer. A thought occurred to him and he knocked on the glass. She again opened the door.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“What if Captain Harkness comes back? Is there any message I should give him?”
“Tell him I went to Arcadia, that I’m keeping his wallet, and he can keep the hallucinogenic lipstick.”
ooOOoo
The trickle of visitors became a very regular stream. They dropped down from the sky, stepped out of the fireplace, swam ashore, suddenly apparated in his parlour and once, memorably, staggered out of the swamp.
Pounding coming from the inside of his broom closet was new, however. Coriakin opened the door and two human women tumbled out, both young, one tall, the other short, one dark, the other red-haired.
The tall, dark-haired one kept rolling right into the room, and when she leapt up, she was holding something in her hands that was small, silver, and obviously dangerous. “Get away from her!”
“There’s no need for violence,” Coriakin said. He knelt down to help the red-haired woman up from the rug she was still sprawled on. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m good, but thanks.” She climbed to her feet. “Myka?”
“I’m fine.” Myka had not yet lowered her arms and was still pointing her wicked, silver weapon-thing at him.
“I’m Claudia Donovan,” the redhead said. “She’s Myka Bering. We’re from the U.S. Secret Service investigating a series of disappearances.”
Coriakin noticed that Claudia edged away, closer to Myka, as she talked. For travelers they were both uncommonly edgy. Perhaps they had difficulties when they traveled through the time stream?
“I am Coriakin,” he told them calmly. “This is my home and I have no idea what the U.S. Secret Service is. But if things are disappearing that should not, I shall be happy to assist you, if I can.” To Myka he urged, “I don’t know what you are pointing at me, but do put it away. Neither it nor you could harm me.”
“Oh? Why is that?” Myka asked. “Because I’m a weak, helpless girl?”
Goodness the women were tetchy. “You do not need to lie to me, Myka. Why would you say you are weak or helpless when you are not? And aren’t you and Claudia women, not girls?” He didn’t know humans that well, but surely that was obvious.
Myka did relax a little, smiled a little more, lowered her silver weapon and shoved it in her belt. “So why wouldn’t I be able to harm you?”
“Because I am a magician.”
Claudia laughed. “You hit the jackpot, Myka! Again!”
“Yeah. Let’s just hope this magic isn’t making any bodies fall from the sky.”
“Certainly not!” Coriakin said, hoping to put her at ease. “Here, if anyone has fallen from the sky, he or she intended to do so and landed quite safely.”
Why did it seem that everything he said that was intended to calm the women made them more nervous?
“So you’re a magician?” Claudia asked, sounding very skeptical.
“You did just appear in my broom closet,” he chided. “Though I don’t think much of the directional capability of the magic that put you there. Shall I make some tea and we’ll see if I can help you with these disappearances? I am very good at that sort of thing.”
The women both exchanged another significant look of the sort that he did not want to get in the middle of.
“Have you acquired anything new recently, anything that seems to have unusual properties?” Myka asked. As she stepped closer, Claudia moved away and began looking with disconcerting attentiveness at the shelves and glass case in the parlour. Since Artemis’ visit, the lock up spell was still in place so he wasn’t worried about theft, but he didn’t like her undisguised interest, either.
“Have you been smelling fudge?” Myka was trying to draw his attention away from Claudia.
“Not since I last cooked it,” Coriakin said, still warily watching Claudia, Myka’s attempted distractions notwithstanding. “As for things with unusual properties, the house is full of them, including things in this room and that Claudia is approaching and really should not touch. I can’t say that I’ve acquired anything new, though some visitor might have left something, like the swamp upstairs.”
“Watch out with the water!” The Duffer Chief’s voice carried from the outside lawns through the open windows. “And get the soap before it slips out!”
The sycophants chorused their agreement.
“Sure thing, Chief!”
“Powerful wet the water is!”
“Hold still so we can wet you down!”
“Oi! The soap is running away!”
“Stop it!”
Coriakin sighed. “My apologies. It’s washing day and the Duffers always try to save time by washing themselves and their clothes at the same time. It never goes well.”
With a wave of his hand, the window shut, blocking the noise of the chorusing Duffers.
“Whoa!” Claudia exclaimed, though there were no horses about.
“How did you do that?” Myka demanded. “What did you use?”
He did not think the women were dullards, though their questions seem to indicate otherwise. “I told you. Magic.”
Myka went into his parlour and began pulling on strange, purple gloves. They were stretching and snapped oddly. “Are you sure there’s nothing new here? Do you mind if I just examine some of these…”
Alarmed, Coriakin stepped forward quickly and put himself between Myka, Claudia, and his shelf of stargazing equipment, tools, and scrying glasses.
“I’m afraid I really can’t let you touch anything. Well, you are welcome to touch the non-magical items, of course, but it would go very ill for you were you to touch the magical ones.”
“How ill?” Myka asked.
“Lemme guess,” Claudia said. “Puddles of goo, burst into flames, boils, pustules, and slow agonizing death?”
“Possibly. Extra appendages, unintended invisibility, and tentacles are possible, too.”
“I hate tentacles,” Myka said with a shudder. “Claudia, can you reach Artie?”
Claudia pulled a small box from her back pocket and Coriakin looked at it curiously. It didn’t have magical properties and seemed very dead. It was a little like what Captain Harkness had used on his wrist.
Claudia hit it and pushed buttons. Nothing happened. “Nope. The Farnsworth’s dead. Artie’s going to have kittens trying to find us.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Coriakin said sympathetically. “Unless Artie is a cat, of course.”
“He’s our, uhhh, magician, our boss,” Myka said, “And he’ll be worried that he can’t reach us.”
Privately, Coriakin didn’t think Artie was a very competent magician to have sent Myka and Claudia into his broom closet.
“I’m guessing the artifact is at our end, not here,” Claudia said. She looked back at the closet they’d fallen out of. “Hopefully, Artie will figure out how to open the portal, do a Dumbledore, and get us back.”
“Dumbledore!” Coriakin exclaimed, marveling at the coincidence. “How extraordinary! I thought Albus was dead.”
Claudia stared at him.
“You mean you know Dumbledore? Knew him, I mean?” Myka asked, sounding very strained.
“Doesn’t everyone? He tried to teach me knitting, though I never did pick up the skill. I prefer cooking myself. Truly, this is delightful. I do hope you’ll stay for tea. I might know Artie by another name! I imagine we have some mutual acquaintances and I would love to hear how they are getting on.”
“Mutual acquaintances?” Claudia said in a queer voice. “Like…Gandalf by any chance?”
“You mean Olórin? I’ve not seen him in years. Radagast was here, though, not that long ago. He came with a Talking Mongoose who thought he was a Squirrel. Do you know them, too? Have you met Setevin? Or Sebastian?”
“Oh man,” Claudia muttered.
“Excuse me!” Myka injected, for the first time sounding very excited. “You said your name was Coriakin?”
“Yes.”
She carefully went to the window, now giving the shelves the respect they deserved, and looked out at the lawns where the fully clothed Duffers were scrubbing one another with the wandering soap. Beyond them, the garden paths sloped downward to the harbour. “We’re on an island? In the Eastern Sea?”
“We are.” He wondered why she sounded so eager.
“And Narnia is further west?”
“It is.”
“And you have fifty dim Dwarfs called Duffers led by a very obnoxious Chief?”
“Myka, this is delightful! Surely we have met before, but perhaps you’ve changed appearance since then and this is why I don’t remember you?”
Myka opened and closed her mouth and finally said, “Uhhhh, I’ve read about you.”
“Uh oh,” Claudia said. “You’re going to tell me something that’s going to make Artie really twitchy, aren’t you?”
Myka nodded. “Remember when Pete and I got pulled into Anthony Bishop’s unfinished manuscript?”
Claudia’s eyes widened. She looked around, frowning. “Oh man, really? So you got a magician and a book? Again? And you know where we are?”
“Yeah. And I think I know whose wardrobe it was!” Myka now sounded thrilled and eagerly stared out the window. She was smiling widely. “This is amazing!”
“Whoa, steady there, girlfriend,” Claudia countered. “We really gotta get back and close this thing before anyone else comes through.”
Oh, was that the only problem? “Are you saying that need to go back to where you came from and don’t know how to get there?”
“Yeah,” Claudia said firmly. “Like now. Right now.”
“Well, I would really like to…” Myka began.
“You, no,” Claudia interrupted, pointing at Myka. Turning she pointed at him. “You, yes, please. Can you Abracadabra us back?”
He winced as she said that awful word. “Well, certainly, I can…”
“But, Claudia, we’re in the Eastern Sea! If we wait a little bit, maybe the Dawn Treader will come and Edmund Pevensie was my first literary crush, even before Gilbert Blythe. I used to wear sensible shoes all the time just in case I got pulled into Narnia so I’d be ready to walk across the Lantern Waste or Ettinsmoor. I was Lucy Pevensie for Halloween! Twice! Can’t we just…”
“No. This thing is in the middle of a flea market that opens to the public in an hour, one man has already come back aged fifty years and rambling about living nightmares and if we don’t …”
“Oh my gosh! Claudia!” Myka clutched her companion’s arm. “I know what’s wrong with him! The wardrobe sent him to the Dark Island!” She whirled about and now grasped his own arm. “Coriakin! Can you give me a sleeping potion, something that will cure someone who has been on the Dark Island?”
How Myka could know of the Dark Island was probably part of the strange way that she knew all about him and the Duffers. Regardless, he was deeply moved. “Being trapped there would a terrible fate. Of course I can give you something and if this wardrobe of yours might send people there, you must stop it, immediately.”
With a wave of his hand, he summoned a vial from his laboratory and gave it to Myka.
“This will give him a dreamless sleep and should, hopefully, reverse the effects.”
“And goo-ing the wardrobe should do it, too,” Claudia said.
“I don’t know what spell goo-ing is, but yes, you must close the doorway at your end. So, hurry!”
Claudia went into the broom closet. Myka followed and started to shut the door, only to suddenly stick her head out again. “Coriakin! When you see a green ship with a dragon prow and a purple sail?”
“Yes? What of it?”
“That part of the story has a happy ending.”
She pulled the door closed and then shoved it open again.
“And if you see Aslan? Tell him I do not like what happens to Susan. She was only doing what Aslan told her to do and so he’d better fix it.”
Myka nodded her head in satisfaction and shut the door.
“We’re ready!” Claudia called.
Coriakin said the spell to send a wayward thing back the way she came. He heard a muffled pop, opened the closet door, and the women were gone. He missed them already. They could have made fudge together.
ooOOoo
With Myka’s hints of a visiting ship and those odd references to the Narnia King and Queen of old, Coriakin dusted off a scrying glass. He was very rusty for there had been nothing to look forward to in a very long time and so his divination was little better than Artie the bad magician’s directional skills. His effort, though, was rewarded when he finally did see a green ship with a dragon prow and purple sail, and her Narnian crew. He followed the antics and efforts on deck of a very fierce Mouse and was alarmed to see a dragon flying about the ship.
When would this happen? Days from now? Years? Or had it occurred already? What was the fate of the crew? So absorbed, he did not notice the Duffers’ chorus of babbles, the bumps and thumps, and the odd slushing sounds. Only when muddy water dripped from the ceiling into his scrying glass did he realize, horribly, what ghastly event had occurred.
He raced upstairs to the second floor but was too late. What had been the thriving swamp was a muddy, gooey, sloppy mess with dying fish flapping about on the carpet, the terrified loons huddled forlornly in a corner, driven from their broken nest, and the Duffers standing to their knees in slop.
“My swamp!” he cried. “You ruined my swamp!?”
Coriakin felt the anger building in him, anger he’d not felt in a long time. Responding to his rising wrath, the sky outside darkened. Thunder rumbled. The ground shook and the rain began to fall, striking hard on the window glass.
“YOU DRAINED MY SWAMP?!!”
The Duffers cowered before him. He should feel pity; all he felt was fury.
“Why?” he demanded. “Why did you ruin my swamp?”
“Well, no need to get so huffy,” the Chief said. “We thought it would be better outside, for swimming.”
“BUT YOU HAVE THE ENTIRE OCEAN!”
“But the ocean’s deep!” the Chief protested.
“Sure is, Chief.”
“You tell him.”
“It’s powerful deep!”
“With monsters!”
“Things with tentacles!”
“We wanted the swamp for washing and bathing.”
“BUT THE SWAMP WAS MUDDY!” he shouted, so angry a bolt of lightning lit the sky and struck the lawn.
“We thought we’d get dirty and clean at the same time…”
He couldn’t stop himself. He’d unleashed a maelstrom outside and it was nothing to the fury within. Coriakin waved his hand and with a crack, the spell was done. I’ll give you monsters! He’d intended to curse each Duffer with an octopus’ full set of eight legs, but he’d been too angry to count. The Duffers squealed in terror and he felt a perverse pleasure as they stared in one another in horror and then THUMPED THUMPED THUMPED away as fast as they could go on one leg, outside, into the raging storm.
ooOOoo
Entry for Coriakin’s Island, V. 5.0
Regrettably, the Guide again rescinds its recommendation to visit Coriakin’s Island. Reports state the Island is deserted and the Duffers and Coriakin have disappeared. One visitor reported strange walloping thumps heard from the Island and voices, though no bodies. We at the Guide do hope all is well and for now recommend skipping the Island. AVOID
ooOOoo
Thank you for a great prompt! Thanks to the usual suspects for the beta.
Original Prompt that we sent you:
Just going to throw out some ideas (but I'm pretty easy-going so pretty much anything will make me happy):
Just what does Coriakin get up to on his island when he isn't entertaining travelling visitors? Is he a magician because stars have magic or are the two unrelated? Does he know Ramandu and his daughter (and do they ever get together for tea)?
Susan and Eustace are both very concerned with logic and common sense - does this mean they got along fairly well even before their Narnian adventures? Or were they always at odds? Would this change after their respective adventures?
How often did the Friends of Narnia have dinner parties? Was it always just those we saw in LB attending? Did Susan ever come? Did they ever invite anyone else?
I love AUs, especially dark ones. What if the the Dawn Treader crew got shipwrecked? Could Tirian have had ulterior motives in LB? How would the Pevensie parents have reacted if their kids returned as adults -- or if they didn't return at all?
I also adore crossovers so, while I know this one's a long stretch, it would be super cool to see a crossover with either the Swallows and Amazons series or the Thursday Next series (specifically Friday and Edmund's interactions).
Author:
rthstewartRecipient:
wingedflight21 Rating: K+/PG
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Crackfic! Cross-over madness. No warnings; minor plot and character spoilers for the following: Voyage of the Dawn Treader ; Artemis Fowl series; Thursday Next series; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows; BBC’s Merlin Series 3-4; Series 4, Doctor Who (10th Doctor and Donna Noble); Warehouse 13 (minor plot hints from The Big Snag and The Sky’s The Limit); The Hobbit (film 2012; character spoilers); The Lord of the Rings (book). (Also there are nods to Struthious’ Oi, None of Your, a Donna Noble AU and another favorite Narnia fic).
Title is taken from John Milton, “The stars, that nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps with everlasting oil, give due light to the misled and lonely traveler.”
Summary: From The Time and Space Traveler’s Guide, Entry for Coriakin’s Island, V 2.0:
Should your journey to or from Aslan’s Country (excellent food and top notch accommodation – see entry for Aslan’s Country above) or the Sweet Sea (delicious but be sure to brush your teeth after partaking to prevent decay!) take you through the Eastern Sea, you will find there are few places in the archipelagos worth the bother of leaving the time stream. No establishments offer notable refreshment, sights, or entertainment. Some of the Islands are very dangerous whilst offering no commensurate excitement and are best avoided entirely. (See entries for Dark Island, Lone Islands, Deathwater below). As for Coriakin’s Island, do not be lulled by the prospect of the pleasant greenery, homely house, and fine, sandy and pristine beaches. The magician who lives there is a cantankerous coot with a habit of giving uninvited guests extra appendages or turning them into a squid. AVOID.
ooOOoo
“I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”
Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul
“There is no shortage of fault to be found amid our stars.”
John Green, The Fault in Our Stars
ooOOoo
Stars, even former Stars, do not count time as mortals do. Even so, Coriakin knew his time of exile on the lonely island would be a very long one. Stars would be born and burn out their lives before he would be able to return to the skies.
And he would endure this alone. Some Stars, who were lone, preferred the solitude. But Coriakin had burned in the Great Scythe of the crowded southern skies. He had lived in the sky amidst his brothers and sisters. The Stars of your family constellation would rise in the sky together, dance through the night together, and finally fall together, always together.
Long exile was, therefore, the worst possible fate for a Star such as he.
For the first 27 years, he was alone and very angry at Aslan. He passed the time cooking scones, perfecting custard creams, causing it to rain with every frown, and otherwise honing his magic. Then the Duffers arrived, washed ashore from a great calamity at sea. He never could get the straight story from the Chief but assumed they had sunk their own boat through sheer incompetence. The Duffers were entertaining for 9 years. Eventually, though, he grew weary of them and their stupid, stiff-necked ways. He wished they would take to the sea again and go somewhere else, preferably the ocean floor, but it seemed Aslan believed this caretaker role was good for him. Teach them wisdom, the Lion said. But how did one teach wisdom to rocks and tree stumps? He was as far above them as an eagle from a worm.
He had magic but to what end? For what purpose?
And so in the 68th year of his exile, he went to bed and did not rouse himself as the sun rose and fell 33 times. He could not die; he could not burn out or burn up. He was a former Star, magical to his core but without the need of the things that sustained mortals. He just existed, like a stone, though even stone wore away to dust, eventually. Outside his window he could hear the Duffers worry, fret, and parrot the Chief.
“I say he’s dead.”
“Surely is, then, Chief.”
“Dead as doorknobs.”
“That’s right, Chief.”
“Ding dong dead.”
The Lion spoke to him in the mirror. “My son, this self-pity does not become you.”
“No,” Coriakin agreed, staring at the ceiling he had enchanted. The points of light moved as he and his brothers and sisters had in their constellation of the Great Scythe.
“What ails you, my wayward Star?” the Lion asked.
“Former Star,” Coriakin corrected. He ignored Aslan’s growl of correction.
“Tell me,” the Lion ordered.
“I miss my family,” Coriakin eventually admitted to the Lion in the mirror after another three nights passed as he lay in the bed and watched his brothers and sisters dance across the sky and waited for them to return. “And I know what you will say. That I should have considered what it meant to be alone before I so wronged.”
“If you say it, there is no reason for me to do so.”
“The inevitable problem of speaking to the divine. There is no point to it since you already know what I shall say before I do.” Coriakin turned his back to the mirror and stared at the wall for another two nights and days.
“Visitors you shall have,” Aslan said.
The visitor was in the shape of a female human and she arrived the next day. She called herself Dawn and she was Ramandu’s Daughter. You could hear her capitalize it. Ramandu’s Daughter.
This wasn’t auspicious.
Coriakin thought Ramandu very stuck-up. Ramandu always wanted to be the one sailors navigated by and priestesses prayed to. He, Polaris, and Eärendil were very good friends. And of course Ramandu had drawn Table duty for the last 500 years. He was insufferable.
“My father is not young enough to travel though he can tend Aslan’s Table alone,” Dawn said, sticking her head in his bedroom and wrinkling her human nose in disapproval. She was barefoot – not surprising as most magicians and Stars in human form didn’t wear shoes. Coriakin could never find anything large enough.
“I have come all this way, the least you can do is make me a cup of tea.” Dawn then left. He could hear her wandering down the hallway and laughing at the Bearded Glass. “I enjoy leaving our island to see the sights,” she called. “But if you will not bother to bestir yourself, Coriakin, I will just make myself at home in your library until something more interesting turns up.”
Even more humiliating, the Duffers loved her. He could hear their voices outside, gaily laughing and teasing. The shame of being abed whilst Dawn amused herself finally roused him. She was a bright thing, young and strong, and her impertinent challenges kindled his mortal form with a Star’s fire he’d not felt in years. She lit the dark places and whilst she was not as old nor as beautifully shining as his brothers and sisters of the Scythe, she was the only being he had spoken to in nearly 100 years who was neither a parrot nor a Lion. He didn’t want Dawn to turn up her human nose at the stink of a stale home and his unkempt state. He could do better than this. So he bestirred himself.
Whilst Dawn read in his library and explored the attics, Coriakin tidied the house, waving his arms, and murmuring spells. The broom was sweeping, the mop was mopping, and the rags were dusting and washing the dirty windows to let the Sun in. He changed to a fresh robe, washed his bare feet, combed his cobwebby beard, made tea, brewed a pineapple wine, and made cream cakes with strawberries.
Dawn stayed four magical days. It was almost like being again with his young, gay sister, Chitra, who had been the brightest Star in the Great Scythe. He and Dawn told stories to one another and he taught her the magiks that he knew old Ramandu would not approve of.
They sat together on the beach at dusk and when the Stars came out to begin their dance, Dawn would raise her arms and sing.
For the first time since his exile, Coriakin joined in the Star song. His voice was harsh and unlovely. Though Dawn had wrinkled her human nose at his slovenly habits and housekeeping, she was nothing but kindness as he followed her lead and stumbled through melodies that again hummed through his being.
“I miss them so much,” he told Dawn.
“And they miss you,” she said.
Sand between their toes and fingers, dirtying the hems of their robes and snarling their hair, they sang the whole night until their brothers and sisters faded again and the Sun rose.
They drank tea and ate crumbly pastries with butter and raspberry coulis and he knew Dawn was leaving.
“You are not yet healed, Coriakin,” she said, admiring her human fingers and licking away the jam. “The very nature of the Star is to give of herself, to give light unstintingly to others, to burn and burn for others until at last our flame dies.” She poked him in the chest with a sticky finger. “You hid your light and tried to keep it all for yourself. You must learn to give as a Star should.”
Coriakin slammed the teacup down – he’d summoned them from a place beyond the borders that brewed excellent tea. “Give to whom?” he demanded. “There is no one here but the Duffers. They do not desire my wisdom.”
The Chief popped his dim, red-cheeked face in the window. “We’re just fine, thank you very much.”
“You’re welcome!”
“Sure are, fine, Chief.”
“You’ve seen to that, Chief.”
“Truer words never spoken.”
Coriakin reigned in the urge to throw a teapot at the Chief, lest he make Dawn’s point for her. With this prickle of his old temper, the clouds around his island exile grew darker and there was a rumble of thunder.
The Duffer Chief yelped and disappeared from the window.
With a glance out the window at the darkened sky, Dawn sighed, brushed the crumbs from her lap, and summoned a broom to sweep them away – a spell he had taught her. “You’ve done well. You have made a good beginning. But you are still prideful, Coriakin, and selfish. “
From outside, they could hear the Duffers’ loud complaints of rain being powerfully wet stuff. With a wave of his hand, Coriakin conjured umbrellas and shot them out the open window.
“Oi! Watch it, Magician! You could’ve killed us!”
Another weary wave, and the window slammed shut. With an extra squint, he could make it rain harder, too. Maybe the lightning would strike the umbrellas and kill all the Duffers.
Dawn dabbed the raspberry from her lips and rose from her seat at the table. “I admit that your skills could be put to better us serving those with needs more complex than what the Duffers typically require.” Dawn’s final words before she disappeared in a flash of light were as firm as any order of Aslan, “The Stars touch many lands and are seen by many eyes. Aid those who come to your shore. Learning to give will shorten the path that leads to your return to the skies.”
ooOOoo
The Time and Space Traveler’s Guide, Entry for Coriakin’s Island, V. 3.0:
A recent report submitted to the Guide recommends that Eastern Sea travelers give Coriakin’s Island a try. Should you find yourself in truly dire need of magical assistance and are willing to risk magically-added tentacles (the Guide of course fully supports those who already have tentacles or desire to acquire them!) the Guide revises its previous AVOID recommendation and now cautiously suggests Coriakin’s Island. PROCEED WITH CAUTION
ooOOoo
Three days later, just as he was cracking an egg over toast, there was a loud POP, a flash of green light, and two men stepped out of his fireplace. One was tall and thin, the other shorter and burlier, both with shockingly red hair, now suitably filthy.
With their manner of arrival and the crackle in the air, the young men were certainly powerful wizards, though they both wore boots -- certainly advisable since they evidently got about by traveling through fireplaces. With their strange trousers and flimsy shirts in bold (though now very dirty) patterns and writing, they looked like vagabonds.
“Blimey, George, that was bad! What is in that joke shop Floo powder?”
“Sphagnum moss gives it an extra kick in the arse,” George replied, dusting off his peculiar shirt, Keep Calm And Mind The Gap. George pulled out a -- by the Lion, was that a wand!? -- confirmed when Coriakin felt the telltale spark as the man waved the wand, muttered a word, and the ash coating them both disappeared. Coriakin could now see that the other man, apparently George’s older brother given the similarity of appearance, was wearing a shirt that said, Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
“Thank you for not tracking soot on my hearth rug,” he said to them. “I’ve not seen a spoken Scourgify spell in years.”
Coriakin was suddenly staring down the shafts of two very steadily held wands who owed their allegiance to the two very competent wizards who held them.
He gestured to his breakfast table laid out with eggs, toast, and kippers. “Would you like something to eat?”
George, and his brother, Charlie, were very good company. Charlie was gruff and good-natured, George was very amusing but given over to the occasional vacant stare or morbid observation. Over tea and buttered toast, Charlie explained the reasons for their sudden emergence from the dining room fireplace (and good thing it wasn’t lit). Someone had apparently hooked up his hearth to the Floo Network.
“There’ve been reports about a rogue dragon,” Charlie said. “We heard you could help us find him.”
“Or her,” George said, sounding gloomy again and stabbing a kipper with his fork. “Remember Norberta?”
Charlie rolled up a sleeve to show an impressively puckered scar on his arm. “I still have the burns.”
After breakfast, Coriakin unfurled his maps of the Eastern Sea. Though he knew little about dragons, he could describe the islands, which allowed Charlie to guess where one might be hiding. They narrowed the search to an archipelago to the west. He warned them of the Dark Island. Though the wizards were not traveling that way, the Dark Island did have a way of wandering and he could not imagine what might happen if a dragon were drawn into the Island’s influence.
“But you say dreams come true there?” George asked, in a queer, hopeful way that boded very ill to Coriakin’s’ mind.
“Not the happy ones, not day dreams and not fond wishes,” Coriakin sternly told the young man, wondering what dream George thought to reclaim. “You lose the good and the very worst become real.” Seeing the solemn, sad faces of the brothers, he added, “If you have a bad dream, the Dark Island will make it real.”
“We’ve got plenty of real darkness of our own,” Charlie said firmly. “We aren’t going to go looking for any more it and especially when a dragon might be in the other direction.”
Getting to the western archipelago proved to be an obstacle as there was no guarantee of a Floo hearth and wizards needed a concrete destination before trying to apparate anywhere. Coriakin enspelled two of his brooms so the wizards could fly over the sea rather than pop in and out and end up Aslan knew where, but certainly not safe.
As thanks, Charlie gave him a bottle of poisonous spirits, aptly named firewhiskey. George showed him an exceedingly clever disillusionment charm that could be extended and expanded in marvelous ways. Coriakin was looking forward to adding it to his spell book and amused himself considering appropriate colourful illustrations and what blank pages would reveal when the counter-spell, aparecium revelio, was spoken.
After the wizards flew off, Coriakin realized that George had charmed the tea kettle to explode in fireworks whenever the water in it began to heat and had added a swamp to the second floor hallway outside the bathroom.
It was a very good bit of magic.
ooOOoo
A few days later, while conjuring a little bridge over the swamp into the bathroom, Coriakin heard a great ruckus outside. The Duffers were making a most dreadful racket. Fearing some harm to them, Coriakin hurried out onto the beach. Truly the sight was so remarkable that even he was startled and Coriakin had shined from the southern night skies on the lands below for a thousand years.
In the bay, an outlandish and profoundly magical being, for the moment looking like a short human male in shabby, sopping brown robes, was standing and swaying in a little coracle that was being vigorously towed to shore by sea turtles.
“Oi! Coriakin! I couldn’t get the Rabbits to swim me out here from Narnia. Be nice to the turtles, or you’ll never get rid of me!”
Coriakin bowed low, ever so grateful now for the gift of the firewhiskey. “Thank you noble Turtles for escorting our friend Aiwendil so far and so well.”
“Don’t call me that! I hate that name. No one calls me that on this side of the Blessed Realm!”
The turtles dropped the ropes they had been carrying in their beaked mouths but didn’t say anything so Coriakin could not be sure if they were regular turtles or were simply taciturn Talking Turtles. They flapped their flippers at their ragged passenger and swam away as Aiwendil – Radagast – shouted his thanks in a garbled, aquatic language.
Why did it have to be Aiwendil? Why not Olórin or even Curunír? Not that Curunír would ever come here. He and Ramandu were as close as clamshells.
Radagast hopped out of his little boat and landed with a splash in the shallows. Coriakin had certainly let himself go before Dawn arrived – maintaining a mortal form was hard when you were not been born into it and so you forget to do things like trim your nails or comb your hair. Radagast was a stinking ruin of bird excrement, sea salt, fish scales, seaweed, and brambles.
“Hey! We there yet?”
A pointy brown nose peaked out from under Radagast’s hat. The rest of the Mongoose followed and slid down Radagast’s arm and landed on the sand. “Where’re the squirrels?”
“In the woods, I should think,” Coriakin said, pointing. “They don’t talk, though. And there are no Talking Mongooses.”
“I’m not a Mongoose, I’m a Squirrel,” the Mongoose said defiantly. He swished his little tail that, while hair-covered, was not the least bit bushy and ran toward the trees. “Hey Cousins!”
“Setevin was born a Mongoose but is certain it is a cosmic mistake and that underneath he really is a Narnian Talking Squirrel,” Radagast explained after he’d washed in the second floor bath – though judging from the bracken clinging to his beard and the delighted squeals Coriakin had heard, he suspected the Brown Wizard had made it no farther than the swamp. Having only just gotten the house clean after Dawn and the Weasley wizards, he decided to feed and water Radagast out on the beach. He reasoned that Radagast would prefer to be out of doors regardless.
Coriakin became distracted watching Radagast earnestly comb insects and shellfish out of his beard and feed them to the circling shore birds.
“I apologize, what did you say, Radagast?” he asked as the Brown Wizard flicked a shrimp to a sandpiper dancing at his (bare) feet.
“I had the turtles tow me out here because I thought you might be able to help Setevin,” Radagast repeated.
“Help him how?” What could he possibly do for a Mongoose with an identity crisis?
Radagast flopped inelegantly to the ground and began plucking squirming worms from one pocket and feeding them to a hedgehog in another pocket. “Sorry you had to wait so long, Sebastian, I know you’re hungry.”
Sebastian climbed out of Radagast’s coat, shook himself, and began slurping up and earnestly chewing on the worms. Coriakin was very glad they were out of doors.
“What could you do?” Radagast mused. He rubbed a finger atop the hedgehog’s head and smiled at Sebastian’s contented chirping noises. “You’ve always been very good at glamours and concealments. I thought you could do something useful and kind with the skill for a change and help poor Setevin.”
The very mild comment stung deeply; it was a rebuke as strong as Dawn’s had been. Radagast knew how Coriakin had jealously concealed his Starlight from others. Radagast was eccentric – but he was no fool and a very talented wizard in his own sphere. Coriakin could certainly have never managed a sea voyage by turtle.
They sat on the beach until very, very late, smoking Radagast’s excellent pipeweed and drinking firewhiskey. Radagast had met the Weasley brothers for Island-hopping and dragon searching. Radagast described so colourfully splendid a time, it made Coriakin wish he could have joined them, surely an effect of the firewhiskey. The evening turned very hazy and pleasant as he and Radagast swapped ever more improbably outrageous stories. The Chief appeared periodically in his nightshirt to complain that their laughter was keeping the Duffers awake. Radagast kept offering the Chief pipeweed but the Duffer would huffily refuse and stomp off again.
Setevin returned from his foray to the woods, hungry and grumbling about how none of the squirrels would talk to him. He was gnawing on walnuts that his narrow mouth and sharp, pointed teeth could not crack. Feeling badly for the hungry Mongoose, Coriakin conjured a pincer nutcracker Setevin could manipulate with his clever front paws. “Try this. It might help.”
It was tricky to manoeuvre, but Setevin managed it with the smaller nuts and was happily cracking the shells and chewing on the meats. While the Mongoose-Squirrel was distracted, Coriakin cast a charm.
It was a silent one, but as the wave of magic crackled in the air, Radagast, of course, sensed what Coriakin had done for the Mongoose. Radagast flailed upright and looked around. “I say, Setevin! This sea air has been very good for you! I’ve never seen your tail so bushy!”
“Gar! What’re you talking about?” Setevin sat up on his hindquarters, and looked over his shoulder. He was so startled he tipped over then excitedly jumped to his feet, chirping. He circled around, happily chasing his new, fluffy tail. He was able to twist and swing his tail about in ways that were almost squirrel-like. With discreet wave of his fingers, Coriakin added extra fluffiness.
It wasn’t a bad look at all for a Mongoose.
They drank the rest of the firewhiskey. Radagast taught him some reprehensible songs about Moose mating and licentious Dryads that he’d learned after spending far too much time in the Narnian woods with Bacchus. They fell asleep on the shore as the fire burned low. The next morning, Radagast, Sebastian, Setevin, and the coracle they had traveled in, were gone, back to Narnia, presumably.
Radagast left behind a pair of nesting ducks for the second floor swamp.
ooOOoo
The Time and Space Traveler’s Guide, Entry for Coriakin’s Island, V. 4.0:
The Guide is happy to fully recommend a visit to Coriakin’s Island. Travelers report Coriakin is a dab hand at repairing magical damage, offers a full range of concealment and appendage services, and serves a terrific Devon cream tea (though one reviewer indicated it was akin to consuming a kilo of M&Ms and a bucket of Cadbury Roses). The second floor swamp (though awkward when needing to use the bathroom to be sure) is not to be missed. It’s the only one of its kind outside of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and good luck finding that on your Time Vortex GPS. The Duffers provide excellent stand up impromptu comedy, however their humour is not to every taste so bring appropriate ear protection. Coriakin is happy to provide an excellent, magically-enhanced ear plug muffler should the Duffers prove irritating to your sensibility. The Hogwarts Squid gives Coriakin’s Island an enthusiastic eight legs, two tentacles, thumbs up. RECOMMEND
ooOOoo
Coriakin was almost disappointed with the next visitor. Gaius and Merlin had, between them, thoroughly botched an aging spell. Perhaps it was the poor quality of the spell but old age was not a good look for Merlin – Arthur must be blind to not see it.
For a Star, inadvertent aging was a simple problem to fix. Stars knew all about aging and were particularly adept at aging backwards. Merlin’s misapplied spell was quickly remedied and he was, once again, the awkward, gangly young servant to a young Arthur. Coriakin made sure to instruct him on how to remedy the error should he wish to try to fool a very thick Arthur by pretending to be an aged, spellcasting lunatic again.
Honestly, if they were ever hoping to restore legitimate magic to Camelot, it would help if Merlin and his fellow magic users could manage to represent magicians as something other than homicidal fanatics with maniacal cackles.
Coriakin swept up the mess of the swamp Radagast had made and—he had to do it himself since George and Charlie had taken his two enchanted brooms. The ducks did very well and hatched four ducklings. Coriakin escorted the waddling family outside once they were ready for a space larger than the second floor hallway. Since it was lonely without the ducks, he persuaded some loons to relocate to the swamp.
He was in the middle of preparing tea when a young, slight, dark-haired, dreadfully serious young man appeared and introduced himself as Friday. He explained that he was supposed to invent time travel and wished to blow up something called the Chronoguard, and needed aid with both endeavors before his mother woke him up from his nap. Coriakin didn’t see how he could help with the actual mechanics of time travel – he was very much stuck in the here and now at the moment. He did offer Friday some tea; when he returned to the parlour with a plate of chocolate biscuits, strawberries, and crème anglaise, Friday was gone and had taken George’s exploding tea kettle with him.
No sooner had Friday left than an Elf and her pale, black-haired human associate stepped out of the time stream and into his parlour. He recognized Holly Short from her time in LEPrecon and knew of her companion by reputation. Coriakin immediately uttered a silent lockdown spell; he did not want his valuable magical items purloined by a morally bankrupt adolescent criminal mastermind.
The pair was not, however, in a state to do much damage, squint-eyed and off-kilter as they were.
“I want my eye back!” the elf demanded. (There were different varieties of elves, of course. Holly was of the type that was short and almost pixie-like, though Coriakin knew to never say so offensive a thing aloud.) “And I don’t like blue!”
“I certainly do not want green, either,” Artemis Fowl replied coolly.
Unless you could extort some money from a victim in exchange for it.
Coriakin put his tea cup down so loudly it rattled in the saucer and interrupted their quarrel. Holly and Artemis whirled about to face him.
“Good afternoon, Holly. It’s a pleasure to see you again.” Coriakin knew his voice turned a shade cooler as he added, “And you must be Artemis? Tea?”
“Coriakin!” Holly cried. “No thanks to Artemis messing us up in the time stream, I’m so glad I found you!”
“Oh dear, yes, I quite see the problem,” he told them, examining their respective faces carefully. One of Holly’s elfish green eyes was in Artemis’ face; one of his cold, blue eyes stared out from Holly’s face.
“I think’s it really bad that he’s got an elf eye and I can barely see.” To Artemis, Holly said, “How do you see with these things? They’re ridiculous!”
“I assure you, I feel the same way,” Artemis said, looking casually about the room.
Coriakin did not like to see Artemis’ mismatched eyes focus on the collection of scrying glasses he kept in the (now locked) glass case and the Faun art on the walls. He knew art was something Artemis would time travel to steal and he was very fond of the Bacchus-inspired works.
He cleared his throat. “And you are hoping I can put you both to rights?”
Holly nodded.
“We heard you were good with appearance spells,” Artemis said.
“I am,” Coriakin told them. “I could easily turn your eyes the proper colour so, Holly, yours would be green…”
“Hazel,” Holly interrupted. “They’re hazel.”
“Hazel,” Coriakin repeated. “And Artemis, I could make both your eyes blue. But…”
“But Holly’s eye would still be in my head,” Artemis concluded.
“I can handle the cosmetics once we get out of here,” Holly said with a touch of asperity. “The problem now is the moon – it’s out of phase and not where it should be for my magic to work. I think it must be because this is a flat world.”
“Oh yes, I quite understand,” Coriakin replied. As a former Star, he sympathized with the moon phase problem. It really made no sense at all when you stopped to think about it.
“Or perhaps you are worried that trying a spell on our eyes might blind us?” Artemis retorted.
“I’m not worried,” Holly said with a shrug. “I’d practice on you first.”
“I’m only a magician, not a surgeon,” Coriakin injected before the mostly good-natured bickering escalated. “I can add things, like a third eyeball or a bushy tail, or take away a leg you don’t want, not that that would be useful to your present predicament. And tentacles. I’m clever with those as well.” After Setevin’s success, word had gotten out and even the Hogwarts Squid had become a regular visitor.
“So we should see a doctor? Holly, where do you suppose you might have heard that before?” Artemis spoke in a long-suffering tone at which the elf bristled.
“I suppose,” Coriakin said. “A magical physician might be helpful. Or you could go back into the time stream and see if it scrambles you back?”
“And risk ending up with his pale skin?” Holly scoffed.
“Or your height?”
Holly and Artemis continued to squabble as he poured the tea – using the old service which seemed to annoy Artemis but was certainly safer to use around Artemis. He also did not offer to let them wash up or see the flourishing wetlands in the upstairs hallway. If there was a way to make off with a magician’s plumbing or swamp, Artemis would surely find it. He was sorry that he could not help them and did offer a potion and simple spell for the headaches and eyestrain they were both developing until Holly’s own magic was working better or they found someone who could put them right.
Though the bickering was irritating, Holly and Artemis were intelligent, interesting, and good company. He was sorry when they dusted off the crumbs and reentered the time stream to find a solution to their eye problem.
During the clean-up, he realized that two of his old teaspoons were missing. He found a note tacked on the wall near the swamp. Nice swamp. If you had used the nice tea set, you might still have all of it.
Coriakin was so impressed, he thought about changing the spell on the stolen spoons. Ultimately, he decided against it for obviously Artemis had a twisted sense of humour. He wondered how long it would be before Artemis noticed that the two spoons he had taken had turned into leeches.
ooOOoo
One evening he argued with the Chief that apples on the branch could never bake themselves into a dumpling and that no matter how long they waited, a fish would not leap out of the water into the hot frying pan.
“That’s right, Chief.”
“We’ve gotta watch out for that water.”
“And monsters.”
“We’ve seen that squid!”
“No fishing for us in that wet stuff.”
“Apples are mighty dangerous when they land on you.”
“And worms.”
So much for trying to teach them to feed themselves. He conjured apple tarts and fried fish just to shut them up.
A whirring, thunka thunka thunka noise interrupted them and the Duffers scattered.
A large, gleaming, glass, silver and white box appeared on the lawns. It was utterly foreign and like nothing he’d ever seen before. He could not imagine what it was made of, but it was certainly nothing natural.
The thunka thunka faded; the box shuddered and was quiet. Through a round glass in the side he could just make out that there was someone inside – appearing to be a human female.
The box’s door swung open with a bang. “Oi!” the woman exclaimed. She peeled herself out of the box and jumped to her feet. “I hoped the Guidebook is right. I was worried I’d overshot it and the Time Vortex would dump me off on Raxacoricofallapatorius and I’m sick of the place. Me and the dryer need to disappear, now, before he finds us!”
A dozen questions raced through his mind, beginning with Guidebook? and ending with Raxacorfalipus… what?
There was shimmer of distortion on the lawn next to the box and a sharp, clicking sound, like that of a flag snapping in the wind.
“Please! Hurry!”
With a wave of his hand, the woman and her “dryer” disappeared just as a tall, human male stepped out of the distortion.
“Hullo!” he said cheerfully, looking around. “I’m Captain Jack Harkness of the Time Agency. I’m looking for a dangerous criminal and I think she just landed her. Have you seen anything peculiar?”
“I’m a magician and former Star,” Coriakin replied. “I have a swamp and thriving estuary on the second floor of my house, I live with fifty of the stupidest Dwarfs imaginable, and someone once came to see me in a boat towed by turtles. Nothing is peculiar anymore.” He studied Captain Harkness and found the man’s smile off-putting. “And you are a liar,” he concluded.
“No need to get so angry, Gramps!” Captain Harkness raised his arm and punched buttons on a device on his wrist that Artemis would have loved and certainly stolen. Coriakin wished he could introduce them. He thought Captain Jack Harkness and Artemis Fowl deserved each other.
“I’ll be on my way,” Captain Harkness said.
“Yes, you do that,” Coriakin replied.
The clicking, whirring noises began again, and then, with a pop, Captain Jack Harkness disappeared.
He waited a few minutes, but Captain Harkness didn’t return. Coriakin muttered the aparecium revelio counter-spell and the dangerous criminal and her dryer reappeared.
“That’s great, thanks,” she said and held out her hand.
Coriakin stared at it, wondering what he was supposed to do with it. She withdrew her hand with a shrug.
“Right then. I’m Donna. Well, not just Donna, but Donna will do for now. You aren’t the Doctor, are you? Not sporting another look?”
“No, I’m not a doctor,” Coriakin said. “I couldn’t even swap out the eyes between a human and an elf.”
“The Doctor,” Donna said. She peered at him and in the intense gaze, Coriakin had a powerful sense of not-human. Donna wasn’t a magical being; but she wasn’t completely human, either. “It’s seeing you that put me to mind of it. There are all those stories of good wizards and magicians and, somehow, they’re always about him!”
“Oh, I’m not a good magician. Certainly not a nice one.”
“Well, you saved me a world of trouble, Magic Man, so thanks again for the disillusion.”
“Would you like to stay for some tea? I tried a new éclair recipe.”
“Thanks, but I’m already late for a picnic date on Felspon. Or, Asgard. I think. And since I have a time machine, I really shouldn’t be late, you know?”
“Yes, quite.”
She opened the door of her dryer and began to climb in.
“That doesn’t look comfortable,” Coriakin said.
“It’s better than it was and it’s larger inside than it looks,” Donna replied. She wedged her body through the round opening and then looked back out at him. “Say, you want to go for a spin? How about a picnic on Felspon?”
He didn’t know where Felspon was but it was surely far away. “No, I can’t leave here. It’s not allowed.”
“Well that’s no good at all!”
“No, it’s not,” Coriakin agreed. “I’m finding it has its compensations, though.” He helped Donna shut the door of her dryer. A thought occurred to him and he knocked on the glass. She again opened the door.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“What if Captain Harkness comes back? Is there any message I should give him?”
“Tell him I went to Arcadia, that I’m keeping his wallet, and he can keep the hallucinogenic lipstick.”
ooOOoo
The trickle of visitors became a very regular stream. They dropped down from the sky, stepped out of the fireplace, swam ashore, suddenly apparated in his parlour and once, memorably, staggered out of the swamp.
Pounding coming from the inside of his broom closet was new, however. Coriakin opened the door and two human women tumbled out, both young, one tall, the other short, one dark, the other red-haired.
The tall, dark-haired one kept rolling right into the room, and when she leapt up, she was holding something in her hands that was small, silver, and obviously dangerous. “Get away from her!”
“There’s no need for violence,” Coriakin said. He knelt down to help the red-haired woman up from the rug she was still sprawled on. “Are you hurt?”
“I’m good, but thanks.” She climbed to her feet. “Myka?”
“I’m fine.” Myka had not yet lowered her arms and was still pointing her wicked, silver weapon-thing at him.
“I’m Claudia Donovan,” the redhead said. “She’s Myka Bering. We’re from the U.S. Secret Service investigating a series of disappearances.”
Coriakin noticed that Claudia edged away, closer to Myka, as she talked. For travelers they were both uncommonly edgy. Perhaps they had difficulties when they traveled through the time stream?
“I am Coriakin,” he told them calmly. “This is my home and I have no idea what the U.S. Secret Service is. But if things are disappearing that should not, I shall be happy to assist you, if I can.” To Myka he urged, “I don’t know what you are pointing at me, but do put it away. Neither it nor you could harm me.”
“Oh? Why is that?” Myka asked. “Because I’m a weak, helpless girl?”
Goodness the women were tetchy. “You do not need to lie to me, Myka. Why would you say you are weak or helpless when you are not? And aren’t you and Claudia women, not girls?” He didn’t know humans that well, but surely that was obvious.
Myka did relax a little, smiled a little more, lowered her silver weapon and shoved it in her belt. “So why wouldn’t I be able to harm you?”
“Because I am a magician.”
Claudia laughed. “You hit the jackpot, Myka! Again!”
“Yeah. Let’s just hope this magic isn’t making any bodies fall from the sky.”
“Certainly not!” Coriakin said, hoping to put her at ease. “Here, if anyone has fallen from the sky, he or she intended to do so and landed quite safely.”
Why did it seem that everything he said that was intended to calm the women made them more nervous?
“So you’re a magician?” Claudia asked, sounding very skeptical.
“You did just appear in my broom closet,” he chided. “Though I don’t think much of the directional capability of the magic that put you there. Shall I make some tea and we’ll see if I can help you with these disappearances? I am very good at that sort of thing.”
The women both exchanged another significant look of the sort that he did not want to get in the middle of.
“Have you acquired anything new recently, anything that seems to have unusual properties?” Myka asked. As she stepped closer, Claudia moved away and began looking with disconcerting attentiveness at the shelves and glass case in the parlour. Since Artemis’ visit, the lock up spell was still in place so he wasn’t worried about theft, but he didn’t like her undisguised interest, either.
“Have you been smelling fudge?” Myka was trying to draw his attention away from Claudia.
“Not since I last cooked it,” Coriakin said, still warily watching Claudia, Myka’s attempted distractions notwithstanding. “As for things with unusual properties, the house is full of them, including things in this room and that Claudia is approaching and really should not touch. I can’t say that I’ve acquired anything new, though some visitor might have left something, like the swamp upstairs.”
“Watch out with the water!” The Duffer Chief’s voice carried from the outside lawns through the open windows. “And get the soap before it slips out!”
The sycophants chorused their agreement.
“Sure thing, Chief!”
“Powerful wet the water is!”
“Hold still so we can wet you down!”
“Oi! The soap is running away!”
“Stop it!”
Coriakin sighed. “My apologies. It’s washing day and the Duffers always try to save time by washing themselves and their clothes at the same time. It never goes well.”
With a wave of his hand, the window shut, blocking the noise of the chorusing Duffers.
“Whoa!” Claudia exclaimed, though there were no horses about.
“How did you do that?” Myka demanded. “What did you use?”
He did not think the women were dullards, though their questions seem to indicate otherwise. “I told you. Magic.”
Myka went into his parlour and began pulling on strange, purple gloves. They were stretching and snapped oddly. “Are you sure there’s nothing new here? Do you mind if I just examine some of these…”
Alarmed, Coriakin stepped forward quickly and put himself between Myka, Claudia, and his shelf of stargazing equipment, tools, and scrying glasses.
“I’m afraid I really can’t let you touch anything. Well, you are welcome to touch the non-magical items, of course, but it would go very ill for you were you to touch the magical ones.”
“How ill?” Myka asked.
“Lemme guess,” Claudia said. “Puddles of goo, burst into flames, boils, pustules, and slow agonizing death?”
“Possibly. Extra appendages, unintended invisibility, and tentacles are possible, too.”
“I hate tentacles,” Myka said with a shudder. “Claudia, can you reach Artie?”
Claudia pulled a small box from her back pocket and Coriakin looked at it curiously. It didn’t have magical properties and seemed very dead. It was a little like what Captain Harkness had used on his wrist.
Claudia hit it and pushed buttons. Nothing happened. “Nope. The Farnsworth’s dead. Artie’s going to have kittens trying to find us.”
“That doesn’t sound good,” Coriakin said sympathetically. “Unless Artie is a cat, of course.”
“He’s our, uhhh, magician, our boss,” Myka said, “And he’ll be worried that he can’t reach us.”
Privately, Coriakin didn’t think Artie was a very competent magician to have sent Myka and Claudia into his broom closet.
“I’m guessing the artifact is at our end, not here,” Claudia said. She looked back at the closet they’d fallen out of. “Hopefully, Artie will figure out how to open the portal, do a Dumbledore, and get us back.”
“Dumbledore!” Coriakin exclaimed, marveling at the coincidence. “How extraordinary! I thought Albus was dead.”
Claudia stared at him.
“You mean you know Dumbledore? Knew him, I mean?” Myka asked, sounding very strained.
“Doesn’t everyone? He tried to teach me knitting, though I never did pick up the skill. I prefer cooking myself. Truly, this is delightful. I do hope you’ll stay for tea. I might know Artie by another name! I imagine we have some mutual acquaintances and I would love to hear how they are getting on.”
“Mutual acquaintances?” Claudia said in a queer voice. “Like…Gandalf by any chance?”
“You mean Olórin? I’ve not seen him in years. Radagast was here, though, not that long ago. He came with a Talking Mongoose who thought he was a Squirrel. Do you know them, too? Have you met Setevin? Or Sebastian?”
“Oh man,” Claudia muttered.
“Excuse me!” Myka injected, for the first time sounding very excited. “You said your name was Coriakin?”
“Yes.”
She carefully went to the window, now giving the shelves the respect they deserved, and looked out at the lawns where the fully clothed Duffers were scrubbing one another with the wandering soap. Beyond them, the garden paths sloped downward to the harbour. “We’re on an island? In the Eastern Sea?”
“We are.” He wondered why she sounded so eager.
“And Narnia is further west?”
“It is.”
“And you have fifty dim Dwarfs called Duffers led by a very obnoxious Chief?”
“Myka, this is delightful! Surely we have met before, but perhaps you’ve changed appearance since then and this is why I don’t remember you?”
Myka opened and closed her mouth and finally said, “Uhhhh, I’ve read about you.”
“Uh oh,” Claudia said. “You’re going to tell me something that’s going to make Artie really twitchy, aren’t you?”
Myka nodded. “Remember when Pete and I got pulled into Anthony Bishop’s unfinished manuscript?”
Claudia’s eyes widened. She looked around, frowning. “Oh man, really? So you got a magician and a book? Again? And you know where we are?”
“Yeah. And I think I know whose wardrobe it was!” Myka now sounded thrilled and eagerly stared out the window. She was smiling widely. “This is amazing!”
“Whoa, steady there, girlfriend,” Claudia countered. “We really gotta get back and close this thing before anyone else comes through.”
Oh, was that the only problem? “Are you saying that need to go back to where you came from and don’t know how to get there?”
“Yeah,” Claudia said firmly. “Like now. Right now.”
“Well, I would really like to…” Myka began.
“You, no,” Claudia interrupted, pointing at Myka. Turning she pointed at him. “You, yes, please. Can you Abracadabra us back?”
He winced as she said that awful word. “Well, certainly, I can…”
“But, Claudia, we’re in the Eastern Sea! If we wait a little bit, maybe the Dawn Treader will come and Edmund Pevensie was my first literary crush, even before Gilbert Blythe. I used to wear sensible shoes all the time just in case I got pulled into Narnia so I’d be ready to walk across the Lantern Waste or Ettinsmoor. I was Lucy Pevensie for Halloween! Twice! Can’t we just…”
“No. This thing is in the middle of a flea market that opens to the public in an hour, one man has already come back aged fifty years and rambling about living nightmares and if we don’t …”
“Oh my gosh! Claudia!” Myka clutched her companion’s arm. “I know what’s wrong with him! The wardrobe sent him to the Dark Island!” She whirled about and now grasped his own arm. “Coriakin! Can you give me a sleeping potion, something that will cure someone who has been on the Dark Island?”
How Myka could know of the Dark Island was probably part of the strange way that she knew all about him and the Duffers. Regardless, he was deeply moved. “Being trapped there would a terrible fate. Of course I can give you something and if this wardrobe of yours might send people there, you must stop it, immediately.”
With a wave of his hand, he summoned a vial from his laboratory and gave it to Myka.
“This will give him a dreamless sleep and should, hopefully, reverse the effects.”
“And goo-ing the wardrobe should do it, too,” Claudia said.
“I don’t know what spell goo-ing is, but yes, you must close the doorway at your end. So, hurry!”
Claudia went into the broom closet. Myka followed and started to shut the door, only to suddenly stick her head out again. “Coriakin! When you see a green ship with a dragon prow and a purple sail?”
“Yes? What of it?”
“That part of the story has a happy ending.”
She pulled the door closed and then shoved it open again.
“And if you see Aslan? Tell him I do not like what happens to Susan. She was only doing what Aslan told her to do and so he’d better fix it.”
Myka nodded her head in satisfaction and shut the door.
“We’re ready!” Claudia called.
Coriakin said the spell to send a wayward thing back the way she came. He heard a muffled pop, opened the closet door, and the women were gone. He missed them already. They could have made fudge together.
ooOOoo
With Myka’s hints of a visiting ship and those odd references to the Narnia King and Queen of old, Coriakin dusted off a scrying glass. He was very rusty for there had been nothing to look forward to in a very long time and so his divination was little better than Artie the bad magician’s directional skills. His effort, though, was rewarded when he finally did see a green ship with a dragon prow and purple sail, and her Narnian crew. He followed the antics and efforts on deck of a very fierce Mouse and was alarmed to see a dragon flying about the ship.
When would this happen? Days from now? Years? Or had it occurred already? What was the fate of the crew? So absorbed, he did not notice the Duffers’ chorus of babbles, the bumps and thumps, and the odd slushing sounds. Only when muddy water dripped from the ceiling into his scrying glass did he realize, horribly, what ghastly event had occurred.
He raced upstairs to the second floor but was too late. What had been the thriving swamp was a muddy, gooey, sloppy mess with dying fish flapping about on the carpet, the terrified loons huddled forlornly in a corner, driven from their broken nest, and the Duffers standing to their knees in slop.
“My swamp!” he cried. “You ruined my swamp!?”
Coriakin felt the anger building in him, anger he’d not felt in a long time. Responding to his rising wrath, the sky outside darkened. Thunder rumbled. The ground shook and the rain began to fall, striking hard on the window glass.
“YOU DRAINED MY SWAMP?!!”
The Duffers cowered before him. He should feel pity; all he felt was fury.
“Why?” he demanded. “Why did you ruin my swamp?”
“Well, no need to get so huffy,” the Chief said. “We thought it would be better outside, for swimming.”
“BUT YOU HAVE THE ENTIRE OCEAN!”
“But the ocean’s deep!” the Chief protested.
“Sure is, Chief.”
“You tell him.”
“It’s powerful deep!”
“With monsters!”
“Things with tentacles!”
“We wanted the swamp for washing and bathing.”
“BUT THE SWAMP WAS MUDDY!” he shouted, so angry a bolt of lightning lit the sky and struck the lawn.
“We thought we’d get dirty and clean at the same time…”
He couldn’t stop himself. He’d unleashed a maelstrom outside and it was nothing to the fury within. Coriakin waved his hand and with a crack, the spell was done. I’ll give you monsters! He’d intended to curse each Duffer with an octopus’ full set of eight legs, but he’d been too angry to count. The Duffers squealed in terror and he felt a perverse pleasure as they stared in one another in horror and then THUMPED THUMPED THUMPED away as fast as they could go on one leg, outside, into the raging storm.
ooOOoo
Entry for Coriakin’s Island, V. 5.0
Regrettably, the Guide again rescinds its recommendation to visit Coriakin’s Island. Reports state the Island is deserted and the Duffers and Coriakin have disappeared. One visitor reported strange walloping thumps heard from the Island and voices, though no bodies. We at the Guide do hope all is well and for now recommend skipping the Island. AVOID
ooOOoo
Thank you for a great prompt! Thanks to the usual suspects for the beta.
Original Prompt that we sent you:
Just going to throw out some ideas (but I'm pretty easy-going so pretty much anything will make me happy):
Just what does Coriakin get up to on his island when he isn't entertaining travelling visitors? Is he a magician because stars have magic or are the two unrelated? Does he know Ramandu and his daughter (and do they ever get together for tea)?
Susan and Eustace are both very concerned with logic and common sense - does this mean they got along fairly well even before their Narnian adventures? Or were they always at odds? Would this change after their respective adventures?
How often did the Friends of Narnia have dinner parties? Was it always just those we saw in LB attending? Did Susan ever come? Did they ever invite anyone else?
I love AUs, especially dark ones. What if the the Dawn Treader crew got shipwrecked? Could Tirian have had ulterior motives in LB? How would the Pevensie parents have reacted if their kids returned as adults -- or if they didn't return at all?
I also adore crossovers so, while I know this one's a long stretch, it would be super cool to see a crossover with either the Swallows and Amazons series or the Thursday Next series (specifically Friday and Edmund's interactions).
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(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-28 03:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-20 06:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-28 03:24 am (UTC)The shoutouts to the pineapple wine! Setevin - everything about Setevin! Donna in her clothes-dryer time machine! The lipstick! The snarky note Artemis left! The mental image of him discovering that his pockets suddenly contain a pair of leeches! The Weasleys and their dragons! Myka not liking what happens to Susan!
THE DUFFERS. I LOVE THE DUFFERS SO VERY MUCH.
I don't think there's much I can say about this that I haven't already said, other than that it is still very much a joy to read! Well done - WELL DONE!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-20 06:05 pm (UTC)And I LOVED your story so much. It was amazing. Any story about coffee, well be still my heart.
This was a joy to do and really sort of a gift to both of you, the two coolest Canadians imaginable on my feed.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-28 03:39 am (UTC)Easiest would be to begin at the start, I suppose. Just saying, I was making :D face before I'd even finished reading the spoiler reading! And had to sit for a minute just to absorb this before I could even read further!
AND THEN THE SUMMARY IS AN EXCERPT ON CORIAKIN'S ISLAND FROM THE TIME AND SPACE TRAVELER'S GUIDE. AND IT JUST GOT BETTER FROM THERE. I LOVe that these guidebook revisions are interspersed throughout the story! The constant reference to the squid is hilarious.
I think part of what makes this SO WONDERFUL is that it doesn't just leap into the crossover action. You put effort into setting the scene and showing what Coriakin's character is like at the beginning of his exile. I love the hints of worldbuilding towards what it is like to be a Star -- how constellations are families and it is so painful to be separated, how he views himself as so far above the Duffers (who are SUCH A DELIGHT), Coriakin's sulking sleep and his discussion with the Lion in the mirror!
And then Ramandu's Daughter shows up (of course her name is something as simple yet suitable as Dawn. Much better than Liliandil). I love how you threaded that aspect of my prompt in there right at the beginning, love love love the idea that Ramandu's Daughter went adventuring on her own without her father even before the Dawn Treader came. GOOD for her. And also well done, Dawn, to start Coriakin on the right path. ALSO that Coriakin was exiled because he tried to hide his light for himself uuugggghhh yessssss of couuurrrsssseee!
(I cackled at the mention of pineapple wine!)
AND THEN THE FIRST CROSSOVER IS CHARLIE AND GEORGE :D CHARLIE'S SHIRT. And yes of course the magic that Coriakin knows is the same as theirs! And George adds a swamp! It was a very good bit of magic. hahahaha.
AND THEN RADAGAST AND A MONGOOOOOOOOOOSE I CAN'T EVEN AKDJFLAKSDJFLASKDJFA. HOW. HOW. I CAN'T. HE GIVES SETEVIN A SQUIRREL'S TAIL AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH YES.
I laughed so hard at the comments about Arthur being blind not to realize the old cranky sorcerer was Merlin! REPRESENT MAGICIANS AS SOMETHING OTHER THAN HOMICIDAL FANATICS WITH MANIACAL CACKLES.
AND THEN FRIDAY SHOWS UP LOOKING FOR HELP INVENTING TIME TRAVEL YES YES YES YES YES. YES. FRIDAY <33333333
AND THEN ARTEMIS AND HOLLY. HOLLY KNOWS CORIAKIN. WHO KNOWS OF ARTEMIS AND LOCKS THE PLACE DOWN. AND USES THE TEA SET THAT WAS ENCHANTED TO TURN INTO LEECHES IF STOLEN. AND ARTEMIS STEALS TWO SPOONS BECAUSE CORIAKIN DIDN'T USE A BETTER TEA SET. LEECHES IN HIS POCKETS I. CAN. NOT. EVEN.
(also ahahaha the moon phases make no sense at all when you stop to think about it lololol)
AND THEN DONNA SHOWS UP IN THE DRYER. Hoooooooooow. It couldn't be better! Except then it is because JACK IS CHASING HER and Coriakin USES THE SPELL GEORGE TAUGHT HIM.
And Myka and Claudia are so greeeaaaaat. Of course they are so suspicious at first and I love Coriakin's belief that Arty is a really terrible magician and then Myka's fangirling is so adorable and YES OF COURSE THEY ARE INVESTIGATING A WARDROBE. Aaaaah Claudia is so perfect too. They could have made fudge together.
AND THEN THE DUFFERS DRAINED HIS SWAMP AND HE TRIES TO GIVE THEM EIGHT LEGS AND MISCOUNTS AND THAT'S WHY THEY BECOME DUFFLEPUDS AND THEN THE LAST ENTRY IS BACK TO AVOID AHAHAHAHAHA.
Aaaaaaah so basically this is the best thing I have ever read. Again, I love that you don't just have disjointed crossover scenes, but that you wove it into a cohesive narrative that tells an absolutely gorgeous story about Coriakin before the Dawn Treader ever arrives. I honestly could not have dreamt of such a beautiful fic existing. Thank you thank you thank you mystery writer, you are the BEST. <3333
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-20 06:10 pm (UTC)I am so glad you enjoyed it. This is supposed to be anon and often it is but when you've been doing NFE awhile, sometimes you recognize the prompt and that was definitely the case here.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-28 03:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-20 06:10 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-28 05:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-20 06:12 pm (UTC)Thank you again!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-29 02:18 am (UTC)I haven't read Artemis Fowl since the first few books but I can certainly believe he'd try to nick anything he could get his hands on in the house. And I just love that Jack is trying to chase down Donna (who has a dryer instead of a TARDIS), while she's looking to see if the Doctor dropped by.
And poor Coriakin, having lost the swamp thanks to the Duffers, that he ends up making them all invisible and so he hasn't really prepared for Caspian and the Pevensies' arrival. And like others have said, it's nice to see that you gave Ramandu's Daughter a more appropriate and reasonable name like Dawn, instead of Liliandil.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-20 06:15 pm (UTC)Thank you again for reading.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-29 04:14 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-20 06:20 pm (UTC)Warehouse 13 is exactly as presented -- an "artifact" is imbued with powers that do things. There is in fact an episode where Lewis Carroll's mirror releases a homicidal Alice. A wardrobe of Lewis' taking you to Narnia is VERY consistent with the show and there was an episode this season done in noir fashion where the characters end up in an unfinished manuscript. And more to the point, Winged loves Myka and Claudia (and anyone would) so it was lots of fun to do this.
Thank you so much for reading! (and the flat earth makes no sense)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-29 07:44 am (UTC)FredGeorge (I swear I wrote Fred then just stared at it until I realised that it looked wrong becauseFred's dead...)and Charlie, oh my heart, how hilarious and with hints of hearbreaking at the same time. George must really like Coriakin though to leave the swamp! Dragons! Yes!And I love in the end it's the loss of the swamp that pushed all Coriakin's last buttons that he hexed the Duffers!
DONNA!! You must point me to the AU you were referencing because it sounds awesome. Donna traveling in a dryer with Jack on her tail??? ME WANT!!
The intersects with the revisions to the Guide book is wonderful, especially how turns back to AVOID at the end.
Wondeful story!
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-20 06:23 pm (UTC)I had great source material obviously and I just loved the idea of Charlie wearing a t shirt that said don't meddle in the affairs of dragons.... And Myka crushing on Edmund Pevensie. There is a collection of essays on Narnia and one is entitled King Edmund the Cute and it discusses how Edmund is often one of a girl's first literary crushes. There's a certain Hitchiker's vibe too, of course.
Thanks so much for reading and reviewing. I really appreciate it.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-09-29 02:14 pm (UTC)Look -- this whole review is just going to be nothing but exclamations and grins! Donna! :D This is SO good! Bits of it above my head, due to too little reading, obviously (Claudia? Myka? I'm going to have remedy this!) but terrific fun! Oh! Oh! It's in the middle of a flea market! And plain speaking about what needs to be put right... and recurring tentacles... and thank you!! :D That was wonderful - huge fun and clever as all-get-out. :)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-20 06:25 pm (UTC)Thank you for reviewing. And to say again, your story was amazing. Glorious and beautiful and I'm so glad it got the praise so richly deserved.