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Title: The Last Battle
Author: Lewis, C. S. [Clive Staples] (1898-1963)
Date of first publication: 1956
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Macmillan, 1956
   [first U.S. edition]
Date first posted: 9 February 2014
Date last updated: 9 February 2014
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #1157

This ebook was produced by Al Haines


[Transcriber's note: Because of copyright considerations,
the illustrations by Pauline Baynes (1922-2008) have been
omitted from this etext.]






  _The
  LAST BATTLE_


  BY C. S. LEWIS



  _With illustrations
  BY PAULINE BAYNES_



  _New York_
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY




   1956 BY C. S. LEWIS

  All rights reserved--no part of this book may be
  reproduced in any form without permission in writing from
  the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote
  brief passages in connection with a review written for
  inclusion in magazine or newspaper.

  _Library of Congress catalog card number: 56-9362_



  _First Printing_

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA




  CONTENTS


  I  BY CALDRON POOL
  II  THE RASHNESS OF THE KING
  III  THE APE IN ITS GLORY
  IV  WHAT HAPPENED THAT NIGHT
  V  HOW HELP CAME TO THE KING
  VI  A GOOD NIGHT'S WORK
  VII  MAINLY ABOUT DWARFS
  VIII  WHAT NEWS THE EAGLE BROUGHT
  IX  THE GREAT MEETING
  X  WHO WILL GO INTO THE STABLE?
  XI  THE PACE QUICKENS
  XII  THROUGH THE STABLE DOOR
  XIII  HOW THE DWARFS REFUSED TO BE TAKEN IN
  XIV  NIGHT FALLS ON NARNIA
  XV  FURTHER UP AND FURTHER IN
  XVI  FAREWELL TO SHADOW-LANDS




CHAPTER I

_By Caldron Pool_

In the last days of Narnia, far up to the west beyond Lantern Waste and
close beside the great waterfall, there lived an Ape.  He was so old
that no one could remember when he had first come to live in those
parts, and he was the cleverest, ugliest, most wrinkled Ape you can
imagine.  He had a little house, built of wood and thatched with
leaves, up in the fork of a great tree, and his name was Shift.  There
were very few Talking Beasts or Men or Dwarfs, or people of any sort,
in that part of the wood, but Shift had one friend and neighbour who
was a donkey called Puzzle.  At least they both said they were friends,
but from the way things went on you might have thought Puzzle was more
like Shift's servant than his friend.  He did all the work.  When they
went together to the river, Shift filled the big skin bottles with
water but it was Puzzle who carried them back.  When they wanted
anything from the towns further down the river, it was Puzzle who went
down with empty panniers on his back and came back with the panniers
full and heavy.  And all the nicest things that Puzzle brought back
were eaten by Shift; for as Shift said, "You see Puzzle, I can't eat
grass and thistles like you, so it's only fair I should make it up in
other ways."  And Puzzle always said, "Of course, Shift, of course.  I
see that."  Puzzle never complained, because he knew that Shift was far
cleverer than himself and he thought it was very kind of Shift to be
friends with him at all.  And if ever Puzzle did try to argue about
anything, Shift would always say, "Now, Puzzle, I understand what needs
to be done better than you.  You know you're not clever, Puzzle."  And
Puzzle always said, "No, Shift.  It's quite true.  I'm _not_ clever."
Then he would sigh and do whatever Shift had said.

One morning early in the year the pair of them were out walking along
the shore of Caldron Pool.  Caldron Pool is the big pool right under
the cliffs at the western end of Narnia.  The great waterfall pours
down into it with a noise like everlasting thunder, and the River of
Narnia flows out on the other side.  The waterfall keeps the pool
always dancing and bubbling and churning round and round as if it were
on the boil, and that of course is how it got its name of Caldron Pool.
It is liveliest in the early spring when the waterfall is swollen with
all the snow that has melted off the mountains from up beyond Narnia in
the Western Wild from which the river comes.  And as they looked at
Caldron Pool, Shift suddenly pointed with his dark, shiny finger and
said,

"Look!  What's that?"

"What's what?" said Puzzle.

"That yellow thing that's just come down the waterfall.  Look!  There
it is again, it's floating.  We must find out what it is."

"Must we?" said Puzzle.

"Of course we must," said Shift.  "It may be something useful.  Just
hop into the Pool like a good fellow and fish it out.  Then we can have
a proper look at it."

"Hop into the Pool?" said Puzzle, twitching his long ears.

"Well how are we to get it if you don't?" said the Ape.

"But--but," said Puzzle, "wouldn't it be better if you went in?
Because, you see it's you who want to know what it is, and I don't
much.  And you've got hands, you see.  You're as good as a Man or a
Dwarf when it comes to catching hold of things.  I've only got hoofs."

"Really, Puzzle," said Shift, "I didn't think you'd ever say a thing
like that.  I didn't think it of you, really."

"Why, what have I said wrong?" said the Ass, speaking in rather a
humble voice, for he saw that Shift was very deeply offended.  "All I
meant was--"

"Wanting _me_ to go into the water," said the Ape.  "As if you didn't
know perfectly well what weak chests Apes always have and how easily
they catch cold!  Very well.  I _will_ go in.  I'm feeling cold enough
already in this cruel wind.  But I'll go in.  I shall probably die.
Then you'll be sorry."  And Shift's voice sounded as if he was just
going to burst into tears.

"Please don't, please don't, please don't," said Puzzle, half braying
and half talking.  "I never meant anything of the sort, Shift, really I
didn't.  You know how stupid I am and how I can't think of more than
one thing at a time.  I'd forgotten about your weak chest.  Of course
I'll go in.  You mustn't think of doing it yourself.  Promise me you
won't, Shift."

So Shift promised, and Puzzle went cloppety-clop on his four hoofs
round the rocky edge of the Pool to find a place where he could get in.
Quite apart from the cold it was no joke getting into that quivering
and foaming water, and Puzzle had to stand and shiver for a whole
minute before he made up his mind to do it.  But then Shift called out
from behind him and said: "Perhaps I'd better do it after all, Puzzle."
And when Puzzle heard that he said, "No, no.  You promised.  I'm in
now," and in he went.

A great mass of foam got him in the face and filled his mouth with
water and blinded him.  Then he went under altogether for a few
seconds, and when he came up again he was in quite another part of the
Pool.  Then the swirl caught him and carried him round and round and
faster and faster till it took him right under the waterfall itself,
and the force of the water plunged him down, deep down, so that he
thought he would never be able to hold his breath till he came up
again.  And when he had come up and when at last he got somewhere near
the thing he was trying to catch, it sailed away from him till it too
got under the fall and was forced down to the bottom.  When it came up
again it was farther from him than ever.  But at last, when he was
almost tired to death, and bruised all over and numb with cold, he
succeeded in gripping the thing with his teeth.  And out he came
carrying it in front of him and getting his front hoofs tangled up in
it, for it was as big as a large hearthrug, and it was very heavy and
cold and slimy.

He flung it down in front of Shift and stood dripping and shivering and
trying to get his breath back.  But the Ape never looked at him or
asked him how he felt.  The Ape was too busy going round and round the
Thing and spreading it out and patting it and smelling it.  Then a
wicked gleam came into his eye and he said.

"It is a lion's skin."

"Ee--auh--auh--oh, is it?" gasped Puzzle.

"Now I wonder ... I wonder ... I wonder," said Shift to himself, for he
was thinking very hard.

"I wonder who killed the poor lion," said Puzzle presently.  "It ought
to be buried.  We must have a funeral."

"Oh, it wasn't a Talking Lion," said Shift.  "You needn't bother about
_that_.  There are no Talking Beasts up beyond the Falls, up in the
Western Wild.  This skin must have belonged to a dumb, wild lion."

This, by the way, was true.  A Hunter, a Man, had killed and skinned
this lion somewhere up in the Western Wild several months before.  But
that doesn't come into this story.

"All the same, Shift," said Puzzle, "even if the skin only belonged to
a dumb, wild lion, oughtn't we to give it a decent burial?  I mean,
aren't all lions rather--well, rather solemn.  Because of you know Who.
Don't you see?"

"Don't you start getting ideas into your head, Puzzle," said Shift.
"Because, you know, thinking isn't your strong point.  We'll make this
skin into a fine warm winter coat for you."

"Oh, I don't think I'd like that," said the Donkey.  "It would look--I
mean, the other Beasts might think--that is to say, I shouldn't
feel----"

"What are you talking about?" said Shift, scratching himself the wrong
way up as Apes do.

"I don't think it would be respectful to the Great Lion, to Aslan
himself, if an ass like me went about dressed up in a lionskin," said
Puzzle.

"Now don't stand arguing, please," said Shift.  "What does an ass like
you know about things of that sort?  You know you're no good at
thinking, Puzzle, so why don't you let me do your thinking for you?
Why don't you treat me as I treat you?  _I_ don't think I can do
everything.  I know you're better at some things than I am.  That's why
I let you go into the Pool; I knew you'd do it better than me.  But why
can't I have my turn when it comes to something I _can_ do and you
can't?  Am I never to be allowed to do anything?  Do be fair.  Turn and
turn about."

"Oh well, of course, if you put it that way," said Puzzle.

"I tell you what," said Shift.  "You'd better take a good brisk trot
down river as far as Chippingford and see if they have any oranges or
bananas."

"But I'm so tired, Shift," pleaded Puzzle.

"Yes, but you are very cold and wet," said the Ape.  "You want
something to warm you up.  A brisk trot would be just the thing.
Besides, it's market day at Chippingford to-day."  And then of course
Puzzle said he would go.

As soon as he was alone Shift went shambling along, sometimes on two
paws and sometimes on four, till he reached his own tree.  Then he
swung himself up from branch to branch, chattering and grinning all the
time, and went into his little house.  He found needle and thread and a
big pair of scissors there; for he was a clever Ape and the Dwarfs had
taught him how to sew.  He put the ball of thread (it was very thick
stuff, more like cord than thread) into his mouth so that his cheek
bulged out as if he were sucking a big bit of toffee.  He held the
needle between his lips and took the scissors in his left paw.  Then he
came down the tree and shambled across to the lionskin.  He squatted
down and got to work.

He saw at once that the body of the lionskin would be too long for
Puzzle and its neck too short.  So he cut a good piece out of the body
and used it to make a long collar for Puzzle's long neck.  Then he cut
off the head and sewed the collar in between the head and the
shoulders.  He put threads on both sides of the skin so that it would
tie up under Puzzle's chest and stomach.  Every now and then a bird
would pass overhead and Shift would stop his work, looking up
anxiously.  He did not want anyone to see what he was doing.  But none
of the birds he saw were Talking Birds, so it didn't matter.

Late in the afternoon Puzzle came back.  He was not trotting but only
plodding patiently along, the way donkeys do.

"There weren't any oranges," he said, "and there weren't any bananas.
And I'm very tired."  He lay down.

"Come and try on your beautiful new lionskin coat," said Shift.

"Oh bother that old skin," said Puzzle, "I'll try it on in the morning.
I'm too tired tonight."

"You _are_ unkind, Puzzle," said Shift.  "If _you're_ tired, what do
you think _I_ am?  All day long, while you've been having a lovely
refreshing walk down the valley, I've been working hard to make you a
coat.  My paws are so tired I can hardly hold these scissors.  And now
you won't say thank-you--and you won't even look at the coat--and you
don't care--and--and--"

"My dear Shift," said Puzzle getting up at once, "I am so sorry.  I've
been horrid.  Of course I'd love to try it on.  And it looks simply
splendid.  Do try it on me at once.  Please do."

"Well, stand still then," said the Ape.  The skin was very heavy for
him to lift, but in the end, with a lot of pulling and pushing and
puffing and blowing, he got it onto the donkey.  He tied it underneath
Puzzle's body and he tied the legs to Puzzle's legs and the tail to
Puzzle's tail.  A good deal of Puzzle's grey nose and face could be
seen through the open mouth of the lion's head.  No one who had ever
seen a real lion would have been taken in for a moment.  But if someone
who had never seen a lion looked at Puzzle in his lionskin, he just
might mistake him for a lion, if he didn't come too close, and if the
light was not too good, and if Puzzle didn't let out a bray and didn't
make any noise with his hoofs.

"You look wonderful, wonderful," said the Ape.  "If anyone saw you now,
they'd think you were Aslan, the Great Lion, himself."

"That would be dreadful," said Puzzle.

"No it wouldn't," said Shift.  "Everyone would do whatever you told
them."

"But I don't want to tell them anything."

"But think of the good we could do!" said Shift.  "You'd have me to
advise you, you know.  I'd think of sensible orders for you to give.
And everyone would have to obey us, even the King himself.  We would
set everything right in Narnia."

"But isn't everything right already?" said Puzzle.

"What!" cried Shift.  "Everything right?--when there are no oranges or
bananas?"

"Well, you know," said Puzzle, "there aren't many people--in fact, I
don't think there's anyone but yourself--who wants those sort of
things."

"There's sugar too," said Shift.

"H'm, yes," said the Ass.  "It would be nice if there was more sugar."

"Well then, that's settled," said the Ape.  "You will pretend to be
Aslan, and I'll tell you what to say."

"No, no, no," said Puzzle.  "Don't say such dreadful things.  It would
be wrong, Shift.  I may be not very clever but I know that much.  What
would become of us if the real Aslan turned up?"

"I expect he'd be very pleased," said Shift.  "Probably he sent us the
lionskin on purpose, so that we could set things to right.  Anyway, he
never _does_ turn up, you know.  Not now-a-days."

At that moment there came a great thunderclap right overhead and the
ground trembled with a small earthquake.  Both the animals lost their
balance and were flung on their faces.

"There!" gasped Puzzle, as soon as he had breath to speak.  "It's a
sign, a warning.  I knew we were doing something dreadfully wicked.
Take this wretched skin off me at once."

"No, no," said the Ape (whose mind worked very quickly).  "It's a sign
the other way.  I was just going to say that if the real Aslan, as you
call him, meant us to go on with this, he would send us a thunderclap
and an earth-tremor.  It was just on the tip of my tongue, only the
sign itself came before I could get the words out.  You've _got_ to do
it now, Puzzle.  And please don't let us have any more arguing.  You
know you don't understand these things.  What could a donkey know about
signs?"




CHAPTER II

_The Rashness of the King_

About three weeks later the last of the Kings of Narnia sat under the
great oak which grew beside the door of his little hunting lodge, where
he often stayed for ten days or so in the pleasant spring weather.  It
was a low, thatched building not far from the Eastern end of Lantern
Waste and some way above the meeting of the two rivers.  He loved to
live there simply and at ease, away from the state and pomp of Cair
Paravel, the royal city.  His name was King Tirian, and he was between
twenty and twenty-five years old; his shoulders were already broad and
strong and his limbs, full of hard muscle, but his beard was still
scanty.  He had blue eyes and a fearless, honest face.

There was no one with him that spring morning except his dearest
friend, Jewel the Unicorn.  They loved each other like brothers and
each had saved the other's life in the wars.  The lordly beast stood
close beside the King's chair, with its neck bent round polishing its
blue horn against the creamy whiteness of its flank.

"I cannot set myself to any work or sport to-day, Jewel," said the
King.  "I can think of nothing but this wonderful news.  Think you we
shall hear more of them to-day?"

"They are the most wonderful tidings ever heard in our days or our
father's or our grandfathers' days, Sire," said Jewel, "if they are
true."

"How can they choose but be true?" said the King.  "It is more than a
week ago that the first birds came flying over us saying, Aslan is
here, Aslan has come to Narnia again.  And after that it was the
squirrels.  They had not seen him, but they said it was certain he was
in the woods.  Then came the Stag.  He said he had seen him with his
own eyes, a great way off, by moonlight, in Lantern Waste.  Then came
that dark Man with the beard, the merchant from Calormen.  The
Calormenes care nothing for Aslan as we do; but the man spoke of it as
a thing beyond doubt.  And there was the Badger last night; he too had
seen Aslan."

"Indeed, Sire," answered Jewel, "I believe it all.  If I seem not to,
it is only that my joy is too great to let my belief settle itself.  It
is almost too beautiful to believe."

"Yes," said the King with a great sigh, almost a shiver, of delight.
"It is beyond all that I ever hoped for in all my life."

"Listen!" said Jewel, putting his head on one side and cocking his ears
forward.

"What is it?" asked the King.

"Hoofs, Sire," said Jewel.  "A galloping horse.  A very heavy horse.
It must be one of the Centaurs.  And look, there he is."

A great, golden-bearded Centaur, with man's sweat on his forehead and
horse's sweat on his chestnut flanks, dashed up to the King, stopped,
and bowed low.  "Hail, King," it cried in a voice as deep as a bull's.

"Ho, there!" said the King, looking over his shoulder towards the door
of the hunting lodge.  "A bowl of wine for the noble Centaur.  Welcome,
Roonwit.  When you have found your breath, you shall tell us your
errand."

A page came out of the house carrying a great wooden bowl, curiously
carved, and handed it to the Centaur.  The Centaur raised the bowl and
said,

"I drink first to Aslan and truth, Sire, and secondly to your Majesty."

He finished the wine (enough for six strong men) at one draught and
handed the empty bowl back to the page.

"Now, Roonwit," said the King.  "Do you bring us more news of Aslan?"

Roonwit looked very grave, frowning a little.

"Sire," he said.  "You know how long I have lived and studied the
stars; for we Centaurs live longer than you Men, and even longer than
your kind, Unicorn.  Never in all my days have I seen such terrible
things written in the skies as there have been nightly since this year
began.  The stars say nothing of the coming of Aslan, nor of peace, nor
of joy.  I know by my art that there have not been such disastrous
conjunctions of the planets for five hundred years.  It was already in
my mind to come and warn your Majesty that some great evil hangs over
Narnia.  But last night the rumour reached me that Aslan is abroad in
Narnia.  Sire, do not believe this tale.  It cannot be.  The stars
never lie, but Men and Beasts do.  If Aslan were really coming to
Narnia, the sky would have foretold it.  If he were really come, all
the most gracious stars would be assembled in his honour.  It is all a
lie."

"A lie!" said the King fiercely.  "What creature in Narnia or all the
world would dare to lie on such a matter?"  And, without knowing it, he
laid his hand on his sword hilt.

"That I know not, Lord King," said the Centaur.  "But I know there are
liars on earth; there are none among the stars."

"I wonder," said Jewel, "whether Aslan might not come though all the
stars foretold otherwise.  He is not the slave of the stars but their
Maker.  Is it not said in all the old stories that He is not a Tame
Lion?"

"Well said, well said, Jewel," cried the King.  "Those are the very
words: _not a tame lion_.  It comes in many tales."

Roonwit had just raised his hand and was leaning forward to say
something very earnestly to the King when all three of them turned
their heads to listen to a wailing sound that was quickly drawing
nearer.  The wood was so thick to the west of them that they could not
see the newcomer yet.  But they could soon hear the words.

"Woe, woe, woe!" called the voice.  "Woe for my brothers and sisters!
Woe for the holy trees!  The woods are laid waste.  The axe is loosed
against us.  We are being felled.  Great trees are falling, falling,
falling."

With the last "falling," the speaker came in sight.  She was like a
woman but so tall that her head was on a level with the Centaur's: yet
she was like a tree too.  It is hard to explain if you have never seen
a Dryad but quite unmistakable once you have--something different in
the colour, the voice, and the hair.  King Tirian and the two Beasts
knew at once that she was the nymph of a beech-tree.

"Justice, Lord King!" she cried.  "Come to our aid.  Protect your
people.  They are felling us in Lantern Waste.  Forty great trunks of
my brothers and sisters are already on the ground."

"What, Lady!  Felling Lantern Waste?  Murdering the talking trees?"
cried the King leaping to his feet and drawing his sword.  "How dare
they?  And who dares it?  Now by the Mane of Aslan----"

"A-a-a-h," gasped the Dryad shuddering as if in pain--shuddering time
after time as if under repeated blows Then all at once she fell
sideways as suddenly as if both her feet had been cut from under her.
For a second they saw her lying dead on the grass and then she
vanished.  They knew what had happened.  Her tree, miles away, had been
cut down.

For a moment the King's grief and anger were so great that he could not
speak.  Then he said:

"Come, friends.  We must go up river and find the villains who have
done this, with all the speed we can.  I will leave not one of them
alive."

"Sire, with a good will," said Jewel.

But Roonwit said, "Sire, be wary even in your just wrath.  There are
strange doings on foot.  If there should be rebels in arms further up
the valley, we three are too few to meet them.  If it would please you
to wait while----"

"I will not wait the tenth part of a second," said the King.  "But
while Jewel and I go forward, do you gallop as hard as you may to Cair
Paravel.  Here is my ring for your token.  Get me a score of
men-at-arms, all well-mounted, and a score of Talking Dogs, and ten
Dwarfs (let them all be fell archers), and a Leopard or so, and
Stonefoot the Giant.  Bring all these after us as quickly as can be."

"With a good will, Sire," said Roonwit.  And at once he turned and
galloped Eastward down the valley.

The King strode on at a great pace, sometimes muttering to himself and
sometimes clenching his fists.  Jewel walked beside him, saying
nothing; so there was no sound between them but the faint jingle of a
rich gold chain that hung round the Unicorn's neck and the noise of two
feet and four hoofs.

They soon reached the River and turned up it where there was a grassy
road: they had the water on their left and the forest on their right.
Soon after that they came to the place where the ground grew rougher
and thick wood came down to the water's edge.  The road, what there was
of it, now ran on the southern bank and they had to ford the River to
reach it.  It was up to Tirian's armpits, but Jewel (who had four legs
and was therefore steadier) kept on his right to break the force of the
current, and Tirian put his strong arm round the Unicorn's strong neck
and they both got safely over.  The King was still so angry that he
hardly noticed the cold of the water.  But of course he dried his sword
very carefully on the shoulder of his cloak, which was the only dry
part of him, as soon as they came to shore.

They were now going westward with the River on their right and Lantern
Waste straight ahead of them.  They had not gone more than a mile when
they both stopped and both spoke at the same moment.  The King said
"What have we here" and Jewel said "Look!"

"It is a raft," said King Tirian.

And so it was.  Half a dozen splendid tree trunks, all newly cut and
newly lopped of their branches, had been lashed together to make a
raft, and were gliding swiftly down the River.  On the front of the
raft there was a water rat with a pole to steer it.

"Hey!  Water Rat!  What are you about?" cried the King.

"Taking logs down to sell to the Calormenes, Sire," said the Rat,
touching his ear as he might have touched his cap if he had had one.

"Calormenes!" thundered Tirian.  "What do you mean?  Who gave order for
these trees to be felled?"

The River flows so swiftly at that time of the year that the raft had
already glided past the King and Jewel.  But the Water Rat looked back
over its shoulders and shouted:

"The Lion's orders, Sire.  Aslan himself."  He added something more but
they couldn't hear it.

The King and the Unicorn stared at one another and both looked more
frightened than they had ever been in any battle.

"Aslan," said the King at last, in a very low voice.  "Aslan.  Could it
be true?  _Could_ he be felling the holy trees and murdering the
Dryads?"

"Unless the Dryads have all done something dreadfully wrong----"
murmured Jewel.

"But selling them to Calormenes!" said the King.  "Is it possible?"

"I don't know," said Jewel miserably.  "He's not a _tame_ Lion."

"Well," said the King at last, "we must go on and take the adventure
that comes to us."

"It is the only thing left for us to do, Sire," said the Unicorn.  He
did not see at the moment how foolish it was for two of them to go
alone; nor did the King.  They were too angry to think clearly.  But
much evil came of their rashness in the end.

Suddenly the King leaned hard on his friend's neck and bowed his head.

"Jewel," he said, "What lies before us?  Horrible thoughts arise in my
heart.  If we had died before to-day we should have been happy."

"Yes," said Jewel.  "We have lived too long.  The worst thing in the
world has come upon us."  They stood like that for a minute or two and
then went on.

Before long they could hear the hack-hack-hack of axes falling on
timber, though they could see nothing yet because there was a rise of
the ground in front of them.  When they had reached the top of it they
could see right into Lantern Waste itself.  And the King's face turned
white when he saw it.

Right through the middle of that ancient forest--that forest where the
trees of gold and of silver had once grown and where a child from our
world had once planted the Tree of Protection--a broad lane had already
been opened.  It was a hideous lane like a raw gash in the land, full
of muddy ruts where felled trees had been dragged down to the river.
There was a great crowd of people at work, and a cracking of whips, and
horses tugging and straining as they dragged at the logs.  The first
thing that struck the King and the Unicorn was that about half the
people in the crowd were not Talking Beasts but Men.  The next thing
was that these men were not the fair-haired men of Narnia: they were
dark, bearded men from Calormen, that great and cruel country that lies
beyond Archenland across the desert to the south.  There was no reason,
of course, why one should not meet a Calormene or two in Narnia--a
merchant or an ambassador--for there was peace between Narnia and
Calormen in those days.  But Tirian could not understand why there are
so many of them: nor why they were cutting down a Narnian forest.  He
grasped his sword tighter and rolled his cloak round his left arm.
They came quickly down among the men.

Two Calormenes were driving a horse which was harnessed to a log.  Just
as the King reached them, the log got stuck in a bad muddy place.

"Get on, son of sloth!  Pull, you lazy pig!" cried the Calormenes,
cracking their whips.  The horse was already straining himself as hard
as he could; his eyes were red and he was covered with foam.

"Work, lazy brute," shouted one of the Calormenes: and as he spoke he
struck the horse savagely with his whip.  It was then that the really
dreadful thing happened.

Up till now Tirian had taken it for granted that the horses which the
Calormenes were driving were their own horses; dumb, witless animals
like the horses of our own world.  And though he hated to see even a
dumb horse overdriven, he was of course thinking more about the murder
of the Trees.  It had never crossed his mind that anyone would dare to
harness one of the free Talking Horses of Narnia, much less to use a
whip on it.  But as that savage blow fell the horse reared up and said,
half screaming:

"Fool and tyrant!  Do you not see I am doing all I can?"

When Tirian knew that the Horse was one of his own Narnians, there came
over him and over Jewel such a rage that they did not know what they
were doing.  The King's sword went up, the Unicorn's horn went down.
They rushed forward together.  Next moment both the Calormenes lay
dead, the one beheaded by Tirian's sword and the other gored through
the heart by Jewel's horn.




CHAPTER III

_The Ape in Its Glory_

"Master Horse, Master Horse," said Tirian as he hastily cut its traces,
"how came these aliens to enslave you?  Is Narnia conquered?  Has there
been a battle?"

"No, Sire," panted the horse.  "Aslan is here.  It is all by his
orders.  He has commanded----"

"'Ware danger, King," said Jewel.  Tirian looked up and saw that
Calormenes (mixed with a few Talking Beasts) were beginning to run
towards them from every direction.  The two dead men had died without a
cry and so it had taken a moment before the rest of the crowd knew what
had happened.  But now they did.  Most of them had naked scimitars in
their hands.

"Quick.  On my back," said Jewel.

The King flung himself astride of his old friend who turned and
galloped away.  He changed direction twice or thrice as soon as they
were out of sight of their enemies, crossed a stream, and shouted
without slackening his pace, "Whither away, Sire?  To Cair Paravel?"

"Hold hard, friend," said Tirian.  "Let me off."  He slid off the
Unicorn's back and faced him.

"Jewel," said the King.  "We have done a dreadful deed."

"We were sorely provoked," said Jewel.

"But to leap on them unawares--without defying them--while they were
unarmed--faugh!  We are two murderers, Jewel.  I am dishonoured
forever."

Jewel drooped his head.  He too was ashamed.

"And then," said the King, "the Horse said it was by Aslan's orders.
The Rat said the same.  They all say Aslan is here.  But if it were
true?"

"But, Sire, how _could_ Aslan be commanding such dreadful things?"

"He is not a _tame_ Lion," said Tirian.  "How should we know what he
would do?  We, who are murderers.  Jewel, I will go back.  I will give
up my sword and put myself in the hands of these Calormenes and ask
that they bring me before Aslan.  Let him do justice to me."

"You will go to your death, then," said Jewel.

"Do you think I care if Aslan dooms me to death?" said the King.  "That
would be nothing, nothing at all.  Would it not be better to be dead
than to have this horrible fear that Aslan has come and is not like the
Aslan we have believed in and longed for?  It is as if the sun rose one
day and were a black sun."

"I know," said Jewel.  "Or as if you drank water and it were _dry_
water.  You are in the right, Sire.  This is the end of all things.
Let us go and give ourselves up."

"There is no need for both of us to go."

"If ever we loved one another, let me go with you now," said the
Unicorn.  "If you are dead and if Aslan is not Aslan, what life is left
for me?"

They turned and walked back together, shedding bitter tears.

As soon as they came to the place where the work was going on the
Calormenes raised a cry and came towards them with their weapons in
hand.  But the King held out his sword with the hilt towards them and
said:

"I who was King of Narnia and am now a dishonoured knight give myself
up to the justice of Aslan.  Bring me before him."

"And I give myself up too," said Jewel.

Then the dark men came round them in a thick crowd, smelling of garlic
and onions, their white eyes flashing dreadfully in their brown faces.
They put a rope halter round Jewel's neck.  They took the King's sword
away and tied his hands behind his back.  One of the Calormenes, who
had a helmet instead of a turban and seemed to be in command, snatched
the gold circlet off Tirian's head and hastily put it away somewhere
among his clothes.  They led the two prisoners uphill to a place where
there was a big clearing.  And this was what the prisoners saw.

At the centre of the clearing, which was also the highest point of the
hill, there was a little hut like a stable, with a thatched roof.  Its
door was shut.  On the grass in front of the door there sat an Ape.
Tirian and Jewel, who had been expecting to see Aslan and had heard
nothing about an Ape yet, were very bewildered when they saw it.  The
Ape was of course Shift himself, but he looked ten times uglier than
when he lived by Caldron Pool, for he was now dressed up.  He was
wearing a scarlet jacket which did not fit him very well, having been
made for a dwarf.  He had jewelled slippers on his hind paws which
would not stay on properly because, as you know, the hind paws of an
Ape are really like hands.  He wore what seemed to be a paper crown on
his head.  There was a great pile of nuts beside him and he kept
cracking nuts with his jaws and spitting out the shells.  And he also
kept on pulling up the scarlet jacket to scratch himself.  A great
number of Talking Beasts stood facing him, and nearly every face in
that crowd looked miserably worried and bewildered.  When they saw who
the prisoners were, they all groaned and whimpered.

"O Lord Shift, mouthpiece of Aslan," said the chief Calormene.  "We
bring you prisoners.  By our skill and courage and by the permission of
the great god Tash we have taken alive these two desperate murderers."

"Give me that man's sword," said the Ape.  So they took the King's
sword and handed it, with the sword-belt and all, to the monkey.  And
he hung it round his own neck: and it made him look sillier than ever.

"We'll see about those two later," said the Ape, spitting out a shell
in the direction of the two prisoners.  "I got some other business
first.  They can wait.  Now listen to me, everyone.  The first thing I
want to say is about nuts.  Where's that Head Squirrel got to?"

"Here, Sir," said a red squirrel, coming forward and making a nervous
little bow.

"Oh you are, are you?" said the Ape with a nasty look.  "Now attend to
me.  I want--I mean, Aslan wants--some more nuts.  These you've brought
aren't anything near enough.  You must bring some more, do you hear?
Twice as many.  And they got to be here by sunset tomorrow, and there
mustn't be any bad ones or any small ones among them."

A murmur of dismay ran through the other squirrels, and the Head
Squirrel plucked up courage to say:

"Please, would Aslan himself speak to us about it?  In we might be
allowed to see him----"

"Well you won't," said the Ape.  "He may be very kind (though it's a
lot more than most of you deserve) and come out for a few minutes
to-night.  Then you can all have a look at him.  But he will _not_ have
you all crowding round him and pestering him with questions.  Anything
you want to say to him will be passed on through me: if I think it's
worth bothering him about.  In the meantime all you squirrels had
better go and see about the nuts.  And make sure they are here by
tomorrow evening or, my word! you'll catch it."

The poor squirrels all scampered away as if a dog were after them.
This new order was terrible news for them.  The nuts they had carefully
hoarded for the winter had nearly all been eaten by now; and of the few
that were left they had already given the Ape far more than they could
spare.

Then a deep voice--it belonged to a great tusked and shaggy Boar--spoke
from another part of the crowd.

"But _why_ can't we see Aslan properly and talk to him?" it said.
"When he used to appear in Narnia in the old days everyone could talk
to him face to face."

"Don't you believe it," said the Ape.  "And even if it was true, times
have changed.  Aslan says he's been far too soft with you before, do
you see?  Well, he isn't going to be soft any more.  He's going to lick
you into shape this time.  He'll teach you to think he's a tame lion!"

A low moaning and whimpering was heard among the Beasts; and, after
that, a dead silence which was more miserable still.

"And now there's another thing you got to learn," said the Ape.  "I
hear some of you are saying I'm an Ape.  Well, I'm not.  I'm a Man.  If
I look like an Ape, that's because I'm so very old: hundreds and
hundreds of years old.  And it's because I'm so old that I'm so wise.
And it's because I'm so wise that I'm the only one Aslan is ever going
to speak to.  He can't be bothered talking to a lot of stupid animals.
He'll tell me what you've got to do, and I'll tell the rest of you.
And take my advice, and see you do it in double quick time, for He
doesn't mean to stand any nonsense."

There was dead silence except for the noise of a very young badger
crying and its mother trying to make it keep quiet.

"And now here's another thing," the Ape went on, fitting a fresh nut
into its cheek, "I hear some of the horses are saying, Let's hurry up
and get this job of carting timber over as quickly as we can, and then
we'll be free again.  Well, you can get that idea out of your heads at
once.  And not only the Horses either.  Everybody who can work is going
to be made to work in the future.  Aslan has it all settled with the
King of Calormen--The Tisroc, as our dark-faced friends, the
Calormenes, call him.  All you horses and bulls and donkeys are to be
sent down into Calormen to work for your living--pulling and carrying
the way horses and such do in other countries.  And all you digging
animals like moles and rabbits and Dwarfs are going down to work in the
Tisroc's mines.  And----"

"No, no, no," howled the Beasts.  "It can't be true.  Aslan would never
sell us into slavery to the King of Calormen."

"None of that!  Hold your noise!" said the Ape with a snarl.  "Who said
anything about slavery?  You won't be slaves.  You'll be paid--very
good wages too.  That is to say, your pay will be paid in to Aslan's
treasury and he will use it all for everybody's good."  Then he
glanced, and almost winked, at the chief Calormene.  The Calormene
bowed and replied, in the pompous Calormene way:

"Most sapient Mouthpiece of Aslan, the Tisroc (may he live forever) is
wholly of one mind with your lordship in this judicious plan."

"There!  You see!" said the Ape.  "It's all arranged.  And all for your
own good.  We'll be able, with the money you earn, to make Narnia a
country worth living in.  There'll be oranges and bananas pouring
in--and roads and big cities and schools and offices and whips and
muzzles and saddles and cages and kennels and prisons--Oh, everything."

"But we don't want all those things," said an old Bear.  "We want to be
free.  And we want to hear Aslan speak himself."

"Now don't you start arguing," said the Ape, "for it's a thing I won't
stand.  I'm a Man: you're only a fat, stupid old Bear.  What do you
know about freedom?  You think freedom means doing what you like.
Well, you're wrong.  That isn't true freedom.  True freedom means doing
what I tell you."

"H-n-n-h," grunted the Bear and scratched its head; it found this sort
of thing hard to understand.

"Please, please," said the high voice of a woolly lamb, who was so
young that everyone was surprised he dared to speak at all.

"What is it now?" said the Ape.  "Be quick."

"Please," said the Lamb, "I can't understand.  What have we to do with
the Calormenes?  We belong to Aslan.  They belong to Tash.  They have a
god called Tash.  They say he has four arms and the head of a vulture.
They kill Men on his altar.  I don't believe there's any such person as
Tash.  But if there was, how could Aslan be friends with him?"

All the animals cocked their heads sideways and all their bright eyes
flashed towards the Ape.  They knew it was the best question anyone had
asked yet.

The Ape jumped up and spat at the Lamb.

"Baby!" he hissed.  "Silly little bleater!  Go home to your mother and
drink milk.  What do you understand of such things?  But you others,
listen.  Tash is only another name for Aslan.  All that old idea of us
being right and the Calormenes wrong is silly.  We know better now.
The Calormenes use different words but we all mean the same thing.
Tash and Aslan are only two different names for you know Who.  That's
why there can never be any quarrel between them.  Get that into your
heads, you stupid brutes.  Tash is Aslan: Aslan is Tash."

You know how sad your own dog's face can look sometimes.  Think of that
and then think of all the faces of those Talking Beasts--all those
honest, humble, bewildered birds, bears, badgers, rabbits, moles, and
mice--all far sadder than that.  Every tail was down, every whisker
drooped.  It would have broken your heart with very pity to see their
faces.  There was only one who did not look at all unhappy.

It was a ginger cat--a great big Tom in the prime of life--who sat bolt
upright with his tail curled round his toes, in the very front row of
all the Beasts.  He had been staring hard at the Ape and the Calormene
captain all the time and had never once blinked his eyes.

"Excuse me," said the Cat very politely, "but this interests me.  Does
your friend from Calormen say the same?"

"Assuredly," said the Calormene.  "The enlightened Ape--Man, I mean--is
in the right.  _Aslan_ means neither less nor more than _Tash_."

"Especially, Aslan means _no more_ than Tash?" suggested the Cat.

"No more at all," said the Calormene, looking the Cat straight in the
face.

"Is that good enough for you, Ginger?" said the Ape.

"Oh certainly," said Ginger coolly.  "Thank you very much.  I only
wanted to be quite clear.  I think I am beginning to understand."

Up till now the King and Jewel had said nothing: they were waiting
until the Ape should bid them speak, for they thought it was no use
interrupting.  But now, as Tirian looked round on the miserable faces
of the Narnians, and saw how they would all believe that Aslan and Tash
were one and the same, he could bear it no longer.

"Ape," he cried with a great voice, "you lie.  You lie damnably.  You
lie like a Calormene.  You lie like an Ape."

He meant to go on and ask how the terrible god Tash who fed on the
blood of his people could possibly be the same as the good Lion by
whose blood all Narnia was saved.  If he had been allowed to speak, the
rule of the Ape might have ended that day; the Beasts might have seen
the truth and thrown the Ape down.  But before he could say another
word two Calormenes struck him in the mouth with all their force, and a
third, from behind, kicked his feet from under him.  And as he fell,
the Ape squealed in rage and terror:

"Take him away.  Take him away.  Take him where he cannot hear us, nor
we hear him.  There tie him to a tree.  I will--I mean, Aslan will--do
justice to him later."




CHAPTER IV

_What Happened that Night_

The King was so dizzy from being knocked down that he hardly knew what
was happening until the Calormenes untied his wrists and put his arms
straight down by his sides and set him with his back against an ash
tree.  Then they bound ropes round his ankles and his knees and his
waist and his chest and left him there.  What worried him worst at the
moment--for it is often little things that are hardest to stand--was
that his lip was bleeding where they had hit him and he couldn't wipe
the little trickle of blood away although it tickled him.

From where he was he could still see the little stable on the top of
the hill and the Ape sitting in front of it.  He could just hear the
Ape's voice still going on and, every now and then, some answer from
the crowd but he could not make out the words.

"I wonder what they've done to Jewel," thought the King.

Presently the crowd of Beasts broke up and began going away in
different directions.  Some passed close to Tirian.  They looked at him
as if they were both frightened and sorry to see him tied up but none
of them spoke.  Soon they had all gone and there was silence in the
wood.  Then hours and hours went past and Tirian became first very
thirsty and then very hungry; and as the afternoon dragged on and
turned into evening, he became cold too.  His back was very sore.  The
sun went down and it began to be twilight.

When it was almost dark Tirian heard a light pitter-patter of feet and
saw some small creatures coming towards him.  The three on the left
were Mice, and there was a Rabbit in the middle: on the right were two
Moles.  Both of these were carrying little bags on their backs which
gave them a curious look in the dark so that at first he wondered what
kind of beasts they were.  Then, in a moment, they were all standing up
on their hind legs, laying their cool paws on his knees and giving his
knees snuffly animal kisses.  (They could reach his knees because
Narnian Talking Beasts of that sort are bigger than the dumb beasts of
the same kinds in England.)

"Lord King! dear Lord King," said their shrill voices, "we are so sorry
for you.  We daren't untie you because Aslan might be angry with us.
But we've brought you your supper."

At once the first Mouse climbed nimbly up till he was perched on the
rope that bound Tirian's chest and was crinkling his blunt nose just in
front of Tirian's face.  Then the second Mouse climbed up and hung on
just below the first Mouse.  The other beasts stood on the ground and
began handing things up.

"Drink, Sire, and then you'll find you are able to eat," said the
topmost Mouse, and Tirian found that a little wooden cup was being held
to his lips.  It was only the size of an eggcup so that he had hardly
tasted the wine in it before it was empty.  But then the Mouse passed
it down and the others re-filled it and it was passed up again and
Tirian emptied it a second time.  In this way they went on till he had
quite a good drink, which was all the better for coming in little
doses, for that is more thirst-quenching than one long draught.

"Here is cheese, Sire," said the first Mouse, "but not very much, for
fear it would make you too thirsty."  And after the cheese they fed him
with oatcakes and fresh butter, and then with some more wine.

"Now hand up the water," said the first Mouse, "and I'll wash the
King's face.  There is blood on it."

Then Tirian felt something like a tiny sponge dabbing his face, and it
was most refreshing.

"Little friends," said Tirian, "how can I thank you for all this?"

"You needn't, you needn't," said the little voices.  "What else could
we do?  _We_ don't want any other King.  We're your people.  If it were
only the Ape and the Calormenes who were against you, we would have
fought till we were cut into pieces before we'd have let them tie you
up.  We would, we would indeed.  But we can't go against Aslan."

"Do you think it really is Aslan?" asked the King.

"Oh yes, yes," said the Rabbit.  "He came out of the stable last night.
We all saw him."

"What was he like?" said the King.

"Like a terrible, great Lion, to be sure," said one of the Mice.

"And you think it is really Aslan who is killing the Wood-Nymphs and
making you all slaves to the King of Calormen?"

"Ah, that's bad, isn't it?" said the second Mouse.  "It would have been
better if we'd died before all this began.  But there's no doubt about
it.  Everyone says it is Aslan's orders, and we've seen him.  We didn't
think Aslan would be like that.  Why, we--we _wanted_ him to come back
to Narnia."

"He seems to have come back very angry this time," said the first
Mouse.  "We must all have done something dreadfully wrong without
knowing it.  He must be punishing us for something.  But I do think we
might be told what it was!"

"I suppose what we're doing now may be wrong," said the Rabbit.

"I don't care if it is," said one of the Moles.  "I'd do it again."

But the others said, "Oh hush," and "do be careful," and then they all
said, "We're sorry, dear King, but we must go back now.  It would never
do for us to be caught here."

"Leave me at once, dear Beasts," said Tirian.  "I would not for all
Narnia bring any of you into danger."

"Good night, good night," said the Beasts, rubbing their noses against
his knees.  "We will come back--if we can."  Then they all pattered
away and the wood seemed darker and colder and lonelier than it had
been before they came.

The stars came out and time went slowly on--imagine how slowly--while
the last King of Narnia stood stiff and sore and upright against the
tree in his bonds.  But at last something happened.

Far away there appeared a red light.  Then it disappeared for a moment
and came back again, bigger and stronger.  Then he could see dark
shapes going to and fro on this side of the light and carrying bundles
and throwing them down.  He knew now what he was looking at.  It was a
bonfire, newly lit, and people were throwing bundles of brushwood onto
it.  Presently it blazed up and Tirian could see that it was on the
very top of the hill.  He could see quite clearly the stable behind it,
all lit up in the red glow, and a great crowd of Beasts and Men between
the fire and himself.  A small figure, hunched up beside the fire, must
be the Ape.  It was saying something to the crowd, but he could not
hear what.  Then it went and bowed three times to the ground in front
of the door of the stable.  Then it got up and opened the door.  And
something on four legs--something that walked rather stiffly--came out
of the stable and stood facing the crowd.

A great wailing or howling went up, so loud that Tirian could hear some
of the words.

"Aslan!  Aslan!  Aslan!" cried the Beasts.  "Speak to us.  Comfort us.
Be angry with us no more."

From where Tirian was, he could not make out very clearly what the
thing was; but he could see that it was yellow and hairy.  He had never
seen the Great Lion.  He had never seen even a common lion.  He
couldn't be sure that what he saw was not the real Aslan.  He had not
expected Aslan to look like that stiff thing which stood and said
nothing.  But how could one be sure?  For a moment horrible thoughts
went through his mind: then he remembered the nonsense about Tash and
Aslan being the same and knew that the whole thing must be a cheat.

The Ape put his head close up to the yellow thing's head as if he were
listening to something it was whispering to him.  Then he turned and
spoke to the crowd, and the crowd wailed again.  Then the yellow thing
turned clumsily round and walked--you might almost say, waddled--back
into the stable and the Ape shut the door behind it.  After that the
fire must have been put out for the light vanished quite suddenly, and
Tirian was once more alone with the cold and the darkness.

He thought of other Kings who had lived and died in Narnia in old times
and it seemed to him that none of them had ever been so unlucky as
himself.  He thought of his great-grandfather's great-grandfather, King
Rilian, who had been stolen away by a Witch when he was only a young
prince and kept hidden for years in the dark caves beneath the land of
the Northern Giants.  But then it had all come right in the end, for
two mysterious children had suddenly appeared from the land beyond the
world's end and had rescued him so that he came home to Narnia and had
a long and prosperous reign.  "It's not like that with me," said Tirian
to himself.  Then he went further back and thought about Rilian's
father, Caspian the Seafarer, whose wicked uncle King Miraz had tried
to murder him, and how Caspian fled away into the woods and lived among
the Dwarfs.  But that story too had all come right in the end too: for
Caspian also had been helped by children--only there were four of them
that time--who came from somewhere beyond the world and fought a great
battle and set him on his father's throne.  "But it was all long ago,"
said Tirian to himself.  "That sort of thing doesn't happen now."  And
then he remembered (for he had always been good at history when he was
a boy) how those same four children who had helped Caspian had been in
Narnia over a thousand years before; and it was then that they had
defeated the terrible White Witch and ended the Hundred Years of
Winter, and after that they had reigned (all four of them together) at
Cair Paravel, till they were no longer children but great Kings and
lovely Queens, and their reign had been the golden age of Narnia.  And
Aslan had come into that story a lot.  He had come into all the other
stories too, as Tirian now remembered.  "Aslan--and children from
another world," thought Tirian.  "They have always come in when things
were at their worst.  Oh, if only they could now."

And he called out "Aslan!  Aslan!  Aslan!  Come and help us Now."

But the darkness and the cold and the quietness went on just the same.

"Let me be killed," cried the King.  "I ask nothing for myself.  But
come and save all Narnia."

And still there was no change in the night or the wood, but there began
to be a kind of change inside Tirian.  Without knowing why, he began to
feel a faint hope.  And he felt somehow stronger.  "Oh Aslan, Aslan,"
he whispered.  "If you will not come yourself, at least send me the
helpers from beyond the world.  Or let me call them.  Let my voice
carry beyond the world."  Then, hardly knowing that he was doing it, he
suddenly cried out in a great voice:

"Children!  Children!  Friends of Narnia!  Quick.  Come to me.  Across
the worlds I call you; I Tirian, King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel,
and Emperor of the Lone Islands!"

And immediately he was plunged into a dream (if it was a dream) more
vivid than any he had had in his life.

He seemed to be standing in a lighted room where seven people sat round
a table.  It looked as if they had just finished their meal.  Two of
these people were very old, an old man with a white beard and an old
woman with wise, merry, twinkling eyes.  He who sat at the right hand
of the old man was hardly full grown, certainly younger than Tirian
himself, but his face had already the look of a king and a warrior.
And you could almost say the same of the other youth who sat at the
right hand of the old woman.  Facing Tirian across the table sat a
fair-haired girl younger than either of these, and on either side of
her, a boy and girl who were younger still.  They were all dressed in
what seemed to Tirian the oddest kind of clothes.

But he had no time to think about details like that, for instantly the
youngest boy and both the girls started to their feet, and one of them
gave a little scream.  The old woman started and drew in her breath
sharply.  The old man must have made some sudden movement too for the
wine glass which stood at his right hand was swept off the table:
Tirian could hear the tinkling noise as it broke on the floor.

Then Tirian realised that these people could see him; they were staring
at him as if they saw a ghost.  But he noticed that the king-like one
who sat at the old man's right never moved (though he turned pale)
except that he clenched his hand very tight.  Then he said:

"Speak, if you're not a phantom or a dream.  You have a Narnian look
about you and we are the seven friends of Narnia."

Tirian was longing to speak, and he tried to cry out aloud that he was
Tirian of Narnia, in great need of help.  But he found (as I have
sometimes found in dreams too) that his voice made no noise at all.

The one who had already spoken to him arose to his feet.  "Shadow or
spirit or whatever you are," he said, fixing his eyes full upon Tirian.
"If you are from Narnia, I charge you in the name of Aslan, speak to
me.  I am Peter the High King."

The room began to swim before Tirian's eyes.  He heard the voices of
those seven people all speaking at once, and all getting fainter every
second, and they were saying things like, "Look!  It's fading."  "It's
melting away."  "It's vanishing."  Next moment he was wide awake, still
tied to the tree, colder and stiffer than ever.  The wood was full of
the pale, dreary light that comes before sunrise, and he was soaking
wet with dew; it was nearly morning.

That waking was about the worst moment he had ever had in his life.




CHAPTER V

_How Help Came to the King_

But his misery did not last long.  Almost at once there came a bump,
and then a second bump, and two children were standing before him.  The
wood in front of him had been quite empty a second before and he knew
they had not come from behind his tree, for he would have heard them.
They had in fact simply appeared from nowhere.  He saw at a glance that
they were wearing the same queer, dingy sort of clothes as the people
in his dream; and he saw, at a second glance, that they were the
youngest boy and girl out of that party of seven.

"Gosh!" said the Boy, "that took one's breath away!  I thought----"

"Hurry up and get him untied," said the girl.  "We can talk
afterwards."  Then she added, turning to Tirian, "I'm sorry we've been
so long.  We came the moment we could."

While she was speaking the Boy had produced a knife from his pocket and
was quickly cutting the King's bonds: too quickly, in fact, for the
King was so stiff and numb that when the last cord was cut he fell
forward on his hands and knees.  He couldn't get up again till he had
brought some life back into his legs by a good rubbing.

"I say," said the girl.  "It was you, wasn't it, who appeared to us
that night when we were all at supper?  Nearly a week ago."

"A week, fair maid?" said Tirian.  "My dream led me into your world
scarce ten minutes since."

"It's the usual muddle about times, Pole," said the Boy.

"I remember now," said Tirian.  "That too comes in all the old tales.
The time of your strange land is different from ours.  But if we speak
of Time, 'tis time to be gone from here: for my enemies are close at
hand.  Will you come with me?"

"Of course," said the girl.  "It's you we've come to help."

Tirian got to his feet and led them rapidly downhill, southward and
away from the stable.  He knew well where he meant to go but his first
aim was to get to rocky places where they would leave no trail, and his
second to cross some water so that they would leave no scent.  This
took them about an hour's scrambling and wading and while that was
going on nobody had any breath to talk.  But even so, Tirian kept on
stealing glances at his companions.  The wonder of walking beside the
creatures from another world made him feel a little dizzy: but it also
made all the old stories seem far more real than they had ever seemed
before ... anything might happen now.

"Now," said Tirian as they came to the head of a little valley which
ran down before them among young birch trees, "we are out of danger of
those villains for a space and may walk more easily."  The sun had
risen, dew-drops were twinkling on every branch, and birds were singing.

"What about some grub?--I mean for you, Sir; we two have had our
breakfast," said the Boy.

Tirian wondered very much what he meant by "grub," but when the Boy
opened a bulgy satchel which he was carrying and pulled out a rather
greasy and squashy packet, he understood.  He was ravenously hungry,
though he hadn't thought about it till that moment.  There were two
hard-boiled egg sandwiches, and two cheese sandwiches, and two with
some kind of paste in them.  If he hadn't been so hungry, he wouldn't
have thought much of the paste, for that is a sort of food nobody eats
in Narnia.  By the time he had eaten all six sandwiches they had come
to the bottom of the valley and there they found a moss cliff with a
little fountain bubbling out of it.  All three stopped and drank and
splashed their hot faces.

"And now," said the girl as she tossed her wet hair back from her
forehead, "aren't you going to tell us who you are and why you were
tied up and what it's all about?"

"With a good will, damsel," said Tirian.  "But we must keep on the
march."  So while they went on walking he told them who he was and all
the things that had happened to him.  "And now," he said at the end, "I
am going to a certain tower, one of three that were built in my
grandsire's time to guard Lantern Waste against certain perilous
outlaws who dwelled there in his day.  By Aslan's good will I was not
robbed of my keys.  In that tower we shall find store of weapons and
mail and some victuals also, though no better than dry biscuit.  There
also we can lie safe while we make our plans.  And now, prithee, tell
me who you two are and all your story."

"I'm Eustace Scrubb and this is Jill Pole," said the Boy.  "And we were
here once before, ages and ages ago, more than a year ago by our time,
and there was a chap called Prince Rilian, and they were keeping this
chap underground, and Puddle-glum put his foot in----"

"Ha!" cried Tirian, "are you then that Eustace and that Jill who
rescued King Rilian from his long enchantment?"

"Yes, that's us," said Jill.  "So he's King Rilian now, is he?  Oh of
course he would be.  I forgot----"

"Nay," said Tirian, "I am the seventh in descent from him.  He has been
dead over two hundred years."

Jill made a face.  "Ugh!" she said.  "That's the horrid part about
coming back to Narnia."  But Eustace went on.

"Well now you know who we are, Sire," he said.  "And it was like this.
The Professor and Aunt Polly had got all us friends of Narnia
together----"

"I know not these names, Eustace," said Tirian.

"They're the two who came into Narnia at the very beginning, the day
all the animals learned to talk."

"By the Lion's Mane," cried Tirian.  "Those two!  The Lord Digory and
the Lady Polly!  From the dawn of the world!  And still alive in your
place?  The wonder and the glory of it!  But tell me, tell me."

"She isn't really our aunt, you know," said Eustace.  "She's Miss
Plummer, but we call her Aunt Polly.  Well, those two got us all
together: partly just for fun so that we could all have a good jaw
about Narnia (for of course there's no one else we can ever talk to
about things like that) but partly because the Professor had a feeling
that we were somehow wanted over here.  Well then you came in like a
ghost or goodness-knows-what and nearly frightened the lives out of us
and vanished without saying a word.  After that, we knew for certain
there was something up.  The next question was how to get here.  You
can't go just by wanting to.  So we talked and talked and at last the
Professor said the only way would be by the Magic Rings.  It was by
those Rings that he and Aunt Polly got here long, long ago when they
were only kids, years before we younger ones were born.  But the Rings
had all been buried in the garden of a house in London (that's our big
town, Sire) and the house had been sold.  So then the problem was how
to get at them.  You'll never guess what we did in the end!  Peter and
Edmund--that's the High King Peter, the one who spoke to you--went up
to London to get into the garden from the back, early in the morning
before people were up.  They were dressed like workmen so that if
anyone did see them it would look as if they'd come to do something
about the drains.  I wish I'd been with them: it must have been
glorious fun.  And they must have succeeded for next day Peter sent us
a wire--that's a sort of message, Sire, I'll explain about it some
other time--to say he'd got the Rings.  And the day after that was the
day Pole and I had to go back to school--we're the only two who are
still at school and we're at the same one.  So Peter and Edmund were to
meet us at a place on the way down to school and hand over the Rings.
It had to be us two who were to go to Narnia, you see, because the
older ones couldn't come again.  So we got into the train--that's kind
of thing people travel in in our world: a lot of wagons chained
together--and the Professor and Aunt Polly and Lucy came with us.  We
wanted to keep together as long as we could.  Well there we were in the
train.  And we were just getting to the station where the others were
to meet us, and I was looking out of the window to see if I could see
them when suddenly there came a most frightful jerk and a noise: and
there we were in Narnia and there was your Majesty tied up to the tree."

"So you never used the Rings?" said Tirian.

"No," said Eustace.  "Never even saw them.  Aslan did it all for us in
his own way without any Rings."

"But the High King Peter has them," said Tirian.

"Yes," said Jill.  "But we don't think he can use them.  When the two
other Pevensies--King Edmund and Queen Lucy--were last here, Aslan said
they would never come to Narnia again.  And he said something of the
same sort to the High King, only longer ago.  You may be sure he'll
come like a shot if he's allowed."

"Gosh!" said Eustace.  "It's getting hot in this sun.  Are we nearly
there, Sire?"

"Look," said Tirian and pointed.  Not many yards away grey battlements
rose above the treetops, and after a minute's more walking they came
out in an open grassy space.  A stream ran across it and on the far
side of the stream stood a squat, square tower with very few and narrow
windows and one heavy-looking door in the wall that faced them.

Tirian looked sharply this way and that to make sure that no enemies
were in sight.  Then he walked up to the tower and stood still for a
moment fishing up his bunch of keys which he wore inside his
hunting-dress on a narrow silver chain that went round his neck.  It
was a nice bunch of keys that he brought out, for two were golden and
many were richly ornamented: you could see at once that they were keys
made for opening solemn and secret rooms in palaces, or chests and
caskets of sweet-smelling wood that contained royal treasures.  But the
key which he now put into the lock of the door was big and plain and
more rudely made.  The lock was stiff and for a moment Tirian was
afraid that he would not be able to turn it: But at last he did and the
door swung open with a sullen creak.

"Welcome, friends," said Tirian.  "I fear this is the best palace that
the King of Narnia can now offer to his guests."

Tirian was pleased to see that the two strangers had been well brought
up.  They both said not to mention it and that they were sure it would
be very nice.

As a matter of fact it was not particularly nice.  It was rather dark
and smelled very damp.  There was only one room in it and this room
went right up to the stone roof: a wooden staircase in one corner led
up to a trap door by which you could get out on the battlements.  There
were a few rude bunks to sleep in, and a great many lockers and
bundles.  There was also a hearth which looked as if nobody had lit a
fire in it for a great many years.

"We'd better go out and gather some firewood first thing, hadn't we?"
said Jill.

"Not yet, comrade," said Tirian.  He was determined that they should
not be caught unarmed, and began searching the lockers, thankfully
remembering that he had always been careful to have these garrison
towers inspected once a year to make sure that they were stocked with
all things needful.  The bow strings were there in their coverings of
oiled silk, the swords and spears were greased against rust, and the
armour was kept bright in its wrappings.  But there was something even
better.  "Look!" said Tirian as he drew out a long mail shirt of a
curious pattern and flashed it before the children's eyes.

"That's funny looking mail, Sire," said Eustace.

"Aye, lad," said Tirian.  "No Narnian dwarf smithied that.  'Tis mail
of Calormen, outlandish gear.  I have ever kept a few suits of it in
readiness, for I never knew when I or my friends might have reason to
walk unseen in the Tisroc's land.  And look on this stone bottle.  In
this there is a juice which, when we have rubbed it on our hands and
faces, will make us brown as Calormenes."

"Oh hurrah!" said Jill.  "Disguises!  I love disguises."

Tirian showed them how to pour out a little of the juice into the palms
of their hands and then rub it well over their faces and necks, right
down to the shoulders, and then on their hands, right up to the elbows.
He did the same himself.

"After this has hardened on us," he said, "we may wash in water and it
will not change.  Nothing but oil and ashes will make us white Narnians
again.  And now, sweet Jill, let us go see how this mail-shirt becomes
you.  'Tis something too long, yet not so much as I feared.  Doubtless
it belonged to a page in the train of one of their Tarkaans."

After the mail shirts they put on Calormene helmets, which are little
round ones fitting tight to the head and having a spike on top.  Then
Tirian took long rolls of some white stuff out of the locker and wound
them over the helmets till they became turbans: but the little steel
spike still stuck up in the middle.  He and Eustace took curved
Calormene swords and little round shields.  There was no sword light
enough for Jill, but he gave her a long, straight hunting knife which
might do for a sword at a pinch.

"Hast any skill with the bow, maiden?" said Tirian.

"Nothing worth talking of," said Jill blushing.  "Scrubb's not bad."

"Don't you believe her, Sire," said Eustace.  "We've both been
practicing archery ever since we got back from Narnia last time, and
she's about as good as I now.  Not that either of us is much."

Then Tirian gave Jill a bow and a quiver full of arrows.  The next
business was to light a fire, for inside that tower it still felt more
like a cave than like anything indoors and set one shivering.  But they
got warm gathering the wood--the sun was now at its highest--and when
once the blaze was roaring up the chimney the place began to look
cheerful.  Dinner was, however, a dull meal, for the best they could do
was to pound up some of the hard biscuit which they found in a locker
and pour it into boiling water, with salt, so as to make a kind of
porridge.  And there was nothing to drink but water.

"I wish we'd brought a packet of tea," said Jill.

"Or a tin of cocoa," said Eustace.

"A firkin or so of good wine in each of these towers would not have
been amiss," said Tirian.




CHAPTER VI

_A Good Night's Work_

About four hours later Tirian flung himself into one of the bunks to
snatch a little sleep.  The two children were already snoring: he had
made them go to bed before he did because they would have to be up most
of the night and he knew that at their age they couldn't do without
sleep.  Also, he had tired them out.  First he had given Jill some
practice in archery and found that, though not up to Narnian standards,
she was really not too bad.  Indeed she had succeeded in shooting a
rabbit (not a _Talking_ rabbit, of course: there are lots of the
ordinary kind about in Western Narnia) and it was already skinned,
cleaned, and hanging up.  He had found that both the children knew all
about this chilly and smelly job; they had learned that kind of thing
on their great journey through Giant-Land in the days of Prince Rilian.
Then he had tried to teach Eustace how to use his sword and shield.
Eustace had learned quite a lot about sword fighting on his earlier
adventures but that had been all with a straight Narnian sword.  He had
never handled a curved Calormene scimitar and that made it hard, for
many of the strokes are quite different and some of the habits he had
learned with the long sword had now to be unlearned again.  But Tirian
found that he had a good eye and was very quick on his feet.  He was
surprised at the strength of both the children: in fact they both
seemed to be already much strong and bigger and more grown-up than they
had been when he first met them a few hours ago.  It is one of the
effects which Narnian air often has on visitors from our world.

All three of them agreed that the very first thing they must do was to
go back to Stable Hill and try to rescue Jewel the Unicorn.  After
that, if they succeeded, they would try to get away Eastward and meet
the little army which Roonwit the Centaur would be bringing from Cair
Paravel.

An experienced warrior and huntsman like Tirian can always wake up at
the time he wants.  So he gave himself till nine o'clock that night and
then put all worries out of his head and fell asleep at once.  It
seemed only a moment later when he woke but he knew by the light and
the very feel of things that he had timed his sleep exactly.  He got
up, put on his helmet-and-turban (he had slept in his mail-shirt), and
then shook the other two till they woke up.  They looked, to tell the
truth, very grey and dismal as they climbed out of their bunks and
there was a good deal of yawning.

"Now," said Tirian, "we go due North from here--by good fortune 'tis a
starry night--and it will be much shorter than our journey this
morning, for then we went roundabout but now we shall go straight.  If
we are challenged, then do you two hold your peace and I will do my
best to talk like a curst, cruel, proud lord of Calormen.  If I draw my
sword then thou, Eustace, must do likewise and let Jill leap behind us
and stand with an arrow on the string.  But if I cry 'Home,' then fly
for the Tower both of you.  And let none try to fight on--not even one
stroke--after I have given the retreat: such false valour has spoiled
many notable plans in the wars.  And now friends, in the name of Aslan
let us go forward."

Out they went into the cold night.  All the great northern stars were
burning above the treetops.  The North-Star of that world is called the
Spear-Head: it is brighter than our Pole Star.

For a time they could go straight towards the Spear-Head but presently
they came to a dense thicket so that they had to go out of their course
to get round it.  And after that--for they were still overshadowed by
branches--it was hard to pick up their bearings.  It was Jill who set
them right again: she had been an excellent Guide in England.  And of
course she knew her Narnian stars perfectly, having travelled so much
in the wild Northern Lands, and could work out the direction from other
stars even when the Spear-Head was hidden.  As soon as Tirian saw that
she was the best pathfinder of the three of them he put her in front.
And then he was astonished to find how silently and almost invisibly
she glided on before them.

"By the Mane!" he whispered to Eustace.  "This girl is a wondrous
wood-maid.  If she had Dryad's blood in her she could scarce do it
better."

"She's so small, that's what helps," whispered Eustace.  But Jill from
in front said: "S-s-s-h, less noise."

All round them the wood was very quiet.  Indeed it was far too quiet.
On an ordinary Narnian night there ought to have been noises--an
occasional cheery "Good night" from a hedgehog, the cry of an owl
overhead, perhaps a flute in the distance to tell of Fauns dancing, or
some throbbing, hammering noises from Dwarfs underground.  All that was
silenced: gloom and fear reigned over Narnia.

After a time they began to go steeply uphill and the trees grew further
apart.  Tirian could dimly make out the well known hilltop and the
stable.  Jill was now going with more and more caution: she kept on
making signs to the others with her hand to do the same.  Then she
stopped dead still and Tirian saw her gradually sink down into the
grass and disappear without a sound.  A moment later she rose again,
put her mouth close to Tirian's ear, and said in the lowest possible
whisper, "Get down.  _Thee_ better."  She said _thee_ for _see_ not
cause she had a lisp but because she knew that the hissing letter S is
the part of a whisper most likely to be overhead.  Tirian at once lay
down, almost as silently as Jill, but not quite for he was heavier and
older.  And once they were down, he saw how from that position you
could see the edge of the hill sharp against the star-strewn sky.  Two
black shapes rose against it: one was the stable, and the other, a few
feet in front of it, was a Calormene sentry.  He was keeping very ill
watch: not walking or even standing but sitting with his spear over his
shoulder and his chin on his chest.  "Well done," said Tirian to Jill.
She had shown him exactly what he needed to know.

They got up and Tirian now took the lead.  Very slowly, hardly daring
to breathe, they made their way up to a little clump of trees which was
not more than forty feet away from the sentinel.

"Wait here till I come again," he whispered to the other two.  "If I
miscarry, fly."  Then he sauntered out boldly in full view of the
enemy.  The man started when he saw him and was just going to jump to
his feet: he was afraid Tirian might be one of his own officers and
that he would get into trouble for sitting down.  But before he could
get up, Tirian had dropped on one knee beside him, saying:

"Art thou a warrior of the Tisroc's, may he live forever?  It cheers my
heart to meet thee among all these beasts and devils of Narnians.  Give
me thy hand, friend."

Before he well knew what was happening the Calormene sentry found his
right hand seized in a mighty grip.  Next instant someone was kneeling
on his legs and dagger was pressed against his neck.

"One noise and thou art dead," said Tirian in his ear.  "Tell me where
the Unicorn is and thou shall live."

"B--behind the stable, O My Master," stammered the unfortunate man.

"Good.  Rise up and lead me to him."

As the man got up the point of the dagger never left his neck.  It only
travelled round (cold and rather ticklish) as Tirian got behind him and
settled it at a convenient place under his ear.  Tremblingly he went
round to the back of the stable.

Though it was dark Tirian could see the white shape of Jewel at once.

"Hush!" he said.  "No, do not neigh.  Yes, Jewel, it is I.  How have
they tied thee?"

"Hobbled by all four legs and tied with a bridle to a ring in the
stable wall," came Jewel's voice.

"Stand here, sentry, with your back to the wall.  So.  Now, Jewel: set
the point of your horn against this Calormene's breast."

"With a good will, Sire," said Jewel.

"If he moves, rive him to the heart."  Then in a few seconds Tirian cut
the ropes.  With the remains of them he bound the sentry hand and foot.
Finally he made him open his mouth, stuffed it full of grass and tied
him up from scalp to chin so that he could make no noise, lowered the
man into a sitting position and set him against the wall.

"I have done thee some discourtesy, soldier," said Tirian.  "But such
was my need.  If we meet again I may happen to do thee a better turn.
Now, Jewel, let us go softly."

He put his left arm round the beast's neck and bent and kissed its nose
and both had great joy.  They went back as quietly as possible to the
place where he had left the children.  It was darker in there under the
trees and he nearly ran into Eustace before he saw him.

"All's well," whispered Tirian.  "A good night's work.  Now for home."

They turned and had gone a few paces when Eustace said, "Where are you,
Pole?"  There was no answer.  "Is Jill on the other side of you, Sire?"
he asked.

"What?" said Tirian.  "Is she not on the other side of _you_?"

It was a terrible moment.  They dared not shout but they whispered her
name in the loudest whispers they could manage.  There was no reply.

"Did she go from you while I was away?" asked Tirian.

"I didn't see or hear her go," said Eustace.  "But she could have gone
without my knowing.  She can be as quiet as a cat; you've seen for
yourself."

At that moment a far off drumbeat was heard.  Jewel moved his ears
forward.  "Dwarfs," he said.

"And treacherous Dwarfs, enemies, as likely as not." muttered Tirian.

"And here comes something on hoofs, much nearer," said Jewel.

The two humans and the Unicorn stood dead still.  There were now so
many different things to worry about that they didn't know what to do.
The noise of hoofs came steadily nearer.  And then, quite close to
them, voice whispered:

"Hallow!  Are you all there?"

Thank heaven, it was Jill's.

"Where the _devil_ have you been to?" said Eustace in a furious
whisper, for he had been very frightened.

"In the Stable," gasped Jill, but it was the sort of gasp you give when
you're struggling with suppressed laughter.

"Oh," growled Eustace, "you think it funny, do you?  Well all I can say
is----"

"Have you got Jewel, Sire?" asked Jill.

"Yes.  Here he is.  What is that beast with you?"

"That's _him_," said Jill.  "But let's be off home before anyone wakes
up."  And again there came little explosions of laughter.

The others obeyed at once for they had already lingered long enough in
that dangerous place and the dwarf drums seemed to have come a little
nearer.  It was only after they had been walking southward for several
minutes that Eustace said:

"Got _him_?  What do you mean?"

"The false Aslan," said Jill.

"What!" said Tirian.  "Where have you been?  What have you done?"

"Well, Sire," said Jill.  "As soon as I saw that you'd got the sentry
out of the way I thought, hadn't I better have a look inside the Stable
and see what really _is_ there?  So I crawled along.  It was as easy as
anything to draw the bolt.  Of course it was pitch-black inside and
smelled like any other stable.  Then I struck a light and--would you
believe it?--there was nothing at all there but this old donkey with a
bundle of lionskin tied onto his back.  So I drew my knife and told him
he'd have to come along with me.  As a matter of fact I needn't have
threatened him with the knife at all.  He was very fed up with the
stable and quite ready to come--weren't you, Puzzle dear?"

"Great Scott!" said Eustace.  "Well I'm--I'm jiggered.  I was jolly
angry with you a moment ago, and I still think it was mean of you to
sneak off without the rest of us: but I must admit--well, I mean to
say--well it was a perfectly gorgeous thing to do.  If she were a boy,
she'd have to be knighted, wouldn't she, Sire?"

"If she were a boy," said Tirian, "she'd be whipped for disobeying
orders."  And in the dark no one could see whether he said this with a
frown or a smile.  Next minute there was a sound of rasping metal.

"What are you doing, Sire?" asked Jewel sharply.

"Drawing my sword to smite off the head of the accursed Ass," said
Tirian in a terrible voice.  "Stand clear, girl."

"Oh don't, please don't," said Jill.  "Really, you mustn't.  It wasn't
his fault.  It was all the Ape.  He didn't know any better.  And he's
very sorry.  He's a nice donkey.  His name's Puzzle.  And I've got my
arms round his neck."

"Jill," said Tirian, "you are the bravest and most woodwise of all my
subjects, but also the most malapert and disobedient.  Well: let the
Ass live.  What have you to say for yourself, Ass?"

"Me, Sire?" came the donkey's voice.  "I'm sure I'm very sorry if I've
done wrong.  The Ape said Aslan _wanted_ me to dress up like that.  And
I thought he'd know.  I'm not clever like him.  I only did what I was
told.  It wasn't any fun for me living in that Stable.  I don't even
know what's been going on outside.  He never let me out except for a
minute or two at night.  Some days they forgot to give me any water
too."

"Sire," said Jewel.  "Those Dwarfs are coming nearer and nearer.  Do we
want to meet them?"

Tirian thought for a moment and then suddenly gave a great laugh out
loud.  Then he spoke, not this time in a whisper.  "By the Lion," he
said, "I am growing slow-witted!  Meet them?  Certainly we will meet
them.  We will meet anyone now.  We have this Ass to show them.  Let
them see the thing they have feared and bowed to.  We can show them the
truth of the Ape's vile plot.  His secret's out.  The tide's turned.
Tomorrow we shall hang that Ape on the highest tree in Narnia.  No more
whispering and skulking and disguises.  Where are these honest Dwarfs?
We have good news for them."

When you have been whispering for hours the mere sound of anyone
talking out loud has a wonderfully stirring effect.  The whole party
began talking and laughing: even Puzzle lifted up his head and gave a
grand Haw-hee-haw-hee-hee; a thing the Ape hadn't allowed him to do for
days.  Then they set off in the direction of the drumming.  It grew
steadily louder and soon they could see torchlight as well.  They came
out on one of those rough roads (we should hardly call them roads at
all in England) which ran through Lantern Waste.  And there, marching
sturdily along, were about thirty Dwarfs, all with their little spades
and mattocks over their shoulders.  Two armed Calormenes led the column
and two more brought up the rear.

"Stay!" thundered Tirian as he stepped out on the road.  "Stay,
soldiers.  Whither do you lead these Narnian Dwarfs and by whose
orders?"




CHAPTER VII

_Mainly About Dwarfs_

The two Calormene soldiers at the head of the column, seeing what they
took for a Tarkaan or great lord with two armed pages, came to a halt
and raised their spears in salute.

"O My Master," said one of them, "We lead these manikins to Calormen to
work in the mines of the Tisroc, may-he-live-forever."

"By the great god Tash, they are very obedient," said Tirian.  Then
suddenly he turned to the Dwarfs themselves.  About one in six of them
carried a torch and by that flickering light he could see their bearded
faces all looking at him with grim and dogged expressions.  "Has the
Tisroc fought a great battle, Dwarfs, and conquered your land," he
asked, "that thus you go patiently to die in the salt pits of Pugrahan?"

The two soldiers glared at him in surprise but the Dwarfs all answered,
"Aslan's orders, Aslan's orders.  He's sold us.  What can we do against
_him_?"

"Tisroc indeed!" added one and spat.  "I'd like to see him try it!"

"Silence, dog!" said the chief soldier.

"Look!" said Tirian, pulling Puzzle forward into the light.  "It has
all been a lie.  Aslan has not come to Narnia at all.  You have been
cheated by the Ape.  This is the thing he brought out of the stable to
show you.  Look at it."

What the Dwarfs saw, now that they could see it close, was certainly
enough to make them wonder how they had ever been taken in.  The
lionskin had got pretty untidy already during Puzzle's long
imprisonment in the stable and it had been knocked crooked during his
journey through the dark wood.  Most of it was in a big lump on one
shoulder.  The head, besides being pushed sidewise, had somehow got
very far back so that anyone could now see his silly, gentle, donkey
face gazing out of it.  Some grass stuck out of one corner of his
mouth, for he'd been doing a little quiet nibbling as they brought him
along.  And he was muttering, "It wasn't my fault, I'm not clever.  I
never said I _was_."

For one second all the Dwarfs were staring at Puzzle with wide open
mouths and then one the soldiers said sharply, "Are you mad, My Master!
What are you doing to the slaves?" and the other said, "And who are
you?"  Neither of their spears were at the salute now--both were down
and ready for action.

"Give the password," said the chief soldier.

"This is my password," said the King as he drew his sword.  "_The light
is dawning, the lie broken_.  Now guard thee, miscreant, for I am
Tirian of Narnia."

He flew upon the chief soldier like lightning, Eustace, who had drawn
his sword when he saw the King draw his, rushed at the other one: his
face was deadly pale, but I wouldn't blame him for that.  And he had
the luck that beginners sometimes do have.  He forgot all that Tirian
had tried to teach him that afternoon, slashed wildly (indeed I'm not
sure his eyes weren't shut) and suddenly found, to his own great
surprise, that the Calormene lay dead at his feet.  And though that was
a great relief, it was, at the moment, rather frightening.  The King's
fight lasted a second or two longer: then he too had killed his man and
shouted to Eustace, "'Ware the other two."

But the Dwarfs had settled the two remaining Calormenes.  There was no
enemy left.

"Well struck, Eustace!" cried Tirian, clapping him on the back.  "Now,
Dwarfs, you are free.  Tomorrow I will lead you to free all Narnia.
Three cheers for Aslan!"

But the result which followed was simply wretched.  There was a feeble
attempt from a few Dwarfs (about five) which died away all at once:
from several others there were sulky growls.  Many said nothing at all.

"Don't they understand?" said Jill impatiently.

"What's wrong with all you Dwarfs?  Don't you hear what the King says?
It's all over.  The Ape isn't going to rule Narnia any longer.
Everyone can go back to ordinary life.  You can have fun again.  Aren't
you glad?"

After a pause of nearly a minute a not-very-nice looking Dwarf with
hair and beard as black as soot said:

"And who might you be, Missie?"

"I'm Jill," she said.  "The same Jill who rescued King Rilian from the
enchantment--and this is Eustace who did it too--and we've come back
from another world after hundreds of years.  Aslan sent us."

The Dwarfs all looked at one another with grins; sneering grins, not
merry ones.

"Well," said the Black Dwarf (whose name was Griffle), "I don't know
how all you chaps feel, but I feel I've heard as much about Aslan as I
want to for the rest of my life."

"That's right, that's right," growled the other Dwarfs.  "It's all a
trick, all a blooming trick."

"What do you mean?" said Tirian.  He had not been pale when he was
fighting but he was pale now.  He had thought this was going to be a
beautiful moment, but it was turning out more like a bad dream.

"You must think we're blooming soft in the head, that you must," said
Griffle.  "We've been taken in once and now you expect us to be taken
in again the next minute.  We've no more use for stories about Aslan,
see!  Look at him!  An old moke with long ears!"

"By heaven, you make me mad," said Tirian.  "Which of us said _that_
was Aslan?  That is the Ape's imitation of the real Aslan.  Can't you
understand?"

"And you've got a better imitation, I suppose!" said Griffle.  "No
thanks.  We've been fooled once and we're not going to be fooled again."

"I have not," said Tirian angrily, "I serve the real Aslan."

"Where's he?  Who's he?  Show him to us!" said several Dwarfs.

"Do you think I keep him in my wallet, fools?" said Tirian.  "Who am I
that I could make Aslan appear at my bidding?  He's not a tame lion."

The moment those words were out of his mouth he realised that he had
made a false move.  The Dwarfs at once began repeating "not a tame
lion, not a tame lion," in a jeering singsong.  "That's what the other
lot kept on telling us," said one.

"Do you mean you don't believe in the real Aslan?" said Jill.  "But
I've seen him.  And he has sent us two here out of a different world."

"Ah," said Griffle with a broad smile.  "So _you_ say.  They've taught
you your stuff all right.  Saying your lessons, ain't you?"

"Churl," cried Tirian, "will you give a lady a lie to her very face?"

"You keep a civil tongue in your head, Mister," replied the Dwarf.  "I
don't think we want any more kings--if you _are_ Tirian, which you
don't look like him--no more than we want any Aslans.  We're going to
look after ourselves from now on and touch our caps to nobody.  See?"

"That's right," said the other Dwarfs.  "We're on our own now.  No more
Aslan, no more kings, no more silly stories about other worlds.  The
Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs."  And they began to fall into their places
and to get ready for marching back to wherever they had come from.

"Little beasts!" said Eustace.  "Aren't you even going to say _thank
you_ for being saved from the salt-mines?"

"Oh, we know all about that," said Griffle over his shoulder.  "You
wanted to make use of us, that's why you rescued us.  You're playing
some game of your own.  Come on you chaps."

And the Dwarfs struck up the queer little marching song which goes with
the drumbeat, and off they tramped into the darkness.

Tirian and his friends stared after them.  Then he said the single word
"Come," and they continued their journey.

They were a silent party.  Puzzle felt himself to be still in disgrace,
and also he didn't really quite understand what had happened.  Jill,
besides being disgusted with the Dwarfs, was very impressed with
Eustace's victory over the Calormene and felt almost shy.  As for
Eustace, his heart was still beating rather quickly.  Tirian and Jewel
walked sadly together in the rear.  The King had his arm on the
Unicorn's shoulder and sometimes the Unicorn nuzzled the King's cheek
with his soft nose.  They did not try to comfort one another with
words.  It wasn't very easy to think of anything to say that would be
comforting.  Tirian had never dreamed that one of the results of an
Ape's setting up a false Aslan would be to stop people from believing
in the real one.  He had felt quite sure that the Dwarfs would rally to
his side the moment he showed them how they had been deceived.  And
then next night he would have led them to Stable Hill and shown Puzzle
to all the creatures and everyone would have turned against the Ape
and, perhaps after a scuffle with the Calormenes, the whole thing would
have been over.  But now, it seemed, he could count on nothing.  How
many other Narnians might turn the same way as the Dwarfs?

"Somebody's coming after us, I think," said Puzzle suddenly.

They stopped and listened.  Sure enough, there was a thump-thump of
small feet behind them.

"Who goes there!" shouted the King.

"Only me, Sire," came a voice.  "Me, Poggin the Dwarf.  I've only just
managed to get away from the others.  I'm on your side, Sire: and on
Aslan's.  If you can put a Dwarfish sword in my fist, I'd gladly strike
a blow on the right side before all's done."

Everyone crowded round him and welcomed him and praised him and slapped
him on the back.  Of course one single Dwarf could not make a very
great difference, but it was somehow very cheering to have even one.
The whole party brightened up.  But Jill and Eustace didn't stay bright
for very long, for they were now yawning their heads off and too tired
to think about anything but bed.

It was at the coldest hour of the night, just before dawn, that they
got back to the Tower.  If there had been a meal ready for them they
would have been glad enough to eat, but the bother and delay of getting
one was not to be thought of.  They drank from a stream, splashed their
faces with water, and tumbled into their bunks, except for Puzzle and
Jewel who said they'd be more comfortable outside.  This perhaps was
just as well, for a Unicorn and a fat, full-grown donkey indoors always
make a room feel rather crowded.

Narnian Dwarfs, though less than four feet high, are for their size
about the toughest and strongest creatures there are, so that Poggin,
in spite of a heavy day and a late night, woke fully refreshed before
any of the others.  He at once took Jill's bow, went out and shot a
couple of wood pigeons.  Then he sat plucking them on the door-step and
chatting to Jewel and Puzzle.  Puzzle looked and felt a good deal
better this morning.  Jewel, being a Unicorn and therefore one of the
noblest and most delicate of beasts, had been very kind to him, talking
to him about things of the sort they could both understand like grass
and sugar and the care of one's hoofs.  When Jill and Eustace came out
of the Tower yawning and rubbing their eyes at almost half past ten,
the Dwarf showed them where they could gather plenty of a Narnian weed
called Wild Fresney, which looks rather like our wood sorel but tastes
a good deal nicer when cooked.  (It needs a little butter and pepper to
make it perfect, but they hadn't these.)  So with one thing and
another, they had the makings of a capital stew for their breakfast or
dinner, whichever you choose to call it.  Tirian went a little further
off into the wood with an axe and brought back some branches for fuel.
While the meal was cooking--which seemed a very long time, especially
as it smelled nicer and nicer the nearer it came to being done--the
King found a complete Dwarfish outfit for Poggin: mail-shirt, helmet,
shield, sword, belt, and dagger.  Then he inspected Eustace's sword and
found that Eustace had put it back in the sheath all messy from killing
the Calormene.  He was scolded for that and made to clean and polish it.

All this while Jill went to and fro, sometimes stirring the pot and
sometimes looking out enviously at the Donkey and the Unicorn who were
contentedly grazing.  How many times that morning she wished she could
eat grass!

But when the meal came everyone felt it had been worth waiting for, and
there were second helpings all round.  When everyone had eaten as much
as he could, the three humans and the Dwarf came and sat on the
doorstep, the four-footed ones lay down facing them, the Dwarf (with
permission both from Jill and from Tirian) lit his pipe, and the King
said:

"Now, friend Poggin, you have more news of the enemy, most likely, than
we.  Tell us all you know.  And first, what tale do they tell of my
escape?"

"As cunning a tale, Sire, as ever was devised," said Poggin.  "It was
the Cat, Ginger, who told it, and most likely made it up too.  This
Ginger, Sire--oh, he's a slyboots if ever a cat was--said he was
walking past the tree to which those villains bound your Majesty.  And
he said (saving your reverence) that you were howling and swearing and
cursing Aslan: 'language I wouldn't like to repeat' were the words he
used, looking ever so prim and proper--you know the way a Cat can when
it pleases.  And then, says Ginger, Aslan himself suddenly appeared in
a flash of lightning and swallowed your Majesty up at one mouthful.
All the Beasts trembled at this story and some fainted right away.  And
of course the Ape followed it up.  There, he says, see what Aslan does
to those who don't respect him.  Let that be a warning to you all.  And
the poor creatures wailed and whined and said, it will, it will.  So
that in the upshot your Majesty's escape has not set them thinking
whether you still have loyal friends to aid you, but only made them
more afraid and more obedient to the Ape."

"What devilish policy!" said Tirian.  "This Ginger, then, is close in
the Ape's counsels."

"It's more a question by now, Sire, if the Ape is in _his_ counsels,"
replied the Dwarf.  "The Ape has taken to drinking, you see.  My belief
is that the plot is now mostly carried on by Ginger or Rishda--that's
the Calormene captain.  And I think some words that Ginger has
scattered among the Dwarfs are chiefly to blame for the scurvy return
they made you.  And I'll tell you why.  One of those dreadful midnight
meetings had just broken up the night before last and I'd gone a bit of
the way home when I found I'd left my pipe behind.  It was a real good
'un, an old favourite, so I went back to look for it.  But before I got
to the place where I'd been sitting (it was black as pitch there), I
heard a cat's voice say _Mew_ and a Calormene voice say 'here ... speak
softly,' so I just stood as still as if I were frozen.  And these two
were Ginger and Rishda Tarkaan as they call him.  'Noble Tarkaan,' said
the Cat in that silky voice of his.  'I just wanted to know exactly
what we both meant to-day about Aslan meaning _no more_ than Tash.'
'Doubtless, most sagacious of cats,' says the other, 'you have
perceived my meaning.'  'You mean,' says Ginger, 'that there's no such
person as either.'  'All who are enlightened know that,' said the
Tarkaan.  'Then we can understand one another,' purrs the Cat.  'Do
you, like me, grow a little weary of the Ape?'  'A stupid, greedy
brute,' says the other, 'but we must use him for the present.  Thou and
I must provide for all things in secret and make the Ape do our will.'
'And it would be better, wouldn't it,' said Ginger, 'to let some of the
more enlightened Narnians into our counsels: one by one, as we find
them apt.  For the Beasts who really believe in Aslan may turn at any
moment: and will, if the Ape's folly betrays his secret.  But those who
care neither for Tash nor Aslan but have only an eye to their own
profit, and such reward as the Tisroc may give them when Narnia is a
Calormene province, will be firm.'  'Excellent Cat,' said the Captain.
'But choose which ones carefully.'"

While the Dwarf had been speaking the day seemed to have changed.  It
had been sunny when they sat down.  Now Puzzle shivered.  Jewel shifted
his head uneasily.  Jill looked up.

"It's clouding over," she said.

"And it's so cold," said Puzzle.

"Cold enough, by the Lion!" said Tirian, blowing on his hands.  "And
faugh!  What foul smell is this?"

"Phew!" gasped Eustace.  "It's like something dead.  Is there a dead
bird somewhere about?  And why didn't we notice it before?"

With a great upheaval Jewel scrambled to his feet and pointed with his
horn.

"Look!" he cried.  "Look at it!  Look, look!"

Then all six of them saw; and over all their faces there came an
expression of uttermost dismay.




CHAPTER VIII

_What News the Eagle Brought_

In the shadow of the trees on the far side of the clearing something
was moving.  It was gliding very slowly Northward.  At first glance you
might have mistaken it for smoke, for it was grey and you could see
things through it.  But the deathly smell was not the smell of smoke.
Also, this thing kept its shape instead of billowing and curling as
smoke would have done.  It was roughly the shape of a man but it had
the head of a bird; some bird of prey with a cruel, curved beak.  It
had four arms which it held high above its head, stretching them out
Northward as if it wanted to snatch all Narnia in its grip; and its
fingers--all twenty of them--were curved like its beak and had long,
pointed, bird-like claws instead of nails.  It floated on the grass
instead of walking, and the grass seemed to wither beneath it.

After one look at it Puzzle gave a screaming bray and darted into the
Tower.  And Jill (who was no coward, as you know) hid her face in her
hands to shut out the sight of it.  The others watched it for perhaps a
minute, until it streamed away into the thicker trees on their right
and disappeared.  Then the sun came out again, and the birds once more
began to sing.

Everyone started breathing properly again and moved.  They had all been
still as statues while it was in sight.

"What was it?" said Eustace in a whisper.

"I have seen it once before," said Tirian.  "But that time it was
carved in stone and overlaid with gold and had solid diamonds for eyes.
It was when I was no older than thou, and had gone as a guest to the
Tisroc's court in Tashbaan.  He took me into the great temple of Tash.
There I saw it, carved above the altar."

"Then that--that thing--was Tash?" said Eustace.

But instead of answering him Tirian slipped his arm behind Jill's
shoulders and said, "How is it with you, Lady?"

"A-all right," said Jill, taking her hands away from her pale face and
trying to smile.  "I'm all right.  It only made me feel a little sick
for a moment."

"It seems, then," said the Unicorn, "That there is a real Tash, after
all."

"Yes," said the Dwarf.  "And this fool of an Ape, who didn't believe in
Tash, will get more than he bargained for!  He called for Tash: Tash
has come."

"Where has it--he--the Thing--gone to?" said Jill.

"North into the heart of Narnia," said Tirian.  "It has come to dwell
among us.  They have called it and it has come."

"Ho, ho, ho!" chuckled the Dwarf, rubbing its hairy hands together.
"It will be a surprise for the Ape.  People shouldn't call for demons
unless they really mean what they say."

"Who knows if Tash will be visible to the Ape?" said Jewel.

"Where has Puzzle got to?" said Eustace.

They all shouted out Puzzle's name and Jill went round to the other
side of the Tower to see if he had gone there.  They were quite tired
of looking for him when at last his large grey head peered cautiously
out of the doorway and he said, "Has it gone away?"  And when at last
they got him to come out, he was shivering the way a dog shivers before
a thunderstorm.

"I see now," said Puzzle, "that I really have been a very bad donkey.
I ought never to have listened to Shift.  I never thought things like
this would begin to happen."

"If you'd spent less time saying you weren't clever and more time
trying to be as clever as you could----" began Eustace but Jill
interrupted him.

"Oh leave poor old Puzzle alone," she said.  "It was all a mistake;
wasn't it, Puzzle dear?"  And she kissed him on the nose.

Though rather shaken by what they had seen, the whole party now sat
down again and went on with their talk.

Jewel had little to tell them.  While he was a prisoner he had spent
nearly all his time tied up at the back of the Stable, and had of
course heard none of the enemies' plans.  He had been kicked (he'd done
some kicking back too) and beaten and threatened with death unless he
would say that he believed it was Aslan who was brought out and shown
to them by firelight every night.  In fact he was going to be executed
this very morning if he had not been rescued.  He didn't know what had
happened to the Lamb.

The question they had to decide was whether they would go to Stable
Hill again that night, show Puzzle to the Narnians and try to make them
see how they had been tricked, or whether they should steal away
eastward to meet the help which Roonwit the Centaur was bringing up
from Cair Paravel and return against the Ape and his Calormenes in
force.  Tirian would very much like to have followed the first plan: he
hated the idea of leaving the Ape to bully his people one moment longer
than need be.  On the other hand, the way the Dwarfs had behaved last
night was a warning.  Apparently one couldn't be sure how people would
take it even if he showed them Puzzle.  And there were the Calormene
soldiers to be reckoned with.  Poggin thought there were about thirty
of them.  Tirian felt sure that if the Narnians all rallied to his
side, he and Jewel and the children and Poggin (Puzzle didn't count for
much) would have a good chance of beating them.  But how if half the
Narnians--including all the Dwarfs--just sat and looked on? or even
fought against him?  The risk was too great.  And there was, too, the
cloudy shape of Tash.  What might it do?

And then, as Poggin pointed out, there was no harm in leaving the Ape
to deal with his own difficulties for a day or two.  He would have no
Puzzle to bring out and show now.  It wasn't easy to see what story
he--or Ginger--could make up to explain that.  If the Beasts asked
night after night to see Aslan, and no Aslan was brought out, surely
even the simplest of them would get suspicious.

In the end they all agreed that the best thing was to go off and try to
meet Roonwit.

As soon as they had decided this, it was wonderful how much more
cheerful everyone became.  I don't honestly think that this was because
any of them was afraid of a fight (except perhaps Jill and Eustace).
But I daresay that each of them, deep down inside was very glad not to
go any nearer--or not yet--to that horrible bird-headed thing which,
visible or invisible, was now probably haunting Stable Hill.  Anyway,
one always feels better when one has made up one's mind.

Tirian said they had better remove their disguises, as they didn't want
to be mistaken for Calormenes and perhaps attacked by any loyal
Narnians they might meet.  The Dwarf made up a horrid-looking mess of
ashes from the hearth and grease out of the jar of grease, which was
kept for rubbing on swords and spearheads.  Then they took off their
Calormene armour and went down to the stream.  The nasty mixture made a
lather just like soft soap: it was a pleasant, homely sight to see
Tirian and the two children kneeling beside the water and scrubbing the
backs of their necks or puffing and blowing as they splashed the lather
off.  Then they went back to the Tower with red, shiny faces, looking
like people who have been given an extra-specially good wash before a
party.  They re-armed themselves in true Narnian style with straight
swords and three-cornered shields.  "Body of me," said Tirian.  "That
is better.  I feel a true man again."

Puzzle begged very hard to have the lionskin taken off him.  He said it
was too hot and the way it was rucked up on his back was uncomfortable:
also, it made him look so silly.  But they told him he would have to
wear it a bit longer, for they still wanted to show him in that get-up
to the other Beasts, even though they were now going to meet Roonwit
first.

What was left of the pigeon meat and rabbit meat was not worth bringing
away but they took some biscuits.  Then Tirian locked the door of the
Tower and that was the end of their stay there.

It was a little after two in the afternoon when they set out, and it
was the first really warm day of that spring.  The young leaves seemed
to be much further out than yesterday: the snowdrops were over, but
they saw several primroses.  The sunlight slanted through the trees,
birds sang, and always (though usually out of sight) there was the
noise of running water.  It was hard to think of horrible things like
Tash.  The children felt, "This is really Narnia at last."  Even
Tirian's heart grew lighter as he walked ahead of them, humming an old
Narnian marching song which had the refrain:

  Ho, rumble, rumble, rumble, rumble,
  Rumble drum belaboured.


After the King came Eustace and Poggin the Dwarf.  Poggin was telling
Eustace the names of all the Narnian trees, birds, and plants which he
didn't know already.  Sometimes Eustace would tell him about English
ones.

After them came Puzzle, and after him Jill and Jewel walking very close
together.  Jill had, as you might say quite fallen in love with the
Unicorn.  She thought--and she wasn't far wrong--that he was the
shiningest, delicatest, most graceful animal she had ever met: and he
was so gentle and soft of speech that, if you hadn't known, you would
hardly have believed how fierce and terrible he could be in battle.

"Oh, this is nice!" said Jill.  "Just walking along like this.  I wish
there could be more of _this_ sort of adventure.  It's a pity there's
always so much happening in Narnia."

But the Unicorn explained to her that she was quite mistaken.  He said
that the Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve were brought out of their
own strange world into Narnia only at times when Narnia was stirred and
upset, but she mustn't think it was always like that.  In between their
visits there were hundreds and thousands of years when peaceful King
followed peaceful King till you could hardly remember their names or
count their numbers, and there was really hardly anything to put into
the History Books.  And he went on to talk of old Queens and heroes
whom she had never heard of.  He spoke of Swanwhite the Queen who had
lived before the days of the White Witch and the Great Winter, who was
so beautiful that when she looked into any forest pool the reflection
of her face shone out of the water like a star by night for a year and
a day afterwards.  He spoke of Moonwood the Hare, who had such ears
that he could sit by Caldron Pool under the thunder of the great
waterfall and hear what men spoke in whispers at Cair Paravel.  He told
how King Gale, who was ninth in descent from Frank the first of all
Kings, had sailed far away into the Eastern seas and delivered the Lone
Islanders from a dragon and how, in return, they had given him the Lone
Islands to be part of the royal lands of Narnia for ever.  He talked of
whole centuries in which all Narnia was so happy that notable dances
and feasts, or at most tournaments, were the only things that could be
remembered, and every day and week had been better than the last.  And
as he went on, the picture of all those happy years, all the thousands
of them, piled up in Jill's mind till it was rather like looking down
from a high hill onto a rich, lovely plain full of woods and waters and
cornfields, which spread away and away till it got thin and misty from
distance.  And she said:

"Oh, I do hope we can soon settle the Ape and get back to those good,
ordinary times.  And then I hope they'll go on for ever and ever and
ever.  _Our_ world is going to have an end some day.  Perhaps this one
won't.  Oh, Jewel--wouldn't it be lovely if Narnia just went on and
on--like what you said it has been?"

"Nay, sister," answered Jewel, "all worlds draw to an end; except
Aslan's own country."

"Well, at least," said Jill, "I hope the end of this one is millions of
millions of millions of years away--hullo! what are we stopping for?"

The King and Eustace and the Dwarf were all staring up at the sky.
Jill shuddered, remembering what horrors they had seen already.  But it
was nothing of that sort this time.  It was small, and looked black
against the blue.

"I dare swear," said the Unicorn, "from its flight, that it is a
Talking bird."

"So think I," said the King.  "But is it a friend, or a spy of the
Ape's?"

"To me, Sire," said the Dwarf, "it has a look of Farsight the Eagle."

"Ought we to hide under the trees!" said Eustace.

"Nay," said Tirian, "best stand still as rocks.  He would see us for
certain if we moved."

"Look!  He wheels, he has seen us already," said Jewel, "He is coming
down in wide circles."

"Arrow on string, Lady," said Tirian to Jill.  "But by no means shoot
till I bid you.  He may be a friend."

If one had known what was going to happen next, it would have been a
treat to watch the grace and ease with which the huge bird glided down.
He alighted on a rocky crag a few feet from Tirian, bowed his crested
head, and said in his strange eagle's voice, "Hail, King."

"Hail, Farsight," said Tirian.  "And since you call me King, I may well
believe you are not a follower of the Ape and his false Aslan.  I am
glad of your coming."

"Sire," said the Eagle, "when you have heard my news you will be
sorrier at my coming than of the greatest woe that ever befell you."

Tirian's heart seemed to stop beating at these words, but he set his
teeth and said "Tell on."

"Two sights have I seen," said Farsight.  "One was Cair Paravel filled
with dead Narnians and living Calormenes: the Tisrocs banner advanced
upon your royal battlements: and your subjects flying from the
city--this way and that, into the woods.  Cair Paravel was taken from
the sea.  Twenty great ships of Calormen put in there in the dark of
the night before last night."

No one could speak.

"And the other sight, five leagues nearer than Cair Paravel, was
Roonwit the Centaur lying dead with Calormene arrow in his side.  I was
with him in his last hour and he gave me this message to your Majesty:
to remember that all worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a
treasure which no one is too poor to buy."

"So," said the King, after a long silence, "Narnia is no more."




CHAPTER IX

_The Great Meeting on Stable Hill_

For a long time they could not speak nor even shed a tear.  Then the
Unicorn stamped the ground with his hoof, and shook his mane, and spoke.

"Sire," he said, "There is now no need of counsel.  We see that the
Ape's plans were laid deeper than we dreamed.  Doubtless he has been
long in secret traffic with the Tisroc, and as soon as he had found the
lionskin, he sent him word to make ready his navy for the taking of
Cair Paravel and all Narnia.  Nothing now remains for us seven but to
go back to Stable Hill, proclaim the truth, and take the adventure that
Aslan sends us.  And if, by a great marvel, we defeat those thirty
Calormenes who are with the Ape, then to turn again and die in battle
with the far greater host of them that will soon march from Cair
Paravel."

Tirian nodded.  But he turned to the children and said: "Now, friends,
it is time for you to go hence into your own world.  Doubtless you have
done all that you were sent to do."

"B--but we've done nothing," said Jill who was shivering, not with fear
exactly but because everything was horrible.

"Nay," said the King, "you loosed me from the tree: you glided before
me like a snake last night in the wood and took Puzzle: and you,
Eustace, killed your man.  But you are too young to share in such a
bloody end as we others must meet to-night or, it may be, three days
hence.  I entreat you--nay, I command you--to return to your own place.
I should be put to shame if I let such young warriors fall in battle on
my side."

"No, no, no," said Jill (very white when she began speaking and then
suddenly very red and then white again).  "We won't, I don't care what
you say.  We're going to stick with you whatever happens, aren't we,
Eustace?"

"Yes, but there's no need to get so worked up about it," said Eustace
who had stuck his hands in his pockets (forgetting how very odd that
looks when you are wearing a mail shirt).  "Because you see, we haven't
any choice.  What's the good of talking about our going back!  How?
We've got no magic for doing it!"

This was very good sense but, at the moment, Jill hated Eustace for
saying it.  He was fond of being dreadfully matter-of-fact when other
people got excited.

When Tirian realised that the two strangers could not get home (unless
Aslan suddenly whisked them away) he next wanted them to go across the
southern mountains into Archenland where they might possibly be safe.
But they didn't know their way and there was no one to send with them.
Also, as Poggin said, once the Calormenes had Narnia they would
certainly take Archenland in the next week or so: the Tisroc had always
wanted to have these Northern countries for his own.  In the end
Eustace and Jill begged so hard that Tirian said they could come with
him and take their chance--or, as he much more sensibly called it "the
adventure that Aslan would send them."

The King's first idea was that they should not go back to Stable
Hill--they were sick of the very name of it by now--till after dark.
But the Dwarf told them that if they arrived here by daylight they
would probably find the place deserted, except perhaps for a Calormene
sentry.  The Beasts were far too frightened by what the Ape (and
Ginger) had told them about this new angry Aslan--or Tashlan--to go
near it except when they were called together for those horrible
midnight meetings.  And Calormenes are never good woodsmen.  Poggin
thought that even by daylight they could easily get round to somewhere
behind the stable without being seen.  This would be much harder to do
when the night had come and the Ape might be calling the Beasts
together and all the Calormenes were on duty.  And when the meeting did
begin they could leave Puzzle at the back of the stable, completely out
of sight, till the moment at which they wanted to produce him.  This
was obviously a good thing: for their only chance was to give the
Narnians a sudden surprise.

Everyone agreed and the whole party set off on a new
line--north-west--towards the hated Hill.  The Eagle sometimes flew to
and fro above them, sometimes he sat perched on Puzzle's back.  No
one--not even the King himself except in some great need--would dream
of _riding_ on a Unicorn.

This time Jill and Eustace walked together.  They had been feeling very
brave when they were begging to be allowed to come with the others, but
now they didn't feel brave at all.

"Pole," said Eustace in a whisper.  "I may as well tell you I've got
the wind up."

"Oh _you're_ all right, Scrubb," said Jill.  "You can fight.  But
I--I'm just shaking, if you want to know the truth."

"Oh shaking's nothing," said Eustace.  "I'm feeling I'm going to be
sick."

"Don't talk about _that_, for goodness' sake," said Jill.

They went on in silence for a minute or two.

"Pole," said Eustace presently.

"What?" said she.

"What'll happen if we get killed here?"

"Well, we'll be dead, I suppose."

"But I mean, what will happen in our own world?  Shall we wake up and
find ourselves back in that trail?  Or shall we just vanish and never
be heard of any more?  Or shall we be dead in England?"

"Gosh.  I never thought of that."

"It'll be rum for Peter and the others if they saw me waving out of the
window and then when the train comes in we're nowhere to be found!  Or
if they found two--I mean, if we're dead over there in England."

"Ugh!" said Jill.  "What a horrid idea."

"It wouldn't be horrid for _us_," said Eustace.  "_We_ shouldn't be
there."

"I almost wish--no I don't, though," said Jill.

"What were you going to say?"

"I was going to say I wished we'd never come.  But I don't, I don't, I
don't.  Even if we _are_ killed.  I'd rather be killed fighting for
Narnia than grow old and stupid at home and perhaps go about in a
bathchair and then die in the end just the same."

"Or be smashed up by British Railways!"

"Why d'you say that?"

"Well when that awful jerk came--the one that seemed to throw us into
Narnia--I thought it was the beginning of a railway accident.  So I was
jolly glad to find ourselves here instead."

While Jill and Eustace were talking about this, the others were
discussing their plans and becoming less miserable.  That was because
they were now thinking of what was to be done this very night and the
thought of what had happened to Narnia--the thought that all her
glories and joys were over--was pushed away into the back part of their
minds.  The moment they stopped talking it would come out and make them
wretched again: but they kept on talking.  Poggin was really quite
cheerful about the nights' work they had to do.  He was sure that the
Boar and the Bear, and probably all the Dogs would come over to their
side at once.  And he couldn't believe that all the other Dwarfs would
stick to Griffle.  And fighting by firelight and in and out among trees
would be an advantage to the weaker side.  And then, if they could win
tonight, need they really throw their lives away by meeting the main
Calormene army a few days later?

Why not hide in the woods, or even up in the Western Waste beyond the
great waterfall and live like outlaws?  And they might gradually get
stronger and stronger, for Talking Beasts and Archenlanders would be
joining them every day.  And at last they'd come out of hiding and
sweep the Calormenes (who would have got careless by then) out of the
country and Narnia would be revived.  After all, something very like
that had happened in the time of King Miraz!

And Tirian heard all this and thought "But what about Tash?" and felt
in his bones that none of it was going to happen.  But he didn't say so.

When they got nearer to Stable Hill of course everyone became quiet.
Then the real wood-work began.  From the moment at which they first saw
the Hill to the moment at which they all arrived at the back of the
Stable, it took them over two hours.  It's the sort of thing one
couldn't describe properly unless one wrote pages and pages about it.
The journey from each bit of cover to the next was a separate
adventure, and there were very long waits in between, and several false
alarms.  If you are a good Scout or a good Guide, you will know already
what it must have been like.  By about sunset they were all safe in a
clump of holly trees about fifteen yards behind the stable.  They all
munched some biscuit and lay down.

Then came the worst part, the waiting.  Luckily for the children they
slept for a couple of hours, but of course they woke up when the night
grew cold, and what's worse, woke up very thirsty and with no chance of
getting a drink.  Puzzle just stood, shivering a little with
nervousness, and said nothing.  But Tirian, with his head against
Jewel's flank, slept as sound as if he were in his royal bed at Cair
Paravel, till the sound of a gong beating awoke him and he sat up and
saw that there was firelight on the far side of the stable and knew
that the hour had come.

"Kiss me, Jewel," he said.  "For certainly this is our last night on
earth.  And if ever I offended against you in any matter great or
small, forgive me now."

"Dear King," said the Unicorn, "I could almost wish you had, so that I
might forgive it.  Farewell.  We have known great joys together.  If
Aslan gave me my choice I would choose no other life than the life I
have had and no other death than the one we go to."

Then they woke up Farsight who was asleep with his head under his wing
(it made him look as if he had no head at all) and crept forward to the
stable.  They left Puzzle (not without a kind word, for no one was
angry with him now) just behind it, telling him not to move till
someone came to fetch him, and took up their position at one end of the
stable.

The bonfire had not been lit for long and was just beginning to blaze
up.  It was only a few feet away from them, and the great crowd of
Narnian creatures were on the other side of it, so that Tirian could
not at first see them very well, though of course he saw dozens of eyes
shining with the reflection of the fire, as you've seen a rabbit's or
cat's eyes in the headlights of a car.  And just as Tirian took his
place, the gong stopped beating and from somewhere on his left three
figures appeared.  One was Rishda Tarkaan, the Calormene Captain.  The
second was the Ape.  He was holding onto the Tarkaan's hand with one
paw and kept whimpering and muttering, "Not so fast, don't go so fast,
I'm not at _all_ well.  Oh my poor head!  These midnight meetings are
getting too much for me.  Apes aren't meant to be up at night: It's not
as if I was a rat or a bat--oh my poor head."  On the other side of the
Ape, walking very soft and stately, with his tail straight up in the
air, came Ginger the Cat.  They were heading for the bonfire and were
so close to Tirian that they would have seen him at once if they had
looked in the right direction.  Fortunately they did not.  But Tirian
heard Rishda say to Ginger in a low voice:

"Now Cat, to thy post.  See thou play thy part well."

"Miaow, miaow.  Count on me!" said Ginger.  Then he stepped away beyond
the bonfire and sat down in the front row of the assembled Beasts: in
the audience, as you might say.

For really, as it happened, the whole thing was rather like a theatre.
The crowd of Narnians were like the people in the seats; the little
grassy place just in front of the stable, where the bonfire burned and
the Ape and the Captain stood to talk to the crowd, was like the stage;
the stable itself was like the scenery at the back of the stagehand
Tirian and his friends were like people peering round from behind the
scenery.  It was a splendid position.  If any of them stepped forward
into the full firelight, all eyes would be fixed on him at once: on the
other hand, so long as they stood still in the shadow of the end wall
of the stable, it was a hundred to one against their being noticed.

Rishda Tarkaan dragged the Ape up close to the fire.  The pair of them
turned to face the crowd, and this of course meant that their backs
were towards Tirian and his friends.

"Now, Monkey," said Rishda Tarkaan in a low voice.  "Say the words that
wiser heads have put into thy mouth.  And hold up thy head."  As he
spoke he gave the Ape a little prod or kick from behind with the point
of his toe.

"Do leave me alone," muttered Shift.  But he sat up straighter and
began, in a louder voice----

"Now listen, all of you.  A terrible thing has happened.  A wicked
thing.  The wickedest thing that ever was done in Narnia.  And
Aslan----"

"Tashlan, fool," whispered Rishda Tarkaan.

"Tashlan I mean, of course," said the Ape, "is very angry about it."

There was a terrible silence while the Beasts waited to hear what new
trouble was in store for them.  The little party by the end-wall of the
stable also held their breath.  What on earth was coming now?

"Yes," said the Ape.  "At this very moment, when the Terrible One
himself is among us--there in the stable just behind me--one wicked
Beast has chosen to do what you'd think no one would dare to do even if
_He_ were a thousand miles away.  It has dressed itself up in a
lionskin and is wandering about in these very woods pretending to be
Aslan."

Jill wondered for a moment if the Ape had gone mad.  Was he going to
tell the whole truth?  A roar of horror and rage went up from the
Beasts.  "Grrr!" came the growls, "Who is he?  Where is he?  Just let
me get my teeth into him!"

"It was seen last night," screamed the Ape, "but it got away.  It's a
donkey!  A common, miserable Ass!  If any of you see that Ass----"

"Grrr!" growled the Beasts.  "We will, we will.  He'd better keep out
of _our_ way."

Jill looked at the King: his mouth was open and his face was full of
horror.  And then she understood the devilish cunning of the enemies'
plan.  By mixing a little truth with it they had made their lie far
stronger.  What was the good, now, of telling the Beasts that an ass
had been dressed up as a lion to deceive them?  The Ape would only say,
"That's just what I've said."  What was the good of showing them Puzzle
in his lionskin?  They would only tear him in pieces.  "That's taken
the wind out of our sails," whispered Eustace.  "The ground is taken
from under our feet," said Tirian.  "Curst, curst cleverness!" said
Poggin.  "I'll be sworn that this new lie is of Ginger's making."




CHAPTER X

_Who Will Go into the Stable?_

Jill felt something tickling her ear.  It was Jewel the Unicorn,
whispering to her with the wide whisper of a horse's mouth.  As soon as
she heard what he was saying she nodded and tiptoed back to where
Puzzle was standing.  Quickly and quietly she cut the last cords that
bound the lionskin to him.  It wouldn't do for him to be caught with
_that_ on, after what the Ape had said!  She would like to have hidden
the skin itself somewhere very far away, but it was too heavy.  The
best she could do was to kick it in among the thickest bushes.  Then
she made signs to Puzzle to follow her and they both joined the others.

The Ape was speaking again.

"And after a horrid thing like that, Aslan--Tashlan--is angrier than
ever.  He says he's been a great deal too good to you, coming out every
night to be looked at, see!  Well, he's not coming out any more."

Howls and mewings and squeals and grunts were the Animals' answer to
this, but suddenly a quite different voice broke in with a loud laugh.

"Hark what the monkey says," it shouted.  "We know why he isn't going
to bring his precious Aslan out.  I'll tell you why: because he hasn't
got him.  He never had anything except an old donkey with a lionskin on
its back.  Now he's lost _that_ and he doesn't know what to do."

Tirian could not see the faces on the other side of the fire very well
but he guessed this was Griffle the Chief Dwarf.  And he was quite
certain of it when, a second later, all the Dwarfs' voices joined in,
singing:

"Don't know what to do!  Don't know what to do!  Don't know what to
do-o-o!"

"Silence!" thundered Rishda Tarkaan, "Silence, children of mud!  Listen
to me, you other Narnians, lest I give command to my warriors to fall
upon you with the edge of the sword.  The Lord Shift has already told
you of that wicked Ass.  Do you think, because of him that there is no
_real_ Tashlan in the Stable!  Do you?  Beware, beware."

"No, no," shouted most of the crowd.  But the Dwarfs said "That's
right, Darkie, you've got it.  Come on, Monkey, show us what's in the
stable, seeing is believing."

When next there was a moment's quiet the Ape said:

"You Dwarfs think you're very clever, don't you?  But not so fast.  I
never said you couldn't see Tashlan.  Anyone who likes, can see him."

The whole assembly became silent.  Then, after nearly a minute, the
Bear began in a slow, puzzled voice.

"I don't quite understand all this," it grumbled, "I thought you
said----"

"_You_ thought!" repeated the Ape.  "As if anyone could call what goes
on in your head _thinking_.  Listen, you others.  Anyone can see
Tashlan.  But he's not coming out.  You have to go in and see _him_."

"Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you," said dozens of voices.  "That's
what we wanted!  We can go in and see him face to face.  And now he'll
be kind and it will all be as it used to be."  And the Birds chattered,
and the Dogs barked excitedly.  Then suddenly, there was a great
stirring and a noise of creatures rising to their feet, and in a second
the whole lot of them would have been rushing forward and trying to
crowd into the Stable door all together.  But the Ape shouted:

"Get back!  Quiet!  Not so fast."

The Beasts stopped, many of them with one paw in the air, many with
tails wagging, and all of them with heads on one side.

"I thought you said," began the Bear, but Shift interrupted.

"Anyone can go in," he said.  "But, one at a time.  Who'll go first?
He didn't _say_ he was feeling very kind.  He's been licking his lips a
lot since he swallowed up the wicked King the other night.  He's been
growling a good deal this morning.  I wouldn't much like to go into
that Stable myself tonight.  But just as you please.  Who'd like to go
in first?  Don't blame me if he swallows you whole or blasts you into a
cinder with the mere terror of his eyes.  That's your affair.  Now
then!  Who's first?  What about one of you Dwarfs?"

"Dilly, dilly, come and be killed!" sneered Griffle.  "How do we know
what you've got in there?"

"Ho-ho!" cried the Ape.  "So you're beginning to think there's
_something_ there, eh?  Well, all you Beasts were making noise enough a
minute ago.  What's struck you all dumb?  Who's going in first?"

But the Beasts all stood looking at one another and began backing away
from the Stable.  Very few tails were wagging now.  The Ape waddled to
and fro jeering at them.  "Ho-ho-ho!" he chuckled.  "I thought you were
all so eager to see Tashlan face to face!  Changed your mind, eh!"

Tirian bent his head to hear something that Jill was trying to whisper
in his ear.  "What do you think is really inside the Stable?" she said.
"Who knows?" said Tirian.  "Two Calormenes with drawn swords, as likely
as not, one on each side of the door."  "You don't think," said Jill
"It might be ... you know ... that horrid thing we saw?"  "Tash
himself?" whispered Tirian.  "There's no knowing.  But courage, child:
we are all between the paws of the true Aslan."

Then a most surprising thing happened.  Ginger the Cat said, in a cool,
clear voice, not at all as if he was excited, "I'll go in, if you like."

Every creature turned and fixed its eyes on the Cat.

"Mark their subtleties, Sire," said Poggin to the King.  "This curst
cat is in the plot, in the very centre of it.  Whatever is in the
Stable will not hurt him, I'll be bound.  Then Ginger will come out
again and say that he has seen some wonder."

But Tirian had no time to answer him.  The Ape was calling the Cat to
come forward.  "Ho-ho!" said the Ape, "so you, a pert Puss, would look
upon Him face to face.  Come on, then!  I'll open the door for you.
Don't blame me if He scares the whiskers off your face.  That's your
affair."

And the Cat got up and came out of its place in the crowd, walking
primly and daintily, with its tail in the air, not one hair on its
sleek coat out of place.  It came on till it had passed the fire and
was so close that Tirian, from where he stood with his shoulder against
the end-wall of the stable, could look right into its face.  Its big
green eyes never blinked.  ("Cool as a cucumber," muttered Eustace.
"_It_ knows it has nothing to fear.")  The Ape, chuckling and making
faces, shuffled across beside the Cat: put up his paw: drew the bolt
and opened the door.  Tirian thought he could hear the Cat purring as
it walked into the dark doorway.

"Aii-aii-aouwee!----"  The most horrible caterwaul you ever heard made
everyone jump.  You have been wakened yourself by cats quarrelling or
making love on the roof in the middle of the night: you know the sound.

This was worse.  The Ape was knocked head over heels by Ginger coming
back out of the Stable at top speed.  If you had not known he was a
cat, you might have thought he was a ginger-coloured streak of
lightning.  He shot across the open grass, back into the crowd.  No one
wants to meet a cat in that state.  You could see animals getting out
of his way, left and right.  He dashed up a tree, whisked round, and
hung head downwards.  His tail was bristled out till it was nearly as
thick as his whole body: his eyes were like saucers of green fire:
along his back every single hair stood on end.

"I'd give my beard," whispered Poggin, "to know whether that brute is
only acting or whether it has really found something in there that
frightened it!"

"Peace, friend," said Tirian, for the Captain and the Ape were also
whispering and he wanted to hear what they said.  He did not succeed,
except that he heard the Ape once more whimpering "My head, my head,"
but he got the idea that those two were almost as puzzled by the cat's
behaviour as himself.

"Now, Ginger," said the Captain.  "Enough of that noise.  Tell them
what thou hast seen."

"Aii--Aii--Aaow--Awah," screamed the Cat.

"Art thou not called a _Talking_ Beast?" said the Captain.  "Then hold
thy devilish noise and talk."

What followed was rather horrible.  Tirian felt quite certain (and so
did the others) that the Cat was trying to say something: but nothing
came out of its mouth except the ordinary, ugly cat-noises you might
hear from any angry or frightened old Tom in a backyard in England.
And the longer he caterwauled the less like a Talking Beast he looked.
Uneasy whimperings and little sharp squeals broke out from among the
other Animals.

"Look, look!" said the voice of the Boar.  "It can't talk.  It has
forgotten how to talk!  It has gone back to being a dumb beast.  Look
at its face."  Everyone saw that it was true.  And then the greatest
terror of all fell upon those Narnians.  For every one of them had been
taught--when it was only a chick or a puppy or a cub--how Aslan at the
beginning of the world had turned the beasts of Narnia into Talking
Beasts and warned them that if they weren't good they might one day be
turned back again and be like the poor witless animals one meets in
other countries.  "And now it is coming upon us," they moaned.

"Mercy!  Mercy!" wailed the Beasts.  "Spare us, Lord Shift, stand
between us and Aslan, you must always go in and speak to him for us.
We daren't, we daren't."

Ginger disappeared further up into the tree.  No one ever saw him again.

Tirian stood with his hand on his sword-hilt and his head bowed.  He
was dazed with the horrors of that night.  Sometimes he thought it
would be best to draw his sword at once and rush upon the Calormenes:
then next moment he thought it would be better to wait and see what new
turn affairs might take.  And now a new turn came.

"My Father," came a clear, ringing voice from the left of the crowd.
Tirian knew at once that it was one of the Calormenes speaking, for in
the Tisroc's army the common soldiers call the officers, "My Master,"
but the officers call their senior officers, "My Father."  Jill and
Eustace didn't know this but, after looking this way and that, they saw
the speaker, for of course people at the sides of the crowd were easier
to see than people in the middle where the glare of the fire made all
beyond it look rather black.  He was young and tall and slender, and
even rather beautiful in the dark, haughty, Calormene way.

"My Father," he said to the Captain, "I also desire to go in."

"Peace, Emeth," said the Captain, "Who called thee to counsel?  Does it
become a boy to speak?"

"My Father," said Emeth.  "Truly I am younger than thou, yet I also am
of the blood of the Tarkaans even as thou art, and I also am the
servant of Tash.  Therefore...."

"Silence," said Rishda Tarkaan.  "Am I not thy Captain?  Thou has
nothing to do with this Stable.  It is for the Narnians."

"Nay, my Father," answered Emeth.  "Thou hast said that their Aslan and
our Tash are all one.  And if that is the truth, then Tash himself is
in yonder.  And how then sayest thou that I have nothing to do with
Him? for gladly would I die a thousand deaths if I might look once on
the face of Tash."

"Thou art a fool and understandest nothing," said Rishda Tarkaan.
"These be high matters."

Emeth's face grew sterner.  "Is it then not true that Tash and Aslan
are all one?" he asked.  "Has the Ape lied to us?"

"Of course they're all one," said the Ape.

"Swear it, Ape," said Emeth.

"Oh dear!" whimpered Shift, "I wish you'd all stop bothering me.  My
head does ache.  Yes, yes, I swear it."

"Then, My Father," said Emeth, "I am utterly determined to go in."

"Fool," began Rishda Tarkaan, but at once the Dwarfs began shouting:
"Come along, Darkie.  Why don't you let him in?  Why do you let
Narnians in and keep your own people out?  What have you got in there
that you don't want your own men to meet?"

Tirian and his friends could only see the back of Rishda Tarkaan, so
they never knew what his face looked like as he shrugged his shoulders
and said, "Bear witness all that I am guiltless of this young fool's
blood.  Get thee in, rash boy, and make haste."

Then, just as Ginger had done, Emeth came walking forward into the open
strip of grass between the bonfire and the Stable.  His eyes were
shining, his face very solemn, his hand was on his sword-hilt, and he
carried his head high.  Jill felt like crying when she looked at his
face.  And Jewel whispered in the King's ear, "By the Lion's Mane, I
almost love this young warrior, Calormene though he be.  He is worthy
of a better god than Tash."

"I do wish we knew what is really inside there," said Eustace.

Emeth opened the door and went in, into the black mouth of the Stable.
He closed the door behind him.  Only a few moments passed--but it
seemed longer--before the door opened again.  A figure in Calormene
armour reeled out, fell on its back, and lay still: the door closed
behind it.  The Captain leaped towards it and bent down to stare at its
face.  He gave a start of surprise.  Then he recovered himself and
turned to the crowd, crying out:

"The rash boy has had his will.  He has looked on Tash and is dead.
Take warning, all of you."

"We will, we will," said the poor Beasts.  But Tirian and his friends
stared first at the dead Calormene and then at one another.  For they,
being so close, could see what the crowd, being further off and beyond
the fire, could not see: this dead man was not Emeth.  He was quite
different: an older man, thicker and not so tall, with a big beard.

"Ho-ho-ho," chuckled the Ape.  "Any more?  Any one else want to go in?
Well, as you're all shy, I'll choose the next.  You, you Boar!  On you
come.  Drive him up, Calormenes.  He _shall_ see Tashlan face to face."

"O-o-mpy," grunted the Boar, rising heavily to his feet.  "Come on,
then.  Try my tusks."

When Tirian saw that brave Beast getting ready to fight for its
life--and Calormene soldiers beginning to close in on it with their
drawn scimitars--and no one going to its help--something seemed to
burst inside him.  He no longer cared if this was the best moment to
interfere or not.

"Swords out," he whispered to the others.  "Arrow on string.  Follow."

Next moment the astonished Narnians saw seven figures leap forth in
front of the Stable, four of them in shining mail.  The King's sword
flashed in the firelight as he waved it above his head and cried in a
great voice:

"Here stand I, Tirian of Narnia, in Aslan's name, to prove with my body
that Tash is a foul fiend, the Ape, a manifold traitor, and these
Calormenes, worthy of death.  To my side, all true Narnians.  Would you
wait till your new masters have killed you all one by one?"




CHAPTER XI

_The Pace Quickens_

Quick as lightning, Rishda Tarkaan leaped back out of reach of the
King's sword.  He was no coward, and would have fought single-handed
against Tirian and the Dwarf if need were.  But he could not take on
the Eagle and the Unicorn as well.  He knew how Eagles can fly into
your face and peck at your eyes and blind you with their wings.  And he
had heard from his father (who had met Narnians in battle) that no man,
except with arrows or a long spear, can match a Unicorn, for it rears
on its hind legs as it falls upon you and then you have its hoofs and
its horn and its teeth to deal with all at once.  So he rushed into the
crowd and stood calling out:

"To me, to me, warriors of the Tisroc, may-he-live-for-ever.  To me,
all loyal Narnians, lest the wrath of Tashlan fall upon you!"

While this was happening two other things happened as well.  The Ape
had not realised his danger as quickly as the Tarkaan.  For a second or
so he remained squatting beside the fire staring at the newcomers.
Then Tirian rushed upon the wretched creature, picked it up by the
scruff of the neck, and dashed back to the Stable shouting, "Open the
door!"  Poggin opened it.  "Go and drink your own medicine, Shift!"
said Tirian and hurled the Ape through into the darkness.  But as the
Dwarf banged the door shut again, a blinding greenish-blue light shone
out from the inside of the Stable, the earth shook, and there was a
strange noise--a clucking and screaming as if it was the hoarse voice
of some monstrous bird.  The Beasts moaned and howled and called out
"Tashlan!  Hide us from him!" and many fell down, and many hid their
faces in their wings or paws.  No one except Farsight the Eagle, who
has the best eyes of all living things, noticed the face of Rishda
Tarkaan at that moment.  And from what Farsight saw there he knew at
once that Rishda was just as surprised, and nearly as frightened, as
everyone else.  "There goes one," thought Farsight, "who had called on
gods he does not believe in.  How will it be with him if they have
really come?"

The third thing--which also happened at the same moment--was the only
really beautiful thing that night.  Every single Talking Dog in the
whole meeting (there were fifteen of them) came bounding and barking
joyously to the King's side.  They were mostly great big dogs with
thick shoulders and heavy jaws.  Their coming was like the breaking of
a great wave on the seabeach: it nearly knocked you down.  For though
they were Talking Dogs they were just as doggy as they could be: and
they all stood up and put their front paws on the shoulders of the
humans and licked their faces, all saying at once: "Welcome!  Welcome!
We'll help, we'll help, help, help.  Show us how to help, show us how,
how.  How-how-how?"

It was so lovely that it made you want to cry.  This, at last, was the
sort of thing they had been hoping for.  And when, a moment later,
several little animals (mice and moles and a squirrel or so) came
pattering up, squealing with joy, and saying "See, see.  We're here,"
and when, after that, the Bear and the Boar came too, Eustace began to
feel that perhaps, after all, everything might be going to come right.
But Tirian gazed round and saw how very few of the animals had moved.

"To me! to me!" he called.  "Have you all turned cowards since I was
your King?"

"We daren't," whimpered dozens of voices.  "Tashlan would be angry.
Shield us from Tashlan."

"Where are all the Talking Horses?" asked Tirian.

"We've seen, we've seen," squealed the Mice.  "The Ape has made them
work.  They're all tied--down at the bottom of the hill."

"Then all you little ones," said Tirian, "you nibblers and gnawers and
nutcrackers, away with you as fast as you can scamper and see if the
Horses are on our side.  And if they are, get your teeth into the ropes
and gnaw till the Horses are free, and bring them hither."

"With a good will, Sire," came the small voices, and with a whisk of
tails those sharp-eyed and sharp-toothed folk were off.  Tirian smiled
for mere love as he saw them go.  But it was already time to be
thinking of other things.  Rishda Tarkaan was giving his orders.

"Forward," he said.  "Take all of them alive if you can and hurl them
into the Stable: or drive them into it.  When they are all in we will
put fire to it and make them an offering to the great god Tash."

"Ha!" said Farsight to himself.  "So that is how he hopes to win Tash's
pardon for his unbelief."

The enemy line--about half of Rishda's force--was now moving forward,
and Tirian had barely time to give his orders.

"Out on the left, Jill, and try to shoot all you may before they reach
us.  Boar and Bear next to her.  Poggin on my left, Eustace on my
right.  Hold the right wing, Jewel.  Stand by him, Puzzle, and use your
hoofs.  Hover and strike, Farsight.  You Dogs, just behind us.  Go in
among them after the swordplay has begun.  Aslan to our aid!"

Eustace stood with his heart beating terribly, hoping and hoping that
he would be brave.  He had never seen anything (though he had seen both
a dragon and a sea-serpent) that made his blood run so cold as that
line of dark-faced bright-eyed men.  There were fifteen Calormenes, a
Talking Bull of Narnia, Slinkey the Fox, and Wraggle the Satyr.  Then
he heard twang-and-zipp on his left and one Calormene fell: then
twang-and-zipp again and the Satyr was down.  "Oh, well done,
daughter!" came Tirian's voice; and then the enemy were upon them.

Eustace could never remember what happened in the next two minutes.  It
was all like a dream (the sort you have when your temperature is over
100) until he heard Rishda Tarkaan's voice calling out from the
distance:

"Retire.  Back hither and re-form."

Then Eustace came to his senses and saw the Calormenes scampering back
to their friends.  But not all of them.  Two lay dead, pierced by
Jewel's horn, one by Tirian's sword.  The Fox lay dead at his own feet,
and he wondered if it was he who had killed it.  The Bull also was
down, shot through the eye by an arrow from Jill and gashed in his side
by the Boar's tusk.  But our side had its losses too.  Three dogs were
killed and a fourth was hobbling behind the line on three legs and
whimpering.  The Bear lay on the ground, moving feebly.  Then it
mumbled in its throaty voice, bewildered to the last, "I--I
don't----understand," laid its big head down on the grass as quietly as
a child going to sleep, and never moved again.

In fact, the first attack had failed.  Eustace didn't seem able to be
glad about it: he was so terribly thirsty and his arm ached so.

As the defeated Calormenes went back to their commander, the Dwarfs
began jeering at them.

"Had enough, Darkies?" they yelled.  "Don't you like it?  Why doesn't
your great Tarkaan go and fight himself instead of sending you to be
killed?  Poor Darkies!"

"Dwarfs," cried Tirian.  "Come here and use your swords, not your
tongues.  There is still time.  Dwarfs of Narnia!  You can fight well,
I know.  Come back to your allegiance."

"Yah!" sneered the Dwarfs.  "Not likely.  You're just as big humbugs as
the other lot.  We don't want any Kings.  The Dwarfs are for the
Dwarfs.  Boo!"

Then the Drum began: not a Dwarf drum this time, but a big bull's hide
Calormene drum.  The children from the very first hated the sound.
_Boom--boom--ba-ba-boom_ it went.  But they would have hated it far
worse if they had known what it meant.  Tirian did.  It meant that
there were other Calormene troops somewhere near and that Rishda
Tarkaan was calling them to his aid.  Tirian and Jewel looked at one
another sadly.  They had just begun to hope that they might win that
night: but it would be all over with them if new enemies appeared.

Tirian gazed despairingly round.  Several Narnians were standing with
the Calormenes whether through treachery or in honest fear of
"Tashlan."  Others were sitting still, staring, not likely to join
either side.  But there were fewer animals now: the crowd was much
smaller.  Clearly, several of them had just crept quietly away during
the fighting.

_Boom--boom--ba-ba-boom_ went the horrible drum.  Then another sound
began to mix with it.  "Listen!" said Jewel: and then "Look!" said
Farsight.  A moment later there was no doubt what is was.  With a
thunder of hoofs, with tossing heads, widened nostrils, and waving
manes, over a score of Talking Horses of Narnia came charging up the
hill.  The gnawers and nibblers had done their work.

Poggin the Dwarf and the children opened their mouths to cheer but that
cheer never came.  Suddenly the air was full of the sound of twanging
bow-strings and hissing arrows.  It was the Dwarfs who were shooting
and--for a moment Jill could hardly believe her eyes--they were
shooting the Horses.  Dwarfs are deadly archers.  Horse after horse
rolled over.  Not one of those noble Beasts ever reached the King.

"Little swine," shrieked Eustace, dancing in his rage.  "Dirty, filthy,
treacherous little brutes."  Even Jewel said, "Shall I run after those
Dwarfs, Sire, and spit ten of them on my horn at each plunge?"  But
Tirian, with his face as stern as stone, said, "Stand fast, Jewel.  If
you must weep, sweetheart (this was to Jill) turn your face aside and
see you wet not your bowstring.  And peace, Eustace.  Do not scold,
like a kitchen-girl.  No warrior scolds.  Courteous words or else hard
knocks are his only language."

But the Dwarfs jeered back at Eustace.  "That was a surprise for you,
little boy, eh?  Thought we were on your side, did you?  No fear.  We
don't want any Talking Horses.  We don't want you to win any more than
the other gang.  You can't take _us_ in.  The Dwarfs are for the
Dwarfs."

Rishda Tarkaan was still talking to his men, doubtless making
arrangements for the next attack and probably wishing he had sent his
whole force into the first.  The drum boomed on.  Then, to their
horror, Tirian and his friends heard, far fainter as if from a long way
off, an answering drum.  Another body of Calormenes had heard Rishda's
signal and were coming to support him.  You would not have known from
Tirian's face that he had now given up all hope.

"Listen," he whispered in a matter-of-fact voice, "we must attack now,
before yonder miscreants are strengthened by their friends."

"Bethink you, Sire," said Poggin, "that here we have the good wooden
wall of the Stable at our backs.  If we advance, shall we not be
encircled and get sword-points between our shoulders?"

"I would say as you do, Dwarf," said Tirian, "were it not their very
plan to force us into the Stable.  The further we are from its deadly
door, the better."

"The King is right," said Farsight.  "Away from this accursed Stable,
and whatever goblin lives inside it, at all costs."

"Yes, do let's," said Eustace.  "I'm coming to hate the very sight of
it."

"Good," said Tirian.  "Now look yonder to our left.  You see a great
rock that gleams white like marble in the firelight.  First we will
fall upon those Calormenes.  You, maiden, shall move out on our left
and shoot as fast as ever you may into their ranks: and you, Eagle, fly
at their faces from the right.  Meanwhile we others will be charging
them.  When we are so close, Jill, that you can no longer shoot at them
for fear of striking us, go back to the white rock and wait.  You
others, keep your ears wide even in the fighting.  We must put them to
flight in a few minutes or else not at all, for we are fewer than they.
As soon as I call _Back_, then rush to join Jill at the white rock,
where we shall have protection behind us and can breathe awhile.  Now,
be off, Jill."

Feeling terribly alone, Jill ran out about twenty feet, put her right
leg back and her left leg forward, and set an arrow to her string.  She
wished her hands were not shaking so.  "That's a rotten shot!" she said
as her first arrow sped towards the enemy and flew over their heads.
But she had another on the string next moment: she knew that speed was
what mattered.  She saw something big and black, darting into the faces
of the Calormenes.  That was Farsight.  First one man, and then
another, dropped his sword and put up both his hands to defend his
eyes.  Then one of her own arrows hit a man, and another hit a Narnian
wolf, who had, it seemed, joined the enemy.  But she had been shooting
only for a few seconds when she had to stop.  With a flash of swords
and of the Boar's tusks and Jewel's horn, and with deep baying from the
dogs, Tirian and his party were rushing on their enemies, like men in a
hundred yards' race.  Jill was astonished to see how unprepared the
Calormenes seemed to be.  She did not realise that this was the result
of her work and the Eagle's.  Very few troops can keep on looking
steadily to the front if they are getting arrows in their faces from
one side and being pecked by an eagle on the other.

"Oh well done.  _Well_ done!" shouted Jill.  The King's party were
cutting their way right into the enemy.  The Unicorn was tossing men as
you'd toss hay on a fork.  Even Eustace seemed to Jill (who after all
didn't know very much about swordsmanship) to be fighting brilliantly.
The Dogs were at the Calormenes' throats.  It was going to work!  It
was victory at last----

With a horrible, cold shock Jill noticed a strange thing.  Though
Calormenes were falling at each Narnian sword-stroke, they never seemed
to get any fewer.  In fact, there were actually more of them now than
when the fight began.  There were more every second.  They were running
up from every side.  They were new Calormenes.  These ones had spears.
There was such a crowd of them that she could hardly see her own
friends.  Then she heard Tirian's voice crying:

"Back!  To the rock!"

The enemy had been reinforced.  The drum had done its work.




CHAPTER XII

_Through the Stable Door_

Jill ought to have been back at the white rock already but she had
quite forgotten that part of her orders the excitement of watching the
fight.  Now she remembered.  She turned at once and ran to it, and
arrived there barely a second before the others.  It thus happened that
all of them, for a moment, had their backs to the enemy.  They all
wheeled round the moment they had reached it.  A terrible sight met
their eyes.

A Calormene was running towards the Stable door carrying something that
kicked and struggled.  As he came between them and the fire they could
see clearly both the shape of the man and the shape of what he carried.
It was Eustace.

Tirian and the Unicorn rushed out to rescue him.  But the Calormene was
now far nearer to the door than they.  Before they had covered half the
distance he had flung Eustace in and shut the door on him.  Half a
dozen more Calormenes had run up behind him.  They formed line on the
open space before the Stable.  There was no getting at it now.

Even then Jill remembered to keep her face turned aside, well away from
her bow.  "Even if I can't stop blubbing, I _won't_ get my string wet,"
she said.

"'Ware arrows," said Poggin suddenly.

Everyone ducked and pulled his helmet well over his nose.  The Dogs
crouched behind.  But though a few arrows came their way, it soon
became clear that they were not being shot at.  Griffle and his Dwarfs
were at their archery again.  This time they were coolly shooting at
the Calormenes.

"Keep it up, boys!" came Griffle's voice.  "All together.  Carefully.
We don't want Darkies any more than we want Monkeys--or Lions--or
Kings.  The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs."

Whatever else you may say about Dwarfs, no one can say they aren't
brave.  They could easily have got away to some safe place.  They
preferred to stay and kill as many of both sides as they could, except
when both sides were kind enough to save them trouble by killing one
another.  They wanted Narnia for their own.

What perhaps they had not taken into account was that the Calormenes
were mailclad and the Horses had had no protection.  Also the
Calormenes had a leader.  Rishda Tarkaan's voice cried out:

"Thirty of you keep watch on those fools by the white rock.  The rest,
after me, that we may teach these sons of earth a lesson."

Tirian and his friends, still panting from their fight and thankful for
a few minutes' rest, stood and looked on while the Tarkaan led his men
against the Dwarfs.  It was a strange scene by now.  The fire had sunk
lower: the light it gave was now less and of a darker red.  As far as
one could see, the whole place of assembly was now empty except for the
Dwarfs and the Calormenes.  In that light one couldn't make out much of
what was happening.  It sounded as if the Dwarfs were putting up a good
fight.  Tirian could hear Griffle using dreadful language, and every
now and then the Tarkaan calling "Take all you can alive!  Take them
alive!"

Whatever that fight may have been like, it did not last long.  The
noises of it died away.  Then Jill saw the Tarkaan coming back to the
stable: eleven men followed him, dragging eleven bound Dwarfs.
(Whether the others had all been killed, or whether some of them had
got away, was never known.)

"Throw them into the shrine of Tash," said Rishda Tarkaan.

And when the eleven Dwarfs, one after the other, had been flung or
kicked into that dark doorway and the door had been shut again, he
bowed low to the Stable and said:

"These also are for thy burnt offering, Lord Tash."

And all the Calormenes banged the flats of their swords on their
shields and shouted, "Tash!  Tash!  The great god Tash!  Inexorable
Tash!"  (There was no nonsense about "Tashlan" now.)

The little party by the white rock watched these doings and whispered
to one another.  They had found a trickle of water coming down the rock
and all had drunk eagerly--Jill and Poggin and the King in their hands,
while the four-footed ones lapped from the little pool which it had
made at the foot of the stone.  Such was their thirst that it seemed
the most delicious drink they had ever had in their lives, and while
they were drinking they were perfectly happy and could not think of
anything else.

"I feel in my bones," said Poggin, "that we shall all, one by one, pass
through that dark door before morning.  I can think of a hundred deaths
I would rather have died."

"It is indeed a grim door," said Tirian.  "It is more like a mouth."

"Oh, can't we do _anything_ to stop it?" said Jill in a shaken voice.

"Nay, fair friend," said Jewel, nosing her gently.  "It may be for us
the door to Aslan's country and we shall sup at his table tonight."

Rishda Tarkaan turned his back on the Stable and walked slowly to a
place in front of the white rock.

"Hearken," he said.  "If the Boar and the Dogs and the Unicorn will
come over to me and put themselves in my mercy, their lives shall be
spared.  The Boar shall go to a cage in the Tisroc's garden, the Dogs
to the Tisroc's kennels, and the Unicorn, when I have sawn his horn
off, shall draw a cart.  But the Eagle, the children, and he who was
the King shall be offered to Tash this night."

The only answer was growls.

"Get on, warriors," said the Tarkaan.  "Kill the beasts, but take the
two-legged ones alive."

And then the last battle of the last King of Narnia began.

What made it hopeless, even apart from the numbers of the enemy, was
the spears.  The Calormenes who had been with the Ape almost from the
beginning had had no spears: that was because they had come into Narnia
by ones and twos, pretending to be peaceful merchants, and of course
they had carried no spears for a spear is not a thing you can hide.
The new ones must have come in later, after the Ape was already strong
and they could march openly.  The spears made all the difference.  With
a long spear you can kill a boar before you are in reach of his tusks
and a unicorn before you are in reach of his horn; if you are very
quick and keep your head.  And now the levelled spears were closing in
on Tirian and his last friends.  Next minute they were all fighting for
their lives.

In a way it wasn't quite so bad as you might think.  When you are using
every muscle to the full--ducking under a spear-point here, leaping
over it there, lunging forward, drawing back, wheeling round--you
haven't much time to feel either frightened or sad.  Tirian knew he
could do nothing for the others now; they were all doomed together.  He
vaguely saw the Boar go down on one side of him, and Jewel fighting
furiously on the other.  Out of the corner of one eye he saw, but only
just saw, a big Calormene pulling Jill away somewhere by her hair.  But
he hardly thought about any of these things.  His only thought now was
to sell his life as dearly as he could.  The worst of it was that he
couldn't keep to the position in which he had started, under the white
rock.  A man who is fighting a dozen enemies at once must take his
chances wherever he can; must dart in wherever he sees an enemy's
breast or neck unguarded.  In a very few strokes this may get you quite
a distance from the spot where you began.  Tirian soon found that he
was getting further and further to the right, nearer to the Stable.  He
had a vague idea in his mind that there was some good reason for
keeping away from it.  But he couldn't now remember what the reason
was.  And anyway, he couldn't help it.

All at once everything came quite clear.  He found he was fighting the
Tarkaan himself.  The bonfire (what was left of it) was straight in
front.  He was in fact fighting in the very doorway of the Stable, for
it had been opened and two Calormenes were holding the door, ready to
slam it shut the moment he was inside.  He remembered everything now,
and he realised that the enemy had been edging him to the Stable on
purpose ever since the fight began.  And while he was thinking this, he
was still fighting the Tarkaan as hard as he could.

A new idea came into Tirian's head.  He dropped his sword, darted
forward, in under the sweep of the Tarkaan's scimitar, seized his enemy
by the belt with both hands, and jumped back into the Stable, shouting:

"Come in and meet Tash yourself!"

There was a deafening noise.  As when the Ape had been flung in, the
earth shook and there was a blinding light.

The Calormene soldiers outside screamed, "Tash, Tash!" and banged the
door.  If Tash wanted their own Captain, Tash must have him.  They, at
any rate, did not want to meet Tash.

For a moment or two Tirian did not know where he was or even who he
was.  Then he steadied himself, blinked, and looked around.  It was not
dark inside the Stable, as he had expected.  He was in strong light:
that was why he was blinking.

He turned to look at Rishda Tarkaan, but Rishda was not looking at him.
Rishda gave a great wail and pointed; then he put his hands before his
face and fell flat, face downwards on the ground.  Tirian looked in the
direction where the Tarkaan had pointed.  And then he understood.

A terrible figure was coming towards them.  It was far smaller than the
shape they had seen from the Tower, though still much bigger than a
man, and it was the same.  It had a vulture's head and four arms.  Its
beak was open and its eyes blazed.  A croaking voice came from its beak.

"Thou hast called me into Narnia, Rishda Tarkaan.  Here I am.  What
hast thou to say?"

But the Tarkaan neither lifted his face from the ground nor said a
word.  He was shaking like a man with a bad hiccup.  He was brave
enough in battle: but half his courage had left him earlier that night
when he first began to suspect that there might be a real Tash.  The
rest of it had left him now.

With a sudden jerk--like a hen stooping to pick up a worm--Tash pounced
on the miserable Rishda and tucked him under the upper of his two left
arms.  Then Tash turned his head sidewise to fix Tirian with one of his
terrible eyes: for of course, having a bird's head, he couldn't look at
you straight.

But immediately, from behind Tash, strong and calm as the summer sea, a
voice said:

"Begone, Monster, and take your lawful prey to your own place: in the
name of Aslan and Aslan's great Father, the Emperor-over-sea."

The hideous creature vanished, with the Tarkaan still under its arm.
And Tirian turned to see who had spoken.  And what he saw then set his
heart beating as it had never beaten in any fight.

Seven Kings and Queens stood before him, all with crowns on their heads
and all in glittering clothes, but the Kings wore fine mail as well and
had their swords drawn in their hands.  Tirian bowed courteously and
was about to speak when the youngest of the Queens laughed.

He stared hard at her face, and then gasped with amazement, for he knew
her.  It was Jill: but not Jill as he had last seen her with her face
all dirt and tears and an old drill dress half slipping off one
shoulder.  Now she looked cool and fresh, as fresh as if she had just
come from bathing.  And at first he thought she looked older, but then
didn't, and he could never make up his mind on that point.  And then he
saw that the youngest of the Kings was Eustace: but he also was changed
as Jill was changed.

Tirian suddenly felt awkward about coming among these people with the
blood and dust and sweat of a battle still on him.  Next moment he
realised that he was not in that state at all.  He was fresh and cool
and clean, and dressed in such clothes as he would have worn for a
great feast at Cair Paravel.  (But in Narnia your good clothes were
never your uncomfortable ones.  They knew how to make things that felt
beautiful as well as looking beautiful in Narnia: and there was no such
thing as starch or flannel or elastic to be found from one end of the
country to the other.)

"Sire," said Jill, coming forward and making a beautiful curtsey, "let
me make you known to Peter the High King over all Kings in Narnia."

Tirian had no need to ask which was the High King, for he remembered
his face (though here it was far nobler) from his dream.  He stepped
forward, sank on one knee and kissed Peter's hand.

"High King," he said.  "You are welcome to me."

And the High King raised him and kissed him on both cheeks as a High
King should.  Then he led him to the eldest of the Queens--but even she
was not old, and there were no grey hairs on her head and no wrinkles
on her cheek--and said, "Sir, this is that Lady Polly who came into
Narnia on the First Day, when Aslan made the trees grow and the Beasts
talk."  He brought him next to a man whose golden beard flowed over his
breast and whose face was full of wisdom.  "And this is my brother,
king Edmund: and this my sister, the Queen Lucy."

"Sir," said Tirian, when he had greeted all these.  "If I have read the
chronicles aright, there should be another.  Has not your Majesty two
sisters?  Where is Queen Susan?"

"My sister Susan," answered Peter shortly and gravely, "is no longer a
friend of Narnia."

"Yes," said Eustace, "and whenever you've tried to get her to come and
talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says 'What wonderful
memories you have!  Fancy your still thinking about all those funny
games we used to play when we were children.'"

"Oh Susan!" said Jill, "she's interested in nothing now-a-days except
nylons and lipstick and invitations.  She always was a jolly sight too
keen on being grown-up."

"Grown-up, indeed," said the Lady Polly.  "I wish she _would_ grow up.
She wasted all her school time wanting to be the age she is now, and
she'll waste all the rest of her life trying to stay that age.  Her
whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as
she can and then stop there as long as she can."

"Well, don't let's talk about that now," said Peter.  "Look!  Here are
lovely fruit trees.  Let us taste them."

And then, for the first time, Tirian looked about him and realised how
very queer this adventure was.




CHAPTER XIII

_How the Dwarfs Refused to be Taken In_

Tirian had thought--or he would have thought if he had had time to
think at all--that they were inside a little thatched stable, about
twelve feet long and six feet wide.  In reality they stood on grass,
the deep blue sky was overhead, and the air which blew gently on their
faces was that of a day in early summer.  Not far away from them rose a
grove of trees, thickly leaved, but under every leaf there peeped out
the gold or faint yellow or purple or glowing red of fruits such as no
one has seen in our world.  The fruit made Tirian feel that it must be
autumn: but there was something in the feel of the air that told him it
could not be later than June.  They all moved towards the trees.

Everyone raised his hand to pick the fruit he best liked the look of,
and then everyone paused for a second.  This fruit was so beautiful
that each felt, "It can't be meant for me ... surely we're not allowed
to pluck it."

"It's all right," said Peter.  "I know what we're all thinking.  But
I'm sure, quite sure, we needn't.  I've a feeling we've got to the
country where everything is allowed."

"Here goes, then!" said Eustace.  And they all began to eat.

What was the fruit like?  Unfortunately, no one can describe a taste.
All I can say is that, compared with those fruits, the freshest
grapefruit you've ever eaten was dull, and the juiciest orange was dry,
and the most melting pear was hard and woody, and the sweetest wild
strawberry was sour.  And there were no seeds or stones, and no wasps.
If you had once eaten that fruit, all the nicest things in this world
would taste like medicines after it.  But I can't describe it.  You
can't find out what it is like unless you can get to that country and
taste for yourself.

When they had eaten enough, Eustace said to King Peter, "You haven't
yet told us how you got here.  You were just going to, when King Tirian
turned up."

"There's not much to tell," said Peter.  "Edmund and I were standing on
the platform and we saw your train coming in.  I remember thinking it
was taking the bend far too fast.  And I remember thinking how funny it
was that our people were probably in the same train though Lucy didn't
know about it----"

"Your people, High King?" said Tirian.

"I mean my Father and Mother--Edmund's and Lucy's and mine."

"Why were they?" asked Jill.  "You don't mean to say _they_ know about
Narnia?"

"Oh no, it had nothing to do with Narnia.  They were on their way to
Bristol.  I'd only heard they were going that morning.  But Edmund said
they'd be bound to be going by that train."  (Edmund was the sort of
person who knows about railways).

"And what happened then?" said Jill.

"Well, it's not very easy to describe, is it, Edmund?" said the High
King.

"Not very," said Edmund.  "It wasn't at all like that other time when
we were pulled out of our own world by Magic.  There was a frightful
roar and something hit me with a bang, but it didn't hurt.  And I felt
not so much scared as--well, excited.  Oh--and this is one queer thing.
I'd had a rather sore knee, from a hack at rugger.  I noticed it had
suddenly gone.  And I felt very light.  And then--here we were."

"It was much the same for us in the railway carriage," said the Lord
Digory, wiping the last traces of the fruit from his golden beard.
"Only I think you and I, Polly, chiefly felt that we'd been
unstiffened.  You youngsters won't understand.  But we stopped feeling
old."

"Youngsters, indeed!" said Jill.  "I don't believe you two really are
much older than we are here."

"Well if we aren't, we have been," said the Lady Polly.

"And what has been happening since you got here?" asked Eustace.

"Well," said Peter, "for a long time (at least I suppose it was a long
time) nothing happened.  Then the door opened----"

"The door?" said Tirian.

"Yes," said Peter, "The door you came in--or came out--by.  Have you
forgotten?"

"But where is it?"

"Look," said Peter and pointed.

Tirian looked and saw the queerest and most ridiculous thing you can
imagine.  Only a few yards away, clear to be seen in the sunlight,
there stood up a rough wooden door and, round it, the framework of the
doorway: nothing else, no walls, no roof.  He walked towards it,
bewildered, and the others followed, watching to see what he would do.
He walked round to the other side of the door.  But it looked just the
same from the other side: he was still in the open air, on a summer
morning.  The door was simply standing up by itself as if it had grown
there like a tree.

"Fair Sir," said Tirian to the High King, "this is a great marvel."

"It is the door you came through with that Calormene five minutes ago,"
said Peter smiling.

"But did I not come in out of the wood into the Stable?  Whereas this
seems to be a door leading from nowhere to nowhere."

"It looks like that if you walk _round_ it," said Peter.  "But put your
eye to that place where there is a crack between two of the planks and
look _through_."

Tirian put his eye to the hole.  At first he could see nothing but
blackness.  Then, as his eyes grew used to it, he saw the dull red glow
of a bonfire that was nearly going out, and above that, in a black sky,
stars.  Then he could see dark figures moving about or standing between
him and the fire: he could hear them talking and their voices were like
those of Calormenes.  So he knew that he was looking out through the
Stable door into the darkness of Lantern Waste where he had fought his
last battle.  The men were discussing whether to go in and look for
Rishda Tarkaan (but none of them wanted to do that) or to set fire to
the Stable.

He looked round again and could hardly believe his eyes.  There was the
blue sky overhead, and grassy country spreading as far as he could see
in every direction, and his new friends all round him, laughing.

"It seems, then," said Tirian, smiling himself, "that the Stable seen
from within and the Stable seen from without are two different places."

"Yes," said the Lord Digory.  "Its inside is bigger than its outside."

"Yes," said Queen Lucy.  "In our world too, a Stable once had something
inside it that was bigger than our whole world."  It was the first time
she had spoken, and from the thrill in her voice Tirian now knew why.
She was drinking everything in more deeply than the others.  She had
been too happy to speak.  He wanted to hear her speak again, so he said:

"Of your courtesy, Madam, tell on.  Tell me your whole adventure."

"After the shock and the noise," said Lucy, "we found ourselves here.
And we wondered at the door, as you did.  Then the door opened for the
first time (we saw darkness through the doorway when it did) and there
came through a big man with a naked sword.  We saw by his arms that he
was a Calormene.  He took his stand beside the door with his sword
raised, resting on his shoulder, ready to cut down anyone who came
through.  We went to him and spoke to him, but we thought he could
neither see nor hear us.  And he never looked round on the sky and the
sunlight and the grass: I think he couldn't see them either.  So then
we waited a long time.  Then we heard the bolt being drawn on the other
side of the door.  But the man didn't get ready to strike with his
sword till he could see who was coming.  So we supposed he had been
told to strike some and spare others.  But at the very moment when the
door opened, all of a sudden Tash was there, on this side of the door;
none of us saw where he came from.  And through the door there came a
big Cat.  It gave one look at Tash and ran for its life: just in time,
for he pounced at it and the door hit his beak as it was shut.  The man
could see Tash.  He turned very pale and bowed down before the Monster:
but it vanished.

"Then we waited a long time again.  At last the door opened for the
third time and there came in a young Calormene.  I liked him.  The
sentinel at the door started, and looked very surprised, when he saw
him.  I think he'd been expecting someone quite different----"

"I see it all now," said Eustace (he had the bad habit of interrupting
stories).  "The Cat was to go in first and the sentry had orders to do
him no harm.  Then the Cat was to come out and say he's seen their
beastly Tashlan and _pretend_ to be frightened to scare the other
Animals.  But what Shift never guessed was that the real Tash would
turn up; so Ginger came out really frightened.  And after that, Shift
would send in anyone he wanted to get rid of and the sentry would kill
them.  And----"

"Friend," said Tirian softly, "you hinder the lady in her tale."

"Well," said Lucy, "the sentry was surprised.  That gave the other man
just time to get on guard.  They had a fight.  He killed the sentry and
flung him outside the door.  Then he came walking slowly forward to
where we were.  He could see us, and everything else.  We tried to talk
to him but he was rather like a man in a trance.  He kept on saying,
'Tash, Tash, where is Tash?  I go to Tash.'  So we gave it up and he
went away somewhere--over there.  I liked him.  And after that ...
ugh!"  Lucy made a face.

"After that," said Edmund, "someone flung a monkey through the door.
And Tash was there again.  My sister is so tender-hearted she doesn't
like to tell you that Tash made one peck and the Monkey was gone!"

"Serves him right!" said Eustace.  "All the same, I hope he'll disagree
with Tash too."

"And after that," said Edmund, "came about a dozen Dwarfs: and then
Jill, and Eustace, and last of all yourself."

"I hope Tash ate the Dwarfs too," said Eustace.  "Little swine."

"No, he didn't," said Lucy.  "And don't be horrid.  They're still here.
In fact you can see them from here.  And I've tried and tried to make
friends with them but it's no use."

"_Friends_ with them!" cried Eustace.  "If you knew how those Dwarfs
have been behaving!"

"Oh stop it, Eustace," said Lucy.  "Do come and see them.  King Tirian,
perhaps you could do something with them."

"I can feel no great love for Dwarfs to-day," said Tirian.  "Yet at
your asking, Lady, I would do a greater thing than this."

Lucy led the way and soon they could all see the Dwarfs.  They had a
very odd look.  They weren't strolling about or enjoying themselves
(although the cords with which they had been tied seemed to have
vanished) nor were they lying down and having a rest.  They were
sitting very close together in a little circle facing one another.
They never looked round or took any notice of the humans till Lucy and
Tirian were almost near enough to touch them.  Then the Dwarfs all
cocked their heads as if they couldn't see any one but were listening
hard and trying to guess by the sound what was happening.

"Look out!" said one of them in a surly voice.  "Mind where you're
going.  Don't walk into our faces!"

"All right!" said Eustace indignantly.  "We're not blind.  We've got
eyes in our heads."

"They must be darn good ones if you can see in here," said the same
Dwarf whose name was Diggle.

"In where?" asked Edmund.

"Why you bone-head, in _here_ of course," said Diggle.  "In this
pitch-black, poky, smelly little hole of a stable."

"Are you blind?" said Tirian.

"Ain't we all blind in the dark!" said Diggle.

"But it isn't dark, you poor stupid Dwarfs," said Lucy.  "Can't you
see?  Look up!  Look round!  Can't you see the sky and the trees and
the flowers?  Can't you see _me_?"

"How in the name of all Humbug can I see what ain't there?  And how can
I see you any more than you can see me in this pitch darkness?"

"But I _can_ see you," said Lucy.  "I'll prove I can see you.  You've
got a pipe in your mouth."

"Anyone that knows the smell of baccy could tell that," said Diggle.

"Oh the poor things!  This is dreadful," said Lucy.  Then she had an
idea.  She stooped and picked some wild violets.  "Listen, Dwarf," she
said.  "Even if your eyes are wrong, perhaps your nose is all right:
can you smell _that_."  She leaned across and held the fresh, damp
flowers to Diggle's ugly nose.  But she had to jump back quickly in
order to avoid a blow from his hard little fist.

"None of that!" he shouted.  "How dare you!  What do you mean by
shoving a lot of filthy stable-litter in my face?  There was a thistle
in it too.  It's like your sauce!  And who are you anyway?"

"Earth-man," said Tirian, "she is the Queen Lucy, sent hither by Aslan
out of the deep past.  And it is for her sake alone that I, Tirian,
your lawful King, do not cut all your heads from your shoulders, proved
and twice-proved traitors that you are."

"Well if that doesn't beat everything!" exclaimed Diggle.  "How _can_
you go on talking all that rot?  Your wonderful Lion didn't come and
help you, did he?  Thought not.  And now--even now--when you've been
beaten and shoved into this black hole, just the same as the rest of
us, you're still at your old game.  Starting a new lie!  Trying to make
us believe we're none of us shut up, and it ain't dark, and heaven
knows what."

"There is no black hole, save in your own fancy, fool," cried Tirian.
"Come _out of_ it."  And, leaning forward, he caught Diggle by the belt
and the hood and swung him right out of the circle of Dwarfs.  But the
moment Tirian put him down, Diggle darted back to his place among the
others, rubbing his nose and howling:

"Ow!  Ow!  What d'you do that for!  Banging my face against the wall.
You've nearly broken my nose."

"Oh dear!" said Lucy "What _are_ we to do for them?"

"Let 'em alone," said Eustace: but as he spoke the earth trembled.  The
sweet air grew suddenly sweeter.  A brightness flashed behind them.
All turned.  Tirian turned last because he was afraid.  There stood his
heart's desire, huge and real, the golden Lion, Aslan himself, and
already the others were kneeling in a circle round his forepaws and
burying their hands and faces in his mane as he stooped his great head
to touch them with his tongue.  Then he fixed his eyes upon Tirian, and
Tirian came near, trembling, and flung himself at the Lion's feet, and
the Lion kissed him and said, "Well done, last of the Kings of Narnia
who stood firm at the darkest hour."

"Aslan," said Lucy through her tears, "could you--will you--do
something for these poor Dwarfs?"

"Dearest," said Aslan, "I will show you both what I can, and what I
cannot, do."  He came close to the Dwarfs and gave a low growl: low,
but it set all the air shaking.  But the Dwarfs said to one another,
"Hear that?  That's the gang at the other end of the Stable.  Trying to
frighten us.  They do it with a machine of some kind.  Don't take any
notice.  They won't take _us_ in again!"

Aslan raised his head and shook his mane.  Instantly a glorious feast
appeared on the Dwarfs' knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles
and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand.
But it wasn't much use.  They began eating and drinking greedily
enough, but it was clear that they couldn't taste it properly.  They
thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might
find in a Stable.  One said he was trying to eat hay and another said
he had got a bit of an old turnip and a third said he'd found a raw
cabbage leaf.  And they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their
lips and said "Ugh!  Fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough that a
donkey's been at!  Never thought we'd come to this."  But very soon
every Dwarf began suspecting that every other Dwarf had found something
nicer than he had, and they started grabbing and snatching, and went on
to quarrelling, till in a few minutes there was a free fight and all
the good food was smeared on their faces and clothes or trodden under
foot.  But when at last they sat down to nurse their black eyes and
their bleeding noses, they all said:

"Well, at any rate there's no Humbug here.  We haven't let anyone take
us in.  The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs."

"You see," said Aslan.  "They will not let us help them.  They have
chosen cunning instead of belief.  Their prison is only in their own
minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being taken in
that they can not be taken out.  But come, children.  I have other work
to do."

He went to the Door and they all followed him.  He raised his head and
roared "Now it is time!" then louder "Time!"; then so loud that it
could have shaken the stars, "TIME."  The Door flew open.




CHAPTER XIV

_Night Falls on Narnia_

They all stood beside Aslan, on his right side, and looked through the
open doorway.

The bonfire had gone out.  On the earth all was blackness: in fact you
could not have told that you were looking into a wood, if you had not
seen where the dark shapes of the trees ended and the stars began.  But
when Aslan had roared yet again, out on their left they saw another
black shape.  That is, they saw another patch where there were no
stars: and the patch rose up higher and higher and became the shape of
a man, the hugest of all giants.  They all knew Narnia well enough to
work out where he must be standing.  He must be on the high moorlands
that stretch away to the North beyond the River Shribble.  Then Jill
and Eustace remembered how once long ago, in the deep caves beneath
those moors, they had seen a great giant asleep and been told that his
name was Father Time, and that he would wake on the day the world ended.

"Yes," said Aslan, though they had not spoken.  "While he lay dreaming
his name was Time.  Now that he is awake he will have a new one."

Then the great giant raised a horn to his mouth.  They could see this
by the change of the black shape he made against the stars.  After
that--quite a bit later, because sound travels so slowly--they heard
the sound of the horn: high and terrible, yet of a strange, deadly
beauty.

Immediately the sky became full of shooting stars.  Even one shooting
star is a fine thing to see; but these were dozens, and then scores,
and then hundreds, till it was like silver rain: and it went on and on.
And when it had gone on for some while, one or two of them began to
think that there was another dark shape against the sky as well as the
giant's.  It was in a different place, right overhead, up in the very
roof of the sky as you might call it.  "Perhaps it is a cloud," thought
Edmund.  At any rate, there were no stars there: just blackness.  But
all around, the downpour of stars went on.  And then the starless patch
began to grow, spreading further and further out from the centre of the
sky.  And presently a quarter of the whole sky was black, and then a
half, and at last the rain of shooting stars was going on only low down
near the horizon.

With a thrill of wonder (and there was some terror in it too) they all
suddenly realized what was happening.  The spreading blackness was not
a cloud at all: it was simply emptiness.  The black part of the sky was
the part in which there were no stars left.  All the stars were
falling: Aslan had called them home.

The last few seconds before the rain of stars had quite ended were very
exciting.  Stars began falling all round them.  But stars in that world
are not the great flaming globes they are in ours.  They are people
(Edmund and Lucy had once met one).  So now they found showers of
glittering people, all with long hair like burning silver and spears
like white-hot metal, rushing down to them out of the black air,
swifter than falling stones.  They made a hissing noise as they landed
and burnt the grass.  And all these stars glided past them and stood
somewhere behind, a little to the right.

This was a great advantage, because otherwise, now that there were no
stars in the sky, everything would have been completely dark and you
could have seen nothing.  As it was, the crowd of stars behind them
cast a fierce, white light over their shoulders.  They could see mile
upon mile of Narnian woods spread out before them, looking as if they
were flood-lit.  Every bush and almost every blade of grass had its
black shadow behind it.  The edge of every leaf stood out so sharp that
you'd think you could cut your finger on it.

On the grass before them lay their own shadows.  But the great thing
was Aslan's shadow.  It streamed away to their left, enormous and very
terrible.  And all this was under a sky that would now be starless for
ever.

The light from behind them (and a little to their right) was so strong
that it lit up even the slopes of the Northern Moors.  Something was
moving there.  Enormous animals were crawling and sliding down into
Narnia: great dragons and giant lizards and featherless birds with
wings like bat's wings.  They disappeared into the woods and for a few
minutes there was silence.  Then there came--at first from very far
off--sounds of wailing and then, from every direction, a rustling and a
pattering and a sound of wings.  It came nearer and nearer.  Soon one
could distinguish the scamper of little feet from the padding of big
paws, and the clack-clack of light little hoofs from the thunder of
great ones.  And then one could see thousands of pairs of eyes
gleaming.  And at last, out of the shadow of the trees, racing up the
hill for dear life, by thousands and by millions, came all kinds of
creatures--Talking Beasts, Dwarfs, Satyrs, Fauns, Giants, Calormenes,
men from Archenland, Monopods, and strange unearthly things from the
remote islands or the unknown Western lands.  And all these ran up to
the doorway where Aslan stood.

This part of the adventure was the only one which seemed rather like a
dream at the time and rather hard to remember properly afterwards.
Especially, one couldn't say how long it had taken.  Sometimes it
seemed to have lasted only a few minutes, but at others it felt as if
it might have gone on for years.  Obviously, unless either the Door had
grown very much larger or the creatures had suddenly grown as small as
gnats, a crowd like that couldn't ever have tried to get through it.
But no one thought about that sort of thing at the time.

The creatures came rushing on, their eyes brighter and brighter as they
drew nearer and nearer to the standing Stars.  But as they came right
up to Aslan one or other of two things happened to each of them.  They
all looked straight in his face; I don't think they had any choice
about that.  And when some looked, the expression of their faces
changed terribly--it was fear and hatred: except that, on the faces of
Talking Beasts, the fear and hatred lasted only for a fraction of a
second.  You could see that they suddenly ceased to be _Talking_
Beasts.  They were just ordinary animals.  And all the creatures who
looked at Aslan in that way swerved to their right, his left, and
disappeared into his huge black shadow, which (as you have heard)
streamed away to the left of the doorway.  The children never saw them
again.  I don't know what became of them.  But the others looked in the
face of Aslan and loved him, though some of them were very frightened
at the same time.  And all these came in at the Door, in on Aslan's
right.  There were some queer specimens among them.  Eustace even
recognised one of those very Dwarfs who had helped to shoot the Horses.
But he had no time to wonder about that sort of thing (and anyway it
was no business of his) for a great joy put everything else out of his
head.  Among the happy creatures who now came crowding round Tirian and
his friends were all those whom they had thought dead.  There was
Roonwit the Centaur and Jewel the Unicorn, and the good Boar and the
good Bear and Farsight the Eagle, and the dear Dogs and the Horses, and
Poggin the Dwarf.

"Further in and higher up!" cried Roonwit and thundered away in a
gallop to the West.  And though they did not understand him, the words
somehow set them tingling all over.  The Boar grunted at them
cheerfully.  The Bear was just going to mutter that he still didn't
understand, when he caught sight of the fruit trees behind them.  He
waddled to those trees as fast as he could and there, no doubt, found
something he understood very well.  But the Dogs remained, wagging
their tails and Poggin remained, shaking hands with everyone and
grinning all over his honest face.  And Jewel leaned his snowy white
head over the King's shoulder and the King whispered in Jewel's ear.
Then everyone turned his attention again to what could be seen through
the Doorway.

The Dragons and Giant Lizards now had Narnia to themselves.  They went
to and fro tearing up the trees by the roots and crunching them up as
if they were sticks of rhubarb.  Minute by minute the forests
disappeared.  The whole country became bare and you could see all sorts
of things about its shape--all the little humps and hollows--which you
had never noticed before.  The grass died.  Soon Tirian found that he
was looking at a world of bare rock and earth.  You could hardly
believe that anything had ever lived there.  The monsters themselves
grew old and lay down and died.  Their flesh shrivelled up and the
bones appeared: soon they were only huge skeletons that lay here and
there on the dead rock, looking as if they had died thousands of years
ago.  For a long time everything was still.

At last something white--long, level line of whiteness that gleamed in
the light of the standing stars--came moving towards them from the
eastern end of the world.  A widespread noise broke the silence: first
a murmur, then a rumble, then a roar.  And now they could see what it
was that was coming, and how fast it came.  It was a foaming wall of
water.  The sea was rising.  In that treeless world you could see it
very well.  You could see all the rivers getting wider and the lakes
getting larger, and separate lakes joining into one, and valleys
turning into new lakes, and hills turning into islands, and then those
islands vanishing.  And the high moors to their left and the higher
mountains to their right crumbled and slipped down with a roar and a
splash into the mounting water; and the water came swirling up to the
very threshold of the Doorway (but never passed it) so that the foam
splashed about Aslan's forefeet.  All now was level water from where
they stood to where the water met the sky.

And out there it began to grow light.  A streak of dreary and
disastrous dawn spread along the horizon, and widened and grew
brighter, till in the end they hardly noticed the light of the stars
who stood behind them.  At last the sun came up.  When it did, the Lord
Digory and the Lady Polly looked at one another and gave a little nod:
those two, in a different world, had once seen a dying sun, and so they
knew at once that this sun also was dying.  It was three times--twenty
times--as big as it ought to be, and very dark red.  As its rays fell
upon the great Time-giant, he turned red too: and in the reflection of
that sun the whole waste of shoreless waters looked like blood.

Then the Moon came up, quite in her wrong position, very close to the
sun, and she also looked red.  And at the sight of her the sun began
shooting out great flames, like whiskers or snakes of crimson fire,
towards her.  It is as if he were an octopus trying to draw her to
himself in his tentacles.  And perhaps he did draw her.  At any rate
she came to him, slowly at first, but then more and more quickly, till
at last his long flames licked round her and the two ran together and
became one huge ball like a burning coal.  Great lumps of fire came
dropping out of it into the sea and clouds of steam rose up.

Then Aslan said, "Now make an end."

The giant threw his horn into the sea.  Then he stretched out one
arm--very black it looked, and thousands of miles long--across the sky
till his hand reached the Sun.  He took the Sun and squeezed it in his
hand as you would squeeze an orange.  And instantly there was total
darkness.

Everyone except Aslan jumped back from the ice-cold air which now blew
through the Doorway.  Its edges were already covered with icicles.

"Peter, High King of Narnia," said Aslan.  "Shut the Door."

Peter, shivering with cold, leaned out into the darkness and pulled the
Door to.  It scraped over ice as he pulled it.  Then, rather clumsily
(for even in that moment his hands had gone numb and blue) he took out
a golden key and locked it.

They had seen strange things enough through that Doonvay.  But it was
stranger than any of them to look round and find themselves in warm
daylight, the blue sky above them, flowers at their feet, and laughter
in Aslan's eyes.

He turned swiftly round, crouched lower, lashed himself with his tail
and shot away like a golden arrow.

"Come further in!  Come further up!" he shouted over his shoulder.  But
who could keep up with him at that pace?  They set out walking westward
to follow him.

"So," said Peter, "Night falls on Narnia.  What, Lucy!  You're not
_crying_?  With Aslan ahead, and all of us here?"

"Don't try to stop me, Peter," said Lucy, "I am sure Aslan would not.
I am sure it is not wrong to mourn for Narnia.  Think of all that lies
dead and frozen behind that door."

"Yes and I _did_ hope," said Jill, "that it might go on for ever.  I
knew _our_ world couldn't.  I did think Narnia might."

"I saw it begin," said the Lord Digory.  "I did not think I would live
to see it die."

"Sirs," said Tirian.  "The ladies do well to weep.  See I do so myself.
I have seen my mother's death.  What world but Narnia have I ever
known?  It were no virtue, but great discourtesy, if we did not mourn."

They walked away from the Door and away from the Dwarfs who still sat
crowded together in their imaginary Stable.  And as they went they
talked to one another about old wars and old peace and ancient Kings
and all the glories of Narnia.

The Dogs were still with them.  They joined in the conversation but not
very much because they were too busy racing on ahead and racing back
and rushing off to sniff at smells in the grass till they made
themselves sneeze.  Suddenly they picked up a scent which seemed to
excite them very much.  They all started arguing about it--"Yes it
is--No it isn't--That's just what I said--anyone can smell what _that_
is--Take your great nose out of the way and let someone else smell."

"What is it, cousins?" said Peter.

"A Calormene, Sire," said Several Dogs at once.

"Lead on to him, then," said Peter.  "Whether he meets us in peace or
war, he shall be welcome."

The Dogs darted on ahead and came back a moment later, running as if
their lives depended on it, and barking loudly to say that it really
was a Calormene.  (Talking Dogs, just like the common ones, behave as
if they thought whatever they are doing at the moment, immensely
important.)

The others followed where the Dogs led them and found a young Calormene
sitting under a chestnut tree beside a clear stream of water.  It was
Emeth.  He rose at once and bowed gravely.

"Sir," he said to Peter, "I know not whether you are my friend or my
foe, but I should count it my honour to have you for either.  Has not
one of the poets said that a noble friend is the best gift and a noble
enemy the next best?"

"Sir," said Peter, "I do not know that there need be any war between
you and us."

"Do tell us who you are and what's happened to you," said Jill.

"If there's going to be a story, let's all have a drink and sit down,"
barked the Dogs.  "We're quite blown."

"Well of course you will be, if you keep tearing about the way you have
done," said Eustace.

So the humans sat down on the grass.  And when the Dogs had all had a
very noisy drink out of the stream they all sat down, bolt upright,
panting, with their tongues hanging out of their heads a little on one
side, to hear the story.  But Jewel remained standing, polishing his
horn against his side.




CHAPTER XV

_Further Up and Further In_

"Know, O Warlike Kings," said Emeth, "and you, O Ladies, whose beauty
illuminates the universe, that I am Emeth, the seventh son of Harpa
Tarkaan of the city of Tehishbaan, Westward beyond the desert.  I came
lately into Narnia with nine and twenty others under the command of
Rishda Tarkaan.  Now when I first heard that we should march upon
Narnia, I rejoiced; for I had heard many things of your Land and
desired greatly to meet you in battle.  But when I found that we were
to go in disguised as merchants (which is a shameful dress for a
warrior and the son of a Tarkaan) and to work by lies and trickery,
then my joy departed from me.  And most of all when I found we must
wait upon a monkey, and when it began to be said that Tash and Aslan
were one, then the world became dark in my eyes.  For always since I
was a boy, I have served Tash and my great desire was to know more of
him and, if it might be, to look upon his face.  But the name of Aslan
was hateful to me.

"And, as you have seen, we were called together outside the
straw-roofed hovel, night after night, and the fire was kindled, and
the Ape brought forth out of the hovel something upon four legs that I
could not well see.  And the people and the Beasts bowed down and did
honour to it.  But I thought, the Tarkaan is deceived by the Ape: for
this thing that comes out of the stable is neither Tash nor any other
god.  But when I watched the Tarkaan's face, and marked every word that
he said to the Monkey, then I changed my mind: for I saw that the
Tarkaan did not believe in it himself.  And then I understood that he
did not believe in Tash at all: for if he had, how could he dare to
mock him?

"When I understood this, a great rage fell upon me and I wondered that
the true Tash did not strike down both the Monkey and the Tarkaan with
fire from heaven.  Nevertheless I hid my anger and held my tongue and
waited to see how it would end.  But last night, as some of you know,
the Monkey brought forth not the yellow thing, but said that all who
desired to look upon Tashlan--for so they mixed the two words to
pretend that they were all one--must pass one by one into the hovel.
And I said to myself, Doubtless this is some other deception.  But when
the Cat had gone in and had come out again in a madness of terror, then
I said to myself, 'Surely the true Tash, whom they called on without
knowledge or belief, has now come among us, and will avenge himself.'
And though my heart was turned into water inside me because of the
greatness and terror of Tash, yet my desire was stronger than my fear,
and I put force upon my knees to stay them from trembling, and on my
teeth that they should not chatter, and resolved to look upon the face
of Tash, though he should slay me.  So I offered myself to go into the
hovel; and the Tarkaan, though unwillingly, let me go.

"As soon as I had gone through the door, the first wonder was that I
found myself in this great sunlight (as we all are now) though the
inside of the hovel had looked dark from outside.  But I had no time to
marvel at this, for immediately I was forced to fight for my head
against one of our own men.  As soon as I saw him, I understood that
the Monkey and the Tarkaan had set him there to slay any who came in if
he were not in their secrets: so that this man also was a liar and a
mocker and no true servant of Tash.  I had the better will to fight
him; and having slain the villain, I cast him out behind me through the
door.

"Then I looked about me and saw the sky and the wide lands and smelled
the sweetness.  And I said, By the Gods, this is a pleasant place: it
may be that I am come into the country of Tash.  And I began to journey
into the strange country and to seek him.

"So I went over much grass and many flowers and among all kinds of
wholesome and delectable trees till lo! in a narrow place between two
rocks there came to meet me a great Lion.  The speed of him was like
the ostrich, and his size was an elephant's; his hair was like pure
gold and the brightness of his eyes, like gold that is liquid in the
furnace.  He was more terrible than the Flaming Mountain of Lagour, and
in beauty he surpassed all that is in the world, even as the rose in
bloom surpasses the dust of the desert.  Then I fell at his feet and
thought, Surely this is the hour of death, for the Lion (who is worthy
of all honour) will know that I have served Tash all my days and not
him.  Nevertheless, it is better to see the Lion and die than to be
Tisroc of the world and live and not to have seen him.  But the
Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his
tongue and said, Son, thou art welcome.  But I said, Alas, Lord, I am
no son of Thine but the servant of Tash.  He answered, Child, all the
service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me.  Then
by reason of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame
my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then
true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one?  The Lion growled so
that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is
false.  Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I
take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for I and he are
of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to
me, and none which is not vile can be done to him.  Therefore if any
man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me
that he has truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward
him.  And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the
name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted.
Dost thou understand, Child?  I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I
understand.  But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have
been seeking Tash all my days.  Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless
thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so
truly.  For all find what they truly seek.

"Then he breathed upon me and took away the trembling from my limbs and
caused me to stand upon my feet.  And after that, he said not much but
that we should meet again, and I must go further up and further in.
Then he turned him about in a storm and flurry of gold and was gone
suddenly.

"And since then, O Kings and Ladies, I have been wandering to find him
and my happiness is so great that it even weakens me like a wound.  And
this is the marvel of marvels, that he called me, Beloved, me who am
but as a dog----"

"Eh?  What's that?" said one of the Dogs.

"Sir," said Emeth.  "It is but a fashion of speech which we have in
Calormen."

"Well, I can't say it's one I like very much," said the Dog.

"He doesn't mean any harm," said an older Dog.  "After all, _we_ call
our puppies, _Boys_, when they don't behave properly."

"So we do," said the first Dog.  "Or, _girls_."

"S-s-sh!" said the Old Dog.  "That's not a nice word to use.  Remember
where you are."

"Look!" said Jill suddenly.  Someone was coming, rather timidly, to
meet them; a graceful creature on four feet, all silvery-grey.  And
they stared at him for a whole ten seconds before five or six voices
said all at once, "Why, it's old Puzzle!"  They had never seen him by
day light with the lionskin off, and it made an extraordinary
difference.  He was himself now: a beautiful donkey with such a soft,
grey coat and such a gentle, honest face that if you had seen him you
would have done just what Jill and Lucy did--rushed forward and put
your arms round his neck and kissed his nose and stroked his ears.

When they asked him where he had been, he said he had come in at the
door along with all the other creatures but he had--well, to tell the
truth, he had been keeping out of their way as much as he could; and
out of Aslan's way.  For the sight of the real Lion had made him so
ashamed of all that nonsense about dressing up in a lionskin that he
did not know how to look anyone in the face.  But when he saw that all
his friends were going away westward, and after he had had a mouthful
or so of grass ("And I've never tasted such good grass in my life,"
said Puzzle), he plucked up his courage and followed.  "But what I'll
do if I really have to meet Aslan, I'm sure I don't know," he added.

"You'll find it will be all right when you really do," said Queen Lucy.

Then they all went forward together, always westward, for that seemed
to be the direction Aslan had meant when he cried out "Further up and
further in."  Many other creatures were slowly moving the same way, but
that grassy country was very wide and there was no crowding.

It still seemed to be early and the morning freshness was in the air.
They kept on stopping to look round and to look behind them, partly
because it was so beautiful but partly also because there was something
about it which they could not understand.

"Peter," said Lucy, "where is this, do you suppose?"

"I don't know," said the High King.  "It reminds me of somewhere but I
can't give it a name.  Could it be somewhere we once stayed for a
holiday when we were very, very small?"

"It would have to have been a jolly good holiday," said Eustace.  "I
bet there isn't a country like this anywhere in our world.  Look at the
colours?  You couldn't get a blue like the blue on those mountains in
our world."

"Is it not Aslan's country?" said Tirian.

"Not like Aslan's country on top of that mountain beyond the eastern
end of the world," said Jill.  "I've been there."

"If you ask me," said Edmund, "Its like somewhere in the Narnian world.
Look at those mountains ahead--and the big ice-mountains beyond them.
Surely they're rather like the mountains we used to see from Narnia,
the ones up Westward beyond the Waterfall?"

"Yes, so they are," said Peter.  "Only these are bigger."

"I don't think _those_ ones are so very like anything in Narnia," said
Lucy.  "But look there."  She pointed south ward to their left, and
everyone stopped and turned to look.  "Those hills," said Lucy, "the
nice woody ones and the blue ones behind--aren't they very like the
southern border of Narnia?"

"Like!" cried Edmund after a moment's silence.  "Why they're exactly
like.  Look, there's Mount Pire with his forked head, and there's the
pass into Archenland and everything!"

"And yet they're not like," said Lucy.  "They're different.  They have
more colours on them and they look further away than I remembered and
they're more ... more ... oh, I don't know...."

"More like the real thing," said the Lord Digory softly.

Suddenly Farsight the Eagle spread his wings, soared thirty or forty
feet up into the air, circled round and then alighted on the ground.

"Kings and Queens," he cried, "we have all been blind.  We are only
beginning to see where we are.  From up there I have seen it
all--Ettinsmuir, Beaversdam, the Great River, and Cair Paravel still
shining on the edge of the Eastern Sea.  Narnia is not dead.  This is
Narnia."

"But how can it be?" said Peter.  "For Aslan told us older ones that we
should never return to Narnia, and here we are."

"Yes," said Eustace.  "And we saw it all destroyed and the sun put out."

"And it's all so different," said Lucy.

"The Eagle is right," said the Lord Digory.  "Listen, Peter.  When
Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia, he meant the Narnia you
were thinking of.  But that was not the real Narnia.  That had a
beginning and an end.  It was only a shadow or a copy of the real
Narnia, which has always been here and always will be here: just as our
own world, England and all, is only a shadow or copy of something in
Aslan's real world.  You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy.  All of the
old Narnia that mattered, all the dear creatures, have been drawn into
the real Narnia through the Door.  And of course it is different; as
different as a real thing is from a shadow or as waking life is from a
dream."  His voice stirred everyone like a trumpet as he spoke these
words: but when he added under his breath "It's all in Plato, all in
Plato: bless me, what _do_ they teach them at these schools!" the older
ones laughed.  It was so exactly like the sort of thing they had heard
him say long ago in that other world where his beard was grey instead
of golden.  He knew why they were laughing and joined in the laugh
himself.  But very quickly they all became grave again: for, as you
know, there is a kind of happiness and wonder that makes you serious.
It is too good to waste on jokes.

It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the
old Narnia, as it would be to tell you how the fruits of that country
taste.  Perhaps you will get some idea of it, if you think like this.
You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out
on a lovely bay of the sea or a green valley that wound away among
mountains.  And in the wall of that room opposite to the window there
may have been a looking glass.  And as you turned away from the window
you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley, all over again,
in the looking glass.  And the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the
mirror, were in one sense just the same as the real ones: yet at the
same time they were somehow different--deeper, more wonderful, more
like places in a story: in a story you have never heard but very much
want to know.  The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia
was like that.  The new one was a deeper country: every rock and flower
and blade of grass looked as if it meant more.  I can't describe it any
better than that: if you ever get there, you will know what I mean.

It was the Unicorn who summed up what everyone was feeling.  He stamped
his right fore-hoof on the ground and neighed and then cried:

"I have come home at last!  This is my real country!  I belong here.
This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never
knew it till now.  The reason why we loved the old Narnia is that it
sometimes looked a little like this.  Bree-hee-hee!  Come further up,
come further in!"

He shook his mane and sprang forward into a great gallop--a Unicorn's
gallop which, in our world, would have carried him out of sight in a
few moments.  But now a most strange thing happened.  Everyone else
began to run, and they found, to their astonishment, that they could
keep up with him: not only the Dogs and the humans but even fat little
Puzzle and short-legged Poggin the Dwarf.  The air flew in their faces
as if they were driving fast in a car without a windscreen.  The
country flew past as if they were seeing it from the windows of an
express train.  Faster and faster they raced, but no one got hot or
tired or out of breath.




CHAPTER XVI

_Farewell to Shadow-Lands_

If one could run without getting tired, I don't think one would often
want to do anything else.  But there might be special reasons for
stopping, and it was a special reason which made Eustace presently
shout:

"I say!  Steady!  Look what we're coming to!"

And well he might.  For now they saw before them Caldron Pool and
beyond the Pool, the high unclimbable cliffs and, pouring down the
cliffs, thousands of tons of water every second, flashing like diamonds
in some places and dark, glassy green in others, the Great Waterfall;
and already the thunder of it was in their ears.

"Don't stop!  Further up and further in," called Farsight, tilting his
flight a little upwards.

"It's all very well for him," said Eustace, but Jewel also cried out:

"Don't stop.  Further up and further in!  Take it in your stride."

His voice could only just be heard above the roar of the water but next
moment everyone saw that he had plunged into the Pool.  And
helter-skelter behind him, with splash after splash, all the others did
the same.  The water was not bitingly cold as all of them (and
especially Puzzle) expected, but of a delicious foamy coolness.  They
all found they were swimming straight for the Waterfall itself.

"This is absolutely crazy," said Eustace to Edmund.

"I know.  And yet----" said Edmund.

"Isn't it wonderful?" said Lucy.  "Have you noticed one can't feel
afraid, even if one wants to?  Try it."

"By Jove, one can't," said Eustace after he had tried.  Jewel reached
the foot of the Waterfall first, but Tirian was only just behind him.
Jill was last, so she could see the whole thing better than the others.
She saw something white moving steadily up the face of the Waterfall.
That white thing was the Unicorn.  You couldn't tell whether he was
swimming or climbing, but he moved on, higher and higher.  The point of
his horn divided the water just above his head, and it cascaded out in
two rainbow-coloured streams all round his shoulders.  Just behind him
came King Tirian.  He moved his legs and arms as if he were swimming
but he moved straight upwards: as if one could swim up a wall.

What looked funniest was the Dogs.  During the gallop they had not been
at all out of breath, but now, as they swarmed and wriggled upwards,
there was plenty of spluttering and sneezing among them; that was
because they would keep on barking, and every time they barked they got
their mouths and noses full of water.  But before Jill had time to
notice all these things fully, she was going up the Waterfall herself.
It was the sort of thing that would have been quite impossible in our
world.  Even if you hadn't been drowned, you would have been smashed to
pieces by the terrible weight of water against the countless jags of
rock.  But in that world you could do it.  You went on, up and up, with
all kinds of reflected lights flashing at you from the water and all
manner of coloured stones flashing through it, till it seemed as if you
were climbing up light itself--and always higher and higher till the
sense of height would have terrified you if you could be terrified, but
here it was only gloriously exciting.  And then at last one came to the
lovely, smooth green curve in which the water poured over the top and
found that one was out on the level river above the waterfall.  The
current was racing away behind you, but you were such a wonderful
swimmer that you could make headway against it.  Soon they were all on
the bank, dripping but happy.

A long valley opened ahead and great snow-mountains, now much nearer,
stood up against the sky.

"Further up and further in," cried Jewel and instantly they were off
again.

They were out of Narnia now and up into the Western Wild which neither
Tirian nor Peter nor even the Eagle had ever seen before.  But the Lord
Digory and the Lady Polly had.  "Do you remember?  Do you remember?"
they said--and said it in steady voices too, without panting, though
the whole party was now running faster than an arrow flies.

"What, Lord?" said Tirian.  "Is it then true, as stories tell, that you
two journeyed here on the very day the world was made?"

"Yes," said Digory, "and it seems to me as if it were only yesterday."

"And on a flying horse?" asked Tirian.  "Is that part true?"

"Certainly," said Digory.  But the Dogs barked, "Faster, faster!"

So they ran faster and faster till it was more like flying than
running, and even the Eagle overhead was going no faster than they.
And they went through winding valley after winding valley and up the
steep sides of hills and, faster than ever, down the other sides,
following the river and sometimes crossing it and skimming across
mountain-lakes as if they were living speedboats, till at last at the
far end of one long lake, which looked as blue as a turquoise, they saw
a smooth green hill.  Its sides were as steep as the sides of a pyramid
and round the very top of it ran a green wall: but above the wall rose
the branches of trees, whose leaves looked like silver and their fruit
like gold.

"Further up and further in!" roared the Unicorn, and no one held back.
They charged straight at the foot of the hill and then found themselves
running up it almost as water from a broken wave runs up a rock out at
the point of some bay.  Though the slope was nearly as steep as the
roof of a house and the grass was smooth as a bowling green, no one
slipped.  Only when they had reached the very top did they slow up;
that was because they found themselves facing great golden gates.  And
for a moment none of them was bold enough to try if the gates would
open.  They all felt just as they had felt about the fruit--"Dare we?
Is it right?  Can it be meant for us?"

But while they were standing thus a great horn, wonderfully loud and
sweet, blew from somewhere inside that walled garden and the gates
swung open.

Tirian stood holding his breath and wondering who would come out.  And
what came out was the last thing he had expected: a little, sleek,
bright-eyed Talking Mouse with a red feather stuck in a circlet on its
head and its left paw resting on a long sword.  It bowed, a most
beautiful bow, and said in its shrill voice:

"Welcome, in the Lion's name.  Come further up and further in."

Then Tirian saw King Peter and King Edmund and Queen Lucy rush forward
to kneel down and greet the Mouse and they all cried out, "Reepicheep!"
And Tirian breathed fast with the sheer wonder of it, for now he knew
that he was looking at one of the great heroes of Narnia, Reepicheep
the Mouse, who had fought at the great Battle of Beruna and afterwards
sailed to the World's end with King Caspian the Seafarer.  But before
he had had much time to think of this, he felt two strong arms thrown
about him and felt a bearded kiss on his cheeks and heard a
well-remembered voice saying:

"What, lad?  Art thicker and taller since I last touched thee?"

It was his own father, the good King Erlian: but not as Tirian had seen
him last when they brought him home pale and wounded from his fight
with the giant, nor even as Tirian remembered him in his later years
when he was a grey-headed warrior.  This was his father young and merry
as he could just remember him from very early days, when he himself had
been a little boy playing games with his father in the castle garden at
Cair Paravel, just before bedtime on summer evenings.  The very smell
of the bread-and-milk he used to have for supper came back to him.

Jewel thought to himself, "I will leave them to talk for a little and
then I will go and greet the good King Erlian.  Many a bright apple did
he give me when I was but a colt."  But next moment he had something
else to think of, for out of the gateway there came a horse so mighty
and noble that even a Unicorn might feel shy in its presence: a great
winged horse.  It looked a moment at the Lord Digory and the Lady Polly
and neighed out "What, cousins!" and they both shouted "Fledge!  Good
old Fledge!" and rushed to kiss it.

But by now the Mouse was again urging them to come in.  So all of them
passed in through the golden gates, into the delicious smell that blew
towards them out of that garden and into the cool mixture of sunlight
and shadow under the trees, walking on springy turf that was all dotted
with white flowers.  The very first thing which struck everyone was
that the place was far larger than it had seemed from outside.  But no
one had time to think about that for people were coming up to meet the
newcomers from every direction.

Everyone you had ever heard of (if you knew the history of those
countries) seemed to be there.  There was Glimfeather the Owl and
Puddleglum the Marshwiggle, and King Rilian the Disenchanted, and his
mother, the Star's daughter, and his great father, Caspian himself.
And close beside him were the Lord Drinian and the Lord Berne and
Trumpkin the Dwarf and Trufflehunter, the Good Badger, with Glenstorm
the Centaur and a hundred other heroes of the great War of Deliverance.
And then from another side came Cor the King of Archenland with King
Lune, his father, and his wife, Queen Aravis and the brave prince,
Corin Thunder-Fist, his brother and Bree the Horse and Hwin the Mare.
And then--which was a wonder beyond all wonders to Tirian--there came
from further away in the past, the two good Beavers and Tumnus the
Faun.  And there was greeting and kissing and handshaking and old jokes
revived, (you've no idea how good an old joke sounds when you take it
out again after a rest of five or six hundred years) and the whole
company moved forward to the centre of the orchard where the Phoenix
sat in a tree and looked down upon them all and at the foot of that
tree were two thrones and in those two thrones, a King and Queen so
great and beautiful that everyone bowed down before them.  And well
they might, for these two were King Frank and Queen Helen from whom all
the most ancient Kings of Narnia and Archenland are descended.  And
Tirian felt as you would feel if you were brought before Adam and Eve
in all their glory.

About half an hour later--or it might have been half a hundred years
later, for time there is not like time here--Lucy stood with her dear
friend, her oldest Narnian friend, the Faun Tumnus, looking down over
the wall of that garden, and seeing all Narnia spread out below.  But
when you looked down you found that this hill was much higher than you
had thought: it sank down with shining cliffs, thousands of feet below
them and trees in that lower world looked no bigger than grains of
green salt.  Then she turned inward again and stood with her back to
the wall and looked at the garden.

"I see," she said at last, thoughtfully.  "I see now.  This garden is
like the Stable.  It is far bigger inside than it was outside."

"Of course, Daughter of Eve," said the Faun.  "The further up and the
further in you go, the bigger everything gets.  The inside is larger
than the outside."

Lucy looked hard at the garden and saw that it was not really a garden
at all but a whole world, with its own rivers and woods and sea and
mountains.  But they were not strange: she knew them all.

"I see," she said.  "This is still Narnia, and, more real and more
beautiful than the Narnia down below, just as it was more real and more
beautiful than the Narnia outside the Stable door!  I see ... world
within world, Narnia within Narnia...."

"Yes," said Mr. Tumnus, "like an onion: except that as you continue to
go in and in, each circle is larger than the last."

And Lucy looked this way and that and soon found that a new and
beautiful thing had happened to her.  Whatever she looked at, however
far away it might be, once she had fixed her eyes steadily on it,
became quite clear and close as if she were looking through a
telescope.  She could see the whole southern desert and beyond it the
great city of Tashbaan: to eastward she could see Cair Paravel on the
edge of the sea and the very window of the room that had once been her
own.  And far out to sea she could discover the islands, island after
island to the end of the world, and, beyond the end, the huge mountain
which they had called Aslan's country.  But now she saw that it was
part of a great chain of mountains which ringed round the whole world.
In front of her it seemed to come quite close.  Then she looked to her
left and saw what she took to be a great bank of brightly-coloured
cloud, cut off from them by a gap.  But she looked harder and saw that
it was not a cloud at all but a real land.  And when she had fixed her
eyes on one particular spot of it, she at once cried out, "Peter!
Edmund!  Come and look!  Come quickly."  And they came and looked, for
their eyes also had become like hers.

"Why!" exclaimed Peter.  "It's England.  And that's the house
itself--Professor Kirk's old home in the country where all our
adventures began!"

"I thought that house had been destroyed," said Edmund.

"So it was," said the Faun.  "But you are now looking at the England
within England, the real England just as this is the real Narnia.  And
in that inner England no good thing is destroyed."

Suddenly they shifted their eyes to another spot, and then Peter and
Edmund and Lucy gasped with amazement and shouted out and began waving:
for there they saw their own father and mother, waving back at them
across the great, deep valley.  It was like when you see people waving
at you from the deck of a big ship when you are waiting on the quay to
meet them.

"How can we get at them?" said Lucy.

"That is easy," said Mr. Tumnus.  "That country and this country--all
the _real_ countries--are only spurs jutting out from the great
mountains of Aslan.  We have only to walk along the ridge, upward and
inward, till it joins on.  And listen!  There is King Frank's horn: we
must all go up."

And soon they found themselves all walking together--and a great,
bright procession it was--up towards mountains higher than you could
see in this world even if they were there to be seen.  But there was no
snow on those mountains: there were forests and green slopes and sweet
orchards and flashing waterfalls, one above the other, going up for
ever.  And the land they were walking on grew narrower all the time,
with a deep valley on each side: and across that valley the land which
was the real England grew nearer and nearer.

The light ahead was growing stronger.  Lucy saw that a great series of
many-coloured cliffs led up in front of them like a giant's staircase.
And then she forgot everything else, because Aslan himself was coming,
leaping down from cliff to cliff like a living cataract of power and
beauty.

And the very first person whom Aslan called to him was Puzzle the
Donkey.  You never saw a donkey look feebler and sillier than Puzzle
did as he walked up to Aslan; and he looked, beside Aslan, as small as
a kitten looks beside a St. Bernard.  The Lion bowed down his head and
whispered something to Puzzle at which his long ears went down; but
then he said something else at which the ears perked up again.  The
humans couldn't hear what he had said either time.  Then Aslan turned
to them and said:

"You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be."

Lucy said, "We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan.  And you have
sent us back into our own world so often."

"No fear of that," said Aslan.  "Have you not guessed?"

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.

"There _was_ a real railway accident," said Aslan softly.  "Your father
and mother and all of you are--as you used to call it in the
Shadow-Lands--dead.  The term is over: the holidays have begun.  The
dream is ended: this is the morning."

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things
that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I
cannot write them.  And for us this is the end of all the stories, and
we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after.  But for
them it was only the beginning of the real story.  All their life in
this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover
and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the
Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in
which every chapter is better than the one before.




      *      *      *      *      *      *      *      *




  _The Chronicles of Narnia_


  THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
  PRINCE CASPIAN
  THE VOYAGE OF "THE DAWN TREADER"
  THE SILVER CHAIR
  THE HORSE AND HIS BOY
  THE MAGICIAN'S NEPHEW
  THE LAST BATTLE






[End of The Last Battle, by C. S. Lewis]
