CHAPTER FOURTEEN
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NIGHT FALLS ON NARNIA THEY all stood beside Aslan, on his right side, and looked through the open doorway.The bonfire had go. On the earth all was blaess: in fact you could not have told that you were looking into a wood if you had not seehe 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 aace remembered how once long ago, in the deep caves beh those moors, they had seen a great giant asleep aold 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 ge 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 fihing 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 giants. 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 blaess. But all around, the downpour of stars went on. And thearless patch
began to grow, spreading further and further out from the tre 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 dowhe horizon.
With a thrill of wonder (and there was some terror in it too) they all suddenly realized what was happening. The spreading blaess 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 seds before the rain of stars had quite ended were very exg. 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 o 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 stohey 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 pletely 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 floodlit. Every bush and almost every blade of grass had its black shadow behind it. The edge of every leaf stood out so sharp that youd think you could cut your finger on it.
On the grass before them lay their own shadows. But the great thing was Aslans shadow.
It streamed away to their left, enormous aerrible. And all this was under a sky that would now be starless forever.
The light from behind them (and a little to their right) was s 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 bats wings. They disappeared into the woods and for a few mihere was silehen there came - at first from very far off - sounds of wailing and then, from every dire, 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, rag up the hill for dear life, by thousands and by millions, came all kinds of creatures - Talkis, Dwarfs, Satyrs, Fauns, Giants, enes, men from Arland, Monopods, and strange uhly things from the remote islands of the unknowern 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 couldnt 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 couldnt ever have tried to get through it. But no ohought about that sort of thing at the time.
The creatures came rushing on, their eyes brighter and brighter as they drew nearer and o the standing Stars. But as they came right up to Aslan one or other of two things happeo each of them. They all looked straight in his face, I dont think they had any choice about that. And when some looked, the expression of their faces ged terribly - it was fear and hatred: except that, on the faces of Talking Bears, the fear and hatred lasted only for a fra of a sed. You could see that they suddenly ceased to the Talkis. 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 dont know what became of them. But the others looked in the face of Aslan and loved him, though some of them were very frighte the same time. And all these came in at the Door, in on Aslans right. There were some queer spes among them. Eustace even reized 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) freat 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 taur and Jewel the Uni 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 uand him, the words somehow set them tingling all over.
The Bru them cheerfully. The Bear was just going to mutter that he still didnt uand, 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 uood very well.
But the Dogs remained, wagging their tails, and Poggin remained, shaking hands with everyone and grinning all over his ho face. And Jewel leaned his snowy white head over the Kbbr></abbr>ings shoulder and the King whispered in Jewels ear. Then everyourned 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 g them up as if they were sticks of rhubarb.
Minute by mihe forests disappeared. The whole try 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 rod earth. You could hardly believe that anything had ever lived there. The mohemselves 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 - a long, level line of whitehat 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 ing, and how fast it came. It was a foaming wall of water. The sea was rising. In that tree-less 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 in<bdi>９９ｌiｂ?</bdi>to 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 Aslans forefeet. All now was level water from where they stood to where the waters 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 k ohat 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 refle 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. Theretched out one arm - very black it looked, and thousands of miles long - across the sky till his hand reached the Suook the Sun and squeezed it in his hand as you would squeeze an e. And instantly there w<q>..</q>as total darkness.
Everyone except Aslan jumped back from the ice-cold air w<mark>..</mark>hiow 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 strahings enough through that Doorway. But it was strahan any of them to look round and find themselves in warm daylight, the blue sky above them, flowers at their feet, and laughter in Aslans eyes.
He turned swiftly round, crouched lower, lashed himself with his tail and shot away like a golden arrow.
"e further in! e further up!" he shouted over his shoulder. But who could keep up with him at that pace? They set out walkiward to follow him.
"So," said Peter, "night falls on Narnia. What, Lucy! Youre n? With Aslan ahead, and all of us here?”
"Dont try to stop me, Peter," said Lucy, "I am sure Aslan would not. I am sure it is n 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 couldnt. 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 mothers 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 pead a Kings and all the glories of Narnia.
The Dogs were still with them. They joined in the versation but not much because they were too busy rag on ahead and rag bad rushing off to sniff at smells in the grass till they made themselves sneeze. Suddenly they picked up a st which seemed to excite them very much. They all started arguing about it - "Yes it is - No it isnt - Thats just what I said - anyone smell what that is - Take yreat of the way a someone else smell.”
"What is it, cousins?" said Peter.
"A ene, Sire," said several Dogs at once.
"Lead on to him, then," said Peter. "Whether he meets us in peace or war, he shall be wele.”
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 ene. (Talking Dogs,
just like the on 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 ene sitting under a chestnut tree beside a clear stream of water. It was Emeth. He rose at ond bowed gravely.
"Sir," he said to Peter, "I know not whether you are my friend or my foe, but I should t 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 ehe 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 whats happeo you," said Jill.
"If theres going to be a story, lets all have a drink and sit down," barked the Dogs.
"Were 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 h<big></big>anging out of their heads a little on one side to hear the story. But Jewel remained standing, polishing his hainst his side.
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