CHAPTER ELEVEN
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THE UNWELE FELLOW TRAVELLERWHEN Shasta went through the gate he found a slope of grass and a little heather running up before him to some trees. He had nothing to think about now and no plans to make: he had only to run, and that was quite enough. His limbs were shaking, a terrible stitch was beginning in his side, and the sweat that kept dropping into his eyes blihem and made them smart. He was unsteady on his feet too, and more than once he nearly turned his ankle on a loose stone.
The trees were thicker now than they had yet been and in the more open spaces there was bra. The sun had gone in without making it any cooler. It had bee one of those hot, grey days when there seem to be twice as many flies as usual. Shastas face was covered with them; he didnt even try to shake them off - he had too much else to do.
Suddenly he heard a horn - not a great throbbing horn like the horns of Tashbaan but a merry call, Ti-ro-to-to-ho! moment he came out into a wide glade and found himself in a crowd of people.
At least, it looked a crowd to him. Iy there were about fifteen or twenty of them, all gentlemen in green huntingdress, with their horses; some in the saddle and some standing by their horses heads. In the tre someone was holding the stirrup for a man to mount. And the man he was holding it for was the jolliest, fat, applecheeked, twinkling eyed King you could imagine.
As soon as Shasta came in sight this King fot all about mounting his horse. He spread out his arms to Shasta, his face lit up, and he cried out in a great, deep voice that seemed to e from the bottom of his chest: "! My son! And on foot, and in rags! What-”
"No," panted Shasta, shaking his head. "Not Prince . I - I - know Im like him... saw his Highness in Tashbaan... sent his greetings.”
The King was staring at Shasta with araordinary expression on his face.
"Are you K-King Lune?" gasped Shasta. And then, without waiting for an answer, "Lord King - fly - Anvard shut the gates - enemies upon you - Rabadash and two hundred horse.”
"Have you assurance of this, boy?" asked one of the entlemen.
"My own eyes," said Shasta. "Ive seen them. Raced them all the way from Tashbaan.”
"On foot?" said the gentleman, raising his eyebrows a little.
Horses-with the Hermit," said Shasta.
"Question him no more; Darrin," said King Lune. "I see truth in his face. We must ride for it, gentlemen. A spare horse there, for the boy. You ride fast, friend?”
For answer Shasta put his foot iirrup of the horse which had beeowards him and a moment later he was in the saddle. He had do a huimes with Bree in the last few weeks, and his mounting was very different now from what it had been on that first night when Bree had said that he climbed up a horse as if he were climbing a haystack.
He leased to hear the Lord Darrin say to the King, "The boy has a true horsema, Sire. Ill warrant theres noble blood in him.”
"His blood, aye, theres the point," said the King. Aared hard at Shasta again with that curious expression, almost a hungry expression, in his steady, grey eyes.
But by now -the whole party was moving off at a brisk ter. Shastas seat was excellent but he was sadly puzzled what to do with his reins, for he had ouched the reins while he was on Brees back. But he looked very carefully out of the ers of his eyes to see what the others were doing (as some of us have do parties when we werent quite sure whiife or fork we were meant to use) and tried to get his fingers right. But he didnt dare to try really direg the horse; he trusted it would follow the rest. The horse was of course an ordinary horse, not a Talking Horse; but it had quite wits enough to realize that the strange boy on its back had no whip and no spurs and was not really master of the situation. That was why Shasta soon found himself at the tail end of the procession.
Even so, he was going pretty fast. There were no flies now and the air in his face was delicious. He had got his breath back too. And his errand had succeeded. For the first time sihe arrival at Tashbaan (how long ago it seemed!) he was beginning to enjoy himself.
He looked up to see how muearer the mountain tops had e. To his disappoi he could not see them at all: only a vague greyness, rolling down towards them. He had never been in mountain try before and was surprised. "Its a cloud," he said to himself, "a cloud ing down. I see. Up here in the hills one is really in the sky.
I shall see what the inside of a cloud is like. What fun! Ive often wondered." Far away on his left and a little behind him, the sun was getting ready to set.
They had e th kind of road by now and were making very good speed. But Shastas horse was still the last of the lot. Once or twice when the road made a bend (there was now tinuous forest on each side of it) he lost sight of the others for a sed or two.
Then they plunged into the fog, or else the fog rolled over them. The world became grey.
Shasta had not realized how cold ahe inside of a cloud would be; nor how dark.
The grey turo black with alarming speed.
Someo the head of the n wihe horn every now and then, and each time the sound came from a little farther off. He couldnt see any of the others now, but of course hed be able to as soon as he got round the bend. But when he rou he still couldhem. In fact he could see nothing at all. His horse was walking now.
"Get on, Horse, get on," said Shasta. Then came the horn, very faint. Bree had always told him that he must keep his heels well turned out, and Shasta had got the idea that somethierrible would happen if he dug his heels into a horses sides. This seemed to him an occasion f it. "Look here, Horse," he said, "if you dont buck up, do you know what Ill do? Ill dig my heels into you. I really will." The horse, however, took no notice of this threat. So Shasta settled himself firmly in the saddle, gripped with his knees, ched his teeth, and punched both the horses sides with his heels as hard as he could.
The only result was that the horse broke into a kind of pretence of a trot for five or six paces and then subsided into a walk again. And now it was quite dark and they seemed to have given up blowing that horn. The only sound was a steady drip-drip from the branches of the trees.
"Well, I suppose even a walk will get us somewhere sometime," said Shasta to himself. "I only hope I shant run into Rabadash and his people.”
He went on for what seemed a long time, always at a walking pace. He began to hate that horse, and he was also beginning to feel very hungry.
Presently he came to a place where the road divided into two. He was just w which led to Anvard when he was startled by a noise from behind him. It was the noise of trotting horses. "Rabadash!" thought Shasta. He had no way of guessing which road Rabadash would take. "But if I take one," said Shasta to himself, "he may take the other: and if I stay at the cross-roads Im sure to be caught." He dismounted and led his horse as quickly as he could along the right-hand road.
The sound of the cavalry greidly nearer and in a minute or two Shasta realized that they were at the crossroads. He held his breath, waiting to see which way they would take.
There came a low word of and "Halt!" then a moment of horsey noises - nostrils blowing, hoofs pawing, bits being champed, necks being patted. Then a voice spoke.
"Attend, all of you," it said. "We are now within a furlong of the castle. Remember your orders. Once we are in Narnia, as we should be by sunrise, you are to kill as little as possible. On this venture you are tard every drop of Narnian blood as more precious than a gallon of your own. On this venture, I say. The gods will send us a happier hour and then you must leave nothing alive between Cair Paravel and the Western Waste. But we are not yet in Narnia. Here in Arland it is ahing. In the assault on this castle of King Lunes, nothing matters but speed. Show your mettle. It must be mine
within an hour. And if it is, I give it all to you. I reserve no booty for myself. Kill me every barbarian male within its walls, down to the child that was borerday, and everything else is yours to divide as you please - the women, the gold, the jewels, the ons, and the wihe man that I see hanging back when we e to the gates shall be burned alive. In the name of Tash the irresistible, the inexorable forward!”
With a great cloppitty-clop the n began to move, and Shasta breathed again. They had takeher road.
Shasta thought they took a long time going past, for though he had been talking and thinking about "two hundred horse" all day, he had not realized how many they really were. But at last the sound died away and once more he was alone amid the drip-drip from the trees.
He now khe way to Anvard but of course he could not now go there: that would only mean running into the arms of Rabadashs troopers. "What oh am I to do?" said Shasta to himself. But he remounted his horse and tinued along the road he had chosen, in the faint hope of finding some cottage where he might ask for shelter and a meal. He had thought, of course, of going back to Aravis and Bree and Hwin at the hermitage, but he couldnt because by now he had not the least idea of the dire.
"After all," said Shasta, "this road is bound to get to somewhere.”
But that all depends on what you mean by som<s>.?</s>ewhere. The road kept oing to somewhere in the sehat it got to more and more trees, all dark and dripping, and to colder and colder air. And strange, icy winds kept blowing the mist past him though they never blew it away. If he had beeo mountain try he would have realized that this meant he was now very high up - perhaps right at the top of the pass. But Shasta knew nothing about mountains.
"I do think," said Shasta, "that I must be the most unfortunate boy that ever lived in the whole world. Everything ght for everyone except me. Those Narnian lords and ladies got safe away from Tashbaan; I was left behind. Aravis and Bree and Hwin are all as snug as anything with that old Hermit: of course I was the one who was sent on. King Lune and his people must have got safely into the castle and shut the gates long before Rabadash arrived, but I get left out.”
And beiired and having nothing inside him, he felt so sorry for himself that the tears rolled down his cheeks.
ut a stop to all this was a sudden fright. Shasta discovered that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It itch dark and he could see nothing. And the Thing (or Person) was going so quietly that he could hardly hear any footfalls. What he could hear was breathing. His invisible panion seemed to breathe on a very large scale, and Shasta got the impression that it was a very large creature. And he had e to
notice this breathing so gradually that he had really no idea how long it had been there. It was a horrible shock藏书网.
It darted into his mind that he had heard long ago that there were giants in these Northern tries. He bit his lip in terror. But now that he really had something to cry about, he stopped g.
The Thing (unless it erso on beside him so very quietly that Shasta began to hope he had only imagi. But just as he was being quite sure of it, there suddenly came a deep, rich sigh out of the darkness beside him. That couldnt be imagination! Anyway, he had felt the hot breath of that sigh on his chilly left hand.
If the horse had been any good - or if he had known how to get any good out of the horse - he would have risked everything on a breakaway and a wild gallop. But he knew he couldnt make that hallop. So he went on at a walking pad the unseen panion walked and breathed beside him. At last he could bear it no longer.
"Who are you?" he said, scarcely above a whisper.
"One who has waited long for you to speak," said the Thing. Its voice was not loud, but very large and deep.
"Are you- are you a giant?" asked Shasta.
"You might call me a giant," said the Large Voice. "But I am not like the creatures you call giants.”
"I t see you at all," said Shasta, after staring very hard. Then (for an even more terrible idea had e into his head) he said, almost in a scream, "Youre not - not something dead, are you? Oh please - please do go away. What harm have I ever done you? Oh, I am the unluckiest person in the whole world!”
Once more he felt the warm breath of the Thing on his hand and face. "There," it said, "that is not the breath of a ghost. Tell me your sorrows.”
Shasta was a little reassured by the breath: so he told how he had never known his real father or mother and had been brought up sternly by the fisherman. And theold the story of his escape and how they were chased by lions and forced to swim for their lives; and of all their dangers in Tashbaan and about his night among the tombs and how the beasts howled at him out of the desert. Aold about the heat and thirst of their desert journey and how they were almost at their goal when another lion chased them and wounded Aravis. And also, how very long it was since he had had anything to eat.
"I do not call you unfortunate," said the Large Voice.
"Dont you think it was bad lueet so many lions?" said Shasta.
"There was only one lion," said the Voice.
"What oh do you mean? Ive just told you there were at least two the first night, and-”
"There was only one: but he was swift of foot.”
"How do you know?”
"I was the lion." And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice tinued. "I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who forted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the Horses the rength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.”
"Then it was you who wounded Aravis?”
"It was I”
"But what for?”
"Child," said the Voice, "I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.”
"Who are you?" asked Shasta.
"Myself," said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again "Myself", loud and clear and gay: and thehird time "Myself", whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, a seemed to e from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.
Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice beloo something that would eat him, nor that it was the voice of a ghost. But a new and different sort of trembling came over him.
Yet he felt glad too.
The mist was turning from black to grey and from grey to white. This must have begun to happen some time ago, but while he had been talking to the Thing he had not been notig anything else. Now, the whiteness around him became a shining whiteness; his eyes began to blink. Somewhere ahead he could hear birds singing. He khe night was over at last. He could see the mane and ears and head of his horse quite easily now.
A golden light fell on them from the left. He thought it was the sun.
He turned and saw, pag beside him, taller than the horse, a Lion. The horse did not seem to be afraid of it or else could not see it. It was from the Lion that the light came.
No one ever saw anything more terrible or beautiful.
Luckily Shasta had lived all his life too far south in en to have heard the tales that were whispered in Tashbaan about a dreadful Narnian demon that appeared in the form of a lion. And of course he knew none of the true stories about Aslan, the great Lion, the son of the Emperor-over-the-sea, the King above all High Kings in Narnia. But after one gla the Lions face he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He couldnt say anything but then he didnt want to say anything, and he knew he say anything.
The High King above all kings stooped towards him. Its mane, and some strange and solemn perfume th. hung about the mane, was all round him. It touched his forehead with its tongue. He lifted his fad their eyes met. Then instantly the pale brightness of the mist and the fiery brightness of the Lion rolled themselves together into a swirling glory and gathered themselves up and disappeared. He was aloh the horse on a grassy hillside under a blue sky. And there were birds singing.
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