CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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DEEPER MAGI BEFORE THE DAWN OF TIME WHILE the two girls still crouched in the bushes with their hands over their faces, they heard the voice of the Witch calling out, "Now! Follow me all and we will set about what remains of this war! It will not take us long to crush the human vermin and the traitors now that the great Fool, the great Cat, lies dead.”At this moment the children were for a few seds in very great danger. For with wild cries and a noise of skirling pipes and shrill horns blowing, the whole of that vile rabble came sweeping off the hill-top and down the slht past their hiding- place. They felt the Spectres go by them like a cold wind and they felt the ground shake beh them uhe gallopi of the Minotaurs; and overhead there went a flurry of foul wings and a blaess of vultures and giant bats. At any other time they would have trembled with fear; but now the sadness and shame and horror of Aslah so filled their minds that they hardly thought of it.
As soon as the wood was silent again Susan and Lucy crept out onto the open hill-top.
The moon was getting low and thin clouds were passing across her, but still they could see the shape of the Lion lying dead in his bonds. And down they both k i grass and kissed his cold fad stroked his beautiful fur - what was left of it - and cried till they could o more. And then they looked at each other and held each others hands for mere loneliness and cried again; and then again were silent. At last Lucy said, "I t bear to look at that horrible muzzle. I wonder could we take if off?”
So they tried. And after a lot of w at it (for their fingers were cold and it was now the darkest part of the night) they succeeded. And when they saw his face without it they burst out g again and kissed it and fo and wiped away the blood and the foam as well as they could. And it was all more lonely and hopeless and horrid than I know how to describe.
"I wonder could we untie him as well?" said Susaly. But the enemies, out of pure spitefulness, had drawn the cords so tight that the girls could make nothing of the knots.
I hope no one who reads this book has been quite as miserable as Susan and Lucy were that night; but if you have been - if youve been up all night and cried till you have no more tears left in you - you will know that there es in the end a sort of quietness. You feel as if nothing was ever going to happen again. At any rate that was how it felt to these two. Hours and hours seemed to go by in this dead calm, and they hardly noticed that they were getting colder and colder. But at last Luoticed two other things. One was that the sky on the east side of the hill was a little less dark than it had been an ho.
The other was some tiny movement going on in the grass at her feet. At first she took no i in this. What did it matter? Nothing mattered now! But at last she saw that whatever-it-was had begun to move up the upright stones of the Stoable. And now whatever-they-were were moving about on Aslans body. She peered closer. They were little grey things.
"Ugh!" said Susan from the other side of the Table. "How beastly! There are horrid little mice crawling over him. Go away, you little beasts." And she raised her hand thten them away.
"Wait!" said Lucy, who had been looking at them more closely still. " you see what theyre doing?”
Both girls bent down and stared.
"I do believe -" said Susan. "But how queer! Theyre nibbling away at the cords!”
"Thats what I thought," said Lucy. "I think theyre friendly mice. Poor little things - they dont realize hes dead. They think itll do some good untying him.”
It was quite definitely lighter by now. Each of the girls noticed for the first time the white face of the other. They could see the miibbling away; dozens and dozens, even hundreds, of little field mice. And at last, one by ohe ropes were all ghrough.
The sky in the east was whitish by now and the stars were getting fainter - all except one very big one low down on the eastern horizon. They felt colder than they had been all night. The mice crept away again.
The girls cleared away the remains of the gnawed ropes. Aslan looked more like himself without them. Every moment his dead face looked nobler, as the light grew and they could see it better.
In the wood behind them a bird gave a chug sound. It had been so still for hours and hours that it startled them. Then another bird answered it. Soon there were birds singing all over the place.
It was quite definitely early m now, not late night.
"Im so cold," said Lucy.
"So am I," said Susan. "Lets walk about a bit.”
They walked to the eastern edge of the hill and looked down. The one big star had almost disappeared. The try all looked dark grey, but beyond, at the very end of the world, the sea showed pale. The sky began to turhey walked to ands fro more times than they could t between the dead Aslan and the eastern ridge, trying to keep warm; and oh, how tired their legs felt. Then at last, as they stood for a moment looking out towards they sea and Cair Paravel (which they could ></a>now just make out) the red turo gold along the line where the sea and the sky met and very slowly up came the edge of the sun.
At that moment they heard from behind them a loud noise - a great crag, deafening noise as if a giant had broken a giants plate.
"Whats that?" said Lucy, clutg Susans arm.
"I - I feel afraid to turn round," said Susan; "something awful is happening.”
"Theyre doing something worse to Him," said Lucy. "e on!" And she turned, pulling Susan round with her.
The rising of the sun had made everything look so different - all colours and shadows were ged that for a moment they didhe important thing. Then they did. The Stoable was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan.
"Oh, oh, oh!" cried the two girls, rushing back to the Table.
"Oh, its too bad," sobbed Lucy; "they might have left the body alone.”
"Whos do?" cried Susan. "What does it mean? Is it magic?”
"Yes!" said a great voice behind their backs. "It is more magic." They looked round.
There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it had apparently grown again) stood Aslan himself.
"Oh, Aslan!" cried both the children, staring up at him, almost as much frightened as they were glad.
"Arent you dead then, dear Aslan?" said Lucy.
"Not now," said Aslan.
"Youre not - not a - ?" asked Susan in a shaky voice. She couldnt bring herself to say the whost. Aslan stooped his golden head and licked her forehead. The warmth of his breath and a rich sort of smell that seemed to hang about his hair came all over her.
"Do I look it?" he said.
"Oh, youre real, youre real! Oh, Aslan!" cried Lucy, and both girls flung themselves upon him and covered him with kisses.
"But what does it all mean?" asked Susahey were somewhat calmer.
"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know: Her knowledge goes baly to the dawn of time.
But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different intation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had itted no treachery was killed in a traitors stead, the Table would crad Death itself would start w backwards.
And now -”
"Oh yes. Nbbr></abbr>ow?" said Lucy, jumping up and clapping her hands.
"Oh, children," said the Lion, "I feel my strength ing bae. Oh, children, catch me if you !" He stood for a sed, his eyes very bright, his limbs quivering, lashing himself with his tail. Then he made a leap high over their heads and landed oher side of the Table. Laughing, though she didnt know why, Lucy scrambled over it to reach him. Aslan leaped again. A mad chase began. Round and round the hill -top he led them, now hopelessly out of their reaow letting them almost catch his tail, now diviween them, now tossing them in the air with his huge and beautifully velveted paws and catg them again, and now stopping uedly so that all three of them rolled ether in a happy laughing heap of fur and arms and legs. It was such a romp as no one has ever had except in Narnia; and whether it was more like playing with
a thuorm or playing with a kitten Lucy could never make up her mind. And the funny thing was that when all three finally lay together panting in the sun the girls no longer felt in the least tired or hungry or thirsty.
"And now," said Aslaly, "to business. I feel I am going to roar. You had better put your fingers in your ears.”
And they did. And Aslan stood up and when he opened his mouth to roar his face became so terrible that they did not dare to look at it. And they saw all the trees in front of him bend before the blast of his r as grass bends in a meadow before the wind. Then he said, "We have a long jouro go. You must ride on me." And he crouched down and the children climbed on to his warm, golden back, and Susan sat first, holding on tightly to his mane and Lucy sat behind holding on tightly to Susan. And with a great heave he rose underh them and then shot off, faster than any horse could go, down hill and into the thick of the forest.
That ride erhaps the most wonderful thing that happeo them in Narnia. Have you ever had a gallop on a horse? Think of that; and then take away the heavy noise of the hoofs and the jingle of the bits and imagine ihe almost noiseless padding of the great paws. Then imagine instead of the black rey or chestnut back of the horse the shness of golden fur, and the mane flying ba the wind. And then imagine yoing about twice as fast as the fastest racehorse. But this is a mount that doeso be guided and never grows tired. He rushes on and on, never missing his footing, never hesitating, threading his way with perfect skill betweerunks, jumping over bush and briar and the smaller streams, wading the larger, swimming the largest of al<mark></mark>l.
And you are riding not on a road nor in a park nor even on the downs, but right across Narnia, in spring, down solemn avenues of beed across sunny glades of oak, through wild orchards of snow-white cherry trees, past r waterfalls and mossy rocks and eg caverns, up windy slopes alight with gorse bushes, and across the shoulders of heathery mountains and along giddy ridges and down, down, down again into wild valleys and out into acres of blue flowers.
It was nearly midday when they found themselves looking down a steep hillside at a castle - a little toy castle it looked from where they stood - which seemed to be all poiowers. But the Lion was rushing down at such a speed that it grew larger every moment and before they had time even to ask themselves what it was they were already on a level with it. And now it no longer looked like a toy castle but rose frowning in front of them.
No face looked over the battlements and the gates were fast shut. And Aslan, not at all slag his pace, rushed straight as a bullet towards it.
"The Witchs home!" he cried. "Now, children, hold tight.”
moment the whole world seemed to turn upside down, and the childre as if they had left their insides behind them; for the Lion had gathered himself together for a
greater leap than any he had yet made and jumped - or you may call it flying rather than jumping - right over the castle wall. The two girls, breathless but unhurt, found themselves tumbling off his ba the middle of a wide stone courtyard full of statues.
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