The Chronicles of Narnia: The Last Battle - Audiobook - Pt 5/5
Complete unabridged, read by Patrick Stewart
00:00:00 - Chapter 15
00:19:01 - Chapter 16
Complete unabridged, read by Patrick Stewart
00:00:00 - Chapter 15
00:19:01 - Chapter 16
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00:00Chapter 15 Further Up and Further In
00:19Know, O warlike kings, said Emmeth, and you, O ladies, whose beauty illuminates the universe,
00:27that I am Emmeth, the seventh son of Harper Tarkhan, of the city of Tehishban, westward
00:34beyond the desert. I came lately into Narnia with nine and twenty others, under the command
00:40of Rishta Tarkhan. Now when I first heard that we should march upon Narnia, I rejoiced,
00:46for I had heard many things of your land, and desired greatly to meet you in battle.
00:52And when I found that we were to go in disguised as merchants, which is a shameful dress for
00:57a warrior and the son of a Tarkhan, and to work by lies and trickery, then my joy departed
01:04from me. And most of all, when I found we must wait upon a monkey, and when it began
01:11to be said that Tash and Aslan were one, then the world became dark in my eyes, for always
01:18since I was a boy I have served Tash, and my great desire was to know more of him, if
01:24it might be, to look upon his face. But the name of Aslan was hateful to me. And, as you
01:30have seen, we were called together outside the straw-roofed hovel, night after night,
01:36and the fire was kindled, and the ape brought forth out of the hovel something upon four
01:41legs that I could not well see, and the people and the beasts bowed down and did honour to
01:47it. But I thought, the Tarkhan is deceived by the ape, for this thing that comes out
01:54of the stable is neither Tash nor any other god. But when I watched the Tarkhan's face
02:01and marked every word that he said to the monkey, then I changed my mind, for I saw
02:08that the Tarkhan did not believe in it himself, and then I understood that he did not believe
02:15in Tash at all, for if he had, how could he dare to mock him? When I understood this,
02:23a great rage fell upon me, and I wondered that the true Tash did not strike down both
02:28the monkey and the Tarkhan with fire from heaven. Nevertheless, I hid my anger and held
02:36my tongue and waited to see how it would end. But last night, as some of you know, the monkey
02:43brought not forth the yellow thing, but said that all who desired to look upon Tashlan—for
02:49so they mixed the two words to pretend they were all one—must pass one by one into the
02:55hovel. And I said to myself, Doubtless this is some other deception. But when the cat
03:02had followed in, and had come out again in a madness of terror, then I said to myself,
03:09Surely the true Tash, whom they called on without knowledge or belief, has now come
03:14among us and will avenge himself. And though my heart was turned into water inside me because
03:21of the greatness and terror of Tash, yet my desire was stronger than my fear, and I put
03:27force upon my knees to stay them from trembling, and on my teeth that they should not chatter,
03:33and resolved to look upon the face of Tash, though he should slay me. So I offered myself
03:39to go into the hovel, and the Tarkhan, though unwillingly, let me go. As soon as I had gone
03:46in at the door, the first wonder was that I found myself in this great sunlight, as
03:51we all are now, though the inside of the hovel had looked dark from the outside. But I had
03:57no time to marvel at this, for immediately I was forced to fight for my head against
04:02one of our own men. As soon as I saw him, I understood that the monkey and the Tarkhan
04:09had set him there to slay any who came in, if he were not in their secrets, so that this
04:15man also was a liar and a mocker, and no true servant of Tash. I had the better will to
04:23fight him, and having slain the villain, I cast him out behind me through the door. Then
04:29I looked about me, and saw the sky and the wide lands, and smelled the sweetness, and
04:35I said, by the gods this is a pleasant place! It may be that I am come into the country
04:42of Tash, and I began to journey into that strange country and to seek him. So I went
04:49over much grass and many flowers, and among all kinds of wholesome and delectable trees,
04:55till, lo! in a narrow place between two rocks there came to meet me a great lion. The speed
05:04of him was like the ostrich, and his size was an elephant's. His hair was like pure
05:10gold, and the brightness of his eyes like gold that is liquid in the furnace. He was
05:16more terrible than the flaming mountain of Lagour, and in beauty he surpassed all that
05:22is in the world, even as the rose in bloom surpasses the dust in the desert. Then I fell
05:28at his feet, and thought, surely this is the hour of death, for the lion, who is worthy
05:35of all honour, will know that I have served Tash all my days, and not him. Nevertheless,
05:44it is better to see the lion and die, than to be Tisrock of the world, and live and not
05:51to have seen him. But the glorious one bent down his golden head, and touched my forehead
05:59with his tongue, and said, Son, thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine,
06:09but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash I account
06:19as service done to me. Then, by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding,
06:26I overcame my fear, and questioned the glorious one, and said, Lord, is it then true, as the
06:34ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The lion growled, so that the earth shook, but
06:43his wrath was not against me, and said, It is false, not because he and I are one, but
06:53because we are opposites. I take to me the services which thou hast done to him, for
07:00I and he are of such different kinds, that no service which is vile can be done to me,
07:07and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash, and
07:14keep his oath for the oath's sake, it is by me that he has truly sworn, though he know
07:21it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then though
07:28he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves, and by Tash his deed is accepted.
07:37Dost thou understand, child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also,
07:46for the truth constrained me, yet I have been seeking Tash all my days.
07:53Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me, thou wouldst not have
08:01sought so long and so truly, for all find what they truly seek. Then he breathed upon me,
08:10and took away the trembling from my limbs, and caused me to stand upon my feet. And after that
08:17he said not much, but that we should meet again, and I must go further up and further in.
08:25Then he turned him about in a storm and a flurry of gold, and was gone suddenly. And since then,
08:33O kings and ladies, I have been wandering to find him, and my happiness is so great that
08:39it even weakens me like a wound. And this is the marvel of marvels that he called me,
08:48Beloved, me who am but as a dog.
08:52Me? What's that? said one of the dogs.
08:55Sir, said Emmeth, it is but a fashion of speech which we have in Calorman.
09:02Well, I can't say it's one I like very much, said the dog.
09:07He doesn't mean any harm, said an older dog. After all, we call our puppies boys when they
09:13don't behave properly. Shall we do? said the first dog.
09:17Oh, girls! Shhh! said the old dog. That's not a nice word to use. Remember where you are.
09:25Look! said Jill suddenly.
09:29Someone was coming, rather timidly, to meet them.
09:32A graceful creature on four feet, all silvery grey. And they stared at him for a whole ten
09:40seconds, before five or six voices said all at once, Why, it's old Puzzle!
09:49They had never seen him by daylight with the lion's skin off, and it made an extraordinary
09:54difference. He was himself now, a beautiful donkey, with such a soft grey coat, and such a
10:03gentle, honest face, that if you had seen him, you would have done just what Jill and Lucy did,
10:10rushed forward, and put your arms round his neck, and kissed his nose, and stroked his ears.
10:19When they asked him where he had been, he said he had come in at the door,
10:23along with all the other creatures, but he had—well, to tell the truth, he had been keeping
10:29out of their way as much as he could, and out of Aslan's way, for the sight of the real lion had
10:35made him so ashamed of all that nonsense about dressing up in a lion's skin, that he did not
10:41know how to look anyone in the face. But when he saw that all his friends were going away westward,
10:47and after he'd had a mouthful or so of grass—'But I've never tasted such good grass in my life,'
10:54said Puzzle, he plucked up his courage and followed.
10:58But what'll I do if I really have to meet Aslan? I'm sure I don't know, he added.
11:05You'll find it will be all right when you really do, said Queen Lucy.
11:11Then they all went forward together, always westward, for that seemed to be the direction
11:17Aslan had meant when he cried out, further up and further in. Many other creatures were slowly
11:24moving the same way, but that grassy country was very wide, and there was no crowding.
11:30It still seemed to be early, and the morning freshness was in the air. They kept on stopping
11:36to look round and to look behind them, partly because it was so beautiful, but partly also
11:42because there was something about it which they could not understand.
11:47Peter, said Lucy, where is this, do you suppose?
11:51I don't know, said the High King. It reminds me of somewhere, but I can't give it a name.
11:58Could it be somewhere we once stayed for a holiday, when we were very, very small?
12:03It would have to have been a jolly good holiday, said Eustace. I bet there isn't a country like
12:08this anywhere in our world. Look at the colours! You couldn't get a blue like the blue on those
12:14mountains in our world. Is it not Aslan's country? said Tyrion.
12:20Not like Aslan's country on top of that mountain beyond the eastern end of the world, said Jill.
12:27I've been there.
12:29If you ask me, said Edmund, it's like somewhere in the Narnian world. Look at those mountains ahead,
12:36and the big ice mountains beyond them. Surely they're rather like the mountains we used to
12:41see from Narnia, the ones up westward, beyond the waterfall.
12:46Yes, so they are, said Peter. Only these are bigger.
12:51I don't think those ones are so very like anything in Narnia, said Lucy.
12:57But look there! She pointed southward to their left, and everyone stopped and turned to look.
13:05Those hills, said Lucy, the nice woody ones and the blue ones behind,
13:11aren't they very like the southern border of Narnia?
13:15Like? cried Edmund, after a moment's silence.
13:19Why, they're exactly like. Look, there's Mount Piri with his forked head,
13:26and there's the pass into Arkenland and everything.
13:30And yet they're not like, said Lucy. They're different. They have more colours on them,
13:35and they look further away than I remembered, and they're more—more—oh, I don't know.
13:43More like the real thing, said the Lord Diggory, softly.
13:49Suddenly, farsighted, the eagle spread his wings, soared thirty or forty feet up into the air,
13:54circled round, and then alighted on the ground.
13:58Kings and queens, he cried, we have all been blind.
14:03We are only beginning to see where we are. From up there I have seen it all—Edinsmuir,
14:09Beaver's Dam, the great river, and Ker Parabel still shining on the edge of the eastern sea.
14:17Narnia is not dead. This is Narnia.
14:23But how can it be, said Peter, for Aslan told us older ones that we should never return to Narnia,
14:29and here we are. Yes, said Eustace, and we saw it all destroyed and the sun put out.
14:36And it's all so different, said Lucy.
14:39The eagle is right, said the Lord Diggory.
14:43Listen, Peter. When Aslan said you could never go back to Narnia,
14:48he meant the Narnia you were thinking of. But that was not the real Narnia.
14:55That had a beginning and an end. It was only a shadow or a copy of the real Narnia which has
15:03always been here and always will be here. Just as our own world, England and all,
15:10is only a shadow or copy of something in Aslan's real world.
15:15You need not mourn over Narnia, Lucy. All of the old Narnia that mattered,
15:21all the dear creatures, have been drawn into the real Narnia through the door.
15:26And of course it is different—as different as a real thing is from a shadow,
15:31or as waking life is from a dream. His voice stirred everyone like a trumpet as he spoke these
15:38words. But when he added under his breath, It's all in Plato, all in Plato, bless me,
15:45what do they teach them at these schools? The older ones laughed. It was so exactly like the
15:51sort of thing they had heard him say long ago, in that other world where his beard was grey
15:56instead of golden. He knew why they were laughing, and joined in the laugh himself.
16:02But very quickly they all became grave again, for, as you know, there is a kind of happiness
16:09and wonder that makes you serious. It is too good to waste on jokes.
16:17It is as hard to explain how this sunlit land was different from the old Narnia as it would be to
16:23tell you how the fruits of that country taste. Perhaps you will get some idea of it if you
16:31think like this. You may have been in a room in which there was a window that looked out on a
16:37lovely bay of the sea, or a green valley that wound away among mountains, and in the wall of
16:44that room opposite to the window there may have been a looking-glass, and as you turned away from
16:50the window you suddenly caught sight of that sea or that valley all over again in the looking-glass,
16:57and the sea in the mirror, or the valley in the mirror, were in one sense just the same as the
17:03real ones, yet at the same time they were somehow different, deeper, more wonderful, more like
17:11places in a story, in a story you have never heard but very much want to know.
17:18The difference between the old Narnia and the new Narnia was like that. The new one was a deeper
17:25country. Every rock and flower and blade of grass looked as if it meant more. I can't describe it
17:32any better than that. If you ever get there you will know what I mean. It was the Unicorn who
17:39summed up what everyone was feeling. He stamped his right forehoof on the ground and neighed,
17:45and then cried, I have come home at last. This is my real country. I belong here.
17:54This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.
18:00The reason why we love the old Narnia is that it sometimes looked a little like this.
18:09Come further up! Come further in! He shook his mane and sprang forward into a great gallop,
18:16a Unicorn's gallop, which in our world would have carried him out of sight in a few moments,
18:22but now a most strange thing happened. Everyone else began to run, and they found,
18:30to their astonishment, that they could keep up with him. Not only the dogs and the humans,
18:35but even fat little Puzzle and short-legged Poggin the Dwarf. The air flew in their faces,
18:42as if they were driving fast in a car without a windscreen. The country flew past as if they
18:48were seeing it from the windows of an express train. Faster and faster they raced,
18:54but no one got hot, or tired, or out of breath.
19:01Chapter 16 Farewell to Shadow Lands
19:08If one could run without getting tired, I don't think one would often want to do anything else.
19:14But there might be special reasons for stopping, and it was a special reason which made Eustace
19:20presently shout, I say, steady, look what we're coming to! And well he might, for now they saw
19:29before them Coleran Pool, and beyond the pool the high unclimbable cliffs, and pouring down the
19:36cliffs thousands of tonnes of water every second, flashing like diamonds in some places, and dark,
19:43glassy green in others, the Great Waterfall, and already the thunder of it was in their ears.
19:51Don't stop! Further up and further in, called Farsight, tilting his flight a little upward.
19:59It's all very well for him, said Eustace, but Jewel also cried out. Don't stop! Further up
20:06and further in! Take it in your stride! His voice could only just be heard above the roar of the
20:13water, but next moment everyone saw that he had plunged into the pool, and helter-skelter behind
20:19him, with splash after splash, all the others did the same. The water was not bitingly cold,
20:25as all of them, and especially Puzzle, expected, but of a delicious foamy coolness. They all found
20:34they were swimming straight for the waterfall itself. This is absolutely crazy, said Eustace
20:41to Edmund. I know, and yet, said Edmund, isn't it wonderful, said Lucy. Have you noticed one can't
20:49feel afraid, even if one wants to? Try it! By Jove, neither one can, said Eustace, after he had tried.
20:59Jewel reached the foot of the waterfall first, but Tyrion was only just behind him. Jill was last,
21:06so she could see the whole thing better than the others. She saw something white moving steadily
21:12up the face of the waterfall. That white thing was the Unicorn. You couldn't tell whether he was
21:20swimming or climbing, but he moved on, higher and higher. The point of his horn divided the water
21:27just above his head, and it cascaded out in two rainbow-coloured streams all round his shoulders.
21:35Just behind him came King Tyrion. He moved his legs and arms as if he were swimming,
21:41but he moved straight upward, as if one could swim up the wall of a house.
21:48What looked funniest was the dogs. During the gallop they had not been at all out of breath,
21:54but now, as they swarmed and wriggled upwards, there was plenty of spluttering and sneezing
22:00among them. That was because they would keep on barking, and every time they barked they got
22:06their mouths and noses full of water. But before Jill had time to notice all these things fully,
22:12she was going up the waterfall herself. It was the sort of thing that would have been
22:17quite impossible in our world. Even if you hadn't been drowned, you would have been
22:22smashed to pieces by the terrible weight of water against the countless jags of rock.
22:28But in that world you could do it. You went on, up and up, with all kinds of reflected lights
22:35flashing at you from the water, and all manner of coloured stones flashing through it,
22:41till it seemed as if you were climbing up light itself, and always higher and higher,
22:48till the sense of height would have terrified you, if you could be terrified,
22:52but later it was only gloriously exciting. And then at last one came to the lovely smooth
23:00green curve in which the water poured over the top, and found that one was out on the level
23:06river, above the waterfall. The current was racing away behind you, but you were such a
23:13wonderful swimmer that you could make headway against it. Soon they were all on the bank,
23:19dripping but happy. A long valley opened ahead,
23:24and great snow-mountains, now much nearer, stood up against the sky.
23:30Further up and further in, cried Jewel, and instantly they were off again.
23:37They were out of Narnia now, and up into the Western Wild, which neither Tyrion nor Peter
23:43even the Eagle had ever seen before, but the Lord Diggory and the Lady Polly had.
23:50Do you remember? Do you remember? they said, and said it in steady voices too, without panting,
23:58though the whole party was now running faster than an arrow flies.
24:03What, Lord? said Tyrion. Is it then true, as stories tell, that you two journeyed here on
24:11the very day the world was made? Yes, said Diggory, and it seems to me as if it were only
24:18yesterday. And on a flying horse? asked Tyrion. Is that part true?
24:25Certainly, said Diggory. But the dogs barked, Faster, faster!
24:33So they ran faster and faster, till it was more like flying than running, and even the
24:38Eagle overhead was going no faster than they, and they went through winding valley after winding
24:44valley, and up the steep sides of hills, and faster than ever down the other side, following
24:51the river, and sometimes crossing it, and skimming across mountain lakes as if they were living
24:56speedboats, till at last, at the far end of one long lake, which looked as blue as a turquoise,
25:04they saw a smooth green hill. Its sides were as steep as the sides of a pyramid,
25:11and round the very top of it ran a green wall. But above the wall rose the branches of trees,
25:18whose leaves looked like silver, and their fruit like gold.
25:23Further up and further in! roared the unicorn, and no one held back. They charged straight at
25:29the foot of the hill, and then found themselves running up it, almost as water from a broken
25:35wave runs up a rock out at the point of some bay. Though the slope was nearly as steep as the roof
25:41of a house, and the grass was smooth as a bowling green, no one slipped. Only when they had reached
25:47the very top did they slow up. That was because they found themselves facing great golden gates,
25:55and for a moment none of them was bold enough to try if the gates would open.
26:00They all felt just as they had felt about the fruit. Dare we? Is it right? Can it be meant for
26:09us? But while they were standing thus, a great horn, wonderfully loud and sweet,
26:18blew from somewhere inside that walled garden, and the gates swung open.
26:25Tyrion stood holding his breath and wondering who would come out,
26:29and what came out was the last thing he had expected. A little, sleek, bright-eyed,
26:37talking mouse, with a red feather stuck in a circlet on its head, and its left paw resting
26:44on a long sword. It bowed a most beautiful bow, and said in its shrill voice,
26:52Welcome in the lion's name. Come further up and further in.
26:59Then Tyrion saw King Peter and King Edmund and Queen Lucy rush forward to kneel down,
27:05and greet the mouse, and they all cried out, Reepycheep! And Tyrion breathed fast with the
27:12sheer wonder of it, for now he knew that he was looking at one of the great heroes of Narnia.
27:19Reepycheep the mouse, who had fought at the great battle of Baroona,
27:23and afterwards sailed to the world's end with King Caspian the seafarer.
27:29But before he had had much time to think of this, he felt two strong arms thrown about him,
27:35and felt a bearded kiss on his cheeks, and heard a well-remembered voice saying,
27:41What, lad, art thicker and taller since I last touched thee?
27:48It was his own father, the good King Aerlion, but not as Tyrion had seen him last when they
27:56brought him home, pale and wounded from his fight with the giant, nor even as Tyrion remembered him
28:02in his later years when he was a grey-headed warrior. This was his father, young and merry,
28:10as he could just remember him from very early days, when he himself had been a little boy
28:16playing games with his father in the castle garden at Caer Parabell, just before bedtime
28:21on summer evenings. The very smell of the bread and milk he used to have for supper came back to
28:28him. Jewel thought to himself, I will leave them to talk for a little, and then I will go and greet
28:35the good King Aerlion. Many a bright apple has he given me when I was but a colt. But next moment
28:43he had something else to think of, for out of the gateway there came a horse so mighty and noble
28:49that even a unicorn might feel shy in its presence—a great winged horse. It looked a moment
28:58at the Lord Diggory and the Lady Polly, and neighed out, Warhort! Cousins! And they both shouted,
29:07Fledge! Good old Fledge! and rushed to kiss it. But by now the mouse was again urging them to come in,
29:17so all of them passed in through the golden gates, into the delicious smell that blew
29:23toward them out of that garden, and into the cool mixture of sunlight and shadow under the trees,
29:30walking on springy turf that was all dotted with white flowers. The very first thing which struck
29:37everyone was that the place was far larger than it had seemed from outside. But no one had time
29:44to think about that, for people were coming up to meet the newcomers from every direction.
29:50Everyone you had ever heard of, if you knew the history of those countries, seemed to be there.
29:56There was Glimmfeather, the Owl, and Puddle-Glum, the Marsh-Wiggle, and King Rillian, the Disenchanted,
30:04and his mother, the Star's Daughter, and his great father, Caspian himself, and close beside him
30:13were the Lord Drinian, and the Lord Bairn, and Trumpkin the Dwarf, and Truffle-Hunter the Good
30:19Badger, with Glenstorm the Centaur, and a hundred other heroes of the Great War of Deliverance.
30:27And then from the other side came Corr, the King of Arkenland, with King Loon, his father,
30:34and his queen, Queen Aravis, and the brave Prince Corrin Thunderfist, his brother,
30:40and Bree the Horse, and Gwyn the Mare. And then, which was a wonder beyond all wonders to Tyrion,
30:49there came from further away in the past the two good beavers, and Tumnus the Faun.
30:58And there was greeting, and kissing, and handshaking, and old jokes revived. You've
31:04no idea how good an old joke sounds when you take it out again after a rest of five or six
31:10hundred years. And the whole company moved forward to the centre of the orchard, where the phoenix
31:17sat in a tree, and looked down upon them all. And at the foot of that tree were two thrones,
31:25and in those two thrones a king and queen so great and beautiful that everyone bowed down
31:33before them. And well they might, for these two were King Frank and Queen Helen, from whom all the
31:41most ancient kings of Narnia and Arkenland had descended. And Tyrion felt, as you would feel,
31:49if you were brought before Adam and Eve in all their glory.
31:54About half an hour later, or it might have been half a hundred years later,
31:59for time there is not like time here, Lucy stood with her dear friend, her oldest Narnian friend,
32:07the Faun Turnus, looking down over the wall of that garden, and seeing all Narnia spread out
32:13below. But when you looked down, you found that this hill was much higher than you had thought.
32:20It sank down with shining cliffs, thousands of feet below them, and trees in that lower world
32:27looked no bigger than grains of green salt. Then she turned inward again, and stood with her back
32:33to the wall, and looked at the garden. I see, she said at last, thoughtfully. I see now. This garden
32:45is like the stable. It is far bigger inside than it was outside. Of course, daughter of Eve, said
32:53the Faun, the further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger
33:01than the outside. Lucy looked hard at the garden, and saw that it was not really a garden, but a
33:08whole world, with its own rivers, and woods, and sea, and mountains. But they were not strange.
33:15She knew them all. I see, she said, this is still Narnia, and more real and more beautiful than the
33:24Narnia down below, just as it was more real and more beautiful than the Narnia outside the stable
33:32door. I see. World within world. Narnia within Narnia. Yes, said Tumnus, like an onion, except
33:46that as you continue to go in and in, each circle is larger than the last. And Lucy looked this way
33:55and that, and soon found that a new and beautiful thing had happened to her. Whatever she looked at,
34:01however far she looked, once she had fixed her eyes on it, she could see it clear and close, as if she were
34:09looking at a telescope. She could see the whole southern desert, and beyond it the great city of
34:16Tashbarn. To eastward she could see Kaer Paraval and the edge of the sea, and the very window of
34:23the room that had once been her own. And far out to sea she could discover the islands, islands after
34:30islands to the end of the world, and beyond the end the huge mountains of this land's country. But now she saw
34:41that it was a mountain of mountains which ringed round the whole world. In front of her it seemed to come
34:49quite close. Then she looked to her left and saw what she took to be a great bank of brightly coloured
34:56cloud, cut off from them by a gap. But she looked harder and saw that it was not a cloud at all,
35:06but a real land. And when she had fixed her eyes on one particular spot of it, she at once cried out,
35:15Peter, Edmund, come and look, come quickly. And they came and looked, for their eyes also had become
35:23like hers. Why, exclaimed Peter, it's England, and that's the house itself, Professor Kirk's old home
35:35in the country where all our adventures began. I thought that house had been destroyed, said Edmund.
35:44So it was, said the faun, but you are now looking at the England within England, the real England
35:53just as this is the real Narnia, and in that inner England no good thing is destroyed.
36:01Suddenly they shifted their eyes to another spot, and then Peter and Edmund and Lucy gasped with
36:07amazement and shouted out and began waving, for there they saw their own father and mother
36:12waving back at them. Across the great deep valley it was like when you see people waving at you from
36:20the deck of a big ship when you're waiting on the quay to meet them. How can we get at them,
36:26said Lucy. That is easy, said Mr. Tumnus. That country and this country, all the real countries,
36:36are only spurs jutting out from the great mountains of Aslan. We have only to walk along the ridge
36:45upward and inward till it joins on. And listen, there is King Frank's horn. We must all go up.
36:56And soon they found themselves all walking together, and a great bright procession it was,
37:03up toward mountains higher than you could see in this world, even if they were there to be seen.
37:09But there was no snow on those mountains. There were forests and green slopes and sweet orchards
37:16and flashing waterfalls, one above the other, going up forever. And the land they were walking on grew
37:23narrower all the time, with a deep valley on each side, and across that valley the land which was
37:30the real England grew nearer and nearer. The light ahead was growing stronger. Lucy saw that
37:39a great series of many coloured cliffs led up in front of them like a giant staircase.
37:46And then she forgot everything else, because Aslan himself was coming, leaping down from
37:52cliff to cliff like a living cataract of power and beauty. And the very first person whom Aslan
38:01called to him was Puzzle the donkey. You never saw a donkey look feebler and sillier than Puzzle did
38:11as he walked up to Aslan, and he looked beside Aslan as small as a kitten looks beside a St.
38:17Bernard. The lion bowed down his head and whispered something to Puzzle, at which his long ears went
38:26down. But then he said something else, at which the ears perked up again. The humans couldn't
38:34hear what he had said either time. Then Aslan turned to them and said,
38:42You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.
38:48Lucy said, We're so afraid of being sent away, Aslan, and you have sent us back into our own
38:55world so often. No fear of that, said Aslan. Have you not guessed?
39:04Their hearts leapt and a wild hope rose within them. There was a real railway accident, said Aslan
39:15softly. Your father and mother and all of you are, as you used to call it in the Shadowlands, dead.
39:26The term is over. The holidays have begun. The dream is ended. This is the morning.
39:41And as he spoke, he no longer looked to them like a lion, but the things that began to happen
39:48after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them.
39:54And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived
40:04happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in
40:14this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page.
40:20Now at last they were beginning chapter one of the great story, which no one on earth has read,
40:30which goes on forever, in which every chapter is better than the one before.
40:44So
40:59we hope you've enjoyed this program from Harper Audio. To order additional cassettes or CDs,
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