The Chronicles of Narnia Complete 7-Book Collection with Bonus Book

by C. S. Lewis

  “My own eyes,” said Shasta. “I’ve 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 can ride fast, friend?”

  For answer Shasta put his foot in the stirrup of the horse which had been led toward him and a moment later he was in the saddle. He had done it a hundred times 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 was pleased to hear the Lord Darrin say to the King, “The boy has a true horseman’s seat, Sire. I’ll warrant there’s noble blood in him.”

  “His blood, aye, there’s the point,” said the King. And he stared hard at Shasta again with that curious expression, almost a hungry expression, in his steady gray eyes.

  But by now the whole party was moving off at a brisk canter. Shasta’s seat was excellent but he was sadly puzzled as to what to do with his reins, for he had never touched the reins while he was on Bree’s back. But he looked very carefully out of the corners of his eyes to see what the others were doing (as some of us have done at parties when we weren’t quite sure which knife or fork we were meant to use) and tried to get his fingers right. But he didn’t dare to try really directing 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 since the arrival at Tashbaan (how long ago it seemed!) he was beginning to enjoy himself.

  He looked up to see how much nearer the mountain tops had come. To his disappointment he could not see them at all; only a vague grayness, rolling down toward them. He had never been in mountain country before and was surprised. “It’s a cloud,” he said to himself, “a cloud coming 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! I’ve often wondered.” Far away on his left and a little behind him, the sun was getting ready to set.

  They had come to a rough kind of road by now and were making very good speed. But Shasta’s horse was still the last of the lot. Once or twice when the road made a bend (there was now continuous forest on each side of it) he lost sight of the others for a second or two.

  Then they plunged into the fog, or else the fog rolled over them. The world became gray. Shasta had not realized how cold and wet the inside of a cloud would be; nor how dark. The gray turned to black with alarming speed.

  Someone at the head of the column winded the horn every now and then, and each time the sound came from a little farther off. He couldn’t see any of the others now, but of course he’d be able to as soon as he got round the next bend. But when he rounded it he still couldn’t see them. 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 something very terrible would happen if he dug his heels into a horse’s sides. This seemed to him an occasion for trying it. “Look here, Horse,” he said, “if you don’t buck up, do you know what I’ll do? I’ll 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, clenched his teeth, and punched both the horse’s sides with his heels as hard as he could.

  The only result was that the horse broke into a kind of pretense 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 shan’t 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 wondering 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 crossroads I’m 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 grew rapidly 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 command “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 to regard 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 Archenland it is another thing. In the assault on this castle of King Lune’s, 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 born yesterday, and everything else is yours to divide as you please—the women, the gold, the jewels, the weapons, and the wine. The man that I see hanging back when we come to the gates shall be burned alive. In the name of Tash the irresistible, the inexorable—forward!”

  With a great cloppitty-clop the column began to move, and Shasta breathed again. They had taken the other 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 knew the way to Anvard but of course he could not now go there; that would only mean running into the arms of Rabadash’s troopers. “What on earth am I to do?” said Shasta to himself. But he remounted his horse and continued 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 couldn’t because by now he had not the least idea of the direction.

  “After all,” said Shasta, “this road is bound to get somewhere.”

  But that all depends on what you mean by somewhere. The road kept on getting to somewhere in the sense that 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 been used to mountain country 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 goes right 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 cast
le and shut the gates long before Rabadash arrived, but I get left out.”

  And being very tired and having nothing inside him, he felt so sorry for himself that the tears rolled down his cheeks.

  What put a stop to all this was a sudden fright. Shasta discovered that someone or somebody was walking beside him. It was pitch 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 companion seemed to breathe on a very large scale, and Shasta got the impression that it was a very large creature. And he had come to notice this breathing so gradually that he had really no idea how long it had been there. It was a horrible shock.

  It darted into his mind that he had heard long ago that there were giants in these Northern countries. He bit his lip in terror. But now that he really had something to cry about, he stopped crying.

  The Thing (unless it was a Person) went on beside him so very quietly that Shasta began to hope he had only imagined it. But just as he was becoming quite sure of it, there suddenly came a deep, rich sigh out of the darkness beside him. That couldn’t 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 break away and a wild gallop. But he knew he couldn’t make that horse gallop. So he went on at a walking pace and the unseen companion 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 can’t see you at all,” said Shasta, after staring very hard. Then (for an even more terrible idea had come into his head) he said, almost in a scream, “You’re 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 then he told 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. And he told 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.

  “Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” said Shasta.

  “There was only one lion,” said the Voice.

  “What on earth do you mean? I’ve 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 continued. “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted 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 new strength 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 then the third time “Myself,” whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with it.

  Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice belonged to 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 gray and from gray to white. This must have begun to happen some time ago, but while he had been talking to the Thing he had not been noticing anything else. Now, the whiteness around him became a shining whiteness; his eyes began to blink. Somewhere ahead he could hear birds singing. He knew the 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, pacing 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 Calormen 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 glance at the Lion’s face he slipped out of the saddle and fell at its feet. He couldn’t say anything but then he didn’t want to say anything, and he knew he needn’t say anything.

  The High King above all kings stooped toward him. Its mane, and some strange and solemn perfume that hung about the mane, was all round him. It touched his forehead with its tongue. He lifted his face and 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 alone with the horse on a grassy hillside under a blue sky. And there were birds singing.

  Chapter Twelve

  Shasta in Narnia

  “WAS IT ALL A DREAM?” WONDERED SHASTA. BUT IT couldn’t have been a dream for there in the grass before him he saw the deep, large print of the Lion’s front right paw. It took one’s breath away to think of the weight that could make a footprint like that. But there was something more remarkable than the size about it. As he looked at it, water had already filled the bottom of it. Soon it was full to the brim, and then overflowing, and a little stream was running downhill, past him, over the grass.

  Shasta stooped and drank—a very long drink—and then dipped his face in and splashed his head. It was extremely cold, and clear as glass, and refreshed him very much. After that he stood up, shaking the water out of his ears and flinging the wet hair back from his forehead, and began to take stock of his surroundings.

  Apparently it was still very early morning. The sun had only just risen, and it had risen out of the forests which he saw low down and far away on his right. The country which he was looking at was absolutely new to him. It was a green valley-land dotted with trees through which he caught the gleam of a river that wound away roughly to the Northwest. On the far side of the valley there were high and even rocky hills, but they were lower than the mountains he had seen yesterday. Then he began to guess where he was. He turned and looked behind him and saw that the slope on which he was standing belonged to a range of far higher mountains.

  “I see,” said Shasta to himself. “Those are the big mountains between Archenland and Narnia. I was on the other side of them yesterday. I must have come through the pass in the night. What luck that I hit it!—at least it wasn’t luck at all really, it was Him. And now I’m in Narnia.”

  He turned and unsaddled his horse and took off i
ts bridle—“Though you are a perfectly horrid horse,” he said. It took no notice of this remark and immediately began eating grass. That horse had a very low opinion of Shasta.

  “I wish I could eat grass!” thought Shasta. “It’s no good going back to Anvard, it’ll all be besieged. I’d better get lower down into the valley and see if I can get anything to eat.”

  So he went on downhill (the thick dew was cruelly cold to his bare feet) till he came into a wood. There was a kind of track running through it and he had not followed this for many minutes when he heard a thick and rather wheezy voice saying to him:

  “Good morning, neighbor.”

  Shasta looked round eagerly to find the speaker and presently saw a small, prickly person with a dark face who had just come out from among the trees. At least, it was small for a person but very big indeed for a hedgehog, which was what it was.

  “Good morning,” said Shasta. “But I’m not a neighbor. In fact I’m a stranger in these parts.”

  “Ah?” said the Hedgehog inquiringly.

  “I’ve come over the mountains—from Archenland, you know.”

  “Ah, Archenland,” said the Hedgehog. “That’s a terrible long way. Never been there myself.”

  “And I think, perhaps,” said Shasta, “someone ought to be told that there’s an army of savage Calormenes attacking Anvard at this very moment.”

  “You don’t say so!” answered the Hedgehog. “Well, think of that. And they do say that Calormen is hundreds and thousands of miles away, right at the world’s end, across a great sea of sand.”

  “It’s not nearly as far as you think,” said Shasta. “And oughtn’t something to be done about this attack on Anvard? Oughtn’t your High King to be told?”

  “Certain sure, something ought to be done about it,” said the Hedgehog. “But you see I’m just on my way to bed for a good day’s sleep. Hullo, neighbor!”

  The last words were addressed to an immense biscuit-colored rabbit whose head had just popped up from somewhere beside the path. The Hedgehog immediately told the Rabbit what it had just learned from Shasta. The Rabbit agreed that this was very remarkable news and that somebody ought to tell someone about it with a view to doing something.