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WHAT NEWS THE EAGLE BROUGHT:
IN the shadow of the trees on the far side of the clearing something was
moving. It was gliding very slowly Northward. At a first glance you might have
mistaken it for smoke, for it was grey and you could see things through it. But
the deathly smell was not the smell of smoke. Also, this thing kept its shape
instead of billowing and curling as smoke would have done. It was roughly the
shape of a man but it had the head of a bird; some bird of prey with a cruel,
curved beak. It had four arms which it held high above its head, stretching them
out Northward as if it wanted to snatch all Narnia in its grip; and its fingers
- all twenty of them - were curved like its beak and had long, pointed,
bird-like claws instead of nails. It floated on the grass instead of walking,
and the grass seemed to wither beneath it.
After one look at it Puzzle gave a screaming bray and darted into the Tower. And
Jill (who was no coward, as you know) hid her face in her hands to shut out the
sight of it. The others watched it for perhaps a minute, until it streamed away
into the thicker trees on their right and disappeared. Then the sun came out
again, and the birds once more began to sing.
Everyone started breathing properly again and moved. They had all been still as
statues while it was in sight.
"What was it?" said Eustace in a whisper.
"I have seen it once before," said Tirian. "But that time it was carved in stone
and overlaid with gold and had solid diamonds for eyes. It was when I was no
older than thou, and had gone as a guest to The Tisroc's court in Tashbaan.
He took me into the great temple of Tash. There I saw it, carved above the
altar."
"Then that - that thing - was Tash?" said Eustace.
But instead of answering him Tirian slipped his arm behind Jill's shoulders and
said, "How is it with you, Lady?"
"A-all right," said Jill, taking her hands away from her pale face and trying to
smile. "I'm all right. It only made me feel a little sick for a moment."
"It seems, then," said the Unicorn, "that there is a real Tash, after all."
"Yes," said the Dwarf. "And this fool of an Ape, who didn't believe in Tash,
will get more than he bargained for! He called for Tash: Tash has come."
"Where has it - he - the Thing - gone to?" said Jill.
"North into the heart of Narnia," said Tirian. "It has come to dwell among us.
They have called it and it has come."
"Ho, ho, ho!" chuckled the Dwarf, rubbing his hairy hands together. "It will be
a surprise for the Ape. People shouldn't call for demons unless they really mean
what they say."
"Who knows if Tash will be visible to the Ape?" said Jewel.
"Where has Puzzle got to?" said Eustace.
They all shouted out Puzzle's name and Jill went round to the other side of the
Tower to see if he had gone there.
They were quite tired of looking for him when at last his large grey head peered
cautiously out of the doorway and he said, "Has it gone away?" And when at last
they got him to come out, he was shivering the way a dog shivers before a
thunderstorm.
"I see now," said Puzzle, "that I really have been a very bad donkey. I ought
never to have listened to Shift. I never thought things like this would begin to
happen."
"If you'd spent less time saying you weren't clever and more time trying to be
as clever as you could -" began Eustace but Jill interrupted him.
"Oh leave poor old Puzzle alone," she said. "It was all a mistake; wasn't it,
Puzzle dear?" And she kissed him on the nose.
Though rather shaken by what they had seen, the whole party now sat down again
and went on with their talk.
Jewel had little to tell them. While he was a prisoner he had spent nearly all
his time tied up at the back of the stable, and had of course heard none of the
enemies' plans. He had been kicked (he'd done some kicking back too) and beaten
and threatened with death unless he would say that he believed it was Aslan who
was brought out and shown to them by firelight every night. In fact he was going
to be executed this very morning if he had not been rescued. He didn't know what
had happened to the Lamb.
The question they had to decide was whether they would go to Stable Hill again
that night, show Puzzle to the Narnians and try to make them see how they had
been tricked, or whether they should steal away Eastward to meet the help which
Roonwit the Centaur was bringing up from Cair Paravel and return against the Ape
and his Calormenes in force. Tirian would very much like to have followed the
first plan: he hated the idea of leaving the Ape to bully his people one moment
longer than need be. On the other hand, the way the Dwarfs had behaved last
night was a warning. Apparently one couldn't be sure how people would take it
even if he showed them Puzzle. And there were the Calormene soldiers to be
reckoned with. Poggin thought there were about thirty of them. Tirian felt sure
that if the Narnians all rallied to his side, he and Jewel and the children and
Poggin (Puzzle didn't count for much) would have a good chance of beating them.
But how if half the Narnians - including all the Dwarfs - just sat and looked
on? or even fought against him? The risk was too great. And there was, too, the
cloudy shape of Tash. What might it do?
And then, as Poggin pointed out, there was no harm in leaving the Ape to deal
with his own difficulties for a day or two. He would have no Puzzle to bring out
and show now. It wasn't easy to see what story he - or Ginger could make up to
explain that. If the Beasts asked night after night to see Aslan, and no Aslan
was brought out, surely even the simplest of them would get suspicious.
In the end they all agreed that the best thing was to go off and try to meet
Roonwit.
As soon as they had decided this, it was wonderful how much more cheerful
everyone became. I don't honestly think that this was because any of them was
afraid of a fight (except perhaps Jill and Eustace). But I daresay that each of
them, deep down inside, was very glad not to go any nearer - or not yet - to
that horrible bird-headed thing which, visible or invisible, was now probably
haunting Stable Hill. Anyway, one always feels better when one has made up one's
mind.
Tirian said they had better remove their disguises, as they didn't want to be
mistaken for Calormenes and perhaps attacked by any loyal Narnians they might
meet. The Dwarf made up a horrid-looking mess of ashes from the hearth and
grease out of the jar of grease which was kept for rubbing on swords and
spear-heads. Then they took off their Calormene armour and went down to the
stream. The nasty mixture made a lather just like soft soap: it was a pleasant,
homely sight to see Tirian and the two children kneeling beside the water and
scrubbing the backs of their necks or puffing and blowing as they splashed the
lather off. Then they went back to the Tower with red, shiny faces, like people
who have been given an extra good wash before a party. They re-armed themselves
in true Narnian style, with straight swords and three-cornered shields. "Body of
me," said Tirian. "That is better. I feel a true man again."
Puzzle begged very hard to have the lion-skin taken off him. He said it was too
hot and the way it was rucked up on his back was uncomfortable: also, it made
him look so silly. But they told him he would have to wear it a bit longer, for
they still wanted to show him in that get-up to the other Beasts, even though
they were now going to meet Roonwit first.
What was left of the pigeon-meat and rabbit-meat was not worth bringing away but
they took some biscuits. Then Tirian locked the door of the Tower and that was
the end of their stay there.
It was a little after two in the afternoon when they set out, and it was the
first really warm day of that spring. The young leaves seemed to be much further
out than yesterday: the snow-drops were over, but they saw several primroses.
The sunlight slanted through the trees, birds sang, and always (though usually
out of sight) there was the noise of running water. It was hard to think of
horrible things like Tash. The children felt, "This is really Narnia at last."
Even Tirian's heart grew lighter as he walked ahead of them, humming an old
Narnian marching song which had the refrain:
Ho, rumble, rumble, rumble, Rumble drum belaboured.
After the King came Eustace and Poggin the Dwarf. Poggin was telling Eustace the
names of all the Narnian trees, birds, and plants which he didn't know already.
Sometimes Eustace would tell him about English ones.
After them came Puzzle, and after him Jill and Jewel walking very close
together. Jill had, as you might say, quite fallen in love with the Unicorn. She
thought- and she wasn't far wrong - that he was the shiningest, delicatest, most
graceful animal she had ever met: and he was so gentle and soft of speech that,
if you hadn't known, you would hardly have believed how fierce and terrible he
could be in battle.
"Oh, this is nice!" said Jill. "Just walking along like this. I wish there could
be more of this sort of adventure. It's a pity there's always so much happening
in Narnia."
But the Unicorn explained to her that she was quite mistaken. He said that the
Sons and Daughters of Adam and Eve were brought out of their own strange world
into Narnia only at times when Narnia was stirred and upset, but she mustn't
think it was always like that. In between their visits there were hundreds and
thousands of years when peaceful King followed peaceful King till you could
hardly remember their names or count their numbers, and there was really hardly
anything to put into the History Books. And he went on to talk of old Queens and
heroes whom she had never heard of. He spoke of Swanwhite the Queen who had
lived before the days of the White Witch and the Great Winter, who was so
beautiful that when she looked into any forest pool the reflection of her face
shone out of the water like a star by night for a year and a day afterwards. He
spoke of Moonwood the Hare who had such ears that he could sit by Caldron Pool
under the thunder of the great waterfall and hear what men spoke in whispers at
Cair Paravel. He told how King Gale, who was ninth in descent from Frank the
first of all Kings, had sailed far away into the Eastern seas and delivered the
Lone Islanders from a dragon and how, in return, they had given him the Lone
Islands to be part of the royal lands of Narnia for ever. He talked of whole
centuries in which all Narnia was so happy that notable dances and feasts, or at
most tournaments, were the only things that could be remembered, and every day
and week had been better than the last. And as he went on, the picture of all
those happy years, all the thousands of them, piled up in Jill's mind till it
was rather like looking down from a high hill on to a rich, lovely plain full of
woods and waters and cornfields, which spread away and away till it got thin and
misty from distance. And she said:
"Oh, I do hope we can soon settle the Ape and get back to those good, ordinary
times. And then I hope they'll go on for ever and ever and ever. Our world is
going to have an end some day. Perhaps this one won't. Oh Jewel wouldn't it be
lovely if Narnia just went on and on - like what you said it has been?"
"Nay, sister," answered Jewel, "all worlds draw to an end, except Aslan's own
country."
"Well, at least," said Jill, "I hope the end of this one is millions of millions
of millions of years away - hallo! what are we stopping for?"
The King and Eustace and the Dwarf were all staring up at the sky. Jill
shuddered, remembering what horrors they had seen already. But it was nothing of
that sort this time. It was small, and looked black against the blue.
"I dare swear," said the Unicorn, "from its flight, that it is a Talking bird."
"So think I," said the King. "But is it a friend, or a spy of the Ape's?"
"To me, Sire," said the Dwarf, "it has a look of Far-sight the Eagle."
"Ought we to hide under the trees?" said Eustace.
"Nay," said Tirian, "best stand still as rocks. He would see us for certain if
we moved."
"Look! He wheels, he has seen us already," said Jewel. "He is coming down in
wide circles."
"Arrow on string, Lady," said Tirian to Jill. "But by no means shoot till I bid
you. He may be a friend."
If one had known what was going to happen next it would have been a treat to
watch the grace and ease with which the huge bird glided down. He alighted on a
rocky crag a few feet from Tirian, bowed his crested head, and said in his
strange eagle's-voice, "Hail, King."
"Hail, Farsight," said Tirian. "And since you call me King, I may well believe
you are not a follower of the Ape and his false Aslan. I am right glad of your
coming."
"Sire," said the Eagle, "when you have heard my news you will be sorrier of my
coming than of the greatest woe that ever befell you."
Tirian's heart seemed to stop beating at these words, but he set his teeth and
said, "Tell on."
"Two sights have I seen," said Farsight. "One was Cair Paravel filled with dead
Narnians and living Calormenes: The Tisroc's banner advanced upon your royal
battlements: and your subjects flying from the city - this way and that, into
the woods. Cair Paravel was taken from the sea. Twenty great ships of Calormen
put in there in the dark of the night before last night."
No one could speak.
"And the other sight, five leagues nearer than Cair Paravel, was Roonwit the
Centaur lying dead with a Calormene arrow in his side. I was with him in his
last hour and he gave me this message to your Majesty: to remember that all
worlds draw to an end and that noble death is a treasure which no one is too
poor to buy."
"So," said the King, after a long silence, "Narnia is no more."
