"But, Aslan," said Susan when they were alone, "why couldn't we have been sent back sooner? Or else why couldn't you have helped them instead, for I am not sure that we have helped so very much? And I," here she hesitated, for she was beginning to get used to being back in Narnia, but then again that was the problem. "And I – " do not appreciate, she wanted to say, but did not quite dare. "I do not like being shuttled from England to Narnia and back again with no choice or warning."
"You shall not be anymore, for I have told you that neither you nor Peter shall ever return to Narnia."
But Susan thought of her life in England, the perpetual grey dreariness stretching out until her unforeseeable death, and felt a grief that was more despairing than melancholy, for in Narnia such a future seemed intolerable.
"I cannot live in England," she said instead, for to attempt to explain England in all its shabbiness and constraints, while in Narnia, even this Narnia, would be to break her own heart all over again. "And yet I cannot live in Narnia; you shall never permit me to!"
Had she been Lucy, she might have thrown herself on him and begged, cried into his mane until he called her 'dear one', and been comforted. But the ground beneath them glistened with dew, and Susan was not her sister, to whom he had always been an especial friend and protector.
"It is not in the way of things, Susan," he replied solemnly. "The Deep Magic would not allow it."
She could feel tears stinging at her eyes and blinked them away furiously, for while here she was still a Queen of Narnia, and she could not let herself down. "You have counteracted the Deep Magic before."
The sound Aslan made then was as near to a growl as she had ever heard from him, and Susan found that she had shrank back in reflex. When she noticed this, she made herself lift her head up high and look straight at him, for if this was indeed to be her last visit to Narnia, she would not leave it cowering, only to wonder what if all the remaining days of her life. She owed at least that much to herself.
When he spoke, there was still a hint of a roar in his voice, but his words were perfectly clear. "I have never acted against the power of Deep Magic, Susan Pevensie, of Finchley," he added, as to reinforce her exile. "Indeed, I could not, for its power is woven into the very fabric of existence. In acting against it, I would destroy, nay, erase, all existence, every living and on-living thing ever created. The Deep Magic can be bargained with, used or subverted if one has the courage and the skill, but it can never be counteracted.
You have asked me why I could not come, why you and your siblings have been summoned, and now I say to you: Deep Magic. It was that same power that destroyed Charn, and changed a girl, perhaps a little cold and overambitious even then, but little more than that, into the White Witch who terrorised this land for a hundred years." Here his voice softened, and he looked away from her and across the river, where in the horizon could be seen the rising smoke from a nearby Telmarine settlement. "It barred me from Narnia until the time of its own choosing."
"It is evil then?" For no power of good would have inflicted first Jadis and then the Telmarines on Narnia.
"Evil? It was Deep Magic that opened the wardrobe for you thrice; without it, Edmund would not have been saved."
"Without it, he would never have been in danger."
Aslan inclined his head in recognition of the fact. "Without the Deep Magic of the universe, nothing would have ever happened, Susan. But it knows neither evil nor good, only what has happened and what must happen, until the end of time."
"So you cannot change anything? Edmund and Lucy will be called back whenever magic chooses it?"
"The time will come again for them, yes." The lion crouched down to gaze into the water. Looking down, Susan could see their shimmering reflections: Aslan, his fur golden in the sunlight, and Susan in stark contrast next to him, her unpinned hair swooping down like a veil. But she could not see any living creature within the depths, no matter how hard she tried.
"But there is no telling when? In either English or Narnian time?"
"No," said Aslan, righting himself, "but soon the doorway will open, and one day they shall find it."
They walked on then, in silence for a few moments, until Susan said, "I have often wondered, if we had not been hunting the White Stag, would –" Then she noticed that Aslan was shaking his head, and fell silent.
"No one is ever told what would have happened," he said, not ungently.
"Another one of the rules of Deep Magic?"
"No," said the lion sternly. "This is mine."
It took a while for Susan to notice what was bothering her so much. There was more to the sound of Narnia than merely speech, but as they walked, the world around them seemed utterly silent; not even the birds were chirping, and there was no wind to rustle the plants.
It made her feel as though her country was dying, though her own Narnia had been destroyed many years before.
Thinking this made her unable to carry on in silence, and she said, "I don't mind it as much as I might be expected to, Aslan. This is not, after all, the Narnia I remember, and even she laid constraints on me that my siblings did not feel. So I think that Peter may take it worse than I will."
Susan paused, but when the lion did not comment, carried on, her voice all in a rush. "It's just that I feel I cannot live in England, not anymore. It is not a country for women – at least, not for queens stuck in the body of a pretty child. It just feels like all we ever do is talk about Narnia again and again, and I lose more of myself each time."
She bit her lip, and hesitated for a moment. "It can't be healthy, surely, Aslan, to spend all our lives looking back? Since we can't come back?"
He was silent for a long time. Then he said, quietly, "Surely you would not like to forget Narnia?"
She tried to speak, but the words caught in her throat, and Susan looked around instead. To her left she could see, through the branches, the beginning of a little cobbled path that led to Tumnus' house, built by the Telmarines over the old tracks when they had turned this part of the forest into a park. Above her the sky was a purer blue than ever she had seen in England.
It was still beautiful, despite the centuries of Telmarine carnage, and she sank down to the ground and laid her hands on the grass, fresher than that around the Professor's house, and tried to make herself become part of Narnia itself, to hear in the silence of the world the voice of Narnia herself.
But the voice was gone; her country was silent.
She knew not how long she sat there in silence and in despair, only that when she looked up, the sky was darker than before, and Aslan was still standing there beside her.
Susan got up, brushing her dress down in silence.
"Yes," she said finally, and was surprised at how strong her voice sounded.
Aslan did not reply, only bent down his great head and sighed, his exhaled breath warm on her skin like steam. It seemed to travel all across her body, from the roots of her hair to her toes, warming her all over, and Susan had the sudden thought that it would all be all right, though she knew it to be perfectly illogical.