Before any other celebrating could occur, Aylin collapsed to her knees. The whole time they had been there Aylin had been searching for any glimpse of her brother. After much time, and the bestowing of knightship, Aylin became awfully frightened.

"Where is Arvid?" she asked when Caspian came to see her.

Caspian looked at Edmund for he had not seen what had happened to the boy.

"He fought." Edmund said. "He was by my side. I cannot tell you what happened."

Aylin let out a sob. She knew her brother could not fight. She knew he had most likely lost his life.

As Aylin sat and sobbed on the beach the Telmarine soldiers, firmly but without taunts or blows, were taken across the ford and all put under lock and key in the town of Beruna and given beef and beer.

They made a great fuss about wading the river, for they all hated and feared running water just as much as they hated and feared woods and animals. But in the end the nuisance was over: and then the nicest part of that long day began.

Lucy, sitting close to Aslan and divinely comfortable, wondered what the trees were doing. At first, she thought they were merely dancing; they were certainly going round slowly in two circles, one from left to right and the other from right to left. Then she noticed that they kept throwing something down in the centre of both circles.

Sometimes she thought they were cutting off long strands of their hair; at other times it looked as if they were breaking off bits of their fingers, but, if so, they had plenty of fingers to spare and it did not hurt them. But whatever they were throwing down, when it reached the ground, it became brushwood or dry sticks.

Then three or four of the Red Dwarfs came forward with their tinder boxes and set light to the pile, which first crackled, and then blazed, and finally roared as a woodland bonfire on midsummer night ought to do. And everyone sat down in a wide circle around it.

Then Bacchus and Silenus and the Maenads began a dance, far wilder than the dance of the trees; not merely a dance for fun and beauty but a magic dance of plenty, and where their hands touched, and where their feet fell, the feast came into existence—sides of roasted meat that filled the grove with delicious smell, and wheaten cakes and oaten cakes, honey and many-coloured sugars and cream as thick as porridge and as smooth as still water, peaches, nectarines, pomegranates, pears, grapes, strawberries, raspberries—pyramids and cataracts of fruit.

Then, in great wooden cups and bowls and mazers, wreathed with ivy, came the wines; dark, thick ones like syrups of mulberry juice, and clear red ones like red jellies liquefied, and yellow wines and green wines and yellowy-green and greenish-yellow.

But for the tree people different fare was provided. When Lucy saw Clodsley Shovel and his moles scuffling up the turf in various places and realised that the trees were going to eat earth it gave her rather a shudder. But when she saw the earths that were actually brought to them she felt quite different.

They began with a rich brown loam that looked almost exactly like chocolate; so like chocolate, in fact, that Edmund tried a piece of it, but he did not find it at all nice. When the rich loam had taken the edge off their hunger, the trees turned to an earth of the kind you see in Somerset, which is almost pink. They said it was lighter and sweeter.

At the cheese stage they had a chalky soil, and then went on to delicate confections of the finest gravels powdered with choice silver sand. They drank very little wine, and it made the Hollies very talkative: for the most part they quenched their thirst with deep draughts of mingled dew and rain, flavoured with forest flowers and the airy taste of the thinnest clouds.

Thus Aslan feasted the Narnians till long after the sunset had died away, and the stars had come out; and the great fire, now hotter but less noisy, shone like a beacon in the dark woods, and the frightened Telmarines saw it from far away and wondered what it might mean.

The best thing of all about this feast was that there was no breaking up or going away, but as the talk grew quieter and slower, one after another would begin to nod and finally drop off to sleep with feet towards the fire and good friends on either side, till at last there was silence all round the circle, and the chattering of water over stone at the Fords of Beruna could be heard once more. But all night Aslan and the Moon gazed upon each other with joyful and unblinking eyes.

Throughout the night Aylin just sat and stared at the slowly dying fire. She didn't know what she would do. She hadn't eaten anything for she had no appetite. She was alone, she no longer had her brother and her parents had been gone long before him.

Next day messengers were sent all over the country with a proclamation to the scattered Telmarines, including, of course, the prisoners in Beruna.

They were told that Caspian was now King and that Narnia would henceforth belong to the Talking Beasts and the Dwarfs and Dryads and Fauns and other creatures quite as much as to the men. Any who chose to stay under the new conditions might do so; but for those who did not like the idea, Aslan would provide another home.

Anyone who wished to go there must come to Aslan and the Kings at the Fords of Beruna by noon on the fifth day. You may imagine that this caused plenty of head-scratching among the Telmarines.

Some of them, chiefly the young ones, had, like Caspian, heard stories of the Old Days and were delighted that they had come back. They were already making friends with the creatures. These all decided to stay in Narnia.

But most of the older men, especially those who had been important under Miraz, were sulky and had no wish to live in a country where they could not rule the roast.

"Live here with a lot of blooming performing animals! No fear," they said.

"And ghosts too," some added with a shudder.

"That's what those there Dryads really are. It's not canny."

They were also suspicious.

"I don't trust 'em," they said.

"Not with that awful Lion and all. He won't keep his claws off us long, you'll see."

But then they were equally suspicious of his offer to give them a new home.

"Take us off to his den and eat us one by one most likely," they muttered.

And the more they talked to one another the sulkier and more suspicious they became. But on the appointed day more than half of them turned up.

At one end of the glade Aslan had caused to be set up two stakes of wood, higher than a man's head and about three feet apart. A third, and lighter, piece of wood was bound across them at the top uniting them, so that the whole thing looked like a doorway from nowhere into nowhere.

In front of this stood Aslan himself with Peter on his right and Caspian on his left. Grouped round them were Susan and Lucy, Aylin, Trumpkin and Trufflehunter, the Lord Cornelius, Glenstorm, Reepicheep and others.

The children and the Dwarfs had made good use of the royal wardrobes in what had been the castle of Miraz and was now the castle of Caspian, and what with silk and cloth of gold, with snowy linen glancing through slashed sleeves, with silver mail shirts and jewelled sword-hilts, with gilt helmets and feathered bonnets, they were almost too bright to look at.

Even the beasts wore rich chains about their necks. Yet nobody's eyes were on them or the children. The living and strokable gold of Aslan's mane outshone them all. The rest of the Old Narnians stood down each side of the glade. At the far end stood the Telmarines. The sun shone brightly and pennants fluttered in the light wind.

"Men of Telmar," Aslan said, "you who seek a new land, hear my words. I will send you all to your own country, which I know and you do not."

"We don't remember Telmar. We don't know where it is. We don't know what it is like," grumbled the Telmarines.

"You came into Narnia out of Telmar," Aslan said. "But you came into Telmar from another place. You do not belong to this world at all. You came hither, certain generations ago, out of that same world to which the High King Peter belongs."

At this, half the Telmarines began whimpering, "There you are. Told you so. He's going to kill us all, send us right out of the world," and the other half began throwing out their chests and slapping one another on the back and whispering, "There you are. Might have guessed we didn't belong to this place with all its queer, nasty, unnatural creatures. We're of royal blood, you'll see."

And even Caspian and Cornelius and the children turned to Aslan with looks of amazement on their faces.

"Peace," Aslan said in the low voice which was nearest to his growl. The earth seemed to shake a little and every living thing in the grove became still as stone.

"You, Sir Caspian," Aslan said, "might have known that you could be no true King of Narnia unless, like the Kings of old, you were a son of Adam and came from the world of Adam's sons. And so you are. Many years ago in that world, in a deep sea of that world which is called the South Sea, a shipload of pirates were driven by storm on an island. And there they did as pirates would: killed the natives and took the native women for wives, and made palm wine, and drank and were drunk, and lay in the shade of the palm trees, and woke up and quarrelled, and sometimes killed one another. And in one of these frays six were put to flight by the rest and fled with their women into the centre of the island and up a mountain, and went, as they thought, into a cave to hide. But it was one of the magical places of that world, one of the chinks or chasms between that world and this. There were many chinks or chasms between worlds in old times, but they have grown rarer. This was one of the last: I do not say the last. And so they fell, or rose, or blundered, or dropped right through, and found themselves in this world, in the Land of Telmar which was then unpeopled. But why it was unpeopled is a long story: I will not tell it now. And in Telmar their descendants lived and became a fierce and proud people; and after many generations there was a famine in Telmar and they invaded Narnia, which was then in some disorder, and conquered it and ruled it. Do you mark all this well, King Caspian?"

"I do indeed, Sir," Caspian said. "I was wishing that I came of a more honourable lineage."

"You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve," Aslan said. "And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor on earth. Be content."

Caspian bowed.

"And now," Aslan said, "you men and women of Telmar, will you go back to that island in the world of men from which your fathers first came? It is no bad place. The race of those pirates who first found it has died out, and it is without inhabitants. There are good wells of fresh water, and fruitful soil, and timber for building, and fish in the lagoons; and the other men of that world have not yet discovered it. The chasm is open for your return; but this I must warn you, that once you have gone through, it will close behind you for ever. There will be no more commerce between the worlds by that door."

There was silence for a moment. Then a burly, decent-looking fellow among the Telmarine soldiers pushed forward and said:

"Well, I'll take the offer."

"It is well chosen," Aslan said. "And because you have spoken first, strong magic is upon you. Your future in that world shall be good. Come forth."

The man, now a little pale, came forward. Aslan and his court drew aside, leaving him free access to the empty doorway of the stakes.

"Go through it, my son," Aslan said, bending towards him and touching the man's nose with his own. As soon as the Lion's breath came about him, a new look came into the man's eyes, startled, but not unhappy, as if he were trying to remember something. Then he squared his shoulders and walked into the Door.

Everyone's eyes were fixed on him. They saw the three pieces of wood, and through them the trees and grass and sky of Narnia. They saw the man between the doorposts: then, in one second, he had vanished utterly.

From the other end of the glade the remaining Telmarines set up a wailing. "Ugh! What's happened to him? Do you mean to murder us? We won't go that way."

And then one of the clever Telmarines said:

"We don't see any other world through those sticks. If you want us to believe in it, why doesn't one of you go? All your own friends are keeping well away from the sticks."

Instantly Reepicheep stood forward and bowed. "If my example can be of any service, Aslan," he said, "I will take eleven mice through that arch at your bidding without a moment's delay."

"Nay, little one," Aslan said, laying his velvety paw ever so lightly on Reepicheep's head. "They would do dreadful things to you in that world. They would show you at fairs. It is others who must lead."

"Come on," Peter said suddenly to Edmund and Lucy. "Our time's up."

"What do you mean?" Edmund said.

"This way," Susan said, who seemed to know all about it. "Back into the trees. We've got to change."

As they came back into the assembly in their English school clothes one or two of the nastier Telmarines jeered. But the other creatures all cheered and rose up in honour of Peter the High King, and Queen Susan of the Horn, and King Edmund and Queen Lucy.

There were affectionate and tearful farewells with all their old friends, animal kisses, and hugs from Bulgy Bears, and hands wrung by Trumpkin, and a last tickly, whiskerish embrace with Trufflehunter.

And of course Caspian offered the Horn back to Susan and of course Susan told him to keep it.

Aylin's already tear strewn face became worse as she said goodbye to the four who had been beside her since she had been on the island with her brother.

And then, wonderfully and terribly, it was farewell to Aslan himself, and Peter took his place with Susan's hands on his shoulders and Edmund's on hers and Lucy's on his and the first of the Telmarine's on Lucy's, and so in a long line they moved forward to the Door.

Slowly the long line of people went through the door and vanished. Eventually the last Telmarine went through the opening and the door collapsed.

Aslan looked at Caspian and Aylin who were now standing side by side.

"My daughter," He said to the young girl, "Your brother is in a better place. His story came to an end however yours is just beginning. You are to stay and help Caspian through his rule. He will need you as much as you need him."

"Why did he have to die?" Aylin asked Aslan confused as to why Arvid was no longer with her.

"No one is told any story but their own."

With that Aslan vanished leaving Aylin alone to walk back to Caspian.

As time past Aylin's pain weakened however she always wondered what would have become of her brother if he had stayed by her side. Her pain influenced her decisions causing her to be more reserved that she had previously meaning Caspian had to force her into many things.

One of these things was her next greatest adventure which is yet to come.