Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me, actually. Narnia, Susan, the Wood between the Worlds, and the Magic rings, none of which are mentioned in this chapter anyway, belong to C. S. Lewis. Dailitcen, Mount Niol, Xerxes, Lydia, Crystal, Peter, Martha, and everything else that does not belong to C. S. Lewis probably belong to my online pseudonym, which is something like a multiple personality.

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Note: I would like to thank The Goddess of Purple Coats for pointing out that chapter 12 was "substandard" and if I haven't managed to fix it yet I would appreciate any suggestions. This will be the second posting of chapter 12.

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Peter stared at Lydia for almost two minutes before he said anything. The best he could manage was, "What?"

"I've been there," repeated Lydia. "I can help you find Mount Niol."

"Why? How?"

"There is no time now. There may be while we walk," said Lydia, as she poured him the cocoa he had said he didn't want. "You must get some rest. I will wake everyone when it is dark."

She ushered him into the living room and went back to her packing, leaving Peter to wonder and try to sleep. It was easier than he expected.

The next thing Peter knew, someone was tapping him on the shoulder and telling him to get up.

It was not quite dark yet, but the sun was setting. Lydia showed Peter and the others some tents and a couple of big baskets that they needed to bring with them. She explained that, farther north, there were fewer towns, and they would have to carry more supplies.

They waited until it was dark enough not to be seen easily, and turned out the lights before they opened the door. Lydia led them straight through town on the main street and out into the country beyond.

A few hours' walk from the town was a forest. Peter did not like the little he could see of it in the dark. The trees were so close together that the road turned west to go around, and they decided to wait until morning to go into them.

The sun came up, and the forest looked even more unpleasant. It seemed to be a solid wall of tree trunks, but there was a hidden path just wide enough to walk single-file.

They stopped for lunch, and then supper, sitting right down on the path to eat. They had not seen a single clearing all day, and it was evening before they found one. There was a sudden gap in the trees on the left that they almost missed in the dark.

They squeezed through the narrow opening into a much wider space that had obviously been used as a camp site. A large tank of water stood on one side, and two outhouses on the other. There was plenty of room for their tents, and they set them up quickly and went to sleep.

The next day, and the next, and the next, were almost exactly the same. They walked down the path until it was dark and then camped in a clearing identical to the first one. Sometimes it was on the right, and sometimes on the left, but it soon became more familiar than a violet-colored guest room. It got depressing after a while.

Peter was tired of this, and he said so. There was nothing to look at all day but unnaturally close trees and the back of Martha's head.

"We are almost to the village," said Lydia. "We will leave the forest in less than two days."

"What sort of place is this, anyway?" Peter asked sourly.

"This forest was planted by the people that live to the north, to keep others away."

"Why do they want to keep people away?"

"The last time anyone traveled to this village from the south, everyone woke up the next morning with the same face."

Peter thought they were being a little paranoid, but he certainly couldn't blame them.

"Why is there a path here, then?" he asked.

"They want to keep others out, not themselves in," answered Lydia. "The path is well hidden, and a secret only they know about."

"You know about it," Peter pointed out, "and now we do, too."

"I was born in the village we are going to," said Lydia, "but I live in the south because we were waiting for you, and knew you would need a guide through the forest."

"What do you mean, you were waiting for us?"

"I should start the tale at the beginning," she said.

"Go ahead," said Peter.

Everyone stopped talking to listen as Lydia told the story.

"Long, long ago," she began, "there was a village near Mount Niol. The people to the south might have called it primitive. It had no tall buildings or indoor plumbing, but the people there were perfectly happy without those things.

"One day, a group of strangers came from a place that was not so very far away, but was very different. They said they were going to Mount Niol to tell Sainollan to make things fair. The village people thought they were foolish, and tried to stop them.

"Five of the eight men were finally convinced that they were wrong, and decided not to climb the mountain. They stayed in the village. One of the other three became frightened and ran away, back where he came from, supposedly. Two went up onto Mount Niol and they never came down again. No one knew what happened to them, but the next morning everyone looked exactly alike, and they knew it was because of those strangers.

"The people were very upset, but did not know what to do about it. They finally decided to block off their land completely, in case the people to the south had any more complaints for Sainollan. They planted the forest and tended it for generations, until it was impossible for anyone who did not know the path to get through it. They kept the path open, and used it to go back and forth themselves.

"Someone would always be living south of the forest, because Sainollan had told them that someday someone would come to undo the curse. We would need to show them the way to Mount Niol. That is why I was waiting, and why I brought you on our path."

Lydia stopped talking, and they walked on in a gloomy, thoughtful silence.

Everyone was quite sick of the forest long before they reached the end of it, and they were glad to get out of the stuffy, narrow path into the open.

They were in a grassy field. To the south, west, and farther away to the north, they were surrounded by the impenetrable wall of trees. To the east, though, there was a small town, and between them and the town were several fences and a few wooden houses.

Crystal took a short flight to stretch her cramped wings before politely coming down to walk with the others. They did not walk far, however, before they were attacked.

A huge, purple bull with a single horn in the middle of its forehead charged at them so fast they did not see where it came from. It knocked down two of the boys and chased Crystal into the air again while Lydia was rummaging around in one of the baskets. She pulled out a rope, tied one end to a fence post, and lassoed the bull before it managed to hurt anyone.

"We should tell Hezekiah that we found his unicorn," she said, as though nothing were out of the ordinary.

"That thing is a unicorn?" asked Peter incredulously.

Xerxes stared at the creature and answered in a hushed voice. "Yes, that's a unicorn. I thought they were mythical."

"So did I," said Peter, "but I didn't think they looked like that."

"What else would a unicorn look like?" asked Lydia, as she knocked on the door of a nearby farmhouse.

A man answered the door. When Lydia told him about the unicorn, he thanked her and went to get it. Peter noticed a second unicorn in the next field. This one was wearing a bright orange cowbell and grazing peacefully. It looked up at them and gave a loud, contented moo.

Martha laughed and began to sing, changing the words a little. "Now I've seen a purple cow, I hope you never see one, but I can tell you anyhow, you'd rather see than be one."

She sang this song over and over until they reached the town, and it started to get on Peter's nerves.

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Note: I don't own the purple cow song either.