Chapter 6: The Founding of Narnia
The Lion was pacing to and fro across the empty land, singing the new song. The song was softer and more lilting than the song he'd sung to bring the stars and sun; it was gentle rippling music.
As he walked and sang, the valley grew green with grass. It spread from the Lion like a pool. It spread up the sides of the hills like a wave. A few minutes later it was creeping up the slopes of the mountains in the distance, making the new world softer. A light wind could be heard blowing through the grass. There was soon dark heather on the hills. Patches of rougher more bristling green appeared as well. The bristles grew closer and closer.
The spikes threw out dozens of arms covered in green. The grew inches at time. Dozens and dozens of them grew around them.
"Trees!" Digory exclaimed, he had been wondering what they were. The only problem was that they couldn't watch in peace. They had to jump to avoid the trees that popped up around them.
Uncle Andrew took the opportunity to get closer to Digory, only for the boy to jump away. Uncle Andrew was going to pick Digory's pocket. Though it wouldn't have done much good, Uncle Andrew didn't truly know how the rings worked and thought the green ring he'd been going for would take him home, when he would really just stay right where he was. But Digory didn't want to lose either ring.
"Stop!" cried Jadis. "Stand back. No, further back. If anyone goes within ten paces of either of the children, I will knock out his brains." She held the iron bar aloft, prepared to strike anyone that moved. No one doubted how true her aim was.
"So!" she continued "You would steal back to your own world with the boy and leave me here."
That was the last straw for Uncle Andrew. His temper finally outgrew his fears. "Yes, Ma'am, I would," he said. "Most undoubtedly I would. Should be perfectly within my rights. I have been most shamefully, most abominably treated. I have done my best to show you such civilities as were in my powers. And what has been my reward? You have robbed – I must repeat the word – robbed a highly respectable jeweler. You have insisted on my entertaining you to an exceeding expensive, not to say ostentatious, lunch, though I was obligated to pawn my watch and chain in order to do so (and let me tell you, Ma'am, that none of our family have been in the habit of frequenting pawn shops, except y cousin Edward, and he was in the Yeomanry). During that indigestible meal – I'm feeling the worse for it at this very moment – your behavior and conversation attracted the unfavorable attraction of everyone present. I feel I have been publicly disgraced. I shall never again be able to show my face in that restaurant again. You attempted to assault the police. You have stolen –
"Oh, stow it, Gov'nor, do stow it," interrupted the Cabby. Why couldn't these people just let him listen to the music? "Watchin' and listenin's the thing at the present; not talking."
And there was plenty to watch and listen to. The trees were full-grown now. There were beech trees, whose branches swayed above their heads. The grass beneath their feet was sprinkled with daisies and buttercups now. Down by the river, willow trees had popped up and were growing. On the other side of the river grew flowering currant, lilac, wild rose, and rhododendron. The horse was very busy tearing up mouthfuls of the new grass.
During all this, the Lion's song continued, along with prowling to and fro, backward and forward. The alarming part was that he was moving ever closer.
Through the song, Dione had been whispering the names of plants, and Polly noticed that each plant name said went with a sound in the song. And not long after that, the blonde girl realized the princess was predicting what plants would grow. The dark firs that sprang up on a ridge was connected to a series of deep, prolonged notes. A rapid series of lighter notes made primroses appear in every direction. Polly felt a thrill when she found herself quite certain that the things were coming out of the Lion's head. When you listened to the song you could hear what he was making: when you looked around you saw them. She was so excited she didn't have time to be afraid be the Lion's approach. Dione felt no fear at his approach either, only amazement at the strength of his power to create a whole world.
On Charn, she kept a beautiful garden full of a multitude of plants. She never had plants die or fall ill when she cared for them. She knew it was her magic, but she had never once created plants from nothing. She would hum or whistle to the seeds and they would grow fast and strong. And each plant had its own tune. That's how she knew what was going to grow next. She could hear the songs of the plants. As the Lion approached, she stopped naming plants and tried whistling a tune for blood lilies, but none grew, her powers didn't work on this world or were too weak to grow something from nothing. But the Lion heard the tune and sang it back. All around Dione brilliant red lilies burst into bloom. So, she whistled another tune, this time for a Sabi star and not even a minute later they bloomed not far from her.
The Cabby and Digory grew nervous with every turn of the Lion's walk, as he drew closer and closer. Uncle Andrew was the most frightened of all. His teeth were chattering, and his knees were shaking so bad he couldn't run away.
Jadis was determined to stop the singing. So, she stepped out towards the Lion. He kept coming, always singing, with a slow, heavy pace. When he was twelve yards away, Jadis raised her arm and flung the iron bar at his head.
No one, especially not Jadis, could have missed at that range. The iron bar hit between the Lion's eyes, but it glanced off and fell with a thud in the grass. The Lion walked on; his paced neither faster nor slower. It was impossible to tell if he even knew he'd been hit. And though his paws made no noise, the onlookers could feel the earth shake beneath their weight.
Jadis shrieked in terror and ran, abandoning all the others in the new forest to the Lion's mercy, and after a few moments, she was out of sight among the trees. Uncle Andrew tried to run after her, but just ended up falling into a brook that flowed into the river after he tripped over a root. The children were frozen, and they weren't sure they would want to move, even if they could. Dione was the only one that seemed unfazed.
The Lion paid them no attention. His huge red mouth remained open in song. It passed so close that they could have reached out and touched his mane. The children were afraid that he would turn and look at them, but in some odd way, they almost wish he would.
But he took no notice of the odd group as if they were invisible and unsmellable. When the Lion had passed them and gone a few paces further, it turned, passed them again, and continued its eastward march. After a few moments, Dione followed as if she'd been enchanted by the Lion's song.
As she followed the Lion, she watched the world burst into bloom and grow. She'd whistle a short tune, either something she'd heard on Charn or repeating what the Lion sang, to the best of her abilities. When she added a new tune, the Lion would mimic it in his song seconds later and plants native to Charn would appear. Though they were much brighter than they'd ever been on Charn.
While she was following the Lion, Dione missed Uncle Andrew picking himself out of the water. And the children threatening to leave him behind again, though they'd much rather stay and see what was happening. But the most important thing she missed was a lamp-post growing from the ground. It was a proper London lamp post, already lit, that grow from the ground. The iron bar that Jadis had thrown at the Lion acted as the seed for the new lamp post. This discovery lead to Uncle Andrew dreaming of growing railway engines and battleships.
When Uncle Andrew declared that the new world that they'd found the Land of Youth, Digory thought there might be something that could cure his mother, not that Uncle Andrew cared about that when he was planning his 'manufacturing' future, as well as a health spa. So Digory took off after the Lion, and thus Uncle Andrew followed at a distance so as to still be near the green rings but not to close to the Lion.
Dione had missed all of those arguments and had instead seen all the plants grown. Then the song changed to a far wilder tune. It made her want to dance and leap about, to swing from branch to branch in the newly grown forest. She wanted to sing and shout until her lungs were starved for air. When she spotted the children, she wanted to run to them, sweep them in her arms and twirl them around until they all collapsed. Though when she saw Uncle Andrew she wanted to shove him into the river and let it carry him out to sea.
The change in the people was nothing compared to what was happening to the ground It bubbled like a boiling pot. Lumps of all sizes, from molehills to cottage sized, swelled up until they burst. From each lump, an animal emerged.
Dogs barked, shaking dirt from their coats. Stags came up antlers first, looking like the roots of a tree growing upside down. Frogs popped out right at the river and jumped right in, croaking loudly. Panthers and leopards and other cats cleaned the dirt from their fur before using the nearby trees to sharpen their claws. Birds flew out of trees. Butterflies and bees flew from flowers. The largest lumps burst open to reveal elephants. By the end of it, there was so much noise from the animals the Lion could hardly be heard.
The Lion's song had ended, and none of the animals seemed afraid of him. He wandered through them, glowing and golden, occasionally toughing his nose to two of each animal. The cab-horse, for whom the air had done wonders, joined the animals that had sprung from the ground. The animals the Lion touched stood in a large circle around him, those not chosen wandered off, their noises fading. Those in the circle were silent, their eyes fixed on the Lion. Beyond the twitches of tails, the animals were still. And for the first time that day, the only noise was the water in the river.
Dione could feel the Magic building. The Lion was changing things. He stared at the animals, never blinking. The small animals grew larger and the larger animals grew a little smaller. Some sat up on their hind legs, most of them tilted their heads as if they were trying to understand.
The Lion opened his mouth, not in song, but to let out a long, warm breath. His breath swayed the animals the way a breeze sways the trees.
From behind the blue sky, the stars sang again, their song a pure, cold, difficult music. A swift flash like fire, came from either the sky or the Lion, making Dione feel as though she'd been struck by lightning.
"Narnia, Narnia, Narnia, awake. Love. Think. Speak. Be walking trees. Be talking beasts. Be divine waters," called the deepest, wildest voice anyone had ever heard.