Chapter 4: The Return of the Lion

"Look! Look! Look!" cried Lucy.

"Where? What?" said everyone.

"The Lion," said Lucy. "Aslan himself. Didn't you see?" Her face had changed completely and her eyes shone.

"Do you really mean -?" began Peter.

"Where did you see him?" asked Dawn.

"Right up there between those mountain ashes. No, this side of the gorge. And up, not down. Just the opposite of the way we want to go. And he wanted us to go where he was - up there."

"How do you know that was what he wanted?" asked Edmund.

"He - I - I just know," said Lucy, "by his face."

The others all looked at each other in puzzled silence.

"Her Majesty may well have seen a lion," put in Trumpkin. "There are lions in these woods, I've been told. But it needn't have been a friendly and talking lion any more than the bear was a friendly and talking bear."

"Oh, don't be so stupid," said Lucy. "Do you think I don't know Aslan when I see him?"

"He'd be a pretty elderly lion by now," said Trumpkin, "if he's one you knew when you were here before! And if it could be the same one, what's to prevent him having gone wild and witless like so many others?"

Lucy turned crimson as she would have flown at Trumpkin, if Buffy had not laid her hand on Lucy's arm. "You don't understand," Buffy told the dwarf. "Aslan is no ordinary lion. He is magical, literally. When I left Narnia, he had the power to ensure that I would transition back into our world safe with my unborn daughter."

"He also came back to life on the stone table," Susan added.

"Since he has access to magic," Buffy continued, "he also has the potential to extend his own life. He could very well still be alive." She turned toward her youngest sister-in-law. "My question for you, Lu, is are you sure it was him?"

"I know it was he I saw," said Lucy, her eyes filling with tears.

"If Lucy says she saw Aslan," Dawn said. "I am inclined to believe her. But the question remains. Which way should we go. Toward Aslan and discovering it was not really Aslan or…"

"There's nothing for it but a vote," said Edmund.

"Since Trumpkin and I are the eldest," Buffy said. "We will vote first. Followed by Peter, Susan, Dawn, Edmund and finally Lucy in that order. I vote up."

"Down," said the Dwarf. "I know nothing about Aslan. But I do know that if we turn left and follow the gorge up, it might lead us all day before we found a place where we could cross it. Whereas if we turn right and go down, we're bound to reach the Great River in about a couple of hours. And if there are any real lions about, we want to go away from them, not towards them."

"Peter?" Buffy said looking at her husband.

"I'd much rather not have to vote," answered Peter.

"You're the High King," said Trumpkin sternly.

"Down," said Peter after a long pause.

"What do you say, Susan?" Buffy asked turning to her eldest sister-in-law.

"Don't be angry, Lu," said Susan, "but I do think we should go down. I'm dead tired. Do let's get out of this wretched wood into the open as quick as we can. And none of us except you saw anything."

"Dawn?" said Buffy.

"Down," Dawn answered. "I'm sorry, Lucy. I believe you. But we have limited provisions and that was thanks to the bear that attacked you. That meat will not last forever. We have to find Caspian. We can then come back and see if we can find Aslan."

"Edmund?" said Buffy.

"Well, there's just this," said Edmund, speaking quickly and turning a little red. "When we first discovered Narnia a year ago - or a thousand years ago, whichever it is - it was Lucy who discovered it first and none of us would believe her. Then we found you here, Buffy. I was the worst of the lot, I know. Yet Lucy was right after all. Wouldn't it be fair to believe her this time? I vote for going up."

"Oh, Ed!" said Lucy and seized his hand.

"Which leaves Lucy," said Buffy.

"Up," answered Lucy.

Buffy sighed as she looked at everyone. "Well, Edmund, Lucy. You two and I are outvoted. We go down."

So, they set off to their right along the edge, downstream. And Lucy came last of the party, crying bitterly.

Before they had gone many yards, they were confronted with young fir woods growing on the very edge, and after they had tried to go through these, stooping and pushing for about ten minutes, they realized that, in there, it would take them an hour to do half a mile. So, they came back and out again and decided to go around the fir wood. This took them much farther to their right than they wanted to go, far out of sight of the cliffs and out of sound of the river, till they began to be afraid they had lost it altogether. Nobody knew the time, but it was getting to the hottest part of the day.

When they were able at last to go back to the edge of the gorge they found the cliffs on their side of it a good deal lower and more broken. Soon they found a way down into the gorge and continued the journey at the river's edge. But first they had a rest and a long drink. No one was talking any more about breakfast, or even dinner, with Caspian.

As they went on, the Rush began to fall more and more steeply. Their journey became more and more of a climb and less and less of a walk - in places even a dangerous climb over slippery rock with a nasty drop into dark chasms, and the river roaring angrily at the bottom.

They watched the cliffs on their left eagerly for any sign of a break or any place where they could climb them. The boys and the Dwarf were now in favor of lighting a fire and cooking their bear-meat. Susan didn't want this; she only wanted, as she said, "to get on and finish it and get out of these beastly woods."

Dawn sided with Susan.

Buffy remembered what the older Lucy had said on the day of Little Su's birth. She wondered with how much Dawn seemed to take to Susan if maybe Susan was the one that her sister was destined to fall in love with, the one who would return to their time with Dawn.

Lucy was far too tired and miserable to have any opinion about anything. But as there was no dry wood to be had, it mattered very little what anyone thought. The boys began to wonder if raw meat was really as nasty as they had always been told. Trumpkin assured them it was.

"At last!" said Susan.

"Oh, hurray!" said Peter.

The river gorge had just made a bend and the whole view spread out beneath them. They could see open country stretching before them to the horizon and, between it and them, the broad silver ribbon of the Great River. They could see the especially broad and shallow place which had once been the Fords of Beruna but was now spanned by a long, many-arched bridge. There was a little town at the far end of it.

"By Jove," said Edmund. "We fought the Battle of Beruna just where that town is!"

"You're right," Buffy added.

Dawn listened as Buffy, Peter and Edmund talked about the battle as they made their way. They were all getting on at a quicker pace now. The going became easier. Though there were still sheer cliffs on their left, the ground was becoming lower on their right. Soon it was no longer a gorge at all, only a valley. There were no more waterfalls and presently they were in fairly thick woods again.

Then - all at once - whizz, and a sound rather like the stroke of a woodpecker.

"Down!" Buffy, Dawn and Trumpkin all shouted in unison as they looked at the long cruel arrow sunk into a large tree just above Peter's head.

Trumpkin forced Lucy, who happened to be next to him, flat down into the bracken. Dawn pulled Susan down as she unsheathed her scythe. With the precision of a Slayer she batted an arrow with the scythe as it came rasping at her. It struck the ground at the younger Slayer's side.

"Quick! Quick! Get back! Crawl!" panted Trumpkin.

Dawn and Buffy stood their scythes in hand as they backed up with the others up the hill. They continued to bat arrows out of the sky.

When they felt that they really couldn't run any more, even to save their lives, they all dropped down in the damp moss beside a waterfall and behind a big boulder. They were surprised to see how high they had already got.

They listened intently and heard no sound of pursuit.

"So that's all right," said Trumpkin, drawing a deep breath. "They're not searching the wood. Only sentries, I expect. But it means that Miraz has an outpost down there. Bottles and battledores! though, it was a near thing."

"I ought to have my head smacked for bringing us this way at all," said Peter.

"You are not to blame, beloved," Buffy told her husband. "After all it was Edmund who suggested going this way."

"I'm afraid Buffy's right," said Edmund.

"And for another," added Trumpkin, "if we'd gone my way, we'd have walked straight into that new outpost, most likely; or at least had just the same trouble avoiding it. I think this Glasswater route has turned out for the best."

"A blessing in disguise," said Susan and Dawn in unison and then they smiled at one another.

"Some disguise!" said Edmund.

"I suppose we'll have to go right up the gorge again now," said Lucy.

Buffy gave her husband a look as if to say don't you dare. She turned and smiled at her youngest sister-in-law. "Looks like we're going Aslan's route after all."

"And as soon as we're well up into the forest," said Trumpkin, "whatever anyone says, I'm going to light a fire and cook supper. But we must get well away from here."

They toiled back the way they had come. They reached the fir wood which had caused them so much trouble while it was still daylight, and made camp in a hollow just above it. Buffy and Dawn gathered the firewood and soon the fire blazed as they began producing the damp and smeary parcels of bear-meat. It was a truly glorious meal.

They dropped off to sleep one by one, but all pretty quickly.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

Dawn and Lucy woke with the feeling that a voice had been calling their names. For Dawn she thought ti was first her mother's and then Buffy's. For Lucy she thought it wash re father's and then Peter's. But neither seemed right to their ears. They lay there looking straight up at the Narnian moon and at the starry sky.

"Dawn…Lucy," came the call again. They sat up.

"Do you hear it, Lucy?" Dawn whispered, her Slayer's blood trembling with excitement.

Lucy nodded. "Yes," she answered.

Behind them was the fir wood; away to their right the jagged cliff-tops on the far side of the gorge; straight ahead, open grass to where a glade of trees began about a bow-shot away. They looked very hard at the trees of that glade.

Lucy and Dawn got up, their hearts beating wildly, and walked toward the trees that appeared to them to be moving. There was certainly a noise in the glade, a noise such as trees make in a high wind, though there was no wind tonight. Yet it was not exactly an ordinary tree noise either. They felt there was a tune in it, but they could not catch the tune. As they approached the trees there was no doubt in their minds that they were indeed moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. They were almost among them now.

They went fearlessly in among the trees, dancing themselves as they leaped this way and that to avoid being run into by their huge partners. But Dawn and Lucy were only half interested in them. They wanted to get beyond them to something else; it was from beyond them that the voice had called.

Dawn and Lucy soon got through them for they were really a ring of trees round a central open place. They stepped out from among their shifting confusion of lovely lights and shadows. A circle of grass, smooth as a lawn, met her eyes, with dark trees dancing all round it. And then they saw him…Aslan.

Lucy rushed to him as Dawn followed at a slower pace. Lucy felt her heart would burst if she lost a moment. And the next thing she knew was that she was kissing him and putting her arms as far round his neck as she could and burying her face in the beautiful rich silkiness of his mane.

"Aslan, Aslan. Dear Aslan," sobbed Lucy. "At last."

"This is Aslan?" asked Dawn.

Lucy nodded as the great beast rolled over on his side so that she fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. Dawn knelt down as he bent forward and just touched first Lucy and then Dawn's noses with his tongue. His warm breath came all round them. They gazed into the large wise face.

"Welcome, child," he said greeting Lucy. He then looked at Dawn. "Welcome, Dawn, Daughter of Eve and Daughter of Sineya, sister/daughter of Buffy."

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."

"That is because you are older, Lucy," answered he.

"Not because you are?"

"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger." For a time, no one spoke till Aslan did again. "We must not lie here for long. You both have work in hand, and much time has been lost today."

"Yes, wasn't it a shame?" said Lucy. "I saw you all right. With the exception of Buffy, they wouldn't believe me."

"Not true, Lucy," Dawn said. "Buffy wasn't the only one to believe you. I did to remember." She looked at the lion. "Normal things such as hunger did outweigh…"

"It is understandable, Dawn," he told the younger Slayer. "Now, if you both go back to the others, and wake them up; and tell them you both have seen me; and that you must all get up at once and follow me—what will happen?"

"Do you mean that is what you want us to do?" asked Lucy.

"Yes, little one," said Aslan.

"Will Buffy, Peter, Edmund and Susan see you?" asked Dawn.

"Buffy might, but the others certainly not at first," said Aslan. "Later on, it depends."

"But they won't believe us!" said Lucy.

"Buffy will," Dawn countered.

"It doesn't matter," said Aslan.

"Oh dear, oh dear," said Lucy. "And I was so pleased at finding you again. And I thought you'd let me stay. And I thought you'd come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away—like last time. And now everything is going to be horrid."

"It is hard for you, little one," said Aslan. "But things never happen the same way twice. It has been hard for us all in Narnia before now."

Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there must have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into her. Quite suddenly she sat up. "I'm sorry, Aslan," she said. "I'm ready now."

"Now you are a lioness," said Aslan. "And now all Narnia will be renewed. And before we go there is one thing I must do. Dawn, hand me your scythe." Dawn did as instructed. "Kneel, daughter of Eve and Daughter of Sineya." Again, Dawn did as instructed. Aslan then laid the scythe against her shoulder. "Rise Princess Dawn Summers, daughter of Buffy, heir to the throne of the High Queen."

Dawn stood and smiled. "Thank you," she said.

"Now come. We have no time to lose," he told them. He got up and walked with stately, noiseless paces back to the belt of dancing trees through which Lucy and Dawn had just come: and they went with him, both girls laying a hand on his mane. The trees parted to let them.

"Now," said Aslan, when they had left the trees behind them. "I will wait here. Go and wake the others and tell them to follow. If they will not, then you both at least must follow me."

Lucy went to Peter as Dawn with to Buffy and shook them. "Peter, Buffy," they said, "wake up."

"Quick. Aslan is here," Lucy added. "He says we've got to follow him at once."

"Certainly, Lu. Whatever you like," said Peter unexpectedly. Then he rolled round and went back to sleep.

Buffy looked up in Dawn's face, she like her husband was sleepy. But being a Slayer, she wasn't as sleepy as he was, after all Slayers could go on as little as three hours sleep. "Dawn, are you sure?" she asked.

"Very," Dawn said. "Lucy and I saw him. He's just as you described him, Buffy."

Buffy nodded as she got up. "Then we must wake the others."

Lucy tried Susan. Susan did really wake up, but only to say. "You've been dreaming, Lucy. Go to sleep again."

Dawn tackled Edmund. It was very difficult to wake him, but when at last she had done it he was really awake and sat up. "Eh?" he said in a grumpy voice. "What are you talking about?" Dawn said it all over again. "Aslan!" he said, jumping up. "Hurray! Where?"

Dawn turned back to where she could see the Lion waiting, talking to Buffy. "There," she said, pointing.

"Where?" asked Edmund again.

"There next to Buffy."

Edmund stared hard for a while and then said, "No. There's nothing next to Buffy. You've got dazzled and muddled with the moonlight. One does, you know. I thought I saw something for a moment myself. It's only an optical what-do-you-call-it."

"I can see him all the time," said Lucy as she came up beside Dawn. "He's talking to Buffy, and she's talking back."

"Then why can't I see him?"

"He said it is possible you couldn't," Dawn said.

"Why?"

"Lucy and I don't know," Dawn told him. "That's what he said."

"Oh, bother it all," said Edmund. "I would dismiss it out of hand if not for the fact that three of you now see him. We should wake the others."

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

When the whole party was finally awake Lucy and Dawn had to tell the story for the fourth time. The blank silence which followed it was as discouraging as anything could be.

"I can't see anything," said Peter after he had stared his eyes sore. "Can you, Susan?"

"No, of course I can't," snapped Susan. "Because there isn't anything to see."

"Then how can you explain that Dawn and I can see Aslan?" Buffy questioned.

"Well Dawn has heard your stories, Buffy," Peter answered. "It's her mind wishing for things to happen. And you. I know you very well, Buffy. After all we were married for years. When we were here before the only thing you wished to change was Dawn here with you. Now that Dawn is here, you will do anything you can to stay."

"And I do hope," said Lucy in a tremulous voice, "that you will all come with us. Because - because Dawn, Buffy and I'll have to go with him whether any of you do or not."

"Don't talk nonsense," said Susan. "They can't go, Peter, don't let them."

"I'll go with them, if they must go," said Edmund. "Lucy and Buffy both have been right before."

"I know they have," said Peter. "And they may have been right this morning. We certainly had no luck going down the gorge. Still - at this hour of the night. And why should Aslan be invisible to us? He never used to be. It's not like him. What does the D.L.F. say?"

"Oh, I say nothing at all," answered the Dwarf. "If you all go, of course, I'll go with you; and if your party splits up, I'll go with…well I don't know who I will go with after all one party would have the High King while the other the High Queen. But, if you ask my private opinion, I'm a plain dwarf who doesn't think there's much chance of finding a road by night where you couldn't find one by day. And I have no use for magic lions which are talking lions and don't talk, and friendly lions though they don't do us any good, and whopping big lions though nobody can see them. It's all bilge and beanstalks as far as I can see."

"He's beating his paw on the ground for us to hurry," said Lucy. "We must go now. At least Buffy, Dawn and I must."

"As the oldest here and as a Slayer, I say you have to go," Buffy said.

"There'll be no peace till we do," added Edmund. He fully intended to back Lucy, Buffy and Dawn up, but he was annoyed at losing his night's sleep and was making up for it by doing everything as sulkily as possible.

"Alright," said Peter, wearily fitting his arm into his shieldstrap and putting his helmet on. At any other time, he would have likely argued with Buffy, but he knew how stubborn his wife could be.

And so, at last they got on the move. Dawn and Lucy went first. Aslan walked at a slow pace about thirty yards ahead of them. Peter, Susan, Trumpkin and Edmund only Buffy, Dawn and Lucy's directions to guide them, for Aslan was not only invisible to them but silent as well. His big cat-like paws made no noise on the grass.

He led them to the right of the dancing trees - whether they were still dancing nobody knew - and nearer the edge of the gorge. "Cobbles and kettledrums!" thought Trumpkin. "I hope this madness isn't going to end in a moonlight climb and broken necks."

For a long way Aslan went along the top of the precipices. Then they came to a place where some little trees grew right on the edge. He turned and disappeared among them. Buffy, Dawn and Lucy held their breath, for it looked as if he had plunged over the cliff. They quickened their pace and was soon among the trees herself. Looking down, they could see a steep and narrow path going slantwise down into the gorge between rocks, and Aslan descending it. He turned and looked at the three of them with his happy eyes. They began to scramble down after him. From behind them they heard the voices of the others shouting, "Hi! Buffy, Dawn, Lucy! Look out, for goodness' sake. You're right on the edge of the gorge. Come back –" and then, a moment later, Edmund's voice saying, "No, they're right. There is a way down."

Half-way down the path Edmund caught up with Lucy and the Slayers. "Look!" he said in great excitement. "Look! What's that shadow crawling down in front of us?"

"It's his shadow," said Lucy.

"I do believe you're right, Lu," said Edmund. "I can't think how I didn't see it before. But where is he?"

"With his shadow, of course," Dawn said. "Can't you see him?"

"Well, I almost thought I did - for a moment. It's such a rum light."

"Get on, King Edmund, get on," came Trumpkin's voice from behind and above: and then, farther behind and still nearly at the top, Peter's voice saying, "Oh, buck up, Susan. Give me your hand. Why, a baby could get down here. And do stop grousing."

In a few minutes they were at the bottom and the roaring of water filled their ears. Treading delicately, like a cat, Aslan stepped from stone to stone across the stream. In the middle he stopped, bent down to drink, and as he raised his shaggy head, dripping from the water, he turned to face them again. This time Edmund saw him. "Oh, Aslan!" he cried, darting forward. But the Lion whisked round and began padding up the slope on the far side of the Rush.

"Peter, Peter," cried Edmund. "Did you see?"

"I saw something," said Peter. "But it's so tricky in this moonlight. On we go, though, and three cheers for my lovely wife, Dawn and Lucy. I don't feel half so tired now, either."

Aslan without hesitation led them to their left, farther up the gorge. The whole journey was odd and dream-like the roaring stream, the wet grey grass, the glimmering cliffs which they were approaching, and always the glorious, silently pacing Beast ahead. Everyone except Susan and the Dwarf could see him now.

Presently they came to another steep path, up the face of the farther precipices. These were far higher than the ones they had just descended, and the journey up them was a long and tedious zig-zag. Fortunately, the Moon shone right above the gorge so that neither side was in shadow.

Buffy and Dawn were the first up first to reach the top after Aslan, they helped Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Susan over the top. The long gentle slope stretched up to where it vanished in a glimmer of trees about half a mile away.

"This is it, isn't it?" Dawn said recognizing the place from Buffy's descriptions.

"It is," Buffy said. "The hill of the Stone Table:"

Aslan glided on before them and they walked after him.

"Lucy, Dawn, Buffy," said Susan in a very small voice.

"Yes?" said Lucy, Dawn and Buffy.

"I see him now. I'm sorry."

"That's all right," Dawn said as she wrapped an arm around Susan's waist.

Susan blushed slightly at the contact. She had never told anyone she was attracted to girls not boys, especially since in the time she, Lucy, Edmund and Peter were from that it was heavily frowned upon.

Soon they reached the trees and through them the children could see the Great Mound, Aslan's How, which had been raised over the Table since their days.

"Our side don't keep very good watch," muttered Trumpkin. "We ought to have been challenged before now–"

"Hush!" said the others, for now Aslan had stopped and turned and stood facing them, looking majestic. Peter and Edmund strode forward: Buffy, Dawn and Lucy made way for them: Susan and the Dwarf shrank back.

"Oh, Aslan," said Peter, dropping on one knee and raising the Lion's heavy paw to his face, "I'm so glad. And I'm so sorry. While Buffy and I shared the role. I've been leading them wrong ever since we started and especially yesterday morning."

"My dear son," said Aslan. Then he turned and welcomed Edmund. "Well done," were his words. Then, after an awful pause, he said, "Susan." Susan made no answer but the others thought she was crying. "You have listened to fears, child. Come, let me breathe on you. Forget them. Are you brave again?"

"A little, Aslan," said Susan.

"And now!" said Aslan in a much louder voice with just a hint of roar in it, while his tail lashed his flanks. "And now, where is this little Dwarf, this famous swordsman and archer, who doesn't believe in lions? Come here, son of Earth, come HERE!" - and the last word was no longer the hint of a roar but almost the real thing.

"Wraiths and wreckage!" gasped Trumpkin in the ghost of a voice. He did the only sensible thing he could have done; that is, instead of bolting, he tottered towards Aslan.

Aslan pounced. Have you ever seen a very young kitten being carried in the mother cat's mouth? It was like that. The Dwarf, hunched up in a little, miserable ball, hung from Aslan's mouth. The Lion gave him one shake and all his armor rattled like a tinker's pack and then the Dwarf flew up in the air. As he came down the huge velvety paws caught him as gently as a mother's arms and set him on the ground.

"Son of Earth, shall we be friends?" asked Aslan.

"Ye - he - he - hes," panted the Dwarf, for it had not yet got its breath back.