"Imagine yourself at the top of the very highest cliff you know. And imagine yourself looking down to the very bottom. And then imagine that the precipice goes on below that, as far again, ten times as far, twenty times as far. And when you've looked down all that distance imagine little white things that might, at first glance, be mistaken for sheep, but presently you realise that they are clouds—not little wreaths of mist but the enormous white, puffy clouds which are themselves as big as most mountains. And at last, in between those clouds, you get your first glimpse of the real bottom, so far away that you can't make out whether it's field or wood, or land or water: further below those clouds than you are above them [...] When she looked back now she could take in for the first time the real size of the mountain she was leaving. She wondered why a mountain so huge as that was not covered with snow and ice" ~ The Silver Chair
There were many of them, the mountains that rimmed the world. The closer the travellers sailed, the more the mountains seemed to blot out the sky.
A limitation, a barrier, a great mound of rock telling them No. But they were travellers, and the word no was not for them. Or so they thought.
Tales had been told of the mountain, tales of how the sun rested on the tip of it at night, instead of sailing through the sky. Tales of how the air smelled cleaner, tasted fresher, and how it might make a man grow young. Tales of how a lily fell from it into the sea, multiplied, and covered the face of the water.
But the tales never told of what it looked like. Once, ages and ages ago, a boy and a girl had blown from another world onto the top, but they had not talked about it much.
And so, during a time when peace in Narnia had reigned for years beyond count and folk tended to become restless, a group of travellers thought to find the mountain and climb it, to stand where the boy and girl had stood. They knew it wasn't towards one edge of the world, the one King Caspian had sailed to in legends (they had all poured over the magic map he'd brought back as soon as they were old enough to be allowed to view it), so they thought the mountain must be on the other side of the world. And they were going to find it.
"They" were a rather odd group, a Beaver with large teeth who whistled after his words and whose curiosity much outmatched his side; a Daughter of Eve who'd grown up trying to make friends with the wind and talking to every Bird about what it was like to fly on it, who stood twice as tall as the Beaver in her teens; a grumpy old Dwarf whose wife had never let him go to sea but who had always wanted to be a sea-captain, and now hoped for a chance, stroking his full beard where all but a few red strands had gone grey; and last, a Horse who hated the sea but loved mountains, and dreamed and dreamed of galloping over this one—a mountain that touched the sky.
They'd been dreaming of this adventure for a good ten years, and finally Carry the Daughter of Eve turned twenty, the age when she could in good conscience leave her father, mother, and three siblings behind and not feel she disrespected their authority by making her own decisions.
However foolish she might secretly agree those decisions were.
For the last three years Beaver had cut down several trees and trimmed all the branches off, and Edge the Dwarf had shaped them into a ship.
"Well," he muttered, "into something that will sail. Ship might be a generous term, but there's only four of us, and a ship wouldn't do." And when Carry thanked him with a laugh and a half hug, he'd hide a grin in his beard and say it kept his mind off the death of his wife; he could go, now, since he wouldn't scare her by doing so.
And they nodded, because Edge had loved his wife dearly and had been surprisingly agreeable (for a Dwarf) about her fears, and doing something to keep him occupied wasn't a surprise to any of them.
Hiahtthanius (High-a-than-thee-us) the Horse had pulled the…boat (ship really is too generous a term) down to the water, and anxiously inspected every part of it for leaks. After seeing that it would, indeed, float without sinking, he'd then spent a day carefully moving rocks onto it till it carried a good deal of weight, and then tested it again.
So perhaps it had been a good thing that it had taken ten years before they left. There was a great deal of planning to do. They didn't know how much food to bring, or how to make it fit such different stomachs. Hiatthanthius was put in charge of the food; Edge of navigation; Carry of maintenance and sails; Beaver of repairs and cooking. In some ways it was a little like a dream, this plan of theirs, but sometimes dreams are the beginning of great adventures. The day after Carry's twentieth birthday, they set out.
There is not room or time to tell of the things that happened in the following year; the changes made to the boat, the times they thought their food would run out, the people they met along the way and the islands they saw. (It was a lasting disappointment to Beaver that they did not meet someone who made them a magic map.) But at last, three-hundred-and-sixty-three days into their voyage, they saw the mountain.
Seeing it did not mean they were there; they saw it three days before they reached it. But even seeing it was an accomplishment, one that made them all stand still in their boat, straining their eyes. Edge's hands trembled on the rudder, and Carry blinked rapidly, telling herself it was the wind that made her eyes tear up. "That's it," Beaver said solemnly. "That's the mountain."
There wasn't a sea of lilies near its base, though there was land. Two more days the group sailed, and that night, they all pulled their boat ashore. The hammocks they slept in were easily taken off the boat and strung between side-ways leaning palm trees, and that night they drank coconut milk, making faces and wondering why such a fruit existed. Beaver had to open all of them with his teeth.
None of them but Hiatthanthius had their lands legs back by the next morning, and he generously gave them turns riding, though Edge made do with a cane he cut from a tree further inland, it in one hand and a bag with their hammocks and an axe over one shoulder. Beaver carried the food, and kept a close eye out for more fruits or edibles. The closer they got to the mountain, the less they spoke. They were doing it, they were nearing the end of their adventure—they were conquering the world's end.
But the evening they reached the base of the cliff, they stopped. For this was not a gentle slope, rising with rocks into the sky. The rock stood sheer and slippery, the face of it rising out of sight.
"Even a Mountain Goat wouldn't climb it," Edge muttered, hand on his beard.
"Only the wind could," Carry whispered in response, eyes still straining to see past the clouds. Could she not at least see the top of it?
"Then we go home?" Beaver asked abruptly, whistling afterwards. "We give up?"
No one made an answer. There was only one answer, but none of the three could give voice to it. They could not climb. But they could not give up, either.
So they camped again, though there was less room to string the hammocks. Carry found a nice wide space, and Beaver decided to sleep under her ("In case it rains, you're large enough to block it,"), and Hiatthanthius never used one anyway. Edge meandered along the cliff face, one hand on it, looking for a cave. When he didn't find one he came back to camp and slept with his back against the mountain he couldn't conquer. If Beaver felt something like raindrops falling from Carry's head, he pretended not to feel them. One by one they fell asleep, even Hiatthanthius, who meant to keep watch.
Midnight came. The moon shone, almost full, and all the insects grew quiet. A single owl hooted as a fifth member moved into the camp. Golden, large, and wondrous, He looked at each of the four with love. Breathing on Carry, then Beaver, then moving to Hiatthanthius and nudging him, and last breathing on Edge, He woke them all. Fully awake, silent in awe, they got up, leaving the camp, and followed Him. He led them back through the land, the air still, the light silver, until they felt the sea breeze, and they saw their boat.
"All who seek, find," He said, deep voice gentle. "But not yet. Now is not your time. Look well at the mountain, and tomorrow make your way home."
The sky had cleared, and the moon stood just above the peak, a shadow in front of the round white circle, and each traveller caught their breath at the sight.
Then Aslan was gone.
The next morning they found fish, warm and cooked above a fire, and their hammocks and Edge's bag resting beside it. The clouds obscured the mountain peak once more, and with one last look they turned their boat homeward.
They had not conquered the mountain. But they had seen it, and now brought home their own tale. Somehow, that settled the restlessness in their hearts.
At least for a few years. After all, Aslan had never said to stop seeking.
Prompt: Did anyone ever try to climb the mountain to Aslan's country that Jill stood on in The Silver Chair? Where is its base? How would one reach it?