Prince Caspian - C. S. Lewis [44]
“That is all most interesting and—er—satisfactory,” said Doctor Cornelius. “I think I now know what you are, Madam. Perhaps your other friend, Nikabrik, would give some account of himself?”
A dull, gray voice at which Peter’s flesh crept replied, “I’m hunger. I’m thirst. Where I bite, I hold till I die, and even after death they must cut out my mouthful from my enemy’s body and bury it with me. I can fast a hundred years and not die. I can lie a hundred nights on the ice and not freeze. I can drink a river of blood and not burst. Show me your enemies.”
“And it is in the presence of these two that you wish to disclose your plan?” said Caspian.
“Yes,” said Nikabrik. “And by their help that I mean to execute it.”
There was a minute or two during which Trumpkin and the boys could hear Caspian and his two friends speaking in low voices but could not make out what they were saying. Then Caspian spoke aloud.
“Well, Nikabrik,” he said, “we will hear your plan.”
There was a pause so long that the boys began to wonder if Nikabrik were ever going to begin; when he did, it was in a lower voice, as if he himself did not much like what he was saying.
“All said and done,” he muttered, “none of us knows the truth about the ancient days in Narnia. Trumpkin believed none of the stories. I was ready to put them to the trial. We tried first the Horn and it has failed. If there ever was a High King Peter and a Queen Susan and a King Edmund and a Queen Lucy, then either they have not heard us, or they cannot come, or they are our enemies—”
“Or they are on the way,” put in Trufflehunter.
“You can go on saying that till Miraz has fed us all to his dogs. As I was saying, we have tried one link in the chain of old legends, and it has done us no good. Well. But when your sword breaks, you draw your dagger. The stories tell of other powers besides the ancient Kings and Queens. How if we could call them up?”
“If you mean Aslan,” said Trufflehunter, “it’s all one calling on him and on the Kings. They were his servants. If he will not send them (but I make no doubt he will), is he more likely to come himself?”
“No. You’re right there,” said Nikabrik. “Aslan and the Kings go together. Either Aslan is dead, or he is not on our side. Or else something stronger than himself keeps him back. And if he did come—how do we know he’d be our friend? He was not always a good friend to Dwarfs by all that’s told. Not even to all beasts. Ask the Wolves. And anyway, he was in Narnia only once that I ever heard of, and he didn’t stay long. You may drop Aslan out of the reckoning. I was thinking of someone else.”
There was no answer, and for a few minutes it was so still that Edmund could hear the wheezy and snuffling breath of the Badger.
“Who do you mean?” said Caspian at last.
“I mean a power so much greater than Aslan’s that it held Narnia spellbound for years and years, if the stories are true.”
“The White Witch!” cried three voices all at once, and from the noise Peter guessed that three people had leaped to their feet.
“Yes,” said Nikabrik very slowly and distinctly, “I mean the Witch. Sit down again. Don’t all take fright at a name as if you were children. We want power: and we want a power that will be on our side. As for power, do not the stories say that the Witch defeated Aslan, and bound him, and killed him on that very stone which is over there, just beyond the light?”
“But they also say that he came to life again,” said the Badger sharply.
“Yes, they say,” answered Nikabrik, “but you’ll notice that we hear precious little about anything he did afterward. He just fades out of the story. How do you explain that, if he really came to life? Isn’t it much more likely that he didn’t, and that the stories say nothing more about him because there was nothing more to say?”
“He established the Kings and Queens,” said Caspian.
“A King who has just won a great battle can
usually establish himself without the help of a performing lion,