The Lion, The Witch, and CS Lewis - 07

A Satire - For Ursa Corwin

7

It is a powerful torrent of water, and it comes by night. The Witch - like all of her adopted children - seeks out not the light, but the darkness, where it can do the most damage, and surprise all that surround them. This is why most of the folk do at least some times in the twilight that, if not entirely pleasant, is safer than the day. Even in perpetual ghostly patterns, at least half of them would prefer night as opposed to a cold morning winter. And the proportion grows if there are creatures that love darkness and will feed amply. Not all of the blackest of black serve Queen, some of them avail themselves, but do not do much. As E. Gary Gygax pointed out, among several others, there is both good and evil, and law and chaos. The Witch was both evil and lawful, she wanted everything her way. Many of her minions, however, just wanted to see things, as the film director wrote, they just wanted to see things bleed. That's Christopher Nolan by the way.

I say this because there in the dark were the witch, Eddie, and a footman who wasn't exactly loyal, going through the woods, along a path. They were never going to see the other three children, because those three children were not on a path. The beavers were chaotic, but only just, they wanted things their way, but they wanted everyone to have their way. Thus the witch wasn't going to find them, or indeed most of the talking animals, because the lawful good, if I may use that expression, would have been hunted down, or they would be with Aslan, who of course was the epitome of lawful good.

But chaotic evil wanted to be near the witch, but not too near, to hunt out the smaller creatures and eat them. Though they would eat them slowly, and they would them alive as long as possible. To near the witch, and she would impress them, to do her dirty work. And remember chaos dislikes order, as much as evil hates good. So, chaos once to be close to law to get goodies, but not so close as to be impressed to servitude. You have to know these words because, without them, you will not get very far in explaining yourself.

So just out of spell reach, they were the most unpleasant creatures, not only were they evil, but they were chaotic as well. And say what you will about the witch, she would not hurt someone without a good reason. It didn't have to be much of a reason, mind you.

The witch was thinking of what to do, they had been going through the trees, and she by her good memory, knew where to step to stay on the proper path. She almost didn't recognize that she was on a path at all, that part of her brain took care of things. She was thinking what to do once she had killed Eddie because it was probably going to happen, but she was not quite sure yet. Almost, perhaps by the morning, he would be dead.

The branches were of the coniferous version, of the deciduous version that had long since died. Here and there there were frozen insects, they were the non-talking kind, frozen as if they had not gotten away. Also on the branches were several songbirds that were caught, singing away. Here and there there were other signs that she, the witch that is, had taken over almost instantaneously. She turned to her footman, and rapidly screen sum orders. It was at that point that any decided to leap from the sleigh, and get away from her.

What a chaotic mess it was! Notice that I'm using an Exclamation point, though Wikipedia calls it an Exclamation Mark, and not just inside quotation marks. This is a sign of a subjective reader, not an objective one. Eddie tripped over the side, not being too good with his hands, the witch, who was better with her hands, but doing things with both, screamed out that he was getting away. The footman, who was at this moment crumpling a paper to one of his friends, found himself caught like a deer in the headlights. He did not expect the witch, or as he thought of her, the queen, to be ordering him around. Thus the entire sleigh was going over, with everyone pending for him, or herself.

What happened was that Eddie spilled down the whole, which had been dug by a family of groundhogs, and because it was night, he disappeared. Witch and the footman continued to tear across the field, not getting themselves together for about 40 m or so, by which time it was too late to figure out which whole Eddie had gone down. The witch was furious and berated the footman quite a good deal, which didn't help at all. Gradually she came to realize that this would not do any good at all. So, she took the reins of the slide, and after a quick look around, realized that she was not going to find the little boy.

Eddie, for his part, only just realized that he'd been shunted down, below the ground, only he didn't know where. He saw a plain, but only for an instant. This was foothills and grass that had grown up. Aslan was getting to work. What Eddie knew was it was a strange dry hole, which probably was lived in. So, he got going down the slalom ramp, which seemed to lead to the most likely group of inhabitants. Whatever they were, though he did not know whether they would be better or worse.

Then he reached in branch, one side was just dirt and sand, but the other side was ornate and older than the rest of it. He could see that there were symbols, carved in the ground. This was not something that could be duplicated. They were people, though they werestick-figuredd people, the animals however were realistic, and they moved in herds. He could recognize a woolly mammoth, among many. The male was defending the path, while the female and a child escaped. They were not completely realistic, but they were close. Then he saw something strange, it was a lion, with a halo, the first time he had ever seen one on a lion, in Narnia, or on Earth, with a halo.

What he did not know, was that someone was staring at him. He, that is the observer, wasn't very tall, and was saying something, but he was round. He was almost as wide as he was tall, but that was mainly fur. Then another set of eyes came forward, these were even smaller than the first pair of eyes, and there was something odd about them. First of all, though this was not as odd as it seemed, the eyes were completely black, but that is too for many creatures. And they were small, which is to of many fewer. But what is noticeable, is they did not have fur but feathers. If you will notice, CS Lewis doesn't have birds, he has mammals, and he has also sorts of creatures which are men and beasts, but he doesn't have birds. And it cannot be that all of the birds are small, because emusu, and ostriches, are quite large. This was, therefore, a decision on his part that I am going to overrule. As did CS Lewis, when he decided that a mouse would be in the second book. Though to be fair, it was begun in the first book.

Now what is most perplexing about this, is that CS Lewis usually has family, which are all of the same time, or crew, with a lot of people, but he doesn't usually pair with different kinds of animals. This is because normally CS Lewis would have a reason.

So the top pair of eyes, that is the bird, looked at the human and said, You a peculiar kind of animal, you're not a mammal, you're not a bird, nor are you something like a faun. You look a little bit like a dwarf, but you're way too tall.”

Eddie looked at the two pairs of eyes, and they did not quite resolve. But he knew that one pair of eyes was a bird, and he guessed that the larger one was some sort of rodent, though a particularly large one.

“In my world, there is a kind of life that has intelligence. It is only since I got here that I met all sorts of people, who have intelligence though they have different kinds of shape,” replied Eddie, in a bit of a huff, because though he had seen dwarfs, From his point of view, they could be human, as the witch. But before hi,m it was obvious that this was different and decided so.

The mammal piped in: “What do you do you mean? Another planet, don't you realize that this planet is flat, and the sun revolves around it?”

Eddie was just about to say that they thought the planet was flat, but in reality, it was round. Adults would positively know this. But it was false, Narnia and all of the lands were flat. And So, Eddie was right to hold his tongue. Instead, he said: Onn my world, which is quite a good deal different from this world, the world is round so that if you start East, it will eventually go back around.”

“Poppycock.” said the rodent, “I've never heard of anything so strange in my life.”

“It could be true,” said the bird, they don't know if there are other planets, and Thomas has said that there was a strong chance. And Thomas is an expert.”

“I will give you that Thomas is an expert, but I don't believe in this many worlds theory.” Of course, CS Lewis in his six books has a whole planet filled with worlds. Each one of them is contained within a pond. And in the seventh book, there is more detail.

“And what is this place?”

“We dug down and found, well look at it for yourself. Whatever it is, it's very old. I think it was made by woolly mammoths. Though they have not been here in our time.” this was the rodent.

“Oh, and by the way, what are your names? I'm Eddie, though my officials mean is Edward.”

“Names? We've never actually been given names,” Replied the rodent “though I knew to ask Aslan for one. If he will give one to me.”

“I would as well.”

Eddie was going to say, just pick your own, but realized he had been given a name by his mother. Who knows, with an excessive connection, he might have been like them and had no name to call his own. So, he said: “Why don't you join me, and we will find your Aslan together.”

The rodent and the bird quickly discussed this and agreed that this was the best approach. So, they went all together, through the ornate vision of stairs, which were part of the old. There to find what could be found.

We are now separating from CS Lewis, and beginning an entirely new chapter, with the bird and the rodent not being any part of CS Lewis and being my creation alone. I don't know whether there will be other creations, but I certainly hope so. It would be so dull to remain faithful when there are six other books to pillage from. And that's only the start because there is also the space trilogy and something like The Screwtape Letters. Further afield, works from JRR Tolkien, who did not like an amalgamation of the form that it took. There are other characters, but those are the featured characters in the works.