The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

igger till it was white, and the sea began to shine like silver. And long afterwards (but
those two sang all the time) the east began to turn red and at last, unclouded, the sun
came up out the sea and its long level ray shot down the length of the table on the gold
and silver sand on the Stone Knife.
Once or twice before, the Narnians had wondered whether the sun at its rising did not
look bigger in these seas than it had looked at home. This time they we certain. There
was no mistaking it. And the brightness its ray on the dew and on the table was far
beyond an. morning brightness they had ever seen. And as Edmu said afterwards,
"Though lots of things happened on that trip which sound more exciting, that moment
was really the most exciting." For now they knew that they had truly come to the
beginning of the End of the World.
Then something seemed to be flying at them out of the very centre of the rising sun: but
of course one couldn't look steadily in that direction to make sure. But presently the air
became full of voices - voices which took up same song that the Lady and her Father
were singing, but in far wilder tones and in a language which no one knew And soon after
that the owners of these voices could be seen. They were birds, large and white, and they
came hundreds and thousands and alighted on everything; the grass, and the pavement,
on the table, on your shoulders, your hands, and your head, till it looked as heavy snow
had fallen. For, like snow, they not only make everything white but blurred and blunted
all shapes. But Lucy, looking out from between the wings of the birds that covered her,
saw one bird fly to the Old Man with something in its beak that looked like a little fruit,
unless it was a little live coal, which it might have been, for it was too bright to look at.
And the bird laid it in the Old Man's mouth.
Then the birds stopped their singing and appeared to be very busy about the table. When
they rose from it again everything on the table that could be eaten or drunk had
disappeared. These birds rose from their meal in their thousands and hundreds and carried
away all the things that could not be eaten or drunk, such as bones, rinds, and shells, and
took their flight back to the rising sun. But now, because they were not singing, the whir
of their wings seemed to set the whole air a-tremble. And there was the table pecked
clean and empty, and the three old Lords of Narnia still fast asleep.
Now at last the Old Man turned to the travellers and bade them welcome.
"Sir," said Caspian, "will you tell us how to undo the enchantment which holds these
three Narnian Lords asleep."
"I will gladly tell you that, my son," said the Old Man. "To break this enchantment you
must sail to the World's End, or as near as you can come to it, and you must come back
having left at least one of your company behind."
"And what must happen to that one?" asked Reepicheep.