The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

extreme distance, everything melting away into a dim greenness. But some places - the
sunny ones, she thought - were ultramarine blue.
She could not, however, spend much time looking back; what was coming into view in
the forward direction was too exciting. The road had apparently now reached the top of
the hill and ran straight forward. Little specks were moving to and fro on it. And now
something most wonderful, fortunately in full sunlight - or as full as it can be when it
falls through fathoms of water - flashed into sight. It was knobbly and jagged and of a
pearly, or perhaps an ivory, colour. She was so nearly straight above it that at first she
could hardly make out what it was. But everything became plain when she noticed its
shadow. The sunlight was falling across Lucy's shoulders, so the shadow of the thing lay
stretched out on the sand behind it. And by its shape she saw clearly that it was a shadow
of towers and pinnacles, minarets and domes.
"Why! - it's a city or a huge castle," said Lucy to herself "But I wonder why they've built
it on top of a high mountain?"
Long afterwards when she was back in England and talked all these adventures over with
Edmund, they thought of a reason and I am pretty sure it is the true one. In the sea, the
deeper you go, the darker and colder it gets, and it is down there, in the dark and cold,
that dangerous things live - the squid and the Sea Serpent and the Kraken. The valleys are
the wild, unfriendly places. The sea-people feel about their valleys as we do about
mountains, and feel about their mountains as we feel about valleys. It is on the heights
(or, as we would say, "in the shallows") that there is warmth and peace. The reckless
hunters and brave knights of the sea go down into the depths on quests and adventures,
but return home to the heights for rest and peace, courtesy and council, the sports, the
dances and the songs.
They had passed the city and the sea-bed was still rising. It was only a few hundred feet
below the ship now. The road had disappeared. They were sailing above an open parklike
country, dotted with little groves of brightlycoloured vegetation. And then - Lucy
nearly squealed aloud with excitement-she had seen People.
There were between fifteen and twenty of them, and all mounted on sea-horses - not the
tiny little sea-horses which you may have seen in museums but horses rather bigger than
themselves. They must be noble and lordly people, Lucy thought, for she could catch the
gleam of gold on some of their foreheads and streamers of emerald- or orange-coloured
stuff fluttered from their shoulders in the current. Then:
"Oh, bother these fish!" said Lucy, for a whole shoal of small fat fish, swimming quite
close to the surface, had come between her and the Sea People. But though this spoiled
her view it led to the most interesting thing of all.
Suddenly a fierce little fish of a kind she had never seen before came darting up from
below, snapped, grabbed, and sank rapidly with one of the fat fish in its mouth. And all
the Sea People were sitting on their horses staring up at what had happened. They seemed