The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

and nearer; but there was not a song or a shout or a bell or the rattle of a wheel anywhere.
The City was as quiet, and nearly as dark, as the inside of an ant-hill.
At last their ship was brought alongside a quay and made fast. The three travellers were
taken ashore and marched up into the City. Crowds of Earthmen, no two alike, rubbed
shoulders with them in the crowded streets, and the sad light fell on many sad and
grotesque faces. But no one showed any interest in the strangers. Every gnome seemed to
be as busy as it was sad, though Jill never found what they were so busy about. But the
endless moving, shoving, hurrying, and the soft pad-pad-pad went on.
At last they came to what appeared to be a great castle, though few of the windows in it
were lighted. Here they were taken in and made to cross a courtyard, and to climb many
staircases. This brought them in the end to a great murkily lit room. But in one corner of
it - oh joy! - there was an archway filled with a quite different sort of light; the honest,
yellowish, warm light of such a lamp as humans use. What showed by this light inside the
archway was the foot of a staircase which wound upward between walls of stone. The
light seemed to come from the top. Two Earthmen stood one on each side of the arch like
sentries, or footmen.
The Warden went up to these two, and said, as if it were a password:
"Many sink down to the Underworld."
"And few return to the sunlit lands," they answered, as if it were the countersign. Then all
three put their heads together and talked. At last one of the two gnomes-in-waiting said,
"I tell you the Queen's grace is gone from hence on her great affair. We had best keep
these top dwellers in strait prison till her homecoming. Few return to the sunlit lands."
At that moment the conversation was interrupted by what seemed to Jill the most
delightful noise in the world. It came from above, from the top of the staircase; and it was
a clear, ringing, perfectly human voice, the voice of a young man.
"What coil are you keeping down there, Mullugutherum?" it shouted. "Overworlders, ha!
Bring them up to me, and that presently."
"Please it your Highness to remember," began Mullugutherum, but the voice cut him
short.
"It pleases my Highness principally to be obeyed, old mutterer. Bring them up," it called.
Mullugutherum shook his head, motioned to the travellers to follow and began going up
the staircase. At every step the light increased. There were rich tapestries hanging on the
walls. The lamplight shone golden through thin curtains at the staircase-head. The
Earthmen parted the curtains and stood aside. The three passed in. They were in a
beautiful room, richly tapestried, with a bright fire on a clean hearth, and red wine and
cut glass sparkling on the table. A young man with fair hair rose to greet them. He was