The_Complete_Chronicles_of_Narnia_(volumes_1-7,_in_order_of_publication)

you come down to Bism? You'd be happier there than in that cold, unprotected, naked
country out on top. Or at least come down for a short visit."
Jill took it for granted that none of the others would listen to such an idea for a moment.
To her horror she heard the Prince saying:
"Truly, friend Golg, I have half a mind to come down with you. For this is a marvellous
adventure, and it may be no mortal man has ever looked into Bism before or will ever
have the chance again. And I know not how, as the years pass, I shall bear to remember
that it was once in my power to have probed the uttermost pit of Earth and that I forbore.
But could a man live there? You do not swim in the fire-river itself?"
"Oh no, your Honour. Not we. It's only salamanders live in the fire itself."
"What kind of beast is your salamander?" asked the Prince.
"It is hard to tell their kind, your Honour," said Golg. "For they are too white-hot to look
at. But they are most like small dragons. They speak to us out of the fire. They are
wonderfully clever with their tongues: very witty and eloquent."
Jill glanced hastily at Eustace. She had felt sure that he would like the idea of sliding
down that chasm even less than she did. Her heart sank as she saw that his face was quite
changed. He looked much more like the Prince than like the old Scrubb at Experiment
House. For all his adventures, and the days when he had sailed with King Caspian, were
coming back to him.
"Your Highness," he said. "If my old friend Reepicheep the Mouse were here, he would
say we could not now refuse the adventures of Bism without a great impeachment to our
honour."
"Down there," said Golg, "I could show you real gold, real silver, real diamonds."
"Bosh!" said Jill rudely. "As if we didn't know that we're below the deepest mines even
here."
"Yes," said Golg. "I have heard of those little scratches in the crust that you Topdwellers
call mines. But that's where you get dead gold, dead silver, dead gems. Down in Bism we
have them alive and growing. There I'll pick you bunches of rubies that you can eat and
squeeze you a cup full of diamond-juice. You won't care much about fingering the cold,
dead treasures of your shallow mines after you have tasted the live ones of Bism."
"My father went to the world's end," said Rilian thoughtfully. "It would be a marvellous
thing if his son went to the bottom of the world."