~By the Lion's Mane: See You Again~

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

~Eustace~

The Owls flew us, on their backs, northward to the Great Marsh. These vast marshlands stretched  from about fifteen leagues northeast from Cair Paravel all the way to just south of the River Shribble. They were inhabited primarily by the strange Marsh-Wiggles, things that I had never heard of or seen until now.

Jill was rather silent on the flight, but my Owl and I talked continuously about the voyage of the Dawn Treader and what had happened since Lucy, Edmund, and I had returned home in England, and more about Rose and Caspian and Rilian.

After some time, we landed in the marsh and the Owls called out, “Wake up, Puddleglum. Wake up. It is on the Lion’s business.”

A lantern light appeared some minutes later, and grew steadily closer through the misty air. A voice answered, “Owls? What is it? Is the King dead? Has an enemy invaded Narnia? Is it a flood, or dragons?”

I chuckled at the owner of the voice’s assuming of the worst. I was very curious to see this person.

At last he reached us, and I studied him through the lantern light as he talked the situation over with Glimfeather. He was taller than any man I’d ever seen, with grayish green skin and hair. He had a morose face, with sunken cheeks and gray eyes and a tight mouth. But what was most striking about him were his hands and feet, which had long digits and webbing in between, like those of a frog’s.

The Marshwiggle, Puddleglum he was called, bid the Owls goodbye and took Jill and me to his house. Although it could hardly be considered a house, in my opinion. It was more of a small, conical structure made of woven reeds and grasses and plastered with mud to keep out the wind. Puddleglum called it a wigwam.

After we got sorted and settled in, Jill and I fell asleep quickly, exhausted by the long, chilly flight.

XXX

Jill and I woke sometime after dawn, and after some arguing and barbed comments pointed at each other (fueled by our lack of sleep and Pole’s idiocy), we set out to find the Marshwiggle Puddleglum fishing for eels a ways off in the marsh. After we’d helped him start a fire and had their breakfast, they set down to discuss their quest. Impatient, we cut right to the chase.

“Can you help us find Prince Rilian?” Jill asked.

Puddleglum, with a gloomy expression, answered, “Well, I don’t know if anyone can help, exactly. It stands to reason that we’re not likely to get very far on a Northern journey, especially not at this time of year with winter on the way. And an early winter, by the looks of things. But you mustn’t let that get you downhearted. With enemies, and mountains, and rivers to cross, and getting lost, and being hungry, and having sore feet, we’ll hardly notice the weather.”

Just listening to this Marsh-Wiggle talk had made me feel hopeless. He had a very solemn, pessimistic view, and hearing him morosely list all the things that were against them made the quest already seem foolish. It put me in a foul mood.

Thankfully, it didn’t appear Jill had noticed. She was more excited to hear that Puddleglum seemed to plan on going with us.

“Well, how shall we start?” I asked him, somewhat edgily.

“Well, all the others who went looking for the prince started at the place of the Queen’s death and where Drinian saw the lady. But, seeing as how none of them ever came back, we can’t know how they got on,” said Puddleglum.

“We’ve got to start by finding a ruined city of giants,” Jill volunteered helpfully. “Aslan said so.”

Puddleglum snorted. “Got to start by finding it, have we? Not allowed to start by looking for it, I suppose?” he said drily.