Saturday, January 22, 2005

Be Careful What You Wish For

This quotation is for silver_nyssa (Joelle), who is infinitely smarter than Rishda Tarkaan!

For a moment or two Tirian did not know where he was or even who he was. Then he steadied himself, blinked, and looked around. It was not dark inside the stable, as he had expected. He was in strong light: that was why he was blinking.

He turned to look at Rishda Tarkaan, but Rishda was not looking at him. Rishda gave a great wail and pointed; then he put his hands before his face and fell flat, face downwards, on the ground. Tirian looked in the direction where the Tarkaan had pointed. And then he understood.

A terrible figure was coming towards them. It was far smaller than the shape they had seen from the Tower, though still much bigger than a man, and it was the same. It had a vulture's head and four arms. Its beak was open and its eyes blazed. A croaking voice came from its beak.

"Thou hast called me into Narnia, Rishda Tarkaan. Here I am. What hast thou to say?"

But the Tarkaan neither lifted his face from the ground nor said a word. He was shaking like a man with a bad hiccup. He was brave enough in battle: but half his courage had left him earlier that night when he first began to suspect that there might be a real Tash. The rest of it had left him now.

With a sudden jerk - like a hen stooping to pick up a worm - Tash pounced on the miserable Rishda and tucked him under the upper of his two right arms. Then Tash turned his head sidewise to fix Tirian with one of his terrible eyes: for of course, having a bird's head, he couldn't look at you straight.

But immediately, from behind Tash, strong and calm as the summer sea, a voice said:

"Begone, Monster, and take your lawful prey to your own place: in the name of Aslan and Aslan's great Father the Emperor-over-the-Sea."

The hideous creature vanished, with the Tarkaan still under its arm. And Tirian turned to see who had spoken. And what he saw then set his heart beating as it had never beaten in any fight.

Seven Kings and Queens stood before him, all with crowns on their heads and all in glittering clothes, but the Kings wore fine mail as well and had their swords drawn in their hands.
~C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle, Chapter Twelve: Through The Stable Door (1956)

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On this day:

1959 Lewis attends the first meeting of the Commission to Revise the Psalms, at the invitation of Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher.

4 Comment(s):

At Sat Jan 22, 02:29:00 PM EST, Blogger Joelle said...

Thanks 'venye. =)

If the movies get to the Last Battle, I don't think it will be possible to do justice to Tash, or this whole scene for that matter.

 
At Sat Jan 22, 04:11:00 PM EST, Blogger Arevanye said...

I think I need to post a sign: my preferred "nick of my nick" is "Revie"!! ;-) I get called Arey, Vannie, and now Venye...

Well, if they do make Tash just like this picture, that will be pretty darn scary. Can they do that and hold onto a PG rating? (which is what I'm assuming they're going for).

BTW, I see Tehanu's got a new Narnia set report.

 
At Sat Jan 22, 09:06:00 PM EST, Blogger Joelle said...

Whenever I read "Revie" I think of trying to start the car (imparticular, the stick shift)
Maybe I could just resort to calling you, "hey you!" ;)

 
At Sun Jul 13, 05:20:00 PM EDT, Blogger Catreona said...

You're not going to believe this! I googled Rishda, and this post came up with *exactly* the passage I need to quote. You've saved me a lot of typing. Since my hands are crippled and typing is difficult, that means a lot to me. Thank you!

I wish I'd found this blog before.

I donno about Tash in the movie. If they make him as scary as he is in the book, an R Rating might be called for. At least we don't actually see him eat Shift, only hear about it, and we only presume he eats Rishda. Still, the visuals alone would merrit an R rating IMO. We'll see.

 

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