“Then Aslan stopped, and the children looked into the stream. And there, on the golden gravel of the bed of the stream, lay King Caspian, dead, with the water flowing over him like liquid glass. His long white beard swayed in it like waterweed. And all three stood and wept. Even the lion wept: great Lion-tears, each tear more precious than the Earth would be if it was a single solid diamond.
‘Son of Adam,’ said Aslan, ‘Go into that thicket and pluck the thorn that you will find there, and bring it to me.’
Eustace obeyed. The thorn was a foot long and sharp as a rapier.
‘Drive it into my paw, Son of Adam,’ said Aslan, holding up his right fore-paw and spreading out the great pads towards Eustace.
‘Must I?’ said Eustace.
‘Yes,’ said Aslan.
Then Eustace set his teeth and drove the thorn into the Lion’s pad. And there came out a great drop of blood, redder than all redness that you have ever seen or imagined. And it splashed into the stream over the dead body of the King. And the dead King began to be changed. His white beard turned to grey, and from grey to yellow, and got shorter and vanished altogether; and his sunken cheeks grew round and fresh, and the wrinkles were smoothed, and his eyes opened, and his eyes and lips both laughed, and suddenly he leaped up and stood before them– a very young man, or a boy.
And he rushed to Aslan and flung his arms as far as they would go round the huge neck; and he gave Aslan the strong kisses of a King, and Aslan gave him the wild kisses of a Lion.
‘But,’ said Eustace, ‘looking at Aslan. ‘Hasn’t he–er–died?’
‘Yes,’ said the Lion in a quiet voice, almost as if he were laughing. ‘He has died. Most people have, you know. Even I have. There are very few who haven’t.’
‘Oh,’ said Caspian. ‘I see what’s bothering you. You think I’m a ghost, or some nonsense. But don’t you see? I would be that if I appeared in Narnia now: because I don’t belong there anymore. But one can’t be a ghost in one’s own country.'”
—The Silver Chair, C.S. Lewis
