The Last Battle

Plot

Narnia has had peace and prosperity since the reign of King Caspian X, but Roonwit the Centaur warns Tirian, the latest king of Narnia, that strange and evil things are happening to Narnia and that the stars portend ominous developments.

In the north of Narnia, an ape named Shift has persuaded a well-meaning but simple-minded donkey called Puzzle to dress in a lion's skin (an echo from Aesop's story of The Ass in the Lion's Skin) and pretend to be the Great Lion Aslan. Using Puzzle as his pawn, Shift convinces the Narnians that he speaks for Aslan. Shift deceives many of them into serving the Calormenes and to cut down Talking Trees for lumber. The money will be paid into "Aslan's" treasury, held by Shift, on the pretext that it will be used for the good of the Narnians.

Tirian and his friend Jewel the Unicorn hear word of "Aslan's return" but recognize the farce that Shift has fabricated in league with the talking cat Ginger and the Calormene warlord Rishda Tarkaan: the lie that Aslan and the Calormene god Tash are one and the same. When he accuses the ape of lying, Tirian is tied to a tree.

Tirian calls on Aslan for help and receives a vision of Digory Kirke, Polly Plummer, Peter Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, Eustace Scrubb, Lucy Pevensie, and Jill Pole, though he does not know who they are. (Susan does not appear because she has stopped believing in Narnia, thinking it only some silly childhood game she played when she was young and immature.) The people in the vision also see Tirian and, though Tirian can't speak to them, they guess he is a messenger from Narnia. A few minutes later by Narnian time – but a week later from their perspective – Jill and Eustace arrive in Narnia. They release the King and rescue Jewel and Puzzle.

A band of dwarfs are also rescued, but because their faith in Aslan has been shattered, they refuse to help, claiming "the dwarfs are for the dwarfs". Only one dwarf, Poggin, is faithful to Tirian, Aslan, and Narnia itself. Tirian learns that Shift and Rishda have unintentionally summoned the actual Tash to Narnia and that Roonwit and the Narnian army have all been killed in battle.

Tirian and his small force advance on the stable to expose the truth of Shift's deception. However, after covering his tracks by demonizing Puzzle, Shift and Rishda weed out the trouble makers among the surviving Narnians by having them venture into the stable to "meet Tashlan." But Ginger, sent in to aid in the deception, runs out in terror, having lost his ability to speak. Emeth, one of Rishda's men and a devout follower of Tash, insists on seeing his god. Rishda tries to dissuade him, but Emeth enters the stable, and the dead body of another soldier, who was stationed in the stable to murder the rebellious Narnians, is thrown out instead. Tirian's group engages Shift and the Calormenes, but most of the remaining Narnians are slaughtered.

Tirian throws Shift into the stable, and Tash, revealed to have been haunting the stable since Ginger briefly entered it, swallows the ape whole. This event frightens Rishda, who offers Eustace, Jill, Poggin, and the dwarves as sacrifices to Tash to avoid his god's wrath. But Tirian, left alone and fighting for his life, drags Rishda into the stable and finds himself in a vast and beautiful land. Peter, Edmund, Eustace, Lucy, Jill, Polly, and Digory appear. Peter orders Tash to return to his realm, and Tash vanishes with Rishda in his clutches.

The kings and queens bear witness to the end of the Narnian world. All the inhabitants, including those who have died, gather outside the barn to be judged by Aslan; the faithful enter Aslan's Country while those who have opposed or deserted him become ordinary animals and vanish. The vegetation is eaten by dragons and giant lizards before Father Time calls the stars down from the skies into the sea as it rises to cover Narnia. The land freezes when Father Time puts out the sun and the moon. Peter closes the door, and Aslan leads them to his country, telling them to go further into the one true Narnia. (Digory alludes to Plato whose Allegory of the Cave describes multiple levels of reality.) They move up a waterfall to gates where they are greeted by Reepicheep and meet other characters from the earlier novels. They find they can see a real England. Aslan tells them that the English friends' of Narnia and the Pevensies' parents have all died in a train crash. (Susan, who was not on the train, is the only surviving member of the family, and Lewis does not say whether she eventually comes to Aslan's country later in life.) The series ends with the revelation that it was only the beginning of the true story, "which goes on forever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before."

Characters

Reception

Floyd C. Gale wrote in Galaxy Science Fiction that the book "is a delightful fantastic fable of the type which the English have excelled since—or perhaps because of—Lewis Carroll".