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Authors: C. S. Lewis

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“That is easy,” said Mr. Tumnus. “That country and this country—all the
real
countries—are only spurs jutting out from the great mountains of Aslan. We have only to walk along the ridge, upward and inward, till it joins on. And listen! There is King Frank’s horn: we must all go up.”

And soon they found themselves all walking together—and a great, bright procession it was—up toward mountains higher than you could see in this world even if they were there to be seen. But there was no snow on those mountains: there were forests and green slopes and sweet orchards and flashing waterfalls, one above the other, going up forever. And the land they were walking on grew narrower all the time, with a deep valley on each side: and across that valley the land which was the real England grew nearer and nearer.

The light ahead was growing stronger. Lucy saw that a great series of many-colored cliffs led up in front of them like a giant’s staircase. And then she forgot everything else, because Aslan himself was coming, leaping down from cliff to cliff like a living cataract of power and beauty.

And the very first person whom Aslan called to him was Puzzle the Donkey. You never saw a donkey look feebler and sillier than Puzzle did as he walked up to Aslan, and he looked, beside
Aslan, as small as a kitten looks beside a St. Bernard. The Lion bowed down his head and whispered something to Puzzle at which his long ears went down, but then he said something else at which the ears perked up again. The humans couldn’t hear what he had said either time. Then Aslan turned to them and said:

“You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.”

Lucy said, “We’re so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often.”

“No fear of that,” said Aslan. “Have you not guessed?”

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.

“There
was
a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly. “Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had
only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

 

Step into the world of

www.narnia.com

About the Author

CLIVE STAPLES LEWIS
, known as Jack to his friends, was born in 1898. Lewis and his good friend J. R. R. Tolkien, the author of the
Lord of the Rings
trilogy, were part of the Inklings, an informal writers’ club that met at a local pub to discuss story ideas. Lewis’s fascination with fairy tales, myths and ancient legends, coupled with inspiration drawn from his childhood, led him to write
THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE
, one of the best-loved books of all time. Six further books followed to become the immensely popular
Chronicles of Narnia
. The final title in the series,
THE LAST BATTLE
, was awarded the Carnegie Medal, one of the highest marks of excellence in children’s literature.

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Other Books in the Narnia Series

Book One

THE MAGICIAN’S NEPHEW

Book Two

THE LION,
THE
WITCH
AND THE
WARDROBE

Book Three

THE HORSE
AND
HIS BOY

Book Four

PRINCE CASPIAN

Book Five

THE VOYAGE
OF THE
DAWN TREADER

Book Six

THE SILVER CHAIR

Book Seven

THE LAST BATTLE

Credits

Cover art by David Wiesner; copyright © 2007 by C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd.

THE LAST BATTLE
. Copyright © 1956 by C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Copyright renewed 1984 by C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. Interior art by Pauline Baynes; copyright © 1956 by C.S. Lewis Pte. Ltd. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Mobipocket Reader October 2008 ISBN 978-0-06-176540-7

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Publisher

Australia

HarperCollins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Ltd.

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Pymble, NSW 2073, Australia

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com.au

Canada

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

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http://www.harpercollinsebooks.ca

New Zealand

HarperCollinsPublishers (New Zealand) Limited

P.O. Box 1

Auckland, New Zealand

http://www.harpercollins.co.nz

United Kingdom

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

77-85 Fulham Palace Road

London, W6 8JB, UK

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.co.uk

United States

HarperCollins Publishers Inc.

10 East 53rd Street

New York, NY 10022

http://www.harpercollinsebooks.com

BOOK: The Last Battle
2.39Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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