The ape Shift disguises the reluctant donkey Puzzle as Aslan and fools the Narnians into thinking that Aslan has returned. Shift issues commands in "Aslan's" name and takes advantage of the credulous Narnians.
Shift and the unbelieving Calormene leader Rishda Tarkaan encourage the invading Calormenes and the dispirited Narnians to treat Aslan and the Calormene god Tash as a single, combined being — "Tashlan." Dissenters are thrown into Puzzle's stable, supposedly to meet "Tashlan," where they are murdered by Calormene soldiers.
King Tirian of Narnia calls on Aslan for help, and Jill and Eustace arrive in Narnia. They help Tirian and the remaining loyal Narnians battle the Calormenes and their allies, but are all forced through the stable door along with several Black Dwarfs. They find themselves not within the confines of a stable, but in a paradise: Aslan's Country. Aslan is there, with King Peter and other characters from previous books, and they watch through the stable door as the world of Narnia is destroyed. But the Dwarfs (who, unlike the Red Dwarfs, have lost faith in Aslan) are unable to see Aslan's Country, certain that they are still inside an ordinary stable. When Lucy asks Aslan to help them, he tells her that he will show her what he can and what he cannot do. He then growls at the Dwarfs, and makes food magically appear in their hands. This fails to convince them: they think that the growling is a machine and that the food is only what would normally be found in a stable. Aslan tells the children that the Dwarfs shut themselves out from him, and therefore cannot be reached, much like Uncle Andrew in The Magician's Nephew.
Aslan then commands Peter to shut the door on Narnia, and he leads them into his country, a platonic ideal of Narnia. He greets Emeth, a devout yet kind Tash-worshipping Calormene, telling him that "I and Tash are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him." As they get "further up and further in," the Narnians find Aslan's country getting bigger and better, eventually encompassing Earth as well. Digory, Polly, Peter, Edmund, Lucy, Eustace, and Jill learn that they have died, or rather, passed into Aslan's country, which is more real than the "Shadowlands" (to use Lewis's own word) from which they have come.
