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“In the last days of Narnia.” With these words, the final book of the series begins. From the outset, we are not allowed to be ignorant of the fact that this world, a world that we have come to love so deeply and desire so fully that we think of ourselves as Narnians, is going to end.
Loss is our earliest memory as a race. There was a time before the Fall, a time before we gambled all our happiness in hopes to win a happiness beyond the lot of mortals and discovered that the boundaries set to mortal being are absolute; a time before the terror, astonishment, and above all shame of knowing that we suddenly had a secret from God, one we would give anything not to have to tell Him.
The Horse and His Boy begins with the boy of the title. Or rather, it doesn’t begin there, but with a short preamble telling us that this story happened during the days of the Pevensie reign. This is the golden age of Narnia, when myth had become fact and all was at last, according to the old rhyme, set to rights.
In The Silver Chair, Rilian, the son of Caspian the Explorer, was born to be king of Narnia. This was his birthright, and a joy both for him and for a Narnia that was still in its first generation of unification. His father was the man of two worlds, who could therefore lead them both, ruling by the gift of the High King, the election of Aslan, and law of the Telmarines.
Since ancient times, Christians have referred to the church as a ship: specifically, as Noah’s ark, in which God’s faithful are being saved from the destruction of the world. This is why the bulk of a church is called a nave, from Latin navis, meaning “ship.” And so it is fitting that the Narnian book devoted specifically to considering the progress of the Christian life should be about a sea voyage.
