Escape from the collapsing Underworld

The escape from the collapsing Underworld is the return journey of Rilian, Jill, Eustace, and Puddleglum through a realm breaking apart after the Witch’s death. It converts their victory over her into a race against flood, darkness, and closing rock: the travelers must find a way to the surface while the land itself disintegrates, and their narrow escape is interrupted at its threshold when Jill is pulled away.

Causes and Background

After the Witch’s death, the group has a brief interval in her castle. The door is locked, and the Earthmen have been told not to disturb the Witch. The travelers tend Puddleglum’s burned foot with strips torn from clean shirts from the Prince’s bedroom, greased with butter and salad oil taken from the supper table. Once the dressing is applied, they eat and discuss escape. Their immediate problem is not simply finding a route: the available exits are difficult to reach or likely to be guarded.

Rilian explains that the Witch had taken him through several passages to the surface, but always by ship across the Sunless Sea and never alone. Ordering a ship at the harbour with four strangers would invite questions from the Earthmen. A different route, the passage being dug for the Witch’s invasion of the Overworld, lies only a few miles away. Rilian knows that only a few feet of earth remain between the excavations and open air; the party might dig its way out if they can reach the site without being stopped and find it unguarded. The passage offers a practical escape route, but it is also the unfinished approach of the invasion they have just thwarted.

The Kingdom Comes Apart

The first warning arrives as a sound that grows too gradually for the travelers to identify when they began hearing it. A faint disquiet swells into a sea-like murmur, then into rumblings, rushes, voices, and a steady roar. Rilian draws back the curtains and recognizes, in the sudden noise, a change in the silent land. Outside, a red glow lights the distant end of the city and throws the buildings up as dark shapes against it. Streets once filled with closely packed, silent Earthmen now contain scattered figures darting between shadows and doorways. From the harbour comes a deepening roar that shakes the city.

The signs become physical and unmistakable. Ships rush out of the harbour and into the streets without anyone rowing them; the sea is rising and the flood advances quickly. Puddleglum suggests that the Witch has arranged for her kingdom to collapse if she is killed. Rilian confirms that when their swords cut off her head, the blow ended her magic works, and the Deep Lands began to fall apart. The escape is therefore the consequence of the Witch’s defeat as well as its immediate danger: the spell-bound realm does not merely lose its ruler but breaks down around the people who have freed the Prince.

Rilian refuses to wait in the castle. He intends to rescue his own horse, Coalblack, and Snowflake, the Witch’s horse, whom he calls a noble beast with an unworthy mistress. They can carry two riders apiece, and he hopes they can outrun the flood while the party reaches high ground and searches for an outlet. Puddleglum points out Earthmen moving up from the harbour in coordinated rushes and taking cover, rather than behaving like an aimless crowd. Rilian will not put the Witch’s armour back on: he remembers it as a movable dungeon, foul with magic and slavery, and chooses to take only the shield.

That shield supplies a different kind of preparation. It had been black and without a device an hour earlier; now it shines like silver and bears the Lion in red. Rilian interprets the change as assurance that Aslan will be their good lord whether they live or die. He asks the others to kneel and kiss the image, then shake hands as friends who may soon be parted. Jill and Eustace, who have not used one another’s Christian names at school, apologize for their quarrelling and wish each other safety. The approaching disaster draws out a tenderness that their earlier school habits had kept unspoken.

Across the Ruined Underworld

The party descends from the castle armed—three with swords and Jill with a knife—and finds the interior deserted. In the great hall, the first Earthman they encounter is a fat, pale, pig-faced creature eating the remains of the meal. It squeals and darts beneath a bench, just out of Puddleglum’s reach. The episode contrasts the silent, abandoned castle with the disorder beyond it; the travelers then continue through the collapsing city and eventually meet Golg, who leads them toward the route out.

Once the Witch’s death is announced, Golg carries the news through Underland, calling out both that she is dead and that the four Overlanders are harmless. The message spreads by repetition until the land rings with cheers. Gnomes arrive in their hundreds and thousands, celebrating with cartwheels, headstands, leapfrog, and huge crackers as they crowd around Coalblack and Snowflake. Rilian tells the story of his enchantment and deliverance at least ten times. This exultant gathering briefly turns the fugitives’ flight into a public recognition of the Prince’s release, but it cannot restore the country they must cross.

At the edge of a chasm, the travelers look down into a depth of blinding, coloured brilliance, where they can make out a river of fire and what seem to be fields and groves of glowing gems. Hundreds of Earthmen descend the rugged sides, appearing like flies against the light. Golg identifies lamps marking the beginning of the road on the far side. Then a hissing, scorching voice rises from the depths of Bism, warning that the rift is closing and urging everyone toward the cliffs. The rocks move as gnomes rush or fling themselves down into the chasm; Golg dives after them. The opening narrows from a broad cleft to a thin, brilliant thread, and finally the rock lips crash shut. The hot smell disappears, leaving the travelers alone in a much darker Underworld, with only the dim lamps to mark their road.

Flood, Darkness, and the Way Up

Puddleglum suspects they have already waited too long and expects the lamps to fail within minutes. The party urges the horses into a canter along the road, which soon plunges downhill. They might think Golg had sent them the wrong way, except that lamps continue up the opposite side of the valley—and, at its bottom, shine on moving water. Rilian orders haste. A tide runs up the valley like a mill-race, but it is still only a foot or two deep; the horses struggle through the water around their legs and reach the far side safely.

Beyond the flood, the road becomes a weary uphill climb. Looking back, the travelers see Underland’s hills turning into islands, with lamps still burning only on the remaining high ground. Distant lights disappear one by one; lower down, water already reflects the lamps that have not yet gone out. The horses cannot travel without rest, and the party halts to listen to water lapping nearby. Jill wonders whether the flood has reached Father Time and the sleeping animals. Puddleglum watches the water too, but his reassurance is limited: it does not seem to be rising as fast as before. Rilian admits that his pride and fantasy delayed them near the mouth of Bism, apologizes, and urges them onward.

The road leads into a steep tunnel, where the roof presses close and the walls draw in on either side. Picks, shovels, and barrows show that the diggers have recently been at work; if the passage reaches the surface, those tools mark their hope of escape. But the narrowing tunnel also makes retreat harder. At last the Prince and Puddleglum strike their heads against the low roof, and everyone dismounts to lead the horses over the uneven ground. The green lamplight makes their faces look strange and ghastly. Then the next lamp ahead goes out, followed by the one behind. They are left in absolute darkness.

In the dark, Rilian’s resolve turns to a statement of trust: whether they live or die, Aslan will be their good lord. Puddleglum answers in his characteristic bleak humour, and Eustace insists that going on is no worse than standing still. With Puddleglum and Eustace reaching ahead to avoid obstacles, Jill and Rilian follow with the horses. Much later, Eustace notices a patch of light above them. Puddleglum feels along the way and finds a dead end made of earth rather than rock; the light is not overhead but in the wall. He asks Jill to climb onto his shoulders and see whether she can reach it.

The Opening and Its Interruption

The passage ends at a cold blue light, not daylight itself, but a possible opening through the earth. Before Jill can explain what she sees, she cries out. The others hear a muffled struggle and Puddleglum shouting that someone is pulling her and that they are too late. When the opening and its light become clear again, Jill has vanished. Her disappearance turns the escape’s final discovery into another immediate crisis: the party has reached the surface route, but the last event of this segment is not a safe arrival aboveground. The collapsing Underworld has tested the travelers through flood, the closing chasm, failing lamps, and near-impenetrable darkness; at the threshold, a new force separates Jill from the others.