A strange thing happened to her mind then. The thought of falling induced a kind of vertigo in Lyra, and she swayed. Will was ahead of her, just too far to reach, or she might have taken his hand; but at that moment she was more conscious of Roger, and a little flicker of vanity blazed up for a moment in her heart. There'd been an occasion once on Jordan College roof when just to frighten him, she'd defied her vertigo and walked along the edge of the stone gutter. The people ate up this nonsense with placid credulity, and even the deaths crowded close to listen, perching on the bench or lying on the floor close by, gazing at her with their mild and courteous faces as she spun out the tale of her life with Will in the forest. He guessed correctly. As the boy and the girl and the two daemons watched her approach, Xaphania spread her wings wider and glided down to the sand. Will, for all the time he'd spent in the company of Balthamos, wasn't prepared for the strangeness of this encounter. He and Lyra held each other's hands tightly as the angel came toward them, with the light of another world shining on her. She was unclothed, but that meant nothing. What clothes could an angel wear anyway? Lyra thought. It was impossible to tell if she was old or young, but her expression was austere and compassionate, and both Will and Lyra felt as if she knew them to their hearts. As for Lyra, she hadn't moved a muscle since that strange thing had happened, and she held the memory of the sensation inside her. She didn't know what it was, or what it meant, or where it had come from; so she sat hugging her knees, and tried to stop herself from trembling. Soon, she thought, soon I'll know. The Dust pouring down from the stars had found a living home again, and these children-no-longer-children, saturated with love, were the cause of it all. "Got to," Lyra whispered back. "Now...” he said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, but having to turn away from Mary all the same, "I've got to break the knife." Under the shadow of her arm, she opened her eyes and came properly awake. She didn't move for some time, because her arms and legs were so sore, and every part of her body felt limp with weariness; but still she was awake, and she felt the little breeze and the sun's warmth, and she heard the little insect scrapings and the bell song of that bird high above. It was all good. She had forgotten how good the world was. The angel didn't reply: it was too hard to concentrate. He had to split his attention three ways: behind him to avoid the man, ahead to see where he was going, and on the furious daemon tormenting his hands. "The Chevalier has gone to see what's ahead," she said. "We think the landscape is fading because these people are forgetting it. The farther they go away from their homes, the darker it will get." He said, "Lyra, gal, it won't be long now. When you see that old bear, you tell him Lee went out fighting. And when the battle's over, there'll be all the time in the world to drift along the wind and find the atoms that used to be Hester, and my mother in the sagelands, and my sweethearts, all my sweethearts... Lyra, child, you rest when this is done, you hear? Life is good, and death is over..." As the hawk spread its wings and lifted away from one hand, Lyra felt the little weight of Salmakia fall into the other, and knew in a moment that only the Lady's strength of mind had kept her alive this long. She cradled her body close, and ran with Will under the cloud of dragonflies, stumbling and falling more than once, but holding the Lady gently against her heart all the time. "And where is it now?" "My companion is with him now. We wanted to bring him directly to you, but he refused, because... This is the third thing I must tell you: he and your daughter are friends. And he will not agree to come to you until he has found her. She is...” "Who is this boy?" He felt his heart grimace. He walked away from the bear and stood on a rock from which he could see across the whole valley. In the clear, cold air he could hear the distant tok-tok of someone chopping wood, he could hear a dull iron bell around the neck of a sheep, he could hear the rustling of the treetops far below. The tiniest crevices in the mountains at the horizon were clear and sharp to his eyes, as were the vultures wheeling over some near-dead creature many miles away. "Come closer so I can see you," he said. "Sounds easy," he said. "But I bet it isn't. D'you know what Iorek told me?" Not far away, under the wind-tossed pines on the forest path, Will and Ama were making their way toward the cave. Will had tried to explain to Ama what he was going to do, but her daemon could make no sense of it, and when he cut a window and showed her, she was so terrified that she nearly fainted. He had to move calmly and speak quietly in order to keep her nearby, because she refused to let him take the powder from her, or even to tell him how it was to be used. In the end he had to say simply, "Keep very quiet and follow me," and hope that she would. Father MacPhail sat without moving a muscle, his lizard daemon absorbing and remembering every word. And there was another consideration: whoever seized Lyra first would have to fight their way out against the other force. It would be easier for the Consistorial Court, because they didn't have to consider getting Lyra away safely. They were flying there to kill her. SEVEN - MARY MALONE