The two birds sat close, and in a moment they had changed their forms, becoming two doves. She felt dizzy, and it wasn't only the swaying and rising and falling of the branches she was wedged among. She put the spyglass carefully in her pocket and hooked her arms over the branch in front, gazing at the sky, the moon, the scudding clouds. "And for most of that time, wisdom has had to work in secret, whispering her words, moving like a spy through the humble places of the world while the courts and palaces are occupied by her enemies." "And we had to let them all out." "And is it not time you had a consort?" And she knew that her nature would have to answer for her, and she was terrified that what he saw in her would be insufficient. Lyra had lied to Iofur Raknison with her words; her mother was lying with her whole life. The grass was knee-high, and growing among it were low-lying bushes, no higher than her ankles, of something like juniper; and there were flowers like poppies, like buttercups, like cornflowers, giving a haze of different tints to the landscape; and then she saw a large bee, the size of the top segment of her thumb, visiting a blue flower head and making it bend and sway. But as it backed out of the petals and took to the air again, she saw that it was no insect, for a moment later it made for her hand and perched on her finger, dipping a long needle-like beak against her skin with the utmost delicacy and then taking flight again when it found no nectar. It was a minute hummingbird, its bronze-feathered wings moving too fast for her to see. "Well, sir," he said, "what have you come to tell me?" Suddenly Iorek lunged at Will and cuffed him hard with his left paw: so hard that Will fell half-stunned into the snow and tumbled over and over until he ended some way down the slope with his head ringing. Lyra thought about it. She remembered vividly the horrible scream of pain from Mrs. Coulter, the eye-rolling convulsions, the ghastly, lolling drool of the golden monkey as the poison entered her bloodstream... And that was only a scratch, as her mother had recently been reminded elsewhere. Will would have to give in and do what they wanted. Will found his imagination trembling. "Seepot," said the creature. They tore open the food stores, snarling and growling and tossing their great cruel beaks high as they swallowed the dried meat and all the preserved fruit and grain. Everything edible was gone in under a minute. He walked with Iorek up the slope toward the cave, where the fire glow still shone warmly in the vast surrounding dark. "You have it," snapped the President. "Don't be afraid. You are not a heretic. Report what you have learned, and waste no more time." "If you come, he must stay." "It was... Remember I told you about my friend Roger, and how the Gobblers caught him and I tried to rescue him, and it went wrong and Lord Asriel killed him? "And I shall tell you one thing. You know it already, but you don't want to, which is why I tell you openly, so that you don't mistake it. If you want to succeed in this task, you must no longer think about your mother. You must put her aside. If your mind is divided, the knife will break. "Oh, Asriel, what will happen to us?" Mrs. Coulter said again. "Is this the end of everything?" "I am surprised you did not seek the aid of the Consistorial Court, where we have strong nerves." Pantalaimon cried aloud, a pure, cold owl cry, a sound never heard in that world before. In nests and burrows for a long way around, and wherever any small night creature was hunting or grazing or scavenging, a new and unforgettable fear came into being. Will and Lyra, both of them sick and full of pain, tried to stand upright and face her. "And what did he tell you to do with the knife?" said Iorek Byrnison, handing it carefully back to Will. There was a little clearing in the middle of the grove, which was floored with soft grass and moss-covered rocks. The branches laced across overhead, almost shutting out the sky and letting through little moving spangles and sequins of sunlight, so that everything was dappled with gold and silver. Iorek reached the top of a little rise in the ground and paused. Ahead of them the broken ground sloped down toward a grove about a quarter of a mile away. Somewhere beyond that a battery of great guns was firing shell after shell, howling high overhead, and someone was firing flares, too, that burst just under the clouds and drifted down toward the trees, making them blaze with cold green light as a fine target for the guns. "Thank you, Pagdzin tulku" said Ama, taking the package and placing it in the pocket of her innermost shirt. "I wish I had another honey bread to give you." "He's very young. Well, they are both young. You know, if she doesn't survive this, the question of whether she'll choose the right thing when she's tempted won't arise. It won't matter anymore." He handed them back and was about to go inside when Will said, "Excuse me, where do we go now?" But eventually they ran out of things to tell her, and they fell silent. The only sound was the gentle, endless whisper of the leaves, until Serafina Pekkala said: And through it all went the two no-longer-quite-children, seeing the Specters almost clearly now. The wind was snapping at Will's eyes and lashing Lyra's hair across her face, and it should have been able to blow the Specters away; but the things drifted straight down through it toward the ground. Boy and girl, hand in hand, picked their way over the dead and the wounded, Lyra calling for her daemon, Will alert in every sense for his. "Himalaya... in her own world," whispered Baruch. "Great mountains. A cave near a valley full of rainbows