The great door flew open, and he beheld. Go, brave heart, and save me from despair. At the top of these steps he came plump upon a sight that took his breath away and chilled his blood. Shadowy effigies in armor stood on either side, a dead silence reigned, the lamp burned blue, and the ghostly figure ever and anon turned its face toward him, showing the glitter of awful eyes through its white veil. They reached a curtained door, behind which sounded lovely music. He sprang forward to enter, but the specter plucked him back, and waved threateningly before him a. So the diver hoisted it up, and was much disappointed on opening it to find no pearls. He left it in a great lonely field, where it was found by a. So she asked what she should use for new heads, since the old ones were lost, and all the geese opened their hundred mouths and screamed. She put them on, the knights revived at once, thanked her, and went on their way rejoicing, never knowing the difference, for there were so many other heads like them in the world that no one thought anything of it. He was in a great state of mind at that, and mounting the colt, who stood by him through thick and thin, rushed to the castle to see which was left. Peeping over the hedge, he saw the queen of his affections picking flowers in her garden. He tried to climb over the hedge, but it seemed to grow higher and higher. Then he tried to push through, but it grew thicker and thicker, and he was in despair. Brooke, still watching the river, and playing with the wild rose in his buttonhole. With practice we might do something quite clever. Her turn came next. You must say what you really do want most. Brooke lay on the grass with a book, which he did not read.

No one was very near, and running up to examine, he gave it a sly nudge with his toe, which put it just an inch on the right side. It rolled a bit, perhaps, but that is allowed. So, stand off please, and let me have a go at the stake. She went off to get her ball, and was a long time finding it among the bushes, but she came back, looking cool and quiet, and waited her turn patiently. Brooke, looking at his watch. Who can make good coffee? The commander in chief and his aides soon spread the tablecloth with an inviting array of eatables and drinkables, prettily decorated with green leaves. Jo announced that the coffee was ready, and everyone settled themselves to a hearty meal, for youth is seldom dyspeptic, and exercise develops wholesome appetites. A very merry lunch it was, for everything seemed fresh and funny, and frequent peals of laughter startled a venerable horse who fed near by. There was a pleasing inequality in the table, which produced many mishaps to cups and plates, acorns dropped in the milk, little black ants partook of the refreshments without being invited, and fuzzy caterpillars swung down from the tree to see what was going on. Three whiteheaded children peeped over the fence, and an objectionable dog barked at them from the other side of the river with all his might and main. Go and ask her. Brooke obediently began the story, with the handsome brown eyes steadily fixed upon the sunshiny river. He traveled a long while, nearly eightandtwenty years, and had a hard time of it, till he came to the palace of a good old king, who had offered a reward to anyone who could tame and train a fine but unbroken colt, of which he was very fond. The knight agreed to try, and got on slowly but surely, for the colt was a gallant fellow, and soon learned to love his new master, though he was freakish and wild. One day, as he went prancing down a quiet street, he saw at the window of a ruinous castle the lovely face. He was delighted, inquired who lived in this old castle, and was told that several captive princesses were kept there by a spell, and spun all day to lay up money to buy their liberty. The knight wished intensely that he could free them, but he was poor and could only go by each day, watching for the sweet face and longing to see it out in the sunshine. At last he resolved to get into the castle and ask how he could help them.

Laurence is looking up at the sky and the weathercock. I wish he would go too. How queer that he should come. I thought he was at the mountains. Hold up your dress and put your hat on straight, it looks sentimental tipped that way and will fly off at the first puff. Now then, come on! Laurie ran to meet and present them to his friends in the most cordial manner. The lawn was the reception room, and for several minutes a lively scene was enacted there. Laurence waving his hat on the shore. It broke the ice in the beginning by producing a laugh, it created quite a refreshing breeze, flapping to and fro as she rowed, and would make an excellent umbrella for the whole party, if a shower came up, she said. Brooke was a grave, silent young man, with handsome brown eyes and a pleasant voice. Meg liked his quiet manners and considered him a walking encyclopedia of useful knowledge. He never talked to her much, but he looked at her a good deal, and she felt sure that he did not regard her with aversion. Ned, being in college, of course put on all the airs which freshmen think it their bounden duty to assume. He was not very wise, but very goodnatured, and altogether an excellent person to carry on a picnic. A pleasant green field, with three widespreading oaks in the middle and a smooth strip of turf for croquet. The tent is for your especial benefit and that oak is your drawing room, this is the messroom and the third is the camp kitchen. Jo was through the last wicket and had missed the stroke, which failure ruffled her a good deal. Fred was close behind her and his turn came before hers.

Meg ran upstairs and soon came back again, looking relieved but rather bewildered, and a little ashamed. Many were the complaints below, and great the chagrin of the head cook at her failures. Jo peeped into his halfopen eye, felt his little heart, and finding him stiff and cold, shook her head, and offered her domino box for a coffin. Putting on a big apron, she fell to work and got the dishes piled up ready for washing, when she discovered that the fire was out. Having rekindled the fire, she thought she would go to market while the water heated. The walk revived her spirits, and flattering herself that she had made good bargains, she trudged home again, after buying a very young lobster, some very old asparagus, and two boxes of acid strawberries. By the time she got cleared up, the dinner arrived and the stove was redhot. Now this lady was a thin, yellow spinster, with a sharp nose and inquisitive eyes, who saw everything and gossiped about all she saw. They disliked her, but had been taught to be kind to her, simply because she was old and poor and had few friends. Fearing to ask any more advice, she did her best alone, and discovered that something more than energy and good will is necessary to make a cook. She boiled the asparagus for an hour and was grieved to find the heads cooked off and the stalks harder than ever. The lobster was a scarlet mystery to her, but she hammered and poked till it was unshelled and its meager proportions concealed in a grove of lettuce leaves. The potatoes had to be hurried, not to keep the asparagus waiting, and were not done at the last. Her hot cheeks cooled a trifle, and she drew a long breath as the pretty glass plates went round, and everyone looked graciously at the little rosy islands floating in a sea of cream. Amy, who was fond of delicate fare, took a heaping spoonful, choked, hid her face in her napkin, and left the table precipitately. Jo uttered a groan and fell back in her chair, remembering that she had given a last hasty powdering to the berries out of one of the two boxes on the kitchen table, and had neglected to put the milk in the refrigerator. The comical side of the affair suddenly struck her, and she laughed till the tears ran down her cheeks. March came home to find the three older girls hard at work in the middle of the afternoon, and a glance at the closet gave her an idea of the success of one part of the experiment. Before the housewives could rest, several people called, and there was a scramble to get ready to see them.

He sat down, and the two angels, their forms clearer in the moonlight than he had ever seen them before, sat with him. Balthamos took to the air. Is there any boats we could sort of hire? Now for the armory. Both ideas were absurdly wrong for the brighteyed amiability that stood beside her. She settled for, friend. He clambered steadily toward it. The going was loose and he was heavy, and more than once the scree shifted under his feet and carried him down again in a scramble of dust and gravel. But as soon as he slid down, he began to move up once more, relentlessly, patiently, until he reached the rock itself, where the footing was firmer. Between the edge of the burned forest and the mountains, a rocky slope of heavy boulders and scree was littered with. He scored a line with a mighty claw along a strut less damaged than most, and feeling a flimsiness in the quality of the metal, turned away at once and scanned the mountain wall again. None of them expected that. And there are wild creatures there in plenty. Our lives will be different for a while. If we had stayed there, we would have starved. Be prepared for strangeness and for new ways, my bears. And now the time had come to use them. Demented and powerless, the aged being could only weep and mumble in fear and pain and misery, and he shrank away from what seemed like yet another threat. The singing faltered, and some of the bearers looked around in doubt and fear. When do you next bring her food? She looked into the darkness. As far as she could see into that endless silence, more of these ghosts were coming, thousands upon thousands, like refugees returning to their homeland. I never spoke to anyone about it before. Lanselius, he gave me like a kind of a test. Her eyes widened, and she sat down slowly on the bed. She had to watch as he stepped into the village, looking to the left and right, stopping every so often to listen, moving from house to house. You must know that. He liked to surprise her, but she usually managed to see him before he reached her, and there was his shadowy form, flowing along beside the riverbank. The sand they stood on was soft, and the slope of the dune nearby was inviting. Coulter had to gasp. The air rang with the pounding of mighty hammers and the clangorous screech of iron on stone. He had set the tin cup on the stones at the edge of the fire to heat some water, and now he trickled some powdered coffee into it, stirring it with a stick, and wrapped his hand in a handkerchief before picking it up to drink. When you go out of here, all the particles that make you up will loosen and float apart, just like your daemons did. And the dead man, what did he want you to do with the knife? Ama climbed the path to the cave, bread and milk in the bag on her back, a heavy puzzlement in her heart.

He stopped and looked at the rough cloth that his father had bound around it after their fight. There was no sign of the daemon shadows anywhere. They were completely alone. Even a filthy stagnant pool might be better than being dead. She told us all kinds of things. He roared, rearing high, slashing with huge paws at the rider. You sound like a man. Angel after angel, outlined in fire, their wings ablaze, tumbled screaming from the air. At the foot of the milelong slope, there was a stand of the great trees, and nearby a river meandered on the level grassy ground. The witch sprang into the air again. Had the man with the rifle appeared? Some of the houses were very old and some quite new, hut they were all built in much the same way out of wood and clay and thatch. We must arrange a spot on the path for her to leave the food at. Help me, help me! It was what his father had told you. But there was something else. Will, take your knife and. They dreamed vividly, though, and took their dreams very seriously. We have been outpaced, gentlemen. They have acted ruthlessly and skillfully. We should be chastised for our laxity in letting it happen. I shall return to what we might do about it shortly. He laid his rucksack in the cave mouth and sat down wearily. Iorek held a small rock of some sort of ironstone in his left forepaw and struck it no more than three or four times on a similar one on the floor. Dressed in expensive clothes, and with traces of a heavy scent around him. Their foliage was dense and dark green, their vast trunks goldred in the heavy evening light. Her fingers found the spyglass, and she held it to her eye, supporting one trembling hand with the other. He leapt up to the strut where his dragonfly had been struggling into the world, and eased it gently free of the broken cocoon. Stroking its great fierce head, he lifted the heavy antennae, still moist and curled, and let the creature taste the flavor of his skin until it was entirely under his command. She felt the movement of vapor about her, and her senses became confused. His next words pierced her flesh like darts of scented ice. I dare say he feels quite at home.

She stood watching them all the way to the foot of the slope. Where does he come from? Can you tell me about his people? He shouldered his pack, left the garden, and set off through the hot, silent streets, satisfied. If there were myriads of worlds, why did the knife only open windows between this one and his own? Before she could utter it, another witch, who had been present under a spell of invisibility, managed to kill her and escape. If there is war, we shall be needed. Up you come, my love. Lyra went and looked, and came back at once, looking pale. Their word for themselves as a people was mulefa, but an individual was a zalif. Mary thought there was a difference between the sounds for hezalif and sheali, but it was too subtle for her to imitate easily. She began to write it all down and compile a dictionary. And then his heart sank. Instead, you chose to skulk in a mountain cave, though how a woman of your intelligence hoped to remain hidden is a mystery to me. He became a dragonfly, as big as the two that were skimming through the air as they spoke, and darted up to join them. She was expecting that. Lyra lay hot and almost as restless, but deep, deep asleep, locked into oblivion by the draught her mother had forced down her only an hour before. It seemed to have been long planned, this meeting, for they all knew where to go and what to expect. The smoke of the cooking fires hung in the evening air, and the setting sun spread its own kind of hazy gold over everything. Mary was aware of the smell of roasting corn, and the warm smell of the mulefa themselves, part oil, part warm flesh, a sweet horselike smell. Now then, how soon can it be ready? He was a body still, and not a skeleton, because the witch had laid a spell to preserve him from corruption. Iorek could see the face of his old comrade drawn and tight with the pain of his wounds, and see the jagged holes in his garments where the bullets had entered. And then came a curious little mental dance of sympathy and awkwardness, which took place in a second or less. He wanted to speak to me. Because it was nourishing. Because it was feeding us. Because it was true. Because we had no idea that there was anything but wickedness. Because it brought us news of the world and the sun and the wind and the rain. Because it was true. And do it now. Is there one nearby? Will thought, and he saw her in the same moment dodging down a different path. Their faces were scratched, their clothes were snagged, their ankles twisted on roots and rocks, but they found the window and tumbled through, into the other world, onto the bonewhite rocks under the glaring moon, where only the scraping of the insects broke the immense silence. You are kind and hospitable.

He came along the path quickly and easily, not running, but moving like an athlete or a hunter. He had opened a window in this world into the underground of another. The man bowed helplessly and led her away. The more she learned, though, the more difficult it became, as each new thing she found out suggested half a dozen questions, each leading in a different direction. Yes, said the alethiometer instantly. I wanted us to. Now the sun was setting, he thought he could see his strange companion. The outline of a man seemed to quiver in the light, and the air was thicker inside it. It said about balance first. It said the knife could be harmful or it could do good, but it was so slight, such a delicate kind of a balance, that the faintest thought or wish could tip it one way or the other. She felt dizzy, selfconscious, bemused, but she did as she had to and stepped up beside the old zalif. His right paw darted in and seized first one piece and then the other, holding them between the tips of his massive claws and placing them on the slab of iron that was the backplate of his armor. They gathered armfuls of the bush and carried them back up toward the cave. He cut through and found that his guess was right. And she was safe with me, until. The sound of their wheels on the hardpacked earth was low and steady. His father, the soldier, the explorer, would have known exactly what to take. Will had to guess. Maybe the gyptians would take me in. She darted back into the grove. She found a narrow space between two great roots and crammed herself into it, peering over the buttress beside her and out toward the approaching dust cloud. The only world he could find with the same conformation of ground was a bare, rocky place, where the moon glared down from a starry sky onto a bleached bonewhite ground where little insects crawled and uttered their scraping, chittering sounds over a wide silence. The man closed the door behind them and hooked a wire over a nail to keep it shut. Are you hungry or thirsty? Your friend is there! Will saw a rim of white on the horizon one day and watched as it grew and grew, separating itself into different peaks and ridges and passes between them, and so high that it seemed that they must be close at hand, only a few miles. He heard her and turned, knife in hand and eyes ablaze. Four hours later she was very hot and tired. The sun was low over the horizon. The rough track she was following had petered out, and she was clambering with more and more discomfort among tumbled boulders and smaller stones. To her left the slope fell away toward a landscape of olive and lemon groves, of poorly tended vineyards and abandoned windmills, lying hazy in the evening light. To her right a scree of small rocks and gravel sloped up to a cliff of crumbling limestone. The white sails by this time had already entered the river, easily making headway against the current. And they were so beautiful, those snow white slender sails, bending and dipping and filling.

The terrible flood of Dust in the sky had stopped flowing. It wasn't still, by any means; Mary scanned the whole sky with the amber lens, seeing a current here, an eddy there, a vortex farther off; it was in perpetual movement, but it wasn't flowing away anymore. In fact, if anything, it was falling like snowflakes.  It's a suburb of the world of the dead. Sometimes the living come here by mistake, but they have to wait in the holding area before they can go on. Yeah," said the red-haired girl, in the garden of the deserted casino.  We seen her, me and Paolo both seen her. She come through here days ago." "Now," said the angel, "we go closer. The valley with the cave runs down from the left side of the glacier, and a river of meltwater runs through it. The head of the valley is here. You fought for this, and lost two fingers?" the bear said. "Show me the wound." "She look hot," said the little boy. "Sweaty in the face, all right." Mrs. Coulter couldn't speak. She had to turn away and go to the window to conceal the emotion on her face. Finally she said: Baruch said, "Well, there is a world of the dead. Where it is, and what happens there, no one knows. My ghost, thanks to Balthamos, never went there; I am what was once the ghost of Baruch. The world of the dead is just dark to us." Will and Lyra were soaked through, shivering, racked with pain, and stumbling blindly through mud and over rocks and into little gullies where storm-fed streams ran red with blood. Lyra was afraid that the Lady Salmakia was dying: she hadn't uttered a word for several minutes, and she lay faint and limp in Lyra's hand. There was a tree not far away, just a dead trunk with its bone white branches thrusting into the chilly gray air, and because Lyra was feeling weak, and because she didn't think she could walk and talk at the same time, she made for that so as to have somewhere to sit. The crowd of ghosts jostled and shuffled aside to make room. "I can think of it," said the bear, "but not understand what I am thinking. It is the strangest thing I have ever seen." "How many?" How long she stayed out, Mary didn't know. When the intensity of her feeling began to subside, and exhaustion took its place, she made her way slowly down the hill toward the village. "I'm going to go now," Will said, standing up. "Of course. Will said, "Is there anyone here from my world, where we don't have daemons? Not who? At once the hawk screamed three times, so loud that Lyra's head rang. In response there darted from the sky first one, then two and three and more, then hundreds of brilliant warrior-bearing dragonflies, all skimming so fast it seemed they were bound to crash into one another; but the reflexes of the insects and the skills of their riders were so acute that instead, they seemed to weave a tapestry of swift and silent needle-bright color over and around the children. "You know," she said, "the Church, the Catholic Church that I used to belong to, wouldn't use the word daemon, but St. Paul talks about spirit and soul and body. So the idea of three parts in human nature isn't so strange. He died fighting. He kept a whole company of Muscovites at bay while the man escaped. I found his body. He died bravely. I shall avenge him." He raised the rifle to his shoulder again and saw them react, shifting backward clumsily, crowding together. They understood. No,he said, "but that's a different sort of not fair. That's just like an earthquake or a rainstorm. It might not be fair, but no one's to blame. But if I just leave my mother with an old lady who isn't very well herself, then that's a different kind of not fair. That would be wrong. I've just got to go home. But probably it's going to be difficult to go back as we were. Probably the secret's out now. I don't suppose Mrs. Cooper will have been able to look after her, not if my mother's in one of those times when she gets frightened of things. So she's probably had to get help, and when I go back, I'll be made to go into some kind of institution." He pressed a button, and a lance of flame jetted toward the tossing, swaying zeppelin. An instant later the whole airship bloomed into a rose of white fire, engulfing the intention craft, which hung motionless and unharmed in the middle of it. Lord Asriel moved the craft unhurriedly away, and they watched as the blazing zeppelin fell slowly, slowly down on top of the whole scene, bomb, cable, soldiers, and all, and everything began to tumble in a welter of smoke and flames down the mountainside, gathering speed and incinerating the resinous trees as it went, until it plunged into the white waters of the cataract, which whirled it all away into the dark. Then she spoke, and Mary heard her say: She sighed, coming out of her trance, and tucked the hair behind her

The ghosts were fascinated by the blood on Lyra's forehead. It glowed as brightly as a holly berry in the dimness, and several of them had brushed through it, longing for the contact with something so vibrantly alive. One ghost girl, who when she was alive must have been about nine or ten, reached up shyly to try and touch it, and then shrank back in fear; but Lyra said, "Don't be afraid, we en't come here to hurt you, speak to us, if you can!" "If you'd like." "Very well," said the Chevalier. "We shall help you, because that's the task we've been given. But you must let us know what you intend to do." The spies, their thoughts moving even more quickly than their darting steeds, exchanged a glance and brought the dragonflies to rest side by side on a dry, withered branch. "Both here, both alive," said the Chevalier's voice near his ear. "Is there anyone else with her?" Will said. "No soldiers, or anyone like that?" So they set off across the floor of that great desolate plain, and the harpies wheeled higher and higher overhead, screaming and screaming. But they kept their distance, and the Gallivespians flew above, keeping watch. What are you dreaming? "Very well. Fra Pavel, you would do well to continue that line of investigation. Whatever you need in the way of clerical or secretarial help is yours to command. Please stand down." Instead, he clung there, gazing forward. "Thank you, my lord," said the reader. "And... It was me that took him there, to Svalbard, where he got killed, it was my fault he was dead. And I thought back to when we used to play in Jordan College, Roger and me, on the roof, all through the town, in the markets and by the river and down the Claybeds... Me and Roger and all the others... And I went to Bolvangar to fetch him safe home, only I made it worse, and if I don't say sorry, it'll all be no good, just a huge waste of time. I got to do that, you see, Will. I got to go down into the land of the dead and find him, and...and say sorry. I don't care what happens after that. Then we can... I can ... It doesn't matter after that." They discussed practical arrangements, money, and so forth; and then the President said, "Once you leave here, Father Gomez, you will be completely cut off, forever, from any help we can give. You can never come back; you will never hear from us. I can't offer you any better advice than this: don't look for the child. That would give you away. Instead, look for the tempter. Follow the tempter, and she will lead you to the child." "Impossible," roared the bear. "It would be shameful to fight you. You are as weak as an oyster out of its shell. I cannot fight you." Fra Pavel moved some of his books, and the young priest laid the gold chain on the table. The others bent over to look as Father MacPhail fiddled with the catch. Dr. Cooper offered him a pocketknife, and then there was a soft click. "I did not! You came charging out and attacked me." They looked at the oldest man among them, as if he were their guide. Something stirred in the cliff-ghast's memory. He paused, one hand on the warm liver, and as his brother knocked him aside, the recollection of a babbling Arctic fox came to his mind. Mrs. Coulter whispered to the shadow beside her: The twelve members of the Court looked through the dim afternoon light at the cleric on the stand, their last witness. He was a scholarly-looking priest whose daemon had the form of a frog. The Court had been hearing evidence in this case for eight days already, in the ancient high-towered College of St. Jerome. She spread the silk on the ground and began the process of dividing and counting, dividing and counting and setting aside, which she'd done so often as a passionate, curious teenager, and hardly ever since. She had almost forgotten how to do it, but she soon found the ritual coming back, and with it a sense of that calm and concentrated attention that played such an important part in talking to the Shadows. Every spy was equipped with a number of these larvae, which, by feeding them carefully regulated amounts of oil and honey, they could either keep in suspended animation or bring rapidly to adulthood. Tialys and Salmakia had thirty-six hours, depending on the winds, to hatch these larvae now, because that was about the time the flight would take, and they needed the insects to emerge before the zeppelins landed. "I wonder why she's so sad," Will said as he and Lyra climbed the road up to the ridge. "How do you know my name?" he said harshly.

But they were so weak and sick that he said, "Yes, it's nearly over, we've nearly done it. We'll be out soon." "Never mind that. Find the creature and destroy it," said the President. "It can't be far away. And look for the woman, too.” TWENTY-FOUR - MRS. COULTER IN GENEVA "Lord Faa," said Mary, "the mulefa have asked me to say they will supply everything you need, and that they would be honored if you could all join them this evening to share their meal." He went outside and found Lyra standing still, weeping, with Pantalaimon as a wolf raising his face to the black sky. She was quite silent. The only light came from the pale reflection in the snowbank of the remains of the fire, and that, in turn, was reflected from her wet cheeks, and her tears found their own reflection in Will's eyes, and so those photons wove the two children together in a silent web. "Come, then, Will," said Iorek Byrnison, "and we shall find Lyra." But Will interrupted: "As for me, I'm not going to be spoken to like that, so don't try. Respect goes two ways. Now listen carefully. You are not in charge here; we are. If you want to stay and help, then you do as we say. Otherwise, go back to Lord Asriel now. There's no arguing about it." "And what I think that means is she was sort of preparing me for the witch-prophecy. I know I got something important to do, and Dr. Lanselius the Consul said it was vital I never found out what my destiny was till it happened, see, I must never ask about it... So I never did. I never even thought what it might be. I never asked the alethiometer, even. Her father, on the path below, took a step forward, and his crow daemon raised her wings once or twice, but he stayed where he was. And then came a cry in a voice that Lyra knew and loved better than any other: "The other day, when you spoke about her so bitterly, and about me... I thought you hated her. I could understand your hating me. I've never hated you, but I could understand... I could see why you might hate me. But I couldn't see why you hated Lyra." She turned to the harpy. Mary went on as best she could: She told me that I should expect the children, and when they would appear, and where. But not why. I must just look after them. Balthamos knew. In his own angel shape, shimmering like a heat haze in the sunlight, he said, "You were foolish to go to her. All you want to do now is see the woman again." "He's working with his books at the moment, ma'am. I'll ask him to step up here when he can." Mindful of those sharp spurs, Will said nothing, though he hadn't the least intention of obeying. There was only one place he was making for, and that was the window behind the bush; so he kept his head low and ran fast, and Lyra and Ama ran behind him. Three hundred years ago in Lyra's world, someone invented the alethiometer. NINETEEN - LYRA AND HER DEATH Something exploded, somewhere, but Mrs. Coulter was beyond feeling it. "So," said Lord Asriel, "to sum it up: all of us, our Republic, the future of every conscious being, we all depend on my daughter's remaining alive, and on keeping her daemon and the boy's out of the hands of Metatron?" "Why?" Lyra sat up and found herself naked. She was indignant for a moment, and then she saw some clean clothes folded beside her on the floor: a shirt of Mary's, a length of soft, light patterned cloth that she could tie into a skirt. She put them on, feeling swamped in the shirt, but at least decent. Lord Asriel sat up, transfigured. All the fatigue had been wiped off his face in a moment. He sprang to his feet and seized his greatcoat. Will enlarged the window as wide as he could, moving across the grass to left and right, making it big enough for six, seven, eight to walk through abreast, out of the land of the dead. They unfolded the cloth and ate some bread and cheese. For some reason their hands were slow and clumsy, and they hardly tasted the food, although the bread was floury and crisp from the hot baking-stones, and the cheese was flaky and salty and very fresh. "Thank you for coming, Mr. Basilides. May I offer you some refreshment?" The Master said, "And so do I." "Do I? Yes... I suppose I do."

Thank you, yes," said the Lady. "Balthamos, please stay with me. Stay close and warn me of any danger. I need you." Lord Asriel seized a great atlas from the map chest and flung it open, looking for the pages that showed the Himalaya. "Balthamos," he whispered, and the angel daemon flew to his shoulder as a bright-eyed small bird with red wings. "Keep close to me, and watch that monkey." Behind the little boy she could see more ghosts, dozens, hundreds, their heads crowded together, peering close and listening to every word. I help, Mary said. We make again. Cautiously she began to climb, peering forward, ignoring the instruments and flying by sight and by instinct. Her daemon leapt from one side of the little glass cabin to the other, looking ahead, above, to the left and right, and calling to her constantly. The lightning, great sheets and lances of brilliance, flared and cracked above and around the machine. Through it all she flew in the little aircraft, gaining height little by little, and always moving on toward the cloud-hung palace. "What I'm afraid of," said Will after a minute, not looking at her at all, "is getting stuck somewhere and never seeing my mother again." Ama was doing the same, and her owl-eyed daemon was peering this way and that; but Lyra was not at this end of the cave. There was no doubt about it. "Will, please...” said Lyra, gasping. "I know it'll work." Lyra felt herself strengthened by hearing this, and that was really the Lady's intention. And so they toiled on, with painful effort. They moved off the wharf, keeping close together, and made their way to the wall. Gigantic stone blocks, green with ancient slime, rose higher into the mist than they could see. And now that they were closer, they could hear the sound of cries behind it, though whether they were human voices crying was impossible to tell: high, mournful shrieks and wails that hung in the air like the drifting filaments of a jellyfish, causing pain wherever they touched. "I did as you told me," she said. "I made a program, that's a set of instructions, to let the Shadows talk to me through the computer. They told me what to do. They said they were angels, and, well..." And Tialys and Salmakia, cruising above on their tireless dragonflies, and looking all around as they flew, eventually noticed a new kind of movement. Some way off there was a little gyration of activity. Skimming down closer, they found themselves ignored, for the first time, because something more interesting was gripping the minds of all the ghosts. They were talking excitedly in their near-silent whispers, they were pointing, they were urging someone forward. "But then we wouldn't have been able to build it. No one could if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we'll build..." So he tried it now, summoning an image of his mother's face as he'd last seen her, fearful and distracted in Mrs. Cooper's little hallway. It took her most of a day to find the bear-king. She saw him among the rocks off the northern edge of the island, swimming fast after a walrus. It was harder for bears to kill in the water: when the land was covered in ice and the great sea-mammals had to come up to breathe, the bears had the advantage of camouflage and their prey was out of its element. That was how things should be. "Would you like some food?" And then her absorption truly began. Watching the bear with superstitious awe, Ama scrambled up beside the little waterfall and stood shyly on the rocks. Kulang became a butterfly and settled for a moment on her cheek, but left it to flutter around the other daemon, who sat still on the boy's hand. "And how long do you think this expedition will take?" said the Chevalier. Will had been looking at him, eager to see this old companion of Lyra's; but now his eyes went right past Lee to look at the ghost beside him. Lyra saw at once who it was, and marveled at this grown-up vision of Will, the same jutting jaw, the same way of holding his head. John Parry's ghost and the ghost of Lee Scoresby recovered their senses first. Because both had been soldiers, experienced in battle, they weren't so disoriented by the noise. Will and Lyra simply watched in fear and amazement. "Your death tells you?" said Lyra.

The staircase led so far down that by the time it reached a level floor, the sky behind them at the head of the flight was quite invisible. Well before halfway she had little breath left, but she made no complaint and moved on down till it opened out into a massive hall lit by glowing crystals in the pillars that supported the roof. Ladders, gantries, beams, and walkways crossed the gloom above, with small figures moving about them purposefully. On the hawk's back sat a gray-haired lady, whose clear-eyed face looked first at Lyra, then at Salmakia clinging to her collar.  Can you tell how long it will take them to get here?" Will said. And Pantalaimon said, "Oh, Lyra, forgive us, but we have to tell you what we found out. Lyra said,  Excuse us for being in your house, but we had to escape from the men who were coming. I'm sorry if we startled you. I'm Lyra, and this is Will, and these are our friends, the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salmakia. Could you tell us your name and where we are?" He took a silver key from his pocket and unlocked the chain around the golden monkey's feet and hands, and carefully avoided touching even the tip of one golden hair. "Our old enemies vanished with the seals and the walruses. If we meet new ones, we know how to fight. Take your time, sir," Lord Asriel said gently. "Do you know where my daughter is?" As soon as they were out of earshot of the President's room, the Gallivespian sprang. Dr. Cooper, below him on the stairs, felt an agonizing stab in his shoulder and grabbed for the banister; but his arm was strangely weak, and he slipped and tumbled down the whole flight, to land semiconscious at the bottom. After three days in the company of the wheeled creatures, Mary Malone knew rather more about them, and they knew a great deal about her. But the Chevalier's expression, as he looked at Will, was displeased. "I been pretending to talk to you all the time since I died," he said. "I been wishing I could, and wishing so hard...Just wishing I could get out, me and all the other dead 'uns, 'cause this is a terrible place, Lyra, it's hopeless, there's no change when you're dead, and them bird-things... You know what they do? They wait till you're resting, you can't never sleep properly, you just sort of doze, and they come up quiet beside you and they whisper all the bad things you ever did when you was alive, so you can't forget 'em. They know all the worst things about you. They know how to make you feel horrible, just thinking of all the stupid things and bad things you ever did. And all the greedy and unkind thoughts you ever had, they know 'em all, and they shame you up and they make you feel sick with yourself... But you can't get away from 'em." Mary took the spyglass from her pocket and handed it to the witch. Serafina put it to her eye and gasped. "Leave me alone! I want to go! Let me go! Will, Will, help me, oh, help me ” FOUR - AMA AND THE BATS

As an answer the witch took an arrow from her quiver. She took her time selecting it: the best, the straightest, the most perfectly balanced. The cry was torn from Lord Asriel, and with the snow leopard beside her, with a roaring in her ears, Lyra's mother stood and found her footing and leapt with all her heart, to hurl herself against the angel and her daemon and her dying lover, and seize those beating wings, and bear them all down together into the abyss. The blackbird flew off his shoulder and vanished in midair, and there was the angel again, sulking in the half-light. Before they went back through, Will looked all around, sniffing the air, taking the measure of the world where Lyra was captive. "Balthamos," he said, "I'm going back into the forest now, to find a safe place to make the first opening. I need you to keep watch for me and tell me the moment she comes near, her or that daemon of hers." She watched every step he took down the river path, and saw quite clearly how he stepped onto the bird's back and sat cross-legged as it turned to glide away. Five minutes later they were lost to sight. In Mary's world they had a kind of picture that looked at first like random dots of color but that, when you looked at it in a certain way, seemed to advance into three dimensions: and there in front of the paper would be a tree, or a face, or something else surprisingly solid that simply wasn't there before. "I can't play cards," he said, "and I'm anxious to get on and keep traveling. If I went to the river, for example, do you think I could find a passage on a steamer going south?" She jumped up at once, and Will went with her. "Roger," she murmured. "Roger... where are you... I can't see..." Will called out, "Don't be afraid. We're not going to hurt you. Where are you going?" " "What is your name? Do you have names?" If he took to the sky, the enemy scouts who had spotted him, and lost him, would find him again at once; but if he stayed on the ground, it would take so long to get past this noxious pit that his message might arrive too late. But the boatman held up his hand. And by now Lord Asriel was weakening. He was holding fast to his blood-soaked consciousness, but with every movement a little more was lost. He could feel the edges of the bones grinding together in his skull; he could hear them. His senses were disordered; all he knew was hold tight and drag down. "No doubt, Lord Roke," said Lord Asriel. "But for reasons I don't understand, the girl is the focus of the Church's attention, and I need to know why. What are they saying about her?" He told the man what Baruch had said, and showed him the atlas. And Lyra began to talk about the world she knew. He cut a window into Cittagazze. They were deep in the parkland around the great house, not far from the edge of the forest. He stepped through for the last time and looked down over the silent city, the tiled roofs gleaming in the moonlight, the tower above them, the lighted ship waiting out on the still sea. And even in her sickness and pain, Lyra felt that she'd just been dealt the ace of trumps. "And will she come out alive?, But no, I know you can't predict. Is she, how is she, has she..." She reached a comfortable spot where three branches forked, tied the rope securely, adjusted her harness, and rested. She drifted into a sun-doped reverie until Atal asked: Then she visited the lacquer grove with Atal, having carefully explained what she was intending, and asked permission to take some sap. The mulefa were happy to let her, but too busy to be concerned. With Atal's help she drew off some of the sticky, resinous sap, and then came the long process of boiling, dissolving, boiling again, until the varnish was ready to use. Lyra looked up and held out her hand for the dragonfly. The great insect landed at once, its red and yellow gleaming like enamel, and its filmy wings stiff and still on either side. Tialys kept his balance as she held him at eye level. "That's no answer. Come on, tell me. What sort of engine is it? How does it fly? I couldn't see anything aerodynamic at all. But these controls.. .from inside, it's almost like a gyropter." Will's arm was strong around her, but he, too, was looking ahead, trying to peer through the wet gray gloom and to hear anything other than the dank splash of the oars. And presently something did change: a cliff or an island lay ahead of them. They heard the enclosing of the sound before they saw the mist darken. He said, "You will never be lost while this college is standing, Lyra. This is your home for as long as you need it. As for money, your father made over an endowment to care for all your needs, and appointed me executor; so you needn't worry about that." It was such an unexpected remark that he blinked. His daemon uttered the softest

Tialys and Salmakia climbed down to watch more closely, and Lyra said, "D'you need more fuel, Iorek? Me and Will could go and fetch some, I'm sure." "Your demean," he explained, "has to hold this handle, whether in teeth, or hands, it doesn't matter. And you have to wear that helmet. There's a current flowing between them, and a capacitor amplifies it, oh, it's more complicated than that, but the thing's simple to fly. We put in controls like a gyropter for the sake of familiarity, but eventually we won't need controls at all. Of course, only a human with a daemon can fly it." "Lyra," said the lady on the hawk, "and Will: follow us now, and we shall take you to your daemons." The mulefa used pads of a cottony fiber from another plant to apply it, and following the instructions of a craftsman, she laboriously painted her mirror over and over again, seeing hardly any difference each time as the layer of lacquer was so thin, but letting it cure unhurriedly and finding gradually that the thickness was building up. She painted on over forty coats, she lost count, but by the time her lacquer had run out, the surface was at least five millimeters thick. "Harpies," he said, "we can offer you something better than that. Answer my questions truly, and hear what I say, and then judge. When Lyra spoke to you outside the wall, you flew at her. Why did you do that?" "I can't help that," said Will. "If you can't say anything useful, don't speak at all." "You didn't! You fought me!" He turned to Serafina and said as steadily as he could, "Thank you, Serafina Pekkala, for rescuing us at the belvedere, and for everything else. Please be kind to Lyra for as long as she lives. I love her more than anyone has ever been loved." Will followed the angel's voice and soon found the spot he described. A stream splashed swiftly between mossy rocks, and disappeared over a lip into a narrow little chasm dark under the overarching trees. Beside the stream, a grassy bank extended a little way back to bushes and undergrowth. "Now we know, I mean. You have to speak to Roger, and I want to speak to my father. We have to, now." "Thank you," said Lyra, "thank you, Dame Hannah, I will." She didn't use the lights, because she wanted to get close and find somewhere to land before they saw her and shot her down. As she flew closer, the updrafts became more violent, the gusts more sudden and brutal. A gyropter would have had no chance: the savage air would have slammed it to the ground like a fly. In the intention craft she could move lightly with the wind, adjusting her balance like a wave rider in the Peaceable Ocean. "We saw many other things. We met an angel," said Pantalaimon quickly. "And we saw the world where the little people come from, the Gallivespians. There are big people there, too, who try and kill them." The woods were full of sound: the stream between the rocks, the wind among the needles of the pine branches, the chitter of insects and the cries of small arboreal mammals, as well as the birdsong; and from time to time a stronger gust of wind would make one of the branches of a cedar or a fir move against another and groan like a cello. "Will Parry. Can you make another helmet ?" "Try, then," said No-Name.

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