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.
Salmakia flew down low, but couldn’t land: the press was too great, and none of their hands or shoulders would support her, even if they dared to try. She saw a young ghost boy with an honest, unhappy face, dazed and puzzled by what he was being told, and she called out:
“Roger? Is that Roger?”
He looked up, bemused, nervous, and nodded.
Salmakia flew back up to her companion, and together they sped back to Lyra. It was a long way, and hard to navigate, but by watching the patterns of movement, they finally found her.
“There she is,” said Tialys, and called: “Lyra! Lyra! Your friend is there!”
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.
“Where?” she said, breathless with excitement. “Is he far off?”
“An hour’s walk,” said the Chevalier. “But he knows you’re coming. The others have told him, and we made sure it was him. Just keep going, and soon you’ll find him.”
Tialys saw Will make the effort to stand up straight and force himself to find some more energy. Lyra was charged with it already, and plied the Gallivespians with questions: how did Roger seem? Had he spoken to them? No, of course; but did he seem glad? Were the other children aware of what was happening, and were they helping, or were they just in the way?
And so on. Tialys tried to answer everything truthfully and patiently, and step by step the living girl drew closer to the boy she had brought to his death.
23
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
• ST. JOHN •
NO WAY OUT
“Will,” said Lyra, “what d’you think the harpies will do when we let the ghosts out?”
Because the creatures were getting louder and flying closer, and there were more and more of them all the time, as if the gloom were gathering itself into little clots of malice and giving them wings. The ghosts kept looking up fearfully.
“Are we getting close?” Lyra called to the Lady Salmakia.
“Not far now,” she called down, hovering above them. “You could see him if you climbed that rock.”
But Lyra didn’t want to waste time. She was trying with all her heart to put on a cheerful face for Roger, but every moment in front of her mind’s eye was that terrible image of the little dog-Pan abandoned on the jetty as the mist closed around him, and she could barely keep from howling. She must, though; she must be hopeful for Roger; she always had been.
When they did come face to face, it happened quite suddenly. In among the press of all the ghosts, there he was, his familiar features wan but his expression as full of delight as a ghost could be. He rushed to embrace her.
But he passed like cold smoke through her arms, and though she felt his little hand clutch at her heart, it had no strength to hold on. They could never truly touch again.
But he could whisper, and his voice said, “Lyra, I never thought I’d ever see you again—I thought even if you did come down here when you was dead, you’d be much older, you’d be a grownup, and you wouldn’t want to speak to me—”
“Why ever not?”
“Because I done the wrong thing when Pan got my dæmon away from Lord Asriel’s! We should’ve run, we shouldn’t have tried to fight her! We should’ve run to you! Then she wouldn’t have been able to get my dæmon again, and when the cliff fell away, my dæmon would’ve still been with me!”
“But that weren’t your fault, stupid!” Lyra said. “It was me that brung you there in the first place, and I should’ve let you go back with the other kids and the gyptians. It was my fault. I’m so sorry, Roger, honest, it was my fault, you wouldn’t’ve been here otherwise …”
“Well,” he said, “I dunno. Maybe I would’ve got dead some other way. But it weren’t your fault, Lyra, see.”
She felt herself beginning to believe it; but all the same, it was heartrending to see the poor little cold thing, so close and yet so out of reach. She tried to grasp his wrist, though her fingers closed in the empty air; but he understood and sat down beside her.
The other ghosts withdrew a little, leaving them alone, and Will moved apart, too, to sit down and nurse his hand. It was bleeding again, and while Tialys flew fiercely at the ghosts to force them away, Salmakia helped Will tend to the wound.
But Lyra and Roger were oblivious to that.
“And you en’t dead,” he said. “How’d you come here if you’re still alive? And where’s Pan?”
“Oh, Roger—I had to leave him on the shore—it was the worst thing I ever had to do, it hurt so much—you know how it hurts—and he just stood there, just looking, oh, I felt like a murderer, Roger—but I had to, or else I couldn’t have come!”
“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.”
“Well,” she said, “listen.”
Dropping her voice and leaning closer to the little ghost, just as she used to do when they were planning mischief at Jordan, she went on:
“You probably don’t know, but the witches—you remember Serafina Pekkala—the witches’ve got a prophecy about me. They don’t know I know—no one does. I never spoke to anyone about it before. But when I was in Trollesund, and Farder Coram the gyptian took me to see the Witches’ Consul, Dr. Lanselius, he gave me like a kind of a test. He said I had to go outside and pick out the right piece of cloud-pine out of all the others to show I could really read the alethiometer.
“Well, I done that, and then I came in quickly, because it was cold and it only took a second, it was easy. The Consul was talking to Farder Coram, and they didn’t know I could hear ’em. He said the witches had this prophecy about me, I was going to do something great and important, and it was going to be in another world …
“Only I never spoke of it, and I reckon I must have even forgot it, there was so much else going on. So it sort of sunk out of my mind. I never even talked about it with Pan, ’cause he would have laughed, I reckon.
“But then later on Mrs. Coulter caught me and I was in a trance, and I was dreaming and I dreamed of that, and I dreamed of you. And I remembered the gyptian boat mother, Ma Costa—you remember—it was their boat we got on board of, in Jericho, with Simon and Hugh and them—”
“Yes! And we nearly sailed it to Abingdon! That was the best thing we ever done, Lyra! I won’t never forget that, even if I’m down here dead for a thousand years—”
“Yes, but listen—when I ran away from Mrs. Coulter the first time, right, I found the gyptians again and they looked after me and … Oh, Roger, there’s so much I found out, you’d be amazed—but this is the important thing: Ma Costa said to me, she said I’d got witch-oil in my soul, she said th
e gyptians were water people but I was a fire person.
“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.
“But now I think I know. And finding you again is just a sort of proof. What I got to do, Roger, what my destiny is, is I got to help all the ghosts out of the land of the dead forever. Me and Will—we got to rescue you all. I’m sure it’s that. It must be. And because Lord Asriel, because of something my father said … ‘Death is going to die,’ he said. I dunno what’ll happen, though. You mustn’t tell ’em yet, promise. I mean you might not last up there. But—”
He was desperate to speak, so she stopped.
“That’s just what I wanted to tell you!” he said. “I told ’em, all the other dead ’uns, I told them you’d come! Just like you came and rescued the kids from Bolvangar! I says, Lyra’ll do it, if anyone can. They wished it’d be true, they wanted to believe me, but they never really did, I could tell.
“For one thing,” he went on, “every kid that’s ever come here, every single one, starts by saying, ‘I bet my dad’ll come and get me,’ or ‘I bet my mum, as soon as she knows where I am, she’ll fetch me home again. If it en’t their dad or mum, it’s their friends, or their grandpa, but someone’s going to come and rescue ’em. Only they never do. So no one believed me when I told ’em you’d come. Only I was right!”
“Yeah,” she said, “well, I couldn’t have done it without Will. That’s Will over there, and that’s the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salmakia. There’s so much to tell you, Roger …”
“Who’s Will? Where’s he come from?”
Lyra began to explain, quite unaware of how her voice changed, how she sat up straighter, and how even her eyes looked different when she told the story of her meeting with Will and the fight for the subtle knife. How could she have known? But Roger noticed, with the sad, voiceless envy of the unchanging dead.
Meanwhile, Will and the Gallivespians were a little way off, talking quietly.
“What are you going to do, you and the girl?” said Tialys.
“Open this world and let the ghosts out. That’s what I’ve got the knife for.”
He had never seen such astonishment on any faces, let alone those of people whose good opinion he valued. He’d acquired a great respect for these two. They sat silent for a few moments, and then Tialys said:
“This will undo everything. It’s the greatest blow you could strike. The Authority will be powerless after this.”
“How would they ever suspect it?” said the Lady. “It’ll come at them out of nowhere!”
“And what then?” Tialys asked Will.
“What then? Well, then we’ll have to get out ourselves, and find our dæmons, I suppose. Don’t think of then. It’s enough to think of now. I haven’t said anything to the ghosts, in case … in case it doesn’t work. So don’t you say anything, either. Now I’m going to find a world I can open, and those harpies are watching. So if you want to help, you can go and distract them while I do that.”
Instantly the Gallivespians urged their dragonflies up into the murk overhead, where the harpies were as thick as blowflies. Will watched the great insects charging fearlessly up at them, for all the world as if the harpies were flies and they could snap them up in their jaws, big as they were. He thought how much the brilliant creatures would love it when the sky was open and they could skim about over bright water again.
Then he took up the knife. And instantly there came back the words the harpies had thrown at him—taunts about his mother—and he stopped. He put the knife down, trying to clear his mind.
He tried again, with the same result. He could hear them clamoring above, despite the ferocity of the Gallivespians; there were so many of them that two fliers alone could do little to stop them.
Well, this was what it was going to be like. It wasn’t going to get any easier. So Will let his mind relax and become disengaged, and just sat there with the knife held loosely until he was ready again.
This time the knife cut straight into the air—and met rock. He had opened a window in this world into the underground of another. He closed it up and tried again.
And the same thing happened, though he knew it was a different world. He’d opened windows before to find himself above the ground of another world, so he shouldn’t have been surprised to find he was underground for a change, but it was disconcerting.
Next time he felt carefully in the way he’d learned, letting the tip search for the resonance that revealed a world where the ground was in the same place. But the touch was wrong wherever he felt. There was no world anywhere he could open into; everywhere he touched, it was solid rock.
Lyra had sensed that something was wrong, and she jumped up from her close conversation with Roger’s ghost to hurry to Will’s side.
“What is it?” she said quietly.
He told her, and added, “We’re going to have to move somewhere else before I can find a world we can open into. And those harpies aren’t going to let us. Have you told the ghosts what we were planning?”
“No. Only Roger, and I told him to keep it quiet. He’ll do whatever I tell him. Oh, Will, I’m scared, I’m so scared. We might not ever get out. Suppose we get stuck here forever?”
“The knife can cut through rock. If we need to, we’ll just cut a tunnel. It’ll take a long time, and I hope we won’t have to, but we could. Don’t worry.”
“Yeah. You’re right. Course we could.”
But she thought he looked so ill, with his face drawn in pain and with dark rings around his eyes, and his hand was shaking, and his fingers were bleeding again; he looked as sick as she felt. They couldn’t go on much longer without their dæmons. She felt her own ghost quail in her body, and hugged her arms tightly, aching for Pan.
Meanwhile, the ghosts were pressing close, poor things, and the children especially couldn’t leave Lyra alone.
“Please,” said one girl, “you won’t forget us when you go back, will you?”
“No,” said Lyra, “never.”
“You’ll tell them about us?”
“I promise. What’s your name?”
But the poor girl was embarrassed and ashamed: she’d forgotten. She turned away, hiding her face, and a boy said:
“It’s better to forget, I reckon. I’ve forgotten mine. Some en’t been here long, and they still know who they are. There’s some kids been here thousands of years. They’re no older than us, and they’ve forgotten a whole lot. Except the sunshine. No one forgets that. And the wind.”
“Yeah,” said another, “tell us about that!”
And more and more of them clamored for Lyra to tell them about the things they remembered, the sun and the wind and the sky, and the things they’d forgotten, such as how to play; and she turned to Will and whispered, “What should I do, Will?”
“Tell them.”
“I’m scared. After what happened back there—the harpies—”
“Tell them the truth. We’ll keep the harpies off.”
She looked at him doubtfully. In fact, she felt sick with apprehension. She turned back to the ghosts, who were thronging closer and closer.
“Please!” they were whispering. “You’ve just come from the world! Tell us, tell us! Tell us about the world!”
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.
When she and Will were nearly at the tree, Tialys landed on Will’s hand and indicated that he should bend his head to listen.
“They�
�re coming back,” he said quietly, “those harpies. More and more of them. Have your knife ready. The Lady and I will hold them off as long as we can, but you might need to fight.”
Without worrying Lyra, Will loosened the knife in its sheath and kept his hand close to it. Tialys took off again, and then Lyra reached the tree and sat down on one of the thick roots.
So many dead figures clustered around, pressing hopefully, wide-eyed, that Will had to make them keep back and leave room; but he let Roger stay close, because he was gazing at Lyra, listening with a passion.
And Lyra began to talk about the world she knew.
She told them the story of how she and Roger had climbed over Jordan College roof and found the rook with the broken leg, and how they had looked after it until it was ready to fly again; and how they had explored the wine cellars, all thick with dust and cobwebs, and drunk some canary, or it might have been Tokay, she couldn’t tell, and how drunk they had been. And Roger’s ghost listened, proud and desperate, nodding and whispering, “Yes, yes! That’s just what happened, that’s true all right!”
Then she told them all about the great battle between the Oxford townies and the clayburners.
First she described the claybeds, making sure she got in everything she could remember, the wide ocher-colored washing pits, the dragline, the kilns like great brick beehives. She told them about the willow trees along the river’s edge, with their leaves all silvery underneath; and she told how when the sun shone for more than a couple of days, the clay began to split up into great handsome plates, with deep cracks between, and how it felt to squish your fingers into the cracks and slowly lever up a dried plate of mud, trying to keep it as big as you could without breaking it. Underneath it was still wet, ideal for throwing at people.
And she described the smells around the place, the smoke from the kilns, the rotten-leaf-mold smell of the river when the wind was in the southwest, the warm smell of the baking potatoes the clayburners used to eat; and the sound of the water slipping slickly over the sluices and into the washing pits; and the slow, thick suck as you tried to pull your foot out of the ground; and the heavy, wet slap of the gate paddles in the clay-thick water.
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