The Amber Spyglass (Page 3)

Nevertheless, his skepticism affected her, and as she crumbled the dark gray tea brick into the water, she wondered what in the world she thought she was doing, and whether she had gone mad, and, over and over again, what would happen when the Church found out. The golden monkey was right. She wasn’t only hiding Lyra: she was hiding her own eyes.

Out of the dark the little boy came, hopeful and frightened, whispering over and over:

“Lyra—Lyra—Lyra . . .”

Behind him there were other figures, even more shadowy than he was, even more silent. They seemed to be of the same company and of the same kind, but they had no faces that were visible and no voices that spoke; and his voice never rose above a whisper, and his face was shaded and blurred like something half-forgotten.

“Lyra . . . Lyra . . .”

Where were they?

On a great plain, where no light shone from the iron-dark sky, and where a mist obscured the horizon on every side. The ground was bare earth, beaten flat by the pressure of millions of feet, even though those feet had less weight than feathers; so it must have been time that pressed it flat, even though time had been stilled in this place; so it must have been the way things were. This was the end of all places and the last of all worlds.

“Lyra . . .”

Why were they there?

They were imprisoned. Someone had committed a crime, though no one knew what it was, or who had done it, or what authority sat in judgment.

Why did the little boy keep calling Lyra’s name?

Hope.

Who were they?

Ghosts.

And Lyra couldn’t touch them, no matter how she tried. Her baffled hands moved through and through, and still the little boy stood there pleading.

“Roger,” she said, but her voice came out in a whisper. “Oh, Roger, where are you? What is this place?”

He said, “It’s the world of the dead, Lyra—I dunno what to do—I dunno if I’m here forever, and I dunno if I done bad things or what, because I tried to be good, but I hate it, I’m scared of it all, I hate it—”

And Lyra said, “I’ll

TWO

BALTHAMOS AND BARUCH

Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my flesh stood up.

• THE BOOK OF JOB •

“Be quiet,” said Will. “Just be quiet. Don’t disturb me.”

It was just after Lyra had been taken, just after Will had come down from the mountaintop, just after the witch had killed his father. Will lit the little tin lantern he’d taken from his father’s pack, using the dry matches that he’d found with it, and crouched in the lee of the rock to open Lyra’s rucksack.

He felt inside with his good hand and found the heavy velvet-wrapped alethiometer. It glittered in the lantern light, and he held it out to the two shapes that stood beside him, the shapes who called themselves angels.

“Can you read this?” he said.

“No,” said a voice. “Come with us. You must come. Come now to Lord Asriel.”

“Who made you follow my father? You said he didn’t know you were following him. But he did,” Will said fiercely. “He told me to expect you. He knew more than you thought. Who sent you?”

“No one sent us. Ourselves only,” came the voice. “We want to serve Lord Asriel. And the dead man, what did he want you to do with the knife?”

Will had to hesitate.

“He said I should take it to Lord Asriel,” he said.

“Then come with us.”

“No. Not till I’ve found Lyra.”

He folded the velvet over the alethiometer and put it into his rucksack. Securing it, he swung his father’s heavy cloak around him against the rain and crouched where he was, looking steadily at the two shadows.

“Do you tell the truth?” he said.

“Yes.”

“Then are you stronger than human beings, or weaker?”

“Weaker. You have true flesh, we have not. Still, you must come with us.”

“No. If I’m stronger, you have to obey me. Besides, I have the knife. So I can command you: help me find Lyra. I don’t care how long it takes, I’ll find her first and then I’ll go to Lord Asriel.”

The two figures were silent for several seconds. Then they drifted away and spoke together, though Will could hear nothing of what they said.

Finally they came close again, and he heard:

“Very well. You are making a mistake, though you give us no choice. We shall help you find this child.”

Will tried to pierce the darkness and see them more clearly, but the rain filled his eyes.

“Come closer so I can see you,” he said.

They approached, but seemed to become even more obscure.

“Shall I see you better in daylight?”

“No, worse. We are not of a high order among angels.”

“Well, if I can’t see you, no one else will, either, so you can stay hidden. Go and see if you can find where Lyra’s gone. She surely can’t be far away. There was a woman—she’ll be with her—the woman took her. Go and search, and come back and tell me what you see.”

The angels rose up into the stormy air and vanished. Will felt a great sullen heaviness settle over him; he’d had little strength left before the fight with his father, and now he was nearly finished. All he wanted to do was close his eyes, which were so heavy and so sore with weeping.

He tugged the cloak over his head, clutched the rucksack to his breast, and fell asleep in a moment.

“Nowhere,” said a voice.

Will heard it in the depths of sleep and struggled to wake. Eventually (and it took most of a minute, because he was so profoundly unconscious) he managed to open his eyes to the bright morning in front of him.