The Amber Spyglass (Page 88)

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.

TWENTY-THREE

NO WAY OUT

And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

• ST. JOHN •

“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.”