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"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 fro 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 alethioht, and he held it out to the two shapes that stood beside hiels

"Can you read this?" he said

"No," said a voice "Come with us You must come Come now to Lord Asriel"

"Who made you followhim But he did," Will said fiercely "He told ht 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 alethio his father’s heavy cloak around hi steadily at the two shadows

"Do you tell the truth?" he said

"Yes"

"Then are you stronger than hus, or weaker?"

"Weaker You have true flesh, we have not Still, you er, you have to obey me Besides, I have the knife So I can co 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 caain, and he heard:

"Very well You are ive 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 ht?"

"No, worse We are not of a high order aels"

"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 coels rose up into the storreat sullen heaviness settle over hiht with his father, and noas nearly finished All he wanted to do was close his eyes, which were so heavy and so sore eeping

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 ed to open his eyes to the brightin front of him

"Where are you?" he said

"Beside you," said the angel "This way"

The sun was newly risen, and the rocks and the lichens and ht, but nowhere could he see a figure

"I said ould be harder to see in daylight," the voice went on "You will see us best at half-light, at dusk or dawn; next best in darkness; least of all in the sunshine My companion and I searched farther down the mountain, and found neither woman nor child But there is a lake of blue water where she must have camped There is a dead man there, and a witch eaten by a Specter"

"A dead man? What does he look like?"

"He was in late ray hair Dressed in expensive clothes, and with traces of a heavy scent around him"

"Sir Charles," said Will "That’s who it is Mrs Coulter ood, at least"

"She left traces My companion has followed them, and he will return when he’s found out where she went I shall stay with you"

Will got to his feet and looked around The stor was fresh and clean, which only ; for nearby lay the bodies of several of the witches who had escorted hi with his father Already a brutal-beaked carrion croas tearing at the face of one of the above, as if choosing the richest feast

Will looked at each of the bodies in turn, but none of them was Serafina Pekkala, the queen of the witch clan, Lyra’s particular friend Then he remembered: hadn’t she left suddenly on another errand, not long before the evening?

So she ht cheered hin of her, but found nothing but the blue air and the sharp rock in every direction he looked

"Where are you?" he said to the angel

"Beside you," came the voice, "as always"

Will looked to his left, where the voice was, but saw nothing

"So no one can see you Could anyone else hear you as well as el tartly

"What is your name? Do you have names?"

"Yes, we do My name is Balthamos My companion is Baruch"

Will considered what to do When you choose one way out of many, all the ways you don’t take are snuffed out like candles, as if they’d never existed At the moment all Will’s choices existed at once But to keep the He had to choose, after all

"We’ll go back down the ht be so thirsty anyway I’ll take the way I think it is and you can guide "

It was only when he’d been walking for several minutes down the pathless, rocky slope that Will realized his hand wasn’t hurting In fact, he hadn’t thought of his wound since he woke up

He stopped and looked at the rough cloth that his father had bound around it after their fight It was greasy with the ointn of blood; and after the incessant bleeding he’d undergone since the fingers had been lost, this was so welcome that he felt his heart leap alers experimentally True, the wounds still hurt, but with a different quality of pain: not the deep life-sapping ache of the day before, but a s His father had done that The witches’ spell had failed, but his father had healed him

He moved on down the slope, cheered

It took three hours, and several words of guidance, before he came to the little blue lake By the time he reached it, he was parched with thirst, and in the baking sun the cloak was heavy and hot - though when he took it off, heHe dropped cloak and rucksack and ran the last few yards to the water, to fall on his face and smouthful It was so cold that it made his teeth and skull ache

Once he’d slaked the thirst, he sat up and looked around He’d been in no condition to notice things the day before, but now he saw more clearly the intense color of the water, and heard the strident insect noises from all around

"Balthamos?"

"Always here"

"Where is the dead ht"

"Are there any Specters around?"

"No, none I don’t have anything the Specters want, and nor have you"

Will took up his rucksack and cloak and e of the lake and up onto the rock Balthamos had pointed out

Beyond it a little camp had been set up, with five or six tents and the re fires Will moved doarily in case there was so

But the silence was profound, with the insect scrapings only scratching at the surface of it The tents were still, the water was placid, with the ripples still drifting slowly out froreen movement near his foot made him start briefly, but it was only a tiny lizard

The tents were ethe dull red rocks He looked in the first and found it e valuable: a mess tin and a box ofand as thick as his forearht he saw it clearly to be dried meat

Well, he had a knife, after all He cut a thin sliver and found it chewy and very slightly salty, but full of good flavor He put the ether with the mess tin into his rucksack and searched the other tents, but found theest till last

"Is that where the dead man is?" he said to the air

"Yes," said Balthamos "He has been poisoned"

Will walked carefully around to the entrance, which faced the lake Sprawled beside an overturned canvas chair was the body of the man known in Will’s world as Sir Charles Latrom, and in Lyra’s as Lord Boreal, the man who stole her alethiometer, which theft in turn led Will to the subtle knife itself Sir Charles had been smooth, dishonest, and powerful, and noas dead His face was distorted unpleasantly, and Will didn’t want to look at it, but a glance inside the tent showed that there were plenty of things to steal, so he stepped over the body to look more closely

His father, the soldier, the explorer, would have known exactly what to take Will had to guess He took a slass in a steel case, because he could use it to light fires and save his h twine; an alloy canteen for water, , and a sold coins the size of a man’s thu tablets; a packet of coffee; three packs of co of oatmeal biscuits; six bars of Kendal Mint Cake; a packet of fishhooks and nylon line; and finally, a notebook and a couple of pencils, and a small electric torch

He packed it all in his rucksack, cut another sliver of meat, filled his belly and then his canteen from the lake, and said to Baltha else?"

"You could do with some sense," canize wisdom and incline you to respect and obey it"

"Are you wise?"

"Much more so than you"

"Well, you see, I can’t tell Are you a man? You sound like a elic"

"So - " Will stopped what he was doing, which was arranging his rucksack so the heaviest objects were in the botto there to see "So he was a els when they die? Is that what happens?"

"Not always Not in the vast majority of cases Very rarely"

"When was he alive, then?"

"Four thousand years ago, more or less I am much older"

"And did he live in my world? Or Lyra’s? Or this one?"

"In yours But there are myriads of worlds You know that"

"But how do people becoels?"

"What is the point of this metaphysical speculation?"

"I just want to know"

"Better to stick to your task You have plundered this dead man’s property, you have all the toys you need to keep you alive; now o"

"Whichever e go, Baruch will find us"

"Then he’ll still find us if we stay here I’ve got a couple s to do"

Will sat dohere he couldn’t see Sir Charles’s body and ate three squares of the Kendal Mint Cake It onderful how refreshed and strengthened he felt as the food began to nourish hiain The thirty-six little pictures painted on ivory were each perfectly clear: there was no doubt that this was a baby, that a puppet, this a loaf of bread, and so on It hat they meant that was obscure

"How did Lyra read this?" he said to Balthamos

"Quite possibly she made it up Those who use these instruments have studied for many years, and even then they can only understand them with the help ofit up She read it truly She told s she could never have known otherwise"

"Then it is as el

Looking at the alethio it: so about the state of mind she had to be in to make it work It had helped him, in turn, to feel the subtleties of the silver blade

Feeling curious, he took out the knife and cut a sh it he saw nothing but blue air, but below, far beloas a landscape of trees and fields: his oorld, without a doubt

So mountains in this world didn’t correspond tohis left hand for the first tiain!

Then an idea came to him so suddenly it felt like an electric shock

If there were myriads of worlds, why did the knife only open s between this one and his own?

Surely it should cut into any of the histo the very tip of the blade as Giacomo Paradisi had told hi the ato and ripple in the air

Instead of cutting as soon as he felt the first little halt, as he usually did, he let the knifea row of stitches while pressing so softly that none of the?" said the voice fro," said Will "Be quiet and keep out of the way If you coet cut, and if I can’t see you, I can’t avoid you"

Balthamos ain and felt for those tiny halts and hesitations

There were far ht And as he felt theh at once, he found that they each had a different quality: this one was hard and definite, that one cloudy; a third was slippery, a fourth brittle and frail

But a them all there were so the answer, he cut one through to be sure: his oorld again

He closed it up and felt with the knife tip for a snag with a different quality He found one that was elastic and resistant, and let the knife feel its way through

And yes! The world he saw through that as not his own: the ground was closer here, and the landscape was not green fields and hedges but a desert of rolling dunes

He closed it and opened another: the smoke-laden air over an industrial city, with a line of chained and sullen workers trudging into a factory

He closed that one, too, and came back to himself He felt a little dizzy For the first time he understood some of the true power of the knife, and laid it very carefully on the rock in front of hi to stay here all day?" said Baltha You can only round’s in the same place And maybe there are places where it is, and h happens And you’d have to knohat your oorld felt like with the point or you et back You’d be lost forever"

"Indeed But may we - "

"And you’d have to knohich world had the ground in the sa it," said Will, as el "So it’s not as easy as I thought We were just lucky in Oxford and Citt&uazze, maybe But I’ll just"

He picked up the knife again As well as the clear and obvious feeling he got when he touched a point that would open to his oorld, there had been another kind of sensation he’d touchedof striking a heavy wooden drum, except of course that it cah the empty air

There it was He ain

He cut through and found that his guess was right The resonance round in the world he’d opened was in the sarassy upland meadow under an overcast sky, in which a herd of placid beasts was grazing - animals such as he’d never seen before - creatures the size of bison, ide horns and shaggy blue fur and a crest of stiff hair along their backs

He stepped through The nearest anirass Leaving theopen, Will, in the other-world s and tried them

Yes, he could open his oorld froes; and yes, he could easily find the solid resonance that azze-world he’d just left

With a deep sense of relief, Will went back to the ca behind hiet lost; now he could hide when he needed to, and move about safely

With every increase in his knowledge cath He sheathed the knife at his waist and swung the rucksack over his shoulder

"Well, are you ready now?" said that sarcastic voice

"Yes I’ll explain if you like, but you don’t seem very interested"

"Oh, I find whatever you do a source of perpetual fascination But neverto say to these people who are co?"

Will looked around, startled Farther down the trail - a long way down - there was a line of travelers with packhorses,their way steadily up toward the lake They hadn’t seen him yet, but if he stayed where he was, they would soon

Will gathered up his father’s cloak, which he’d laid over a rock in the sun It weighed much less now that it was dry He looked around: there was nothing else he could carry

"Let’s go farther on," he said

He would have liked to retie the bandage, but it could wait He set off along the edge of the lake, away froel followed hiht air

Much later that day they carass and dwarf rhododendrons Will was aching for rest, and soon, he decided, he’d stop

He’d heard little froel From time to time Balthamos had said, "Not that way," or "There is an easier path to the left," and he’d accepted the advice; but really he was , and to keep away froel caht as well have stayed where they were

Now the sun was setting, he thought he could see his strange coht, and the air was thicker inside it

"Balthamos?" he said "I want to find a strea halfway down the slope," said the angel, "just above those trees"

"Thank you," said Will

He found the spring and drank deeply, filling his canteen But before he could go on down to the little wood, there came an exclamation from Balthamos, and Will turned to see his outline dart across the slope toward - what? The angel was visible only as a flicker of movement, and Will could see him better when he didn’t look at him directly; but he seemed to pause, and listen, and then launch himself into the air to skim back swiftly to Will

"Here!" he said, and his voice was free of disapproval and sarcasm for once "Baruch came this way! And there is one of those s, almost invisible Coerly, his weariness forgotten The , he sahen he reached it, opened onto a dim, tundra-like landscape that was flatter than the azze world, and colder, with an overcast sky He went through, and Balthamos followed him at once

"Which world is this?" Will said