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The first thing Will did was to make Lyra sit down, and then he took out the little pot of bloodmoss oint freely, as scalp wounds do, but it wasn’t deep He tore a strip off the edge of his shirt and ash, trying not to think of the filthy state of the claw that lazed, and she was ash-pale

"Lyra! Lyra!" he said, and shook her gently "Coave a shudder and took a long, shaky breath, and her eyes focused on him, full of a wild despair

"Will - I can’t do it anyht it was so easy - but it didn’t work - it’s all I can do, and it doesn’t work!"

"It’s not all you can do You can read the alethiometer, can’t you? Coer"

He helped her up, and for the first tihosts were

They found thereat plain that extended far ahead into the ht by which they saas a dull self-luminescence that seemed to exist everywhere equally, so that there were no true shadows and no true light, and everything was the sae space were adults and children - ghost people - so uess their nuh so down listless or asleep No one was h many of them turned to look at these new arrivals, with a fearful curiosity in their wide eyes

"Ghosts," she whispered "This is where they all are, everyone that’s ever died"

No doubt it was because she didn’t have Pantalai close to Will’s arlad she did The Gallivespians had flown ahead, and he could see their bright little forhosts, who looked up and followed them onder; but the silence was iht filled him with fear, and Lyra’s war that felt like life

Behind them, outside the wall, the screa up and down the shore So up apprehensively, but an to crowd forward Lyra shrank back; she didn’t have the strength just yet to face them as she would have liked to do, and it was Will who had to speak first

"Do you speak our language?" he said "Can you speak at all?"

Shivering and frightened and full of pain as he and Lyra were, they had ether These poor ghosts had little power of their own, and hearing Will’s voice, the first clear voice that had sounded there in all the er to respond

But they could only whisper A faint, pale sound, no more than a soft breath, was all they could utter And as they thrust forward, jostling and desperate, the Gallivespians flen and darted to and fro too close The ghost children looked up with a passionate longing, and Lyra knew at once why: they thought the dragonflies were dae with all their hearts that they could hold their own daeain

"Oh, they en’t daemons," Lyra burst out compassionately; "and if my own daemon was here, you could all stroke him and touch him, I promise - "

And she held out her hands to the children The adult ghosts hung back, listless or fearful, but the children all ca, poor things, and Lyra’s hands passed through and through theht and lifeless, to war hearts of the two travelers, and both Will and Lyra felt a succession of cold, delicate brushing sensations as the ghosts passed through their bodies, war children felt that little by little they were becoot an infinite aive, and they were so cold already, and the endless crowds pressing forward looked as if they were never going to stop

Finally Lyra had to plead with them to hold back

She held up her hands and said, "Please - e could touch you all, but we came down here to look for someone, and I need you to tell me where he is and how to find hi her head to his, "I wish I knehat to do!"

The ghosts were fascinated by the blood on Lyra’s forehead It glowed as brightly as a holly berry in the di for the contact with soirl, hen 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!"

The ghost girl spoke, but in her thin, pale voice, it was only a whisper

"Did the harpies do that? Did they try and hurt you?"

"Yeah," said Lyra, "but if that’s all they can do, I en’t worried about them"

"Oh, it isn’t - oh, they do worse - "

"What? What do they do?"

But they were reluctant to tell her They shook their heads and kept silent, until one boy said, "It en’t so bad for theet tired after all that time, they can’t ’fraid you up so much - "

"It’s the new ones that they like talking to irl "It’s just Oh, it’s just hateful They I can’t tell you"

Their voices were no louder than dry leaves falling And it was only the children who spoke; the adults all seeht never ain

"Listen," said Lyra, "please listen We caot to find a boy called Roger He en’t been here long, just a feeeks, so he won’t know very many people, but if you knohere he is"

But even as she spoke, she knew that they could stay here till they grew old, searching everywhere and looking at every face, and still they ht never see more than a tiny fraction of the dead She felt despair sit on her shoulders, as heavy as if the harpy herself were perching there

However, she clenched her teeth and tried to hold her chin high We got here, she thought, that’s part of it anyway

The first ghost girl was saying so in that lost little whisper

"Why do ant to find him?" said Will "Well, Lyra wants to speak to him But there’s someone I want to find as well I want to find my father, John Parry He’s here, too, soo back to the world So please ask, if you can, ask for Roger and for John Parry to come and speak to Lyra and to Will Ask thehosts all turned and fled, even the grownups, like dry leaves scattered by a sudden gust of wind In a moment the space around the children was empty, and then they heard why Screams, cries, shrieks came frousts of rotten stink, battering wings, and those raucous screa

Lyra shrank to the ground at once, covering her ears, and Will, knife in hand, crouched over her He could see Tialys and Sal toward them, but they were some way off yet, and he had a moment or two to watch the harpies as they wheeled and dived He saw their hu insects, and he heard the words they were shouting - scoffing words, filthy words, all about his mother, words that shook his heart; but part of his , observing None of them wanted to come anywhere near the knife

To see ould happen, he stood up One of theht have been No-Name herself - had to swerve heavily out of the way, because she’d been diving low, intending to skis beat clumsily, and she only just made the turn He could have reached out and slashed off her head with the knife

By this time the Gallivespians had arrived, and the two of them were about to attack, but Will called: "Tialys! Come here! Salmakia, come to my hand!"

They landed on his shoulders, and he said, "Watch See what they do They only come and scream I think it was a mistake when she hit Lyra I don’t think they want to touch us at all We can ignore them"

Lyra looked up, wide-eyed The creatures flew around Will’s head, sometimes only a foot or so away, but they always swerved aside or upward at the last er for battle, and the dragonflies’ wings were quivering with desire to dart through the air with their deadly riders, but they held theht

And it had an effect on the ghosts, too: seeing Will standing unafraid and unharan to drift back toward the travelers They watched the harpies cautiously, but for all that, the lure of the war heartbeats, was too much to resist

Lyra stood up to join Will Her wound had opened again, and fresh blood was trickling down her cheek, but she wiped it aside

"Will," she said, "I’ether"

He heard a tone in her voice and he saw an expression on her face that he knew and likedhe’d ever known: it showed she was thinking of so, but she wasn’t ready to speak of it yet

He nodded, to show he’d understood

The ghost girl said, "This way - come with us - we’ll find theest sensation, as if little ghost hands were reaching inside and tugging at their ribs to make them follow

So they set off across the floor of that great desolate plain, and the harpies wheeled higher and higher overhead, screa But they kept their distance, and the Gallivespians flew above, keeping watch

As they walked along, the ghosts talked to theirl, "but where’s your dae But"

Lyra was conscious every single second of her dear, abandoned Pantalaimon She couldn’t speak easily, so Will answered instead

"We left our daemons outside," he said, "where it’s safe for them We’ll collect them later Did you have a daehost, "his na oh, I loved him"

"And had he settled?" said Lyra

"No, not yet He used to think he’d be a bird, and I hoped he wouldn’t, because I liked hiht But he was a bird more and more What’s your daehosts pressed forward eagerly again They all wanted to talk about their daemons, every one