Page 23 (2/2)

She looked at him doubtfully In fact, she felt sick with apprehension She turned back to the ghosts, ere thronging closer and closer

"Please!" they hispering "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 hosts 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 co back," he said quietly, "those harpies More and more of them Have your knife ready The Lady and I will hold theht"

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

Sohopefully, wide-eyed, that Will had to er stay close, because he was gazing at Lyra, listening with a passion

And Lyra began to talk about the world she knew

She told theer had clie 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 soht 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 thereat battle between the Oxford townies and the clayburners

First she described the claybeds,she could reline, the kilns like great brick beehives She told thee, with their leaves all silvery underneath; and she told hohen the sun shone for reat handsome plates, with deep cracks between, and how it felt to squish your fingers into the cracks and slowly lever up a dried plate ofit 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 as in the southwest, the war 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

As she spoke, playing on all their senses, the ghosts crowded closer, feeding on her words, re the time when they had flesh and skin and nerves and senses, and willing her never to stop

Then she told how the clayburners’ children always made war on the townies, but how they were slow and dull, with clay in their brains, and how the townies were as sharp and quick as sparrows by contrast; and how one day all the townies had sed their differences and plotted and planned and attacked the claybeds froainst the river, hurling handfuls and handfuls of heavy, claggy clay at one another, rushing theirthe fortifications into round and the water were all ether, and every child looked exactly the same, mud from scalp to sole, and none of them had had a better day in all their lives

When she’d finished, she looked at Will, exhausted Then she had a shock

As well as the ghosts, silent all around, and her co, there was another audience, too: the branches of the tree were clustered with those dark bird for down at her, solemn and spellbound

She stood up in sudden fear, but they didn’t move

"You," she said, desperate, "you flew atWhat’s stopping you now? Go on, tear at host out of me!"

"That is the least we shall do," said the harpy in the center, as No-Nao, when the first ghosts caave us the power to see the worst in every one, and we have fed on the worst ever since, till our blood is rank with it and our very hearts are sickened

"But still, it was all we had to feed on It was all we had And noe learn that you are planning to open a way to the upper world and lead all the ghosts out into the air - "

And her harsh voice was drowned by a host who could hear cried out in joy and hope; but all the harpies screaain

"Yes," cried No-Name, "to lead them out! What e do now? I shall tell you ill do: fro back We shall hurt and defile and tear and rend every ghost that coh, and we shall send them mad with fear and remorse and self-hatred This is a wasteland noe shall le harpy shrieked and jeered, and hosts,to Will’s ariven it away now, and we can’t do it They’ll hate us - they’ll think we betrayed them! We’ve made it worse, not better!"

"Quiet," said Tialys "Don’t despair Call the harpies back and make them listen to us"

So Will cried out, "Come back! Come back, every one of you! Come back and listen!"

One by one the harpies, their faces eager and hungry and suffused with the lust for hosts drifted back as well The Chevalier left his dragonfly in the care of Salreen-clad and dark-haired, leapt to a rock where they could all see him

"Harpies," he said, "we can offer you so better than that Answer e When Lyra spoke to you outside the wall, you flew at her Why did you do that?"

"Lies!" the harpies all cried "Lies and fantasies!"

"Yet when she spoke just now, you all listened, every one of you, and you kept silent and still Again, as that?"

"Because it was true," said No-Na Because it was feeding us Because we couldn’t help it Because it was true Because we had no idea that there was anything but wickedness Because it brought us news of the world and the sun and the wind and the rain Because it was true"

"Then," said Tialys, "let’sonly the wickedness and cruelty and greed of the ghosts that coht to ask all the ghosts to tell you the stories of their lives, and they will have to tell the truth about what they’ve seen and touched and heard and loved and known in the world Every one of these ghosts has a story; every single one that cos to tell you about the world And you’ll have the right to hear them, and they will have to tell you"

Lyra marveled at the nerve of the little spy How did he dare speak to these creatures as if he had the power to give thehts? Any one of them could have snapped him up in a h and then hurled hiround to smash in pieces And yet there he stood, proud and fearless, ain with the to one another, their voices low

All the ghosts watched, fearful and silent

Then No-Nah," she said "We want more than that We had a task under the old dispensation We had a place and a duty We fulfilled the Authority’s coently, and for that ere honored Hated and feared, but honored, too What will happen to our honor now? Why should the ghosts take any notice of us, if they can siain? We have our pride, and you should not let that be dispensed with We need an honorable place! We need a duty and a task to do, one that will bring us the respect we deserve!"

They shifted on the branches, s But a moment later Salmakia leapt up to join the Chevalier, and called out:

"You are quite right Everyone should have a task to do that’s is them honor, one they can perform with pride So here is your task, and it’s one that only you can do, because you are the guardians and the keepers of this place Your task will be to guide the ghosts froh the land of the dead to the new opening out into the world In exchange, they will tell you their stories as a fair and just payht to you?"

No-Name looked at her sisters, and they nodded She said: "And we have the right to refuse to guide the back, or if they have nothing to tell us If they live in the world, they should see and touch and hear and learn things We shall make an exception for infants who have not had ti, but otherwise, if they couide them out"

"That is fair," said Salreed

So they e for the story of Lyra’s that they’d already heard, the harpies offered to take the travelers and their knife to a part of the land of the dead where the upper world was close It was a long way off, through tunnels and caves, but they would guide thehosts could follow

But before they could begin, a voice cried out, as loudly as a whisper could cry It was the ghost of a thin ry, passionate face, and he cried:

"What will happen? When we leave the world of the dead, e live again? Or e vanish as our daemons did? Brothers, sisters, we shouldn’t follow this child anywhere till we knohat’s going to happen to us!"

Others took up the question: "Yes, tell us where we’re going! Tell us what to expect! We won’t go unless we knohat’ll happen to us!"

Lyra turned to Will in despair, but he said, "Tell them the truth Ask the alethioht," she said

She took out the golden instrument The answer came at once She put it away and stood up

"This is what’ll happen," she said, "and it’s true, perfectly true When you go out of here, all the particles that make you up will loosen and float apart, just like your dae, you knohat that looks like But your dae All the atoone into the air and the wind and the trees and the earth and all the living things They’ll never vanish They’re just part of everything And that’s exactly what’ll happen to you, I swear to you, I promise on my honor You’ll drift apart, it’s true, but you’ll be out in the open, part of everything alive again"

No one spoke Those who had seen how dae it, and those who hadn’t were i woman came forward She had died as a martyr centuries before She looked around and said to the other ghosts:

"When ere alive, they told us that e died we’d go to Heaven And they said that Heaven was a place of joy and glory and ould spend eternity in the cohty, in a state of bliss That’s what they said And that’s what led soive our lives, and others to spend years in solitary prayer, while all the joy of life was going to waste around us and we never knew

"Because the land of the dead isn’t a place of reward or a place of punishood couish in this gloom forever, with no hope of freedom, or joy, or sleep, or rest, or peace

"But now this child has co to follow her Even if it means oblivion, friends, I’ll welcoain in a thousand blades of grass, and ain the raindrops and blowing in the fresh breeze; we’ll be glittering in the dew under the stars and the moon out there in the physical world, which is our true hoe you: cohost was thrust aside by the ghost of a man who looked like a monk: thin and pale, with dark, zealous eyes even in his death He crossed himself and murmured a prayer, and then he said:

"This is a bitter e, a sad and cruel joke Can’t you see the truth? This is not a child This is an agent of the Evil One himself! The world we lived in was a vale of corruption and tears Nothing there could satisfy us But the Alranted us this blessed place for all eternity, this paradise, which to the fallen soul seems bleak and barren, but which the eyes of faith see as it is, overfloith els This is Heaven, truly! What this evil girl pro but lies She wants to lead you to Hell! Go with her at your peril My companions and I of the true faith will re the praises of the Alain he crossed himself, and then he and his co

Lyra felt bewildered Was she wrong? Was she loo before about the appearance of things, trusting Mrs Coulter because of her beautiful set things wrong; and without her dae about this, too

But Will was shaking her arhly

"You know that’s not true," he said, "just as well as you can feel this Take no notice! They can all see he’s lying, too And they’re depending on us Come on, let’s make a start"

She nodded She had to trust her body and the truth of what her senses told her; she knew Pan would have

So they set off, and the nuan to follow them Behind them, too far back for the children to see, other inhabitants of the world of the dead had heard as happening and were coreat march Tialys and Salmakia flew back to look and were overjoyed to see their own people there, and every other kind of conscious being who had ever been punished by the Authority with exile and death As like the hosts as well

But Will and Lyra had no strength to look back; all they could do was move on after the harpies, and hope

"Have we almost done it, Will?" Lyra whispered "Is it nearly over?"

He couldn’t tell But they were so weak and sick that he said, "Yes, it’s nearly over, we’ve nearly done it We’ll be out soon"