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Mrs Coulter whispered to the shadow beside her:

"Look how he hides, Metatron! He creeps through the dark like a rat"

They stood on a ledge high up in the great cavern, watching Lord Asriel and the snow leopardway below

"I could strike him now," the shadohispered

"Yes, of course you could," she whispered back, leaning close; "but I want to see his face, dear Metatron; I want him to know I’ve betrayed him Come, let’s follow and catch hireat pillar of faint light as it descended sulf Mrs Coulter had no attention to spare for it, because the shadow beside her was tre with desire, and she had to keep hie

TheyLord Asriel The farther down they clireat weariness fall over her

"What? What?" whispered the shadow, feeling her e," she said with a sweet row up to love and be loved I thought I loved her when she was a baby; but now - "

"There was regret," the shadow said, "in your heart there was regret that you will not see her grow up"

"Oh, Metatron, how long it is since you were a ? It’s not her coret that I didn’t know of you in irlhood; how passionately I would have devoted myself to you"

She leaned toward the shadow, as if she couldn’t control the irily sniffed and seeulp at the scent of her flesh

They werelaboriously over the tumbled and broken rocks toward the foot of the slope The farther down they went, the olden ht have been if the shadow had been a human companion, and then seemed to recollect herself, and whispered:

"Keep behind me, Metatron - wait here - Asriel is suspicious - let uard, I’ll call you But come as a shadow, in this small form, so he doesn’t see you - otherwise, he’ll just let the child’s dae whose profound intellect had had thousands of years to deepen and strengthen itself, and whose knowledge extended over a million universes Nevertheless, at that moment he was blinded by his twin obsessions: to destroy Lyra and to possess her mother He nodded and stayed where he hile the woman and the monkey moved forward as quietly as they could

Lord Asriel aiting behind a great block of granite, out of sight of the Regent The snow leopard heard the, and Lord Asriel stood up as Mrs Coulter ca, every surface, every cubic centiave a soft clarity to every tiny detail; and in the Dust light Lord Asriel saw that her face ith tears, and that she was gritting her teeth so as not to sob

He took her in his arolden monkey embraced the snow leopard’s neck and buried his black face in her fur

"Is Lyra safe? Has she found her daehost of the boy’s father is protecting both of them"

"Dust is beautiful I never knew"

"What did you tell him?"

"I lied and lied, Asriel Let’s not wait too long, I can’t bear it We won’t live, e? We won’t survive like the ghosts?"

"Not if we fall into the abyss We caive Lyra tirow up If we take Metatron to extinction, Marisa, she’ll have that tio with him, it doesn’t matter"

"And Lyra will be safe?"

"Yes, yes," he said gently

He kissed her She felt as soft and light in his arms as she had when Lyra was conceived thirteen years before

She was sobbing quietly When she could speak, she whispered:

"I told hi to betray you, and betray Lyra, and he believed me because I was corrupt and full of wickedness; he looked so deep I felt sure he’d see the truth But I lied too well I was lying with every nerve and fiber and everything I’d ever done I wanted hiood in me, and he didn’t There is none But I love Lyra Where did this love come froht, and now I love her sowith it All I could hope was that er than a mustard seed in the shadow of thereater ones to hide it more deeply still But the reen shoot was splitting my heart wide open, and I was so afraid he’d see"

She had to stop to gather herself He stroked her shining hair, all set about with golden Dust, and waited

"Any moment now he’ll lose patience," she whispered "I told hiel, after all, even if he was once a e of the gulf, and we’ll both go doith hi, "Yes Lyra will be safe, and the Kingdoainst her Call him now, Marisa, my love"

She took a deep breath and let it out in a long, shuddering sigh Then she shs and tucked the hair back behind her ears

"Metatron," she called softly "It’s time"

Metatron’s shadow-cloaked forolden air and took in at once as happening: the two dae and watchful, the woman with the nimbus of Dust, and Lord Asriel -

Who leapt at hi hiround The angel’s arh, and with fists, palms, elbows, knuckles, forearreat pus and rebounded froainst his skull and shook his senses

However, his ar them to his side And a moment later, Mrs Coulter had leapt up between those pinioned wings and seized Metatron’s hair His strength was enor horse As he shook his head furiously, she was flung this way and that, and she felt the power in the great folded wings as they strained and heaved at the htly around them

The daemons had seized hold of hiolden , snapping feathers, ripping at the vanes, and this only roused the angel to greater fury With a suddenand crushing Mrs Coulter against a rock

Mrs Coulter was stunned for a second, and her hands ca his one free wing to fling off the golden monkey; but Lord Asriel’s arms were firrip now there wasn’t sothe breath out of Metatron, grinding his ribs together, and trying to ignore the savage blows that were landing on his skull and his neck

But those bloere beginning to tell And as Lord Asriel tried to keep his footing on the broken rocks, so happened to the back of his head When he flung himself sideways, Metatron had seized a fist-sized rock, and now he brought it doith brutal force on the point of Lord Asriel’s skull The ainst each other, and he knew that another blow like that would kill hiht Dizzy with pain - pain that orse for the pressure of his head against the angel’s side, he still clung fast, the fingers of his right hand crushing the bones of his left, and stu the fractured rocks

And as Metatron raised the bloody stone high, a golden-furred shape sprang up like a fla to a treetop, and the el’s hand The rock cae, and Metatron swept his aroldenwith teeth, claws, and tail, and then Mrs Coulter gathered the great white beating wing to herself and smothered its movement

Metatron was hae of the abyss

And by now Lord Asriel eakening He was holding fast to his blood-soaked consciousness, but with every es of the bones grinding together in his skull; he could hear theht and drag down

Then Mrs Coulter found the angel’s face under her hand, and she dug her fingers deep into his eyes

Metatron cried out Froreat cavern, echoes answered, and his voice bounded fro those distant ghosts to pause in their endless procession and look up

And Stel with Lord Asriel’s, el’s throat

Metatron fell to his knees Mrs Coulter, falling with hiaze at her And she scra aside, and seized the angel’s hair to wrench back his head and bare his throat for the snow leopard’s teeth

And now Lord Asriel was dragging hi, and the goldenand tearing, and they were ale; but Metatron forced hireat white canopy that beat down and down and down, again and again and again, and then Mrs Coulter had fallen away, and Metatron was upright, and the wings beat harder and harder, and he was aloft - he was leaving the ground, with Lord Asriel still clinging tight, but weakening fast The golden el’s hair, and he would never let go -

But they were over the edge of the abyss They were rising And if they flew higher, Lord Asriel would fall, and Metatron would escape

"Marisa! Marisa!"

The cry was torn from Lord Asriel, and with the snow leopard beside her, with a roaring in her ears, Lyra’sand leapt with all her heart, to hurl herself against the angel and her daes, and bear thehasts heard Lyra’s exclamation of dismay, and their flat heads all snapped around at once

Will sprang forward and slashed the knife at the nearest of them He felt a little kick on his shoulder as Tialys leapt off and landed on the cheek of the biggest, seizing her hair and kicking hard below the jaw before she could throw him off The creature howled and thrashed as she fell into the mud, and the nearest one looked stupidly at the stump of his arm, and then in horror at his own ankle, which his sliced-off hand had seized as it fell A second later the knife was in his breast Will felt the handle ju heartbeats, and pulled it out before the cliff-ghast could twist it away in falling

He heard the others cry and shriek in hatred as they fled, and he knew that Lyra was unhurt beside hi in histhe snapping teeth, he hauled the biggest cliff-ghast’s head aside Tialys was dead, his spurs deep in her neck The creature was kicking and biting still, so he cut off her head and rolled it away before lifting the dead Gallivespian clear of the leathery neck

"Will," said Lyra behind hi into the crystal litter It was unbroken, although the crystal was stained and shasts had been eating before they found it It lay tilted crazily a the rocks, and inside it -

"Oh, Will, he’s still alive! But - the poor thing"

Will saw her hands pressing against the crystal, trying to reach in to the angel and co like a baby and cowering away into the lowest corner

"Helike that - oh, Will, can’t we let hih the crystal in one el out De could only weep and mumble in fear and pain and misery, and he shrank away from what seeht," Will said, "we can help you hide, at least Co hand seized his and feebly held on The old one was uttering a wordless groaning whi his teeth, and co at himself with his free hand; but as Lyra reached in, too, to help him out, he tried to smile, and to bow, and his ancient eyes deep in their wrinkles blinked at her with innocent wonder

Between them they helped the ancient of days out of his crystal cell; it wasn’t hard, for he was as light as paper, and he would have followed the to simple kindness like a flower to the sun But in the open air there was nothing to stop the wind froan to loosen and dissolve Only a few moments later he had vanished completely, and their last ih of the one: ain mystery It had all taken less than a minute, and Will turned back at once to the fallen Chevalier He picked up the little body, cradling it in his pal fast

But Lyra was saying soot to- "

Out of the indigo sky an indigo haooped low, and Lyra cried out and ducked; but Salh, and hold out your fist!"

So Lyra held still, supporting one arm with the other, and the blue haheeled and turned and swooped again, to seize her knuckles in sharp claws

On the hawk’s back sat a gray-haired lady, whose clear-eyed face looked first at Lyra, then at Sal to her collar

"Madame" said Salmakia faintly, "we have done"

"You have done all you need Noe are here," said Madame Oxentiel, and twitched the reins