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The wide golden prairie that Lee Scoresby’s ghost had seen briefly through the as lying quiet under the first sun of reen, and every one of the million shades between theht pitch; and silvery, too, where the sun caught the tops of a particular kind of grass just co into flower; and blue, where a wide lake some way off and a small pond closer by reflected back the wide blue of the sky

And quiet, but not silent, for a soft breeze rustled the billions of little stems, and a billion insects and other srass, and a bird too high in the blue to be seen sang little looping falls of bell notes now close by, now far off, and never twice the sa things that were silent and still were the boy and the girl lying asleep, back to back, under the shade of an outcrop of rock at the top of a little bluff

They were so still, so pale, that they er had drawn the skin over their faces, pain had left lines around their eyes, and they were covered in dust and mud and not a little blood And from the absolute passivity of their lies of exhaustion

Lyra was the first to wake As the sun moved up the sky, it caan to stir, and when the sunlight reached her eyelids, she found herself pulled up from the depths of sleep like a fish, slow and heavy and resistant

But there was no arguing with the sun, and presently she moved her head and threw her arm across her eyes and murmured: "Pan - Pan"

Under the shadow of her arm, she opened her eyes and came properly awake She didn’t s were so sore, and every part of her body felt limp eariness; but still she ake, and she felt the little breeze and the sun’s wars and the bell song of that bird high above It was all good She had forgotten how good the world was

Presently she rolled over and saw Will, still fast asleep His hand had bled a lot, his shirt was ripped and filthy, his hair was stiff with dust and sweat She looked at hi ti and falling slowly, at the delicate shadows his eyelashes made when the sun finally reached the to be caught looking at hi the night before, just a couple of hand spans wide, where the bodies of the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salot up and prized it loose frorave, and then sat up and shaded her eyes to gaze across the plain

It seemed to stretch forever and ever It was nowhere entirely flat; gentle undulations and little ridges and gullies varied the surface wherever she looked, and here and there she saw a stand of trees so tall they seeht trunks and dark green canopy see so clearly visible at what h - in fact, at the foot of the bluff, not more than a hundred yards away - there was a little pond fed by a spring co out of the rock, and Lyra realized how thirsty she was

She got up on shaky legs and walked slowly doard it The spring gurgled and trickled through ain, washing the the water to her ly cold, and she sed it with delight

The pond was fringed with reeds, where a frog was croaking It was shallow and war, as she discovered when she took off her shoes and waded into it She stood for a long ti the cool water around her calves

She bent down to dip her face under the water and wet her hair thoroughly, letting it trail out and flicking it back again, stirring it with her fingers to lift all the dust and grime out

When she felt a little cleaner and her thirst was satisfied, she looked up the slope again, to see that Will ake He was sitting with his knees drawn up and his ar out across the plain as she’d done, and ht, and at the warmth, and at the quiet

She cli the na it more firmly in the soil

"Are they" he said, and she knew he meant the daemons

"Don’t know I haven’t seen Pan I got the feeling he’s not far away, but I don’t know D’you remember what happened?"

He rubbed his eyes and yawned so deeply she heard little cracking noises in his jaw Then he blinked and shook his head

"Not much," he said "I picked up Pantalaih, and it was ht everywhere, and I put him down to close the "

"And your - the other dae to see Mr Scoresby through the , and Iorek, and to see where Pan had gone, and when I looked around, they just weren’t there"

"It doesn’t feel like ent into the world of the dead, though Like ere really separated"

"No," she agreed "They’re so we used to try and play hide-and-seek, except it never really worked, because I was too big to hide from him and I always used to know exactly where he was, even if he was cae," she said, passing her hands over her head involuntarily as if she were trying to dispel some enchantment "He en’t here, but I don’t feel torn apart, I feel safe, and I know he is"

"They’re together, I think," Will said

"Yeah They must be"

He stood up suddenly

"Look," he said, "over there"

He was shading his eyes and pointing She followed his gaze and saw a distant tremor of movement, quite different from the shimmer of the heat haze

"Animals?" she said doubtfully

"And listen," he said, putting his hand behind his ear

Now he’d pointed it out, she could hear a low, persistent ru way off

"They’ve disappeared," Will said, pointing

The little patch ofshadows had vanished, but the rumble went on for a few h it had been very quiet already The two of the in the same direction, and shortly afterward they saw the ain And a few moments later cae or so," said Will "Are they closer?"

"Can’t really see Yes, they’re turning, look, they’re coht them, I want a drink first," said Will, and he took the rucksack down to the stream, where he drank deep and washed off most of the dirt His wound had bled a lot He was a ed for a hot shoith plenty of soap, and for so the whatever they were; they were very strange

"Will," she called, "they’re riding on wheels"

But she said it uncertainly He climbed back a little way up the slope and shaded his eyes to look It was possible to see individuals now The group, or herd, or gang, was about a dozen strong, and they were , as Lyra said, on wheels They looked like a cross between antelopes and er than that, even: they had trunks like s for Will and Lyra, with an air of intention Will took out the knife, but Lyra, sitting on the grass beside hi the hands of the alethiometer

It responded quickly, while the creatures were still a few hundred yards away The needle darted swiftly left and right, and left and left, and Lyra felt her htly as a bird

"They’re friendly," she said, "it’s all right, Will, they’re looking for us, they kneere here And it’s odd, I can’t quite make it out Dr Malone?"

She said the name half to herself, because she couldn’t believe Dr Malone would be in this world Still, the alethioh of course it couldn’t give her name Lyra put it away and stood up slowly beside Will

"I think we should go down to the to hurt us"

So The leader moved ahead a little, trunk raised, and they could see how he propelled himself with powerful backward strokes of his lateral lione to the pond to drink; the others waited, but not with the ate These were individuals, lively with intelligence and purpose They were people

Will and Lyra h to speak to them In spite of what Lyra had said, Will kept his hand on the knife

"I don’t know if you understand me," Lyra said cautiously, "but I know you’re friendly I think we should - "

The leader moved his trunk and said, "Come see Mary You ride We carry Come see Mary"

"Oh!" she said, and turned to Will, sht

Two of the creatures were fitted with bridles and stirrups of braided cord Not saddles; their diah without them Lyra had ridden a bear, and Will had ridden a bicycle, but neither had ridden a horse, which was the closest comparison However, riders of horses are usually in control, and the children soon found that they were not: the reins and the stirrups were there si to hold on to and balance with The creatures themselves an to say, but had to stop and regain his balance as the creaturearound and rass The movement was humpy, but not uncomfortable, because the creatures had no spine; Will and Lyra felt that they were sitting on chairs with a well-sprung seat

Soon they came to what they hadn’t seen clearly froround And they were as surprised to find roads of sh the prairie as Mary Malone had been sometime before

The creatures rolled onto the surface and set off, soon picking up speed The road was hway In places it broadened into wide areas like small lakes; and at others it split into narrow channels, only to coain unpredictably It was quite unlike the brutal, rational way roads in Will’s world sliced through hillsides and leapt across valleys on bridges of concrete This was part of the landscape, not an i faster and faster It took Will and Lyra a while to get used to the living i thunder of the hard wheels on the hard stone Lyra found it more difficult than Will at first, because she had never ridden a bicycle, and she didn’t know the trick of leaning into the corner; but she saas doing it, and soon she was finding the speed exhilarating

The wheels made too much noise for them to speak Instead, they had to point: at the trees, in amazement at their size and splendor; at a flock of birds, the strangest they had ever seen, their fore and aft wings giving theh the air; at a fat blue lizard as long as a horse basking in the very middle of the road (the wheeled creatures divided to ride on either side of it, and it took no notice at all)

The sun was high in the sky when they began to slon

And in the air, un toward a bluff, and presently they wereno faster than a walk

Lyra, stiff and sore, said, "Can you stop? I want to get off and walk"

Her creature felt the tug at the bridle, and whether or not he understood her words, he came to a halt Will’s did, too, and both children cli the and tensing

The creatures wheeled around to talk together, their trunks antly in time with the sounds they made After a minute theythe hay-scented, grass-warone on ahead to the top of the rise, and the children, now that they no longer had to concentrate on hanging on, were able to watch how they race and pohich they propelled themselves forward and leaned and turned

As they came to the top of the rise, they stopped, and Will and Lyra heard the leader say, "Mary close Mary there"

They looked down On the horizon there was the blue glearassland in thecopses of se of thatched houses More creatures like thesethe trees

"Now ride again," said the leader

There wasn’t far to go Will and Lyra climbed up once more, and the other creatures looked closely at their balance and checked the stirrups with their trunks, as if to make sure they were safe

Then they set off, beating the road with their lateral li the at a terrific pace Will and Lyra clung tight with hands and knees They felt the air whip past their faces, flinging their hair back and pressing on their eyeballs The thundering of the wheels, the rush of the grassland on either side, the sure and powerful lean into the broad curve ahead, the clearheaded rapture of speed - the creatures loved this, and Will and Lyra felt their joy and laughed in happy response

They stopped in the center of the village, and the others, who had seen the words of welcome

And then Lyra cried, "Dr Malone!"