“Lord Roke?” said Lord Asriel.
“Dead,” she whispered.
He pressed a button, and a lance of flame jetted toward the tossing, swaying zeppelin. An instant later the whole airship bloomed into a rose of white fire, engulfing the intention craft, which hung motionless and unharmed in the middle of it. Lord Asriel moved the craft unhurriedly away, and they watched as the blazing zeppelin fell slowly, slowly down on top of the whole scene—bomb, cable, soldiers, and all—and everything began to tumble in a welter of smoke and flames down the mountainside, gathering speed and incinerating the resinous trees as it went, until it plunged into the white waters of the cataract, which whirled it all away into the dark.
Lord Asriel touched the controls again and the intention craft began to speed away northward. But Mrs. Coulter couldn’t take her eyes off the scene; she watched behind them for a long time, gazing with tear-filled eyes at the fire, until it was no more than a vertical line of orange scratched on the dark and wreathed in smoke and steam, and then it was nothing.
TWENTY-SIX
THE ABYSS
The Sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning,
And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night …
• WILLIAM BLAKE •
It was dark, with an enfolding blackness that pressed on Lyra’s eyes so heavily that she almost felt the weight of the thousands of tons of rock above them. The only light they had came from the luminous tail of the Lady Salmakia’s dragonfly, and even that was fading; for the poor insects had found no food in the world of the dead, and the Chevalier’s had died not long before.
So while Tialys sat on Will’s shoulder, Lyra held the Lady’s dragonfly in her hands as the Lady soothed it and whispered to the trembling creature, feeding it first on crumbs of biscuit and then on her own blood. If Lyra had seen her do that, she would have offered hers, since there was more of it; but it was all she could do to concentrate on placing her feet safely and avoiding the lowest parts of the rock above.
No-Name the harpy had led them into a system of caves that would bring them, she said, to the nearest point in the world of the dead from which they could open a window to another world. Behind them came the endless column of ghosts. The tunnel was full of whispers, as the foremost encouraged those behind, as the brave urged on the fainthearted, as the old gave hope to the young.
“Is it much farther, No-Name?” said Lyra quietly. “Because this poor dragonfly’s dying, and then his light’ll go out.”
The harpy stopped and turned to say:
“Just follow. If you can’t see, listen. If you can’t hear, feel.”
Her eyes shone fierce in the gloom. Lyra nodded and said, “Yes, I will, but I’m not as strong as I used to be, and I’m not brave, not very anyway. Please don’t stop. I’ll follow you—we all will. Please keep going, No-Name.”
The harpy turned back and moved on. The dragonfly shine was getting dimmer by the minute, and Lyra knew it would soon be completely gone.
But as she stumbled forward, a voice spoke just beside her—a familiar voice.
“Lyra—Lyra, child…”
And she turned in delight.
“Mr. Scoresby! Oh, I’m so glad to hear you! And it is you—I can see, just—oh, I wish I could touch you!”
In the faint, faint light she made out the lean form and the sardonic smile of the Texan aeronaut, and her hand reached forward of its own accord, in vain.
“Me too, honey. But listen to me—they’re working some trouble out there, and it’s aimed at you—don’t ask me how. Is this the boy with the knife?”
Will had been looking at him, eager to see this old companion of Lyra’s; but now his eyes went right past Lee to look at the ghost beside him. Lyra saw at once who it was, and marveled at this grown-up vision of Will—the same jutting jaw, the same way of holding his head.
Will was speechless, but his father said:
“Listen—there’s no time to talk about this—just do exactly as I say. Take the knife now and find a place where a lock has been cut from Lyra’s hair.”
His tone was urgent, and Will didn’t waste time asking why. Lyra, her eyes wide with alarm, held up the dragonfly with one hand and felt her hair with the other.
“No,” said Will, “take your hand away—I can’t see.”
And in the faint gleam, he could see it: just above her left temple, there was a little patch of hair that was shorter than the rest.
“Who did that?” said Lyra. “And—”
“Hush,” said Will, and asked his father’s ghost, “What must I do?”
“Cut the short hair off right down to her scalp. Collect it carefully, every single hair. Don’t miss even one. Then open another world—any will do—and put the hair through into it, and then close it again. Do it now, at once.”
The harpy was watching, the ghosts behind were crowding close. Lyra could see their faint faces in the dimness. Frightened and bewildered, she stood biting her lip while Will did as his father told him, his face close up to the knifepoint in the paling dragonfly light. He cut a little hollow space in the rock of another world, put all the tiny golden hairs into it, and replaced the rock before closing the window.
And then the ground began to shake. From somewhere very deep came a growling, grinding noise, as if the whole center of the earth were turning on itself like a vast millwheel, and little fragments of stone began to fall from the roof of the tunnel. The ground lurched suddenly to one side. Will seized Lyra’s arm, and they clung together as the rock under their feet began to shift and slide, and loose pieces of stone came tumbling past, bruising their legs and feet—
The two children, sheltering the Gallivespians, crouched down with their arms over their heads; and then in a horrible sliding movement they found themselves being borne away down to the left, and they held each other fiercely, too breathless and shaken even to cry out. Their ears were filled with the roar of thousands of tons of rock tumbling and rolling down with them.
Finally their movement stopped, though all around them smaller rocks were still tumbling and bounding down a slope that hadn’t been there a minute before. Lyra was lying on Will’s left arm. With his right hand he felt for the knife; it was still there at his belt.
“Tialys? Salmakia?” said Will shakily.
“Both here, both alive,” said the Chevalier’s voice near his ear.
The air was full of dust, and of the cordite smell of smashed rock. It was hard to breathe, and impossible to see: the dragonfly was dead.
“Mr. Scoresby?” said Lyra. “We can’t see anything… What happened?”
“I’m here,” said Lee, close by. “I guess the bomb went off, and I guess it missed.”
“Bomb?” said Lyra, frightened; but then she said, “Roger—are you there?”
“Yeah,” came the little whisper. “Mr. Parry, he saved me. I was going to fall, and he caught hold.”
“Look,” said the ghost of John Parry. “But hold still to the rock, and don’t move.”
The dust was clearing, and from somewhere there was light: a strange faint golden glimmer, like a luminous misty rain falling all around them. It was enough to strike their hearts ablaze with fear, for it lit up what lay to their left, the place into which it was all falling—or flowing, like a river over the edge of a waterfall.
It was a vast black emptiness, like a shaft into the deepest darkness. The golden light flowed into it and died. They could see the other side, but it was much farther away than Will could have thrown a stone. To their right, a slope of rough stones, loose and precariously balanced, rose high into the dusty gloom.
The children and their companions were clinging to what was not even a ledge—just some lucky hand- and footholds—on the edge of that abyss, and there was no way out except forward, along the slope, among the shattered rocks and the teetering boulders, which, it seemed, the slightest touch would send hurtling down below.
And behind them, as the dust
cleared, more and more of the ghosts were gazing in horror at the abyss. They were crouching on the slope, too frightened to move. Only the harpies were unafraid; they took to their wings and soared above, scanning backward and forward, flying back to reassure those still in the tunnel, flying ahead to search for the way out.
Lyra checked: at least the alethiometer was safe. Suppressing her fear, she looked around, found Roger’s little face, and said:
“Come on, then, we’re all still here, we en’t been hurt. And we can see now, at least. So just keep going, just keep on moving. We can’t go any other way than round the edge of this…” She gestured at the abyss. “So we just got to keep going ahead. I swear Will and me’ll just keep on till we do. So don’t be scared, don’t give up, don’t lag behind. Tell the others. I can’t look back all the time because I got to watch where I’m going, so I got to trust you to come on steady after us, all right?”
The little ghost nodded. And so, in a shocked silence, the column of the dead began their journey along the edge of the abyss. How long it took, neither Lyra nor Will could guess; how fearful and dangerous it was, they were never able to forget. The darkness below was so profound that it seemed to pull the eyesight down into it, and a ghastly dizziness swam over their minds when they looked. Whenever they could, they looked ahead of them fixedly, on this rock, that foothold, this projection, that loose slope of gravel, and kept their eyes from the gulf; but it pulled, it tempted, and they couldn’t help glancing into it, only to feel their balance tilting and their eyesight swimming and a dreadful nausea gripping their throats.
From time to time the living ones looked back and saw the infinite line of the dead winding out of the crack they’d come through: mothers pressing their infants’ faces to their breasts, aged fathers clambering slowly, little children clutching the skirts of the person in front, young boys and girls of Roger’s age keeping staunch and careful, so many of them… And all following Will and Lyra, so they still hoped, toward the open air.
But some didn’t trust them. They crowded close behind, and both children felt cold hands on their hearts and their entrails, and they heard vicious whispers:
“Where is the upper world? How much farther?”
“We’re frightened here!”
“We should never have come—at least back in the world of the dead we had a little light and a little company—this is far worse!”
“You did a wrong thing when you came to our land! You should have stayed in your own world and waited to die before you came down to disturb us!”
“By what right are you leading us? You are only children! Who gave you the authority?”
Will wanted to turn and denounce them, but Lyra held his arm; they were unhappy and frightened, she said.
Then the Lady Salmakia spoke, and her clear, calm voice carried a long way in the great emptiness.
“Friends, be brave! Stay together and keep going! The way is hard, but Lyra can find it. Be patient and cheerful and we’ll lead you out, don’t fear!”
Lyra felt herself strengthened by hearing this, and that was really the Lady’s intention. And so they toiled on, with painful effort.
“Will,” said Lyra after some minutes, “can you hear that wind?”
“Yes, I can,” said Will. “But I can’t feel it at all. And I tell you something about that hole down there. It’s the same kind of thing as when I cut a window. The same kind of edge. There’s something special about that kind of edge; once you’ve felt it you never forget it. And I can see it there, just where the rock falls away into the dark. But that big space down there, that’s not another world like all the others. It’s different. I don’t like it. I wish I could close it up.”
“You haven’t closed every window you’ve made.”
“No, because I couldn’t, some of them. But I know I should. Things go wrong if they’re left open. And one that big…” He gestured downward, not wanting to look. “It’s wrong. Something bad will happen.”
While they were talking together, another conversation had been taking place a little way off: the Chevalier Tialys was talking quietly with the ghosts of Lee Scoresby and John Parry.
“So what are you saying, John?” said Lee. “You’re saying we ought not to go out into the open air? Man, every single part of me is aching to join the rest of the living universe again!”
“Yes, and so am I,” said Will’s father. “But I believe that if those of us who are used to fighting could manage to hold ourselves back, we might be able to throw ourselves into the battle on Asriel’s side. And if it came at the right moment, it might make all the difference.”
“Ghosts?” said Tialys, trying to hold the skepticism from his voice, and failing. “How could you fight?”
“We couldn’t hurt living creatures, that’s quite true. But Asriel’s army is going to contend with other kinds of being as well.”
“Those Specters,” said Lee.
“Just what I was thinking. They make for the dæmon, don’t they? And our dæmons are long gone. It’s worth a try, Lee.”
“Well, I’m with you, my friend.”
“And you, sir,” said John Parry’s ghost to the Chevalier: “I have spoken to the ghosts of your people. Will you live long enough to see the world again, before you die and come back as a ghost?”
“It’s true, our lives are short compared to yours. I have a few days more to live,” said Tialys, “and the Lady Salmakia a little longer, perhaps. But thanks to what those children are doing, our exile as ghosts will not be permanent. I have been proud to help them.”
They moved on. And that abominable fall yawned all the time, and one little slip, one footstep on a loose rock, one careless handhold, would send you down forever and ever, thought Lyra, so far down you’d die of starvation before you ever hit the bottom, and then your poor ghost would go on falling and falling into an infinite gulf, with no one to help, no hands to reach down and lift you out, forever conscious and forever falling…
Oh, that would be far worse than the gray, silent world they were leaving, wouldn’t it?
A strange thing happened to her mind then. The thought of falling induced a kind of vertigo in Lyra, and she swayed. Will was ahead of her, just too far to reach, or she might have taken his hand; but at that moment she was more conscious of Roger, and a little flicker of vanity blazed up for a moment in her heart. There’d been an occasion once on Jordan College roof when just to frighten him, she’d defied her vertigo and walked along the edge of the stone gutter.
She looked back to remind him of it now. She was Roger’s Lyra, full of grace and daring; she didn’t need to creep along like an insect.
But the little boy’s whispering voice said, “Lyra, be careful—remember, you en’t dead like us—”
And it seemed to happen so slowly, but there was nothing she could do: her weight shifted, the stones moved under her feet, and helplessly she began to slide. In the first moment it was annoying, and then it was comic: How silly! she thought. But as she utterly failed to hold on to anything, as the stones rolled and tumbled beneath her, as she slid down toward the edge, gathering speed, the horror of it slammed into her. She was going to fall. There was nothing to stop her. It was already too late.
Her body convulsed with terror. She wasn’t aware of the ghosts who flung themselves down to try and catch her, only to find her hurtling through them like a stone through mist; she didn’t know that Will was yelling her name so loudly that the abyss resounded with it. Instead, her whole being was a vortex of roaring fear. Faster and faster she tumbled, down and down, and some ghosts couldn’t bear to watch; they hid their eyes and cried aloud.
Will felt electric with fear. He watched in anguish as Lyra slid farther and farther, knowing he could do nothing, and knowing he had to watch. He couldn’t hear the desperate wail he was uttering any more than she could. Another two seconds—another second—she was at the edge, she couldn’t stop, she was there, she was falling—
And out of th
e dark swooped that creature whose claws had raked her scalp not long before, No-Name the harpy, woman-faced, bird-winged, and those same claws closed tight around the girl’s wrist. Together they plunged on down, the extra weight almost too much for the harpy’s strong wings, but they beat and beat and beat, and her claws held firm, and slowly, heavily, slowly, heavily, the harpy carried the child up and up out of the gulf and brought her limp and fainting to Will’s reaching arms.
He held her tight, pressing her to his chest, feeling the wild beat of her heart against his ribs. She wasn’t Lyra just then, and he wasn’t Will; she wasn’t a girl, and he wasn’t a boy. They were the only two human beings in that vast gulf of death. They clung together, and the ghosts clustered around, whispering comfort, blessing the harpy. Closest at hand were Will’s father and Lee Scoresby, and how they longed to hold her, too; and Tialys and Salmakia spoke to No-Name, praising her, calling her the savior of them all, generous one, blessing her kindness.
As soon as Lyra could move, she reached out trembling for the harpy and put her arms around her neck, kissing and kissing her ravaged face. She couldn’t speak. All the words, all the confidence, all the vanity had been shaken out of her.
They lay still for some minutes. Once the terror had begun to subside, they set off again, Will holding Lyra’s hand tightly in his good one. They crept forward, testing each spot before they put any weight on it, a process so slow and wearisome that they thought they might die of fatigue; but they couldn’t rest, they couldn’t stop. How could anyone rest, with that fearful gulf below them?
And after another hour of toil, he said to her:
“Look ahead. I think there’s a way out…”
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