And so on. Tialys tried to answer everything truthfully and patiently, and step-by-step the living girl drew closer to the boy she had brought to his death.
Chapter 23. No Way Out
“Will,” said Lyra, “what d’you think the harpies will do when we let the ghosts out?”
Because the creatures were getting louder and flying closer, and there were more and more of them all the time, as if the gloom were gathering itself into little clots of malice and giving them wings. The ghosts kept looking up fearfully.
“Are we getting close?” Lyra called to the Lady Salmakia.
“Not far now,” she called down, hovering above them. “You could see him if you climbed that rock.”
But Lyra didn’t want to waste time. She was trying with all her heart to put on a cheerful face for Roger, but every moment in front of her mind’s eye was that terrible image of the little dog‑Pan abandoned on the jetty as the mist closed around him, and she could barely keep from howling. She must, though; she must be hopeful for Roger; she always had been.
When they did come face‑to‑face, it happened quite suddenly. In among the press of all the ghosts, there he was, his familiar features wan but his expression as full of delight as a ghost could be. He rushed to embrace her.
But he passed like cold smoke through her arms, and though she felt his little hand clutch at her heart, it had no strength to hold on. They could never truly touch again.
But he could whisper, and his voice said, “Lyra, I never thought I’d ever see you again – I thought even if you did come down here when you was dead, you’d be much older, you’d be a grownup, and you wouldn’t want to speak to me – ”
“Why ever not?”
“Because I done the wrong thing when Pan got my daemon away from Lord Asriel’s! We should’ve run, we shouldn’t have tried to fight her! We should’ve run to you! Then she wouldn’t have been able to get my daemon again, and when the cliff fell away, my daemon would’ve still been with me!”
“But that weren’t your fault, stupid!” Lyra said. “It was me that brung you there in the first place, and I should’ve let you go back with the other kids and the gyptians. It was my fault. I’m so sorry, Roger, honest, it was my fault, you wouldn’t’ve been here otherwise…”
“Well,” he said, “I dunno. Maybe I would’ve got dead some other way. But it weren’t your fault , Lyra, see.”
She felt herself beginning to believe it; but all the same, it was heartrending to see the poor little cold thing, so close and yet so out of reach. She tried to grasp his wrist, though her fingers closed in the empty air; but he understood and sat down beside her.
The other ghosts withdrew a little, leaving them alone, and Will moved apart, too, to sit down and nurse his hand. It was bleeding again, and while Tialys flew fiercely at the ghosts to force them away, Salmakia helped Will tend to the wound.
But Lyra and Roger were oblivious to that.
“And you en’t dead,” he said. “How’d you come here if you’re still alive? And where’s Pan?”
“Oh, Roger – I had to leave him on the shore – it was the worst thing I ever had to do, it hurt so much – you know how it hurts – and he just stood there, just looking, oh, I felt like a murderer, Roger – but I had to, or else I couldn’t have come!”
“I been pretending to talk to you all the time since I died,” he said. “I been wishing I could, and wishing so hard… Just wishing I could get out, me and all the other dead ‘uns, ‘cause this is a terrible place, Lyra, it’s hopeless, there’s no change when you’re dead, and them bird‑things… You know what they do? They wait till you’re resting – you can’t never sleep properly, you just sort of doze – and they come up quiet beside you and they whisper all the bad things you ever did when you was alive, so you can’t forget ‘em. They know all the worst things about you. They know how to make you feel horrible, just thinking of all the stupid things and bad things you ever did. And all the greedy and unkind thoughts you ever had, they know ‘em all, and they shame you up and they make you feel sick with yourself… But you can’t get away from ‘em.”
“Well,” she said, “listen.”
Dropping her voice and leaning closer to the little ghost, just as she used to do when they were planning mischief at Jordan, she went on:
“You probably don’t know, but the witches – you remember Serafina Pekkala – the witches’ve got a prophecy about me. They don’t know I know – no one does. I never spoke to anyone about it before. But when I was in Trollesund, and Farder Coram the gyptian took me to see the Witches’ Consul, Dr. Lanselius, he gave me like a kind of a test. He said I had to go outside and pick out the right piece of cloud‑pine out of all the others to show I could really read the alethiometer.
“Well, I done that, and then I came in quickly, because it was cold and it only took a second, it was easy. The Consul was talking to Farder Coram, and they didn’t know I could hear ‘em. He said the witches had this prophecy about me, I was going to do something great and important, and it was going to be in another world…
“Only I never spoke of it, and I reckon I must have even forgot it, there was so much else going on. So it sort of sunk out of my mind. I never even talked about it with Pan, ‘cause he would have laughed, I reckon.
“But then later on Mrs. Coulter caught me and I was in a trance, and I was dreaming and I dreamed of that, and I dreamed of you. And I remembered the gyptian boat mother, Ma Costa – you remember – it was their boat we got on board of, in Jericho, with Simon and Hugh and them – ”
“Yes! And we nearly sailed it to Abingdon! That was the best thing we ever done, Lyra! I won’t never forget that, even if I’m down here dead for a thousand years – ”
“Yes, but listen – when I ran away from Mrs. Coulter the first time, right, I found the gyptians again and they looked after me and… Oh, Roger, there’s so much I found out, you’d be amazed – but this is the important thing: Ma Costa said to me, she said I’d got witch‑oil in my soul, she said the gyptians were water people but I was a fire person.
“And what I think that means is she was sort of preparing me for the witch‑prophecy. I know I got something important to do, and Dr. Lanselius the Consul said it was vital I never found out what my destiny was till it happened, see – I must never ask about it… So I never did. I never even thought what it might be. I never asked the alethiometer, even.
“But now I think I know. And finding you again is just a sort of proof. What I got to do, Roger, what my destiny is, is I got to help all the ghosts out of the land of the dead forever. Me and Will – we got to rescue you all. I’m sure it’s that. It must be. And because Lord Asriel, because of something my father said… ‘Death is going to die,’ he said. I dunno what’ll happen, though. You mustn’t tell ‘em yet, promise. I mean you might not last up there. But – ”
He was desperate to speak, so she stopped.
“That’s just what I wanted to tell you!” he said. “I told ’em, all the other dead ‘uns, I told them you’d come! Just like you came and rescued the kids from Bolvangar! I says, Lyra’ll do it, if anyone can. They wished it’d be true, they wanted to believe me, but they never really did, I could tell.
“For one thing,” he went on, “every kid that’s ever come here, every single one, starts by saying, ‘I bet my dad’ll come and get me,’ or ‘I bet my mum, as soon as she knows where I am, she’ll fetch me home again. If it en’t their dad or mum, it’s their friends, or their grandpa, but someone’s going to come and rescue ‘em. Only they never do. So no one believed me when I told ‘em you’d come. Only I was right!”
“Yeah,” she said, “well, I couldn’t have done it without Will. That’s Will over there, and that’s the Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salmakia. There’s so much to tell you, Roger…”