And they were making for Will and Lyra, with an air of intention. Will took out the knife, but Lyra, sitting on the grass beside him, was already turning 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 mind dart to the meanings and land on them as lightly as a bird.
“They’re friendly,” she said, “it’s all right, Will, they’re looking for us, they knew we were 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 alethiometer indicated her clearly, although 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 them,” she said. “They en’t going to hurt us.”
Some of them had stopped, waiting. The leader moved ahead a little, trunk raised, and they could see how he propelled himself with powerful backward strokes of his lateral limbs. Some of the creatures had gone to the pond to drink; the others waited, but not with the mild, passive curiosity of cows gathering at a gate. These were individuals, lively with intelligence and purpose. They were people.
Will and Lyra moved down the slope until they were close enough 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, smiling with delight.
Two of the creatures were fitted with bridles and stirrups of braided cord. Not saddles; their diamond‑shaped backs turned out to be comfortable enough 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 simply to give them something to hold on to and balance with. The creatures themselves made all the decisions.
“Where are – ” Will began to say, but had to stop and regain his balance as the creature moved under him.
The group swung around and moved down the slight slope, going slowly through the grass. 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 from the bluff: one of those patches of black or dark brown ground. And they were as surprised to find roads of smooth rock lacing through 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 more like a watercourse than a highway. In places it broadened into wide areas like small lakes; and at others it split into narrow channels, only to combine again 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 imposition on it.
They were going faster and faster. It took Will and Lyra a while to get used to the living impulse of the muscles and the shuddering 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 saw how he was 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 them a twisting, screwing motion through 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 slow down.
And in the air, unmistakable, was the salt smell of the sea. The road was rising toward a bluff, and presently they were moving no 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 climbed down, finding themselves stiff and shaken after the continued jolting and tensing.
The creatures wheeled around to talk together, their trunks moving elegantly in time with the sounds they made. After a minute they moved on, and Will and Lyra were happy to walk among the hay‑scented, grass‑warm creatures who trundled beside them. One or two had gone 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 moved, and admire the grace and power with which 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 gleam of the sea. A broad, slow‑moving river wound through rich grassland in the middle distance, and at the foot of the long slope, among copses of small trees and rows of vegetables, stood a village of thatched houses. More creatures like these moved about among the houses, or tended crops, or worked among the 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 limbs, and urging themselves forward down the slope until they were moving 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 them coming, gathered around raising their trunks and speaking words of welcome.
And then Lyra cried, “Dr. Malone!”
Mary had come out of one of the huts, her faded blue shirt, her stocky figure, her warm, ruddy cheeks both strange and familiar.
Lyra ran and embraced her, and the woman hugged her tight, and Will stood back, careful and doubtful.
Mary kissed Lyra warmly and then came forward to welcome Will. And then came a curious little mental dance of sympathy and awkwardness, which took place in a second or less.
Moved by compassion for the state they were in, Mary first meant to embrace him as well as Lyra. But Mary was grown up, and Will was nearly grown, and she could see that that kind of response would have made a child of him, because while she might have embraced a child, she would never have done that to a man she didn’t know; so she drew back mentally, wanting above all to honor this friend of Lyra’s and not cause him to lose face.
So instead she held out her hand and he shook it, and a current of understanding and respect passed between them, so powerful that it became liking at once and each of them felt that they had made a lifelong friend, as indeed they had.
“This is Will,” said Lyra, “he’s from your world – remember, I told you about him – ”