«You fought for the knife?»
«Yes, but —»
«Then you're a warrior. That's what you are. Argue with anything else, but don't argue with your own nature.»
Will knew that the man was speaking the truth. But it wasn't a welcome truth. It was heavy and painful. The man seemed to know that, because he let Will bow his head before he spoke again.
«There are two great powers,» the man said, «and they've been fighting since time began. Every advance in human life, every scrap of knowledge and wisdom and decency we have has been torn by one side from the teeth of the other. Every little increase in human freedom has been fought over ferociously between those who want us to know more and be wiser and stronger, and those who want us to obey and be humble and submit.»
«And now those two powers are lining up for battle. And each of them wants that knife of yours more than anything else. You have to choose, boy. We've been guided here, both of us — you with the knife, and me to tell you about it.»
«No! You're wrong!» cried Will. «I wasn't looking for anything like that! That's not what I was looking for at all!»
«You might not think so, but that's what you've found,» said the man in the darkness.
«But what must I do?»
And then Stanislaus Grumman, Jopari, John Parry hesitated.
He was painfully aware of the oath he'd sworn to Lee Scoresby, and he hesitated before he broke it; but break it he did.
«You must go to Lord Asriel,» he said, «and tell him that Stanislaus Grumman sent you, and mat you have the one weapon he needs above all others. Like it or not, boy, you have a job to do. Ignore everything else, no matter how important it seems, and go and do this. Someone will appear to guide you; the night is full of angels. Your wound will heal now — Wait. Before you go, I want to look at you properly.»
He felt for the pack he'd been carrying and took something out, unfolding layers of oilskin and then striking a match to light a little tin lantern. In its light, through the rain-dashed windy air, the two looked at each other.
Will saw blazing blue eyes hi a haggard face with several days' growth of beard on the stubborn jaw, gray-haired, drawn with pain, a thin body hunched in a heavy cloak trimmed with feathers.
The shaman saw a boy even younger than he'd thought, his slim body shivering in a torn linen shirt and his expression exhausted and savage and wary, but alight with a wild curiosity, his eyes wide under the straight black brows, so like his mother's….
And there came just the first flicker of something else to both of them.
But in that same moment, as the lantern light flared over John Parry's face, something shot down from the turbid sky, and he fell back dead before he could say a word, an arrow in his failing heart. The osprey daemon vanished in a moment.
Will could only sit stupefied.
A flicker crossed the corner of his vision, and his right hand darted up at once, and he found he was clutching a robin, a daemon, red-breasted, panicking.
«No! No!» cried the witch Juta Kamainen, and fell down after him, clutching at her own heart, crashing clumsily into the rocky ground and struggling up again.
But Will was there before she could find her feet, and the subtle knife was at her throat.
«Why did you do that?» he shouted. «Why did you kill him?»
«Because I loved him and he scorned me! I am a witch! I don't forgive!»
And because she was a witch she wouldn't have been afraid of a boy, normally. But she was afraid of Will. This young wounded figure held more force and danger than she'd ever met in a human before, and she quailed. She fell backward, and he followed and gripped her hair with his left hand, feeling no pain, feeling only an immense and shattering despair.
«You don't know who he was,» he cried. «He was my father!»
She shook her head and whispered, «No. No! That can't be true. Impossible!»
«You think things have to be possible ? Things have to be true! He was my father, and neither of us knew it till the second you killed him! Witch, I wait all my life and come all this way and I find him at last, and you kill him…»
And he shook her head like a rag and threw her back against the ground, half-stunning her. Her astonishment was almost greater than her fear of him, which was real enough, and she pulled herself up, dazed, and seized his shirt in supplication. He knocked her hand away.
«What did he ever do that you needed to kill him?» he cried. «Tell me that, if you can!»
And she looked at the dead man. Then she looked back at Will and shook her head sadly.
«No, I can't explain,» she said. «You're too young. It wouldn't make sense to you. I loved him. That's all. That's enough.»
And before Will could stop her, she fell softly sideways, her hand on the hilt of the knife she had just taken from her own belt and pushed between her ribs.
Will felt no horror, only desolation and bafflement.
He stood up slowly and looked down at the dead witch, at her rich black hair, her flushed cheeks, her smooth pale limbs wet with rain, her lips parted like a lover's.
«I don't understand,» he said aloud. «It's too strange.»
Will turned back to the dead man, his father.
A thousand things jostled at his throat, and only the dashing rain cooled the hotness hi his eyes. The little lantern still flickered and flared as the draft through the ill-fitting window licked around the flame, and by its light Will knelt and put his hands on the man's body, touching his face, his shoulders, his chest, closing his eyes, pushing the wet gray hair off his forehead, pressing his hands to the rough cheeks, closing his father's mouth, squeezing his hands.
«Father,» he said, «Dad, Daddy … Father… I don't understand why she did that. It's too strange for me. But whatever you wanted me to do, I promise, I swear I'll do it. I'll fight. I'll be a warrior. I will. This knife, I'll take it to Lord Asriel, wherever he is, and I'll help him fight that enemy. I'll do it. You can rest now. It's all right. You can sleep now.»
Beside the dead man lay his deerskin pack with the oilskin and the lantern and the little horn box of bloodmoss ointment. Will picked them up, and then he noticed his father's feather-trimmed cloak trailing behind his body on the ground, heavy and sodden but warm. His father had no more use for it, and Will was shaking with cold. He unfastened the bronze buckle at the dead man's throat and swung the canvas pack over his shoulder before wrapping the cloak around himself.
He blew out the lantern and looked back at the dim shapes of his father, of the witch, of his father again before turning to go down the mountain.
The stormy air was electric with whispers, and in the tearing of the wind Will could hear other sounds, too: confused echoes of cries and chanting, the clash of metal on metal, pounding wing-beats that one moment sounded so close they might actually be inside his head, and the next so far away they might have been on another planet. The rocks underfoot were slippery and loose, and it was much harder going down than it had been climbing up; but he didn't falter.
And as he turned down the last little gully before the place where he'd left Lyra sleeping, he stopped suddenly. He could see two figures simply standing there, in the dark, waiting. Will put his hand on the knife.
Then one of the figures spoke.
«You're the boy with the knife?» he said, and his voice had the strange quality of those wingbeats. Whoever he was, he wasn't a human being.
«Who are you?» Will said. «Are you men, or —»
«Not men, no. We are Watchers. Bene elim. In your language, angels.»
Will was silent. The speaker went on: «Other angels have other functions, and other powers. Our task is simple: We need you. We have been following the shaman every inch of his way, hoping he would lead us to you, and so he has. And now we have come to guide you in turn to Lord Asriel.»