Chapter 22 CHAPTER ELEVEN: THE BELVEDERE-2

She tugged at his good arm, helping him, lifting him. He tried to respond, but he didnt have the strength. He could only walk. "All right," he said, "we cant get to the trees. Too far away. So well go to that temple place. If we shut the door, maybe we can hold them out for long enough to cut through after all." Pantalaimon darted ahead, and Lyra gasped and called to him breathlessly, making him pause. Will almost see the bond between them, the daemon tugging and the girl responding. He stumbled through the thick grass with Lyra running ahead to see, and then back to help, and then ahead again, until they reached the stone pavement around the temple .

The door under the little portico was unlocked, and they ran inside to find themselves in a bare circular room with several statues of goddesses in niches around the wall. In the very center a spiral staircase of wrought iron led up through an opening to the floor above. There was no key to lock the door, so they clambered up the staircase and onto the floorboards of an upper level that was really a viewing place, where people could come to take the air and look out over the city; no windows or walls, simply a series of open arches all the way around supporting the roof. In each archway a windowsill at waist height was broad enough to lean on, and below them the pantiled roof ran down in a gentle slope all around to the gutter.

As they looked out, they could see the forest behind, tanta-lizingly close; and the villa below them, and beyond that the open park, and then the red-brown roofs of the city, with the tower rising to the left. were carrion crows wheeling in the air above the gray battlements, and Will felt a jolt of sickness as he realized what had drawn them there. But there was no time to take in the view; first they had to deal with the children, who were racing up toward the temple, screaming with rage and excitement. The leading boy slowed down and held up his pistol and fired two or three wild shots toward the temple. Then they came on again, yelling:

"Thiefs!" "Murderers!" "We gonna kill you!" "You got our knife!" "You don't come from here!" "You gonna die!" Will took no notice. He had the knife out already, and quickly cut a small window to see where they were—only to recoil at once. Lyra looked too, and fell back in disappointment. They were fifty feet or so in the air, high above a main road busy with traffic. "Of course," Will said bitterly, "we came up a slope.... Well, were stuck. Well have to hold them off, thats all." Another few seconds and the first children were crowding in through the door. The sound of their yelling echoed in the temple and reinforced their wildness; and then came a gunshot, enormously loud, and another, and the screaming took another tone, and then the stairs began to shake as the first ones climbed up.

Lyra was crouching paralyzed against the wall, but Will still had the knife in his hand. He scrambled over to the opening in the floor and reached down and sliced ​​through the iron of the top step as if it were paper. With nothing to hold it up, the staircase began to bend under the weight of the children crowding on it, and then it swung down and fell with a huge crash. More screams, more confusion; and again the gun went off, but this time by accident, it seemed . Someone had been hit, and the scream was of pain this time, and Will looked down to see a tangle of writhing bodies covered in plaster and dust and blood.

They werent individual children: they were a single mass, like a tide. They surged below him and leaped up in fury, snatching, threatening, screaming, spitting, but they couldn't reach. Then someone called, and they looked to the door, and those who could move stimulated toward it, leaving several pinned beneath the iron stairs or dazed and struggling to get up from the rubblestrewn floor. Will soon realized why theyd run out. There was a scrabbling sound from the roof outside the arches, and he ran to the windowsill to see the first pair of hands grasping the edge of the pantiles and pulling up. Someone was pushing from behind, and then came another head and another pair of hands, as they clambered over the shoulders and backs of those below and swarmed up onto the roof like ants.

But the pantiled ridges were hard to walk on, and the first ones scrambled up on hands and knees, their wild eyes never leaving Wills face. Lyra had joined him, and Pantalaimon was snarling as a leopard, paws on the sill, making the first children hesitate. But still they came on, more and more of them. Someone was shouting "Kill! Kill! Kill!" and then others joined in, louder and louder, and those on the roof began to stamp and thump the tiles in rhythm, but they didn't quite dare come closer, faced by the snarling daemon. Then a tile broke, and the boy standing on it slipped and fell, but the one beside him picked up the broken piece and hurled it at Lyra.

She ducked, and it shattered on the column beside her, showering her with broken pieces. Will had noticed the rail around the edge of the opening in the floor, and cut two sword-length pieces of it, and he handed one to Lyra now ; and she swung it around as hard as she could and into the side of the first boys head. He fell at once, but then came another, and it was Angelica, redhaired, white-faced, crazy-eyed. She scrambled up onto ; the sill, but Lyra jabbed the length of rail at her fiercely, and she fell back again. Will was doing the same. The knife was in its sheath at his waist, and he struck and swung and jabbed with the iron rail, and while several children fell back, others kept replacing them, and more and more were clambering up onto the roof from below.

Then the boy in the striped T-shirt appeared, but hed lost the pistol, or perhaps it was empty. However, his eyes and Wills locked together, and each of them knew what was going to happen: they were going to fight, and it was going to be brutal and deadly. "Come on," said Will, passionate for the battle. "Come on, then..." Another second, and they would have fought. But then the strangest thing appeared: a great white snow goose swooping low, his wings spread wide, calling and calling so loudly that even the children on the roof heard through their savagery and turned to see.

"Kaisa!" cried Lyra joyfully, for it was Serafina Pekkalas daemon. The snow goose called again, a piercing whoop that filled the sky, and then wheeled and turned an inch away from the boy in the striped T-shirt. The boy fell back in fear and slid down and over the edge, and then others began to cry in alarm too, because there was something else in the sky. As Lyra saw the little black shapes sweeping out of the blue, she cheered and shouted with glee. "Serafina Pekkala! Here! Help us! Here we are! In the temple—" And with a hiss and rush of air, a dozen arrows, and then another dozen quickly after, and then another dozen—loosed so quickly that they were all in the air at once—shot at the temple roof above the gallery and landed with a thunder of hammer blows. Astonished and bewildered, the children on the roof felt all the aggression leave them in a moment, and horrible fear rushed in to take its place. What were these black-garbed women rushing at them in the air? it happened? Were they ghosts? Were they a new kind of Specter?

And whimpering and crying, they jumped off the roof, some of them falling clumsily and dragging themselves away limping and others rolling down the slope and dashing for safety, but a mob no longer—just a lot of frightened, shame-faced children. minute after the snow goose had appeared, the last of the children left the temple, and the only sound was the rush of air in the branches of the circling witches above. Will looked up in wonder, too amazed to speak, but Lyra was leaping and calling with delight, "Serafina Pekkala! How did you find us? Thank you, thank you! They were going to kill us! Come down and land." But Serafina and the others shook their heads and flew up again, to circle high above. The snow goose daemon wheeled and flew down toward the roof, beating his great wings inward to help him slow down, and landed with a clatter on the pantiles below the sill. "Greetings, Lyra," he said. "Serafina Pekkala cant come to the ground, nor can the others. The place is full of Specters—a hundred or more surrounding the building, and more drifting up over the grass. Cant you see them ?" "No! We can't see em at all!" "Already weve lost one witch. We cant risk any more. Can you get down from this building?" "If we jump off the roof like they done. But how did you find us? And where—" "Enough now. Theres more trouble coming, and bigger. Get down as best you can and then make for the trees." They climbed over the sill and moved sideways down through the broken tiles to the gutter. It wasn't high, and below it was grass, with a gentle slope away from the building. First Lyra jumped and then Will followed, rolling over and trying to protect his hand, which was bleeding freely again and hurting badly. His sling had come loose and trailed behind him, and as he tried to roll it up, the snow goose landed on the grass at his side. "Lyra, who is this?" Kaisa said. "Its Will. Hes coming with us—" "Why are the Specters avoiding you?" The goose daemon was speaking directly to Will. By this time Will was hardly surprised by anything, and he said, "I dont know. We cant see them. No, wait!" And he stood up, struck by a thought. "Where are they now?" he said. "Wheres the nearest one?" Ten paces away, down the slope," said the daemon. "They don't want to come any closer, that's obvious." Will took out the knife and looked in that direction, and he heard the daemon hiss with surprise. But Will couldn't do what he intended, because at the same moment a witch landed her branch on the grass beside him. He was taken aback not so much by her flying as by her astounding grace, the fierce, cold, lovely clarity of her gaze , and by the pale bare limbs, so youthful, and yet so far from being young. "Your name is Will?" she said. "Yes, but—" "Why are the Specters afraid of you?" "Because of the knife. Wheres the nearest one? Tell me! I want to kill it!" But Lyra came running before the witch could answer. "Serafina Pekkala!" she cried, and she threw her arms around the witch and hugged her so tightly that the witch laughed out loud, and kissed the top of her head. "Oh, Serafina, where did you come from like that? We were—those kids— they were kids, and they were going to kill us—did you see them? We thought we were going to die and—oh, Im so glad you came! you again!" Serafina Pekkala looked over Lyras head to where the Specters were obviously clustering a little way off, and then looked at Will. "Now listen," she said. "Theres a cave in these woods not far away. Head up the slope and then along the ridge to the left. The Specters wont follow—they dont see us while were in the air, and theyre afraid of you. Well meet you there. Its a half-hours walk." And she leaped into the air again. Will shaded his eyes to watch her and the other ragged, elegant figures wheel in the air and dart up over the trees. "Oh, Will, well be safe now! Itll be all right now that Serafina Pekkalas here!" said Lyra. "I never thought Id see her again. She came just at the right time, didnt she? Just like before, at Bolvangar ..." Chattering happily, as if shed already forgotten the fight, she led the way up the slope toward the forest. Will followed in silence. His hand was throbbing badly, and with each throb a little more blood was leaving him. his chest and tried not to think about it. It took not half an hour but an hour and three quarters, because Will had to stop and rest several times. When they reached the cave, they found a fire, a rabbit roasting, and Serafina Pekkala stirring something in a small iron pot. "Let me see your wound" was the first thing she said to Will, and he dumbly held out his hand. Pantalaimon, cat-formed, watched curiously, but Will looked away. He didnt like the sight of his mutilated fingers. The witches spoke softly to each other, and then Serafina Pekkala said, "What weapon made this wound?" Will reached for the knife and handed it to her silently. Her companions looked at it with wonder and suspicion, for they had never seen such a blade before, with such an edge on it. "This will need more than herbs to heal. It will need a spell," said Serafina Pekkala. "Very well, well prepare one. It will be ready when the moon rises. In the meantime, you shall sleep." She gave him a little horn cup containing a hot potion whose bitterness was moderated by honey, and presently he lay back and fell deeply asleep. The witch covered him with leaves and turned to Lyra, who was still gnawing the rabbit. "Now, Lyra," she said. "Tell me who this boy is, and what you know about this world, and about this knife of his." So Lyra took a deep breath and began.