Chapter 6 6. Throw the net

Lyra hurried away from the river because the embankment was wide and brightly lit.The only place she could be sure of was a few untidy streets between the embankment and the Royal Arctic Institute.Lyra hurried into the dark labyrinth. If only she knew London as well as Oxford!That way, she'd know which streets to avoid, where to get food, and, most advantageously, whose door to knock on in order to hide.On this cold night, the dark alleys around her were full of active, mysterious life, but she was not at all familiar with it. Pantalaimon turned into a wild cat, staring at the eyes that could penetrate the night, scanning everything in the surrounding darkness.Sometimes he would stop, the hair on his body bristling; and Lyra would duck aside from the entrance she was going to go in.The night was full of noise, drunken laughter, two husky voices singing at the top of their voices, and unoiled machines in the basement screeching.Lyra walked cautiously through it, her senses magnified and mixed with Pantalaimon's, looking for shaded places and narrow alleys.

Every now and then she needed to cross some wide, well-lit street, with trams buzzing and sparking beneath wires.In London, you have to obey the rules when crossing the road, but she doesn't care, as soon as someone yells, she runs away. It's great to be free again.Though the dark London air was filled with bad smells and smoke and clanking noises everywhere, she knew that Pantalaimon, with his padded cat's paws beside her, was as free as she was here. The same joy was felt in the air.Before long, they would have to think about the meaning of the words they had heard in Mrs. Coulter's apartment, but they were not thinking about that just yet.Ultimately, they had to find a place to sleep.

At one intersection there was a large department store, and the lights in the windows shone brightly on the wet sidewalk.Near one corner of the shop was a coffee stand: a hut on a cart, with wooden eaves that turned up like an awning, and a counter underneath, with yellow lights shining from inside The aroma of coffee.The stall owner in a white coat was leaning on the counter, talking to three or two customers. It's tempting.By now, Laila had been walking non-stop for an hour, and it was cold and wet.At this time, Pantalaimon turned into a sparrow, and Laila went to the counter and greeted the stall owner.

"Coffee and a ham sandwich, please," she said. "Honey, you're out so late," said a gentleman in a tall hat and silk scarf. "Yeah," Lyra said, taking her eyes off him and scanning the traffic-traveled intersection.A nearby theater was just closing, and people were walking up and down the bright hall, hailing cabs and putting on coats.In the other direction is an underground railway station, where there are more people, crowded on the steps, going up and down. "Here, my dear," said the tall vendor, "two shillings." "I'll pay the bill," said the man in the top hat.

That's great, Lyra thought, I can outrun him, and I'm going to need money badly later on.The man in the tall hat put a coin on the counter and smiled down at her.His daemon was a lemur, clinging to the lapel of his suit, looking at Lyra with round eyes. She ordered a sandwich, keeping her eyes on the bustling street.She didn't know where she was now, because she had never seen a map of London, or even how big it was, or how far she would have to go to get back home. "What's your name?" the man asked. "Alice." "What a beautiful name. Let me put a drop of this in your coffee...to keep you warm..."

As he spoke, he was about to unscrew the lid of a silver bottle. "I don't like that," Lyra said, "I just like coffee." "I bet you've never had such fine brandy before." "Drank it. I threw up all over the place. I drank a bottle, or almost a bottle." "As you please," said the man, tilting the bottle and pouring some into his glass, "where are you going all by yourself?" "Go pick up my dad." "What does he do?" "He was a murderer." "what?" "Told you, he's a murderer, that's what he's made for. He went to work tonight. I brought him clean clothes, because he's usually covered in blood after every job. .”

"Ah! You are joking." "no." The lemur gave a soft cry and crawled slowly behind the man's head to study Lyra carefully.Laila drank her coffee calmly and ate the last bite of her sandwich. "Good night," she said, "I see my father coming, and he looks angry." The man in the tall hat looked around.Lyra walked toward the crowd at the theater.Although she would like to see the underground train station (Mrs. Coulter said that it is not suitable for people of their status), she is worried that she will be trapped underground; it is best to go outside, if there is no other way, She can still run.

Small brick houses with the same architectural style are lined up on both sides of the street. The garden in front of the house can only hold a garbage can; On the top of the wall, in a icy light, a night watchman dozed by his brazier; occasionally one came across a forlorn chapel whose only difference from the warehouse was the cross.Once, Lyra tried to push one of the doors, only to hear a humming from a bench a foot away in the darkness.She realized that the porch was full of people sleeping, and she fled. "Where do we sleep, Pam?" she asked.They trudged along a street lined with closed shops.

"Just find a foyer." "But I don't want to be seen, those places are not covered at all." "There's a canal down there..." He was looking down a path to the left.Indeed, there was a place where there was a light shining in the dark, which meant that there was water.They walked over cautiously, and found that it was an inlet on the canal, and there were more than a dozen barges tied to the pier, some of which were floating high on the water surface, and some were under the gallows-like crane with a heavy load and a deep draft.There was a faint light in the window of a log cabin, and a wisp of smoke curled up from a metal chimney.Except for this light, there are only lights on the warehouse wall and the high crane pallet, making the ground look very dark.The docks were filled with barrels of kerosene, huge piles of logs, and coils of rubberized electrical cables.

Lyra tiptoed to the front of the cabin and peeked in from the window.An old man was plowing through a picture story inside, smoking a pipe, and his pug elf was curled up on the table and asleep.As Lyra watched, the man stood up, took a dark kettle from the iron stove, poured some hot water into a cracked cup, then returned to his seat and resumed reading his paper . "Pan, would you like him to let us in?" she asked in a low voice, but Pantalaimon's attention was no longer there, he turned into a bat, then into an owl, then into a feral cat.Lyra looked around and immediately understood why he was so flustered.At the same time she and he saw two men galloping towards Laila from both sides, the one closer holding a throwing net in his hand.

Pantalaimon uttered a piercing shriek, transformed into a panther, and swooped at the daemon of the man who was near - a ferocious-looking fox - causing her to step back and stumble The man's legs.The man swore and ducked aside; Lyra took the opportunity to swoosh past him and head for the open space on the pier.What worries her most is being cornered. At this time, Pantalaimon had turned into an eagle, and flew towards her, shouting, "Left! Left!" Lyra swerved to the left, spotted a clearing between the kerosene drum and the rusted tin shed, and darted toward it. But those throwing nets also fell! She heard a hiss in the air, and at once something swept across her face, slapping her with burning pain, and then the asphalt-stained netting whipped disgustingly across her face, arms and hands, Entangling her, netting her in.Lyra fell, screaming, tearing and struggling in vain. "Pan! Pan!" The man's fox spirit was tearing at Pantalaimon, and Lyra felt the pain in her body.Later, Pantalaimon fell, and Lyra cried aloud.A man quickly wrapped a rope around her body, bound her limbs, throat, body, head, and bound her over and over again on the wet ground.She was like a fly trapped by a spider, completely exhausted.Pantalaimon, who was seriously injured, struggled to move towards her, the fox elf was still biting his back, and he didn't even have the strength to change.However, at this time, another man who came with him fell into the sewage pit, and an arrow pierced his neck—— The person who was tying Laila also saw this scene, and the whole world seemed to freeze for a moment. Pantalaimon sat up, blinking suspiciously.At this time, with a soft "bang", the man who was throwing the net fell on Laila somersault, gasping for breath with difficulty, and Laila yelled out in fright: It was bleeding out gurglingly! At this time, someone ran over, dragged the man aside, and looked down at him.Then someone reached out and helped Laila up.A knife slashed across, and the net ropes on Lyra's body were cut one by one.She tore them off, cursing viciously, and rushed, bending over and picking up Pantalaimon. Kneeling on the ground, she turned and looked up at the newcomers.There were three dark-skinned men, one of whom carried a bow and the other two held knives.Just as she turned around, the man with the bow took a deep breath: "Isn't this Lyra?" It was a very familiar voice, but she still couldn't recognize who it was.The man walked over, and the nearby light fell on his face, and also illuminated the elf on his shoulder—it was an eagle.Laila recognized it at last. It was a gypsy!A true Oxford gypsy! "Tony Costa," the man said, "remember? You used to play with my little brother Billy on Jericho's boat, and then the Glutton took him." "Oh, my God, Pan, we're safe this time!" Lyra cried.But then, a thought flashed through his mind: that day she robbed Costa's ship, if he still remembered? "Better come with us," he said, "you alone?" "Yes, I ran away..." "Okay, don't talk now, don't talk. Jaxer, get their bodies into the dark. Kalim, look around." Lyra stood up unsteadily, holding Pantalaimon, who had turned into a wildcat, to her chest.He was twisting and looking at something, and Lyra followed his eyes and immediately understood why he was looking, and she herself suddenly wondered: what happened to the two dead elves?The answer is that they are disappearing bit by bit, and although they want to stay with their respective masters, they are gradually disappearing like smoke and drifting away.Pantalaimon hid his gaze, and Laila hurriedly withdrew her gaze to see what Tony Costa was looking at. "What are you doing here?" she asked. "Don't talk, girl. There are enough troubles now, don't make new troubles. We will talk about it after we get on the boat." He led her across a small wooden bridge to the middle of the upper inlet of the canal.The other two followed them without saying a word.Tony turned a corner along the water's edge, walked to a wooden pier, boarded a canal boat, and quickly opened the cabin door. "Go in," he said, "quickly." Lyra walked in, patting her backpack (which she never left, not even when she was caught in the throw net), to make sure the alethiometer was still there.In the canal captain's long cabin, by the light of a lamp hanging from a hook, Lyra saw a fat, heavy, grizzled woman sitting at a table reading a newspaper.Lila recognized her as Billy's mother. "Who is this?" said the woman. "Isn't this Lyra?" "That's right. Mom, we gotta go. We killed two guys at the Inlet. Thought it was Glutton, but I figured they were Turkish businessmen, and they got Laila. Don't rush--we're walking Say." "Come here, boy," said Ma Costa. Lyra walked over obediently—half happy, half sad, because Ma Costa's hands were shaped like mallets.She was sure now that it was their boat that she and Roger and the boys from the academy had robbed.Now the owner's mother held Lyra's face in both hands, and her elf, an eagle, bent its head gently, licking Pantalaimon's wild cat's head.Then Ma Costa wrapped her thick arms around Laila, holding her tightly to her chest. "I don't know what you're doing here, but you look exhausted. You can sleep in Billy's cot and I'll get you something warm to drink later. Go lay down there, boy." .” It looked as if they had forgiven her piracy, or at least had forgotten it.Behind the well-scrubbed pine desk lay an upholstered stool, and Lyra slid onto it.At this moment, the engine gave a low rumbling sound, and the hull shook. "Where are we going?" Lyra asked. Ma Costa put a pot of milk on the iron stove and poked the grates to get the fire going. "Get out of here. Don't talk now. Talk to me in the morning." Ma Costa said nothing more.When the milk was hot, she handed Lyra a glass of milk.The boat moved, and she got up and stood on the deck, whispering a few words to those people from time to time.Lyra sips her milk, lifts a corner of the curtain, and sees the dark pier move back.After a minute or two, she fell into a deep sleep. When she awoke, Lyra found herself lying on a narrow bed; the engine rumbled pleasantly far below the cabin.Lyra sat up, got a hard bump on the head, cursed, groped around, and got out of bed cautiously.In the dim light she saw three other bunks, all empty and neatly made, one under hers and two at the far end of the narrow cabin.Sitting sideways on the edge of the bed, she realized that she was wearing underwear. The clothes and wolf fur coat were neatly folded and placed at the end of the bed with the shopping bags.The alethiometer is still there. She dressed quickly, and went out through the door on the other side, and found herself in a cabin with a stove, which was warm but empty.Through the window, she saw the gray mist billowing on both sides, occasionally a few vague silhouettes appeared, probably buildings or trees. She was just about to go out on the deck when the outer door opened and Ma Costa came down, wrapped in an old tweed coat, soaked with moisture, like thousands of little pearl. "Did you sleep well?" she said, reaching for the frying pan. "Sit down and get out of the way; I'll get you some breakfast. Don't go out, there's no room." "Where are we?" Lyra asked. "At the Grand Confluence Canal. Don't let anyone see you, boy. I don't want you on deck. There's trouble there." She cut a few slices of bacon and put them on the frying pan, then cracked an egg and put them in the pan. "What trouble?" "There is no trouble you can't handle, just don't make trouble." When she had finished speaking, she said nothing more, and waited until Lyra had finished her meal.For a moment the boat slowed, and something slammed hard against the side.Then Lyra heard the men talking loudly angrily, but then someone made a joke and they all laughed, and the sound got farther away, and the boat moved on. At this moment, Tony Costa rushed down to the cabin.Like his mother, she was also covered in dewdrops.He swung the woolen hat over the stove, and the water droplets flew up like a drizzle. "Mom, what did you tell her?" "Ask her first, then tell her." Tony poured some coffee into a tin mug and sat down.He was a tall, dark man.It was broad daylight now, and Lyra could see him clearly, and she found his expression sad and melancholy. "Yes," he said, "Tell us, Lyra, what you were doing in London. We thought you had been kidnapped by gluttons." "I've been with this woman, really..." It took Lyra a lot of effort to gather her various experiences and put them in order like shuffling a deck of cards before they are played.She told them all about what had happened, except about the alethiometer. "Then, last night, at the cocktail party, I found out what the hell they were doing. Mrs. Coulter was a glutton herself, and she was going to use me to help her catch more kids. What they were going to do was—" Ma? Costa out of the cabin, to the cockpit.After the door closed, Tony interjected: "We know what they're doing, at least, part of it. We know they're not coming back. Those kids were taken far north, and they were going to experiment on them. At first, we thought they were going to experiment with different diseases and medicines, but there was no reason why they suddenly started doing it two or three years ago. Then we thought about the Tatars, maybe they had some sort of secret deal in northern Siberia, because the Tatars were with other Also, would love to move to the north because of the kerosene and fuel mines there, and there are rumors that they fought for a long time for this, even before the thing about Taotie. We guess that Taotie Buy off the chiefs of the Tartars and give them children, because the Tartars eat children, don't they? They roast them and eat them." "There's no such thing!" Lyra said. "Yes, they just eat children. There are many other things to talk about. Have you ever heard of a headless ghost?" Lyra said, "No. Not even Mrs. Coulter. What is it?" "A kind of ghost in the northern forests, as big as a child, and without a head. They grope and walk at night. If you sleep in the forest and they catch you, you will go away. Headless ghost, this is A word for the northerners. And windsuckers, they are also dangerous. They float in the air. Sometimes you will see them floating in groups, or get caught in thorns. As long as they Touch you, and all the strength in you is gone. You can only see them when they are a kind of twilight in the air. And the airless ghosts..." "What are they?" "The half-killed warriors. It's good to be alive, and it's okay to be dead, but half-killed is bad. They can't die, and they can't live. They hang around forever. They are called airless ghosts because of the torture they are subjected to." "What torture?" Lyra asked, her eyes widening. "The Tartars of the North ripped their ribs open and pulled their lungs out. It took skill. They didn't kill them, but if their spirits didn't pump their lungs with their hands, their lungs would Can no longer work. So they are between life and death, between life and death, that is, they are half dead. Their spirits must keep pumping their lungs day and night, otherwise, they will die. will disappear with their masters. I've heard that people sometimes come across whole packs of Airless in the forest. Also, there are armored bears—have you heard of them? That's bears in armor, they're Some big white bears, and—” "Yes! I've heard of it! Someone said last night that my uncle, Lord Asriel, is being held in a fortress, watched over by armored bears." "Really? Now? What's he doing there?" "Exploration. But judging from the tone of that person's speech, I don't think my uncle and Taotie are in the same group. I think Taotie is very happy that he was arrested." "Well... if the armored bears are watching him, he can't run away. These armored bears are like mercenaries, you know what I mean by that? No matter who they are, if they give them money, they will do it for them." Contribute. They have hands just like humans, and they learned to smelt iron a long time ago—mostly meteoric iron, making them into iron sheets and iron plates, and wearing them to protect themselves. They have been attacking Sk for centuries Leylin is an ugly man. They are all vicious killers, extremely cruel, but they all keep their promises. If you reach an agreement with a armored bear, you can rest assured." Lyra listened to these horrible stories with horror. "Ma didn't want to hear about the North," Tony said after listening for a while, "because these things could happen to Billy. So you see, we know they got him North." "How do you know?" "We caught a Taotie and forced him to tell the truth so we could get a little bit of what they were up to. Those two guys from last night weren't Taotie because they were so stupid. If they were, we'd capture them alive You see, we gypsies are more hurt by gluttons than most people, so we got together and decided what to do. That's what we did last night at the inlet, pretending to be a shop, Because we're going to refer to the moorlands in the moorland novel specifically in the moorlands of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire in the east of England. Gathering a lot of people, we call this 'tandem'. I guess, we have to hear what the other gypsies have mastered situation, and when we gather what we know, we'll send out a rescue team. If I were John Faa, I'd do it." "Who is John Faah?" "King of the Gypsies." "Are you really going to save those kids? What about Roger?" "Who's Roger?" "Apprentice in the kitchen at Jordan College. Kidnapped, like Billy, the day before I went with Mrs. Coulter. I'm sure he would have come to my rescue if I had been kidnapped." .If you are going to save Billy, I want to follow, to save Roger." And Uncle Asriel, she thought.But she didn't say it.