Chapter 11 11. Observation Deck

In the big white villa in the park, Will didn't sleep well. He was troubled by mixed dreams, so he struggled to wake up, but he wanted to sleep again.When he fully opened his eyes, he was so sleepy that he could hardly move at all, and he sat up to find that his bandages were loose and the sheets were stained red.He struggled to get out of bed, walked through the quiet mansion in the dusty sunlight, and came to the kitchen.Because he and Lyra didn't like the stately four-poster beds in the luxury rooms, they slept in the servants' quarters in the attic, which was a long, unsteady walk.

"Will—" Lyra called immediately, her voice full of concern, as she turned from the fire and helped him sit in the chair. He felt dizzy and he figured he must have bled a lot.In fact, there is no need to guess, it is obvious that blood is all over his body, and those wounds are still bleeding. "I'm making coffee," she said, "do you want to drink the coffee first, or should I re-bandage you first? You can do whatever you want first.There are eggs in the fridge, but I can't find baked beans. " "There won't be baked beans in this kind of house, let's bandage the wound first. Is there hot water in the faucet? I want to wash.

I hate being all over this..." She poured some hot water and he stripped down to his shorts, he was too dazed to be embarrassed, but Laila was embarrassed for him and she walked out.He took a shower as best he could, then dried himself off with a tea towel hanging over the fire. She came back with clothes for him, a shirt, canvas trousers, and a belt.As he dressed, she tore a new tea towel into strips and wrapped them tightly around his wound.She was very worried about his hand, not only because the cut was still bleeding, but because the rest of the hand was red and swollen. But he didn't say anything about it, so she didn't say anything.

She made some coffee and toasted a few slices of stale bread, which they carried into the great room at the front of the house, which looked down on the city.When he ate the bread and drank the coffee, he felt better. "You'd better ask the alethiometer what to do next," he said. "Did you ask it anything?" "No," she said. "From now on, I will only do what you ask. I was going to ask the alethiometer last night, but I didn't. I will never do it unless you ask me to." "Well, now you'd better ask it," he said. "Now, there's as much danger here as in my world, and Angelica's brother is a start, if—"

He stopped because she was about to speak, but when he stopped, she hesitated.She calmed down before saying, "Will, something happened yesterday that I didn't tell you. I should have told you, but there were too many other things. I'm sorry..." So she told him what she saw at the window when Giacomo Paradisi applied medicine to Will's wound: Tullio fell into the hands of the monster, and Angelica saw her at the window, And her hateful stare, and Paul's threats. "Do you remember?" she went on, "the first time she spoke to us, her brother said they were doing a thing. He said, 'He's going to get—' and she stopped him from going any further Said, and hit him, remember?I'm sure all he's going to say is that Tullio's looking for the knife, and that's why the boys are here.Because if they have this knife, they can do anything, and they can even grow up without being afraid of monsters. "What did he look like when he was attacked?" Will asked. She was surprised as he sat there, leaning forward, looking eager.

"He..." She tried to recall the exact situation at that time, "He started counting the stones on the wall, he seemed to be groping around...but he couldn't hold on, and finally he seemed to lose interest, stopped, and then he I just stopped moving." After she finished speaking, she saw Will's expression and asked, "What's wrong?" "Because... I think these monsters may come from my world. If they came from my world, I wouldn't be surprised at all that they would make people behave that way. When the association people open their first window, if that window It leads to my world, and monsters may come in from there."

"But there are no monsters in your world! You've never heard of them, have you?" "Maybe they're not called monsters, maybe we call them something else." Laila didn't understand what he meant, but she didn't want to press him.His cheeks were flushed and his eyes were burning. "Anyway," she continued, breaking away, "the important thing is that Angelica saw me at the window, and now that she knows we got the knife, she's going to tell them all. She's going to think her brother was killed The monster attack was our fault. I'm sorry, Will, I should have told you sooner, but there were too many things at the time."

"Oh," he said, "I don't think that makes any difference. He tortured the old man, and if he knew how to use that knife, he'd kill us both, and we had to fight him." "I just feel bad, Will, I mean, he's their brother. If we were them, we'd want that knife too." "Yes," he said, "but we can't go back and change what happened. We have to get the knife to get the alethiometer back. If we can get it without fighting, we won't fight." "Yes," she said. Like Iorek Bernison, Will was a fighter through and through, and when he said it was better not to fight, she had the same thoughts in his mind.She knew it wasn't cowardice to say that, it was reason.He was much calmer now, his cheeks were pale again, and he stared not far away, deep in thought.

Then he said: "Now it's more important to think about Sir Charles, what would he do. And Mrs. Coulter, what would she do if she got the special bodyguards they were talking about, the soldiers who had their elves cut off. Maybe Sir Charles is right, they can ignore the monster. You know what I think? I think those goblins are elves who eat people. " "But children have spirits too, and they don't attack children. That's certainly not the case." "That must be the difference between a child's and a grown-up's elf," Will said, "there's a difference, isn't it? You told me once that a grown-up's elf doesn't change shape, and that must have something to do with it. If her These soldiers have no elves at all, and perhaps the goblins wouldn't attack them, as Sir Charles said . . . "

"Yes!" she said, "it's possible. She's not afraid of monsters anyway, she's afraid of nothing. She's so smart, Will, really, she's so ruthless, and she can command them, I'm sure she can. She Can command them as they command others, and they'll have to bow to her, I'm sure. Lord Pourier is smart and strong, and she'll keep him at her command without a moment's delay. Oh, Will, to think she might Will do, I'm starting to get scared again... Like you said, I'm going to ask the alethiometer. Thank goodness we finally got it back."

She opened the velvet package and fondled the heavy golden dick lovingly. "I'm going to ask your father," she said, "and how we can find him. Look, I'm pointing..." "No, ask my mother first. I want to know if she's all right." Lyra nodded. She put the alethiometer on her knees, brushed her hair behind her ears, and lowered her head to focus.Will watched the light pointer turn purposefully on the instrument panel, stop from time to time, and then turn quickly again, like a feeding swallow.He looked into Lyra's eyes, so blue, so piercing, so full of understanding. Then she blinked and looked up. "She's fine," she said. "The friend who took care of her was very kind. Nobody knows where your mother is, and the friend won't tell." Will never realized how worried he was.He felt himself relax at the good news, and as the tension left his body, he felt the wound ache even worse. "Thank you," he said, "well, now ask my father—" Before she could start, they heard a commotion from outside. They immediately look out.There is a park in front of this row of houses on the edge of the city. There is a row of trees beside the low wall of the park, and the movement is from there.Immediately Pantalaimon turned into a lynx, walked silently to the door, and looked down menacingly. "It's the kids," he said. Both Will and Lyla stood up.The gang of kids popped up from behind the tree one by one, maybe forty or fifty of them, many of them carrying sticks, the leader was the boy in the striped T-shirt, and instead of a stick, he held a pistol. "Angelica is over there," Laila whispered, pointing. Angelica was beside the lead boy, tugging at his arm, urging him forward.Behind them was her brother Paul, screaming with excitement, and the other kids were yelling and pumping their fists in the air, two of them carrying heavy rifles.Will had seen kids like this before, but never this many, and in his small town kids didn't carry guns. They were yelling, and Will managed to make out Angelica's voice, the loudest of them all, "You killed my brother and stole that knife! You murderers! You let the monster catch him You killed him, we will kill you! You can't escape! We will kill you like you killed him!" "Will, you can cut a window!" Lyra said eagerly, grabbing his good arm. "We can get away, it's easy—" "Yes, but where could we go? In Oxford, only a few yards from Sir Charles's house, and in broad daylight, likely to meet him in the high street, in front of a bus. I can't just be Cut somewhere and get to a safe place - I have to see where we are first, it will take a long time. There seems to be a wood behind this house, if we can get to the woods we will be safe many." Lyra looked out the window angrily. "They must have seen us last night," she said, "I'm sure they were too scared to come to us by themselves, so they called everyone up... I should have killed her yesterday ! She's as bad as her brother. I'll—" "Stop it, come on," Will said. He checked to make sure the knife was clipped to his belt, and Lyra was carrying her little knapsack, which contained her alethiometer and a letter from Will's father.They ran across the echoing hall, along the corridor to the kitchen, through the scullery, and out into the gravel yard.A gate in the enclosure leads to a vegetable patch where vegetables and herbs are basking in the morning sun. There was still a few hundred yards to go to the edge of the woods, with an exposed grassy slope in the middle.A little closer than the forest is a small circular building standing on the hill on the left, like a temple, surrounded by pillars, and the top floor is like an open-air viewing platform, from which you can overlook the whole city. "Let's run," Will said, though he didn't want to run, he'd rather lie on the ground and close his eyes. With Pantalaimon flying overhead, they started across the grass.But the grass was thick and ankle-high, and Will felt dizzy and unable to run after only a few steps.He slowed down and started walking. Lyra looked back, the boys hadn't seen them yet, they were still in front of the house.It might take a while before they searched all the rooms... but Pantalaimon yelled and started calling the police, and a boy was standing in front of an open window on the second floor of the villa, pointing at them.They heard a cry. "Come on, Will," Lyra said. She tugged on his good arm and supported him.He tried to cooperate, but he had no strength, so he had to walk. "Well," he said, "we can't go to the woods, it's too far away. Let's go to the temple. If we close the door, we may hold out a little longer, and we'll have time to cut a window through." Pantalaimon rushed forward, and Lyra breathlessly called to him to stop.Will could almost see the connection between them, the elf pulling forward and the girl responding.He staggered through the thick grass and Lyra ran forward to have a look, then back to help him, then forward again, and so at last they came to the stone path around the temple. The door under the small porch was not locked. They ran in and found an empty circular room around them. There were statues of goddesses in the surrounding alcoves. In the center of the room was a spiral wrought iron staircase. The exit of the stairs leads to the upper floor.The outside door couldn't be locked, so they climbed the stairs to the upper floor, which was a really nice place to get some fresh air and a view of the city. There were neither walls nor windows, but arched pillars supporting the roof, and under each arched pillar was a waist-high sill so wide that you could almost lean on it.Below, the corrugated tile roof follows a gentle curve towards the gutter. They looked out, and they could see the woods behind them, close at hand but out of reach, the villa below, the open grass, and the reddish-brown roofs of the city in the distance, and the tall one on the left was The tower, with carrion crows circling the gray walls.Will felt sick as he realized what had attracted them. But there's no time to watch these now, they have to deal with the kids first.The gang of children ran towards the temple, screaming with anger and excitement.The leading boy slowed down, raised his pistol, and fired two or three frantic shots into the temple.Then they went on, shouting, "Thief!" "murderer!" "We're going to kill you!" "You took our knives!" "You are not from here!" "Go to hell!" Will didn't care.He had already got the knife out, and quickly hacked a window to see where they were--he had no choice but to back away.Lyra glanced back, too, and stepped back in disappointment.They were fifty feet in the air, with a busy road below them. "Of course," Will said wistfully, "we just went up a hill...we got stuck here. We gotta hold them off, that's all." A few seconds later, the first group of children had swarmed through the gate.Their cries echoed through the temple, adding to their madness.Then there was a loud gunshot, then another, then another scream, and the leading group of children climbed up the stairs, which began to shake. Lyra crouched against the wall, unable to move. Will still had the knife in his hand. He climbed to the top of the stairs, stretched the knife down, and whittled away the top step of the stairs like a piece of paper.The stairs lost their support, and could not bear the weight of the children swarming up, bending down and falling to the ground, making a loud noise.More screaming, more confusion, and the gunfire rang out again, but this time as if by accident.Someone was shot, screaming in pain, and Will looked down to see a body writhing in a pool of mud and blood. They were not individual children, they were a group, like a wave, they came up from below, jumped up in rage, pawed, threatened, screamed, and spat at him, but They couldn't reach him. At this time, someone yelled, and they all looked towards the door. The children who were still able to move rushed to the door, leaving behind those children who were knocked down by the iron stairs or who were struggling to get up from the gravel floor in a daze. Will soon realized why they were running out, there was a scratching sound from the roof outside the arched columns, he ran to the ledge and saw the first hands grabbing the edge of the wave tile, climbing up, someone behind Pushing, and then a head and another pair of hands appeared, they stepped on the shoulders and backs of the people below, and swarmed up to the roof like ants. But the ridge of the Wave tile was not easy to walk on. The first group of children climbed up on all hands and feet, and their crazy eyes never left Will's face for a moment.Lyra joined Will, Pantalaimon's paws on the edge of the gutter, and his leopard roar made the first group of kids hesitate a bit, but they kept climbing, more and more. Someone was yelling "Kill! Kill! Kill!" Others joined in, and the voice grew louder. The children on the roof began to stamp their feet rhythmically, but they dared not come any closer to the roaring elf.Then one of the gutters broke, and the boy standing on it slipped and fell, but the boy next to him picked up the broken pipe and swung it at Lyra. She dodged, and the pipe hit a post beside her, sending shards all over her.Will saw the railing at the top of the stairs, so he cut two of them, as long as swords.He handed one to Laila, and Laila swung the railing so hard that it hit the head boy on the head, and he fell right away, but then someone else came up, Angelica, with red hair and a pale face. Bai, with crazy eyes.She climbed onto the ledge, and Laila poked her so hard at the railing that she fell again. Will was doing the same thing, the knife in its sheath, on his waist.As he swung the iron railing, some children fell, and others stepped up, and more climbed up to the roof from below. Then the boy in the T-shirt reappears, but he's out of pistol, maybe out of bullets.Yet he and Will looked closely at each other, and they both knew what was coming: they were dueling, and it was going to be a brutal and deadly fight. "Come on," Will said, excited for the duel, "come on, come on..." Another second and they'll be fighting. Then the strangest thing happened: a huge, white snow goose fluttered down with outstretched wide wings. Turn around and look. "Caesar!" Lyra exclaimed joyfully, for it was Serafina Pekkala's elf. The snow goose hooted again, a sharp cry across the sky, he circled, turned around, and was only an inch away from the boy in the striped T-shirt, and he fell out of fear, he slid off the window ledge, That's when the others started yelling warnings, too, because something else appeared in the sky.Lyra saw little black shadows flitting across the blue sky, and she gave a loud whoop of joy. "Serafina Pekkala! Here! Here we are! In the temple—" With the whistling of the wind, a dozen arrows shot down, then a dozen more arrows, and then a dozen more—the arrows shot so fast that they were all in the air at once—shot in the air. On the roof of the verandah of the temple, there was a thunderous roar.In surprise and bewilderment, the group of children on the roof suddenly lost their aggression, replaced by fear and fear.Who are these women dressed in black and rushing towards them from the air?How did all this happen?Are they ghosts?Are they a new kind of monster? They cried and jumped off the roof, some fell clumsily, then limped and struggled away, others rolled down the slope, and fled, they were no longer a mob— —but just a bunch of scared and ashamed kids.A minute after the snow geese appeared, the last child left the temple, and the only sound that could be heard was the whistling of pine branches as the witches circled in the air. Will looked up curiously, too surprised to speak, and Lyra jumped to her feet, exclaiming in delight, "Serafina Pekkala! How did you find us? Thank you, Thank you! They are going to kill us! Come down now." But Serafina and the other witches shook their heads and flew up again, circling high in the sky.The Snow Goose Spirit hovered and landed, flapping its huge wings inward, slowing down.The wave under the window sill rattled, and he landed on it. "Hello, Lyra," he said, "Serafina Pekkala can't come to the surface, and neither can the other witches. This place is full of monsters—more than a hundred of them, surrounding the building, There are more coming from the grass. Can't you see them?" "Yes, we can't see them at all!" "We've lost a witch, and we can't take any more risks. Can you come down from this building?" "We can jump off roofs like they did. How did you find us? Where—" "Don't talk so much now, bigger troubles are yet to come. You find a way to get down, and then go to the woods." They climbed up the window sill and slid down the gutter from the broken tiles. It was not high, and there was grass below, forming a slight slope with the building.Lyra jumped first, followed by Will, who rolled over to protect his hand, which began to bleed again and hurt badly.The bandage on his wrist was loose and dragged behind him, and just as he was about to fasten it, the snow goose landed on the grass beside him. "Who is he, Laila?" Caesar asked. "It's Will. He's coming with us—" "Why is the monster avoiding you?" the Snow Goose Spirit asked Will bluntly. Will is hardly surprised by anything now, and he says, "I don't know, we can't see them. No, wait!" Something suddenly occurs to him and he stands up. "Where are they now?" he asked. "Where is the nearest one?" "Ten paces away, down the slope," said the elf. "It is evident that they will not come nearer." Will took out his knife and looked in that direction when he heard the elf hiss in surprise. But Will couldn't do what he wanted to do, because at that moment a witch landed on the grass beside him on a pine branch.He was taken aback, not so much because she could fly, but because of her amazing grace, because of her sharp, cold, clear and lovely eyes, and her white arms, which looked so young, despite her obvious age. Not young. "Your name is Will?" she asked. "Yes, but—" "Why are monsters afraid of you?" "Because of this knife. Where is the nearest yokai? Tell me! I want to kill it!" But before the witch could answer, Lyra hurried over. "Serafina. Pekkala!" she cried, and she threw her arms around her, and hugged her so tightly that the Witch laughed loudly, and kissed her on the forehead. "Oh, Serafina, where did you pop out of nowhere? We're being—those kids—they're kids, but they're trying to kill us—did you see them? We thought we'd die— —Oh, I'm so glad you're here! I thought I'd never see you again!" Serafina.Pekkala looked over the top of Lyra's head to what was clearly a gathering of genies in the distance, and then she looked at Will. "Listen now," she said, "there's a cave not far in the woods. Go up that high slope, and follow the ridge to the left, and the monsters won't follow—they can't see us when we're in the air, They're still afraid of you. Let's meet there, it's about half an hour's walk." She leaped into the air again, and Will shaded his eyes with his hands, watching her and the other graceful figures in fluttering skirts circle the air, and then fly again over the trees. "Oh Will, we're safe now! Serafina Pekkala is here and everything will be fine!" Lyra said, "I never expected to see her again. She came at a critical moment, didn't she? Like before, in Birvangar..." She chattered happily, as if she had long since forgotten the fight.She led the way, up the slope to the woods.Will followed silently, his hand was throbbing and hurting badly, and every time he jumped, some blood flowed out again.He raised his hand to his chest, trying not to think about it. The ride took an hour and forty-five minutes, not half an hour, because several times Will had to stop to rest.When they reached the cave, they saw a fire on which a rabbit was roasting, and Serafina Pekkala was stirring something in a small tin pot. "Show me your wounds." These were the first words she said to Will, and he held out his hand silently. Pantalaimon, transformed into a cat, watched curiously, but Will looked away.He didn't like to see his deformed hand. The witches whispered to each other, and Serafina Pekkala said, "Was it injured by what weapon?" Will took out the knife and handed it to her silently.Her companions looked at the knife with curiosity and suspicion, for they had never seen a pocket knife with such a blade. "To heal a wound you need something other than herbs, a spell," said Serafina Pekkala, "very well, we will prepare a spell, and it will be ready when the moon rises. In the meantime, you should get some sleep." She handed him a horn cup, which contained boiling hot soup, the bitterness of the medicine was mixed with the sweetness of honey.After a while, he lay down and fell into a deep sleep.The witch covered him with leaves, then turned to Lyra, who was still nibbling on the rabbit. "Now, Laila," she said, "tell me who this boy is, and what you know of the world, and his knife." So Lyra took a deep breath and began to speak.