Chapter 19 19. Laila and her Death

i'm mad at my friend i voiced my anger My anger is over. —William Blake Here and there, fires are burning everywhere in the ruins, and the town is in chaos.There were no streets, no squares, no open space except where one building had collapsed, and some churches or public buildings remained standing, but with holes in their roofs or cracks in their walls.In one house, the entire porch collapsed on the pillars, and between the shells of the stone building was a mass of disorganized waste, bits and pieces of roof shingles, flattened gas cans or biscuit tins, pieces of plastic, pieces of plywood or cardboard.

The ghosts who came with them hurried to the town, and more of them came from all directions, so many that it looked like grains of sand rushing to the mouth of an hourglass.The ghosts walked straight into the squalid mess of town as if they knew exactly where they were going, and Lyra and Will were about to follow them when they were stopped. A figure stepped out of a patched doorway and said, "Wait, wait." A dim lamp was on behind him, making it difficult to see his features, but they knew he was not a ghost.He is as alive as they are.He was a thin, ageless man in a tattered drab suit with a pencil and a bundle of papers held in a large steel clip, and he stepped out of a house that looked like A border checkpoint rarely visited by anyone.

"What's this place?" Will said, "Why can't we go in?" "You are not dead." The man said wearily, "You have to wait in the detention area, continue to the left along this road, and hand these documents to the officials at the gate." "But please, sir," Lyra said, "I hope you don't mind my asking, but how did we get this far if we weren't dead? Because this isn't the world of the dead, is it?" "This is the outskirts of the world of the dead. Sometimes the living come here by mistake, but they have to wait in the detention area before they can move on."

"How long?" "Wait till you die." Will felt dizzy, and seeing Lyla about to argue, he said before she could speak, "You can! Can you explain what will happen then?I mean, these ghosts who come here, do they stay in this town forever? " "No, no," said the official. "This is just a transit terminal. They leave here by boat and move on." "Where are you going?" Will asked. "Then I can't tell," the man said, pulling the corners of his mouth down with a wry smile. "You have to keep going, you have to go to the detention area."

Will took the ID the man handed him, then took Lyra's arm and urged her to leave. The dragonflies were flying languidly now, and Thales explained they needed a rest, so they landed on Will's rucksack, Lyra sitting the Spies on her shoulders, and the snow leopard-shaped Pantalaimon looked up jealously looked at them, but said nothing.They walked along the road, bypassing bleak, squalid shacks and pools of sewage, watching the never-ending stream of ghosts arrive or pass, entering the town unimpeded. "We'll have to pedal through this water like the rest of them," Will said. "Maybe the folks at this stagnation will show us how to get there. For some reason, they don't seem to be angry or dangerous. It's strange. Still With these documents..."

They were just scraps of paper torn from a notebook, with a few words scribbled in pencil and crossed out, as if these people were playing a game, waiting to see when the travelers would provoke or give in to them. laugh.Yet everything seemed so real. It was getting darker and colder, and it was hard to know how much time had passed.Lyra thought they had walked for half an hour, or maybe twice as far, and the scenery hadn't changed much along the way.At last they came to a small wooden shack, the same as the one they had stopped at earlier, with a dim light bulb on a bare wire above the door.

As they approached, a man dressed similarly to the other came out with a piece of buttered bread in one hand, looked at their IDs without saying a word, and nodded. He handed the pass back to Will and was about to go in when Will suddenly said, "Excuse me, where are we going now?" "Go find a place to stay," the man said, without showing any unfriendliness. "Just ask, everyone is waiting, just like you." He turned and closed the door against the cold; they turned and walked into the heart of the shanty town where the living must be. It is very similar to the main town just now: dilapidated small huts, repaired more than ten times, patched with plastic sheets and corrugated iron sheets, crookedly leaning against each other on the muddy roadway.In some places, wires dangled from a support, providing enough feeble current to light a bare bulb or two that hung from a nearby hut.

Most of the light here, though, comes from fire.They flickered red and smoky over the strips of building material like the last flames of a conflagration, kept alive by sheer malice. But as Will and Lyra and the Galliferspins got closer, they saw more detail, just a few—more—many figures sitting alone in the dark, or leaning Looking at the wall, or gathering in small groups to talk quietly. "Why don't these people go in?" Lyra said. "It's so cold." "They're not people," said Madame Salmachia, "they're not even ghosts, they're something else, but I don't know what they are."

They came to the first set of sheds, lit by a large, feeble electric bulb hanging from a wire dangling in the cold wind, and Will put his hand on the knife on his belt.The group outside the house seemed to be people, squatting on the ground and throwing dice. When the children approached, they stood up: there were five people in total, all men, their faces were covered in shadows, and their clothes were torn. Silent. "What's the name of this town?" Will asked. There was no answer, some took a step back, and all five moved closer to each other, as if afraid.Lyra felt goose bumps on her skin and the fine hairs on her arms stood up, but she couldn't say why.Trembling all over in her blouse, Pantalaimon whispered, "No, no, Lyra, no, let's go, let's go back, please..."

Those people didn't move, Will finally shrugged and said: "Okay, then I wish you good night." After finishing speaking, he continued to walk forward.Everyone they met along the way reacted similarly, and their apprehension grew. "Will, are they goblins?" Lyra whispered. "Aren't we old enough to see goblins now?" "I don't think so, if they were, they would attack us, but they seem to be very scared themselves, I don't know what they are." A door opened, light poured out onto the dirt floor, and a man - a real man of humanity - stood in the doorway, watching them approach as the small group of figures around the door receded A step or two, as if out of respect.They saw the man's face: unresponsive, harmless, gentle.

"Who are you?" he asked. "Traveler," Will said, "we don't know where we are. What town is this?" "This is the detention area," the man said. "Have you traveled far?" "It's a long way, yes, we're tired," Will said, "Can we get some food and pay for a place to stay?" The man looked over them into the darkness, then came out, looked further away, and seemed to see no one, then turned to the strange figures standing by and said, "Do you see Death?" They shook their heads, and the children heard a murmur: "No, no, no." The man turned, and behind him, in the doorway, several faces were looking out: a woman, two small children, another man.They are all tense and anxious. "Reapers?" Will said. "We didn't bring any Reapers." But that seemed to be what they were worried about, because when Will spoke, some of the living gasped slightly, and those standing outside even flinched back a little. "I'm sorry," Lyra said, taking a step forward in her most polite way, as if the Jordan College steward was staring at her, "I couldn't help noticing, but these gentlemen here, they die Yet? I'm sorry if it's rude to ask, but it's very unusual where we live, and we've never seen people like them before.Excuse me if I'm rude, but you see, in my world, we have elves, and everyone has elves.We would be shocked to see anyone without elves, just as you are shocked to see us.Now that we've been traveling, Will and I—this is Will, I'm Lyla—we've learned that some people don't seem to have elves, like Will, and I was horrified until I found out that they were actually like me. Ordinary, so maybe that's why people in your world might be a little nervous seeing us, if you think we're different from you. " The man said, "Lila? Will?" "Yes, sir," she said modestly. "Those are your elves?" he said, pointing to the spy on her shoulder. "No," said Lyra, tempted to say, "They are our servants," but she thought Will would think that inappropriate, so she said, "They are our friends, knights Thales and Thrall. Lady Marchia, is a very noble and wise person who travels with us. Oh, this is my elf," she said, taking the mouse-shaped Pantalaimon from her pocket. "You see, we have no malicious intentions. We promise not to hurt you. We need food and accommodation. We will continue to move forward tomorrow, really." Everyone waited, the man's nervousness was soothed a little by her humble tone, and the spies wisely appeared humble and harmless, after a while, the man said: "Okay, but this It's weird, I guess sometimes it's weird... Come on in then, welcome..." The figures outside nodded, and one or two bowed slightly, and they stood aside respectfully, watching Will and Lyra walk into the warmth and light.The man closed the door casually, hung a thread on a nail, and let the door close. It was a single room, clean but shabby, lit by a naphtha lamp on the table; the plywood walls were decorated with photographs cut out of magazines of film stars, and a pattern made of soot handprints; against the wall was an iron stove, There was a clothes rack in front of the stove with some sloppy shirts steaming; on a dresser was an altar with plastic flowers and seashells and colorful perfume bottles and other gaudy scraps of paper, all Surrounded by a photo of a smug skeleton wearing a top hat and dark glasses. The hut was crowded: besides the man and woman and the two small children, there was a baby in the cradle and an older man; and in one corner, among a pile of blankets, lay a very old woman , on her blanket-like wrinkled face, a pair of shining eyes observed everything.Lyra looked at her and was startled: there was a movement of the blanket, and a bony arm protruding from a black sleeve, and then another face, a man's face, so old , almost a skeleton.In fact, he was more like the skeleton in the photo than a living person, and then Will noticed, and all the travelers realized that he was more like those shadowy polite people outside, and that They were just as confused as when the men first saw them. In fact, no one in the crowded shed—except for the sleeping baby—was speechless. Lyra heard herself speak first. "It's very kind of you," she said, "thank you and good evening, we're very happy to be here, and as I said, we're sorry we didn't bring any death, if that's the normal way things are. But we won't bother you too much.You see, we're looking for the world of the dead, that's how we happened to be here.But we don't know where it is?Is this a part of it?how to get therewhat does it look likeSo if you guys could tell us about that, we'd really appreciate it. " The people in the shed were still staring at them wide-eyed, but Lyra's words eased the atmosphere a little, and the woman pulled out a stool and invited them to sit down at the table.Will and Lyra lifted the sleepy Dragonfly to a shelf in a dark corner, where Thales said they would sleep until dawn, and then the Galliferspins joined them at the table. The woman was cooking the soup, and she peeled a potato or two, chopped them up and put them in the soup to continue, urging her husband to bring the travelers something else to refresh the travelers until the soup was ready.He produced a bottle of clear, pungent liquor that Lyra thought smelled like Gypsy Jennifer's, and the two spies ordered a glass and drizzled it into their own tiny cups. Lyra had thought that most of the family would be staring at the Galliferspins, but she found that they were also curious about her and Will, and it didn't take long for her to ask why. "You're the first people we've ever seen who didn't die," said the man, whose name they learned was Pete. "Since we've been here, I mean. We, like you, we've come here alive, by some chance or accident. We'll have to wait for our death to tell us if it's time." "Your death told you?" Lyra said. "Yes, we found out when we came here, oh, it was a long, long time ago for most of us, we found out that we all carry death with us, that's where we found out, we've always had They, and we never knew. Look, everyone has a Reaper, and it follows them everywhere, and stays with them all their lives. Our Reapers, they're outside for air, and they come in often. Grandma's Reaper, he's Being there with her, he was very close to her, very close." "Aren't you afraid to have death close by all day?" Lyra said. "Why are you afraid? If he's there, you can watch him. I'd be much more nervous if I didn't know where he was." "Does everyone have their own death?" Will wondered. "Oh, yes, Death came into this world with you the moment you were born, and it was your Death who took you out." "Ah," Lyra said, "that's something we need to know, because we're trying to find the world of the dead, and we don't know how to get there. Where do we go when we die?" "Your death pats you on the shoulder, or takes you by the hand, and says: Come with me, it's time. This may be when you are sick with a fever, or when you choke on a piece of dry bread, Or when you fall off a tall building. In your pain and toil, your death will come to you kindly and say: Relax, relax, come with me, child. You Sailed with them across that lake into the mist, and what happened there no one knows, and no one ever came back." The woman told a child to call Death in, and he ran to the door and spoke to them.Will and Lyra watched in amazement, and the Galliferspians leaned a little closer, watching Death—one for each member of the family—enter the doorway: a pale, ragged, unremarkable drab The figure, quiet and dull. "These are your gods of death?" Thales said. "That's true, sir," said Peter. "You know when they tell you it's time to go?" "No, but it's a comfort to know they're around." Thales said nothing, but it was clear that he felt that this was by no means consolation, that the Reapers stood politely along the walls, and it was strange to see how little space they occupied and how little attention they attracted. Lila and Will soon found themselves completely ignoring them, too, though Will thought to himself: The people I killed—their death was close to them—didn't know it then, and I did too. Don't know... that woman, Martha, scooped up the stew on a chipped porcelain uranium plate, and put some in a bowl for the dead to pass to each other, they didn't eat it, but the delicious taste and it satisfies them. Before long, the whole family and their guests are hungry and Peter asks where the children are from and what their world is like. "I'll tell you all about it," Lyra said. As she said this, as she took control, a part of her felt a surge of joy in her, like champagne bubbles.She knew Will was watching, and she was glad he could watch her do what she did best, for him, for all of them. She starts with her parents.They were a duke and duchess, very important and rich, who were conned out of their fortune by one of their political enemies and put in prison, but they managed to escape.The father crawled down with the then baby Laila, grabbing a rope, and they regained the family property, only to be attacked and murdered by gangsters. Laila would have been killed, roasted, and eaten too. Will saves her just in time and takes her back to the pack, to the forest where he was raised as a wolf cub.He fell overboard as a baby over the side of his father's boat and washed up on a barren stretch of river bank, where he was nursed by a she-wolf and kept alive. Those people all accepted her nonsense with a quiet sense of trust, and even the gods of death crowded together to listen, sitting on stools or lying on the floor beside them, staring at her with gentle, polite faces A story of life in the forest with Will. He and Lila spent time with the wolves before moving to Oxford to work in the kitchen at Jordan College, where they met Roger.When Jordan was attacked by brick-burners who lived in mud beds and they had to flee in a hurry, she, Will and Roger captured a gypsy narrowboat and sailed it down the Thames at Abingdon. The locks were almost captured, then their ship was sunk by pirates and they had to swim to safety and board a clipper barge that was heading to Hangzhou, China to sell tea. On the sailboat, they met the Galliferspins, strangers from the moon, who were blown to the earth by a hurricane on the Milky Way, and they took refuge in the crow's nest, she and Will and Roger I often took turns to climb up to see them, but one day Roger stepped on the air and fell into Davy Jones Lock (Davy Jones Lock, a proverb from British legend, which means falling into the bottom of the sea). They tried to persuade the captain to turn the ship around for him, but he was a tough man, interested only in the profit he would make by getting to China as soon as possible.He chained them up, but Galliferspin brought them a file, and...wait.From time to time she turned to Will or the spies for confirmation, and Salmachia would fill in a detail or two, and Will would nod.The story continues until the children and their friends from the moon must find a way to travel to the world of the dead in order to learn from her parents the secret of where the family's fortune is buried. "If in our world we knew our own death," she said, "like you do here, it would probably be a lot easier, but I think we can find it here, so we can get your advice, and we really Luckily, thank you so much for being so kind, thank you for listening, thank you for providing us with this meal, it was so nice. "But you see, what we need now, or what we need tomorrow morning, is to find a way to cross the waters where the dead men go, and see if we can get there too. Is there any boat I can hire?" They looked suspicious.The children, flushed with fatigue, watched the adults with sleepy eyes, but no one suggested where to find a boat. Then a voice that had not spoken before spoke, a dry nasal voice from the pile of sheets in the corner - not a woman's voice - not a living voice: it was grandmother's death voice. "The only way you will cross the lake to the world of the dead is with your own death." Propping himself on his elbows and pointing at Laila with his bony fingers, he said, "You must summon your death. I've heard of people like you who keep death at bay. You don't like them, and they come out." Yu politely hides from your sight, but they are not far, and whenever you turn your heads, your death hides behind you, and whenever you look, they hide. They can hide in teacups, Or in the dew, or in the breath of the wind, not like me and this old Magda." He said, pinching her wrinkled cheek, and she pushed his hand away. "We live together in kindness and fraternity, that's the answer, that's all, that's what you gotta do, say welcome, make friends, be kind, invite your death closer to you, see what you can get them to agree to .” His words fell like a heavy stone into Lyra's heart, and Will felt their deadly weight too. "How should we do it?" he said. "All you have to do is make a wish, and it will happen." "Wait a minute," Thales said. Every eye turned to him, and the gods of death who lay on the floor sat up and turned their empty, benign faces to his excited little face.He was standing close to Salmacia, with his hands on her shoulders.Lyra could see what was going on: he was about to say that this had gone too far, that they had to go back, that they had taken this stupid thing to the point of irresponsibility. So she stepped in. "I'm sorry," she said to that Pete, "but me and our friend Knight, we have to go out for a while, because he needs to talk to his friend on the moon through my special instrument, and we won't be long." She picked him up carefully, avoiding his boot spikes, and led him out into the darkness, where a loose corrugated iron roof flapped sadly in the cold wind. In the faint light of a light bulb dangling from a wire overhead, he said, "You guys must stop, this is too much, don't stop." Go forward." "But we have an agreement," Lyra said. "No, no, it can't be too much." "Okay, leave us. You fly back. Will can cut a world into your world, or any world you like, and you can fly over there, safe and sound, that's fine, we don't mind." "Do you realize what you're doing?" "Got it." "You didn't, you were a thoughtless, irresponsible, lying child, and fantasies patronized you so easily that your whole nature became dishonest, and you didn't even admit the truth when it was in front of you. Well, if you can't see, I'll tell you plainly: you can't, you shouldn't risk your death, you must go back with us now.I will call Lord Asriel, and we shall be safely at the fort in a few hours. " Lyra felt a great urge to sob, angry, in her chest, and she stamped her feet, unable to keep quiet. "You don't know," she cried, "you don't know what's going on in my head or in my heart, do you? I don't know if you people have babies, maybe you lay eggs or something, I wouldn't be surprised , because you are not kind, you are not generous, you are not considerate - you are not even cruel - it would be better if you were cruel, because that means you take us seriously, you come with us and don't Not only is it right for you... oh, now I can't trust you at all! You said you'd help, we'd do it together, and now you're trying to stop us—you're the dishonest one, Thales!" "I would never let my own child talk to me in the way you were just now, Lyra—why didn't I punish you earlier—" "Come then! Punish me, if you can! Take your bloody boots and stab hard, stab! Give you my hand - stab! You don't know how to think of my friend Roger , how sad and wicked and sorry I feel - that's what you do when you kill," she snapped her fingers, "you don't give a damn about them - but it's kind of a shame for me not to be able to say goodbye to my friend Roger. Torment and pain, I want to say I'm sorry and try to make it right - you'll never understand, because of your pride, because of your grown-up shrewdness - it's impossible to do the right thing If I don't die then I'd like to die and be happy to die, I've seen worse things than that. So you want to kill me, you hard-hearted man, strong man, poisoned man, knight, then you Just do it, do it, kill it. Then Roger and I can play in the world of the dead forever, laughing at you, you poor thing." It wasn't hard to see what Thales might do, for he was shaking from head to toe with agitation and rage, but he hadn't had time to act when someone behind Lyra spoke and they both felt The chill came down on me.Lyra turned, knowing what she would see; brave as she was, she was still terrified. Reaper was standing very close, smiling kindly, his face was like any other Reaper she had seen.But this one was hers, her own death; Pantalaimon howled and trembled on her breast, his sable body flung himself round her neck, trying to push her away from death, but he Doing so only pushed himself closer, and realizing it, he shrunk back to her chest, to her warm throat and her beating heart. Lyra hugged him tightly and faced her death. She couldn't remember what he said. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Thales quickly prepare the magnet resonator, frantically. "You're my death, aren't you?" she said. "Yes, dear," he said. "You're not ready to take me away, are you?" "You need me. I'm always here." "Yes, but... I need you, yes, but... I want to go to the world of the dead, that's true, but not to die, I don't want to die, I love life, I love my elves, and —the spirits don't go down there, do they? When people die, I see them disappear, just go out like candles, do they have spirits in the world of the dead?" "No," he said, "your spirit vanishes into the air, and you vanish into the earth." "Then I will take my elf with me when I go to the world of the dead," she said firmly, "and I will come back again. Have you heard of anyone doing this?" "There hasn't been such a thing for many, many years. At last, boy, you will come to the world of the dead without effort or risk, a safe, peaceful journey, in the shadow of your own death, your especially faithful friend. with you, who has been with you every moment of your life, who knows yourself better than you—” "But Pantalaimon is a very loyal friend of mine! I don't know you, Reaper, I know Pan and love Pan, and if he—if we—" Death is nodding.He seemed interested and friendly, but she couldn't for a moment forget what he was: her own death, and so close. "I know it's going to be laborious to go on now," she said more firmly, "and dangerous, but I want to go, Death, I really want to go, and so does Will, we both have loved ones or Friend passed away untimely and we need to make amends, at least I want to go." "Everyone wants to be able to speak again to those who have traveled to the world of the dead, why should you be an exception?" "Because," she began to lie, "because I have business to do there, not only to see my friend Roger, but also other things, an angel gave me a mission; no one but myself can do it. .It's too important to wait for my natural death. It has to be done now. See, the angels commanded me, and that's why we're here, me and Will, and we have to." Behind her, Thales let go of his instrument and sat watching the child beg her own death to take her where no one should go.Reaper scratched his head and held up his hands, but nothing could stop Lyra's words, nothing could divert her desire, not even fear: she claimed to have seen worse things than Reaper, and She is compelled. Then her Death said at last: "If nothing can stop you, all I can say is come with me, and I will take you there, into the world of the dead, and I will be your guide, and I can help you Show me the way to get in, but as for getting out, you have to find your own way.” "And my friends," Lyra said, "my friend Will and the others." "Laila," Thales said, "we're going with you, against instinct. I was mad at you just now, but you made it hard..." Lyra knew it was time to compromise, and she granted her wish, which she was glad to do. "Yes," she said, "I'm sorry, Thales, but we would never have found this gentleman to guide us if you hadn't been angry. So I'm glad you're here, you and Mrs. I Really appreciate you guys being with us." And so Lyra convinced her own death to take her and the others where Roger, Will's father, Tony MacRils, and so many others had gone, and her death told her to A ray of dawn rose into the sky and came down on the pier, ready to leave. But Pantalaimon was shaking and trembling, and Lyra could not calm him down, nor could he stop the soft little moans that he couldn't help.So she, like the others, lay on the floor of the hut in a light, fitful sleep, with her Death sitting vigilantly beside her.