Chapter 21 Twenty-one, Harpy

I abhor completely fictional things... There should always be some factual basis... —Byron Lila and Will each awoke with a heavy dread: like a condemned prisoner the morning of the execution.Thales and Sarmazia were tending their dragonflies, bringing them moths caught outside near the lamps on oil drums and flies from cobwebs, and water in tin pans.Seeing the expression on Lyra's face and the way the rat-like Pantalaimon was pressed against her chest, Madame Salmachia dropped her work and came over to talk to her.Meanwhile, Will leaves the shed to walk around outside. "You can make other decisions," Salmakia said.

"No, we can't, we've decided," Lyra said, stubborn and frightened at the same time. "What if we don't come back?" "You don't have to follow," Lyra pointed out. "We will not abandon you." "Then what if you don't come back?" "We will die for one important thing." Lyra was silent. She hadn't really seen the Madame before, but now she could see her quite clearly in the dim light of the naphtha lamp.She was standing on the table at an arm's length away, her face calm and benign, not beautiful, not pretty, just the kind of face you like to see when you are sick or unhappy or scared.Her voice is deep and emotive, with laughter and happiness flowing beneath her serene outward disposition.As far as Laila could remember, no one ever read to her bedside, told her a story or sang a nursery rhyme with her, then kissed her and put out the lights.But now it occurred to her: If there really was a voice that could keep you safe and warm you with love, it would be a voice like Lady Salmachia.She felt a hope in her heart, hoping that one day she would have a child who could use this voice to soothe, sing and hypnotize her.

"Okay," Laila said, finding a lump in her throat, and swallowed, shrugging. "Let's see." Madam said and turned away. As soon as the thin dry biscuits were finished and the bitter tea was all they could offer they thanked their masters and picked up their rucksacks and walked across the shanty town towards the lake. let's go.Lyra looked around for her Reaper, and there he was, politely walking a short distance ahead, not wanting to come any closer, though he kept looking back to see if they were following.The sky is suffused with somber fog that is more dusk than day, with ghostly fog emerging sullenly from puddles in the road, or tangled like abandoned lovers around overhead wires .They saw no one, and few grim reapers, but the dragonflies flitted across the damp sky as if they were stitching it all together with invisible threads, and it was delightful to watch their bright colors flicker back and forth.

It was not long before they came to the edge of the settlement, following a sluggish stream and passing through barren undergrowth.Now and then they heard a shrill croak or the startled splash of some amphibian, but the only animal they saw was a toad the size of Will's foot.It could only dance sideways in agony, as if terribly wounded.It was lying across the road, trying to get out of the way, watching them as if it knew they meant to hurt it. "Better kill it," Thales said. "How do you know?" Lyra said. "Maybe it still likes to live, even though it's the way it is."

"If we kill it, we take it with us," Will said, "It wants to stay here, and I've killed enough creatures that even a pool of stagnant water like this might be better than death. " "But what if it's in pain?" Thales said. "If it could tell us, we'd know. But since it can't, I'm not going to kill it. It's only out of consideration for our feelings and not for the toad's." They move on.A moment later a change in the sound of footsteps told them that there was an exit nearby, though the fog had thickened.Pantalaimon turned into a lemur, and widened his eyes, pressed against Lyra's shoulders, into her misty hair, looking around, but he saw not much more than she .He was still trembling, trembling.

Suddenly they heard the sound of a small splash, soft but nearby, and the dragonflies led their riders back to the children, and Lyra and Will clung a little closer, trudging cautiously through the slippery On the path, Pantalaimon crept into Lyra's arms. Then they came to the shore, and the greasy, scum-laden water flowed silently before them, with an occasional ripple splashing limply over the pebbles. The path turned to the left, and after walking forward for a while, a wooden pier stood crookedly on the water surface, more like a dense fog than a solid entity. There is nothing beyond the pier.The trail ends here at the pier, and beyond the pier there is only thick fog.Lyra's death, who had brought them all this way, bowed to her and disappeared into the mist before she could ask him what to do next.

"Listen," Will said. On the unseen water there was a slow sound: the creaking of wood and the quiet regular splash of water.Will put his hand on the knife on his belt and stepped cautiously forward onto the rotting boards, Lyra close behind.The dragonflies perched on two overgrown anchorposts, looking like orderly guards.The children stood at the end of the pier, staring wide-eyed at the mist, wiping beads of mist from their eyelashes as they went.The one sound, the slow creak and splash, was getting closer. "Let's not go!" whispered Pantalaimon. "Have to go," Lyra whispered.

She looked at Will, his expression grave, serious and eager: he would not leave her.Thales the Galliferspian stood on Will's shoulders, Salmachia on Lyra's, calm and watchful.The dragonflies' wings were covered with mist beads like cobwebs, and now and then they flapped their wings quickly to shake off the mist beads, because the beads would make the wings too heavy, Lyra thought.She hoped they would find something to eat in the world of the dead. Then, suddenly, the ship appeared in front of him. It was an old paddleboat, much patched and decayed.The rower was extremely old, wrapped in a linen robe tied with thread.He was limp and stooped, his bony hands always bent over the oars, his wet eyes sunken deep in the folds and wrinkles of his gray skin.

He let go of the oar and, with his crooked hand, reached the hoop attached to the corner post of the pier, and with the other hand he oared the boat to the plank. There was no need to speak, Will stepped into the boat first, and then Lyra stepped into the boat. But the boatman raised his hand. "He can't," he whispered sternly. "Who can't." "He can't." He pointed a yellow-gray finger straight at Pantalaimon.Instantly Pantalaimon changed from a red and yellow ermine to a white ermine. "But he's me!" Lyra said. "If you come, he must stay."

"But we can't do this! We're going to die!" "Isn't that exactly what you want?" This was the first time Lyra really realized what she was doing, the real consequences.She stood there, pale and trembling, and hugged her dear elf so tightly that he howled with pain. "They . . . " said Lyra resignedly, and then paused: it wouldn't be fair to accuse the other three of not having to give up anything. Will was watching her anxiously, and she looked around, at the lake, at the pier, at the rough trail, at the stagnant puddles, at the damp dead bushes... Her Pan, left here alone: How could he live without her?He shivered in her shirt, against her bare flesh, his fur needing her warmth.impossible!never!

"He must stay here if you are going," said the boatman again. Salmachia flicked the reins quickly, and her dragonfly flew off Lyra's shoulders and landed on the gunwale of the boat, joined by Thales.They said something to the boatman, and Lyra watched them like a condemned prisoner watches a possible pardon signal at the back of the courtroom. The boatman stooped to listen, then shook his head. "No," he said, "if she comes, he must stay." Will said, "That's not right, we don't need to keep a part of us, why should Lyra?" "Oh, but you too," said the boatman, "and her misfortune is that she can not only see but also talk to that part of herself which she must abandon, as you will know when you get on board." , by then it will be too late, but you will all have to leave your parts here, there is no passage for him in the world of the dead." No, Lyra thought, and Pantalaimon thought with her: We didn't cross Birvangar because of that, no; how are we going to find each other again? She glanced back at the dirty and desolate shore of the lake, so desolate and poisonous, and thought of her beloved Pan, her soulmate, waiting here alone, watching her disappear into the mist, and she couldn't help crying .Her violent sobs were echoed unresponsively because the fog obscured them, but along the shore, in the countless pools and shallows, and in the wretched cracked stumps, the wounded animals who haunted here heard her wholeheartedly. cries, and press themselves closer to the ground; they fear such feelings. "If he can come—" Will cried, desperate to stop her pain, but the boatman shook his head. "He can get on the boat, but if he does, the boat stays here," he said. "But how is she going to find him again?" "I have no idea." "Will we come back this way in the future?" "return?" "We want to come back, we want to go to the world of the dead, and we want to come back." "Don't go this way." "Then go any other way, but we will definitely come back!" "I've taken thousands and thousands of people and no one has ever come back." "Then we'll be the first, and we'll find a way out. Since we're going to do this, boatman, please kindly and sympathetically, and let her take her daemon!" "No." He said, shaking his old head, "This is not a rule that you can break, this is the law, like this..." He leaned over to the side of the boat and took a handful The lake water, then tilted his hand, and the water flowed out again. "It's the same law that makes the water flow back into the lake. I can't tilt my hand and let the water fly upwards, and I can't take her spirit to the world of the dead, whether she comes or not. Come, he must stay." Lyra could see nothing: her face was buried in Pantalaimon's cat's fur, but Will saw Thales climb down from his dragonfly to pounce on the boatman, half in agreement and half against the spy's intentions; But the old man saw him, turned his old head and said, "Do you know how many years I have been in the world of death? If you think that something can hurt me, it has already happened? You think I Will the ones who take away be happy to follow me? They struggle, shout, they try to bribe me, they threaten and wrestle, nothing works, you can't hurt me no matter how much you sting. Better comfort this kid , she will come, leave me alone." Will could hardly watch, Lyra was doing the cruelest thing she'd ever done, hating herself, hating it, suffering for Pan, with Pan, because of Pan, trying to put him on the cold ground, loose He scratched at the cat's paws of his clothes and wept and wept.Will closes his ears: the sound is too sad to bear. She pushed her daemon away again and again, and he still cried and tried desperately to hold on. She can turn back. She can say: No, this is a bad idea, we shouldn't be doing this. She could be true to the soul-deep, life-deep bond that connected her to Pantalaimon, she could put that first, she could drive the rest out of her heart - but she couldn't. "No one's done that before, Pam," she whispered tremblingly. "But Will says we'll be back, I swear, Pam, I love you, I swear we'll be back - I will - take care honey - you'll be safe - we'll be back if I have to spend every minute of my life to find you again, I will, I won't stop, I won't rest, I won't - oh, Pan - dear Pan - I gotta go, I gotta gone……" She pushed him away, and he sprawled coldly on the muddy ground, pained and terrified. What animal he was now, Will could hardly say.He seemed so young, a cub, a puppy, a helpless battered thing, an animal so lost in grief that it was not so much the animal as grief itself.His eyes never left Lyra's face for a moment, and Will could see her forcing himself not to look away, not to shy away from guilt, admiring her honesty and courage, and wrenching at the grief of their parting. .There was so much real emotion flowing between them that the very air felt electric to him. Pantalaimon didn't ask "why," because he knew the outcome; he didn't ask Lyra if she loved Roger more than him, because he knew the real answer, too.He knew she would not be able to bear it if he spoke, so the elf kept silent, so as not to upset the man who was abandoning him.Now they're both pretending it won't hurt them and it won't be long before they're together again and that's for the best, but Will knows this little girl right in front of him is tearing her heart out of her chest . Then she stepped into the boat, she was so light that the boat barely rocked.She sat beside Will, never taking her eyes off Pantalaimon.He was standing tremblingly on the far side of the pier, but when the boatman let go of the hoop and swung the oar to pull the boat away, the puppy-like elf ran helplessly to the end of the pier, paw Tapping gently on the floppy boards, standing there watching, just watching, watching the boat go away, the pier blurred and lost in the mist. Then Lyra uttered a cry of affection which, even in the world of mist and indistinctness, provoked an echo, but of course it was not an echo, it was her other half in the world of the living before she entered the world of the dead. time response. "My heart, Will..." she moaned, hugging Will tightly, her face contorted in pain. In this way, the prophecy that the dean of Jordan College once told the librarian was fulfilled, that Lila would make a huge betrayal, a betrayal that would cause her terrible harm. But Will also found pain piling up inside him, and through it he saw the two Galliferspins hugging each other as he and Lyra had, moved by the same pain. Part of the pain was physical, and it felt like an iron hand had gripped his heart, pulling it away from his rib cage, so he put his hands on the place, trying in vain to keep it in.The pain was much deeper and worse than the pain of losing his finger, but the pain was also spiritual: something secret, private, being dragged into plain sight where it did not wish to be.Will is almost overwhelmed by the combination of pain, humiliation, fear and guilt that he caused it all. It's worse than that, it's like he's saying, "No, don't kill me, I'm scared, kill my mother, she's okay, I don't love her." It's like she heard him say it and pretended she didn't In order not to hurt his feelings, she offered to die for him anyway because she loved him, and he felt as bad as that, and nothing could be worse. And so Will knew that all these things were due to elves, and whatever his elves were, she too was left behind with Pantalaimon on the poisonous, desolate shore.The thought entered both Will's and Lyra's minds, and they exchanged a teary look, and for the second time in their lives, but not the last, they saw their expressions on each other's faces. Only the boatman and the dragonflies seemed indifferent to the journey they were making.Even in this sticky fog, those huge dragonflies are still alive and beautiful, and they flap their thin wings to shake off the moisture. A boat plank mixed with clay. The journey was too long for Lyra to measure, and though part of her ached from the pain, imagining Pantalaimon abandoned on shore, another part was adjusting to the pain, measuring her strength, curious to see what would happen. What will happen, where will it land. Will had her strong arm around her, but he was also looking ahead, trying to see what was ahead through the wet, gray haze, trying to hear something other than the dank, cold sound of oars. thing. Soon there was indeed a change: lying in front of them seemed to be a cliff or an island.Before they saw the fog deepen, they heard voices gathering. The boatman turned the boat a little to the left with one oar. "Where are we?" said the voice of Knight Thales, still small and powerful, but a little harsh, as if he, too, had suffered. "Near the island," said the boatman, "in five minutes we shall reach the landing." "What island?" Will said.He found that his own voice was tense too, so tense that it hardly sounded like his own. "The gate to the world of the dead is on this island," said the boatman. "Everyone comes here, the king, the queen, the murderer, the poet, the child, everyone comes here, and no one goes back." "We'll be back," Lyra whispered harshly. He said nothing, but his old eyes were full of pity. As they got closer they could see the dark green cypress and yew branches hanging low over the water, thick and dark.The land rose steeply, and the trees grew so densely that it was almost impossible for a stoat to slip past. Lyra let out a little hiccup at the thought, because Pam would have shown her how good he could be, but now he wouldn't, probably never again. "Are we dead?" Will said to the boatman. "It doesn't make a difference," he said. "There are some people who come here who never believe they're dead, they always insist they're alive. It's a mistake, someone has to pay the price, it doesn't make a difference. And there are those who live longing to die, poor souls, lives full of pain or sorrow, who kill themselves for a chance at blessed rest, only to find that nothing has changed, only worse.This time there is no escape, you cannot bring yourself back to life.Others were too weak and too sick; sometimes infants, who came down here to the kingdom of the dead before they were born into the world of the living.So many times I've rowed this boat with little crying babies on my lap who never knew the difference between up there and down there, old people and worst of all the rich ones who howled and ran wild , cursing, complaining and screaming: Who do I think I am?Did they not gather and store up all the gold they could store up?Shall I take some now and send them back to shore?They will accuse me, they have powerful friends, they know the bishop, they know this king or that duke, they are in positions of power, they can see me punished and flogged... But they know the truth lies in the result: where they are The only place is on my ship to the world of the dead.As for the kings and bishops, they will be here too, when their turn comes, much earlier than they would like. I made them cry, I made them growl, they couldn't hurt me, and they finally got quiet. "So if you don't know whether you are dead or alive, this little girl blindly swore that she would return to the world of the living again, and I didn't say anything to refute it. You will know what it is like soon." He had been paddling along the shore and now he put his oars in and put his hands in the boat and reached out to the right to grab the first stake that came out of the water. He docked the boat to the narrow jetty and held it there for them.Lyra didn't want to go out: as long as she was on the boat, Pantalaimon could think of her exactly as he had last seen her, but when she left him he wouldn't know how to go. Picture her.So she hesitated, but the dragonflies flew up and Will stepped out, pale and clutching his chest, so she had to disembark too. "Thank you," she said to the boatman, "when you go back, if you see my genie and tell him I love him most in the world of the living and the dead, I swear I'll go back to his Beside, even if no one has done it before, I swear I will." "Okay, I'll tell him that," said the old boatman. He pushed away from the shore, the slow paddle of the oars fading into the mist. Galliferspread flew back after walking for a while, and landed on the children's shoulders as before, the lady on Lyra's shoulders, and the knight on Will's shoulders.And so they, the Travelers, stood on the edge of the world of the dead.Ahead of them there was nothing but fog, but through the thickening of the fog a huge wall could be seen rising before them. Lyra shuddered.She felt as if her skin had become hollow fabric, the damp and biting air moving in and out between her ribs, the stinging wound where Pantalaimon had been was freezing cold.And yet, she thought, that's how Roger must have felt when he came down the hill and tried to grab her desperate hand. They stood there in silence and listened.The only sound was the constant tick of water falling from the trees; and looking up they felt a drop or two splash coldly on their cheeks. "Can't stay here," Lyra said. They left the dock, leaned together, and walked toward the wall.Huge boulders, green with ancient clay, rose high into the mist, so high that they could not see their tops.Now that they're closer, they can hear cries from behind the wall, but it's hard to tell if they're human cries: high-pitched wails and screams hang in the air like jellyfish filaments floating in the air, and wherever they touch, they're born. pain. "There's a door," Will said nervously, his voice hoarse. It was a battered wooden side door set under a flagstone.Before Will could raise his hand to push it away, there was a high-pitched, deafening yelp nearby, scaring them to death. Galliferspin rushed into the air at once, and the dragonflies looked like young warhorses eager to fight, but a rough wave of the wing of the thing that came down swept them aside, and landed heavily on a patch above the children's heads. on the rocks.Thales and Salmachia pulled themselves together, soothing their terrified mounts. The thing was a large bird the size of a vulture, with the face and breast of a woman.Will had seen pictures of her animal; as soon as he saw her, the word "harpies" came to his mind.Her face was smooth and unwrinkled, but older than the wizard: she had seen millennia pass, and the cruelty and sorrow of all those years formed the hateful expression on her features.But the more the travelers see, the more loathsome she becomes.Her eye sockets were congealed with dirty clay, her red lips were scabbed and crusted as if she had vomited ancient blood time and time again, her dirty, tangled black hair fell to her shoulders, and her jagged claws viciously Holding the stone tightly, the powerful black wings are folded on the back. Every time he moves, his body emits a foul smell. Both Will and Lyla felt sick and miserable, trying to stand upright and face her. "But you're alive!" said the harpy, her hoarse voice mocking them. Will found himself hating her and fearing she was better than anyone he'd ever known. "Who are you?" said Lyra, who shared Will's disgust. In answer, the harpies screamed, and opened its mouth to let out a blast of sound in their faces, so dizzy that they almost fell back.Will grabs Lyla, and they hug each other tightly.Now the shriek broke into a series of savage, mocking laughter, echoed by the other harpies in the fog along the coast.The mocking, hateful voice reminded Will of the relentless cruelty of those children on the playground, but here there were no teachers to set the rules, no one to please, no place to hide. He looked straight into her eyes with his hand on the knife on his belt, and even though his head was spinning, the sheer force of her screams alone made him dizzy. "If you want to stop us," he said, "you'd better be ready to fight, not just scream, because we're going through that door." The harpy's disgusting red mouth moved again, but this time sucking her lips into a mocking kiss. Then she said: "Your mother is lonely, we will send her nightmares, we will scream at her in her dreams!" Will didn't move, because out of the corner of his eye he saw Lady Salmachia moving daintily along the branch where the harpies had settled, her dragonfly, fluttering wings, pinned to the ground by Thales. , and then two things happen: Madame pounces on the harpies, turns and thrusts her boot spurs into the guy's scaly legs, and Thales releases the dragonfly upwards, and in less than a second, Salma Chia turned around, jumped off the branch, jumped directly onto the back of her iron-blue mount, and rushed into the air. The effect on the Harpy was immediate, another scream broke the silence, much louder than before, and she flapped her black wings so hard that both Will and Lyra felt the wind and staggered.But she clutched the stone with her claws, and her face was purple with anger, and her hair stood up from her head like a helmet decked with vipers. Will tugged at Lyla's hand, and they both tried to run toward the door, but the harpies flew at them angrily, and only when Will turned, pulled Lyla behind him, lifted the It was only when the knife stopped the dive. Galliferspin flew at the harpies at once, rushed up to her face, and sprang away again; unable to strike, but distracted her, so that she flapped her wings awkwardly and half fell to the ground. Lyra shouted, "Thales! Sarmacia! Stop, stop!" The spies rode the dragonfly back and flew high above the children's heads.Other black things were gathering in the mist, and farther along the shore came the mocking shrieks of a hundred harpies.The first harpy was shaking its wings and hair, stretching its legs in turn, moving its claws, and Lyra noticed she was unhurt. Gallifers circled flat, then swooped back toward Lyra, who was holding out her hands for them to land. Salmachia realized what Leila meant and said to Thales: "She's right, we can't hurt her for some reason." Lyra said, "What's your name, ma'am?" The harpy flapped her wings, and a disgusting rotten smell wafted from her body, and the travelers almost fainted. "Anonymous!" she cried. "What do you want from us?" Lyra said. "What can you give me?" "We can tell you where we've been, maybe you'll be interested, I don't know. We've seen all sorts of weird things on the way here." "Oh, you want to tell me a story?" "if you are willing to." "Maybe I will, and then what?" "You might be able to let us go through that door to the ghost we came here to find, anyway, I hope you will. I hope you're so kind." "Then give it a try," said Anonymous. Even in the nausea and pain, Lyra felt like she had just played a trump card. "Oh, be careful," Sarmazia whispered, but Lyra's brain was already running ahead, sorting out the story she'd told last night, shaping and cutting and refining and adding: the death of the parents, the family fortune , the shipwreck, the escape from the tiger's den... "Okay," she said, getting into her storytelling mindset, "it started when I was a baby, really. My father and mother were the Duke and Lord of Abingdon. Duchess, you see how rich they are. My father was one of the king's advisers, and the king himself came to our house often, oh, all the time. They often go hunting together in our forest.The house there, in which I was born, is the largest house in the whole of the South of England, and it's called—" Without even uttering a warning cry, the harpy pounced on Lyra with its claws spread wide.Lyra had just enough time to duck, but a claw caught her scalp and pulled out a handful of hair. "Liar! Liar!" screamed the harpy. "fraud!" She swerved and aimed at Lyra's face, but Will got his knife out and blocked it.Doe turned around in time to avoid it, and Will hugged Lyra and walked towards the door, because she was terrified by the blood running down her face and her eyes were blurred.Will had no idea where the Galliferspins had gone, but the harpy was flying towards them again, screaming over and over in rage and hatred, "Liar! Liar! Liar!" It sounded as if her voice was coming from all directions, and the word came back from beyond the great wall in the fog, blurred and changed, so that she seemed to be calling Laila's name, and Laila and the Liar became one, became one. got the same thing. Will held Lyra against his chest, shoulders bent to protect her, and he felt her trembling and weeping against his chest, but then he drove the knife through the rotting wooden door, the blade slashing open the lock. Then he and Lyra crashed into ghostland, spies riding beside them on their swift dragonflies; The harpies doubled and doubled.