Chapter 23 Twenty-three, there is no way out

you will know the truth truth will set you free —St. John "Will," Lyra said, "what do you think will happen to the harpy when we let the ghost out?" As the banshees grew louder, and flew closer and closer, gathering more and more, as if the dim light was gathering small clumps of evil and giving them wings, the ghosts kept looking up in fear. "Are we almost there?" Lyra called to Madame Salmachia. "It's not very far now." She circled above them, calling down. "If you climb that rock you can see him." But Lyra doesn't want to waste time, she's trying wholeheartedly to put on a happy face for Roger, but in front of her mind's eye, every moment is Pan turned into a puppy abandoned on the pier , She couldn't help crying when she was gradually shrouded in thick fog.Still, she had to hold back, she had to be hopeful for Roger, and she always was.

Their meeting happened so suddenly.There he was, standing among all the ghosts jostling about. His familiar face was haggard, but the expression was as cheerful as a ghost could.He ran to hug her. But he passed through her arm like cold smoke, but she felt his little hand grabbing her heart, but she had no strength to grab it, and they could never really touch again. But he could whisper, and his voice said, "Lyra, I never thought I'd see you again—I thought if you did come here after you died, you'd be so much older, you'd grow up, And you never want to talk to me—"

"Why never?" "Because I did something wrong when Pantalaimon took my elf from Lord Asriel's! We should have run, we should not have tried to fight her! We should have run to you! Then she won't take my elf again, and when the cliff falls, she'll still be with us!" "But it wasn't your fault, fool!" Lyra said. "I brought you there in the first place. I should have let you go back with the other kids and the gypsies. It was my fault. I'm sorry, Lo. Jay, really, it was my fault, and you wouldn't be here..." "Well," he said, "I don't know, maybe I could have died some other way, but it wasn't your fault, Lyra, you gotta understand."

She felt herself beginning to believe this, but still, it was heart-wrenching to see this cold little thing, so close and yet so out of reach.She tried to grab his wrist—even though the fingers held empty air, but he understood her meaning and sat down beside her. The other ghosts stepped back a little, not to disturb them.Will moves aside too, and sits down to nurse his hand, which is bleeding again.Thales flew viciously at the ghosts to drive them away, while Salmachia tended Will's wounds. But Lila and Roger forgot all that. "You're not dead," he said. "If you're alive, how did you get here? Where's Pan?"

"Oh, Roger - I had to keep him ashore - it was the worst thing I had to do, how sad it was - you know how sad - and he stood there, Just look like that. Oh, I feel like a murderer, Roger—but I have to, or I wouldn't be here!" "Ever since I died, I've been pretending to be talking to you all the time," he said, "I've been wishing I could, and I wished so much . . . only that I could get out, me and all the other dead, Because it's a horrible place, Laila. But it's impossible, everyone has to deal with this when they die, and those bird things... You know what they do. They wait until you rest— You never sleep properly, you just take a nap or something - they sneak up on you and whisper all the bad things you did in your life so you don't forget. They know all about you Worst thing, they know how to scare you just thinking about all the stupid and bad things you've ever done, all the greedy and bad thoughts you've ever had and they know it all and they humiliate you and make you feel bad Nausea yourself...but you can't get rid of them."

"Well," she said, "listen." She lowered her voice closer to the little ghost, as she used to do when they were planning some prank together at Jordan Academy, and continued, "You probably don't know, but those wizards—you remember Serafina Pekkala— — those witches had a prophecy about me, and they didn’t know that I knew—no one knew, and I never told anyone about it before, but when I was in Trollsand, Cora the Gypsy Father Tom took me to Dr. Lance Lius, advisor to the wizards, and he gave me a test in which he said I had to go out and pick the right piece out of all the others to show that I could actually read the alethiometer.

"Well, I picked it out, and went in quickly, because it was cold, and it only took a second, easy. The counselors were talking to Father Colum, and they didn't know I could hear them. He was in Said the witches about this prophecy about me, that I will do something great and important, that will happen in another world..." Only I never mentioned it, I think I must have even forgotten it Well, there were so many other things going on that it kind of sank out of my head, and I never even talked to Pam about it because I thought he was going to laugh at me. "But then Mrs. Coulter caught me and put me in a coma, and I was dreaming, and I was dreaming about that, and I was dreaming about you, and I remembered Mama Coss, the gypsy boat Tower—you remember—we're with Simon and Hugh and them, and it's their ship that's in Jericho—"

"Yes! We almost made it to Abingdon! That was the best thing we ever did, Laila! I'll never forget that, even if I die down there a thousand years—" "Yeah, but listen - when I ran away from Mrs. Coulter the first time, right, I found the gypsies again and they took care of me... oh Roger, I found so many things , you must have been amazed at the time - but this is the most important thing: Ma Costa said to me, she said that I have wizard oil in my soul, and she said that gypsies are water people and I am fire people. "I think what that means is that she's getting me ready for that witch's prophecy. I know I have an important thing to do, and that counselor, Dr. Lance Lear, says it's important that I'm Never know what my fate is until it happens, voila - I should never have asked about it...so I never asked. I didn't even think about what it could be, I never even asked alethiometer.

"But now I think I know, and finding you again is just some kind of proof. What I must do, Roger, is my destiny. I must help all the ghosts leave the world of the dead for good. Will and I have to save All of you. I'm sure it's this, it must be this, because of Lord Asriel, because of one of the things my father said... Death is going to die, he said. I don't know what's going to happen, though, You can't tell them yet, promise me, I mean your life might not last on that, but—" He was eager to speak, so she stopped. "That's exactly what I want to tell you!" he said. "I told them, all the other dead people, I told them you would come! Just as you came to Baelvangar to rescue those children, I Said, Lyra would do it, if anyone could. They hoped it would be true, they wanted to believe me but never really believed it, I could see that.

"Like," he went on, "every kid who's ever been here, everybody, said from the very beginning that they bet their father would come to their rescue, or that their mother would come and save them as soon as they knew where they were." Will come to bring them home. If it's not a father or a mother, a friend or a grandpa, someone will come and save them. It's just that they never come, so when I tell them that you will come, no one believes me. Only I am right!" "Yes," she said, "well, I couldn't have done it without Will, and that's Will over there, and that's Knight Thales and Lady Salmachia. I have so much to tell You, Roger..."

"Who is Will? Where did he come from?" Lyra began to explain, completely unaware of how her voice was changing, how she sat up straighter, and even looked differently in her eyes as she told the story of her encounter with Will and the fight over that delicate knife . How could she know?But Roger noticed, with the constant sorrow and silent jealousy of a dead man. At the same time, Will and Galliferspin were talking quietly not far away. "What are you going to do, you and that girl?" Thales said. "Open the world and let the ghosts out, that's why I got this knife." He had never seen such a surprised expression on anyone's face, let alone the high opinion of these people that he cherished, he had already developed great respect for these two.They sat for a while in silence, and then Thales said, "This will start all over again, and this is the most powerful blow you can deliver, after which the authority will be powerless." "How can they suspect that?" said Madame. "It will be a shock to them!" "And then?" Thales asked Will. "And then? Well, then we've got to go out ourselves, and find our elves, I suppose. Don't think about that. Just think about it now. I haven't said anything to the ghosts, just in case... just in case things don't work out, So don't say anything either. Now I'm going to find a world that I can open, and those harpies are watching, so if you want to help, you can distract them while I do it .” The Galliferspins immediately launched their dragonflies into the gloom overhead.There, the harpies swarmed like giant flies.Will watched the two giant insects attack the harpies fearlessly, as if they were flies, big enough to crush them with their jaws.He thought how happy these dazzling animals would be if the clouds cleared and the fog cleared and they could fly freely over the clear water. Then he picked up the knife, and the words the harpies had yelled at him came back immediately—the sneer about his mother—and he paused, putting the knife down and trying to clear his head. He tried again, with the same result.He could hear them shouting and clamoring above, despite the ferocity of the Galliferspins, for they were too numerous for two fliers to stop them. Well, that's the way it is, it won't be easy.So Will let his mind relax and stop thinking about it, and just sat there with the knife loosely held until he was ready again. This time the knife cut straight into the air—touching the rock.He once opened a window of this world to enter the underground of another world.He closed it and tried again. The same thing happened, even though he knew it was another world.He's opened the window before and found himself on the surface of another world, so it shouldn't be a surprise to see himself underground, but the results are frustrating. The next time he felt carefully in the way he had already understood, letting the tip of the knife look for a response in the world that was also the ground, but no matter where he cut, it felt wrong, there was no world he could open, he encountered Everywhere is solid rock. Sensing that something was wrong, Lyra ended her intimate conversation with Roger's ghost, jumped up and hurried over to Will. "What's the matter?" she said quietly. He told her, adding: "We'll have to move somewhere else to find a world we can cut into. Those harpies won't let us do that. You told the ghosts about our plan?" "Not yet, I just told Roger and told him to be quiet, and he'd do anything I told him to do. Oh, Will, I'm scared, I'm so scared. We might never get out, if we never Stuck here, what should I do?" "Knives can cut through rock, and we can cut a tunnel if we need to. It's going to be a long time, hopefully we don't have to, but I can do that. Don't worry." "Yes, you're right, because we can." But she thought he looked terribly ill, with his face scrunched up in pain, with dark circles around his eyes, his hands trembling and his fingers bleeding, he looked as ill as she felt.They couldn't last long without the elf, and she felt her ghost terrified inside her, and she clung to her arms, thinking of Pan. But at the same time the ghosts crowded closer, the poor things, the children especially Laila. "Please," said a girl, "don't forget us when you get back, okay?" "No," Lyra said, "never." "You're going to tell them about us?" "I swear. What's your name?" But the poor girl was embarrassed and ashamed: she forgot.She covered her face and turned away. One boy said, "I want to forget better. I have forgotten my name. Some of them have been here for a long time. They still know who they are. Some children have been here for thousands of years. They Not much older than us, they have forgotten a lot, only the sunshine, and no one will forget the sun, and the wind." "Yes," said another, "tell us about it!" They clamored more and more for Lyra to tell them about the things they remembered, the sun and the wind and the sky, and the things they forgot, like how to play.She turned to Will and whispered, "What am I going to do, Will?" "tell them." "I'm afraid, after what happened before—the Harpies—" "Tell them the truth, we won't let the Harpies come near." She looked at him suspiciously, in fact, she felt terribly frightened.She turned back to the ghosts who were crowding closer. "Please!" they were murmuring, "You just came from that world! Tell us, tell us! Tell us about that world! " There was a tree not far away—just a dead trunk with bony branches jutting into the cold gray sky—and because Lyra was feeling weak, because she didn't think she could walk and talk at the same time, she walked toward that tree. to have a place to sit.The crowd of ghosts pushed and shoved, flocking aside to make way for her. As they approached the tree, Thales dropped Will's hand and motioned for him to bow his head and listen. "They're back." He said calmly. "There are more and more harpies. Are your knives ready? My wife and I try to hold them steady, but you also need to fight." Not to worry Lyra, Will released the knife from its sheath and kept his hands close to it.Thales took off again, and Lyra went to the tree and sat down on a thick root. So many dead people crowded around, pushing forward hopefully, eyes wide open, Will had to force them back to make room, but he kept Roger around because he was staring at Lyra , listening with deep affection. Lyra began to tell about the world she knew. She told how she and Roger climbed onto the roof of Jordan College to find the rook with a broken leg, how they cared for it until it could fly again; how they explored wines that were thick with dust and cobwebs cellar, tasted some white Canarian wine, Tokaj perhaps, she couldn't tell, and how drunk they were.Roger's ghost listened, proud and desperate, nodding yes and muttering, "Yes, yes! That's the way it is, that's true, yes!" Then she told them about the great battle between the Oxford men and the brick-burners. First she described the mud beds, making sure not to miss any detail she remembered, the broad ochre-colored wash pits, the shovels, the kilns like huge brick beehives.She told them about the willow trees along the river, the backs of the leaves are all silver.She told them how when the sun had been shining for more than two days, the mud began to crack into beautiful big plates with deep cracks in the middle, and pressing her fingers into those cracks with creaking creaks, she slowly lifted a dry clay plate and figured out Make it as big as possible without breaking.The underside of the dish is still wet, making it an ideal weapon for throwing people. She also described the smells around the place: the smoke from the kilns, the smell of rotting leaves and loam in the river when the south-west wind blows, the warm smell of baked potatoes that the brick-burners used to eat, the water straight across the lock Into the washpit, the slow, thick suction of people pulling their feet out of the ground, and the heavy, wet slap of the sluice agitator through the muddy water. Her descriptions engaged all their senses, and the ghosts huddled closer, feeding on her words, remembering the time when they had flesh and skin and nerves and feelings, and wishing she would go on forever. Then she told how the children of the brick-burners were always making war on the city-folk, but they were slow and dull because of the mud in their brains, and the city-folk were as quick as sparrows.One day all the townspeople put aside their previous suspicions, and after careful planning, attacked the mud bed from three sides, forcing the children of the brick-burners back to the river, throwing handfuls of solidified mud at each other, and rushed into them. The mud castle, tearing it down, turning the defensive fortress into a throwing weapon, until the air, ground and water are all mixed together, every child looks exactly the same, mud from head to toe, everyone couldn't be happier than this that's it. When she was done, she cast an exhausted look at Will, then was taken aback. Besides the silent ghosts all around and their living companions, there were other spectators, for the branches were crowded with those dark, bird-like things whose women stared down at her, solemn and fascinated. She stood up suddenly in fear, but they did not move. "You," she said in despair, "you flew at me when I was trying to tell you something, what is stopping you now? Come on, tear me with your claws and turn me into a ghost!" "We would never do that," said the harpy in the middle, who is Doe himself, "Listen to me, thousands of years ago, when the first ghost came down here, the authority gave We have a faculty that allows us to see the ugliest in everyone. Since then we have fed on the ugliest things until our blood stinks from it and our hearts retch. "But it's still the only thing we have to feed on, it's all we have, and now we learn that you're planning to open a way to the world above, and take all the ghosts out, into the air— " Her hoarse voice was drowned out by thousands of whispers, for all the ghosts who could hear her words cried out with joy and hope, but all the harpies shrieked and flapped their wings until The ghosts fell silent again. "Yes," cried the Anonymous, "take them out! Now what shall we do? I will tell you what we shall do: from now on we shall not be merciless, and we shall hurt, defile, tear and smash every A passing ghost, we'll drive them mad with fear, remorse, and self-hatred. Now it's a ruin, and we'll make it hell!" Every harpies screamed and jeered, and many flew down from the trees and flew straight at the ghosts, sending them terrified, and Lyra, clutching Will's arm, said, "Now they spill it Get out, we can't do it - they'll hate us - they'll think we've betrayed them! We've made things worse, not better!" "Be quiet," Thales said, "don't despair, call them back, let them listen to us." So Will yelled, "Come back! Come back you all! Come back and hear us!" One by one, the harpies turned and flew back up the tree, their faces eager and hungry, full of sorrowful longing, and the ghosts floated back.The knight put his dragonfly in the care of Sarmazia, and the nervous little figure in green and black hair jumped onto a rock where they could all see him. "Harpies," he said, "we can give you something better than that, answer my questions honestly, listen to me, and pass judgment. When Lyra speaks to you from outside the walls, you Pounce on her, why did you do that?" "Lies!" cried the harpies all. "Lies and illusions!" "But when she spoke just now, you all listened, every one of you, and why were you so quiet and motionless?" "Because it is true," said Anonymous, "because she speaks the truth, because it nourishes, because it feeds us, because we cannot help it, because it is true; because we know nothing but evil Anything because it brings us news of the world, of the sun, of the wind and of the rain, because it is true." "Then," Thales said, "let us make a deal with you. You don't just see the evil, cruelty, and greed of the ghosts who come down here, but from now on you have the right to call every ghost to tell you Their lives, they must truthfully tell what they saw, touched, heard, loved and known in the living world. Every ghost has its own story, and every ghost who comes here in the future will also have a story about it. The true things of the world tell you, and you will have the right to hear them, and they must tell you." Lyra marveled at the guts of the little spy, how dare he speak to these fellows as if he had the power to empower them?Any one of them could have snapped him up in an instant, crushed him in her claws, or lifted him aloft and dropped him to pieces, but there he stood, proud and fearless, Bargain with them!They listened and exchanged opinions, you looked at me and I looked at you, their voices were low. All the ghosts watched, both frightened and silent. Then Anonymous turned back. "That's not enough," she said. "We want more than that. We have a task under the old system. We have status and responsibility. We have worked hard to fulfill the orders of the authorities. We are honored for it, although Hated and feared, but with honor. What will happen to our honor now? Why should the ghosts bother us, if they can easily re-enter the world? We have our pride, you should not let It is removed, we need a place of honor! We need a duty and a task that will bring us the respect we deserve!" They moved on the branches, muttering and raising their wings, but after a while Sarmazia jumped up to join the knights, and shouted: "You are right, everyone should have a task to do, that is Very important, a task that brings them glory, a task that they can be proud of, so here is your task, and it is a task that only you can do, because you are the guardians and protectors of this place, It is your task to guide the ghosts from their landing at the lake all the way through the world of the dead to the new entrance to the world of the living. They will tell you their stories as a fair and just reward for this guidance. Do you feel How about it?" Anonymous looked at her sisters, they nodded, and she said: "If they lie, or have reservations, or have nothing to tell us, we have the right to refuse to guide them. If they live in the world of the living Here they should have the opportunity to see, touch, hear, love and learn things. Babies are the exception because they don't have time to learn anything; but others come down here with nothing and we won't lead them out .” "That's fair," Salmaqiya said, and the other travelers agreed. So they struck a deal.In exchange for what they had heard of Lyra's story, the Harpy offered to take the travelers and their knives a little closer to the world above, but that was a long way off, through tunnels and caverns , but they will lead them faithfully, and all ghosts may follow. But before they set off, a voice shouted at the top of its whispers, the ghost of a thin man with an angry, agitated expression, and cried, "What will happen in the future? Will we be born again after leaving the world of the dead?" Or will it disappear like our elves? Brothers and sisters, we shouldn't go anywhere with this kid until we know what's going to happen!" The other ghosts heeded the query: "Yes, tell us where we're going! Tell us what to expect! We won't go unless we know what's going to happen!" Lyra turned to Will in despair, but he said, "Tell them the truth, ask the alethiometer, and tell them what it says." "Okay," she said. She took out the golden instrument, and the answer came out immediately.She put it down and stood up. "It's going to be like this," she said, "and it's true, quite true. When you walk out of here, all the molecules that make you up will loosen up and float away, like your elves. If you've ever seen people die, then you will know what it is like. But your spirits are not nothing now, they are part of everything. Those atoms that used to make them go into the air, the wind, the trees, the soil, and everything alive They will never disappear, they are just a part of everything, this is what will happen to you, I swear to you, I guarantee it on my honor. You will float away, it is true, but You will go out into the void and become part of everything that lives again." No one spoke, the ghosts who had seen how the elf vanished remembered it, those who hadn't saw it imagined it, and no one spoke until a young woman who had been sacrificed centuries ago came forward. A martyr, she looked around and said, "When we were alive, they told us that when we died we would go to heaven. Spend eternity praising the Lord Almighty. That's what they say and it cost some of us our lives and some of us spend years in solitary prayer while all the joy of life is around us Desolate, we never knew it. "For this land of the dead is neither a land of reward nor a land of punishment, it is a land of nothingness, where the good and the bad come, and we all wither forever in this gloom, without hope, joy, sleep, rest without freedom or Taiping. "But now this child has come to take us out, and I'm going to go with her. Even if it means oblivion, friends, I'll welcome it, because it won't be nothingness, and we'll live again on a thousand blades of grass and on Among the billions of leaves, we will fall in the raindrops, blow in the breeze, we will shimmer in the dew, under the stars and moonlight, in the material world outside, that is our true home, and has always been is our real home. "So I urge you: go out into the sky with this kid!" But her ghost was pushed aside by the ghost of a man who looked like a monk: a thin man, too pale even for the face of a dead man, with passionate black eyes.He crossed himself, murmured a prayer, and said: "This is a bitter message, a sad and cruel joke. Can't you see the truth? This is not a child, this is an agent of evil himself!The world we once inhabited was a valley of corruption and tears, where nothing could satisfy us, but the Almighty has promised us this everlasting blessed place, this heaven.To the lost soul it seems desolate and barren, but pious eyes see it for what it is, with milk and honey flowing everywhere, and resounding with the sweet songs of angels.This is heaven, really!This evil girl promises nothing but lies, and she wants to lead you to hell!Take a risk and go with her.Piously, my companions and I shall remain in this blissful paradise, singing praises to the Almighty Lord for eternity, because He has given us the judgment to distinguish the true from the false. " He made the sign of the cross again, and he and his companions turned away in horror and disgust. Lyra was confused, was she wrong?Is she making some big mistake?She looked around: it was dark and desolate, but she had erred about the appearance of things before, and believed her because of Mrs. Coulter's beautiful smile and radiant charm.How easy it was to err, and without her genie to guide her, she might be mistaken about this too. But Will was shaking her arm, and then he put his hands in front of her, and put them there persistently. "You know that's not true," he said, "You can feel it too, ignore it! They can all see that he's lying too, and they're depending on us, come on, let's get started." She nodded. She had to trust what her body and feelings were telling her, and she knew Pan would do that. So they set off, and the countless ghosts began to follow them.Behind them, far out of sight of the children, other residents were coming to join the massive march after hearing what had happened.Thales and Sarmaquia flew back to see, and they were overjoyed to see their own people there, and every sentient species sent or killed by the authorities, and among them there was nothing like human beings creatures, and animals like Murfa that Mary Malone would have recognized, and ghosts of all kinds. But Will and Lyra didn't have the energy to look back, all they could do was walk behind the Harpy, hopeful. "Are we almost there, Will?" Lyra whispered. "Is it almost over?" He couldn't say, but they were too weak, too sick, so he said, "Yeah, it's almost over, we're almost there, we're going to be out soon."