Chapter 26 Twenty-six, the abyss

the sun left the darkness discover a fresher morning A beautiful moon blooms on a clear, cloudless night... —William Blake It was pitch black, with overwhelming darkness weighing heavily on Lyra's eyes, making her almost feel like she was carrying a thousand tons of rocks, the only light coming from the glowing tail of Lady Salmachia's dragonfly, which even This light, too, was fading, for the poor insects could find no food in the world of the dead, and the knight's dragonfly had died some time ago. So Thales sat on Will's shoulder and Lyra held Lady's dragonfly in her arms while Lady comforted it, whispering to the trembling steed, feeding it first biscuit crumbs and then another. her own blood.

If Lyra saw her doing this, she would offer her own blood, because she had more, but she could only keep her feet on the road and avoid hitting her head with the low rocks overhead. The Harpy Anonymous took them to a group of caves, saying that through here they could reach the place where the world of the dead is closest to other worlds, and from this place they could open a window to another world, and behind them were countless to ghosts.The tunnel is full of whispers, the front encourages the back, the brave inspires the cowardly, the old encourages the young. "Is it far, Anonymous?" Lyra whispered, "because the poor dragonfly is dying, and then its light will go out."

The harpies stopped, turned, and said, "Just follow along. If you can't see, listen; if you can't hear, touch." Her eyes gleamed fiercely in the dim light.Lila nodded and said, "Yes, I will, but I'm not as strong as I used to be, and I'm not brave, not very brave anyway, please don't stop, I'll follow you—we all will Follow you. Please keep going, Anonymous." The harpy turned and walked on again, the dragonfly's light was dimming by the minute, and Lyra knew it would soon be completely extinguished. But as she staggered forward, a voice sounded beside her—a familiar voice.

"Lyla--Lyla, boy..." She turned around happily. "Mr. Scoresby! Oh, it's so good to hear your voice! It's you, I can see, it's just—oh, I wish I could touch you!" In the dim light, she saw the thin figure and mocking smile of the Texan balloonist, and her hand stretched out involuntarily, but in vain. "Me too, baby. But listen to me—they're making some trouble out there, and it's for you—don't ask me how I know. Is this the boy with the knife?" Will had been watching him, eager to meet Lyra's old friend, but now his eyes were looking away from Lee, to the ghost beside him.Lila knew immediately who he was, and marveled at the grown-up version of Will—the same protruding jaw, the same head held high.

Will couldn't say a word, but his father said, "Listen - there's no time for this - just do what I say. Now grab the knife and find Lyra with a lock of her hair cut off. place." His tone was urgent, and Will didn't waste time asking why; Lyra's eyes widened, and she held the dragonfly up with one hand while stroking her hair with the other. "No," Will said, "take your hand away—can't see." In the dim light, he could see it: just above her left temple, a small patch of hair was shorter than the rest. "Who did that?" Lyra said, "and—"

"Shh," Will said, asking his father's ghost, "what should I do?" "Cut those short hairs down to the scalp and gather each one carefully. Not a single one is left out. Then open up another world—any one—put the hairs in, then close them up, and do it now, immediately." The harpies watched, and the ghosts from behind pressed forward, and Lyra could see their blurred faces in the gloom, frightened and bewildered.She stood there biting her lip while Will did what his father told him to do.His face pressed against the point of the knife in the dim light of the dragonfly, he cut a small space in the rock of another world, put all his thin golden hair in it, put it back on the rock, and closed the window .

Then the ground began to shake, and from somewhere deep there was a booming and grinding sound, as if the whole center of the earth was spinning on itself like a great millstone, and small stones began to fall from the roof of the cave, and the ground suddenly fell sideways. Leaning, Will grabs Lyra's arm, and they hold each other tightly as the rocks sway and slide beneath them, loose stones clattering past them, scraping their legs and feet— —The two children covered the Galliferspin, lay down with their arms around their heads, and after a quick slide, they found themselves on the lower left side; they hugged each other tightly, out of breath, I was so shocked that I couldn't even cry out.Their ears were filled with the roar of thousands of tons of rock rolling down with them.

Finally, they stopped falling, though the smaller rocks around them still tumbled, and leaping down this slope that didn't exist a minute ago, Lyra lay on Will's left arm, and Will felt for the knife with his right. : The knife is still on the belt. "Thales? Sarmacia?" Will asked, his voice trembling. "We are all here, all alive," said the knight near his ear. The air was filled with dust, and the smell of smokeless gunpowder of smashed rocks made it difficult to breathe and blind: the dragonflies were dead. "Mr. Scoresby?" Lyra said. "We can't see anything... what happened?"

"I'm here." Li said next to him. "I guess the bomb went off, I guess it missed." "Bomb?" Lyra said fearfully, but then she said, "Roger—are you there?" "Yes," came the low whisper, "Mr. Perry saved me. I was about to fall and he caught me." "Look," said John Perry's ghost, "but hold on to the rock, don't move." The dust was settling, and from somewhere there was a glint of light: a strange dim golden light that fell around them like shimmering mist.It was enough to fire fear into their hearts, for it illuminated to their left that place where everything tumbled or flowed, like a river connected to a waterfall.

It was a huge black void, like a shaft inserted into the deepest darkness, and the golden light flowed into it and disappeared.They could see the other side, but Will couldn't get far enough to throw a rock through it.To their right, a rocky slope, loose and rickety, rose high into the dusty gloom. The children and their companions were clinging to what wasn't even a ledge--only barely able to let their hands and feet go--on the edge of an abyss, with no way out but forward: along Slopes, crawling among splashing rock blocks and crumbling boulders that seem to rumble down at the slightest touch.

Behind them, as the dust cleared, more and more ghosts stared in horror at the abyss, sprawled on the slope, too frightened to move.Only the harpies were not afraid. They soared above them with their wings up, scanning back and forth, flying back to reassure those still in the cave, and then flying forward to find a way out. Lyra checked: at least the alethiometer was safe.Suppressing her fear, she looked around, spotted Roger's little face, and said, "Then keep going, we're still here, we're not hurt, and at least we can see now, so keep going, keep going Well, we have no other way out but to walk around this edge..." She gestured toward the abyss, "So just keep going, I swear Will and I will keep walking until we get there, so don't be afraid, don't give up, don't fall behind. Tell the others, I can't keep looking back, Since I have to see the road ahead, I'm sure you will follow us closely, okay?" The little ghost nodded.Thus, in shock and silence, the great procession of the dead began their journey along the brink of the abyss.How long it will take, Lyra and Will don't know, and the horrors and dangers of the journey will be ones they will never forget.The darkness below is so deep that it seems to be pulling their sights inward, and when they look down, a terrible sense of dizziness hovers above their minds.They kept their eyes on the front as hard as they could, on this rock, on that pedal, on this overhanging ledge, and avoided that slope of loose pebbles; they tried to keep their eyes off the ravine, but it pulled, tempted Then they couldn't help but glance in; just a glance would feel the center of gravity tilting, the eyes wandering, and the terrible feeling of dizziness and nausea clutching their throats. From time to time the living looked back and saw the endless procession of the dead snaking out of the crack through which they had passed: mothers with babies' faces buried in their breasts, elderly fathers climbing slowly, little children Clutching the skirts of the people in front, the little boys and girls around Roger's age remained firm and cautious. There were so many of them... and they all followed Will and Lyla, which showed that they were still looking forward to, looking forward to that freedom. air. But some didn't trust them, and they huddled tightly behind the line, and both children felt cold hands strangling their hearts and internal organs, and heard their vicious whispers: "Where is the world up there?" ? How far away?" "We're terrified here!" "We shouldn't have come at all—at least a little light and some company in the world of the dead—and now it's much worse!" "You did a wrong thing by coming to our world! You should stay in your own world and wait until you die before coming down to disturb us!" "Why do you lead us? You are just children! Who gave you this right?" Will wanted to turn around and accuse them, but Lyra grabbed his arm, and she said they were unhappy and scared. Then Madame Salmachia spoke, and her clear, calm voice carried far in the boundless void. "Be brave, friends! Stay together and keep going! The road is hard, but Lyra will find it. Take it easy and be happy, we'll get you out, don't be afraid!" After hearing this, Lyra felt herself strengthened, which was what the lady really meant, and they continued their painful and laborious trudge forward. "Will," Lyra said after a moment, "can you hear the wind?" "I can hear it," Will said, "but I can't feel it at all, and let me tell you something about that hole down there, it's like the thing I cut a window, same side, kind of There's something special about the sides, once touched and never forgotten, and I can see it there, right there where the rock falls into the darkness, but the great space below, doesn't belong to a world like other worlds; It's not the same, I don't like it, I wish I could lock it up." "You don't close every window you make." "Yes, because some of them I can't close. But I know I should close them. If they're open something will happen, and one that big..." He gestured down, not wanting to look down. "That's not right, bad things will happen." While they were talking together, another conversation was going on not far away: Knight Thales was quietly talking with the ghosts of Lee Scoresby and John Perry. "What are you talking about?" Lee said. "You're saying we shouldn't be stepping out into the free air? Dude, every part of me is dying to rejoin the universe of the living!" "Yes, so do I," said Will's father, "but I believe that if those of us who have been battle-hardened manage to keep ourselves alive, we may be able to side with Lord Asriel and throw ourselves into battle." If it had come at the right time, maybe everything would have been different." "Ghosts?" Thales said, trying to hide the suspicion in his voice, but failing. "How can you fight a war?" "Yes, we have no lethality. But Asriel's troops also have to fight other types of enemies." "Those monsters," Lee said. "Exactly, they attack elves, don't they? Our elves are long gone. It's worth a try, Lee." "Well, I agree with you, my friend." "And you, sir," said John Perry's ghost to the knight, "I have spoken to the ghosts of your people, and you will live long enough to see it again before you die and come here as a ghost world?" "Oh, our lives are short compared to yours, and I have only a few days to live," said Thales. "Lady Salmachia may be a little longer, but thanks to what those two children are doing now thing, we as ghosts are not permanently exiled, and helping them makes me feel proud." As they walked on, the hideous chasm gaped open.A small slip, a foot on a loose rock, or a careless hand can send you down forever.It's so deep down, Laila thought, that you'll starve to death before you reach the bottom, and then your poor ghost will keep falling and falling until you're in that endless chasm with no one to help you, no hand to reach out. Go down and lift you up, you'll be awake forever, fall forever... Oh, wouldn't that be scarier than this dark, silent world they're leaving? Then a strange idea appeared in her mind.The fear of falling made Lyra feel dizzy, and she swayed.Will was in front of her, too far out of reach, or she might have grabbed his hand, but Roger was more on her mind at the time.A small flame of ego flickered in her: once on the roof of Jordan College, just to frighten him, she challenged her vertigo to walk over the edge of a stone ditch. She looked back now to remind him that she was Roger's Lyra, full of grace and daring, and that she didn't need to crawl like an insect. But the little boy's voice murmured, "Lyra, beware—remember, you're not dead like us—" Things seemed to be happening so slowly, but there was nothing she could do: her center of gravity shifted, the stone shifted under her feet, and she began to slide helplessly.Her first reaction was annoyance, then amused: how stupid she thought she was!But when she's not holding on to anything at all, when the rock rolls and rolls under her, when she's sliding towards the edge of the cliff, faster and faster, the fear hits suddenly, she's going to fall, there's nothing Things can stop, it's too late. Her body convulsed with fear, she didn't realize that the ghosts were plunging down to try to grab her, but felt herself falling between them like a stone falling through the mist.She knew Will was calling her name, so loudly that it echoed in the abyss.Instead, her whole being became a vortex of extreme fear, and she rolled down faster and faster, lower and lower, and some ghosts couldn't bear to look any longer: they covered their eyes and yelled loudly. Will felt like a horrible electric shock, and he watched in agony as Lyra slid further and further away, knowing that there was nothing he could do to help, that he could only watch.He couldn't hear his own desperate wail as much as she did, and two seconds later—a second later—she was on the edge of the abyss, she couldn't stop, she slipped there, she Falling down—in the darkness, the bird that had grabbed her scalp with its claws not long ago swooped down, and the harpies with a woman's face and a bird's body, Anonymous, tightly grasped her with the same two claws. her wrist.Together they continued to fall, the harpy's strong wings barely able to bear the extra weight, but they flapped and flapped, talons clenched, slowly, heavily, slowly, heavily, the hawk The banshee brought Lyra out of the abyss bit by bit, and sent her limp and dazed into Will's open arms. He hugged her tightly, pressing her against his chest, feeling her heart beating wildly against his ribs. At that moment, she wasn't Lyra, and he wasn't Will, she wasn't a girl, and he wasn't a boy, the only two humans in that great valley of death.They hugged each other tightly, and the ghosts gathered around, whispering comfort and blessing the harpies.Standing closest were Will's father and Lee Scoresby, who wanted to hug her too.Thales and Sarmazia talked to the Harpy, and praised her, and called her the savior of them all, the savior of generosity, God bless her goodness. As soon as Lyra was able to move, she threw her arms tremblingly around the banshee's neck and kissed and kissed her slashed face, and she was speechless, all words, all confidence, all vanity fell She was shaken out. They remained silent for a while, setting off again as soon as their fears began to subside.Will grabbed Lyra's hand tightly with his good hand and crawled forward slowly, checking each step carefully before shifting his weight there. The process was so slow and tiring that they themselves thought they would die of exhaustion, but they couldn't rest, they couldn't stop, who could rest with that terrible ravine beneath them? After another hour of hard work, he said to her: "Look ahead, I think there is a way out..." And it was true: the slope was getting gentler, and it was even possible to climb up and out from the edge a little bit, and the front , isn't there a groove on the cliff wall?Would that be a way out? Lyra looked into Will's bright, strong eyes and smiled. They continued to climb forward, higher and higher, and each step was farther and farther away from the abyss. As they crawled, they found that the ground became more and more solid, the place to hold hands was more and more firm, and the place to step on was less and less tight. Easy to roll over and sprain ankles. "We must have climbed quite a distance by now," said Will, "I can try the knife and see what I find." "Not yet," said the harpies. "Going forward, this place is not easy to cut, and there are better places above." They moved on quietly, hands, feet, center of gravity, moving, probing, hands, feet... Their fingers were worn out, their knees and hips trembled from the exertion, their heads ached and dizzy from exhaustion.They climbed the last few feet to the foot of the cliff, where a narrow defile jutted into shadows not far away. Lyra watched with aching eyes as Will took out the knife and started searching, touching, backing, searching, touching again in the air. "Ah," he said. "You found open space?" "I think so..." "Will," said his father's ghost, "stop a moment and listen to me." Will put down the knife and turned around.He hadn't been able to think of his father when he had concentrated on climbing before, but it was comforting to know that he was by his side.It dawned on him that they were breaking up for good. "What happens when you go out?" Will said. "Did you just disappear?" "Not yet, Mr Scoresby and I have an idea that some of us are going to be here for a while, and we're going to need you to let us into Lord Asriel's world, because he might need our help. Besides," he continued, looking sullenly at Lyra, "you're going to need to get there yourself. If you want to get your daemon back." "But, Mr. Perry," said Lyra, "how do you know our elves have entered my father's world?" "I was a shaman in my life and knew how to see things in the future. Ask your alethiometer—it will confirm what I say. You must remember where the spirits go," he said, his voice serious and powerful, "The man you know is called Charles. Sir Latrome returns periodically to his own world; he cannot permanently reside in mine, the Tower of Angels that has traveled between worlds for over three hundred years Scholars at the Philosophers' Society found themselves confronted with this fact, and as a result their world gradually became weaker and weaker. "And then there's what happened to me, I started out as a soldier, a naval officer, then I became an explorer, as strong and healthy as anyone else, and then I accidentally stepped out of my own world and couldn't find To the way back; I did a lot of things in that world, learned a lot, but got a fatal disease ten years after I arrived in that world. "The same is true of all: your elves live well only in the world in which they were born, and elsewhere it eventually gets sick and dies. We can travel, if there is access to other worlds, but We can only live in our own world, the great cause of Lord Asriel will eventually fail for the same reason: we have to establish the Republic of Paradise where we are, because there is no other place for us . "Will, my boy, you and Lyra can go out now for a short break, you need to rest, you should rest, but then you must take one last trip with me and Mr Scoresby back into the dark .” Will and Lyla looked at each other.Then he cut a window, and it was the most beautiful thing they had ever seen. The night air filled their lungs, fresh and clean and cool, and their eyes were drawn to a sky full of stars, sparkling water somewhere below, and here and there forests, high as castles, dotted with On the wide prairie. Will made the exit as large as possible, and moved the grass to the left and right, so that the opening was big enough for six or seven people to walk side by side at the same time, out of the world of the dead. The ghosts ahead trembled with hope, and their excitement rippled back to the long line behind them.Young children and old parents looked up and ahead in delight and wonder, as the stars they had seen for centuries reflected in the hungry, pitiful eyes. The first ghost to leave the world of the dead was Roger, who took a step forward, turned and looked back at Lyra, and when he found himself melting into the night, the stars, the air...he smiled in amazement, then disappeared, Leaving behind a tiny but vivid ray of happiness that reminded Will of the bubbles in a champagne flute. The other ghosts followed him, and Will and Lyra lay exhausted on the dewy grass, every nerve in their bodies blessing the sweetness of this wonderful world, the night air and the stars.