Chapter 35 Thirty-five, the other side of the mountain and beyond

it's my birthday Here comes my love. ——Christina Rossetti [Christina Georgina Rossetti (18301894), British poet] "Dr. Malone," Lyra said in the morning, "Will and I have to find our elves, and we'll know what to do when we find them, but we can't last long without them, so we want to find them. " "Where are you going to find it?" said Mary, her eyelids heavy and her head aching from the night before. She and Laila walked on the embankment, Laila to wash and Mary to secretly look for the man's footprints. So far she hasn't found any footprints.

"Don't know," Lyra said, "but they're out there somewhere, and as soon as we came over from the field they ran off like they didn't trust us anymore, and I don't blame any of them, but we know they're here In the world, we feel like we've seen them two or three times, so maybe we can find them." "Listen," Mary told Lila reluctantly what she had seen last night. As she was talking, Will joined them, both he and Lyra listening intently, wide-eyed. "He was probably just a traveler who found a window and wandered over from some other world," Lyra said when Mary had finished.She had quite different things to think about herself, and this man was less interesting than them. "Just like Will's father did," she went on, "there must be all sorts of openings now. Anyway, if he just turned around and walked away, he couldn't possibly be trying to do something bad, right wrong?"

"I don't know, I don't have a good feeling about it, and I worry about you going out alone - or if I don't know you've done much more dangerous things than this. Oh, I don't know. But please be careful and look around. At least you can see someone coming from a long distance on the grassland..." "If we do, we'll just run away to another world, and he can't hurt us," Will said. They insisted on going, and Mary didn't want to argue any further. "At least," she said, "you promise not to go into the woods. If the man is still around, he may be hiding in a wood or bush, and you won't be able to escape until you see him in time."

"We promise," Lyra said. "Okay, I'll pack you some groceries in case you're out all day." Mary took some flatbread, cheese, and some thirst-quenching red sweets, and wrapped them in a cloth, which she tied with a string for one of them to carry on her shoulders. "Good luck with your search," she said as they left. "Please take care." Still worried, she had stood there watching them come to the foot of the hill. "I don't know why she's so sad," Will said as Will and Lyra climbed the road up the ridge. "She's probably wondering if she'll ever go home again," Laila said. "Wondering if her lab will still be hers when she goes back. Maybe she's grieving for the man she once loved."

"Well," Will said, "do you think we'll ever go home?" "I don't know, I guess I don't have a family anyway, they probably won't let me go back to Jordan College, I can't live with bears or witches, maybe I can live with gypsies. I wouldn't mind if they would take me of." "What about Lord Asriel's world? Wouldn't you like to live there?" "Remember that doesn't work," she said. "why?" "Because your father's ghost told us before we came out; he said our elves could only live long in their own world, but presumably Lord Asriel, I mean my father, might not have thought This, because no one knew enough about other worlds at the time, before he started... all that," she wondered, "all that bravery and virtuosity... all that, all wasted It's all in vain!"

They continued to climb, finding it easy to walk on the rocky surface, and when they reached the top of the ridge, they stopped and looked around. "Will," she said, "what if we can't find them?" "I'm sure I'll find it. What I'm wondering now is what my elf will look like." "You saw her, and I picked her up," Lyra said, blushing, because it was a great offense to touch something private like an elf.Not only was it banned for being indecorous, but there was an even more serious consequence - stigma.She glanced quickly at Will's cheek, the look of excitement that showed he felt exactly what she felt, and she couldn't see if he shared the half-frightened, half-excited feeling that crept over her last night. That feeling all over my body: now it's at it again.

They continued walking side by side, suddenly shy with each other.However, Will was not overwhelmed by shyness, he said: "When will your elves stop transforming?" "About... I think about our age, or a little older. Maybe a lot older sometimes. Pan and I often talk about when he's in shape.We've often wondered what he'd be like—" "Don't you know it yourself?" "You don't know when you're young, but as you get older, you start thinking, well, maybe they're going to be like this, maybe that's... usually they turn into something that fits, I mean into a real like you The look of nature. For example, if your elf is a dog, it means that you like to do what others tell you to do, know who is the boss, follow orders, and please the person in charge. Many servant elves are dogs. So it has It helps to know who you are, to find out what you are good at. How do people in your world know themselves?"

"I don't know, I don't know much about my world, all I know is keeping secrets, keeping quiet and hiding in time, so I don't know much about... grownups and friends, or lovers. I think it would be difficult to have a elf , because everyone knows you well just by taking a look. I like to be a little more hidden and unnoticed." "Then maybe your elf will be an animal that's good at hiding, or something that looks like another animal—a butterfly that looks like a bee, so good for camouflage. There must be Animals like that, because our world has them too, and our two worlds are so similar."

In a friendly silence they walked on; the surrounding valley was bathed in the still clear morning light, and the warm air was pearly blue.As far as the eye could see, the prairie rolled and shone in brown and gold and beige to the horizon, empty of people.They may be the only human beings in this world. "It's not really deserted on the prairie," Lyra said. "You mean that person?" "No, you know what I mean." "Yes, I know. I can see shadows in the grass...maybe birds," Will said. His eyes followed the scurrying figures; he found it easier to see their shadows when he wasn't looking straight at them, and they were more willing to reveal themselves to the corner of his eye.When he told this to Lyla, she said, "That's negativity."

"What is negative energy?" "That's what Keez the poet said first, and Dr. Malone knows, that's how I read the alethiometer, and that's how you use a knife, isn't it?" "Yes, I think so. But what I was thinking just now was that they might be elves." "I thought so too, but..." She put her finger to her lips, and he nodded. "Look," he said, "there's a tree down there." That was the tree Mary climbed.They walked forward cautiously, keeping their eyes on the grove in case another tree fell.In the stillness of the morning, with only a slight breeze stirring the leaves, it seemed impossible for such a giant tree to fall, but there it was.

The great trunk of the tree stood high above their heads in the grove, supported by uprooted roots and thick branches that spread across the grass.Some of the crushed and broken branches were as thick as the biggest trees Will had ever seen.The canopy was densely packed with still-sturdy boughs, still lush with leaves, which towered into the soft air like a ruined palace. Suddenly Lyra grabbed Will's arm. "Shh," she whispered, "don't look. I'm sure they're up there, I see something moving, I swear it's Pan..." Her hand was warm, and he knew that much more than the mass of foliage above their heads.He pretended to stare blankly at the horizon, and diverted his attention to that vast patch of green, brown, and blue in the distance, where—she was right! —There is something that is not a tree, and there is another beside it. "Go away," Will said in a low voice, "let's go somewhere else and see if they come with us." "If they don't...no, okay," Lyra whispered back. They pretended to look around, grabbed a branch hanging on the ground with their hands, as if they wanted to climb up, then pretended to change their minds, shook their heads and walked away. "If only I could look back," Lyra said after walking a few hundred yards. "Just keep going, they can see us, they won't get lost, and they will come to us when they want to." They left the dark road and walked into the knee-deep grass, whistling and sweeping their legs among the grass stems, watching the insects hovering, flying, flapping, and passing, and listening to countless voices singing and singing together. tweet. "What are your plans, Will?" Lyra said quietly after they had walked some distance in silence. "Well, I have to go home," he said. Still, she thought he sounded uncertain.She hoped he wasn't sure. "But they might still be after you," she said, "those people." "But we've seen worse things than them." "Yes, that's what I was thinking...but I want to show you Jordan College, and the inhabitants of the swamp, I want us to go together..." "Yes," he said, "I would like to...even go to Magpie City again, it's a beautiful place, and if the monsters are gone...but I still have my mother, I have to go back Take care of her, I just handed her over to Mrs Cooper, it's not fair to either of them." "But it's not fair to you to do so." "Yes," he said, "but that's another kind of injustice, like an earthquake or a torrential rain, it may be unfair, but no one can blame it, but if I just throw my mother into a body of my own Bad old lady, that injustice is different, it's wrong, I have to go home. But it's probably hard to go back the way we are now, and that secret is probably out by now, I reckon Mrs Cooper will take care not her. It's impossible for my mother to care for her when she's in that horrific situation, so she'll probably need help, and when I go back, I'll be institutionalized. " "No! An institution like an orphanage?" "I think they're going to do it, I don't know; I'm going to hate it." "You can run away with that knife, Will! You can come to my world!" "I still belong to that world, where I can be with her. When I grow up, I can take good care of her in my own home, and then no one can interfere with us." "Do you think you're going to get married?" He was silent for a long time, but she knew he was thinking. "I can't see that far," he said. "The other person has to be someone who can... I don't think there will be someone like that in my world. Will you marry?" "Me too," she said, her voice unsteady. "Won't marry anyone in my world, I think." They continued to walk slowly towards the horizon, and they had the time of this world: all the time this world had. After a while, Lyra said, "You'll keep the knife, won't you? Then you can visit my world?" "Of course, I'm sure I'm not going to give it to anyone, ever." "Don't look—" she said without changing her pace. "There they are again, on the left." "They followed us," Will said happily. "Hush!" "I always thought they would. OK, let's go ahead and pretend now, wandering around, pretending to be looking for them, and we're going to search all kinds of boring places." This becomes a game.They found a pond, searched in the weeds and mud, and cried out that the elves must have taken the shape of frogs, or water-beetles, or snails.They stripped the bark of a long-fallen tree at the edge of a grove of threadwood and pretended to see the two elves crawling under the skin in the form of earwigs Lyra said she stepped on an ant , Then deliberately yelled, sympathized with its wounds, said that its face was exactly that of Pan, and pretended to be sad and asked why it refused to talk to her. But when she thought the elves really couldn't hear them, she leaned closer to Will and whispered eagerly, "We had to leave them, didn't we? We really had no other choice?" "Yes, we had to. It was harder for you than it was for me, but we had no choice at all. Because you made a promise to Roger, you must keep your word." "You must speak to your father again..." "We have to get them all out." "Yes, we had to, and I'm glad we did, and Pam will be happy one day, when I'm dead. We won't be apart, and it's a good thing we did." As the sun rose higher in the sky and the air became warmer, they began to seek shade.Towards noon they came to a slope leading to the crest of a ridge, and when they reached the crest, Lyra fell down on the grass with a thump and said, "Well! If we don't find someone soon Shady place..." On the other side of the ridge was a valley with thick bushes, so they guessed there might be a brook there. They walked down the ridge and came to the top of the valley.There, among the ferns and reeds, there really was a brook babbling through the rocks. They dipped their hot faces in the water, drank happily, and walked down the creek, watching it merge into little eddies and pour down from small rock formations, getting fuller and fuller. width. "What's going on?" Lyra marveled. "There's no more water coming, but there's so much more water here than up there." Will watched the shadows out of the corner of his eye and saw them slip ahead, skipping the ferns and disappearing into the bushes below.He silently pointed to her. "It's just running a little slower," he said, "not as fast as it was when the spring came out, so it pools in these ponds...and they get in there." He pointed to a grove at the foot of the hill, and whispered Say. Lyra's heart was beating so hard that she could feel the pulse throbbing in her throat.She and Will exchanged a look, a strangely formal and earnest look, and walked down the creek.As they descended the valley, where the undergrowth grew denser, and the creeks flowed into green trenches and emerged in dappled open space, only to roll over a spout into the green jungle, they had to hear and Watching for it. At the foot of the hill it emptied into a grove of silverbark trees. Father Gomez watched from the top of the ridge, and it wasn't hard to follow them, and despite Lyra's confidence in the open savannah, there were plenty of hiding places in the grass, and the occasional threadwood and sap-painted bushes. .At first, the two teenagers kept looking around, as if they sensed that someone was following them, and he had to keep a certain distance, but as the morning passed, they became more and more immersed in each other, and no longer paid so much attention to the surrounding scene . He didn't want to hurt the boy, he was afraid of hurting an innocent person.The only way to spot his target was to get close enough to see her, which meant following them into the woods. He walked carefully and silently down the creek, his greenbacked beetle sprite flying ahead, watching the air for movement.Her eyesight was not as good as his, but her sense of smell was very keen, and she clearly caught the smell of the flesh of those two young men.She would fly a little ahead, wait for him on a stalk of grass, and then fly on again.As she catches the traces of their bodies in the air, Father Gomez realizes that he is praising God for this mission, as it becomes clearer that this boy and girl are walking into deadly sin. . There she was: the dark blonde in motion was the girl's hair.He moved a little closer, drawing his rifle.There is a telescopic sight on the gun: low firepower, but beautifully crafted, so that the view through it feels wide and clear.Yes, there she was, she stopped, looked back, and he saw the look on her face, and he couldn't understand how someone so sinful could look so radiant with hope and happiness. Confused, he couldn't help hesitating for a moment, and then the feeling disappeared.Both children went into the woods and disappeared.Well, they wouldn't go very far, and he crouched down the creek with them, his rifle in one hand and his balance on the other. Success was now so close that for the first time he realized he was wondering what he was going to do next: whether he should go back to Geneva, or stay in this world, spreading Christianity and pleasing the Kingdom of Heaven.The first thing to do here is to convince those four-legged fellows who seem to have a superficial sense that their habit of riding on wheels is abominable, evil, and against the will of God.Get them off the wheel and they will be saved. He reached the foot of the hill, where the trees began, and quietly lowered the gun. He gazed at the silver, green, and gold figure, and listened with his hands behind his ears to catch and focus any slight sound of speech through the merry chirping of insects and the murmur of a brook. Yes: they were there, they stopped. He stooped to pick up the rifle—and suddenly he heard himself let out a hoarse cry, gasping for breath as something grabbed his daemon and dragged her away from him. But there is nothing there!where is sheThe pain was great, and he heard her cry, and he ran frantically left and right, looking for her. "Don't move," said a voice in the air, "be still, your spirit is in my hands." "But—where are you? Who are you?" "My name is Balthamos," said the voice. Will and Lyra followed the creek into the woods, walking cautiously, talking very little, until they were right in the middle of the woods. In the middle of the grove there was a little open space, covered with soft grass and moss-covered rocks, with crossed branches overhead, almost covering the sky, and leaking in the spotty, shifting sunlight that eclipsed everything. All gilded with mottled gold and silver. There was silence all around, only the gurgling sound of the brook and the occasional rustling of the tall leaves by the breeze, breaking the tranquility. Will put down the food bag, Lyra put down her little rucksack, there was no sign of the elf anywhere, it was just the two of them. They took off their shoes and socks, sat on the moss-covered rocks by the stream, dipped their feet in the cold water, and felt its impact set their blood alive. "I'm hungry," Will said. "I'm hungry, too," Lyra said, though she felt more than that, something urgent and repressed, half happiness, half pain, that she wasn't sure what it was. They opened the cloth bag and ate some bread and cheese.For some reason their hands were slow and clumsy, and they barely tasted the food, even though the bread was floury and crispy on a hot baking stone, and the cheese was sliced ​​and salty , very fresh. Then Laila took out one of those little red berries.With a beating heart, she turned to him and said, "Will..." She gently brought the fruit to his mouth. She could see in his eyes that he understood her at once, and was too happy for words. Her fingers were still on his lips, and he felt their trembling, and he raised his own to take hers, and then they couldn't look at each other; they were bewildered, blissful . Like two moths, they came together awkwardly and pressed their lips lightly.Then, without knowing how it all happened, they hugged each other tightly, pressing their faces to each other eagerly. "Like Mary said—" he murmured—"when you like someone, you know it right away—when you fell asleep on the hill, before she took you away, I told Pan— —” "I heard it," she whispered, "I was awake and I wanted to tell you the same thing, and now I know how I've felt for so long: I love you, Will, I love you—" The word love set his nerves on fire, his whole body was aroused by it, and he answered her with the same words, kissing her hot face again and again, sucking the smell of her body, her warm breath with admiration. Hair that smelled of honey and her sweet, moist lips that smelled like little red fruits. There was nothing around them, just silence, as if the whole world was holding its breath. Balthamos was terrified. He walked up the creek, out of the woods, holding the scratching and biting insect spirit in his hand, trying to hide himself from the stumbling and relentless pursuit. He can't let him catch up, he knows that Father Gomez can kill him in one fell swoop, an angel of his level is not a human opponent, even an angel with a strong body is not his opponent, let alone Balthimos Neither.Plus, he's so weakened by grieving for Baruch and abandoning Will earlier, he doesn't even have the strength to fly. "Stop, stop," said Father Gomez, "please don't go, I can't see you—let's talk, please—don't hurt my genie, I beg—" In fact, it was the elf who was hurting Balthamos, and the angel could vaguely see the little green thing through the back of his clenched hand as she bit her powerful mouth into his palm again and again.If he opened his hand even for a moment, she would run away.Balthamos did not let go. "This way," he said, "come with me, out of the woods, I want to talk to you, this is no place." "But who are you? I can't see you, come closer—I can't see you, how do I know who you are? Stop, don't go so fast!" But going fast was Balthamus's only defense, and he tried to ignore the stinging elf, picking his way up the small valley where the brook flowed, and from rock to rock. Then he made a mistake: trying to look back, he slipped and one foot fell into the water. "Ah." Father Gomez uttered a low cry of contentment at the sight of the splash. Balthamos drew his foot back at once and went on—but now every time he put his foot down, a wet mark appeared on the dry rock, and the priest saw it, jumped forward, and felt it in his hand. Friction with feathers. He stopped in amazement: the word angel echoed in his head, and Balthamos seized the moment to stumble forward again, the priest felt someone grab him behind him, and at the same time there was a sharp shock. The pain gripped his heart. Balthamos turned back and said, "Go a little further, to the top of the ridge, and we'll talk, I promise you." "Talk here! You just stop where you are now, and I swear I won't touch you!" The angel didn't answer: it was too hard to concentrate.He had to divide his attention into three directions: to avoid the man behind, to see the way ahead, and to guard against this angry elf that was biting his hand. As for the priest, his brain was racing.A truly dangerous opponent would kill his elf immediately, and it would be the end of the matter right then and there: so the opponent is afraid to strike. With this in mind, Gomez stumbled, then groaned in agony and begged once or twice to stop—he had actually been watching carefully, trying to get closer, trying to figure out how big the angel was. , how fast you can go, which side you are looking at. "Please," he said brokenly, "you don't know how much this hurts—I'm not going to hurt you—can we just stop and talk?" He didn't want to get too far from the woods, they were now at the head of the creek, and he could see the shape of Balthamos' feet pressing very lightly on the grass, and the priest had carefully observed every inch along the way, and he was now sure that the angel stood there. Balthamos turned, and the priest raised his eyes to see what he thought was the face of the angel, and saw him for the first time: it was only a glint in the air, but he was not mistaken. He wasn't close enough to reach the angel, in fact, the angel's tug on his daemon made him painful and weak, maybe he should take another step or two... "Sit down," Balthamos Say, "Sit down where you are and don't come any closer." "What do you want?" Father Gomez said without moving. "What do I want? I want to kill you, but I don't have the strength." "Are you an angel?" "So what?" "You may be mistaken, and we may be on one side." "No, we're not. I've been following you, and I know which side you're on—no, no, don't move. Stay there." "It's too late to repent, even an angel allows that. Let me hear your repentance." "Oh, Baruch, help me!" Balthamos cried out in despair, and turned away. As he yelled, Father Gomez sprang at him, hitting the angel with his shoulder, knocking Balthamos off balance, and letting go of the insect sprite as the angel stretched out a hand to save himself, The beetle broke free and flew away, and Father Gomez felt a surge of relief and strength.In fact, what he never expected was that it was this collision that cost him his life.He flung himself so hard at the pale figure of the angel, expecting to meet such a great resistance that he could not control his balance.His foot slipped, and the inertia caused him to fall towards the creek. Balthamos, who was thinking about what Baruch would do, kicked aside the priest's raised hand for support. Father Gomez fell hard, cracked his head against a rock, and fell face-down into the water with staring eyes. Trying to get to his feet, the desperate Balthamos ignored the sprite's stings on his face, eyes, and mouth, and with what little strength he had, he pushed the priest's head into the water, held it there, and held it there. There, press there. Balthamos only let go when the elf suddenly disappeared.That person is dead.As soon as Balthamus was sure that he was dead, he dragged the body out of the stream, laid it carefully on the grass, folded the priest's hands on his breast, and closed his eyes. Then Balthamos rose to his feet, sick, tired, and full of pain. "Baruch," he said, "oh, Baruch, honey, there's nothing more I can do. Will and the girl are safe, and everything will be fine, but it's the end of my life, but really I will die when you die, Baruch, my love." After a while, he was gone. In the bean field, Mary, who was drowsy in the late heat wave, heard Atal's voice. She couldn't tell whether it was panic or excitement: Did another tree fall?Did the guy with the rifle show up? look!look!Atal was talking, nuzzling her pocket, so Marie took out the telescope and aimed it at the sky, as her friend said. Tell me what it's doing!"I can feel the difference, but I can't see it," Attar said.The terrible torrent of dust in the sky stopped flowing, it was not static, and Mary scanned the whole sky with her amber lens, and saw a dust stream here, a whirlpool there, and another whirlpool farther away, in perpetual motion. , but it no longer flows away, in fact, if anything, it is falling like snowflakes. She thought of the wheel tree: the flowers that bloom upward drink the golden rain.Mary could almost feel the welcome in the thirsty throats of the flowers, for which they had formed such perfect shapes that they had longed for it. Those two young men.Attar said. Telescope in hand, Mary turns to see Will and Lyra returning.There was still some distance between them, and they were unhurried, holding hands, talking together, heads together, forgetting everything else, and she could see that even at this distance. She almost brought the telescope to her eyes, but she withdrew her hand and put it in her pocket.No need for binoculars, she knew what she would see.They will look as though they are made of living gold, and they will show the true image of humanity once they acquire the genetic traits of their ancestors. Dust pouring down from the stars finds a living home again, and these love-infiltrated children who are no longer children are what make it all happen.