Chapter 37 Thirty-seven sand dunes

My soul does not seek eternal life But exhausted as much as possible. —Pindar (ancient Greek poet) Will and Lyra were both out again the next day, talking little and eager to be alone with each other.They look delirious, as if some blissful event has robbed them of their wits, they move slowly, their eyes are not focused on what they are looking at. They stayed all day on the empty hills, and in the afternoon they visited their gold and silver groves in the scorching heat, and they talked, bathed, ate, kissed, and murmured in a swoon of bliss, making sounds that matched their As confused as consciousness is, they feel themselves being melted by love.

In the evening, they dined with Mary and Quental, and said little; and as it was very hot, they thought of walking to the sea, where they thought there might be a cool breeze.They walked along the river until they came to the open beach, bright in the moonlight, and the low tide was turning. They were lying in the soft sand at the foot of the dunes, when they heard the first bird call. They both turned their heads away immediately, because the bird's voice didn't belong to the world they were in. A graceful chant came from somewhere above the darkness, and another echoed it from a different direction.Will and Lyra jumped up for joy, trying to see the singing bird, but all they could see was a pair of black flying figures soaring low and then into the sky, all the while using The rich, mellow silver bell-like tone sang a song full of infinite changes without stopping.

Then, with a flap of wings kicking up a small mound of sand, the first bird landed a few yards away. Lyra said, "Pan—?" He was shaped like a dove, but so dark that it was difficult to see in the moonlight, but he was clearly visible on the white sand anyway.Another bird was still circling overhead, still singing, and then she flew down to join him: it was another dove, but pearly white with a pinch of crimson feathers on the crest. Will knew what it was like to see his elf.As she flew down onto the sand, he felt his heart tighten and relax in a way he'd never forget.More than sixty years later, when he was old and old, he would still experience those feelings as clearly and vividly as ever: Lyra's fingers under the honeysuckle put the fruit into his lips, her warm lips pressed against him. His lips, his daemon torn from his unknowing chest as they entered the world of the dead, the sweetness and comfort of her coming back to him by the moonlit dunes.

Lyra moved toward them, but Pantalaimon spoke. "Laila," he said, "Serafina Pekkala came to us last night and she told us all kinds of things, and she's gone back to bring the gypsies here. Fard? Colum's coming, and Lord Faa, they'll come here—" "Pam," she said sadly, "oh, Pen, you're unhappy—what's the matter? What's the matter?" Then he changed shape and turned into a snow-white mink running towards her across the sand.The other elf was also transfigured - Will felt it happening, like a slight tug in the heart - into a cat.

Before coming to him, she spoke.She said: "The wizard gave me a name, I didn't need a name before, she called me Kiriava, but listen, now listen to us..." "Yes, you must listen," said Pantalaimon, "it is very difficult to explain." Together the two of them managed to relay to Will and Lila everything Serafina told them, beginning with the revelation of the children's own nature: about how they and the elf had unknowingly become witch-like with separate but Still retaining the ability to be one. "But it's not all about that," Kiriava said.

Pantalaimon said, "Oh, Lyra, forgive us, but we have to tell you what we found..." Laila was puzzled, when did Pan ever need to forgive?She looked at Will, who was clearly as confused as she was. "Tell us," he said, "don't be afraid." "It's about the dust," said the cat spirit, and Will was surprised to hear a part of himself tell him something he didn't know. "It's going to flow all the way, all the dust, into that abyss you've seen, but now there's something holding it back, but—" "Will, it's the golden light!" Lyra said. "It's the light that all flowed into that abyss and disappeared... that's the dust? Is it true?"

"Yes, but there is still more dust leaking out all the time." Pantalaimon went on, "it shouldn't leak, it doesn't leak, it's vital; it has to stay in the world , otherwise, all good things fade and die." "But where did the rest of the dust get off?" Lyra said. Both elves looked at Will and Will's knife. "Every time we make an incision," Kiriava said, Will felt that little tremor again: she is me, I am her—"Anyone, us, or the Society of Philosophers, anyone Every time man makes a hole between worlds, the knife cuts into the void outside, the same void as that below the abyss. But we don't know, no one knows, because the edge is too thin to see, but Big enough for the dust to leak out of it. If they shut it up immediately, the dust wouldn't have a chance to leak out much, but there are thousands of them that never close. So dust has been leaking out of the world for so long, into nothingness."

Will and Lyra began to understand, and they fought it, pushed it away, but it was just like the gray light that seeped into the sky and extinguished the stars: Sneaking under every shutter that was drawn and beside every curtain. "Every slit," Lyra murmured. "Every opening—they all have to be closed?" Will said. "Every opening," Pantalaimon murmured like Lyra. "Oh, no," said Lyra, "no, it can't be true—" "So we have to leave our world and stay in Laila's world," Kiriava said, "or Pan and Laila have to leave their world and stay in our world, there is no other choice."

At this time, they all understood helplessly. Lyra yelled, and Pantalaimon's owl hooting the night before had frightened all the small animals who heard it, but it was nothing compared to the excited wail that Lyra was uttering now.The elves were stunned; seeing their reaction, Will understood why: they didn't know the rest of the truth, they didn't know what Will and Lyra had learned. Shaking with rage and pain, Lyra strode up and down with clenched fists, turning her teary face from side to side as if searching for answers.Will jumped to his feet and grabbed her shoulders, feeling them tremble nervously.

"Listen," he said, "Listen, Lyra: what did my father say?" "Oh," she cried, bobbing her head from side to side. "He said—you know what he said—that you were there, Will, and you heard it!" He thought she would die immediately because of the pain, she threw herself into his arms sobbing, hugged his shoulders excitedly, pressed her nails into his back, buried her face into his neck, he only heard her say : "No-no-no..." "Listen," he said again, "Leila, let's try to recall it carefully. Maybe there's a way. Maybe there's a loophole."

He gently pulled her arm away and made her sit down.A terrified Pantalaimon immediately ran to her lap. The cat spirit tentatively approached Will, they hadn't touched yet, but now he reached out to her and she rubbed the cat's face against his hand before stepping gracefully onto his lap. "He said—" Lyra swallowed, and began—"he said people could live in other worlds unaffected for a while, and they could, and we did, didn't we? Even though we had to Going to the world of the dead to do what we have to do, but we're still healthy, aren't we?" "They can live for a while, but not for long," Will said. "My father was away from his world—my world—for ten years. When I found him, he was almost dead. Ten years , that's all." "But Monsieur Borel? Sir Charles? He's in good health, isn't he?" "Yes, but don't forget that he can go back to his own world to regain his health whenever he wants. Don't forget, that's where you first met him, in your world.He must have found some secret window that no one else knew about. " "Well, we can do that!" "We can, just..." "All the windows must be closed," said Pantalaimon. "All the windows." "But how do you know?" "An angel told us," Kiriava said. "We met an angel and she told us everything about this and other things. It's true, Laila." "Her?" Lyra said excitedly, suspiciously. "A female angel," Kiriava said. "I've never heard of an angel like that, maybe she's lying." Will ponders another possibility. "If they close all the windows," he said, "we just open one when we need it, go through it as quickly as possible, and close it right away—that's safe, right? If we don't leave too much time Let the dust leak out?" "right!" "We opened it where no one else could find it," he went on, "only the two of us knew—" "Oh, that would work! I'm sure that would work!" she said. "We can go from one world to the next and maintain our health—" But the elves were upset, and Kiriava murmured, "No, no." Pantalaimon said, "The monster... and she told about monsters." "Ghosts?" Will said. "We've seen them in battle, and that's the first time we've seen them. What's wrong with them?" "Well, we found out how they were created," said Kiriava, "and it was the worst thing: they were like children of hell, and every time they opened a window with a knife, they created a monster, like putting Hell opens up a little bit, and ghosts just float out into the world, which is why Magpie Soil is full of monsters, because they leave too many windows open there." "They grew up eating dust," said Pantalaimon, "and elves, because dust is kind of like elves, but grown-up elves. And so they grew bigger and stronger..." Will felt a faint wave of fear in his heart, and Kiriava pressed herself against his chest, feeling his fear too, and she tried to comfort him. "So, every time I use that knife," he said, "I create a monster every time I use it?" He remembered Iorek Bernison saying in the hole in which he had reforged that knife, what you don't know is what the knife does, your intentions may be good, but the knife has intentions too. Lyra's eyes were watching him, wide with anxiety. "Oh, we can't, Will," she said, "we can't give people that kind of disaster--can't let other monsters come out, can't do that, because we've seen what they do!" "Okay," he said, standing up, hugging his elf tightly to his chest. "Then we're going to have to—one of us is going to have to—I go to your world and..." She knew what he was going to say, she saw him hugging the beautiful healthy elf he hadn't even begun to understand, she thought of his mother, she knew he was thinking of her too.To leave her and live with Laila, even for just a few years—could he do that?He might live with Laila, but she knew he couldn't live as one. "No," she yelled, jumping to his side, and Kiriava joined Pantalaimon on the sand, watching the boy and girl hug each other in despair. "I'm coming, Will! Let's go to your world and live there! It doesn't matter that we, Pan and I, get sick--we're strong, and I've seen us live a long time--and your world probably has good doctors--Dr. Malone will know!Oh let's do that! " He was shaking his head, and she saw tears glistening on his cheeks. "Do you think I can take it, Laila?" he said. "Do you think I can live happily watching you sick and languish and die while I grow stronger day by day? Ten years . It's gone in the blink of an eye, we're only in our twenties, ten years isn't that long. Think about it, Lyra, you and I are grown up and ready to do everything we want to do - and then... everything It's all over. Do you think I'll be able to live on after you die? Oh, Lyra, I'll follow you down into the world of the dead without a second thought, just like you followed Roger, and that would be two lives needlessly sacrificed , my life is as wasted as yours. No, we should live our full life together, a good, long, busy life, and if we can't be together, then we... we will have to live apart." She bit her lip and watched him pace up and down in agony. He paused and turned and continued, "Do you remember another thing he said, my father? He said we must have a paradise republic where we are, and he said there was no other place for us, that That's what he meant, I see now. Oh, that was so painful. I thought he was referring to Lord Asriel and his new world, but he was talking about us, he was talking about you and me , we must live in our own world..." "I'm going to ask the alethiometer," Lyra said. "It will know. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner." She sat down, wiped her cheek with the palm of one hand, and reached for the rucksack with the other.She carried it everywhere: when Will remembered her later in life, he often thought of her with the little bag on her shoulder. She quickly tucked her hair behind her ears deftly—he liked her that way—and pulled out the black velvet wrapper. "Can you see it?" he said, because despite the brightness of the moon, the symbols on the face of the alethiometer were very small. "I know where they're all," she said, "I've got them in mind. Now don't talk..." She crossed her feet and pulled her skirt up to make a place for the alethiometer, and Will lay on his elbows to watch.The bright moonlight, reflected from the white sand, illuminated her face in a radiance that seemed to suck some other light out of her, her eyes sparkled, her expression so earnest and So invested that Will might fall in love with her again, if love hadn't already taken hold of every fiber of his body. Lyra took a deep breath and started to spin the wheel, but after a moment she stopped: Come on, give the instrument a turn. "The place is wrong." She said flatly, and tried again. Will watched, saw her lovely face clearly, because he knew that face so well, and had studied her expressions when she felt happiness, despair, hope, and sadness, so he could see that something was wrong, there was nothing wrong. That unmistakable sign of preoccupation she used to snap into.Instead an unhappy doubt creeps over her body: she bites her lower lip, blinks harder and harder, going from symbol to symbol slowly, almost aimlessly, instead of quickly and surely. Swipe around. "I don't know," she said, shaking her head, "I don't know what happened... I know it all too well, but I can't seem to see what she means..." She took a shaky breath and turned the instrument around.It looked strange and ugly in her hand. Pantalaimon climbed into her lap in the form of a mouse, and laid his black paws on the crystal panel of the alethiometer, peering at the symbols one by one.Lyra twirled one wheel, then another, turning the whole apparatus once, then looked up at Will in amazement. "Oh, Will," she called. "I can't do it! It left me!" "Shh," he said, "don't worry, all that knowledge is still in your body. Just calm down and let yourself find it, don't force it, just float down and touch it..." She swallowed, nodded, wiped her eyes with her hands angrily, and took a few deep breaths, but he could tell she was too nervous, and he put his hands on her shoulders, and felt her trembling and Hold her tight.She pulled back and tried again.She stared at the symbols again, turned the wheels again, but the meaning she had been able to grasp with ease and confidence was no longer there, she didn't know what the symbols meant. She turned away, hugged Will, and said desperately: "It's no use—I can see—it's gone forever—it came when I needed it, for what I had to do All the things that happened to save Roger, and then both of us - now it's over - now it's all over, it's gone from me... I'm scared of it because it's been so hard - I thought it was because I couldn't see Ching, or stiff fingers or something, but nothing like that, that power is leaving me, it's fading... oh, it's gone, Will! I lost it! It never will came back!" She cried out in despair.All he could do was hold her, and he didn't know how to comfort her, because it was obvious she was right. Then the two elves bristled and looked up.Will and Lyra sensed it too, and followed their gaze toward the sky.A light was moving toward them: a light with wings. "It's the angel we've seen." Pantalaimon guessed. He guessed right, and as the boy and girl and two elves watched her approach, Halfania spread her wings wider and slid down onto the sand.Despite spending so much time with Balthamos, Will was unprepared for this strange visitor.He and Lyra held each other's hands tightly and watched the angel come toward them, the light of another world shining on her.It didn't matter that she was naked: what clothes could an angel wear?Lyra thought. It was impossible to tell whether she was old or young, but her expression was serious and sympathetic, and Will and Lyra felt as if she knew what they were feeling. "Will," she said, "I've come to ask you for help." "Can I help? How can I help?" _"I want you to tell me how to close the hole that the knife made." Will swallowed. "I'll tell you," he said, "will you do us a favor in return?" "I can't help you as much as you want, I can see what you've been talking about, your sadness has left its mark on the air, it's not good. But believe me, everyone who knows about your dilemma I wish it were not so: but there are some fates to which even the most powerful beings have to succumb, and there is nothing I can do to help you change the way things are." "Why—" Lyra began, finding her voice weak and trembling—"why can't I read the alethiometer anymore? Why can't I even do that? It's the only thing I can really do well. The thing, it just wasn't there anymore—it just disappeared as if it had never been there..." "You read it by grace," said Halfania, looking at her. "You can regain it by effort." "How long will that take?" "The time of a lifetime." "So long……" "But after a lifetime of thinking and hard work, you'll read it even better because it will come from conscious understanding. The grace that's gained that way is deeper and fuller than grace that comes at random, and besides, once you get it, it's Will never leave you." "You mean the whole life, don't you?" Lyra murmured. "A long life? Not... not just... years..." "Yes, that's what I mean," said the angel. "Do all the windows have to be closed?" Will said. "Every window?" "To understand this," said Halfania, "dust is not a constant, there is no fixed quantity that remains constant. Conscious beings make dust—they are always renewing it, by thinking, feeling, and reflecting, By acquiring wisdom and perpetuating it. "If you help everyone in your world, help them know and understand themselves, understand others, understand how everything works, teach them kindness instead of cruelty, patience instead of haste, joy instead of rudeness, and most of all How to keep the mind open, free and inquisitive...they will be renewed enough to make up for what has been lost through the cut. Then a window can be left open." Will was shaking with excitement, his brain jumping to the point that there could be a new window between his and Lyra's worlds.That will be their secret, as long as they want, they can pass through at any time and live in each other's world for a period of time, instead of being permanently fixed in a certain person's world, so that their elves will remain healthy and they can grow together Big, maybe a long time later they might have children, and the children would be secret citizens of both worlds, who could bring all the lore of one to the other, who could do all kinds of good—but Lyra shaking his head. "No," she whimpered quietly, "we can't do that, Will—" He suddenly knew what she was thinking, and said in the same pained tone, "No, those dead people—" "We have to keep that window for them! We have to!" "Yes, otherwise..." "We've got to make enough dust for them, Will, and keep that window open forever—" She was shaking, feeling so small when he held her by his side. "If we do that," he said tremblingly, "if we live normally and think about life, there will be something to tell the Harpies in the future, too, and we've got to tell people that, Lyra." "For the real story, yes," she said, "in exchange for the real story the Harpy wants to hear. Yes.So if people have nothing to tell the Harpy at the end of their lives, then they can never leave the world of the dead, and we have to tell them that, Will. " "But, alone..." "Yes," she said, "alone." At the words alone, Will felt a great wave of rage and despair rushing out from somewhere deep inside him, as if his heart were an ocean disturbed by some great spasm. up.He had been alone for so many years, and now he had to be alone again; almost immediately the infinitely precious blessings God had bestowed on him had to be taken away again, and he felt the waves rising and steeping to blacken the sky, he felt The wave trembled and began to overflow, and he felt the weight of the entire ocean push down behind the huge wave pile, hitting the shore that should have been an iron wall.He found himself panting, trembling, and screaming with anger and pain he had never felt before, and he found Lyra nestled in his arms, equally helpless, but when the wave had consumed its strength, the water receded and the desolate rock remained There was nothing to argue with fate to stay there, and neither his despair nor Laila's had changed them an inch. How long his anger lasted, he had no idea, but it had to subside in the end, the sea calmed down a little after the convulsion, the water was still agitated, maybe they would never really calm down, but the huge force had already not see. They turned to the angel, and saw that she understood and grieved as they did.But she could see farther than they did, and there was a peaceful hope on her face. Will swallowed hard and said, "Okay, I'll show you how to close the windows, but I'll have to open one first, so I'll create another monster. I never knew that before, or I'd be more careful .” "We'll deal with the ghosts," said Halfania. Will took out his knife and faced the sea.To his surprise, his hand was quite steady.He cut a window into his own world, and they found before them a large factory or chemical plant, with intricate pipes weaving between buildings and storage tanks, lights flickering at every corner, clouds of steam rising into the air. "It's strange that the angels don't know this method," Will said. "This knife is a human invention." "You're going to close all the windows except one," Will said, "the one from the world of the dead." "Yes, that was a promise. But it was conditional, and you know what the conditions are." "Yes, we know. Are there a lot of windows to close?" "Thousands of them. There's that dreadful abyss from which the bombs blew out, and the gap that Lord Asriel opened in his own world, both of which must be closed, and will be. But there are many more Small openings, some deep in the ground, some high in the air, were formed in other ways." "Baruch and Balthamus told me that they used that opening to travel between worlds. Can angels not do that anymore? Will you be confined to one world like us?" "No, we have other ways to travel." "Your way," Lyra said, "can we learn it?" "Yes, you can learn it, as Will's father did. It uses what you call imagination, but that doesn't mean making things out of thin air, it's a form of visualization." "That's not really traveling," Lyra said, "just pretending..." "No," said Halfania, "it's not at all the same as pretending. Pretending is easy. This way is hard, but it's much more real." "Isn't it the same as the alethiometer?" Will said. "Takes a lifetime to learn?" "It takes long hours of practice, yes. You have to work hard. You think you have this gift at the flick of a finger? What is worth having is worth working for, but you have a friend who has taken the first step , he can help you." Will didn't know who he could be, and he wasn't in the mood to ask at the moment. "I see," he said with a sigh. "Shall we see you again? Will we talk to angels when we go back to our own world?" "I don't know," said Halfania, "but you shouldn't spend your time waiting." "I should have broken the knife, too," Will said. "yes." As they talked, the windows around them remained open, the lights in the factories were shining, the work was going on, the machines were running, chemicals were being compounded, people were making goods for a living, that was Will's world. "Well, I'll tell you how to do it," he said. So he taught the angel how to feel the sides of the windows, as Giiacomo Paradisi had taught him, to feel them with his fingertips and to pinch them together.Gradually the windows closed and the factories disappeared. "Those openings that were not made by this wonderful knife," Will said, "is it really necessary to close them all? For the dust must have escaped only through the openings made by the knife, and there must have been thousands of others." Tens of thousands of years of history, but the dust still exists.” The angel said, "We'll close them all, because if you think there's any opening left, you're going to spend your life looking for one, and that's a waste of your time. In your world, you have There's other work to do, far more important and worthwhile work. You'll never go out of your world to travel again." "So, what's my job?" Will said, but immediately went on to say, "No, I guess don't tell me, I'll decide what I'm supposed to do. If you say my job is to fight or heal or explore Or no matter what you might say, I will always think about it. If I do what you say, I will be disgusted because it will feel like I have no choice, and if I don't, I will feel guilty because I It should be done. Whatever I do, I choose it, not someone else." "Then you've taken the first step toward wisdom," said Halfania. "There is light at sea," Lyra said. "That's the boat that brought your friends to take you home. They'll be here tomorrow." The word tomorrow fell with a thud, and it never occurred to Laila that she would not want to see Fard Colum, John Faa, and Serafina Pekkala. "I'm going now," said the angel. "I've learned what I need to know." She embraced them both in her light, cool arms, kissed their foreheads, and bent down to kiss the elf, and they became birds, and as she spread their wings, they rose swiftly into the air.In just a few seconds, she disappeared. Moments after she was gone, Lyra took a breath. "What's wrong?" Will said. "I didn't ask about my parents—now, I can't ask about the alethiometer...I don't know if I'll know?" She sat down slowly, and he sat down next to her. "Oh, Will," she said, "what are we going to do? What are we going to do? I want to live with you forever, I want to kiss you every day and lie down and wake up with you until we die, many, many years later .I don't want memories, just memories..." "No," he said, "memories are poor things. What I want is your red hair and lips and arms and eyes and hands. I didn't know I could love things so much. Oh. Lyra, I May this night never end! If only we could stay here like this, the world could stop turning and everyone else could sleep..." "Everyone but us! You and I can live here forever and just love each other." "No matter what happens, I will always love you until I die, until after I die; when I come out of the world of the dead, I, all my atoms, will float around forever, until I find you again..." "I'll be looking for you, Will, every moment. When we do find each other again, we'll hold each other so tightly that nothing or anyone will tear us apart. Every one of my Atoms and every atom of yours... We shall live among the birds, flowers, dragonflies, pine trees, clouds, and those little points of light that you see floating in the beams of the sun... when they use our atoms When making a new life, they can't just take one, they have to take two, one for you, one for me, we will be so tightly bound together..." They lay side by side holding hands, looking at the sky. "Do you remember?" she whispered, "when you first walked into that coffee shop in Magpie City, you never saw an elf?" "I don't know what he is, but when I saw you, I immediately fell in love with you because you are brave." "No, I fell in love with you first." "You didn't! You fought with me!" "Well," she said, "yes, but you attacked me." "I didn't! You rushed out and attacked me." "Yes, but I quickly stopped." "Yes, but." He imitated her tenderly.