“I been thinking,” she said, “how you saved me, and how you promised to guide all the other ghosts that’ll come through the world of the dead to that land we slept in last night. And I thought, if you en’t got a name, that can’t be right, not for the future. So I thought I’d give you a name, like King Iorek Byrnison gave me my name Silvertongue. I’m going to call you Gracious Wings. So that’s your name now, and that’s what you’ll be for evermore: Gracious Wings.”
“One day,” said the harpy, “I will see you again, Lyra Silvertongue.”
“And if I know you’re here, I shan’t be afraid,” Lyra said. “Good-bye, Gracious Wings, till I die.”
She embraced the harpy, hugging her tightly and kissing her on both cheeks.
Then the Chevalier Tialys said: “This is the world of Lord Asriel’s Republic?”
“Yes,” she said, “that’s what the alethiometer says. It’s close to his fortress.”
“Then let me speak to the ghosts.”
She held him high, and he called, “Listen, because the Lady Salmakia and I are the only ones among us who have seen this world before. There is a fortress on a mountaintop: that is what Lord Asriel is defending. Who the enemy is I do not know. Lyra and Will have only one task now, which is to search for their dæmons. Our task is to help them. Let’s be of good courage and fight well.”
Lyra turned to Will.
“All right,” he said, “I’m ready.”
He took out the knife and looked into the eyes of his father’s ghost, who stood close by. They wouldn’t know each other for much longer, and Will thought how glad he would have been to see his mother beside them as well, all three together—
“Will,” said Lyra, alarmed.
He stopped. The knife was stuck in the air. He took his hand away, and there it hung, fastened in the substance of an invisible world. He let out a deep breath.
“I nearly . . .”
“I could see,” she said. “Look at me, Will.”
In the ghost light he saw her bright hair, her firm-set mouth, her candid eyes; he felt the warmth of her breath; he caught the friendly scent of her flesh.
The knife came loose.
“I’ll try again,” he said.
He turned away. Focusing hard, he let his mind flow down to the knife tip, touching, withdrawing, searching, and then he found it. In, along, down, and back. The ghosts crowded so close that Will’s body and Lyra’s felt little jolts of cold along every nerve.
And he made the final cut.
The first thing they sensed was noise. The light that struck in was dazzling, and they had to cover their eyes, ghosts and living alike, so they could see nothing for several seconds; but the pounding, the explosions, the rattle of gunfire, the shouts and screams were all instantly clear, and horribly frightening.
John Parry’s ghost and the ghost of Lee Scoresby recovered their senses first. Because both had been soldiers, experienced in battle, they weren’t so disoriented by the noise. Will and Lyra simply watched in fear and amazement.
Explosive rockets were bursting in the air above, showering fragments of rock and metal over the slopes of the mountain, which they saw a little way off; and in the skies angels were fighting angels, and witches, too, swooped and soared screaming their clan cries as they shot arrows at their enemies. They saw a Gallivespian, mounted on a dragonfly, diving to attack a flying machine whose human pilot tried to fight him off hand to hand. While the dragonfly darted and skimmed above, its rider leapt off to clamp his spurs deep in the pilot’s neck; and then the insect returned, swooping low to let its rider leap on the brilliant green back as the flying machine droned straight into the rocks at the foot of the fortress.
“Open it wider,” said Lee Scoresby. “Let us out!”
“Wait, Lee,” said John Parry. “Something’s happening—look over there.”
Will cut another small window in the direction he indicated, and as they looked out, they could all see a change in the pattern of the fighting. The attacking force began to withdraw. A group of armed vehicles stopped moving forward, and under covering fire, turned laboriously and moved back. A squadron of flying machines, which had been getting the better of a ragged battle with Lord Asriel’s gyropters, wheeled in the sky and made off to the west. The Kingdom’s forces on the ground—columns of riflemen, troops equipped with flamethrowers, with poison-spraying cannons, with weapons such as none of the watchers had ever seen—began to disengage and pull back.
“What’s going on?” said Lee. “They’re leaving the field—but why?”
There seemed to be no reason for it: Lord Asriel’s allies were outnumbered, their weapons were less potent, and many more of them were lying wounded.
Then Will felt a sudden movement among the ghosts. They were pointing out at something drifting in the air.
“Specters!” said John Parry. “That’s the reason.”
And for the first time, Will and Lyra thought they could see those things, like veils of shimmering gauze, falling from the sky like thistledown. But they were very faint, and when they reached the ground, they were much harder to see.
“What are they doing?” said Lyra.
“They’re making for that platoon of Asriel’s riflemen—”
And Will and Lyra knew what would happen, and they both called out in fear: “Run! Get away!”
Some of the soldiers, hearing children’s voices crying out from close by, looked around startled. Others, seeing a Specter making for them, so strange and blank and greedy, raised their guns and fired, but of course with no effect. And then it struck the first man it came to.