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“So that is our world. Oh, we managed to live with this curse. They’re true parasites: they won’t kill their host, though they drain most of the life out of him. But there was a rough balance . . . till recently, till the great storm. Such a storm it was! It sounded as if the whole world was breaking and cracking apart; there hadn’t been a storm like that in memory.
“And then there came a fog that lasted for days and covered every part of the world that I know of, and no one could travel. And when the fog cleared, the cities were full of the Specters, hundreds and thousands of them. So we fled to the hills and out to sea, but there’s no escaping them this time wherever we go. As you saw for yourselves.
“Now it’s your turn. You tell me about your world, and why you’ve left it to come to this one.”
Serafina told him truthfully as much as she knew. He was an honest man, and there was nothing that needed concealing from him. He listened closely, shaking his head with wonder, and when she had finished, he said: “I told you about the power they say our philosophers have, of opening the way to other worlds. Well, some think that occasionally they leave a doorway open, out of forgetfulness; I wouldn’t be surprised if travelers from other worlds found their way here from time to time. We know that angels pass through, after all.”
“Angels?” said Serafina. “You mentioned them before. They are new to us. Can you explain them?”
“You want to know about angels?” said Joachim Lorenz. “Very well. Their name for themselves is bene elim, I’m told. Some call them Watchers, too. They’re not beings of flesh like us; they’re beings of spirit. Or maybe their flesh is more finely drawn than ours, lighter and clearer, I wouldn’t know; but they’re not like us. They carry messages from heaven, that’s their calling. We see them sometimes in the sky, passing through this world on the way to another, shining like fireflies way, way up high. On a still night you can even hear their wingbeats. They have concerns different from ours, though in the ancient days they came down and had dealings with men and women, and they bred with us, too, some say.
“And when the fog came, after the great storm, I was beset by Specters in the hills behind the city of Sant’Elia, on my way homeward. I took refuge in a shepherd’s hut by a spring next to a birch wood, and all night long I heard voices above me in the fog, cries of alarm and anger, and wingbeats too, closer than I’d ever heard them before; and toward dawn there was the sound of a skirmish of arms, the whoosh of arrows, and the clang of swords. I daredn’t go out and see, though I was powerfully curious, for I was afraid. I was stark terrified, if you want to know. When the sky was as light as it ever got during that fog, I ventured to look out, and I saw a great figure lying wounded by the spring. I felt as if I was seeing things I had no right to see—sacred things. I had to look away, and when I looked again, the figure was gone.
“That’s the closest I ever came to an angel. But as I told you, we saw them the other night, way high aloft among the stars, making for the Pole, like a fleet of mighty ships under sail . . . . Something is happening, and we don’t know down here what it may be. There could be a war breaking out. There was a war in heaven once, oh, thousands of years ago, immense ages back, but I don’t know what the outcome was. It wouldn’t be impossible if there was another. But the devastation would be enormous, and the consequences for us . . . I can’t imagine it.
“Though,” he went on, sitting up to stir the fire, “the end of it might be better than I fear. It might be that a war in heaven would sweep the Specters from this world altogether, and back into the pit they come from. What a blessing that would be, eh! How fresh and happy we could live, free of that fearful blight!”
Though Joachim Lorenz looked anything but hopeful as he stared into the flames. The flickering light played over his face, but there was no play of expression in his strong features; he looked grim and sad.
Ruta Skadi said, “The Pole, sir. You said these angels were making for the Pole. Why would they do that, do you know? Is that where heaven lies?”
“I couldn’t say. I’m not a learned man, you can see that plain enough. But the north of our world, well, that’s the abode of spirits, they say. If angels were mustering, that’s where they’d go, and if they were going to make an assault on heaven, I daresay that’s where they’d build their fortress and sally out from.”
He looked up, and the witches followed his eyes. The stars in this world were the same as theirs: the Milky Way blazed bright across the dome of the sky, and innumerable points of starlight dusted the dark, almost matching the moon for brightness . . . .
“Sir,” said Serafina, “did you ever hear of Dust?”
“Dust? I guess you mean it in some other sense than the dust on the roads. No, I never did. But look! There’s a troop of angels now . . . . ”
He pointed to the constellation of Ophiuchus. And sure enough, something was moving through it, a tiny cluster of lighted beings. And they didn’t drift; they moved with the purposeful flight of geese or swans.
Ruta Skadi stood up.
“Sister, it’s time I parted from you,” she said to Serafina. “I’m going up to speak to these angels, whatever they may be. If they’re going to Lord Asriel, I’ll go with them. If not, I’ll search on by myself. Thank you for your company, and go well.”
They kissed, and Ruta Skadi took her cloud-pine branch and sprang into the air. Her dæmon, Sergi, a bluethroat, sped out of the dark alongside her.
“We’re going high?” he said.
“As high as those lighted fliers in Ophiuchus. They’re going swiftly, Sergi. Let’s catch them!”
And she and her dæmon raced upward, flying quicker than sparks from a fire, the air rushing through the twigs on her branch and making her black hair stream out behind. She didn’t look back at the little fire in the wide darkness, at the sleeping children and her witch companions. That part of her journey was over, and, besides, those glowing creatures ahead of her were no larger yet, and unless she kept her eye on them they were easily lost against the great expanse of starlight.
So she flew on, never losing sight of the angels, and gradually as she came closer they took on a clearer shape.
They shone not as if they were burning but as if, wherever they were and however dark the night, sunlight was shining on them. They were like humans, but winged, and much taller; and, as they were naked, the witch could see that three of them were male, two female. Their wings sprang from their shoulder blades, and their backs and chests were deeply muscled. Ruta Skadi stayed behind them for some way, watching, measuring their strength in case she should need to fight them. They weren’t armed, but on the other hand they were flying easily within their power, and might even outstrip her if it came to a chase.
Making her bow ready, just in case, she sped forward and flew alongside them, calling: “Angels! Halt and listen to me! I am the witch Ruta Skadi, and I want to talk to you!”
They turned. Their great wings beat inward, slowing them, and their bodies swung downward till they were standing upright in the air, holding their position by the beating of their wings. They surrounded her, five huge forms glowing in the dark air, lit by an invisible sun.
She looked around, sitting on her pine branch proud and unafraid, though her heart was beating with the strangeness of it, and her dæmon fluttered to sit close to the warmth of her body.
Each angel-being was distinctly an individual, and yet they had more in common with one another than with any human she had seen. What they shared was a shimmering, darting play of intelligence and feeling that seemed to sweep over them all simultaneously. They were naked, but she felt naked in front of their glance, it was so piercing and went so deep.
Still, she was unashamed of what she was, and she returned their gaze with head held high.
“So you are angels,” she said, “or Watchers, or bene elim. Where are you going?”
“We are following a call,” said one.
She was not sure which one had spoken. It might have been any or all of them at once.
“Whose call?” she said.
“A man’s.”
“Lord Asriel’s?”
“It may be.”
“Why are you following his call?”
