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His words fell into Lyra’s mind like heavy stones, and Will, too, felt the deadly weight of them.
“How should we do that?” he said.
“You’ve only got to wish for it, and the thing is done.”
“Wait,” said Tialys.
Every eye turned to him, and those deaths lying on the floor sat up to turn their blank, mild faces to his tiny, passionate one. He was standing close by Salmakia, his hand on her shoulder. Lyra could see what he was thinking: he was going to say that this had gone too far, they must turn back, they were taking this foolishness to irresponsible lengths.
So she stepped in. “Excuse me,” she said to the man Peter, “but me and our friend the Chevalier, we’ve got to go outside for a minute, because he needs to talk to his friends in the moon through my special instrument. We won’t be long.”
And she picked him up carefully, avoiding his spurs, and took him outside into the dark, where a loose piece of corrugated iron roofing was banging in the cold wind with a melancholy sound.
“You must stop,” he said as she set him on an upturned oil drum, in the feeble light of one of those anbaric bulbs that swung on its cable overhead. “This is far enough. No more.”
“But we made an agreement,” Lyra said.
“No, no. Not to these lengths.”
“All right. Leave us. You fly on back. Will can cut a window into your world, or any world you like, and you can fly through and be safe, that’s all right, we don’t mind.”
“Do you realize what you’re doing?”
“Yes.”
“You don’t. You’re a thoughtless, irresponsible, lying child. Fantasy comes so easily to you that your whole nature is riddled with dishonesty, and you don’t even admit the truth when it stares you in the face. Well, if you can’t see it, I’ll tell you plainly: you cannot, you must not risk your death. You must come back with us now. I’ll call Lord Asriel and we can be safe in the fortress in hours.”
Lyra felt a great sob of rage building up in her chest, and stamped her foot, unable to keep still.
“You don’t know,” she cried, “you just don’t know what I got in my head or my heart, do you? I don’t know if you people ever have children, maybe you lay eggs or something, I wouldn’t be surprised, because you’re not kind, you’re not generous, you’re not considerate—you’re not cruel, even—that would be better, if you were cruel, because it’d mean you took us serious, you didn’t just go along with us when it suited you . . . Oh, I can’t trust you at all now! You said you’d help and we’d do it together, and now you want to stop us—you’re the dishonest one, Tialys!”
“I wouldn’t let a child of my own speak to me in the insolent, high-handed way you’re speaking, Lyra—why I haven’t punished you before—”
“Then go ahead! Punish me, since you can! Take your bloody spurs and dig ’em in hard, go on! Here’s my hand—do it! You got no idea what’s in my heart, you proud, selfish creature—you got no notion how I feel sad and wicked and sorry about my friend Roger—you kill people just like that”—she snapped her finger—“they don’t matter to you—but it’s a torment and a sorrow to me that I never said good-bye to him, and I want to say sorry and make it as good as I can—you’d never understand that, for all your pride, for all your grown-up cleverness—and if I have to die to do what’s proper, then I will, and be happy while I do. I seen worse than that. So if you want to kill me, you hard man, you strong man, you poison bearer, you Chevalier, you do it, go on, kill me. Then me and Roger can play in the land of the dead forever, and laugh at you, you pitiful thing.”
What Tialys might have done then wasn’t hard to see, for he was ablaze from head to foot with a passionate anger, shaking with it; but he didn’t have time to move before a voice spoke behind Lyra, and they both felt a chill fall over them. Lyra turned around, knowing what she’d see and dreading it despite her bravado.
The death stood very close, smiling kindly, his face exactly like those of all the others she’d seen; but this was hers, her very own death, and Pantalaimon at her breast howled and shivered, and his ermine shape flowed up around her neck and tried to push her away from the death. But by doing that, he only pushed himself closer, and realizing it, he shrank back toward her again, to her warm throat and the strong pulse of her heart.
Lyra clutched him to her and faced the death directly. She couldn’t remember what he’d said, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see Tialys quickly preparing the lodestone resonator, busy.
“You’re my death, en’t you?” she said.
“Yes, my dear,” he said.
“You en’t going to take me yet, are you?”
“You wanted me. I am always here.”
“Yes, but . . . I did, yes, but . . . I want to go to the land of the dead, that’s true. But not to die. I don’t want to die. I love being alive, and I love my dæmon, and . . . Dæmons don’t go down there, do they? I seen ’em vanish and just go out like candles when people die. Do they have dæmons in the land of the dead?”
“No,” he said. “Your dæmon vanishes into the air, and you vanish under the ground.”
“Then I want to take my dæmon with me when I go to the land of the dead,” she said firmly. “And I want to come back again. Has it ever been known, for people to do that?”
“Not for many, many ages. Eventually, child, you will come to the land of the dead with no effort, no risk, a safe, calm journey, in the company of your own death, your special, devoted friend, who’s been beside you every moment of your life, who knows you better than yourself—”
“But Pantalaimon is my special and devoted friend! I don’t know you, Death, I know Pan and I love Pan and if he ever—if we ever—”
The death was nodding. He seemed interested and kindly, but she couldn’t for a moment forget what he was: her very own death, and so close.
“I know it’ll be an effort to go on now,” she said more steadily, “and dangerous, but I want to, Death, I do truly. And so does Will. We both had people taken away too soon, and we need to make amends, at least I do.”
“Everyone wishes they could speak again to those who’ve gone to the land of the dead. Why should there be an exception for you?”
“Because,” she began, lying, “because there’s something I’ve got to do there, not just seeing my friend Roger, something else. It was a task put on me by an angel, and no one else can do it, only me. It’s too important to wait till I die in the natural way, it’s got to be done now. See, the angel commanded me. That’s why we came here, me and Will. We got to.”
Behind her, Tialys put away his instrument and sat watching the child plead with her own death to be taken where no one should go.
The death scratched his head and held up his hands, but nothing could stop Lyra’s words, nothing could deflect her desire, not even fear: she’d seen worse than death, she claimed, and she had, too.
So eventually her death said:
“If nothing can put you off, then all I can say is, come with me, and I will take you there, into the land of the dead. I’ll be your guide. I can show you the way in, but as for getting out again, you’ll have to manage by yourself.”
“And my friends,” said Lyra. “My friend Will and the others.”
“Lyra,” said Tialys, “against every instinct, we’ll go with you. I was angry with you a minute ago. But you make it hard . . .”
Lyra knew that this was a time to conciliate, and she was happy to do that, having gotten her way.
“Yes,” she said, “I am sorry, Tialys, but if you hadn’t got angry, we’d never have found this gentleman to guide us. So I’m glad you were here, you and the Lady, I’m really grateful to you for being with us.”
So Lyra persuaded her own death to guide her and the others into the land where Roger had gone, and Will’s father, and Tony Makarios, and so many others; and her death told her to go down to the jetty when the first light came to the sky, and prepare to leave.
But Pantalaimon was trembling and shivering, and nothing Lyra could do could soothe him into stillness, or quiet the soft little moan he couldn’t help uttering. So her sleep was broken and shallow, on the floor of the shack with all the other sleepers, and her death sat watchfully beside her.
