The Amber Spyglass Page 38

Chapter 38 The Botanic Garden

 

  The gyptians arrived on the afternoon of the following day. There was no harbor, of course, so they had to anchor the ship some way out, and John Faa, Farder Coram, and the captain came ashore in a launch with Serafina Pekkala as their guide.

  Mary had told the mulefa everything she knew, and by the time the gyptians were stepping ashore onto the wide beach, there was a curious crowd waiting to greet them. Each side, of course, was on fire with curiosity about the other, but John Faa had learned plenty of courtesy and patience in his long life, and he was determined that these strangest of all people should receive nothing but grace and friendship from the lord of the western gyptians.

  So he stood in the hot sun for some time while Sattamax, the old zalif, made a speech of welcome, which Mary translated as best she could; and John Faa replied, bringing them greetings from the Fens and the waterways of his homeland.

  When they began to move up through the marshes to the village, the mulefa saw how hard it was for Farder Coram to walk, and at once they offered to carry him. He accepted gratefully, and so it was that they came to the gathering ground, where Will and Lyra came to meet them.

  Such an age had gone past since Lyra had seen these dear men! They'd last spoken together in the snows of the Arctic, on their way to rescue the children from the Gobblers. She was almost shy, and she offered her hand to shake, uncertainly; but John Faa caught her up in a tight embrace and kissed both her cheeks, and Farder Coram did the same, gazing at her before folding her tight to his chest.

  "She's growed up, John," he said. "Remember that little girl we took to the north lands? Look at her now, eh! Lyra, my dear, if I had the tongue of an angel, I couldn't tell you how glad I am to set eyes on you again. "

  But she looks so hurt, he thought, she looks so frail and weary. And neither he nor John Faa could miss the way she stayed close to Will, and how the boy with the straight black eyebrows was aware every second of where she was, and made sure he never strayed far from her.

  The old men greeted him respectfully, because Serafina Pekkala had told them something of what Will had done. For Will's part, he admired the massive power of Lord Faa's presence, power tempered by courtesy, and he thought that that would be a good way to behave when he himself was old; John Faa was a shelter and a strong refuge.

  "Dr. Malone," said John Faa, "we need to take on fresh water, and whatever in the way of food your friends can sell us. Besides, our men have been on board ship for a fair while, and we've had some fighting to do, and it would be a blessing if they could all have a run ashore so they can breathe the air of this land and tell their families at home about the world they voyaged to. "

  "Lord Faa," said Mary, "the mulefa have asked me to say they will supply everything you need, and that they would be honored if you could all join them this evening to share their meal. "

  "It'll be our great pleasure to accept," said John Faa.

  So that evening the people of three worlds sat down together and shared bread and meat and fruit and wine. The gyptians presented their hosts with gifts from all the corners of their world: with crocks of genniver, carvings of walrus ivory, silken tapestries from Turkestan, cups of silver from the mines of Sveden, enameled dishes from Corea.

  The mulefa received them with delight, and in return offered objects of their own workmanship: rare vessels of ancient knot wood, lengths of the finest rope and cord, lacquered bowls, and fishing nets so strong and light that even the Fen-dwelling gyptians had never seen the like.

  Having shared the feast, the captain thanked his hosts and left to supervise the crew as they took on board the stores and water that they needed, because they meant to sail as soon as morning came. While they were doing that, the old zalif said to his guests:

  "A great change has come over everything. And as a token, we have been granted a responsibility. We would like to show you what this means. "

  So John Faa, Farder Coram, Mary, and Serafina went with them to the place where the land of the dead opened, and where the ghosts were coming out, still in their endless procession. The mulefa were planting a grove around it, because it was a holy place, they said; they would maintain it forever; it was a source of joy.

  "Well, this is a mystery," said Farder Coram, "and I'm glad I lived long enough to see it. To go into the dark of death is a thing we all fear; say what we like, we fear it. But if there's a way out for that part of us that has to go down there, then it makes my heart lighter. "

  "You're right, Coram," said John Faa. "I've seen a good many folk die; I've sent more than a few men down into the dark myself, though it was always in the anger of battle. To know that after a spell in the dark we'll come out again to a sweet land like this, to be free of the sky like the birds, well, that's the greatest promise anyone could wish for. "

  "We must talk to Lyra about this," said Farder Coram, "and learn how it came about and what it means. "

  Mary found it very hard to say good-bye to Atal and the other mulefa. Before she boarded the ship, they gave her a gift: a lacquer phial containing some of the wheel tree oil, and most precious of all, a little bag of seeds.

  They might not grow in your world, Atal said, but if not, you have the oil. Don't forget us, Mary.

  Never, Mary said. Never. If I live as long as the witches and forget everything else, I'll never forget you and the kindness of your people, Atal.

  So the journey home began. The wind was light, the seas were calm, and although they saw the glitter of those great snow white wings more than once, the birds were wary and stayed well clear. Will and Lyra spent every hour together, and for them the two weeks of the voyage passed like the blink of an eyelid.

  Xaphania had told Serafina Pekkala that when all the openings were closed, then the worlds would all be restored to their proper relations with one another, and Lyra's Oxford and Will's would lie over each other again, like transparent images on two sheets of film being moved closer and closer until they merged - although they would never truly touch.

  At the moment, however, they were a long way apart - as far as Lyra had had to travel from her Oxford to Citt¨¤gazze. Will's Oxford was here now, just a knife cut away. It was evening when they arrived, and as the anchor splashed into the water, the late sun lay warmly on the green hills, the terracotta roofs, that elegant and crumbling waterfront, and Will and Lyra's little cafe. A long search through the captain's telescope had shown no signs of life whatsoever, but John Faa planned to take half a dozen armed men ashore just in case.

  They wouldn't get in the way, but they were there if they were needed.

  They ate a last meal together, watching the darkness fall. Will said goodbye to the captain and his officers, and to John Faa and Farder Coram. He had hardly seemed to be aware of them, and they saw him more clearly than he saw them: they saw someone young, but very strong, and deeply stricken.

  Finally Will and Lyra and their daemons, and Mary and Serafina Pekkala, set off through the empty city. And it was empty; the only footfalls and the only shadows were their own. Lyra and Will went ahead, hand in hand, to the place where they had to part, and the women stayed some way behind, talking like sisters.

  "Lyra wants to come a little way into my Oxford," Mary said. "She's got something in mind. She'll come straight back afterwards. "

  "What will you do, Mary?"

  "Me - go with Will, of course. We'll go to my flat - my house - tonight, and then tomorrow we'll go and find out where his mother is, and see what we can do to help her get better. There are so many rules and regulations in my world, Serafina; you have to satisfy the authorities and answer a thousand questions; I'll help him with all the legal side of things and the social services and housing and all that, and let him concentrate on his mother. He's a strong boy. . . But I'll help him. Besides, I need him. I haven't got a job anymore, and not much money in the bank, and I wouldn't be surprised if the police are after me. . . He'll
be the only person in my whole world that I can talk to about all this. "

  They walked on through the silent streets, past a square tower with a doorway opening into darkness, past a little cafe where tables stood on the pavement, and out onto a broad boulevard with a line of palm trees in the center.

  "This is where I came through," said Mary.

  The window Will had first seen in the quiet suburban road in Oxford opened here, and on the Oxford side it was guarded by police - or had been when Mary tricked them into letting her through. She saw Will reach the spot and move his hands deftly in the air, and the window vanished.

  "That'll surprise them next time they look," she said.

  It was Lyra's intention to go into Will and Mary's Oxford and show Will something before returning with Serafina, and obviously they had to be careful where they cut through; so the women followed on behind, through the moonlit streets of Citt¨¤gazze. On their right a wide and graceful parkland led up to a great house with a classical portico as brilliant as icing sugar under the moon.

  "When you told me the shape of my daemon," Mary said, "you said you could teach me how to see him, if we had time. . . I wish we had. "

  "Well, we have had time," Serafina said, "and haven't we been talking? I've taught you some witch-lore, which would be forbidden under the old ways in my world. But you are going back to your world, and the old ways have changed. And I, too, have learned much from you. Now then: when you spoke to the Shadows on your computer, you had to hold a special state of mind, didn't you?"

  "Yes. . . just as Lyra did with the alethiometer. Do you mean if I try that?"

  "Not only that, but ordinary seeing at the same time. Try it now. "

  In Mary's world they had a kind of picture that looked at first like random dots of color but that, when you looked at it in a certain way, seemed to advance into three dimensions: and there in front of the paper would be a tree, or a face, or something else surprisingly solid that simply wasn't there before.

  What Serafina taught Mary to do now was similar to that. She had to hold on to her normal way of looking while simultaneously slipping into the trancelike open dreaming in which she could see the Shadows. But now she had to hold both ways together, the everyday and the trance, just as you have to look in two directions at once to see the 3-D pictures among the dots.

  And just as it happens with the dot pictures, she suddenly got it.

  "Ah!" she cried, and reached for Serafina's arm to steady herself, for there on the iron fence around the parkland sat a bird: glossy black, with red legs and a curved yellow bill: an Alpine chough, just as Serafina had described. It - he - was only a foot or two away, watching her with his head slightly cocked, for all the world as though he was amused.

  But she was so surprised that her concentration slipped, and he vanished.

  "You've done it once, and next time it will be easier," Serafina said. "When you are in your world, you will learn to see the daemons of other people, too, in the same way. They won't see yours or Will's, though, unless you teach them as I've taught you. "

  "Yes. . . Oh, this is extraordinary. Yes!"

  Mary thought: Lyra talked to her daemon, didn't she? Would she hear this bird as well as see him? She walked on, glowing with anticipation.

  Ahead of them Will was cutting a window, and he and Lyra waited for the women to pass through so that he could close it again.

  "D'you know where we are?" Will said.

  Mary looked around. The road they were in now, in her world, was quiet and tree-lined, with big Victorian houses in shrub-filled gardens.

  "Somewhere in north Oxford," Mary said. "Not far from my flat, as a matter of fact, though I don't know exactly which road this is. "

  "I want to go to the Botanic Garden," Lyra said.

  "All right. I suppose that's about fifteen minutes' walk. This way. . . "

  Mary tried the double-seeing again. She found it easier this time, and there was the chough, with her in her own world, perching on a branch that hung low over the pavement. To see what would happen, she held out her hand, and he stepped onto it without hesitation. She felt the slight weight, the tight grip of the claws on her finger, and gently moved him onto her shoulder. He settled into place as if he'd been there all her life.

  Well, he has, she thought, and moved on.

  There was not much traffic in the High Street, and when they turned down the steps opposite Magdalen College toward the gate of the Botanic Garden, they were completely alone. There was an ornate gateway, with stone seats inside it, and while Mary and Serafina sat there, Will and Lyra climbed over the iron fence into the garden itself. Their daemons slipped through the bars and flowed ahead of them into the garden.

  "It's this way," said Lyra, tugging at Will's hand.

  She led him past a pool with a fountain under a wide-spreading tree, and then struck off to the left between beds of plants toward a huge many-trunked pine. There was a massive stone wall with a doorway in it, and in the farther part of the garden, the trees were younger and the planting less formal. Lyra led him almost to the end of the garden, over a little bridge, to a wooden seat under a spreading, low-branched tree.

  "Yes!" she said. "I hoped so much, and here it is, just the same. . . Will, I used to come here in my Oxford and sit on this exact same bench whenever I wanted to be alone, just me and Pan. What I thought was that if you - maybe just once a year - if we could come here at the same time, just for an hour or something, then we could pretend we were close again - because we would be close, if you sat here and I sat just here in my world. . . "

  "Yes," he said, "as long as I live, I'll come back. Wherever I am in the world, I'll come back here - "

  "On Midsummer Day," she said. "At midday. As long as I live. As long as I live. . . "

  He found himself unable to see, but he let the hot tears flow and just held her close.

  "And if we - later on - " she was whispering shakily, "if we meet someone that we like, and if we marry them, then we must be good to them, and not make comparisons all the time and wish we were married to each other instead. . . But just keep up this coming here once a year, just for an hour, just to be together. . . "

  They held each other tightly. Minutes passed; a waterbird on the river beside them stirred and called; the occasional car moved over Magdalen Bridge.

  Finally they drew apart.

  "Well," said Lyra softly.

  Everything about her in that moment was soft, and that was one of his favorite memories later on - her tense grace made tender by the dimness, her eyes and hands and especially her lips, infinitely soft. He kissed her again and again, and each kiss was nearer to the last one of all.

  Heavy and soft with love, they walked back to the gate. Mary and Serafina were waiting.

  "Lyra - " Will said.

  And she said, "Will. "

  He cut a window into Citt¨¤gazze. They were deep in the parkland around the great house, not far from the edge of the forest. He stepped through for the last time and looked down over the silent city, the tiled roofs gleaming in the moonlight, the tower above them, the lighted ship waiting out on the still sea.

  He turned to Serafina and said as steadily as he could, "Thank you, Serafina Pekkala, for rescuing us at the belvedere, and for everything else. Please be kind to Lyra for as long as she lives. I love her more than anyone has ever been loved. "

  In answer the witch queen kissed him on both cheeks. Lyra had been whispering to Mary, and then they, too, embraced, and first Mary and then Will stepped through the last window, back into their own world, in the shade of the trees of the Botanic Garden.

  Being cheerful starts now, Will thought as hard as he could, but it was like trying to hold a fighting wolf still in his arms when it wanted to claw at his face and tear out his throat; nevertheless, he did it, and he thought no one could see the effort it cost him.

  And he knew that Lyra was doing the sam
e, and that the tightness and strain in her smile were the signs of it.

  Nevertheless, she smiled.

  One last kiss, rushed and clumsy so that they banged cheekbones, and a tear from her eye was transferred to his face; their two daemons kissed farewell, and Pantalaimon flowed over the threshold and up into Lyra's arms; and then Will began to close the window, and then it was done, the way was closed, Lyra was gone.

  "Now - " he said, trying to sound matter-of-fact, but having to turn away from Mary all the same, "I've got to break the knife. "

  He searched the air in the familiar way until he found a gap, and tried to bring to mind just what had happened before. He had been about to cut a way out of the cave, and Mrs. Coulter had suddenly and unaccountably reminded him of his mother, and the knife had broken because, he thought, it had at last met something it couldn't cut, and that was his love for her.

  So he tried it now, summoning an image of his mother's face as he'd last seen her, fearful and distracted in Mrs. Cooper's little hallway.

  But it didn't work. The knife cut easily through the air and opened into a world where they were having a rainstorm: heavy drops hurtled through, startling them both. He closed it again quickly and stood puzzled for a moment.

  His daemon knew what he should do, and said simply, "Lyra. "

  Of course. He nodded, and with the knife in his right hand, he pressed with his left the spot where her tear still lay on his cheek.

  And this time, with a wrenching crack, the knife shattered and the blade fell in pieces to the ground, to glitter on the stones that were still wet with the rain of another universe.

  Will knelt to pick them up carefully, Kirjava with her cat eyes helping to find them all.

  Mary was shouldering her rucksack.

  "Well," she said, "well, listen now, Will. We've hardly spoken, you and I. . . So we're still strangers, largely. But Serafina Pekkala and I made a promise to each other, and I made a promise to Lyra just now, and even if I hadn't made any other promises, I'd make a promise to you about the same thing, which is that if you'll let me, I'll be your friend for the rest of our lives. We're both on our own, and I reckon we could both do with that sort of. . . What I mean to say is, there isn't anyone else we can talk to about all this, except each other. . . And we've both got to get used to living with our daemons, too. . . And we're both in trouble, and if that doesn't give us something in common, I don't know what will. "

  "You're in trouble?" said Will, looking at her. Her open, friendly, clever face looked back directly.

  "Well, I smashed up some property in the lab before I left, and I forged an identity card, and. . . It's nothing we can't deal with. And your trouble - we can deal with that, too. We can find your mother and get her some proper treatment. And if you need somewhere to live, well, if you wouldn't mind living with me, if we can arrange that, then you won't have to go into, whatever they call it, into care. I mean, we'll have to decide on a story and stick to it, but we could do that, couldn't we?"

  Mary was a friend. He had a friend. It was true. He'd never thought of that.

  "Yes!" he said.

  "Well, let's do it. My flat's about half a mile away, and you know what I'd like most of all in the world? I'd like a cup of tea. Come on, let's go and put the kettle on. "

  Three weeks after the moment Lyra had watched Will's hand closing his world away forever, she found herself seated once more at that dinner table in Jordan College where she had first fallen under the spell of Mrs. Coulter.

  This time it was a smaller party: just herself and the Master and Dame Hannah Relf, the head of St. Sophia's, one of the women's colleges. Dame Hannah had been at that first dinner, too, and if Lyra was surprised to see her here now, she greeted her politely, and found that her memory was at fault: for this Dame Hannah was much cleverer, and more interesting, and kindlier by far than the dim and frumpy person she remembered.

  All kinds of things had happened while Lyra was away - to Jordan College, to England, to the whole world. It seemed that the power of the Church had increased greatly, and that many brutal laws had been passed, but that the power had waned as quickly as it had grown: upheavals in the Magisterium had toppled the zealots and brought more liberal factions into power. The General Oblation Board had been dissolved; the Consistorial Court of Discipline was confused and leaderless.

  And the colleges of Oxford, after a brief and turbulent interlude, were settling back into the calm of scholarship and ritual. Some things had gone: the Master's valuable collection of silver had been looted; some college servants had vanished. The Master's manservant, Cousins, was still in place, however, and Lyra had been ready to meet his hostility with defiance, for they had been enemies as long as she could remember. She was quite taken aback when he greeted her so warmly and shook her hand with both of his: was that affection in his voice? Well, he had changed.

  During dinner the Master and Dame Hannah talked of what had happened in Lyra's absence, and she listened in dismay, or sorrow, or wonder. When they withdrew to his sitting room for coffee, the Master said:

  "Now, Lyra, we've hardly heard from you. But I know you've seen many things. Are you able to tell us something of what you've experienced?"

  "Yes," she said. "But not all at once. I don't understand some of it, and some makes me shudder and cry still; but I will tell you, I promise, as much as I can. Only you have to promise something, too. "

  The Master looked at the gray-haired lady with the marmoset daemon in her lap, and a flicker of amusement passed between them.

  "What's that?" said Dame Hannah.

  "You have to promise to believe me," Lyra said seriously. "I know I haven't always told the truth, and I could only survive in some places by telling lies and making up stories. So I know that's what I've been like, and I know you know it, but my true story's too important for me to tell if you're only going to believe half of it. So I promise to tell the truth, if you promise to believe it. "

  "Well, I promise," said Dame Hannah.

  The Master said, "And so do I. "

  "But you know the thing I wish," Lyra said, "almost - almost more than anything else? I wish I hadn't lost the way of reading the alethiometer. Oh, it was so strange, Master, how it came in the first place and then just left! One day I knew it so well - I could move up and down the symbol meanings and step from one to another and make all the connections - it was like. . . " She smiled, and went on, "Well, I was like a monkey in the trees, it was so quick. Then suddenly - nothing. None of it made sense; I couldn't even remember anything except just basic meanings, like the anchor means hope and the skull means death. All those thousands of meanings. . . Gone. "

  "They're not gone, though, Lyra," said Dame Hannah. "The books are still in Bodley's Library. The scholarship to study them is alive and well. "

  Dame Hannah was sitting opposite the Master in one of the two armchairs beside the fireplace, Lyra on the sofa between them. The lamp by the Master's chair was all the light there was, but it showed the expressions of the two old people clearly. And it was Dame Hannah's face that Lyra found herself studying. Kindly, Lyra thought, and sharp, and wise; but she could no more read what it meant than she could read the alethiometer.

  "Well, now," the Master went on. "We must think about your future, Lyra. "

  His words made her shiver. She gathered herself and sat up.

  "All the time I was away," Lyra said, "I never thought about that. All I thought about was just the time I was in, just the present. There were plenty of times when I thought I didn't have a future at all. And now. . . Well, suddenly finding I've got a whole life to live, but no. . . but no idea what to do with it, well, it's like having the alethiometer but no idea how to read it. I suppose I'll have to work, but I don't know at what. My parents are probably rich, but I bet they never thought of putting any money aside for me. And anyway, I think they must have used all their money up by now, so even if I did have a claim on
it, there wouldn't be any left. I don't know, Master. I came back to Jordan because this used to be my home, and I didn't have anywhere else to go. I think King Iorek Byrnison would let me live on Svalbard, and I think Serafina Pekkala would let me live with her witch clan; but I'm not a bear and I'm not a witch, so I wouldn't really fit in there, much as I love them. Maybe the gyptians would take me in. . . But really I don't know what to do anymore. I'm lost, really, now. "

  They looked at her: her eyes were glittering more than usual, her chin was held high with a look she'd learned from Will without knowing it. She looked defiant as well as lost, Dame Hannah thought, and admired her for it; and the Master saw something else - he saw how the child's unconscious grace had gone, and how she was awkward in her growing body. But he loved the girl dearly, and he felt half-proud and half in awe of the beautiful adult she would be, so soon.

  He said, "You will never be lost while this college is standing, Lyra. This is your home for as long as you need it. As for money - your father made over an endowment to care for all your needs, and appointed me executor; so you needn't worry about that. "

  In fact, Lord Asriel had done nothing of the sort, but Jordan College was rich, and the Master had money of his own, even after the recent upheavals.

  "No," he went on, "I was thinking about learning. You're still very young, and your education until now has depended on. . . well, quite frankly, on which of our scholars you intimidated least," he said, but he was smiling. "It's been haphazard. Now, it may turn out that in due course your talents will take you in a direction we can't foresee at all. But if you were to make the alethiometer the subject of your life's work, and set out to learn consciously what you could once do by intuition - "

  "Yes," said Lyra definitely.

  " - then you could hardly do better than put yourself in the hands of my good friend Dame Hannah. Her scholarship in that field is unmatched. "

  "Let me make a suggestion," said the lady, "and you needn't respond now. Think about it for a while. Now, my college is not as old as Jordan, and you're too young yet to become an undergraduate in any case, but a few years ago we acquired a large house in north Oxford, and we decided to set up a boarding school. I'd like you to come and meet the headmistress and see whether you'd care to become one of our pupils. You see, one thing you'll need soon, Lyra, is the friendship of other girls of your age. There are things that we learn from one another when we're young, and I don't think that Jordan can provide quite all of them. The headmistress is a clever young woman, energetic, imaginative, kindly. We're lucky to have her. You can talk to her, and if you like the idea, come and make St. Sophia's your school, as Jordan is your home. And if you'd like to begin studying the alethiometer systematically, you and I could meet for some private lessons. But there's time, my dear, there's plenty of time. Don't answer me now. Leave it until you're ready. "

  "Thank you," said Lyra, "thank you, Dame Hannah, I will. "

  The Master had given Lyra her own key to the garden door so she could come and go as she pleased. Later that night, just as the porter was locking the lodge, she and Pantalaimon slipped out and made their way through the dark streets, hearing all the bells of Oxford chiming midnight.

  Once they were in the Botanic Garden, Pan ran away over the grass chasing a mouse toward the wall, and then let it go and sprang up into the huge pine tree nearby. It was delightful to see him leaping through the branches so far from her, but they had to be careful not to do it when anyone was looking; their painfully acquired witch power of separating had to stay a secret. Once she would have reveled in showing it off to all her urchin friends, and making them goggle with fear, but Will had taught her the value of silence and discretion.

  She sat on the bench and waited for Pan to come to her. He liked to surprise her, but she usually managed to see him before he reached her, and there was his shadowy form, flowing along beside the riverbank. She looked the other way and pretended she hadn't seen him, and then seized him suddenly when he leapt onto the bench.

  "I nearly did it," he said.

  "You'll have to get better than that. I heard you coming all the way from the gate. "

  He sat on the back of the bench with his forepaws resting on her shoulder.

  "What are we going to tell her?" he said.

  "Yes," she said. "It's only to meet this headmistress, anyway. It's not to go to the school. "

  "But we will go, won't we?"

  "Yes," she said, "probably. "

  "It might be good. "

  Lyra wondered about the other pupils. They might be cleverer than she was, or more sophisticated, and they were sure to know a lot more than she did about all the things that were important to girls of their age. And she wouldn't be able to tell them a hundredth of the things that she knew. They'd be bound to think she was simple and ignorant.

  "D'you think Dame Hannah can really do the alethiometer?" said Pantalaimon.

  "With the books, I'm sure she can. I wonder how many books there are? I bet we could learn them all, and do without. Imagine having to carry a pile of books everywhere. . . Pan?"

  "What?"

  "Will you ever tell me what you and Will's daemon did while we were apart?"

  "One day," he said. "And she'll tell Will, one day. We agreed that we'd know when the time had come, but we wouldn't tell either of you till then. "

  "All right," she said peaceably.

  She had told Pantalaimon everything, but it was right that he should have some secrets from her, after the way she'd abandoned him.

  And it was comforting to think that she and Will had another thing in common. She wondered whether there would ever come an hour in her life when she didn't think of him - didn't speak to him in her head, didn't relive every moment they'd been together, didn't long for his voice and his hands and his love. She had never dreamed of what it would feel like to love someone so much; of all the things that had astonished her in her adventures, that was what astonished her the most. She thought the tenderness it left in her heart was like a bruise that would never go away, but she would cherish it forever.

  Pan slipped down to the bench and curled up on her lap. They were safe together in the dark, she and her daemon and their secrets. Somewhere in this sleeping city were the books that would tell her how to read the alethiometer again, and the kindly and learned woman who was going to teach her, and the girls at the school, who knew so much more than she did.

  She thought, They don't know it yet, but they're going to be my friends.

  Pantalaimon murmured, "That thing that Will said. . . "

  "When?"

  "On the beach, just before you tried the alethiometer. He said there wasn't any elsewhere. It was what his father had told you. But there was something else. "

  "I remember. He meant the Kingdom was over, the Kingdom of Heaven, it was all finished. We shouldn't live as if it mattered more than this life in this world, because where we are is always the most important place. "

  "He said we had to build something. . . "

  "That's why we needed our full life, Pan. We would have gone with Will and Kirjava, wouldn't we?"

  "Yes. Of course! And they would have come with us. But - "

  "But then we wouldn't have been able to build it. No one could if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we've got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we'll build. . . "

  Her hands were resting on his glossy fur. Somewhere in the garden a nightingale was singing, and a little breeze touched her hair and stirred the leaves overhead. All the different bells of the city chimed, once each, this one high, that one low, some close by, others farther off, one cracked and peevish, another grave and sonorous, but agreeing in all their different voices on what the time was, even if some of them got to it a little more slowly than others. In that other Oxford where she and Will had kis
sed good-bye, the bells would be chiming, too, and a nightingale would be singing, and a little breeze would be stirring the leaves in the Botanic Garden.

  "And then what?" said her daemon sleepily. "Build what?"

  "The Republic of Heaven," said Lyra.

  THE END