His Dark Materials Omnibus (121 page)

She’d explained to the
mulefa
how she had to hold the sap-lacquer plates a hand span apart in order to see the
sraf;
and at once they’d seen the problem and made a short tube of bamboo, fixing the amber-colored plates at each end like a telescope. This spyglass was tucked in her breast pocket, and she took it out now. When she looked through it, she saw those drifting golden sparkles, the
sraf
, the Shadows, Lyra’s Dust, like a vast cloud of tiny beings floating through the wind. For the most part they drifted randomly like dust motes in a shaft of sunlight, or molecules in a glass of water.

For the most part.

But the longer she looked, the more she began to see another kind of motion. Underlying the random drifting was a deeper, slower, universal movement, out from the land toward the sea.

Well, that was curious. Securing herself to one of her fixed ropes, she crawled out along a horizontal branch, looking closely at all the flower heads she could find. And presently she began to see what was happening. She
watched and waited till she was perfectly sure, and then began the careful, lengthy, strenuous process of climbing down.

Mary found the
mulefa
in a fearful state, having suffered a thousand anxieties for their friend so far off the ground.

Atal was especially relieved, and touched her nervously all over with her trunk, uttering gentle whinnies of pleasure to find her safe, and carrying her swiftly down to the settlement along with a dozen or so others.

A soon as they came over the brow of the hill, the call went out among those in the village, and by the time they reached the speaking ground, the throng was so thick that Mary guessed there were many visitors from elsewhere, come to hear what she said. She wished she had better news for them.

The old
zalif
Sattamax mounted the platform and welcomed her warmly, and she responded with all the
mulefa
courtesy she could remember. As soon as the greetings were over, she began to speak.

Haltingly and with many roundabout phrasings, she said:

My good friends, I have been into the high canopy of your trees and looked closely at the growing leaves and the young flowers and the seedpods
.

I could see that there is a current of sraf high in the treetops
, she went on,
and it moves against the wind. The air is moving inland off the sea, but the sraf is moving slowly against it. Can you see that from the ground? Because I could not
.

No
, said Sattamax.
That is the first we ever heard about that
.

Well
, she continued,
the trees are filtering the sraf as it moves through them, and some of it is attracted to the flowers. I could see it happening: the flowers are turned upward, and if the sraf were falling straight down, it would enter their petals and fertilize them like pollen from the stars
.

But the sraf isn’t falling down, it’s moving out toward the sea. When a flower happens to be facing the land, the sraf can enter it. That’s why there are still some seedpods growing. But most of them face upward, and the sraf just drifts past without entering. The flowers must have evolved like that because in the past all the sraf fell straight down. Something has happened to the sraf, not to the trees. And you can only see that current from high up, which is why you never knew about it
.

So if you want to save the trees, and mulefa life, we must find out why the sraf is doing that. I can’t think of a way yet, but I will try
.

She saw many of them craning to look upward at this drift of Dust. But from the ground you couldn’t see it: she looked through the spyglass herself, but the dense blue of the sky was all she could see.

They spoke for a long time, trying to recall any mention of the
sraf
wind among their legends and histories, but there was none. All they had ever known was that
sraf
came from the stars, as it had always done.

Finally they asked if she had any more ideas, and she said:

I need to make more observations. I need to find out whether the wind goes always in that direction or whether it alters like the air currents during the day and the night. So I need to spend more time in the treetops, and sleep up there and observe at night. I will need your help to build a platform of some kind so I can sleep safely. But we do need more observations
.

The
mulefa
, practical and anxious to find out, offered at once to build her whatever she needed. They knew the techniques of using pulleys and tackle, and presently one suggested a way of lifting Mary easily into the canopy so as to save her the dangerous labor of climbing.

Glad to have something to do, they set about gathering materials at once, braiding and tying and lashing spars and ropes and lines under her guidance, and assembling everything she needed for a treetop observation platform.

After speaking to the old couple by the olive grove, Father Gomez lost the track. He spent several days searching and inquiring in every direction, but the woman seemed to have vanished completely.

He would never have given up, although it was discouraging; the crucifix around his neck and the rifle at his back were twin tokens of his absolute determination to complete the task.

But it would have taken him much longer if it hadn’t been for a difference in the weather. In the world he was in, it was hot and dry, and he was increasingly thirsty; and seeing a wet patch of rock at the top of a scree, he climbed up to see if there was a spring there. There wasn’t, but in the world of the wheel-pod trees, there had just been a shower of rain; and so it was that he discovered the window and found where Mary had gone.

Lyra and Will each awoke with a heavy dread: it was like being a condemned prisoner on the morning fixed for the execution. Tialys and Salmakia were attending to their dragonflies, bringing them moths lassoed near the anbaric lamp over the oil drum outside, flies cut from spiderwebs, and water in a tin plate. When she saw the expression on Lyra’s face and the way that Pantalaimon, mouse-formed, was pressing himself close to her breast, the Lady Salmakia left what she was doing to come and speak with her. Will, meanwhile, left the hut to walk about outside.

“You can still decide differently,” said Salmakia.

“No, we can’t. We decided already,” said Lyra, stubborn and fearful at once.

“And if we don’t come back?”

“You don’t have to come,” Lyra pointed out.

“We’re not going to abandon you.”

“Then what if
you
don’t come back?”

“We shall have died doing something important.”

Lyra was silent. She hadn’t really looked at the Lady before; but she could see her very clearly now, in the smoky light of the naphtha lamp, standing on the table just an arm’s length away. Her face was calm and kindly, not beautiful, not pretty, but the very sort of face you would be glad to see if you were ill or unhappy or frightened. Her voice was low and expressive, with a current of laughter and happiness under the clear surface. In all the life she could remember, Lyra had never been read to in bed; no one had told her stories or sung nursery rhymes with her before kissing her and putting out the light. But she suddenly thought now that if ever there was a voice that would lap you in safety and warm you with love, it would be a voice like the Lady Salmakia’s, and she felt a wish in her heart to have a child of her own, to lull and soothe and sing to, one day, in a voice like that.

“Well,” Lyra said, and found her throat choked, so she swallowed and shrugged.

“We’ll see,” said the Lady, and turned back.

Once they had eaten their thin, dry bread and drunk their bitter tea, which was all the people had to offer them, they thanked their hosts, took their rucksacks, and set off through the shanty town for the lakeshore. Lyra looked around for her death, and sure enough, there he was, walking politely a little way ahead; but he didn’t want to come closer, though he kept looking back to see if they were following.

The day was overhung with a gloomy mist. It was more like dusk than daylight, and wraiths and streamers of the fog rose dismally from puddles in the road, or clung like forlorn lovers to the anbaric cables overhead. They saw no people, and few deaths, but the dragonflies skimmed through the damp air, as if they were sewing it all together with invisible threads, and it was a delight to the eyes to watch their bright colors flashing back and forth.

Before long they had reached the edge of the settlement and made their way beside a sluggish stream through bare-twigged scrubby bushes. Occasionally they would hear a harsh croak or a splash as some amphibian was disturbed, but the only creature they saw was a toad as big as Will’s foot, which could only flop in a pain-filled sideways heave as if it were horribly injured. It lay across the path, trying to move out of the way and looking at them as if it knew they meant to hurt it.

“It would be merciful to kill it,” said Tialys.

“How do you know?” said Lyra. “It might still like being alive, in spite of everything.”

“If we killed it, we’d be taking it with us,” said Will. “It wants to stay here. I’ve killed enough living things. Even a filthy stagnant pool might be better than being dead.”

“But if it’s in pain?” said Tialys.

“If it could tell us, we’d know. But since it can’t, I’m not going to kill it. That would be considering our feelings rather than the toad’s.”

They moved on. Before long the changing sound their footsteps made told them that there was an openness nearby, although the mist was even thicker. Pantalaimon was a lemur, with the biggest eyes he could manage, clinging to Lyra’s shoulder, pressing himself into her fog-pearled hair, peering all around and seeing no more than she did. And still he was trembling and trembling.

Suddenly they all heard a little wave breaking. It was quiet, but it was very close by. The dragonflies returned with their riders to the children, and
Pantalaimon crept into Lyra’s breast as she and Will moved closer together, treading carefully along the slimy path.

And then they were at the shore. The oily, scummy water lay still in front of them, an occasional ripple breaking languidly on the pebbles.

The path turned to the left, and a little way along, more like a thickening of the mist than a solid object, a wooden jetty stood crazily out over the water. The piles were decayed and the planks were green with slime, and there was nothing else; nothing beyond it; the path ended where the jetty began, and where the jetty ended, the mist began. Lyra’s death, having guided them there, bowed to her and stepped into the fog, vanishing before she could ask him what to do next.

“Listen,” said Will.

There was a slow, repetitive sound out on the invisible water: a creak of wood and a quiet, regular splash. Will put his hand on the knife at his belt and moved forward carefully onto the rotting planks. Lyra followed close behind. The dragonflies perched on the two weed-covered mooring posts, looking like heraldic guardians, and the children stood at the end of the jetty, pressing their open eyes against the mist, and having to brush their lashes free of the drops that settled on them. The only sound was that slow creak and splash that was getting closer and closer.

“Don’t let’s go!” Pantalaimon whispered.

“Got to,” Lyra whispered back.

She looked at Will. His face was set hard and grim and eager: he wouldn’t turn aside. And the Gallivespians, Tialys on Will’s shoulder, Salmakia on Lyra’s, were calm and watchful. The dragonflies’ wings were pearled with mist, like cobwebs, and from time to time they’d beat them quickly to clear them, because the drops must make them heavy, Lyra thought. She hoped there would be food for them in the land of the dead.

Then suddenly there was the boat.

It was an ancient rowboat, battered, patched, rotting; and the figure rowing it was aged beyond age, huddled in a robe of sacking bound with string, crippled and bent, his bony hands crooked permanently around the oar handles, and his moist, pale eyes sunk deep among folds and wrinkles of gray skin.

He let go of an oar and reached his crooked hand up to the iron ring set in the post at the corner of the jetty. With the other hand he moved the oar to bring the boat right up against the planks.

There was no need to speak. Will got in first, and then Lyra came forward to step down, too.

But the boatman held up his hand.

“Not him,” he said in a harsh whisper.

“Not who?”

“Not him.”

He extended a yellow-gray finger, pointing directly at Pantalaimon, whose red-brown stoat form immediately became ermine white.

“But he
is
me!” Lyra said. “If you come, he must stay.”

“But we can’t! We’d die!”

“Isn’t that what you want?”

And then for the first time Lyra truly realized what she was doing. This was the real consequence. She stood aghast, trembling, and clutched her dear dæmon so tightly that he whimpered in pain.