"Oh, how tedious."
" you, though?"
"I could..."
"Do it now, the me see."
The form of the angel seemed to dense and swirl into a little vortex in midair, and then a blackbird swooped down onto the grass at Wills feet.
"Fly to my shoulder," said Will.
The bird did so, and then spoke in the angels familiar acid tone:
"I shall only do this when its absolutely necessary. Its unspeakably humiliating."
"Too bad," said Will. "Whenever we see people in this world, you bee a bird. Theres no point in fussing uing. Just do it."
The blackbird flew off his shoulder and vanished in midair, and there was the angel again, sulking in the half-light. Before they went back through, Will looked all around, sniffing the air, taking the measure of the world where Lyra was captive.
"Where is your panion now?" he said.
"Following the woman south."
"Then we shall go that way, too, in the m."
day Will walked for hours and saw no ohe try sisted for the most part of low hills covered in short dry grass, and whenever he found himself on any sort of high point, he looked all around fns of human habitation, but found he only variation in the dusty brown-greeiness was a distant smudge of darker green, which he made for because Balthamos said it was a forest and there was a river there, which led south. When the sun was at its height, he tried and failed to sleep among some low bushes; and as the evening approached, he was footsore and weary.
"Slress," said Balthamos sourly.
"I t help that," said Will. "If you t say anything useful, dont speak at all."
By the time he reached the edge of the forest, the sun was low and the air heavy with pollen, so much so that he sneezed several times, startling a bird that flew up shrieking from somewhere nearby.
"That was the first living thing Ive seen today," Will said.
"Where are you going to camp?" said Balthamos.
The angel was occasionally visible now in the long shadows of the trees. What Will could see of his expression etulant.
Will said, "Ill have to stop here somewhere. You could help look food spot. I hear a stream, see if you find it."
The angel disappeared. Will trudged on, through the low clumps of heather and bog myrtle, wishing there was such a thing as a path for his feet to follow, and eyeing the light with apprehension: he must choose where to stop soon, or the dark would force him to stop without a choice.
"Left," said Balthamos, an arms length away. "A stream and a dead tree for firewood. This way..."
Will followed the angels void soon found the spot he described. A stream splashed swiftly between mossy rocks, and disappeared over a lip into a narrow little chasm dark uhe overarg trees. Beside the stream, a grassy baended a little way back to bushes and undergrowth.
Before he let himself rest, he set about colleg wood, and soon came across a circle of charred stones in the grass, where someone else had made a fire long before. He gathered a pile of twigs and heavier branches and with the k them to a useful length before trying to get them lit. He didnt know the best way to go about it, and wasted several matches before he mao coax the flames into life.
The angel watched with a kind of atience.
Ohe fire was going, Will ate two oatmeal biscuits, some dried meat, and some Kendal Mint Cake, washing it down with gulps of cold water. Balthamos sat nearby, silen