Will and Lyra slept through the night and woke up when the sun struck their eyelids. They actually awoke within seds of each other, with the same thought; but when they looked around, the Chevalier Tialys was calmly on guard close by.
"The force of the sistorial Court has retreated," he told them. "Mrs. Coulter is in the hands of King Ogunwe, and on her way to Lord Asriel."
"How do you know?" said Will, sitting up stiffly. "Have you been back through the window?"
"No. We talk through the lodestone resonator. I reported our versation," Tialys said to Lyra, "to my ander, Lord Roke, and he has agreed that we should go with you to the bear, and that once you have seen him, you will e with us. So we are allies, and we shall help you as much as we ."
"Good," said Will. "Thes eat together. Do you eat our food?"
"Thank you, yes," said the Lady.
Will took out his last few dried peaches and the stale flat loaf of rye bread, which was all he had left, and shared it among them, though of course the spies did not take much.
"As for water, there doeso be any around here on this world," Will said. "Well have to wait till we go back through before we have a drink."
"Theter do that soon," said Lyra.
First, though, she took out the alethiometer and asked if there was still any danger in the valley. No, came the answer, all the soldiers have gone, and the villagers are in their homes; so they prepared to leave.
The window looked strange in the dazzling air of the desert, giving onto the deep-shaded bush, a square of thick greeation hanging in the air like a painting. The Gallivespians wao look at it, and were astouo see how it was just not there from the back, and how it only sprang into being when you came round from the side.
"Ill have to close it once were through," Will said.
Lyra tried to pinch the edges together after they went through, but her fingers couldnt find it at all; nor could the spies, despite the fineness of their hands. Only Will could feel exactly where the edges were, and he did it ly and quickly.
"How many worlds you enter with the knife?" said Tialys.
"As many as there are," said Will. "No one would ever have time to find out."
He swung his rucksack up ahe way along the forest path. The dragonflies relished the fresh, moist air and darted like needles through the shafts of sunlight. The movement of the trees above was less violent, and the air was cool and tranquil; so it was all the more shog to see the twisted wreckage of a gyropter suspended among the branches, with the body of its Afri pilot, tangled in his seat belt, half out of the door, and to find the charred remains of the zeppelin a little farther up, soot-black strips of cloth, blaed struts and pipe work, broken glass, and then the bodies: three men buro ders, their limbs torted and drawn up as if they were still threatening to fight.
And they were only the ones who had fallehe path. There were other bodies and more wreckage on the cliff above and among the trees farther down. Shocked and silehe two children moved through the age, while the spies on their dragonflies looked around more coolly, aced to battle, noting how it had gone and who had lost most.
When they reached the top of the valley, where the trees thinned out and the rainbow-waterfalls began, they stopped to drink deeply of the ice-cold water.
"I hope that little girls all right," said Will. "Wed