"Will," said Lyra, "what dyou think the harpies will do whe the ghosts out?"
Because the creatures were getting louder and flying closer, and there were more and more of them all the time, as if the gloom were gathering itself into little clots of malid giving them wings. The ghosts kept looking up fearfully.
"Are we getting close?" Lyra called to the Lady Salmakia.
"Not far now," she called down, h above them. "You could see him if you climbed that rock."
But Lyra didnt want to waste time. She was trying with all her heart to put on a cheerful face fer, but every moment in front of her minds eye was that terrible image of the little dog-Pan abandoned oty as the mist closed around him, and she could barely keep from howling. She must, though; she must be hopeful fer; she always had been.
When they did e face to face, it happened quite suddenly. In among the press of all the ghosts, there he was, his familiar features wan but his expression as full of delight as a ghost could be. He rushed to embrace her.
But he passed like cold smoke through her arms, and though she felt his little hand clutch at her heart, it had nth to hold on. They could ruly touch again.
But he could whisper, and his voice said, "Lyra, I hought Id ever see you again, I thought even if you did e down here when you was dead, youd be much older, youd be a grownup, and you wouldnt want to speak to me...」
"Why ever not?"
"Because I dohe wrong thing when Pan got my daemon away from Lord Asriels! We shouldve run, we shouldnt have tried to fight her! We shouldve run to you! Then she wouldnt have been able to get my daemon again, and when the cliff fell away, my daemon wouldve still been with me!"
"But that werent your fault, stupid!" Lyra said. "It was me that brung you there in the first place, and I shouldve let you go back with the other kids and the gyptians. It was my fault. Im so sorry, Roger, ho, it was my fault, you wouldntve been here otherwise..."
"Well," he said, "I dunno. Maybe I wouldve got dead some other way. But it werent your fault, Lyra, see."
She felt herself beginning to believe it; but all the same, it was heartrending to see the poor little cold thing, so close a so out of reach. She tried to grasp his wrist, though her fingers closed in the empty air; but he uood and sat down beside her.
The hosts withdrew a little, leaving them alone, and Will moved apart, too, to sit down and nurse his hand. It was bleeding again, and while Tialys flew fiercely at the ghosts to force them away, Salmakia helped Will tend to the wound.
But Lyra and Roger were oblivious to that.
"And you ent dead," he said. "Howd you e here if youre still alive? And wheres Pan?"
"er, I had to leave him on the shore, it was the worst thing I ever had to do, it hurt so much, you know how it hurts, and he just stood there, just looking, oh, I felt like a murderer, Roger, but I had to, or else I couldnt have e!"
"I beeending to talk to you all the time since I died," he said. "I been wishing I could, and wishing so hard...Just wishing I could get out, me and all the other dead uns, cause this is a terrible place, Lyra, its hopeless, theres no ge when youre dead, and them bird-things... You know what they do? They wait till youre resting, you t never sleep properly, you just sort of doze, and they e up quiet beside you and they whisper all the bad things you ever did when you was alive,