It was desperately hard for Lyra and Will to leave that sweet world where they had slept the night before, but if they were ever going to find their daemons, they khey had to go into the dark once more. And now, after hours of weary crawling through the dim tunnel, Lyra bent over the alethiometer for the tweime, making little unscious sounds of distress, whimpers and catches of breath that would have been sobs if they were any stronger. Will, too, felt the pain where his daemon had been, a scalded place of acute tenderhat every breath tore at with cold hooks.
How wearily Lyra turhe wheels; on what leade her thoughts moved. The ladders of meaning that led from every one of the alethiometers thirty-six symbols, down which she used to move so lightly and fidently, felt loose and shaky. And holding the es between them in her mind...It had once been like running, or singing, or telling a story: something natural. Now she had to do it laboriously, and her grip was failing, and she mustnt fail because otherwise everything would fail...
"Its not far," she said at last. "And theres all kinds of daheres a battle, theres.. .But were nearly in the right plaow. Just at the end of this tuheres a big smooth rock running with water. You cut through there."
The ghosts whoing to fight pressed forward eagerly, and she felt Lee Scoresby close at her side.
He said, "Lyra, gal, it wont be long now. When you see that old bear, you tell him Lee went out fighting. And whetles over, therell be all the time in the world to drift along the wind and find the atoms that used to be Hester, and my mother in the sagelands, and my sweethearts, all my sweethearts... Lyra, child, you rest when this is done, you hear? Life is good, ah is over..."
His voice faded. She wao put her arms around him, but of course that was impossible. So she just looked at his pale form instead, and the ghost saw the passion and brillian her eyes, and took strength from it.
And on Lyras shoulder, and on Wills, rode the two Gallivespians. Their short lives were nearly over; each of them felt a stiffness in their limbs, a ess around the heart. They would both return soon to the world of the dead, this time as ghosts, but they caught each others eye, and vowed that they would stay with Will and Lyra for as long as they could, and not say a word about their dying.
Up and up the children clambered. They didnt speak. They heard each others harsh breathing, they heard their footfalls, they heard the little stoheir steps dislodged. Ahead of them all the way, the harpy scrambled heavily, her wings dragging, her claws scratg, silent and grim.
Then came a new sound: a regular drip-drip, eg iunnel. And then a faster dripping, a trickle, a running of water.
"Here!" said Lyra, reag forward to touch a sheet of rock that blocked the way, smooth a and cold. "Here it is."
She turo the harpy.
"I been thinking," she said, "how you saved me, and how you promised to guide all the hosts thatll e through the world of the dead to that land we slept in last night. And I thought, if you ent got a hat t be fight, not for the future. So I thought Id give you a name, like King Iorek Byrnison gave me my name Silvertongue. Im going to call you Gracious Wings. So thats your name now, and thats what youll be for evermracious Wings."
"One day," said the harpy, "I will see you again, Lyra Silvertongue."
"And if I know youre here, I shant be afraid,"