The Amber Spyglass Read Online Free PDF Page A

like.”
    “Would you like some food?”
    Balthamos moved slightly: he was tempted.
    “I mean, I don’t know if you eat at all,” Will said, “but if you’d like something, you’re welcome.”
    “What is that . . .” said the angel fastidiously, indicating the Kendal Mint Cake.
    “Mostly sugar, I think, and peppermint. Here.”
    Will broke off a square and held it out. Balthamos inclined his head and sniffed. Then he picked it up, his fingers light and cool against Will’s palm.
    “I think this will nourish me,” he said. “One piece is quite enough, thank you.”
    He sat and nibbled quietly. Will found that if he looked at the fire, with the angel just at the edge of his vision, he had a much stronger impression of him.
    “Where is Baruch?” he said. “Can he communicate with you?”
    “I feel that he is close. He’ll be here very soon. When he returns, we shall talk. Talking is best.”
    And barely ten minutes later the soft sound of wingbeats came to their ears, and Balthamos stood up eagerly. The next moment, the two angels were embracing, and Will, gazing into the flames, saw their mutual affection. More than affection: they loved each other with a passion.
    Baruch sat down beside his companion, and Will stirred the fire, so that a cloud of smoke drifted past the two of them. It had the effect of outlining their bodies so that he could see them both clearly for the first time. Balthamos was slender; his narrow wings were folded elegantly behind his shoulders, and his face bore an expression that mingled haughty disdain with a tender, ardent sympathy, as if he would love all things if only his nature could let him forget their defects. But he saw no defects in Baruch, that was clear. Baruch seemed younger, as Balthamos had said he was, and was more powerfully built, his wings snow-white and massive. He had a simpler nature; he looked up to Balthamos as to the fount of all knowledge and joy. Will found himself intrigued and moved by their love for each other.
    “Did you find out where Lyra is?” he said, impatient for news.
    “Yes,” said Baruch. “There is a Himalayan valley, very high up, near a glacier where the light is turned into rainbows by the ice. I shall draw you a map in the soil so you don’t mistake it. The girl is captive in a cave among the trees, kept asleep by the woman.”
    “Asleep? And the woman’s alone? No soldiers with her?”
    “Alone, yes. In hiding.”
    “And Lyra’s not harmed?”
    “No. Just asleep, and dreaming. Let me show you where they are.”
    With his pale finger, Baruch traced a map in the bare soil beside the fire. Will took his notebook and copied it exactly. It showed a glacier with a curious serpentine shape, flowing down between three almost identical mountain peaks.
    “Now,” said the angel, “we go closer. The valley with the cave runs down from the left side of the glacier, and a river of meltwater runs through it. The head of the valley is here . . .”
    He drew another map, and Will copied that; and then a third, getting closer in each time, so that Will felt he could find his way there without difficulty—provided that he’d crossed the four or five thousand miles between the tundra and the mountains. The knife was good for cutting between worlds, but it couldn’t abolish distance within them.
    “There is a shrine near the glacier,” Baruch ended by saying, “with red silk banners half-torn by the winds. And a young girl brings food to the cave. They think the woman is a saint who will bless them if they look after her needs.”
    “Do they,” said Will. “And she’s
hiding
 . . . That’s what I don’t understand. Hiding from the Church?”
    “It seems so.”
    Will folded the maps carefully away. He had set the tin cup on the stones at the edge of the fire to heat some water, and now he trickled some powdered coffee into it, stirring it with a stick, and wrapped his hand in a handkerchief before picking it up to drink.
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