CHAPTER EIGHT: THE TOWER OF THE ANGELS-2
百度搜索 THE SUBTLE KNIFE 天涯 或 THE SUBTLE KNIFE 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.
Nagging and cajoling, she urged him doweps, and they picked their way through the shattered glass and splintered wood and into a small, cool room off the landing. The walls were lined with shelves of bottles, jars, pots, pestles and mortars, and chemists balances. Uhe dirty window was a stone sink, where the old man something with a shaky hand from a large bottle into a smaller one."Sit down and drink this," he said, and filled a small glass with a dark golden liquid.
Will sat down and took the glass. The first mouthful hit the back of his throat like fire. Lyra took the glass to stop it from falling as Will gasped.
"Drink it all," the old man anded.
"What is it?"
"Plum brandy. Drink."
Will sipped it more cautiously. Now his hand was really beginning to hurt.
" you heal him?" said Lyra, her voice desperate.
"Oh, yes, we have medies for everything. You, girl, open that drawer iable and bring out a bandage."
Will saw the knife lying oable in the ter of the room, but before he could pick it up the old man was limping toward him with a bowl of water.
"Drink again," the old man said.
Will held the glass tightly and closed his eyes while the old man did something to his hand It stung horribly, but then he felt the rough fri of a towel on his wrist, and something mopping the wound mently. Then there was a ess for a moment, and it hurt again.
"This is precious oi," the old man said. "Very difficult to obtain. Very good for wounds."
It was a dusty, battered tube of ordinary aic cream, such as Will could have bought in any pharma his world. The old man was handling it as if it were made of myrrh. Will looked away.
And while the man was dressing the wound, Lyra felt Pan-talaimon calling to her silently to e and look out the window. He was a kestrel perg on the open window frame, and his eyes had caught a movement below. She joined him, and saw a familiar figure: the girl Angelica was running toward her elder brother, Tullio, who stood with his back against the wall oher side of the narrow street waving his arms in the air as if trying to keep a flock of bats from his face. Theurned away and began to run his hands along the stones in the wall, looking closely at eae, ting them, feeling the edges, hung up his shoulders as if to ward off something behind him, shaking his head.
Angelica was desperate, and so was little Paolo behind her, and they reached their brother and seized his arms and tried to pull him away from whatever was troubling him.
And Lyra realized with a jolt of siess what was happening: the man was being attacked by Specters. Angeliew it, though she couldhem, of course, and little Paolo was g and striking at the empty air to try and drive them off; but it didnt help, and Tullio was lost. His movements became more and more lethargid ></a>presently they stopped altogether. Angelica g to him, shaking and shaking his arm, but nothing woke him; and Paolo was g his brothers name over and over as if that would bring him back.
Then Angelica seemed to feel Lyra watg her, and she looked up. For a moment their eyes met.
Lyra felt a jolt as if the girl had struck her a physical blow, because the hatred in her eyes was so intense, and then Paolo saw her looking and looked up too, and his little boys voice cried, "Well kill you! You dohis to Tullio! We gonna kill you, all right!"
The two children turned and ran, leaving their stri brother; and Lyra, frightened and guilty, withdrew ihe room again and shut the window. The others hadnt heard. Gia-o Paradisi
was dabbing more oi on the wounds, and Lyra tried to put what shed seen out of her mind, and focused on Will.
"You got to tie something around his arm," Lyra said, "to stop the bleeding. It wont stop otherwise."
"Yes, yes, I know," said the old man, but sadly.
Will kept his eyes averted while they did up a bandage, and drank the plum brandy sip by sip.
Presently he felt soothed and distant, though his hand was hurting abominably.
"Now," said Giao Paradisi, "here you are, take the k is yours."
"I dont want it," said Will. "I dont want anything to do with it."
"You havent got the choice," said the old man. "You are the bearer now."
"I thought you said you was," said Lyra.
"My time is over," he said. "The knife knows when to leave one hand ale in another, and I know how to tell. You dont believe me? Look!"
He held up his ow hand. The little finger and the finger o it were missing, just like Wills.
"Yes," he said, "me too. I fought and lost the same fingers, the badge of the bearer. And I did not kher, in advance."
Lyra sat down, wide-eyed. Will held on to the dusty table with his good hand. He struggled to find words.
"But I—we only came here because—there was a man who stole something of Lyras, and he wahe knife, and he said if we brought him that, then hed—"
"I know that man. He is a liar, a cheat. He wont give you anything, make no mistake. He wants the knife, and once he has it, he will betray you. He will never be the bearer. The knife is yours by right."
With a heavy reluce, Will turo the kself. He pulled it toward him. It was an ordinary-looking dagger, with a double-sided blade of dull metal about eight inches long, a short crosspiece of the same metal, and a handle of rosewood. As he looked at it more closely, he saw that the rosewood was inlaid with golden wires, f a design he didnt reize till he turhe knife around and saw an angel, with wings folded. Oher side was a different angel, with wings upraised. The wires stood out a little from the surface, giving a firm grip, and as he picked it up he felt that it was light in his hand and strong aifully balanced, and that the blade was not dull after all. In fact, a swirl of cloudy colors seemed to live just uhe surface of the metal: bruise purples, sea blues, earth browns, cloud grays, the deep green under heavyfoliaged trees, the clustering shades at the mouth of a tomb as evening falls over a deserted graveyard.... If there was such a thing as shadow-colored, it was the blade of the subtle knife.
But the edges were different. In fact, the two edges differed from each other. One was clear bright steel, merging a little way bato those subtle shadow-colors, but steel of an inparable sharpness. Wills eye shrank back from looking at it, so sharp did it seem. The e was just as keen, but silvery in color, and Lyra, who was looking at it over Wills shoulder, said: "I seen that color before! Thats the same as the blade they was going to cut me and Pan apart with—thats just the same!"
"This edge," said Giao Paradisi, toug the steel with the handle of a spoon, "will cut through any material in the world. Look."
And he pressed the silver spoon against the blade. Will, holding the knife, felt only the slightest resistance as the tip of the spoons handle fell to the table, cut off.
"The e," the old ma on, "is more subtle still. With it you cut an opening out of
this world altogether. Try it now. Do as I say—you are the bearer. You have to know. No one teach you but me, and I have not much time left. Stand up and listen."
Will pushed his chair bad stood, holding the knife loosely. He felt dizzy, sick, rebellious.
"I dont want—" he began, but Giao Paradisi shook his head.
"Be silent! You dont want—you dont want... you have no choice! Listen to me, because time is short. Now hold the k ahead of you—like that. Its not only the khat has to cut, its your own mind. You have to think it So do this: Put your mind out at the very tip of the knife.
trate, boy. Focus your mind. Dont think about your wound. It will heal. Think about the kip. That is where you are. Now feel with it, very gently. Youre looking fap so small you could never see it with your eyes, but the kip will find it, if you put your mind there.
Feel along the air till you sehe smallest little gap in the world...."
Will tried to do it. But his head was buzzing, and his left hand throbbed horribly, and he saw his two fingers again, lying on the roof, and thehought of his mother, his poor mother.... What would she say? How would she fort him? How could he ever fort her? A the knife down oable and crouched low, hugging his wounded hand, and cried. It was all too much to bear. The sobs racked his throat and his chest and the tears dazzled him, and he should be g for her, the pohtened unhappy dear beloved—hed left her, hed left her....
He was desolate. But then he felt the strahing, and brushed the back of his right wrist across his eyes to find Pan-talaimons head on his khe daemon, in the form of a wolfhound, was gazing up at him with melting, sorrowing eyes, and then he gently licked Wills wounded hand again and again, and laid his head on Wills knee once more.
Will had no idea of the taboo in Lyras world preventing one person from toug anothers daemon, and if he hadnt touched Pantalaimon before, it olitehat had held him bad not knowledge. Lyra, in fact, was breathtaken. Her daemon had do on his own initiative, and now he withdrew and fluttered to her shoulder as the smallest of moths. The old man was watg with i but not incredulity. Hed seen dasmons before, somehow; hed traveled to other worlds too.
Pantalaimoure had worked. Will swallowed hard and stood up again, wiping the tears out of his eyes.
"All right," he said, "Ill try again. Tell me what to do."
This time he forced his mind to do what Giao Paradisi said, gritting his teeth, trembling with exertion, sweating. Lyra was bursting to interrupt, because she khis process. So did Dr.
Malone, and so did the poet Keats, whoever he was, and all of them knew you could by straining toward it But she held her tongue and clasped her hands.
"Stop," said the old maly. "Relax. Dont push. This is a subtle knife, not a heavy sword.
Yripping it too tight. Loosen your fingers. Let your mind wander down your arm to your wrist a99lｉb.nd then into the handle, and out along the blade. No hurry, go gently, dont force it. Just wahen along to the very tip, where the edge is sharpest of all. You bee the tip of the knife. Just do that now. Go there ahat, and then e back."
Will tried again. Lyra could see the iy in his body, saw his jaw w, and then saw an authority desd over it, calming and relaxing and clarifying. The authority was Wills own—or his daemons, perhaps. How he must miss having a daemon! The loneliness of it... No wonder hed cried; and it was right of Pantalaimon to do what hed dohough it had felt se to her.
She reached up to her beloved daemon, and, ermine-shaped, he flowed onto her lap.
They watched together as Wills body stopped trembling. No less intense, he was focused differently now, and the knife looked different too. Perbbr></abbr>haps it was those cloudy colors along the
blade, or perhaps it was the way it sat so naturally in Wills hand, but the little movements he was making with the tip now looked purposeful instead of random. He felt this way, then turhe knife over ahe other, always feeling with the silvery edge; and then he seemed to find some little snag in the empty air.
"Whats this? Is this it?" he said hoarsely.
"Yes. Dont force it. e baow, e back to yourself."
Lyra imagined she could see Wills soul flowing back along the blade to his hand, and up his arm to his heart. He stood back, dropped his hand, blinked.
"I felt something there," he said to Giao Paradisi. "The knife was just slipping through the air at first, and then I felt it..."
"Good. Now do it again. This time, when you feel it, slide me knife in and along. Make a cut. Doate. Dont be surprised. Dont drop the knife."
Will had to croud take two or three deep breaths and put his left hand under his other arm before he could go on. But he was i on it; he stood up again after a couple of seds, the knife held forward already.
This time it was easier. Havi it once, he knew what to search fain, and he felt the curious little snag after less than a mi was like delicately searg out the gap betweeitd the with the point of a scalpel. He touched, withdrew, touched again to make sure, and then did as the old man had said, and cut sideways with the silver edge.
It was a good thing that Giao Paradisi had reminded him not to be surprised. He kept careful hold of the knife and put it down oable befiving in to his astonishment. Lyra was on her feet already, speechless, because there in the middle of the dusty little room was a window just like the one uhe horrees: a gap in midair through which they could see another world.
And because they were high iower, they were high above north Oxford. Over a cemetery, in fact, looking back toward the city. There were the horrees a little way ahead of them; there were houses, trees, roads, and in the distahe towers and spires of the city.
If they hadnt already seen the first window, they would have thought this was some kind of optical trick. Except that it wasnt only optical; air was ing through it, and they could smell the traffic fumes, which did in the world of Cit-tagazze. Pantalaimon ged into a swallow and flew through, delighting hi the open air, and then snapped up an i before darting back through to Lyras shoulder again.
Giao Paradisi was watg with a curious, sad smile. Then he said, "So much for opening. Now you must learn to close."
Lyra stood back to give Will room, and the old man came to stand beside him.
"For this you need your fingers," he said. "One hand will do. Feel for the edge as you felt with the ko begin with. You wont find it unless you put your soul into your fiips. Touch very delicately; feel again and again till you find the edge. Then you pinch it together. Thats all. Try."
But Will was trembling. He could his mind back to the delicate balance he k needed, a more and more frustrated. Lyra could see what was happening.
She stood up and took his right arm and said, "Listen, Will, sit down, Ill tell you how to do it. Just sit down for a minute, cause your hand hurts and its taking your mind off it. Its bound to. Itll ease off in a little while."
The old man raised both his hands and then ged his mind, shrugged, and sat down again.
Wil<mark></mark>l sat down and looked at Lyra. "What am I doing wrong?" he said.
He was bloodstairembling, wild-eyed. He was living on the edge of his nerves: g his
jaing his foot, breathing fast.
"Its your wound," she said. "You ent wrong at all. Youre doing it right, but your hand wo you trate on it. I dont know an easy way of getting around that, except maybe if you didnt try to shut it out."
"What dyou mean?"
"Well, youre trying to do two things with your mind, both at once. Youre trying to ighe pain and close that window. I remember when I was reading the alethiometer once when I was frightened, and maybe I was used to it by that time, I dont know, but I was still frightened all the time I was reading it. Just sort of relax your mind and say yes, it does hurt, I know. Dont try and shut it out."
His eyes closed briefly. His breathing slowed a little.
"All right," he said. "Ill try that."
And this time it was much easier. He felt for the edge, found it within a minute, and did as Giao Paradisi had told him: pihe edges together. It was the easiest thing in the world.
He felt a brief, calm exhilaration, and then the window was gohe other world was shut.
The old man handed him a leather sheath, backed with stiff horn, with buckles to hold the knife hi place, because the slightest sideways movement of the blade would have cut through the thickest leather. Will slid the ko it and buckled it as tight as he could with his clumsy hand.
"This should be a solemn occasion," Giao Paradisi said. "If we had days and weeks I could begin to tell you the story of the subtle knife, and the Guild of the Torre degli Angeli, and the whole sorry history of this corrupt and careless world. The Specters are our fault, our fault alohey came because my predecessors, alchemists, philosophers, men of learning, were making an inquiry into die deepest nature of things. They became curious about the bonds that held the smallest particles of matter together. You know what I mean by a bond? Something that binds?
"Well, this was a mertile city. A city of traders and bankers. We thought we knew about bonds.
We thought a bond was somethiiable, something that could be bought and sold and exged and verted.... But about these bonds, we were wrong. We undid them, a the Specters in."
Will asked, "Where do the Specters e from? Why was the window left open uhose trees, the one we first came in through? Are there other windows in the world?"
"Where the Specters e from is a mystery—from another world, from the darkness of space...
who knows? What matters is that they are here, and they have destroyed us. Are there other windows into this world? Yes, a few, because sometimes a knife bearer might be careless or fetful, without time to stop and close as he should. And the window you came through, uhe horrees... I left that open myself, in a moment of unfivable foolishness. There is a man I am afraid of, and I thought to tempt him through and into the city, where he would fall victim to the Specters. But I think that he is too clever for a trick like that. He wants the knife.
Please, never let him get it."
Will and Lyra shared a glance.
"Well," the old man finished, spreading his hands, "all I do is hand the knife on to you and show you how to use it, which I have done, and tell you what the rules of the Guild used to be, before it decayed. First, never open without closing. Sed, never let anyone else use the knife.
It is yours alohird, never use it for a base purpose. Fourth, keep it secret. If there are other rules, I have fotten them, and if Ive fotte is because they dont matter. You have the knife. You are the bearer. You should not be a child. But our world is crumbling, and the mark of the bearer is unmistakable. I dont even know your name. Now go. I shall die very soon, because
I know where there are poisonous drugs, and I dont io wait for the Specters to e in, as they will ohe knife has left. Go."
"But, Mr. Paradisi—" Lyra began.
But he shook his head a on: "There is no time. You have e here for a purpose, and maybe you dont know what that purpose is, but the angels do whht you here. Go. You are brave, and your friend is clever. And you have the knife. Go."
"You ent really going to poison yourself?" said Lyra, distressed.
"e on," said Will.
"And what did you mean about angels?" she went on.
Will tugged her arm.
"e on," he said again. "We got to go. Thank you, Mr. Paradisi."
He held out his bloodstained, dusty right hand, and the old man shook it gently. He shook Lyras hand, too, and o Pantalaimon, who lowered his ermine head in aowledgment.
Clutg the knife in its leather sheath, Will led the way down the broad dark stairs and out of the tower. The sunlight was hot itle square, and the silence rofound. Lyra looked all around, with immense caution, but the street was empty. And it would be better not to worry Will about what shed seen; there was quite enough to worry about already. She led him away from the street where shed seen the children, where the stri Tullio was standing, as still as death.
"I wish—" Lyra said when they had nearly left the square, stopping to look back up. "Its horrible, thinking of... and his poor teeth was all broken, and he could hardly see out his eye.... Hes just going to swallow some poison and die now, and I wish—"
She was on the verge of tears.
"Hush," said Will. "It wont hurt him. Hell just go to sleep. Its better than the Specters, he said."
"Oh, what we going to do, Will?" she said. "What we going to do? Youre hurt so bad, and that poor old man.... I hate this place, I really do, Id burn it to the ground. What we going to do now?"
"Well," he said, "thats easy. Weve got to get the alethio-meter back, so well have to steal it.
Thats what were going to do."
百度搜索 THE SUBTLE KNIFE 天涯 或 THE SUBTLE KNIFE 天涯在线书库 即可找到本书最新章节.