-1Chapter 2 - The Mistake
Will trundled back through the barn door, sleeping bag in his trusty camouflaged rucksack, and wandered over to the peculiar creature. He knelt down and put two of his fingers to his neck, no pulse. This would have usually been enough to satisfy his curiosity, but the fact that it was jet black and had wings make him think differently. Slowly, carefully, he attempted to roll the being over, but jumped back a metre when he heard a voice come from the creature.
"Steady on Will, I'm not feeling at my best" came a croaky voice from the creature.
"Who… and what are you?" replied will in a shaky tone, he hadn't been expecting this.
"I'm a friend, that's all you need to know"
"A friend of whom?" inquired Will.
"Ah, it seems you need to know more then, sit down while I explain to you." Said the creature as it picked itself up and propped itself against a bail of hay.
"I'll stand thank you."
"Your choice, now, I'll cut right to the chase, I need your help."
"My help has long been off the market, now you better tell me exactly who you are and why you're here, before I kill you." said Will calmly.
The creature could tell that Will wasn't joking, although his ferocity had gone, it knew what he was capable of.
"My name is Xamarnia, and I believe you know my life long partner, Xaphania?" said the angel, a look of calm on his face, as though he anticipated what was going to happen.
"You have ten seconds to get away from me" Will said violently, as he approached the blackened angel. "I don't know why you're different to the rest of the angels, or why you think it's a smart idea to mention Xaphania. But I don't like it."
"Will, calm down, please. I know that you hate Xaphania, and I don't blame you. But you have to understand, it wasn't her fault, she was just given the trouble of having to tell you."
"What do you mean given?" Said Will startled.
"Oh Will, after all you've done I would have thought that you knew there were higher-ups in the Kingdom of Heaven?"
"Yes I knew there was, except now the Kingdom of Heaven doesn't exist. In fact, I'm supposed to be building the Republic of Heaven, it doesn't seem to be having much of a bloody effect though does it?" Said Will, his patience wavering. The angel noticed this, and thought it would be best to cut to the chase.
"OK then Will, just hear my offer, and I'll explain more if you accept. I'm giving you a chance here, a chance that I think is too important to refuse. You're needed in another world Will, the world where you would most like to be at this very moment."
He of course knew what the angel meant… Lyra, he didn't know if he could trust the angel of course. But he was hardly living a brilliant life, and the simple muttering of her name did it for him, he accepted as soon as the name came from the Angel's lips.
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Lyra awoke to a knocking on her hatch, this was odd, nobody usually visited her, they were all to scared. Or dead. Sleepily she pushed open the door, having to shield her eyes from the sun.
"Room for one more darling?" came a familiar voice.
"Gary, listen to me-"
"Oh but you know it's Gaz to you." he said with a smirk on his face.
"OK then, Gaz, you remember that warning I gave you last time? Well now I'm going to fulfil that promise, that might teach you a thing or two." She jumped up from her makeshift bed, still fully clothed.
Gaz knew automatically he had made a mistake, Lyra had developed a kind of… fury in her eyes, she only picked it up shortly after leaving Will.
"No wait Lyra!" He shouted as she pushed him to the ground, holding his head over the roof of Jordan College.
"You've got one minute to explain to me why you thought this was a good idea."
He sat down on the edge of the roof and beckoned Lyra over, she did so, but precariously.
"Listen Lyra, you know I've always liked you, but I've come to accept that you're never going to like me, but I need your help. You're the only person I know who could possibly know what's going on." Gaz took a deep breath, ran his hand through his messy brown hair, and continued, tears swelling up in his eyes. "They've got my mother" he finally murmured out painfully.
Lyra's expression dropped from anger, but she wasn't consoling him, it was completely neutral. "Continue" she said once he had composed herself.
"I honestly… don't know what it is. I mean, it kind of looks human, but it has wings, and you can only slightly see it in the dark."
"An angel." Lyra silently muttered. "So why did you come to find me when you found this out? We've never been friends."
Those words shot through Gary like a speeding bullet, he knew that they had never been friends. Which was of course against his fondest wishes, and he had grown to accept it. But when she said it so… coldly. He composed himself again, he had to stay strong.
"I wouldn't have come to you usually, but he asked for you. By name."
"He asked for me you say?" asked Lyra, suspicion ripe in her tone.
"I swear it, he told me that if I don't bring him to meet you then he's going to kill my mother, then me. "Please, even if you're not doing this for me, do it for an innocent woman who doesn't deserve to be hurt."
That last word made her realise, she had been an innocent as well. She'd also been hurt, she couldn't let that happen to another human being, not for as long as she lived.
"OK, take me to him" said Lyra coolly.
Gary led Lyra off of the roofs, down through the market that was just being set up, and finally into a network of back-alley's. "It's OK" Lyra thought to herself, she could never get lost or tricked round here, she knew these back alley's like the back of her hand. She also noticed they were headed directly for the centre of this network. They turned the final corner and found nothing.
"Lyra I…" Stuttered Gary.
"You are fucking DEAD, do you hear me?" Shouted Lyra, he'd wasted her time, and trodden on whatever shred of humanity she had left. She grabbed Gary by the collar, and slammed him up against the brick wall, when she heard a voice from behind her.
"Let him go, he's done no harm".
She turned round sharply, and saw nothing, then she remembered. You could hardly see angels in the day, and for the first time in the past few years she was actually sorry. Even if she wouldn't admit it to Gary.
"Go on then, what do you want?" She said viciously.
"It's about your friend, Will."
Lyra was fazed by the mentioning of his name. Nobody ever mentioned it, they knew what happened if they did. Gary had been the first to find out when he paraded around her shouting the name, he couldn't use his right arm for six weeks. But Lyra wasn't angry, the name had come from an angel, a supposedly wise and higher being. She actually felt a little scared, the angel would surely not be bringing good news about Will if it was ready to kidnap people.
"Continue" Lyra found her voice wavering, but corrected it with a small cough to clear her throat.
"Don't worry, he's fine, but he's made a mistake." It was then that the angel noticed the boy behind her, absolutely terrified. "It's OK Gary, your mother is fine, I could never hurt somebody, I'm not that kind of angel. You'll find her in her bedroom, sleeping. I just needed some way to get Lyra here. Gary knew where he wasn't needed, and ran out of the alley's full pelt, fully intent on seeing to his mother's problems first.
"Right then Lyra, the problem is this." The angel explained the events of what had happened this morning in Will's world, the fallen angel, and his offer. Never once beckoning Lyra to make herself comfortable anywhere, this news was too important.
"What, did he accept this… thing's proposal?" Enquired Lyra.
"Yes, as soon as he heard your name." This was what Lyra had been dying to hear, she felt her heart jump as high as her head, and for the first time a few years… She smiled.
"Don't get too happy yet Lyra, I didn't have to kidnap someone to tell you good news." And this was what Lyra was dreading, just as soon as her heart had jumped, it fell back down to earth.
"So what? What can possibly be bad about him coming back?" She felt herself getting angry by the second, this bloody angel wasn't telling her something.
"The thing is Lyra, the creature that gave him the offer… Is what we call a 'fallen' angel. Angel's that have been struck down by the authority, they're no good. And this fallen angel isn't an old one."
"But that's impossible" exclaimed Lyra, she had been studying the Alethiometer on her own for the past three years, it was what she did in-between moping sessions. It could only give her simple answers to simple questions, and she had to ask several times to even get those answers. "I asked the Alethiometer, and it told me that Will had killed it! It was that angel that the Cliff-ghosts were trying to have at.
"Unfortunately… no. What was told to you wasn't the entire truth, we all thought that the Authority was powerless, and that all his strength had been transferred to Metatron. Well this isn't true, what we also got wrong is that… well he is no longer an angel, for thousans of years he has had scientists… or Experimental theologists as you'd call them, working on a variety of things. One of which was a way to give him more control over the universes. They found a way, he's no longer an angel, he's a God."
"OK, so the Authority is still alive, and he's making fallen angels" said Lyra still running what had been said through her head. "But what does it have to do with Will? What's it going to do to him?" asked Lyra, almost not wanting to know the answer.
"Well you see, that's not the problem" The angel was getting nervous now, Lyra could here his footsteps, they were pacing up and down the alley. "The angel isn't going to directly hurt Will. You know about the doorways that the knife made surely? And how it was important that you two stayed apart. Well we didn't tell you the entire story. The knife bearer is not allowed to have… in lamens terms… a mate. The old man who taught Will how to use the knife had been on his own since he got hold of the knife, and so was the young man that took it from him. But us angels didn't have the heart to forcibly split you two up, so we made up a lie about the portals creating spectres." Explained the angel, the agitation it his voice was extremely apparent now.
Lyra was furious, and the angel could see it, he knew that Lyra would easily be able to kill him if he pushed it too far.
"So what happens if Will does get involved with me again? What happens?" Asked Lyra, trying to contain her anger.
"All of the doorway, every single one that has ever been opened with the knife, will be re-opened, and the spectres will walk every world."
"I thought you said the doorway's didn't create spectres?" Asked Lyra, confused.
"That's right… the Authority makes them, they're his… weapon."
"OK, cut to the chase right now, I think you've explained enough." Said Lyra, her patience growing thin.
"The fallen angel, it will attempt to make contact with you, she won't bring Will directly with her, you mustn't go to him Lyra, not if you value every single life form in every universe."
"And what If I don't value every single life form in the universe?" Asked Lyra, her temper rising.
"Then you will have made a mistake… and we shall have to rectify it."
This was the final straw for Lyra, she lunged out blindly in front of herself, to no avail, the Angel had already anticipated it, and was already on one of the rooftops, although she couldn't tell which.
"Do not make a mistake Lyra Belracque. Do not see him." Were the last words that the angel said before turning to the sky, and flying off in the morning sun.
Lyra turned to the well, and holding herself up with her arm said only one quiet word, her eyes brimming with tears.
"Bugger."
Disclaimer - I don't own any of Philip Pullman's characters yada yada yada, but I do own Gaz and any other characters I have created.
Please leave a review so I can improve my first ever fan fiction, thanks.
P.S. Phew, two chapters in two days :P