Disclaimer: None o' this good stuff is mine.
A/N: I wrote this as a final project for a class I took on HDM... the night before it was due. Hope it's not too bad. :)
The Last World
Diminishing waves lapped weakly against the dismal shore. Lyra's last cry still echoed, resonating in the limp mist. The boat had long since disappeared, but the cry remained, shivering through every atom of vapor, rocking the dull water. There was no wind, but the reeds seemed to rustle in sympathy, and all the bleak, colorless shore mourned.
Only when the last remnants of Lyra's voice had faded did the small dog crouched on the jetty lift its head and howl fruitlessly after her. There was a desperate finality to the sound, as of a plea voiced too late. The puppy's claws dug into the wood at the very edge of the jetty, as if it were bracing itself against an invisible but deadly pressure. Its thin voice rose, a forlorn, wavering sound, and cut off abruptly. There was no reply.
The dog's paws shuffled uncertainly, scratching the damp planks. He could not go forward, but he could not bring himself to turn away. Suspended at the threshold of the world of the dead, he could not die; nor could he return to life, not without the other part of him, the part that had died. He was an incomplete. No matter where he traveled, he would not be whole; so he remained still, perched alone at the edge of the water. This was where he had last seen Lyra. If she returned this way, she would find him waiting, and he could not contemplate leaving this spot.
A faint splashing sound caused the puppy's ears to prick. It seemed to come from the river, where the boat had vanished. He gazed raptly into the mist, knowing even as he hoped that it could not be Lyra – he would have felt that. The splashing grew closer, and with it came an indefinite shape, a dark blob moving jerkily across the water's surface. It was not threatening. In fact, as he watched, an indescribable and incongruous joy warmed his bruised heart.
"Pantalaimon!" the figure called.
The dog took a step back, momentarily distracted from his misery. The shape resolved itself into a black bird, paddling somewhat stiffly towards the jetty. She had white markings on her neck and back and her eyes were red and fierce: a loon.
Pan regarded her curiously as she flapped with heavy wings onto the jetty, spraying drops of water around her in a leaden shower. Instantly, she became a cat, a gray tabby with small white paws. Despite her dainty appearance, an atmosphere of implacable determination surrounded her.
"You're Will's daemon," Pan said, marveling that he could see her for the first time and yet know her instantly.
"Yes," she replied.
"And all the time we never knew he had one just like in our world…"
"All the time I didn't know I was."
"What's your name?"
The daemon shook her head and raked a paw over her face by way of a negative answer.
"What about Chevalier Tialys and the Lady Salmakia? They got daemons, too, don't they?"
"I didn't see anyone else," the cat said. "There was only me, and all the water suddenly, and I had to swim back because I couldn't go forward with him…"
She fell silent, unable to continue the painful topic. Both of them shivered.
"If the Gallivespians have daemons," Pan reasoned, wrenching his thoughts away from Lyra, "they must be together somewhere, too, just like us."
At the word together, the invisible connection between the two of them seemed to strengthen almost to palpability. They were already familiar with each other; they had, after all, met long ago, in Cittàgazze, in a hallway in an abandoned house. Now, separated from the rest of their being, they were faced with each other in a contact more direct than either had experienced. Even through his hurt and the aching wound where Lyra had been, Pan felt a kind of exhilaration at this meeting, far from the eyes of his human counterpart – an almost clandestine pleasure at this closeness to someone who was not Lyra. Daemons did not spend time together, away from their humans; and yet here they were, and it was a comfort.
"We ought to wait for Lyra and Will," Pan said, trying to keep the trembling from his voice.
"They might not come back this way…"
"Lyra will come back for me!"
"The boatman says no one ever has before."
They looked at each other, stricken. The cat glared with brilliant yellow eyes at the jetty, the water, the reeds.
"We can't stay here," she said finally, "This place is for the dead. We don't belong here."
"I won't leave Lyra," Pan insisted stubbornly, even though he knew she was right. "What if she comes back and I'm not here?"
The cat said nothing, but Pan knew what she was thinking. Lyra had already left, and so had Will, and they were no more likely to find either of them here than anywhere else.
After a moment's hesitation, Pan became an ermine and trotted quickly along the jetty towards the shore. He could not help glancing back, just to make sure – just in case the boat reappeared, with Lyra sitting in the prow, her arms open and waiting.
Will's daemon followed him with equal reluctance, and each step was almost as difficult as the initial separation. The dank, gleaming planks crawled by beneath their feet, each one seeming as wide as a wooden tundra. They reached the land after an eternity of effort and stopped to gather their strength, crouching close together for comfort.
Now that they had left the water, neither had any idea how to proceed. Pan knew of no way out of this world, not without the knife to cut a window for them. He had no desire to return to the Suburbs of the Dead, where the deaths stalked down every street and there was no place for two lost daemons….
"Oh, where can we go?" Pan cried suddenly, "After all that we done together… and how can I ever find her again?" In his agitation, he changed from ermine to sparrow to leopard to lizard and back again, unable to find a form that could contain his anguish. The cat yowled in accompaniment, her fur bristling until she looked twice her size. Mud had already encrusted her white paws. On all the desolate shore, there was no other living thing to see them.
At least, so they had thought. But even through his grief, Pan realized suddenly they were not alone: something was moving in the reeds.
Both daemons froze instantaneously. The plants rustled fitfully, as if some clumsy creature were dragging itself through them. Cat and ermine stared at the wave of undulations, following it with fixed, wide eyes. They exchanged a glance; the cat took the first step, and then the two of them crept side by side, drawn by an inexorable fascination. The ground grew soggy under their feet as they approached the waterside, but the reeds still obscured their view. A strange, rasping noise accompanied the movement of the verdure. Pan could not guess what it was, but it did not frighten him. There was something pathetic rather than menacing about it.
They parted the reeds and peered with astonishment down upon a grayish-green toad flopping painfully towards the water's edge. Its breath wheezed like a dusty accordion, but it moved with a distinct purpose despite its mysterious infirmity.
"The toad!" Pan said, "He's still alive. Where's he going?"
"To the water," the cat said, slipping among the reeds, and stretching out a paw to touch the suffering animal before drawing it back again.
"Perhaps he's going across to the world of the dead…"
"Maybe there's another way."
The two of them looked at each other, filled with a sudden and ridiculous hope.
"The boatman wouldn't be able to stop us," Pan whispered.
They followed impatiently behind the slow-moving toad, both of them refusing to acknowledge the futility of their expectation, each keeping silent for the sake of the other. The daemons stepped as softly as ghosts themselves, keeping in the rustling wake of their amphibious guide. The tableau of three was nearly invisible in the hazy light of this world, blending like moths into the background of dismal mud and plants. The toad was a struggling shadow, barely existent in the coarse dirt.
A meter from the water, the toad stopped and expired suddenly. Pan and the cat daemon stood for a moment, bewildered by the abruptness of its death. They looked at each other, unwilling to voice the demise of their last hope of joining Lyra and Will. Finally, Pan could bear it no longer, he was about to speak, but—
"Look!" Will's daemon said sharply.
Pan followed her stare to where the reeds bend forward, trailing their heads sadly in the slow current of the river and creating little eddies. The water moved sluggishly, as if it were too tired to flow like water in other worlds. Mist covered the river, thickening until his gaze could not penetrate it. There was nothing else.
Then his eye caught on something. It was not a thing exactly, more like a difference. It took a moment for him to recognize it for what it was: a window.
"The toad found it," Will's daemon said, "how could it have known…?"
Pan had no answer for her. The window was barely distinguishable from its surroundings. On the far side, he could see more mist and water, but brighter and very still, as if it belonged to a shining lake rather than a river, like in this world. Half of it was underwater.
"It's like the toad was leading us here," the cat continued. "Or maybe it was trying to get out itself, and died before it could manage."
"Let's go through," Pan said, "There might not be another way out."
"It might lead to the world of the dead," the other daemon said.
Pan's heart leaped with fear and eagerness at the idea. If it was true, he could find Lyra, and he wouldn't minding going to the world of the dead if she was there waiting for him.
Neither of them mentioned Lyra or Will's name aloud. They did not trust their tongues. Pan became a swan and Will's daemon a loon once more, white and black, and they darted quickly through the window, as if afraid they might change their minds if they tarried too long.
They emerged in the strangest world Pan had ever seen. It was a lake, as he had guessed, but a lake with no end in sight. True, fog hung over it too heavily to allow for much visibility, but the water had an unmistakable aura of vastness. Still, it was sweet, not salty like the sea, and clear, though the bottom was too far down to see. The surface was tranquil; the two daemons made barely any ripples at all. They found it surprisingly warm, despite the fog drifting wispily over its surface, like frozen breath on a mirror.
"What world is this?" Pan asked, "It feels strange. It's not like any of the other worlds. I can tell that much. "
"No, but…" the loon said.
Pan, too, had forgotten his thoughts. The lake was shimmering strangely, though it was still oddly still. Only after a moment did he realize it was reflecting light from above rather than radiating its own. He sought its source with his eyes and could not suppress a cry of wonder.
An angel hung suspended in the air above them. Her wings beat up and down without making the slightest sound or disturbing the fragile mist. She had clearly seen them; descending slowly, she folded her wings and stood on the lake's glassy surface. She was taller than a human, naked, and seemed to be made of pure light. The water beneath her shone as if welcoming her; at times, it even seemed to be part of her.
"Please," the loon daemon said with none of the timidity that Pan felt, "we have to get to the world of the dead. Is this the place?"
"You cannot go there," the angel said, "A part of you is already there; no more is needed."
"Who are you?" Pan asked as respectfully as he could, "and what world is this?"
"I am an angel. This is the last world, the world of the living."
Pan and the loon daemon exchanged bewildered looks. It had never occurred to them that there might be a world of the living as well as of the dead – after all, didn't all worlds have life? And there did not seem to be any here, only water and mist endlessly in all directions.
"I'm sorry, I don't understand," Pan said, "We came here through a window, we thought we were going to the world of the dead. We've got to find our humans—Lyra and Will—because we've been separated and we must find them and help them."
"I know the two you seek, but you will not find them here. They are in the first world, the original world, where the Authority was born and from which all other worlds branched off. That is the world of the dead; the Authority made it so, long ago, to be his greatest and most enduring glory. This is the last, where all worlds will eventually return, and where the Authority fears to go, for here Dust is supreme."
"Dust! Is there Dust here?" Pan exclaimed, unable to hide the interest in his voice.
"Everywhere," the angel said with what might have been a smile. "That is why you are here."
"Why?" Will's daemon asked fiercely, "Stop talking in riddles. You were waiting for us here—I bet you opened that window, too, why else would it be there, at the edge of the world of the dead? What are we supposed to do here?"
The angel stretched her wings; the feathers at their tips just brushed the water, sending a shower of droplets onto the two daemons. And though he could not say why, Pan felt suddenly stronger, the ache in his heart less insistent, his loneliness less intense.
"You are here to be born," the angel told them, a hint of impatience tingeing her voice, "Part of you has died; another part must be born. Otherwise you will never be whole again."
The last sentence caught Pan's attention. "D'you mean… what do we have to do to find Lyra and Will?"
"You must be reborn. You must pass through all the worlds and see many things and grow. And you must go together. Only when the soul understands can the spirit know. Only when the spirit knows can the heart choose."
Pan fluttered his wings uneasily, not understanding. The angel's worlds held no meaning for him. All he knew was that he must find Lyra, now, soon, or they would both die, and the nameless daemon at his side must find Will, because if they died, he and Lyra might just as well go with them.
Will's daemon brushed his neck with her beak and he knew she was thinking the same thing.
"What do we have to do?" he asked as bravely as he could.
The angel showed no reaction, as if she had expected this answer all along. She stretched her arms straight over her head, palms together as if praying.
"Follow me to the other side," she said, and dove into the deep, clear water.
Without a moment's hesitation, the loon daemon dove after her, and, not knowing what it meant or how they would reach the other side, Pan followed on her tail.