Chapter Four: Three Spirits and Three Puzzle Boxes
The next morning, Will awoke in his sleeping bag that had been set up beside Lyra's bed. At his feet was Kirjava, purring sleepily. Will also noticed a small pile of clothes at his bed, which consisted of a white, button-up shirt, gray suspenders, and a brown overcoat. Will put them on, finding them remarkably comfy, and then slipped on his sneakers. He walked precariously down the steps from the tower top to the Great Hall, where Lyra was waiting for him.
After breakfast, the two of them and their daemons traversed the buildings of Jordan College, and Lyra showed Will are the historical sites she'd told him about. Eventually, she led him down into the crypts. She tensed for a moment. "What's wrong Lyra?" Will asked, his expression darkening. Lyra exhaled deeply and turned to him. "Be careful in here, we don't know what me right run into." She whispered.
As though to completely contradict her statement, the ceiling gave way and Jordey and his daemon came falling through. A few bones fell and hit him in the head. "See, Sator! I told you turning into a giant bear was a very bad idea!" The daemon, which was now in the form of a Dotson and looking at his human sympathetically. "Or what might run into us?" Will exchanged a look with Lyra. Jordey finally noticed they were there.
"Oh, hey, it's a funny story, really. Sator was practicing his forms and we sort of broke ground and…well, here we are!" He explained, both hurriedly and sheepishly.
Lyra had not taken her hand off the handle to get into the crypts.
"You can come with us, Jordey."
The boy's expression brightened in an instant. "Wow! Really, Lyra? Thanks a bundle! Thanks a-!"
"Shut up," said Will blandly.
The crypt was as quiet as, well, a crypt as the three humans and their daemons entered it. Will was examining the coffins for names and dates, but found nothing but the pictures of the dead person's daemon superimposed on the front. "Is this how they bury everyone in your world?" Will asked Lyra, but it was Jordey who answered. "Of course. That en't what they do in your world?" Will shook his head, but Jordey had already gone to examining a particularly strange trio of coffins. They were all identical in make and appearance, save for the pictures of the daemons being engraved rather than imposed on the face of the coffin. They shone quite brilliantly in the dimness.
"Wow! Look at these, Lyra." Jordey marveled as he ran his fingers over the golden exterior. "I wouldn't touch…" Lyra began, but she was cut off. Because at that exact moment, the lid of the coffin made a bizarre "THUNK" and the lids of all three coffins slid off. Ironically, when they were looked in, there were no bodies. In one was a small sapphire, in another, a ruby, and in the last (the one Jordey opened) and emerald. "Look that this!" Jordey exclaimed, his eyes wide. His hand reached out for it and Will slapped it. "I think it's a trap."
"Are you mad? It's wealth, not a trap!"
"I've seen a lot of movies that have this sort of thing, and the valuable things are always booby trapped."
Jordey turned to Lyra, looking confused.
"Movies? Booby trapped?"
Lyra raised her hand in a sort of "I'll explain later" gesture.
Will turned to the door. "Let's get out of here before…" the door slammed shut and locked.
"…that happens!"
The torches in the room died in an instant, and they were left in pitch black darkness. This was bad enough, but when you were locked in a crypt in the dark, it was almost unbearable. Jordey, barely able to think, had Sator turn into a large firefly, so that he could at least see. "What happened?" he asked.
"Booby Trap." Will muttered.
Sator's light left a small pocket of the room for them to see in, so they gathered there. "So we're trapped here?"
"Yep."
"I can't be trapped…I've got lessons in the morning!"
"Calm down, Jordey. I'm sure we can think of a way out of here."
"Like what?"
Will cuffed him sharply on the head. "Shut up a minute and let me think!"
For several minutes, they were all silent (except for Jordey, who was muttering complaints about his head injury) as Will thought. However, he did not need to, because then a gust of wind filled the room and the torches re-lit. Out of the three coffins came three spectral forms, all female and clothed like witches. The first one, a stick-like, bony witch, spoke in a voice that sounded like a car that desperately needed an oil change. "Has Yambe-Akka finally come for us, sisters?"
The second, a plump witch with many warts, answered, "I hope so, we've been in that tomb for nearly 8,000 years after all."
The third's almost transparent eyes met Lyra's, and she laughed. "Hey, girls, you remember that gosling?"
The other two noticed the group of the living and laughed wildly too, as if they were a humorous joke long past.
"What's so funny?" demanded Lyra.
The third spirit chuckled, "Dearie, dear. Don't you remember?"
"Those three daemon tokens you switched around in those scholars' mouths? So long ago, little gosling?" "Why, yes," said Lyra, "I switched them around and then three figures attacked me that night." The three witches burst out laughing again. Lyra let out an annoyed growl and they dropped down to giggling again. "That was us, my dear! We were having a bit of a joke. I mean, after you're dead for a few thousand years, it kind of gets boring."
"Of course, that daemon of yours," the second witch said, indicating Pan, "gave us a hell of a fright!"
"Amen, sister." The first witch nodded.
"However, since you freed us," the third witch said, ignoring her two comrades, "we must give you a gift. Do you want wealth beyond your dreams, or a way to live forever, or…"
"How about…" Lyra began, but stopped. Not even Serafina Pekkala could do what she wanted, and she was the most powerful witch Lyra knew. The third witch apparently had read her thoughts and said, "If I were alive, I could do that, Dearie. But I've been dead for eight millennia, so I don't quite have the touch, so to speak." She let out an ungentle snort. "But I could show you the way to it, if you want."
Lyra's mind was debating upon it in one instant, and in the second instant, she had made her decision.
"No."
The witch's expression turned to one of extreme surprise.
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
The witch looked upon Lyra with a new found respect, as did the other two.
"Very well then, dear. But do let us grant you a trinket or two of our appreciation."
The witches' spirits gave them each a mysterious golden puzzle box. "What are they for?" Jordey asked. "They are special to you, or at least they should be. You will know their purpose soon enough."
"Wait," Lyra called the spirits of the witches as they began to dematerialize, "why did you give us these things?"
The third witch had only herself from the waist up left to speak. "You will need then." Then there was a gust of wind and they were gone.
The three of them had no time to speak, however, as Will yelped at the warmth in his pocket. He drew out the blade tip that held the Infinity Star within it and it was red as though it had just come from the forge, but it was cool to the touch. A shaft of light enveloped the three humans and their daemons and they were being pulled up. Up…up…up…into another world.
