The Subtle Knife (His Dark Materials, #2)

by Philip Pullman

Will sat down and looked at Lyra. “What am I doing wrong?” he said. He was bloodstained, trembling, wild-eyed. He was living on the edge of his nerves: clenching his jaw, tapping his foot, breathing fast. “It’s your wound,” she said. “You en’t wrong at all. You’re doing it right, but your hand won’t let you concentrate on it. I don’t know an easy way of getting round that, except maybe if you didn’t try to shut it out …” “What d’you mean?” “Well, you’re trying to do two things with your mind, both at once. You’re trying to ignore the pain and close that window.

Just sort of relax your mind and say yes, it does hurt, I know. Don’t try and shut it out.”

I’m so damn ignorant I believed it when I was told that shamans had the gift of flight, for example. Yet here’s a shaman who hasn’t.” “Oh, but I have.” “How d’you make that out?” The balloon was drifting lower, and the ground was rising. A square stone tower rose directly in their path, and Lee didn’t seem to have noticed. “I needed to fly,” said Grumman, “so I summoned you, and here I am, flying.”

Her last conscious thought was disgust at life: her senses had lied to her; the world was not made of energy and delight but of foulness, betrayal, and lassitude. Living was hateful and death was no better, and from end to end of the universe, this was the first and last and only truth.