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In a wide golden prairie overlooking the only way out of the world of the dead, two children sleep. Their daemons - physically healthy, but no less wounded by their humans' betrayal - wait silently beside them. They have to be certain that their children are deeply asleep. The daemons will return, of course, but only when the pain of being abandoned on the shores of the city of death has subsided.
There: Lyra's breathing is soft and slow, and Will's tiny unconscious motions have stilled.
One daemon turns into a spider monkey and smooths a curl of Lyra's hair away from her face. The other becomes a dog and licks away the blood that has leaked from Will's hand. Pantalaimon whispers to the other daemon and they turn into owls and fly away.
The first window they find is in midair. It reminds them of the first time Will used the knife to look down on his own Oxford from the Tower of Angels: the boundaries of the window are not apparent, but the window is obvious from where they are.
They don't need to confer with each other in order to go through.
"What world do you think this is?" Pantalaimon asks the female daemon.
"I don't know," she replies. "It's not ours; that's obvious."
"Not ours either. I wonder if anyone we know comes from here?"
"Possibly. You saw how many kinds of people there were on the battlefield. I don't think we'd have time to see where all of them were from."
They land on an extremely steep rooftop on an extremely thin building. Pantalaimon takes his hawk form to see more clearly, and his companion follows suit.
They are in what looks like a town square. There is a well, more thin buildings, and what the female daemon thinks is a row of shops farther down the stone road to the east. And there are plants everywhere. Vines climb up every wall; flowers line every road. But it is the middle of the day in this world, and as far as they can see, there are no people.
A bell rings. The sound comes from the building under their claws, and is loud enough to scare a flock of some kind of flying creatures out from the roof's eaves. Pantalaimon ruffles his feathers; his companion startles, but takes the form of the local birds.
Pantalaimon hears the footsteps first, and takes the same form as his companion. His senses aren't as sharp now, but he agrees with the other daemon that camouflage is important if they're going to be on their own.
Neither of them can understand a word the crowd is shouting, but they both know the power of a mob. Anything that has such a large crowd approaching them along the street, can't be good, so both daemons fly off without a word.
They tire of flying soon after they go through the next window, so they travel by land for a while. Will's daemon becomes a cheetah and races around the clearing they have come upon. Pantalaimon becomes a lion in return, and roars so loudly that he disturbs several small digging creatures.
The creatures crawl out of their holes and stick their noses out. Whatever they might be, they're definitely unafraid of larger animals.
"Look at their paws, Pan."
Pan did. The creatures are small, about eight inches long, and have black fur. He thinks they'd look something like small moles, except for their paws, which account for fully a third of their body size. Their front claws are wide, and when the creatures set to digging, they can use them like scoops.
"It's amazing."
"Yeah. I bet they need claws like that because the ground is so hard under this soil."
They watch the diggers until dark, and fall asleep together under the stars.
They can't go back to their humans, not yet, so they keep going forward, diverting at this stream or that interesting tree in the distance, until they come to another window.
This one opens into somewhere populated, and Will's daemon changed at once into a mosquito. Pantalaimon changes too, and understands the need to be small when he sees the house.
"Look! This must be the world the Gallivespians are from," he says.
"Oh, how small everything is!"
They explore for a while. The Gallivespian village is not much different from the small towns of either Will's or Lyra's worlds. Pantalaimon amuses himself by watching a very public shouting match over one Gallivespian man's wronged honor; Will's daemon flies to the other end of town and watches the weaver create masterpieces of cloth from some insect's silk.
A noise issues from the trees and a shout comes from the guard tower. Neither daemon recognizes the language, but they know the guard's tone means "danger."
The townspeople drop everything they are doing - even the shouting match is forgotten - and take up their arms. Though the weapons are small, the daemons can see that they could do a lot of damage to things much larger than the Gallivespians.
Two humans arrive only a few seconds later. The leader of the village - a woman who Pan thinks looks like the Lady Salmakia - shouts something at them, and one of the humans replies in the same language.
As the negotiation continues, the humans grow increasingly frustrated while the Gallivespian troops maintain their calm, regal facade. Will's daemon buzzes up to Pantalaimon and whispers to him: "I think the humans want something from the Gallivespians, but I can't tell what."
"Whatever it is, the Gallivespians don't-" Pan replies, but he doesn't say any more, because the human man on the right has run out of patience. He picks up one of the Gallivespians by the head, carefully avoiding the spurs, and shakes so violently that both daemons hear the snap.
All at once, the village attacks, using all their might, and the next thing either daemon knows, the bodies of the humans lie outside the village.
The two daemons fly away, turning into the fastest birds they can once they're certain they won't be seen.
After that, they lose track of how many windows they go through, and they don't stay in any world for very long. They rest once more, as rooks on a rooftop, but the remainder of the time, they never stop moving for very long.
They pass from a world populated by intelligent plants into a world of buildings made of thick glass. Will's daemon thinks she sees a man flying witch-like on a branch of pine. There is a world of ash, destroyed by some unknown force. There is a desert under an orange sky; the tallest mountain either of them has ever seen looms above them. There is a city of towers that sparkle in the sunlight.
The windows come more often now. They both know the barriers between worlds are falling apart, but there's nothing they can do about it. At any rate, there is no reason to say it aloud, so they keep moving.
It is dusk, and the daemons are arguing over whether to rest again, when Pan stops talking and turns to face the bright light that has appeared behind them.
Neither daemon has met an angel before, but they both recognize her as such.
"My name is Xaphania," she says. Her voice sounds old and young and wise all at once, and they know instinctively that everything she says is the truth. "I am here to take you back to the world your humans are in. You do not have to talk to them yet if you do not wish to, but the barriers between the worlds will close soon, and you will be lost forever unless you follow me."
They follow her closely, but are too tired to truly understand what the angel tells them until she is gone.