THE SUBTLE KNIFE 精彩片段：
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: AESAHAETTR-1
As the moon rose, the witches began their spell to heal Wills wound.
They woke him and asked him to lay the knife on the ground where it caught a glitter of starlight.
Lyra sat nearby stirring some herbs in a pot of boiling water over a fire, and while her companions clapped and stamped and cried in rhythm, Serafina crouched over the knife and sang in a high, fierce tone:
"Little knife! They tore your iron out of Mother Earths entrails, built afire and boiled the ore, made it weep and bleed and flood, hammered it and tempered it, plunging it in icy water, heating it inside the forge till your blade was blood-red, scorching!
Then they made you wound the water once again, and yet again, till the steam was boiling fog and the water cried for mercy.
And when you sliced a single shade into thirty thousand shadows, then they knew that you were ready, then they called you subtle one.
"But little knife, what have you done?
Unlocked blood-gates, left them wide!
Little knife, your mother calls you, from the entrails of the earth, from her deepest mines and caverns, from her secret iron womb.
Listen!"
And Serafina stamped again and clapped her hands with the other witches, and they shook their throats to make a wild ulu-lation that tore at the air like claws. Will, seated in the middle of them, felt a chill at the core of his spine.
Then Serafina Pekkala turned to Will himself, and took his wounded hand in both of hers. When she sang this time, he nearly flinched, so fierce was her high, clear voice, so glittering her eyes; but he sat without moving, and let the spell goon.
"Blood! Obey me! Turn around, be a lake and not a river.
When you reach the open air, stop! And build a clotted wall, build it firm to hold the flood back.