“She gave him a drug,” said one bear, “which he fed secretly to Hjalmur Hjalmurson, and made him forget himself.”
Hjalmur Hjalmurson, Lyra gathered, was the bear whom Iorek had killed, and whose death had brought about his exile. So Mrs. Coulter was behind that! And there was more.
“There are human laws that prevent certain things that she was planning to do, but human laws don’t apply on Svalbard. She wanted to set up another station here like Bolvangar, only worse, and Iofur was going to allow her to do it, against all the custom of the bears; because humans have visited, or been imprisoned, but never lived and worked here. Little by little she was going to increase her power over Iofur Raknison, and his over us, until we were her creatures running back and forth at her bidding, and our only duty to guard the abomination she was going to create….”
That was an old bear speaking. His name was Søren Eisarson, and he was a counselor, one who had suffered under Iofur Raknison.
“What is she doing now, Lyra?” said Iorek Byrnison. “Once she hears of Iofur’s death, what will her plans be?”
Lyra took out the alethiometer. There was not much light to see it by, and Iorek commanded that a torch be brought.
“What happened to Mr. Scoresby?” Lyra said while they were waiting. “And the witches?”
“The witches were attacked by another witch clan. I don’t know if the others were allied to the child cutters, but they were patrolling our skies in vast numbers, and they attacked in the storm. I didn’t see what happened to Serafina Pekkala. As for Lee Scoresby, the balloon soared up again after I fell out with the boy, taking him with it. But your symbol reader will tell you what their fate is.”
A bear pulled up a sledge on which a cauldron of charcoal was smoldering, and thrust a resinous branch into the heart of it. The branch caught at once, and in its glare Lyra turned the hands of the alethiometer and asked about Lee Scoresby.
It turned out that he was still aloft, borne by the winds toward Nova Zembla, and that he had been unharmed by the cliff-ghasts and had fought off the other witch clan.
Lyra told Iorek, and he nodded, satisfied.
“If he is in the air, he will be safe,” he said. “What of Mrs. Coulter?”
The answer was complicated, with the needle swinging from symbol to symbol in a sequence that made Lyra puzzle for a long time. The bears were curious, but restrained by their respect for Iorek Byrnison, and his for Lyra, and she put them out of her mind and sank again into the alethiometric trance.
The play of symbols, once she had discovered the pattern of it, was dismaying.
“It says she’s…She’s heard about us flying this way, and she’s got a transport zeppelin that’s armed with machine guns—I think that’s it—and they’re a flying to Svalbard right now. She don’t know yet about Iofur Raknison being beaten, of course, but she will soon because…Oh yes, because some witches will tell her, and they’ll learn it from the cliff-ghasts. So I reckon there are spies in the air all around, Iorek. She was coming to…to pretend to help Iofur Raknison, but really she was going to take over power from him, with a regiment of Tartars that’s a coming by sea, and they’ll be here in a couple of days.
“And as soon as she can, she’s going to where Lord Asriel is kept prisoner, and she’s intending to have him killed. Because…It’s coming clear now: something I never understood before, Iorek! It’s why she wants to kill Lord Asriel: it’s because she knows what he’s going to do, and she fears it, and she wants to do it herself and gain control before he does….It must be the city in the sky, it must be! She’s trying to get to it first! And now it’s telling me something else….”
She bent over the instrument, concentrating furiously as the needle darted this way and that. It moved almost too fast to follow; Roger, looking over her shoulder, couldn’t even see it stop, and was conscious only of a swift flickering dialogue between Lyra’s fingers turning the hands and the needle answering, as bewilderingly unlike language as the Aurora was.
“Yes,” she said finally, putting the instrument down in her lap and blinking and sighing as she woke out of her profound concentration. “Yes, I see what it says. She’s after me again. She wants something I’ve got, because Lord Asriel wants it too. They need it for this…for this experiment, whatever it is…”
She stopped there, to take a deep breath. Something was troubling her, and she didn’t know what it was. She was sure that this something that was so important was the alethiometer itself, because after all, Mrs. Coulter had wanted it, and what else could it be? And yet it wasn’t, because the alethiometer had a different way of referring to itself, and this wasn’t it.
“I suppose it’s the alethiometer,” she said unhappily. “It’s what I thought all along. I’ve got to take it to Lord Asriel before she gets it. If she gets it, we’ll all die.”
As she said that, she felt so tired, so bone-deep weary and sad, that to die would have been a relief. But the example of Iorek kept her from admitting it. She put the alethiometer away and sat up straight.
“How far away is she?” said Iorek.
“Just a few hours. I suppose I ought to take the alethiometer to Lord Asriel as soon as I can.”
“I will go with you,” said Iorek.
She didn’t argue. While Iorek gave commands and organized an armed squad to accompany them on the final part of their journey north, Lyra sat still, conserving her energy. She felt that something had gone out of her during that last reading. She closed her eyes and slept, and presently they woke her and set off.
TWENTY-ONE
LORD ASRIEL’S WELCOME
Lyra rode a strong young bear, and Roger rode another, while Iorek paced tirelessly ahead and a squad armed with a fire hurler followed guarding the rear.
The way was long and hard. The interior of Svalbard was mountainous, with jumbled peaks and sharp ridges deeply cut by ravines and steep-sided valleys, and the cold was intense. Lyra thought back to the smooth-running sledges of the gyptians on the way to Bolvangar; how swift and comfortable that progress now seemed to have been! The air here was more penetratingly chill than any she had experienced before; or it might have been that the bear she was riding wasn’t as lightfooted as Iorek; or it might have been that she was tired to her very soul. At all events, it was desperately hard going.
She knew little of where they were bound, or how far it was. All she knew was what the older bear Søren Eisarson had told her while they were preparing the fire hurler. He had been involved in negotiating with Lord Asriel about the terms of his imprisonment, and he remembered it well.
At first, he’d said, the Svalbard bears regarded Lord Asriel as being no different from any of the other politicians, kings, or troublemakers who had been exiled to their bleak island. The prisoners were important, or they would have been killed outright by their own people; they might be valuable to the bears one day, if their political fortunes changed and they returned to rule in their own countries; so it might pay the bears not to treat them with cruelty or disrespect.
So Lord Asriel had found conditions on Svalbard no better and no worse than hundreds of other exiles had done. But certain things had made his jailers more wary of him than of other prisoners they’d had. There was the air of mystery and spiritual peril surrounding anything that had to do with Dust; there was the clear panic on the part of those who’d brought him there; and there were Mrs. Coulter’s private communications with Iofur Raknison.
Besides, the bears had never met anything quite like Lord Asriel’s own haughty and imperious nature. He dominated even Iofur Raknison, arguing forcefully and eloquently, and persuaded the bear-king to let him choose his own dwelling place.
The first one he was allotted was too low down, he said. He needed a high spot, above the smoke and stir of the fire mines and the smithies. He gave the bears a design of the accommodation he wanted, and told them where it should be; and he bribed them with gold, and he flattered and bullied Iofur Raknison, and with a bemused
willingness the bears set to work. Before long a house had arisen on a headland facing north: a wide and solid place with fireplaces that burned great blocks of coal mined and hauled by bears, and with large windows of real glass. There he dwelt, a prisoner acting like a king.
And then he set about assembling the materials for a laboratory.
With furious concentration he sent for books, instruments, chemicals, all manner of tools and equipment. And somehow it had come, from this source or that; some openly, some smuggled in by the visitors he insisted he was entitled to have. By land, sea, and air, Lord Asriel assembled his materials, and within six months of his committal, he had all the equipment he wanted.
And so he worked, thinking and planning and calculating, waiting for the one thing he needed to complete the task that so terrified the Oblation Board. It was drawing closer every minute.
Lyra’s first glimpse of her father’s prison came when Iorek Byrnison stopped at the foot of a ridge for the children to move and stretch themselves, because they had been getting dangerously cold and stiff.
“Look up there,” he said.
A wide broken slope of tumbled rocks and ice, where a track had been laboriously cleared, led up to a crag outlined against the sky. There was no Aurora, but the stars were brilliant. The crag stood black and gaunt, but at its summit was a spacious building from which light spilled lavishly in all directions: not the smoky inconstant gleam of blubber lamps, nor the harsh white of anbaric spotlights, but the warm creamy glow of naphtha.
The windows from which the light emerged also showed Lord Asriel’s formidable power. Glass was expensive, and large sheets of it were prodigal of heat in these fierce latitudes; so to see them here was evidence of wealth and influence far greater than Iofur Raknison’s vulgar palace.
Lyra and Roger mounted their bears for the last time, and Iorek led the way up the slope toward the house. There was a courtyard that lay deep under snow, surrounded by a low wall, and as Iorek pushed open the gate they heard a bell ring somewhere in the building.
Lyra got down. She could hardly stand. She helped Roger down too, and, supporting each other, the children stumbled through the thigh-deep snow toward the steps up to the door.
Oh, the warmth there would be inside that house! Oh, the peaceful rest!
She reached for the handle of the bell, but before she could reach it, the door opened. There was a small dimly lit vestibule to keep the warm air in, and standing under the lamp was a figure she recognized: Lord Asriel’s manservant Thorold, with his pinscher dæmon Anfang.
Lyra wearily pushed back her hood.
“Who…” Thorold began, and then saw who it was, and went on: “Not Lyra? Little Lyra? Am I dreaming?”
He reached behind him to open the inner door.
A hall, with a coal fire blazing in a stone grate; warm naphtha light glowing on carpets, leather chairs, polished wood… It was like nothing Lyra had seen since leaving Jordan College, and it brought a choking gasp to her throat.
Lord Asriel’s snow-leopard dæmon growled.
Lyra’s father stood there, his powerful dark-eyed face at first fierce, triumphant, and eager; and then the color faded from it; his eyes widened, in horror, as he recognized his daughter.
“No! No!”
He staggered back and clutched at the mantelpiece. Lyra couldn’t move.
“Get out!” Lord Asriel cried. “Turn around, get out, go! I did not send for you!”
She couldn’t speak. She opened her mouth twice, three times, and then managed to say:
“No, no, I came because—”
He seemed appalled; he kept shaking his head, he held up his hands as if to ward her off; she couldn’t believe his distress.
She moved a step closer to reassure him, and Roger came to stand with her, anxious. Their dæmons fluttered out into the warmth, and after a moment Lord Asriel passed a hand across his brow and recovered slightly. The color began to return to his cheeks as he looked down at the two.
“Lyra,” he said. “That is Lyra?”
“Yes, Uncle Asriel,” she said, thinking that this wasn’t the time to go into their true relationship. “I came to bring you the alethiometer from the Master of Jordan.”
“Yes, of course you did,” he said. “Who is this?”
“It’s Roger Parslow,” she said. “He’s the kitchen boy from Jordan College. But—”
“How did you get here?”
“I was just going to say, there’s Iorek Byrnison outside, he’s brought us here. He came with me all the way from Trollesund, and we tricked Iofur—”
“Who’s Iorek Byrnison?”
“An armored bear. He brought us here.”
“Thorold,” he called, “run a hot bath for these children, and prepare them some food. Then they will need to sleep. Their clothes are filthy; find them something to wear. Do it now, while I talk to this bear.”
Lyra felt her head swim. Perhaps it was the heat, or perhaps it was relief. She watched the servant bow and leave the hall, and Lord Asriel go into the vestibule and close the door behind, and then she half-fell into the nearest chair.
Only a moment later, it seemed, Thorold was speaking to her.
“Follow me, miss,” he was saying, and she hauled herself up and went with Roger to a warm bathroom, where soft towels hung on a heated rail, and where a tub of water steamed in the naphtha light.
“You go first,” said Lyra. “I’ll sit outside and we’ll talk.”
So Roger, wincing and gasping at the heat, got in and washed. They had swum naked together often enough, frolicking in the Isis or the Cherwell with other children, but this was different.
“I’m afraid of your uncle,” said Roger through the open door. “I mean your father.”
“Better keep calling him my uncle. I’m afraid of him too, sometimes.”
“When we first come in, he never saw me at all. He only saw you. And he was horrified, till he saw me. Then he calmed down all at once.”
“He was just shocked,” said Lyra. “Anyone would be, to see someone they didn’t expect. He last saw me after that time in the Retiring Room. It’s bound to be a shock.”
“No,” said Roger, “it’s more than that. He was looking at me like a wolf, or summing.”
“You’re imagining it.”
“I en’t. I’m more scared of him than I was of Mrs. Coulter, and that’s the truth.”
He splashed himself. Lyra took out the alethiometer.
“D’you want me to ask the symbol reader about it?” Lyra said.
“Well, I dunno. There’s things I’d rather not know. Seems to me everything I heard of since the Gobblers come to Oxford, everything’s been bad. There en’t been nothing good more than about five minutes ahead. Like I can see now, this bath’s nice, and there’s a nice warm towel there, about five minutes away. And once I’m dry, maybe I’ll think of summing nice to eat, but no further ahead than that. And when I’ve eaten, maybe I’ll look forward to a kip in a comfortable bed. But after that, I dunno, Lyra. There’s been terrible things we seen, en’t there? And more a coming, more’n likely. So I think I’d rather not know what’s in the future. I’ll stick to the present.”
“Yeah,” said Lyra wearily. “There’s times I feel like that too.”
So although she held the alethiometer in her hands for a little longer, it was only for comfort; she didn’t turn the wheels, and the swinging of the needle passed her by. Pantalaimon watched it in silence.
After they’d both washed, and eaten some bread and cheese and drunk some wine and hot water, the servant Thorold said, “The boy is to go to bed. I’ll show him where to go. His Lordship asks if you’d join him in the library, Miss Lyra.”
Lyra found Lord Asriel in a room whose wide windows overlooked the frozen sea far below. There was a coal fire under a wide chimneypiece, and a naphtha lamp turned down low, so there was little in the way of distracting reflections between the occupants of the room and the bleak starlit panorama outsid
e. Lord Asriel, reclining in a large armchair on one side of the fire, beckoned her to come and sit in the other chair facing him.
“Your friend Iorek Byrnison is resting outside,” he said. “He prefers the cold.”
“Did he tell you about his fight with Iofur Raknison?”
“Not in detail. But I understand that he is now the king of Svalbard. Is that true?”
“Of course it’s true. Iorek never lies.”
“He seems to have appointed himself your guardian.”
“No. John Faa told him to look after me, and he’s doing it because of that. He’s following John Faa’s orders.”
“How does John Faa come into this?”
“I’ll tell you if you tell me something,” she said. “You’re my father, en’t you?”
“Yes. So what?”
“So you should have told me before, that’s what. You shouldn’t hide things like that from people, because they feel stupid when they find out, and that’s cruel. What difference would it make if I knew I was your daughter? You could have said it years ago. You could’ve told me and asked me to keep it secret, and I would, no matter how young I was, I’d have done that if you asked me. I’d have been so proud nothing would’ve torn it out of me, if you asked me to keep it secret. But you never. You let other people know, but you never told me.”
“Who did tell you?”
“John Faa.”
“Did he tell you about your mother?”
“Yes.”
“Then there’s not much left for me to tell. I don’t think I want to be interrogated and condemned by an insolent child. I want to hear what you’ve seen and done on the way here.”
“I brought you the bloody alethiometer, didn’t I?” Lyra burst out. She was very near to tears. “I looked after it all the way from Jordan, I hid it and I treasured it, all through what’s happened to us, and I learned about using it, and I carried it all this bloody way when I could’ve just given up and been safe, and you en’t even said thank you, nor showed any sign that you’re glad to see me. I don’t know why I ever done it. But I did, and I kept on going, even in Iofur Raknison’s stinking palace with all them bears around me I kept on going, all on me own, and I tricked him into fighting with Iorek so’s I could come on here for your sake….And when you did see me, you like to fainted, as if I was some horrible thing you never wanted to see again. You en’t human, Lord Asriel. You en’t my father. My father wouldn’t treat me like that. Fathers are supposed to love their daughters, en’t they? You don’t love me, and I don’t love you, and that’s a fact. I love Farder Coram, and I love Iorek Byrnison; I love an armored bear more’n I love my father. And I bet Iorek Byrnison loves me more’n you do.”
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