“But he said they tricked him! They made him drunk and stole it away!”
“We heard a different story,” said John Faa. “He’s a dangerous rogue, is what we heard.”
“If—” Lyra was passionate; she could hardly speak for indignation. “—if the alethiometer says something, I know it’s true. And I asked it, and it said that he was telling the truth, they did trick him, and they’re telling lies and not him. I believe him, Lord Faa! Farder Coram—you saw him too, and you believe him, don’t you?”
“I thought I did, child. I en’t so certain of things as you are.”
“But what are they afraid of? Do they think he’s going to go round killing people as soon’s he gets his armor on? He could kill dozens of ’em now!”
“He has done,” said John Faa. “Well, if not dozens, then some. When they first took his armor away, he went a rampaging round looking for it. He tore open the police house and the bank and I don’t know where else, and there’s at least two men who died. The only reason they didn’t shoot to kill him is because of his wondrous skill with metals; they wanted to use him like a laborer.”
“Like a slave!” Lyra said hotly. “They hadn’t got the right!”
“Be that as it may, they might have shot him for the killings he done, but they didn’t. And they bound him over to labor in the town’s interest until he’s paid off the damage and the blood money.”
“John,” said Farder Coram, “I don’t know how you feel, but it’s my belief they’ll never let him have that armor back. The longer they keep him, the more angry he’ll be when he gets it.”
“But if we get his armor back, he’ll come with us and never bother ’em again,” said Lyra. “I promise, Lord Faa.”
“And how are we going to do that?”
“I know where it is!”
There was a silence, in which they all three became aware of the witch’s dæmon and his fixed stare at Lyra. All three turned to him, and their own dæmons too, who had until then affected the extreme politeness of keeping their eyes modestly away from this singular creature, here without his body.
“You won’t be surprised,” said the goose, “to know that the alethiometer is one other reason the witches are interested in you, Lyra. Our consul told us about your visit this morning. I believe it was Dr. Lanselius who told you about the bear.”
“Yes, it was,” said John Faa. “And she and Farder Coram went theirselves and talked to him. I daresay what Lyra says is true, but if we go breaking the law of these people we’ll only get involved in a quarrel with them, and what we ought to be doing is pushing on towards this Bolvangar, bear or no bear.”
“Ah, but you en’t seen him, John,” said Farder Coram. “And I do believe Lyra. We could promise on his behalf, maybe. He might make all the difference.”
“What do you think, sir?” said John Faa to the witch’s dæmon.
“We have few dealings with bears. Their desires are as strange to us as ours are to them. If this bear is an outcast, he might be less reliable than they are said to be. You must decide for yourselves.”
“We will,” said John Faa firmly. “But now, sir, can you tell us how to get to Bolvangar from here?”
The goose dæmon began to explain. He spoke of valleys and hills, of the tree line and the tundra, of star sightings. Lyra listened awhile, and then lay back in the deck chair with Pantalaimon curled around her neck, and thought of the grand vision the goose dæmon had brought with him. A bridge between two worlds...This was far more splendid than anything she could have hoped for! And only her great father could have conceived it. As soon as they had rescued the children, she would go to Svalbard with the bear and take Lord Asriel the alethiometer, and use it to help set him free; and they’d build the bridge together, and be the first across....
Sometime in the night John Faa must have carried Lyra to her bunk, because that was where she awoke. The dim sun was as high in the sky as it was going to get, only a hand’s breadth above the horizon, so it must be nearly noon, she thought. Soon, when they moved further north, there would be no sun at all.
She dressed quickly and ran on deck to find nothing very much happening. All the stores had been unloaded, sledges and dog teams had been hired and were waiting to go; everything was ready and nothing was moving. Most of the gyptians were sitting in a smoke-filled café facing the water, eating spice cakes and drinking strong sweet coffee at the long wooden tables under the fizz and crackle of some ancient anbaric lights.
“Where’s Lord Faa?” she said, sitting down with Tony Costa and his friends. “And Farder Coram? Are they getting the bear’s armor for him?”
“They’re a talking to the sysselman. That’s their word for governor. You seen this bear, then, Lyra?”
“Yeah!” she said, and explained all about him. As she talked, someone else pulled a chair up and joined the group at the table.
“So you’ve spoken to old Iorek?” he said.
She looked at the newcomer with surprise. He was a tall, lean man with a thin black moustache and narrow blue eyes, and a perpetual expression of distant and sardonic amusement. She felt strongly about him at once, but she wasn’t sure whether it was liking she felt, or dislike. His dæmon was a shabby hare as thin and tough-looking as he was.
He held out his hand and she shook it warily.
“Lee Scoresby,” he said.
“The aeronaut!” she exclaimed. “Where’s your balloon? Can I go up in it?”
“It’s packed away right now, miss. You must be the famous Lyra. How did you get on with Iorek Byrnison?”
“You know him?”
“I fought beside him in the Tunguska campaign. Hell, I’ve known Iorek for years. Bears are difficult critters no matter what, but he’s a problem, and no mistake. Say, are any of you gentlemen in the mood for a game of hazard?”
A pack of cards had appeared from nowhere in his hand. He riffled them with a snapping noise.
“Now I’ve heard of the card power of your people,” Lee Scoresby was saying, cutting and folding the cards over and over with one hand and fishing a cigar out of his breast pocket with the other, “and I thought you wouldn’t object to giving a simple Texan traveler the chance to joust with your skill and daring on the field of pasteboard combat. What do you say, gentlemen?”
Gyptians prided themselves on their ability with cards, and several of the men looked interested and pulled their chairs up. While they were agreeing with Lee Scoresby what to play and for what stakes, his dæmon flicked her ears at Pantalaimon, who understood and leaped to her side lightly as a squirrel.
She was speaking for Lyra’s ears too, of course, and Lyra heard her say quietly, “Go straight to the bear and tell him direct. As soon as they know what’s going on, they’ll move his armor somewhere else.”
Lyra got up, taking her spice cake with her, and no one noticed; Lee Scoresby was already dealing the cards, and every suspicious eye was on his hands.
In the dull light, fading through an endless afternoon, she found her way to the sledge depot. It was something she knew she had to do, but she felt uneasy about it, and afraid, too.
Outside the largest of the concrete sheds the great bear was working, and Lyra stood by the open gate to watch. Iorek Byrnison was dismantling a gas-engined tractor that had crashed; the metal covering of the engine was twisted and buckled and one runner bent upward. The bear lifted the metal off as if it were cardboard, and turned it this way and that in his great hands, seeming to test it for some quality or other, before setting a rear paw on one corner and then bending the whole sheet in such a way that the dents sprang out and the shape was restored. Leaning it against the wall, he lifted the massive weight of the tractor with one paw and laid it on its side before bending to examine the crumpled runner.
As he did so, he caught sight of Lyra. She felt a bolt of cold fear strike at her, because he was so massive and so alien. She was gazing through the chain-link fence about forty yards from him, and she thought how h
e could clear the distance in a bound or two and sweep the wire aside like a cobweb, and she almost turned and ran away; but Pantalaimon said, “Stop! Let me go and talk to him.”
He was a tern, and before she could answer he’d flown off the fence and down to the icy ground beyond it. There was an open gate a little way along, and Lyra could have followed him, but she hung back uneasily. Pantalaimon looked at her, and then became a badger.
She knew what he was doing. Dæmons could move no more than a few yards from their humans, and if she stood by the fence and he remained a bird, he wouldn’t get near the bear; so he was going to pull.
She felt angry and miserable. His badger claws dug into the earth and he walked forward. It was such a strange tormenting feeling when your dæmon was pulling at the link between you; part physical pain deep in the chest, part intense sadness and love. And she knew it was the same for him. Everyone tested it when they were growing up: seeing how far they could pull apart, coming back with intense relief.
He tugged a little harder.
“Don’t, Pan!”
But he didn’t stop. The bear watched, motionless. The pain in Lyra’s heart grew more and more unbearable, and a sob of longing rose in her throat.
“Pan—”
Then she was through the gate, scrambling over the icy mud toward him, and he turned into a wildcat and sprang up into her arms, and they were clinging together tightly with little shaky sounds of unhappiness coming from them both.
“I thought you really would—”
“No—”
“I couldn’t believe how much it hurt—”
And then she brushed the tears away angrily and sniffed hard. He nestled in her arms, and she knew she would rather die than let them be parted and face that sadness again; it would send her mad with grief and terror. If she died, they’d still be together, like the Scholars in the crypt at Jordan.
Then girl and dæmon looked up at the solitary bear. He had no dæmon. He was alone, always alone. She felt such a stir of pity and gentleness for him that she almost reached out to touch his matted pelt, and only a sense of courtesy toward those cold ferocious eyes prevented her.
“Iorek Byrnison,” she said.
“Well?”
“Lord Faa and Farder Coram have gone to try and get your armor for you.”
He didn’t move or speak. It was clear what he thought of their chances.
“I know where it is, though,” she said, “and if I told you, maybe you could get it by yourself, I don’t know.”
“How do you know where it is?”
“I got a symbol reader. I think I ought to tell you, Iorek Byrnison, seeing as they tricked you out of it in the first place. I don’t think that’s right. They shouldn’t’ve done that. Lord Faa’s going to argue with the sysselman, but probably they won’t let you have it whatever he says. So if I tell you, will you come with us and help rescue the kids from Bolvangar?”
“Yes.”
“I...” She didn’t mean to be nosy, but she couldn’t help being curious. She said, “Why don’t you just make some more armor out of this metal here, Iorek Byrnison?”
“Because it’s worthless. Look,” he said, and, lifting the engine cover with one paw, he extended a claw on the other hand and ripped right through it like a can opener. “My armor is made of sky iron, made for me. A bear’s armor is his soul, just as your dæmon is your soul. You might as well take him away” —indicating Pantalaimon—”and replace him with a doll full of sawdust. That is the difference. Now, where is my armor?”
“Listen, you got to promise not to take vengeance. They done wrong taking it, but you just got to put up with that.”
“All right. No vengeance afterwards. But no holding back as I take it, either. If they fight, they die.”
“It’s hidden in the cellar of the priest’s house,” she told him. “He thinks there’s a spirit in it, and he’s been a trying to conjure it out. But that’s where it is.”
He stood high up on his hind legs and looked west, so that the last of the sun colored his face a creamy brilliant yellow white amid the gloom. She could feel the power of the great creature coming off him like waves of heat.
“I must work till sunset,” he said. “I gave my word this morning to the master here. I still owe a few minutes’ work.”
“The sun’s set where I am,” she pointed out, because from her point of view it had vanished behind the rocky headland to the southwest.
He dropped to all fours.
“It’s true,” he said, with his face now in shadow like hers. “What’s your name, child?”
“Lyra Belacqua.”
“Then I owe you a debt, Lyra Belacqua,” he said.
He turned and lurched away, padding so swiftly across the freezing ground that Lyra couldn’t keep up, even running. She did run, though, and Pantalaimon flew up as a seagull to watch where the bear went and called down to tell her where to follow.
Iorek Byrnison bounded out of the depot and along the narrow street before turning into the main street of the town, past the courtyard of the sysselman’s residence where a flag hung in the still air and a sentry marched stiffly up and down, down the hill past the end of the street where the witch consul lived. The sentry by this time had realized what was happening, and was trying to gather his wits, but Iorek Byrnison was already turning a corner near the harbor.
People stopped to watch or scuttled out of his careering way. The sentry fired two shots in the air, and set off down the hill after the bear, spoiling the effect by skidding on the icy slope and only regaining his balance after seizing the nearest railings. Lyra was not far behind. As she passed the sysselman’s house, she was aware of a number of figures coming out into the courtyard to see what was going on, and thought she saw Farder Coram among them; but then she was past, hurtling down the street toward the corner where the sentry was already turning to follow the bear.
The priest’s house was older than most, and made of costly bricks. Three steps led up to the front door, which was now hanging in matchwood splinters, and from inside the house came screams and the crashing and tearing of more wood. The sentry hesitated outside, his rifle at the ready; but then as passers-by began to gather and people looked out of windows from across the street, he realized that he had to act, and fired a shot into the air before running in.
A moment later, the whole house seemed to shake. Glass broke in three windows and a tile slid off the roof, and then a maidservant ran out, terrified, her clucking hen of a dæmon flapping after her.
Another shot came from inside the house, and then a full-throated roar made the servant scream. As if fired from a cannon, the priest himself came hurtling out, with his pelican dæmon in a wild flutter of feathers and injured pride. Lyra heard orders shouted, and turned to see a squad of armed policemen hurrying around the corner, some with pistols and some with rifles, and not far behind them came John Faa and the stout, fussy figure of the sysselman.
A rending, splintering sound made them all look back at the house. A window at ground level, obviously opening on a cellar, was being wrenched apart with a crash of glass and a screech of tearing wood. The sentry who’d followed Iorek Byrnison into the house came running out and stood to face the cellar window, rifle at his shoulder; and then the window tore open completely, and out climbed Iorek Byrnison, the bear in armor.
Without it, he was formidable. With it, he was terrifying. It was rust-red, and crudely riveted together: great sheets and plates of dented discolored metal that scraped and screeched as they rode over one another. The helmet was pointed like his muzzle, with slits for eyes, and it left the lower part of his jaw bare for tearing and biting.
The sentry fired several shots, and the policemen leveled their weapons too, but Iorek Byrnison merely shook the bullets off like raindrops, and lunged forward in a screech and clang of metal before the sentry could escape, and knocked him to the ground. His dæmon, a husky dog, darted at the bear’s throat, but Iorek Byrnison took n
o more notice of him than he would of a fly, and dragging the sentry to him with one vast paw, he bent and enclosed his head in his jaws. Lyra could see exactly what would happen next: he’d crush the man’s skull like an egg, and there would follow a bloody fight, more deaths, and more delay; and they would never get free, with or without the bear.
Without even thinking, she darted forward and put her hand on the one vulnerable spot in the bear’s armor, the gap that appeared between the helmet and the great plate over his shoulders when he bent his head, where she could see the yellow-white fur dimly between the rusty edges of metal. She dug her fingers in, and Pantalaimon instantly flew to the same spot and became a wildcat, crouched to defend her; but Iorek Byrnison was still, and the riflemen held their fire.
“Iorek!” she said in a fierce undertone. “Listen! You owe me a debt, right. Well, now you can repay it. Do as I ask. Don’t fight these men. Just turn around and walk away with me. We want you, Iorek, you can’t stay here. Just come down to the harbor with me and don’t even look back. Farder Coram and Lord Faa, let them do the talking, they’ll make it all right. Leave go this man and come away with me....”
The bear slowly opened his jaws. The sentry’s head, bleeding and wet and ash-pale, fell to the ground as he fainted, and his dæmon set about calming and gentling him as the bear stepped away beside Lyra.
No one else moved. They watched the bear turn away from his victim at the bidding of the girl with the cat dæmon, and then they shuffled aside to make room as Iorek Byrnison padded heavily through the midst of them at Lyra’s side and made for the harbor.
Her mind was all on him, and she didn’t see the confusion behind her, the fear and the anger that rose up safely when he was gone. She walked with him, and Pantalaimon padded ahead of them both as if to clear the way.
When they reached the harbor, Iorek Byrnison dipped his head and unfastened the helmet with a claw, letting it clang on the frozen ground. Gyptians came out of the café, having sensed that something was going on, and watched in the gleam of the anbaric lights on the ship’s deck as Iorek Byrnison shrugged off the rest of his armor and left it in a heap on the quayside. Without a word to anyone he padded to the water and slipped into it without a ripple, and vanished.
The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials Page 18
