Theres all kinds of concerns that play on the life of witches, things invisible to us: mysterious sicknesses they fall prey to, which wed shrug off; causes of war quite beyond our understanding; joys and sorrows bound up with the flowering of tiny plants up on the tundra....But I wish Id seen them a flying, Lyra. I wish Id been able to see a sight like that. Now drink up all that soup. Dyou want some more? Theres some pan-bread a cooking too. Eat up, child, because were on our way soon.”
Lyra was trying to tell John Faa about the witches, but they were all so busy, and she was so tired. After a confusing few minutes full of lantern light, woodsmoke, figures hurrying to and fro, she felt a gentle nip on her ear from Pantalaimons ermine teeth, and woke to find the bears face a few inches from hers.
“What we going to do about them witches, Farder Coram?” she said. “I wonder if your witch was one of them.”
Then an idea came to her, and she fumbled inside her furs. The cold air struck through as she opened her anorak, but in a few seconds she had what she wanted, and took a gold coin from her purse before wrapping herself close again.
“Lyra, Im afraid to tell you this after what you done, but that little boy died an hour ago. He couldnt settle, he couldnt stay in one place; he kept asking after hisdaemon, where she was, was she a coming soon, and all; and he kept such a tight hold on that bare old piece of fish as if...Oh, I cant speak of it, child; but he closed his eyes finally and fell still, and that was the first time he looked peaceful, for he was like any other dead person then, with their daemon gone in the course of nature. Theyve been a trying to dig a grave for him, but the earths bound like iron. So John Faa ordered a fire built, and theyre a going to cremate him, so as not to have him despoiled by carrion eaters.
“Farder Coram, where is the little boy now? Have they burned him yet?”
“Hes called Tony,” she mumbled through frozen lips. “And they cut his daemon away. Thats what the Gobblers do.”
“Whos took it?” she flared again, and the gyptian took a step back from her passionate fury.
“I want to borrow your knife,” she said to the man whod taken the fish, and when hed let her have it, she said to Pantalaimon: “What was her name?”
The men held back, fearful; but the bear spoke, to Lyras weary amazement, chiding them.
“Ratter,” said the boy. “You got my Ratter?”
From time to time the half-boy spoke.
“Gracious God, what is this?” he said. “Lyra, child, what have you found?”
“Shame on you! Think what this child has done! You might not have more courage, but you should be ashamed to show less.”
“It is, John. Bring her over and well get her warm....”
“My witch? I wouldnt presume that far, Lyra. They might be going anywhere.
She saw it all from the shelter on Farder Corams sledge, inside which she lay under a heap of furs. Pantalaimon was fully awake before she was, trying the shape of an arctic fox before reverting to his favorite ermine.
“Come on,” she called in a trembling voice. “Tony, come out. Were going to take you somewhere safe.”
There was a stir of movement in the fish house, and he appeared at the door, still clutching his dried fish. He was dressed in warm enough garments, a thickly padded and quilted coal-silk anorak and fur boots, but they had a secondhand look and didnt fit well. In the wider light outside that came from the faint trails of the Aurora and the snow-covered ground he looked more lost and piteous even than he had at first, crouching in the lantern light by the fish racks.
Pantalaimon crept close as Lyra looked down on the poor wasted face. She slipped her hand out of the mitten and touched his eyes. They were marble-cold, and Farder Coram had been right; poor little Tony Makarios was no different from any other human whose daemon had departed in death. Oh, if they took Pantalaimon from her! She swept him up and hugged him as if she meant to press him right into her heart. And all little Tony had was his pitiful piece offish....
“Child, you did a brave thing and a good thing, and Im proud of you. Now we know what terrible wickedness those people are capable of, we can see our duty plainer than ever. What you must do is rest and eat, because you fell asleep too soon to restore yourself last night, and you have to eat in these temperatures to stop yourself getting weak....”
lorek Byrnison was asleep in the snow nearby, his head on his great paws; but Farder Coram was up and busy, and as soon as he saw Pantalaimon emerge, he limped across to wake Lyra properly.
“Whats that you said?” asked Lyra.
“Tony Makarios,” he said. “Wheres Ratter?”
“No, Lyra, hes a lying back there.”
I do beg your pardon.”
He gave her a mug of soup straight off the fire, and she sipped it greedily.
“Yeah, shell know, shell find you and well find her. Hold on tight now, Tony.
She pulled the blanket down. It was gone.
“I says is she gonna know where I am?”
The bear loped onward. Lyra had no idea how tired she was until they caught up with the gyptians. The sledges had stopped to rest the dogs, and suddenly there they all were, Farder Coram, Lord Faa, Lee Scoresby, all lunging forward to help and then falling back silent as they saw the other figure with Lyra. She was so stiff that she couldnt even loosen her arms around his body, and John Faa himself had to pull them gently open and lift her off.
“My armor weighs far more than children,” he said.
“Then where is it?”
“Ive got it tucked away tight,” he said. “Its down in the bottom of that kit bag, but theres nothing to see; I soldered it shut on board ship, like I said I would. I dont know what were a going to do with it, to tell you the truth; maybe we could drop it down a fire mine, maybe that would settle it. But you neednt worry, Lyra. While Ive got it, youre safe.” The first chance she had, she plunged her arm down into the stiffly frosted canvas of the kit bag and brought up the little tin. She could feel the buzz it was making before she touched it.
“Oh yeah,” she mumbled. “lorek, thank you for taking me there and back. I might not remember to tell Lord Faa about the witches, so you better do that instead of me.”
“Wheres his fish?”
The boys body lay under a checkered blanket beside the path. She knelt and lifted the blanket in her mittened hands. One man was about to stop her, but the others shook their heads.
In Lyras heart, revulsion struggled with compassion, and compassion won. She put her arms around the skinny little form to hold him safe. The journey back to the main party wascolder, and harder, and darker, but it seemed to pass more quickly for all that. lorek Byrnison was tireless, and Lyras riding became automatic, so that she was never in danger of falling off. The cold body in her arms was so light that in one way he was easy to manage, but he was inert; he sat stiffly without moving as the bear moved, so in another way he was difficult too.
“Farder Coram, I know what it was that I couldnt understand! The alethiometer kept saying bird and not, and that didnt make sense, because it meant no daemon and I didnt see how it could be....What is it?”
“Easy, Lyra,” said one man. “Easy, child.”
lorek Byrnison interpreted: “He says you must pay for that fish.”
Where was it?
“No,” she said in a voice as frail and frightened as she felt. Then, “Whats your name?”
“I want to go and see him.”
He couldnt refuse her that, for shed seen worse than a dead body, and it might calm her. So with Pantalaimon as a white hare bounding delicately at her side, she trudged along the line of sledges to where some men were piling brushwood.
She was on her feet in a moment, and her eyes flashed fury at the men nearby.
“I didnt know,” said another man apologetically. “I thought it was just what hed been eating. I took it out his hand because I thought it was more respectful. Thats all, Lyra.”
“I hope thatll do, if I provide for you like a Jordan Scholar,” she whispered to the dead boy, and forced his teeth apart to slip the coin into his mouth. It was hard, but she managed it, and managed to close his jaw again.
“I dont know...” she began, and swallowed hard to govern her nausea. “The Gobblers...” But she couldnt finish. She had to go out of the shed and sit down by herself in the snow, except that of course she wasnt by herself, she was never by herself, because Pantalaimon was always there. Oh, to be cut from him as this little boy had been parted from his Ratter! The worst thing in the world! She found herself sobbing, and Pantalaimon was whimpering too, and in both of them there was a passionate pity and sorrow for the half-boy.
North and further north they ran, while the pallid noontide came and went and the twilightwrapped itself again around the world. They stopped to eat and drink and rest in a fold of the hills, and to get their bearings, and while John Faa talked to Lee Scoresby about the way they might best use the balloon, Lyra thought of the spy-fly; and she asked Farder Coram what had happened to the smokeleaf tin hed trapped it in.
She heard the bear agree, and then she fell asleep properly.
Through it all the dogs continued to run, tails high, breath puffing steam.
Then she got to her feet again.
Her first impulse was to turn and run, or to be sick. A human being with no daemon was like someone without a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out: something unnatural and uncanny that belonged to the world of night-ghasts, not the waking world of sense.
“And the little boy,” said someone else. “He can eat and get warm, even if...”
The food revived Lyra, and presently the chill at her soul began to melt. With the others, she went to watch the little half-child laid on his funeral pyre, and bowed her head and closed her eyes for John Faas prayers; and then the men sprinkled coal spirit and set matches to it, and it was blazing in a moment.
“It ent my pardon you need, its his,” she said, and turned at once to kneel again, and laid her hand on the dead childs icy cheek.
The bear spoke. The man muttered, but didnt argue. Lyra set his lantern down in the snow and took the half-boys hand to guide him to the bear. He came helplessly, showing no surprise and no fear at the great white beast standing so close, and when Lyra helped him to sit on loreks back, all he said was:
Then she gave the man back his knife and turned in the morning twilight to go back to Farder Coram.
He was fussing around, tucking the furs into place, tightening the tension rope across the body of the sledge, running the traces through his hands to untangle them.
Pantalaimon was a snarling snow leopard, just like Lord Asriels daemon, but she didnt see that; all she saw was right and wrong.
“Dont you dare laugh! Ill tear your lungs out if you laugh at him! Thats all he had to cling onto, just an old dried fish, thats all he had for a daemon to love and be kind to! Whos took it from him? Wheres it gone?”
“No, nor do we, Tony,” she said. “But well...well punish the Gobblers. Well do that, I promise. lorek, is it all right if I sit up there too?”
Lyra was in no doubt what he meant.
So she scrambled up behind Tony and made him cling to the long stiff fur, and Pantalaimon sat inside her hood, warm and close and full of pity. Lyra knew that Pantalaimons impulse was to reach out and cuddle the little half-child, to lick him and gentle him and warm him as his own daemon would have done; but the great taboo prevented that, of course.
They stopped, puzzled, unsure what she meant; though some of their daemons knew, and looked at one another. One of the men began to grin uncertainly.
Once they were sure he was safely burned, they set off to travel again. It was a ghostly journey. Snow began to fall early on, and soon the world was reduced to the gray shadows of the dogs ahead, the lurching and creaking of the sledge, the biting cold, and a swirling sea of big flakes only just darker than the sky and only just lighter than the ground.
“I dunno where my Ratter is.”
“Youre right, lorek Byrnison,” said John Faa, and turned to give orders. “Build that fire up and heat some soup for the child. For both children. Farder Coram, is your shelter rigged?”
“The witches,” Pantalaimon whispered. “I called lorek.”
They rose through the village and up toward the ridge, and the villagers faces were open with horror and a kind of fearful relief at seeing that hideously mutilated creature taken away by a girl and a great white bear.
The villager whod brought the lantern had retreated a few yards, and called down to them.
When she woke up, it was as close to daylight as it was ever going to get. The sky was pale in the southeast, and the air was suffused with a gray mist, through which the gyptians moved like bulky ghosts, loading sledges and harnessing dogs to the traces.
The man said uneasily, “Not thinking he had a need for it, I gave it to my dogs.
She held the coin tight in her left mittened hand and, holding the knife like a pencil, scratched the lost daemons name deeply into the gold.
So Lyra clung to Pantalaimon and her head swam and her gorge rose, and cold as the night was, a sickly sweat moistened her flesh with something colder still.
She saw him coming, and sat up to speak.
It ent far from here....”
Lyra felt like telling the bear to kill him, but she said, “Were taking the child away for them. They can afford to give one fish to pay for that.”
He understood, of course, and said, “Ratter.”
