Pantalaimon fluttered around Lyra, his distress affecting her.
“If I talked to her about Dust? You dont think shed listen to that?”
Its a technique you find among the aboriginals of Siberia and the Tungusk. From there, of course, it spread into the lands of the Skraelings, though I understand that it is now banned in New Denmark. May I examine it more closely, Lord Asriel?”
“Forgive me, Master, but I cant help being relieved. I was never happy about the idea of...”
“You are.”
“Exactly.”
“Yes. Of murder.”
Over the jumble of voices Lyra heard someone stumble to the door and out, making incoherent sounds of distress. She wished she could see what they were seeing.
She compressed her lips and frowned hard at her uncle. He was pumping the air from the vacuum flask, and took no notice; it was as if hed already forgotten her. Without a word, but with lips tight and eyes narrowed, the girl and her daemon left and went to bed.
"Who is lofur Raknison?" said someone. "The king of Svalbard," said the Palmerian Professor. "Yes, thats right, one of the panserb)0me. Hes a usurper, of sorts; tricked his way onto the throne, or so I understand; but a powerful figure, by no means a fool, in spite of his ludicrous affectations—having a palace built of imported marble—setting up what he calls a university—" "For whom? For the bears?" said someone else, and every-one laughed.
cries of horror, loud protests, voices raised in anger and fear.
“Back to the North. Im leaving in ten minutes.”
“Good. But Ive scotched him for now. Do as youre told and go to bed.”
“Lord Asriel—no, no. Quite the reverse. The Oblation Board isnt entirely answerable to the Consistorial Court, either. Its a semiprivate initiative; its being run by someone who has no love of Lord Asriel. Between them both, Charles, I tremble.”
"Indeed I do. Do you know what he wants above all else? Even more than an honorary degree? He wants a daemon! Find a wayto give him a daemon, and hed do anything for you." The Scholars laughed heartily.
"Quiet," said her uncle. The wardrobe door was open, and he was crouched there against the light. "Theyve all gone, but there are still some servants around.
But the Palmerian Professor went on: "For all that, I tell you that lofur Raknison would be capable of doing this to Grumman. At the same time, he could be flattered into behaving quite differently, if the need arose." "And you know how, do you, Trelawney?" said the Dean sneeringly.
“Of course he did. I have no idea how, but he knew, and he spilled the decanter himself. Of course he did.”
“Do you really believe he knew about the wine?” said the Librarian.
“No, no,” protested the Librarian. “But I wish you had told me more.
“Why on earth should she?” he said. “Why should a distant theological riddle interest a healthy, thoughtless child?”
“Yes, and he looked for the wine before he did anything else.”
The Master was silent for a while before saying, “Yes, perhaps I should have done. The alethiometer warns of appalling consequences if Lord Asriel pursues this research. Apart from anything else, the child will be drawn in, and I want to keep her safe as long as possible.”
“Quite. Itll seem to the Oblation Board, and to its powerful protectors, that Jordan College is a hotbed of support for heresy. And between the Consistorial Court and the Oblation Board, Charles, I have to keep a balance; and meanwhile the child is growing. They wont have forgotten her. Sooner or later she would have become involved, but shell be drawn in now whether I want to protect her or not.”
“Dont be disgusting,” he said, and began to pack his slides and specimen box.
“Hardly anyone would be happy at that idea, Charles. The question was whether doing that would be worse than the consequences of not doing it. Well, some providence has intervened, and it hasnt happened. Im only sorry I burdened you with the knowledge of it.”
Do as youre told and go to bed, and if youre a good girl, Ill bring you back a walrus tusk with some Eskimo carving on it. Dont argue anymore or I shall be angry.”
After a short silence he spoke again.
“This is the head of Stanislaus Grumman,” said Lord Asriels voice.
“—its been—”
The Holy Church naturally disapproved of this abominable heresy, and Barnard and Stokes were silenced.
“Did you watch the Master?”
“Thats the duty of the old,” said the Librarian, “to be anxious on behalf of the young. And the duty of the young is to scorn the anxiety of the old.”
He stopped what he was doing, and looked at her as if for the first time. His daemon turned her great tawny leopard eyes on her too, and under the concentrated gaze of both of them, Lyra blushed. But she gazed back fiercely.
But it was always possible for independent agencies to grow up under the protection of another part of the Magisterium, and the Oblation Board, which the Librarian had referred to, was one of these. The Librarian didnt know much about it, but he disliked and feared what hed heard, and he completely understood the Masters anxiety.
“No, no, thats the saddest thing: she will be the betrayer, and the experience will be terrible. She mustnt know that, of course, but theres no reason for her not to know about the problem of Dust. And you might be wrong, Charles; she might well take an interest in it, if it were explained in a simple way. And it might help her later on. It would certainly help me to be less anxious about her.”
The Librarian was silent in his turn. Ever since Pope John Calvin had moved the seat of the Papacy to Geneva and set up the Consistorial Court of Discipline, the Churchs power over every aspect of life had been absolute. The Papacy itself had been abolished after Calvins death, and a tangle of courts, colleges, and councils, collectively known as the Magisterium, had grown up in its place. These agencies were not always united; sometimes a bitter rivalry grew up between them. For a large part of the previous century, the most powerful had been the College of Bishops, but in recent years the Consistorial Court of Discipline had taken its place as the most active and the most feared of all the Churchs bodies.
“But how do you know that, for Gods sake? The alethiometer again?”
And his daemon growled with a deep savage rumble that made Lyra suddenly aware of what it would be like to have teeth meeting in her throat.
“Yes. Lyra has a part to play in all this, and a major one. The irony is that she must do it all without realizing what shes doing. She can be helped, though, and if my plan with the Tokay had succeeded, she would have been safe for a little longer. I would have liked to spare her a journey to the North. I wish above all things that I were able to explain it to her...”
“And now Lord Asriel has taken a picture of one of these other worlds,” the Librarian said. “And we have funded him to go and look for it. I see.”
“My eyes are not very clear, and the ice is dirty, but it seems to me that there is a hole in the top of the skull. Am I right?”
The old mans voice was steady as he said, “I have seen the Tartars do this.
“Youre not coming, child. Put it out of your head; the times are too dangerous.
Lord Asriel said, “I found his body preserved in the ice off Svalbard. The head was treated in this way by his killers. Youll notice the characteristic scalping pattern. I think you might be familiar with it, Sub-Rector.”
“—whats happened to it?”
Lyra was following this with puzzlement; what the Palmerian Professor said made no sense at all. Besides, she was impatient to hear more about scalping and the Northern Lights and that mysterious Dust. But she was disappointed, for Lord Asriel had finished showing his relics and pictures, and the talk soon turned into a College wrangle about whether or not they should give him some money to fit out another expedition. Back and forth the arguments ranged, and Lyra felt her eyes closing. Soon she was fast asleep, with Pantalaimon curled around her neck in his favorite sleeping form as an ermine.
“—hardly human—”
"Thats right." "Are we to understand that the panserbj0rne had anything to do with this?" Lyra didnt recognize that word, but clearly the Scholars did.
“Ah, its not our field, Charles. As I understand it, the Holy Church teaches that there are two worlds: the world of everything we can see and hear and touch, and another world, the spiritual world of heaven and hell. Barnard and Stokes were two—how shall I put it—renegade theologians who postulated the existence of numerous other worlds like this one, neither heaven nor hell, but material and sinful. They are there, close by, but invisible and unreachable.
* * * The Master and the Librarian were old friends and allies, and it was their habit, after a difficult episode, to take a glass of brantwijn and console each other. So after theyd seen Lord Asriel away, they strolled to the Masters lodging and settled in his study with the curtains drawn and the fire refreshed, their daemons in their familiar places on knee or shoulder, and prepared to think through what had just happened.
Lord Asriel didnt answer at first. Lyra heard the snap of metal clips and a hiss as air rushed into a vessel, and then there was a silence. But the silence didnt last long. After a moment or two Lyra heard a confused babble break out:
They sat for a while longer, and then parted, for it was late, and they were old and anxious.
She woke up with a start when someone shook her shoulder.
"Impossible," said the Cassington Scholar firmly. "Theyd never behave in that manner." "Then you dont know lofur Raknison," said the Palmerian Professor, who had made several expeditions himself to the arctic regions. "It wouldnt surprise me at all to learn that he had taken to scalping people in the Tartar fashion." Lyra looked again at her uncle, who was watching the Scholars with a glitter of sardonic amusement, and saying nothing.
“Because of what she must experience. Part of that includes a great betrayal....”
The Masters voice cut through them all.
“But what—”
“Can I come?”
“She wouldnt listen,” the Librarian said. “I know her ways only too well. Try to tell her anything serious and shell half-listen for five minutes and then start fidgeting. Quiz her about it next time and shell have completely forgotten.”
“But where are you going?”
"Nothing to do with you." "It is to do with me," she said. "If you wanted me to be a spy in the wardrobe, you ought to tell me what Im spying about. Can I see the mans head?" Pantalaimons white ermine fur bristled: she felt it tickling her neck. Lord Asriel laughed shortly.
“Lord Asriel, what in Gods name have you got there?”
Go to your bedroom now, and take care that you say nothing about this." "Did they vote to give you the money?" she said sleepily.
"To fall into the hands of the Tartars—" "But that far north?" "They must have penetrated further than anyone imagined!" "Did I hear you say you found it near Svalbard?" said the Dean.
“Whos going to betray her?”
The Librarian made a noise to indicate how unlikely he thought that was.
“Barnard-Stokes? What is the Barnard-Stokes business?”
“Hush,” she whispered. “Listen.”
“Dr. Grumman was once a Scholar of this College,” said the Dean hotly.
“Is Lord Asriels business anything to do with this new initiative of the Consistorial Court of Discipline? The what-do-they-call-it: the Oblation Board?”
“Of poisoning him?”
“But why? Why is my place here? Why cant I come to the North withyou? I want to see the Northern Lights and bears and icebergs and everything. I want to know about Dust. And that city in the air. Is it another world?”
“Your place is here,” said her uncle finally.
“Trepanning?”
“But unfortunately for the Magisterium there seem to be sound mathematical arguments for this other-world theory. I have never followed them myself, but the Cassington Scholar tells me that they are sound.”
"Yes." "Whats Dust?" she said, struggling to stand up after having been cramped for so long.
That caused a murmur of excitement. The Master moved out of the way and Lyra could see again. The old Sub-Rector, in the circle of light thrown by the lantern, was holding a heavy block of ice up close to his eyes, and Lyra could see the object inside it: a bloody lump barely recognizable as a human head.
“The Palmerian Professor mentioned a name,” he said after a minute or so.
