“Look up,” said the bear, as a waft of breeze moved aside the heavy curtain of the fog.
“So he wouldnt let anyone go and see Lord Asriel?”
Of course, she hadnt understood what he meant; hed spoken of panserbj0rne instead of using the English word, so she didnt know he was talking about bears, and she had no idea that lofur Raknison wasnt a man. And a man would have had a daemon anyway, so it hadnt made sense.
The bear sergeant said nothing to her until they were on level ground. There they stopped. From the sound of the waves, Lyra judged them to have reached the top of the cliffs, and she dared not run away in case she fell over the edge.
He nodded again.
If it was unlikely for a scruffy little girl to turn up in his cell knowing the very man who figured in his obsessions, the Regius Professor didnt notice. He was mad, and no wonder, poor old man; but he might have some scraps of information that Lyra could use.
“Is that scoundrel Trelawney still there? Eh?”
“Hes on his way now.”
“lorek Byrnison? No good waiting for that. Hell never come back.”
Suddenly the Professors manner changed altogether. He cringed and shrank back against the wall, and shook his head warningly.
“Yes. Oh, yes. I came here at his invitation, you know. He intended to set up a university. He was going to make me Vice-Chancellor. That would be one in the eye for the Royal Arctic Institute, eh! Eh? And that scoundrel Trelawney! Ha!”
The bears seemed not to see the mess, however, and they led the way in through the huge arch, over the icy ground that was filthy with the spatter of the birds. There was a courtyard, and high steps, and gateways, and at every point bears in armor challenged the incomers and were given a password. Their armor was polished and gleaming, and they all wore plumes in their helmets. Lyra couldnt help comparing every bear she saw with lorek Byrnison, and always to his advantage; he was more powerful, more graceful, and his armor was real armor, rust-colored, bloodstained, dented with combat, not elegant, enameled, and decorative like most of what she saw around her now.
And as she thought that, a plan came to her: a way of making lofur Raknison do what he would normally never have done; a way of restoring lorek Byrnison to his rightful throne; a way, finally, of getting to the place where they had put Lord Asriel, and taking him the alethiometer.
Finally they stopped outside a heavy door of iron. A guard bear pulled back a massive bolt, and the sergeant suddenly swung his paw at Lyra, knocking her head over heels through the doorway. Before she could scramble up, she heard the door being bolted behind her.
But now it was plain. Everything shed heard about the bear-king added up: the mighty lofur Raknison wanted nothing more than to be a human being, with a daemon of his own.
“I mean, for example,” said Lyra, “I bet you know more about the bears than he does, for a start.”
The bears took Lyra up a gully in the cliffs, where the fog lay even more thickly than on the shore. The cries of the cliff-ghasts and the crash of the waves grew fainter as they climbed, and presently the only sound was the ceaseless crying of seabirds. They clambered in silence over rocks and snowdrifts, and although Lyra peered wide-eyed into the enfolding grayness, and strained her ears for the sound of her friends, she might have been the only human on Svalbard; and lorek might have been dead.
“Yes,” he said, nodding seriously. “Thats very perceptive of you, child. What is your name?”
“Bears,” said the old man, “ha! I could write a treatise on them! Thats why they shut me away, you know.”
“Shh! Quiet! Theyll hear you!” he whispered.
As they went further in, the temperature rose, and so did something else. The smell in lofurs palace was repulsive: rancid seal fat, dung, blood, refuse of every sort. Lyra pushed back her hood to be cooler, but she couldnt help wrinkling her nose. She hoped bears couldnt read human expressions. There were iron brackets every few yards, holding blubber lamps, and in their flaring shadows it wasnt always easy to see where she was treading, either.
Then she had the fright of her life.
“Yeah. Mine too. When do they feed us, Professor?”
“Boast! Eh? Eh? I should say he boasts! Hes nothing but a popinjay! And a pirate! Not a scrap of original research to his name! Everything filched from better men!”
“Forbidden! Very dangerous! lofur Raknison will not allow him to be mentioned!”
“Malice and jealousy...Where do you come from? Eh?”
“Really?” said Lyra, her mind elsewhere, furiously thinking about what hed just said.
“Then theyll kill him. Hes not a bear, you see. Hes an outcast. Like me.
“Supposing lorek Byrnison did come back, though,” Lyra said. “Supposing he challenged lofur Raknison to a fight...”
Coulter, anything. Hes going to name his capital city after her, did you know that?”
“Why?” Lyra said, coming closer and whispering herself so as not to alarm him.
“Its certainly had a lot of banging about, Pan,” she whispered. “I hope it still works.”
The little wavering point of light danced through the air and fluttered around the head of the speaker. And it hadnt been a heap of rags after all; it was a gray-bearded man, chained to the wall, whose eyes glittered in Pantalaimons luminance, and whose tattered hair hung over his shoulders. His daemon, a weary-looking serpent, lay in his lap, flicking out her tongue occasionally as Pantalaimon flew near.
“Lyra,” she told him again. “Could you teach me about the bears?”
“No! Never! But hes afraid of Lord Asriel too, you know, lofurs playing a difficult game. But hes clever. Hes done what they both want. Hes kept Lord Asriel isolated, to please Mrs. Coulter; and hes let Lord Asriel have all the equipment he wants, to please him. Cant last, this equilibrium. Unstable.
“Other prisoners?”
“Like.-.Lord Asriel.”
“Keeping Lord Asriel prisoner is a special charge laid on lofur by the Oblation Board,” the old man whispered back. “Mrs. Coulter herself came here to see lofur and offered him all kinds of rewards to keep Lord Asriel out of the way. I know about it, you see, because at the time I was in lofurs favor myself. I met Mrs.
Even in the depths of his madness a little common sense still flickered, and he looked at her sharply, almost as if he suspected her of sarcasm. But shehad been dealing with suspicious and cranky Scholars all her life, and she gazed back with such bland admiration that he was soothed.
“What? Oxford?”
Duplicitous plagiarist! Coxcomb!”
“Oh, they wouldnt allow it,” said the Professor decisively, “lofur would never lower himself to acknowledge lorek Byrnisons right to fight him. Hasnt got a right. lorek might as well be a seal now, or a walrus, not a bear. Or worse:
“One thing Professor Trelawney used to boast about,” she said, “was how well he knew the king of the bears—”
At least, that was what the bear sergeant told her the carvings showed. She had to take his word for it, because every projection and ledge on the deeply sculpted facade was occu-pied by gannets and skuas, which cawed and shrieked and wheeled constantly around overhead, and whose droppings had coated every part of the building with thick smears of dirty white.
Lyra made a neutral sound.
Ill be Vice-Chancellor, oh yes. Let Trelawney come to me then begging for mercy! Let the Publications Committee of the Royal Arctic Institute spurn my contributions then! Ha! Ill expose them all! “ “I expect lorek Byrnison will believe you, when he comes back,” Lyra said.
She sat carefully near him, not near enough for him to touch, but near enough for Pantalaimons tiny light to show him clearly.
“And Roger?”
“Why mustnt we mention Lord Asriel?”
She felt her way back to the bench. Pantalaimon, tired of putting out light, had become a bat, which was all very well for him; he fluttered around squeaking quietly while Lyra sat and chewed a fingernail.
Pleasing both sides. Eh? The wave function of this situation is going to collapse quite soon. I have it on good authority.”
Drops of saliva flew out of his mouth.
“Scoundrel! Thief! Blackguard! Rogue!” shouted the old man, and he shook so violently that Lyra was afraid hed have a fit. His daemon slithered lethargically off his lap as the Professor beat his fists against his shanks.
“I was betrayed by lesser men. Trelawney among them, of course. He was here, you know. On Svalbard. Spread lies and calumny about my qualifications. Calumny! Slander! Who was it discovered the final proof of the Barnard-Stokes hypothesis, eh? Eh? Yes, Santelia, thats who. Trelawney couldnt take it. Lied through his teeth. lofur Raknison had me thrown in here. Ill be out one day, youll see.
“I know too much about them, and they darent kill me. They darent do it, much as theyd like to. I know, you see. I have friends. Yes! Powerful friends.”
Tartar or Skraeling. They wouldnt fight him honorably like a bear; theyd kill him with fire hurlers before he got near. Not a hope. No mercy.”
“The bears...” he said doubtfully.
Lyra sat down, with Pantalaimon on her shoulder, and felt in her clothes for the alethiometer.
A mans voice spoke in the darkness a few feet away, and said, “Who are you?”
“Yeah,” said Lyra, “I always thought he was a thief. And a rogue and all that.”
Degraded, you see. Not entitled to any of the privileges of a bear.”
Couldnt stop talking about her. Would do anything for her. If she wants Lord Asriel kept a hundred miles away, thats what will happen. Anything for Mrs.
There was little daylight in any case, but Lyra did look, and found herself standing in front of a vast building of stone. It was as tall at least as the highest part of Jordan College, but much more massive, and carved all over with representations of warfare, showing bears victorious and Skraelings surrendering, showing Tartars chained and slaving in the fire mines, showing zeppelins flying from all parts of the world bearing gifts and tributes to the king of the bears, lofur Raknison.
The answer came at once: “A days journey away, carried there by the balloon after your crash; but hurrying this way.”
Pantalaimon flew down to her wrist, and sat there glowing while Lyra composed her mind. With a part of her, she found it remarkable that she could sit here in terrible danger and yet sink into the calm she needed to read the alethiometer; and yet it was so much a part of her now that the most complicated questions sorted themselves out into their constituent symbols as naturally as her muscles moved her limbs: she hardly had to think about them.
The idea hovered and shimmered delicately, like a soap bubble, and she dared not even look at it directly in caseit burst. But she was familiar with the way of ideas, and she let it shimmer, looking away, thinking about something else.
She moved back.
“Jotham Santelia,” he replied. “I am the Regius Professor of Cosmology at the University of Gloucester. Who are you?”
“Whats your name?” she said.
“With lorek.”
“Yes,” he said, “yes, I believe youre right. There is a correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm! The stars are alive, child. Did you know that?
“Is he, by God! Eh? They should have forced his resignation long ago.
“Yeah,” said Lyra. “And I bet youd be a wonderful teacher,” she went on. “Being as you got so much knowledge and experience.”
She leaped up with a cry of alarm. Pantalaimon became a bat at once, shrieking, and flew around her head as she backed against the wall.
“They wont let him, will they?” she said to Pantalaimon. “Theres too many of em. I wish I was a witch, Pan, then you could go off and find him and take messages and all, and we could make a proper plan....”
“From Jordan College,” she said.
“Has he published his paper on gamma-ray photons yet?” the Professor said, thrusting his face up toward Lyras.
“Be a firefly again, Pan,” she said shakily. “But dont go too close.”
“Eh? Eh?” said the man again. “Who is that? Speak up! Speak up!”
“Whys that?”
She put the alethiometer away, even more anxious than before.
“Feed us?”
And...He said he was going to write about Dust as well. Thats it.”
“Yes. My daemons tongue can taste probability, you know.”
“Yes.”
Everything out there is alive, and there are grand purposes abroad! The universe is full of intentions, you know. Everything happens for a purpose. Your purpose is to remind me of that. Good, good—in my despair I had forgotten. Good! Excellent, my child!”
“Oh,” said Lyra, with a heavy despair in her breast. “And what about the bears other prisoners? Do you know where they keep them?”
“What happened?”
“He intends to break into the palace and rescue you, in the face of all the difficulties.”
“What will lorek do?”
She turned the hands and thought the question: “Where is lorek?”
“Teacher,” he said, “teacher...Yes, I could teach. Give me the right pupil, and I will light a fire in his mind!”
Something had been nagging at her ever since lorek Byrnison had first mentioned lofurs name, and now it came back: what lofur Raknison wanted more than anything else, Professor Trelawney had said, was a daemon.
“Id really like to know about cosmology and Dust and all, but Im not clever enough for that. You need really clever students for that. But I could learn about the bears. You could teach me about them all right. And we could sort of practice on that and work up to Dust, maybe.”
Lyra got up and felt her way to the door. There was no handle, naturally, and no keyhole, and it fitted so closely at top and bottom that no light showed. She pressed her ear to it, but heard nothing. Behind her the old man was muttering to himself. She heard his chain rattle as he turned over wearily and lay the other way, and presently he began to snore.
“Seal...I dont know. It might be.”
“Yeah, thats right,” said Lyra earnestly. “And when he does do something of his own, he gets it wrong.”
“I dont know,” she said, and then, making it up out of pure habit, “no,” she went on. “I remember now. He said he still needed to check some figures.
Coulter! Yes. Had a long conversation with her. lofur was besotted with her.
Quite suddenly, with no warning at all, she remembered what it was that shed heard the Palmerian Professor saying in the Retiring Room all that time ago.
“Because your knowledge ought not to just vanish,” Lyra said encouragingly. “It ought to be passed on so people remember you.”
It was profoundly dark, but Pantalaimon became a firefly, and shed a tiny glow around them. They were in a narrow cell where the walls dripped with damp, and there was one stone bench for furniture. In the farthest corner there was a heap of rags she took for bedding, and that was all she could see.
“Yes! Yes! Absolutely! No talent, no imagination, a fraud from top to bottom!”
“The Palmerian Professor? Yes,” she said.
“So, have you seen the king? lofur Raknison?”
“They must put some food in sometime, else wed starve. And theres bones on the floor. I expect theyre seal bones, arent they?”
“Lyra Belacqua. What have they locked you up for?”
