The next moment Serafina Pekkala appeared, and clung to the side of the basket, speaking urgently.
“lorek!” she cried. Her voice was faint and shaky, and she tried again, but no one answered. “Roger!” she called, with the same result.
“lofur Raknison became king when lorek Byrnison was exiled. lofur is a prince, of course, or he wouldnt be allowed to rule; but he is clever in a human way; he makes alliances and treaties; he lives not as bears do, in ice forts, but in a new-built palace; he talks of exchanging ambassadors with human nations and developing the fire mines with the help of human engineers....He is very skillful and subtle. Some say that he provoked lorek into the deed for which he was exiled, and others say that even if he didnt, he encourages them to think he did, because it adds to his reputation for craft and subtlety.”
When I pull it down, some gas escapes outta the top, and we lose buoyancy and go down.”
Pantalaimon prowled, cat-formed, a little farther afield, and came across four heavy sandbags broken open, with the scattered sand already freezing hard.
“In a balloon?”
“We better not call out,” she said. “I did just now, but maybe I better not in case they hear us. I wish I knew where we were.”
She saw a world of gray, of pale grays and dark grays and blacks, where fog drifts wandered like wraiths.
“The cliff-ghasts are attacking. Well bring the balloon to the ground, and then we must defend ourselves. Theyre—”
The last thing Lyra saw was Lee Scoresby firing his long-barreled pistol directly in the face of a cliff-ghast; and then she shut her eyes tight, and clung to lorek Byrnisons fur with passionate fear. Howls, shrieks, the lash and whistle of the wind, the creak of the basket like a tormented animal, all filled the wild air with hideous noise.
“He is highborn. He is a prince. In fact, if he had not committed a great crime, he would be the king of the bears by now.”
Her grip was torn loose, and all the breath was knocked out of her lungs as she landed in such a tangle that she couldnt tell which way was up; and her face in the tight-pulled hood was full of powder, dry, cold, crystals—
But she choked the word back unfinished, for it wasnt lorek Byrnison at all. It was a strange bear, clad in polished armor with the dew on it frozen into frost, and with a plume in his helmet.
“Are we nearly—”
The witch called something in return, but again Lyra couldnt hear it. Roger was waking too; the creaking of the basket was enough to wake the deepest sleeper, never mind the rocking and bumping. Rogers daemon and Pantalaimon clung together like marmosets, and Lyra concentrated on lying still and not leaping up in fear.
He came to her arms and then, mouse-formed, crept into her hood where he couldnt be seen. She heard a noise, something scraping on rock, and turned to see what it was.
They flew on. Lyra chewed some of the seal meat she found in her pocket.
And so the four travelers sailed on, sleeping in the ice-encrusted balloon, toward the rocks and glaciers, the fire mines and the ice forts of Svalbard.
“Ballast,” Lyra said. “He mustve slung em off to fly up again....”
She made her way painfully, slipping and sliding on the rough rocks, away from the waves and up the beach a little, and found nothing but rock and snow, and no sign of the balloon or any of the occupants.
“S all right,” Roger said, sounding much more cheerful than she was. “Soons we get down we can make a fire and get warm. I got some matches in me pocket. I pinched em out the kitchen at Bolvangar.”
“Cliff-ghast,” said lorek briefly.
“Come with us. You are a prisoner. Move, now. Quickly.”
The bears didnt move until the first one said, “Your name?”
“Ive checked the alethiometer,” he said, “and its all right. Nothings broken.”
“Where have you come from?”
“I better lie down,” she said to Serafina Pekkala, “else Ill probably freeze. I been colddown on the ground, but I never been this cold. I think I might die if I get any colder.”
The case was not hard to judge; he should have wounded, not killed.”
“Then lie down and wrap yourself in the furs.”
“The sky.”
“Where are we?” Lyra heard him call. She was half-waking herself, uneasy because of the motion, and so cold that every part of her body was numb.
Cautiously she tried to move hands, feet, arms, legs, and to raise her head.
“Ah, yes,” said Lyra, nodding. She was satisfied with that idea. She admired lorek almost without limit, and she was glad to find confirmation of his nobility. “Thats clever of you,” she said. “I wouldnt have known that if you hadnt told me. I think youre probably cleverer than Mrs. Coulter.”
“What did lorek do? See, one reason I love lorek, its because of my father doing what he did and being punished. Seems to me theyre like each other. lorek told me hed killed another bear, but he never said how it came about.”
Weary and scared, Lyra began to stumble over the harsh and slippery rocks, following the bear, wondering how she could talk her way out of this.
“When bears act like people, perhaps they can be tricked,” said Serafina Pekkala. “When bears act like bears, perhaps they cant. No bear would normally drink spirits. lorek Byrnison drank to forget the shame of exile, and it was only that which let the Trollesund people trick him.”
“We might not like it if we did,” he pointed out. “We might be at the bottom of a cliff with no way up, and the cliff-ghasts at the top to see us when the fog clears.”
over every other sound there came the shrieking of the cliff-ghasts, and Lyra saw them hurtling past, and smelled their foul stench.
“I dont know,” Serafina Pekkala told her. “Witches have never worried about Dust. All I can tell you is that where there are priests, there is fear of Dust.
Serafina Pekkala called to the aeronaut, and he woke at once, groggy with cold, but aware from the movement of the basket that something was wrong. It was swinging wildly as strong winds buffeted the gas bag, and the witches pulling the rope were barely managing to hold it. If they let go, the balloon would be swept off course at once, and to judge by his glance at the compass, would be swept toward Nova Zembla at nearly a hundred miles an hour.
Then there came another jerk, so sudden that it threw them all to the floor again, and the basket began to sink with frightening speed, spinning all the while. It felt as if they had torn loose from the balloon, and were dropping unchecked by anything; and then came another series of jerks and crashes, the basket being tossed rapidly from side to side as if they were bouncing between rock walls.
“So otherwise hed be king,” Lyra said. “And I heard something about lofur Raknison from the Palmerian Professor at Jordan, cause hed been to the North and met him. He said... I wish I could remember what it was....I think hed tricked his way on to the throne or something....But you know, lorek said to me once that bears couldnt be tricked, and showed me that I couldnt trick him. It sounds as if they was both tricked, him and the other bear. Maybe only bears can trick bears, maybe people cant. Except...The people at Trollesund, they tricked him, didnt they? When they got him drunk and stole his armor?”
She felt around, once she had rested a few more minutes, and found that she had landed in a gap between two ice-covered rocks. Freezing fog covered everything; to one side there was the crash of waves about fifty yards off, by the sound of it, and from high above there still came the shrieking of the cliff-ghasts, though that seemed to be abating a little. She could see no more than two or three yards in the murk, and even Pantalaimons owl eyes were helpless.
The balloon was certainly descending, because they were enveloped a second later in thick freezing cloud. Scraps and wisps of it flew through the basket, and then everything was obscured, all at once. It was like the thickest fog Lyra had ever known. After a moment or two there came another cry from Serafina Pekkala, and the aeronaut unlooped the rope from the cleat and let go. It sprang upward through his hands, and even over the creak and the buffeting and the howl of wind through the rigging Lyra heard or felt a mighty thump from somewhere far above.
Lee Scoresby saw her wide eyes.
The Intercessor there was clear about the link between elementary particles and religion. “Could be,” she said, nodding. “Most Church things, they keep secret, after all. But most Church things are old, and Dust ent old, as far as I know.
“Thats the gas valve!” he shouted. “It works on a spring to hold the gas in.
But Lyra didnt hear the rest of what she said, because there was a rending, ripping sound, and everything tilted sideways. Then a terrific blow hurled the three humans against the side of the balloon where lorek Byrnisons armor was stacked, lorek put out a great paw to hold them in, because the basket was jolting so violently. Serafina Pekkala had vanished. The noise was appalling:
“Yes.”
“Only his name. And it was the consul at Trollesund who told us that.”
“Im letting out some gas!” he shouted to Serafina Pekkala. “Well go down.
“They cant have all just vanished,” she whispered.
“lorek!”
“Serafina Pekkala,” she said after some time, “whats Dust? Cause it seems to me that all this troubles about Dust, only no ones told me what it is.”
She didnt finish, because something hideous happened. A creature half the size of a man, with leathery wings and hooked claws, was crawling over the side of the basket toward Lee Scoresby. It had a flat head, with bulging eyes and a wide frog mouth, and from it came wafts of abominable stink. Lyra had no time to scream, even, before lorek Byrnison reached up and cuffed it away. It fell out of the basket and vanished with a shriek.
I wonder if Lord Asriel might tell me....”
She yawned.
She might have been alone in the world, but of course she never was, and Pantalaimon crept out of her anorak as a mouse to keep her company.
“Has he told you who he is?”
“Lyra.”
Mrs. Coulter is not a priest, of course, but she is a powerful agent of the Magisterium, and it was she who set up the Oblation Board and persuaded the Church to pay for Bolvangar, because of her interest in Dust. We cant understand her feelings about it. But there are many things we have never understood. We see the Tartars making holes in their skulls, and we can only wonder at the strangeness of it. So Dust may be strange, and we wonder at it, but we dont fret and tear things apart to examine it. Leave that to the Church.”
“Were lost, Pan!” she said. “Did you see those cliff-ghasts? And Mr. Scoresby shooting em? God help us if they come down here....”
She couldnt hear the witchs reply, but through her half-closed hood she saw, in the light of an anbaric lantern, Lee Scoresby hold on to a strut and pull at a ropeleading up into the gas bag itself. He gave a sharp tug as if against some obstruction, and looked up into the buffeting dark before looping the rope around a cleat on the suspension ring.
The bear opened his mouth and roared. An echo came back from the cliffs and stirred more shrieking from far above. Out of the fog came another bear, and another. Lyra stood still, clenching her little human fists.
Then came the biggest jolt of all, and she found herself hurled out altogether.
It was snow; she had landed in a snowdrift. She was so battered that she could hardly think. She lay quite still for several seconds before feebly spitting out the snow in her mouth, and then she blew just as feebly until there was a little space to breathe in.
She could see very little, because her hood was still filled with snow. With an effort, as if her hands weighed a ton each, she brushed it off and peered out.
He stood still, about six feet away, and she thought she really was finished.
“He told me their king was called lofur Raknison.”
The only sounds she could hear were the distant cries of the cliff-ghasts, high above, and the crash of waves on rocks, some way off.
Were way too high.”
“The Church?” said Lyra. Something had come back to her: she remembered talking with Pantalaimon, in the fens, about what it might be that was moving the needle of the alethiometer, and they had thought of the photomill on the high altar at Gabriel College, and how elementary particles pushed the little vanes around.
“Yeah, I will. If I was going to die, Id rather die up here than down there, any day. I thought when they put us under that blade thing, I thought that was it....We both did. Oh, that was cruel. But well lie down now. Wake us up when we get there,” she said, and got down on the pile of furs, clumsy and aching in every part of her with the profound intensity of the cold, and lay as close as she could to the sleeping Roger.
“Oh, God, Im frightened,” she said. “I hope theyre safe.”
“We better try and find the basket,” he said, “maybe.”
Nothing seemed to be hurting in particular; she just felt utterly breathless.
“The fight was over a she-bear. The male whom lorek killed would not display the usual signals of surrender when it was clear that lorek was stronger. For all their pride, bears never fail to recognize superior force in another bear and surrender to it, but for some reason this bear didnt do it. Some say that lofur Raknison worked on his mind,or gave him confusing herbs to eat. At any rate, the young bear persisted, and lorek Byrnison allowed his temper to master him.
She swallowed hard to subdue the lump in her throat, or the fear in her breast, or both.
