The Subtle Knife: His Dark Materials Read online

  “That is a dangerous world, mind. Those Specters are worse than anything in your world or mine. We shall have to be careful and courageous. I shall not return, and if you want to see your country again, you’ll need all your courage, all your craft, all your luck.

  “That’s your task, Mr. Scoresby. That is why you sought me out.”

  And the shaman fell silent. His face was pallid, with a faint sheen of sweat.

  “This is the craziest damn idea I ever heard in my life,” said Lee.

  He stood up in his agitation and walked a pace or two this way, a pace or two that, while Hester watched unblinking from the bench. Grumman’s eyes were half-closed; his dæmon sat on his knee, watching Lee warily.

  “Do you want money?” Grumman said after a few moments. “I can get you some gold. That’s not hard to do.”

  “Damn, I didn’t come here for gold,” said Lee hotly. “I came here … I came here to see if you were alive, like I thought you were. Well, my curiosity’s kinda satisfied on that point.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “And there’s another angle to this thing, too,” Lee added, and told Grumman of the witch council at Lake Enara, and the resolution the witches had sworn to. “You see,” he finished, “that little girl Lyra … well, she’s the reason I set out to help the witches in the first place. You say you brought me here with that Navajo ring. Maybe that’s so and maybe it ain’t. What I know is, I came here because I thought I’d be helping Lyra. I ain’t never seen a child like that. If I had a daughter of my own, I hope she’d be half as strong and brave and good. Now, I’d heard that you knew of some object, I didn’t know what it might be, that confers a protection on anyone who holds it. And from what you say, I think it must be this subtle knife.

  “So this is my price for taking you into the other world, Dr. Grumman: not gold, but that subtle knife. And I don’t want it for myself; I want it for Lyra. You have to swear you’ll get her under the protection of that object, and then I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

  The shaman listened closely, and said, “Very well, Mr. Scoresby; I swear. Do you trust my oath?”

  “What will you swear by?”

  “Name anything you like.”

  Lee thought and then said, “Swear by whatever it was made you turn down the love of the witch. I guess that’s the most important thing you know.”

  Grumman’s eyes widened, and he said, “You guess well, Mr. Scoresby. I’ll gladly swear by that. I give you my word that I’ll make certain the child Lyra Belacqua is under the protection of the subtle knife. But I warn you: the bearer of that knife has his own task to do, and it may be that his doing it will put her into even greater danger.”

  Lee nodded soberly. “Maybe so,” he said, “but whatever little chance of safety there is, I want her to have it.”

  “You have my word. And now I must go into the new world, and you must take me.”

  “And the wind? You ain’t been too sick to observe the weather, I guess?”

  “Leave the wind to me.”

  Lee nodded. He sat on the bench again and ran his fingers over and over the turquoise ring while Grumman gathered the few goods he needed into a deerskin bag, and then the two of them went back down the forest track to the village.

  The headman spoke at some length. More and more of the villagers came out to touch Grumman’s hand, to mutter a few words, and to receive what looked like a blessing in return. Lee, meanwhile, was looking at the weather. The sky was clear to the south, and a fresh-scented breeze was just lifting the twigs and stirring the pine tops. To the north the fog still hung over the heavy river, but it was the first time for days that there seemed to be a promise of clearing it.

  At the rock where the landing stage had been he lifted Grumman’s pack into the boat, and filled the little engine, which fired at once. He cast off, and with the shaman in the bow, the boat sped down with the current, darting under the trees and skimming out into the main river so fast that Lee was afraid for Hester, crouching just inside the gunwale. But she was a seasoned traveler, he should have known that; why was he so damn jumpy?

  They reached the port at the river’s mouth to find every hotel, every lodging house, every private room commandeered by soldiers. Not just any soldiers, either: these were troops of the Imperial Guard of Muscovy, the most ferociously trained and lavishly equipped army in the world, and one sworn to uphold the power of the Magisterium.

  Lee had intended to rest a night before setting off, because Grumman looked in need of it, but there was no chance of finding a room.

  “What’s going on?” he said to the boatman when he returned the hired boat.

  “We don’t know. The regiment arrived yesterday and commandeered every billet, every scrap of food, and every ship in the town. They’d have had this boat, too, if you hadn’t taken it.”

  “D’you know where they’re going?”

  “North,” said the boatman. “There’s a war going to be fought, by all accounts, the greatest war ever known.”

  “North, into that new world?”

  “That’s right. And there’s more troops coming; this is just the advance guard. There won’t be a loaf of bread or a gallon of spirit left in a week’s time. You did me a favor taking this boat—the price has already doubled.…”

  There was no sense in resting up now, even if they could find a place. Full of anxiety about his balloon, Lee went at once to the warehouse where he’d left it, with Grumman beside him. The man was keeping pace. He looked sick, but he was tough.

  The warehouse keeper, busy counting out some spare engine parts to a requisitioning sergeant of the Guard, looked up briefly from his clipboard.

  “Balloon—too bad—requisitioned yesterday,” he said. “You can see how it is. I’ve got no choice.”

  Hester flicked her ears, and Lee understood what she meant.

  “Have you delivered the balloon yet?” he said.

  “They’re going to collect it this afternoon.”

  “No, they’re not,” said Lee, “because I have an authority that trumps the Guard.”

  And he showed the warehouseman the ring he’d taken from the finger of the dead Skraeling on Nova Zembla. The sergeant, beside him at the counter, stopped what he was doing and saluted at the sight of the Church’s token, but for all his discipline he couldn’t prevent a flicker of puzzlement passing over his face.

  “So we’ll have the balloon right now,” said Lee, “and you can set some men to fill it. And I mean at once. And that includes food, and water, and ballast.”

  The warehouseman looked at the sergeant, who shrugged, and then hurried away to see to the balloon. Lee and Grumman withdrew to the wharf, where the gas tanks were, to supervise the filling and talk quietly.

  “Where did you get that ring?” said Grumman.

  “Off a dead man’s finger. Kinda risky using it, but I couldn’t see another way of getting my balloon back. You reckon that sergeant suspected anything?”

  “Of course he did. But he’s a disciplined man. He won’t question the Church. If he reports it at all, we’ll be away by the time they can do anything about it. Well, I promised you a wind, Mr. Scoresby; I hope you like it.”

  The sky was blue overhead now, and the sunlight was bright. To the north the fog banks still hung like a mountain range over the sea, but the breeze was pushing them back and back, and Lee was impatient for the air again.

  As the balloon filled and began to swell up beyond the edge of the warehouse roof, Lee checked the basket and stowed all his equipment with particular care; for in the other world, who knew what turbulence they’d meet? His instruments, too, he fixed to the framework with close attention, even the compass, whose needle was swinging around the dial quite uselessly. Finally he lashed a score of sandbags around the basket for ballast.

  When the gasbag was full and leaning northward in the buffeting breeze, and the whole apparatus straining against the stout ropes anchoring it down, Lee paid
the warehouseman with the last of his gold and helped Grumman into the basket. Then he turned to the men at the ropes to give the order to let go.

  But before they could do so, there was an interruption. From the alley at the side of the warehouse came the noise of pounding boots, moving at the double, and a shout of command: “Halt!”

  The men at the ropes paused, some looking that way, some looking to Lee, and he called sharply, “Let go! Cast off!”

  Two of the men obeyed, and the balloon lurched up, but the other two had their attention on the soldiers, who were moving quickly around the corner of the building. Those two men still held their ropes fast around the bollards, and the balloon lurched sickeningly sideways. Lee grabbed at the suspension ring; Grumman was holding it too, and his dæmon had her claws tight around it.

  Lee shouted, “Let go, you damn fools! She’s going up!”

  The buoyancy of the gasbag was too great, and the men, haul as they might, couldn’t hold it back. One let go, and his rope lashed itself loose from the bollard; but the other man, feeling the rope lift, instinctively clung on instead of letting go. Lee had seen this happen once before, and dreaded it. The poor man’s dæmon, a heavyset husky, howled with fear and pain from the ground as the balloon surged up toward the sky, and five endless seconds later it was over; the man’s strength failed; he fell, half-dead, and crashed into the water.

  But the soldiers had their rifles up already. A volley of bullets whistled past the basket, one striking a spark from the suspension ring and making Lee’s hands sting with the impact, but none of them did any damage. By the time they fired their second shot, the balloon was almost out of range, hurtling up into the blue and speeding out over the sea. Lee felt his heart lift with it. He’d said once to Serafina Pekkala that he didn’t care for flying, that it was only a job; but he hadn’t meant it. Soaring upward, with a fair wind behind and a new world in front—what could be better in this life?

  He let go of the suspension ring and saw that Hester was crouching in her usual corner, eyes half-closed. From far below and a long way back came another futile volley of rifle fire. The town was receding fast, and the broad sweep of the river’s mouth was glittering in the sunlight below them.

  “Well, Dr. Grumman,” he said, “I don’t know about you, but I feel better in the air. I wish that poor man had let go of the rope, though. It’s so damned easy to do, and if you don’t let go at once there’s no hope for you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Scoresby,” said the shaman. “You managed that very well. Now we settle down and fly. I would be grateful for those furs; the air is still cold.”

  ELEVEN

  THE BELVEDERE

  In the great white villa in the park Will slept uneasily, plagued with dreams that were filled with anxiety and with sweetness in equal measure, so that he struggled to wake up and yet longed for sleep again. When his eyes were fully open, he felt so drowsy that he could scarcely move, and then he sat up to find his bandage loose and his bed crimson.

  He struggled out of bed and made his way through the heavy, dust-filled sunlight and silence of the great house down to the kitchen. He and Lyra had slept in servants’ rooms under the attic, not feeling welcomed by the stately four-poster beds in the grand rooms farther down, and it was a long unsteady walk.

  “Will—” she said at once, her voice full of concern, and she turned from the stove to help him to a chair.

  He felt dizzy. He supposed he’d lost a lot of blood; well, there was no need to suppose, with the evidence all over him. And the wounds were still bleeding.

  “I was just making some coffee,” she said. “Do you want that first, or shall I do another bandage? I can do whichever you want. And there’s eggs in the cold cabinet, but I can’t find any bake beans.”

  “This isn’t a baked beans kind of house. Bandage first. Is there any hot water in the tap? I want to wash. I hate being covered in this …”

  She ran some hot water, and he stripped to his underpants. He was too faint and dizzy to feel embarrassed, but Lyra became embarrassed for him and went out. He washed as best he could and then dried himself on the tea towels that hung on a line by the stove.

  When she came back, she’d found some clothes for him, just a shirt and canvas trousers and a belt. He put them on, and she tore a fresh tea towel into strips and bandaged him tightly again. She was badly worried about his hand; not only were the wounds bleeding freely still, but the rest of the hand was swollen and red. But he said nothing about it, and neither did she.

  Then she made the coffee and toasted some stale bread, and they took it into the grand room at the front of the house, overlooking the city. When he’d eaten and drunk, he felt a little better.

  “You better ask the alethiometer what to do next,” he said. “Have you asked it anything yet?”

  “No,” she said. “I’m only going to do what you ask, from now on. I thought of doing it last night, but I never did. And I won’t, either, unless you ask me to.”

  “Well, you better do it now,” he said. “There’s as much danger here as there is in my world, now. There’s Angelica’s brother for a start. And if—”

  He stopped, because she began to say something, but she stopped as soon as he did. Then she collected herself and went on. “Will, there was something that happened yesterday that I didn’t tell you. I should’ve, but there was just so many other things going on. I’m sorry …”

  And she told him everything she’d seen through the window of the tower while Giacomo Paradisi was dressing Will’s wound: Tullio being beset by the Specters, Angelica seeing her at the window and her look of hatred, and Paolo’s threat.

  “And d’you remember,” she went on, “when she first spoke to us? Her little brother said something about what they were all doing. He said, ‘He’s gonna get—’ and she wouldn’t let him finish; she smacked him, remember? I bet he was going to say Tullio was after the knife, and that’s why all the kids came here. ’Cause if they had the knife, they could do anything, they could even grow up without being afraid of Specters.”

  “What did it look like, when he was attacked?” Will said. To her surprise he was sitting forward, his eyes demanding and urgent.

  “He.” She tried to remember exactly. “He started counting the stones in the wall. He sort of felt all over them.… But he couldn’t keep it up. In the end he sort of lost interest and stopped. Then he was just still,” she finished, and seeing Will’s expression she said, “Why?”

  “Because … I think maybe they come from my world after all, the Specters. If they make people behave like that, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if they came from my world. And when the Guild men opened their first window, if it was into my world, the Specters could have gone through then.”

  “But you don’t have Specters in your world! You never heard of them, did you?”

  “Maybe they’re not called Specters. Maybe we call them something else.”

  Lyra wasn’t sure what he meant, but she didn’t want to press him. His cheeks were red and his eyes were hot.

  “Anyway,” she went on, turning away, “the important thing is that Angelica saw me in the window. And now that she knows we’ve got the knife, she’ll tell all of ’em. She’ll think it’s our fault that her brother was attacked by Specters. I’m sorry, Will. I should’ve told you earlier. But there was just so many other things.”

  “Well,” he said, “I don’t suppose it would have made any difference. He was torturing the old man, and once he knew how to use the knife he’d have killed both of us if he could. We had to fight him.”

  “I just feel bad about it, Will. I mean, he was their brother. And I bet if we were them, we’d have wanted the knife too.”

  “Yes,” he said, “but we can’t go back and change what happened. We had to get the knife to get the alethiometer back, and if we could have got it without fighting, we would.”

  “Yeah, we would,” she said.

  Like Iorek Byrnison, Will was a fighter tru
ly enough, so she was prepared to agree with him when he said it would be better not to fight; she knew it wasn’t cowardice that spoke, but strategy. He was calmer now, and his cheeks were pale again. He was looking into the middle distance and thinking.

  Then he said, “It’s probably more important now to think about Sir Charles and what he’ll do, or Mrs. Coulter. Maybe if she’s got this special bodyguard they were talking about, these soldiers who’d had their dæmons cut away, maybe Sir Charles is right and they’ll be able to ignore the Specters. You know what I think? I think what they eat, the Specters, is people’s dæmons.”

  “But children have dæmons too. And they don’t attack children. It can’t be that.”

  “Then it must be the difference between children’s dæmons and grownups’,” Will said. “There is a difference, isn’t there? You told me once that grownups’ dæmons don’t change shape. It must be something to do with that. And if these soldiers of hers haven’t got dæmons at all, maybe the Specters won’t attack them either, like Sir Charles said.…”

  “Yeah!” she said. “Could be. And she wouldn’t be afraid of Specters anyway. She en’t afraid of anything. And she’s so clever, Will, honest, and she’s so ruthless and cruel, she could boss them, I bet she could. She could command them like she does people and they’d have to obey her, I bet. Lord Boreal is strong and clever, but she’ll have him doing what she wants in no time. Oh, Will, I’m getting scared again, thinking what she might do.… I’m going to ask the alethiometer, like you said. Thank goodness we got that back, anyway.”

  She unfolded the velvet bundle and ran her hands lovingly over the heavy gold.

  “I’m going to ask about your father,” she said, “and how we can find him. See, I put the hands to point at—”

  “No. Ask about my mother first. I want to know if she’s all right.”

  Lyra nodded, and turned the hands before laying the alethiometer in her lap and tucking her hair behind her ears to look down and concentrate. Will watched the light needle swing purposefully around the dial, darting and stopping and darting on as swiftly as a swallow feeding, and he watched Lyra’s eyes, so blue and fierce and full of clear understanding.