His Dark Materials 01 - The Golden Compass Page 21

  "I was just wondering, if Iorek Bymison wanted to go back..."

  "He'd be killed. Iorek's in exile. As soon as he set foot there, they'd tear him to pieces."

  "How do you inflate your balloon, Mr. Scoresby?"

  "Two ways. I can make hydrogen by pouring sulfuric acid onto iron filings. You catch the gas it gives off and gradually fill the balloon like that. The other way is to find a ground-gas vent near a fire mine. There's a lot of gas under the ground here, and rock oil besides. I can make gas from rock oil, if I need to, and from coal as well; it's not hard to make gas. But the quickest way is to use ground gas. A good vent will fill the balloon in an hour."

  "How many people can you carry?"

  "Six, if I need to."

  "Could you carry Iorek Byrnison in his armor?"

  "I have done. I rescued him one time from the Tartars, when he was cut off and they were starving him out—that was in the Tunguska campaign; I flew in and took him off. Sounds easy, but hell, I had to calculate the weight of that old boy by guess-work. And then I had to bank on finding ground gas under the ice fort he'd made. But I could see what kind of ground it was from the air, and I reckoned we'd be safe in digging. See, to go down I have to let gas out of the balloon, and I can't get airborne again without more. Anyway, we made it, armor and all."

  "Mr. Scoresby, you know the Tartars make holes in people's heads?"

  "Oh, sure. They've been doing that for thousands of years. In the Tunguska campaign we captured five Tartars alive, and three of them had holes in their skulls. One of them had two."

  "They do it to each other?"

  "That's right. First they cut partway around a circle of skin on the scalp, so they can lift up a flap and expose the bone. Then they cut a little circle of bone out of the skull, very carefully so they don't penetrate the brain, and then they sew the scalp back over."

  "I thought they did it to their enemies!"

  "Hell, no. It's a great privilege. They do it so the gods can talk to them."

  "Did you ever hear of an explorer called Stanislaus Grumman?"

  "Grumman? Sure. I met one of his team when I flew over the Yenisei River two years back. He was going to live among the Tartar tribes up that way. Matter of fact, I think he had that hole in the skull done. It was part of an initiation ceremony, but the man who told me didn't know much about it."

  "So...If he was like an honorary Tartar, they wouldn't have killed him?"

  "Killed him? Is he dead then?"

  "Yeah. I saw his head," Lyra said proudly. "My father found it. I saw it when he showed it to the Scholars at Jordan College in Oxford. They'd scalped it, and all."

  "Who'd scalped it?"

  "Well, the Tartars, that's what the Scholars thought....But maybe it wasn't."

  "It might not have been Grumman's head," said Lee Scoresby. "Your father might have been misleading the Scholars."

  "I suppose he might," said Lyra thoughtfully. "He was asking them for money."

  "And when they saw the head, they gave him the money?"

  "Yeah."

  "Good trick to play. People are shocked when they see a thing like that; they don't like to look too close."

  "Especially Scholars," said Lyra.

  "Well, you'd know better than I would. But if that was Grumman's head, I'll bet it wasn't the Tartars who scalped him. They scalp their enemies, not their own, and he was a Tartar by adoption."

  Lyra turned that over in her mind as they drove on. There were wide currents full of meaning flowing fast around her; the Gobblers and their cruelty, their fear of Dust, the city in the Aurora, her father in Svalbard, her mother....And where was she? The alethiometer, the witches flying northward. And poor little Tony Makarios; and the clockwork spy-fly; and Iorek Byrnison's uncanny fencing...

  She fell asleep. And every hour they drew closer to Bolvangar.

  Fourteen

  Bolvangar Lights

  The fact that the gyptians had heard or seen nothing of Mrs. Coulter worried Farder Coram and John Faa more than they let Lyra know; but they weren't to know that she was worried too. Lyra feared Mrs. Coulter and thought about her often. And whereas Lord Asriel was now "father," Mrs. Coulter was never "mother." The reason for that was Mrs. Coulter's daemon, the golden monkey, who had filled Pantalaimon with a powerful loathing, and who, Lyra felt, had pried into her secrets, and particularly that of the alethiometer.

  And they were bound to be chasing her; it was silly to think otherwise. The spy-fly proved that, if nothing else.

  But when an enemy did strike, it wasn't Mrs. Coulter. The gyptians had planned to stop and rest their dogs, repair a couple of sledges, and get all their weapons into shape for the assault on Bolvangar. John Faa hoped that Lee Scoresby might find some ground gas to fill his smaller balloon (for he had two, apparently) and go up to spy out the land. However, the aeronaut attended to the condition of the weather as closely as a sailor, and he said there was going to be a fog; and sure enough, as soon as they stopped, a thick mist descended. Lee Scoresby knew he'd see nothing from the sky, so he had to content himself with checking his equipment, though it was all in meticulous order. Then, with no warning at all, a volley of arrows flew out of the dark.

  Three gyptian men went down at once, and died so silently that no one heard a thing. Only when they slumped clumsily across the dog traces or lay unexpectedly still did the nearest men notice what was happening, and then it was already too late, because more arrows were flying at them. Some men looked up, puzzled by the fast irregular knocking sounds that came from up and down the line as arrows hurtled into wood or frozen canvas.

  The first to come to his wits was John Faa, who shouted orders from the center of the line. Cold hands and stiff limbs moved to obey as yet more arrows flew down like rain, straight rods of rain tipped with death.

  Lyra was in the open, and the arrows were passing over her head. Pantalaimon heard before she did, and became a leopard and knocked her over, making her less of a target. Brushing snow out of her eyes, she rolled over to try and see what was happening, for the semidarkness seemed to be overflowing with confusion and noise. She heard a mighty roar, and the clang and scrape of Iorek Byrnison's armor as he leaped fully clad over the sledges and into the fog, and that was followed by screams, snarling, crunching and tearing sounds, great smashing blows, cries of terror and roars of bearish fury as he laid them waste.

  But who was them? Lyra had seen no enemy figures yet. The gyptians were swarming to defend the sledges, but that (as even Lyra could see) made them better targets; and their rifles were not easy to fire in gloves and mittens; she had only heard four or five shots, as against the ceaseless knocking rain of arrows. And more and more men fell every minute.

  Oh, John Faa! she thought in anguish. You didn't foresee this, and I didn't help you!

  But she had no more than a second to think that, for there was a mighty snarl from Pantalaimon, and something— another daemon—hurtled at him and knocked him down, crushing all the breath out of Lyra herself; and then hands were hauling at her, lifting her, stifling her cry with foul-smelling mittens, tossing her through the air into another's arms, and then pushing her flat down into the snow again, so that she was dizzy and breathless and hurt all at once. Her arms were hauled behind till her shoulders cracked, and someone lashed her wrists together, and then a hood was crammed over her head to muffle her screams, for scream she did, and lustily:

  "Iorek! Iorek Byrnison! Help me!"

  But could he hear? She couldn't tell; she was hurled this way and that, crushed onto a hard surface which then began to lurch and bump like a sledge. The sounds that reached her were wild and confused. She might have heard Iorek Byrnison's roar, but it was a long way off, and then she was jolting over rough ground, arms twisted, mouth stifled, sobbing with rage and fear. And strange voices spoke around her.

  "Pan..."

  "I'm here, shh, I'll help you breathe. Keep still..."

  His mouse paws tugged at the hood until her mou
th was freer, and she gulped at the frozen air.

  "Who are they?" she whispered.

  "They look like Tartars. I think they hit John Faa."

  "No—"

  "I saw him fall. But he should have been ready for this sort of attack. We know that."

  "But we should have helped him! We should have been watching the alethiometer!"

  "Hush. Pretend to be unconscious."

  There was a whip cracking, and the howl of racing dogs. From the way she was being jerked and bounced about, Lyra could tell how fast they were going, and though she strained to hear the sounds of battle, all she made out was a forlorn volley of shots, muffled by the distance, and then the creak and rush and soft paw thuds in the snow were all there was to hear.

  "They'll take us to the Gobblers," she whispered.

  The word severed came to their mind. Horrible fear filled Lyra's body, and Pantalaimon nestled close against her.

  "I'll fight," he said.

  "So will I. I'll kill them."

  "So will Iorek when he finds out. He'll crush them to death."

  "How far are we from Bolvangar?"

  Pantalaimon didn't know, but he thought it was less than a day's ride.

  After they had been driving along for such a time that Lyra's body was in torment from cramp, the pace slackened a little, and someone roughly pulled off the hood.

  She looked up at a broad Asiatic face, under a wolverine hood, lit by flickering lamplight. His black eyes showed a glint of satisfaction, especially when Pantalaimon slid out of Lyra's anorak to bare his white ermine teeth in a hiss. The man's daemon, a big heavy wolverine, snarled back, but Pantalaimon didn't flinch.

  The man hauled Lyra up to a sitting position and propped her against the side of the sledge. She kept falling sideways because her hands were still tied behind her, and so he tied her feet together instead and released her hands.

  Through the snow that was falling and the thick fog she saw how powerful this man was, and the sledge driver too, how balanced in the sledge, how much at home in this land in a way the gyptians weren't.

  The man spoke, but of course she understood nothing. He tried a different language with the same result. Then he tried English.

  "You name?"

  Pantalaimon bristled warningly, and she knew what he meant at once. So these men didn't know who she was! They hadn't kidnapped her because of her connection with Mrs. Coulter; so perhaps they weren't in the pay of the Gobblers after all.

  "Lizzie Brooks," she said.

  "Lissie Broogs," he said after her. "We take you nice place. Nice peoples."

  "Who are you?"

  "Samoyed peoples. Hunters."

  "Where are you taking me?"

  "Nice place. Nice peoples. You have panserbjørne?"

  "For protection."

  "No good! Ha, ha, bear no good! We got you anyway!"

  He laughed loudly. Lyra controlled herself and said nothing.

  "Who those peoples?" the man asked next, pointing back the way they had come.

  "Traders."

  "Traders...What they trade?"

  "Fur, spirits," she said. "Smokeleaf."

  "They sell smokeleaf, buy furs?"

  "Yes."

  He said something to his companion, who spoke back briefly. All the time the sledge was speeding onward, and Lyra pulled herself up more comfortably to try and see where they were heading; but the snow was falling thickly, and the sky was dark, and presently she became too cold to peer out any longer, and lay down. She and Pantalaimon could feel each other's thoughts, and tried to keep calm, but the thought of John Faa dead...And what had happened to Farder Coram? And would Iorek manage to kill the other Samoyeds? And would they ever manage to track her down?

  For the first time, she began to feel a little sorry for herself.

  After a long time, the man shook her by the shoulder and handed her a strip of dried reindeer meat to chew. It was rank and tough, but she was hungry, and there was nourishment in it. After chewing it, she felt a little better. She slipped her hand slowly into her furs till she was sure the alethiometer was still there, and then carefully withdrew the spy-fly tin and slipped it down into her fur boot. Pantalaimon crept in as a mouse and pushed it as far down as he could, tucking it under the bottom of her reindeer-skin legging.

  When that was done, she closed her eyes. Fear had made her exhausted, and soon she slipped uneasily into sleep.

  She woke up when the motion of the sledge changed. It was suddenly smoother, and when she opened her eyes there were passing lights dazzling above her, so bright she had to pull the hood further over her head before peering out again. She was horribly stiff and cold, but she managed to pull herself upright enough to see that the sledge was driving swiftly between a row of high poles, each carrying a glaring anbaric light. As she got her bearings, they passed through an open metal gate at the end of the avenue of lights and into a wide open space like an empty marketplace or an arena for some game or sport. It was perfectly flat and smooth and white, and about a hundred yards across. Around the edge ran a high metal fence.

  At the far end of this arena the sledge halted. They were outside a low building, or a range of low buildings, over which the snow lay deeply. It was hard to tell, but she had the impression that tunnels connected one part of the buildings with another, tunnels humped under the snow. At one side a stout metal mast had a familiar look, though she couldn't say what it reminded her of.

  Before she could take much more in, the man in the sledge cut through the cord around her ankles, and hauled her out roughly while the driver shouted at the dogs to make them still. A door opened in the building a few yards away, and an anbaric light came on overhead, swiveling to find them, like a searchlight.

  Lyra's captor thrust her forward like a trophy, without letting go, and said something. The figure in the padded coal-silk anorak answered in the same language, and Lyra saw his features: he was not a Samoyed or a Tartar. He could have been a Jordan Scholar. He looked at her, and particularly at Pantalaimon.

  The Samoyed spoke again, and the man from Bolvangar said to Lyra, "You speak English?"

  "Yes," she said.

  "Does your daemon always take that form?"

  Of all the unexpected questions! Lyra could only gape. But Pantalaimon answered it in his own fashion by becoming a falcon, and launching himself from her shoulder at the man's daemon, a large marmot, which struck up at Pantalaimon with a swift movement and spat as he circled past on swift wings.

  "I see," said the man in a tone of satisfaction, as Pantalaimon returned to Lyra's shoulder.

  The Samoyed men were looking expectant, and the man from Bolvangar nodded and took off a mitten to reach into a pocket. He took out a drawstring purse and counted out a dozen heavy coins into the hunter's hand.

  The two men checked the money, and then stowed it carefully, each man taking half. Without a backward glance they got in the sledge, and the driver cracked the whip and shouted to the dogs; and they sped away across the wide white arena and into the avenue of lights, gathering speed until they vanished into the dark beyond.

  The man was opening the door again.

  "Come in quickly," he said. "It's warm and comfortable. Don't stand out in the cold. What is your name ?"

  His voice was an English one, without any accent Lyra could name. He sounded like the sort of people she had met at Mrs. Coulter's: smart and educated and important.

  "Lizzie Brooks," she said.

  "Come in, Lizzie. We'll look after you here, don't worry."

  He was colder than she was, even though she'd been outside for far longer; he was impatient to be in the warm again. She decided to play slow and dim-witted and reluctant, and dragged her feet as she stepped over the high threshold into the building.

  There were two doors, with a wide space between them so that not too much warm air escaped. Once they were through the inner doorway, Lyra found herself sweltering in what seemed unbearable heat, and had to pull open her
furs and push back her hood.

  They were in a space about eight feet square, with corridors to the right and left, and in front of her the sort of reception desk you might see in a hospital. Everything was brilliantly lit, with the glint of shiny white surfaces and stainless steel. There was the smell of food in the air, familiar food, bacon and coffee, and under it a faint perpetual hospital-medical smell; and coming from the walls all around was a slight humming sound, almost too low to hear, the sort of sound you had to get used to or go mad.

  Pantalaimon at her ear, a goldfinch now, whispered, "Be stupid and dim. Be really slow and stupid."

  Adults were looking down at her: the man who'd brought her in, another man wearing a white coat, a woman in a nurse's uniform.

  "English," the first man was saying. "Traders, apparently."

  "Usual hunters? Usual story?"

  "Same tribe, as far as I could tell. Sister Clara, could you take little, umm, and see to her?"

  "Certainly, Doctor. Come with me, dear," said the nurse, and Lyra obediently followed.

  They went along a short corridor with doors on the right and a canteen on the left, from which came a clatter of knives and forks, and voices, and more cooking smells. The nurse was about as old as Mrs. Coulter, Lyra guessed, with a brisk, blank, sensible air; she would be able to stitch a wound or change a bandage, but never to tell a story. Her daemon (and Lyra had a moment of strange chill when she noticed) was a little white trotting dog (and after a moment she had no idea why it had chilled her).

  "What's your name, dear?" said the nurse, opening a heavy door. "Lizzie."

  "Just Lizzie?"

  "Lizzie Brooks."

  "And how old are you?"

  "Eleven."

  Lyra had been told that she was small for her age, whatever that meant. It had never affected her sense of her own importance, but she realized that she could use the fact now to make Lizzie shy and nervous and insignificant, and shrank a little as she went into the room.