The rosewood handle was charred and scorched, but Will wrapped his hand in several folds of a shirt and did as Iorek told him. In the hiss and flare of steam, he felt the atoms finally settle together, and he knew that the knife was as keen as before, the point as infinitely rare.
But it did look different. It was shorter, and much less elegant, and there was a dull silver surface over each of the joins. It looked ugly now; it looked like what it was, wounded.
When it was cool enough, he packed it away in the rucksack and sat, ignoring the spies, to wait for Lyra to come back.
Iorek had taken her a little farther up the slope, to a point out of sight of the cave, and there he had let her sit cradled in the shelter of his great arms, with Pantalaimon nestling mouse‑formed at her breast. Iorek bent his head over her and nuzzled at her scorched and smoky hands. Without a word he began to lick them clean; his tongue was soothing on the burns, and she felt as safe as she had ever felt in her life.
But when her hands were free of soot and dirt, Iorek spoke. She felt his voice vibrate against her back.
“Lyra Silvertongue, what is this plan to visit the dead?”
“It came to me in a dream, Iorek. I saw Roger’s ghost, and I knew he was calling to me… You remember Roger. Well, after we left you, he was killed, and it was my fault, at least I felt it was. And I think I should just finish what I began, that’s alclass="underline" I should go and say sorry, and if I can, I should rescue him from there. If Will can open a way to the world of the dead, then we must do it.”
“Can is not the same as must.”
“But if you must and you can, then there’s no excuse.”
“While you are alive, your business is with life.”
“No, Iorek,” she said gently, “our business is to keep promises, no matter how difficult they are. You know, secretly, I’m deadly scared. And I wish I’d never had that dream, and I wish Will hadn’t thought of using the knife to go there. But we did, so we can’t get out of it.”
Lyra felt Pantalaimon trembling and stroked him with her sore hands.
“We don’t know how to get there, though,” she went on. “We won’t know anything till we try. What are you going to do, Iorek?”
“I’m going back north, with my people. We can’t live in the mountains. Even the snow is different. I thought we could live here, but we can live more easily in the sea, even if it is warm. That was worth learning. And besides, I think we will be needed. I can feel war, Lyra Silvertongue; I can smell it; I can hear it. I spoke to Serafina Pekkala before I came this way, and she told me she was going to Lord Faa and the gyptians. If there is war, we shall be needed.”
Lyra sat up, excited at hearing the names of her old friends. But Iorek hadn’t finished. He went on:
“If you do not find a way out of the world of the dead, we shall not meet again, because I have no ghost. My body will remain on the earth, and then become part of it. But if it turns out that you and I both survive, then you will always be a welcome and honored visitor to Svalbard; and the same is true of Will. Has he told you what happened when we met?”
“No,” said Lyra, “except that it was by a river.”
“He outfaced me. I thought no one could ever do that, but this half‑grown boy was too daring for me, and too clever. I am not happy that you should do what you plan, but there is no one I would trust to go with you except that boy. You are worthy of each other. Go well, Lyra Silvertongue, my dear friend.”
She reached up and put her arms around his neck, and pressed her face into his fur, unable to speak.
After a minute he stood up gently and disengaged her arms, and then he turned and walked silently away into the dark. Lyra thought his outline was lost almost at once against the pallor of the snow‑covered ground, but it might have been that her eyes were full of tears.
When Will heard her footsteps on the path, he looked at the spies and said, “Don’t you move. Look – here’s the knife – I’m not going to use it. Stay here.”
He went outside and found Lyra standing still, weeping, with Pantalaimon as a wolf raising his face to the black sky. She was quite silent. The only light came from the pale reflection in the snowbank of the remains of the fire, and that, in turn, was reflected from her wet cheeks, and her tears found their own reflection in Will’s eyes, and so those photons wove the two children together in a silent web.
“I love him so much, Will!” she managed to whisper shakily. “And he looked old ! He looked hungry and old and sad… Is it all coming onto us now, Will? We can’t rely on anyone else now, can we… It’s just us. But we en’t old enough yet. We’re only young… We’re too young… If poor Mr. Scoresby’s dead and Iorek’s old…It’s all coming onto us, what’s got to be done.”
“We can do it,” he said. “I’m not going to look back anymore. We can do it. But we’ve got to sleep now, and if we stay in this world, those gyropter things might come, the ones the spies sent for… I’m going to cut through now and we’ll find another world to sleep in, and if the spies come with us, that’s too bad; we’ll have to get rid of them another time.”
“Yes,” she said, and sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across her nose and rubbed her eyes with both palms. “Let’s do that. You sure the knife will work? You tested it?”
“I know it’ll work.”
With Pantalaimon tiger‑formed to deter the spies, they hoped, Will and Lyra went back and picked up their rucksacks.
“What are you doing?” said Salmakia.
“Going into another world,” said Will, taking out the knife. It felt like being whole again; he hadn’t realized how much he loved it.
“But you must wait for Lord Asriel’s gyropters,” said Tialys, his voice hard.
“We’re not going to,” said Will. “If you come near the knife, I’ll kill you. Come through with us if you must, but you can’t make us stay here. We’re leaving.”
“You lied!”
“No,” said Lyra, “I lied. Will doesn’t lie. You didn’t think of that.”
“But where are you going?”
Will didn’t answer. He felt forward in the dim air and cut an opening.
Salmakia said, “This is a mistake. You should realize that, and listen to us. You haven’t thought…”
“Yes, we have,” said Will, “we’ve thought hard, and we’ll tell you what we’ve thought tomorrow. You can come where we’re going, or you can go back to Lord Asriel.”
The window opened onto the world into which he had escaped with Baruch and Balthamos, and where he’d slept safely: the warm endless beach with the fernlike trees behind the dunes. He said:
“Here – we’ll sleep here – this’ll do.”
He let them through and closed it behind them at once. While he and Lyra lay down where they were, exhausted, the Lady Salmakia kept watch, and the Chevalier opened his lodestone resonator and began to play a message into the dark.
Chapter 16. The Intention Craft
“My child ! My daughter ! Where is she? What have you done? My Lyra – you’d do better to tear the fibers from my heart – she was safe with me, safe , and now where is she?”
Mrs. Coulter’s cry resounded through the little chamber at the top of the adamant tower. She was bound to a chair, her hair disheveled, her clothing torn, her eyes wild; and her monkey daemon thrashed and struggled on the floor in the coils of a silver chain.
Lord Asriel sat nearby, scribbling on a piece of paper, taking no notice. An orderly stood beside him, glancing nervously at the woman. When Lord Asriel handed him the paper, he saluted and hurried out, his terrier daemon close at his heels with her tail tucked low.
Lord Asriel turned to Mrs. Coulter.