She put the alethiometer away, and wondered how to tell him about it.
«Flatter him!» whispered Pantalaimon. «That's all he wants.»
So Lyra opened the door and found lofur Raknison waiting for her, with an expression of triumph, slyness, apprehension, and greed.
«Well?»
She knelt down in front of him and bowed her head to touch his left forepaw, the stronger, for bears were left-handed.
«I beg your pardon, lofur Raknison!» she said. «I didn't know you were so strong and great!»
«What's this? Answer my question!»
«The first creature you killed was your own father. I think you're a new god, lofur Raknison. That's what you must be. Only a god would have the strength to do that.»
«You know! You can see!»
«Yes, because I am a daemon, like I said.»
«Tell me one thing more. What did the Lady Coulter promise me when she was here?»
Once again Lyra went into the empty room and consulted the alethiometer before returning with the answer.
«She promised you that she'd get the Magisterium in Geneva to agree that you could be baptized as a Christian, even though you hadn't got a daemon then. Well, I'm afraid that she hasn't done that, lofur Raknison, and quite honestly I don't think they'd ever agree to that if you didn't have a daemon. I think she knew that, and she wasn't telling you the truth. But in any case when you've got me as your daemon, you could be baptized if you wanted to, because no one could argue then. You could demand it and they wouldn't be able to turn you down.»
«Yes…True. That's what she said. True, every word. And she has deceived me? I trusted her, and she deceived me?»
«Yes, she did. But she doesn't matter anymore. Excuse me, lofur Raknison, I hope you won't mind me telling you, but lorek Byrnison's only four hours away now, and maybe you better tell your guard bears not to attack him as they normally would. If you're going to fight him for me, he'll have to be allowed to come to the palace.»
«Yes…»
«And maybe when he comes I better pretend I still belong to him, and say I got lost or something. He won't know. I'll pretend. Are you going to tell the other bears about me being lorek's daemon and then belonging to you when you beat him?»
«I don't know….What should I do?»
«I don't think you better mention it yet. Once we're together, you and me, we can think what's best to do and decide then. What you need to do now is explain to all the other bears why you're going to let lorek fight you like a proper bear, even though he's an outcast. Because they won't understand, and we got to find a reason for that. I mean, they'll do what you tell them anyway, but if they see the reason for it, they'll admire you even more.»
«Yes. What should we tell them?»
«Tell them.. .tell them that to make your kingdom com-pletely secure, you've called lorek Byrnison here yourself to fight him, and the winner will rule over the bears forever. See, if you make it look like your idea that he's coming, and not his, they'll be really impressed. They'll think you're able to call him here from far away. They'll think you can do anything.»
«Yes…»
The great bear was helpless. Lyra found her power over him almost intoxicating, and if Pantalaimon hadn't nipped her hand sharply to remind her of the danger they were all in, she might have lost all her sense of proportion.
But she came to herself and stepped modestly back to watch and wait as the bears, under lofur's excited direction, prepared the combat ground for lorek Byrnison; and meanwhile lorek, knowing nothing about it, was hurrying ever closer toward what she wished she could tell him was a fight for his life.
Twenty
Mortal Combat
Fights between bears were common, and the subject of much ritual. For a bear to kill another was rare, though, and when that happened it was usually by accident, or when one bear mistook the signals from another, as in the case of lorek Byrnison. Cases of straightforward murder, like lofur's killing of his own father, were rarer still.
But occasionally there came circumstances in which the only way of settling a dispute was a fight to the death. And for that, a whole ceremonial was prescribed.
As soon as lofur announced that lorek Byrnison was on his way, and a combat would take place, the combat ground was swept and smoothed, and armorers came up from the fire mines to check lofur's armor. Every rivet was examined, every link tested, and the plates were burnished with the finest sand. Just as much attention was paid to his claws. The gold leaf was rubbed off, and each separate six-inch hook was sharpened and filed to a deadly point. Lyra watched with a growing sickness in the pit of her stomach, for lorek Byrnison wouldn't be having this attention; he had been marching over the ice for nearly twenty-four hours already without rest or food; he might have been injured in the crash. And she had let him in for this fight without his knowledge. At one point, after lofur Raknison had tested the sharpness of his claws on a fresh-killed walrus, slicing its skin open like paper, and the power of his crashing blows on the walrus's skull (two blows, and it was cracked like an egg), Lyra had to make an excuse to lofur and go away by herself to weep with fear.
Even Pantalaimon, who could normally cheer her up, had little to say that was hopeful. All she could do was consult the alethiometer: he is an hour away, it told her, and again, she must trust him; and (this was harder to read) she even thought it was rebuking her for asking the same question twice.
By this time, word had spread among the bears, and every part of the combat ground was crowded. Bears of high rank had the best places, and there was a special enclosure for the she-bears, including, of course, lofur's wives. Lyra was profoundly curious about she-bears, because she knew so little about them, but this was no time to wander about asking questions. Instead she stayed close to lofur Raknison and watched the courtiers around him assert their rank over the common bears from outside, and tried to guess the meaning of the various plumes and badges and tokens they all seemed to wear. Some of the highest-ranking, she saw, carried little manikins like lofur's rag-doll daemon, trying to curry favor, perhaps, by imitating the fashion he'd begun. She was sardonically pleased to notice that when they saw that lofur had discarded his, they didn't know what to do with theirs. Should they throw them away? Were they out of favor now? How should they behave?
Because that was the prevailing mood in his court, she was beginning to see. They weren't sure what they were. They weren't like lorek Byrnison, pure and certain and absolute; there was a constant pall of uncertainty hanging over them, as they watched one another and watched lofur.
And they watched her, with open curiosity. She remained modestly close to lofur and said nothing, lowering her eyes whenever a bear looked at her.
The fog had lifted by this time, and the air was clear; and as chance would have it, the brief lifting of darkness toward noon coincided with the time Lyra thought lorek was going to arrive. As she stood shivering on a little rise of dense-packed snow at the edge of the combat ground, she looked up toward the faint lightness in the sky, and longed with all her heart to see a flight of ragged elegant black shapes descending to bear her away; or to see the Aurora's hidden city, where she would be able to walk safely along those broad boulevards in the sunlight; or to see Ma Costa's broad arms, to smell the friendly smells of flesh and cooking that enfolded you in her presence….
She found herself crying, with tears that froze almost as soon as they formed, and which she had to brush away painfully. She was so frightened. Bears, who didn't cry, couldn't understand what was happening to her; it was some human process, meaningless. And of course Pantalaimon couldn't comfort her as he normally would, though she kept her hand in her pocket firmly around his warm little mouse-form, and he nuzzled at her fingers.
Beside her, the smiths were making the final adjustments to lofur Raknison's armor. He reared like a great metal tower, shining in polished steel, the smooth plates inlaid with wires of gold; his helmet enclosed the upper part of his head in a
glistening carapace of silver-gray, with deep eye slits; and the underside of his body was protected by a close-fitting sark of chain mail. It was when she saw this that Lyra realized that she had betrayed lorek Byrnison, for lorek had nothing like it. His armor protected only his back and sides. She looked at lofur Raknison, so sleek and powerful, and felt a deep sickness in her, like guilt and fear combined.
She said «Excuse me, Your Majesty, if you remember what I said to you before…»
Her shaking voice felt thin and weak in the air. lofur Raknison turned his mighty head, distracted from the target three bears were holding up in front for him to slash at with his perfect claws.
«Yes? Yes?»
«Remember, I said I'd better go and speak to lorek Byrnison first, and pretend—»
But before she could even finish her sentence, there was a roar from the bears on the watchtower. The others all knew what it meant and took it up with a triumphant excitement. They had seen lorek.
«Please?» Lyra said urgently. «I'll fool him, you'll see.»
«Yes. Yes. Go now. Go and encourage him!»
lofur Raknison was hardly able to speak for rage and excitement.
Lyra left his side and walked across the combat ground, bare and clear as it was, leaving her little footprints in the snow, and the bears on the far side parted to let her through. As their great bodies lumbered aside, the horizon opened, gloomy in the pallor of the light. Where was lorek Byrnison? She could see nothing; but then, the watchtower was high, and they could see what was still hidden from her. All she could do was walk forward in the snow.
He saw her before she saw him. There was a bounding and a heavy clank of metal, and in a flurry of snow lorek Byrnison stood beside her.
«Oh, lorek! I've done a terrible thing! My dear, you're going to have to fight lofur Raknison, and you en't ready— you're tired and hungry, and your armor's—»
«What terrible thing?»
«I told him you was coming, because I read it on the symbol reader; and he's desperate to be like a person and have a daemon, just desperate. So I tricked him into thinking that I was your daemon, and I was going to desert you and be his instead, but he had to fight you to make it happen. Because otherwise, lorek, dear, they'd never let you fight, they were going to just burn you up before you got close—»
«You tricked lofur Raknison?»
«Yes. I made him agree that he'd fight you instead of just killing you straight off like an outcast, and the winner would be king of the bears. I had to do that, because—»
«Belacqua? No. You are Lyra Silvertongue,» he said. «To fight him is all I want. Come, little daemon.»
She looked at lorek Byrnison in his battered armor, lean and ferocious, and felt as if her heart would burst with pride.
They walked together toward the massive hulk of lofur's palace, where the combat ground lay flat and open at the foot of the walls. Bears clustered at the battlements, white faces filled every window, and their heavy forms stood like a dense wall of misty white ahead, marked with the black dots of eyes and noses. The nearest ones moved aside, making two lines for lorek Byrnison and his daemon to walk between. Every bear's eyes were fixed on them.
lorek halted across the combat ground from lofur Raknison. The king came down from the rise of trodden snow, and the two bears faced each other several yards apart.
Lyra was so close to lorek that she could feel a trembling in him like a great dynamo, generating mighty anbaric forces. She touched him briefly on the neck at the edge of his helmet and said, «Fight well, lorek my dear. You're the real king, and he en't. He's nothing.»
Then she stood back.
«Bears!» lorek Byrnison roared. An echo rang back from the palace walls and startled birds out of their nests. He went on: «The terms of this combat are these. If lofur Raknison kills me, then he will be king forever, safe from challenge or
dispute. If I kill lofur Raknison, I shall be your king. My first order to you all will be to tear down that palace, that perfumed house of mockery and tinsel, and hurl the gold and marble into the sea. Iron is bear-metal. Gold is not. lofur Raknison has polluted Svalbard. I have come to cleanse it. lofur Raknison, I challenge you.»
Then lofur bounded forward a step or two, as if he could hardly hold himself back.
«Bears!» he roared in his turn. «lorek Byrnison has come back at my invitation. I drew him here. It is for me to make the terms of this combat, and they are these: if I kill lorek Byrnison, his flesh shall be torn apart and scattered to the cliff-ghasts. His head shall be displayed above my palace. His memory shall be obliterated. It shall be a capital crime to speak his name….»
He continued, and then each bear spoke again. It was a formula, a ritual faithfully followed. Lyra looked at the two of them, so utterly different: lofur so glossy and powerful, immense in his strength and health, splendidly armored, proud and kinglike; and lorek smaller, though she had never thought he would look small, and poorly equipped, his armor rusty and dented. But his armor was his soul. He had made it and it fitted him. They were one. lofur was not content with his armor; he wanted another soul as well. He was restless while lorek was still.
And she was aware that all the other bears were making the comparison too. But lorek and lofur were more than just two bears. There were two kinds of beardom opposed here, two futures, two destinies. lofur had begun to take them in one direction, and lorek would take them in another, and in the same moment, one future would close forever as the other began to unfold.
As their ritual combat moved toward the second phase, the two bears began to prowl restlessly on the snow, edging forward, swinging their heads. There was not a flicker of movement from the spectators: but all eyes followed them.
Finally the warriors were still and silent, watching each other face to face across the width of the combat ground.
Then with a roar and a blur of snow both bears moved at the same moment. Like two great masses of rock balanced on adjoining peaks and shaken loose by an earthquake, which bound down the mountainsides gathering speed, leaping over crevasses and knocking trees into splinters, until they crash into each other so hard that both are smashed to powder and flying chips of stone: that was how the two bears came together. The crash as they met resounded in the still air and echoed back from the palace wall. But they weren't destroyed, as rock would have been. They both fell aside, and the first to rise was lorek. He twisted up in a lithe spring and grappled with lofur, whose armor had been damaged by the collision and who couldn't easily raise his head. lorek made at once for the vulnerable gap at his neck. He raked the white fur, and then hooked his claws beneath the edge of lofur's helmet and wrenched it forward.
Sensing the danger, lofur snarled and shook himself as Lyra had seen lorek shake himself at the water's edge, sending sheets of water flying high into the air. And lorek fell away, dislodged, and with a screech of twisting metal lofur stood up tall, straightening the steel of his back plates by sheer strength. Then like an avalanche he hurled himself down on lorek, who was still trying to rise.
Lyra felt her own breath knocked out of her by the force of that crashing fall. Certainly the very ground shook beneath her. How could lorek survive that? He was struggling to twist himself and gain a purchase on the ground, but his feet were uppermost, and lofur had fixed his teeth somewhere near lorek's throat. Drops of hot blood were flying through the air: one landed on Lyra's furs, and she pressed her hand to it like a token of love.
Then lorek's rear claws dug into the links of lofur's chain-mail sark and ripped downward. The whole front came away, and lofur lurched sideways to look at the damage, leaving lorek to scramble upright again.
For a moment the two bears stood apart, getting their breath back. lofur was hampered now by that chain mail, because from a protection it had changed all at once into a hindrance: it was still fastened at the bottom, and trailed around his rear legs. However, lorek was worse off. He was bleeding freely from a wound at his neck, and panting heavily.<
br />
But he leaped at lofur before the king could disentangle himself from the clinging chain mail, and knocked him head over heels, following up with a lunge at the bare part of lofur's neck, where the edge of the helmet was bent. lofur threw him off, and then the two bears were at each other again, throwing up fountains of snow that sprayed in all directions and sometimes made it hard to see who had the advantage.
Lyra watched, hardly daring to breathe, and squeezing her hands together so tight it hurt. She thought she saw lofur tearing at a wound in lorek's belly, but that couldn't be right, because a moment later, after another convulsive explosion of snow, both bears were standing upright like boxers, and lorek was slashing with mighty claws at lofur's face, with lofur hitting back just as savagely.
Lyra trembled at the weight of those blows. As if a giant were swinging a sledgehammer, and that hammer were armed with five steel spikes…
Iron clanged on iron, teeth crashed on teeth, breath roared harshly, feet thundered on the hard-packed ground. The snow around was splashed with red and trodden down for yards into a crimson mud.
lofur's armor was in a pitiful state by this time, the plates torn and distorted, the gold inlay torn out or smeared thickly with blood, and his helmet gone altogether. lorek's was in much better condition, for all its ugliness: dented, but intact, standing up far better to the great sledgehammer blows of the bear-king, and turning aside those brutal six-inch claws.
But against that, lofur was bigger and stronger than lorek, and lorek was weary and hungry, and had lost more blood. He was wounded in the belly, on both arms, and at the neck, whereas lofur was bleeding only from his lower jaw. Lyra longed to help her dear friend, but what could she do?
And it was going badly for lorek now. He was limping; every time he put his left forepaw on the ground, they could see that it hardly bore his weight. He never used it to strike with, and the blows from his right hand were feebler, too, almost little pats compared with the mighty crushing buffets he'd delivered only a few minutes before.
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