The Book of Dust, Volume 1

by Philip Pullman

  —because the gatehouse was no longer there. A heap of stones, planks, rubble, boards, and roof tiles lay there instead, illuminated flickeringly from inside the building. As Malcolm stood in shock, a wave broke over the top of the rubble: the river had burst its banks. When the surge reached him, it was as high as his knees and nearly knocked him over.

  “Alice!” Malcolm yelled.

  From behind him came a wail of terror in the voice of Sister Katarina.

  “The kitchen!” cried Asta, and Malcolm struggled to the kitchen door. The water was surging at the foot of it, and when he shoved it open, he found the kitchen already flooded—the fire in the range hissing and steaming, the floor awash.

  And there was Lyra’s crib actually afloat—actually rocking on the water—and Alice lying dazed across the kitchen table, half under a pile of plaster and beams from the ceiling—

  “Alice!” he cried, and she stirred, moaning, but then sat up too quickly and sagged sideways again.

  Malcolm snatched Lyra from the crib, Asta darting down to take care of Pan. Malcolm pulled the blankets out after the child and wrapped them around her. All he could see by was the orange glow from the range. Had he got all the blankets? Would she be warm enough?

  Alice was groping for the wall and trying to stand up. Suddenly she was hurled aside as the man Bonneville burst in—smashing the door open even against the water at its foot—and, seeing Malcolm, leapt towards him, snarling so vilely that he sounded worse than the dæmon who followed him close—

  Malcolm held Lyra tight against his chest—she was crying in fear—

  And then Bonneville fell forward with a great splash as Alice smashed his head from behind with a chair. He grabbed at the table but couldn’t hold it—all he did was tip it over and fall with a heavy splash beside it. She raised the chair again and brought it down on him again.

  “Quick! Quick!” Alice cried, and Malcolm tried to run through the water, but could only manage a horrible slowness as Bonneville’s hands and arms and then his blood-streaming head emerged above the table, and then the man slipped and fell back and emerged again, the side of his head a mask of flaring blood.

  “Malcolm!” Alice screamed.

  He leapt for the door, clasping Lyra tight. The baby was yelling in fury and kicking and waving her little fists.

  “Give me that—” the man roared, and then slipped down again, and Malcolm was out the door and running with Alice towards the bridge, but the water slowed them so much it was worse than a bad dream.

  No sign of Sister Katarina, no sign of the other nuns—they couldn’t all be drowned? Or crushed under fallen timbers? The only other living being was the blood-soaked Bonneville and his limping, lurching dæmon coming out of the kitchen door behind them—

  But there was hardly any light to see by, and the air was full of driving, smashing water. By instinct and memory Malcolm stumbled along the path, calling, “Alice! Alice!”

  Then he bumped into her and they both nearly fell over.

  “Hold on! Don’t let go!” he shouted.

  Linked by their cold hands, they forced their way through the flood and up onto the bridge. One light from the Trout was still glowing and showed that the parapet and one side of the roadway were gone.

  “Careful!” she cried.

  “Don’t let go!”

  They shuffled sideways along the remaining part of the roadway and felt it shake and rumble under their feet. Lyra had stopped crying and found her thumb, and she lay in Malcolm’s tight grasp quite happily, interested in everything.

  “It’s going to go—the bridge!” Alice cried, and then, “He’s there! Quick!” as she looked back past Malcolm.

  “How could he—”

  “Come on!”

  They stumbled down the steps that led to the terrace of the Trout and found they had to go back—the river was racing over the terrace at the height of a tabletop: it would sweep them off their feet and away in a moment.

  “Where? Which way?” shouted Alice.

  “Round the other side—maybe the door—”

  Malcolm didn’t know what he was going to say, because close behind came that terrifying laugh—“Haa! Ha! Haaa!”—and there, full in the gleam of the light hanging over the inn door, was Bonneville’s face, astream with water and astream with blood. Alice picked up a loose stone from the parapet, as big as her fist, and hurled it straight at him, and again he fell.

  “Quick! Quick!” cried Malcolm, and led them running down the slope towards the other side of the inn, towards the front door, towards safety.

  And the door was locked.

  Oh, of course, he thought, they think I’m upstairs….

  “Mum! Dad!” he yelled, but the wind and the rain and the torrents of the river tore his voice away like a scrap of tissue paper.

  Clutching Lyra close with one arm, holding Alice’s hand with the other hand, he scrambled along the wall of the pub to the back door. Locked as well.

  He shoved Lyra at Alice and picked up a big stone to hammer on the door with. But the roar of the water and the lashing of the trees in the wind were too loud: he could hardly hear the hammering himself. He hit the door time and again, until he couldn’t hold the stone anymore. There was no response, and Bonneville was somewhere close, and they couldn’t stand and wait for him to find them.

  “Come on,” he said, and Alice followed as he splashed around to the garden, to the storeroom, to the lean-to, where he kept the canoe. In the faint light coming through the rain from the landing window, they saw a peacock drowned and draped over a bush.

  In the lean-to, La Belle Sauvage sat snugly under her coal-silk canopy.

  “Get in. Sit down there and take Lyra. Don’t move,” he said, and pulled back enough of the canopy for Alice to see the bow, and where to step and where to sit. He shoved Lyra at her, and she took her with firm arms, and then he pulled the canopy back over her and got in himself. There was so much water streaming over the grass that he was pretty sure this would work, and indeed La Belle Sauvage was straining at her mooring rope already, as if she sensed what Malcolm wanted.

  A quick tug—the knot came loose—and Malcolm took the paddle and used it to keep her upright as she began to move, slowly at first and then faster and faster, down the grass slope towards the river.

  But the river was coming up to meet them, and suddenly the little boat came free from the grass and surged forward.

  They could only go one way. La Belle Sauvage sped like a dart over the mad river, down towards Port Meadow, towards the wild waste of water that was sweeping through Oxford, towards whatever lay beyond.

  Malcolm could see almost nothing. Apart from the profound darkness of the sky and the slashing rain, the canopy obstructed everything ahead. Besides, it caught the wind and made the canoe lurch unpredictably to the left and right, so he would have found it hard to get a visual fix on anything, even if he could see it. For a few minutes he thought he’d made a horrible mistake in embarking in the canoe, and that they’d be drowned for sure; but what else could they have done? Bonneville would have caught them, stolen Lyra, killed her….

  He concentrated on keeping the little boat as upright as possible, steering, not paddling. The force of the flood was sweeping them along without any effort from him, but he had no idea where they were or what they might smash into at any moment: a tree, a bridge, a house— He tried to push the thought away.

  There was another problem too. Malcolm was sitting at the stern, and in order to keep the paddle in the water, he had to leave his end of the canoe uncovered by the coal-silk tarpaulin, and the unceasing rain was filling the boat so quickly that his feet were already covered.

  “As soon as we find something solid, we’ll tie up!” he shouted to Alice. “And bail this water out.”

  “All right” was all she said.

  He leaned to the right, trying to see round the canopy, trying to keep the brim of his sou’wester out of his eyes, trying to make out anything in the
teeming murk. Something large, tall, dark swept past—a tree? Asta peered ahead, owl-formed, from the rearmost hoop, though the great raindrops slapping at her wide eyes made it almost impossible to see anything.

  Then suddenly, “Go left! Go left!” she screeched, and Malcolm dug the paddle into the water and heaved with all his strength as a low-hanging tree slashed its way along the canopy and nearly snatched his sou’wester off his head.

  “More trees!” she cried again.

  Malcolm dug in the paddle with all his might, shoving desperately against the current, and found the canoe swirling around and bumping and scraping against branches and twigs—and then a thorn-laden branch swept across his face, making him yell, and startling Lyra into loud sobs.

  “What is it?” called Alice.

  “Nothing. ’S all right, Lyra,” he called back, though his eyes were filled with tears of pain and he could hardly think.

  But he kept hold of the paddle, and then found a heavy branch nudging at the hoop where Asta was perching, and he seized that and held the canoe still against it.

  He dropped the paddle at his feet and groped for the painter with his free hand. He found it, flung it over the branch, and fumbled a bowline with his cold, wet, trembling fingers.

  “Under your feet somewhere there’s a canvas bucket,” he called, and while Alice looked for that, he pulled the canopy back over the last hoop and fixed it around the gunwale, leaving only one fastening open.

  “Here y’are,” she said, reaching forward. Lyra was still yelling.

  He took the bucket and started to bail, tipping the water over the side where the canopy was still undone. It didn’t take long. Then he realized his boots were full of water too, so he struggled to pull them off and empty them. He fastened the tarpaulin and leaned back, exhausted, and let Asta explore the scratches on his face with a soft clean puppy tongue. It hurt even more, but he tried not to yelp.

  At least with the tarpaulin over the boat, he wasn’t out in that brutal rain anymore. It hammered at the coal silk, but not a drop got in.

  “Under your seat there’s a tin,” he said. “I sealed it with tape, so there shouldn’t be any water in it. If you pass it here, I’ll open it. There’s some biscuits in it.”

  She fumbled around and found the tin. He picked at the tape until he found the end, and opened it. It was perfectly dry. And he’d forgotten: he’d put his Swiss Army knife in there, and a little anbaric torch! He switched it on, dazzled by the brilliance. And it stopped Lyra from crying.

  “Give her a biscuit to suck,” he said.

  Alice took two, one for herself and one for Lyra, who after waving it around doubtfully found her mouth and began to suck with immense pleasure.

  Malcolm saw something out of the corner of his eye—or was it in his eye? A little patch of white on the floor of the canoe. And then, without the slightest warning, it became the shimmering, flickering spot of light, floating in the darkness ahead of him. He blinked and shook his head: this wasn’t a good time for spangled rings, but it wouldn’t go. It floated in midair, scintillating and spinning, flashing and turning.

  “What’s the matter?” said Alice. She must have felt him shaking his head or sensed that his attention was distracted.

  “Something in my eye. I got to keep still.”

  He sat there in the wet discomfort and tried to feel calm. He did feel something, the kind of thing Asta had described on that evening when it came on them during his geography homework, a sort of peaceful, disembodied floating, in a space that was immense or even infinite in all directions. The spangled ring grew larger, just like before, and as before, he was helpless and paralyzed while it came closer and closer and expanded to fill the entire circumference of his vision, but he was never frightened; it wasn’t alarming; in a way it was even comforting, that calm, oceanic drifting. It was his aurora: it was telling him that he was still part of the great order of things, and that that could never change.

  He let the phenomenon run its course and came to himself, exhausted, as if the experience had been strenuous and demanding. But the little patch of white was still there on the floor. He felt down and found it: a card of the sort ladies and gentlemen had with their names printed on them. His eyes were still too disturbed to read it, and without a word to Alice he put it in his shirt pocket.

  And once all his consciousness was back in the little enclosed space under the canopy, he could easily tell what Alice had made out earlier: Lyra needed changing. Well, there was absolutely nothing they could do about it now.

  “What we gonna do?” said Alice.

  “Stay awake, that’s the first thing. If the water goes down while the canoe’s still tied to the branch, we’ll get tipped out and left with the canoe halfway up a tree.”

  “Yeah, that’d be pretty stupid.”

  Lyra was humming, or saying something to Pantalaimon, or just expressing her pleasure in the soggy biscuit.

  “Well, she’s easily pleased,” said Malcolm.

  “We got to change her soon. She’ll get sore otherwise.”

  “That’ll have to wait till we can see where we’re going. And till we can get some hot water to wash her. As soon as it’s morning, we’ll see if we can paddle back home.”

  “He’ll still be around,” she said.

  That was the least of it, Malcolm thought. The force of the flood might prevent them from going back anyway; they might find themselves swept all the way through Oxford and on to…where?

  “Well, we’ll aim for a house or a shop or something where we can get—whatever she needs,” he said.

  “Yeah,” said Alice. “All right.”

  “There’s a blanket down there if you’re cold. Wrap it round both of you.”

  More fumbling, and then she found it.

  “It’s soaking wet,” she said. “You going to stay awake?”

  “Yeah. Keep watch. I’ll try anyway.”

  “Well, wake me up when you can’t anymore.”

  He switched the torch off. The canoe certainly wasn’t made for sleeping in. Even if he’d wanted to stretch out, there was still an inch or so of freezing water in the bottom that he couldn’t get out with the bucket; and even if it had been dry, there was nowhere to rest his head but the wooden seat; and even if even if, as Asta had said earlier.

  In fact, there was plenty to complain about. But Alice hadn’t complained once. He was impressed, and vowed not to say a word about the pain from the thorn scratches across his face.

  He felt her settling down at the other end of the little boat. Lyra had stopped crying, thanks to the biscuit, and was dozing in Alice’s arms. Alice had propped herself inside the bow, with her knees up over the front seat, so as to make her body and arms a cradle for Lyra. Her dæmon was squeezed down beside her.

  Asta became a ferret and settled around Malcolm’s neck.

  “Where do you think we are?” she whispered.

  “Somewhere down Port Meadow. There’s that oratory off to the right with a grove of trees….”

  “That’s nowhere near the river.”

  “I don’t think there’s a river anymore. This is ever so much higher. There’s water everywhere.”

  “Yeah…D’you think we’ll get swept away?”

  “No. We managed to tie up in the dark, didn’t we? Once we can see, in the morning, we’ll find our way back.”

  “It’s going ever so fast, though.”

  “Well, we’ll stay tied up till it stops, then.”

  Asta was silent for a few minutes, but he knew she hadn’t gone to sleep; he could feel her thinking.

  “Suppose it never stops?” she whispered.

  “The gyptian man didn’t say it’d do that. Just that there was going to be a flood.”

  “It feels as if it’s going on forever.”

  “There isn’t enough water in all the world to do that. Eventually it’ll stop and the sun’ll come out. Every flood stops in the end and goes down.”

  “This time might be
different.”

  “It won’t.”

  “What’s on that card?” she said after a moment. “The one you picked up.”

  “Oh, yeah…”

  He fished it out of his pocket, and shading the torch with his hand so it wouldn’t wake Alice, he read:

  LORD ASRIEL

  October House

  Chelsea

  London

  On the back were written the words With many thanks. If you need my help at any time, be sure to ask. Asriel.

  An idea came to him, glittering, shimmering, spangled with brilliance. Asta knew what it was at once, and whispered, “Don’t tell Alice.” The idea was to set off over the flood, all the way down the Thames, and find Lord Asriel and take his child to him. It was almost as if that was why Lord Asriel had paid for La Belle Sauvage to be improved, as if he knew the flood was coming and had prepared a safe vessel for his daughter, and as if the faithful canoe had given the message to Malcolm. He felt the idea warming him through and through.

  And they agreed wordlessly: Don’t tell Alice. Not yet. He tucked the card back in his pocket and switched off the torch.

  The rain was beating on the tarpaulin just as furiously as it had been doing since they started, and if anything, Malcolm thought, feeling cautiously along the painter, the canoe was higher in the tree than it had been when he tied it. Even worse than being tipped out as the water fell would be being dragged below as it rose.

  Still, a bowline was a good knot, and he’d be able to undo it in the dark, if he needed to.

  “Mind you,” he whispered, “a slipped reef knot would be even better. Just one pull…”

  “Should’ve practiced,” Asta whispered back.

  Another few minutes of silence. He felt his head nodding and snapped it upright.

  “Don’t fall asleep,” she urged.

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  Malcolm supposed he replied, but the next thing he knew was when his thorn-slashed face met the gunwale. He’d slipped over little by little till he was almost horizontal.