The Golden Compass: His Dark Materials

by Philip Pullman

  Seals frisked around the ship, showing their clown faces above the water before sinking back without a splash. The wind that lifted spray off the white-capped waves was monstrously cold, and searched out every gap in Lyra’s wolfskin, and her hands were soon aching and her face numb. Pantalaimon, in his ermine shape, warmed her neck for her, but it was too cold to stay outside for long without work to do, even to watch the seals, and Lyra went below to eat her breakfast porridge and look through the porthole in the saloon.

  Inside the harbor the water was calm, and as they moved past the massive breakwater Lyra began to feel unsteady from the lack of motion. She and Pantalaimon avidly watched as the ship inched ponderously toward the quayside. During the next hour the sound of the engine died away to a quiet background rumble, voices shouted orders or queries, ropes were thrown, gangways lowered, hatches opened.

  “Come on, Lyra,” said Farder Coram. “Is everything packed?”

  Lyra’s possessions, such as they were, had been packed ever since she’d woken up and seen the land. All she had to do was run to the cabin and pick up the shopping bag, and she was ready.

  The first thing she and Farder Coram did ashore was to visit the house of the witch consul. It didn’t take long to find it; the little town was clustered around the harbor, with the oratory and the governor’s house the only buildings of any size. The witch consul lived in a green-painted wooden house within sight of the sea, and when they rang the bell it jangled loudly in the quiet street.

  A servant showed them into a little parlor and brought them coffee. Presently the consul himself came in to greet them. He was a fat man with a florid face and a sober black suit, whose name was Martin Lanselius. His dæmon was a little serpent, the same intense and brilliant green as his eyes, which were the only witchlike thing about him, though Lyra was not sure what she had been expecting a witch to look like.

  “How can I help you, Farder Coram?” he said.

  “In two ways, Dr. Lanselius. First, I’m anxious to get in touch with a witch lady I met some years ago, in the fen country of Eastern Anglia. Her name is Serafina Pekkala.”

  Dr. Lanselius made a note with a silver pencil.

  “How long ago was your meeting with her?” he said.

  “Must be forty years. But I think she would remember.”

  “And what is the second way in which you seek my help?”

  “I’m representing a number of gyptian families who’ve lost children. We’ve got reason to believe there’s an organization capturing these children, ours and others, and bringing them to the North for some unknown purpose. I’d like to know whether you or your people have heard of anything like this a going on.”

  Dr. Lanselius sipped his coffee blandly.

  “It’s not impossible that notice of some such activity might have come our way,” he said. “You realize, the relations between my people and the Northlanders are perfectly cordial. It would be difficult for me to justify disturbing them.”

  Farder Coram nodded as if he understood very well.

  “To be sure,” he said. “And it wouldn’t be necessary for me to ask you if I could get the information any other way. That was why I asked about the witch lady first.”

  Now Dr. Lanselius nodded as if he understood. Lyra watched this game with puzzlement and respect. There were all kinds of things going on beneath it, and she saw that the witch consul was coming to a decision.

  “Very well,” he said. “Of course, that’s true, and you’ll realize that your name is not unknown to us, Farder Coram. Serafina Pekkala is queen of a witch clan in the region of Lake Enara. As for your other question, it is of course understood that this information is not reaching you through me.”

  “Quite so.”

  “Well, in this very town there is a branch of an organization called the Northern Progress Exploration Company, which pretends to be searching for minerals, but which is really controlled by something called the General Oblation Board of London. This organization, I happen to know, imports children. This is not generally known in the town; the Norroway government is not officially aware of it. The children don’t remain here long. They are taken some distance inland.”

  “Do you know where, Dr. Lanselius?”

  “No. I would tell you if I did.”

  “And do you know what happens to them there?”

  For the first time, Dr. Lanselius glanced at Lyra. She looked stolidly back. The little green serpent dæmon raised her head from the consul’s collar and whispered tongue-flickeringly in his ear.

  The consul said, “I have heard the phrase the Maystadt process in connection with this matter. I think they use that in order to avoid calling what they do by its proper name. I have also heard the word intercision, but what it refers to I could not say.”

  “And are there any children in the town at the moment?” said Farder Coram.

  He was stroking his dæmon’s fur as she sat alert in his lap. Lyra noticed that she had stopped purring.

  “No, I think not,” said Dr. Lanselius. “A group of about twelve arrived a week ago and moved out the day before yesterday.”

  “Ah! As recent as that? Then that gives us a bit of hope. How did they travel, Dr. Lanselius?”

  “By sledge.”

  “And you have no idea where they went?”

  “Very little. It is not a subject we are interested in.”

  “Quite so. Now, you’ve answered all my questions very fairly, sir, and here’s just one more. If you were me, what question would you ask of the Consul of the Witches?”

  For the first time Dr. Lanselius smiled.

  “I would ask where I could obtain the services of an armored bear,” he said.

  Lyra sat up, and felt Pantalaimon’s heart leap in her hands.

  “I understood the armored bears to be in the service of the Oblation Board,” said Farder Coram in surprise. “I mean, the Northern Progress Company, or whatever they’re calling themselves.”

  “There is at least one who is not. You will find him at the sledge depot at the end of Langlokur Street. He earns a living there at the moment, but such is his temper and the fear he engenders in the dogs, his employment might not last for long.”

  “Is he a renegade, then?”

  “It seems so. His name is Iorek Byrnison. You asked what I would ask, and I told you. Now here is what I would do: I would seize the chance to employ an armored bear, even if it were far more remote than this.”

  Lyra could hardly sit still. Farder Coram, however, knew the etiquette for meetings such as this, and took another spiced honey cake from the plate. While he ate it, Dr. Lanselius turned to Lyra.

  “I understand that you are in possession of an alethiometer,” he said, to her great surprise; for how could he have known that?

  “Yes,” she said, and then, prompted by a nip from Pantalaimon, added, “Would you like to look at it?”

  “I should like that very much.”

  She fished inelegantly in the oilskin pouch and handed him the velvet package. He unfolded it and held it up with great care, gazing at the face like a Scholar gazing at a rare manuscript.

  “How exquisite!” he said. “I have seen one other example, but it was not so fine as this. And do you possess the books of readings?”

  “No,” Lyra began, but before she could say any more, Farder Coram was speaking.

  “No, the great pity is that although Lyra possesses the alethiometer itself, there’s no means of reading it whatsoever,” he said. “It’s just as much of a mystery as the pools of ink the Hindus use for reading the future. And the nearest book of readings I know of is in the Abbey of St. Johann at Heidelberg.”

  Lyra could see why he was saying this: he didn’t want Dr. Lanselius to know of Lyra’s power. But she could also see something Farder Coram couldn’t, which was the agitation of Dr. Lanselius’s dæmon, and she knew at once that it was no good to pretend.

  So she said, “Actually, I can read it,” speaking half to Dr. Lansel
ius and half to Farder Coram, and it was the consul who responded.

  “That is wise of you,” he said. “Where did you obtain this one?”

  “The Master of Jordan College in Oxford gave it to me,” she said. “Dr. Lanselius, do you know who made them?”

  “They are said to originate in the city of Prague,” said the consul. “The Scholar who invented the first alethiometer was apparently trying to discover a way of measuring the influences of the planets, according to the ideas of astrology. He intended to make a device that would respond to the idea of Mars or Venus as a compass responds to the idea of North. In that he failed, but the mechanism he invented was clearly responding to something, even if no one knew what it was.”

  “And where did they get the symbols from?”

  “Oh, this was in the seventeenth century. Symbols and emblems were everywhere. Buildings and pictures were designed to be read like books. Everything stood for something else; if you had the right dictionary, you could read Nature itself. It was hardly surprising to find philosophers using the symbolism of their time to interpret knowledge that came from a mysterious source. But, you know, they haven’t been used seriously for two centuries or so.”

  He handed the instrument back to Lyra, and added:

  “May I ask a question? Without the books of symbols, how do you read it?”

  “I just make my mind go clear and then it’s sort of like looking down into water. You got to let your eyes find the right level, because that’s the only one that’s in focus. Something like that,” she said.

  “I wonder if I might ask to see you do it?” he said.

  Lyra looked at Farder Coram, wanting to say yes but waiting for his approval. The old man nodded.

  “What shall I ask?” said Lyra.

  “What are the intentions of the Tartars with regard to Kamchatka?”

  That wasn’t hard. Lyra turned the hands to the camel, which meant Asia, which meant Tartars; to the cornucopia, for Kamchatka, where there were gold mines; and to the ant, which meant activity, which meant purpose and intention. Then she sat still, letting her mind hold the three levels of meaning together in focus, and relaxed for the answer, which came almost at once. The long needle trembled on the dolphin, the helmet, the baby, and the anchor, dancing between them and onto the crucible in a complicated pattern that Lyra’s eyes followed without hesitation, but which was incomprehensible to the two men.

  When it had completed the movements several times, Lyra looked up. She blinked once or twice as if she were coming out of a trance.

  “They’re going to pretend to attack it, but they’re not really going to, because it’s too far away and they’d be too stretched out,” she said.

  “Would you tell me how you read that?”

  “The dolphin, one of its deep-down meanings is playing, sort of like being playful,” she explained. “I know it’s the fifteenth because it stopped fifteen times and it just got clear at that level but nowhere else. And the helmet means war, and both together they mean pretend to go to war but not be serious. And the baby means—it means difficult—it’d be too hard for them to attack it, and the anchor says why, because they’d be stretched out as tight as an anchor rope. I just see it all like that, you see.”

  Dr. Lanselius nodded.

  “Remarkable,” he said. “I am very grateful. I shall not forget that.”

  Then he looked strangely at Farder Coram, and back at Lyra.

  “Could I ask you for one more demonstration?” he said. “If you look out of this window, you’ll see a shed with forty or more sprays of cloud-pine hanging on the wall. One of them has been used by Serafina Pekkala, and the others have not. Could you tell which is hers?”

  “Yeah!” said Lyra, always ready to show off, and she took the alethiometer and hurried out. She was eager to see cloud-pine, because the witches used it for flying, and she’d never seen any before.

  The two men stood by the window and watched as she kicked her way through the snow, Pantalaimon bouncing beside her as a hare, to stand in front of the wooden shed, head down, manipulating the alethiometer. After a few seconds she reached forward and unhesitatingly picked out one of the many sprays of pine and held it up.

  Dr. Lanselius nodded.

  Lyra, intrigued and eager to fly, held it above her head and jumped, and ran about in the snow trying to be a witch. The consul turned to Farder Coram and said: “Do you realize who this child is?”

  “She’s the daughter of Lord Asriel,” said Farder Coram. “And her mother is Mrs. Coulter, of the Oblation Board.”

  “And apart from that?”

  The old gyptian had to shake his head. “No,” he said, “I don’t know any more. But she’s a strange innocent creature, and I wouldn’t have her harmed for the world. How she comes to read that instrument I couldn’t guess, but I believe her when she talks of it. Why, Dr. Lanselius? What do you know about her?”

  “The witches have talked about this child for centuries past,” said the consul. “Because they live so close to the place where the veil between the worlds is thin, they hear immortal whispers from time to time, in the voices of those beings who pass between the worlds. And they have spoken of a child such as this, who has a great destiny that can only be fulfilled elsewhere—not in this world, but far beyond. Without this child, we shall all die. So the witches say. But she must fulfill this destiny in ignorance of what she is doing, because only in her ignorance can we be saved. Do you understand that, Farder Coram?”

  “No,” said Farder Coram, “I’m unable to say that I do.”

  “What it means is that she must be free to make mistakes. We must hope that she does not, but we can’t guide her. I am glad to have seen this child before I die.”

  “But how did you recognize her as being that particular child? And what did you mean about the beings who pass between the worlds? I’m at a loss to understand you, Dr. Lanselius, for all that I judge you’re an honest man....”

  But before the consul could answer, the door opened and Lyra came in bearing a little branch of pine.

  “This is the one!” she said. “I tested ’em all, and this is it, I’m sure. But it won’t fly for me.”

  The consul said, “Well, Lyra, that is remarkable. You are lucky to have an instrument like that, and I wish you well with it. I would like to give you something to take away with you....”

  He took the spray and broke off a twig for her.

  “Did she really fly with this?” Lyra said.

  “Yes, she did. But then she is a witch, and you are not. I can’t give you all of it, because I need it to contact her, but this will be enough. Look after it.”

  “Yes, I will,” she said. “Thank you.”

  And she tucked it into her purse beside the alethiometer. Farder Coram touched the spray of pine as if for luck, and on his face was an expression Lyra had never seen before: almost a longing. The consul showed them to the door, where he shook hands with Farder Coram, and shook Lyra’s hand too.

  “I hope you find success,” he said, and stood on his doorstep in the piercing cold to watch them up the little street.

  “He knew the answer about the Tartars before I did,” Lyra told Farder Coram. “The alethiometer told me, but I never said. It was the crucible.”

  “I expect he was testing you, child. But you done right to be polite, being as we can’t be sure what he knows already. And that was a useful tip about the bear. I don’t know how we would a heard otherwise.”

  They found their way to the depot, which was a couple of concrete warehouses in a scrubby area of waste ground where thin weeds grew between gray rocks and pools of icy mud. A surly man in an office told them that they could find the bear off duty at six, but they’d have to be quick, because he usually went straight to the yard behind Einarsson’s Bar, where they gave him drink.

  Then Farder Coram took Lyra to the best outfitter’s in town and bought her some proper cold-weather clothing. They bought a parka made of reindeer skin, b
ecause reindeer hair is hollow and insulates well; and the hood was lined with wolverine fur, because that sheds the ice that forms when you breathe. They bought underclothing and boot liners of reindeer calf skin, and silk gloves to go inside big fur mittens. The boots and mittens were made of skin from the reindeer’s forelegs, because that is extra tough, and the boots were soled with the skin of the bearded seal, which is as tough as walrus hide, but lighter. Finally they bought a waterproof cape that enveloped her completely, made of semitransparent seal intestine.

  With all that on, and a silk muffler around her neck and a woollen cap over her ears and the big hood pulled forward, she was uncomfortably warm; but they were going to much colder regions than this.

  John Faa had been supervising the unloading of the ship, and was keen to hear about the witch consul’s words, and even keener to learn of the bear.

  “We’ll go to him this very evening,” he said. “Have you ever spoken to such a creature, Farder Coram?”

  “Yes, I have; and fought one, too, though not by myself, thank God. We must be ready to treat with him, John. He’ll ask a lot, I’ve no doubt, and be surly and difficult to manage; but we must have him.”

  “Oh, we must. And what of your witch?”

  “Well, she’s a long way off, and a clan queen now,” said Farder Coram. “I did hope it might be possible for a message to reach her, but it would take too long to wait for a reply.”

  “Ah, well. Now let me tell you what I’ve found, old friend.”

  For John Faa had been fidgeting with impatience to tell them something. He had met a prospector on the quayside, a New Dane from the country of Texas, and this man had a balloon, of all things. The expedition he’d been hoping to join had failed for lack of funds even before it had left Amsterdam, so he was stranded.