The Amber Spyglass (Page 15)

But the monkey’s grip never slackened; and then Pantalaimon became a porcupine.

The monkey screeched and let go. Three long quills were stuck shivering in his paw. Mrs. Coulter snarled and with her free hand slapped Lyra hard across the face, a vicious backhand crack that threw her flat; and before Lyra could gather her wits, the beaker was at her mouth and she had to swallow or choke.

Ama wished she could shut her ears: the gulping, crying, coughing, sobbing, pleading, retching was almost too much to bear. But little by little it died away, and only a shaky sob or two came from the girl, who was now sinking once more into sleep—enchanted sleep? Poisoned sleep! Drugged, deceitful sleep! Ama saw a streak of white materialize at the girl’s throat as her dæmon effortfully changed into a long, sinuous, snowy-furred creature with brilliant black eyes and black-tipped tail, and laid himself alongside her neck.

And the woman was singing softly, crooning baby songs, smoothing the hair off the girl’s brow, patting her hot face dry, humming songs to which even Ama could tell she didn’t know the words, because all she could sing was a string of nonsense syllables, la-la-la, ba-ba-boo-boo, her sweet voice mouthing gibberish.

Eventually that stopped, and then the woman did a curious thing: she took a pair of scissors and trimmed the girl’s hair, holding her sleeping head this way and that to see the best effect. She took one dark blond curl and put it in a little gold locket she had around her own neck. Ama could tell why: she was going to work some further magic with it. But the woman held it to her lips first . . . Oh, this was strange.

The golden monkey drew out the last of the porcupine quills and said something to the woman, who reached up to snatch a roosting bat from the cave ceiling. The little black thing flapped and squealed in a needle-thin voice that pierced Ama from one ear to the other, and then she saw the woman hand the bat to her dæmon, and she saw the dæmon pull one of the black wings out and out and out till it snapped and broke and hung from a white string of sinew, while the dying bat screamed and its fellows flapped around in anguished puzzlement. Crack—crack—snap—as the golden monkey pulled the little thing apart limb by limb, and the woman lay moodily on her sleeping bag by the fire and slowly ate a bar of chocolate.

Time passed. Light faded and the moon rose, and the woman and her dæmon fell asleep.

Ama, stiff and painful, crept up from her hiding place and tiptoed out past the sleepers, and didn’t make a sound till she was halfway down the path.

With fear giving her speed, she ran along the narrow trail, her dæmon as an owl on silent wings beside her. The clean cold air, the constant motion of the treetops, the brilliance of the moon-painted clouds in the dark sky, and the millions of stars all calmed her a little.

She stopped in sight of the little huddle of stone houses and her dæmon perched on her fist.

“She lied!” Ama said. “She lied to us! What can we do, Kulang? Can we tell Dada? What can we do?”

“Don’t tell,” said her dæmon. “More trouble. We’ve got the medicine. We can wake her. We can go there when the woman’s away again, and wake the girl up, and take her away.”

The thought filled them both with fear. But it had been said, and the little paper package was safe in Ama’s pocket, and they knew how to use it.

wake up, I can’t see her—I think she’s close by—she’s hurt me—”

“Oh, Lyra, don’t be frightened! If you’re frightened, too, I’ll go mad—”

They tried to hold each other tight, but their arms passed through the empty air. Lyra tried to say what she meant, whispering close to his little pale face in the darkness:

“I’m just trying to wake up—I’m so afraid of sleeping all my life and then dying—I want to wake up first! I wouldn’t care if it was just for an hour, as long as I was properly alive and awake. I don’t know if this is real or not, even—but I will help you, Roger! I swear I will!”

“But if you’re dreaming, Lyra, you might not believe it when you wake up. That’s what I’d do, I’d just think it was only a dream.”

“No!” she said fiercely, and

FIVE

THE ADAMANT TOWER

… with ambitious aim
against the throne and monarchy of God
rais’d impious war in Heav’n and battel proud …

• JOHN MILTON •

A lake of molten sulphur extended the length of an immense canyon, releasing its mephitic vapors in sudden gusts and belches and barring the way of the solitary winged figure who stood at its edge.

If he took to the sky, the enemy scouts who had spotted him, and lost him, would find him again at once; but if he stayed on the ground, it would take so long to get past this noxious pit that his message might arrive too late.

He would have to take the greater risk. He waited until a cloud of stinking smoke billowed off the yellow surface, and darted upward into the thick of it.

Four pairs of eyes in different parts of the sky all saw the brief movement, and at once four pairs of wings beat hard against the smoke-fouled air, hurling the watchers forward to the cloud.

Then began a hunt in which the pursuers couldn’t see the quarry and the quarry could see nothing at all. The first to break out of the cloud on the far side of the lake would have the advantage, and that might mean survival, or it might mean a successful kill.

And unluckily for the single flier, he found the clear air a few seconds after one of his pursuers. At once they closed with each other, trailing streams of vapor, and dizzy, both of them, from the sickening fumes. The quarry had the best of it at first, but then another hunter flew free of the cloud. In a swift and furious struggle, all three of them, twisting in the air like scraps of flame, rose and fell and rose again, only to fall, finally, among the rocks on the far side. The other two hunters never emerged from the cloud.