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She lifted the lantern high and took a step into the shed, and then she saw what it was that the Oblation Board was doing, and what was the nature of the sacrifice the children were having to make.
The little boy was huddled against the wood drying rack where hung row upon row of gutted fish, all as stiff as boards. He was clutching a piece of fish to him as Lyra was clutching Pantalaimon, with her left hand, hard, against her heart; but that was all he had, a piece of dried fish; because he had no daemon at all. The Gobblers had cut it away. That was intercision, and this was a severed child.
Thirteen
Fencing
Her first impulse was to turn and run, or to be sick. A human being with no daemon was like someone without a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out: something unnatural and uncanny that belonged to the world of night-ghasts, not the waking world of sense.
So Lyra clung to Pantalaimon and her head swam and her gorge rose, and cold as the night was, a sickly sweat moistened her flesh with something colder still.
“Ratter,” said the boy. “You got my Ratter?”
Lyra was in no doubt what he meant.
“No,” she said in a voice as frail and frightened as she felt. Then, “What's your name?”
“Tony Makarios,” he said. “Where's Ratter?”
“I don't know…” she began, and swallowed hard to govern her nausea. “The Gobblers…” But she couldn't finish. She had to go out of the shed and sit down by herself in the snow, except that of course she wasn't by herself, she was never by herself, because Pantalaimon was always there. Oh, to be cut from him as this little boy had been parted from his Ratter! The worst thing in the world! She found herself sobbing, and Pantalaimon was whimpering too, and in both of them there was a passionate pity and sorrow for the half-boy.
Then she got to her feet again.
“Come on,” she called in a trembling voice. “Tony, come out. We're going to take you somewhere safe.”
There was a stir of movement in the fish house, and he appeared at the door, still clutching his dried fish. He was dressed in warm enough garments, a thickly padded and quilted coal-silk anorak and fur boots, but they had a secondhand look and didn't fit well. In the wider light outside that came from the faint trails of the Aurora and the snow-covered ground he looked more lost and piteous even than he had at first, crouching in the lantern light by the fish racks.
The villager who'd brought the lantern had retreated a few yards, and called down to them.
lorek Byrnison interpreted: “He says you must pay for that fish.”
Lyra felt like telling the bear to kill him, but she said, “We're taking the child away for them. They can afford to give one fish to pay for that.”
The bear spoke. The man muttered, but didn't argue. Lyra set his lantern down in the snow and took the half-boy's hand to guide him to the bear. He came helplessly, showing no surprise and no fear at the great white beast standing so close, and when Lyra helped him to sit on lorek's back, all he said was:
“I dunno where my Ratter is.”
“No, nor do we, Tony,” she said. “But we'll…we'll punish the Gobblers. We'll do that, I promise. lorek, is it all right if I sit up there too?”
“My armor weighs far more than children,” he said.
So she scrambled up behind Tony and made him cling to the long stiff fur, and Pantalaimon sat inside her hood, warm and close and full of pity. Lyra knew that Pantalaimon's impulse was to reach out and cuddle the little half-child, to lick him and gentle him and warm him as his own daemon would have done; but the great taboo prevented that, of course.
They rose through the village and up toward the ridge, and the villagers' faces were open with horror and a kind of fearful relief at seeing that hideously mutilated creature taken away by a girl and a great white bear.
In Lyra's heart, revulsion struggled with compassion, and compassion won. She put her arms around the skinny little form to hold him safe. The journey back to the main party was colder, and harder, and darker, but it seemed to pass more quickly for all that. lorek Byrnison was tireless, and Lyra's riding became automatic, so that she was never in danger of falling off. The cold body in her arms was so light that in one way he was easy to manage, but he was inert; he sat stiffly without moving as the bear moved, so in another way he was difficult too.
From time to time the half-boy spoke.
“What's that you said?” asked Lyra.
“I says is she gonna know where I am?”
“Yeah, she'll know, she'll find you and we'll find her. Hold on tight now, Tony. It en't far from here….”
The bear loped onward. Lyra had no idea how tired she was until they caught up with the gyptians. The sledges had stopped to rest the dogs, and suddenly there they all were, Farder Coram, Lord Faa, Lee Scoresby, all lunging forward to help and then falling back silent as they saw the other figure with Lyra. She was so stiff that she couldn't even loosen her arms around his body, and John Faa himself had to pull them gently open and lift her off.
“Gracious God, what is this?” he said. “Lyra, child, what have you found?”
“He's called Tony,” she mumbled through frozen lips. “And they cut his daemon away. That's what the Gobblers do.”
The men held back, fearful; but the bear spoke, to Lyra's weary amazement, chiding them.
“Shame on you! Think what this child has done! You might not have more courage, but you should be ashamed to show less.”
“You're right, lorek Byrnison,” said John Faa, and turned to give orders. “Build that fire up and heat some soup for the child. For both children. Farder Coram, is your shelter rigged?”
“It is, John. Bring her over and we'll get her warm….”
“And the little boy,” said someone else. “He can eat and get warm, even if…”
Lyra was trying to tell John Faa about the witches, but they were all so busy, and she was so tired. After a confusing few minutes full of lantern light, woodsmoke, figures hurrying to and fro, she felt a gentle nip on her ear from Pantalaimon's ermine teeth, and woke to find the bear's face a few inches from hers.
“The witches,” Pantalaimon whispered. “I called lorek.”
“Oh yeah,” she mumbled. “lorek, thank you for taking me there and back. I might not remember to tell Lord Faa about the witches, so you better do that instead of me.”
She heard the bear agree, and then she fell asleep properly.
When she woke up, it was as close to daylight as it was ever going to get. The sky was pale in the southeast, and the air was suffused with a gray mist, through which the gyptians moved like bulky ghosts, loading sledges and harnessing dogs to the traces.
She saw it all from the shelter on Farder Coram's sledge, inside which she lay under a heap of furs. Pantalaimon was fully awake before she was, trying the shape of an arctic fox before reverting to his favorite ermine.
lorek Byrnison was asleep in the snow nearby, his head on his great paws; but Farder Coram was up and busy, and as soon as he saw Pantalaimon emerge, he limped across to wake Lyra properly.
She saw him coming, and sat up to speak.
“Farder Coram, I know what it was that I couldn't understand! The alethiometer kept saying bird and not, and that didn't make sense, because it meant no daemon and I didn't see how it could be….What is it?”
“Lyra, I'm afraid to tell you this after what you done, but that little boy died an hour ago. He couldn't settle, he couldn't stay in one place; he kept asking after his daemon, where she was, was she a coming soon, and all; and he kept such a tight hold on that bare old piece of fish as if…Oh, I can't speak of it, child; but he closed his eyes finally and fell still, and that was the first time he looked peaceful, for he was like any other dead person then, with their daemon gone in the course of nature. They've been a trying to dig a grave for him, but the earth's bound like iron. So John Faa ordered a fire built, and they're a going to cremate him, so as not to have him despoiled by carrion eaters.
“Child, you did a brave thing and a good thing, and I'm proud of you. Now we know what terrible wickedness those people are capable of, we can see our duty plainer than ever. What you must do is rest and eat, because you fell asleep too soon to restore yourself last night, and you have to eat in these temperatures to stop yourself getting weak….”
He was fussing around, tucking the furs into place, tightening the tension rope across the body of the sledge, running the traces through his hands to untangle them.
