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She moved up close to the throne and bowed very low, with Pantalaimon keeping quiet and still in her pocket.
“Our greetings to you, great King,” she said quietly. “Or I mean my greetings, not his.”
“Not whose?” he said, and his voice was lighter than she had thought it would be, but full of expressive tones and subtleties. When he spoke, he waved a paw in front of his mouth to dislodge the flies that clustered there.
“lorek Byrnison's, Your Majesty,” she said. “I've got something very important and secret to tell you, and I think I ought to tell you in private, really.”
“Something about lorek Byrnison?”
She came close to him, stepping carefully over the bird-spattered floor, and brushed away the flies buzzing at her face.
“Something about daemons,” she said, so that only he could hear.
His expression changed. She couldn't read what it was saying, but there was no doubt that he was powerfully interested. Suddenly he lumbered forward off the throne, making her skip aside, and roared an order to the other bears. They all bowed their heads and backed out toward the door. The birds, which had risen in a flurry at his roar, squawked and swooped around overhead before settling again on their nests.
When the throne room was empty but for lofur Raknison and Lyra, he turned to her eagerly.
“Well?” he said. “Tell me who you are. What is this about daemons?”
“I am a daemon, Your Majesty,” she said.
He stopped still.
“Whose?” he said.
“lorek Byrnison's,” was her answer.
It was the most dangerous thing she had ever said. She could see quite clearly that only his astonishment prevented him from killing her at once. She went on:
“Please, Your Majesty, let me tell you all about it first before you harm me. I've come here at my own risk, as you can see, and there's nothing I've got that could hurt you. In fact, I want to help you, that's why I've come. lorek Byrnison was the first bear to get a daemon, but it should have been you. I would much rather be your daemon than his, that's why I came.”
“How?” he said, breathlessly. “How has a bear got a daemon? And why him? And how are you so far from him?” The flies left his mouth like tiny words. “That's easy. I can go far from him because I'm like a witch's daemon. You know how they can go hundreds of miles from their humans? It's like that. And as for how he got me, it was at Bolvangar. You've heard of Bolvangar, because Mrs. Coulter must have told you about it, but she probably didn't tell you everything they were doing there.” “Cutting…” he said.
“Yes, cutting, that's part of it, intercision. But they're doing all kinds of other things too, like making artificial daemons. And experimenting on animals. When lorek Byrnison heard about it, he offered himself for an experiment to see if they could make a daemon for him, and they did. It was me. My name is Lyra. Just like when people have daemons, they're animal-formed, so when a bear has a daemon, it'll be human. And I'm his daemon. I can see into his mind and know exactly what he's doing and where he is and—” “Where is he now?”
“On Svalbard. He's coming this way as fast as he can.” “Why? What does he want? He must be mad! We'll tear him to pieces!”
“He wants me. He's coming to get me back. But I don't want to be his daemon, lofur Raknison, I want to be yours. Because once they saw how powerful a bear was with a daemon, the people at Bolvangar decided not to do that experiment ever again. lorek Byrnison was going to be the only bear who ever had a daemon. And with me helping him, he could lead all the bears against you. That's what he's come to Svalbard for.”
The bear-king roared his anger. He roared so loudly that the crystal in the chandeliers tinkled, and every bird in the great room shrieked, and Lyra's ears rang.
But she was equal to it.
“That's why I love you best,” she said to lofur Raknison, “because you're passionate and strong as well as clever. And I just had to leave him and come and tell you, because I don't want him ruling the bears. It ought to be you. And there is a way of taking me away from him and making me your daemon, but you wouldn't know what it was unless I told you, and you might do the usual thing about fighting bears like him that've been outcast; I mean, not fight him properly, but kill him with fire hurlers or something. And if you did that, I'd just go out like a light and die with him.”
“But you—how can—”
“I can become your daemon,” she said, “but only if you defeat lorek Byrnison in single combat. Then his strength will flow into you, and my mind will flow into yours, and we'll be like one person, thinking each other's thoughts; and you can send me miles away to spy for you, or keep me here by your side, whichever you like. And I'd help you lead the bears to capture Bolvangar, if you like, and make them create more daemons for your favorite bears; or if you'd rather be the only bear with a daemon, we could destroy Bolvangar forever. We could do anything, lofur Raknison, you and me together!”
All the time she was holding Pantalaimon in her pocket with a trembling hand, and he was keeping as still as he could, in the smallest mouse form he had ever assumed.
lofur Raknison was pacing up and down with an air of explosive excitement.
“Single combat?” he was saying. “Me? I must fight lorek Byrnison? Impossible! He is outcast! How can that be? How can I fight him? Is that the only way?”
“It's the only way,” said Lyra, wishing it were not, because lofur Raknison seemed bigger and more fierce every minute. Dearly as she loved lorek, and strong as her faith was in him, she couldn't really believe that he would ever beat this giant among giant bears. But it was the only hope they had. Being mown down from a distance by fire hurlers was no hope at all. Suddenly lofur Raknison turned. “Prove it!” he said. “Prove that you are a daemon!” “All right,” she said. “I can do that, easy. I can find out anything that you know and no one else does, something that only a daemon would be able to find out.”
“Then tell me what was the first creature I killed.” “I'll have to go into a room by myself to do this,” she said. “When I'm your daemon, you'll be able to see how I do it, but until then it's got to be private.”
“There is an anteroom behind this one. Go into that, and come out when you know the answer.”
Lyra opened the door and found herself in a room lit by one torch, and empty but for a cabinet of mahogany containing some tarnished silver ornaments. She took out the alethiome-ter and asked: “Where is lorek now?”
“Four hours away, and hurrying ever faster.” “How can I tell him what I've done?” “You must trust him.”
She thought anxiously of how tired he would be. But then she reflected that she was not doing what the alethiometer had just told her to do: she wasn't trusting him.
She put that thought aside and asked the question lofur Raknison wanted. What was the first creature he had killed? The answer came: lofur's own father.
She asked further, and learned that lofur had been alone on the ice as a young bear, on his first hunting expedition, and had come across a solitary bear. They had quarreled and fought, and lofur had killed him. This in itself would have been a crime, but it was worse than simple murder, for lofur learned later that the other bear was his own father. Bears were brought up by their mothers, and seldom saw their fathers. Naturally lofur concealed the truth of what he had done; no one knew about it but lofur himself, and now Lyra knew as well.
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.”
