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And now that golden monkey was squatting in the entrance, sniffing and turning his head this way and that. Ama saw him bare his sharp teeth, and felt her own dæmon burrow into her clothes, mouse-formed and trembling.
“What is it?” said the woman’s voice, speaking to the monkey, and then the cave darkened as her form came into the entrance. “Has the girl been? Yes—there’s the food she left. She shouldn’t come in, though. We must arrange a spot on the path for her to leave the food at.”
Without a glance at the sleeper, the woman stooped to bring the fire to life, and set a pan of water to heat while her dæmon crouched nearby watching over the path. From time to time he got up and looked around the cave, and Ama, getting cramped and uncomfortable in her narrow hiding place, wished ardently that she’d waited outside and not gone in. How long was she going to be trapped?
The woman was mixing some herbs and powders into the heating water. Ama could smell the astringent flavors as they drifted out with the steam. Then came a sound from the back of the cave: the girl was murmuring and stirring. Ama turned her head: she could see the enchanted sleeper moving, tossing from side to side, throwing an arm across her eyes. She was waking!
And the woman took no notice!
She heard all right, because she looked up briefly, but she soon turned back to her herbs and the boiling water. She poured the decoction into a beaker and let it stand, and only then turned her full attention to the waking girl.
Ama could understand none of these words, but she heard them with increasing wonder and suspicion:
“Hush, dear,” the woman said. “Don’t worry yourself. You’re safe.”
“Roger,” the girl murmured, half-awake. “Serafina! Where’s Roger gone . . . Where is he?”
“No one here but us,” her mother said, in a singsong voice, half-crooning. “Lift yourself and let Mama wash you . . . Up you come, my love . . .”
Ama watched as the girl, moaning, struggling into wakefulness, tried to push her mother away; and the woman dipped a sponge into the bowl of water and mopped at her daughter’s face and body before patting her dry.
By this time the girl was nearly awake, and the woman had to move more quickly.
“Where’s Serafina? And Will? Help me, help me! I don’t want to sleep—No, no! I won’t! No!”
The woman was holding the beaker in one steely-firm hand while her other was trying to lift Lyra’s head.
“Be still, dear—be calm—hush now—drink your tea—”
But the girl lashed out and nearly spilled the drink, and cried louder:
“Leave me alone! I want to go! Let me go! Will, Will, help me—oh, help me—”
The woman was gripping her hair tightly, forcing her head back, cramming the beaker against her mouth.
“I won’t! You dare touch me, and Iorek will tear your head off! Oh, Iorek, where are you? Iorek Byrnison! Help me, Iorek! I won’t—I won’t—”
Then, at a word from the woman, the golden monkey sprang on Lyra’s dæmon, gripping him with hard black fingers. The dæmon flicked from shape to shape more quickly than Ama had ever seen a dæmon change before: cat-snake-rat-fox-bird-wolf-cheetah-lizard-polecat-
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.
