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“Lord Asriel,” said the king, “do you understand her importance for the future?”
“Frankly, no. That’s why I want to see Basilides. Where did he go?”
“To the Lady Coulter. But the man is worn out; he can do no more until he’s rested.”
“He should have rested before. Send for him, would you? Oh, one more thing: please ask Madame Oxentiel to come to the tower as soon as it’s convenient. I must give her my condolences.”
Madame Oxentiel had been the Gallivespians’ second-in-command. Now she would have to take over Lord Roke’s responsibilities. King Ogunwe bowed and left his commander scanning the gray horizon.
All through that day the army assembled. Angels of Lord Asriel’s force flew high over the Clouded Mountain, looking for an opening, but without success. Nothing changed; no more angels flew out or inward; the high winds tore at the clouds, and the clouds endlessly renewed themselves, not parting even for a second. The sun crossed the cold blue sky and then moved down to the southwest, gilding the clouds and tinting the vapor around the mountain every shade of cream and scarlet, of apricot and orange. When the sun sank, the clouds glowed faintly from within.
Warriors were now in place from every world where Lord Asriel’s rebellion had supporters; mechanics and artificers were fueling aircraft, loading weapons, and calibrating sights and measures. As the darkness came, some welcome reinforcements arrived. Padding silently over the cold ground from the north, separately, singly, came a number of armored bears—a large number, and among them was their king. Not long afterward, there arrived the first of several witch clans, the sound of the air through their pine branches whispering in the dark sky for a long time.
Along the plain to the south of the fortress glimmered thousands of lights, marking the camps of those who had arrived from far off. Farther away, in all four corners of the compass, flights of spy-angels cruised tirelessly, keeping watch.
At midnight in the adamant tower, Lord Asriel sat in discussion with King Ogunwe, the angel Xaphania, Madame Oxentiel the Gallivespian, and Teukros Basilides. The alethiometrist had just finished speaking, and Lord Asriel stood up, crossed to the window, and looked out at the distant glow of the Clouded Mountain hanging in the western sky. The others were silent; they had just heard something that had made Lord Asriel turn pale and tremble, and none of them quite knew how to respond.
Finally Lord Asriel spoke.
“Mr. Basilides,” he said, “you must be very fatigued. I am grateful for all your efforts. Please take some wine with us.”
“Thank you, my lord,” said the reader.
His hands were shaking. King Ogunwe poured the golden Tokay and handed him the glass.
“What will this mean, Lord Asriel?” said the clear voice of Madame Oxentiel.
Lord Asriel came back to the table.
“Well,” he said, “it will mean that when we join battle, we shall have a new objective. My daughter and this boy have become separated from their dæmons, somehow, and managed to survive; and their dæmons are somewhere in this world—correct me if I’m summarizing wrongly, Mr. Basilides—their dæmons are in this world, and Metatron is intent on capturing them. If he captures their dæmons, the children will have to follow; and if he can control those two children, the future is his, forever. Our task is clear: we have to find the dæmons before he does, and keep them safe till the girl and the boy rejoin them.”
The Gallivespian leader said, “What form do they have, these two lost dæmons?”
“They are not yet fixed, madame,” said Teukros Basilides. “They might be any shape.”
“So,” said Lord Asriel, “to sum it up: all of us, our Republic, the future of every conscious being—we all depend on my daughter’s remaining alive, and on keeping her dæmon and the boy’s out of the hands of Metatron?”
“That is so.”
Lord Asriel sighed, almost with satisfaction; it was as if he’d come to the end of a long and complex calculation, and reached an answer that made quite unexpected sense.
“Very well,” he said, spreading his hands wide on the table. “Then this is what we shall do when the battle begins. King Ogunwe, you will assume command of all the armies defending the fortress. Madame Oxentiel, you are to send your people out at once to search in every direction for the girl and the boy, and the two dæmons. When you find them, guard them with your lives until they come together again. At that point, I understand, the boy will be able to help them escape to another world, and safety.”
The lady nodded. Her stiff gray hair caught the lamplight, glinting like stainless steel, and the blue hawk she had inherited from Lord Roke spread his wings briefly on the bracket by the door.
“Now, Xaphania,” said Lord Asriel. “What do you know of this Metatron? He was once a man: does he still have the physical strength of a human being?”
“He came to prominence long after I was exiled,” the angel said. “I have never seen him up close. But he would not have been able to dominate the Kingdom unless he was very strong indeed, strong in every way. Most angels would avoid fighting hand-to-hand. Metatron would relish the combat, and win.”
Ogunwe could tell that Lord Asriel had been struck by an idea. His attention suddenly withdrew, his eyes lost focus for an instant, and then snapped back to the moment with an extra charge of intensity.
“I see,” he said. “Finally, Xaphania, Mr. Basilides tells us that their bomb not only opened an abyss below the worlds, but also fractured the structure of things so profoundly that there are fissures and cracks everywhere. Somewhere nearby there must be a way down to the edge of that abyss. I want you to look for it.”
“What are you going to do?” said King Ogunwe harshly.
“I’m going to destroy Metatron. But my part is nearly over. It’s my daughter who has to live, and it’s our task to keep all the forces of the Kingdom away from her so that she has a chance to find her way to a safer world—she and that boy, and their dæmons.”
“And what about Mrs. Coulter?” said the king.
Lord Asriel passed a hand over his forehead.
“I would not have her troubled,” he said. “Leave her alone and protect her if you can. Although . . . Well, maybe I’m doing her an injustice. Whatever else she’s done, she’s never failed to surprise me. But we all know what we must do, and why we must do it: we have to protect Lyra until she has found her dæmon and escaped. Our Republic might have come into being for the sole purpose of helping her do that. Let us do it as well as we can.”
Mrs. Coulter lay in Lord Asriel’s bed next door. Hearing voices in the other room, she stirred, for she wasn’t deeply asleep. She came out of her troubled slumber uneasy and heavy with longing.
Her dæmon sat up beside her, but she didn’t want to move closer to the door; it was simply the sound of Lord Asriel’s voice she wanted to hear rather than any particular words. She thought they were both doomed. She thought they were all doomed.
Finally she heard the door closing in the other room and roused herself to stand up.
“Asriel,” she said, going through into the warm naphtha light.
His dæmon growled softly; the golden monkey dropped his head low to propitiate her. Lord Asriel was rolling up a large map and did not turn.
“Asriel, what will happen to us all?” she said, taking a chair.
He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. His face was ravaged with fatigue. He sat down and rested an elbow on the table. Their dæmons were very still—the monkey crouching on the chair back, the snow leopard sitting upright and alert at Lord Asriel’s side, watching Mrs. Coulter unblinkingly.
“You didn’t hear?” he said.
“I heard a little. I couldn’t sleep, but I wasn’t listening. Where is Lyra now, does anyone know?”
“No.”
He still hadn’t answered her first question, and he wasn’t going to, and she knew it.
“We should have married,” she said, “and brought her up ourselves.”
It was such an unexpected remark that he blinked. His dæmon uttered the softest possible growl at the back of her throat, and settled down with her paws outstretched in the manner of the Sphinx. He said nothing.
