Nine

Gold, and Gold

Lyra ran, of course. There was nothing else she could have done. The embassy garden was long and narrow, with the embassy building facing part of one of the long sides. The commotion, the struggle and the panic and the terrifying swoop of the gryphon, was enough to distract the nuncio’s guard from the slender figure of a girl running for the trees; and luckily the trees were thickly planted—more of an untended shrubbery—so it wasn’t hard for Lyra to conceal herself among the hibiscus and jasmine and listen to the shouts, the revving of tinny engines, and the occasional gunshot.

There was someone beside her.

She gasped, stifling the sound at once, and saw only an arm’s length away something red-gold, the size of an unusually large cat—

“Asta! No—is it Asta? Is it you?”

She whispered breathlessly; she’d have been breathless whether she’d been running or not. The dæmon sat calmly and spoke softly in return.

“Yes. Asta. That creature took Malcolm before I could do anything. What was it? Have you seen one before?”

“A gryphon, I think. I saw one take away a man a few nights ago. As if he weighed nothing. I don’t know anything about them at all. Oh, this is horrible. I don’t know—I keep saying that—I don’t know what to do now. Was that Mr. Ionides with Malcolm?”

“Yes. He came to see us, Malcolm and me, just a few hours ago—we were staying in an embassy villa—he came to tell Malcolm about you, and other things, and we set off right away to find you.”

“And now they’ve arrested him,” said Lyra, and nearly sobbed.

“The gryphon you saw earlier—why did he take the man away?”

“I think he must have stolen something—all they care about, the gryphons, is gold, apparently, and the man had—he snatched my alethiometer—it must have shone in the moonlight. Oh, this is unbearable…”

And then she did cry a little.

Asta moved closer. “And Pan?” she said. “You haven’t found him yet?”

“No. And now I probably never will.”

“I heard his voice. Didn’t you? Just now—from the sky—from above—I heard him calling your name.”

“What? Really? I thought I did too, but—”

“I think he was with those gryphons.”

“ ‘Those’? I only saw one, and only for a second. How many were there?”

“A dozen. Maybe more.”

Lyra felt dizzy. She tried to listen, as if Pan might still be calling, but heard nothing that sounded even vaguely like his voice. And now this: it was too much to take in. The sound of the police car engines was diminishing among the normal city noise; the turtledoves were still purring in the garden, as if nothing had happened; cicadas shrilled among the leaves overhead.

“Do you think the police were looking for you?” said Asta.

“They might have been. They took Mr. Ionides, and they must have known he was guiding me…Asta, till things are safer, shall we pretend that you’re my dæmon? Pan did that for a girl he’d met who’d lost her dæmon—they pretended—I found her in the dead city and she told me about it…”

“Good idea. It would be safer for both of us. We need to tell each other everything that’s happened. Now, let’s be practical. Have you got any money?”

“Yes, I have. Thanks to Farder Coram. Oh, Malcolm knew him, didn’t he?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And we need to rescue Mr. Ionides.”

“You call him ‘Mister’? Why?”

“Respect. He’s very important.”

“From what I’ve seen and heard of him, I agree. Have they all gone now, the police or whatever they were?”

Lyra stood up carefully and looked around. The garden was just as it had been when she arrived; only the gravel path was a little disturbed where the vehicles had skidded to a halt. The gryphons seemed to have come and gone in a moment. The mother and child had left, but an elderly couple were strolling slowly arm in arm, and a man in Arab dress was sitting down on the bench and opening a newspaper.

“I think we could try now,” said Lyra.

“What will your name be?”

“Ah. Well, for the moment I’m Queen Tatiana Iorekova of Novaya Zemlya. That was Farder Coram’s idea too. I’ve got a document to prove it, signed and sealed by Mustafa Bey, no less. What about you?”

“I’ve never had to do this before…Something beginning with A.”

“Atalanta.”

“Too long. Make it Afra. Can you feel if Pan’s in danger?” said Afra-Asta.

“I used to think I probably could, because I’d be afraid. But I’m afraid almost all the time since he left. Are you afraid for Malcolm?”

“No, strangely enough. But I don’t think he’s in danger.”

“Not even…” Lyra looked up involuntarily.

“No. I think the gryphons took him for some other reason than to harm him. And if I was right and I did hear Pan, they must be looking after him too.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Lyra.

With the dæmon padding elegantly beside her, Queen Tatiana Iorekova stepped out of the bushes and onto the shaded lawn. Together they moved through the garden, easy and confident, the glass of courage and the mold of calm.

---

The gryphon who had seized Malcolm in his claws soared high above the city, gripping him so tightly by the shoulders that Malcolm thought he might faint with pain before he fell a thousand feet to the earth below. On the whole he’d rather be unconscious at that point anyway, he thought, but then the gryphon probably wasn’t going to let go, so he might as well put the pain out of his mind and take in what information he could.

First, this creature wasn’t alone. Ahead and to each side there were six others at least, and possibly more behind.

Second, he had definitely heard a voice calling his name, and though it wasn’t impossible that these creatures could speak, the voice sounded as if it came from someone small.

Third, they weren’t going to fly a long way. They were making for a range of hills, a long low plateau, to the southeast of the city, and Malcolm saw some of the other gryphons stop beating their wings and start to glide, losing height as they made for the nearest slope.

Soon the one who was carrying him began to do the same. The powerful rise-and-fall ceased, and that was a relief to Malcolm’s shoulders; instead, they sailed steadily downwards to sweep up again as the foothills of the plateau began to rise below, and then the great wings beat again, this time to slow their forward movement and prepare to land.

The ground seemed to come up with alarming speed, but the gryphon had calculated perfectly, hovering for a few seconds a foot or so above the ground for Malcolm to drop before flying a few feet further on and landing himself. Why himself? Malcolm had no idea, but the great creature seemed to him male rather than female. Others—perhaps a dozen or so altogether—were already standing nearby, easing their wings, or stretching out their lion legs and flexing their muscles.

Again Malcolm had to remind himself: he’d seen strange things before. He wasn’t hallucinating. As if to confirm that it was true, a little spot of light began to sparkle and flutter in the corner of his vision. He welcomed it and sat down on a rock to steady himself.

And then that voice again—“Malcolm! Malcolm!”—and bounding towards him over the rough grass was a dæmon—Pantalaimon!—his warm brown fur and white throat and chest very clear in the level afternoon light.

“Pan! Is that you?”

“Yes—me—is Lyra with you?”

“No. She—I’d just found her in that garden—but when these—what are they?”

“Gryphons—”

“When they came down, she ran towards some trees—Asta was with her.”

“Then we’re lucky to be separators already.”

“That occurred to me too.”

“You’re bleeding—”

Malcolm felt his shoulder. The gryphon’s claws had penetrated his skin in more than one place, but not deeply; it was still the wound in his hip that troubled him most.

“But, Pan, what do you know about…?”

He spread his hands wide, looking all around, shrugging in wonderment. The great creatures were talking, some of them, their eagle throats and lion chests uttering deep harsh growls that rose and fell in every way like human speech. The vivid sunlight shining on their feathers brought out a thousand different colors, from the blackest purple to the most dazzling snowy-white and every kind of rainbow-glint in between. Soon Malcolm’s private aurora was winding and shimmering as if part of this gryphon blaze had come loose to make its own way through the air.

Pan could see that Malcolm was preoccupied by something interior. He sat still, close by, and said nothing, and presently the little gryphon Gulya flew down beside him.

He held up a paw: hush. Gulya was gazing at Malcolm, whose eyes were closed, and who was sitting upright facing the sun, his gold-red hair glowing in the clear light. The battered old canvas rucksack lay on the grass beside him. Pan could see something he’d never noticed before: a scatter of freckles over Malcolm’s nose and cheeks, and a sheen of gold where the stubble was growing around his jaw.

Gulya leaned forward and whispered, “Come with me.”

Pan followed as Gulya led him towards the largest gryphon. He’d been with them now for long enough to know the proper form of behavior, and the names of the most important among them.

“My greetings to you, Prince Keshvād. I am here for you to command.”

The gryphon prince was gazing at Malcolm, as Gulya had done. “Who is that man?” said the prince.

“His name is Malcolm. He is a learned man, a great scholar, a famous craftsman. He can dispute with philosophers and work with wood and metal. And glass,” Pan added recklessly.

“What is he doing now?”

“He is seeing a vision, great prince.”

“A vision of gold?”

“Very likely, great prince.”

“He is not the human you were looking for. Why did my servant pick him up and not her?”

“As far as I could see, great prince, my Lyra escaped from a band of soldiers and fled among some trees. Perhaps your servant couldn’t reach her. And this man—well, yes, he does look as if he’s made of gold. But he is a human being, a man like many others. He is a great friend to me and to Lyra, and he will be glad to pay his respects to you and your nation.”

“He has no dæmon.”

“His dæmon fled with my Lyra. This sometimes happens.”

“Her Majesty my mother Queen Shahrnavāz will want to see him. We shall fly him to Damāvand today and tonight. You will come too.”

Pan remembered what happened the only time he tried to argue with a gryphon’s decision: Gulya had had to save his life. These creatures were intensely proud and passionate. He wasn’t going to try it again. He bowed his head to Prince Keshvād and moved away to speak quietly with Gulya.

“Why will the Queen want to meet Malcolm?” he said.

“He is treasure.”

“Treasure? You mean—well, what do you mean?”

“He is gold. Didn’t you know that? Look at him. He has the scent of gold.”

Pan felt a little lurch of dismay. They believed that. He said, “But what will she do with him?”

“Keep him in her treasury.”

“I must tell him about this—”

“It will make no difference. He will be her treasure.”

“He’ll be a prisoner!”

“He will be treated with honor and respect. He will be the most valuable being the Queen has ever received into her treasury.”

“But she can’t just…How does she know about him anyway?”

“We have always known this man was coming.”

Pan’s head was spinning. “And…how far away is Damāvand?”

“Very far. South of the Caspian Sea. Sacred mountain.”

Pantalaimon felt nothing but despair. He rocked back and forth without knowing he was doing it; a little keening sound came from his throat.

“Leave me,” he said to Gulya when he found his voice again. “I want to speak to Malcolm.”

Gulya seemed unaware that Pan or Malcolm would regard his fate as anything but a great honor. As she flew away, Pan tore at the grass in rage, but only for a moment, because Malcolm was sitting up and looking around.

Pan bounded over and leapt onto the rock beside him. “Awake now?”

“I wasn’t asleep. I was watching something.”

“Well, listen, because we’re in trouble. The gryphons have a queen, who is all-powerful. And they’re going to take you to her, because she wants to put you in her treasury, because you’re made of gold. Or you have the scent of gold, or something. Don’t laugh, whatever you do. They’re so proud, so impulsive, so passionate. They won’t be denied. I’ll make them take me too, to speak for you. I think the best thing to do would be for you to be just as proud, just as touchy, to make demands. Behave like a prince yourself—they understand that sort of thing.”

“Gold? Made of gold?”

“Your hair, your skin. You don’t understand how much it hypnotizes them.”

Malcolm wiped his hand over his head and blew out his cheeks.

“But what about Lyra?” he said.

“If she’s got Asta with her…”

“I’m happier to know that, I must say.”

“We’ll have to stay together. I’ll be—I don’t know—your servant or something.”

Malcolm didn’t seem very pleased at the idea.

“What were you doing in Aleppo anyway?” Pan went on.

“Looking for Lyra. What else? Oh, spying too, investigating things like Thuringia Potash. We’d only just got there. But mainly looking for Lyra.”

Pan glanced around. There was a purposeful order to the way the gryphons were moving; it seemed as if they were going to set off quite soon.

He called: “Gulya! Gulya!”

The little gryphon heard and flew to his side at once.

“Here is what we’re going to do,” Pan said. “I shall go with Malcolm at all times. We must have a comfortable flight and human food. Fruit, bread, cooked meat at least. You must all treat Malcolm with the utmost respect. And me too because I’m his servant.”

“But—”

“That is what will happen, Gulya. If Queen Shahrnavāz learns that we have been badly treated, what punishment will she order for you?”

“No, no, Pan, please don’t do that. Of course you will be well looked after, very well looked after, I promise.”

“What did you mean just now when you said you had always known this man was coming?”

“He is the man of gold. We know it from always. He is part of the future that lived in the past.”

“That’s correct,” said Malcolm. “Now tell me, do your people speak in words alone or in pictures as well?”

Pan was puzzled, but Gulya seemed to understand.

“We understand both,” she said, “but when we have something eternal to say, we use pictures.”

“How can you—” Pan began, but stopped at once when Malcolm gave him a warning glance.

“Tell your companions, your fellow gryphons,” Malcolm said, “that I am not only gold of flesh but gold of knowledge, and that I have true gold of that kind to give to you all, which I shall do when I speak to Her Majesty Queen Shahrnavāz. That is why I have come among you. Furthermore, my attendant Pantalaimon must be free to remain with me or to go anywhere he needs at all times.”

“Yes,” said Gulya. “And you are a philosopher and a craftsman? An artificer?”

“My companion has told you that?”

“Yes.”

“My companion always speaks the truth,” said Malcolm.

His tone was calm and steady, and conveyed an impression of powerful authority.

Gulya bowed her head. “I shall return when we are ready to leave,” she said, and flew away.

Malcolm turned to Pan. “You told them I was a philosopher? And a craftsman?”

“Well…You are, aren’t you?”

Malcolm just looked at him. Pan felt like curling up in shame, but he recovered after a few moments and said, “What did you mean by speaking in pictures? She knew what you meant, but I don’t.”

“I wanted to know whether they had a metaphorical understanding as well as a literal one.”

“And…what did she mean about something eternal, having something eternal to say?”

“The same thing. Something eternal—something outside time. Language uses time, all kinds of time, but pictures only have the present. Clearly the gryphons understand the difference. I wonder if they make pictures themselves, physical things, or have any craft or art at all. I’m curious about the way they apprehend things.”

“When you say ‘apprehend,’ do you mean—like the language thing—seeing in pictures? Ideas in pictures, I mean, like the alethiometer?”

“Yes…Did Lyra have it with her when she left?”

“Oh, she’d never leave that behind. It’s been everywhere with us. Look, I think we’re going to ride on Prince Keshvād’s back.”

Malcolm stood up and slung the rucksack over his shoulder. Prince Keshvād was circling in the air above them. Most of the others were already aloft, but two were circling with Prince Keshvād, like guards or attendants.

Prince Keshvād glided down and landed close by, and then (Malcolm found himself thinking in the language of heraldry) lay couchant, in the attitude of the Sphinx, so Malcolm and Pan could climb up on his back. It was so broad and deep that there was plenty of room to lie and make themselves comfortable, just where the lion fur ended and the eagle feathers began; and then the immense wings spread wide and high, and the two travelers felt beneath them the working of the gryphon’s mighty frame and the beating of his muscles as they soared up into the sky and east towards the summit of Mount Damāvand, a thousand miles away.

---

Despite her boast about the document signed by Mustafa Bey, Lyra felt uneasy about the thought of using it so soon, and so close to the great merchant himself. It would be useful several hundred miles away; in Aleppo it would merely be embarrassing.

Well, she would have to be cunning. Before anything else, she and Asta had to find out where Ionides had been taken, and then think of how to rescue him. Before the night in al-Khan al-Azraq she would have reached for the alethiometer automatically, but now…For a moment the Myriorama came to mind, but she didn’t know it well enough, and there wasn’t time to learn it as well as use it, even if…

“Those soldiers,” she said to Asta, “they must have been some kind of authority…If not police, then…Did you see any sign on the van? Any word or symbol, anything at all?”

“Yes, actually. In among the camouflage colors on the driver’s door there was a little crest, something like that. I thought it was strange to see it there, because I half recognized it. It was a picture of a little lamp, a Roman sort of lamp, with a flame at the tip. Like when Malcolm was at school, there was a thing called the League of St. Alexander—”

“The Office of Right Duty!”

“Is that what they call it now?”

“Yes, I think so. There were some officers on the ferry from King’s Lynn, when I was escaping. Same badge…Well, that’s who they are, then. That’s interesting.”

“Did they try to arrest you on the ferry?”

“They would have done, but I fooled them. I don’t think I could try the same trick here, though.”

They came to the gate, and stopped to look out along the street. It was the hottest part of the afternoon, but the traffic was moving briskly, and there were still throngs of people on the sidewalks.

“There’s a policeman at the crossing,” said Asta.

She had jumped up on the stone gatepost so as to see. Lyra moved closer.

The man wasn’t directing traffic, just keeping an eye on everything around. Before she felt too nervous to do it, Lyra set off quickly to speak to him, aware of Asta leaping down and keeping pace.

The officer had a pistol on one hip, a baton on the other, handcuffs on his belt, and some kind of anbaric apparatus clipped to his shoulder strap. His dæmon, a German shepherd, rose to her feet and growled quietly as Lyra came near.

“Excuse me, sir,” she said in English.

“What you want?” he replied haltingly.

“I need to report something, sir, but I need the Office of Right Duty, not the police. It’s not a crime exactly, but I think it’s something they’re probably interested in.”

“Office of what?”

“I think that’s what they’re called. Office of Right Duty. There were a couple of their vans in the garden back there a few minutes ago and I tried to catch them up but they left too quick—”

“What you want me to do?”

“I just need to know where their main office is, so I can report it, sir.”

“Where you come from?”

“Gibraltar, sir.”

“Where’s that?—Oh, never mind. I think what you mean is the Bureau d’Obligation Correcte.”

“That sounds like it, sir. Thank you. D’you know where their headquarters is, sir?”

“What this thing you want to report?”

“It’s not a thing, more of a person really. Someone I saw looked like a man I heard they were looking for.”

“What his name? Where you see him?”

“I think there’s a reward for it, and if I tell you…”

“I share it with you. Fifty-fifty.”

Asta was talking quietly into the ear of the dog dæmon, who turned to the policeman with her tail between her legs, and said something in Arabic. The young man looked down, and then back at Lyra, his callow features trying to show something like respect.

“The clock tower,” he said. “Bab al-Faraj. You know that? Huh?”

Lyra nodded, though she didn’t.

“You go along that street across there, with the café on the corner, well, you go along there till you can see the clock tower. There’s a little street on the left called Hâsbeiyâ Street. There is the palace of the nuncio. Le Bureau, that’s where it is.”

“Hâsbeiyâ,” said Lyra, and he nodded. “Thank you very much, monsieur le gendarme.”

He saluted briefly and was clearly glad to see Lyra and Asta move away.

“What did you say to his dæmon?” Lyra asked.

“I said you were the daughter of the mighty Prince Edward of Windsor.”

“Well, it seemed to work. I’ll have to live up to it.” They crossed the road and set off in the direction he’d indicated. “The nuncio’s palace, did he say? What’s a nuncio?”

“Sort of ambassador of the Magisterium. That would make sense. What are we going to do there?”

“We’ll think of something.”

---

No more than ten minutes later, they were there.

“Not much of a palace,” Lyra said.

Hâsbeiyâ Street was a quiet semi-commercial place, with apartment blocks set between office buildings and small workshops, and there was nothing to show that an important official of the Magisterium lived and worked there but a brass plate on a large dull respectable-looking house. The lettering was too small to read from across the street.

“It must be that,” said Asta. “Have we thought of anything yet?”

“Yes. We won’t go in that way. Let’s look in here first.”

The only shop in the street was a narrow shabby place that sold household goods: buckets, dusters, brushes, small tools, and so on. Asta followed Lyra inside. The proprietor put down his newspaper with a faint sigh while Lyra paid for a broom, a small blue tablecloth, a packet of safety pins, and a brush and dustpan. The shopkeeper picked up his newspaper again and they left.

“I think I saw a narrow alley opposite the palace. We’ll go down there for a moment,” Lyra said, and Asta scouted ahead and told her it was clear.

“You know, you could talk to me and we could plan things together,” said Malcolm’s dæmon.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve been on my own for so long it’s hard to remember…”

There was another reason too. If Asta had been her own dæmon, and they were talking quietly together, she would have been sitting on Lyra’s shoulder; but the great prohibition against touching seemed even more absolute when Malcolm was involved. But Lyra didn’t think either of them would mention that.

Once out of sight of the street, which wasn’t very busy anyway, Lyra unfolded the tablecloth and tore it in two. She put the larger part on like a headscarf and fastened it with a safety pin. Then she tore the rest of the tablecloth into two smaller pieces and crumpled them up in the dustpan, and dirtied her face a little with dust from the brick wall.

“My rucksack…” she said.

Asta replied, “The dustbins. If they’re full, better not leave it near them, because it might be time for the collectors to come. But if they’re empty—”

“Good idea!”

The first bin had a layer at the bottom of what looked like the contents of a few wastepaper baskets.

“That’ll do,” Lyra said, and felt inside the rucksack for her Pequeno, her little stick, and put it in her belt. Then she retrieved the alethiometer needle and dropped the rucksack in the bin.

“Now, you’re going to be a housemaid, are you?”

“We are both going to be a housemaid.”

“We can’t go in the front door, then…Wait! Listen!”

The unmistakable sound of an air-cooled engine came from the street. A vehicle was just leaving the building across the road, and gathering speed as it moved away.

Asta darted to the corner and looked across, and then turned back. “That’s it,” she said. “One of those vans like the ones in the garden. Maybe the same one.”

Lyra joined her, peering out cautiously.

“See the main building? There’s an archway at the side. It came out of there.”

“Then that’s our way in,” said Lyra.

“Just like that?”

“Exactly like that.”

They crossed the street and went in under the archway into the courtyard. As they did, a door opened in the main building and a soldier of some kind came out. He had a sergeant’s stripes on his sleeve. Lyra bowed her head low and shook out one of the “dusters” before slipping past the sergeant and in at the same door. She was remembering the advice of Anita Schlesinger, about the actress who could make herself invisible, and now she, Lyra, was doing the reverse, just as the witches did, just as Will could do, and Asta saw at once and joined in perfectly. The sergeant saw a housemaid shaking a duster, and took no more notice.

Once inside the door Lyra moved purposefully—heavily but purposefully—along the corridor and stopped at a corner. This part of the building was like the service area of a hotel: shabby, functional, not a showplace. The floor was covered in rough matting, which at least was silent to walk on.

The building around them was quiet too, but not silent; there were people there; work was going on. Lyra thought: If it was Pan beside me now, we’d know exactly what to do. No need to say anything. Perfect understanding. But Asta was doing everything right, and it was comforting to have her quick and intelligent company. As they hesitated at the end of the corridor, Malcolm’s dæmon whispered, “Someone coming.”

They heard the sound of conversation before they could make out any words. One voice dominated, a middle-aged man’s, snapping impatiently, occasionally answered by a younger voice, soothing, apologizing, reassuring. The voices came from around the corner of the corridor, and somehow below, as well; and then a door opened and the speakers came out.

Lyra was already kneeling and making herself busy with the brush and dustpan. She didn’t look at the men. Asta was doing what a housemaid’s dæmon would have done, making herself humbly useful, but she was ready to flee, or fight, or simply to look for another spot that needed cleaning. The voices moved away. They were speaking Arabic. Another door opened and closed and the voices vanished.

“Did you understand what they were saying?” Asta whispered.

“No. Did you?”

“The older man was asking about a light that was on when it should have been switched off.”

“Odd. He sounded important. They came up from downstairs—a basement or something. Let’s go and look.”

“Lyra—” Asta began, but stopped herself. “I mean, Tatiana.”

“What?”

“I’m not even going to say take care. There, I haven’t said it.”

A door opened in the corridor behind them, the one they’d come in through. Lyra bent to brush away some nonexistent dirt from the edge of the floor as two more men, the sergeant from the courtyard and a private, came past and took no notice. The soldier was questioning the sergeant about something, in Italian this time, and the sergeant merely grunted. They went past Lyra and Asta without seeming to notice them, though the terrier dæmon of the private turned to look briefly before they turned the corner and went through the distant door as the others had done.

Lyra and Asta shared a glance, and understood each other at once. Any observant person would see something odd about the pairing of this girl and this dæmon. It might pass without notice in a busy street or marketplace, but it wouldn’t take long in a setting like this to realize that the two of them were not one being. And that might be fatal. Anita Schlesinger was right: don’t attract attention.

“We can’t just turn and go,” said Lyra. “Let’s look downstairs.”

She took up her cleaning things and moved housemaidishly around the corner, looking for the door through which the first two men must have come. It was only a few feet away on the right. Broom under her left arm, brush and dustpan on the floor, she reached for the door handle. A moment later they were through, and found themselves at the top of a staircase.

A single anbaric bulb on the wall showed peeling paintwork, stained and scraped and scratched. A smell of damp and mold hung in the air.

“We’re in the right place,” Lyra whispered.

They went down the fifteen wooden steps to the floor below. Another dim bulb showed doors along both sides of the corridor, each with a small shutter like a letter box at eye level. There were five doors altogether, and beside each one there was a light switch. The floor was bare concrete, and Lyra couldn’t hear a sound.

She looked closely at the first door, examining the handle and the shutter box. While she was doing that, Asta moved to listen outside each of the other doors. Lyra tried the handle: it was fixed, which meant there probably wasn’t a handle on the inside, and that the lock was accessible only from the corridor.

Asta came back and whispered, “They’re all empty except the last one on the right. There’s a man sleeping in there. But how—”

“I can open it. You’ll have to keep guard.”

Lyra went to the last door and put down her cleaning things, very quietly, and tapped on the little shutter. The plywood cover was designed to slide in a groove, but it was stuck.

“Mr. Ionides,” she whispered at the shutter. “My personal sorcerer. Are you in there?”

No reply, no sound at all. Then came a murmur: “Miss Silver? That you?”

“Yes. I’m going to open the door,” she whispered. “It’ll take several minutes. Be quiet, and don’t be surprised. Just keep watch.”

She took a much-folded piece of paper from her breast pocket. Her hands were trembling: that wouldn’t do. She took several deep breaths and wiped her hands on her dress.

“Asta,” she said, “the light’s very bad here. You’ll have to help me see. I’m going to use something very delicate, and if I drop it I’ll never find it again. Don’t take your eyes off it.”

She took out the slender silvery needle. Why on earth had she thought this might be possible? But it had to be done.

She bent over to peer closely at the keyhole. There was a steel plate, greatly scratched, around it. Most of the mechanism would be inside the wood of the door; she’d just have to dig away till she got to it.

Another deep breath, and she set to work. It was really only the size of the needle that made it hard to do; the steel and the wood parted like butter. But it was no good just cutting straight in: she had to slice it away, bit by bit, flake by flake, until the lock itself was exposed.

Asta watched, at first astonished, but silent, her cat eyes taking in the slightest detail.

When the metal of the lock itself was exposed, Lyra stood up to ease her back, and folded the needle into the paper before stretching and bending from side to side. Her eyes were stinging, her fingers trembling, and to make things worse, the light was behind her, so her shadow was always blocking her view of what she was trying to do.

“What is that?” Asta whispered, meaning the needle.

“I had to…sacrifice the alethiometer. But I kept the needle. I’ll tell you more—”

Before she could finish there came the sound of a bell, a large bell like that of an oratory, some distance away but resounding through the whole building. It made Lyra start and nearly drop the needle in its paper, but it wasn’t an alarm; it rang three times, slowly, and then stopped. Lyra stood quite still, and was about to reach for the needle when the bell rang again, another three strokes. Another pause, and then another three strokes; and a further pause, and then it rang slowly but steadily and continuously.

She blinked, and shook her head. Carry on, she thought. This time she knelt instead of bending down. It was just a question of persistence, cut, cut, cut, piece by piece. She let them fall to the floor: there was no point in trying to catch them, and the sound they made was minute.

She stopped to whisper through the door again: “Mr. Ionides! Come to the door if you can hear me.”

But there was no sound of movement, no answering voice.

“You did hear his voice when I did?” she whispered to Asta.

“Absolutely. And that’s an Angelus bell. Interesting.”

Lyra didn’t know what that meant, and wasn’t in the mood to find out. Eyes burning, fingers cramped, knees almost numb, thighs trembling, she worked away at the lock, slicing and chipping, until a pile of wooden splinters and curls of metal lay around her on the floor. The door was still locked fast. She was having to reach deep into the thick oak now, and still there was more to get out, and still time was passing.

The bell stopped.

She looked at Asta, dizzy, blinking away the sweat in her eyes before wiping them with the back of her hand. They both listened, but there was nothing to hear. Surely some guard would come along soon to check the prisoner, to bring him food, to take him away for interrogation?

She shook her head and turned back to the task. Tiny slice after tiny slice, oak, steel, oak; then her sweat-slick fingers lost their grip, and the needle fell to the floor in total silence. She uttered a little gasp, but Asta had been watching closely, and touched the place among the wood-chippings where the needle had fallen. It was invisible. Lyra would never have found it, but Asta lifted it out with her mouth while Lyra stood and stretched and took deep breaths.

“Nearly there,” said Asta, after placing the needle carefully in Lyra’s palm.

“I’m worried, though. I can’t hear anything.”

“I can. He’s breathing. He might have been beaten, but he’s alive. Another few minutes and you’ll be through.”

Every muscle ached. Her eyes stung with the sweat she kept trying to mop away. She bent down and started again.

Asta’s ears pricked. She looked back towards the stairs, and Lyra noticed and paused, but she couldn’t hear anything.

“Don’t rush,” said Asta.

“Easy to say.”

And a minute later she laid bare the deadbolt, the hardened steel bar that slid into the door frame when the key was turned. Once she was through that—

But something was wrong. The needle didn’t cut through. It didn’t even scratch the surface. A little sob of frustration, disappointment, something, shook Lyra’s throat, and she nearly dropped the needle again.

“What is it?” said calm-voiced Asta.

“It’s—I think I—” She tried again, with the same result. “It’s not—I don’t know what…”

She stood back, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and breathed again, trying to force herself to concentrate, even against the pain in every joint, the sweat, the trembling. Such a short way to go! And there was no steel, no diamond, nothing, in any universe, that could resist the edge of the needle. Unless they’d discovered something that did? The broken bones in her left hand throbbed like a pulse.

One more shuddering breath. What would Will have done? What had Farder Coram told her? What did Giorgio Brabandt say?

Then she laughed. Something was funny, if only she could remember it. Asta looked up at her, curious.

“It’s not the needle and it’s not the lock,” Lyra said. “It’s me.”

Be intent and relaxed, both at the same time. Concentrate calmly. Her mind had to cut, or the needle wouldn’t. Think and simultaneously act without thinking.

Easy. One light stroke with the needle, and the deadbolt fell away, and the door hung freely on its hinges.

“Well done,” Asta whispered.

Lyra put the needle away in its folded paper and then pulled gently at the door. It swung heavily, silently, and opened into a room with no light. Only the faintest glimmer from the bulb at the foot of the stairs showed her anything at all, but her eyes were adjusted to the semi-dark, and as she looked into the cell she could make out a narrow bed, and a man’s body lying on it.

“Miss Silver? Why you take so long?”

His voice was hoarse and weak. But it was Ionides, and he was alive. In a moment, heedless of every kind of pain, Lyra was kneeling beside him.

“Oh, my sorcerer, what have they done to you?”

“Mr. Malcolm, he get away?”

“A gryphon took him—as if it had been looking for him—but you, now, can you move? Can you walk?”

Asta was already close in silent conversation with the little gecko dæmon, whispering and nudging and licking her, gathering knowledge in the way dæmons could.

“You help me sit up, Miss Silver, maybe I can walk too.”

His throat was damaged as well as his mouth. It clearly hurt him to speak. Lyra stood up and took his left hand with her right. She was a little giddy herself, and she let him take his time to pull himself upright.

As his face became visible in the dim light, she saw how badly he’d been battered. One eye completely closed, blood coming from one of his ears, his nose smashed, broken teeth; a great surge of passionate anger rose in her breast.

“Whoever did this,” she said shakily, “I will see them dead.”

He swung his legs round and set his feet on the floor, but something else was troubling him.

“Your ribs?” she said.

He nodded, but even that hurt. How on earth would they get him out?

Then two things happened at the same time. The bell began to ring again, and a shadow fell over the bed.

Lyra looked round at once. She saw the figure of a woman in the doorway, and the woman said, “Who are you, and what are you doing?”