Chapter One Beings of Another Kind #3
The man was struggling to sit up, because Lyra had fallen across his body, fighting against horrible pain as she tried to tug her wrist loose from his grip. Without thinking about it, she realized she still had the needle in her right hand, and thrust it hard into his arm.
He cried out in anger and shock and flung her off.
The stink of the gangrene, if it was that, enveloped her and made her gag—but she kept hold of the needle and pulled it away as the man rolled over and struggled to his feet.
He saw the open cage and cried out, and kicked Lyra in the ribs before staggering and almost losing his balance—and then he saw the gold of the alethiometer gleaming in the last shaft of moonlight, and snatched it up and scrambled away up the steps too fast for her to follow.
She lay half-stunned, dizzy with pain and exhaustion, winded from the kick to her chest, but with the needle still clenched in her fingers.
The curved glass she’d taken out of the alethiometer reflected a little image of the moon up at her.
She scooped it up, seized her rucksack, and scrambled for the stairs, trembling in every limb, tripping, skidding on the sand that had blown down from above, trying not to cry aloud with pain and fear, dizzy with weakness, and came out into the full moonlight of the silent forum.
There was no sign of Nur Huda’s daemon. But there was the man, the Scythian, the Chorasmian, whatever he was, clutching the alethiometer to his chest as he stumbled away—
And then without any warning, in total silence, an immense shadow swept across the forum and submerged the man in darkness.
As Lyra clung to the wall, unbelieving, the creature that threw the shadow swooped down on him, snatched him up in giant claws, and in a swirl of dust thrown up by its vast wings, carried him into the sky.
It had taken no more than a couple of seconds.
It was half lion, half eagle, immense and savage, and as its shape passed across the full moon Lyra saw the man struggling in its claws and heard his distant screaming. With him went the alethiometer.
But she had the glass, and the needle, though she could barely hold them. With trembling care she dropped the needle into her breast pocket and the glass into her rucksack.
—
Nur Huda was sitting with Jamal in her hands, talking softly and urgently, raising him to her lips and her cheeks and her ears, stroking his back, kissing him, cuddling him close.
She jumped up when she saw Lyra. Her face was brilliant with happiness.
“This is Jamal! He’s safe!” she said, and Lyra wanted to embrace her and absorb some of that joy; and then Nur Huda, clutching her daemon close to her heart, threw her other arm around Lyra’s neck and kissed her.
In doing so she crushed Lyra’s left hand against her. Lyra couldn’t help flinching, and Nur Huda drew away in alarm.
“You’re hurt! What happened?”
“I…I don’t know. I can’t remember. How will you find your way home?”
“Jamal will find the way. No need to worry about that! With Jamal, I’m always safe. Anyway, my home is where my family is. We’ll look for them and that’s how we’ll find a home. Like you with Pan.”
“Yes…”
“When you find him, will you go home?”
“I don’t think I’ve got a home…I don’t know. Maybe we could look for one.”
“Yes! Look for a home. That’s a good idea. But the most important thing is when you find him, you must kiss him and kiss him.”
“Will I find him?”
“Of course!”
“And…will he find the thing he’s looking for?”
“Of course he will. He’s very good at looking. He’ll find it and everything will be all right. Then you will find a home and marry someone nice. Thank you, Lyra! Thank you!”
And she turned away and began the long walk home, with her little daemon skipping and leaping beside her. Lyra could hear their voices chattering and laughing together for some time after they vanished from sight beyond the moon-drenched colonnade.
—
Abdel Ionides, her guide into the desert, was sleeping when Lyra returned to their camp at the edge of the city. Quietly though she moved, he heard her and sat up.
“Miss Silver! Your daemon was not there?”
“He was there, but he’s gone. And there were voices—they spoke about something called the alkahest…Have you heard of the alkahest?”
“No. Who said that, anyway?”
“I couldn’t see them. Just voices.”
He shrugged and peered at her more closely and said, “You hurt? What happen?”
“I saw a gigantic bird, like a lion…”
“Bird like a lion? What you mean? I think you too tired to speak any sense. Come on, lie down, go to sleep till morning. It will be very cold soon.” He shook out a blanket and laid it on a pile of several others.
She had to. There was no alternative. She felt him gently arranging the blankets over her, and then she was asleep.
—
She dreamed that Pan came back to her, without a word, at the darkest point of the night, and slipped under the sheepskins and found his old place around her neck.
“It’s a window, Pan!” she murmured. “Like the ones we used to go through with Will! In the red building—a window into another world! The world where the roses come from! That’s what it is!”
She heard the dream-Pan whisper, but what he said was a mystery, and in her dream itself, she fell asleep.