Chapter Nine Gold, and Gold
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 daemon 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 daemon? Pan did that for a girl he’d met who’d lost her daemon—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 daemon 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 daemon—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?”