Chapter Nine Gold, and Gold #2
“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 daemon.”
“His daemon 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 daemon, 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.