Chapter Twenty-One The Clean Wind of God
Twenty-One
The Clean Wind of God
Dilyara, the one-time cleaner at Tashbulak and the current companion of Chen the camel-herder, had discovered many curious things among the debris of the raided laboratories.
The clean wind of God, which had swept through the research station with such purity and zeal, had missed many things it might have thought worth destroying if it had known how to think about them.
Cylinders of various gases stood untouched; a bank of refrigerating chambers had never been ransacked, because their doors opened in ways unfamiliar to the agents of holiness; the joy of smashing glass for its own sake soon palled, so case upon case of long-dead vegetation slumbered intact on the higher shelves.
Dilyara searched through it all, sweeping, dusting, polishing, looking.
The gas cylinders shone; the dead plants were taken out of their cases and thrown away and the glass washed till it gleamed; the refrigerating chambers opened to a touch once she found the right spot to press.
The anbaric power keeping them cold was supplied by photoreceptive panels in the roof that responded even to the pallid twinkle of starlight; the vessels and packages and bottles that stood coated with frost inside them rested just as those who put them there had intended, holding their mysteries from the world and intoxicating Dilyara with the hope of more discoveries to come.
Chen, meanwhile, had subdued a wandering female camel and tethered her close by, and knew from the honks and hoots and snorts in the night that she was already attracting the attention of various wild males.
Dreams of a new herd, far larger than the old one, filled his sleep with pleasure.
He saw it ranging far over the roads east and west, carrying cargoes that would bring him uncountable wealth and the respect of thousands of people who would utter the name of Chen with reverence.
And the desert slumbered to the south, and the wandering lake of Lop Nor continued in its unpredictable divagations to the east.
—
Lyra to Malcolm:
Mr. Ionides and I are at the Hotel Caspari in Baku. The ferry that we thought would take us to Krasnovodsk had to turn back because a fierce storm was making it dangerous to be at sea. No idea what’s happening elsewhere—papers are censored. So for the time being we’re stuck.
Do you think the alethiometer can be restored?
L
—
Malcolm to Lyra:
No, I don’t think it’s restorable. Not to the state it used to be in. There are parts missing, and it needs an expert clockmaker to put it in some kind of working order. But I’ve kept all the interior parts aside for now and focused only on the case, and I’m beating it into something else.
Pan has left here with the witch Tilda Vasara to go further east to Tashbulak. Captivity made him restless; at least I have something to do. He will be safe with her. I suppose the question should really be whether she’ll be safe with him.
But I’m restless too. I will find you again, and Asta, and you’ll find Pan, and we’ll go together into the desert and find this red building before the Magisterium does.
Now back to work. More soon. Please don’t take risks.
M
Lyra was sitting at the little iron table in the hotel garden and sipping a cup of strong coffee when she read that.
“Pan, you bloody fool…” she muttered.
Asta looked up, and Lyra explained.
“He must have gone when Malcolm was asleep,” Asta said.
“Shouldn’t have gone at all. Idiot.”
She put the stone away and turned back to her pad of paper.
Lyra’s report to Mustafa Bey had turned into a sort of diary-cum-meditation, starting with her conversation on the ferry with the angel and ranging back to what Ionides had said to her about the imagination, and everything she’d ever heard or thought about that subject, and ranging forward to the very purpose of this journey.
It was becoming important as she wrote more of it and discovered what she thought, and what else she was able to think, by writing it, even if it turned out to be not what Mustafa Bey required.
As she sat there in the shade of a cypress tree with a pencil in one hand and the coffee cup in the other, she heard the sudden howl of police sirens outside.
She and Asta had already been disturbed by the sound of shouts and people running, but it was the sirens that made Asta sit up, ears pricked.
Lyra put the coffee down carefully, because the sound had made her hand shake. She stood up warily.
“Careful,” said Asta.
“I want to know what’s happening. It might just be a bank robbery, or…”
“Well, we won’t be able to help very much whatever it is.”
“No, but Mr. Ionides is out there somewhere.”
“I haven’t known him as long as you have, but I bet he’s capable of looking after himself. What’s more, he’ll find out about it all much more quickly than we could.”
“I could get a newspaper at least.”
“If it’s one you could read, it’ll be a fortnight old.”
“I suppose you’re right,” she said, and sat down.
“What are you writing?”
“You can read it if you like. It’s not private, particularly.”
“Your handwriting’s hard to read.”
“Oh, fuss. Just because Malcolm’s is all fancy and italic.”
“Fancy is exactly what italic isn’t. But listen…”
The first blast of the sirens had diminished as the police cars drove off further into the city. Now Asta could hear another sound, and as she listened Lyra could too.
“People shouting,” she said. “A riot? A demonstration?”
“There’s a loudspeaker…Can’t understand what it’s saying. Can’t even hear it clearly, but someone’s speaking to a crowd.”
Lyra could hear the distorted blare, but it was too far away even to make out what language the speaker was using. Then came shouts, cries, some from quite close to the hotel; and then the first sound of breaking glass.
“I’m going to pack my rucksack,” Lyra said.
Asta jumped down from the table and went with her. Inside the hotel, two waiters were in anxious conversation by the stairs. They stopped as they saw her.
“What’s happening?” she said. “Qu’est-ce qui se passe?”
One of them shrugged, and then a man in a business suit ran out of an office. He saw her, and stopped short.
“You must—upstairs—quickly—please, into your room,” he said breathlessly.
“What’s happening?”
“In the streets—trouble—police—”
“Yes, I can hear, but what’s it about?”
“Just please—go your room—lock the door. Now, please.”
He looked over his shoulder at the lobby. Beyond the glass doors, Lyra could see people running in the street.
She nodded, and set off upstairs, with Asta running ahead.
The room was safe and clean, with nothing out of place.
She dropped her papers on the bed and threw the window open wide.
It overlooked the street, and as she leaned out she could see a group of young men come running from the nearby square, pursued by police carrying shields and wearing helmets.
The sound of the loudspeaker came from that way too, and then came a volley of gunshots.
The loudspeaker voice stopped abruptly. Someone screamed.
“This is awful,” Lyra said.
More shouts from outside, and the crash of broken glass. Asta sprang up on the windowsill and looked out.
“That was the bookshop across the street,” she said.
“Look, the owner’s trying to lock the door but people are pushing him aside.
They’re pulling books off the shelves and throwing them into the street.
And here come some police with shields and guns—and big sticks—they’re smashing people aside, hitting them with the sticks—and oh, that’s horrible… ”
Lyra kept to one side as she looked out.
The police had surrounded two young men and were smashing their sticks across heads, shoulders, arms, legs—Lyra covered her ears, unable to bear the crack of bones and the cries of pain—then the police were firing bullets into the air, and out of nowhere, it seemed, a mighty blast of water knocked several people, rioters and police alike, off their feet and sent them spinning along the ground. Smoke was drifting through the air.
Lyra found her breath catch suddenly in her throat. Asta fell off the windowsill, but heavily, not like a cat, and struggled on the floor retching and coughing, her chest and belly heaving.
Something acrid was attacking Lyra’s eyes and throat.
Tear gas…She coughed—it made it worse—her throat was blocked by something—her eyes were stinging and streaming, her lungs heaving.
She fell to her knees and felt Asta struggling for breath beside her, and fumbled for the window and forced it shut, hoping she wouldn’t break the glass in her effort to keep out the gas.
But it shut safely and she slammed the latch down tight before heaving several clearer breaths.
Asta—Lyra swung round to see how she was—the daemon’s breathing was fast and irregular, and her mouth was wet, her eyes streaming.
The idea came to Lyra that the gas would be worse close to the floor—she had no idea why.
She scooped the daemon up, feeling her heart pound, hearing the rasp of her breath, and held her tight to her heart.
Malcolm’s daemon. Too tight! She couldn’t breathe like that.
She lay Asta on the bed and turned on the tap in the little basin, soaking something—a shirt, anything—and held it to Asta’s mouth and nose.
She pressed her own face into it too. It did help a little, and then Asta’s chest filled powerfully with a rasping spasm, and she coughed up some saliva and shook her head.