The Amber Spyglass (His Dark Materials, #3)

by Philip Pullman

This was the end of all places and the last of all worlds.

“Do you think I need anything else?” “You could do with some sense,” came the reply.

“Well, are you ready now?” said that sarcastic voice. “Yes. I’ll explain if you like, but you don’t seem very interested.” “Oh, I find whatever you do a source of perpetual fascination. But never mind me. What are you going to say to these people who are coming?”

“Oh, how tedious.” “Can you, though?” “I could…” “Do it now, then. Let me see.” The form of the angel seemed to condense and swirl into a little vortex in mid-air, and then a blackbird swooped down on to the grass at Will’s feet. “Fly to my shoulder,” said Will. The bird did so, and then spoke in the angel’s familiar acid tone: “I shall only do this when it’s absolutely necessary. It’s unspeakably humiliating.” “Too bad,” said Will. “Whenever we see people, in this world, you become a bird. There’s no point in fussing or arguing. Just do it.”

and his face bore an expression that mingled haughty disdain with a tender, ardent sympathy, as if he would love all things if only his nature could let him forget their defects.

“Then sleep, and I’ll watch out for danger. Will, I have been short with you, and it was wrong of me. You have the greatest burden, and I should help you, not chide you. I shall try to be kinder from now on.”

He turned away and slipped into the water without a splash, and began to swim in his steady tireless paddle towards the new world.

Lee Scoresby looked not asleep, nor at peace; he looked as if he had died in battle; but he looked as if he knew that his fight had been successful.

And because the Texan aëronaut was one of the very few humans Iorek had ever esteemed, he accepted the man’s last gift to him. With deft movements of his claws, he ripped aside the dead man’s clothes, opened the body with one slash, and began to feast on the flesh and blood of his old friend. It was his first meal for days, and he was hungry.

But for now, something simpler possessed his heart, something bright and hard and unshakeable: vengeance. Lee Scoresby, who had rescued Iorek from danger in his balloon and fought beside him in the Arctic of his own world, had died. Iorek would avenge him. The good man’s flesh and bone would both nourish him and keep him restless until blood was spilled enough to still his heart.

After gathering the remaining fragments into a single heap, the bear lifted the flower in his mouth and dropped it in the centre of them, as humans liked to do. The witch’s spell was broken now; the rest of Lee’s body was free to all who came. Soon it would be nourishing a dozen different kinds of life.

“Did you discover this name the witch spoke of?” “Yes, I did. Once again I crave the assurance of the court that –” “You have it,” snapped the President. “Don’t be afraid. You are not a heretic. Report what you have learned, and waste no more time.”

But Balthamos couldn’t tell; he only knew that half his heart had been extinguished. He couldn’t keep still: he flew up again, scouring the sky as if to seek out Baruch in this cloud or that, calling, crying, calling; and then he’d be overcome with guilt, and fly down to urge Will to hide and keep quiet, and promise to watch over him tirelessly; and then the pressure of his grief would crush him to the ground, and he’d remember every instance of kindness and courage that Baruch had ever shown, and there were thousands, and he’d forgotten none of them; and he’d cry that a nature so gracious could never be snuffed out, and he’d soar into the skies again, casting about in every direction, reckless and wild and stricken, cursing the very air, the clouds, the stars.

“Impossible,” roared the bear. “It would be shameful to fight you. You are as weak as an oyster out of its shell. I cannot fight you.”

She smiled. Will very nearly smiled in response, because he was so unused to the sweetness and gentleness a woman could put into a smile, and it unsettled him.

The monkey had tried to tear at him with his teeth until Will had slashed left-right with the knife, forcing the dæmon backwards, so he could close the window and shut them away in a different world. Will thought that nothing on earth would make him turn his back on that monkey now.

And there she was, his dearest friend, asleep. So small she looked! He was amazed at how all the force and fire that was Lyra awake could look so gentle and mild when she was sleeping.

She sounded so kindly, and there was such sad wisdom in her eyes, that Will’s mistrust deepened. He felt that every word she said was a lie, every action concealed a threat, and every smile was a mask of deceit. Well, he would have to deceive her in turn: he’d have to make her think he was harmless. But he had successfully deceived every teacher and every police officer and every social worker and every neighbour who had ever taken an interest in him and his home; he’d been preparing for this all his life. Right, he thought. I can deal with you.

Will felt a jolt of shock and rage that Mrs Coulter had dared to bring his own mother in to support her argument. Then the first shock was complicated by the thought that his mother, after all, had not protected him; he had had to protect her. Did Mrs Coulter love Lyra more than Elaine Parry loved him? But that was unfair: his mother wasn’t well.

“Let go of Lyra’s dæmon first,” said Will. “I’m not in the mood to argue.” Lyra saw with a cold thrill that Will was perfectly ready to dash the Gallivespian’s head against the rock. And both little people knew it.

He was truly fearless, and she admired that beyond measure; but he wasn’t good at lying and betraying and cheating, which all came to her as naturally as breathing. When she thought of that she felt warm and virtuous, because she did it for Will, never for herself.

“They should not have made that knife,” said Iorek, after they had walked a little way. “Maybe I should not have mended it. I’m troubled, and I have never been troubled before, never in doubt. Now I am full of doubt. Doubt is a human thing, not a bear thing. If I am becoming human, something’s wrong, something’s bad. And I’ve made it worse.”

Maybe sometimes we don’t do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don’t want to look scared, so we go and do the wrong thing just because it’s dangerous. We’re more concerned with not looking scared than with judging right. It’s very hard.

Mrs Coulter was more like her daughter than she knew. Her answer to this was to spit in Lord Asriel’s face.

“Yes. What we found out when we come here, oh, long ago for most of us, we found we all brought our deaths with us. This is where we found out. We had ’em all the time, and we never knew. See, everyone has a death. It goes everywhere with ’em, all their life long, right close by. Our deaths, they’re outside, taking the air; they’ll come in by and by. Granny’s death, he’s there with her, he’s close to her, very close.” “Doesn’t it scare you, having your death close by all the time?” said Lyra. “Why ever would it? If he’s there, you can keep an eye on him. I’d be a lot more nervous not knowing where he was.” “And everyone has their own death?” said Will, marvelling. “Why yes, the moment you’re born, your death comes into the world with you, and it’s your death that takes you out.” “Ah,” said Lyra, “that’s what we need to know, because we’re trying to find the land of the dead, and we don’t know how to get there. Where do we go then, when we die?” “Your death taps you on the shoulder, or takes your hand, and says, come along o’ me, it’s time. It might happen when you’re sick with a fever, or when you choke on a piece of dry bread, or when you fall off a high building; in the middle of your pain and travail, your death comes to you kindly and says easy now, easy, child, you come along o’ me, and you go with them in a boat out across the lake into the mist. What happens there, no one knows. No one’s ever come back.”

You’re a thoughtless irresponsible lying child. Fantasy comes so easily to you that your whole nature is riddled with dishonesty, and you don’t even admit the truth when it stares you in the face.

“Then go ahead! Punish me, since you can! Take your bloody spurs and dig ’em in hard, go on! Here’s my hand – do it! You got no idea what’s in my heart, you proud selfish creature – you got no notion how I feel sad and wicked and sorry about my friend Roger – you kill people just like that,” snapping her finger, “they don’t matter to you – but it’s a torment and a sorrow to me that I never said goodbye to my friend Roger, and I want to say sorry and make it as good as I can – you’d never understand that, for all your pride, for all your grown-up cleverness – and if I have to die to do what’s proper, then I will, and be happy while I do. I seen worse than that. So you want to kill me, you hard man, you strong man, you poison-bearer, you chevalier, you do it, go on, kill me. Then me and Roger can play in the land of the dead for ever, and laugh at you, you pitiful thing.”

Behind her, Tialys put away his instrument, and sat watching the child plead with her own death to be taken where no one should go. The death scratched his head and held up his hands, but nothing could stop Lyra’s words, nothing could deflect her desire, not even fear: she’d seen worse than death, she claimed, and she had, too. So eventually her death said: “If nothing can put you off, then all I can say is, come with me, and I will take you there, into the land of the dead. I’ll be your guide. I can show you the way in, but as for getting out again, you’ll have to manage by yourself.”

He would never have given up, although it was discouraging; the crucifix around his neck and the rifle at his back were twin tokens of his absolute determination to complete the task.

Will saw Tialys dismount from his dragonfly and prepare to spring at the boatman, and he half-agreed with the spy’s intention: but the old man had seen him, and turned his ancient head to say: “How many ages do you think I’ve been ferrying people to the land of the dead? D’you think if anything could hurt me, it wouldn’t have happened already? D’you think the people I take come with me gladly? They struggle and cry, they try to bribe me, they threaten and fight; nothing works. You can’t hurt me, sting as you will. Better comfort the child; she’s coming; take no notice of me.”

“The gate to the land of the dead is on this island,” said the boatman. “Everyone comes here, kings, queens, murderers, poets, children; everyone comes this way, and none come back.”

“There’s some that came here never believing they were dead. They insisted all the way that they were alive, it was a mistake, someone would have to pay; made no difference. There’s others who longed to be dead when they were alive, poor souls; lives full of pain or misery; killed themselves for a chance of a blessed rest, and found that nothing had changed except for the worse, and this time there was no escape; you can’t make yourself alive again. And there’s been others so frail and sickly, little infants, sometimes, that they’re scarcely born into the living before they come down to the dead. I’ve rowed this boat with a little crying baby on my lap many, many times, that never knew the difference between up there and down here. And old folk too, the rich ones are the worst, snarling and savage and cursing me, railing and screaming: what did I think I was? Hadn’t they gathered and saved all the gold they could garner? Wouldn’t I take some now, to put them back ashore? They’d have the law on me, they had powerful friends, they knew the Pope and the King of this and the Duke of that, they were in a position to see I was punished and chastised… But they knew what the truth was in the end: the only position they were in was in my boat going to the land of the dead, and as for those kings and popes, they’d be in here too, in their turn, sooner than they wanted. I let ’em cry and rave; they can’t hurt me; they fall silent in the end. “So if you don’t know whether you’re dead ...

Will clutched at Lyra and they both clung together as the scream turned into wild mocking peals of laughter, which were answered by other harpy-voices in the fog along the shore. The jeering hate-filled sound reminded Will of the merciless cruelty of children in a playground, but there were no teachers here to regulate things, no one to appeal to, nowhere to hide.

She flew around again, aiming directly for Lyra’s face; but Will took out the knife, and threw himself in the way.

And it was only the children who spoke; the adults all seemed sunk in a lethargy so ancient that they might never move or speak again.

Lyra stood up to join Will. Her wound had opened again, and fresh blood was trickling down her cheek, but she wiped it aside. “Will,” she said, “I’m so glad we came down here together…” He heard a tone in her voice, and he saw an expression on her face, which he knew and liked more than anything he’d ever known: it showed she was thinking of something daring, but she wasn’t ready to speak of it yet.

“The boy would go with her to the end of the world.”

He turned and gave her a true smile, so warm and happy she felt something stumble and falter inside her; at least, it felt like that, but without Pantalaimon she couldn’t ask herself what it meant. It might have been a new way for her heart to beat. Deeply surprised, she told herself to walk straight and stop feeling giddy.

“There’s probably a great deal that’s mysterious to you, my Lord President, starting with the relations between a mother and her child. If you thought for one moment that I would release my daughter into the care – the care! – of a body of men with a feverish obsession with sexuality, men with dirty fingernails, reeking of ancient sweat, men whose furtive imaginations would crawl over her body like cockroaches – if you thought I would expose my child to that, my Lord President, you are more stupid than you take me for.”

“I assume he’s after that knife. You know it has a name? The cliff-ghasts of the north call it the god-destroyer,” he went on, crossing to the window and looking down over the cloisters. “That’s what Asriel is aiming to do, isn’t it? Destroy the Authority? There are some people who claim that God is dead already. Presumably Asriel is not one of those, if he retains the ambition to kill him.”

“Well, where is God,” said Mrs Coulter, “if he’s alive? And why doesn’t he speak any more? At the beginning of the world, God walked in the garden and spoke with Adam and Eve. Then he began to withdraw, and Moses only heard his voice. Later, in the time of Daniel, he was aged – he was the Ancient of Days. Where is he now? Is he still alive, at some inconceivable age, decrepit and demented, unable to think or act or speak and unable to die, a rotten hulk? And if that is his condition, wouldn’t it be the most merciful thing, the truest proof of our love for God, to seek him out and give him the gift of death?”

“Show Mrs Coulter to the best guest room,” said the President. “And lock her in.”

“Now, Brother Louis, you must return the locket to the good lady’s neck.” The priest sagged faintly: he had hoped his task was over.

“Father President,” said Brother Louis, “I shall of course do as you command, but may I know why you need the child’s hair?” “No, Brother Louis, because it would disturb you. Leave these matters to us. Off you go.”

“I have no accomplice,” she said angrily. “If there’s an invisible assassin in this place, I can only imagine it’s the Devil himself. I dare say he feels quite at home.”

The energy of the bomb came from cutting the link between human and dæmon, and that meant the hideous process of intercision: the cages of mesh, the silver guillotine. He was going to sever the lifelong connection between her and the golden monkey, and use the power released by that to destroy her daughter. She and Lyra would perish by the means she herself had invented. It was neat, at least, she thought.

“And this is the reason for all those things: your dæmon can only live its full life in the world it was born in. Elsewhere it will eventually sicken and die. We can travel, if there are openings into other worlds, but we can only live in our own. Lord Asriel’s great enterprise will fail in the end for the same reason: we have to build the republic of heaven where we are, because for us there is no elsewhere.

The first ghost to leave the world of the dead was Roger. He took a step forward, and turned to look back at Lyra, and laughed in surprise as he found himself turning into the night, the starlight, the air … and then he was gone, leaving behind such a vivid little burst of happiness that Will was reminded of the bubbles in a glass of champagne.

“We should have married,” she said, “and brought her up ourselves.” It was such an unexpected remark that he blinked.

“Will – Will –” she cried. He heard her and turned, knife in hand and eyes ablaze.