The Secret Commonwealth (The Book of Dust #2)

by Philip Pullman

The moon was full, and a few stars were visible between the racing wisps of cloud.

It was another of those still, gray days when silence itself seemed to be a meteorological phenomenon, not just the result of nothing happening but a positive presence larger than gardens, and colleges, and life.

As the sparkling loop of light drifted towards Malcolm, it encircled each of them in turn when he looked over at them: Charles Capes, slender, bald, faultlessly dark-suited, a red handkerchief in his top pocket, a deep and subtle intelligence in his eyes; Glenys Godwin, warmly dark-eyed, gray hair cut neatly, one hand tirelessly and tenderly caressing her wounded dæmon; Hannah Relf, whom Malcolm loved only a little less than his own mother, slight and gray-haired and frail, whose mind held such knowledge. How valuable these people seemed, in this other perspective, in the light of the spangled ring.

The other side’s got an energy that our side en’t got. Comes from their certainty about being right. If you got that certainty, you’ll be willing to do anything to bring about the end you want. It’s the oldest human problem, Lyra, an’ it’s the difference between good and evil. Evil can be unscrupulous, and good can’t. Evil has nothing to stop it doing what it wants, while good has one hand tied behind its back. To do the things it needs to do to win, it’d have to become evil to do ’em.”

The way to think about the secret commonwealth is with stories. Only stories’ll do.”

The memory of it was still enough to make her body throb and melt and yearn for something impossible, unnameable, unreachable.

Now she was sick and old, he enjoyed provoking her, as one might tease a scorpion that was safely behind glass.

The cold air flooded into her grateful lungs and connected her with the night sky, as if it was a wind from the millions of stars.

She sat there for an hour, unconscious of the time, sustained by this new strange mood, and then went to bed and fell instantly asleep.

In the morning Lyra remembered the mood of calmness and certainty like a dream, incomplete but still powerful. She hoped she could retain it for a long time, and revisit it whenever she needed to.