THIRTEEN - FENCING-1

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    Her first impulse was to turn and run, or to be sick. A human being with no daemon was like someohout a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out: something unnatural and uny that beloo the world of night-ghasts, not the waking world of sense.

    So Lyra <tt></tt>g to Pantalaimon and her head swam and her ge rose, and cold as the night was, a sickly sweat moistened her flesh with something colder still.

    “Ratter,” said the boy. “You got my Ratter?”

    Lyra was in no doubt what he meant.

    “No,” she said in a voice as frail and frightened as she felt. Then, “Whats your name?”

    “Tony Makarios,” he said. “Wheres Ratter?”

    “I dont know...” she began, and swallowed hard to govern her nausea. “The Gobblers...” But she couldnt finish. She had to go out of the shed and sit down by herself in the snow, except that of course she wasnt by herself, she was never by herself, because Pantalaimon was always there. Oh, to be cut from him as this little boy had been parted from his Ratter! The worst thing in the world! She found herself sobbing, and Pantalaimon was whimpering too, and in both of them there assioy and sorrow for the half-boy.

    The to her feet again.

    “e on,” she called in a trembling voice. “Tony, e out. Were going to take you somewhere safe.”

    There was a stir of movement in the fish house, and he appeared at the door, still clutg his dried fish. He was dressed in warm enough garments, a thickly padded and quilted coal-silk anorak and fur boots, but they had a sedhand look and didnt fit well. In the wider light outside that came from the faint trails of the Aurora and the snow-cround he looked more lost and piteous even than he had at first, croug in the lantern light by the fish racks.

    The villager whht the lantern had retreated a few yards, and called down to them.

    lorek Byrnison interpreted: “He says you must pay for that fish.”

    Lyra felt like telling the bear to kill him, but she said, “Were taking the child away for them. They  afford to give one fish to pay for that.”

    The bear spoke. The man muttered, but didnt argue. Lyra set his lantern down in the snow and took the half-boys hand to guide him to the bear. He came helplessly, showing no surprise and no fear at the great white beast standing so close, and when Lyra helped him to sit on loreks back, all he said was:

    “I dunno where my Ratter is.”

    “No, nor do we, Tony,” she said. “But well...well punish the Gobblers. Well do that, I promise. lorek, is it all right if I sit up there too?”

    “My armor weighs far more than children,” he said.

    So she scrambled up behind Tony and made<mark>.</mark> him g to the long stiff fur, and Pantalaimon sat inside her hood, warm and close and full of pity. Lyra khat Pantalaimons impulse was to reach out and cuddle the little half-child, to lick him ale him and warm him as his own daemon would have done; but the great taboo prevehat, of course.

    They rose through the village and up toward the ridge, and the villagers faces were open with horror and a kind of fearful relief at seeing that hideously mutilated creature taken away by a girl and a great white bear.

    In Lyras heart, revulsion struggled with passion, and passion won. She put her arms around the skinny little form to hold him safe. The journey back to the main party was colder, and harder, and darker, but it seemed to pass more quickly for all that. lorek Byrnison was tireless, and Lyras riding became automatic, so that she was never in danger of falling off. The cold body in her arms was so light that in one way he was easy to manage, but he was i; he sat stiffly without moving as the bear moved, so in another way he was difficult too.

    From time to time the half-boy spoke.

    “Whats that you said?” asked Lyra.

    “I says is she gonna know where I am?”

    “Yeah, shell know, shell find you and well find her. Hold on tight now, Tony.

    It ent far from here....”

    The bear loped onward. Lyra had no idea how tired she was until they caught up with the gyptians. The sledges had stopped to rest the dogs, and suddenly there they all were, Farder , Lord Faa, Lee Scoresby, all lunging forward to help and then falling back silent as they saw the ure with Lyra. She was so stiff that she couldnt even loosen her arms around his body, and John Faa himself had to pull them gently open and lift her off.

    “Gracious God, what is this?” he said. “Lyra, child, what have you found?”

    “Hes called Tony,” she mumbled through frozen lips. “And they cut his daemon away. Thats what the Gobblers do.”

    The men held back, fearful; but the bear spoke, to Lyras weary amazement, chiding them.

    “Shame on you! Think what this child has done! You might not have more ce, but you should be ashamed to show less.”

    “Youre right, lorek Byrnison,” said John Faa, and turo give orders. “Build that fire up a some soup for the child. For both children. Farder , is your shelter rigged?”

    “It is, John. Bring her over and well get her warm....”

    “And the little boy,” said someone else. “He  eat a warm, even if...”

    Lyra was trying to tell John Faa about the witches, but they were all so busy, and she was so tired. After a fusing few minutes full of lantern light, woodsmoke, figures hurrying to and fro, she felt a gentle nip on her ear from Pantalaimons ermih, and woke to find the bears face a few inches from hers.

    “The witches,” Pantalaimon whispered. “I called lorek.”

    “Oh yeah,” she mumbled. “lorek, thank you for takihere and back. I might not remember to tell Lord Faa about the witches, so you better do that instead of me.”

    She heard the bear agree, and then she fell asleep properly.

    When she woke up, it was as close to daylight as it was ever going to get. The sky ale in the southeast, and the air was suffused with a gray mist, through which the gyptians moved like bulky ghosts, loading sledges and harnessing dogs to the traces.

    She saw it all from the shelter on Farder s sledge, inside which she lay under a heap of furs. Pantalaimon was fully awake before she was, trying the shape of an arctic fox before reverting to his favorite ermine.

    lorek Byrnison was asleep in the snow nearby, his head on his great paws; but Farder   and busy, and as soon as he saw Pantalaimon emerge, he limped across to wake Lyra properly.

    She saw him ing, and sat up to speak.

    “Farder , I know what it was that I couldnt uand! The alethiometer kept saying bird and not, and that didnt make sense, because it meant no daemon and I didnt see how it could be....What is it?”

    “Lyra, Im afraid to tell you this after what you done, but that little boy died an<dfn>9９lib?</dfn> ho. He couldle, he couldnt stay in one place; he kept asking after his daemon, where she was, was she a ing soon, and all; and he kept such a tight hold on that bare old piece of fish as if...Oh, I t speak of it, child; but he closed his eyes finally and fell still, and that was the first time he looked peaceful, for he was like any other dead person then, with their daemon gone in the course of nature. Theyve been a trying to dig a grave for him, but the earths bound like iron. So John Faa ordered a fire built, and theyre a going to cremate him, so as not to have him despoiled by carrioers.

    “Child, you did a brave thing and a good thing, and Im proud of you. Now we know what terrible wiess those people are capable of, we  see our duty plaihan ever. What you must do is rest a, because you fell asleep too soon to restore yourself last night, and you have to eat iemperatures to stop yourself getting weak....”

    He was fussing around, tug the furs into place, tightening the tension rope across the body of the sledge, running the traces through his hands to untahem.

    “Farder , where is the little boy now? Have they burned him yet?”

    “No, Lyra, hes a lying back there.”

    “I want to go and see him.”

    He couldnt refuse her that, for shed seen worse than a dead body, and it might calm her. So with Pantalaimon as a white hare bounding delicately at her side, she trudged along the line of sledges to where some men were piling brushwood.

    The boys body lay under a checkered bla beside the path. She k and lifted the bla in her mittened hands. One man was about to stop her, but the others shook their heads.

    Pantalaimo close as Lyra looked down on the poor wasted face. She slipped her hand out of the mitten and touched his eyes. They were marble-cold, and Farder  had been right; poor little Tony Makarios was no different from any other human whose daemon had departed ih. Oh, if they took Pantalaimon from her! She swept him up and hugged him as if she meant to press him right into her heart. And all little Tony had was his pitiful piece offish....

    Where was it?

    She pulled the bla down. It was gone.

    She was on her feet in a moment, and her eyes flashed fury at the men nearby.

    “Wheres his fish?”

    They stopped, puzzled, unsure what she meant; though some of their daemons knew, and looked at one another. One of the men began to grin uainly.

    “Dont you dare laugh! Ill tear your lungs out if you laugh at him! Thats all he had to g onto, just an old dried fish, thats all he had for a daemon to love and be kind to! Whos took it from him? Wheres it gone?”

    Pantalaimon was a snarling snow leopard, just like Lord Asriels daemon, but she didhat; all she saw was right and wrong.

    “Easy, Lyra,” said one man. “Easy, child.”

    “Whos took it?” she flared again, and the gyptian took a step back from her passionate fury.

    “I didnt know,” said another man apologetically. “I thought it was just what hed beeing. I took it out his hand because I thought it was more respectful. Thats all, Lyra.”

    “Then where is it?”

    The man said uneasily, “Not thinking he had a need for it, I gave it to my dogs.

    I do beg your pardon.”

    “It ent my pardon you need, its his,” she said, and tur oo kneel again, and laid her hand on the dead childs icy cheek.

    Then an idea came to her, and she fumbled inside her furs. The cold air struck through as she opened her anorak, but in a few seds she had what she wanted, and took a gold  from her purse before ing herself close again.

    “I want to borrow your knife,” she said to the man whod taken the fish, and when hed let her have it, she said to Pantalaimon: “What was her name?”

    He uood, of course, and said, “Ratter.”

    She held the ..ight in her left mittened hand and, holding the knife like a pencil, scratched the lost daemons name deeply into the gold.

    “I hope thatll do, if I provide for you like a Jordan Scholar,” she whispered to the dead boy, and forced his teeth apart to slip the  into his mouth. It was hard, but she ma, and mao close his jaw again.

    Then she gave the man back his knife and turned in the m twilight to go back to Farder .

    He gave her a mug of soup straight off the fire, and she sipped it greedily.

    “What we going to do about them witches, Farder ?” she said. “I wonder if your witch was one of them.”

    “My witch? I wouldnt presume that far, Lyra. They might be going anywhere.

    Theres all kinds of s that play on the life of witches, things invisible to us: mysterious siesses they fall prey to, which wed shrug off; causes of war quite beyond our uanding; joys and sorrows bound up with the fl of tiny plants up oundra....But I wish Id seen them a flying, Lyra. I wish Id been able to see a sight like that. Now drink up all that soup. Dyou want some more? Theres some pan-bread a cooking too. Eat up, child, because were on our way soon.”

    The food revived Lyra, and presently the chill at her soul began to melt. With the others, she went to watch the little half-child laid on his funeral pyre, and bowed her head and closed her eyes for John Faas prayers; and then the men sprinkled coal spirit a matches to it, and it was blazing in a moment.

    Ohey were sure he was safely burhey set off to travel again. It was a ghostly journey. Snow began to fall early on, and soon the world was reduced to the gray shadows of the dogs ahead, the lurg and creaking of the sledge, the biting cold, and a swirling sea of big flakes only just darker than the sky and only just lighter than the ground.

    Through it all the dogs tio run, tails high, breath puffing steam.

    North and further north they ran, while the pallid noontide came a and the twilight ed itself again around the world. They stopped to eat and drink a in a fold of the hills, and to get their bearings, and while John Faa talked to Lee Scoresby about the way they might best use the balloon, Lyra thought of the spy-fly; and she asked Farder  what had happeo the smokeleaf tirapped it in.

    “Ive got it tucked away tight,” he said. “Its down itom of that kit bag, but theres nothing to see; I soldered it shut on board ship, like I said I would. I dont know what were a going to do with it, to tell you the truth; maybe we could drop it down a fire mine, maybe that would settle it. But you  worry, Lyra. While Ive got it, youre safe.” The first ce she had, she plunged her arm down into the stiffly frosted vas of the kit bag and brought up the little tin. She could feel the buzz it was making before she touched it.

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