SEVENTEEN - THE WITCHES-2

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    A wolf daemon leaped at him: he slashed at her in midair, and bright fire spilled out of her as she fell to the snow, where she hissed and howled before vanishing. Her huma once.

    The Tartar officer, faced with this double attack, didate. A long high scream of orders, and the force divided itself into two: oo keep off the witches, the bigger part to overe the bear. His troops were magnifitly brave. They dropped to one knee in groups of four and fired their rifles as if they were on the practice range, not budging an inch as loreks mighty bulk hurtled toward them. A moment later they were dead.

    lorek struck again, twisting to one side, slashing, snarling, crushing, while bullets flew about him like s or flies, doing no harm at all. Lyra urged the children on and out into the darkness beyond the lights. They must get away, because dangerous as the Tartars were, far more dangerous were the adults of Bolvangar.

    So she called and beed and pushed to get the children moving. As the lights behind them threw long shadows on the snow, Lyra found her heart moving out toward the deep dark of the arctiight and the  ess, leaping forward to love it as Pantalaimon was doing, a hare now delighting in his own propulsion.

    “Where we going?” someone said.

    “Theres nothing out here but snow!”

    “Theres a rescue party ing,” Lyra told them. “Theres fifty gyptians or more. I bet theres some relations of yours, too. All the gyptian families that lost a kid, they all sent someone.”

    “I ent a gyptian,” a boy said.

    “Dont matter. Theyll take you anyway.”

    “Where?” someone said querulously.

    “Home,” said Lyra. “Thats what I e here for, to rescue you, and I brung the gyptiao take you home again. We just got to go on a bit further and then well fihe bear was with em, so they t be far off.”

    “Dyou see that bear!” one boy was saying. “When he slashed open that daemon—the man died as if someone whipped his heart out, just like that!”

    “I never knew daemons could be killed,” someone else said.

    They were all talking now; the excitement and relief had loosened everyoongue. As long as they kept moving, it didnt matter if they talked.

    “Is that true,” said a girl, “about what they do back there?”

    “Yeah,” Lyra said. “I hought Id ever see ahout their daemon.

    But on the way here, we found this boy on his own without any daemon. He kept asking for her, where she was, would she ever find him. He was called Tony Makarios.”

    “I know him!” said someone, and others joined in: “Yeah, they took him away about a week back....”

    “Well, they cut his daemon away,” said Lyra, knowing how it would affect them.

    “And a little bit after we found him, he died. And all the daemons they cut away, they kept them in cages in a square building back there.”

    “Its true,” said Roger. “And Lyra let em out during the fire drill.”

    “Yeah, I seen “em!” said Billy Costa. “I didnt know what they was at first, but I seen em fly away with that goose.”

    “But why do they do it?” demanded one boy. “Why do they cut peoples daemons away? Thats torture! Why do they do it?”

    “Dust,” suggested someone doubtfully.

    But the boy laughed in s. “Dust!” he said. “There ent no such thing! They just made that up! I dont believe in it.”

    “Here,” said someone else, “look whats happening to the zeppelin!”

    They all looked back. Beyond the dazzle of lights, where the fight was still tinuing, the great length of the airship was not floating freely at the m mast any lohe free end was drooping downward, and beyond it was rising a globe of—

    “Lee Scoresbys ball<samp></samp>oon!” Lyra cried, and clapped her mit-tened hands with delight.

    The other children were baffled. Lyra herded them onward, w how the aeronaut had got his balloon that far. It was clear what he was doing, and what a good idea, to fill his balloon with the gas out of theirs, to escape by the same means that crippled their pursuit! “e on, keep moving, else youll freeze,” she said, for some of the children were shivering and moaning from the cold, and their daemons were g too in high thin voices. Pantalaimon found this irritating, and as a wolverine he s one girls squirrel daemon who was just lying across her shoulder whimpering faintly.

    “Get in her coat! Make yourself big and warm her up!” he snarled, and the girls daemon, frightened, crept inside her coal-silk anorak at once.

    The trouble was that coal silk wasnt as warm as proper fur, no matter how much it added out with hollow coal-silk fibers. Some of the children looked like walking puffballs, they were so bulky, but their gear had been made in factories and laboratories far away from the cold, and it couldnt really cope. Lyras furs looked ragged and they stank, but they kept the warmth in.

    “If we dont find the gyptians soon, they ent going to last,” she whispered to Pantalaimon.

    “Keep em moving then,” he whispered back. “If they lie down, theyre finished.

    You know what Farder  said....”

    Farder  had told her many tales of his own journeys in the North, and so had Mrs. Coulter—always supposing that hers were true. But they were both quite clear about one point, which was that you must keep going.

    “How far we gotta go?” said a little boy.

    “Shes just making us walk out here to kill us,” said a girl.

    “Rather be out here than back there,” someone said.

    “I wouldnt! Its warm ba the station. Theres food and hot drinks and everything.”

    “But its all on fire!”

    “What we going to do out here? I bet we starve to death....”

    Lyras mind was full of dark questions that flew around like witches, swift and untouchable, and somewhere, just beyond where she could reach, there was a glory and a thrill which she didnt uand at all.

    But it gave her a surge of strength, and she hauled one girl up out of a snowdrift, and shoved at a boy who was dawdling, and called to them all: “Keep going! Follow the bears tracks! He e up with the gyptians, so the tracksll lead us to where they are! J<var>.</var>ust keep walking!”

    Big flakes of snow were beginning to fall. Soon it would have covered lorek Byrnisons tracks altogether. Now that they were out of sight of the lights of Bolvangar, and the blaze of the fire was only a faint glow, the only light came from the faint radiance of the snow-cround. Thick clouds obscured the sky, so there was her moon nor Northern Lights; but by peering closely, the children could make out the deep trail lorek Byrnison had plowed in the snow.

    Lyra enced, bullied, hit, half-carried, swore at, pushed, dragged, lifted tenderly, wherever it was needed, and Pantalaimon (by the state of each childs daemon) told her what was needed in each case.

    Ill get them there, she kept saying to herself. I e here to get em and Ill bloody get em.

    Roger was following her example, and Billy Costa was leading the way, being sharper-eyed than most. Soon the snow was falling so thickly that they had to g on to one ao keep from getting lost, and Lyra thought, perhaps if we all lie close and keep warm like that...Dig holes in the snow...

    She was hearing things. There was the snarl of an engine somewhere, not the heavy thump of a zeppelin but something higher like the drone of a hor. It drifted in and out of hearing.

    And howling...Dogs? Sledge dogs? That too was distant and hard to be sure of, blaed by millions of snowflakes and blown this way and that by little puffing gusts of wind. It might have been the gyptians sledge dogs, or it might have been wild spirits of the tundra, or even those freed daemons g for their lost children.

    She was seeing things....There werent any lights in the snow, were there? They must be ghosts as well....Uheyd e round in a circle, and were stumbling bato Bolvangar.

    But these were little yellow lantern beams, not the white glare of anbaric lights. And they were moving, and the howling was nearer, and before she knew for certaiher shed fallen asleep, Lyra was wandering among familiar figures, and men in furs were holding her up: John Faas mighty arm lifted her clear of the ground, and Farder  was laughing with pleasure; and as far through the blizzard as she could see, gyptians were lifting children into sledges, c them with furs, giving them seal meat to chew. And Tony Costa was there, hugging Billy and then pung him softly only to hug him again and shake him for joy. And Roger...

    “Rogers ing with us,” she said to Farder . “It was him I meant to get in the first place. Well go back to Jordan in the end. Whats that noise—”

    It was that snarl again, that engine, like a crazed spy-fly ten thousand times the size.

    Suddenly there came a blow that sent her sprawling, and Pantalaimon couldnt defend her, because the golden monkey—

    Mrs. Coulter—

    The golden monkey was wrestling, biting, scratg at Pantalaimon, who was nickering through so many <bdi></bdi>ges of form it was hard to see him, and fighting back: stinging, lashing, tearing. Mrs. Coulter, meanwhile, her fa its furs a frozen glare of intense feeling, was dragging Lyra to the back of a motorized sledge, and Lyra struggled as hard as her daemon. The snow was so thick that they seemed to be isolated in a little blizzard of their own, and the anbaric headlights of the sledge only showed up the thick swirling flakes a few inches ahead.

    “Help!” Lyra cried, to the gyptians who were just there in the blinding snow and who could see nothing. “Help me! Farder ! Lord Faa! Oh, God, help!”

    Mrs. Coulter shrieked a high and in the language of the northern Tartars.

    The snow swirled open, and there they were, a squad of them, armed with rifles, and the wolf daemons snarled beside them. The chief saw Mrs. Coulter struggling, and picked up Lyra with one hand as if she were a doll and threw her into the sledge, where she lay stunned and dazed.

    A rifle banged, and then another, as the gyptians realized what was happening.

    But firing at targets you t see is dangerous when you t see your own side either. The Tartars, in a tight group now around the sledge, were able to blaze at will into the snow, but the gyptians dared not shoot back for fear of hitting Lyra.

    Oh, the bitterness she felt! The tiredness! Still dazed, with her head ringing, she hauled herself up to find Pantalaimon desperately fighting the moill, with wolverine jaws fasteight on a golden arm, ging no more but grimly hanging on. And who was that?

    Ner?

    Yes, Roger, battering at Mrs. Coulter with fists a, hurtling his head against hers, only to be struck down by a Tartar who swiped at him like someone brushing away a fly. It was all a phantasmagoria now: white, black, a swift green flutter across her visied shadows, raci<tt>?t>ng light—

    A great swirl lifted curtains of snow aside, and into the cleared area leaped lorek Byrnison, with a g and screech of iron on iron. A moment later and those great jaws snapped left, right, a paw ripped open a mailed chest, white teeth, black iron, red wet fur—

    Then something ulling her up, powerfully up, and she seized Roger too, tearing him out of the hands of Mrs. Coulter and ging tight, each childs daemon a shrill bird fluttering in amazement as a greater fluttering swept all around them, and then Lyra saw in the air beside her a witch, one of those elegant ragged black shadows from the high air, but close enough to touch; and there was a bow ichs bare hands, and she exerted her bare pale arms (in this freezing air!) to pull the string and then loose an arrow into the eye slit of a mailed and l Tartar hood only three feet away—

    And the arrow sped in and halfway out at the back, and the mans wolf daemon vanished in midleap even before he hit the ground.

    Up! Into midair Lyra and Roger were caught and swept, and found themselves ging with weakening fio a cloud-pine branch, where a young witch was sitting teh balanced grace, and then she leaned down and to the left and something huge was looming and there was the ground.

    They tumbled into the snow beside the basket of Lee Scoresbys balloon.

    “Skip inside,” called the Texan, “and bring your friend, by all means. Have ye seen that bear?”

    Lyra saw that three witches were holding a rope looped around a rock, anch the great buoyancy of the gas bag to the earth.

    “Get in!” she cried ter, and scrambled over the leatherbound rim of the basket to fall in a snowy heap inside. A moment later Roger fell on top of her, and then a mighty noise halfway between a roar and a growl made the very ground shake.

    “, lorek! On board, old feller!” yelled Lee Scoresby, and over the side came the bear in a hideous creak of wicker and bending wood.

    At ohe aeronaut lowered his arm in a signal, and the witches let go of the rope.

    The balloon lifted immediately and surged upward into the snow-thick air at a rate Lyra could scarcely believe. After a moment the ground disappeared in the mist, and up they went, faster and faster, so that she thought no rocket could have left the earth more swiftly. She lay holding on ter on the floor of the basket, pressed down by the acceleration.

    Lee Scoresby was cheering and laughing and uttering wild Texan yells of delight; lorek Byrnison was calmly unfastening his armor, hooking a deft claw into all the linkages and undoing them with a twist before pag the separate pieces in a pile. Somewhere outside, the flap and swish of air through cloud-pine needles and witch garments told that the witches were keeping them pany into the upper airs.

    Little by little Lyra recovered her breath, her balance, and her heartbeat. She sat up and looked around.

    The basket was much bigger thahought. Ranged around the edges were racks of philosophical instruments, and there were piles of furs, and bottled air, and a variety of other things too small or fusing to make out ihick mist they were asding through. “Is this a cloud?” she said.

    “Sure is.  your friend in some furs before he turns into an icicle. Its cold here, but its gon colder.” “How did you find us?”

    “Witches. Theres och lady who wants to talk to you. Whe clear of the cloud, well get our bearings and then we  sit and have a yarn.”

    “lorek,” said Lyra, “thank you for ing.” The bear grunted, aled down to lick the blood off his fur. His weight meant that the basket was tilted to one side, but that didnt matter. Roger was wary, but lorek Byrnison took no more notice of him than of a flake of snow. Lyra tented herself with ging to the rim of the basket, just under her  when she was standing, and peering wide-eyed into the swirling cloud.

    Only a few seds later the balloon passed out of the cloud altogether and, still rising rapidly, soared on into the heavens.

    What a sight! Directly above them the balloon swelled out in a huge curve. Above and ahead of them the Aurora was blazing, with more brilliand grahan she had ever seen. It was all around, or nearly, and they were nearly part of it. Great swathes of indesce trembled and parted like angels wings beating; cascades of lumi glory tumbled down invisible crags to lie in swirling pools or hang like vast waterfalls.

    Sasped at that, and then she looked below, and saw a sight almost more wondrous.

    As far as the eye could see, to the very horizon in all dires, a tumbled sea of white extended without a break. Soft peaks and vaporous chasms rose or opened here and there, but mostly it looked like a solid mass of ice.

    And rising through it in ones and twos and larger groups as well came small black shadows, thed figures of such elegance, witches on their branches of cloud-pine.

    They flew swiftly, without any effort, up and toward the balloon, leaning to one side or ao steer. And one of them, the archer whod saved Lyra from Mrs.

    Coulter, flew directly alongside the basket, and Lyra saw her clearly for the first time.

    She was young—youhan Mrs. Coulter; and fair, with bright green eyes; and clad like all the witches in strips of black silk, but wearing no furs, no hood or mittens. She seemed to feel no cold at all. Around her brow was a simple  of little red flowers. She sat on her cloud-pine branch as if it were a steed, and seemed to rein it in a yard from Lyras w gaze.

    “Lyra?”

    “Yes! And are you Serafina Pekkala?”

    “I am.”

    Lyra could see why Farder  loved her, and why it was breaking his heart, though she had knowher of those things a moment before. He was growing old; he was an old broken man; and she would be young feions.

    “Have you got the symbol reader?” said the witch, in a voice so like the high wild singing of the Aurora itself that Lyra could hardly hear the sense for the sweet sound of it.

    “Yes. I got it in my pocket, safe.”

    Great wis told of another arrival, and then he was gliding beside her: the gray goose daemon. He spoke briefly and then wheeled away to glide in a wide circle around the balloon as it tio rise.

    “The gyptians have laid waste to Bolvangar,” said Serafina Pekkala. “They have killed twenty-two guards and nine of the staff, and theyve set light to every part of the buildings that still stood. They are going to destroy it pletely.”

    “What about Mrs. Coulter?”

    “No sign of her.”

    “And the kids? They got all the kids safely?”

    “Every ohey are all safe.”

    Serafina Pekkala cried out in a wild yell, and other witches circled and flew in toward the balloon.

    “Mr. Scoresby,” she said. “The rope, if you please.”

    “Maam, Im very grateful. Were still rising. I guess well go on up awhile yet. How many of you will it take to pull us north?”

    “We are strong” was all she said.

    Lee Scoresby was attag a coil of stout rope to the leather-covered ir that gathered the ropes running over the gas bag, and from which the basket itself was suspended. When it was securely fixed, he threw the free end out, and at once six witches darted toward it, caught hold, and began to pull, urging the cloud-pine braoward the Polar Star.

    As the balloon began to move in that dire, Pan-talaimon came to per the edge of the basket as a tern. Rogers daemon came out to look, but crept back again soon, fer was fast asleep, as was lorek Byrnison. Only Lee Scoresby was awake, calmly chewing a thin cigar and watg his instruments.

    “So, Lyra,” said Serafina Pekkala. “Do you know why yoing to Lord Asriel?”

    Lyra was astonished. “To take him the alethiometer, of course!” she said.

    She had never sidered the question; it was obvious. Then she recalled her first motive, from so long ago that shed almost fotten it.

    “Or... To help him escape. Thats it. Were going to help him get away.”

    But as she said that, it sounded absurd. Escape from Svalbard? Impossible! “Try, anyway,” she added stoutly. “Why?”

    “I think there are things I o tell you,” said Serafina Pekkala.

    “About Dust?”

    It was the first thing Lyra wao know.

    “Yes, among other things. But you are tired now, and it will be a long flight.

    Well talk when you wake up.”

    Lyra yawned. It was a jaw-crag, lung-bursting yawn that lasted almost a minute, or felt like it, and for all that Lyra struggled, she could the onrush of sleep. Serafina Pekkala reached a hand over the rim of the basket and touched her eyes, and as Lyra sank to the floor, Pantalaimon fluttered down, ged to an ermine, and crawled to his sleeping place by her neck.

    The witch settled her branto a steady speed beside the basket as they moved north toward Svalbard.

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