The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials 1)

And so he worked, thinking and planning and calculating, waiting for the one thing he needed to complete the task that so terrified the Oblation Board. It was drawing closer every minute.

Lyra's first glimpse of her father's prison came when lorek Byrnison stopped at the foot of a ridge for the children to move and stretch themselves, because they had been getting dangerously cold and stiff.

“Look up there,” he said.

A wide broken slope of tumbled rocks and ice, where a track had been laboriously cleared, led up to a crag outlined against the sky. There was no Aurora, but the stars were brilliant. The crag stood black and gaunt, but at its summit was a spacious building from which light spilled lavishly in all directions: not the smoky inconstant gleam of blubber lamps, nor the harsh white of anbaric spotlights, but the warm creamy glow of naphtha.

The windows from which the light emerged also showed Lord Asriel's formidable power. Glass was expensive, and large sheets of it were prodigal of heat in these fierce latitudes; so to see them here was evidence of wealth and influence far greater than lofur Raknison's vulgar palace.

Lyra and Roger mounted their bears for the last time, and lorek led the way up the slope toward the house. There was a courtyard that lay deep under snow, surrounded by a low wall, and as lorek pushed open the gate they heard a bell ring somewhere in the building.

Lyra got down. She could hardly stand. She helped Roger down too, and, supporting each other, the children stumbled through the thigh-deep snow toward the steps up to the door.

Oh, the warmth there would be inside that house! Oh, the peaceful rest!

She reached for the handle of the bell, but before she could reach it, the door opened. There was a small dimly lit vestibule to keep the warm air in, and standing under the lamp was a figure she recognized: Lord Asriel's manservant Thorold, with his pinscher daemon Anfang.

Lyra wearily pushed back her hood.

“Who…” Thorold began, and then saw who it was, and went on: “Not Lyra? Little Lyra? Am I dreaming?”

He reached behind him to open the inner door.

A hall, with a coal fire blazing in a stone grate; warm naphtha light glowing on carpets, leather chairs, polished wood… It was like nothing Lyra had seen since leaving Jordan College, and it brought a choking gasp to her throat.

Lord Asriel's snow-leopard daemon growled.

Lyra's father stood there, his powerful dark-eyed face at first fierce, triumphant, and eager; and then the color faded from it; his eyes widened, in horror, as he recognized his daughter.

“No! No!”

He staggered back and clutched at the mantelpiece. Lyra couldn't move.

“Get out!” Lord Asriel cried. “Turn around, get out, go! I did not send for you!”

She couldn't speak. She opened her mouth twice, three times, and then managed to say:

“No, no, I came because—”

He seemed appalled; he kept shaking his head, he held up his hands as if to ward her off; she couldn't believe his distress.

She moved a step closer to reassure him, and Roger came to stand with her, anxious. Their daemons fluttered out into the warmth, and after a moment Lord Asriel passed a hand across his brow and recovered slightly. The color began to return to his cheeks as he looked down at the two.

“Lyra,” he said. “That is Lyra?”

“Yes, Uncle Asriel,” she said, thinking that this wasn't the time to go into their true relationship. “I came to bring you the alethiometer from the Master of Jordan.”

“Yes, of course you did,” he said. “Who is this?”

“It's Roger Parslow,” she said. “He's the kitchen boy from Jordan College. But—”

“How did you get here?”

“I was just going to say, there's lorek Byrnison outside, he's brought us here. He came with me all the way from Trollesund, and we tricked lofur—”

“Who's lorek Byrnison?”

“An armored bear. He brought us here.”

“Thorold,” he called, “run a hot bath for these children, and prepare them some food. Then they will need to sleep. Their clothes are filthy; find them something to wear. Do it now, while I talk to this bear.”

Lyra felt her head swim. Perhaps it was the heat, or perhaps it was relief. She watched the servant bow and leave the hall, and Lord Asriel go into the vestibule and close the door behind, and then she half-fell into the nearest chair.

Only a moment later, it seemed, Thorold was speaking to her.

“Follow me, miss,” he was saying, and she hauled herself up and went with Roger to a warm bathroom, where soft towels hung on a heated rail, and where a tub of water steamed in the naphtha light.

“You go first,” said Lyra. “I'll sit outside and we'll talk.”

So Roger, wincing and gasping at the heat, got in and washed. They had swum naked together often enough, frolicking in the Isis or the Cherwell with other children, but this was different.

“I'm afraid of your uncle,” said Roger through the open door. “I mean your father.”

“Better keep calling him my uncle. I'm afraid of him too, sometimes.”

“When we first come in, he never saw me at all. He only saw you. And he was horrified, till he saw me. Then he calmed down all at once.”

“He was just shocked,” said Lyra. “Anyone would be, to see someone they didn't expect. He last saw me after that time in the Retiring Room. It's bound to be a shock.”

“No,” said Roger, “it's more than that. He was looking at me like a wolf, or summing.”

“You're imagining it.”

“I en't. I'm more scared of him than I was of Mrs. Coulter, and that's the truth.”

He splashed himself. Lyra took out the alethiometer.

“D'you want me to ask the symbol reader about it?” Lyra said.

“Well, I dunno. There's things I'd rather not know. Seems to me everything I heard of since the Gobblers come to Oxford, everything's been bad. There en't been nothing good more than about five minutes ahead. Like I can see now, this bath's nice, and there's a nice warm towel there, about five minutes away. And once I'm dry, maybe I'll think of summing nice to eat, but no further ahead than that. And when I've eaten, maybe I'll look forward to a kip in a comfortable bed. But after that, I dunno, Lyra. There's been terrible things we seen, en't there? And more a coming, more'n likely. So I think I'd rather not know what's in the future. I'll stick to the present.”

“Yeah,” said Lyra wearily. “There's times I feel like that too.”

So although she held the alethiometer in her hands for a little longer, it was only for comfort; she didn't turn the wheels, and the swinging of the needle passed her by. Pantalaimon watched it in silence.

After they'd both washed, and eaten some bread and cheese and drunk some wine and hot water, the servant Thorold said, “The boy is to go to bed. I'll show him where to go. His Lordship asks if you'd join him in the library, Miss Lyra.”

Lyra found Lord Asriel in a room whose wide windows overlooked the frozen sea far below. There was a coal fire under a wide chimneypiece, and a naphtha lamp turned down low, so there was little in the way of distracting reflections between the occupants of the room and the bleak starlit panorama outside. Lord Asriel, reclining in a large armchair on one side of the fire, beckoned her to come and sit in the other chair facing him.

“Your friend lorek Byrnison is resting outside,” he said. “He prefers the cold.”

“Did he tell you about his fight with lofur Raknison?”

“Not in detail. But I understand that he is now the king of Svalbard. Is that true?”

“Of course it's true. lorek never lies.”

“He seems to have appointed himself your guardian.”

“No. John Faa told him to look after me, and he's doing it because of that. He's following John Faa's orders.”

“How does John Faa come into this?”

“I'll tell you if you tell me something,” she said. “You're my father, en't you?”

“Yes. So what?”

“So you should have told me before, that's what. You shouldn't hide things like that from people, because they feel stupid when they find out, and that's cruel. What difference would it make if I knew I was your daughter? You could have said it years ago. You could've told me and asked me to keep it secret, and I would, no matter how young I was, I'd have done that if you asked me. I'd have been so proud nothing would've torn it out of me, if you asked me to keep it secret. But you never. You let other people know, but you never told me.”