The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials 1)

“They usually bring more'n one kid at a time….”

“What do they do?” Lyra managed to ask, gathering her doped wits as Pantalaimon stirred into wakefulness with her.

“We dunno,” said the girl who was doing most of the talking. She was a tall, red-haired girl with quick twitchy movements and a strong London accent. “They sort of measure us and do these tests and that—”

“They measure Dust,” said another girl, friendly and plump and dark-haired.

“You don't know,” said the first girl.

“They do,” said the third, a subdued-looking child cuddling her rabbit daemon. “I heard 'em talking.”

“Then they take us away one by one and that's all we know. No one comes back,” said the redhead.

“There's this boy, right,” said the plump girl, “he reckons—”

“Don't tell her that!” said the redhead. “Not yet.”

“Is there boys here as well?” said Lyra.

“Yeah. There's lots of us. There's about thirty, I reckon.”

“More'n that,” said the plump girl. “More like forty.”

“Except they keep taking us away,” said the redhead. “They usually start off with bringing a whole bunch here, and then there's a lot of us, and one by one they all disappear.”

“They're Gobblers,” said the plump girl. “You know Gobblers. We was all scared of 'em till we was caught….”

Lyra was gradually coming more and more awake. The other girls' daemons, apart from the rabbit, were close by listening at the door, and no one spoke above a whisper. Lyra asked their names. The red-haired girl was Annie, the dark plump one Bella, the thin one Martha. They didn't know the names of the boys, because the two sexes were kept apart for most of the time. They weren't treated badly.

“It's all right here,” said Bella. “There's not much to do, except they give us tests and make us do exercises and then they measure us and take our temperature and stuff. It's just boring really.”

“Except when Mrs. Coulter comes,” said Annie.

Lyra had to stop herself crying out, and Pantalaimon fluttered his wings so sharply that the other girls noticed.

“He's nervous,” said Lyra, soothing him. “They must've gave us some sleeping pills, like you said, 'cause we're all dozy. Who's Mrs. Coulter?”

“She's the one who trapped us, most of us, anyway,” said Martha. “They all talk about her, the other kids. When she comes, you know there's going to be kids disappearing.”

“She likes watching the kids, when they take us away, she likes seeing what they do to us. This boy Simon, he reckons they kill us, and Mrs. Coulter watches.”

“They kill us?” said Lyra, shuddering.

“Must do. 'Cause no one comes back.”

“They're always going on about daemons too,” said Bella. “Weighing them and measuring them and all…”

“They touch your daemons?”

“No! God! They put scales there and your daemon has to get on them and change, and they make notes and take pictures. And they put you in this cabinet and measure Dust, all the time, they never stop measuring Dust.”

“What dust?” said Lyra.

“We dunno,” said Annie. “Just something from space. Not real dust. If you en't got any Dust, that's good. But everyone gets Dust in the end.”

“You know what I heard Simon say?” said Bella. “He said that the Tartars make holes in their skulls to let the Dust in.”

“Yeah, he'd know,” said Annie scornfully. “I think I'll ask Mrs. Coulter when she comes.”

“You wouldn't dare!” said Martha admiringly.

“I would.”

“When's she coming?” said Lyra.

“The day after tomorrow,” said Annie.

A cold drench of terror went down Lyra's spine, and Pantalaimon crept very close. She had one day in which to find Roger and discover whatever she could about this place, and either escape or be rescued; and if all the gyptians had been killed, who would help the children stay alive in the icy wilderness?

The other girls went on talking, but Lyra and Pantalaimon nestled down deep in the bed and tried to get warm, knowing that for hundreds of miles all around her little bed there was nothing but fear.

Fifteen

The Daemon Cages

It wasn't Lyra's way to brood; she was a sanguine and practical child, and besides, she wasn't imaginative. No one with much imagination would have thought seriously that it was possible to come all this way and rescue her friend Roger; or, having thought it, an imaginative child would immediately have come up with several ways in which it was impossible. Being a practiced liar doesn't mean you have a powerful imagination. Many good liars have no imagination at all; it's that which gives their lies such wide-eyed conviction.

So now that she was in the hands of the Oblation Board, Lyra didn't fret herself into terror about what had happened to the gyptians. They were all good fighters, and even though Pantalaimon said he'd seen John Faa shot, he might have been mistaken; or if he wasn't mistaken, John Faa might not have been seriously hurt. It had been bad luck that she'd fallen into the hands of the Samoyeds, but the gyptians would be along soon to rescue her, and if they couldn't manage it, nothing would stop lorek Byrnison from getting her out; and then they'd fly to Svalbard in Lee Scoresby's balloon and rescue Lord Asriel.

In her mind, it was as easy as that.

So next morning, when she awoke in the dormitory, she was curious and ready to deal with whatever the day would bring. And eager to see Roger—in particular, eager to see him before he saw her.

She didn't have long to wait. The children in their different dormitories were woken at half-past seven by the nurses who looked after them. They washed and dressed and went with the others to the canteen for breakfast.

And there was Roger.

He was sitting with five other boys at a table just inside the door. The line for the hatch went right past them, and she was able to pretend to drop a handkerchief and crouch to pick it up, bending low next to his chair, so that Pantalaimon could speak to Roger's daemon Salcilia.

She was a chaffinch, and she fluttered so wildly that Pantalaimon had to be a cat and leap at her, pinning her down to whisper. Such brisk fights or scuffles between children's daemons were common, luckily, and no one took much notice, but Roger went pale at once. Lyra had never seen anyone so white. He looked up at the blank haughty stare she gave him, and the color flooded back into his cheeks as he brimmed over with hope, excitement, and joy; and only Pantalaimon, shaking Salcilia firmly, was able to keep Roger from shouting out and leaping up to greet his best friend, his comrade in arms, his Lyra.

But he saw how she looked away disdainfully, and he followed her example faithfully, as he'd done in a hundred Oxford battles and campaigns. No one must know, of course, because they were both in deadly danger. She rolled her eyes at her new friends, and they collected their trays of cornflakes and toast and sat together, an instant gang, excluding everyone else in order to gossip about them.

You can't keep a large group of children in one place for long without giving them plenty to do, and in some ways Bolvangar was run like a school, with timetabled activities such as gymnastics and “art.” Boys and girls were kept separate except for breaks and mealtimes, so it wasn't until midmorning, after an hour and a half of sewing directed by one of the nurses, that Lyra had the chance to talk to Roger. But it had to look natural; that was the difficulty. All the children there were more or less at the same age, and it was the age when most boys talk to boys and girls to girls, each making a conspicuous point of ignoring the opposite sex.

She found her chance in the canteen again, when the children came in for a drink and a biscuit. Lyra sent Pantalaimon, as a fly, to talk to Salcilia on the wall next to their table while she and Roger kept quietly in their separate groups. It was difficult to talk while your daemon's attention was somewhere else, so Lyra pretended to look glum and rebellious as she sipped her milk with the other girls. Half her thoughts were with the tiny buzz of talk between the daemons, and she wasn't really listening, but at one point she heard another girl with bright blond hair say a name that made her sit up.

It was the name of Tony Makarios. As Lyra's attention snapped toward that, Pantalaimon had to slow down his whispered conversation with Roger's daemon, and both children listened to what the girl was saying.