The Rose Field, page 20
I made a coffin out of cedar once, Mr. Taphouse had told him. This old boy wanted to keep the moths out of his grave. Well, the customer’s always right, Malcolm, even when he’s wrong.
“What’s that?” said Pan, perching on the edge and looking down at the folded cloth inside.
Malcolm held it up and found a robe, several in fact, of heavy velvets and brocades, as well as shawls of silk. He took the largest robe and put it on. It was deep blue velvet, and only just big enough.
“That’s a bit warmer. I wonder who it used to belong to.”
“There’s a hat as well.”
It was a cap of astrakhan. Malcolm tried it on, and put it back.
“Later, maybe. We’ll have to decide what to do about this man-of-gold business. Who thought of that? Was that you, or was it Gulya?”
“Not guilty,” said Pan. “She brought it up first. I just thought it might be useful if they saw you as valuable rather than…not.”
“You said she was under a spell.”
“Yes. She’s small because a sorcerer put a curse on her—she’d normally be the same size as the others. If she kills him, the curse will be lifted.”
“Who is this sorcerer?”
“A man called Sorush.”
“A man, not a gryphon?”
“A man, or…something else. A devil, perhaps. He has gryphon slaves, who can’t leave because he cuts their wings off when they’re young and small. He’s hoarded immense quantities of gold, so all gryphons know about him, and they all hate and fear him, but they don’t know how to fight him.”
“Does he live among these mountains?”
“I don’t know…Why do you want to know about him?”
“Thinking ahead.”
“Oh…Where is this mountain, Damāvand, anyway? Have you heard of it?”
“I think it’s just south of the Caspian Sea,” Malcolm said. “But I’m sure of very little. I’d like to talk to Gulya, though.”
It was still strange, talking to Pan and not Asta; but it was easy too, as if they both felt the existence of a large body of shared understanding.
There was a knock at the door, and the servant Darius came in without waiting and bowed.
“We are ready,” said Malcolm. “You can take us to the Queen.”
Darius nodded, and stood aside to let them leave the room first. Outside the great hall they found the vizier waiting, and Gulya, and an attendant group of gryphon guards.
No one spoke. The vizier gave no sign of acknowledgment before stalking away along the corridor. Malcolm and Pan followed, with Gulya, and the guards came behind them. They entered the great hall, where the sunlight striking in through the pillared gallery lit up something that hadn’t been there before: a massive carpet covering almost the entire floor, glowing with reds and blues, yellows and greens, browns and blacks and creams in an intricate design that once again, to Malcolm, showed the work of human hands.
Pan was remembering another occasion, long before: when he and Lyra had entered the palace of Iofur Raknison, the usurper king of the armored bears. It would be something to tell Malcolm about one day. He’d had to hide in Lyra’s pocket then, in the shape of a mouse, because she had a plan to trick Iofur, and it was vital that Pan should keep out of sight. But Iofur’s palace was grotesque and ugly, covered in meaningless decoration and filthy with the mess of thousands of birds, and it stank of dung and heavy perfume.
By contrast this palace was clean and austere, and it smelled of nothing but snow and mountain air. The only colors they had seen were those on the carpet in the great hall, and the gryphons clearly had more interest in proportion than in the sort of extravagant decorative elaboration that Iofur Raknison was impressed by. The carpet was all the more striking because of the contrast it made with everything else, and because it must have been rolled out and laid in the few minutes Malcolm and Pan had been on their own in the visitors’ suite.
They were both expecting some sort of ceremony to announce the Queen—a procession perhaps, or music, or a formal address—but that was because although neither of them had been in the presence of royalty in England, they were both creatures of Oxford, where little happened without ceremony.
But there was none of that here. One moment the Queen was nowhere in sight, and the next she stepped out of a passageway and into the brilliant sunlight on the carpet.
There was no doubt who she was. She was taller than most of them, and older, with some white feathers among the eagle-brown of her plumage, but it was mainly something in her bearing, a grandeur and confidence, a steady luminous authority that compelled their respect. Malcolm realized at once that they would both have to be very careful indeed. Who had cut out the servant’s tongue?
He moved as if to make room for her, but in fact so as to stand fully in the sunlight. Then he bowed and said very clearly:
“Your Majesty, my name is Malcolm, and my companion is Pan. I offer you greetings from my land.”
“You did not come here to do that,” she said. Her voice was harsh, as an eagle’s would be, but rich with an almost human expressiveness. Again Malcolm thought: Careful.
“No, Your Majesty. Your people rescued me and my companion from great danger, for which we are deeply grateful. We are traveling eastwards far from our own country to look for something precious that was lost. I think we shall have much further to travel before we can find it.”
“My attendant Gulya has told me some things I find hard to understand. What is this precious thing that is lost?”
“Imagination,” said Malcolm.
“Explain that to me.”
“May I speak, Your Majesty?” said Pan.
The Queen turned to him. Gulya, standing nearby, was absolutely still, but Malcolm thought he could see in her wide eyes the terror she must have been feeling. Pan stepped forward into the sunlight next to Malcolm.
“Do you know what this imagination is, then?” the Queen said.
“I believe you have two kingdoms, Your Majesty, an outer kingdom and an inner one. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“We human beings—or some of us—believe the same. Some of us don’t, but many of us do. The way we move between the outer kingdom and the inner one is the imagination.”
The Queen seemed to be pondering this. Her head moved gently as she looked from Pan to Malcolm, to the courtiers around her, to the great mountains beyond the terrace.
Her gaze came back to Pan.
“You have all lost this thing?”
“No,” he said. “Just the human girl who is the other part of me. It’s her imagination we’re going to seek.”
Malcolm remembered the folded pages Ionides had given him under the orange tree of the villa: the speech Marcel Delamare had given, or was going to give, about The imagination, a false, seductive, and dangerous doctrine. Did the gryphons really not know anything about the imagination? Or did they have another word for it?
The Queen spoke again. “And you want to continue this search?”
“More than anything else, Your Majesty.”
Another silence, as she looked at the vizier, and at Gulya, and at Pan, and back to Malcolm again.
“And I hear you are a craftsman,” she said. “An artificer.”
“In the realms of gold from which I come, the artificer is the highest-ranking person in the kingdom.”
She nodded slowly, seeming to consider the matter.
“That is right,” she said. “Well, Artificer Malcolm, you may stay here until you have performed a task for me. I have an item in my treasury that is damaged. You will work on it for me. Restore it to its original state, and we shall convey you anywhere in the world you wish to go. Until I am satisfied, you will remain here.”
She nodded, and the vizier stood aside for a man in a jeweler’s apron to come forward. He was holding something in a cloth. He laid it on the carpet and lifted the cloth aside, and both Pan and Malcolm felt a shock of surprise.
The object was about the size of Malcolm’s hand. It was made of shining gold, crushed and twisted and torn. There was a dial of ivory, cracked in half, and various wheels and cogs and levers, some loose and hanging out, and it was clear that it would never work again, but there was no doubt. It was—it had been—an alethiometer.
Twelve
Resonating Lodestone
Away from the gryphons and back in their quarters, Malcolm said at once, “It is hers, isn’t it? I don’t know why I’m asking, actually. Of course it’s hers. It’s the same one I stole from Gerard Bonneville.”
He laid it on the table, next to his lodestone, and lifted back the cloth. Pan peered at it hungrily, trembling, touching it here and there.
“Yes,” he whispered. “What can have happened?”
“Someone stole it, and then smashed it up. Or dropped it from a height. That’s all we can tell.”
“It keeps being stolen,” said Pan. “A gryphon must have stolen it from Lyra. But we better not say ‘steal.’ They seem to think they have a right to all the gold that exists. But how on earth can you mend it?”
Malcolm was turning it round in his hands, looking at it from every angle. It was crushed and cracked and twisted, and there was no way of knowing what pieces were missing. An expert reader of the instrument would see it with horror, and imagine that it would never work again; a clockmaker would see it as a technical problem, and have the tools to take it apart and put things straight, but might not be able to imagine its function. What could Malcolm do?
“Look! Words,” said Pan, as a line of handwriting appeared on the lodestone.
Malcolm put down the alethiometer and read:
OS to MP
Polstead, where the hell are you? What are you doing? Reply as soon as you’ve read this.
The Magisterium has discovered something we had not suspected. At various points on the earth there exist anomalous features that seem to function like openings or doorways into spaces not otherwise contiguous. The Barnard-Stokes hypothesis might be applicable here.
There are seventeen of these places known about and listed, and another eight suspected but not examined. The Magisterium is aware of the implications of this phenomenon for the foundations of their theology. Until recently only three people knew about them: the discoverer, Hugo Beamish, a geographer in the employment of the Magisterium, whose whereabouts are now unknown; the Magisterial President, Marcel Delamare; and a Colonel Wolfgang Schreiber, who is charged by Delamare to find these things and destroy them. So far he has succeeded in doing that with three of them, by thermobaric explosion. The third explosion, in a forested part of eastern Belgium, was fortuitously witnessed by an OS agent, who subsequently investigated and managed to acquire the papers from which Colonel Schreiber was working. It doesn’t look good for Schreiber, but they won’t be so careless again.
Now tell me where the hell you are and what you’re doing.
Godwin
Malcolm said to Pan, “I’ll come back to the alethiometer later. Better answer this.”
Pan crouched down close and peered at the instrument from every angle, while Malcolm wrote:
MP to OS
Sorry. I was interrupted. I am at the summit of Mount Damāvand, which as far as I remember is near the southern edge of the Caspian Sea. I am a captive, and escape looks very difficult. My captors are the subjects of Queen Shahrnavāz, whose realm extends as far east as Sinkiang, and possibly further. They think I am valuable to them, and will guard me fiercely. By chance they’ve come into the possession of an alethiometer, broken almost beyond repair. And they want me to repair it. Then, I hope, they will let us leave.
Please tell me all you know about the Magisterium plan. I think I know a little about these openings.
Polstead
OS to MP
Openings listed and verified by Beamish (those marked * destroyed by Schreiber). Precise details of location too long to transcribe now, but available if necessary.
Switzerland*
French Alps
Italian Alps*
Belgium*
Normandy
North Wales
Spanish Pyrenees
Tunisia
Madagascar
Yemen
Azerbaijan
Muscovy, Velikhi Novgorod region
Mongolia, Yolyn Am region
Java, Bandung region
Alaska, Brooks Range region
Brazil, São Paulo region
Australia, Gibson Desert
Listed by Beamish but not verified:
Karelia region
Lop Nor/Karamakan
Morocco/Atlas Mountains
Haiti
Nippon, Hokkaido region
Jordan, Petra region
Sweden, Falun region
Crete
Lot of time on your hands, Polstead? Let me know when you feel like moving on. Oh, and find out about the alkahest.
Godwin
MP to OS
Alkahest? Never heard of it. Will inquire when time allows. Captive with me by chance is Pantalaimon, the dæmon of Lyra Silvertongue. You know I can separate from my dæmon; Lyra and Pan have the same faculty. Ten or eleven years ago, he tells me, he and Lyra made a journey to the far north, in the course of which they encountered various “openings” of the sort you describe (let’s call them that). They are formed by human action, though possibly some occur naturally. You are correct about the Barnard-Stokes idea. The openings lead to other worlds, other universes. There seems to be an infinity of such worlds. Naturally the Magisterium would want to close as many openings as it could find. Doubtless Beamish’s list is the result of great effort on his part, but I guess there are many more he didn’t find.
Please let me know as much as you can about the Lop Nor one. I think that is the source of the rose material.
Also about Colonel Schreiber’s attempts to destroy them. What effect did thermobaric explosive have? Did they close up completely?
Also about the Magisterium’s reaction to the theft of Schreiber’s papers.
I shall be able to move on as soon as I have repaired the broken alethiometer. It is made of gold; the Queen and her subjects are obsessed by that metal. To be precise, rendered insane by desire for it. Her palace is built at the very summit of this mountain, and there is absolutely no access except from the sky. They flew me and Pan here, and they will have to fly us out, or keep us here forever.
As for Lyra Silvertongue, I last heard of her in Aleppo, but I know she is traveling east, with the aim of reaching a certain point in the Karamakan desert, possibly the Lop Nor place on Beamish’s list.
Polstead
OS to MP
Thermobaric explosive partially successful at best. Can’t destroy opening entirely—leaves small ragged gaps in the air—but does make it impossible for human being to pass through. Given that locations are generally difficult of access, little danger of discovery. Magisterium now working on improved & more powerful version of bomb, or better way of directing force of explosion. President intensely determined to make this work, also set up task force under Schreiber to work on closing all known openings. You said “formed by human action”—more information needed. Also about this Queen Shahrnavāz.
All you know, and soon.
DO NOT LET THIS DISTRACT YOU FROM YOUR MAIN TASK.
Godwin
“Later,” said Malcolm, and turned back to the alethiometer. He turned it around and looked at it dispassionately. “What I’m going to do is take it apart first and see what’s missing. The case doesn’t actually matter as far as I know—it’s the mechanism that’s important when it comes to reading it, but since the parts inside aren’t made of gold, they won’t mean much to the gryphons. I could do something with the gold of the case, and make a separate box to hold the workings safe till I can get it back to Lyra.”
“You think we’ll find her?”
“Don’t you?”
“Well…I hope we will.”
“Hold on to that. Now, let’s see what’s missing. The glass, obviously. I don’t think it was smashed, though. Someone’s unscrewed it, because the frame’s just not there, and there are no broken bits of glass. It was crushed like this after the glass was taken out. The frame was screwed to the rim, here…Well, that’s interesting.”
“What?”
“It screws up counterclockwise. See the way the thread goes, there?” He pointed, and Pan looked closely. “The first contact I had with Hannah Relf involved a carved wooden acorn that unscrewed like this, backwards. I saw her unscrew it and I knew it was meant to be for her, because otherwise she’d have tried to do it the other way, counterclockwise. And this is the same…Did Lyra ever open it up to look inside it?”
“No. It would never have occurred to us.”
The golden case was crushed so out of shape that it looked as if it had been held tightly in a mighty claw. Malcolm turned it round and round, looking for any other clues.
“The dial’s cracked,” said Pan.
The thirty-six symbols around the outer rim of the dial, whose meanings he and Lyra had pondered for so many hours, had been painted with a brush so small it might as well have been a single hair. Seeing them not through the glass for the first time, but with the naked eye, Pan and Malcolm both wondered at the exquisite precision of the work. Each symbol was painted on a rectangular slip of ivory held in place by a slender golden frame. They were all there, but a great crack had split the entire face in half, and two of the hands were badly bent.
“The needle!” said Pan. “It’s not there.”
“You know it much better than I do. Remind me what the needle looked like.”
“Very slender, with a sharp point. Different color from the hands, and it moved independently. Has it fallen off the axle thing in the middle? The spindle?”
