The Rose Field, page 44
* * *
—
The harsh rattle of an air-cooled engine broke into Dilyara’s sleep. She hadn’t heard that sound for months, and she woke with a start and the thudding of her anxious blood. She was lying next to Strauss, but chastely, for warmth, and now she sat up, careful not to disturb him, and listened keenly. The truck, or whatever it was, was moving around the side of the station and into the space next to the loading bay. That was where the road took them; everything that supplied the station had to go that way.
She sat still, wondering whether to wake Strauss and warn him, or let him sleep. A little snore told her that he was probably better left unconscious.
She pulled the rug over him and stood up, gathering a blanket around herself. On bare cold feet she moved out of the little storeroom where they slept and along the corridor that led to the loading bay. The engine had stopped, and she could hear voices now too. Two men, or possibly three, speaking a language she didn’t know, but she recognized the tone of confidence and authority. They would claim they had a right to be here. They would deal with her easily, possibly violently, but certainly more like the clean wind of God than like the botanists and others who had worked here peacefully.
The outer door of the loading bay, a rolling metal shutter closed with a padlock, was rattling as they shook it from outside.
More voices. There was a side door, and they tried the handle. But it was locked as well.
A voice asked a question, and a deeper one replied dismissively. Footsteps moved along the side of the building, without urgency, and then the deep voice called something from further off, and a third voice answered. Dilyara thought she could hear a word or two in Chinese, but nothing she understood. She waited. She wondered if Chen had heard the truck from his comfortable bed in the village; he might be concerned about his camels, or eager to meet a buyer for them; but nothing else happened for five minutes or so, while she got colder and colder and the voices conversed indifferently.
Footsteps returning; an order from the deep voice; the engine wheezing and coughing as it turned over and caught; and after the rapidly diminishing rattle of the truck, silence lay over the station again.
Dilyara went back to bed, where she warmed her feet against Strauss’s legs. He didn’t wake up.
* * *
—
Lyra stood beside Malcolm for a minute getting a sense of everything: the sky filled with immense gryphon wings, the grassy ground studded all over with fires that gave off the smell of cooking and the tang of pine smoke, the swift here-and-there darting of witches taking messages or gathering herbs, voices rising in disputation or giving orders. Malcolm strode to the center, where Gulya and Prince Keshvād were waiting.
Lyra went with him, and Gulya raised her wings. For Lyra, who had never had time to look fully at a gryphon in daylight, it was a marvel to see her full-grown and beautiful, glowing with power and assurance, stretching out her wings and delighting in their majestic length. She reflected that the gryphons had a strangeness and a presence she had hardly known since her first glimpse of Iorek Byrnison. Prince Keshvād was more reserved than Gulya, dignified, almost haughty, but he saw the circlet around Lyra’s brow, and nodded deeply to her. She bowed her head in return.
Malcolm was already deep in conversation with another older gryphon, whose lion fur was scattered with white hairs and his eagle feathers deep bronze. They were looking at a map that Malcolm was unfolding. Lyra didn’t want to be in the way, so she wandered across the grassy headland, watching all the activity, wondering how an army of such beings provisioned itself, and what they used for weapons, if they needed anything apart from their terrifying beaks and claws, and how they could defend themselves against the forces of the Magisterium; and, all the time, of course, what she would find inside the red building, and what she could do about it.
She sat down at a spot overlooking the sea, and noticed two or three fishing boats already making their way out over the choppy waves. There was hardly any wind, but the sea was still disturbed after the storm; the sun dashed sparks of light from the water, and warmed her face and hands.
Lyra heard a rush of air through pine needles, and turned to see a witch alighting beside her, as if she were a particle manifesting itself in some great field of the air.
The witch said, “You are Lyra Silvertongue.”
She was young, and her voice was familiar.
“Have I seen you before?” Lyra said. “I seem to know your voice.”
“My mother was Serafina Pekkala.”
“Oh! And—”
“She died. She was killed by a missionary.”
She told Lyra the story as Pan had already heard it. Lyra wept.
“And you killed him?” she said when she could control her voice.
“The missionary, and everyone with him.”
“I’m glad to hear it. I loved Serafina more than I can say. Oh, and Farder Coram…”
She realized what the news would do to the old man, and found it hard to say any more.
“Coram? He was my father,” said the witch.
“No! Really? Did he know? Did you ever see him?”
“No. I only know what Serafina told me. They had a son, who died, and then I came after, but he had gone back to his people.”
“He never knew about you. This will be joyful news for him, except about Serafina…What’s your name?”
“Tuuli Latvala. I was the witch who fought the sorcerer with you last night.”
Lyra stood up and embraced her. The meeting would have been joyful; perhaps one day she’d look back and remember it with joy; but her feelings now were too strong for speech.
They wept together, and then felt calmer. Tuuli sat down beside Lyra, and they watched as the army gathered around them.
“When we heard that you were here, we had to come,” said Tuuli.
“Thank you. Thank you. For the first time I feel hopeful.”
“The first time for how long?”
Lyra told her about her unhappiness with Pan, and about the murder of Roderick Hassall, and about her and Malcolm’s discoveries in the dead man’s rucksack; everything.
“And who is that man, Malcolm?”
“He saved my life when he was a young boy and I was a baby. He…he is a very good friend.”
“Not lover?”
Lyra had forgotten how frank the witches could be. “Not, er…” she said carefully. “He, he made my coronet.”
Tuuli looked at it curiously. Her own, of bright forget-me-nots, was interwoven with her shining black hair. “He made that?”
“He’s an artificer from the realms of gold.”
“And he’s commanding this army.”
Tuuli looked around. Lyra thought she had the same eyes as Serafina; and if she was Coram’s daughter, she must be some years older than Lyra herself, though she looked so young.
“What do the witches know about this campaign?” Lyra asked.
“Someone is destroying the air and the seasons. The gryphons are going to find out who, and why.”
“Have witches ever fought beside gryphons before?”
“No, never. They are strange, aren’t they? The little one, in the cave, who fought the sorcerer…So fierce.”
“She killed him because he put a curse on her to make her stay young and small.”
“It’s a hard problem. There are some people so bad, all you can do is kill them.”
Lyra wondered if she agreed with that. She remembered Farder Coram—Tuuli’s father, after all—saying much the same thing when she last saw him.
They were looking out over the sea. Behind them a voice—a gryphon’s voice—shouted orders. They turned to watch, and saw Prince Keshvād spreading his wings and beating them so powerfully that Lyra and Tuuli felt the wind from where they sat. He threw his head back and uttered an eagle scream, and then leapt into the air, followed by dozens, hundreds of others, their gold-bronze-brown plumage glowing in the sun, their claws extended. They took off in ranks, disciplined and majestic, setting their course towards the east, following the prince and climbing higher and higher over the sea.
Lyra stood up and gathered her rucksack. “Stay close to me if you can,” she said to Tuuli. “I’d like to talk to you again.”
“Of course. We are sisters now.”
Malcolm was standing and beckoning to her, and Gulya stood next to him, looking all around at the gryphon warriors as they leapt into the air and sped up and over the sea, joining the great force ahead of them.
Lyra was more than nervous but not quite frightened as Malcolm helped her up onto the broadly muscled back of Gulya. She had little time to think; Malcolm cried out, “Yes!” to some words from the gryphon, and then the wide wings beat, and all the complex bones and muscles, nerves and blood and life surged up into the air, and Lyra clung to Malcolm as they left the ground behind and set off through the sky to Karamakan.
Twenty-Seven
The Bijou of Atlas
As soon as she woke up, Dilyara explained to Brynmor Strauss about the truck and the men in the night. It was hard, because the incident didn’t belong in the range of things their common language could manage, but he understood, and tried to reassure her: if they’d gone away, it was because they had no further interest in the station.
But as they were talking, a voice called from outside. It was Chen. Dilyara hadn’t told him about Strauss, and she was immediately afraid, for several reasons.
“Is that Chen?” said Strauss.
“I tell him go. He not know you here.”
“It doesn’t matter. I remember Chen. I’d like to talk to him.”
“No, no. He not…” She couldn’t find the words. In her own language she said, “He changed. He is violent and greedy now.”
But she said it quietly and without hope.
Chen called again, impatiently.
“I’m coming,” she called back in his language, and hurried to open the outside door.
He was wearing new clothes, and looking as if he had important things to do and she was holding him up.
“You get to work,” he snapped. “There are rich people coming to look at this place. Merchant people. I want it all clean, all tidy. You wash everything, clean everything.”
“Merchant people?” she said timidly.
“Not your business. I talk to rich people now. They want to buy all this, building and land, everything. You make it clean, you understand?”
He was standing on the threshold of the lobby, looking past her and gesturing contemptuously at everything behind her. Then he stopped and blinked with surprise, and took a step or two back. Dilyara looked round and saw Strauss standing behind her, still in the shabby robe and sandals he was wearing when he came out of the desert; after all, there were no other clothes.
Chen’s expression changed. It became angry and masterful. “Who are you?” he shouted. “What you doing here? Who let you into this building? You have no business here. You beggar, you vagrant! Get out!”
“I suppose you don’t recognize me, Chen,” said Strauss calmly. “I wasn’t dressed like this when you guided me and Dr. Hassall to the red building. It wasn’t all that long ago, either.”
He came forward into the sunlight, and Chen gaped. “You…” he said, searching for Strauss’s name.
“Dr. Strauss.”
“Yes, yes. Strauss. I know. You go to red building. You go in?”
“Yes, and came out again, as you see. We’ve changed places, you and I. I’m a beggar, as you say, and I see that you have become a rich man, Chen.”
“Yes. I make money. Camels.”
Chen was fretting and shaking with anxiety, and Dilyara knew why: he could hardly sell the building to these mysterious rich people if one of the scientists on the staff was still here.
Strauss said, “Camels, you say? You’ve got more camels now?”
“Yes, oh yes, plenty camels. You want buy camel? I sell you camel, or two, or three maybe, if you want leave. Right now. You got no money? I know you. I trust you, Dr. Strauss. You take camel, or two, you just go now, wherever you want. You know camels. You good rider, I remember you in the desert, very good. You take best camel, right now, you pay me later, I trust you. Good idea, no? Right now.”
“But I don’t want to go right now. I’m exhausted and ill. I need to rest first, and I can do that here.”
“No, no. Not here. Not rest here. You go to village. You go now and they give you food, they let you rest. House with green door, woman there. She give you food. You tell her Chen say. Go now.”
Strauss looked at Dilyara. She was looking down, expressionless. Chen, on the other hand, was fizzing with anxiety and impatience.
“I haven’t got the strength to argue with you, Chen. I know this place was raided. I know Dilyara has done a superb job of cleaning it up. What you’re planning, why you want me gone—I have no idea. I shall go to the village as you say. House with a green door?”
“Woman there. Tell her Chen say.”
“What is her name?”
Chen shook his head, baffled. Dilyara said, “Jamila.”
“Thank you. Jamila at the green door. I shall go when I’m ready.”
Chen was going to argue, but said nothing and shrugged.
Dilyara said, “Who are the rich people?”
Chen saw that Strauss was still looking at him, and said, “Just merchant people.”
Dilyara, daring, knowing that Strauss was still there, said, “And you want to sell this place to them?”
Chen replied in a torrent of words in a language Dilyara didn’t know. But she and Strauss both saw very clearly that he was angry, and that if Strauss hadn’t been there he would have struck her.
“What is this?” said Strauss. “Wait a minute. Let me understand. You’re trying to sell the station? To sell this place? It doesn’t belong to you. Who said you could do that?”
Chen was nonplussed for a moment. Then he looked at Strauss’s clothing, and at his own, and at Strauss’s dæmon, a frightened lemur half-starved and thin-furred, and then at his own, a plump and glossy rat; and he drew himself up.
He said, “What they see when they come here, hey? They see you, beggar, dirty poor ragged homeless tramp, maybe holy man, worth nothing, hey? Then they see me, rich, nice clothes, clean. Man of property. Man of distinction. You think they believe you? You stupid? Listen, you listen to me. This place not yours. Never yours. You don’t own this place. You just work here, they tell you what to do, you do it. Obey orders. That’s all you do. Now I give orders. I tell you—”
“You know who come last night?” said Dilyara.
Chen was so shocked to be interrupted that he ran out of things to say. She went on: “Men from the mountains. They come, they look around. You look on the road. You see truck marks. Look.”
She pulled at his sleeve, and Chen, astonished, let himself be tugged out of the lobby and across to the dusty road, where the tire marks from the truck were still sharp and clear. She led him round to the loading bay. It was as clear as a map: the men’s footprints moving from the locked shutter to the other door, the tracks as the truck reversed and drove out.
“When?” said Chen.
“Last night. Dark.”
“You no tell me!”
“I tell you now.”
She didn’t say any more; he could see the implications quite easily.
Strauss had come with them, and he was looking at the marks too.
“Three men,” he said. “Look. Three different shoes. Work boots, combat boots. This is the men from the mountains. They will come back and finish what they started. Destroy this place completely. This is not your rich men, your merchant people. Merchants don’t ride in trucks and wear combat boots. What will you tell them when they arrive?”
Chen was gaping. He looked from the footprints to the loading bay, from Strauss’s face to the desert horizon, from the tire marks to the village. Dilyara could see him calculating: sliding every possibility this way and that, adding, subtracting, flicking through the outcomes like beads on an abacus. None of them seemed good.
Suddenly he turned and hurried away, scuttling, half running, half stumbling, making for the village and his camels.
Dilyara looked at Strauss.
“And us?” she said. “What we do?”
* * *
—
Lyra knew it wasn’t going to be a comfortable flight. Gulya was big enough and strong enough to carry both Lyra and Malcolm, and Asta too, but it was something she’d never done before. Prince Keshvād had flown smoothly; no sudden turns or dives disturbed his riders. But Gulya, Lyra kept thinking, was as new to this business as Lyra herself was, and eager, besides, to enjoy the power of her large wings. So they soared, or lurched, or glided, or swung their way over the sea, and Lyra and Malcolm clung together for safety as much as for warmth.
“Do we know anything about the Magisterium’s army?” Lyra managed to say during a bumpy passage.
“Not much. Except that they have a new kind of weapon. They’ve been testing it on various…You call them windows?”
“Openings into other worlds? Yes.”
“They can’t close them, exactly, but they’ve found a way of destroying them with a bomb.”
“How do you know that?”
“The witches who came to make a treaty with the gryphons had seen them doing it.”
“So that’s what they’re going to Karamakan to do…They’ll shut the opening in there. The one that lets people get the roses.”
