Philip Pullman - The Subtle Knife

And then Lee saw something else: the Skraeling was wearing a ring with the Church's symbol engraved on it. Suddenly he realized the reason for the man's silence. Every philosophical research establishment, so he'd heard, had to include on its staff a representative of the Magisterium, to act as a censor and suppress the news of any heretical discoveries.

So, realizing this, and remembering something he'd heard Lyra say, Lee asked: «Tell me, gentlemen — do you happen to know if Grumman ever looked into the question of Dust?»

And instantly a silence fell in the stuffy little room, and everyone's attention focused on the Skraeling, though no one looked at him directly. Lee knew that Hester would remain inscrutable, with her eyes half-closed and her ears flat along her back, and he put on a cheerful innocence as he looked from face to face.

Finally he settled on the Skraeling, and said, «I beg your pardon. Have I asked about something it's forbidden to know?»

The Skraeling said, «Where did you hear mention of this subject, Mr. Scoresby?»

«From a passenger I flew across the sea a while back,» Lee said easily. «They never said what it was, but from the way it was mentioned it seemed like the kind of thing Dr. Grumman might have inquired into. I took it to be some kind of celestial thing, like the aurora. But it puzzled me, because as an aeronaut I know the skies pretty well, and I'd never come across this stuff. What is it, anyhow?»

«As you say, a celestial phenomenon,» said the Skraeling. «It has no practical significance.»

Presently Lee decided it was time to leave; he had learned no more, and he didn't want to keep Umaq waiting. He left the astronomers to their fogbound observatory and set off down the track, feeling his way along by following his daemon, whose eyes were closer to the ground.

And when they were only ten minutes down the path, something swept past his head in the fog and dived at Hester. It was the Skraeling's owl daemon.

But Hester sensed her coming and flattened herself in time, and the owl's claws just missed. Hester could fight; her claws were sharp, too, and she was tough and brave. Lee knew that the Skraeling himself must be close by, and reached for the revolver at his belt.

«Behind you, Lee,» Hester said, and he whipped around, diving, as an arrow hissed over his shoulder.

He fired at once. The Skraeling fell, grunting, as the bullet thudded into his leg. A moment later the owl daemon swooped with a clumsy fainting movement to his side, and half lay on the snow, struggling to fold her wings.

Lee Scoresby cocked his pistol and held it to the man's head.

«Right, you damn fool,» he said. «What did you try that for? Can't you see we're all in the same trouble now this thing's happened to the sky?»

«It's too late,» said the Skraeling.

«Too late for what?»

«Too late to stop. I have already sent a messenger bird. The Magisterium will know of your inquiries, and they will be glad to know about Grumman —»

«What about him?»

«The fact that others are looking for him. It confirms what we thought. And that others know of Dust. You are an enemy of the Church, Lee Scoresby. By their fruits shall ye know them. By their questions shall ye see the serpent gnawing at their heart….»

The owl was making soft hooting sounds and raising and dropping her wings fitfully. Her bright orange eyes were filming over with pain. There was a gathering red stain in the snow around the Skraeling; even in the fog-thick dimness, Lee could see that the man was going to die.

«Reckon my bullet must have hit an artery,» he said. «Let go my sleeve and I'll make a tourniquet.»

«No!» said the Skraeling harshly. «I am glad to die! I shall have the martyr's palm! You will not deprive me of that!»

«Then die if you want to. Just tell me this —»

But he never had the chance to complete his question, because with a bleak little shiver the owl daemon disappeared. The Skraeling's soul was gone. Lee had once seen a painting in which a saint of the Church was shown being attacked by assassins. While they bludgeoned his dying body, the saint's daemon was borne upward by cherubs and offered a spray of palm, the badge of a martyr. The Skraeling's face now bore the same expression as the saint's in the picture: an ecstatic straining toward oblivion. Lee dropped him in distaste.

Hester clicked her tongue.

«Shoulda reckoned he'd send a message,» she said. «Take his ring.»

«What the hell for? We ain't thieves, are we?»

«No, we're renegades,» she said. «Not by our choice, but by his malice. Once the Church learns about this, we're done for anyway. Take every advantage we can in the meantime. Go on, take the ring and stow it away, and mebbe we can use it.»

Lee saw the sense, and took the ring off the dead man's finger. Peering into the gloom, he saw that the path was edged by a steep drop into rocky darkness, and he rolled the Skraeling's body over. It fell for a long time before he heard any impact. Lee had never enjoyed violence, and he hated killing, although he'd had to do it three times before.

«No sense in thinking that,» said Hester. «He didn't give us a choice, and we didn't shoot to kill. Damn it, Lee, he wanted to die. These people are insane.»

«I guess you're right,» he said, and put the pistol away.

At the foot of the path they found the driver, with the dogs harnessed and ready to move.

«Tell me, Umaq,» Lee said as they set off back to the fish-packing station, «you ever hear of a man called Grumman?»

«Oh, sure,» said the driver. «Everybody know Dr. Grumman.»

«Did you know he had a Tartar name?»

«Not Tartar. You mean Jopari? Not Tartar.»

«What happened to him? Is he dead?»

«You ask me that, I have to say I don't know. So you never know the truth from me.»

«I see. So who can I ask?»

«You better ask his tribe. Better go to Yenisei, ask them.»

«His tribe … you mean the people who initiated him? Who drilled his skull?»

«Yes. You better ask them. Maybe he not dead, maybe he is. Maybe neither dead nor alive.»

«How can he be neither dead nor alive?»

«In spirit world. Maybe he in spirit world. Already I say too much. Say no more now.»

And he did not.

But when they returned to the station, Lee went at once to the docks and looked for a ship that could give him passage to the mouth of the Yenisei.

Meanwhile, the witches were searching too. The Latvian queen, Ruta Skadi, flew with Serafina Pekkala's company for many days and nights, through fog and whirlwind, over regions devastated by flood or landslide. It was certain that they were in a world none of them had known before, with strange winds, strange scents in the air, great unknown birds that attacked them on sight and had to be driven off with volleys of arrows; and when they found land to rest on, the very plants were strange.

Still, some of those plants were edible, and they found rabbits that made a tasty meal, and there was no shortage of water. It might have been a good land to live in, but for the spectral forms that drifted like mist over the grasslands and congregated near streams and low-lying water. In some lights they were hardly there at all, just visible as a drifting quality in the light, a rhythmic evanescence, like veils of transparency turning before a mirror. The witches had never seen anything like them before, and mistrusted them at once.

«Are they alive, do you think, Serafina Pekkala?» said Ruta Skadi as the witches circled high above a group of the things that stood motionless at the edge of a tract of forest.

«Alive or dead, they're full of malice,» Serafina replied. «I can feel that from here. And unless I knew what weapon could harm them, I wouldn't want to go closer than this.»