Philip Pullman - The Golden Compass

«In a balloon?»

«Yes.»

«Come with us. You are a prisoner. Move, now. Quickly.»

Weary and scared, Lyra began to stumble over the harsh and slippery rocks, following the bear, wondering how she could talk her way out of this.

The bears took Lyra up a gully in the cliffs, where the fog lay even more thickly than on the shore. The cries of the cliff-ghasts and the crash of the waves grew fainter as they climbed, and presently the only sound was the ceaseless crying of seabirds. They clambered in silence over rocks and snowdrifts, and although Lyra peered wide-eyed into the enfolding grayness, and strained her ears for the sound of her friends, she might have been the only human on Svalbard; and lorek might have been dead.

The bear sergeant said nothing to her until they were on level ground. There they stopped. From the sound of the waves, Lyra judged them to have reached the top of the cliffs, and she dared not run away in case she fell over the edge.

«Look up,» said the bear, as a waft of breeze moved aside the heavy curtain of the fog.

There was little daylight in any case, but Lyra did look, and found herself standing in front of a vast building of stone. It was as tall at least as the highest part of Jordan College, but much more massive, and carved all over with representations of warfare, showing bears victorious and Skraelings surrendering, showing Tartars chained and slaving in the fire mines, showing zeppelins flying from all parts of the world bearing gifts and tributes to the king of the bears, lofur Raknison.

At least, that was what the bear sergeant told her the carvings showed. She had to take his word for it, because every projection and ledge on the deeply sculpted facade was occu-pied by gannets and skuas, which cawed and shrieked and wheeled constantly around overhead, and whose droppings had coated every part of the building with thick smears of dirty white.

The bears seemed not to see the mess, however, and they led the way in through the huge arch, over the icy ground that was filthy with the spatter of the birds. There was a courtyard, and high steps, and gateways, and at every point bears in armor challenged the incomers and were given a password. Their armor was polished and gleaming, and they all wore plumes in their helmets. Lyra couldn't help comparing every bear she saw with lorek Byrnison, and always to his advantage; he was more powerful, more graceful, and his armor was real armor, rust-colored, bloodstained, dented with combat, not elegant, enameled, and decorative like most of what she saw around her now.

As they went further in, the temperature rose, and so did something else. The smell in lofur's palace was repulsive: rancid seal fat, dung, blood, refuse of every sort. Lyra pushed back her hood to be cooler, but she couldn't help wrinkling her nose. She hoped bears couldn't read human expressions. There were iron brackets every few yards, holding blubber lamps, and in their flaring shadows it wasn't always easy to see where she was treading, either.

Finally they stopped outside a heavy door of iron. A guard bear pulled back a massive bolt, and the sergeant suddenly swung his paw at Lyra, knocking her head over heels through the doorway. Before she could scramble up, she heard the door being bolted behind her.

It was profoundly dark, but Pantalaimon became a firefly, and shed a tiny glow around them. They were in a narrow cell where the walls dripped with damp, and there was one stone bench for furniture. In the farthest corner there was a heap of rags she took for bedding, and that was all she could see.

Lyra sat down, with Pantalaimon on her shoulder, and felt in her clothes for the alethiometer.

«It's certainly had a lot of banging about, Pan,» she whispered. «I hope it still works.»

Pantalaimon flew down to her wrist, and sat there glowing while Lyra composed her mind. With a part of her, she found it remarkable that she could sit here in terrible danger and yet sink into the calm she needed to read the alethiometer; and yet it was so much a part of her now that the most complicated questions sorted themselves out into their constituent symbols as naturally as her muscles moved her limbs: she hardly had to think about them.

She turned the hands and thought the question: «Where is lorek?»

The answer came at once: «A day's journey away, carried there by the balloon after your crash; but hurrying this way.»

«And Roger?»

«With lorek.»

«What will lorek do?»

«He intends to break into the palace and rescue you, in the face of all the difficulties.»

She put the alethiometer away, even more anxious than before.

«They won't let him, will they?» she said to Pantalaimon. «There's too many of 'em. I wish I was a witch, Pan, then you could go off and find him and take messages and all, and we could make a proper plan….»

Then she had the fright of her life.

A man's voice spoke in the darkness a few feet away, and said, «Who are you?»

She leaped up with a cry of alarm. Pantalaimon became a bat at once, shrieking, and flew around her head as she backed against the wall.

«Eh? Eh?» said the man again. «Who is that? Speak up! Speak up!»

«Be a firefly again, Pan,» she said shakily. «But don't go too close.»

The little wavering point of light danced through the air and fluttered around the head of the speaker. And it hadn't been a heap of rags after all; it was a gray-bearded man, chained to the wall, whose eyes glittered in Pantalaimon's luminance, and whose tattered hair hung over his shoulders. His daemon, a weary-looking serpent, lay in his lap, flicking out her tongue occasionally as Pantalaimon flew near.

«What's your name?» she said.

«Jotham Santelia,» he replied. «I am the Regius Professor of Cosmology at the University of Gloucester. Who are you?»

«Lyra Belacqua. What have they locked you up for?»

«Malice and jealousy…Where do you come from? Eh?»

«From Jordan College,» she said.

«What? Oxford?»

«Yes.»

«Is that scoundrel Trelawney still there? Eh?»

«The Palmerian Professor? Yes,» she said.

«Is he, by God! Eh? They should have forced his resignation long ago. Duplicitous plagiarist! Coxcomb!»

Lyra made a neutral sound.

«Has he published his paper on gamma-ray photons yet?» the Professor said, thrusting his face up toward Lyra's.

She moved back.

«I don't know,» she said, and then, making it up out of pure habit, «no,» she went on. «I remember now. He said he still needed to check some figures. And…He said he was going to write about Dust as well. That's it.»

«Scoundrel! Thief! Blackguard! Rogue!» shouted the old man, and he shook so violently that Lyra was afraid he'd have a fit. His daemon slithered lethargically off his lap as the Professor beat his fists against his shanks. Drops of saliva flew out of his mouth.

«Yeah,» said Lyra, «I always thought he was a thief. And a rogue and all that.»

If it was unlikely for a scruffy little girl to turn up in his cell knowing the very man who figured in his obsessions, the Regius Professor didn't notice. He was mad, and no wonder, poor old man; but he might have some scraps of information that Lyra could use.

She sat carefully near him, not near enough for him to touch, but near enough for Pantalaimon's tiny light to show him clearly.

«One thing Professor Trelawney used to boast about,» she said, «was how well he knew the king of the bears—»

«Boast! Eh? Eh? I should say he boasts! He's nothing but a popinjay! And a pirate! Not a scrap of original research to his name! Everything filched from better men!»

«Yeah, that's right,» said Lyra earnestly. «And when he does do something of his own, he gets it wrong.»