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lorek Byrnison’s paws h the snow The trees were thin and stunted here, for they were on the edge of the tundra, but there were brah them as if they were cobwebs

They cli outcrops of black rock, and were soon out of sight of the party behind them Lyra wanted to talk to the bear, and if he had been human, she would already be on fae and wild and cold that she was shy, al, his great legs swinging tirelessly, she sat with thePerhaps he preferred that anyway, she thought; shecub, only just past babyhood, in the eyes of an armored bear

She had seldom considered herself before, and found the experience interesting but unco the bear, in fact lorek Byrnison was pacing swiftly, s on one side of his body at the sa from side to side in a steady powerful rhythm She found she couldn’t just sit: she had to ride actively

They had been traveling for an hour or more, and Lyra was stiff and sore but deeply happy, when lorek Byrnison slowed down and stopped

"Look up," he said

Lyra raised her eyes and had to wipe them with the inside of her wrist, for she was so cold that tears were blurring theht of the sky The Aurora had faded to a pallid treht as diareat dark diamond-scattered vault, hundreds upon hundreds of tiny black shapes were flying out of the east and south toward the north

"Are they birds?" she said

"They are witches," said the bear

"Witches! What are they doing?"

"Flying to war, maybe I have never seen so many at one time"

"Do you know any witches, lorek?"

"I have served sohten Lord Faa If they are flying to the aid of your enemies, you should all be afraid"

"Lord Faa wouldn’t be frightened You en’t afraid, are you?"

"Not yet When I am, I shall master the fear But we had better tell Lord Faa about the witches, because the ht not have seen them"

Hethe sky until her eyes splintered again with tears of cold, and she saw no end to the nu north

Finally lorek Byrnison stopped and said, "There is the village"

They were looking down a broken, rugged slope toward a cluster of wooden buildings beside a wide stretch of snow as flat as could be, which Lyra took to be the frozen lake A wooden jetty showed her she was right They were no more than five minutes from the place

"What do you want to do?" the bear asked Lyra slipped off his back, and found it hard to stand Her face was stiff with cold and her legs were shaky, but she clung to his fur and staer

"There’s a child or a ghost or soe," she said, "or o and find hi hiht he was a ghost, but the sy I can’t understand"

"If he is outside," said the bear, "he had better have some shelter"

"I don’t think he’s dead," said Lyra, but she was far fro uncanny and unnatural, which was alarhter And as under her cohty bear How could she possibly show any fear? "Let’s just go and look," she said

She claain, and he set off down the broken slope, walking steadily and not pacing any e shtfully; and the reindeer in their enclosurelike dry sticks In the still air everyway

As they reached the first of the houses, Lyra looked to the right and left, peering hard into the di and the ht flickered under a snow-thick roof, and Lyra thought she saw pale faces behind soined their astonishreat white bear

At the center of the little village there was an open space next to the jetty, where boats had been drawn up, , and just as Lyra thought it must have wakened everyone, a door opened and aa rifle His wolverine dae snow

Lyra slipped down at once and stood between him and lorek Byrnison, conscious that she had told the bear there was no need for his armor

The man spoke in words she couldn’t understand lorek Byrnison replied in the saave a little moan of fear

"He thinks we are devils," lorek told Lyra "What shall I say?"

"Tell hiot friends who are And we’re looking forJust a child A strange child Tell him that"

As soon as the bear had said that, thesome place further off, and spoke quickly

lorek Byrnison said, "He asks if we have come to take the child away They are afraid of it They have tried to drive it away, but it keeps co back"

"Tell him we’ll take it aith us, but they were very bad to treat it like that Where is it?"

Thefearfully Lyra was afraid he’d fire his rifle by mistake, but as soon as he’d spoken he hastened inside his house and shut the door Lyra could see faces at every

"Where is the child?" she said

"In the fish house," the bear told her, and turned to pad doard the jetty

Lyra followed She was horribly nervous The bear washis head to sniff this way and that, and when he reached the door he stopped and said: "In there"

Lyra’s heart was beating so fast she could hardly breathe She raised her hand to knock at the door and then, feeling that that was ridiculous, took a deep breath to call out, but realized that she didn’t knohat to say Oh, it was so dark now! She should have brought a lantern

There was no choice, and anyway, she didn’t want the bear to see her being afraid He had spoken ofhis fear: that hat she’d have to do She lifted the strap of reindeer hide holding the latch in place, and tugged hard against the frost binding the door shut It opened with a snap She had to kick aside the snow piled against the foot of the door before she could pull it open, and Pantalai back and forth in his er little frightened sounds

"Pan, for God’s sake!" she said "Be a bat Go and look for me"

But he wouldn’t, and he wouldn’t speak either She had never seen hier in the crypt at Jordan hadskulls He was even htened than she was As for lorek Byrnison, he was lying in the snow nearby, watching in silence

"Come out," Lyra said as loud as she dared "Come out!"

Not a sound came in answer She pulled the door a little wider, and Pantalai at her in his cat foro now! Turn back!"

Trying to hold hi to his feet, and turned to see a figure hastening down the track froh to speak, he raised the lantern and held it to show his face: an old man with a broad, lined face, and eyes nearly lost in a thousand wrinkles His daemon was an arctic fox

He spoke, and lorek Byrnison said:

"He says that it’s not the only child of that kind He’s seen others in the forest Sometimes they die quickly, soh, he thinks But it would be better for him if he died"

"Ask him if I can borrow his lantern," Lyra said

The bear spoke, and the orously She realized that he’d co it to her, and thanked hiain and stood back, away from her and the hut and away froht suddenly: what if the child is Roger? And she prayed with all her force that it wouldn’t be Pantalaiain, his little claws hooked deep into her anorak

She lifted the lantern high and took a step into the shed, and then she sahat it was that the Oblation Board was doing, and as the nature of the sacrifice the children were having to ainst the wood drying rack where hung row upon row of gutted fish, all as stiff as boards He was clutching a piece of fish to hi Pantalaiainst her heart; but that was all he had, a piece of dried fish; because he had no daemon at all The Gobblers had cut it away That was intercision, and this was a severed child