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Chapter Thirteen

Fencing

Her first i with no daemon was like someone without a face, or with their ribs laid open and their heart torn out: soed to the world of night-ghasts, not the waking world of sense

So Lyra clung to Pantalaiht was, a sickly sweatcolder still

"Ratter," said the boy "You got my Ratter?"

Lyra was in no doubt what he meant

"No," she said in a voice as frail and frightened as she felt Then, "What’s your name?"

"Tony Makarios," he said "Where’s Ratter?"

"I don’t know" she began, and sed hard to govern her nausea "The Gobblers" But she couldn’t finish She had to go out of the shed and sit down by herself in the snow, except that of course she wasn’t by herself, she was never by herself, because Pantalaimon was always there Oh, to be cut from him as this little boy had been parted fro in the world! She found herself sobbing, and Pantalai too, and in both of them there was a passionate pity and sorrow for the half-boy

Then she got to her feet again

"Co voice "Tony, co to take you somewhere safe"

There was a stir of movement in the fish house, and he appeared at the door, still clutching his dried fish He was dressed in wararments, a thickly padded and quilted coal-silk anorak and fur boots, but they had a secondhand look and didn’t fit well In the wider light outside that caround he lookedin the lantern light by the fish racks

The villager who’d brought the lantern had retreated a few yards, and called down to them

lorek Byrnison interpreted: "He says youthe bear to kill hi the child away for theive one fish to pay for that"

The bear spoke The ue Lyra set his lantern down in the snow and took the half-boy’s hand to guide hi no surprise and no fear at the great white beast standing so close, and when Lyra helped him to sit on lorek’s back, all he said was:

"I dunno where my Ratter is"

"No, nor do we, Tony," she said "But we’llwe’ll punish the Gobblers We’ll do that, I proht if I sit up there too?"

"My arhs far more than children," he said

So she scra stiff fur, and Pantalaimon sat inside her hood, warm and close and full of pity Lyra knew that Pantalaimon’s impulse was to reach out and cuddle the little half-child, to lick hientle hireat taboo prevented that, of course

They rose through the village and up toward the ridge, and the villagers’ faces were open with horror and a kind of fearful relief at seeing that hideously reat white bear

In Lyra’s heart, revulsion struggled with compassion, and compassion won She put her arms around the skinny little form to hold him safe The journey back to the main party was colder, and harder, and darker, but it seemed to pass more quickly for all that lorek Byrnison was tireless, and Lyra’s riding beca off The cold body in her are, but he was inert; he sat stiffly withoutas the bear moved, so in another way he was difficult too

From time to time the half-boy spoke

"What’s that you said?" asked Lyra

"I says is she gonna knohere I am?"

"Yeah, she’ll know, she’ll find you and we’ll find her Hold on tight now, Tony It en’t far from here"

The bear loped onward Lyra had no idea how tired she was until they caught up with the gyptians The sledges had stopped to rest the dogs, and suddenly there they all were, Farder Cora forward to help and then falling back silent as they saw the other figure with Lyra She was so stiff that she couldn’t even loosen her arently open and lift her off

"Gracious God, what is this?" he said "Lyra, child, what have you found?"

"He’s called Tony," she h frozen lips "And they cut his daemon away That’s what the Gobblers do"

The men held back, fearful; but the bear spoke, to Lyra’s weary a them

"Shaht not have e, but you should be ashaht, lorek Byrnison," said John Faa, and turned to give orders "Build that fire up and heat some soup for the child For both children Farder Cora her over and we’ll get her warm"

"And the little boy," said soet war to tell John Faa about the witches, but they were all so busy, and she was so tired After a confusing fewto and fro, she felt a gentle nip on her ear from Pantalaimon’s ermine teeth, and woke to find the bear’s face a few inches from hers

"The witches," Pantalaimon whispered "I called lorek"

"Oh yeah," she ht not remember to tell Lord Faa about the witches, so you better do that instead of ree, and then she fell asleep properly

When she woke up, it was as close to daylight as it was ever going to get The sky was pale in the southeast, and the air was suffused with a gray hosts, loading sledges and harnessing dogs to the traces

She saw it all froe, inside which she lay under a heap of furs Pantalai the shape of an arctic fox before reverting to his favorite ermine

lorek Byrnison was asleep in the snow nearby, his head on his great paws; but Farder Corae, he limped across to wake Lyra properly

She saw hi, and sat up to speak

"Farder Coram, I knohat it was that I couldn’t understand! The alethio bird and not, and that didn’t make sense, because it meant no daemon and I didn’t see how it could beWhat is it?"

"Lyra, I’m afraid to tell you this after what you done, but that little boy died an hour ago He couldn’t settle, he couldn’t stay in one place; he kept asking after his dae soon, and all; and he kept such a tight hold on that bare old piece of fish as ifOh, I can’t speak of it, child; but he closed his eyes finally and fell still, and that was the first time he looked peaceful, for he was like any other dead person then, with their dae to dig a grave for him, but the earth’s bound like iron So John Faa ordered a fire built, and they’re a going to cremate him, so as not to have him despoiled by carrion eaters

"Child, you did a brave thing and a good thing, and I’m proud of you Noe knohat terrible wickedness those people are capable of, we can see our duty plainer than ever What you must do is rest and eat, because you fell asleep too soon to restore yourself last night, and you have to eat in these te weak"

He was fussing around, tucking the furs into place, tightening the tension rope across the body of the sledge, running the traces through his hands to untangle them

"Farder Coram, where is the little boy now? Have they burned hi back there"

"I want to go and see him"

He couldn’t refuse her that, for she’d seen worse than a dead body, and itdelicately at her side, she trudged along the line of sledges to where so brushwood

The boy’s body lay under a checkered blanket beside the path She knelt and lifted the blanket in her mittened hands One man was about to stop her, but the others shook their heads

Pantalaimon crept close as Lyra looked down on the poor wasted face She slipped her hand out of the mitten and touched his eyes They were ht; poor little Tony Makarios was no different from any other human whose daemon had departed in death Oh, if they took Pantalaied hiht into her heart And all little Tony had was his pitiful piece offish

Where was it?

She pulled the blanket down It was gone

She was on her feet in a moment, and her eyes flashed fury at the men nearby

"Where’s his fish?"

They stopped, puzzled, unsure what she h some of their daean to grin uncertainly

"Don’t you dare laugh! I’ll tear your lungs out if you laugh at hi onto, just an old dried fish, that’s all he had for a daemon to love and be kind to! Who’s took it froone?"

Pantalai snow leopard, just like Lord Asriel’s daeht and wrong

"Easy, Lyra," said one man "Easy, child"

"Who’s took it?" she flared again, and the gyptian took a step back from her passionate fury

"I didn’t know," said another ht it was just what he’d been eating I took it out his hand because I thought it was more respectful That’s all, Lyra"

"Then where is it?"

The ave it toyour pardon"

"It en’t my pardon you need, it’s his," she said, and turned at once to kneel again, and laid her hand on the dead child’s icy cheek

Then an idea came to her, and she fuh as she opened her anorak, but in a few seconds she had what she wanted, and took a gold coin froain

"I want to borrow your knife," she said to the man who’d taken the fish, and when he’d let her have it, she said to Pantalaimon: "What was her name?"

He understood, of course, and said, "Ratter"

She held the coin tight in her leftthe knife like a pencil, scratched the lost daeold

"I hope that’ll do, if I provide for you like a Jordan Scholar," she whispered to the dead boy, and forced his teeth apart to slip the coin into his ed to close his jaw again

Then she gave the o back to Farder Coraht off the fire, and she sipped it greedily

"What we going to do about them witches, Farder Coram?" she said "I wonder if your witch was one of them"

"My witch? I wouldn’t presu anywhere There’s all kinds of concerns that play on the life of witches, things invisible to us:off; causes of war quite beyond our understanding; joys and sorrows bound up with the flowering of tiny plants up on the tundraBut I wish I’d seen theht like that Now drink up all that soup D’you want so too Eat up, child, because we’re on our way soon"

The food revived Lyra, and presently the chill at her soul began to melt With the others, she went to watch the little half-child laid on his funeral pyre, and bowed her head and closed her eyes for John Faa’s prayers; and then the men sprinkled coal spirit and setin a moment