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A on her back, a heavy puzzlee to reach the sleeping girl?

She came to the rock where the woman had told her to leave the food She put it down, but she didn’t go straight hoh the thick rhododendrons, and farther up still to where the trees thinned out and the rainbows began

There she and her daeame: they clireen-white cataracts, past the whirlpools and through the spectrum tinted spray, until her hair and her eyelids and his squirrel fur were beaded all over with a et to the top without wiping your eyes, despite the teht sparkled and fractured into red, yellow, green, blue, and all the colors in between, but she ot right to the top, or the ga to a rock near the top of the little waterfall, and she knew he’d turn at once to make sure she didn’t brush the moisture off her eyelashes - except that he didn’t

Instead, he clung there, gazing forward

Aa As she pulled herself up to look over the edge, she gasped and fell still, because looking down at her was the face of a creature she had never seen before: a bear, but i, four times the size of the brown bears in the forest, and ivory white, with a black nose and black eyes and claws the length of daggers He was only an arth away She could see every separate hair on his head

"Who’s that?" said the voice of a boy, and while Aht the sense easily enough

After a , with frowning eyes and a jutting jaw And was that a daee bird: unlike any she’d seen before It flew to Kulang and spoke briefly: Friends We shan’t hurt you

The great white bear hadn’t ain her dae the bear with superstitious awe, Ama scrambled up beside the little waterfall and stood shyly on the rocks Kulang became a butterfly and settled for a moment on her cheek, but left it to flutter around the other daemon, who sat still on the boy’s hand

"Will," said the boy, pointing to himself

She responded, "Ahtened of the boy almost ers wereShe felt dizzy when she saw it

The bear turned away along the milky stream and lay down in the water, as if to cool himself The boy’s dae the rainbows, and slowly they began to understand each other

And what should they turn out to be looking for but a cave, with a girl asleep?

The words tumbled out of her in response: "I knohere it is! And she’s being kept asleep by a woman who says she is her mother, but no mother would be so cruel, would she? Sheto keep her asleep, but I have soet to her!"

Will could only shake his head and wait for Balthamos to translate It took more than a minute

"Iorek," he called, and the bear lu his chops, for he had just sed a fish, "Iorek," Will said, "this girl is saying she knohere Lyra is I’ll go with her to look, while you stay here and watch"

Iorek Byrnison, foursquare in the stream, nodded silently Will hid his rucksack and buckled on the knife before clah the rainboith Ama The mist that filled the air was icy He had to brush his eyes and peer through the dazzle to see where it was safe to put his feet

When they reached the foot of the falls, Ao carefully and make no noise, and Will walked behind her down the slope, between narled pine trunks where the dappled light danced intensely green and a billion tiny insects scraped and sang Down they went, and farther down, and still the sunlight followed them, deep into the valley, while overhead the branches tossed unceasingly in the bright sky

Then Ama halted Will drew himself behind theThrough a tangle of leaves and branches, he saw the side of a cliff, rising up to the right, and partway up -

"Mrs Coulter," he whispered, and his heart was beating fast

The woman appeared from behind the rock and shook out a thick-leaved branch before dropping it and brushing her hands together Had she been sweeping the floor? Her sleeves were rolled, and her hair was bound up with a scarf Will could never have i so doold, and that viciousup to her shoulder As if they suspected so, they looked all around, and suddenly Mrs Coulter didn’t look doently: she was afraid of the golden s off bats while they were still alive

"Is there anyone else with her?" Will said "No soldiers, or anyone like that?"

Ama didn’t know She had never seen soldiers, but people did talk about strange and frightening ht But there had always been ghosts in theto do with the woht Will, if Lyra’s in the cave and Mrs Coulter doesn’t leave it, I’ll have to go and pay a call

He said, "What is this drug you have? What do you have to do with it to wake her up?"

Ama explained

"And where is it now?"

In her hoht Wait here and don’t come near When you see her, you mustn’t say that you know me You’ve never seenher food?"

Half an hour before sunset, A the medicine with you then," said Will "I’ll reat unease as he set off along the path Surely he didn’t believe what she had just told him about the monkey daemon, or he wouldn’t walk so recklessly up to the cave

Actually, Will felt very nervous All his senses seemed to be clarified, so that he are of the tiniest insects drifting in the sun shafts and the rustle of every leaf and the h his eyes never left the cave el daeht-eyed ss "Keep close to me, and watch that ht," said Balthaht at the cavethem They were no olden , and turned back

Will felt for the knife handle and walked on

When he reached the cave, the wo at her ease in the little canvas chair, with a book on her lap, watching hi traveler’s clothes of khaki, but so ere they cut and so graceful was her figure that they looked like the highest of high fashion, and the little spray of red blossoant of jewels Her hair shone and her dark eyes glittered, and her bare legs gleaht

She smiled Will very nearly smiled in response, because he was so unused to the sweetness and gentleness a woman could put into a smile, and it unsettled him

"You’re Will," she said in that low, intoxicating voice

"How do you know my name?" he said harshly

"Lyra says it in her sleep"

"Where is she?"

"Safe"

"I want to see her"

"Co the book on the chair

For the first ti into her presence, Will looked at theand lustrous, each hair seeold, much finer than a human’s, and his little face and hands were black Will had last seen that face, contorted with hate, on the evening when he and Lyra stole the alethiometer back from Sir Charles Latrom in the house in Oxford The monkey had tried to tear at hiht with the knife, forcing the daemon backward, so he could close theand shut the on earth would make him turn his back on that monkey now

But the bird-shaped Baltha closely, and Will stepped carefully over the floor of the cave and followed Mrs Coulter to the little figure lying still in the shadows

And there she was, his dearest friend, asleep So small she looked! He was amazed at how all the force and fire that was Lyra awake could look so gentle andAt her neck Pantalai, and Lyra’s hair lay damp across her forehead

He knelt down beside her and lifted the hair away Her face was hot Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw the golden , and set his hand on the knife; but Mrs Coulter shook her head very slightly, and theto, Will wasthe exact layout of the cave: the shape and size of every rock, the slope of the floor, the exact height of the ceiling above the sleeping girl He would need to find his way through it in the dark, and this was the only chance he’d have to see it first

"So you see, she’s quite safe," said Mrs Coulter

"Why are you keeping her here? And why don’t you let her wake up?"

"Let’s sit down"

She didn’t take the chair, but sat with him on the moss-covered rocks at the entrance to the cave She sounded so kindly, and there was such sad wisdom in her eyes, that Will’s mistrust deepened He felt that every word she said was a lie, every action concealed a threat, and every smile was a mask of deceit Well, he would have to deceive her in turn: he’d have to make her think he was harmless He had successfully deceived every teacher and every police officer and every social worker and every neighbor who had ever taken an interest in hi for this all his life

Right, he thought I can deal with you

"Would you like so to drink?" said Mrs Coulter "I’ll have some, too It’s quite safe Look"

She cut open some wrinkled brownish fruit and pressed the cloudy juice into two small beakers She sipped one and offered the other to Will, who sipped, too, and found it fresh and sweet

"How did you find your way here?" she said

"It wasn’t hard to follow you"

"Evidently Have you got Lyra’s alethiometer?"

"Yes," he said, and let her work out for herself whether or not he could read it

"And you’ve got a knife, I understand"

"Sir Charles told you that, did he?"

"Sir Charles? Oh - Carlo, of course Yes, he did It sounds fascinating May I see it?"

"No, of course not," he said "Why are you keeping Lyra here?"

"Because I love her," she said "I’er and I won’t let anything happen to her"

"Danger from what?" said Will

"Well" she said, and set her beaker down on the ground, leaning forward so that her hair swung down on either side of her face When she sat up again, she tucked it back behind her ears with both hands, and Will s combined with the fresh smell of her body, and he felt disturbed