The Copper Key
Wast present, and with
mighty wings outspread
Dove-like satst brooding on the vast
Abyss
And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark
Illumin, what
is low raise and support;
That to the highth of this great
Argument
I may assert Eternal Providence,
And justifie the
wayes of God to men.
-John Milton, Paradise Lost.
Introduction:
She
lay back on the planks, feeling the platform move in a very slight,
very slow rhythm as the great tree swayed in the sea breeze. Holding
the spyglass to her eye, she watched the myriad tiny sparkles drift
through the leaves, past the open mouths of the blossoms, through the
massive boughs, moving against the wind, in a slow, deliberate
current that looked all but conscious.
What had happened three hundred years ago? Was it the cause of the Dust current, or was it the other way around? Or were they both the results of a different cause altogether? Or were they simply not connected at all?
The drift was mesmerizing. How easy it would be to fall into a trance, and let her mind drift away with the floating particles...
Before she knew what she was doing, and because her body was lulled, that was exactly what happened. She suddenly snapped awake to find herself outside her body, and she panicked.
She was a little way above the platform, and a few feet off among the branches. And something had happened to the Dust wind: instead of that slow drift, it was racing like a river in flood. Had it sped up, or was time moving differently for her, now that she was outside her body? Either way she was conscious of the most horrible danger, because the flood was threatening to sweep her loose completely, and it was immense.
She flung out her arms to seize hold of anything solid, but she had no arms. Nothing connected. Now she was almost over that abominable drop, and her body was farther and farther from reach, sleeping so hoggishly below her. She tried to shout and wake herself up: not a sound. The body slumbered on, and the self that observed was being borne away out of the canopy of leaves altogether and into the open sky.
And no matter how she struggled, she could make no
headway. The force that carried her out was as smooth and powerful as
water pouring over a weir; the particles of Dust were streaming along
as if they, too, were pouring over some invisible edge.
And
carrying her away from her body.
She flung a mental lifeline to that physical self, and tried to recall the feeling of being in it: all the sensations that made up being alive. The exact touch of her friend Atal's soft-tipped trunk caressing her neck. The taste of bacon and eggs. The triumphant strain in her muscles as she pulled herself up a rock face. The delicate dancing of her fingers on a computer keyboard. The smell of roasting coffee. The warmth of her bed on a winter night.
And gradually she stopped moving; the lifeline held fast, and she felt the weight and strength of the current pushing against her as she hung there in the sky.
And then a strange thing happened. Little by little (as she reinforced those sense-memories, adding others, tasting an iced margarita in California, sitting under the lemon trees outside a restaurant in Lisbon, scraping the frost off the windshield of her car), she felt the Dust wind easing. The pressure was lessening.
But only on her: all around, above and below, the great flood was streaming as fast as ever. Somehow there was a little patch of stillness around her, where the particles were resisting the flow.
They were conscious! They felt her anxiety and responded to it. And they began to carry her back to her deserted body, and when she was close enough to see it once more, so heavy, so warm, so safe, a silent sob convulsed her heart.
And then she sank back into her body and
awoke.
-The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman
Chapter 1: Unconscience Metaphysics
Bvork sighed as he lifted the leatherbound book back to its holding place amidst the other ancient texts in the library. Jordan had a way of doing that to people, making them sleepy at midday. Amidst the architecture and the subdued legacy that enthralled the antechambers and halls, the fellow scholars fumbled about, enveloped in the discussions about the new findings over at Winston Collegiate. That was the only way to wake scholars up: having epiphanies.
Which was so unlike Bvork, who had not had an epiphany in quite some time, going on fifteen years now. In his younger days as an undergraduate, he was researching the effects of the subconscience mind on the conscience one. Vying for the top scholarship awarded anually at London's prestigious Wilford Fund for Research, Bvork had been deeply engrossed in the findings of Theron Pluge, a theoretical metaphysicist. Pluge, some 30 years before, hypothesized that humans could "will" themselves elsewhere, as in a dream or vision, but do it in spirit. His research came up with some interesting results, but he was later hung by the neck for his blashemies against the Church.
Bvork siphoned through the other volumes and glanced at the cover, and quickly replaced it. He thought of abandoning his thesis so many times before, and it was during this drought that he often contemplated switching to theology, which was what the Magisterial officials pleaded with him to become, desperate as they were for leaders.
Ever since Lord Asriel disappeared and the sky opened, the grace that seemed to be with the Church leaders diminished. Slowly they lost branches of their hierarchy, the latest was the Committee for Public Worship not a month before, which was one of the largest and powerful in the world.
The Great Upheaval had slackened. The North was cooling down after its spout with increased temperatures. But still there was the feeling of regret in the air. Like it wasn't over.
And whatever happened to Asriel, and the Coulter woman, for that matter? thought Bvork. Some church officials said they were both sited at Magisterium's bidding on a faraway country, but no one knew where they were now.
Bvork reluctantly decided to pack up his case, and preceded to exit the Library.
That night he had the dream again. He had been having it ever since his epiphany fifteen years ago, but each time he had it, it was more elaborate and ornate with detail.
He was in the clouds, wizzing past vast towers and battlements, narrowly missing the slope of a mountainside that sprang up unexpectedly from the cover of clouds. He relished the flight, he always did. He dipped, and shot towards his usual spot, a small crack in the mountain, where he could get inside. He clambered through the hole, like he always did. And now would come the new part of the dream, if he was still dreaming...
His dæmon, a mountain lynx named Hyruit, softly bit him on his elbow. He awoke, feeling completely relaxed, unable to feel his limbs, save for a small pinch that Hyruit gave him. He tried to fall into the trance again, but the lynx gave him a harder bite, which in turn drove him to push the dæmon off the cot. Hyruit resisted, then they playfully traded swats on each others' bodies.
"Bvork, it was scary that time," she said.
"Scary, don't know a scary thing about it," he replied.
"First of all, you fly up there and that leaves me down on the ground alone."
"Well, you can keep up. Never seen a land animal that could outrun you."
"Anyways, Bvork, I'm usually right in the trance with you, save this time, when I pulled back, and then found myself here. You was still away, you were. To that place we go. That was scary," she took her face and rubbed it under his chin, pulling it up and down his beard as he stroked her fur.
Later that night, Bvork woke. He heard the faint buzz of a zeppelin docking in the courtyard by the college. He sprang from his bed, Hyruit in stride, to the window and peered out.
It was the Master's private yacht of a zeppelin. It landed in the square, touching down ever so lightly, and at once, all the naphtha lights went out from inside and around the zeppelin. Bvork peered through the darkness and saw shapes of men, which looked like a regiment-for-hire that the College would sometimes employ as bodyguards, though that was far and in between.
"I can see the shape of the Master from the causeway," purred Hyruit. "And now he's opening the front entrance of the college."
Bvork could barely make out the Master's shape in the dark abyss, but he could see that the heavy iron gate was opening. "Let's take a closer look, Hyruit," he said. Bvork threw on his casual robe, and sprang for the door, Hyruit in stride. They made a left amid the dormitories, and up to flights of stairs to the attic, where Hyruit jumped to his shoulder, half hanging off, and he stepped out onto the roof from the window.
Bvork could see that the shapes were coming closer, and he strained his eyes to see through the shroud of night. Hyruit mewed when she could distinctively hear the whispers; one advantage to having a lynx as a dæmon.
Hyruit relayed: "The Master is talking with a girl, a young one. He seems to be overjoyed to have her back at the college. He says, 'I hope this hasn't been too much of a hassle for you, this heightened security and whatnot, but we had to make sure you were safe.'"
"Is it the Belacqua child, can it be Lyra?" asked Bvork.
"No doubt in my mind, now that you mention it," said Hyruit.