The Sky Iron Armor
A Fan Fiction Sequel for His Dark Materials
By: Marie Helmstadt
Chapter 1
Shuri Barbarack
It all began when the armored bear came to the Sveden town of Storuman. A young girl of age 10 with flame red hair, and spring green eyes by the name of Shuri Barbrack and her daemon, Chemoose, heard the clang and clatter of the townsfolk in a panic state. They looked out their bedroom window to see an armor- less Panserbjørne running towards the Magisterial soldiers, all she noticed on the bear was how infuriated he looked.
"Come on Chemoose, I wanna see!"
"Shuri, I don't think we should get involved."
"Well, tough nookies! We're goin'!"
Chemoose was then immediately a lion just in case the bear turned on her. They ran out into the screaming crowd, but Shuri didn't care, she was only thinking of the Panserbjørne in the town.
"Just think Chemoose! A Panserbjørne, finally something excitin' in this town!"
But as they approached the crowd surrounding the soldiers and the bear, they heard him and the soldiers conversing.
"I…see you've awakened Panserbjørne I apologize for the joke I pulled earlier, but understand we cannot have an armored bear walking about the town."
"Then return me my armor and I shall gladly leave."
"Well, you see, we'd like to make a deal with you instead we will gladly return you your armor if you willing trade us your skill in metal smithing."
This angered both the bear, and Shuri.
"I will not bargain with thieves!" he roared.
The soldiers pointed their guns at him, and without thinking, Shuri ran in front of the bear.
"Stop!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.
The soldier instantly lowered their guns, as Shuri continued, "He clearly said to return his armor and he shall gladly leave, or are you too deaf to hear?"
"Child, he has debts to pay…he's destroyed public and private property."
"He owes you nothin'! He has as much of a right to freedom as the rest of us, it is wrong for you to chain him up like he's your property! You vile, stinky, little cockroach!" she ranted as she raised her fist. Oh, how bad she wanted to send his nose into his brain!
"Shuri, no! He's not worth it!" Chemoose reasoned.
Shuri realized that he was right, so she lowered her fist. As she turned to leave, the sergeant started laughing at her, something inside her mind snapped! She spun around and punched him in the nose, breaking it and his two front teeth. He fell to the ground at the blow, he was yelping in pain when the other soldier, his second in command most likely, said to her.
"You just assaulted an officer."
"I…WHAT?!" She was about to send him to the hospital in the same condition as his chief.
"Child, I admire your courage, but this is my fight. Thank you for trying," The Panserbjørne thanked her with a sorrowful look in his eyes. He nudged her back into the crowd with his head as he continued to the soldiers, "I will honor the child's courage by taking your offer."
Shuri shook her head with tears straining her eyes making her vision blurry.
"And you father'll be hearing of this young lady!"
She trembled where she was standing, she hadn't thought of her father until now, she knew she was in a real problem now that her father was going to know that she punched an officer.
"Don't say I didn't warn you!" Chemoose rubbed in as he turned into a squirrel.
Shuri swallowed hard as she turned away. Neal Barbarack had a reputation for drinking, and having wild temper. His daemon matched his demeanor; her name was Neeramh she was a White Siberian Tiger. Before him and Shuri came here two years ago, he was a servant at Jordan College in Oxford. But, he was so upset about his wife leaving him with baby Shuri that he resorted to drinking endlessly until he'd drank too much one night that he'd embarrassed the Master in front of Lord Asriel Belaqua himself, so he was fired that night and given a week to leave. When the crowd cleared, the soldiers took the Panserbjørne to an alley beside the bar across from the town library where he had all the tools he'd need for metal-smithing. How she wished her old friend Lyra had been there to back her up.
"Shuri, you can wish with all your might; we can't go back to Jordan, not with Dad bein' the way he is. They'd throw us out in an instant, you know that!"
"I know it's just that…She wouldn't've let this happen."
"Yeah and Pan would've been the biggest animal he could be to intimidate 'em!"
"I hope them soldiers hear this, I will help him get away from here, and I en't goin' without a fight!"
She looked back to the armor-less Panserbjørne with a mixture of sorrow, anger (all towards the soldiers), and remorse. She then ran home ready to face the consequence from her father. 'I'm stickin' to my words' she thought as she went through the door. Her father already heard of his own daughter's assault of an officer, when she went into the kitchen there was the soldier she'd punched along with his second in command. Her father's eyes scanned her angrily, as did Neeramh.
"Shuri, you're in big trouble little lady!" her father said angrily.
"He got what he deserved."
"You'd better control that girl of yours!" the second in command soldier ordered.
"I'm sorry, it won't happen again," Neil yelled back at him as he got up and walked towards Shuri.
"It'd better not!"
Her father then showed them out, then turned and grabbed Shuri's arm and led her upstairs to her room.
"I did not leave Oxford for this town just to be kicked out again!" he exclaimed through gritted teeth. He liked to think that he'd been fired for no reason, Shuri just went along with it but she hated how he'd make the Master look bad just to make himself look better. She knew the Master very well; she knew that he'd remember her. He opened the door and shoved her in, he then closed and locked the door behind her. Solitary confinement was his favorite punishment, but it actually gave Shuri time to herself. She'd be in there for the rest of the day with her meals delivered to her room.
She looked out her window as she wondered out loud, "When will we be able to escape this life?"
"Well, we can probably start by not makin' a spectacle of ourselves."
"I suppose your right, and we'll get that armored bear out of here when we're older and cleverer."
She lay down on the bed and took out a photogram of her mother, who looked just like her except with violet eyes. A tear rolled down her face as she wondered where her mother was and why she left her with Neal.
6 Years Later…
Chapter 2
The Curious Instrument
"Dad, I'm goin' off to the library after school so I'm gonna be late tonight," Shuri said to her father who was fixing some kind of fish for his breakfast. His harsh green eyes looked like hers although she saw them as looking like two vats of toxic waste.
"Fine," he said simply.
Shuri, now 16 was then out of the door and started to walk to school and was surrounded by an aura of grown-upness; Chemoose had settled as a red- breasted robin, because she always tried to blend in, but it was hard for her because of her red hair and feisty persona. And all the boys her age complimented her by always giving tongue to how pretty she was. Her hair was still flame colored, her eyes looked like freshly crowned leaved trees, and she had apple red cheeks. Shuri had survived the kidnapping of children throughout Europe; she'd had no fear of the Gobblers ever since she'd heard of them. She thought maybe that's what helped her, well that and the fact that she stayed indoors all night. Except when Neal would come home drunk as drunk can be to drink away her mother's memory, and the loss of his last job so she'd have to find refuge with another resident in town. She'd also heard of kids that she knew very well being taken. And when they'd suddenly came back, they didn't like to talk about their experiences, where they were taken, what the Gobblers did, why they were taken, or who brought them back. When she wanted to ask them these questions Chemoose pecked sharply at her neck to remind her of common courtesy.
Everyday when she went to her all-girls school, she always passed by the still- imprisoned Panserbjørne. She had seldom talked to him since that day he came to Storuman; to be honest she was too shy to talk to him. Twice she'd tried to go up and talk to him and each time when he'd heard her, he'd look up at her waiting for her to say something helpful she thought. And she had nothing to say so she turned right around and left after apologizing for wasting his time. The soldiers were still a little jumpy since he came to Storuman, but that didn't stop her from concocting and discarding plans every night for the past 6 years with Chemoose, (who kept reminding her to lay low every now and then).
What they'd talked about in her classes however, she couldn't remember, she was so focused on the things she loved most and that was taking a bunch of books and articles about Arctic travels over to the docks and read until the sun went down. That was where she actually went everyday after school, and Chemoose didn't even argue. On her way to the docks, after her classes, there was a small crowd around the Magisterial building; the soldier she'd punched six years ago was standing in the middle of the crowd, his two front teeth were still missing; he was holding a golden instrument with two books by his feet.
"Everyone! The Magisterial Alethiometrist that's native to our town, Fra Pavel has passed away, fallen to a tribe of Tartars, now he left in his final will that the highest bidder will receive his Alethiometer and books of reading."
Shuri had no idea what this thing was, but for some reason it was calling to her, she had 20 gold sovereigns she'd earned from her job as a waitress in the nearby restaurant.
"Our bidding will start at 5 gold sovereigns."
A man raised his hand and yelled "Five!"
The soldier started talking in what sounded like gibberish, and then she heard him yell, "Do we have 10? Do we have 10?"
Shuri raised her hand and yelled "Ten!"
Chemoose pecked her neck sharply as he always did, but she ignored him this time.
"15!"
"20!"
The other man was outbid, so he'd resigned his bids.
"Sold! To Shuri Barbarack!"
The soldier she'd punched, whose name was Adenon Lindberg, always had a particular liking to her as she got older. He'd forgiven her for punching him, and she wasn't particularly interested in him, mainly because of the fact that he was twenty years older than her. His daemon was a Doberman pinscher named, he'd mentioned one time to Shuri, Cherniva. As Shuri went up to the podium to claim the instrument and the books the first words out of his mouth were, "Shuri Barbarack, you get more beautiful everyday." As Cherniva was nuzzling Chemoose.
"And you, Herr Lindberg, are wasting your flattery."
"Know that even though I'm a great deal older than you I would make you a wonderful husband, I am well endowed, and I've always had a soft spot for the less fortunate. You need a wealthy benefactor. And I need a young lady with spirit."
"Prunes?" Chemoose pecked hard and sharply at Cherniva's head.
"No. But just remember, if it weren't for my generosity, you and your pathetic excuse of a father still wouldn't be here. So I'd be very, very careful if I were you."
He handed her the instrument and books then turned around and walked to the docks.
"Ooh! Horrible man! If he wasn't the only thing helpin' keep us here I'd…I'd…spit on him!" She raged as she sat down with the books and instrument.
She looked at the golden instrument, it was very like a clock, or a compass, for there were hands pointing to places around the dial, but instead of the hours or the points of the compass there were several little pictures, each of them looked like they were painted with the finest and slenderest sable brush.
"You don't know how to use it! I can't believe you wasted your hard earned money on that! Do you even feel when I peck your neck?"
"Well, if you can really feel what I feel, you'd know that it felt like it was calling to me, like there's somethin' I need to do!"
"That's the most ridiculous thing I'd ever heard in my life!"
Shuri rolled her eyes, "What did he say it was?"
"An Alethiometer."
"What d'you think that means?"
"I dunno."
Shuri began to experiment; she opened the 2 books, and browsed through them hoping to find an answer. Then, it hit her, "Herr Bengtsson! He'll know!"
She quickly got up, grabbed the instrument and two books, and ran to the library. Herr Bengtsson was the librarian and scholar from Uppsala University, Shuri went to him when she wanted to find out anything about any information she'd obtained or when she needed help with homework. Herr Bengtsson was in his mid-50's, his daemon was a horned owl, and both were quite fond of her, mainly because she was an intelligent girl and she would probably do better in her studies if her father wasn't too busy drinking away bad memories. Shuri walked through the library doors and found Herr Bengtsson in his usual spot, reading behind the checkout counter; he looked up and saw Shuri walking towards him he then said with a smile, "Hello there Shuri! Anything in particular that I can help you with?"
"Well, I was hopin' you could tell me what I just bought at an auction." She pulled out the Alethiometer and the books.
"You bought yourself an Alethiometer, a truth measurer, a golden compass."
"What does it do?"
"Well, basically it has a single, simple, use: to tell the truth. The user directs three needles to lie over certain symbols on the face of device to create a question. Once such an alignment of the needles is achieved, the user has to define or think of the question in his or her mind."
"Wait, so it answers questions?"
"Yes, but not by itself. And I'll go back to what I was saying; the user must not grasp for an answer, but be content not to know. Once the question is formed lightly in the mind of the user, the fourth needle swings into action and moves from one symbol to another. It may point to one symbol more than once, specifying the meaning. Any particular symbol has multiple meanings and answers. The user has to learn to decipher the answers and it takes much experience to be able to do so."
"Is that what the books are for?"
"Yes, you have to do some diligent studying before you can come to some sort of understanding."
"Can you show me?"
"Of course!"
They sat down at one of the oak tables lit by an anbaric lamp with the Alethiometer in Shuri's hands as Herr Bengtsson sat with the books in his hands.
"Now what are you going to ask it?"
"Well, the first thing I would ask is: Should I involve myself with the Panserbjørne?"
"Alright, you're going to point the three red hands using the knobs you see to the three symbols that sum up the question."
"Well, there's me, I'd…I'd be disobeying the Magisterium and my father…"
"Then the angel…"
Shuri nodded then turned the knob to point the first red hand to the angel.
"Then there's involvement…"
"What symbol includes a team or individual involvement?"
"The beehive, because it takes a single bee to collect pollen to turn it to honey, and with many more, they'll have enough for the queen to have her eggs."
She turned the second knob to the beehive.
"Very good! And the Panserbjørne?"
"Well, when I think of the Panserbjørne, I think of war…"
"Then you want the helmet."
She turned the third knob to the helmet.
"What now?"
"You lightly ask the question in your mind, don't push for an answer or it won't work."
She did, the blue needle started to move, and pointed to more symbols. The lightning bolt twice, the sword once, the helmet once, the angel three times, the man twice, the sword three times, the man twice once again, the candle twice and the helmet twice. When the needle stopped moving, she looked at her notes and looked up all the symbols in the books, and she got her answer.
"It says: Fate will bring him justice and his armor; you will disobey the Magisterium, and your father. But the Panserbjørne will offer you his understanding and protection."
"Exactly, you'll learn this quickly with no problem."
"Thank you Herr Bengtsson. What time is it?"
"It's almost ten o'clock."
"I have to go. I'm so very sorry, I've lost track of the hour."
"Oh, well…I wouldn't want to keep Neal waiting then."
"Thank you for your time Herr Bengtsson," Shuri thanked with a polite smile as she put the Alethiometer in her coat pocket and hugged the books to her chest.
"My pleasure Shuri."
She walked out into the bitter night air, and heard the clang and clamor coming from the bar across the street and right next to the bar was the chain link fence where the Panserbjørne stayed and worked. She then heard some drunken laughter; it wasn't her father, it was none other than Adenon Lindberg. And it wasn't just him; it was some more of the Magisterial soldiers with him. She didn't know where her father was, probably still in the bar, but Shuri panicked, she couldn't get back home without passing the bar and if she passed the bar Adenon might start harassing her. She turned to try a different route, when Adenon called to her, "Shuri! Oy! Shuri!"
One thing she knew better than not do from living with an alcoholic for the past sixteen years was to ignore them. So she walked over to them warily, Chemoose was quivering like an aspen leaf on her shoulder. Adenon took her by the arm and said to the other soldiers, "Ya see guys? I told you she was a looker." He tried to kiss her cheek but she elbowed him in the gut.
"It's hard to tell with all those clothes on!"
Shuri was now ready to break his nose again, and maybe the rest of his teeth as he swatted the books out of her hand then shoved his hand under her shirt.
"What d'you say Shuri; let's take off a few layers!"
She elbowed his gut breaking loose of his grip, "If you think for one second that I'd go for you, keep dreaming you useless tub of guts!"
She picked up her books and started to leave when he grabbed her arm again, making her drop her books again and said through gritted teeth, "Where d'you think you're goin'?"
"Let go of me! Get off!"
As she yelled that at the top of her lungs, an unearthing roar came from the chain linked fence and the Panserbjørne came out. He looked to Shuri and said plainly, "Get in my alley."
Shuri picked up her books and obeyed, and he turned to the soldiers and said disgusted, "Females are not prey; yet you stalk them like they are!"
"Watch it bear, or you won't get that armor back!" Adenon said over confidently.
"You wouldn't dare talk to me in that confidence if you weren't in a drunken stupor." He then turned back into his alley to see Shuri sobbing her eyes out and Chemoose nuzzling her cheek. She looked up at his power, might and strength and was intimidated by him.
"What is your name, young woman?"
"Shuri Barbarack and this is Chemoose. Who are you?"
"I am Fjøren Raknison."
Chapter 3
Fjøren Raknison
Shuri stared up in awe at him, as she asked him, "Why did you save me?"
"I've been surveying you for quite some time, and I've seen the way he looks at you; it's beastly disgusting."
"I always thought that too, he's in his thirties whereas I'm only sixteen. That's why I have no interest in him."
He grunted, "What are you doing out here anyway? You shouldn't be wandering about at this time of night."
"I was on my way home from the library when I ran into him. My father's in the bar probably drunk out of his mind on those nights I basically find an alley somewhere or find refuge with a neighbor to sleep."
"How come?"
"He's abusive – he'll give me a good poundin' just for doing nothing in my room and he'll say awful things like, my mother never loved me, or that I'm a worthless whore like her. And he brings friends sometimes and…well…they…let's just say, on those nights when I don't get out in time, I wish I was dead."
He grunted again and said, "You may sleep here if you'd like, not only this time but if he gets that way again just run here as fast as you can my gates always open for you."
She grinned slightly and made herself comfortable on top of a crate as soon as she was calmed down, for she was nervous during their entire conversation she said, "Thank you…for your generosity."
"You're welcome," he grunted.
The next morning as the sun warmed her eyelids, she heard a shouting.
"Shuri! Shuri!" Neil called; it wasn't in a worried father voice, but a raged, intruding voice. She and Fjøren both woke with a start; he then stuffed her into an empty crate and closed the lid. She heard them talking, "You, bear! Have you seen a girl about sixteen, red hair, green eyes?"
Shuri gulped, but Chemoose was as relaxed as a sleeping cat. She then heard Neeramh padding around the alley with Neil by her side. And to Shuri's intense relief, he didn't open the crate. If he found her here, she wouldn't be able to sit for a week.
"No sir I haven't, but I will let you know if I do. Your daughter?"
"What's it to you?"
"You're in my alley aren't you?"
She heard him grunt then kick a stack of crates into the alley. When the coast was clear, Fjøren opened the lid and let Shuri and Chemoose out.
"What is that crate made of?" Chemoose asked.
"Cedar wood, it has a soporific effect on dæmons, that's why your father's dæmon didn't find you."
Shuri's feet were on solid ground, and she had so many questions she wanted to ask so she asked Fjøren if she could spend the day with him and promised that she wouldn't be a burden on his work.
"Don't you have lessons today?" he asked.
"No, we don't have any studying today; it's the weekend so we have off."
He nodded, he was a little hesitant but he said yes and he would hide her again if her father came back again.
"So, how did you come to be here?" Shuri asked.
"The men of this town, Adenon included, they gave me whiskey until I fell asleep. Then they took my armor, you notice I'm an armored bear and I'm armor less."
"Is your armor just for protection? Or does it have more than one purpose?"
"It is for protection and spiritual connection."
"How so?"
"Like your daemon, a bear's armor is a part of you.