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Chapter 22

Golden Auroras

"Ah," said Will, sitting down on the ground and releasing his hold on the knife. "Ah."

Mrs. Coulter watched as Will faltered, head lolling to the side and his entire body seeming to simply crumble in front of them. His fingers had been cut cleanly off from his hand. She couldn't believe how much blood poured from the stumps, and wondered how that could possibly happen from the way he'd been holding the knife. It was alarming and unlike anything she'd ever seen. Mrs. Coulter's head rushed as she lunged forward to him, shrugging out of her cardigan sweater and wrapping it tightly around the wound while applying as much pressure as she could.

"Oh, Will!" Lyra was howling, she and Pan coming closer to hover near them, eyes taking in the sight of Mrs. Coulter's rapidly-soiling sweater. "I wish we had bloodmoss! That's what the armored bears always used. It'd stop the bleeding right now!"

"Lyra, wrap this rope around his arm," Mrs. Coulter instructed. It was the only other thing she could think of. Lyra nodded and came over to wrap it around his arm tightly, which didn't seem to help but didn't seem to hurt, either.

It was then that the man in the corner spoke up again, his voice hoarse and raspy. Mrs. Coulter stirred, for she had entirely forgotten he was there.

"I can help the boy," he said quietly, fiddling in his pocket for something. He was on the floor again, probably having fell during the skirmish. All Mrs. Coulter could do was look over at him, hands still desperately applying pressure to Will's wound as the boy started laughing now, looking down at his fingers and at all of the blood starting to seep through the thin material. Mrs. Coulter shushed him softly, eyes gauging the man to their right. Who was he? What about this knife and this wound did he know?

Here, the monkey thought to her, going over to the man and taking a flask full of liquid from his outstretched arms. The man didn't seem surprised nor uncomfortable handing the liquid over to the monkey and uttering some instructions to him. He hadn't been surprised to see the monkey or Pantalaimon earlier, and Mrs. Coulter was beginning to wonder where this man was from and, more importantly, how that somehow connected to the knife. There was no way these things could be mere coincidences.

"Drink this," Mrs. Coulter's daemon murmured to Will as he tilted the flask forward toward his lips. The boy was too weak to argue and accepted as the monkey tilted the flask more. "Drink it all."

"What is it?" Will asked, coughing after he took a few sips. The monkey had to swerve back to prevent the rest from spilling.

"Plum brandy," the man huffed at them, slowly getting up from his spot on the ground and attempting to untangle himself from the ropes that had previously bound him. Lyra rushed over to help him get up, her body language kind and attentive as she touched his shoulder and then reached down for the ties. Mrs. Coulter felt a sudden sense of pride swell over her, at how helpful Lyra was, and how it came to her by instinct whereas Mrs. Coulter herself usually had to purposely calculate such things.

Well, except for now, it seemed, where helping Will seemed to be the only thing she could focus on.

"Can you heal him?" Lyra was asking the man.

"Oh, yes. We have medicines for everything." They were at a desk drawer before they came back over to them, the man tilting more liquid into the flask and nodding to the monkey again. "Make him drink it all."

He did, and then the man moved over to apply an ointment to Will's finger, gesturing for Mrs. Coulter to remove the sweater. She cooperated and watched as the man went to work, carefully squeezing out a clear gel from a dusty tube before smoothing it in and around the wound around all the blood. Will gasped and thrashed his legs at the contact, which meant the brandy probably hadn't kicked in yet. Mrs. Coulter moved her least-bloodied hand to his head then, running a hand over his hair to try and soothe him. She felt a pang of loathing from the golden monkey but pushed it off as she continued to watch the man work with such an intense curiosity that she thought it might overcome her.

"What is it you're applying?" she asked him softly. "An antiseptic?"

"It's a very special ointment," he explained. "Very hard to find, but perfect for a wound such as this."

"This isn't an ordinary wound, is it?" The man glanced over at Mrs. Coulter as she said that, eyeing her carefully. Lyra looked over at them, too, her head tilted to the side.

"No," he answered, pausing to examine Will's fingers more carefully. "It is the mark of the subtle knife. It is unforgiving without the proper ointment."

Mrs. Coulter continued to watch, and all the while, she felt it. She and the monkey jolted their heads up as they felt an eerie sensation overcome them from somewhere nearby. The monkey darted over to the window and through him Mrs. Coulter saw the redhead boy waving his arms and then, out of nowhere, a dark figure swirling over to him.

"Spectres," Mrs. Coulter whispered aloud, dropping her hand from Will's head to join her daemon at the window. The figures were tall, dark, and oddly translucent. They looked to be made of spirit with fierce appendages jolting out all around them and toward the poor boy. Mrs. Coulter gasped as it wrapped itself around him. The boy put his hands over his head and his face to try and shield himself but it was to no avail. The strange being continued to invade him until it suddenly lurched away, the boy now still and blank.

Like a child with no daemon, Mrs. Coulter dared to think, understanding dawning to her.

Controllable, the monkey mused, shifting to peer closer at the man. No free will or conscious thought.

It was then that the spectre turned its attention up to the window, looking directly at Mrs. Coulter. She supposed she should have felt frightened of it, after having observed what it'd done and looking now as the little girl they'd first met in this world came over to yell and cry while tugging at her brother's arms, unaware of the malicious being two steps to her right. Mrs. Coulter should have observed the sight and thought about how painful it would be to envision Lyra flailing around trying to gain her own attention like that. She should have run to Lyra, clutching her to her breast and promising to never, ever leave her.

But instead, Mrs. Coulter had an idea—had a very faint outline of a thought and a theory that she couldn't even fully conceptually grasp in her head. And she smiled at the demented creature before it took a step forward and then recoiled as if being struck by something.

"You got to tie something around his arm," Lyra was saying to the man, her voice anxious, "to stop the bleeding. It won't stop otherwise."

"Yes, yes, I know," the man answered, a certain sense of sadness flecked in his voice. Mrs. Coulter came back over to them now to see the man point from Will to the knife and say that he was the bearer now. The children balked.

And with that, Mrs. Coulter understood what the man had been trying to get at before, and wondered what the connection was between that red-haired man, the knife, and the spectres, and again thought of how the spectres had recoiled when getting closer to them—and the knife.

"I know that man." Mrs. Coulter's attention was captured again, as the old man talked about a "liar" and a "cheat."

"He's from our world," Mrs. Coulter interrupted, causing the man to stop and stare at her. "You're exactly right: he's not to be trusted. He sent us here searching for an 'object' of significant worth and wouldn't even tell us what it was in case we wanted to keep it."

"And do you?" The man's voice was cold as he continued to stare at Mrs. Coulter now, his eyes knowing.

He can see right through us, the monkey warned her, but she fluffed him off yet again with a smile.

"Do I want to keep it for myself? No," she said lightly, bending down to examine Will's hand. Surprisingly, the bleeding had actually stopped, although the wound was still red and still pulsated. "But do I want it to fall into Boreal's? Absolutely not."

"Well, it's not yours to give away, at any rate," the man simply said before turning to Will and talking low and quick about the knife.

It could cut into other worlds. Mrs. Coulter's mouth popped open at that, delight filling her every thought. Of course Carlo would want that. It made too much sense. And it was that Lyra had read on the alethiometer back when they'd first arrived, and which somehow bounded their fate to his in the middle of this clash to find and fight the existence of multiple worlds and universes.

"Stop," the old man was saying gently. Mrs. Coulter shook herself out of her thoughts to see Will standing with his arm outstretched with the knife in his hand. "Relax. Don't push."

After a few more minutes of instructions and trials and errors, it happened: Will swished forward, and a small window appeared. Just like the one behind the hornbeam trees.

Both Mrs. Coulter and Lyra gravitated toward the window, their mouths gaping open. It hadn't occurred to Mrs. Coulter that this was the way the windows between worlds were made. She'd obviously seen how Asriel created his, and she'd assumed that the one she'd stumbled upon all those years ago must have been the result of a similar experience. But this was unreal. This was all the difference.

It was once Will had learned to close the windows that the conversation turned to the spectres.

"They are here, and they have destroyed us," the man sighed. He looked over at Mrs. Coulter at this point. "I know you went over there and saw one. Frightening, isn't it?"

Not really, Mrs. Coulter thought, feeling the golden monkey snicker as she merely nodded and listened to what he had to say. They talked about Carlo again, and how they must never, ever let the knife into his possession, and the man rejected Will's pleas to tell him more as his time as bearer was over and it was up to Will to protect the realms now.

"Watch out for him," the old man said to Mrs. Coulter as the children headed for the stairs and she lingered by his side. She felt bad for him, really. Well, perhaps that wasn't entirely accurate; Mrs. Coulter felt that it was such a waste for his knowledge and his experiences to be put to sleep like a sick animal.

"Come with us," she offered, holding out her hand. "You said the knife protects adults from spectres. We'll get you safely back into the world Will is from. We can clean you up and then take you to London. We're going there shortly ourselves."

"There's no use," the man simply sighed, waving his hand at her. "My time as bearer is over, and I have no other purpose in life. It's up to him now. But he's so young. You must look after him."

These ideas were complicated in ways Mrs. Coulter couldn't truly understand, but she did understand this one. She glanced back at where the children had left, already feeling her heart start to beat faster at the distance growing between them now.

"My daughter is young, too," she murmured.

"I know of your world," the man panted, "and of a certain man from there. Asriel, I believe he's called. The witches have been whispering about him, and about his plan and about the role of a child and a golden alethiometer. It's important, all of it. And I think he'll be important, too."

Mrs. Coulter only stared at him, knowing much more than he could imagine yet, seemingly, not enough to follow along.

"Go," he urged her, "and take care of him. Both of them. There's a battle bigger than any one of us individually, and our fates all hang in the balance of those two children. They must be protected at all costs."

o-o-o-o-o-o-o

"Lord Boreal. What a pleasure."

Father MacPhail's lips were pursed as he stood in front of the tall, older man. He'd traveled all the way to Svalbard from London, and then Trollesund after that. He had "important information" for the Cardinal that couldn't wait any longer. "Top secret intel."

"Are you going to allow me to see His Eminence now, or must I suffer through one of your seething interrogations first?"

Father MacPhail's daemon hissed at that, for they'd always hated this man and everything he stood for. For as long as they knew him and had been forced to work with him.

"Just tell me what you know and then I'll leave you to it and not talk to you again."

"There's the ticket," Boreal sang, clapping his hands together in delight. "I don't know why we always beat around the bush, father. I've seen the girl. In the other world. With Marisa."

Marisa. Father MacPhail's face flushed with a burning fury he hadn't realized he could possess. It was surely a sin, to be as vehemently charged as he was in this moment. It surely wasn't holy. But he couldn't help it.

"Where is she?" Father MacPhail all but spat out, his teeth clenched.

"That must first be relayed to the Cardinal," Boreal purred, his eyes twinkling, "but I daresay you'll find out soon enough. Until then, do dwell on your failures that brought us here."

Father MacPhail stepped aside as Boreal entered the Cardinal's chambers and closed the door behind him. Eulaia sunk her claws into his shoulders as he bent down on his knees in prayer, trying to collect himself and refrain from the hatred nearly consuming his entire being.

"Give me the strength to hold back," he whispered aloud, Eulaia's grip tightening. "Let the Cardinal handle this. Don't let me do something I'll later regret."