I was all excited about seeing Professor Lyra again.  For a start, I wanted to show her the things that John Parry had given me.

They were twonkies, all right.  There were:

The Collected Works of William Shakespeare (I've mentioned that already).

A coloured photogram of John and his family.  Apparently you couldn't see the daemons in the photogram, unless you could see them in real life.  I didn't understand that.  Neither did I understand how it was that you could see into the picture, or look at it from different angles and see different things there.  (I tried looking from behind, but that didn't work).

A small black box, with silvery buttons on it.  John had tucked a note into the imitation leather case that the box came in.  It said 'Hope you like the tunes,' together with a set of instructions that told me how to work the box and a reminder to leave it out in the daylight for a few hours every now and then to charge up.  It seemed that it was a sort of miniature reproducing audiograph, and that John had filled it up with music.  I showed it to Arthur the next time we met.  He was very taken with some of the songs that were stored inside it (there were thousands of them!), and he practiced singing and playing them himself on a little squeezebox he kept on board the Maggie.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.

A little brown book called The Book Of The Wonders Of Urth And Sky, full of retellings of ancient legends.  I recognised some of them (Ulysses, Robin Hood), but the others were new to me.  (Isn't that odd?  That John's world and mine should have the same stories?)

A Swiss Army penknife ('It's not very Subtle, but it is sharp!' John's note said).

A delft statuette of a little green man with pointed ears.  John had hung a tag around his neck which read "My Hero!" and the name inscribed on the base was "Yodatm".  I've no idea who he was meant to be.  He looked like a gnome to me.

I wondered, though I never asked, what presents Will had given to Lyra.

I bounded, yes I did, up the Stair to Lyra's rooms.  The door was slightly ajar, as usual, so I knocked and walked straight in, as usual.  There was a cat on the landing, which was unusual.  Its presence should have alerted me that something was wrong.

'Come in, boy.  We've been expecting you.'  It wasn't Lyra who was sitting at her desk.  It was Miss Morley, perched on top of it like a black raven, and she was pointing a gun, a small pistol of a strangely liquid shape at Lyra, who was sitting, upright and self-composed but looking frightened, in one of the fireside chairs.  'Perhaps you would like to sit next to your tutor,' and Miss Morley gestured with the gun.

Of course there would be more than one of these deadly weapons!  The other one was still in Arthur's hands, unless he'd destroyed it as he said he would.

I did as I was told, knowing that I didn't have much choice.  Even if I made a dash for the staircase, Miss Morley could still kill Lyra whenever she felt like it.  It was more than likely too that there were other agents of the Boreal Foundation nearby.  I cursed myself for my stupidity in carrying on with my normal everyday life as if nothing had happened (but, looking back, what else could I have done?)

'Thank you.  You will find that prompt obedience is the best possible response you can make to my directions.

'Please remember to keep your filthy animals in plain sight.  I shall have no hesitation in killing them if they make any untoward movements.  I understand that would have unpleasant repercussions for you, too.'  Miss Morley shrugged her shoulders regretfully.

I looked at Lyra.  She smiled ruefully back to me and shook her head.  I clasped Viola in my hands.

'Is the third member of your dirty little conspiracy planning to join us this afternoon?'

'No.' Lyra kept her answer short, giving as little away as possible.

'No?  Such a shame.  I should have liked to have had the chance of settling our differences.  Never mind.  I'm sure there will be another opportunity for us to have a little chat.  I'm looking forward to continuing with his lesson in good manners.

Lyra interrupted her.  'Why don't you let Peter go?  He's only a boy!  You know he's no threat to you.'

'Oh, but I need to teach him a lesson too.  He caused me significant discomfort last Sunday evening with his violent and quite unwarranted attack.  I'm still considering what form of punishment would fit his particular crime.  Where I live, we come down pretty hard on vicious young thugs like him.'

Where I live.  I grinned.  I'd had an idea.

'You're stuck here, aren't you?  The car's wrecked!  You can't go home!'

'Oh, you know about all that, then, do you?'

'Yes, you ugly old trollop.  You're stuck here, bitch, and you're going to effing die here!'  Would it work?

'Oh, Peter, Peter.  You don't really think I'm going to come over and smack your naughty bottom just because you've called me some rude names, do you?  And then you might overpower me?  Do I look as if I was born yesterday?'

Oh well, so much for my good idea.  'No.  You look like you were born a very long time ago.'

Miss Morley shook her head.

'You're boring me. Please don't speak again unless I tell you to.  Now, Professor Belacqua.  As I was saying before your nasty little guttersnipe burst in on us in that rude manner, I have been directed by Lady Boreal to conduct certain – negotiations – with you.'

'If my sister wishes to speak to me, she is welcome to come here herself.  My door is always open, as you discovered this afternoon.

'I have heard of you before, Miss Morley.  I know what sort of person you are.  If you had been born in this world, you would have been born dead, without a daemon.  You have no natural feelings, no conscience, no sense of moral truth.  You are not a complete person and you have my most profound sympathy.  If it were possible for me to kill you now, I would do so and have no regrets; it would be a mercy to you.  It would be more like getting rid of a of a noxious object – a turd – than killing a real human being.'

'How elegantly you express your disdain for me, Professor.  However, as you have already pointed out, you are not able to kill me, whereas I,' and the muzzle of the gun twitched slightly, 'could dispose of you right now with just the slightest movement of my index finger.

'Nevertheless, you mentioned truth, and it is truth that most concerns my superiors at this time.  If you were to agree to our proposal it would go some way towards expiating the crimes you committed last Sunday.  You have something that we would like to buy from you.'

'What's that?  Another car?'

'I told you to keep quiet, little boy.  The car is of no concern to me.  The Boreal Foundation has quite enough resources to buy another vehicle and install another IID into it.  It was, after all, originally built here, not in the other world.  We have all the information we need to construct another one.'

'You may find it difficult to find more children to steal the Dust it needs.  People are on their guard now.   They have remembered what the Gobblers were.'

'Children!  Horrible little worthless creatures, smelly and disgusting.  There are always plenty of spare children, my dear Professor Belacqua.  For some reason, people can't stop making them, I'm told.  Dirty rutting animals!'

Lyra shook her head sadly.  'Go on, then, Miss Morley.  Tell me what Elizabeth told you to say.'

'Very well.  It is this.  You have an oracular device, the so-called alethiometer, and considerable skill in its use.  I understand that it requires many years of study before the user can obtain reliable results from it.

'You must believe me when I say that we could, at any time over the past twenty or thirty years, have taken this alethiometer from you and put it to our own exclusive use.'

'I do, although the last person who tried to steal it from me was killed by a witch.'

'How very appropriate!  Nevertheless, I am sure that so intelligent a person as yourself will understand what it is that we are offering to you.  I will spell it out, all the same.  It is so unfortunate when there are misunderstandings at the very beginning of a business relationship; things can go sour later on.

'It is this: in return for us allowing you to continue to live and enjoy all the privileges you are entitled to as a professor of Jordan College, you will, from time to time and at our direction, promptly furnish your skills with the alethiometer to us, to the benefit of the Boreal Foundation.   This agreement is to remain binding on you until you die, or until we have no further use for you.'

'And if I do not agree to be so bound?'

'Then we will take the alethiometer from you and use it ourselves.'

'It would be of no use to you.  You cannot read it.'

'We can learn to read it.  We will take the instrument and the Books of Reading and apply ourselves to their study until we have mastered them.  Perhaps this boy, your student – or is he your plaything – would like to assist us?'

'Eff off!'

'You are coarse, aren't you?  Never mind.

'So, Professor.  Your answer, please.'

Lyra paused.  I wondered; was she going to give in to Miss Morley's demands?  It seemed very unlikely, but if she did reject the woman's offer, such as it was, what would happen to us?  For a moment I found myself thinking: Say yes.  You can always go back on it later.  I should have known Lyra better than that.  When it came to the truth she never ever compromised.

'Here is my answer.  Tell your mistress that I will never surrender the alethiometer to her, or to her corrupt Foundation.  Nor will I put myself at her service, now or at any time in the future.  While you are speaking to her, remind her that, although the Boreal Foundation may, in its overweening pride, consider itself to be all-powerful, there are other powers in this world, and that Jordan College is not the least of them.

'Lastly, tell her this: I am not afraid to die.  I have met my Death, and he is my friend.  I have walked in the Land of the Dead, and I have many good friends there as well.

'Kill me if you must.  Spare this boy, if you can find it in you to do so, for he is innocent.'

'It would be no bad thing if I were to kill him now,' and the gun pointed directly at my heart. 'It would be a useful object lesson to you that we mean what we say.'

Suddenly, I had had enough.  She was treating me, not as a person, but as a tool, or an expendable resource, to be used and discarded as required, like Davey, and the other children she had sacrificed on the gallows of the intercisor. How did she dare do this!  I was a person too, at least as good as her.

I leapt to my feet and charged at Miss Morley, determined to sell my life to save Lyra.  I think – actually I had no time to think – but I think my intentions must have been to knock her sideways, as I had before in the garage in Cropredy.  Perhaps I would be able to take the gun from her, or if not, and she killed me, my dead body would knock into her and Lyra would be able to rise from her seat and reach her in time to disarm her herself.  I hoped that she would kill Miss Morley for me if that happened.

The woman was not far away from me where she sat on Lyra's desk – three or four yards at the most – but her finger was already on the trigger and her gun was already pointing towards me.  She had plenty of time to react.  She fired the gun, and with a loud hissing sound a blazing lance of violet brilliance raged through the air at my chest.  Perhaps Lyra screamed; I didn't hear it.

Suddenly the room, which had contained nobody else but Lyra, Miss Morley, and me, was crowded with people.  They stood, tall and short, slender and stocky, solid and yet translucent too.  Their faces were turned from me, or hidden under hoods or helmets so that I could not make them out.  A few of them were dressed in fine armour, gleaming with silver and gold, others in leather coats, or overalls of black.  Some were men, some women, but it was hard to tell them apart by their clothes, for none of them followed any style that I could recognise, nor were they made of any fabric that was familiar to me.

They filled the room, as I have said, so that one of them, shining in bright armour, came between Miss Morley, and her lethal beam, and myself.  Another of the strange folk threw himself at me, pushing my body to the floor, safe from the energies that were unleashed above me.

For the destructive pencil of light, as it struck the armoured man, bounced.  Reflected from the mirrored surface of his breastplate, the beam split in two, each separate ray shooting out from him and striking another of his armed fellows where it was again reflected directly back to its source.  Miss Morley herself.

The twin torrents of destructive radiation fanned out into blades of furious energy and, as they passed across Miss Morley's body, they cut swathes of burning flesh from it, moving forwards and backwards, glaring brighter as they vaporised bone, raising a detestable stench of burnt meat as they sliced through her skin, her hair flashing into a torch of living flame around her head, her eyes turning all-over white and oily black smoke pouring from her mouth.

The flensing knives of energy were cutting the woman to pieces before my eyes.  I cannot believe that this was accidental.  In some way, the armoured figures were moving, focusing the pistol's ravening beam on her.

She screamed and howled and her ruined body twisted and writhed in what must have been unbearable pain as it fell headlong onto the carpet.  I believe that her brains were already boiling inside her head and that her cries of agony were only reflexes, or the last breaths being driven from her lungs past her tortured vocal cords.

At last there was silence, and nothing remained of Miss Morley but a blackened mass, still smouldering, stretched out across the carpet.  I was retching; not just with the horror of her death, but also with the odour of charred human flesh.  I think I passed out.

When I came to, there was nothing.  Nothing but Lyra's concerned face above mine and her hands under my shoulders, gently lifting me into a sitting position against the wall.  'Peter,' she asked, 'what's wrong?'

I looked around the study.  The strange people were gone.  The air was clear and fresh and Miss Morley's incinerated body had disappeared.  Nothing remained, except the faint gagging smell of burning, lingering in my nostrils.

'Miss Morley?  Where is she?'  I must have struggled in Lyra's arms.

'It's all right Peter.  Don't worry.  It's been hard on you, I know, this past week.  I should have expected it to have had some effect on you.  I didn't expect you to faint on me, though!'

Lyra's words were soothing, but I was still confused.  What had happened to our enemy, and my unexpected helpers?

'Miss Morley?'  I asked again.

'Don't you remember?  I told you.  She went back into the house after the gyptians fired it while we were in… in the other world.  She never came out – she was burned to death in there, or crushed when the roof fell in.'

'She died last Sunday?  She can't have!  She was here, just now!'

'No, no, she can't have been.  I told you, Peter.  She died last week.'  Lyra looked worried again.  'Come on.  Come over here and sit here next to me, by the fireplace.  We won't do any exercises today.'

We sat together, whiling away the time, drinking chai and eating digestive biscuits.  Despite my puzzlement at what had happened – or had it – I found myself enjoying our friendship more that at any time before.

After an hour, I left, promising to return the following week to continue my studies.  Still confused, but not unhappy, I gave a cheery goodbye to the porter as I passed through the entrance of Jordan College and he waved back to me.  I didn't see Jane Phipps where she was standing in the street outside, and I bumped into her and nearly knocked her over.

'Sorry Jane!'

'That's all right, Peter.'

'What are you doing here?'

'I was just… looking around.'

To make up for my clumsiness I bought Jane kaffee and chocolate cake in a nearby teashop.  Later, as it was a nice sunny afternoon, we went for a stroll along the banks of the Cherwell, and it was there that she first kissed me.