8. Consistorial Discipline

Lyra lay on her bed awake again. This time, it was morning.

The birds outside were singing and the scholars and students of the collage were moving to their lectures.

They had not been awake for long, but had washed and dressed and were ready to leave for Dame Hanna's collage.

There was a soft knock at the door and Mr. Parslow peered round.

'Morning. Come ter fit a lock on the door…'

Pan sat up. Lyra said:

'Oh yeah, thanks- I'll go now so I'm not in your way.'

He nodded and came in to allow Lyra and Pan to leave. Then he began to change the door handle on the door.

They had suffered no real blows (save the feeling of insecurity) from the ransacked room. All their prised possessions (namely the Alethiometer) were hidden behind the heating vent under her bed.

It did, however, mark that the Court was going to nail her soon, against their hopes of them giving up.

Lyra turned the corner and passed the Oxford Oratory.

Probably they had representatives in there talking about her now.

And it was as this thought crossed their mind that two men jumped round from the ally next to the oratory and grabbed her, one holding her mouth to smother her scream.

Their two dæmons, a fox and a whippet, sprang to pin down Pantalaimon, but he couldn't fight them and fled up the drainpipe to the roof. This must have installed deeper fear in her captors, as they saw pan so far away from her, one grabbed her legs and the other secured her arms and they ran down the ally carrying her between them. She squirmed and kicked, but they were strong, and before she could twist their grip they dived into a back door on the Oratory and down a flight of stairs. Then a blow landed on the back of her head and she fell still.

Pantalaimon meanwhile, reached the roof and followed the two men along the ally and saw them enter the cellars of the Oratory. He wondered what he should do, stay here and try to find another way into the building? Or should he run for help?

Before he could decide he felt a pang of pain from Lyra and fell unconscious.

At Dame Hanna's Collage Katie was terrified. Lyra hadn't arrived yet and she was usually there before her. If Lyra hadn't arrived, maybe something had happened..

'Or she's just ill.' Coreopsis thought to her. He was agitated, trying to put a brave face on it.

But Katie rubbed her left arm.

'Sarah- I'm just going to the loo.'

'OK. I'll tell Hanna when she gets here.'

The girl and her dæmon reached the toilet and commenced a ceremony they dreaded and were ashamed of, but were addicted to.

Pulling her left sleeve up, Katie took a penknife from her pocket and lent against the wall, her dæmon sat on her feet.

She lifted her arm and with her eyes closed, deftly drew the shining blade across her arm, next to several other scars.

Coreopsis slouched and sighed with satisfaction.

Lyra's eyes opened and she looked around. She found herself tied uncomfortably to a wooden chair. Testing the knots, she found she had nearly no movement of any of he limbs.

Across the small cellar was one of the men she recognised as the man who had grabbed her on her way to collage. He had been dozing, but sat up as he saw her rouse herself. A telephone next to him was off the hook. He picked up the receiver and said:

'She's awake' then he put it on the phone again.

Lyra heard a tapping, steadily getting louder into footsteps. A door next to the man opened and 3 new comers entered. They looked much more like clergymen, thought Lyra. An alarmed thought flashed her mind, Pan must've woken up.

'Miss Belaqua,' said one of the new comers,

'Slivertongue' Lyra corrected coldly.

The man ignored her, and continued, 'We've been waiting for a good time to talk with you, but you've learnt new tricks.'

Lyra smiled a schoolgirl sarcastic smile.

If the man was disconcerted, he didn't show it, so he carried on. 'We're still lacking in facts about the currant events involving you, the church, and the boy Will. We were wondering if you could help us out. You dæmon doesn't seem to be present.'

Lyra chose her tactic and remained silent, still grinning at them.

Her interrogator was Father Jevons, a well-built man who had been in regular contact with Father MacPhale, he was his right hand man. He held out a hand behind him and prompted from Lyra's bag.

It was handed to him. Her blue rucksack contained an exercise book and her Alethiometer. 'Mmmm… The Lost Alethiometer. Some say the best and most accurate. Do you value this?'

Silence from Lyra. Father Jevons dropped it. Lyra's eye's widened in shock and she broke her silence.

'No!'

Her interrogator caught it an inch from the ground.

'I think we've found our weak spot. See, I don't value this, because I can't read it and my friend already has one he can read.' Lyra knew she was caught, but didn't want to give in so quickly.

'What do you want?' she said after a minute of pondering.

'I want you to tell me a story.'

'A true story?'

Pan's voice floated into her head and said, 'Why not? Stories are good.'

'How is your dæmon not here?'

Lyra's impulse was to deny everything and not tell them anything, but there seemed not to be a reason for staying silent.

'How much do you know about the journey I was on with Will?'

He sensed what she was thinking, and softened his tone.

'We know you went to a 'Land of the Dead'. What did you find there?'

Silence from Lyra. She tilted her head up. He returned to his previous tone. 'You have done something you do not want to tell me about. I am here to find out what.

'The Almighty has charged me with you and you have something to say.'

'Yeah… I have…'

'And are you going to share it'

'Yeah… I guess I could…'

Father Jevons waited.

'Well?'

'What?'

He clenched his fists, then relaxed them.

'What were you going to say?'

'I wasn't going to say anything'

'You were thinking of saying something.'

'Was I?'

'Yes.'

'Yeah… I remember now.'

'So…'

Father Jevons noticed he was still holding the Alethiometer. He threw it up in the air and caught it one-handed. He looked at Lyra and raised his eyebrows.

'Your Almighty has gone the same way as all the ghosts he put in the prison camp.'

He narrowed his eyes. 'Where? The Kingdom of Heaven?'

'You still believe you go to heaven?'

'What are you implying, because I'm getting impatient.' He shifted the instrument in him hand.

'When you die, your ghost'll go to the world of the dead. If you tell a story to the people you find there, you'll return to the living world and become part of it.

'Your Almighty father has just done step 3. Me and Will showed him how.'

The telephone man must have been god-fearing, because he ran for the exit and out the room, slamming the door behind him before you could say knife. Everyone else in the room watched him go, then looked back at the child of sin. 'He's better off now I promise,' Lyra continued, 'And now he can't control us.'

'Then we should avenge him.'

Pantalaimon was making for the canal. He was at a total loss of what to do, having no one to decide what to do with. He'd never felt that before. So he was searching for Katie's father. He'd know what to do… or so he hoped.

He was having trouble staying unseen. This wasn't a city were pine martens ran about in open view of the public, and he was sure if he was noticed it would certainly lead to trouble.

The sparkling line of the canal appeared ahead. Moving between dustbins, walls, bushes, whatever was there, he weaved his way onto the bridge and looked both ways. There were hundreds of boats going either way on their own business, he'd never find one man in all the activity.

He was reaching the panicking stage, Lyra was afraid and couldn't think of a way out, he was a lost dæmon, their friend and drive was crouching in the toilets smearing blood from her cuts.

Pantalaimon whipped round and began to run full pelt for Jordan Collage and home.

He stopped hiding now, he was only bent on reaching Jordan as quickly as possible. People pointed, some shouted, but he kept running without a slackening pace.

He felt another pang of fear jump out of Lyra and sprinted into the Yaxly Quadrangle and bounded up Staircase 12.

Out the window,

Along the stone gutter,

'Will! Kirjava!' he wailed, 'Serafina! Xaphina! Iorek! Lee!'

His desperate voice carried far over the quadrangle and onto the wind. People looked up and heads appeared at windows. Far away on the tundra of Lapland, beyond the towns and villages of men and women, Serafina Pekkala glanced sharply up from her stare into Lake Enara.

'What's wrong?' said a witch next to her,

'I'm not sure… I heard someone call, but I don't know who…'

'Do you know where it came from?'

'Oxford.' Said Serafina immediately, then she added breathlessly, 'Pantalaimon-'

She snatched her Cloud Pine from the ground and sprang into the air.