It's Not Worth It
Chapter 5 – Roger's Soul
- - - -
Roger squinted his eyes against the seemingly blinding sun and looked up at Matt's face. Wow, I'm sure glad he rescued me, Roger thought. I could've died right there, and no one would've known...
Suddenly Roger realized something, and asked, "How did you survive that avalanche? I called your name and looked for you, but I couldn't find you anywhere."
"Ok, I know this is kind of hard for you to believe, but the witches rescued me. I was barely conscious when I saw some witches up in the sky, with black robes and broomsticks and everything. I figured I was hallucinating and I blacked out, but when I woke up I was lying in the snow surrounded by witches."
"I saw some witches in the sky! So they were really—"
"Yeah," replied Matt. "They performed a spell on me, and it helped me recover. They told me I was the first human they had seen in this place, and when I told them I was traveling with you and Ryan, they took me to you. And then they flew us here, and flew away. You just now woke up."
Suddenly Roger remembered his dream. "Oh yeah, I had this weird dream while I was unconscious. There was this girl, Lyra, and I kind of...followed her, as she did all these important things. She was given this machine that looked like a big compass, but it was made out of gold. The Master, the person that gave it to her, called it something...I can't remember, thometer or something. Then I watched her learning to read it, and then there was a big guillotine that was about to cut away her daemon. But I guess it didn't, because next thing I know she was on top of a snow-covered cliff, trying to save her friend's life. And another, older man had this machine, and he kept fiddling with the knobs on it...he opened a window with it, Matt. Like the one we came through to get here. Then there was another kid, fighting an almost-grown man, and the man had a knife. I don't know if the kid survived, but he was a good fighter."
Next thing I know, you were shaking me awake. I keep thinking that if I finished that dream, I would figure out what caused star sickness, and what we needed to do."
"Oh man, I'm so sorry," responded Matt. "That's kind of a lot to take in, though. So maybe machines like the one that the older man used made that window we came through. But how would a dream about a girl help us find out how to cure star sickness?"
"No idea," Roger mumbled. He was gradually becoming more and more awake, and he realized, Sunlight? Wait, weren't we just in that place with the endless blizzard? And where's Ryan? I was carrying him when I blacked out. To Matt he said, "Where are we? Is Ryan here too?"
"Oh," said Matt, "well, we're a little ways north of that place where we lost our daemons. And Ryan's still unconscious, over there." He pointed to a spot in the snow a few feet away from them, where Ryan was lying. "But the witches performed a spell on him, too—see, he's starting to wake up."
And he was. Ryan was groaning and struggling to sit up in the snow. "Ohhh..." he groaned. "Where are we? Wait, are we out of that horrible place?"
"Yeah," said Matt. "The witches rescued us." And he proceeded to tell Ryan just what he had told Matt, about the witches finding Matt in the snow, and how they flew Roger, Ryan, and Matt out of the blizzard.
"Wait," said Ryan. "If we're out of that place, then shouldn't our daemons be somewhere around here?"
"Hadn't thought of that," said Matt. "Well, maybe they're close by. We should—"
Suddenly Roger felt a tugging at his heart, but this was comforting, not painful like when they had entered the place without daemons. "Did you feel that?" he asked.
"Yeah..." Ryan and Matt both replied.
"D'you think that's...our daemons?" Ryan asked.
"Must be," said Roger, "I've never felt like that before."
"Me neither," said Matt. "But how do we know which way to go?"
"It's your daemon, isn't it?" asked Ryan. "So just try and feel which way to go, then start walking. That's the best we can do now. Our daemons should be together, at least, so that should make finding them easier," he finished.
Roger tried what Ryan had said, and although he doubted it would work, suddenly he felt another tug at his heart, which left no doubt in his mind that he had chosen the right direction. He motioned for his friends to follow him, and they set off towards the east, calling, "Daemons!" every now and then in case they were nearby. It seemed wrong that they didn't even know the names of what they had lost, and as they walked, they looked back at the wall behind them, with the blizzard blowing above it, and each of them vowed to themselves never again to go through such terrible agony, no matter what. Roger felt the cold stinging at him, but he had felt much worse pain in the endless blizzard, and the calmness and rhythm of his footsteps in the snow relaxed and comforted him.
"I'm just glad that we were able to make it out of that place alive," said Ryan. "And think, if those witches hadn't passed over us right when they did, we would've all been dead by now."
"It's almost as if the witches were destined to fly overhead when they did," added Matt.
"Destiny..." said Roger. The word seemed to bring back something that Jule the shaman had said, back in the town of Olum'diaye. It seemed like a different life that Roger had been living, compared to the harsh cold and flying witches of the far North. "I remember Jule saying something about two people who were supposed to bring about the end of destiny. He said...'Nine years ago, destiny was supposed to be brought to an end, but was not due to the greed of the very people who were supposed to save us.' He told us that we were supposed to put an end to star sickness, but we're also supposed to put an end to destiny!"
"I remember that," Ryan replied. "But how do we find those other people, who were supposed to end destiny nine years ago? We have no idea and no clues about where to find them."
"Actually, we do," said Roger thoughtfully. "There were two people in my dream..."
- - - -
One of the two people in question was
currently sitting in her house in Oxford, consulting an alethiometer.
Lyra Silvertongue moved the familiar hands of the instrument to the
correct places, and formed the question in her mind, What can we
do to save Dust?
The answer came almost immediately. The
windows must be closed.
Is there any other way?
Lyra questioned.
All she got in return was the same answer, The windows must be closed, followed by a gentle rebuke from the alethiometer for asking the same question twice. While living with Will, Lyra had plenty of time to practice the alethiometer, and now could read almost as well as she could when before Pan had settled. She could never read it as well again, she knew that, but regaining the skill by wisdom was possible and necessary. Without the alethiometer, Lyra just didn't feel complete.
Tears began to run down Lyra's eyes. The choice that she had to make seemed like something out of a nightmare, something that wasn't happening to her, until she actually read it in the alethiometer. Now she would have to tell Will, and given his behavior when Mary told him the same thing, she knew it would be one of the hardest things she would ever do. She was about to get up and leave when the alethiometer's hands began to move again. Shocked, she glanced at the message the instrument was sending her.
Don't tell your husband, the alethiometer said.
- - - -
Roger began to tell Ryan of his dream, and went into even more detail this time. He explained how he had seemed to know the names of people and things without being told, like part of him already knew. "The girl's name was Lyra, and I remember it well because it was such a weird name," said Roger. "She was from this world, but last I saw of her she was heading through a window, so I don't know which world she could've gone into. But our best bet is to try looking in the place where I saw her for the first time, called Jordan College. I think it was somewhere in Oxford, England, if there is even an Oxford in this world. And I don't even know the boy's name, but it looked like he was from our world, because he didn't have a daemon."
"So we'd better head back to Oferic, and try to take a boat to Oxford," said Matt. He unfolded the map that Jule had given them. It looked like Oferic was almost to the due north of England, maybe a little to the northwest. "From there we'll ask around, try to find this Jordan College place," he said. "Even if she's not there anymore, maybe they could tell us where she is now."
"But first we have to find our daemons," said Ryan thoughtfully. They had been walking to the east as they talked, and had still seen nor felt no sign of their daemons. There weren't even any animals around.
"They've got to be here, I just felt them earlier," replied Roger. "Just keep--"
But what they should keep they never found out, because Roger, Ryan, and Matt had just sighted three snow geese that were just landing in the snow in front of them, and one had just turned into an Arctic hare.
- - - -
Mary Malone stared out of the amber spyglass from her favorite spot by the large semicircular window on the second story of Will and Lyra's house and sighed. Everything was wrong again. All three seedpod trees that were planted in Will and Lyra's backyard had died, and the Dust flow in the sky was almost completely horizontal now. Somewhere in the world of the mulefa, the trees there were dying as well. Somewhere in the strange world she had passed through to reach the world of the mulefa, the Specters once again haunted the streets. And somewhere in the world she had left behind, the government would be very confused indeed.
What was wrong with Will lately? Although Mary couldn't put a finger on it, she felt a definite change in him ever since she had told him of the Driftbreeze. Besides the expected anger and sadness, she could tell that something like a huge reluctance had come over him. Will used to be so kind, but he now had an air of defiance, like nothing in the world could keep him away from Lyra. And Lyra had said little against Will's idea. Mary had thought that at least Lyra would consult the alethiometer and tell Will what it said. But she seemed to just be submitting to him, like there was nothing she could do about it.
The Driftbreeze seemed to have overcome even Lyra's world, and was now almost as major a problem in her world as it was in Mary's own. Mary could see a person almost every day collapse from the horrible Drifts. The person's daemon always exhibited the same behavior: they would collapse before their humans did, and show no signs of waking up even after their humans recovered from the Driftbreeze. Mary wanted to do something about it, but she had only ever been afraid of one person in her life, and that was Will. She was afraid to do anything. She was just as bad as Lyra, she figured.
And Mary was getting old. She couldn't do it on her own.
- - - -
Roger and his friends stared at the now three Arctic hares standing unwaveringly in front of them.
One stepped forward slowly. "Roger, I am your daemon," she said proudly. "I don't have a name yet, because before now I had no use for one. But do you know that whenever you heard that small voice in the back of your head, telling you to"—here she smiled—"not throw all those dead skunks into the principal's office, or to leave Mrs. Biddy to her teaching, instead of scaring her to death? That was me. I am your conscience, your soul, and the only thing that sets you apart from bears, or lions, or even apes."
"Y-you were with me my whole life?" Roger asked. "And I didn't even know it?"
"Yes," said his daemon. "I am not settled yet, though. Once I am settled, you will have finished going through puberty. Then I will never change form again, and that form will be the true form of your soul."
"So you'll keep changing until I finish puberty?" Roger questioned. He was beginning to realize that everything his daemon was saying were things that he knew all along. They had just been buried deep in his mind for years, and he never bothered to think about them, because they hadn't been important then.
"Right," replied his daemon. "But listen carefully, because the others and I have a lot to tell you. First of all, however, you must name us. Let me remind you that once you name me, that will be my name forever, and it can never be changed."
Both of the other daemons stepped forward. "I am your daemon," Matt's daemon said to him. "As Roger's daemon said, you must name us, but choose well, for our names cannot be changed."
Roger realized the significance of what he was about to do, and he became a little nervous. If he chose the wrong name, it would haunt him for the rest of his life. He began to go through, in his mind, a list of possible names for his daemon. She stood confidently in the snow next to him, and she changed into a snow leopard—again Roger felt the tug at his heart—and reached out to his mind. He began to calm down, and for the first time felt his daemon's fur rub against him. These gestures helped him relax, and he was about to call out a name when Ryan began to speak.
"You're...um...Aura!" said Ryan. Matt laughed teasingly at this.
"Aura?" he asked. "What kind of name is that? I shouldn't have worried about you coming up with a cooler name for your daemon that me."
"Well, I thought it sounded cool," said Ryan. His daemon, which had also turned into a snow leopard, let out a soft growl at Matt's bullying. Surprisingly, Roger didn't feel at all threatened by this, and from the looks of it, neither did Matt. It felt natural, just something that would happen whenever a human was frustrated.
"Well, I'll call mine Callisto," said Matt confidently. "Better than Aura, I hope." The newly named Callisto lazily transformed into a polar bear and glanced at Ryan's Aura out of the corner of her eye, as if daring Ryan to say something about it.
"Callisto?" asked Roger. "What's that?"
"Oh, just a gun in Perfect Dark," replied not Matt but Callisto herself. "And one of Jupiter's moons, if I remember correctly from that new Harry Potter book." Matt looked shocked.
"I didn't even know that myself," said Matt.
"Sure you did," replied Callisto. "I just remembered it for you." Through all this Roger had remained silent, reviewing the name he had picked for his daemon. It didn't seem as cool as Callisto, but he hoped it was better than Aura. His daemon changed into a polar bear to give him confidence. "Well," he said, speaking directly to his daemon now, "your name is Mantra." His daemon nodded proudly.
"What's that?" asked Matt hesitantly, watching the polar bear standing next to Roger.
"I don't know," said Roger. "Actually, it just came to mind. Maybe Mantra knows, though."
Mantra spoke. "Yes, I do," she said. "You don't know what a mantra is, so neither do I. But you heard it first from your mother, and you've always liked how it sounded." Mantra laughed at this, but she was a polar bear, so it came out as more of a growl. Her voice turned more serious now. "Now that you've named us, we have something very important to tell you. Once you left us behind when you passed through that gate—don't worry, you couldn't have known, so we don't blame you for it—we ran into a clan of witches. At first we approached them because it looked like their daemons were inside them too, but we found out that, since witches have to make the journey through the endless blizzard—it's more of a ritual for them—they can go as far from their daemons as is necessary."
"Does that mean that we have that ability too?" asked Ryan.
"Yes, you do," replied Aura. She now took over from Mantra. "We asked the witches about star sickness, or what they call Driftbreeze in this world. What they told us kind of coincides with what you found out about Roger's dream, so listen carefully. The witch clan we saw was led by a witch named Serafina Pekkala. She actually knows of the girl Roger dreamed about, Lyra Silvertongue."
Roger's daemon, Mantra, spoke again. "All the events you saw in your dream actually happened to Lyra," she said. "The instrument you saw her reading is called an alethiometer. Serafina Pekkala's been lucky enough to see Lyra read it in person, and she told us that the instrument tells the truth, about anything you ask it. Her daemon is named Pantalaimon, and is settled as a pine marten."
"A pine what?" asked Matt. "What's that?"
"It's like a big ferret," replied Callisto. "with reddish-gold fur." She transformed to show them, then quickly reverted to his polar bear form, because she was freezing cold. "Anyway, after she traveled through that window you saw, through the northern lights, she met the boy named William Parry. The knife you saw can cut through anything, and William was able to win the fight and became bearer of the knife. Listen to me, Matt. The knife made the windows, and it is the cause of star sickness. Star sickness is actually Dust leaking out of the windows the knife made. You remember Dust, Roger. Philip told you, aboard the ship." Roger nodded. "Well, like Philip said, without Dust, daemons will wither away. And without a living daemon, a person will first faint. You see, a person can live without a conscious daemon. If the daemon simply did not exist, or was cut away, the person would probably die of shock."
"But if everything the daemon provided is gone, and the daemon is still there, the person will live. But that person will be so apathetic that they will lose even sentience. That's what it's called when something is aware of its own existence," she explained, when Roger, Ryan, and Matt looked confused. "And they will basically become like a robot, doing everything that they are told, without thinking for themselves. That's the cause of star sickness, and that's what will eventually happen to everybody in every world, unless something is done. That is, most likely, what happened to Matt while I was unconscious, and what is happening to Kyle and Jason right now."
"So can't we just find this Will and tell him to stop using the knife?" asked Roger. "Or to close all the windows?"
"That's the thing," Mantra said. "The story doesn't end there. Lyra and Will went on to become great friends, and traveled the worlds with the knife, helping to preserve Dust. But an angel—" Roger, Ryan, and Matt looked shocked, "—yes, they exist, an angel told Lyra and Will about the Dust leaking through the windows, and how they would have to close all the windows, and return to their own worlds. Well, Lyra and Will had just found out that they were in love, and so the last thing they wanted to do was return to their own worlds, apart from each other. But they did so at first, although reluctantly. However, nine years ago, Will made the decision to cut back through to Lyra's world, because he couldn't stand to be apart from her. From then on they've used the knife, assuming the angels can again take care of whatever they do to nature. But apparently that's not the case, because star sickness still plagues everyone."
"So it's like this," Callisto finished. "To save the worlds, we have to go to Will and Lyra, and tell them to again go back to their separate worlds. If they don't like it, we're probably in trouble, because Will has a knife that could take off our heads with one swipe, and Lyra can tell when we're coming through her alethiometer. This is what you were chosen to do, and this is what must be done.
And Roger, Ryan, and Matt looked at each other and their newfound daemons, and for once all of them were at a loss for words.
