Chapter Eight
The Beast Within
The next morning, Will told Lyra and the Master of his encounter with Dr. Rosenberg. The man did not return that morning, nor even when evening came. So, the trio went to check-up on Jordey. The infected boy was lashing at his metallic restraints with the grim inaccuracy of a beast. Lyra tried to come up to him, but the medicine women forbade. She spoke in broken English. "Almost gone, is friend." Lyra nodded grimly, hardly wanting to accept Jordey's fate. The Master looked sadly at the shell of his son, now completely controlled by the beast within it. Jordey's eyes were a blood red, the same blood red color of the grimgnaw that had bitten him. The exact same color. One of the tribeswomen began to shake a gourd over Jordey and chant in their strange, native language.
Burn marks appeared all about Jordey's skin as the women continued chanting. The boy's eyes glinted back to their native blue for only a split second. "Stop!" Lyra screamed hysterically, "You'll kill him!" She pushed the lead woman out of the way and knocked the gourd to the ground, shattering it into a thousand shards. The woman yelled out in the language of her people as Jordey broke free of his chains and let out a fearsome howl. Without bothering to push them away, he ran on all fours past the Master and Will and left the tent. Lyra looked over to where Jordey had been chained. The mouse daemon Sator had fallen to the ground after being separated from her human and died. The body faded away within seconds.
The Master unslung his shotgun from his shoulder. "What are you going to do?" Will asked. "Only what I have to do." He breathed. The three of them ran out of the tent to watch Jordey running down the corridors, his features becoming more and more wolf-like. The Master aimed his gun right at his son's heart. "No! Don't do it!" Lyra yelled. "What?" The Master asked, puzzled. "There's a part of his soul still in there! I 'ent gonna let you kill him." The Master turned to her. "Lyra, Sator's dead. Will saw it, you saw it, and I saw it. Jordey's a grimgnaw now," He aimed for the wolf's heart again, "and he needs to be stopped." "He's your son!" Will protested. The Master's hands faltered. "There may still be a chance to save him!" Lyra cried. The Master's rifle dropped to his side.
Suddenly, Will felt a burning sensation in his pocket. He pulled out Jordey's cube, the one the witches had given him. The top of it had now gone completely away from it, falling from the cube and crumbling into dust, revealing a secret compartment. "What is it?" Lyra asked. "It's…" Will blinked, pulling it out, "It's a wolf's tooth." For a long moment, there was silence. Dead silence. Then, the Master spoke. "So…so this was my son's fate?" He asked rhetorically, "To die a beast!" Lyra had never seen the Master come as close to losing control as he was now. "No," She said. Both Will and the Master turned to her. There had to be a chance to save Jordey, Lyra had to believe that.
Dr. Rosenberg smiled devilishly as he saw the massive army of Grimgnaws entering the room before him. Yes, he still stood within the tower, but now he had learnt enough to bend it to his very will, even so much as allowing the hated wolves to desecrate the 'sacred' place with their footsteps. Rosenberg had promised that the villagers would be powerless to fight them, that the Grimgnaws could retake the land stolen from them so long ago. Rosenberg's smiled only broadened. The only three that stood in his way, would soon be taking orders from him.
It was another of those rare moments in which another person's daemon spoke to others. "It doesn't look good," The Master's raven croaked. "There are dozens of Grimgnaws flooding into the tower. Apparently, they have broken the spell." Lyra relayed this to the medicine women who spoke the best English and she, in turn, told the tribe. "We must prepare for the worst, I believe." The raven said to Lyra, and Lyra in turn said to the medicine woman. After a minute of discussion amongst the tribe, the medicine woman returned. "We join you in fight," She said, "We fight black wolves." Soon, preparations for battle were well underway.
Will, Kirjava, and the Master and his daemon took the first watch that night. Will, because he was too worried and excited about the battle to come, and the Master because he felt too much pain to sleep. When Will or Lyra tried to comfort him, he shook them off, so Will found it best not to say anything about it. In fact, he was silent the whole night. The Master, meanwhile, watched into the shadows in vain for any sight of his son returning normal. Though he knew it wouldn't happen…he knew his son was lost forever to him.
Jordey, now only a shell of his former self, crept along the corridors on all-fours. All that was left was the primal instinct of the beast. He had no feelings, no conscience, no nothing! He was now an animal, not the charming, cute, though slightly annoying, boy he had once been. The beast within was giving the orders.
