"Right this way," grunted Maugrim, leaving Peter's side and leading the whole party up a craggy-looking pathway towards a row of ice cliffs.
"This can't be right, you know," Stelmaria whispered to her human, glancing over at Maugrim with a slightly distrustful expression. She deliberately fell a little behind the others. "If we went the other way, surely it would be better; whereas this way, we're out in the wilderness longer, in bad weather conditions, and walking on a slippery terrain."
Pretending to adjust the rifle strap on his shoulder, Lord Asriel leaned down and whispered back, "We must watch ourselves, Stelmaria, but we'll give this a chance."
"Remember when we were this far north and we were captured on higher grounds?" Stelmaria's great cat-eyes widened.
"That blasted Coulter woman sent them after us."
"Well, we've got one and a half Coulters with us now. What does it matter if they've chanced their surnames? Are we really going to trust them?"
"We may need the help of an alethiometrist later," Lord Asriel admited under his breath, so that he could be positive only his dæmon could hear him. "You know I'm out of practice at even the simple readings of the instrument I was familiar with. I wouldn't let him know that, give that wrenched boy a big head, but we may need him."
"We don't have an alethiometer," the snow leopard pointed out.
"Not, not right this moment," said Lord Asriel practically.
"Maugrim's going further up now," Stelmaria noted warily.
"Don't worry, Stelmaria," her master whispered, shaking his head. "We've nothing to fear. For the time being we all seem to be on the same side. Anyway, Susan Pevensie-and her dæmon-is no one for us to be anxious over. She's probably even more easy to control than her mother was."
"You couldn't control Marisa," his dæmon remarked, flicking her snow-coloured tail for emphasis.
"Not in the end, no," he whisper-hissed, feeling quite exasperated with himself through his dæmon's irksome chiding. "She became too powerful when she joined forces with the Ruling Powers and started the work at Bolvangar…But she's gone now; and her daughter may be more like her than she realizes, yet I somehow doubt she will ever join forces with the Ruling Powers. She's been too close to that lifestyle for comfort. I predict she'll make other mistakes very like her mother's sins, but not that one."
"True enough." Stelmaria shrugged her strong, muscular white shoulder blades.
"Lord Asriel!" Peter called to him over his shoulder, looking back; the nobleman still appeared to be adjusting the shoulder strap on his rifle and he was taking a terribly long time with it. "Aren't you coming?"
"Yes," he said, "just a moment."
"Maugrim," said Peter to his wife's dæmon, "we'll wait a moment; Lord Asriel needs a minute to catch up."
Maugrim rolled his eyes, his mistress's distain for the absolutely horrid Lord Asriel flashing in them. If he had been feeling less vulnerable being away from Susan, he would have made a biting remark. As it was, he only looked at Peter half-crossly and growled impatiently.
Edmund muttered something unpleasant under his breath which Trumpkin heard and had to swallow back a laugh of faint amusement at by twisting his lips into an even grumpier pout-line than usual, his thick red eyebrows furrowing. Ella flew over to Maugirm and they appeared to be commiserating for a second before she flapped her wings and soared back to Edmund's shoulder where she had previously been perched.
They kept on walking for a few miles, everybody fully trusting Maugrim except for Lord Asriel who, when he thought no one was looking, checked the small black-rimmed compass he had in his coat pocket so he could be sure of the way back; just in case.
In the purplish hazy light reflecting off of the icy path, a giant figure began to come into view.
Fresh snow was failing and Edmund had to blink a few flakes off of his eyelashes before he could study the figure. There was a long head-whiter than the snow was-and a powerful mouth. Its nose was graciously-sized and very, very black against the pale contrast of nearly everything else around it. There was a glimmer of something shinning-like armour-and it stuck Ella and her human at the same time that this was an armoured bear.
Lord Asriel lifted his rifle, but Maugrim growled and told Stelmaria to control her blasted human and not to be such a fool. This bear, the wolf-dæmon assured them, was a friend. This was who was going to help them now; he himself had to get back to Susan before she became immune to that stuff the fairies were making her drink by the bucket-load.
Peter was the first to recognize their old friend. "Iorek! Iorek Byrnison!"
"Hullo, Peter," the bear's voice rumbled.
"I have to go now, Peter," said Maugrim suddenly, his fur bristled uncomfortably and his eyes weary-looking.
Peter turned half-way around and shifted his gaze from Iorek to Maugrim; he didn't want the wolf to leave, missing his wife as much as he did and not wanting to let the only part of her he currently had with him go, but he understood that he must.
"Goodbye, Maugrim," sighed Peter, and reached down and lightly stroked the wolf-dæmon's ears. "Send back my love to Susan; and Lucy-if you happen to see her before I do."
"She misses you a lot," Maugrim told him.
Peter's brow crinkled. "Who, Lucy?"
"No, not Lucy, you moron; I'm not her dæmon!" snapped Maugrim, his lips curling up into a sneer. "Susan."
"Oh, right."
"Seriously, she misses you. She cries at night." Maugrim winced, seeming to sense something as soon as the words were out of his mouth, though his human was far away. "And she's mad that I just told you that." His ears flatted; his human's discomfort was having an affect on him that miles, however many of them there were between them, could not sever. Oh, if ever they should be truly severed-torn apart like those poor children at Bolvangar! Maugrim shuddered at the very thought.
"Why is she mad?" Peter couldn't keep a slightly playful flicker out of his eyes, even though they were almost glassy from being so tired and from the dreadful climate, as he said this.
Maugrim actually sort of smiled as he answered, "Oh, she just doesn't want you to worry about her, that's all. She's fine."
"So long, Maugrim," Ella cawed.
"Goodbye, Ella," he said; "and I will tell Susan that her brother is well, if she's unsure."
They stood and watched the wolf-dæmon disappear, going back down the way they'd all come, until he vanished into the next ice-walled bend altogether.
"How have you been, Iorek?" Edmund asked, to break the awkward silence that followed Maugrim's departure.
"As well as can be expected," said Iorek, his voice darker than he probably intended it to be. It is hard for someone with as deep a voice as Iorek not to sound unpleasantly stern or gruff. "I saw Scoresby in Trollesund; I didn't dare go into Norroway, of course, and I needed a port near the water to get seal blubber from-my armour was getting stiff and creaky."
Edmund couldn't help thinking that the bears back in Svalbard probably never had to adjust or clean much of anything on their perfectly up-kept, unscathed, soulless armour; never-mind attend to the chinks the way Iorek did.
"Someone from Serafina Pekkala's fairy clan was sent to tell him that I was coming. I'm not sure how they knew-but they did-and she told Scoresby to make sure I was waiting here. I have to admit I wondered how you would find me without a guide…then I saw the wolf and I understood," Iorek explained.
Peter nodded and Lord Asriel's dæmon yawned widely, showing all her pearly teeth in her typical unnerving fashion.
But Edmund did nothing to show he'd heard anything Iorek was saying; he was staring down at the ice bear's great white paws (such powerful, terrible paws). No one can trick an ice bear, his mother had told him. Looking at Iorek now, he could believe that. Still, the Svalbard panserbjørne had paws every bit as massive as Iorek Byrnison's; so what made this bear so different from them? How to explain that Iorek was so much more awe-inspiring, so much more…well, real…?
He was still thinking almost obsessively about this, unable to get it out of his head, as Lord Asriel and Peter started working on a campfire, only even remotely snapping out of it when Lord Asriel called him a rather choice name that insults a person who is against the government. It struck Edmund as odd that Lord Asriel of all person would call him that, but he merely shrugged it off and Ella ruffled her feathers indifferently. One thing about Lord Asriel saying that word, being who he was, as against the Ruling Powers as anyone, made it clear that he likely wasn't serious; and even if he was, coming from him, it wasn't particularly scaring or hurtful. Edmund didn't care what Lord Asriel thought of him either way. They both had a fairly low opinion of each other and had mutually decided to suppress their dislike-even hatred, it seemed, in Lord Asriel's case-for the time being.
Soon they were all sitting round the campfire at what was probably the twilight hour, though none of them (except for possibly Iorek, who knew northern skies better than some humans know their own dæmons) could be sure, since the dense clouds had had the same purplish-gray colour for several hours now and the sun looked as if it had been standing still, peeping out at them dimly over the very edge of the world.
After a tuck-in of some dried meat and flat bread, and some hard cheese he tried-and failed, doing nothing more than scorching it and wasting the wedge-to toast over the fire, Edmund looked for Iorek and Lord Asriel, expecting them-and maybe Peter, too-to be making some travel plans. However, they were doing no such thing at the moment.
Lord Asriel was slouched over, sleeping, having had one too many swigs from his silver flask; his dæmon snoring heavily.
"Lord Asriel's asleep," Edmund remarked, twisting his neck around to talk to Peter, who turned out to be curled up next to the snuggest spot the fire had to offer, using his traveling pack as a pillow. Looking to Ella, he added, "Apparently so is Peter."
"Iorek's still awake," said Ella.
"So?"
"So, didn't you want to ask him about the Svalbard bears?"
He did, very much so, but he was also a little afraid. There had to be some reason Iorek rarely spoke of Svalbard or of his old acquaintances there. Yes, Iorek was his friend, but he was also a very strong, very wild animal; if he should offend him deeply enough, what would prevent the bear from tearing him limb from limb?
"You're not scared…" Ella clanked her beak and narrowed her big eyes at her human. "You can't be scared. We can't be scared of a friend; not after we faced the Ruling Powers head-on, even getting deported. Why would Iorek ever do anything worse to us than that?"
Ella was right, of course. Edmund knew he was being a bit silly. This was even more absurd, he realized, than his irrational fear when he'd seem Maugrim on his own without Susan. It was so strange to think that, even after being Edmund Belacqua for so long now, his years growing up as a Coulter still had some effect on his thought patterns, on his superstitions and the way he reacted to certain things. Lucy would have asked Iorek, he was fairly certain, if she wanted to know something as badly as he did right then. She wouldn't have hesitated; the Pevensie girl would be at that bear's side right this minute, the question already firing out of her mouth.
He thought, then, of how Iorek had carried them to the ice bridge so long ago. Most of his fear seemed to melt away like ice under a hot, directly shinning sun. He would go now. He would find out what he wanted to know.
Iorek was staring up at the sky as Edmund tried to approach him as quietly as possible, curious to see if he could sneak up on the bear or not. For that would have been a sort of trick. He didn't believe Iorek would fall for it, but he wanted to see for himself. Too many times in his life, he had taken other people's words as the letter of the law. Since becoming an alethiometrist, he'd learned that sometimes you had to search for an answer and not take every so-and-so's 'yes and no' for solid, undisputable fact.
Before Edmund even got close, the ice bear had swung his head and was facing him. He could not, apparently, sneak up on a bear-or at least, not this bear.
"How do you do that, Iorek?"
"Do what, boy?"
"Know I'm coming from behind before I come," he said, lifting his arm so that Ella could walk down from his shoulder and rest on his out-stretched wrist for a bit. "Hear me even when I think I don't make any noise? Is it that you have better hearing than humans; or is it…I mean, if I stuck up on a bear from Svalbard like that..."
The great white beast shook his head vehemently. "You cannot trick a bear, Edmund."
"Why?"
"Because we aren't human. Tricking and falling for tricks is a human quality."
"But, Iorek, that's just it," said Edmund. "Trumpkin did trick a bear when we were escaping from Svalbard…I know he did…I saw it with my own eyes."
Iorek's dark eyes looked stormy for a moment, flashing with something that might have been wistfulness, disappointment, or even angry regret. "The bears are becoming humanized, then? I take it there are many human things in the bear king's dwellings?"
Edmund didn't deny it. "I saw quite a few."
"Shame," muttered Iorek, looking away for a second.
"You can't be tricked, then?" Edmund found himself oddly persistent, and he wondered if his lack of recent opportunities to look for answers and how to read them in alethiometers had left that part of him so empty that he needed this to fill in the void. "Ever? I mean…even if…even if you were around only other humans for extended amounts of time-just so long as you didn't start acting like them?"
"When was the last time you ever saw me with other bears, or even one other bear?" He asked pointedly, his voice almost a growl.
"Never." Edmund shrugged his shoulders.
"There you go then."
Ella whispered something to her human and Edmund nodded. "All right, I'll ask him."
Iorek raised a white-gold brow expectantly, over-hearing this.
"Iorek, what about the time you had your armour taken away? Weren't you tricked then?" He took a step or two back because he saw the corners of Iorek's teeth appearing as his lips curled up into a snarl.
Ella let out a whistle of faint alarm before she-and Edmund-realized that it was himself the great ice bear was angry with.
"Yes, it was." Iorek blinked twice. "And getting drunk isn't something bears are supposed to do, it's a human sin."
"If the bears all start committing human sins, will they be easy to manipulate?"
"For the Ruling Powers, you mean?" Nothing got by Iorek, however subtly phrased it was.
"Yes," confessed Edmund, wincing at the thought.
"Of course." The bear's broad shoulders heaved into a heavy shrug. "They willingly kept you prisoner when you had committed no wrong against them. They can be tricked now, I suppose, as well as bribed. I am glad my father is not alive to know of this."
"Your father?"
"Died a long time ago," said Iorek curtly. Then, "Come now, Edmund, step closer, I won't harm you. I want to show you something."
Edmund stepped forward and the bear reached out his left front paw, flipping it over so Edmund could see the thick, black padding under the white fur. It was smooth like gilded leather, but much, much stronger-nearly as tough as the metal Iorek could so easily work with.
"See my shield."
Ella whistled again, only out of admiration this time, not alarm or fear.
"Now," said Iorek, retracting his claws and holding them three inches away from Edmund's face, "see my weapons."
The alethiometrist's eyes widened and he gulped involuntarily.
"One more thing." Iorek motioned with his nose towards an only slightly knobby pine branch roughly the size of the average sword a gentle-bred nobleman would carry on his person. "Break off the knobby pieces and hold it like you would a broadsword; you'll try a bit of fencing with me."
Fencing with a panserbjørne! Even in his surprise and apprehension, Edmund was well-aware that this was not something many people could claim to have done in their lifetime-something that (if he survived this war against the Ruling Powers and was able to marry) he would tell his children and grandchildren about.
All the same, a single frozen bead of sweat clung to his forehead. Ella alighted from her master's arm and landed on a nearby rock, scratching against the stone nervously with one of her claws.
Iorek stared peacefully at Edmund, glancing away from time to time. Apparently he expected the alethiometrist to make the first move. But it was just that very sense of peacefulness that made Edmund not want to do it; it wasn't cowardice, it was a sudden desire not to ruin the expression on the bear's face at that moment.
Still, plagued by curiosity and knowing Iorek was waiting, he finally thrust the branch close to the ice bear's side. At first he didn't actually make contact, but then, as this got dull, and Iorek seemed to be doing nothing whatsoever about it, he lunched forward to lightly poke him.
Within an instant, the branch was flicked out of his hand. He hadn't even had time to see and register that the bear had shot out his paw in defense. And yet, there was the branch; it was uncracked, at least, but it lay so uselessly on the ground. He couldn't help but think that the same would have become of a real sword-if he'd had one-as well. Amazing!
Iorek nodded, letting him know it was all right to try again.
This time, Edmund, pathetic and pointless as he knew it was, tried to act as if he were about to aim with the branch one way while really going to do the exact opposite. It was the most fruitless attempt ever seen under the sun; Iorek seemed to know what he was planning even before he planned it and always flicked the branch aside.
On the last try, this time honestly trying-not to trick the bear, but to attack from the front, just to see what would happen-Iorek pinned him onto the ground, flat on his back.
Breathing heavily, Edmund stared up into the bear's serious face, imagining how much more terrifying the whole ordeal would have been if Iorek had bared his teeth or snarled. The branch was hopelessly far away, and if the fight had been real, he would have lost.
One of Iorek's paws was on his left arm. It lay heavily; Edmund knew that if Iorek had chosen to push in, his arm would have snapped clean in half, into two neat, broken pieces.
"I hope that answers your questions," said Iorek.
I dare say it does! Thought Edmund, still breathless with awe, feeling a tremor of adrenalin shooting up and down his spine.
"You do not need to fear me, despite what I've just shown you. I still fight on your side," the white bear told him after a pause. "It was your mother that assisted in the one time I was tricked, taking my armour, it's true. But it was your sister who told me where to find it again. To her, I owe a debt; never have I forgotten that. I serve you and the others in your campaign against the Ruling Powers until I am dead-or you have a victory!"
AN: Please review.