“But I’m divided, I’m pulled apart, because also I want to go back and look after my mother, because I could, and also the angel Balthamos told me I should go to Lord Asriel and offer the knife to him, and I think maybe he was right as well . . .”
“He fled,” said the bear.
“He wasn’t a warrior. He did as much as he could, and then he couldn’t do any more. He wasn’t the only one to be afraid; I’m afraid, too. So I have to think it through. Maybe sometimes we don’t do the right thing because the wrong thing looks more dangerous, and we don’t want to look scared, so we go and do the wrong thing just because it’s dangerous. We’re more concerned with not looking scared than with judging right. It’s very hard. That’s why I didn’t answer you.”
“I see,” said the bear.
They stood in silence for what felt like a long time, especially to Will, who had little protection from the bitter cold. But Iorek hadn’t finished yet, and Will was still weak and dizzy from the blow, and didn’t quite trust his feet, so they stayed where they were.
“Well, I have compromised myself in many ways,” said the bear-king. “It may be that in helping you I have brought final destruction on my kingdom. And it may be that I have not, and that destruction was coming anyway; maybe I have held it off. So I am troubled, having to do un-bearlike deeds and speculate and doubt like a human.
“And I shall tell you one thing. You know it already, but you don’t want to, which is why I tell you openly, so that you don’t mistake it. If you want to succeed in this task, you must no longer think about your mother. You must put her aside. If your mind is divided, the knife will break.
“Now I’m going to say farewell to Lyra. You must wait in the cave; those two spies will not let you out of their sight, and I do not want them listening when I speak to her.”
Will had no words, though his breast and his throat were full. He managed to say, “Thank you, Iorek Byrnison,” but that was all he could say.
He walked with Iorek up the slope toward the cave, where the fire glow still shone warmly in the vast surrounding dark.
There Iorek carried out the last process in the mending of the subtle knife. He laid it among the brighter cinders until the blade was glowing, and Will and Lyra saw a hundred colors swirling in the smoky depths of the metal, and when he judged the moment was right, Iorek told Will to take it and plunge it directly into the snow that had drifted outside.
The rosewood handle was charred and scorched, but Will wrapped his hand in several folds of a shirt and did as Iorek told him. In the hiss and flare of steam, he felt the atoms finally settle together, and he knew that the knife was as keen as before, the point as infinitely rare.
But it did look different. It was shorter, and much less elegant, and there was a dull silver surface over each of the joins. It looked ugly now; it looked like what it was, wounded.
When it was cool enough, he packed it away in the rucksack and sat, ignoring the spies, to wait for Lyra to come back.
Iorek had taken her a little farther up the slope, to a point out of sight of the cave, and there he had let her sit cradled in the shelter of his great arms, with Pantalaimon nestling mouse-formed at her breast. Iorek bent his head over her and nuzzled at her scorched and smoky hands. Without a word he began to lick them clean; his tongue was soothing on the burns, and she felt as safe as she had ever felt in her life.
But when her hands were free of soot and dirt, Iorek spoke. She felt his voice vibrate against her back.
“Lyra Silvertongue, what is this plan to visit the dead?”
“It came to me in a dream, Iorek. I saw Roger’s ghost, and I knew he was calling to me . . . You remember Roger. Well, after we left you, he was killed, and it was my fault, at least I felt it was. And I think I should just finish what I began, that’s all: I should go and say sorry, and if I can, I should rescue him from there. If Will can open a way to the world of the dead, then we must do it.”
“Can is not the same as must.”
“But if you must and you can, then there’s no excuse.”
“While you are alive, your business is with life.”
“No, Iorek,” she said gently, “our business is to keep promises, no matter how difficult they are. You know, secretly, I’m deadly scared. And I wish I’d never had that dream, and I wish Will hadn’t thought of using the knife to go there. But we did, so we can’t get out of it.”
Lyra felt Pantalaimon trembling and stroked him with her sore hands.
“We don’t know how to get there, though,” she went on. “We won’t know anything till we try. What are you going to do, Iorek?”
“I’m going back north, with my people. We can’t live in the mountains. Even the snow is different. I thought we could live here, but we can live more easily in the sea, even if it is warm. That was worth learning. And besides, I think we will be needed. I can feel war, Lyra Silvertongue; I can smell it; I can hear it. I spoke to Serafina Pekkala before I came this way, and she told me she was going to Lord Faa and the gyptians. If there is war, we shall be needed.”
Lyra sat up, excited at hearing the names of her old friends. But Iorek hadn’t finished. He went on:
“If you do not find a way out of the world of the dead, we shall not meet again, because I have no ghost. My body will remain on the earth, and then become part of it. But if it turns out that you and I both survive, then you will always be a welcome and honored visitor to Svalbard; and the same is true of Will. Has he told you what happened when we met?”