“Is that what you wanted? To choke us and kill us all with sin and darkness?”
“I wanted to break out, Marisa! And I have. Look, look at the palm trees waving on the shore! Can you feel that wind? A wind from another world! Feel it on your hair, on your face….”
Lord Asriel pushed back Mrs. Coulter's hood and turned her head to the sky, running his hands through her hair. Lyra watched breathless, not daring to move a muscle.
The woman clung to Lord Asriel as if she were dizzy, and shook her head, distressed.
“No—no—they're coming, Asriel—they know where I've gone-”
“Then come with me, away and out of this world!”
“I daren't—”
“You? Dare not? Your child would come. Your child would dare anything, and shame her mother.”
“Then take her and welcome. She's more yours than mine, Asriel.”
“Not so. You took her in; you tried to mold her. You wanted her then.”
“She was too coarse, too stubborn. I'd left it too late….But where is she now? I followed her footsteps up….”
“You want her, still? Twice you've tried to hold her, and twice she's got away. If I were her, I'd run, and keep on running, sooner than give you a third chance.”
His hands, still clasping her head, tensed suddenly and drew her toward him in a passionate kiss. Lyra thought it seemed more like cruelty than love, and looked at their daemons, to see a strange sight: the snow leopard tense, crouching with her claws just pressing in the golden monkey's flesh, and the monkey relaxed, blissful, swooning on the snow.
Mrs. Coulter pulled fiercely back from the kiss and said, “No, Asriel—my place is in this world, not that—”
“Come with me!” he said, urgent, powerful. “Come and work with me!”
“We couldn't work together, you and I.”
“No? You and I could take the universe to pieces and put it together again, Marisa! We could find the source of Dust and stifle it forever! And you'd like to be part of that great work; don't lie to me about it. Lie about everything else, lie about the Oblation Board, lie about your lovers—yes, I know about Boreal, and I care nothing—lie about the Church, lie about the child, even, but don't lie about what you truly want….”
And their mouths were fastened together with a powerful greed. Their daemons were playing fiercely; the snow leopard rolled over on her back, and the monkey raked his claws in the soft fur of her neck, and she growled a deep rumble of pleasure.
“If I don't come, you'll try and destroy me,” said Mrs. Coulter, breaking away.
“Why should I want to destroy you?” he said, laughing, with the light of the other world shining around his head. “Come with me, work with me, and I'll care whether you live or die. Stay here, and you lose my interest at once. Don't flatter yourself that I'd give you a second's thought. Now stay and work your mischief in this world, or come with me.”
Mrs. Coulter hesitated; her eyes closed, she seemed to sway as if she were fainting; but she kept her balance and opened her eyes again, with an infinite beautiful sadness in them.
“No,” she said. “No.”
Their daemons were apart again. Lord Asriel reached down and curled his strong fingers into the snow leopard's fur. Then he turned his back and walked away without another word. The golden monkey leaped into Mrs. Coulter's arms, making little sounds of distress, reaching out to the snow leopard as she paced away, and Mrs. Coulter's face was a mask of tears. Lyra could see them glinting; they were real.
Then her mother turned, shaking with silent sobs, and moved down the mountain and out of Lyra's sight.
Lyra watched her coldly, and then looked up toward the sky.
Such a vault of wonders she had never seen.
The city hanging there so empty and silent looked new-made, waiting to be occupied; or asleep, waiting to be woken. The sun of that world was shining into this, making Lyra's hands golden, melting the ice on Roger's wolfskin hood, making his pale cheeks transparent, glistening in his open sightless eyes.
She felt wrenched apart with unhappiness. And with anger, too; she could have killed her father; if she could have torn out his heart, she would have done so there and then, for what he'd done to Roger. And to her: tricking her: how dare he?
She was still holding Roger's body. Pantalaimon was saying something, but her mind was ablaze, and she didn't hear until he pressed his wildcat claws into the back of her hand to make her. She blinked.
“What? What?”
“Dust!” he said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Dust. He's going to find the source of Dust and destroy it, isn't he?”
“That's what he said.”
“And the Oblation Board and the Church and Bolvangar and Mrs. Coulter and all, they want to destroy it too, don't they?”
“Yeah…Or stop it affecting people…Why?”
“Because if they all think Dust is bad, it must be good.”
She didn't speak. A little hiccup of excitement leaped in her chest.
Pantalaimon went on:
“We've heard them all talk about Dust, and they're so afraid of it, and you know what? We believed them, even though we could see that what they were doing was wicked and evil and wrong….We thought Dust must be bad too, because they were grown up and they said so. But what if it isn't? What if it's—”
She said breathlessly, “Yeah! What if it's really good…”
She looked at him and saw his green wildcat eyes ablaze with her own excitement. She felt dizzy, as if the whole world were turning beneath her.