The bears seemed not to see the mess, however, and they led the way in through the huge arch, over the icy ground that was filthy with the spatter of the birds. There was a courtyard, and high steps, and gateways, and at every point bears in armor challenged the incomers and were given a password. Their armor was polished and gleaming, and they all wore plumes in their helmets. Lyra couldn't help comparing every bear she saw with lorek Byrnison, and always to his advantage; he was more powerful, more graceful, and his armor was real armor, rust-colored, bloodstained, dented with combat, not elegant, enameled, and decorative like most of what she saw around her now.
As they went further in, the temperature rose, and so did something else. The smell in lofur's palace was repulsive: rancid seal fat, dung, blood, refuse of every sort. Lyra pushed back her hood to be cooler, but she couldn't help wrinkling her nose. She hoped bears couldn't read human expressions. There were iron brackets every few yards, holding blubber lamps, and in their flaring shadows it wasn't always easy to see where she was treading, either.
Finally they stopped outside a heavy door of iron. A guard bear pulled back a massive bolt, and the sergeant suddenly swung his paw at Lyra, knocking her head over heels through the doorway. Before she could scramble up, she heard the door being bolted behind her.
It was profoundly dark, but Pantalaimon became a firefly, and shed a tiny glow around them. They were in a narrow cell where the walls dripped with damp, and there was one stone bench for furniture. In the farthest corner there was a heap of rags she took for bedding, and that was all she could see.
Lyra sat down, with Pantalaimon on her shoulder, and felt in her clothes for the alethiometer.
«It's certainly had a lot of banging about, Pan,» she whispered. «I hope it still works.»
Pantalaimon flew down to her wrist, and sat there glowing while Lyra composed her mind. With a part of her, she found it remarkable that she could sit here in terrible danger and yet sink into the calm she needed to read the alethiometer; and yet it was so much a part of her now that the most complicated questions sorted themselves out into their constituent symbols as naturally as her muscles moved her limbs: she hardly had to think about them.
She turned the hands and thought the question: «Where is lorek?»
The answer came at once: «A day's journey away, carried there by the balloon after your crash; but hurrying this way.»
«And Roger?»
«With lorek.»
«What will lorek do?»
«He intends to break into the palace and rescue you, in the face of all the difficulties.»
She put the alethiometer away, even more anxious than before.
«They won't let him, will they?» she said to Pantalaimon. «There's too many of 'em. I wish I was a witch, Pan, then you could go off and find him and take messages and all, and we could make a proper plan….»
Then she had the fright of her life.
A man's voice spoke in the darkness a few feet away, and said, «Who are you?»
She leaped up with a cry of alarm. Pantalaimon became a bat at once, shrieking, and flew around her head as she backed against the wall.
«Eh? Eh?» said the man again. «Who is that? Speak up! Speak up!»
«Be a firefly again, Pan,» she said shakily. «But don't go too close.»
The little wavering point of light danced through the air and fluttered around the head of the speaker. And it hadn't been a heap of rags after all; it was a gray-bearded man, chained to the wall, whose eyes glittered in Pantalaimon's luminance, and whose tattered hair hung over his shoulders. His daemon, a weary-looking serpent, lay in his lap, flicking out her tongue occasionally as Pantalaimon flew near.
«What's your name?» she said.
«Jotham Santelia,» he replied. «I am the Regius Professor of Cosmology at the University of Gloucester. Who are you?»
«Lyra Belacqua. What have they locked you up for?»
«Malice and jealousy…Where do you come from? Eh?»
«From Jordan College,» she said.
«What? Oxford?»
«Yes.»
«Is that scoundrel Trelawney still there? Eh?»
«The Palmerian Professor? Yes,» she said.
«Is he, by God! Eh? They should have forced his resignation long ago. Duplicitous plagiarist! Coxcomb!»
Lyra made a neutral sound.
«Has he published his paper on gamma-ray photons yet?» the Professor said, thrusting his face up toward Lyra's.
She moved back.
«I don't know,» she said, and then, making it up out of pure habit, «no,» she went on. «I remember now. He said he still needed to check some figures. And…He said he was going to write about Dust as well. That's it.»
«Scoundrel! Thief! Blackguard! Rogue!» shouted the old man, and he shook so violently that Lyra was afraid he'd have a fit. His daemon slithered lethargically off his lap as the Professor beat his fists against his shanks. Drops of saliva flew out of his mouth.
«Yeah,» said Lyra, «I always thought he was a thief. And a rogue and all that.»
If it was unlikely for a scruffy little girl to turn up in his cell knowing the very man who figured in his obsessions, the Regius Professor didn't notice. He was mad, and no wonder, poor old man; but he might have some scraps of information that Lyra could use.
She sat carefully near him, not near enough for him to touch, but near enough for Pantalaimon's tiny light to show him clearly.
«One thing Professor Trelawney used to boast about,» she said, «was how well he knew the king of the bears—»
«Boast! Eh? Eh? I should say he boasts! He's nothing but a popinjay! And a pirate! Not a scrap of original research to his name! Everything filched from better men!»
«Yeah, that's right,» said Lyra earnestly. «And when he does do something of his own, he gets it wrong.»
«Yes! Yes! Absolutely! No talent, no imagination, a fraud from top to bottom!»
«I mean, for example,» said Lyra, «I bet you know more about the bears than he does, for a start.»
«Bears,» said the old man, «ha! I could write a treatise on them! That's why they shut me away, you know.»
«Why's that?»
«I know too much about them, and they daren't kill me. They daren't do it, much as they'd like to. I know, you see. I have friends. Yes! Powerful friends.»
«Yeah,» said Lyra. «And I bet you'd be a wonderful teacher,» she went on. «Being as you got so much knowledge and experience.»
Even in the depths of his madness a little common sense still flickered, and he looked at her sharply, almost as if he suspected her of sarcasm. But she had been dealing with suspicious and cranky Scholars all her life, and she gazed back with such bland admiration that he was soothed.
«Teacher,» he said, «teacher…Yes, I could teach. Give me the right pupil, and I will light a fire in his mind!»
«Because your knowledge ought not to just vanish,» Lyra said encouragingly. «It ought to be passed on so people remember you.»
«Yes,» he said, nodding seriously. «That's very perceptive of you, child. What is your name?»
«Lyra,» she told him again. «Could you teach me about the bears?»
«The bears…» he said doubtfully.
«I'd really like to know about cosmology and Dust and all, but I'm not clever enough for that. You need really clever students for that. But I could learn about the bears. You could teach me about them all right. And we could sort of practice on that and work up to Dust, maybe.»
He nodded again.
«Yes,» he said, «yes, I believe you're right. There is a correspondence between the microcosm and the macrocosm! The stars are alive, child. Did you know that? Everything out there is alive, and there are grand purposes abroad! The universe is full of intentions, you know. Everything happens for a purpose. Your purpose is to remind me of that. Good, good—in my despair I had forgotten. Good! Excellent, my child!»