The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth (Book of Dust, Volume 2) (60 page)

The card bore the dealer’s name and an address in the city, and that was all. She tore it and all the pictures up and threw them in the wastepaper basket.

A few minutes later came another knock. She didn’t bother with the veil this time; the dealer was an elderly Greek, who made the same response when she asked about the Blue Hotel. He left within five minutes.

The third came half an hour later. Again she said that she didn’t want to buy a dæmon; all she wanted was to get to the Blue Hotel. He didn’t know, so she said goodbye and shut the door.

She was desperately uncomfortable, hot, hungry, thirsty, and a bad headache added to her other unhappinesses. Her broken hand was swollen and darkened and throbbing with pain. She sat and waited.

An hour went past. She thought, The word’s got around that I don’t want to buy a dæmon, and they’ve given up bothering to come.

She felt half inclined to lie down and die. But her body wanted food and drink, and she took that to be a sign that her body at least wanted to go on living. She put on the veil and went out to buy some bread and cheese and some bottled water and, if she could find any, some painkilling medication.

Veiled though she was, the shopkeepers treated her with hostile suspicion. One refused to sell her anything and kept making gestures to ward off some evil influence, but another took her money and sold her what she wanted.

When she returned to the hotel, she found a man waiting outside her room.

The first three had been respectably dressed, and conducted themselves like professional businessmen with valuable goods to sell. This man looked like a beggar; his clothes were little better than rags, his hands were ingrained with dirt, and he had a scar that began on his left cheek, passed across the bridge of his nose, and continued to his right ear, white against his nut-brown sunburned face. He could have been any age between thirty and sixty. A scattering of gray stubble was all the hair he had, but his face was mobile and unlined. His eyes were intelligent and vivid, and he spoke in a light, swift voice whose accent seemed a blend of the entire Levant. His dæmon was a gecko, sitting on his shoulder.

“Miss! I am so glad to see you. I have been waiting here without a pause. I know what you want. The word is out. Does the young lady want to buy a dæmon? No, she does not. Is she interested in visiting the Roman temple sites? Another day, maybe. Is she waiting for a merchant of gold or ivory, or perfume or silk or dried fruit? No. I am going to anticipate your deepest desire, lady. I know what you want. Is it not true?”

Lyra said, “I want to open my door and sit down inside my room. I’m tired and hungry. If you want to sell me something, tell me what it is when I’ve eaten and rested.”

“With the greatest of pleasure. I shall wait here. I shall not go away. Take as long as you need. Make yourself entirely comfortable, and then call on me, and I will serve you with all the honesty at my command.”

He bowed, and sank into a cross-legged pose against the wall of the corridor opposite her door. He put his palms together in a gesture that possibly meant respect, though there was a slight gleam of mockery in his eyes. She unlocked her door and went inside, locking it again before taking off the veil, and sat down with her bread and cheese and warm water, and swallowed two of the painkillers.

She ate and drank, and felt a little better for it, and then washed her hands and face and tidied her short hair before opening the door.

He was still there, cross-legged, patient, and he stood up at once with a lithe energy.

“Very well,” she said. “Come in and tell me what you have to sell.”

“Did you enjoy your meal, madam?” he said when she’d shut the door.

“No. But it was necessary to eat. What is your name?”

“Abdel Ionides, madam.”

“Please sit down. Don’t call me madam. You can call me Miss Silvertongue.”

“Very good. That is a name expressive of personal qualities, and I dare to ask about the interesting people who must have been your parents.”

“That name was given me by a king, not by my parents. Now, what have you got to sell?”

“Many things. I can supply almost anything. I add the ‘almost’ to testify to my honesty. Now, most people who come to this hotel are in a sorry condition, having lost their dæmons but still remained alive. Their suffering is pitiable, and my heart is a warm and easily moved organ, so if they ask me to find them a dæmon, that is what I shall do. I have performed that task many times. May I say something about the condition of your health, Miss Silver?”

“What do you want to say?”

“You are in some pain. I have a truly marvelous salve, from the most mysterious region of the deepest east, which is guaranteed to relieve pains of every kind and origin. For only ten dollars’ equivalent, I can sell you this wonderful medication.” He took a small tin from his pocket, like the containers shoe polish came in, but smaller and unlabeled. “Please—try just a small amount—you will be convinced, I assure you,” he said, taking off the lid and holding it out.

The salve was pinkish in color and greasy. She took a very small dab on the tip of her right forefinger and applied it to her broken hand. She couldn’t feel any difference, but she didn’t feel like arguing, and the price wasn’t high.

She paid the money, causing him a little surprise, and then she realized that he’d been expecting her to bargain. Well, too bad. She put the tin on the bedside table and said, “Do you know a man called”—she picked up the card left by her earlier visitor—“Dr. Selim Veli?”

“Oh, indeed. A man of substance and renown.”

“Is he honest?”

“That is like asking whether the sun is hot. Dr. Veli’s honesty is a byword throughout the entire Levant. But do you mistrust him, Miss Silver?”

“He told me he had sold a dæmon to someone whose name I knew, and I was surprised. I didn’t know whether to believe him.”

“Oh, you can believe him without hesitation or fear.”

“I see. Where do— How do those who sell dæmons acquire them?”

“There are many ways. I can see you are a lady of a tender heart, so I shall not tell you some of the ways in which this happens. But from time to time a dæmon will be lost, unhappy, even unwanted, if you can believe that dreadful truth, and we take him or her into our care and try to find a congenial companion for them in the hope of making a liaison that will last, after all, for a lifetime. When we are successful, the happiness we feel is almost equivalent to that of our lucky clients.”

His gecko dæmon, orange and green in color, scuttled briskly over his arms and shoulders and the top of his head. Lyra saw her slip out her tongue and lick the surface of her eyes, and then whisper a quick word or two in the man’s ear.

“Well,” said Lyra, “I don’t want a replacement for my dæmon. I want to go to Aleppo.”

“I can guide you there with great facility and convenience, Miss Silver.”

“And on the way I want to go somewhere else. I have heard of a place called the Blue Hotel.”

“Ah, yes. I am familiar with that name too. Sometimes we refer to it by the name of Selenopolis, or Madinat al-Qamar. They are words that mean the city or the town of the moon.”

“Do you know how to get there?”

“I have been there twice. I had not thought I would ever go there again, but I perceive the course of your thinking, and I dare to say we could agree on a price for me to take you there. But it is not a pleasant place.”

His gecko dæmon spoke from his left shoulder. “It is horrible,” she said, her voice high and quiet. “Our price will be high to pay for the suffering that I will undergo. For choice, we would never go there again. But if it is your will, then it will be our duty. I shall not say our pleasure.”

“Is it far from here?”

“One, maybe two days’ journey by camel,” said Ionides.

“I have never ridden a camel.”

“Then we shall have to teach you. But there is no other way. No road, no rail. Only the desert.”

“Very well, then name your price.”

“One hundred dollars.”

“That’s too high. It sounds like something worth sixty.”

“Oh, Miss Silver, you mistake the nature of this journey. This excursion to the world of the night is not just a matter of
tourism.
This is not a Roman temple or a ruined theater, with picturesque columns and fallen masonry, and a little stall that sells lemonade and souvenirs. We shall be treading on the borders of the invisible, trespassing in the realm of the uncanny. Is this not worth a higher price than the sum you named, which would hardly cover the hire of one camel? Make it ninety.”

“Still too much. I can summon the uncanny whenever I want to. I have spent weeks of my life in the presence of the invisible and the uncanny. They are not strange to me. What I want is a guide to take me to this city or town or village of the night. I offer you seventy dollars.”

“Alas, you want to travel like a beggar, Miss Silver. For a journey of this danger and consequence, it is a sign of respect to the inhabitants, and of respect to your humble guide, and not least of respect to your own dæmon to travel in a manner that expresses the quality of your breeding and the width of your sympathies. Eighty dollars.”

She was tired. “All right, eighty dollars,” she said. “Twenty-five before we start, twenty-five when we get to the Blue Hotel, and thirty when we get to Aleppo.”

He shook his head sadly. His dæmon, perching on it, kept her eyes on Lyra as his head moved. “I am a poor man,” he said. “And I shall still be a poor man after this journey. I had hoped to be able to save a little from this fee, against the poverty of old age, but I see that will be impossible. Nevertheless, you have my word. Thirty for each stage of the journey, then.”

“No. Twenty-five, twenty-five, and thirty.”

He bowed his head. The dæmon jumped off and into his open hands, and licked her eyes again.

“When would you like to start?” Ionides said.

All the next day Lyra rode her camel in a little enclosed tent of pain. Ionides managed everything with good humor and perfect tact; he knew when to be quiet and when she wouldn’t mind a friendly remark; he found somewhere shady to rest at noon, and made sure she kept drinking enough water.

After their midday rest, he said, “It is really and quite genuinely not far now, Miss Silver. I estimate that we shall arrive in the neighborhood of Madinat al-Qamar at about sunset.”

“Have you ever been into the place?” she asked.

“No. To be immaculately candid, Miss Silver, I was afraid. You mustn’t underappreciate the degree of fear that is aroused in persons who are complete by the thought of a company of separated dæmons, or of the process of separation that must have occurred.”

“I don’t under-whatever the fear. I used to feel it myself. I’ve been causing it in other people for two and a half thousand miles.”

“Yes, of course. I would never assume you didn’t deeply and thoroughly know that. But the result of that emotional reaction is that I was too frightened to follow my clients into the purlieus of the Blue Hotel. I told them so with perfect frankness. They went in alone. I brought them there, but I never guaranteed the outcome of their search. All I guaranteed was to take them to the Blue Hotel, which I did. One hundred percent. The rest was up to them.”

She nodded; she was almost too tired to say anything. They rode on. The little pot of Ionides’s salve was in her pocket, and balancing as best she could, she prized it open and applied a dab to the back of her abominably aching hand, and then, experimenting, to her temples. The headache she’d had for days was still firmly in residence, and the glare from the sand all around was helping not at all. But a marvelous coolness quite soon began to soothe her brow, and the glare even seemed to dim slightly.

“Mr. Ionides,” she said, “tell me more about this salve.”

“I bought it from a train master who had just arrived from Samarkand. Its virtues are quite well-known, I assure you.”

“Where does it originally come from?”

“Oh, who knows, very much further east, beyond the highest mountains in the world. No camel trains make the journey through the mountain passes. It is too high and too arduous even for camels. Anyone who wishes to transport goods from that side to this, or this side to that, has to negotiate with the
bagazhkti.
”

“And what’s that? Or they?”

“They are beings who are like humans in that they have a language and can speak, but unlike us in that if they have a dæmon, it is internal or invisible. They are like small camels, no hump, long neck. They hire themselves out for purposes of transport. Bad-tempered, very unpleasant, oh, I can’t tell you. Arrogant. But they can climb the high passes with loads of unbelievable size.”

“So if this salve came from beyond the mountains…”

“It will have been carried part of the way by the
bagazhkti.
But the
bagazhkti
have another virtue. The mountains are infested with large birds of a carnivorous rapacity, which are known as
oghâb-gorgs.
Enormously dangerous. Only the
bagazhkti
have found a way of fighting off these birds. The
bagazhkti
can spit their offensive and venomous saliva very accurately for a not-inconsiderable distance. The birds find this not at all enjoyable, and quite commonly retreat. So in paying for the services of the
bagazhkti,
a train master will also ensure his survival and that of the goods he carries. But as you will realize, Miss Silver, it adds to the cost. May I ask how is your pain now?”

“It’s slightly better, thank you. Tell me, did you know about this salve? Did you specifically ask for it?”

“Yes, I did know, and that is why I managed to find a merchant likely to have it.”

“Has it got a special name?”

“It is called
gülmuron.
But there are many cheap kinds that do not have any beneficial effects. This is the true
gülmuron.
”

“I’ll remember that. Thank you.”

The pain in her hand was just about bearable, but to add to all the other discomforts, she began to feel a familiar deep dragging ache low in her belly. Well, it was due. There was even something reassuring in it: if that part’s working, then at least my body’s still in good order, she thought.

But it was uncomfortable nonetheless, and she was profoundly glad when the sun touched the horizon and Ionides said it was time to make camp.

“Are we there?” she said. “Is this the Blue Hotel?”

Looking around, she saw a low range of hills—not even hills: not much more than rocky slopes—to the right, and endless flat desert to the left. Directly ahead was a mass of broken stone, with little to show at a first glance that there had ever been a town there, though the last rays of the sun did illuminate the top of a line of columns made of light-colored limestone much eroded by wind, which she might not have noticed otherwise. While Ionides bustled around tethering the camels and making a fire, Lyra climbed the nearest rock and looked steadily into the mass of jumbled boulders, and in the rapidly fading light, she did begin to make out some regular shapes: a rectangular set of tumbled walls, an arch that had tilted slightly without actually falling, a paved open space that might have been a market or forum.

It was all lifeless. If there were any dæmons there, they were hiding well and keeping very quiet.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” she said, joining Ionides at the fire, where he was grilling some kind of meat.

“Miss Silver,” he said in a tone of deep reproach, “I did not think of you as a die-hard skeptic.”

“Not a die-hard one, but just a little cautious. Is this the place?”

“Guaranteed. There are the remains of the town—all those rocks, they used to be buildings. Even now some of the walls are still standing. You have only to walk among them to know that you are in what used to be a center of commerce and culture.”

She stood watching the shadows lengthen as Ionides turned the meat and mixed some flour with a little water and slapped the dough flat before cooking it in a long-blackened frying pan. By the time the food was ready, the sky was nearly dark.

“A good sleep, Miss Silver, and you will be awake bright and early to investigate the ruins in the morning,” he said.

“I’m going in tonight.”

“Is that altogether one hundred percent wise?”

“I don’t know. But it’s what I want to do. My dæmon is in there, and I want to find him as soon as possible.”

“Of course you do. But there may be other things than dæmons in there.”

“What things?”

“Phantoms. Ghasts of this kind or that. Emissaries of the Evil One.”

“Do you believe that?”

“Of course. It would be an intellectual failure to do anything else.”

“There are philosophers who say that the failure would be to believe, not to disbelieve.”

“Then excuse me, Miss Silver, but they have separated their intelligences from their other faculties. And that is not an intelligent thing to do.”

She said nothing at first, because she agreed with him—agreed instinctively, if not yet intellectually; part of her was still in thrall to the cast of mind of Talbot and Brande. But it came to her clearly, as she swallowed the last of her tender meat and hot bread, how incongruous it was to bring any of that university skepticism to the Blue Hotel.

“Mr. Ionides, have you ever heard the term ‘the secret commonwealth’?”

“No. What does it refer to?”

“To the world of half-seen things and half-heard whispers. To things that are regarded by clever people as superstition. To fairies. Spirits, hauntings, things of the night. The sort of thing you said the Blue Hotel is full of.”

“ ‘The secret commonwealth’…No, I have never heard the expression.”

“Perhaps there are other names for it.”

“I am sure there are many.”

He wiped the frying pan around with the last of the bread and ate it slowly. Lyra was so tired, she felt on the verge of delirium. She wanted to sleep quite desperately, but she knew that if she gave in and put her head down, she wouldn’t wake up till the morning was filling the sky. Ionides pottered about their little camp, covering the fire, gathering his blankets, rolling a smokeleaf cigarette. Finally he settled down to huddle in the dark shade of a camel-sized rock. Only the tiny glow of his cigarette showed he was there at all.

Lyra stood up, feeling every one of the separate pains and injuries. The hand was worst; she took a very little of the rose salve on her right forefinger and rubbed it in as gently as a butterfly landing on a grass blade.

Then she put the salve in her rucksack with the alethiometer, and stepped away from the fire and towards the tumbled ruins. The moon was climbing the sky, and the vast sweep of the Milky Way stretched above, every one of those minute specks a sun in its own system, lighting and warming planets, maybe, and life, maybe, and some kind of wondering being, maybe, looking out at the little star that was her sun, and at this world, and at Lyra.

Ahead of her the dead bones of the town lay almost white in the moonlight. Lives had been spent here—people had loved one another and eaten and drunk and laughed and betrayed and been afraid of death—and not a single fragment of that remained. White stones, black shadows. All around her, things were whispering, or it might only have been night-loving insects conversing together. Shadows and whispers. Here was the tumbled ruin of a little basilica: people had worshipped here. Nearby a single archway topped with a classical pediment stood between nothing and nothing. People had walked through the arch, driven donkey carts through, stood and gossiped in its shade in the heat of a long-dead day. There was a well, or a fountain, or a spring: at any rate, someone had thought it worth cutting stones and forming a cistern, and a representation of a nymph above it, now blurred and smoothed by time, the cistern dry, the only trickle that of the insect sounds.

So she walked on, further and further into the silent moonscape of the City of the Moon, the Blue Hotel.

And Olivier Bonneville watched. He was lying among some rocks on the slope nearest the little camp; he had been there since shortly after Lyra and Ionides had arrived. He was watching through binoculars as Lyra picked her way among the stones of the dead town, and beside him lay a loaded rifle.

He had made himself as comfortable as he could be without a fire. His camel knelt some way behind, chewing something resistant and appearing to think deeply.

The view Bonneville had of Lyra was the first time he had ever seen her in the flesh. He was taken aback by how different she looked from the photogram, the short black hair, the tense and strained expression, the obvious exhaustion and pain in every movement. Was it the same girl? Had he mistakenly followed someone else? Could she have changed this much already?

He half wanted to follow her right into the ruins, and confront her close to. At the same time, he feared to do that, guessing that it would be much easier to shoot someone from a distance, in the back, than to do it when they were face to face. He considered the man who was with her, the camel man, the guide, to be a slight nuisance, but no more than that. A few dollars would pay him off.

Lyra was still brightly visible in the moonlight, an easy target as she picked her slow way through the stones. Bonneville was a good shot: the Swiss were keen on such things as military service and hunting and marksmanship. But if he wanted to shoot her cleanly, he had better do it before she moved very far into the Blue Hotel.

He put down the binoculars and took the rifle, carefully, silently, knowing everything about its weight and its length and the feeling of the stock against his shoulder. He lowered his head to look along the barrel, and moved his hips a fraction of an inch to settle himself more securely.

Then he had a horrible shock.

There was a man lying next to him, and looking at him, no more than three feet to his left.

He actually gasped aloud, “Ahh…,” and twisted away involuntarily, and his dæmon burst up into the air, flapping her wings in panic.

The man didn’t move, in spite of the way the rifle barrel was waving wildly in Bonneville’s shaking hands. He was monstrously, inhumanly calm. His gecko dæmon sat on a rock just behind him, licking her eyeballs.

“Who—where did you come from?” said Bonneville hoarsely. He spoke in French, by instinct. His dæmon glided down to his shoulder.

The camel man, Lyra’s guide, replied in the same language, “You didn’t see me because you took your eyes off the whole picture. I’ve been watching you for two days. Listen, if you kill her, you’ll be making a big mistake. Don’t do it. Put your gun away.”

“Who are you?”

“Abdel Ionides. Put the rifle down, now. Put it down.”

Bonneville’s heart was hammering so hard that he thought it must be audible. The blood pounded in his head as he made his hands relax and push the rifle away.

“What do you want?” he said.

Ionides said, “I want you to leave her alive for now. There is a great treasure, and she is the only one who can get it. Kill her now and you’ll never have it, and more importantly, neither will I.”