“I have to ask for something,” the daemon said unhappily, with a wild quiver in his voice.
“What? And you have to tell us.”
“A medicine for my witch. This man can make an elixir…”
“How does she know that?”
“Dr. Lanselius has visited him. He knows. He could vouch for it.”
Dr. Lanselius was the consul of all the witch-clans at Trollesund, in the far north. Lyra remembered her visit to his house, and the secret she'd overheard—the secret which had had such momentous consequences. She would have trusted Dr. Lanselius; but could she trust what someone else claimed on his behalf? And as for an elixir…
“Why does your witch need a human medicine? Haven't the witches got all kinds of remedies of their own?”
“Not for this sickness. It's a new kind. Only the gold elixir can cure it.”
“If she is sick,” said Pan, “why are you healthy?”
The bird shrank back into the shadow. A middle-aged couple was passing, arm in arm, their daemons, a mouse and a squirrel, looking back with curious eyes.
“That is the sickness,” came the shaky words from the shadow. “It is a new kind, from the south. Witches fade and die, and we daemons don't die with them. I have known three of our clan-sisters fall sick with it, and their daemons are still alive—alone and cold. …”
Pantalaimon gave a little mew of distress and flowed onto Lyra's shoulder. She put her hand up to hold him firmly.
“Why didn't you say?” she said.
“I was ashamed. I thought you would shun me. The birds can sense it—they know I bring sickness. That's why they attack me. All the way I have had to avoid flocks of birds, flying many leagues out of the way. …”
The poor thing looked so wretched, huddled there in the cold shadow; and the thought of his witch, waiting in the north in the faint hope that he'd bring back something to heal her, made tears come to Lyra's eyes. Pan had told her she was too soft and too warmhearted, but it was no good telling her about it. Since she and Will had parted two years before, the slightest thing had the power to move her to pity and distress; it felt as if her heart were bruised forever.
“Then come on,” she said. “Let's get to Juxon Street. It's not far now.”
She moved on quickly, with Pan leaping ahead. A dozen troubling thoughts were passing over her mind like cloud shadows swiftly skimming over a cornfield on a breezy day, but there wasn't time to hold them back and examine them, because already they were turning down Little Clarendon Street, that row of fashionable dress shops and chic cafes, where the gilded youth of Lyra's Oxford passed the time; and then right into Walton Street, with the great classical bulk of the Fell Press on the left. They were in Jericho now.
Juxon Street was one of the little streets of terraced brick houses that ran down to the canal: the homes of laborers, workers at the Press or the Eagle Ironworks behind the street, watermen and their families. Beyond the canal, the open expanse of Port Meadow stretched almost as far as the hills and woods of White Ham, and Lyra could hear the cry of some night bird out on the distant river.
At the corner of the street Pantalaimon waited for Lyra to come close, and leapt to her shoulder again.
“Where is he?” she whispered.
“In the elm tree just back there. He's watching. How far down is the house?”
Lyra looked at the numbers on the doors of the nearest houses.
“Must be the other end,” she said. “Near the canal. …”
The other end of the street, as they approached it, was almost completely dark. The nearest streetlamp was some way back; only a faint gleam came from curtained windows, and the gibbous moon was bright enough to throw a shadow on the pavement.
There were no trees in the street, and Lyra hoped that the daemon-bird could find enough darkness on the rooftops. Pan whispered, “He's moving along the edge of the roofs, next to the gutter.”
“Look,” said Lyra, “that's the alchemist's house.”
They were almost at the door—a front door just like all the others, opening onto a minute patch of dusty grass behind a low wall, with one dark curtained window beside it and two more upstairs; but this house had a basement. At the foot of the front wall a dim light leaked out into the untidy, overgrown little patch of garden, and although the glass was too dirty to see much through, Lyra and Pan could see the red flare of an open fire.
Pan leapt down and peered through the glass, keeping to one side so as to be seen as little as possible. The daemon-bird, at that moment, was directly above on the roof tiles, and couldn't see the pavement below, so he didn't notice when Pan turned and leapt up to Lyra's shoulder and whispered urgently:
“There's a witch in there! There's a furnace and a lot of instruments, and I think there's a man lying down—maybe dead—and there's a witch….”
Something was wrong. All Lyra's suspicions flared up like a naphtha lamp sprinkled with spirits of wine.
What should they do?
