'Behind the chair - quick!' whispered Pantalaimon, and in a flash Lyra was out of the armchair and crouching behind it. 'What d'you think they talk about?' Lyra said, or began to say, because before she'd finished the question she heard voices outside the door. More old Scholars, probably robed, bearded, and gloomy, they stared out of their frames in solemn disapproval. It was so deep she found herself nearly lying down, but she sat up again and tucked her legs under her to look at the portraits on the walls.

She sat in one of the green leather armchairs. 'They do themselves well, don't they, Pan?' she said under her breath. On a sideboard nearby there was a little chafing dish and a basket of poppy heads.

It was a large room, with an oval table of polished rosewood on which stood various decanters and glasses, and a silver smoking stand with a rack of pipes. Even the maidservants didn't clean in here. She had lived most of her life in the College, but had never seen the Retiring Room before: only Scholars and their guests were allowed in here, and never females. The only light in here came from the fireplace, where a bright blaze of logs settled slightly as she looked, sending a fountain of sparks up into the chimney. 'But we must be quick.'Ĭrouching behind the high table, Lyra darted along and through the door into the Retiring Room, where she stood up and looked around. Stop fussing.'īut she put her palm over the ringing crystal anyway, and Pantalaimon fluttered ahead and through the slightly open door of the Retiring Room at the other end of the dais. 'And the Steward doesn't come in till the first bell. 'They're making too much noise to hear from the kitchen,' Lyra whispered back. Her daemon's name was Pantalaimon, and he was currently in the form of a moth, a dark brown one so as not to show up in the darkness of the hall. 'You're not taking this seriously,' whispered her daemon. Lyra stopped beside the Master's chair and flicked the biggest glass gently with a fingernail. The places here were laid with gold, not silver, and the fourteen seats were not oak benches but mahogany chairs with velvet cushions. Lyra reached the dais and looked back at the open kitchen door, and, seeing no one, stepped up beside the high table. Portraits of former Masters hung high up in the gloom along the walls.

The three great tables that ran the length of the hall were laid already, the silver and the glass catching what little light there was, and the long benches were pulled out ready for the guests. Lyra and her daemon moved through the darkening hall, taking care to keep to one side, out of sight of the kitchen. Stood on the brink of hell and looked a while,

His dark materials to create more worlds, Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,īut all these in their pregnant causes mixedĬonfusedly, and which thus must ever fight, The womb of nature and perhaps her grave,

The golden compass book 1