“Forgive us,” she said to Iorek. “The habit of concealment is hard to break, and my companion, the Chevalier Tialys, and I, the Lady Salmakia, have been among our enemies for so long that out of pure habit we neglected to pay you the proper courtesy. We’re accompanying this boy and girl to make sure they arrive safely in the care of Lord Asriel. We have no other aim, and certainly no harmful intention toward you, King Iorek Byrnison.”
If Iorek wondered how any such tiny beings could cause him harm, he didn’t show it; not only was his expression naturally hard to read, but he had his courtesy, too, and the Lady had spoken graciously enough.
“Come down by the fire,” he said. “There is food enough and plenty if you are hungry. Will, you began to speak about the knife.”
“Yes,” said Will, “and I thought it could never happen, but it’s broken. And the alethiometer told Lyra that you’d be able to mend it. I was going to ask more politely, but there it is: can you mend it, Iorek?”
“Show me.”
Will shook all the pieces out of the sheath and laid them on the rocky floor, pushing them about carefully until they were in their right places and he could see that they were all there. Lyra held a burning branch up, and in its light Iorek bent low to look closely at each piece, touching it delicately with his massive claws and lifting it up to turn it this way and that and examine the break. Will marveled at the deftness in those huge black hooks.
Then Iorek sat up again, his head rearing high into the shadow.
“Yes,” he said, answering exactly the question and no more.
Lyra said, knowing what he meant, “Ah, but will you, Iorek? You couldn’t believe how important this is—if we can’t get it mended then we’re in desperate trouble, and not only us—”
“I don’t like that knife,” Iorek said. “I fear what it can do. I have never known anything so dangerous. The most deadly fighting machines are little toys compared to that knife; the harm it can do is unlimited. It would have been infinitely better if it had never been made.”
“But with it—” began Will.
Iorek didn’t let him finish, but went on, “With it you can do strange things. What you don’t know is what the knife does on its own. Your intentions may be good. The knife has intentions, too.”
“How can that be?” said Will.
“The intentions of a tool are what it does. A hammer intends to strike, a vise intends to hold fast, a lever intends to lift. They are what it is made for. But sometimes a tool may have other uses that you don’t know. Sometimes in doing what you intend, you also do what the knife intends, without knowing. Can you see the sharpest edge of that knife?”
“No,” said Will, for it was true: the edge diminished to a thinness so fine that the eye could not reach it.
“Then how can you know everything it does?”
“I can’t. But I must still use it, and do what I can to help good things come about. If I did nothing, I’d be worse than useless. I’d be guilty.”
Lyra was following this closely, and seeing Iorek still unwilling, she said:
“Iorek, you know how wicked those Bolvangar people were. If we can’t win, then they’re going to be able to carry on doing those kind of things forever. And besides, if we don’t have the knife, then they might get hold of it themselves. We never knew about it when I first met you, Iorek, and nor did anyone, but now that we do, we got to use it ourselves—we can’t just not. That’d be feeble, and it’d be wrong, too, it’d be just like handing it over to ’em and saying, ‘Go on, use it, we won’t stop you.’ All right, we don’t know what it does, but I can ask the alethiometer, can’t I? Then we’d know. And we could think about it properly, instead of just guessing and being afraid.”
Will didn’t want to mention his own most pressing reason: if the knife was not repaired, he might never get home, never see his mother again; she would never know what had happened; she’d think he’d abandoned her as his father had done. The knife would have been directly responsible for both their desertions. He must use it to return to her, or never forgive himself.
Iorek Byrnison said nothing for a long time, but turned his head to look out at the darkness. Then he slowly got to his feet and stalked to the cave mouth, and looked up at the stars: some the same as those he knew, from the north, and some that were strange to him.
Behind him, Lyra turned the meat over on the fire, and Will looked at his wounds, to see how they were healing. Tialys and Salmakia sat silent on their ledge.
Then Iorek turned around.
“Very well, I shall do it on one condition,” he said. “Though I feel it is a mistake. My people have no gods, no ghosts or dæmons. We live and die and that is that. Human affairs bring us nothing but sorrow and trouble, but we have language and we make war and we use tools; maybe we should take sides. But full knowledge is better than half-knowledge. Lyra, read your instrument. Know what it is that you’re asking. If you still want it then, I shall mend the knife.”
At once Lyra took out the alethiometer and edged nearer to the fire so that she could see the face. The reading took her longer than usual, and when she blinked and sighed and came out of the trance, her face was troubled.
“I never known it so confused,” she said. “There was lots of things it said. I think I got it clear. I think so. It said about balance first. It said the knife could be harmful or it could do good, but it was so slight, such a delicate kind of a balance, that the faintest thought or wish could tip it one way or the other . . . And it meant you, Will, it meant what you wished or thought, only it didn’t say what would be a good thought or a bad one.