“What we looking for?” said Billy.
“Dunno. Just looking,” said Lyra, and led the way to a squat, square building a little apart from the rest, with a low-powered anbaric light at the corner.
The hubbub from behind was as loud as ever, but more distant. Clearly the children were making the most of their freedom, and Lyra hoped they'd keep it up for as long as they could. She moved around the edge of the square building, looking for a window. The roof was only seven feet or so off the ground, and unlike the other buildings, it had no roofed tunnel to connect it with the rest of the station.
There was no window, but there was a door. A notice above it said ENTRY STRICTLY FORBIDDEN in red letters.
Lyra set her hand on it to try, but before she could turn the handle, Roger said:
“Look! A bird! Or—”
His or was an exclamation of doubt, because the creature swooping down from the black sky was no bird at all: it was someone Lyra had seen before.
“The witch's daemon!”
The goose beat his great wings, raising a flurry of snow as he landed.
“Greetings, Lyra,” he said. “I followed you here, though you didn't see me. I have been waiting for you to come out into the open. What is happening?”
She told him quickly.
“Where are the gyptians?” she said. “Is John Faa safe? Did they fight off the Samoyeds?”
“Most of them are safe. John Faa is wounded, though not severely. The men who took you were hunters and raiders who often prey on parties of travelers, and alone they can travel more quickly than a large party. The gyptians are still a day's journey away.”
The two boys were staring in fear at the goose daemon and at Lyra's familiar manner with him, because of course they'd never seen a daemon without his human before, and they knew little about witches.
Lyra said to them, “Listen, you better go and keep watch, right. Billy, you go that way, and Roger, watch out the way we just come. We en't got long.”
They ran off to do as she said, and then Lyra turned back to the door.
“Why are you trying to get in there?” said the goose daemon.
“Because of what they do here. They cut—” she lowered her voice, “they cut people's daemons away. Children's. And I think maybe they do it in here. At least, there's something here, and I was going to look. But it's locked….”
“I can open it,” said the goose, and beat his wings once or twice, throwing snow up against the door; and as he did, Lyra heard something turn in the lock.
“Go in carefully,” said the daemon.
Lyra pulled open the door against the snow and slipped inside. The goose daemon came with her. Pantalaimon was agitated and fearful, but he didn't want the witch's daemon to see his fear, so he had flown to Lyra's breast and taken sanctuary inside her furs.
As soon as her eyes had adjusted to the light, Lyra saw why.
In a series of glass cases on shelves around the walls were all the daemons of the severed children: ghostlike forms of cats, or birds, or rats, or other creatures, each bewildered and frightened and as pale as smoke.
The witch's daemon gave a cry of anger, and Lyra clutched Pantalaimon to her and said, “Don't look! Don't look!”
“Where are the children of these daemons?” said the goose daemon, shaking with rage.
Lyra explained fearfully about her encounter with little Tony Makarios, and looked over her shoulder at the poor caged daemons, who were clustering forward pressing their pale faces to the glass. Lyra could hear faint cries of pain and misery. In the dim light from a low-powered anbaric bulb she could see a name on a card at the front of each case, and yes, there was an empty one with Tony Makarios on it. There were four or five other empty ones with names on them, too.
“I want to let these poor things go!” she said fiercely. “I'm going to smash the glass and let 'em out—”
And she looked around for something to do it with, but the place was bare. The goose daemon said, “Wait.”
He was a witch's daemon, and much older than she was, and stronger. She had to do as he said.
“We must make these people think someone forgot to lock the place and shut the cages,” he explained. “If they see broken glass and footprints in the snow, how long do you think your disguise will last? And it must hold out till the gyptians come. Now do exactly as I say: take a handful of snow, and when I tell you, blow a little of it against each cage in turn.”
She ran outside. Roger and Billy were still on guard, and there was still a noise of shrieking and laughter from the arena, because only a minute or so had gone by.
She grabbed a big double handful of the light powdery snow, and then came back to do as the goose daemon said. As she blew a little snow on each cage, the goose made a clicking sound in his throat, and the catch at the front of the cage came open.
When she had unlocked them all, she lifted the front of the first one, and the pale form of a sparrow fluttered out, but fell to the ground before she could fly. The goose tenderly bent and nudged her upright with his beak, and the sparrow became a mouse, staggering and confused. Pantalaimon leaped down to comfort her.
Lyra worked quickly, and within a few minutes every daemon was free. Some were trying to speak, and they clustered around her feet and even tried to pluck at her leggings, though the taboo held them back. She could tell why, poor things; they missed the heavy solid warmth of their humans' bodies; just as Pantalaimon would have done, they longed to press themselves against a heartbeat.
“Now, quick,” said the goose. “Lyra, you must run back and mingle with the other children. Be brave, child. The gyptians are coming as fast as they can. I must help these poor daemons to find their people….” He came closer and said quietly, “But they'll never be one again. They're sundered forever. This is the most wicked thing I have ever seen….Leave the footprints you've made; I'll cover them up. Hurry now….”