「Better put it back,」 said Roger uneasily, and Lyra upturhe skull and dropped the disk bato its immemorial resting place before returning the skull to the shelf. Each of the other skulls, they found, had its own daemon-, showing its owners lifetime panion still close to him ih.
「Who dyou think these were when they were alive?」 said Lyra. 「Probably Scholars, I re. Only the Masters get coffins. Theres probably been so many Scholars all down the turies that there wouldnt be room to bury the whole of em, so they just cut their heads off ahem. Thats the most important part of em anyway.」
They found no Gobblers, but the catabs uhe oratory kept Lyra and Roger busy for days. Once she tried to play a tri some of the dead Scholars, by switg around the s in their skulls so they were with the wrong daemons.
Pantalaimon became so agitated at this that he ged into a bat and flew up and down uttering shrill cries and flapping his wings in her face, but she took no notice: it was too good a joke to waste. She paid for it later, though. In bed in her narrow room at the top of Staircase Twelve she was visited by a night-ghast, and woke up screaming at the three robed figures who stood at the bedside pointing their bony fingers before throwing back their cowls to show bleeding stumps where their heads should have been. Only when Pantalaimon became a lion and roared at them did they retreat, bag away into the substance of the wall until all that was visible was their arms, then their horny yellow-gray hands, thewitg fingers, then nothing. First thing in the m she hastened down to the catabs aored the daemon-s to their rightful places, and whispered 「Sorry! Sorry!」 to the skulls.
The catabs were much larger than the wine cellars, but they too had a limit.
When Lyra and Roger had explored every er of them and were sure there were no Gobblers to be found there, they turheir attention elsewhere—but not before they were spotted leaving the crypt by the Intercessor, who called them bato the oratory.
The Intercessor lump, elderly man known as Father Heyst. It was his job to lead all the College services, to pread pray and hear fessions. When Lyra was younger, he had taken an i in her spiritual welfare, only to be founded by her sly indifferend insincere repentances. She was not spiritually promising, he had decided.
When they heard him call, Lyra and Roger turned relutly and walked, dragging their feet, into the great musty-smelling dimness of the oratory. dles flickered here and there in front of images of the saints; a faint and distant clatter came from the an loft, where some repairs were going on; a servant olishing the brass le. Father Heyst beed from the vestry door.
「Where have you been?」 he said to them. 「Ive seen you e iwo or three times now. What are you up to?」
His tone was not accusatory. He sounded as if he were genuinely ied. His daemon flicked a lizard to them from her per his shoulder.
Lyra said, 「We wao look down in the crypt.」
「Whatever for?」
「The...the coffins. We wao see all the coffins,」 she said.
「But why?」
She shrugged. It was her stant response when she ressed.
「And you,」 he went on, turning ter. Rogers daemon anxiously wagged her terrier tail to propitiate him. 「Whats your name?」
「Roger, Father.」
「If youre a servant, where do you work?」 「I, Father.」 「Should you be there now?」 「Yes, Father.」 「Then be off with you.」
Roger turned