The bears took Lyra up a gully in the cliffs, where the fog lay even more thickly than on the shore. The cries of the cliff-ghasts and the crash of the waves grew fainter as they climbed, and presently the only sound was the ceaseless g of seabirds. They clambered in silence over rocks and snowdrifts, and although Lyra peered wide-eyed into the enfolding grayness, and strained her ears for the sound of her friends, she might have been the only human on Svalbard; and lorek might have been dead.
The bear sergeant said nothing to her until they were on level ground. There they stopped. From the sound of the waves, Lyra judged them to have reached the top of the cliffs, and she dared not run away in case she fell over the edge.
「Look up,」 said the bear, as a waft of breeze moved aside the heavy curtain of the fog.
There was little daylight in any case, but Lyra did look, and found herself standing in front of a vast building of sto was as tall at least as the highest part of Jordan College, but muassive, and carved all over with representations of warfare, showing bears victorious and Skraelings surrendering, showing Tartars ed and slaving in the fire mines, showing zeppelins flying from all parts of the world bearing gifts and tributes to the king of the bears, lofur Raknison.
At least, that was what the bear sergeant told her the carvings showed. She had to take his word for it, because every proje and ledge on the deeply sculpted facade was occu-pied by gas and skuas, which cawed and shrieked and wheeled stantly around overhead, and whose droppings had coated every part of the building with thick smears of dirty white.
The bears seemed not to see the mess, however, and they led the way in through the huge arch, over the icy ground that was filthy with the spatter of the birds. There was a courtyard, and high steps, and gateways, and at every point bears in armor challehe iners and were given a password. Their armor olished and gleaming, and they all wore plumes in their helmets. Lyra couldnt help paring every bear she saw with lorek Byrnison, and always to his advantage; he was more powerful, mraceful, and his armor was real armor, rust-colored, bloodstained, dented with bat, not elegant, enameled, and decorative like most of what she saw around her now.
As they went further in, the temperature rose, and so did something else. The smell in lofurs palace was repulsive: rancid seal fat, dung, blood, refuse of every sort. Lyra pushed back her hood to be cooler, but she couldnt help wrinkling her nose. She hoped bears couldnt read human expressions. There were iron brackets every few yards, holding blubber lamps, and in their flaring shadows it wasnt always easy to see where she was treadiher.
Finally they stopped outside a heavy door of iron. A guard bear pulled back a massive bolt, and the sergeant suddenly swung his paw at Lyra, knog her head over heels through the doorway. Before she could scramble up, she heard the door being bolted behind her.
It rofoundly dark, but Pantalaimon became a firefly, and shed a tiny glow around them. They were in a narrow cell where the walls dripped with damp, and there was oone bench for furniture. In the farthest er there was a heap s she took for bedding, and that was all she could see.
Lyra sat down, with Pantalaimon on her shoulder, a in her clothes for the alethiometer.
「Its certainly had a lot of banging about, Pan,」 she whispered. 「I h