Table Of ContentTHE AMBER
SPYGLASS
CONTENTS
Title Page
Epigraph
The Enchanted Sleeper
ONE
Balthamos and Baruch
TWO
Scavengers
THREE
Ama and the Bats
FOUR
The Adamant Tower
FIVE
Preemptive Absolution
SIX
Mary, Alone
SEVEN
Vodka
EIGHT
Upriver
NINE
Wheels
TEN
The Dragonflies
ELEVEN
The Break
TWELVE
Tialys and Salmakia
THIRTEEN
Know What It Is
FOURTEEN
The Forge
FIFTEEN
The Intention Craft
SIXTEEN
Oil and Lacquer
SEVENTEEN
The Suburbs of the Dead
EIGHTEEN
Lyra and Her Death
NINETEEN
Climbing
TWENTY
The Harpies
TWENTY-ONE
The Whisperers
TWENTY-TWO
No Way Out
TWENTY-THREE
Mrs. Coulter in Geneva
TWENTY-FOUR
Saint-Jean-les-Eaux
TWENTY-FIVE
The Abyss
TWENTY-SIX
The Platform
TWENTY-SEVEN
Midnight
TWENTY-EIGHT
The Battle on the Plain
TWENTY-NINE
The Clouded Mountain
THIRTY
Authority’s End
THIRTY-ONE
Morning
THIRTY-TWO
Marzipan
THIRTY-THREE
There Is Now
THIRTY-FOUR
Over The Hills And Far Away
THIRTY-FIVE
The Broken Arrow
THIRTY-SIX
The Dunes
THIRTY-SEVEN
The Botanic Garden
THIRTY-EIGHT
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Philip Pullman
Copyright Page
The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations;
The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up;
The bones of death, the cov’ring clay, the sinews shrunk & dry’d
Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing, awakening,
Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst.
Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field,
Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air;
Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years,
Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open;
And let his wife and children return from the oppressor’s scourge.
They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream,
Singing: “The Sun has left his blackness & has found a fresher morning,
And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night;
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease.”
—from “America: A Prophecy” by William Blake
O stars,
isn’t it from you that the lover’s desire for the face
of his beloved arises? Doesn’t his secret insight
into her pure features come from the pure constellations?
—from “The Third Elegy” by Rainer Maria Rilke
Fine vapors escape from whatever is doing the living.
The night is cold and delicate and full of angels
Pounding down the living. The factories are all lit up,
The chime goes unheard.
We are together at last, though far apart.
—from “The Ecclesiast” by John Ashbery
THE AMBER
SPYGLASS
ONE
THE ENCHANTED SLEEPER
… while the beasts of prey,
Come from caverns deep,
Viewed the maid asleep …
• WILLIAM BLAKE •
In a valley shaded with rhododendrons, close to the snow line, where a stream
milky with meltwater splashed and where doves and linnets flew among the
immense pines, lay a cave, half-hidden by the crag above and the stiff heavy
leaves that clustered below.
The woods were full of sound: the stream between the rocks, the wind among
the needles of the pine branches, the chitter of insects and the cries of small
arboreal mammals, as well as the birdsong; and from time to time a stronger gust
of wind would make one of the branches of a cedar or a fir move against another
and groan like a cello.
It was a place of brilliant sunlight, never undappled. Shafts of lemon-gold
brilliance lanced down to the forest floor between bars and pools of brown-green
shade; and the light was never still, never constant, because drifting mist would
often float among the treetops, filtering all the sunlight to a pearly sheen and
brushing every pine cone with moisture that glistened when the mist lifted.
Sometimes the wetness in the clouds condensed into tiny drops half mist and
half rain, which floated downward rather than fell, making a soft rustling patter
among the millions of needles.
There was a narrow path beside the stream, which led from a village—little
more than a cluster of herdsmen’s dwellings—at the foot of the valley to a half-
ruined shrine near the glacier at its head, a place where faded silken flags
streamed out in the perpetual winds from the high mountains, and offerings of
barley cakes and dried tea were placed by pious villagers. An odd effect of the
light, the ice, and the vapor enveloped the head of the valley in perpetual
rainbows.
The cave lay some way above the path. Many years before, a holy man had
lived there, meditating and fasting and praying, and the place was venerated for
