His Dark Materials Omnibus by Philip Pullman Read Free Book Online Page A

young lady whose dark hair falls, shining delicately, under the shadow of her fur-lined hood, is standing in the doorway of the oratory, half a dozen steps above him. It might be that a service is finishing, for light comes from the doorway behind her, an organ is playing inside, and the lady is holding a jeweled breviary.
    Tony knows nothing of this. His face contentedly deep in the pie, his toes curled inward and his bare soles together, he sits and chews and swallows while his dæmon becomes a mouse and grooms her whiskers.
    The young lady’s dæmon is moving out from beside the fox-fur coat. He is in the form of a monkey, but no ordinary monkey: his fur is long and silky and of the most deep and lustrous gold. With sinuous movements he inches down the steps toward the boy, and sits a step above him.
    Then the mouse senses something, and becomes a sparrow again, cocking her head a fraction sideways, and hops along the stone a step or two.
    The monkey watches the sparrow; the sparrow watches the monkey.
    The monkey reaches out slowly. His little hand is black, his nails perfect horny claws, his movements gentle and inviting. The sparrow can’t resist. She hops further, and further, and then, with a little flutter, up on to the monkey’s hand.
    The monkey lifts her up, and gazes closely at her before standing and swinging back to his human, taking the sparrow dæmon with him. The lady bends her scented head to whisper.
    And then Tony turns. He can’t help it.
    “Ratter!” he says, half in alarm, his mouth full.
    The sparrow chirps. It must be safe. Tony swallows his mouthful and stares.
    “Hello,” says the beautiful lady. “What’s your name?”
    “Tony.”
    “Where do you live, Tony?”
    “Clarice Walk.”
    “What’s in that pie?”
    “Beefsteak.”
    “Do you like chocolatl?”
    “Yeah!”
    “As it happens, I’ve got more chocolatl than I can drink myself. Will you come and help me drink it?”
    He’s lost already. He was lost the moment his slow-witted dæmon hopped onto the monkey’s hand. He follows the beautiful young lady and the golden monkey down Denmark Street and along to Hangman’s Wharf, and down King George’s Steps to a little green door in the side of a tall warehouse. She knocks, the door is opened, they go in, the door is closed. Tony will never come out—at least, by that entrance; and he’ll never see his mother again. She, poor drunken thing, will think he’s run away, and when she remembers him, she’ll think it was her fault, and sob her sorry heart out.
    Little Tony Makarios wasn’t the only child to be caught by the lady with the golden monkey. He found a dozen others in the cellar of the warehouse, boys and girls, none older than twelve or so; though since all of them had histories like his, none could be sure of their age. What Tony didn’t notice, of course, was the factor that they all had in common. None of the children in that warm and steamy cellar had reached the age of puberty.
    The kind lady saw him settled on a bench against the wall, and provided by a silent serving woman with a mug of chocolatl from the saucepan on the iron stove. Tony ate the rest of his pie and drank the sweet hot liquor without taking much notice of his surroundings, and the surroundings took little notice of him: he was too small to be a threat, and too stolid to promise much satisfaction as a victim.
    It was another boy who asked the obvious question.
    “Hey, lady! What you got us all here for?”
    He was a tough-looking wretch with dark chocolatl on his top lip and a gaunt black rat for a dæmon. The lady was standing near the door, talking to a stout man with the air of a sea captain, and as she turned to answer, she looked so angelic in the hissing naphtha light that all the children fell silent.
    “We want your help,” she said. “You don’t mind helping us, do you?”
    No one could say a word. They all gazed, suddenly shy. They had neverseen a lady like this; she was so