Read Online The Book of Dust: The Secret Commonwealth (Book of Dust, Volume 2) by Philip Pullman - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Philip Pullman
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document from the rucksack. It consisted of several pages of lined paper torn from an exercise book, by the look of it, covered with writing in pencil. Pan sat, holding himself ostentatiously away from her arm, close enough to read it with her.
F ROM D R. S TRAUSSâS J OURNAL
Tashbulak, 12 September
Chen the camel herder says he has been into Karamakan. Once inside he managed to penetrate to the heart of the desert. I asked what was there. He said it was guarded by priests. That was the word he used, but I know he was searching for another that better expressed what they were. Like soldiers, he said. But priests.
But what were they guarding? It was a building. He could not say what was inside it. They refused to let him enter.
What sort of building? How big was it? What did it look like? Big like a great sand dune, he said, the greatest in the world, made of red stone, very ancient. Not like a building that people made. Like a hill, then, or a mountain? No, regular like a building. And red. But not like a house or a dwelling. Like a temple? He shrugged.
What language did they speak, the guards? Every language, he said. (I daresay he means every language he knows, which is not a few: like many of his fellow camel men, he is at home in a dozen languages, from Mandarin to Persian.)
Tashbulak, 15 September
Saw Chen again. Asked him why he had wanted to enter Karamakan. He said he had always known stories about the limitless wealth to be found there. Many people had tried, but most had given up before they reached more than a little way, because of the pain of the journey akterrakeh, as they pronounce it.
I asked how he overcame the pain. By thinking of gold, he said.
And did you find any? I said.
Look at me, he said. Look at us.
He is a ragged, skeleton-thin figure. His cheeks are hollow, his eyes sunk among a hundred wrinkles. His hands are ingrained with dirt. His clothes would disgrace a scarecrow. His dæmon, a desert rat, is nearly hairless, and her bare skin is covered in weeping lesions. He is avoided by the other camel men, who seem to be afraid of him. The solitary nature of his way of living obviously suits him. The others have begun to avoid me, probably because of my contact with him. They know of his power to separate, and fear and shun him because of it.
Was he not afraid for his dæmon? If she got lost, what would he have done?
Heâd have searched for her in al-Khan al-Azraq. My Arabic is patchy, but Hassall told me that meant the Blue Hotel. I queried that, but Chen insisted: al-Khan al-Azraq, the Blue Hotel. And where was this Blue Hotel? He didnât know where it was. Just a place where dæmons go. Anyway, he said, she probably wouldnât go there, because she wanted gold as much as he did. That seemed to be a joke, because he laughed as he said it.
Lyra looked at Pan and saw that he was gazing at the page with fierce intensity. She read on:
Tashbulak, 17 September
The more we examine it, the more it seems that Rosa lopnoriae is the parent and the others, R. tajikiae and so on, the descendants. The optical phenomena are by some way most marked with ol. R. lopnoriae. And the further from Karamakan, the harder it is to grow. Even when conditions have been arranged to duplicate the soil, the temperature, the humidity, etc., of K., so closely as to be more or less identical, specimens of R. lopnoriae fail to prosper and soon die. Thereâs something weâre missing. The other variants must have been hybridized in order to produce a plant with at least some of the virtues of R. lop while being viable in other places.
There is a question about how to write this all up. Of course, the scientific papers will come first. But none of us can overlook the wider implications. As soon as the facts about the roses are known in the world, there will be a frenzy for exploration, for exploitation, and weâthis little stationâwill be elbowed aside, if not actually wiped out. So will
F ROM D R. S TRAUSSâS J OURNAL
Tashbulak, 12 September
Chen the camel herder says he has been into Karamakan. Once inside he managed to penetrate to the heart of the desert. I asked what was there. He said it was guarded by priests. That was the word he used, but I know he was searching for another that better expressed what they were. Like soldiers, he said. But priests.
But what were they guarding? It was a building. He could not say what was inside it. They refused to let him enter.
What sort of building? How big was it? What did it look like? Big like a great sand dune, he said, the greatest in the world, made of red stone, very ancient. Not like a building that people made. Like a hill, then, or a mountain? No, regular like a building. And red. But not like a house or a dwelling. Like a temple? He shrugged.
What language did they speak, the guards? Every language, he said. (I daresay he means every language he knows, which is not a few: like many of his fellow camel men, he is at home in a dozen languages, from Mandarin to Persian.)
Tashbulak, 15 September
Saw Chen again. Asked him why he had wanted to enter Karamakan. He said he had always known stories about the limitless wealth to be found there. Many people had tried, but most had given up before they reached more than a little way, because of the pain of the journey akterrakeh, as they pronounce it.
I asked how he overcame the pain. By thinking of gold, he said.
And did you find any? I said.
Look at me, he said. Look at us.
He is a ragged, skeleton-thin figure. His cheeks are hollow, his eyes sunk among a hundred wrinkles. His hands are ingrained with dirt. His clothes would disgrace a scarecrow. His dæmon, a desert rat, is nearly hairless, and her bare skin is covered in weeping lesions. He is avoided by the other camel men, who seem to be afraid of him. The solitary nature of his way of living obviously suits him. The others have begun to avoid me, probably because of my contact with him. They know of his power to separate, and fear and shun him because of it.
Was he not afraid for his dæmon? If she got lost, what would he have done?
Heâd have searched for her in al-Khan al-Azraq. My Arabic is patchy, but Hassall told me that meant the Blue Hotel. I queried that, but Chen insisted: al-Khan al-Azraq, the Blue Hotel. And where was this Blue Hotel? He didnât know where it was. Just a place where dæmons go. Anyway, he said, she probably wouldnât go there, because she wanted gold as much as he did. That seemed to be a joke, because he laughed as he said it.
Lyra looked at Pan and saw that he was gazing at the page with fierce intensity. She read on:
Tashbulak, 17 September
The more we examine it, the more it seems that Rosa lopnoriae is the parent and the others, R. tajikiae and so on, the descendants. The optical phenomena are by some way most marked with ol. R. lopnoriae. And the further from Karamakan, the harder it is to grow. Even when conditions have been arranged to duplicate the soil, the temperature, the humidity, etc., of K., so closely as to be more or less identical, specimens of R. lopnoriae fail to prosper and soon die. Thereâs something weâre missing. The other variants must have been hybridized in order to produce a plant with at least some of the virtues of R. lop while being viable in other places.
There is a question about how to write this all up. Of course, the scientific papers will come first. But none of us can overlook the wider implications. As soon as the facts about the roses are known in the world, there will be a frenzy for exploration, for exploitation, and weâthis little stationâwill be elbowed aside, if not actually wiped out. So will
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