His Dark Materials Omnibus (115 page)

But she pulled her mind after the subject of
sraf
, because that was the biggest; and that was why she thought about the mirror.

It was the comparison of
sraf
to the sparkles on water that suggested it. Reflected light like the glare off the sea was polarized; it might be that the shadow particles, when they behaved like waves as light did, were capable of being polarized, too.

I can’t see sraf as you can
, she said,
but I would like to make a mirror out of the sap lacquer, because I think that might help me see it
.

Atal was excited by this idea, and they hauled in their net at once and began to gather what Mary needed. As a token of good luck there were three fine fish in the net.

The sap lacquer was a product of another and much smaller tree, which the
mulefa
cultivated for that purpose. By boiling the sap and dissolving it in the alcohol they made from distilled fruit juice, the
mulefa
made a substance like milk in consistency, and delicate amber in color, which they used as a varnish. They would put up to twenty coats on a base of wood or shell, letting each one cure under wet cloth before applying the next, and gradually build up a surface of great hardness and brilliance. They would usually make it opaque with various oxides, but sometimes they left it transparent, and that was what had interested Mary: because the clear amber-colored lacquer had the same curious property as the mineral known as Iceland spar. It split light rays in two, so that when you looked through it you saw double.

She wasn’t sure what she wanted to do, except that she knew that if she fooled around for long enough, without fretting, or nagging herself, she’d find out. She remembered quoting the words of the poet Keats to Lyra, and Lyra’s understanding at once that that was her own state of mind when she read the alethiometer—that was what Mary had to find now.

So she began by finding herself a more or less flat piece of a wood like pine, and grinding at the surface with a piece of sandstone (no metal: no planes) until it was as flat as she could make it. That was the method the
mulefa
used, and it worked well enough, with time and effort.

Then she visited the lacquer grove with Atal, having carefully explained what she was intending, and asked permission to take some sap. The
mulefa
were happy to let her, but too busy to be concerned. With Atal’s help she drew off some of the sticky, resinous sap, and then came the long process of boiling, dissolving, boiling again, until the varnish was ready to use.

The
mulefa
used pads of a cottony fiber from another plant to apply it, and following the instructions of a craftsman, she laboriously painted her mirror over and over again, seeing hardly any difference each time as the layer of lacquer was so thin, but letting it cure unhurriedly and finding gradually that the thickness was building up. She painted on over forty coats—she lost count—but by the time her lacquer had run out, the surface was at least five millimeters thick.

After the final layer came the polishing: a whole day of rubbing the surface gently, in smooth circular movements, until her arms ached and her head was throbbing and she could bear the labor no more.

Then she slept.

Next morning the group went to work in a coppice of what they called knot wood, making sure the shoots were growing as they had been set, tightening the interweaving so that the grown sticks would be properly shaped. They valued Mary’s help for this task, as she on her own could squeeze into narrower gaps than the
mulefa
, and, with her double hands, work in tighter spaces.

It was only when that work was done, and they had returned to the settlement, that Mary could begin to experiment—or rather to play, since she still didn’t have a clear idea of what she was doing.

First she tried using the lacquer sheet simply as a mirror, but for lack of a silvered back, all she could see was a doubled reflection faintly in the wood.

Then she thought that what she really needed was the lacquer without the wood, but she quailed at the idea of making another sheet; how could she make it flat without a backing anyway?

The idea came of simply cutting the wood away to leave the lacquer. That would take time, too, but at least she had the Swiss Army knife. And she began, splitting it very delicately from the edge, taking the greatest of
care not to scratch the lacquer from behind, but eventually removing most of the pine and leaving a mess of torn and splintered wood stuck immovably to the pane of clear, hard varnish.

She wondered what would happen if she soaked it in water. Did the lacquer soften if it got wet?
No
, said her master in the craft,
it will remain hard forever; but why not do it like this?
And he showed her a liquid kept in a stone bowl, which would eat through any wood in only a few hours. It looked and smelled to Mary like an acid.

That would hurt the lacquer hardly at all, he said, and she could repair any damage easily enough. He was intrigued by her project and helped her to swab the acid delicately onto the wood, telling her how they made it by grinding and dissolving and distilling a mineral they found at the edge of some shallow lakes she had not yet visited. Gradually the wood softened and came free, and Mary was left with the single sheet of clear brown-yellow lacquer, about the size of a page from a paperback book.

She polished the reverse as highly as the top, until both were as flat and smooth as the finest mirror.

And when she looked through it …

Nothing in particular. It was perfectly clear, but it showed her a double image, the right one quite close to the left and about fifteen degrees upward.

She wondered what would happen if she looked through two pieces, one on top of the other.

So she took the Swiss Army knife again and tried to score a line across the sheet so she could cut it in two. By working and reworking, and by keeping the knife sharp on a smooth stone, she managed to score a line deep enough for her to risk snapping the sheet. She laid a thin stick under the score line and pushed sharply down on the lacquer, as she’d seen a glazier cutting glass, and it worked: now she had two sheets.

She put them together and looked through. The amber color was denser, and like a photographic filter it emphasized some colors and held back others, giving a slightly different cast to the landscape. The curious thing was that the doubleness had disappeared, and everything was single again; but there was no sign of Shadows.

She moved the two pieces apart, watching how the appearance of things changed as she did so. When they were about a hand span apart, a curious thing happened: the amber coloring disappeared, and everything seemed its normal color, but brighter and more vivid.

At that point Atal came along to see what she was doing.

Can you see sraf now?
she said.

No, but I can see other things
, Mary said, and tried to show her.

Atal was interested, but politely, not with the sense of discovery that was animating Mary, and presently the
zalif
tired of looking through the small pieces of lacquer and settled down on the grass to maintain her wheels and claws. Sometimes the
mulefa
would groom each other’s claws, out of pure sociability, and once or twice Atal had invited Mary to attend to hers. Mary, in turn, let Atal tidy her hair, enjoying how the soft trunk lifted it and let it fall, stroking and massaging her scalp.

She sensed that Atal wanted this now, so she put down the two pieces of lacquer and ran her hands over the astonishing smoothness of Atal’s claws, that surface smoother and slicker than Teflon that rested on the lower rim of the central hole and served as a bearing when the wheel turned. The contours matched exactly, of course, and as Mary ran her hands around the inside of the wheel, she could feel no difference in texture: it was as if the
mulefa
and the seedpod really were one creature, which by a miracle could disassemble itself and put itself together again.

Atal was soothed, and so was Mary, by this contact. Her friend was young and unmarried, and there were no young males in this group, so she would have to marry a
zalif
from outside; but contact wasn’t easy, and sometimes Mary thought that Atal was anxious about her future. So she didn’t begrudge the time she spent with her, and now she was happy to clean the wheel holes of all the dust and grime that accumulated there, and smooth the fragrant oil gently over her friend’s claws while Atal’s trunk lifted and straightened her hair.

When Atal had had enough, she set herself on the wheels again and moved away to help with the evening meal. Mary turned back to her lacquer, and almost at once she made her discovery.

She held the two plates a hand span apart so that they showed that clear, bright image she’d seen before, but something had happened.

As she looked through, she saw a swarm of golden sparkles surrounding the form of Atal. They were only visible through one small part of the lacquer, and then Mary realized why: at that point she had touched the surface of it with her oily fingers.

Atal!
she called.
Quick! Come back!

Atal turned and wheeled back.

Let me take a little oil
, Mary said,
just enough to put on the lacquer
.

Atal willingly let her run her fingers around the wheel holes again, and watched curiously as Mary coated one of the pieces with a film of the clear, sweet substance.

Then she pressed the plates together and moved them around to spread the oil evenly, and held them a hand span apart once more.

And when she looked through, everything was changed. She could see Shadows. If she’d been in the Jordan College Retiring Room when Lord Asriel had projected the photograms he’d made with the special emulsion, she would have recognized the effect. Everywhere she looked she could see gold, just as Atal had described it: sparkles of light, floating and drifting and sometimes moving in a current of purpose. Among it all was the world she could see with the naked eye, the grass, the river, the trees; but wherever she saw a conscious being, one of the
mulefa
, the light was thicker and more full of movement. It didn’t obscure their shapes in any way; if anything it made them clearer.

I didn’t know it was beautiful
, Mary said to Atal.

Why, of course it is
, her friend replied.
It is strange to think that you couldn’t see it. Look at the little one
 …

She indicated one of the small children playing in the long grass, leaping clumsily after grasshoppers, suddenly stopping to examine a leaf, falling over, scrambling up again to rush and tell his mother something, being distracted again by a piece of stick, trying to pick it up, finding ants on his trunk and hooting with agitation. There was a golden haze around him, as there was around the shelters, the fishing nets, the evening fire: stronger than theirs, though not by much. But unlike theirs it was full of little swirling currents of intention that eddied and broke off and drifted about, to disappear as new ones were born.

Around his mother, on the other hand, the golden sparkles were much stronger, and the currents they moved in were more settled and powerful. She was preparing food, spreading flour on a flat stone, making the thin bread like chapatis or tortillas, watching her child at the same time; and the Shadows, or the
sraf
, or the Dust, that bathed her looked like the very image of responsibility and wise care.

So at last you can see
, said Atal.
Well, now you must come with me
.

Mary looked at her friend in puzzlement. Atal’s tone was strange: it was as if she were saying,
Finally you’re ready; we’ve been waiting; now things must change
.

And others were appearing, from over the brow of the hill, from out of their shelters, from along the river: members of the group, but strangers, too,
mulefa
who were new to her, and who looked curiously toward where she was standing. The sound of their wheels on the hard-packed earth was low and steady.

Where must I go?
Mary said.
Why are they all coming here?

Don’t worry
, said Atal,
come with me, we shall not hurt you
.

It seemed to have been long planned, this meeting, for they all knew where to go and what to expect. There was a low mound at the edge of the village that was regular in shape and packed with hard earth, with ramps at each end, and the crowd—fifty or so at least, Mary estimated—was moving toward it. The smoke of the cooking fires hung in the evening air, and the setting sun spread its own kind of hazy gold over everything. Mary was aware of the smell of roasting corn, and the warm smell of the
mulefa
themselves—part oil, part warm flesh, a sweet horselike smell.

Atal urged her toward the mound.

Mary said,
What is happening? Tell me!

No, no
 … 
Not me. Sattamax will speak
 …

Mary didn’t know the name Sattamax, and the
zalif
whom Atal indicated was a stranger to her. He was older than anyone she’d seen so far: at the base of his trunk was a scatter of white hairs, and he moved stiffly, as if he had arthritis. The others all moved with care around him, and when Mary stole a glance through the lacquer glass, she saw why: the old
zalif
’s Shadow cloud was so rich and complex that Mary herself felt respect, even though she knew so little of what it meant.

When Sattamax was ready to speak, the rest of the crowd fell silent. Mary stood close to the mound, with Atal nearby for reassurance; but she sensed all their eyes on her and felt as if she were a new girl at school.

Sattamax began to speak. His voice was deep, the tones rich and varied, the gestures of his trunk low and graceful.

We have all come together to greet the stranger Mary. Those of us who know her have reason to be grateful for her activities since she arrived among us. We have waited until she had some command of our language. With the help of many of us, but especially the zalif Atal, the stranger Mary can now understand us
.