Chapter Thirty: He Is Younger than You Are

Among the gryphons and witches, Tilda Vasara tells Lyra that Malcolm is “younger” than her in a deeper, non-numerical sense, and reports that Tashbulak’s research station shows organized repairs and recent traffic. Lyra worries for Pan and the red building’s rules on separation. A lodestone resonator suddenly delivers a message from Abdel Ionides, revealing he stole Malcolm’s paired stone and that he and Dr. Pervani travel with the Magisterium while secretly opposing both them and a third, more insidious enemy likely at Tashbulak.

Lyra replies via the resonator, pressing Ionides for details. Fearing Pan will enter the red building first, Lyra asks Gulya to fly her and Malcolm directly there; Gulya agrees pending Prince Keshvād’s consent, and they depart.

At twilight, Pan scouts the village and station, finding expert crews and vehicles, lights, and an operating generator. He confronts a separated, frail lemur-dæmon, Cariad, who belongs to Brynmor Strauss—the diarist whose journal Lyra and Pan had found. Terrified, Cariad hints at abominable discoveries inside the red building and leads Pan in to see.

North of them, Ionides slips into Olivier Bonneville’s tent, proposing an alliance between Delamare and the “men from the mountains,” with a black-smoke double-thunder signal to arrange a meeting. He gives Bonneville Leila Pervani’s passport to convince Delamare, hints at hidden truths behind Bonneville’s father’s imprisonment, and leaves him a knife.

In London, Hannah Relf shelters Glenys Godwin after her release from prison. They discuss Britain’s political chaos, media collapse, and rapid Central Asian development with rumored instantaneous communications. Glenys confirms she sent her half of a communication system on to Lyra and accepts Hannah’s hospitality for the night.