Bently McQuinn Saves Literature

“So where do we go now?” Bently asked, as he, King, Lucy and Meggie walked down to the beach by Cair Paraval.

“The next book, of course,” said King, handing Meggie the book he had somehow acquired. The title read, His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass.

“Aren’t we going to try and track down Jacob and rescue Pansy?” Bently asked, his temper rising.

“Bently,” Meggie started slowly. “We have no idea where he took her. And for all we know, she might be better off. Maybe that creepy arm disease went away, and she’s better.”

“Or he could be torturing her for information,” retorted Bently. “Or brainwashing her. Or maybe she’s dead.”

“Don’t say that,” said Meggie, biting her lip. “Please don’t say it.”

“Well, she could be!”

“Bently, calm down,” said King. “Meggie’s right. The best thing for Pansy right now is for us to continue on to Dark Materials and see if we can find any clues to where she is, or how to cure her. But we’ll need to find her eventually, because she has the Light.”

“What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Bently cried out, extremely agitated.

“Because if I’m right, the Light will be the only thing that can get us into Oz where Meyer is.”

“You’re telling me this now?” Bently yelled, outraged. “You’re telling me that when we had the light, we could have just gone into Oz and killed off Meyer?”

“Bently, you never would have succeeded,” King said bluntly. “She’s too powerful. She would have crushed you. You need to improve your skills by a lot if you ever want a hope of defeating her.”

Bently kicked a small rock and a lot of sand into the ocean in frustration. There was nothing he could do. “Alright, then fine. Let’s go into Dark Materials and get this crap over with. Who’ll I be up against this time?”

“Esme, I believe,” said Meggie, and she opened up The Golden Compass to read them into it.

“Jordan College was the grandest and richest of all the colleges in Oxford. It was probably the largest, too, though no one knew for certain. The buildings, which were grouped around three irregular quadrangles, dated from every period from the early Middle Ages to the mid-eighteenth century. It had never been planned; it had grown piecemeal, with past and present overlapping at every spot, and the final effect was one of jumbled and squalid grandeur.”

-

“What in the world? This is all wrong!”

Bently opened his eyes to the biting cold of the Artic. There was ice for as far as he could see, and as he turned to look around, he found tall mountains behind him. Everyone around him, including himself, was shivering. Meggie looked very frustrated.

“No! I read us to the college, not so Svalbard!” she cried out, stamping her foot into the snow. King patted her shoulder.

“Don’t worry about it, Meggie. It’s not going to be perfect every time,” he assured her.

“But this has never happened before!” she wailed. Bently hoped she wouldn’t get too worked up about it.

“Maybe the vampire here made some kind of change in the portal jumping to make it so we couldn’t come near them by jumping,” Bently suggested. “I mean, if there was a smart one here, I could see them trying to do that.”

In the distance, Bently heard a roar. ‘Dammit, we just got here,’ he thought in annoyance, and he pulled out his wand and the elf knife, too, just to be safe.

“Lucy, can you fight?” he asked, but he saw that she already had her knife drawn, and her face was screwed up with brave determination.

Galloping towards them from the mountains was an enormous polar bear wearing armor, and bearing a rider on its back. Bently gripped his weapons tightly, his entire body freezing. If they managed to get through this one, he was going to try and conjure them all even warmer cloths. Their winter Narnian cloths were no match for this weather.

The bear stopped about ten yards away from them, and the figure got off. They held something in their hands, and they were focusing on it, not on the group of newcomers they faced. After a minute, they looked up and asked, “Are you Bently McQuinn?”

“Yes,” Bently answered, shivering violently. “Who are you?”

“I am Lyra, and this is Iorek Byrnison. Who else is with you?”

“Um, well… there’s Lucy Pensive from Narnia, Meggie Folchart from Inkheart, and Stephen King, the last writing master,” Bently said, trying to point to everyone while still keeping his guard up. “If we’re going to chit-chat, then can we do it somewhere warm?”

Lyra replied, “I guess so. Iorek Byrnison, could we go back to Svalbard to get Will and Mr. Scoreby?”

“Lyra, are you sure this is a good idea?” Bently heard a small voice ask from somewhere.

“Yes, Pan, now hush,” Lyra shushed the voice.

“If they are who they say they are,” the bear growled, much too Bently’s surprise.

“Do you think you could carry everyone?” Lyra asked.

“It is not that far of a distance,” replied Iorek, and so Bently started forward slowly. The others followed him, and they soon got a good look at their new acquaintances.

Iorek Byrnison was a great deal bigger than he had been at a distance, and just on his four paws Bently hardly came up to his shoulders. Lyra had dirty blonde hair and had a martin with her. He was snuggled inside of her parka.

“Come on Lyra,” said the martin. “Let’s go!”

And so everyone got on Iorek, first King and Lucy, then Meggie and Lyra, and finally Bently. They all hardly fit, and Bently nearly fell off a few times during their wild ride, and Bently wasn’t sure if he enjoyed riding a polar bear or not, but it was a very interesting experience. By the time they got to where they were going, Bently was so cold he was sure he would have frostbite in several places on his person.

Svalbard turned out to be a huge fortress built into the mountain, with several bears of unusually large size wandering around, but none as big as Iorek. They all got off and followed Iorek and Lyra into the fortress stiffly.

“Will!” Lyra called as she burst through the gates, and a boy of her age and a cat walked over to them. “The alethiometer was right, they’re here!”

The boy smiled. “Good, now we can finally fix things.”

Next to him, Bently heard Lucy’s teeth clattering. “Can we get warm first?” he asked, rubbing his own arms. Everything felt like it was about to fall off.

“Of course,” said Will, and he lead them to a roaring fire in another room. They were provided with blankets, and the four of them started to finally warm up a bit. But as he started to warm up, the cold was replaced by a dull pain in Bently’s chest. It felt like it was inside of him, but he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where it was coming from or what was causing it. It grew as he got warmer, and at one point, he almost wished he was back out in the cold.

“Thank you,” King said when Will, Lyra, and their two animals had come back to check on them. “Now, to business. You said that we’re here to fix things. What exactly is wrong?”

“Esme is here,” Lyra said fearfully. “She took over and cast some sort of spell to make everyone think she is Mrs. Coulter. Ever since then, she’s amassed an army, and she’s now trying to put all the worlds under the rule of herself and the Magisterium.”

“She’s got to be stopped,” Will added. “It’s getting worse and worse every day. This world is getting darker by the day from all the storms she’s causing.”

“Where is she?” Bently asked.

“South,” Lyra replied. “She’s made her base in the College.”

Ignoring the growing pain in his chest, Bently said, “Alright, when do we head out?”

Lyra smiled. “Tomorrow, if you’d like. Mr. Scoreby said we can take his balloon. He’s pretty sure we’ll all fit.”

“Can we sleep somewhere?” Meggie pipped up. She looked really, really tired. And when Bently thought about it, he hadn’t slept in forever, either.

“Sure,” Lyra said. “I’ll ask Iorek Byrnison to get you all some rooms, and we’ll get prepared. It’ll be a few days flight to get there.”

“Thank you.”

-

Bently woke up with an unbearable pain in his chest. He couldn’t open his eyes, and it literally felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. He yelled, screamed, made any sort of sound he could to try and get some help. He cried out once more, and then it was over. He sat up, panting, with sweat pouring down his face. He felt a weight on the bed by his feet, and he yelled again. Sitting there was a huge albino tiger, looking at him with curious amber eyes. Bently was frozen with fear. How had it gotten in here? He clutched at his chest to see if there were perchance gaping claw gashes there, but there was nothing. His skin and shirt were still intact.

“Hello, Bently,” said the tiger with a cool, feminine voice. “It’s good to finally be free.”

“Wh-what?” Bently asked, his mouth dry.

The tiger shook her head, seeming to smile. “Shame shame, Bently, that you wouldn’t even recognize your own dæmon.”

“Dæmon?” Bently asked. He had no idea at all what was going on.

“Yes Bently. Did you not see Lyra and Pan? Or Will and Kirjava? Pan and Kirjava are their dæmons, just as I am yours.”

“But… what is a… dæmon?”

“A projection of your soul,” the tiger explained. “Sort of like how a Patronus is in Pansy’s world, just dæmons go everywhere with their human.”

“What’s your name?” Bently asked rather bluntly. His heart rate was finally starting to go down.

“Harlima,” she replied.

“Do the others have dæmons?”

At that exact moment, he heard Meggie, who was next door to him, screaming. Harlima gave Bently a wry smile, and she said, “I guess you’ll find out, won’t you?”

Bently threw the covers off himself and rushed out of his room and into Meggie’s. Harlima followed, sticking close to his leg. He burst into her room to find Meggie frozen in fear and a border collie dog on her bed, panting happily.

“Bently, what’s going on?” Meggie asked, her voice cracking and way higher than it usually was.

“It’s fine Meggie, it’s just a projection of your soul!” said Bently wildly. He sounded like he was either a drug addict or a crazy person. Or possibly both.

“What?”

“Just… come on!” Bently grabbed her arm and helped her out of the room. “We’ll find Lyra and she can explain it to you.”

In the hallway, they found King and Lucy, who also had dæmons with them; a large St. Bernard and a parakeet. “Bently, what’s going on?” King asked as calmly as he could. Lucy looked frightened too, but not as much as Meggie.

“Look, just follow me, and we’ll find Lyra and she’ll explain—dammit, where are we?”

Bently had been walking and talking so fast he hadn’t paid any attention to where he was leading everyone. Now they stood at the crossroads of several tunnels, and they all looked identical.

“Should we double back?” Lucy suggested.

“Good idea,” Bently agreed, and so they went back down the hallway where they had come from, but it got there no where.

“We’re lost,” said Meggie in defeat, and she slid down the wall and set her forehead on her knees.

“Don’t worry, Meggie, someone’s bound to find us,” said Lucy, and she sat down next to her and set her arm around Meggie. For someone who had just joined them, Lucy had warmed up to the group immediately.

Bently pulled out his wand and decided to try a spell. “Point Me,” he muttered, and the wand spun in his hand, but he suddenly felt so drained that he nearly passed out. Bracing himself against the wall, he slid down it, holding his head in his hands. Harlima gave him a look of concern and nuzzled him with the top of her head.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. Bently glanced around, and no one had looked at her in real shock. He figured only he could tell what she was saying.

“There’s practically no magic here,” he said in defeat, putting his wand away. “I’ll have to rely completely on writing.”

“Is that bad?”

“Well, I’m certainly not as good at writing,” Bently said dismally.

“Then improve.”

“Bently, who are you talking to?” Lucy asked.

“Harlima,” he replied blankly, then mentally facepalmed himself. They obviously didn’t know who that was.

“Who?” King asked.

“She’s my… dæmon,” Bently said a bit lamely.

“A what?” Meggie asked, looking up from her knees.

“Dæmon. You see these animals?” The other three nodded. “They’re your dæmons. They’re sort of like physical projections of your soul, almost like how Patronuses are in Pansy’s world. You can communicate with them, and they have names,” Bently added as he saw King’s St. Bernard sit obediently by his feet and look up at him with bright eyes.

“Good Bently,” said Harlem, yawing wildly and showing off her very long, sharp teeth. “Very good. You’re learning fast.”

-

Bently found that sleeping in the hallway wasn’t that bad. He had curled up next to Harlima (who was very warm and soft) and was fast asleep until he was shaken awake the next morning.

“There you are!” he heard Lyra say as he yawned and stretched, trying to get himself awake. “Why weren’t you in your rooms? And where did your dæmons come from? They weren’t with you when you got here.”

“They sort of… burst out of us,” said King. “Bently was actually trying to find you when he got us lost.”

“Shuddup,” Bently muttered, standing. “Are we ready to go, Lyra?”

“Yes, we just need you four and we can go.”

“Lead the way.”

And so Lyra and her dæmon led them out of the maze of passages and out the gates into the snowy entrance where they had come in from last night. Except there was a little more activity this time.

On the ground was a huge half-inflated balloon with a very big basket, one that would hold all of them and then some. Iorek Byrnison, Will, and another, older man were loading up the balloon with supplies.

“Everyone, this is Mr. Scoreby,” Lyra said, introducing them to the older man. His dæmon was a hare.

“Howdy there,” he said, tipping his cowboy hat. “You must be the heroes.”

“Yeah, I’m Bently, and this is Meggie, Lucy, and Stephen King.”

“Here,” said Will, handing Bently and the others parkas. “You’ll need these.”

Lucy’s parakeet (who’s name was apparently Carmichael) ducked itself into her jacket with a tweet.

“Finally,” Meggie muttered, pulling on her parka with a shiver. “Can we get going?”

“Right away, little miss,” said Mr. Scoreby, and he continued inflating the balloon. And a half hour later, they were on their way to go fight another emo pansy vampire.