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Things are unraveling in the concluding book of The Dust Trilogy, the next of Philip Pullman's magisterial trilogies set in a realm that seems, in this volume especially, as a intense and skewed version of our own. Organizations are failing, or reassembling themselves along novel and disturbing lines. An unseen force "is ruining the air and the seasons"; at the same time, "wealth is decaying, and no one knows why". Authority is draining from authorities, and accumulating in the chambers of theocrats, the treasuries of conglomerates, the hands of rioters. "Something is at work, very quietly, very subtly", says businessman a merchant figure, keeping a watchful eye on the Silk Roads from his seat in an city cafe. "Elements we thought were secure and strong are deteriorating and failing."

The Central Mystery and Her Quest

Precisely what that force might be, and how to counteract it, is the question that animates the concluding book, which resumes where the previous book concluded. This is, according to many, the author's last venture into the carefully crafted, endlessly enchanting realm he first unveiled three decades past, with the release of Northern Lights. It's a realm whose terrain aligns with that of our world, but whose past diverges and shifts with ours; where the people look and think and behave like us, but are paired by daemons, essences in animal form; where the air are teeming with sorceresses and gryphons, but underneath, vehicles are caught and beverages is sipped, and older professors carry Harrods shopping bags. The protagonist, whom we first met as a young girl in the His Dark Materials trilogy, and then revisited as a toddler in the prequel, the origin story with which Pullman began this trilogy, is now a mature individual: still recognisably the spiky and persistent main character of the prior volumes, but aged, melancholic, more cautious, less certain. This limitation is intensified by her division from her animal guide, her daemon – but it was also, paradoxically, the catalyst which caused him to abandon her in the first place.

Converging Storylines

The daemon's resolve to depart in pursuit of that youthful part of her which she seems to have lost (an trait which he symbolizes as her "imagination"), and her journey to reconnect with him, were the incitements of its predecessor, which saw Lyra undertake a picaresque voyage across Europe and into the mountain region, facing with wonder and peril on the way. But from the beginning, underlying forces were in motion, and darker forces at work. The Magisterium – the religious governing authority, and the author's masterfully eerie representation of strict, administrative wickedness – is under fresh command, and asserting its power. Marcel Delamare – Lyra's relative, who blames her for his family member's death – has manoeuvred himself into the office of leader of the Magisterium's High Council, and is intent on using his recently acquired influence to extend the institution's rule. A key character, who saved baby the heroine to safety along a flooded Thames as an 11-year-old in La Belle Sauvage, is now an university scholar with a additional duty in spycraft: he is sent to the city to find out more about his plans. And behind all of this is the puzzle surrounding the scarce and costly botanical extract which seems somehow to be the source of a societal and economic disturbance rippling out from the region. The extract is viewed by certain groups as a tradeable product, by different parties as a research-based or mystical phenomenon, and by others still – the zealous "mountain dwellers" – as a source of evil; an insult that must be eradicated. The question of its source, what it stands for, and whether it should be removed or preserved is becoming urgent.

Similar to His Dark Materials, the heroine's decisions, and her destiny, are revealed to be inextricably connected with the fate of the universe

In its predecessor, these storylines ran mostly in tandem. In this final book, they merge. Like the original series, Lyra's choices and her fate are shown to be inseparably entwined with the destiny of the universe. Her personal quest to reconnect with her companion and recover her creativity becomes the central conflict in a broader battle with an authoritarian regime which, as such authorities often attempt, is striving to stifle freedom of thought, innovation and expression: all the inner, defiant ways in which humans can be free.

Cosmic Openings and Ideological Conflicts

The novel begins with the discovery of a series of curious openings in the structure of the Earth's air: gateways that look to open into different dimensions. One such window seems to be the source of the highly contested rose oil. The Magisterium, with Delamare at its head, designates these openings as a problem to the church's doctrine and aims to eradicate them. As Lyra begins to shift from strict rationalism and return to feeling, yet, her certainty that these locations must be defended – that what they stand for and what they provide is mysteriously vital – strengthens. "The substance, or rose oil, or the imagination, or the field of roses, or whatever we call it," she says, "it is necessary." The stage for a philosophical conflict between naivety and experience is established.

Story Tempo and Character Development

At a substantial length, The Rose Field|this volume|the