Seeking refuge from his pursuers, he enters and finds himself in the city of Cittàgazze where he meets Lyra and her dæmon Pantalaimon, who have arrived from her world via the opening in the sky created by her father, Lord Asriel (in Northern Lights).

Meanwhile the aeronaut Lee Scoresby searches for Stanislaus Grumman, previously believed dead, who is rumoured to have knowledge of a powerful object that could protect Lyra.

On the advice of her alethiometer Lyra visits the physicist Dr Mary Malone, who has a computer that can communicate with dark matter.

Lee Scoresby finds Grumman living as a shaman known to the people of that world as Jopari (a modified form of his English name John Parry): Will's father.

Grumman has summoned Scoresby to take him to the bearer of the knife and to assist Lord Asriel, who is assembling an army to rebel against an ancient angel called the Authority.

Leaving Lyra asleep at their overnight camp, Will walks on alone and finds his father, who staunches his bleeding and tells him to join Lord Asriel's forces.

[1] The Golden Compass made over twice its budget worldwide but was a disappointment in the United States, leaving the fate of its sequel unclear.

The international rights were also originally sold to provide financing for the first film, thus amounting to a significant disappointment for New Line Cinema.

"[2] However, Philip Pullman later remarked at the British Humanist Association annual conference in 2011 that due to the first film's disappointing sales in the United States, there would not be any sequels made.

[4] As the second novel of the His Dark Materials trilogy, the book has also formed part of a radio drama on BBC Radio 4, starring Terence Stamp as Lord Asriel and Lulu Popplewell as Lyra,[5] and as a two-part, six-hour performance for London's Royal National Theatre in December 2003, running until March 2004, and starring Anna Maxwell Martin as Lyra, Dominic Cooper as Will, Timothy Dalton as Lord Asriel and Patricia Hodge as Mrs Coulter, and a second run between November 2004 and April 2005.

The second series of the joint BBC-HBO television adaptation of His Dark Materials, approved in September 2018, covers The Subtle Knife, with introductions to the book's central characters beginning in the first season.