Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

by Stephenson, Neal

  She already had notions as to why, but she wished to hear how Edda would choose to answer.

  “Some things by their nature cannot be mapped.”

  A newcomer to watery things, Prim had thought Firkin rather pretty when she had first laid eyes on it, but soon came to understand that it was a short, tubby cargo barge, and quite slow, especially compared to the large vessels that did nothing but make the run up and down the First Shiver between Cloven and Secondel. For much of the way, this body of water was more of an inland sea than a channel. Robst liked to stay in the lee of the chain of big Bits that formed its western shore, and so the Land proper, when visible at all, was seen at a distance through obscuring mists and hazes. Larger vessels sailed right down the middle, where they could take the full measure of the wind. Many were the occasions when Prim would notice Mard or Lyne taking a break from nautical duties to gaze wistfully at a bigger ship in full sail, overhauling and blowing by them as if Firkin were dragging anchor.

  As days went by, Prim began to notice more and more details on the opposite coast and understood that it was drawing nearer. For the great Shiver was narrowing, just as the maps had always told her.

  Early on the sixth morning, she felt her hammock rock strangely and knew that they had struck, or been struck by, a current. She went abovedecks to see dawn breaking over mountains on the rim of the Land, now very close. Turning to gaze west at the nearer shore, she saw not the usual scrub-crusted brow of coastal bluffs, but a strange and arresting landform: knuckles of bare, broken stone protruding from barren ground that sloped steeply down and dove into the sea.

  So they had reached the southern tip of the Bit known as Chopped Barren. In ancient times the region had been cleared of trees by woodcutters from Eltown. It was still covered mostly in grass and scrub. The broken and tumbled scape now taking the light of the dawn was Feller’s Point: the mess that had been left behind when the hill-giant had stood up and walked away, and everything west of the river had broken off from the Land and begun its slow drift into the ocean.

  Just on the other side of Feller’s Point would be another Shiver, or rather a cauldron where a few of them joined together. The broadside current that had nudged Prim’s hammock came from there. Once it had been the junction of two rivers, a few miles above Eltown.

  This then was the place where they would have to choose. By doubling back round the point and fighting both the current and the wind, they could make for the western sea. En route they would pass familiar territory where the kinsmen of Mard and Lyne dwelled. Then they would face the passage round the cape that Edda had warned of. The mere mention of that idea made Robst uneasy. On the other hand, if they stayed their southerly course, they would pass down the main channel between Secondel and the large Bit known as Thunkmarch.

  Only the most perfect weather and calm winds could have persuaded Robst to take the former course. To Prim’s untrained eye, dawn was breaking in a sky clear and calm, but Robst did not like the color of it, and soon claimed to see high rippling clouds that foretold stormy days. So the decision was made. They would sail beneath the watchtowers of Secondel.

  They beached the boat on a scrap of rocky shore at the foot of Feller’s Point and spent part of the morning tidying up. The purpose of this was but vaguely explained, but Prim inferred that the Autochthons who held power in Secondel took a dim view of certain types of cargo that Robst might have carried, and certain ports of call where he might have put in, at one time or another. Therefore it was prudent to throw overboard any evidence to that effect. This took a while, as Firkin had a lot of crannies, and only Robst knew where to look. Prim passed the time looking up at the waste heap of Feller’s Point and trying to picture in her mind’s eye where Cairn, at the end of the Second Age, had trudged up out of the river (for it had been a mere river in those days) and gone to the top of the hill to talk to the hill and the tree.

  Larger vessels passed them by as they worked. They had nearly finished their tidying up when one of these slackened its sails, put out its oars, and aimed its prow at them. Noting this, Robst squinted under his hand across bright water and gave the ship a good long look. It was of too deep draft to come very close, but presently it dropped a smaller rowboat. Two men climbed down into this and began to approach. The younger man pulling on the oars had his back to them, but the passenger was recognizable to Robst as some old seagoing acquaintance of his from the northern Bits. Soon they drew close enough to greet each other. They began a conversation, shouted back and forth across the water, in the language of Cloven. As far as Prim could make out, this began with the newcomer asking Robst if everything was quite all right, and Robst reassuring him that they had not beached because of any difficulty. Thus put at ease, the two skippers—for this man was pretty clearly the boss of the larger vessel—fell into chitchat, as the boat drew nearer, about where they had come from, where they were going, and what they were carrying. The words of Robst, though polite, seemed clipped and vague. The visitor was more talkative. His eyes kept scanning the length of Robst’s vessel, and whenever they did, his gaze seemed to snag and linger on Prim or Brindle. Eventually, despite Robst’s forced breeziness, he beached his rowboat nearby, obliging Robst to clamber down and walk over and afford him the courtesy of a handclasp and a few minutes’ conversation. In due time the visitors shoved off with a little help from Robst, who walked back to his boat with a bit of a pensive, even stormy, look about him. He invited Brindle to join him in his cabin. Brindle, who seemed to have a better idea than Prim as to what this was all about, insisted that she be part of it. So the three of them convened in Robst’s cabin, which, even with the hammock stowed and the little desk folded against the bulkhead, barely fit them.

  “Down in Secondel the Autochthons are marking every boat, be it never so small, that tries to pass south. And believe me, there is nothing they cannot see. They seek an older man and a younger woman traveling together, and speaking in the accents of Calla. As well, certain others matching the descriptions of Burr, Weaver, and Edda are being looked for. Our boat will be boarded and it will be searched. If either of you is found . . .”

  Robst seemed to think it would be a waste of breath to finish the sentence. Even more annoying, Brindle appeared to take his meaning. “What?” Prim asked. “What will happen?”

  “You have heard the stories,” Brindle said, “more are true than not. Fortunately Corvus foresaw this eventuality, and gave us a plan.”

  Two days later, she found herself walking toward Secondel’s northern gate alone. She was on the mainland. Robst had dropped her off in a little cove a few miles to the north—as close as he could sail to Secondel without coming in view of one of its watchtowers, or the much higher vantage points of the Temple complex. The day before that, they’d deposited Brindle on Thunkmarch, which was the opposite shore. In ancient times Camp had been situated there, and so that stretch of its coast was still known as Campside.

  The plan was simple enough in its general outlines. If Brindle and Prim stayed aboard Firkin, the Autochthons would see the boat, search it, and find them. So those two needed to find another way to get past Secondel. As soon as they got just a few miles south, Robst could pick them up again and they could resume their journey down toward the Last Bit. So, they would have to travel on foot. An older man and a younger woman, speaking in the accents of Calla, were just what the Autochthons were looking for, and so it wouldn’t do for them to walk together. The way through the city was safe in the sense that it was orderly. Many souls of all descriptions traversed it every day, for it was the only practical route down the west coast of the Land. The city was full of Beedles of course, but they were tame ones, perfectly under the thumb of the Autochthons. Campside, on the other hand, was infamously wild and lawless. Perhaps the powers that be in Secondel preferred it that way, as it prevented the founding of a rival city across the channel. Or perhaps the stories were true and the place had lain under a curse since the day Adam had been murdered there, and Eve
and Thunk and Whirr and the others had forsaken it to follow the hill-giant up into what later became the Bits and Shivers. In any case it was where rogue Beedles escaped to when they had disappointed their masters. When they scuttled up onto that shore they found themselves in a maelstrom of Shiver pirates, bandits, wild souls, and even a few Autochthons who had forsaken El and gone over to seek their fortunes. Brindle knew a few people there and seemed to think he could manage a few miles’ hike south along Campside’s shore. But he thought it wiser for Prim to take a different way, direct through the city, so that no one would ever see the two of them together. The whole thing could be accomplished in a day. Brindle on the west shore and Prim on the east might have to cool their heels for a night as they waited for Robst to collect them, but the distance they had to cover simply was not that great.

  So Prim strode south along the coast road, finding it easy going compared to the mountain passes of Calla. She was wrapped in a blanket that was pulled up over her head like a cloak, and carrying a bag slung over her back that contained a few days’ simple food, a purse with a few coins in it, and a writing kit: quills, a penknife, and the oddments needed to make ink.

  The road followed the coastline, which was not straight. Every so often she, and the other travelers strung out along the road near her, would come round a point and see the city. The place had been protected very early by a seawall—or, in those days, a riverwall—put up to prevent inundations such as the one that had destroyed the first Eltown. Newer buildings, mostly of burnt mud, had later gone up around the outside of the walls and now blurred its lower reaches with a confusion of various rooflines and drifting smoke. But easily discerned was the wall top, running straight from one tower to the next.

  The towers were five in number and arranged so as to command interlocking vistas of the First Shiver and, opposite, Campside. Impressive as those might have been, they were dwarfed by what loomed above them. The slopes of the mountain behind the city were grown with trees that, since the death of Adam, had become quite ancient. The trace of a road-cut could be discerned zigzagging up the slope. But at its top, the skyline was a froth of white stuff, like the foamy crest of a wave poised to break over the city. Accustomed to the mountains of Calla, Prim would have pegged it as the thick lip of a glacier had she not known what it really was: Hive. A complex of cells inhabited by souls that were unimaginably different from the sort who walked around on two legs and talked to one another with words, songs, looks, and gestures.

  Little could really be known of the Hive save that it surrounded the base of the Pinnacle in the middle of the Land, and spread out from there along the Hive-Way, thin tendrils running east to the Teemings and west to the ridge above Secondel. There, over time, the Hive had filled in the gaps between the great stone temples and basilicas that Beedles had piled up to the glory of El, forming a seamless complex running for a mile along the ridgetop. Few of the souls who dwelled below in the walled city of Secondel ever set foot in the Temple. If they toiled up the switchbacks to the top of the ridge, they might pass through an aperture in the middle that marked the beginning of the great road east. But entry to the Temple itself was an honor conferred only on a few.

  “I am bound for Toravithranax,” she said. She had rehearsed it a hundred times, learning to say the words in the thick accent of the cold Bits that lay north of Calla. This was the first time she had spoken them directly to a stranger.

  “And what is your business there?” inquired the Autochthon.

  Prim and a score of other travelers were milling around before the north gate of Secondel, being looked at and interrogated by a few Autochthons who nudged their mounts about, approaching anyone who aroused their curiosity.

  She tried to ignore this Autochthon’s mount, which was curiously shoving its huge nose into her pack, drawn no doubt by the scent of the apples. Instead she shielded her eyes with her hand—for the sun was very near the Autochthon’s head—and looked him in the eye as best she could.

  “I have been sent into the south by my family to learn the art of writing from Pestle,” Prim said—meaning, as this Autochthon would understand, the Academy that Pestle had founded ages ago.

  “Who’s to say they’ll have you?” asked the Autochthon, looking her up and down.

  “If they won’t, I shall learn it from one of the lesser scribes who, it is said, have little schools around the verges of the great one.”

  “And what is writing to your family, that they would send you so far to learn it?”

  “We have three ships and much need of keeping records.”

  The Autochthon still had her at a disadvantage, because of the angle of the sun, but she could only assume he was giving her a close look. “To the narrow gate,” he commanded, and then looked up at the top of the wall to be sure he had been understood by those who kept watch there. Prim followed his gaze and saw a row of helmets, strung bows, full quivers. Below were two gates: a wide one bestriding the road and affording passage for even the largest teams and wagons, and another just wide enough for a single soul on foot. The former gave way to the main waterfront street; the latter was merely a doorway into the ground floor of a building that lay inside the wall. How far that building might extend and what might go on in it she had no way of knowing. But several of those helmets were now inclined toward her and she knew she would not get far if she disobeyed. Glancing over her shoulder the way she’d come, she saw that going back was just as likely to draw unwanted notice and arrows between the shoulder blades. Not that she had any thought of doing so. To give up now was to fail in the Quest before it had really got started.

  So she walked through it into a sort of antechamber, and then drew up short as she came face-to-face, for the first time in her life, with a Beedle.

  She’d seen them depicted in storybooks and tapestries, typically in the background, filling in blank spaces in the artwork, carrying out various none-too-savory tasks under the direction of Autochthons or angels. In one of the rooms in the great hall of Farth there was a Beedle stuffed and mounted. During her brief stopover in West Cloven she had spied them from a distance clambering spiderlike through ships’ rigging that needed mending or crablike over hulls that needed scraping, and of course the row of helmeted guards atop this very gatehouse were all Beedles. But here she was staring one in the face. He was posted next to a doorway that led to a larger room sliced into lanes by long plank tables. He had laid his helmet by and leaned his spear against the wall, but still wore armor of stiff hide divided into overlapping plates, and was armed with what was either a very long knife or a very short sword. Prim had been forewarned to expect a distinct lack of symmetry, and was not disappointed. Beedles came in various colorations and ranged in stature from midthigh to shoulder level compared against Prim and her kin; it all depended on how they were used, and where. But they were invariably bigger on the right side than the left. For the story always told of them was that they had sprung up in Eltown of old, and got to work at such simple tasks as woodcutting, mining, brickmaking, and smithing, but had lacked any real purpose or direction until the Autochthons had shown up and begun looking after them. The Autochthons knew what to do and how to do it, but were not very numerous. So the folk of Eltown—or, after that had been destroyed, of Secondeltown—had become the Autochthons’ right hands. Strong they had grown, and stocky. Intelligence was of little use to them, and some strains could barely say a word, so their heads were small; their mouths more suited to the chewing and swallowing of rude rations than to speech; their ears large, the better to hear the commands issued by their masters. They grew thick hair on their bodies but little on their heads, and they shed it in warm weather, spinning it into coarse bristling ropes of stuff that they used to fashion nests, where they would sleep together in dense snoring and shifting clusters. They were no longer divided into male and female, as copulation served no use that was of any profit to the Autochthons. Their masters might crop their ears, tattoo them, or make any other such alteration
s that would display their purpose at a glance. Dangerous work killed them or wore them out. They were replaced by new ones sent down from a place, somewhere in the Temple complex above, where newly spawned souls were gathered in and so given shape.

  Prim had been taught manners, and so upon coming face-to-face with this Beedle she had to stifle an impulse to bid him good day and make some offhand remark about the weather. But from one who looked like Prim, no Beedle would expect anything except direct orders or pleas for mercy.

  Sure enough, though, he did receive an order from someone within, which made no sense to Prim—for it was in a crude sort of speech used only by Autochthons to boss Beedles around. The Beedle smashed his heels together, pivoted, and extended his weak left arm toward the doorway. Prim took that as her cue to pass through into the next room. The purpose of the long plank tables soon became clear as an Autochthon directed her to place her bag on one for inspection.

  Indoors, standing on his own two feet, unarmed and unarmored, this Autochthon was not much bigger than Mard or Lyne. Burr would have been more than a match for him. But where Burr’s features were rough and bold, the Autochthon was elegant, and Prim felt herself responding to his beauty as he cast his pale eyes and long lashes down at the mean assortment of apples, undergarments, and writing tools that he was pulling from her bag and setting out on the table. He examined one of the apples and gave it a long sniff with his fine-boned nose. It was a variety that grew in the far north; he seemed to know this. More interesting was the wooden box that contained her writing supplies. Rolled up in there were several leaves of paper, made of northern linen, on which Prim had scratched out two different alphabets.

  He bade her pack up her things and directed her to another door. This one took her up a curving staircase and past another Beedle into a chamber with a table, two chairs, and a little window through which she could look out into the streets of Secondel. There playing out below her was a curious sort of commerce in which various roles were played, according to their kind, by Beedles, Spawned, Autochthons, and—