Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

by Neal Stephenson

  41

  The Palace’s tallest tower was the dwelling place of Longregard. Just below it was a stretch of high parapet where Egdod was wont to pace back and forth. Once it had offered a pleasant view of Town, which in those days had been situated only a short distance below. Now Town was a jumbled ruin, spread across ground so far below the top of the pinnacle that Egdod’s view of it was frequently obscured by intervening strata of cloud. It was a smudge upon the surface of the Land, devoid of color since all of the trees had been felled.

  At some distance the forest resumed. There the red leaves had been falling in uncountable numbers, as had been the way of things in the very beginning when Egdod had dwelled alone in the Land. Gazing down into that red sea from far above, he remembered fondly those days when all things had been as he made them, for better or worse. The red forest below would turn brown and bare as the leaves dried up and blew away, then become white and then green as the seasons took their turns, so on and so forth for thousands of years without any need for Egdod to stretch forth his hand. Now, from the high place, the forest looked as it had in those days, but he knew that beneath its red canopy the people who had formerly lived in Town were on the move, fanning out in all directions, cutting down trees and shitting on the ground wherever they went.

  Some went west into the broad sea of grass that stretched toward the mountain ranges Pluto had raised along the Land’s western coast. Some went south, then bent their course eastward to avoid the rocky desert of the Land’s southwestern quadrant, and sought the green warm bottomlands of the central gulf. Others doubled back around the base of the Pinnacle and followed the course of the great river eastward, looking for places where they might settle in its broad valley.

  Few as yet were going north, for there winter came earlier and harder, and the going was difficult. Mountain ranges alternated with deep gorges all the way to the Knot. And even if the people of Town had had wings to fly over those, they would have avoided venturing into that territory, since it was understood that it was the inviolable domain of Egdod and certain favorite members of the Pantheon.

  Perhaps Longregard sensed that Egdod’s thoughts were directed toward the Fastness, for she glided down from her perch in the high tower and alit near him, to his right side, like him facing north toward the column of dark clouds that marked the eternal storm.

  “Something very strange is afoot in those parts,” she announced. “And nothing here requires you.”

  She gestured toward the Garden, where preparations for the Feast were being made. Certain inhabitants of Town had been brought up to the top of the Pinnacle and given leave to dwell in small habitations around the circuit of its walls, within the sphere of warm air and golden light that crowned the pinnacle of the mountain. Of lesser stature and power were they than the souls of the Pantheon, but content to dwell in that humbler estate and to make themselves useful in whatever way suited their natures. Thus some of them scoured the mountains for the minerals and crystals Thingor required for his forge, while others roamed abroad gathering herbs and fruits for the Table. Longregard had helpers who found their station flying, swimming, and rambling about the Land, noticing all that was afoot and bringing to her news of events she might otherwise not have known. Ward had, one and two at a time, drawn to his side a score of souls who found satisfaction in patrolling the borders of the blessed space atop the mountain and standing aflank its gate. Wild souls too had come there in numbers that had exceeded the expectations of Egdod. For in his roamings up and down the Land he had encountered several such, and come to know them. When spying some stretch of seacoast or confluence of rivers where the waters swirled in greater-than-usual complexity, or observing like patterns in the wind, or when a great tree rose above all others on the skyline of a mountain, or a crag distinguished itself for beauty and elaborate form on the crest of a ridge, he had learned to go thither and patiently abide until the soul of the place had made itself known to him. Some of the wild souls had awoken and taken root and assembled these manifestations in utter solitude, not knowing that other souls existed until they spied Egdod. Others had awakened first in Town and struck out on their own after finding that the society of the place was not to their liking. Some inhabited single blades of grass, others were mountain ranges, one was the west wind and one was the eastern sea. It stood to reason that for any one of them Egdod knew of, there might be many he had not discovered. Somehow, though, word of the Feast had spread among them. Many arrived in those days who were new to Egdod and to the Pantheon, and the Garden became tumultuous with their rude society.

  “Very well,” Egdod agreed, “what news from the north?”

  “It is easier to show than to speak of,” said Longregard, “and if you will guide me through the dangerous currents of the storm we can be there sooner than I could put it into words.” She took to the air without awaiting a response, obliging Egdod to follow her.

  After they had gone some distance north, Egdod surged past her and led the way into the deepening maze of currents and cloud banks along the southern fringe of the storm. As they got farther in, they dodged through places where lightning bolts snaked and forked from cloud to cloud as if a hundred Egdods were amusing themselves with Thingor’s bright armaments. Once, twice, and then a third time Egdod sensed a change in the air and swooped close to Longregard to shelter her in his wings from a sizzling blast.

  They broke out at last into the eye of the storm. This was a thing that came and went, and roamed like a wild soul over the Knot and the Stormland that extended northward from it. But most often it was centered about the Fastness, and that was where they found it today.

  The situation of the Fastness itself—the castle that Egdod had built at the heart of the Knot—was simple enough. Disregarding all of its towers and complications, it was a walled square, built on a ledge. A range of mountains arched over the top of it, and twisted as it did so. Which made no sense; but it had to be thus because of errors Egdod had made, eons ago, in the shape of the Land and the courses of its rivers.

  The ledge gave way to a cliff and the cliff dropped straight down into chaos. The Fastness was built right up to the brink. Its wall on that side merged seamlessly into the cliff face, so that Egdod, when he stood on its parapet, could gaze straight down into the void.

  The pit of chaos, for its part, was not an isolated hole in the ground, but rather a wide spot in a long sinuous crack that ran all through the underpinnings of the Knot. In some parts it was so narrow that one could step over it with a long stride, in others it was as wide as a great river. In general, though, the farther one went from the Fastness, the narrower it got, until some distance away the ground simply closed over it. Beyond that, Egdod supposed, it might run and ramify beneath other parts of the Land. But this was of concern only to Pluto, who knew how to navigate it, and could use it to travel from one part of the Land to another more rapidly than even Freewander could fly on her swift wings.

  Because of the mountains—not just their great height but their nonsensical convolutions—it was not possible to walk to this place from the south. Those coming from east or west would be forced to swing around and make their final approach from the north, where a land route did exist—provided one was willing to traverse many miles of high, difficult, storm-blasted territory. Egdod had always looked upon this as a defect—the only flaw in the otherwise perfect system of defenses surrounding the Fastness. It was too late to change it. But the chasm—the chaos-filled crevice that cut directly beneath the ledge—did form a convenient bight a short distance to the north, running roughly east-west so that any unwanted visitors trying to approach over land would have no choice but to cross it. Egdod had broadened this to a canyon with nearly vertical sides. No soul who lacked wings could jump over it and no builder could bridge it.

  Or so Egdod had always convinced himself, until he came in view of the place and saw that it had been bridged.

  North of the Fastness, twin abutments of solid stone sprang fro
m the opposing sides of the chasm, directly across from each other. In these parts Pluto had never bothered to convert adamant to new types of stone, as he knew that Egdod would only tear up and redo his work anyway, and so these new growths were likewise of solid adamant, smooth and gracefully curved. They narrowed as they reached toward each other across the chasm. They did not touch in the middle. The gap between their tips had been filled by a trestle of wood: whole tree trunks apparently felled from the forests of the Stormland to the north and dragged here, then pegged and lashed together.

  In this way the Stormland to the north had been connected to the Front Yard, which was Egdod’s name for the scrap of flat stony ground that lay between the northern front of the Fastness and the edge of the chasm. He didn’t know why it was called the Front Yard; the name had come to him once as he sat on the Front Porch (as he called the northern steps of the Fastness) and gazed across it.

  In any case the Front Yard had been a private and inviolate part of the Land until now. So Egdod was more dumbfounded than enraged to see that it had been invaded by souls who were streaming across the bridge. They were moving in both directions, to and fro. Those moving south, toward the Fastness, carried stones. Those returning northward were empty-handed. As soon as the rock carriers crossed over into the domain of Egdod, they fanned out across the Front Yard and soon came to a place where a low wall of rubble made an arc across the ground. The arc grew slightly higher with every stone that was dropped upon it. Having unburdened themselves, the stone carriers immediately turned about and moved back as quickly as their legs could carry them to fetch more rocks.

  It was the most astonishing sight Egdod had ever seen since he had first become conscious in the sea of chaos that preceded the Land. And perhaps it was good that he was so utterly dumbfounded, for otherwise he would have wheeled and dove into the open courtyard of the Fastness and seized as many thunderbolts as he could carry and begun hurling them at everything he saw. As it was, astonishment gave him pause, and in that pause he thought, and in that thinking devised a subtler plan.

  He veered sharply into a bank of storm clouds. Longregard followed him and thus both disappeared from view. “Find your way back to the Palace,” he directed her, “you have done well to make these things known to me.” And she took her leave, hieing away eastward and hugging the ground, looking for the long way around the storm.

  Remaining in the concealment of the clouds, Egdod flew to the north side of the chasm, then set down in an isolated place and transformed himself so that he looked like one of the wingless souls of Town. Thus disguised, he hiked across the snow-covered rocks of that high place until he joined in with a stream of other such souls who were all making their way south toward the bridge. Most were poorly shod and clothed for these conditions. He marveled at their willingness to suffer so when the sole reward they could expect for it was to carry a rock across a bridge.

  “My, but this is hard going,” he said to one soul who was on the move in a group of three. “I am of a mind to turn back, how about you?”

  “The angel told us we are almost there!” said this soul. Then, reacting to Egdod’s bafflement—for he had never before heard this word “angel”—she pointed into the sky a little behind them, indicating a winged soul who was hovering above the caravan and occasionally gliding down to proffer aid or encouragement to stumbling and exhausted hikers. Egdod had never seen this “angel” before, or any soul like it; it was not a member of the Pantheon.

  “The One Who Comes will reward us,” added another soul in the little group, “once he has delivered us from the tyranny of Egdod.”

  Egdod, curious to hear more in this vein, accepted their invitation to walk as part of their group. From that point it was not far—just as the angel had promised—to the bridge. As they went along, Egdod plied his new companions with questions about the One Who Comes and angels and the bridge, but it seemed they knew very little.

  Past a certain point it seemed to be expected that they would pick up rocks, and so they did, and fell in with the stream of other rock bearers funneling together onto the bridge’s near abutment. There traffic slowed, giving Egdod time to examine this strange growth that had so unexpectedly thrust itself forth from the wall of the chasm. It was indeed of solid adamant, a seamless whole with the bedrock of the Land, no different in its strength and permanence from anything Egdod himself might have made at the height of his powers. Not even Pluto could have achieved it. It occurred to Egdod to wonder whether he might have done this himself in some kind of dream and then forgotten about it. Or was there another soul like Egdod abroad in the Land? One as powerful as—or, come to think of it, mightier even than—Egdod himself?

  And yet the power of the bridge maker was apparently not infinite. For as Egdod now perceived, the Fastness itself was not visible from the bridge. Even its topmost towers were concealed from view by a sort of buttress thrown out by one of the arching mountain ranges. Cunning had been the bridge builder, whoever it was, in choosing a location where his or her work could not be looked on by Egdod or any other soul gazing north from the high vantage points of the Fastness.

  At the place where the abutment narrowed to the width of a road and gave way to the wooden trestle, an arch of adamant had been thrown, or grown, over the way and topped with a small castle-like tower that put Egdod in mind of the one he had made in the middle of the Park. Standing at its parapet, wings folded against their white-robed backs, were two of the souls that the others had classified as angels. They were facing opposite directions, keeping watch over the bridge. Egdod understood, as he passed under that arch and ventured out onto the rude wooden trestle, that whoever had built this could just as well have made it span the entire chasm with an unbroken stretch of solid adamant. Instead they had chosen to build it in such a way that it could easily be broken, when breaking it might better serve their purposes.

  But what were their purposes?

  A hundred slow trudging paces took him to a second gatehouse that was a mirror of the first, complete with two more angels standing watch atop it. From there, solid adamant was under his feet all the way to the edge of the Front Yard.

  On that ground he immediately felt stronger and more certain of his power. Only a few paces in, the high towers of the Fastness began coming into view. This seemed to have the opposite effect on the rock carriers, who spread out and began to wander and collide with one another now that they had crossed over into the wayward lands of the Knot and the direct gaze of the Fastness. They seemed torn between their duty to deposit their rocks in the desired location and an increasingly desperate need to unburden themselves and hurry back across the bridge as quickly as they could. Angels, it seemed, did not wish to trespass upon Egdod’s Front Yard. So discipline, such as existed, was enforced by wingless souls who swaggered about brandishing sticks and shouting orders at the stragglers swarming about the band of Yard between the lip of the chasm and the rubble wall. Many rocks had been dropped in that area by confused or panicked souls, and some who only wished to get back upon the bridge were being driven back by these stick swingers—who all reminded Egdod of the one called Swat, whom he had murdered—and forced to pick up these dropped stones and transport them to where the wall was a-building.

  The wall was a stretched-out mound, easy enough to climb, and so Egdod did so and dropped his rock at the top of it. In so doing he inadvertently made himself a kind of hero, for a couple of stick swingers who had noticed this achievement now pointed their sticks at him and exhorted others to do likewise, building the wall higher, not broader.

  From this vantage point Egdod could see how the wall swept around in a broad arc from one mountain buttress to another, sealing off a portion of the Front Yard that covered about as much territory as Town had once done back in the old days. Had he been of a mind to construct a fortification to protect the Fastness from an invasion coming out of the north across the bridge (not that any such notion had ever entered his mind), this was where he would ha
ve constructed his outer wall, using those two mountains to anchor its ends.

  But that was the opposite of what these people were doing. This wall existed to prevent anything coming from the Fastness toward the bridge.

  Which made no sense, since Egdod and the rest of the Pantheon could simply fly over it.

  Unless they intended to build the wall all the way up to the overhang above, and seal the whole thing off.

  Which made no sense either, since Egdod, or Pluto for that matter, could simply destroy it.

  The Land had gone insane. Egdod was bewildered and exhausted. The Fastness—his home, more so than the Palace—beckoned, only a short hike from here across the Front Yard. He kept going, trudging down the southern surface of the wall, headed for the front entrance of his dwelling.

  In that moment he ceased being a hero for the others and became an exemplar of what not to do. “Stop!” called a stick swinger, who ran to the top of the wall to look down at him, then cringed a little as he came into full view of the Fastness. “In the name of the One Who Comes, turn around and come back!”

  “Why?” Egdod called back. “It seems a nice enough place to me.”

  “It is the Abode of Death!”

  “What is death to me?” Egdod inquired. He knew of it better than most, having killed Swat, but it amused him to keep the conversation going. He trotted down the last few yards of rubble and alit on the familiar ground of his Front Yard. Turning about to look up at his interlocutor, he thought that the wall, from here, looked impressive enough, to one who lacked wings and was new to the art of walking.

  The stick swinger had become tongue-tied. “Death? It is the end of all things,” he said, and shrugged helplessly. “She spawns, just over there. Not even the angels will venture as close as you have done.”

  “I look forward to making the lady’s acquaintance,” said Egdod. “Perhaps you can meet her someday.”