Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

by Neal Stephenson

  Adam went to work cutting down a tree that seemed of a good size to him until Feller told him to attack a larger one instead. So into that one Adam began to swing his axe, but found it did not bite as well as it might have. Testing its edge he found that it was dull. Not far away Edger was making much speedier progress cutting down a smaller tree. Adam asked her whether he might have the use of a whetstone from her pouch. She invited him to wander at hazard into the deep forest and be eaten by wolves—a prospect that seemed to amuse her very much. So Adam went down to the bank of the river and found a suitable rock. Feller came over to him and inquired as to why he was not applying himself to his assigned task. Adam explained matters. Feller took the axe and tested its edge and was displeased. “Edger!” he shouted, despite knowing exactly where she was, for she was in plain sight not far away. But he continued to call her name until she had come over to him. Then he rebuked her. Adam was some distance off, whetting the tool with his river rock, and the sound of the rushing water made it difficult for him to understand the words they exchanged. But their tone could not be misunderstood. The discussion went on for some little while before Feller drew his arm across his body and then whipped it back, striking Edger on the cheek with such force that she spun away and fell to the ground.

  It was not the first violence that Adam had witnessed, for workers along the river sometimes fell to it. But the violence of Feller seemed of a different nature; like all else that Feller did, it appeared to spring not from passion but from careful forethought. Adam looked up to the edge of the forest and saw Bluff emerging. Seeing how it was, Bluff neither rebuked Feller nor came to Edger’s aid, but rather seemed to shrink into himself.

  Later in the day, as Adam, weary from many hours of rowing and chopping, stood back from his work to take a moment’s rest, he heard the sharp popping and splintering of a tree giving way. He looked up to see a tree falling directly toward him. He stepped clear of it and received a blow from one of its branches, which drew blood from his shoulder but did not hurt him otherwise.

  Later in the day Feller let them all know that it was time to cease work and get back into the boat, and so they marked the logs that they had dragged down to the bank and then pushed the boat into the current and climbed aboard. Travel downstream required less of the rowers, and so smaller members of the crew took turns at the oars while Adam and Bluff rested.

  Ever since the moment when Feller had struck Edger in the face, and Bluff, witnessing it, had only hung his head and slunk away, Bluff had seemed diminished to Adam. Edger likewise had taken leave of the pride and the haughty manner that she had shown toward Adam earlier in the day. One side of her face was misshapen and discolored; when she dared to meet Adam’s eye, she only looked at him sidelong.

  Eve asked Adam about the wound on his shoulder when at last he returned to their cabin that night, weary to the bone. He began to relate the story, but seeing its effect on her emotions, changed it in the telling so that it would not cause her so much distress. He knew what was causing her such concern: word had reached them that some who were gravely injured in such accidents ceased to be; their souls took leave of their ruined forms, which dissolved, and the souls either vanished altogether or fled and did not come back. “I shall take the utmost care,” Adam assured her, “never to put myself in the way of any harm so great as that.” But in the back of his mind he wondered how it might go if one who wished him ill were to place him deliberately in the way of a falling tree. Eve seemed somewhat reassured. But the fact remained that he had been gone all day and was now bloody, dirty, and exhausted. “Why do you toil so when we have all we need here?” she asked. “Stay in Camp and keep me company!”

  “You know why,” he returned. “Mab has foretold that soon there will be more of us. This old cabin, cozy as it is, does not have enough room.”

  Eve did not press the argument further that night, for she could see his weariness plainly enough. They had talked about it before, and it was plain to see that Adam derived a kind of pleasure from venturing into wild places to cut trees, and nothing that came out of Eve’s mouth could gainsay it.

  Adam made it a practice after that to board Feller’s boat in the morning. On the second day he rowed harder than Bluff was capable of, so that the boat over and over again slewed around to Bluff’s disadvantage and caused Bluff to become the butt of rebukes and mockery from Feller. From this Adam derived a kind of satisfaction that repaid him in a small way for the injury he had suffered the day before. For he was quite certain now that this had been inflicted upon him by Edger or Bluff in a cunning and underhanded way.

  In any event no more trees fell toward Adam after that. He and Bluff, without exchanging any words, arrived at an understanding concerning how hard they would row the boat, and thereby made progress that was more steady, even though Feller made remarks intended to provoke more competition between them. For the most part, though, the journeys to and from the logging site were spent in silence or in idle conversation. Feller inquired about the place where Adam and Eve were living in Camp, whether it was quite large enough for their tastes, what sort of condition it was in, and so forth. Adam came to see that no conversation was truly idle for Feller and that his words always had a purpose. In this case, it was to make Adam desire more, so that he would row faster and cut down more trees.

  Too—and just as purposefully—he and the others asked about Eve. They had not actually seen Eve since her first day in Eltown, but word had got around about her curious shape. That was mysterious to them, but all understood that, even though Eve was not so great in stature as Adam, still she was bigger and stronger than most souls in Eltown and could outdo them if she chose to work.

  From these conversations it was clear to Adam that none of these people had the faintest idea of what was really going on with Eve. The production of new souls was not a thing that ever happened among them. The nature of his dealings with Feller and Edger and Bluff caused him to think better of divulging all that he knew. So he said only that Eve worked in Camp practicing those crafts that brought satisfaction to her and that she would not soon be joining them in the boat.

  They cut down many trees, and bound them together in rafts that they floated down the Western fork to its junction with the Middle, and thence to the place where the East fork flowed into it at the foot of the great bare hill where the lone tree stood. Whenever they passed by that, Feller would leave off for a while from his questions and rebukes and all of the other carefully considered words that emerged from his mouth, and he would gaze up at that tree, and all the rest of the crew, not daring to interrupt his silence, would do likewise, and in time it seemed that they had all formed a shared resolve to go up there one day and chop it down.

  Then it would pass from view around the last bend of the river and they would pull up on the floodplain where the great fires burned and the logs they had brought down the river would be counted and sorted and stacked into piles. The logs were marked with glyphs hacked into their bark to say who owned which. Adam learned to make his own mark and to recognize it. For the most part, his pile grew. Sometimes, though, when he went to inspect it he would find that logs had been removed while he had been absent. He mentioned this perplexing phenomenon to Feller, who was ready with an explanation: from time to time it was necessary to “dock” the log piles of crew members, as for example when they did not work hard enough.

  It all made sense, and yet Adam felt troubled by it somehow. He felt himself diminished. Feller seemed to understand this. He went on to admit that being docked was by no means an agreeable thing, and to say that he regretted having to do it. But such was the way of things now. Eltown had grown crowded and the distance to the edge of the forest kept growing. Some had abandoned the town altogether and lived now in the woods like wild beasts; Thunk, for example, was the leader of a whole band of such wretches, stealing logs from the honest woodcutters of Eltown and assaulting them in the wild places. A conflict was shaping up in which all the people of E
ltown must choose whether to stay here and improve the place or disperse into the woods. Feller’s boat was the answer. It was already being copied by some who envied his success.

  After that conversation Adam went back home across the river. Eve looked upon him with concern, and said that he seemed tired and worn down. Adam tried to put her at ease by explaining that his log pile continued to grow, and that when it reached a certain size he would lash them together into a raft and bring it across the river to Camp so that they could enlarge their cabin.

  Walksfar visited Adam, Eve, and Mab in their cabin frequently. As well they became acquainted with other old souls of Camp, but many of them were forgettish. The growth of Eve’s belly could not be concealed. Walksfar said that it reminded him strongly of what happened when four-legged beasts spawned more of their kind. After that, Adam and Eve’s secrets all came out in a rush, as when an ice dam melts on a river and all that has been pent up is released in one moment. They let Walksfar know that they were in fact the children of Spring and of Egdod, spawned in a different manner from every other soul in the Land; that they were born and bred in the Garden, expelled therefrom by El himself; and that the swelling of Eve’s belly was, just as Walksfar had guessed, the spawning of more of their kind.

  When Walksfar inquired as to why El had expelled them, they related the story of the worm that had somehow found its way into the Garden and spoken to them of the First Age and given them names that were relics of an even more ancient past, and finally been slain by the lightning sword of Defender of El.

  Walksfar was astonished by each of these revelations, most of all the last. And yet he admitted that he had known from their first day in Camp that Adam and Eve and their guardian sprite must be of some altogether different order of creation from any of the other souls that made their way down from the kirk; that they were so peculiar, in fact, that only a tale as strange as the one they had just told him could possibly serve to explain them.

  Thus winter passed into the first stirrings of spring. One night Eve went into a great passion that consumed her mind and body to such a degree that Adam feared she might be torn asunder; her aura burned and burgeoned about her like the great fires where steel was made in the forge, and her form below her breasts and above her knees reverted to chaos that writhed about the limbs of those who sought to comfort her. At the moment when they feared she would dissolve altogether, they heard the small cry of a voice not before known in the Land, and then another, and another. Her passion and the chaos that swirled about her lessened with each that came forth, and subsided well enough that they could all see what she had begotten: twelve souls, tiny and yet perfectly formed after the same general pattern as Adam and Eve. They spawned not as indistinct wisps but as embodied souls, clothed in skin and endowed with toes, fingers, and faces. The head of each was robed in an aura that ever darted out and shrank back.

  The bringing forth of the twelve little ones was exhausting even for Adam, though he had little to do other than to look for ways to be of comfort to Eve and to carry out such other tasks as were recommended from time to time by Mab. The sprite for example lacked the strength to go and draw fresh water from the well of Camp but had the wit to sense when a drink or a bath would be of most benefit to Eve.

  After the twelve had been brought forth they sought closeness with Eve, whose form was returning to the shape it had possessed when she and Adam had dwelled in the Garden. Most of the little ones were of a mind to sleep, as was Eve, and so Adam saw to it that they were covered and that the hearth was stoked, and went outside to the clearing in the middle of Camp to enjoy the fresh cold air. Night had fallen during the passion of Eve and stars shone brilliant and sharp in the firmament. Directly overhead in its slow transit was the Red Web, its distant fires flickering. Adam had the sense of being watched by a great eye. He diverted his gaze from this, much as he did when he was conscious of being looked on by Feller, and noticed the sprite emerging from the cabin and heading his way.

  “It has come to pass as you predicted,” Adam remarked, “though it is a mystery to me how you can know such things.”

  “It is a mystery to me as well,” Mab returned. “The knowledge does not seem to dwell in my mind as a thing I have learned. And yet when there is a need, I have some faculty for getting it.”

  “Perhaps you could put it to use as regards forms,” Adam said. “This has been on my mind of late because of certain changes I have noticed from day to day among my crew. I have tended to put it out of mind because it troubles and perplexes me. But observing the twelve perfect little ones that Eve has made has brought it now to the forefront.”

  “What is it you would know?” Mab asked.

  “When we were ejected from the Garden I assumed that our forms would never change,” Adam said. “And indeed when we came to Elkirk, we were told by Lookseast that once a soul has adopted a mature form, it does not change thereafter. And yet when first I laid eyes on Edger I saw her as haughtier and more beautiful than she seems now, and I saw Bluff as being the biggest and strongest of all the souls of Eltown, nearly my equal. But I do believe that their forms have altered since they began to work every day in the crew of Feller. They have shrunk into themselves, become round-shouldered. Their heads hang and their eyes dart sidelong at things they would once look on squarely. People who have seen both of them say that Bluff seems now smaller than Thunk, who stands upright and springs about the deep forest with a light step.”

  Mab flickered silently, as was its way when acquiring new knowledge. “You are correct,” it said finally. “There is almost no end to the changes a soul’s form might undergo, provided that the change from any one day to the next is slight.”

  Adam shuddered. “One wonders what Bluff and Edger might end up looking like if they work under Feller for many years.”

  “Or Feller himself, for that matter,” Mab remarked. “His form waxes.”

  Adam nodded. “Indeed, at the beginning I saw him as of typical size. Now he seems bigger.”

  “Your form changes too,” Mab informed him. “And not for the better.”

  Adam was wounded by the remark but could only nod in agreement. “The first time I entered the porch of Walksfar, I had to duck under the edge of the roof. But I went there yesterday, and either I am of less stature or he has raised it.”

  “He hasn’t,” Mab said.

  Adam considered this. “Who knows where it could end?” he asked. “In my own case the change was slight and slow enough that I did not notice it, or did not care. But gazing on the perfect forms of the twelve new ones gives me joy mixed with an aching in my heart when I consider how that perfection might be lost in the future if they remain in this place and live as I have been living.”

  Adam then shifted uncomfortably, for the cold had penetrated his clothing. He turned away from the cabin where he dwelled with his family and looked into the east, for he had noticed a brightening in the sky there and guessed that dawn must be coming on. But the light in the east moved with much greater swiftness than that of the sunrise and seemed to be concentrated in a single place that moved across the firmament. It was coming toward them, arcing high over Elkirk and now plunging into the valley. As it drew closer Adam saw that it was a winged angel of El’s host, and as it folded its wings and descended into Camp he recognized it as the one called Messenger of El. Its form was more graceful than that of El’s soldiers, and wings on its feet made it more fleet and agile than they. And yet, like them, it carried a flaming thunderbolt on one hip. “Greetings, Adam,” it said. “Know that your absence and that of Eve are sorely regretted by all who knew and loved you in the Palace.”

  “We think back on it often,” Adam admitted, “and sometimes long for its comforts. Yet finding our way about the Land has brought wisdom we could not have obtained in the Garden, and taught us new things.”

  “So it would seem,” said Messenger of El, “for information has reached us that twelve souls are today in the Land who yesterday were not.
”

  “Your information is correct,” said Adam.

  Messenger of El nodded. “I am sent here to visit and look upon them,” it announced.

  Adam looked toward his cabin. Messenger of El noted this and marked the place.

  “Just now Eve is resting after a great labor, and the little ones too are asleep,” Adam said. “Your radiance will disturb their rest.” By saying this he meant to stop Messenger of El from going into the cabin at all. But the angel’s radiance diminished as when a fire is snuffed out. Its wings shrank into its back and enwrapped its body, taking on the appearance of a cloak. Likewise the wings of its feet became as foot wrappings of some dull material. When the transformation was complete, the angel looked like a young man in a cloak of fair cloth, legs and feet wrapped against the cold; and in place of the thunderbolt at its hip was a long slender object dangling from a belt. “I shall not disturb them,” he said.

  “If your errand is not to disturb them, then it might most easily be accomplished by not entering the cabin in the first place,” Adam pointed out.

  “My errand is to see them with my own eyes,” said the angel. “El has so ordered it.”

  “What is that on your hip where the thunderbolt once hung?” Adam asked.

  The angel made no answer, but took the thing off and leaned it against the trunk of the great tree. Mab shone light on it and Adam perceived that it was very much like a knife, except longer. Useless he judged it for cutting down trees, but at the same time very dangerous and likely to cause grave injury if mishandled.

  Messenger of El strode across the clearing to the threshold of their cabin. Seeing the angel push through the door without knocking, Adam felt in his breast some of the same emotions as when Feller docked a log from his pile; but as with Feller, he made no outward sign of feeling so, and knew himself diminished thereby. It occurred to him to wonder what happened, at such moments, to the substance that had been subtracted from his form. Was it added in the same moment to that of Messenger of El, or of El himself? Was Feller growing at Bluff’s expense? Could one soul consume another, given enough time?