Fall; or, Dodge in Hell

by Neal Stephenson

  Now, in the light of the morning, Edda was plainly a woman of normal size. Prim feared, though, that she was diminished; she squatted on her haunches to keep off the soaked ground, and wrapped herself in her cloak, and remained still, eyes closed, for a long time as Burr tried vainly to light a fire. Prim was remembering Edda’s cottage on Calla, and her sheep and horses, and the flour she would grind to bake bread. How long had it been since she had taken such nourishment? Did absorbing the whole form of an angel give her some power that she could call upon at times such as last night?

  “We are in no condition to run anywhere,” Burr pointed out. “We could march.”

  “We need food,” said Pick. “Other than this, I mean.” He waved in front of him a fleck of jerky, his portion of all the food they now had remaining.

  “None is here,” Corvus pointed out, “but if we march, as Burr suggests, Mab and I can keep an eye out for things that might be eaten.”

  So that was how it went. For much of the morning it rained, but this was plain old ordinary rain, which compared to the storm seemed like no rain at all. Perhaps the sound of it covered the noise they made walking and enabled them to get within sight of another of those horned creatures. They spied it across a clearing. It fell dead. Burr’s response was to flatten himself against the ground. “Get down!” he whispered. “Someone else is hunting here!”

  Prim did not get down. She kept walking until she had reached the beast, which was lying there as if asleep. Burr, still convinced of danger, caught up with her a few moments later, spear at the ready. When the rest of the party caught up with Burr, he was rolling the dead beast over, looking for some sign of the arrow that had slain it. But of course there was none.

  He stepped back from it. “I saw a similar thing during the wolf fight. I did not believe it.”

  “We saw something like it too,” Mard said. “A wolf simply died.”

  “Some fell presence stalks these woods, and slays what it will by magic.”

  “I am the fell presence,” Prim said. “Let’s eat.”

  This time, no wolf pack came. Neither were they molested by larger beasts or clouds of insects. Not even when they lit a fire and the aroma of roasting meat spread on the breeze. The rain stopped while they were cooking. They were on the edge of a meadow that sloped up out of the country they had covered during the last day. Below them in the distance they could hear wolves raising the same alarm they had heard yesterday: “Invaders have come!” This seemed to arouse the curiosity of Corvus, who had already supped on raw flesh. He flapped into the air and then beat his wings powerfully to gain altitude, heading back north.

  “The raven thinks we are being followed,” said Burr.

  None of the others seemed to think that this was news. Fern paid no note at all. She had been inspecting Prim since the latter had revealed her nature. Tiring of the attention, Prim met her eye.

  “I wondered,” Fern said. “Just being a princess isn’t enough to get you invited on something like this.”

  Prim was doubly offended. She hadn’t even thought of herself as a princess at the beginning; she’d taken Brindle at his word when he’d said that Quests were just a thing that Calladons did. A sort of birthright. But she was too tired and hungry to enter into a dispute with Fern just now.

  “Could you kill any soul in the Land?”

  “According to the legends, I killed Egdod,” Prim reminded her. “I have to be close to what I’m killing, though.”

  “Could you kill El?”

  “I don’t know. The opportunity has not presented itself. He might have ways of killing me sooner.”

  “Spring made a creature for that purpose,” said Querc. “Or so Weaver told me, the night before she died. It is made of chaos and adamant. It is called the Chasmian, and it waits under the Broken Bridge for any who makes it that far.”

  “And did Weaver have anything to say about what additional hazards we must pass through in order to be in a position to be menaced by the Chasmian?” Lyne asked.

  “First, the army of Beedles that Spring ensnared and converted to her services,” said Querc. “They’ll be dug in on yonder slope.” She stood up and drew their attention to the rampart of rocky ground that rose up out of the forest south of them. This had become visible as the weather cleared. It was markedly closer now than when Prim had looked on it yesterday. It seemed much higher and steeper than her earlier view of it had led her to expect. Details could now be made out that hinted at its being inhabited. Not in the sense that structures had been built atop its surface. No, this had been burrowed into. If there was any truth to the old myths, the Beedles that Spring had brought into her service were miners. They must have been very accomplished miners now. Mile-wide fans of spoil spread away from pinhole-sized orifices in the slope. Every one of those stones had been hacked out of the bowels of the earth by one of those Dug—as the converted Beedles were called. For they had dug and dug and dug until Dug was all they were.

  “And second? Third? Fourth?” Lyne prompted Querc.

  “Between the Dug and the Chasmian—which is to say, along the Shifting Path that goes across the top of the glacier—nothing except for, well, you know, Lightning Bears.”

  “Good to know,” Lyne said.

  “But I don’t think we are going that way,” Querc added. “Corvus said something about a cave.” She looked toward Edda. “Is that where we are going, my lady?”

  “It is where we are headed,” Edda corrected her. She did not meet Querc’s gaze, or anyone’s. She was standing a little apart from the others, who were clustered round the fire in the hopes of drying out their clothes. She seemed content to gaze upon the vista opening up to the south as the weather continued to clear off. Some of the high mountains leading into the Knot were now revealing themselves. They were the grandest thing Prim had ever beheld. But Edda’s gaze was fixed low, toward a green plateau that was difficult to resolve distinctly, as clouds and rain still swirled close about it. It was a small shelf that looked to have been cut into the eastern extremity of the Dug-infested rampart that blocked their way. Indeed its shape and situation were so convenient that one could easily imagine it had been purpose-built by Dug with picks and shovels. High and remote though it was, yet it seemed to exist at the bottom of a well of golden light, the overabundance of which made the swirling veil of mist into a blurry glow that dazzled and befogged the vision.

  “Is that the Eye of the Storm then?” Querc asked.

  “Yes,” said Edda, “that is the Eye of the Storm.” And not until she pronounced it thus did Prim’s childhood memory produce in her mind an illustration from a storybook she’d enjoyed many times on Brindle’s knee. It depicted just such a place, a green and golden glen nestled in mountains where Spring dwelled with Eve and certain of her favorite creations, and flowers bloomed and sweet fruit hung ripe from trees all year round. That explained why Edda gazed at it so. Her mother and grandmother were there.

  No flowers or fruit were here, and so they tore into the meat as soon as it was warm and slurped fat off the bones before it would be wasted by melting into the fire. Corvus returned and declined to say very much about what, if anything, could be following them. But he seemed to think that moving faster would be better, and so they wrapped up more meat for later and continued on their way.

  Mard had walked in the morning, slowly and stiffly and with his face screwed up in pain. He carried on thus now. When the going became difficult, someone would put a shoulder under his good arm and help him along for a few paces. His injured arm he kept beneath his cloak, folded against his belly.

  Meadows became more frequent, and larger. Burr pointed to signs that fires had been set to burn back encroaching forest and leave open land where grass could grow and edible beasts fatten themselves on it. They found skeletal remains of two such beasts, and Burr showed them marks that had been left by knives, and even a rusted iron arrowhead stuck too deep in a pelvis to be worth prying out. “Dug,” Burr said, as if there c
ould have been any doubt. “The forest yields all the food they need, provided they keep it clear of wolves and other such beasts. Beware traps.” By which Prim assumed he must mean ambushes that the Dug might lay for invading souls such as them. But not a quarter of an hour later they came upon a cunning snare that had been baited with meat.

  They avoided the meadows from then on, and stayed in the deepest woods that Mab and Corvus could steer them to. Thus without further incident they came to a place where the ground ramped sharply upward. The soft earth of the forest gave way to a rubble of sharp stones that had quite obviously tumbled down here from the bare high ground above. Fat drops of icy rain began to thud down. From off to their right the sun was slicing in under the storm and lighting up the whole face of the rampart, all the way from where they stood—near its western extremity—down to its eastern end, many miles away, where it sank like an axe into the buttresses of a mountain range. The Eye of the Storm was there, but could no longer be seen save as a vague column of iron-gray weather round which the whole rest of the Evertempest turned like the millstone in Edda’s kitchen.

  “Stop and have a good look at it then,” Corvus said, as quietly as it was possible for a giant talking raven to form words. “We go up under cover of dark, and we go there.”

  “Where?” Lyne asked, for all of them.

  “There. I’m pointing right at it.”

  “You have no way of pointing.”

  “I am pointing with my beak.”

  “Never mind, I see it,” said Pick. He had dropped to one knee and planted the foot of his stick on a rock, the better to peer through its lenses. Between that and the direction of Corvus’s beak the rest of the party were able to see what was being looked at: the tiniest black pore in the surface of the rampart. It was directly above them, for Corvus had led them right to it. Unlike the various entrances made by the Dug, this did not have an enormous fan of spoil pointing right at it.

  “Is that the famous cave?” Querc asked.

  “Famous to this little band. To the Dug, more infamous, and rarely entered.”

  “Strikes me as odd,” Pick remarked.

  “Yes,” said Lyne. “Why wouldn’t they go into a conveniently situated natural cave?”

  “I don’t like where this is going,” Mard said.

  “Terror” was the answer of Corvus. “Fear of what becomes of any who strays more than a few yards beyond the entrance.” Continuing in the same level tone, he added, “Memorize landmarks that may be useful in the dark.”

  “Why not go up now?” Querc asked. “The storm is brewing up again.”

  “Dug patrols on the heights.”

  “They’ve seen us?”

  A raven shrug. “If not, they will. It’s their purpose for existing.”

  The heavy slugs of half-frozen water developed into a steady fall of ice-rain, which prompted them to retreat just a few yards down to a marginally more sheltered place. The light had dimmed, footing was slick, and Mard’s injured legs weren’t moving well. He toppled forward and reflexively threw out both arms to avoid planting his face right on the stones. But only one hand—his good one—made effective contact with the ground. The injured one gave way, so that he twisted at the moment of impact and struck with his shoulder. Momentum then rolled him onto his back, where he lay for a few moments, grimacing with agony.

  His injured arm was missing. Or rather, beyond the point where he had cut himself with the sword of Elshield, a forearm, wrist, and hand still existed. But they were made of aura. The fingers were wispy ghosts. Prim could see right through the palm of his hand. She came very close to crying out. What stilled her was not the fear of being heard by Dug. It was the way Mard looked into her eyes: altogether steady and calm. He had known, of course, and had been hiding it under his cloak.

  She naturally had a great many questions as to the prognosis, but hiding from Dug patrols during a mountain hailstorm was not a good situation for that kind of talk. They huddled together as they had done at other such times. But on this occasion Prim chose to lie next to Mard so that the two of them could share the warmth of their bodies with each other.

  They waited until it was full dark and then began to ascend. “I shall go last,” Edda offered, “as I may touch off avalanches.”

  Despite their earlier efforts at memorizing landmarks, had it not been for Mab they’d have been hopelessly lost. Corvus had adopted his human shape again. The occasional lightning bolt lit up the entire mountainside as bright as day, but not long enough for the eye to seek out and fix the location of the cave’s entrance. They learned to cringe and tense themselves in anticipation of the thunderclap that would always follow a fraction of a second later.

  “Thingor’s Aura!” Fern called, after it seemed they had been blundering around for an hour. Prim, who had been staring fixedly at the ground in an effort to make out where she ought to plant her feet, looked about to see that the rocks around her were limned in green fire. Before she could feel any sense of wonder or awe at this, Fern followed up with, “Lie flat!” So she tried to do so and learned that the very idea of lying down had no clear meaning on ground as stony as this. A bolt struck very close, the light and the sound penetrating her skull at the same instant. Querc screamed. Prim craned her neck to gaze up the slope. Pulsing rivers of the green fire ran up and down it as fast as thought. Something extraordinarily brilliant could be seen high above, as if suspended in the sky; it had the dazzling brilliance of a lightning bolt, but it persisted, like the sword Burr had taken from the angel. And yet it moved about like a thing alive, sometimes down on all fours and other times rearing up to stand on its hind legs.

  It was a bear. A Lightning Bear. It was on the top of the ridge high above them, far beyond where they had any thought of going; but it had seen them and it was not happy that they were coming up its mountain.

  It was a short while later that rocks began to tumble down out of the darkness. One came straight for Prim, moving so fast she could not possibly dodge it; but it caromed off another and brushed past her.

  It was just like being down beneath the Overstrike with Beedles up above rolling rocks down onto them. But this time, she felt certain, it was Dug who had been alerted to their presence, perhaps by the vigilant bears.

  The sun came out, illuminating the whole slope above. She could see all: In the near ground, boulders tumbling toward them. Above that, less than a bow-shot distant, the entrance to the cave. And on the higher ground above that, pale figures with the squat asymmetrical forms of Beedles. Perhaps a dozen of them. The sudden light had caught them in the act of prying rocks loose from the slope. Their work stopped as they were blinded by it: the light of the angel sword, which Burr had drawn full out of its scabbard. Seeing now the way and the enemy, Burr sprang forward with a roar. The rest followed as best they could. Prim shielded her eyes from the glare so that she could take advantage of the light in picking her way up. She turned back to look once or twice and got fragmented glimpses of other members of the Quest, arms flailing for balance on shifting and ice-covered ground. Fern and Lyne were coming up fast with weapons drawn. The light of the angel sword flashed and swept. Lightning struck. A furious roaring came down from on high: bears. The ground leveled. A dark hole was before her. She stumbled into it, carried more by momentum than any plan or desire. Others piled in behind her, blocking the way out. She had a mind to go back out of the cave and be of help in the fighting, but before she could do so, the mountain was plunged back into darkness. The sword had gone back into its sheath. Rocks scrabbled and chattered as they slid down from above. Lightning flashed and outlined the silhouettes of Burr, Fern, and Lyne. They stepped into the cave.

  With that the Quest concluded its traversal of the Stormland, and entered into the underpinnings of the Knot.

  54

  Come on,” Corvus said. “Pick, we need to seal the entrance.”

  “I thought you said the Dug would not follow us in here,” Lyne said.

  “They won’
t,” Corvus answered vaguely. “Pick? Sound off! Can we have more light?”

  Mab brightened. They had gathered a few strides in from the cave’s entrance. Burr had stationed himself nearest it, spear at the ready, and Fern and Lyne were still backing him up. Next was Edda, standing still as a mountain in her cloak, which glistened with ice. Querc was crumpled near the giantess, weeping. Mard, Prim, and Corvus had advanced deepest into the cave, but Corvus was now stalking back toward the entrance as Mab flitted to and fro in the style of one who has lost something. “Where is Pick?” Corvus asked. “We need to send out a search party!” He seemed of a mind to go and look down the slope.

  Edda brought him up short by withdrawing from her cloak a small gleaming object. Its nature wasn’t clear until Mab cast greater light on it. Then it could be seen that this was the bird-shaped head of Pick’s stick, somewhat deformed, as if it had partly melted. The eyes were now blind sockets, as the lenses were missing. A blackened shard of wood still dangled from the hole where the shaft had been affixed.

  It was the rare moment when Corvus was not well ahead of everyone else. That combined with the fact that he was in his human form, and closely illuminated by Mab, made it possible to see emotions in his face that Prim—who had known him since he was a new soul in the Land—had never seen there before. He was completely astonished. It was that kind of surprise so total that one’s first reflex, be it never so out of place, is to laugh. Which he did in a faltering and nervous way. Then he became serious and thoughtful.

  Querc’s grief was total, as was her shock at what she had witnessed. Prim remembered the scream Querc had made after a certain close lightning strike and knew it was true. Corvus knew it too: Pick was gone.