Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,329

happen in the moment. And I have less need than you of forgetting.”

“Does that mean you remember more?”

“I am constituted differently from you. There is simply more to me,” said the giantess.

Feeling that the conversation had gone into wild territory, Prim decided to change the subject. “When I first came down here,” she said, “I guessed you were only mending the damaged parts of the map. But you have added much.”

“Where you are going, Primula,” Edda answered, “details matter.”

Prim bent closer to look at the web of Shivers in the vicinity of Secondel. “Lyne said that because our boat is small we shall have no choice but to sail right past Secondel. What did he mean by that?”

“As you can see there are only two ways south,” said Edda. “One must either go straight down the main channel of the First Shiver—which is well protected from the sea, and safe for even the smallest craft—or else swing wide around the big island of Thunkmarch, which because of its situation will bring you straight out into the open water here. Rounding this cape is perilous—wind and waves will fling you against a lee shore unless you sail much farther out into the ocean than is wise for a craft as small as Firkin.”

Prim nodded. Edda was referring to features of the map that were small and easily overlooked until she drew attention to them and supplied these explanations, but then Prim could visualize the surf hammering the rocky southwest cape of Thunkmarch as if she were there atop the cliff looking down at it.

“Well, I shall hope we slip past Secondel without incident, then,” said Prim, turning her attention to the safer inland route. “I look forward to seeing it; but part of me wishes I could simply cross over to East Cloven with you tomorrow.”

“Today,” Brindle corrected her.

Prim looked up to see him standing in the doorway, framed in pink dawn light. “Have you stayed up all night?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Prim, suddenly feeling shy, “but I shall sleep on the boat.”

Edda set her needles and silks aside and began to roll up the map, beginning at its eastern limit and working west. Prim understood that this was to a purpose; if they wished to consult it later for information about the western part, where the Bits and Shivers lay, they would only have to unroll the first part of it. Considerable time might pass before Prim could see the whole thing again, so she let her eye roam curiously over the parts that were about to fall under Edda’s roll, enjoying the beauty of her handiwork. By and large the old parts of the map that had not been damaged and not been repaired—the parts so familiar to Prim—now seemed as if she were looking at them through a fogged windowpane, from which Edda had wiped away the mist in the areas she had mended. But one region, lying well to the north of the Hive and the Palace, but south of the Bewilderment (as it was frankly labeled here, this being a very old map), stood out from all the others for being very nearly blank. “Why is nothing on the map there?” Prim asked.

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.