Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,404

back to the Fastness and landed upon a high battlement from which he could see all and all could see him. Below, the gate boomed shut. Edda and the other members of the Quest had been made guests within.

Defender of El led the charge, an echelon of warrior angels behind him. They wheeled down out of the blue sky in a wedge and came straight for Egdod.

“Fire,” said Egdod.

And there was fire: bolts of it stabbing from the tops of the Fastness’s walls and from embrasures farther down. It came from dark tubes of metal, each of which had a crew of souls to feed it, and as soon as all of them had been discharged, they set to work preparing them to fire again.

All of which was a detail little noticed since Defender of El and many of his angels had fallen to the ground and were lying dead or broken on the plain between the anvil and the Fastness.

Another rank of angels wheeled into position above, ready to renew the attack. Defender of El lay dead. All eyes turned to El, who hovered a little distance above the ground at the opposite end of the battlefield, near the wide bridge already carpeted in green and growing things.

“At your command, Lord El!” shouted an angel who seemed to have assumed command.

The same words were echoed a moment later by Sooth below. She had raised her sword as if to signal a charge.

El hesitated.

The ground was shaking, but El did not know it because his feet were not in contact with the Land.

The Chasmian vaulted out of the gorge behind him. No longer impeded by its massive shield, it lashed out with both arms and wrapped them around El’s form from behind. In an effort to escape the bear hug, El became mostly a thing of aura. The two forms became intermingled as they struggled and writhed at the brink; then, with the slowness of a great tree that has been cut through at the root, they toppled into the Chasm and disappeared.

“Hold your fire,” Egdod commanded, and took to the air again, flying in a broad circuit over the battlefield. Which was now merely a field, since it was suddenly clear to all present that no battle would be taking place on the Anvil Plain this day. To Sooth he spoke: “Your task has been accomplished. Not the one El had in mind for you, which was false. But the one I ordained, which was to see what you just saw. You may complete it by grazing your mounts on the sweet grass and then riding home to tell everyone you see—Autochthons, Beedles, Sprung, and wild souls of all shapes—what has here occurred.”

He then beat his wings powerfully and mounted up into the air, where the surviving angels were arrayed in their echelons. Many were too bright to look upon, but they dimmed when Egdod commanded them to sheathe their swords and they did so. “Your weapons were stolen from Thingor,” Egdod said. “He will collect them below. If you regret giving them up, console yourselves with the knowledge that they are useless against what Thingor has conjured up in the ages since. Go out into the Land and do useful things. One day I shall come back to my Palace to inspect it; I expect that everything will be in good order there.”

Swooping down low over the Fastness he spoke to all within and around it: “I have business in the Firmament. Before long I shall return. You know what to do.” And pulling up high, he made a pivot in midair, folded his wings, and dove headfirst into the center of the Fastness. Those standing outside, who saw him plunge out of view and who did not know that place’s secrets, might have expected to hear a crash as he plummeted headfirst into the ground. But those within saw him fall into the chaos upon which the building had been founded.

The door of the Fastness opened. A frail old lady emerged, supported to either side by younger souls. She tottered down the long stair, pausing more than once to rest. The ground before her was strewn with fallen angels dissolving. The stuff of which they had been made began to converge upon the old lady, and she began to gain weight and strength from it as she drew it into her form.

55

Zula had fallen out of the habit of watching Bitworld, because, by and large, it happened