Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,153

over the forms of trees and smaller plants. His long flight around the coast had made it known to him that many rivers emptied into the ocean besides just the first one, and that each river had many branches, and that each branch led up into places that were now bare but that, in a proper Land, needed to be bettered with trees and plants of many kinds. He had already achieved this in the case of the high mountains that he had girdled with fragrant evergreens, but much more remained to be done. He had it in mind that he would use the Garden to bring forth many different kinds of trees, all together in one small place where he could observe their changes through the seasons and better them. When they were ready he would then propagate many more of their kinds in all of the bare places.

Winter came as he populated his Garden. That season was not conducive to the Garden’s purpose and so he caused winter not to happen there. His body had made him sensible of conditions he had not known before, including warmth and cold. He caused the Garden to be warm at all times and for light to shine upon it even when the sun was not visible in the sky. He spent days there, bringing forth and perfecting trees of various kinds. When he grew weary of that, he walked up and down the cold street, or else took wing and flew out over the Land.

In due course the snow began to melt in the street and the forest, and the trees began to put forth leaves. Egdod turned his attention away from the bettering of the Garden and walked through the small gate into the enclosure he had made. The ground within the walls he had covered with more stone and made it smooth, which was called floor. He walked across the floor toward the large gate, for he was of a mind to walk down the street and see how the new leaves were budding.

Standing there just at the gate’s threshold was a thing shaped after the fashion of Egdod himself: feet terminating a pair of legs that supported a body. Emerging at various places from the body, a pair of arms with hands at their ends, wings, and a head. The wings still bore the appearance of dried leaves; they were not so much folded as crumpled. The head was ill formed, being a globe of fluctuating chaos. It was smaller than Egdod; its wings, though sized appropriately for the body, were in fact not much larger than fallen leaves.

Egdod regarded this being for a time and sensed that it was, as best it could, looking right back at him. When Egdod moved about, it seemed to shift its position. After some little while had gone by, Egdod had the feeling that it had changed its shape during the time that they had been looking at each other; the wings, he thought, were becoming more orderly. More like Egdod’s.

The appearance of this creature was not altogether a surprise. As the autumn had progressed he had sensed, on his occasional strolls down the street, that some of the souls were taking on greater coherence, becoming permanent. They were not allowing themselves to disappear into trees or streams but attempting to condense into distinct forms of their own. This one was simply the strongest of those, the most advanced. It had not occurred to him until now that such a creature would choose to adopt a form after the fashion of Egdod’s, but neither was it surprising. Perhaps this one and Egdod had both looked thus before they had died, and were naturally trying to re-create the bodies they had inhabited while living. Or perhaps this one was merely imitating Egdod. As every leaf on every tree was a similar-but-different version of the first leaf, perhaps the Land was now going to become populated with similar-but-different creatures walking around on legs and flying on wings, like Egdod.

Egdod still intended to go for a walk down the street. He walked toward the gate. The other soul was still planted right in the middle of the aperture. As Egdod drew closer, he sensed it would be wrong for two souls to occupy the same space, and so he diverted to one side. The aura of shaped chaos that stood in for the other soul’s head changed its shape, swirling like a scuttle of