Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,183

Knotweave when they are making something here.” Egdod was about to go on in this vein but saw now that it was not needed since most of the others were signaling agreement by nodding their heads or changing the shapes of their auras.

“‘Food’ is the name of it,” said Speaksall. “And ‘drink.’”

“Both of those things I now begin to remember,” announced Ward. “And to remember them is to miss them, for I am of half a mind to believe that they once gave me great pleasure.”

“They are for the living,” Spring announced. “Bees must eat, to make wax for their hives and so that they can create more of their kind. We do not make wax. And to create more of our kind is far beyond our powers when we are beset with so many difficulties in making even small creatures such as the one of Knotweave’s conception.”

“Perhaps the reason it could not spin threads out of air was that it had nothing to eat,” said Knotweave.

Thingor nodded. “It would have to obtain the stuff of the threads from somewhere.”

“Be that as it may,” said Greyhame, “it does not touch upon Spring’s essential point, which is that, as we make nothing out of our forms, we do not have any use for food and drink.”

“I do not question this,” Longregard said. “But souls in Town have lately taken up a curious practice, which is that they will sit together in a house and make sounds together. Sounds that serve no purpose other than to please the ones making them, and the ones listening.”

“I have heard it,” said Speaksall. “They got the idea from the humming of the bees, but their sounds have become more complex and more beautiful.”

“I have heard it too,” Egdod admitted, “and I crave hearing more.”

“That is curious,” said Greyhame, “but I do not understand its connection to the matter I was only just speaking of.”

“The connection is clear enough in my mind,” said Ward, “though perhaps it is only because I am now feeling a thing that is akin to pain, though not as disagreeable. I believe it is called hunger. I hunger for food and drink. It is not because I need to make a hive out of stuff exuded from my body. Nor is it because I am attempting to spawn more copies of myself. I want it for the same reason that Egdod craves the hearing of certain sounds: simply because to have it would give me pleasure.”

“Your explanation is satisfactory,” said Greyhame, “but it is neither here nor there, as food is entirely lacking. And for my own part I have no idea as to where it might be obtained.”

“I could attempt to make some,” said Thingor, “but I know not the form of it, and imagining what it would be like to eat a thing made of iron gives me no foretaste of pleasure.”

“I have a thought on the matter,” announced Freewander, “easier to show than to explain.”

“Shall we join our auras then?” said Ward.

“No,” said Freewander, “I had in mind that you would instead accompany me to a certain place that I know of in the Garden.” And she rose from her chair and took wing in the same quick movement. The other souls, less nimble, followed her afoot. Outside it was nearly dark, but some light from the sun still shone flat into the Garden through gaps in the surrounding hedge.

Freewander led them to a small gnarled tree that grew near the fountain. Egdod had created it many years ago with a thought of seeding many such in a part of the Land that struck him as ill suited for tall trees. Thus far he had made little use of it, though, and Freewander, seeing it as a lonely and neglected part of creation, had adorned it with white blossoms. Egdod had found this ridiculous, since flowers to him were small plants growing close to the ground, but as often happened with Freewander’s whims, it had grown on him, and he now had to admit that the tree had been pleasing to look at and to smell during the spring when its flowers had grown so dense as to obscure its green leaves, and drawn swarms of bees. Now it was late summer and the blossoms were long gone. “The petals fell months ago,” Freewander pointed out, “and left behind only small dry apertures at the ends of the twigs that had once supported them. The bees who had