Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,184

so loved this tree abandoned it, and I thought it seemed lonely. But lo, the ends of the twigs swelled. The buds that had once sported white blossoms did not develop into leaves but rather into these round things, which can now be seen all over it.” She was cupping one of the round things—a little green moon—in the palm of her hand. But indeed as the others looked they saw more such all over the tree—as many of them as there had been flowers in the spring. “I put it to you,” Freewander announced, “that somehow, by their visiting of this tree, the bees—”

And here her ability to put thoughts into words failed her. But Spring knew. “The bees, having life, conferred a new kind of life on this tree, and altered its nature so that it would produce these.”

“Apples,” said Ward. “They are called that. We should eat them.”

Freewander thought ill of this proposal. Before she could object, Egdod spoke: “They are not finished growing,” he announced.

“How can you tell?” asked Greyhame.

“I know it,” said Egdod. “Of apples I have a curiously strong memory—nearly as strong, now that it has been awakened, as the memory of leaves that led to my making this place in the beginning of the Land. And I say to you that an apple is not food until it has grown to the size of the palm of one’s hand and turned red.”

“Red!?” Ward exclaimed.

“It will happen,” Egdod predicted, “at the time of the turning of the leaves. Then we shall pick the apples and carry them to the table and enjoy eating them.”

Fall arrived in due course. Some of the leaves began to blush. The bees applied themselves to their work with greater diligence every day, as if laying preparations for the winter, and from their hives came a new scent, not unlike that of the flowers, but sweeter. Ward ventured that in their hives might be found another sort of food, different from apples. He seemed of a mind to have some of it until Freewander pointed out that the bees must be making it for a reason. Greyhame proposed that it was food that the bees would eat during the months when no flowers were available. Speaksall remembered that it was named honey and Egdod forbade Ward from stealing any of it from the hives.

Later in the fall, however, as the leaves and the apples alike began to change from green to red, Longregard announced that she had seen souls in Town extracting honey from some of the hives that were more easily reached, and putting it into their mouths. They had done so at the cost of many painful stings, and some had discovered that a bee could be killed by striking it with the palm of the hand. Quite a few bees had been killed in this manner, though not so many as to greatly reduce their numbers.

This news affected the souls around the table in diverse ways. Freewander was enraged, and strongly of a mind that those souls who had killed bees should be “punished.” The word was vaguely familiar to, but poorly understood by, all who sat around the table.

“Would you inflict pain on them?” Spring inquired. “Or deprive them of pleasures?”

“Or destroy their forms altogether?” Ward asked, with a glance at Egdod. For Egdod had long ago spoken to Ward of certain ideas that had at one time come into his mind: the image of the soul on the mountain holding a bright bolt in his hand, and the idea that it might be possible to derange a thing so utterly that it would lack all power to recover.

Freewander had no fixed opinion on what form the punishment ought to take. Greyhame questioned whether punishment was even called for. There were plenty of bees, he pointed out.

“Even supposing that they have done wrong,” Egdod said, “and deserve punishment, is it ours to judge and to punish?”

“It is yours,” Freewander proclaimed, “for it is you who made the Land. And just as you fly about and better the shapes of mountains, rivers, and trees that are wrongly formed, likewise should you better the actions of souls who act against the beauty of the place.”

“I would have punished you on the day that I brought flowers down out of the Garden to the Park,” Egdod said, “for you plucked some of them and braided them into your aura and I was wroth.”

“You beat me back with the force