Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,215

more angels standing watch atop it. From there, solid adamant was under his feet all the way to the edge of the Front Yard.

On that ground he immediately felt stronger and more certain of his power. Only a few paces in, the high towers of the Fastness began coming into view. This seemed to have the opposite effect on the rock carriers, who spread out and began to wander and collide with one another now that they had crossed over into the wayward lands of the Knot and the direct gaze of the Fastness. They seemed torn between their duty to deposit their rocks in the desired location and an increasingly desperate need to unburden themselves and hurry back across the bridge as quickly as they could. Angels, it seemed, did not wish to trespass upon Egdod’s Front Yard. So discipline, such as existed, was enforced by wingless souls who swaggered about brandishing sticks and shouting orders at the stragglers swarming about the band of Yard between the lip of the chasm and the rubble wall. Many rocks had been dropped in that area by confused or panicked souls, and some who only wished to get back upon the bridge were being driven back by these stick swingers—who all reminded Egdod of the one called Swat, whom he had murdered—and forced to pick up these dropped stones and transport them to where the wall was a-building.

The wall was a stretched-out mound, easy enough to climb, and so Egdod did so and dropped his rock at the top of it. In so doing he inadvertently made himself a kind of hero, for a couple of stick swingers who had noticed this achievement now pointed their sticks at him and exhorted others to do likewise, building the wall higher, not broader.

From this vantage point Egdod could see how the wall swept around in a broad arc from one mountain buttress to another, sealing off a portion of the Front Yard that covered about as much territory as Town had once done back in the old days. Had he been of a mind to construct a fortification to protect the Fastness from an invasion coming out of the north across the bridge (not that any such notion had ever entered his mind), this was where he would have constructed his outer wall, using those two mountains to anchor its ends.

But that was the opposite of what these people were doing. This wall existed to prevent anything coming from the Fastness toward the bridge.

Which made no sense, since Egdod and the rest of the Pantheon could simply fly over it.

Unless they intended to build the wall all the way up to the overhang above, and seal the whole thing off.

Which made no sense either, since Egdod, or Pluto for that matter, could simply destroy it.

The Land had gone insane. Egdod was bewildered and exhausted. The Fastness—his home, more so than the Palace—beckoned, only a short hike from here across the Front Yard. He kept going, trudging down the southern surface of the wall, headed for the front entrance of his dwelling.

In that moment he ceased being a hero for the others and became an exemplar of what not to do. “Stop!” called a stick swinger, who ran to the top of the wall to look down at him, then cringed a little as he came into full view of the Fastness. “In the name of the One Who Comes, turn around and come back!”

“Why?” Egdod called back. “It seems a nice enough place to me.”

“It is the Abode of Death!”

“What is death to me?” Egdod inquired. He knew of it better than most, having killed Swat, but it amused him to keep the conversation going. He trotted down the last few yards of rubble and alit on the familiar ground of his Front Yard. Turning about to look up at his interlocutor, he thought that the wall, from here, looked impressive enough, to one who lacked wings and was new to the art of walking.

The stick swinger had become tongue-tied. “Death? It is the end of all things,” he said, and shrugged helplessly. “She spawns, just over there. Not even the angels will venture as close as you have done.”

“I look forward to making the lady’s acquaintance,” said Egdod. “Perhaps you can meet her someday.”

This was enough to send the stick swinger fleeing back down the other side of the wall. Now unobserved, Egdod resumed his usual form as he strolled down the center