Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,219

El, even if most of the particulars are gone from your recollection.”

“I have seen enough in my brief time here to know that some souls have greater power than others to wreak alterations upon the world. I put it to you that El comes with greater power than any, exceeding even that of Egdod.”

Sophia’s words were received skeptically by most of the Pantheon. “It is inconceivable that one so new could wield powers equal to what we have painstakingly acquired over many years,” said Warm Wings. But she drew her wings about her shoulders like a lowly soul in Town warding off a chill wind.

“The answer lies in things that are beyond our ken, having to do with what the universe really consists of and how it is generated from moment to moment. This precedes all the sorts of powers of which you spoke, and makes of them mere appearances,” Sophia insisted.

“If that is the case, then discussing it is idle,” said Egdod. But he allowed his gaze to alight first on Ward and then on Thingor. The former arose and strode away toward the part of the Palace where he dwelled among the lesser souls that assisted him in his duties. Thingor for his part went toward a certain part of the Palace where he had stored thunderbolts he had brought here after forging them in the Fastness. Rarely visited was that place, and the door was barred with elaborate machines of Thingor’s devising that could only be undone by one possessed of recondite secrets.

“Let the gates be thrown open and the Feast begin!” Egdod decreed.

And then for a time El and Sophia were forgotten as all went into flux in the Palace and the Garden. Well before the sun had reached its zenith, all of the souls had found chairs and begun to help themselves to the fruits of the harvest. After they had all supped for a brief time, Speaksall stood up from his chair and beat his wings, rising into the air above the Pantheon’s high table where all could see him. “Hear! Hear!” he called out in a voice of such clarity and power that all, even those seated out in the Garden, took notice and turned toward him. Paneuphonium played a blast on a metal horn. Speaksall continued, “Egdod, your host, would speak a few words of greeting.”

Egdod now stood at the head of the high table. “To all who have come here from far-flung parts of the Land, I say welcome. May you never again be strangers to this place. We are at your service, all of us who dwell here: I and Ward; Longregard; Freewander; Greyhame; Speaksall, whose bright voice you have just heard; Warm Wings, who has much to teach you; Pluto, whom many of you wild souls will know from his wanderings about the Land and his improvements thereof; Knotweave; Spring, who is within the sound of my voice but could not join us; and—” Here Egdod faltered as his eye fell upon the chair allocated to Thingor, which was empty. “And Thingor, who, it would seem, prefers toiling in his forge to enjoying the society of other souls.”

A figure entered the hall from the direction of the storeroom where the thunderbolts were kept. Egdod’s gaze went to him and did not know him at first, for he was curiously diminished, bent, and moving as though one leg was not equal to the other. But when this soul’s face turned toward him, Egdod knew him for Thingor. Not the Thingor, burly and proud, who had gone thither a short while ago but one damaged and less than he had been. He had gone to fetch thunderbolts and come back empty-handed.

“What has happened?” Egdod demanded.

“The contrivances with which I made fast the door of the Armory had all been undone,” Thingor said, his voice indistinct as raw chaos was gnawing at his form. “I opened the door and saw light that blinded me, and next thing I knew I was as you now see me!”

Ward had risen into the air above the high table, the better to view Thingor. “What of the thunderbolts?”

“They are gone,” Thingor answered.

“Not gone!” said another voice. So deep and loud was this voice that it penetrated into the beings of all who heard it and caused the foundations of the Palace to quaver as if all that Egdod had built up here possessed no more substance than a leaf clinging to a twig in the fall