Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,225

to free Spring from her imprisonment and to make himself known to the new souls that she was bringing to life. For those would come into existence with no innate knowledge of their father and grow up as wards of El.

He made many attempts to go back to the Land. In each case he was thwarted, not only by the vigilant angels, but by the wards and spells that El had cast up as invisible barriers to Dodge and all of the others who had been cast out.

Sometimes Dodge went alone, cloaked in stealth. Sometimes he ventured forth with a small group. Three times, as the centuries passed, he went at the head of an army, armed and armored with new creations from the great forges that Thingor had built upon the burning craters of the Firmament.

Hurled back time and again in defeat, he and his comrades in arms were seen by upraised eyes in the Land as shooting stars in the night sky. Each time their trajectories ended in fresh craters pocked in the black surface of the Firmament.

On one of his solitary forays, he penetrated so close to the Palace that he could see its inhabitants feasting on the fruit of its trees; but then El himself rose up in wrath and hurled him back with such violence that he shattered the Firmament itself and broke partway through to the other side, beyond which was all chaos ranging to infinity. War had seen Dodge coming on like a comet and summoned the others of the Pantheon to pull Dodge out of the shattered hole. On its brink Dodge reposed for a time, resting and recovering his strength. Knotweave suggested that they all return to the dark castle they had been building nearby out of the ejecta from many craters, for some rude comforts were to be had within its walls. But Dodge, still recovering the power of speech, held up one hand to stay them. His gaze was fixed not up at the Land, but down into the chaos-filled pit that he had dug with the force of his impact. Or perhaps it was more correct to say that El had dug it by hurling Dodge with such violence.

“Does this put you in mind of something in the Land?” Dodge asked, when words came to him.

“It is nothing more or less than the chaos from which we all had to differentiate ourselves when we first came into being,” said Greyhame.

“When Pluto first came, I saw him emerge from a place that bears notable similarities to what we see below,” Dodge said.

Freewander was the first to understand Dodge’s riddle, for her curiosity and her cleverness in flight had made her a frequent visitor to the place of which Dodge was speaking. “It is very like the crack in the world that lies deep below—”

“The Knot!” exclaimed Thingor, who likewise had spent much time there. He nodded his head. “I could almost believe that I was looking down from a window of the Fastness.”

Dodge nodded. “Chaos is no form or place, but all chaos is like other chaos. This then will be the manner of my return to the Land. Behold!”

Directing his attention into the pit and the static that swirled and stormed below it, Dodge deepened and broadened the hole. It seemed to lead nowhere besides an infinity of nothingness. Thus it remained for hours and days as Dodge brooded upon it and marshaled every scrap of the power that he had built up during his long years in the Land. From time to time some figment would become visible below, and those of the Pantheon who had the patience to watch would exclaim, and gaze into one another’s eyes as if to ask, Did you see what I saw? But by the time they looked back it had flickered away. The change that Dodge wrought was so slow that it could not be perceived by those who sat and watched. Others who went away for a time and then returned would insist that they saw changes: light was shining from out of the pit now, and it was not the red light of fire but the white light of the Land. In that light shapes were beginning to manifest themselves, fleeting and fluid at first but later taking on permanence. At first these were difficult to make sense of.

But then one day Pluto came to visit the place of Dodge’s labors. He had been absent for a long