Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,227

of vision and might as well be incorporeal. The minds behind those eyes are not minds such as ours, but more akin to those of bees, deriving their intelligence from the manifold interactions of a hive.”

“To bewitch such sentinels is no small undertaking,” said Dodge, “but lodged in my memories of the world of the living are some notions that may be of interest here. Chief among these is the back door. I put it to you that the Knot is a back door to the Land, and that El is unlikely to consider it as anything other than a flaw left in its convolutions by an unskilled maker. Perhaps it will even gratify his pride to leave it unchanged as a testament to the insufficiencies of Egdod. It remains only for me to devise a manner of passing through this gate and abiding in the Fastness without being perceived by the invisible eyes or recognized by the teeming mind that El has set running in the Land to warn him of my approach. Leave me therefore in solitude here that I may consider the problem.”

The others of the Pantheon then withdrew, leaving him alone on the rim of the pit. Or so he supposed for a time, until he became aware that another was lingering nearby. Raising his head he saw Daisy, or Sophia, hovering above and before him. Of all those who had been hurled down against the hard Firmament she had been altered least, as something in her lightness of form and agility of mind had enabled her to collect herself during the long fall and to light adroitly on the black shell of stone. She seemed therefore a kind of angel in this place. Not a brilliant angel but, like the others, a dark one. Whether by accident or design, she was treading air in such a place that the bright and distant Land appeared above her head.

Dodge rebuked Sophia for not leaving him in peace, but there was no heat or conviction in his words and Sophia let them fly by her like so many dead brown leaves carried away on a gust.

“From the land of the living I bring knowledge that you would do well to fold into your plan,” she announced. “Too I bring a dreadful power that not even El can be said to possess.”

“Speak then of your knowledge and your power,” Dodge invited her. “For my defeat at the hand of El has stripped me of pride and opened my ears to counsel.”

“Your plan of going into the Land through the back door is well conceived,” Sophia said, “but it will fail in the same way as your attempts to approach from other quarters. The eyes that watch the sky and the buzzing mind that searches for any trace of your return do not work as ours do. Blind and stupid in some respects, they possess an uncanny power of perception and recognition that I fear will find you out the moment you appear anywhere in the Land, even if that be in the depths below the Fastness where you suppose El did not think to post watchers.”

“It is for this reason that I mean to disguise my form,” Dodge said.

Sophia shook her head. “The sentinels of El do not look for form; they cannot even perceive it. They can see your identity very well, however, and know you by the thread of consciousness that was spun beginning from the first moment many years ago when you began to collect yourself out of chaos.”

Dodge considered it. “Your knowledge is hard news if truth be in it. I shall consider what you have said. But at first blush it suggests that my stay here in the Firmament will be a long one, possibly eternal. If that is so, we should give up all hope of returning to the Land and instead devote ourselves to the building of a new Land here, one forged of black minerals and lit by fire. Perhaps one day it will grow to rival or even surpass the beauty of the Land we first built and were thrown out of.”

“Before you commit yourself to exile, Dodge, there is another thing I would tell you of,” said Sophia. But her face was downcast and her tone did not bode well.

“You spoke before of possessing some power exceeding even that of El,” Dodge said.

“I have the power,” Sophia said, “to snip that thread of consciousness that makes you you.”

Long was