Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,268

Lookseast, “they go down into Eltown and dwell there in whatever way they choose.”

“Who are the bringers of firewood?” Adam asked.

“You ask a great many questions,” said Lookseast. Which struck Adam and Eve as a curious sort of observation for the priest to have made. But after an awkward pause, he answered, “Eltown is, as its name suggests, devoted to the service of El. And so it is expected that all who dwell in it will do their part to keep the fire burning and otherwise help the priests carry out El’s will.”

It now seemed that the conversation was over. There was no place for Adam and Eve to stay here, and nothing for them to do, and so they left Elkirk behind and began to descend a zigzagging path toward the town below. This they could smell better than see. The air did not stir much in the valley, which had filled up with a hazy atmosphere of smoke and humidity that glowed a dim red in the light of the fires burning below. It smelled strongly of wood smoke and faintly of shit. But as they descended the switchbacks they were able to see Eltown spread out beneath them, a network of streets, mostly irregular, as it conformed to the banks of the river that snaked through its middle. The streets were nothing more than the unbuilt strips of ground between houses. Raised in the Garden, Adam and Eve were new to such ideas as streets and houses, but Mab supplied them with explanations during the hike down, and so by the time they verged on Eltown itself they understood the general notions.

“When we were growing up in the Garden,” Adam remarked, “we asked many questions of El and his host, which they were pleased to answer. But that Lookseast did not like our questions one bit.”

“You are certainly right about Lookseast,” Eve returned, “but my recollection of the Garden differs from yours. Yes, when we were younger El was pleased to answer questions about the names of flowers and other such matters, but in the last days before he threw us out he seemed uneasy with what we asked concerning Spring and the other Beta Gods.”

“That is very true,” admitted Adam. There was a brief pause while they negotiated an awkward turn in the path. “Perhaps it is well that the conversation ended when it did, for I was about to correct Lookseast.”

“Correct him as to what?” Eve said. “For so much of what he said wanted correcting.”

“As to why you and I are shaped as we are,” Adam said. “According to Lookseast, the common form of souls—two legs, two arms, a head and a face, and so on—was ordained by El. But El himself told us that we were created not by him but by Spring, with some help from Egdod. El came along later. The form adopted by you, me, Lookseast, and all the people of Eltown is not El’s work at all.”

“If it were,” said Eve, “it would be more perfect than those crude effigies in the kirk. Say what you will of El, his creations are more symmetrical and elegantly formed than anything in that place.”

“To the people down there,” Adam reminded her, gesturing to the town below, “they are beautiful and we are crude, and so we may just have to get used to being looked on as Lookseast looked on us.”

To see the houses of Eltown was to understand how they had been put together: in some cases by stacking one square rock atop another until nothing further could be added lest it topple over, in other cases by pursuing a similar strategy with the trunks of felled trees. When these things had been raised as high as their tendency to fall over would allow, they were covered over with frameworks of tree-stuff and grass to keep rain and snow from falling into them. Mysterious to Adam and Eve was where the souls of the town had obtained such a quantity of material. But by following the light of the fires they discovered answers: in the center of the town, along the banks of the river, was a place where many felled trees had been stacked. These were fuel for great fires, contained in stone boxes the size of houses. The earth of the riverbank, mixed with water, formed a mud that could be shaped into blocks and burned in the fire houses until it was dry and hard enough to