Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,269

be stacked up into walls. Another sort of earth—black sand from a different stretch of the river—could be burned until it melted and fused into metal, which could be shaped into tools for tree chopping. These furnaces burned all day and all night. The wood that fueled them was brought to the place by the simple expedient of chopping trees down somewhere else and floating them on the river.

During their first hours in Eltown, Adam and Eve took in a vast amount of knowledge about how souls lived together in a town, how they worked together and built things. The fascination of learning so much caused them to forget their own hunger and tiredness until day had broken and the sun had risen above the white tower of Elkirk looming high above. But then Eve in particular pronounced herself very hungry and tired indeed, resting a hand on the bulge of her belly.

Food was provided to the workers at long tables in an open space among the great ovens. Little of it was familiar to Adam and Eve. The people of Eltown knew how to bake disks of bread in ovens and spread honey on them, and had apples and other sorts of fruit that Adam and Eve recognized from the Garden. All in all they ate better than Adam and Eve were accustomed to; they did not have much game, but they had fish from the river and a wider variety of plant food. They did not begrudge these to the newcomers, for their practice was that all who worked at the kiln and the forge could eat their fill here. Though Adam and Eve were new to such labors, they had quickly understood the nature of the work and had applied themselves to it. They had learned faster than other new souls and they had carried more weight. For it seemed that in mind and body alike they possessed certain advantages over the souls who had been brought up in the kirk and made their way down the mountain. All of which had been less obvious in smoke and firelight than it was now in the light of the morning. Standing tall among the other souls, half-clad in the pelts of small animals, Adam and Eve were conscious of many eyes upon them, staring out of lopsided faces that all more or less resembled the effigies in the kirk. None of the people of Eltown seemed keen on sharing a table with them and so they sat together at one end of a split-log bench and ate their fill. This led to drowsiness, especially on the part of Eve, who had been sleeping more the larger her belly grew.

They had given no thought as to where they would sleep, accustomed as they were to bedding down wherever it struck their fancy. They now looked about in vain for a tree or swath of tall grass where they might rest. The predicament was a common one among newly arrived souls who had not yet built houses for themselves, and a place had been made for them to sleep in rows under a broad roof, pocked here and there with chimneys rising from wide hearths where fires were kept burning to ward off the chill. Adam and Eve curled up together near one of those and slept until late in the day, when hunger, and a need to shit, woke Eve. Thus they learned about the locals’ shitting arrangements, which were shared among all and which emptied at length into the river.

It was during their afternoon meal that they were approached by another soul who looked like them.

Like them he was symmetrically framed and taller than the people of Eltown. Nearly imperceptible in the bright light of the afternoon was the wispy form of Mab, flitting about him and darting ahead to lead him in Adam and Eve’s direction.

“I am Walks Far,” he announced.

“Adam and Eve,” said Adam, speaking on behalf of his companion since her mouth was full of bread.

Walksfar sized them up, as if verifying that the newcomers were indeed of a different order of souls than most here. They did likewise. About him was a graveness and solemnity that suggested he had spawned many years ago and had seen much since then. “Have you dwelled in Eltown for very long?” Eve asked him. For though his form was unusual here, he wore clothes of spun fiber like all of the others, and though he drew some notice