Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,279

has raised it.”

“He hasn’t,” Mab said.

Adam considered this. “Who knows where it could end?” he asked. “In my own case the change was slight and slow enough that I did not notice it, or did not care. But gazing on the perfect forms of the twelve new ones gives me joy mixed with an aching in my heart when I consider how that perfection might be lost in the future if they remain in this place and live as I have been living.”

Adam then shifted uncomfortably, for the cold had penetrated his clothing. He turned away from the cabin where he dwelled with his family and looked into the east, for he had noticed a brightening in the sky there and guessed that dawn must be coming on. But the light in the east moved with much greater swiftness than that of the sunrise and seemed to be concentrated in a single place that moved across the firmament. It was coming toward them, arcing high over Elkirk and now plunging into the valley. As it drew closer Adam saw that it was a winged angel of El’s host, and as it folded its wings and descended into Camp he recognized it as the one called Messenger of El. Its form was more graceful than that of El’s soldiers, and wings on its feet made it more fleet and agile than they. And yet, like them, it carried a flaming thunderbolt on one hip. “Greetings, Adam,” it said. “Know that your absence and that of Eve are sorely regretted by all who knew and loved you in the Palace.”

“We think back on it often,” Adam admitted, “and sometimes long for its comforts. Yet finding our way about the Land has brought wisdom we could not have obtained in the Garden, and taught us new things.”

“So it would seem,” said Messenger of El, “for information has reached us that twelve souls are today in the Land who yesterday were not.”

“Your information is correct,” said Adam.

Messenger of El nodded. “I am sent here to visit and look upon them,” it announced.

Adam looked toward his cabin. Messenger of El noted this and marked the place.

“Just now Eve is resting after a great labor, and the little ones too are asleep,” Adam said. “Your radiance will disturb their rest.” By saying this he meant to stop Messenger of El from going into the cabin at all. But the angel’s radiance diminished as when a fire is snuffed out. Its wings shrank into its back and enwrapped its body, taking on the appearance of a cloak. Likewise the wings of its feet became as foot wrappings of some dull material. When the transformation was complete, the angel looked like a young man in a cloak of fair cloth, legs and feet wrapped against the cold; and in place of the thunderbolt at its hip was a long slender object dangling from a belt. “I shall not disturb them,” he said.

“If your errand is not to disturb them, then it might most easily be accomplished by not entering the cabin in the first place,” Adam pointed out.

“My errand is to see them with my own eyes,” said the angel. “El has so ordered it.”

“What is that on your hip where the thunderbolt once hung?” Adam asked.

The angel made no answer, but took the thing off and leaned it against the trunk of the great tree. Mab shone light on it and Adam perceived that it was very much like a knife, except longer. Useless he judged it for cutting down trees, but at the same time very dangerous and likely to cause grave injury if mishandled.

Messenger of El strode across the clearing to the threshold of their cabin. Seeing the angel push through the door without knocking, Adam felt in his breast some of the same emotions as when Feller docked a log from his pile; but as with Feller, he made no outward sign of feeling so, and knew himself diminished thereby. It occurred to him to wonder what happened, at such moments, to the substance that had been subtracted from his form. Was it added in the same moment to that of Messenger of El, or of El himself? Was Feller growing at Bluff’s expense? Could one soul consume another, given enough time?

In any event, Adam followed Messenger of El into the cabin, and Mab followed Adam. They stood and beheld Eve asleep in her bed, half-concealed under the forms of the twelve new little