Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,330

For the great Shiver was narrowing, just as the maps had always told her.

Early on the sixth morning, she felt her hammock rock strangely and knew that they had struck, or been struck by, a current. She went abovedecks to see dawn breaking over mountains on the rim of the Land, now very close. Turning to gaze west at the nearer shore, she saw not the usual scrub-crusted brow of coastal bluffs, but a strange and arresting landform: knuckles of bare, broken stone protruding from barren ground that sloped steeply down and dove into the sea.

So they had reached the southern tip of the Bit known as Chopped Barren. In ancient times the region had been cleared of trees by woodcutters from Eltown. It was still covered mostly in grass and scrub. The broken and tumbled scape now taking the light of the dawn was Feller’s Point: the mess that had been left behind when the hill-giant had stood up and walked away, and everything west of the river had broken off from the Land and begun its slow drift into the ocean.

Just on the other side of Feller’s Point would be another Shiver, or rather a cauldron where a few of them joined together. The broadside current that had nudged Prim’s hammock came from there. Once it had been the junction of two rivers, a few miles above Eltown.

This then was the place where they would have to choose. By doubling back round the point and fighting both the current and the wind, they could make for the western sea. En route they would pass familiar territory where the kinsmen of Mard and Lyne dwelled. Then they would face the passage round the cape that Edda had warned of. The mere mention of that idea made Robst uneasy. On the other hand, if they stayed their southerly course, they would pass down the main channel between Secondel and the large Bit known as Thunkmarch.

Only the most perfect weather and calm winds could have persuaded Robst to take the former course. To Prim’s untrained eye, dawn was breaking in a sky clear and calm, but Robst did not like the color of it, and soon claimed to see high rippling clouds that foretold stormy days. So the decision was made. They would sail beneath the watchtowers of Secondel.

They beached the boat on a scrap of rocky shore at the foot of Feller’s Point and spent part of the morning tidying up. The purpose of this was but vaguely explained, but Prim inferred that the Autochthons who held power in Secondel took a dim view of certain types of cargo that Robst might have carried, and certain ports of call where he might have put in, at one time or another. Therefore it was prudent to throw overboard any evidence to that effect. This took a while, as Firkin had a lot of crannies, and only Robst knew where to look. Prim passed the time looking up at the waste heap of Feller’s Point and trying to picture in her mind’s eye where Cairn, at the end of the Second Age, had trudged up out of the river (for it had been a mere river in those days) and gone to the top of the hill to talk to the hill and the tree.

Larger vessels passed them by as they worked. They had nearly finished their tidying up when one of these slackened its sails, put out its oars, and aimed its prow at them. Noting this, Robst squinted under his hand across bright water and gave the ship a good long look. It was of too deep draft to come very close, but presently it dropped a smaller rowboat. Two men climbed down into this and began to approach. The younger man pulling on the oars had his back to them, but the passenger was recognizable to Robst as some old seagoing acquaintance of his from the northern Bits. Soon they drew close enough to greet each other. They began a conversation, shouted back and forth across the water, in the language of Cloven. As far as Prim could make out, this began with the newcomer asking Robst if everything was quite all right, and Robst reassuring him that they had not beached because of any difficulty. Thus put at ease, the two skippers—for this man was pretty clearly the boss of the larger vessel—fell into chitchat, as the boat drew nearer, about where they had come from, where they