Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,343

he was putting his full weight on her wrist. She’d have cried out in pain were she not simultaneously coughing up water and whooping in air. She got her other hand out of the water; he caught it in his, then stood up and hauled her full-length into the air and flopped her down on the pavement like a landed fish. “Got her!” he called. “Call off the search!”

“No!” she gurgled. “Brindle! The rope!”

“You weren’t listening to what Sooth had to say!” said Elshield, sounding like a disappointed uncle. “We maintain the balance of the Land by seeing to it that the Sprung never get too organized, too powerful, out there on those Bits. Brindle was the best king among them. Having him free was unacceptable. Holding him prisoner would have been better—though not without risk. Having him dead—by his own hand, no less—now, that is the best outcome I could imagine. I think we’ll leave him just where he put himself.”

Hearing this, Prim became so wrathful that she rolled to her stomach, got up on hands and knees, and staggered up to her feet. She turned to face Elshield and took a step toward him, wishing she could get her hands around his throat. But then his mind was inside hers again, and he forced her to stand where she was. Controlling her like one of his mounts.

“You,” Elshield said, “we’ll keep around. You’ll make a lovely little tame princess to reign over Calla from a high tower.”

She knew he could do it, too. He would not even need to put her in chains. The Autochthons, once they had got into your mind, had no need of such crude restraints. The only way to be free of Elshield’s power was for him to cease existing.

She wished he were dead.

His black cloak, empty, collapsed into a heap on the pavement. The steel hilt of his sword clattered on stone as it slid half out of its scabbard. Elshield was gone. Gone from the quay and gone from her mind.

Above she heard Sooth give out a shriek. Other than that, the whole place was silent for a few moments. Then it erupted into a welter of voices, mostly in the crude simple version of Townish spoken by Beedles. They all wished to know where Delegate Elshield was. Very few had seen him cease to exist, and so all they knew was that he was nowhere to be seen and that his clothes and weapon lay on the quay as if he had discarded them.

The only possible explanation seemed to be that he had disrobed and jumped into the water in an effort to rescue Brindle, and so a lot of Beedles who had only just climbed out from trying to rescue Prim now jumped back in again. All was wildly confused.

It wasn’t merely that no one knew what had happened. The removal of Elshield’s mind from the top of the chain of command had left not only the Beedles but the Autochthons uncertain as to what they should do.

Prim, enjoying now the luxury of being completely ignored, became conscious of the fact that from the waist down she was naked except for a pair of dripping-wet drawers, and from there up only had a thin white bodice that was soaked through. Elshield’s long black cloak looked comfortable and warm, and no one was using it. She bent down, picked it up by its collar, and twirled it around herself. The sword and strap tumbled loose. It couldn’t hurt to have such a thing, and Brindle had given her a few lessons in what to do with a sword, so she picked it up and got the whole rig arranged over her shoulder. It dangled much too low on her thigh, but she could adjust it later.

She did not for one moment, though, imagine that swordplay had been what Brindle had meant, a few minutes ago, when he had said she would find it within herself to fight her way out. No, he’d known from the beginning that she was different. Her whole life, he’d lied to her to protect her from the burden of knowing what she was.

The Beedle to whom Elshield had handed the black mount’s reins was just standing there like a flesh-and-blood hitching post, doing his duty as chaos swirled around him. He, at least, had clear orders: hold the horse. He watched her approach. Elshield’s cloak was much too long for Prim, so its skirt dragged behind