Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,345

by wishing he had not passed on? Because I do so wish it.”

“Destroying is just easier than creating,” said Corvus, “and that’s that. They say it took Spring an eon to summon the power to bring a bug to life.”

“I feel that if you had not hid from me certain facts, things might have come out differently in Secondel.”

“Some would say the facts were plain enough and you were blind to them,” said Corvus. “That Brindle was a king, and you a princess, ought to have been somewhat obvious.”

“You never think of yourself that way.”

“Spoken like a true princess.”

“And of course I knew that the matter of my parentage was a bit muddled. But still!”

“Come on,” said Corvus, twitching a wing irritably, “was there ever a girl who was a girl for as long as you were? I’ll bet that gnarled apple tree outside your window was a sapling when you moved in.”

“I planted it,” Prim said. “But living, as I did, a sheltered life, I thought all of that was normal.”

“You were sheltered for a reason.”

“And would you care to share that reason with me?”

“It’s a bit obvious now, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but how did I come to be on Calla, behind the Eternal Veil, being raised as an ordinary girl?”

“An ordinary princess, you mean? I haven’t the faintest idea! No doubt if we could communicate with the other plane of existence from which we all seem to have originated, we could get an answer straightaway. As it is, we can only speculate. Your speculations are probably as good as mine, Princess, now that you have seen El’s cathedral at Secondeltown and killed a high lord of the Autochthons with your brain and made off with his sword and his horse.” He glanced at the former. Prim had taken it out of its sheath to rub oil on the blade, lest salt air rust it. The mount they’d been forced to abandon on the shore, since Firkin could not accommodate large beasts. “Whether by dumb luck or perhaps by some volition hidden from the likes of you and me, you have managed to live a long, quiet, and blessedly uneventful life in an out-of-the-way Bit, shrouded by an Eternal Veil, until recently. It was not until you came into womanhood, embarked—willingly I might just point out—on a Quest, passed out of that Veil, and set foot on the Land that all hell broke loose.”

“Now, that is the part I wish to speak to you about,” Prim said. “When we parted ways from Edda and the others in Cloven, you abandoned us.”

“I had to abandon someone. That’s the thing about parting ways.”

“Why us? You must have known the dangers of Secondel. We could have used your help.”

“Both of you. I abandoned both groups, you see. Edda and Burr and Weaver are just as vexed as you are.”

“How could they be? Brindle is dead!”

“His decision to pass on surprised me, I’ll grant you that. Had he decided otherwise, we’d have rescued him. Difficult. But well within the scope of a Quest.”

“It goes to show how desperate he believed the situation to be. All because of a lack of information—which you could have supplied, had you been there!”

“I have so much less information than you seem to believe,” said Corvus, “and when I am not with you, helpfully imparting such information as I do have, I am flying into the dodgiest situations you can imagine trying to get more. To the Island of Wild Souls I have lately been, arguing with tornadoes and temblors incarnate, and the Last Bit, and decidedly unwholesome parts of the Bewilderment, and I have even made an attempt to fly into the Evertempest: the perpetual storm that squats over the Knot. But it turns out I’m no Freewander. I cannot get anywhere near that thing.”

“Hmph. Well then,” said Prim, looking again at Mard and Lyne, who were pushing Firkin’s dinghy out into the channel, headed back to Firkin along with the rest of the crew. “All I can do is take you at your word. Do you think they suspect anything?”

“You mean, do they suspect that their traveling companion is a disguised member of Egdod’s Pantheon who can kill anyone by wishing them dead? I doubt it; but if you notice young Mardellian Bufrect treating you even more courteously than he does already . . .”

Prim blushed, and tried to hide it with a grin. “Maybe that’s why?”

“Just maybe.” And Corvus took to the air with a cackling