Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,346

squawk that might have been a laugh. He playfully dive-bombed Robst, who was at the other end of the boat mending a sail, and beat up into the air to have a look round.

Prim, wishing she could see what he saw, summoned forth a memory of the map. They were at the place where the First Shiver forked into two equal branches that both ran to the ocean. The one to the left ran southwest to Toravithranax-by-the-Sea. The other ran northwest and was less frequented. Between them lay the spearhead-shaped island named the Burning Bit, so called because, seen from the high places of Toravithranax, it gave off an orange glow by night and reddened the sun with its smoke by day. Venturing around to its seaward edge would be too hazardous for little Firkin, but if they went down the inland fork to a certain place, they could hike up across a narrow part of the Bit and scout around on its west side, which was not a single coherent coast but an ever-ramifying web of steaming Shivers “cast into the sea,” Edda had told her, pulling silver silk through the map, “like a fisherman’s net.”

That westerly wind prevailed for another day, but thenceforth it bore smoke, strange mineral odors, and even tiny flecks of grit that speckled Firkin’s canvas and crunched beneath their feet on the deck planks. Trimming his sails to it, Robst made good time up the inland coast of the Burner, as he called it. In due course they eased into a sort of dimple in that coast, not really profound enough to be called a proper bay, but enough to give them some shelter. They made camp on the beach in the shadow of a sharp ridge that ran up the spine of the Burner, and built a fire that they used to smoke some fish and oysters that they had collected over the last couple of days. Victualed with that and with some berries and greens gathered along the water’s edge, Mard and Lyne and Prim set out early the next morning, seeking the least difficult path over the island’s crest. In that they were aided by Corvus, who did not abandon them this time. The bird didn’t completely understand the travails of ground-pounders and so they could not always trust his judgment, but he did at least warn them off from a few turnings that would have taken them to dead ends. And in the most disheartening moments of the journey it was a comfort to see him soaring overhead and know that, at the very least, they had not got lost.

The Newest Shiver cracked this Bit in twain down toward its southern end. If they followed the coast south, they would find it running directly across their path—they couldn’t miss it if they tried. So that is what they did once they had crested the island’s spine and gone down to the edge of the sea.

To their right was a drop-off that betokened a very long final few moments for anyone who went over it. Far out to sea were sails of large vessels, showing due respect for the danger posed by the cliffs and the sentinel rocks that stood off from them. Strewn along a thin ribbon of beach far below were wracks of ships that had got it wrong. But when they prudently drew back from the precipice and lifted their gaze to the country ahead, they saw a wall of steam piling up from the ground and blocking their view south. It was pearly white. Silhouetted against it, sometimes standing out crisply and sometimes shrouded in the murk, was a hut that had been built apparently on the very limit of the Last Bit where it gave way to the glowing gorge of the Newest Shiver. Not far from it, from time to time, they could make out the silhouette of a man, pacing back and forth—not in the style of one who was actually tending to any particular business, but more like one lost in thought, or trying to find his hat (it was on his head).

As they drew closer—which did not happen quickly, since the ground near the gorge was broken, upheaved, and punishingly sharp—they saw a somewhat smaller figure who seemed to be trying to keep pace with the first one’s restless movements. The big one loped across tilted slabs and leapt between them. The small one moved in a style that it was not