Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,363

on a veiled island where magical beings are apparently of little note, you do not understand this. You must think,” Fern said, rising to her feet, “of the arrow that Swab took for us, and how, having taken it, and understanding its barbed nature, she agreed that it was better to shove it all the way through than to reverse its direction. That is where we are all poised now in respect of this Quest. To surrender is to pull out the arrow backward: no better and probably worse than to push through.”

Fern bent close, cocking her ear toward the lips of Swab, and listened to words that no one else could hear. After some time she nodded her head, then turned her face to Swab, brushed back her hair, and kissed her. Fern then got up on one knee and pulled Swab’s good arm up across her shoulders. With a great effort she stood up. As Swab felt herself being lifted, her legs stirred and she got her feet on the ground, taking some small portion of her weight. On the side that had been struck by the arrow, the entirety of the shoulder and the arm attached to it had dissolved into chaos, and most of that no longer clung to her body, nor did it make any pretense of hewing to the form of a normal soul, but was dispersing like smoke.

Fern trudged with slow heavy footfalls up the last few yards of slope to the brink of the fault. She crested the slope and descended a few paces, planting her feet with caution that became more evident as the adamant sloped away beneath her and the surface became cleaner and slicker. When she had gone as far as she dared, she bent her knees and her back, and carefully let Swab down so that she was sitting on the smooth adamant, using her remaining arm to prop herself upright. For a little while then they stayed together, Fern squatting next to her stricken partner and embracing her as if her heavy arms could hold in the chaos that had once been Swab but was now escaping from her form. Finally, before it was too late, Swab shoved off with her good hand, and began sliding into the fault. Unable to remain upright, she flopped sideways, rolled lazily over, slid, picked up some speed, rolled over twice more, and was gone.

Prim watched it all from a respectful distance. Long after she had lost sight of Swab, she saw a faint flare of chaos down in the abyss, and knew for certain that Pick was correct in suggesting that neither Egdod nor Pluto nor El had bothered with putting a bottom on this thing. The Land was built upon mere chaos, and in places you could reach it.

Another Beedle sniper came up to reconnoiter, but his approach was almost offensively obvious. Lyne shot him and he fell wounded. His companions—for others could be heard, and occasionally seen, farther down the slope—let him lie where he had fallen. Insects came out of nowhere and feasted on his blood.

Night fell. They lit no fire, lest it dazzle their vision. There was almost nothing to be burned in any case. Prim had worried that the Beedles might come in the night, but the air was so dry and thin in these parts that moon-and-star-light let them see, and shoot at, anything out there in the no-man’s-land below them.

In Secondel, Beedles had always been under the command of Autochthons. But none were in evidence here. Fern ventured the opinion that a larger flagship would probably be not far off, commanded by an Autochthon, and carrying Beedle marines who would prove more formidable opponents than the scouts and mere galley slaves who had them bottled up at the moment. And indeed when day broke Corvus flew in from scouting and reported that just such a galley had entered the cove, and that reinforcements were climbing the hill, led by an Autochthon.

“Don’t kill him,” Corvus suggested, when he got a chance for a private word with Prim. “Or anyone, unless you do it like a normal person, by putting an arrow through them or something.”

“We may have no other choice. We have a day’s water and no food to speak of. Pick’s preparations are taking forever.”

“Pick and Querc are doing good work,” Corvus said. “Almost ready.”

“Then why not just get out while we can?”

“I would like to know what this Autochthon knows.”

And then, for