Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,375

see its lightning. Burr, who had put a second hand on the smoky haft of his weird spear, let go and went back to using it as a walking stick.

“Get used to that,” Corvus suggested.

Lyne, once he had got over the brief fright occasioned by the thunderclap, was back on the topic of Weaver’s story. “No wonder the Asking is still such a shithole,” he said.

“You could almost say god-forsaken,” Mard responded.

“Gods, plural,” said Querc, with a glance toward Pick. “Remember Pluto ditched out on it too.”

“We may yet come to wish that Spring had been as careless of these parts,” said Edda. Not in a notably fearful way. More of an observation.

Prim caught Corvus looking at her. “Yes,” he said, “get ready to kill things.” Burr, Mard, and Lyne each fondled their weapons. Burr had claimed the angel’s sword but did not risk his companions’ eyesight by drawing it even a finger’s breadth from its scabbard. He contented himself with patting its hilt. But Prim knew that Corvus had been talking to her.

Fern well knew where her cutlass and dagger were to be found, and so kept her arms crossed in front of her. She was eyeing a tree, not far off, that stood dead and black at the top of a rise. Lightning had carved a charred spiral from its top to its roots and blown its bark off.

“We’re there already, aren’t we?” Fern asked. When no one answered, she glanced at Edda and Weaver and saw that it was true. For the rest of them, she explained: “In the Stormland. Oh, I know it isn’t raining, that the wind is light and that patches of clear sky are to be seen. But that is always how it is when you are in the midst of a wild tempest. It’s not wild all the time. Moments like this one come and go.”

“We have been in it all day,” Corvus confirmed, “and merely been lucky so far.”

Lightning flashed behind a veil of cloud. Prim noticed that Mab disappeared altogether; she was a thing of light, who in brighter light was shown to have no solidity whatsoever.

Weaver had begun flapping her arms as if she too wished to take flight. But she stayed earthbound. She was operating bellows. Air hissed from leaks in the Road Organ’s plumbing. A rosined wheel whirred as it spun up. Weaver opened a valve that conducted air to a low drone pipe, and made a small adjustment to a string that caused the rosin-covered wheel to saw at it and emit another, higher tone that harmonized with the drone. Whether by accident or craft, this was timed so that the peal of thunder rolled in just a moment later, creating the impression that Weaver was making use of the Evertempest as a percussion instrument. She began to sing in the somewhat outlandish haunting tonalities that Prim associated with the seagoing bards of the northern Bits.

O’er the high fells of the Knot-lands she strayed

In search of the home that her lover had made

Though battered by thunder and lashed by the rain

Lured on by the hope she might see him again.

“Egdod, my only, first god of the Land,

Fly to me, darling, reach for my hand,

Roam with me, lover, o’er the hills that you made,

Where forests I’ve planted and green meadows laid.”

Birds and bees were her family, wild lands her home,

And so aimlessly, over the Land she had roamed,

For thousands of Falls; but lately she’d learned

That her dear one, long lost, to the Land had returned.

“Lord of the Firmament, answer my call!

Heal the sundering rift of the Fall!

Together we’ll bide in this world of our making,

All cares of the Palace and strangers forsaking.”

Southward across the Bewilderment strode,

Its riddles to her as plain as a road.

Ravening beasts came friendly and meek

To sniff at Spring’s hand and to lick at her cheek.

As nothing to her was the rage of the storm.

Much as she’d rather be cozy and warm,

She knew that ahead of her, deep in the Knot,

Was a place she’d once visited, never forgot,

And doubtless be welcome in: Egdod’s retreat,

Where soon enough she could repair, drink, and eat.

Hearth to dry out her hair and to warm up her face,

Then a long night wrapped up in her lover’s embrace.

Thus the fond fancy that beckoned Spring on,

Blind to the traces of those who had gone

Earlier there, in vast force arrayed,

The Knot mutilated, the Fastness remade.

The path shifted beneath her, the Precipice yawned,

But was nothing to Spring, who pressed quicker on.

Came at last