Fall; or, Dodge in Hell - Neal Stephenson Page 0,387

stopped as they were blinded by it: the light of the angel sword, which Burr had drawn full out of its scabbard. Seeing now the way and the enemy, Burr sprang forward with a roar. The rest followed as best they could. Prim shielded her eyes from the glare so that she could take advantage of the light in picking her way up. She turned back to look once or twice and got fragmented glimpses of other members of the Quest, arms flailing for balance on shifting and ice-covered ground. Fern and Lyne were coming up fast with weapons drawn. The light of the angel sword flashed and swept. Lightning struck. A furious roaring came down from on high: bears. The ground leveled. A dark hole was before her. She stumbled into it, carried more by momentum than any plan or desire. Others piled in behind her, blocking the way out. She had a mind to go back out of the cave and be of help in the fighting, but before she could do so, the mountain was plunged back into darkness. The sword had gone back into its sheath. Rocks scrabbled and chattered as they slid down from above. Lightning flashed and outlined the silhouettes of Burr, Fern, and Lyne. They stepped into the cave.

With that the Quest concluded its traversal of the Stormland, and entered into the underpinnings of the Knot.

54

Come on,” Corvus said. “Pick, we need to seal the entrance.”

“I thought you said the Dug would not follow us in here,” Lyne said.

“They won’t,” Corvus answered vaguely. “Pick? Sound off! Can we have more light?”

Mab brightened. They had gathered a few strides in from the cave’s entrance. Burr had stationed himself nearest it, spear at the ready, and Fern and Lyne were still backing him up. Next was Edda, standing still as a mountain in her cloak, which glistened with ice. Querc was crumpled near the giantess, weeping. Mard, Prim, and Corvus had advanced deepest into the cave, but Corvus was now stalking back toward the entrance as Mab flitted to and fro in the style of one who has lost something. “Where is Pick?” Corvus asked. “We need to send out a search party!” He seemed of a mind to go and look down the slope.

Edda brought him up short by withdrawing from her cloak a small gleaming object. Its nature wasn’t clear until Mab cast greater light on it. Then it could be seen that this was the bird-shaped head of Pick’s stick, somewhat deformed, as if it had partly melted. The eyes were now blind sockets, as the lenses were missing. A blackened shard of wood still dangled from the hole where the shaft had been affixed.

It was the rare moment when Corvus was not well ahead of everyone else. That combined with the fact that he was in his human form, and closely illuminated by Mab, made it possible to see emotions in his face that Prim—who had known him since he was a new soul in the Land—had never seen there before. He was completely astonished. It was that kind of surprise so total that one’s first reflex, be it never so out of place, is to laugh. Which he did in a faltering and nervous way. Then he became serious and thoughtful.

Querc’s grief was total, as was her shock at what she had witnessed. Prim remembered the scream Querc had made after a certain close lightning strike and knew it was true. Corvus knew it too: Pick was gone.

“Well!” he said. “That certainly changes a few things about the Quest. We can’t do this without a Lithoplast.”

There was a brief silence as this sank in, and then everyone looked at Querc.

They went deeper in, just to put more distance between them and any Dug who might have the audacity to come in after them. Sealing the entrance through Lithoplasty, which had been Corvus’s original plan, was no longer possible. But as this was a natural cave, it had twists and bottlenecks that they were able to chock up behind them with rocks. Edda had the strength to shift boulders, and Burr’s angel sword could cut stone. So they were able to make going difficult for any who might pursue them into the depths of the Knot.

Or for themselves, should they try to get back out. But it was obvious that this cave was another of those that Pluto had salted about the Land to make going from place to place easier,