The Shadows of God (36 page)

But somewhere, by his accounting, there ought to be a few more thousands of them.

He had a crawling feeling he knew where.

Franklin caught hold of the raised edge as the barge convulsed again.

“Their charges are starting to break through!” he shouted. “Red Shoes and Montchevreuil must be failing. Don, help me!”

He scrambled toward the opening and down it. As he had suspected, two heavy casks had been shoved over the cabin hatch. Franklin ignored that for the moment, hunting in a different corner and coming out with a keg full of small spheres, each with a single knob.

“Free that lower hatch,” he shouted to Don Pedro, as he gathered them up.

A moment later they were peeping at Crecy behind the ends of her guns.

Ignoring her, Franklin leapt down to the floor, just as the boat kicked so hard it nearly flipped over. Franklin slammed into the bulkhead, and for a moment his vision constricted to a narrow tunnel, darkness eating at consciousness.

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

Crecy’s face appeared in the tunnel. He held up one of the spheres, which he had somehow managed to hang on to.

“Twist the knob,” he grunted. “Drop it through the bottom hatch.” He climbed shakily to his feet as she did so.

“Keep passing those down, Don Pedro,” Franklin shouted. He took the next one and went to the hatch.

A hundred yards below them, a starfish of fire opened its arms.

“The bomb attacked the sphere,” Crecy observed.

“Aye. Each has a small, weak aegis. They attract the charges.”

“Brilliant.” I need you to feed these out slowly. I have other things to see to.“

“Done.”

“Hurry,” Adrienne said, her voice coming as from very far away.

“What now?”

“The ships are preparing to rise. And something else…” Then she sank back into her trance.

Cursing again, Franklin clambered back up into the hold.

Red Shoes stared down through
Taboka,
the hole in the top of the world where the Sun rested at midday. Above him the faraway stars burned with strange light; below, the Earth festered with squirming, crawling things, and from that living pestilence grew a single, perfect tree whose branches rose through and past them, reaching beyond even the stars.

Around him, his shadowchildren died as fast as he could make them, and he grew angrier and angrier.

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

It was time, it was time. Time to tear the roof from the world.

He wasn’t strong enough to do it alone. But with this woman, this woman and her strange hand, this woman who was mother to the tree itself, he might manage it.

If he had time, which he didn’t, and respite from the constant attacks, which he didn’t.

And then like a lanthorn suddenly uncovered, he did. The spirits fell away, repelled by a strange new emanation.

Here was his chance.

We must shape a shadowchild together,
he told her. A
special one. I need
your help and your knowledge.

The answer was sluggish, and for a long moment he feared he had already lost her.
Very well,
she said.
We will do it.

Inwardly, he smiled his snake smile. Soon.

“There,” Franklin said, “that’s done. We can hold ”em like this for a time. And I’ve managed a shield which ought to keep the malakim away from us, too. So now we can breathe a bit.“

“A few of us are still doing that, I guess.”

Franklin looked around and saw what he meant. Red Srioes and Montchevreuil were still in their trances or whatever, and Euler and Vasilisa were bandaging Tug. The big fellow looked pale, but his eyes were still full of life. Robert’s more minor wound was already bound.

“How goes it, Tug?” he asked.

“I’ve had worse,” the former pirate grunted. “Could do with some rum, though.”

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

“We owe you quite a debt. If you hadn’t flushed out Sterne when you did, things would be considerably worse, I think.”

“ ”Tweren’t my design. I just wanted’t‘ drop a few grenados—but y’r welcome.“

“If you feel up to it, you can still do that. I don’t know that it will do much good, but…”

“Hah. Let me at ”em.“

“As for me, I need to report to Naime now—see what I can find out about everything else, and report that the ships are held down for the nonce.”

He gazed down through the lower windows. There were the ships; and there, like ants clustered to defend their queen, what appeared to be battalions of men. He studied the scene for a few more moments, then went to the opticon.

It took Naime a few moments to appear.

“Mr. Franklin,” he said, his voice scratchy and metallic, not at all like the governor’s real voice. The image, too, left much to be desired. Something Ben would have to improve. “So glad to see you are still alive.”

“That I am, Governor, and we’ve managed to hold ”em on the ground for a time. Any news of the army?“

“They’ve made good headway, but with terrible losses. Those Swedenborg airships you modified did help, and they enable us to see how the battle goes; but we have no way of getting word to the commanders, though I’ve sent some couriers. What do you see there?”

“A pretty strong welcoming party, I would say. We’re going to dance around a bit above them and do what damage we can with grenados, but I wouldn’t count on that being much.”

Nairne shrugged. “We shall see what happens,” he said, not sounding particularly optimistic. His face scrunched around some question inside him for a moment, something he clearly was not sure he ought to voice.

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

“What is it, Governor?”

“I… I had word from Mr. Voltaire, Franklin. He was with us on the walls, but he’s gone out after the advance.”

“Why?”

“It seems—ah, it seems your wife put on French uniform and rode with them on the charge.”

“Lenka?Isshe-”

“There is no way to know. They’ve lost heavily—more than half of them gone, it looks like. In all of that, there’s no way of knowing if she’s still alive. I just thought you ought to know.”

Franklin was numb to his fingertips. “Damn. God rot it all.”

“Franklin…” Robert, a few feet away, began.

“No! Damn it, why—” He whirled on the Apalachee Don Pedro. “This is your fault, you overblown gamecock! Who in God’s name told you — ”

Robert slapped him hard. Franklin stared, unbelieving, at his friend for a heartbeat, then swung a roundhouse at the too-handsome jaw. Robert ducked and punched him someplace in the stomach where all his air was kept. His lungs sucked tight, and he sat down hard.

“Keep your head, Ben,” Robert snapped, “or I’ll fair keep it f’r you. This is no time f’r a tantrum. Don Pedro has saved our lives and fought our battles, and Lenka has a mind of her own. If anyone here is to blame for where she is right now,
you
know who it is, so just you keep
calm.”
He reached out a hand to help Franklin up.

Franklin waved it off. “Don’t touch me,” he said. “Just don’t.”

“Very well.”

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

“So what do I do? Tell me that? Everyone sterns so-damned sure they know what I
ought
to have been doing, why don’t you tell what I do
now,
in advance?”

“It’s too late for that. We’re up here and she’s down there, and-there ain’t a damn thing you can do until the battle is won.”

“Robin-”

“So we make sure we
win
,” Robert said heatedly. “It’s all we can do.”

“Damn it. God rot it.” He sat on one of the bolted-down stools and put his face in his hands, and he realized, finally, that whether the world ended today or not, his own might already have.

15.

The Duel

“Well, gentlemen. I see none of us has yet collected that cognac,” Oglethorpe remarked.

A few hours had done the work of weeks to the commanders of the alliance.

Though unwounded, King Philippe was pale and drawn. The tsar’s arm was bloodily bandaged. Only Charles seemed unperturbed, his eyes like chips of diamond as he peered across the little prairie.

“This land is all jungle and pine barrens,” he noted. “A prairie seems out of place.”

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

“Old fields,” Oglethorpe offered. “The Indians girdle trees and burn to make fields, but in a few years the ground becomes unproductive, and they must clear more. In time, they move the whole village. The result is as you see.”

“There is a village nearby?”

“An old village of the Mobileans, yes. Those few buildings in the distance may be what remain.”

Charles nodded. Most of the valley was full of troops. And, of course, guns.

“This is a cul-de-sac,” he said. “If we charge in, we can never charge out.”

“Yes, but what are we to do?” Peter asked sarcastically. “Lay siege to them?”

“The runners from Nairne tell us Franklin keeps the ships on the ground but that he cannot do so for long.”

“There must be a thousand men down there, and plenty of artillery, too. And surely the ships are armed,” Charles murmured. “We have between us—what?

Three hundred men?”

“Something like that,” Oglethorpe replied.

“Have you lost your nerve at last, King Charles?” Tsar Peter asked.

“No,” Charles replied coldly. “I’ve faced greater odds than this, as well you know. But to conquer here—we must
believe
we can win. I do not think our men believe that.”

“That is our job,” Oglethorpe replied, “to make them believe.”

“Indeed.”

“But look at them,” Philippe whispered, “walk among the ranks. They have come so far, achieved so much, only to
see—this.
What speech could we give them, what anthem could we sing that could make this last charge seem anything but suicide?”

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

For answer, Charles gave a harsh chuckle and stood, brushing his knees.

“Tsar Peter, the time has come for me to request my satisfaction.”

“Your Majesties—” Philippe began, but this time something in Charles’

countenance stopped him.

“I am at your service, sir,” the tsar replied.

“These are the terms I propose. We both mount, armed as we please, but with no armor. We ride straight for those guns. Whichever of us survives is the winner.”

Peter’s face twitched fiercely, and then he bellowed a savage laugh that rang over their little army, out to the mass of enemies awaiting them. “And should we both live?” he said.

“Why, we shall settle our score another day.”

“And if we both die?”

“Then whoever falls last is the victor.”

“Very well, Your Majesty. I agree to your terms.”

A murmur went amongst the troops as the two removed their breastplates and stripped until they were bare chested. Charles mounted, fiddled with his weapons and saddle, then trotted in front of his Swedes and Janissaries.

“I have said I will never flinch in the pursuit of a just war. There are those among you old enough to know the truth of that, to have ridden from Sweden with me more than thirty years ago. You, my friends, were always my kingdom. I love you all, more than life itself.

My younger companions, I love you no less. Not one among you has not shown his heart is strong. I now go to settle my oldest score. What God wills will be.

Farewell.“

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

The tsar had no people to address. He came alongside Charles, a carbine in one hand.

And they rode. The horses were tired, but somehow they seemed to sense that this was the last time they would stretch their blooded legs on the grass of Earth, and they made the best of it, sending clots of dirt sailing out behind them.

Everything was still for a moment, save for those eight hooves, pounding, a tiny and beautiful thunder.

And then one of the Swedes, as if just understanding what was happening, screamed,
“Iron Head!”
And then everyone of them living— and by the sound of them, perhaps some dead—took it up, shouting to worry heaven, and dashed after their king.

It shocked through Oglethorpe like a dam bursting. He echoed the shout and set his horse in motion; and behind him his men —almost all now on foot—roared like ocean waves crashing on rocks.

Thus began the last charge.

Adrienne lay in a palace built of numbers, of geometries possible and absurd, of theorems solved and yet to be solved and unsolvable; and for the first time in more years than she could remember, she felt joy, the sheer joy she had known as a girl, at night in her room, calculating the motions of the Moon. She traced answers with atoms, or the bundles of affinities named atoms. The Indian posed questions — clever ones she would never have thought of—and she answered by solving them, imprinting the solutions on a parchment of space and time. Around her, the castle continued to take shape, extending upward and downward.

Below, she found endless lines of nonsense, and set about correcting them, conforming them to the grand equation, formed so long ago in her mind, seasoned and re-formed by her students, now finally attaining perfection and realization. It was, at last, the formula she had glimpsed all those years ago in France, when the world went wrong.

THE SHADOWS OF GOD

Almost. Something was still missing, something important.

“What are you doing?”

She found a child of some two years regarding her. Her child, her Nico, as she had last seen him in the flesh.

“Solving a problem,” she said simply.

“What is that,” he asked, “on your hand?”

“A pen,” she said, wriggling the fingers of her
manus oculatus.
“Something like a pen. I write with it.”

“You write as I do.” He cocked his head. “Are you really my mother?”

“Yes.”

“Where have you been?”

“I told you the truth before. I’ve been here all along, Nico. I’ve been searching for you, but the angels hid you from me.”

“Why?”

“So they could make you what you are.”

“I am the Sun Boy. I am the god of this world.”

“No, my little Nico, you are not.”

He frowned. “I don’t know what to do. I’m supposed to kill you.”

“I know. You will do what you must, and I will love you no matter what. But I know this, and you know it, too, I think. The angels don’t want you to know the truth. But they can’t stop us, Nico, not if we work together. Remember how we were at the river, at the battle?”