Montgomery was a column of flame and smoke.
“General, it's time y’ came on board, ain't it?”
Oglethorpe glanced over at MacKay, whose head stuck up out of the amphibian they had named Azilia's Hammer.
“I shall,” he said, trying to think of a reason to put it off. But he needed to do this. Even mounted, they could never follow the marsh-edged Altamaha as fast as the ship could sail down it. And speed was their chiefest need. “Make way.”
Oglethorpe stepped tentatively onto the metal back of the artifice, then, determined to appear bold and unconcerned, went down the small wooden ladder.
Inside, the amphibian positively reeked of men and oil. Mostly it smelled like the sulfur his men had used to clean the Russians out. And it was close inside, terribly so. The bridge was the size of a rowboat, and four people were already crowded into it. A wooden bulkhead cut them off from the rest of the ship, so the effect was that Oglethorpe felt he had been stuffed into a small box.
Panic squeezed his lungs, but he forced himself to breathe. He had never liked small spaces. Never. He'd been trapped in a pantry once by one of his cousins, and had not been discovered for hours. When they found him, he had beaten his hands bloody.
He concentrated on other things. The most obvious were the windows. Plates of alchemical glass—really a sort of transparent metal—were bolted into the ship's frame, so he could see the yellowish blue murk of the Altamaha's water, though such was the nature of the stuff that no one outside could see in. The occasional silver glimmer of fish flashed there, but otherwise there wasn't much to see. In fact, the obfuscating water did nothing to lessen his discomfort. No, rather, it heightened it, for he was a poor swimmer, and the thought of water pressing in on him from all directions was unpleasant.
“How does it work?” he asked MacKay.
MacKay indicated a wheel, smaller but not otherwise vastly different from any other ship's wheel. “This goes back to the rudder,” he said. “And this makes her go.” He indicated a long lever with several notched settings.
“How? How does it go?”
“There are wheels on the side, as you've seen, with paddles attached.”
“Yes. What turns the wheels?”
“A demon, sir.”
“Yes, yes, but how?”
“I do not know. I only know she works, sir.”
“Where is the demon?”
“This way, if you want to see.”
“I do.”
They passed the bulkhead that separated the bridge from the rest of the ship. Behind, there were two decks: an upper, where supplies were stored, and a lower, where the rest of the men were packed in tight—an awful, windowless place.
“Hello, lads,” he said, as he went among them. “Cozy down here.”
“Yes, sir!” they answered.
Near the center of the ship, the lower hold was interrupted by a metal cylinder, a bit too large for Oglethorpe to put his arms around. From that, two heavy shafts stretched out to the sides of the ship, where they slipped through gaskets to turn the wheels outside. On the large cylinder was a small door. MacKay produced a key and opened it.
From inside the cylinder, a giant red eye stared back at him.
“Good God,” he swore. He looked quickly away, but his gaze came inevitably back.
It wasn't an eye, exactly, but a large sphere of some translucent material, inside of which was a red glow with a black center that looked very much like a pupil. He had seen globes very like this powering the Russian airships.
“This turns the shafts, somehow. And keeps us down?”
“No, sir. We use ballast, just as any ship would, except we want to sink, of course, so we have a lot of it. The boat has big bilges, too, and clever pumps the lads work to clear them. They don't work if we go too deep, though—if we do that, we have to drop the solid ballast and replace it later.”
Oglethorpe shook his head. “Clever indeed, except for the reliance on the devil to power it. Why didn't they use steam, I wonder?”
“I reckon you'd see bubbles rising, and then not be so invisible.”
“I'd think the water would take the steam back to its bosom, as a liquid,” Oglethorpe argued. “I think instead these Russians have become as reliant on their pet demons as our planters on their slaves. And so it makes them weak, don't you think?”
“In a way, I suppose. But this ship ain't weak, sir. Far from it.”
“You mean those flame cannons?”
“Oh, there's more,” MacKay said, eyes twinkling. “We've a magazine of bombs that float up if we release them.”
“Why? Oh. You would swim the ship under a man-of-war—”
“And let ‘em float up. Yes, sir, and I'll wager blow a great huge hole right in the bottom.”
“Delightful. And if we encounter another amphibian?”
“The Russian pilots said they had nothing for that. They reckoned they would never meet an amphibian that was an enemy.”
“And yet we will. We certainly will, and we must think of some countermeasure.”
“Well—we could always drop them bombs from above, onto amphibians below.”
“I thought they floated, these bombs?”
“We could take off the air bladders. They'd sure sink then.”
“And drop them how? Through the deck?”
“Ah!” MacKay shook his finger, grinning. “I haven't shown you the other hatch. Here.”
He walked a few feet farther on, knelt at a round, metal screw, much like the one on the top of the ship; and began turning it.
“MacKay!” Oglethorpe protested. “You'll let the water in.”
“No, sir. Not as long as the upper hatch is closed.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Here.”
The screw lifted out, and beneath was water. It bobbed there, coming no higher.
“How?”
MacKay shrugged again.
“Don't know, sir, but it works.”
Oglethorpe considered that. “Yes, it does,” he said finally. “But can we trust it? And in any event, if we are positioned to drop mines on them, won't they be positioned to let theirs float up to us?”
“Aye. But they won't know we're the enemy, at least not the first time we do it.”
“Not the first time,” Oglethorpe agreed. “We shall need another weapon or stratagem after that.”
“Well, there are the guns. We've fired ‘em underwater. They work tolerable well, though they churn the water fierce and makes cones instead of clean lines. At short range they ought to work.”
“They can be fired from inside the hatch, then?”
“Aye, though not aimed. We have to point the ship to orient ‘em.”
“Well. That's better than I feared. I wish Franklin could see this. He would invent something, no doubt, that would do us good.”
“No doubt,” MacKay replied. “But he's not here.”
“Aye,” Oglethorpe replied, clapping him on the back. “We poor soldiers will have to make do. So let's set sail, or start swimming, or whatever term we should use for this unnatural business.”
“Aye, sir.”
And a few moments later, still gritting his teeth, Oglethorpe stood near the helm and watched the mud of the Altamaha flow by.
Red Shoes stood in the dark water, wondering. Had he come the wrong way? Was this a different entrance?
But no, this earth was freshly turned, and he could smell human hands on it.
They must have all agreed, he thought. But whose idea was it?
Bloody Child and Paint Red had influence, but not that much influence. Minko Chito would not have begun the idea.
It must have been the Onkala priests, the Bone Men. Only they might have seen what was in him and recognized the danger. Or perhaps the Bone Men had been seduced themselves by the minions of the Sun Boy. The Sun Boy attracted followers by sending dreams of glory and purification. Perhaps he had sent such visions to the keepers of the dead
.
Well. But the Onkala priests did not know how powerful Red Shoes was. They did not know he could easily rip his way through this inconsequential barrier of earth. Eagerly, he gathered his strength. His rattles hissed in the darkness.
No. That was the snake, whispering in his ear. To the others, it would only prove he was the monster they thought he was.
And so he sat in the darkness for a time, and thought, and remembered something Mother Dead had told him. About the hole that led down to where she was.
He squeezed and ducked his way back down the tunnel, until he came again to the place where the roof went beneath. He took a few deep breaths, then dove, trying to ignore the hornets in his skull, the lizards on his arms, the scorpions between his toes, the voice that said to dig through the earth and kill, to make shadowchildren of blood and poison to burrow into frail human minds.
He swam down, feeling for different turns, earlier ways than the one he had taken down to the heart of the underworld. After a moment, he found one, one that led vaguely up.
As he swam, the tunnel straightened to a vertical, and his body became heavier, his arms lethargic. It was as if something had taken hold of his feet and was pulling him down. He kicked, but his feet were pinned together. He braced his arms on the walls to pull, but they would not, could not, and then he was sinking.
His legs knit together, and one of his arms was stuck to his side, then the other. And still something was dragging him down, naming him a name that was not his own but which was familiar.
Father, he thought, and his head was suddenly full of the wide reaches between stars, of the boundless nothing that was behind the place behind the world; and a terrible joy mingled with his terror.
Down. It was over. He had lost. Too long, in the underneath.
No. I am the water spider, sevenfold walker. I am the kingfisher, who dives beneath and always returns. I am the words beneath the black paint, the earth above the grave. I am Red Shoes, a house with many rooms but RED SHOES!
And he broke from the water into thick, hot, moist air, but air, and the light riddling through the tall cypress, in the headwaters of the river of the Choctaw, the River of Pearls. He stared up through the trees for a long while at the yellow eye of Hashtali winking through at him.
“Thank you, Hashtali,” he murmured. “Keep my spirit strong. Keep the Sacred Fire in me unpolluted, at least until I save your people.”
Nearby, someone chuckled. Red Shoes knew the voice, and whirled.
“Hello, chieftain of the snakes,” the scalped man said. He crouched on the rotting carcass of a cypress tree, his eyes gleaming. He was painted and tattooed like a warrior, but his head was a mass of puckered scars, all in a neat circle, where the skin of his head had been cut off.
“Not yet,” Red Shoes told him.
“But near, so near,” the scalped man rasped. “You will join us, soon.”
“I will not.”
“You prayed to Hashtali, the creator, the sun eyed. Do you remember why you were made?”
“I was not made. I was born to human parents.”
“The Antler Snake was made from a man, to kill the sun, to strike the creator dead. Did you know that?”
“It's one of the stories, yes.”
“It is your story, Red Shoes. Let it tell itself, brother.”
“I think I shall kill you.”
“Your friends are watching,” he said, pointing.
Red Shoes turned to look. When he looked back, the scalped man was gone.
But his words remained. Slay the Sun. Was that what he was to do? He had been made to slay something. But an arrow could slay its maker. It could.
“Thank you, Hashtali,” he said again. “I will send you tobacco, when I have some that is dry.”
Minko Chito, the Bone Men, and the rest were still watching the sealed cave entrance when he found them. Red Shoes drew on hoshonti, the cloud, and walked up behind them without sound.
“How's he ever going to get out of there?” he asked, dispelling hoshonti.
They turned almost as a man, all astonished except for the two Bone Men. They just nodded. “You are the one,” the elder of the two said. Then, to Minko Chito. “He is the one.”
The old chief nodded, and though Bloody Child and Paint Red scowled, they said nothing.
Indeed, Red Shoes thought, I am the one. But perhaps not the one you think I am.
They returned to the village and began making plans for war.
Franklin found Euler the next morning, playing cards with several courtiers and seeming to enjoy himself.
“A word with you, Mr. Euler?”
“But of course, Mr. Franklin, if the ladies will forgive me.”
One of the ladies looked cross. “We will forgive you, Monsieur, but perhaps not your wizard friend.” Then her frown became a smile. “Unless his demonstration this evening is exceptionally amusing.”
“You will find it so, I hope,” Franklin replied. “And I will have Mr. Euler only for a hand or two. He has a condition, you see, that requires fresh air now and then, and one of its complications is a forgetfulness of that fact—so I must see to it.”
“Not contagious, I hope?”
“The only contagious thing in this room is admiration for you, milady,” Franklin replied.
“You make a good courtier,” Euler remarked when they were out upon the terrace in front of the palace. “But then you were one once, weren't you?”
“I had the training,” Franklin admitted, “and remember some of the lessons.”
“Well, you've taken me out of my little box to ask me some question again, haven't you? Something so important you must ignore the fact that you do not trust me.”
“You're a perceptive judge of character,” Franklin said. “That is exactly what I've come for.”
“Let's hear it, then.”
“Tell me, did you know Sterne was a warlock?”
“I did when I saw him last night. I never knew the name before.”
“He knew yours.”
“Well, he is more in the know than I, surely. Is that your question?”
“No. It is this: How can I make him reveal himself?”
“You have no device for that?”
“I have a device that detects warlocks, but it proves nothing to the uninitiated—a needle pointing like a compass makes no good demonstration. I need for his malakus to appear, for all to see him revealed for what he is.”
“Ah. Try to kill him, then.”
“At dinner? In front of everyone?”
“That's what you want, yes?”
“Not exactly. What if I draw a pistol and nothing happens? Then I merely jeopardize what goodwill I have earned here.”
“If he is in serious danger of his life, his malakus will appear, with or without his consent. It is the only thing I can suggest.”
“But if, for instance, the guards notice my motion before he does—no. I cannot risk it.”
“I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help.”
Franklin nodded thoughtfully. “It will have to do, I suppose. There must be some way to make use of this. Thank you, Mr. Euler—you may return to your card game.”
“Back into my box, eh?”
“For now.”
When Euler was gone from sight, doubts returned. What if this were some sabotage, finally, on Euler's part? An agreement with Sterne to make Franklin look not only idiotic but idiotic and murderous?
But there was one way. A dangerous way, but not as dangerous as standing up during the toasts with a gun. Not to him, anyway.
He had only an hour before his appointment with the king. With any luck, he could arrange it in that time, if he could bring himself to ask it.
* * *
Franklin gazed around him in almost stupefied delight at the laboratory. It was almost wonderful enough to push aside his other worries. Entirely at odds with the rest of the makeshift chateau, located in a separate building surrounded by withered botanical gar
dens, it was almost as light and airy as a pavilion. Its shelves were cluttered, not with the rubbish Franklin feared, but with every sort of scientific apparatus imaginable. Cabinets burst to overflowing with vials and jars of chemicals.
A fine layer of dust covered everything.
“Will it do?” the king asked.
“Will it do? Your Majesty, I have never in my life seen a better-equipped laboratory, even when I was with Sir Isaac. Did you supervise its outfitting yourself?”
“As a matter of fact, I did,” he said proudly. “Before Paris fell I loaded almost the entire contents of the Academy of Sciences on wagons and sent them to the fleet I was gathering. I don't have to tell you how many miracles it took to see it all here safe and sound.” His face fell a bit. “Now I know it would have been better to load the ship with provisions and other necessities of life. I did not know, then, how poorly our New World colonies had fared. It is an act of vanity for which I have not forgiven myself.”
“But, Sire, the answers to many of your troubles are here! I can build you a manna machine, for instance, to feed your hungry. In fact, I'm puzzled. I sent the Sieur de Bienville a manna machine years ago, as a token of friendship.”
“We had one, but it failed eventually. No one here had the skill to repair it. I was too proud to admit it to you English. Can you really make another?”
“In a few days, if you give me an assistant or two.”
“I would be most grateful.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. Franklin could almost see the scales in the king's mind, weighing this against that. “I give you and your men the freedom of the palace and grounds. I give you the freedom of the laboratory, as well. I pray you do not abuse my hospitality.”
“I will not, I assure you, Majesty. But may I ask, does this mean—”
“I have not yet decided to join your rebellion, Mr. Franklin. My reservations are still deep. Moreover, I hear things do not go well for the English colonies.”
“What have you heard, sir? My aetherschreiber was lost when the Coweta captured us.”
“I will make one available to you— one of our own Franklinned ones, if that will help. As to the other, Sterne tells me that your forces have been defeated, with only a few remaining outlaws in Indian country.”
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