The Shadows of God

by J. Gregory Keyes

  “That is good.” He gave some orders in Choctaw.

  “Where is this lady?”

  “Back a bit. We will fetch her now, if you are ready to escort us.”

  Oglethorpe hesitated only an instant. “I will arrange it. May I ask—who do you have business with in New Paris?”

  “The philosopher Benjamin Franklin. The lady is also a philosopher, late of Russia. She has much to tell him. Crucial things.”

  Or you wish to assassinate our best hope, Oglethorpe thought, suspicious again. He would send a message ahead, to prepare them.

  “That might do it,” Franklin murmured, staring at the odd device he, Euler, and Vasilisa had just cobbled together. It was simple and delicate in appearance—a glass rod a fathom long and the thickness of a sword blade, rising to a point from a cubical iron case. The complexity came in the small additions to the glass, the chime of philosopher's mercury in the casing, and the small tympanum on the side—a sort of “ear ” that would help the device adjust to the precise harmonics it was exposed to.

  “Might,” Euler said. “But how can we test it, when it is made to repel a substance that does not yet exist?”

  “I don't know.” Franklin mused, “I suppose, in this instance, we must have faith. I want five more of these made by tomorrow, and five more the next day.”

  “You understand, it is a temporary solution,” Vasilisa said.

  “Of course I do. But it gives us more time, yes?”

  “How much time will we need, I wonder?” Euler said. “And—assuming we defeat the army cast at us, and hold the engines at bay—how much of the world will remain? After all, this will protect only a few miles, maybe not even that.”

  “Which is why we must stop wasting time jabbering and build more. ‘Tis a simple enough device to construct—the craftsmen should be able to get the hang of it easily enough.”

  Vasilisa sighed and settled onto a chair. Several strands of her hair came down across one eye, making her look both very young and very tired. “I never imagined we would get even this much done. It's all in God's hands now.”

  “Who helps best those who help themselves,” Franklin reminded her. “Once we have a few of these, I want to try another approach.”

  “You will then re-proach?” a voice asked from the doorway.

  “Hello, Robin. Any news?”

  “Yep —all good. We've heard from Oglethorpe. He cleared out that first invasion—the northernmost redoubt is damaged, but still stands. The engineers are shoring it up now. And some visitors are on the way—a Choctaw and some others. I'm to ask y’ if you know a fellow named Red Shoes.”

  “You know damned well I do. You also know what Tug and the tsar said about him. What are we to think? All of our old friends are coming home to roost, and we don't know whether they're doves or hawks or death angels. Who else is with him?”

  “That's a funny thing. Some Russians who are really Frenchmen. Some woman named Monche— ah, Monchevrey—”

  “De Mornay de Montchevreuil?” Vasilisa asked. “For the pity of God.”

  “That's it. You know her?”

  “Yes. A very powerful sorceress. Benjamin, she might be our friend, but she might be our worst enemy. I cannot tell you which.”

  “Well, more of the same, eh? Will you come with me to talk to her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. I intend to meet them outside of town, as unfriendly as that might seem. I'm going to see if I can get Tug and the tsar to go with us.”

  “More good news, by the way,” Robert said.

  “What's that?”

  “Charles of Sweden won his skirmish at Apalachee and is on his way to join us here.”

  “Warn them of the mines,” Franklin said. “And— Oh, heavens.”

  “What?”

  “King Charles and Tsar Peter, both here in New Paris? That will be trouble.”

  “’Trouble’ isn't the word I would use,” Robert replied. “There ain't no word t’ use for what's going t’ happen when they know about each other.”

  “We'll deal with that when we get to it. We'll have to keep it from Charles as long as we can. Besides, he's an honorable fellow—”

  “For an absolute madman,” Robert finished. “Still, I'm glad to see his ships. Makes me think we might win this little brawl.”

  “Ja,” Euler said, “but when we win, that's when the trouble actually starts.”

  Franklin, Vasilisa, Peter, Tug, Robert, ten musketeers, and four Apalachee—the recovering Don Pedro included— dismounted half a mile from New Paris and waited.

  Tug was visibly nervous. “I don't know as I can face ‘im. The things he done—well, nothin’ worsen’ I saw in my time as a pirate, ‘cept the way he did it, and ‘cept this is Red Shoes, who used to be a decent fellah.”

  “Well, we'll see directly.”

  Each of them wore an aegis, and two of the musketeers carried devil guns, as the soldiers had taken to calling the depneumifiers.

  Ten minutes later, riders appeared through the trees.

  Franklin prepared himself. Even if Red Shoes and the French sorceress were on the level, come to cooperate, there might still be troubles, here—what with the tsar, Tug's feelings about Red Shoes, and Vasilisa's clear worries about the Frenchwoman. He hoped he had learned enough, being an ambassador, to smooth over whatever troubles there might be.

  But when he saw them, he was the first to raise his pistol and cock the hammer, his finger twitching on the trigger.

  “You!” Franklin snarled.

  He scarcely noticed that five muzzles were now trained on him, all borne by the men in blue military uniforms. He only noticed the woman, whose black tresses and dark eyes haunted his nightmares, rising in the air on the backs of demons, laughing as she killed his mentor, Sir Isaac Newton.

  In dream, as in life, he could do nothing but stand rooted and watch, and curse himself, and most of all curse her.

  And here she was—he would know her anywhere, through however many years. And this was no dream.

  “Father!” another woman shouted.

  “Elizavet!” That came from his left, from the tsar.

  Franklin's hands were shaking.

  “Monsieur, if you do not lower your weapon in the next five seconds, I shall kill you,” the witch's redheaded guard said. “Here, I shall count them for you. One—”

  “Just hold still,” Robert said quietly. His own weapon was pointed at her. “Let's sort this out.”

  “Don't you recognize her, Robin? She's the one from Venice. The one who killed Sir Isaac.”

  “All of you, lower your guns,” Tsar Peter roared. “My daughter is in your line of fire, and I swear by God or the Devil that whoever brings her to harm will suffer for it!”

  “Ben?” Robert said.

  Franklin took a deep breath, shaking even more. “She killed him, Robin.”

  About that time his gun got heavy, heavier than ten cannonballs, and tore itself out of his hand. With a curse he reached for his sword, but it was also heavy, dragging him to the ground. He toppled, noticing as he did so that almost everyone else had, too.

  The only ones still standing, as a matter of fact, were Red Shoes, two young women—and her, the murderess, who still placidly sat her horse. He noticed for the first time that she was heavily bandaged.

  “Your pardon, gentlemen and ladies,” Red Shoes said. “But I would rather you not all shoot each other. If you divest yourselves of steel and iron, you will find you can stand.”

  Still cursing, Franklin fumbled at his sword belt—whose buckle, naturally, dragged at him like an anchor—and finally managed it. Free of it, he scrambled to his feet.

  “Be calm, Mr. Franklin,” Red Shoes cautioned.

  “Elizavet!” the tsar, divested of sword and pistol, heedless of the situation, bounded across the yards separating them; and a young, pretty girl with thick black hair flew to meet him. They embraced, and he whirled her around. “By God, I have my daughter!” Peter sh
outed. “It is better than a kingdom! My sweet Elizavet!”

  The girl, weeping and laughing at the same time, buried her face in his shoulder.

  Franklin, calmed somehow by that meeting, turned back to the woman. “Who are you?” he asked huskily.

  “I am who you said, the slayer of Newton. Adrienne de Mornay de Montchevreuil.”

  “You admit it.”

  “It was war,” she said, frowning as if at a child asking a question she did not feel he was old enough to understand the answer to. “He was killing me, you know, and my friends, and my son—” She broke off. “I regretted killing him— especially once I learned who he was—but how can I apologize? I know who you are, Monsieur Franklin. How many men did you kill at the battle of Venice, with your balloon bombs and your lightning kites?”

  He heard her words, but this was the strangest thing—her voice was clipped, as if produced by a steel model of a human throat, as if she could never even imagine what remorse might be.

  But she was weeping.

  That produced an emotion in Ben, something weird. He didn't know what it was. Disgust? A new kind of anger?

  He didn't know, so he turned away.

  Red Shoes watched Tug approach, wondering what he was going to say. “I'm glad to see you well,” is what he settled on.

  Red Shoes could see that the sailor was searching him, trying to read him the way white men read books.

  “Red Shoes,” Tug said. Or was it, “Red Shoes?”

  He stepped closer, and Tug flinched but stood his ground.

  “It is me,” Red Shoes whispered. “It's me, not a spirit wearing my skin. I would never harm you, Tug.”

  “Y'll f ‘rgive me, but after what I seen—”

  “They tried to kill me, Tug. They thought I was something I'm not.”

  “The little babies tried to kill y'? Th’ sweet young girls?”

  “No. But I went mad, Tug. Not for long. I'm not exactly the same as I was, but I am me. Remember that night in Algiers, when you took me to find a woman?”

  “Yeah. You acted wondrous strange that night, too.”

  “Remember that you saved me in Venice?”

  “I remember you savin’ us in— eh—what used to be London. But …” He paused. “Is it really you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I done what y’ said t'do.”

  “I know. Thank you. Will you shake my hand?”

  Tug hesitated another instant, then stuck his hand out, and they clasped. “Flint Shouting'll try t’ kill you, y'know, when he finds out y'r here.”

  “I wouldn't blame him if he tried, but I would rather he didn't. I'll talk to him, later. And to you. You'll have to tell me about your adventures coming here.”

  “Th’ same. Glad to see th’ miss made it, too,” he said, nodding toward Grief.

  Grief noticed and flashed Tug one of her rare smiles, and the pirate grinned even wider.

  Red Shoes glanced at Franklin, who seemed to have retreated to a world of his own. “Well, Mr. Franklin?” he said. “Shall we go into the city? We have important things to say and do, and not much time to do them in.”

  Franklin looked at him, then briefly back at Adrienne, his expression still stunned. “Of course,” he said. “Let's go.”

  They walked the horses the rest of the way, Grief at Red Shoes’ side as always.

  “Tug didn't seem frightened of you anymore,” she said to him.

  “He was. I could see it. He doesn't trust me, and maybe he shouldn't. I don't trust myself.”

  “Your power is returning.”

  “Yes, some of it.”

  “And your heart?”

  “I don't feel the same as I did—angry, bigger than myself. But I still believe the course I saw then is the right course.”

  “But you no longer have the power to pursue it.”

  “I never did. That was my mistake. I never did.”

  “And now?”

  “With these people, I think I can do it—though I may have to trick them.” He took her chin in his fingers and turned her face toward his. “Do you still fear me?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she replied, and kissed his fingers.

  Adrienne winced as the servants lowered her into the ornate, canopied bed. Her leg ached dully, and her breath came in shallow sips. She regretted, now, her insistence on riding the last mile—but she did not want to be in a litter when they reached the French town. She wanted to arrive with dignity.

  Instead, she had arrived to be reminded of what she was, what she had become—the series of linked sins that comprised her life.

  She remembered killing Newton, of course. Worse, she remembered the obscene joy of the moment, of finally having power—not the secret, conniving power women must wrest from the world but the might to do anything she pleased.

  Of course, that power was gone now.

  “Mademoiselle? Is it really you?”

  She blinked at her visitor through what must surely be tears of pain.

  “Orléans?”

  He coughed up a little laugh. “No, Demoiselle, I fear I am king now, much to everyone's horror.”

  “Your Majesty.” She made an effort to rise.

  “Heavens, my dear, no. Stay in bed.” He clasped his hands behind his back and attempted a smile.

  “If I may ask, Sire—is your wife—”

  “Yes, I knew you would ask that first. She is dead, I'm afraid. The plague took Paris even before the Russians did, and it took her with it. I know I wasn't much of a husband— she always felt she deserved better, and she was right. She—” His face screwed up in pain. He fought for control, and found it. “She always loved you. She urged us to find you, after that madman Torcy kidnapped you.”

  “That was kind of her.”

  “So, you see, I will deny you nothing. In memory of her and of my uncle the king, who also loved you.”

  She nodded carefully. Her memories of Louis XIV were less pleasant than her memories of the duchess of Orléans. “Thank you, Sire. I hope I can serve you.”

  “I'm sure you can. And now I must go.”

  But he turned and spoke once more before leaving. “Mademoiselle, it is good to see you. Few of that court you knew survive. It is good to be reminded of happier times.”

  When he was gone, she reflected that she wouldn't have thought of those times as happy. But she understood what he meant, and doubtless, for him, they had been the best of days.

  So this was what had become of France. It was fortunate that Philippe didn't know how large a part in creating his present state of affairs she had played, here and later in Russia.

  But she knew it, of course, and now she could no longer escape what she had done.

  * * *

  She was almost asleep when her next visitor arrived, scratching lightly at the door, as they used to do in Versailles.

  “Come in,” she said dully.

  It was Vasilisa Karevna. “We didn't have time to speak before,” the Russian said.

  “I'm glad to see you well, Vasilisa,” Adrienne replied, and found that she meant it. Even if she did not know where the other woman's loyalties lay, at least she was part of the present, and not the past.

  “And it is good to see you, Adrienne.”

  “Sit.”

  Karevna settled herself on a tabouret, as Adrienne dismissed the servants.

  “Chairete, Korai, Athenes therapainai,” Vasilisa intoned, once the girls were gone.

  “No,” Adrienne said. “Stop it. No more of that pathetic Ko-rai nonsense. I cannot bear it.”

  Vasilisa blanched, took a deep breath. “I understand your feelings, Adrienne, but this is the very moment our sisterhood was created for, the single most important thing we guard against. And of all who once belonged, you and I are the only ones of consequence who remain.”

  “The Korai were created to keep us in ignorance,” Adrienne said, “like everything that owes itself to the malakim.”

  “Surely, better ignorance
than death,” the Russian replied.

  Adrienne uttered a sharp laugh. “I could kill you for not having told me years ago. You knew all along, didn't you? That even the ‘friendly’ malakim have worked to keep us mired in superstition.”

  “I couldn't tell you. You were their greatest fear— even I am not sure why. You were somehow their greatest fear and their greatest hope all at once. Even your son, I think, is secondary to you in their schemes. The malfaiteurs always wished to kill you. Only those who befriended Lilith saved your life.”

  “Again we return to mythology,” Adrienne said, disgusted, though remembering the creature in the form of Nicolas and the name she claimed.

  “Mythology is nothing more than a way of hiding knowledge, of encrypting it so that the malfaiteurs do not detect it. Don't you understand that, after all these years? They help us as they can.”

  Adrienne waved her hand. “All this is moot, is it not? Whether there was a Lilith or an Athena, whether the friendly angels were ever really friendly. For, as I understand it, they are now long gone.”

  “They aren't gone. They lead the army.”

  “My point exactly.”

  “No. Their original policies prevailed in the Old World. All that remains is this new one, and if they win here, they might appease those who wish merely to see us all destroyed.”

  “So we either die or return to darkness.”

  “One is better than the other,” Vasilisa said hotly. “You are a fool if you think otherwise. Ask any mother, any yeoman farmer, whether they would rather have life, and family, and love—or books on the gravitation of the spheres. Do not confound your particular obsessions with what is truly important.”

  “And yet, as I understand, you labor here to stop the conquest of this New World.”

  “No. I labor to stop the end of the world. The best hope of that is that their army succeed. If it fails, they will use the engines and all will die.”

  “They have already used one. They sent it against us at New Moscow.”

  “Bozhe moi,” Vasilisa whispered. “We have even less time than I thought, then.”

  “Or less hope. I was communicating with one of your friendly angels, Vasilisa—he persuaded me to make this trek. He is dead, and none has come to replace him. Perhaps he was the only one.”