The Shadows of God

by J. Gregory Keyes

  The second volley followed without respite. Oglethorpe could see the gunners now, crouched behind their weapons. Closer, closer, and he could almost reach them with the point of his sword—

  Brass cymbals crashed around him, and he was on his back. But not still, no —his foot was caught in the stirrup, his horse dragging him along.

  For a second or two. Then the poor beast vanished in a cloud of blood.

  His body was numb, and for all he knew he was dying already, but he was damn sure taking one or two of these bastards with him. He couldn't see a god-rotted thing, either, for the cloud of gunsmoke in the still, hot air. But that could work for him as much as against him.

  His pistols had been on his horse, and they were spent anyway. Whisking out his saber, he crept along the ground until he saw booted feet.

  He stood and swung, and a young man's surprised face leapt, along with the rest of his head, from its neck. If he made a sound, it didn't carry over the battlefield clamor. A yard away, another fellow in a green coat, plug bayonet fixed and staring someplace behind Oglethorpe, seemed oblivious of his presence. Oglethorpe cut him down like a sapling, and it was only then, as the guns spoke again, that he understood his horse had dragged him right into the line itself, and he had gotten turned around. To his left was a cannon, and to the right a kraftcannon.

  The first of the carabiners guarding the kraftcannon died without noticing him, but the second managed to fire his weapon. Oglethorpe felt the powder sting his face, but that was all, and then he hacked the fellow's hand off.

  Something bumped into his back. He whirled—and found Tomochichi there, a bloody tomahawk in his hand, a fierce grin on his seamed face. Satisfied, Oglethorpe put his back to the Indian, unworried about that quarter for the nonce.

  The kraftcannon was mostly a bar of iron six feet long, ground to a point on the business end and light enough to be mounted on a swivel, like a murder gun on a ship. Grimly, he swung it east, so it faced straight up the line of artillery. The carabiners at the next gun noticed him at about that time, but all but one of them was reloading. That one fired.

  So did Oglethorpe. The lightninglike bolt jagged into the next cannon and then straight on to the next, and the men manning them danced the Saint Vitus dance and died.

  Someone kicked him in the back, and for an instant he was angry with Tomochichi—why had his friend struck him so? But then the two of them fell, and when he rolled over, he saw that a bullet had gone all the way through the Yamacraw chief ‘s belly to hit him in the back. The old man reached out and gripped his arm and moved his lips, but Oglethorpe could not, of course, hear anything. He noted absently that they were surrounded by men now, and also that three fingers from his own left hand were missing.

  Shielding Tomochichi's body with his own, he turned to face his doom with eyes open.

  “We have to get him out of there,” Franklin said. “Most of what we need is in the hold.”

  “It's too late,” Adrienne murmured, looking down at the vortices rising toward them. “They've released the mines.”

  “Mines?”

  “The Russians took a page from your book, Mr. Franklin,” she answered. “The mines are spheres, such as those which lift the airships. They rise under their own power, bearing explosives with them. These have probably been taught to seek the emanations of your aegis.”

  “I have a countermeasure for that,” Franklin grunted, “but it's up there with Sterne.”

  “We have less than a minute, I would guess.”

  “Why not just use the exorcister?”

  Adrienne shook her head again. “If they start to fall, they detonate. As I understand your device, its range is too short, for the explosive is hydrogen.”

  Vasilisa cut in. “Can't you stop them, Adrienne? You know the art of unmaking those spheres.”

  “Certainly. But I need malakim servants, of which I have none.” She continued to watch death rise toward them.

  “Red Shoes?” Franklin shouted. “Red Shoes?”

  The Indian sat, rather stupidly, as his woman, Grief, wrapped bandages around his head.

  “I—” he said, looking confused. Then his eyes focused. “I can help. Mademoiselle, do you think you might control my shadowchildren, as you did the malakim?”

  “I can try.”

  “Take them, then. I give them to you.”

  She turned the sight of her manus oculatus toward the Indian, saw his shadowchildren around him. They were simpler than the malakim. They had a certain furious quality to them, like distilled anger. She reached for them, prodding them with the aetherial reach of her fingers, learning them.

  “I can see ‘em.” Robert grunted. “Little red dots, gettin’ bigger.”

  Teach them, she heard Red Shoes say, through his children. Or help me teach them.

  When the malakim spoke, it was always in her own voice. Now, as Red Shoes spoke through his shadowchildren, it was still in her voice, which was somehow even stranger.

  Adrienne read the patterns of affinities in the rising spheres, then made the corrections to dissolve them, and laid it all out. Her own malakim would have understood—but the Indian did not know much mathematics. Would it appear to him in some form he could understand?

  It did, and it came back to her. For him it was like taste or smell—a sensation with many layers of complexity. And he would teach this to his shadowchildren—

  “Real close now,” Robert said.

  And then they had it. The shadowchildren dropped like little hawks, dragging talons of force through the spheres, unmaking them. The malakim inside sighed free, and the bombs, no longer held aloft, fell. But not far, and then the sky was white-hot flame, and the Lightning bucked like a skiff on rough seas.

  And just behind the bombs came a swarm of malakim, eagles tearing into those little hawks, and she and Red Shoes were suddenly caught in an otherworld war of a very different sort. And behind it all, she could feel the strength of her son growing, the line between them tightening, a Jacob's ladder for his servants to climb.

  And there were more bombs on the way now.

  “Best find your countermeasures,” she managed. “Red Shoes and I will be busy for a time.”

  Franklin could already see that, in the way they both stared off into space, watching things he could not—probably did not want to —see.

  That meant, too, that Red Shoes would not be able to perform one of his little miracles and kill Sterne through the steel hull.

  So be it. Despite Tug's warning, someone had to go up through the hatch.

  Tug himself was slumped on the floor, as Grief moved on to doctor him. Robert was wounded, and Don Pedro—

  Don Pedro was going up the ladder.

  Franklin's warning caught in his throat—if he shouted it would only warn Sterne.

  Instead he drew his sword and leapt up the ladder after the Apalachee. Now that his mind was slightly clearer, he knew it wouldn't do to go firing into a hold full of munitions.

  Don Pedro banged the hatch, but it only gave an inch or so.

  “He must have piled things upon it,” Franklin said.

  “Very well,” Don Pedro said. “But there is another hatch on top of the ship, yes?”

  “What a blockhead I am! Of course there is!”

  “And we get to it how?”

  “Go out the front of the cabin and climb, I suppose.”

  “I go, then,” he said. He hurried to the front, past the dead form of Flint Shouting. The glass there was on hinges, and it swung inward. He looked around, positioned himself on the prow, and leapt up.

  Franklin followed. By the time he got there, the Apa-lachee's moccasins were vanishing over the top. Swearing, Franklin went up the rungs.

  Outside was strange. The aegis bent light and matter, but not perfectly. Being within its protection was like being in a prism, everything tinted rainbow—the sky, the clouds, the distant, maplike earth. He was actually grateful, for it disguised, in some measure, the reality of
the fall awaiting him if he slipped.

  In some small measure, he reflected, looking down again.

  He came over onto the top of the ship just in time to see Don Pedro lift the upper hatch and a funnel of flame leap out. The Don had been careful, but not careful enough. Though he wasn't caught in the flame itself, the superheated air scorched him, and he fell, clutching his eyes.

  “Don't roll!” Ben shouted. “You'll fall over!” He ran to help the Apalachee.

  At which point Sterne emerged, grinning like death, a glowing red orb floating above his head.

  “Well, Mr. Franklin,” he said. “It looks like just the two of us, doesn't it?”

  “My friends will be here in a second.”

  “Maybe they will. But you shall be dead.” And he raised a gun with his left hand.

  Oglethorpe blinked at the men standing over him.

  They were Commonwealth.

  “General?” A youth with a shock of nearly orange hair sticking out from under his cap knelt next to him.

  “We've taken the artillery line?”

  “Yes, sir, we have. The wing ships rifted it a little farther down, so we managed to cut through and come about.”

  “Thank God.”

  He sat up and turned back to Tomochichi. “Did you hear that, chief?”

  But the chief of the Yamacraw was listening beyond the world, not in it. His days, as he might say, were all broken. Oglethorpe kissed the old man on the head and reached to close the open lids. He had to switch hands to do it.

  “You're hurt, sir,” one of the rangers said.

  “Yes, my hand …” He looked again at the bloody stumps of the digits, wondering exactly when he had lost them.

  He examined the rest of his body. The shot that had come through Tomochichi had been stopped by his cuirass, though his back throbbed like the devil. To his surprise, he also found that something had left a neat hole through the meaty part of his thigh, but fortunately missed the bone.

  “We're sending you back to the surgeon, sir,” the ranger said. “We'll carry on, never you fear.”

  “I shan't fear, for I shall be there to see it. Is there one horse left amongst us?”

  “Sir—”

  “Now. I mean it.”

  “We'll find you one, General.”

  Sterne raised the weapon he held. Franklin's heart did a flip flop when he saw it.

  “You don't even know what you have there,” he said.

  “I'll take my chances,” Sterne replied. “Did you invent it?”

  “Indeed I did.”

  “Well, consider this a compliment, then. I trust your abilities enough to be certain that whatever this is, it will kill you quite dead.”

  “It won't,” Franklin said, drawing his sword. “It might hurt you though.”

  Sterne laughed. “Well played, Mr. Franklin.” And he pulled the trigger.

  Franklin had always wondered what the depneumifier would do to a warlock. He finally got a chance to see.

  What happened was Sterne's eyes went wide, and he dropped the weapon. The malakus above him flashed a bluish green color; and Sterne screamed, a quite unholy sound, and clapped his hands to his ears. Franklin leapt forward, sword extended. After all, there had to be differences in the natural articulator of a warlock and the devised ones the devil gun was designed to work on.

  There were; even through his pain, Sterne was not yet licked. His blade was out and parrying before Franklin got there. Franklin couldn't really fence—he had only played at it a bit with Robert and wore the sword more for show than for anything else. If he really had to tangle with the man, he was done. But Sterne was clearly in pain, and this was his only chance. The others were counting on him.

  So instead of backing up and trading blows, Franklin continued to rush forward so that their blades locked at the guards, and brought his good left fist up into Sterne's jaw with every ounce of strength he owned.

  If felt like he'd broken his hand. The warlock's teeth clicked together, and he nearly fell; but he still shoved Franklin back with superhuman strength. Franklin teetered a foot from the edge of the deck, desperately trying to set his stance, as Sterne lunged deep and long, straight for Franklin's heart. Without even thinking, Franklin stuck his own arm out straight.

  And stared. His blade was buried four inches in the war-lock's breast. In his heart. Better yet, Franklin himself had not been pierced—the warlock had pulled his own weapon back to parry the counterattack, at the last instant and too late.

  Sterne stared, too. “How stupid …” he began. “Why would anyone make such a stupid counterattack?” He looked up at Franklin, down at the sword still clutched in his hand, picked up the point to run Franklin through in turn.

  Franklin let go of the hilt and sidestepped. The warlock fell, body jerking weirdly.

  “I don't know how to fence, sir,” Franklin replied.

  “Ah,” Sterne replied, and died.

  Don Pedro had regained his feet, and by the look of him, his vision.

  “Well done, Señor,” he said. “The ‘parry of two widows.’ Only a madman would use it and hope to live. Wonderful.”

  “Th-thank you,” Franklin stuttered.

  “Shall I run him through again, to be certain?”

  Sterne wasn't moving at all, now.

  “Yes,” Franklin replied.

  Don Pedro nodded and stepped up to do so, when suddenly the ship bucked like a wild horse, and the deck slipped from beneath their feet.

  Oglethorpe reckoned he had lost more than half his troops, but breaking the artillery had put a fire in them the like of which he had never seen in fighting men. They fought like devils; and many of their opponents, perhaps sensing that they had wakened something terrible, fell back.

  He reserved his feeling of triumph, however, as they closed the distance. Too many important questions were unanswered. Were the ships still there? Had Franklin and the rest done their job? Or would they arrive to discover it was all for nothing?

  Of course, it wasn't—whatever happened, by God, they had stung this enemy. 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.

  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 cl
ambered 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.

  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 Shoes 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.”

  “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 …”