But Tug did notice one thing—strong as the Indian was, he still didn't weigh all that much. So he picked him up and slammed his head into the steel ceiling. The scalped man's eyes went wide. And Tug did it again, and that damned bald head split just like a cushaw.
Good thing, too, because his legs were about done. He dropped the scalped man and sank slowly against the wall. He hoped someone would tell Red Shoes what he had done and that the Indian would be proud of him.
“You can't win. You know that,” Oliver said.
Not a blow had been struck, yet. They inched back and forth, just out of distance of each other.
“Do I, Oliver? Then why do you imagine I bother?”
“Love, of course. You were always an idiot when you were in love.”
“I love her, true.”
“As true as you loved me? And see—you try to kill me.”
“Because you never loved me.”
“You think she does?” He edged closer. She backed away.
“I think she does. But it also doesn't matter. Besides, you killed Hercule, a friend of mine.”
“I think you still love me.”
“Yes, of course I do, Oliver. Why not come get a kiss to prove it?”
“I wish I could. But you are being extraordinarily unreasonable these days. What of our wild, dark times? That tinkerer in ‘Stanbul, the German prince in Liepzig, the notes we stole from beneath Newton's very nose?”
“I value them. They taught me what I don't want to be.”
“And what would you be?”
“I would be the one who kills you.”
And then she saw he was as close as he wanted to be, and he struck.
They had slipped less than a mile west of the battlefield as they fell, so Franklin didn't have to run far before he encountered members of the fleeing armies.
Unfortunately, even running, some of them still had it in their heads that they ought to be fighting. He could hear sparse gunfire everywhere, even above the moaning of the hell wind. The pines creaked, and the crackle of lightning filled the sky. A hawk-faced warrior, eyes wild, ran within twenty yards of him, raised his gun, fired, and kept running, without waiting to see if his bullet sped home.
It didn't. Franklin had turned his aegis off so he could see better, but the bullet lodged in the ground a yard from his feet.
He kept running, shouting Lenka's name at the top of his lungs. At times the sheer futility of it nearly stopped him, but he drove himself on, cursing.
She was with the French, that was what Voltaire had told Nairne. With the French. And Voltaire had gone after her, so maybe if he found Voltaire …
He reached a stream clogged with bodies, crossed it on the backs of the dead, his voice growing hoarse as he added the French philosopher's name, until at last he came over a low rise to more concentrated gunfire. There he saw a ragged line of men—French, Commonwealth, Indian—ranged along another stream, firing into the woods beyond. When he approached, some turned their weapons on him, but at least one of them recognized him and told his fellows to hold their fire. He ran up and down the line, calling for Lenka and Voltaire, heedless of the steady gunfire.
“Franklin?”
He was fortunate to hear the voice, barely louder than a frog's croaking. A figure sat folded against a tree, a man so crusted in gore it took Franklin several pulses to recognize Oglethorpe.
“General!”
“Mr. Franklin?” He sounded distinctly puzzled.
“I'm looking for my wife. For Lenka. Or Voltaire, the Frenchman.”
“First we all ran,” Oglethorpe told him, “and then they began to fight again. They must be mad. Look!” He pointed west, toward something Franklin could not see—the engine, no doubt. “It's coming for us all, and they keep shooting at us.”
“She might be with the French.”
“Eh?” Oglethorpe muttered. “The French were that way, last I knew. But I don't know anything.” He gestured vaguely north.
Franklin left the general and ran north, shouting, lungs burning.
He ran until his shoulder exploded, spattering his face with blood, and he fell like a man slipping on ice. And it hurt, Lord of Hosts, it hurt! He fumbled at his weapon, barely aware that he was still calling his wife's name.
A young fellow in a green uniform stood some thirty feet away. He was frantically trying to work his plug bayonet into its socket.
Franklin gave up on the gun and started trying to get his aegis key back in. The man, bayonet finally set, stumbled toward him.
“I would not go so far as to say you won,” said someone new. The illusory world rippled, became vortices and figures again before a new dream asserted itself.
Adrienne stood in the broken grotto of Thetis, on the grounds of long-lost Versailles. In it were statues of Apollo and Thetis, carved as Louis XIV had commissioned them— Thetis had her face, Apollo had his. Thetis was missing a hand, the one Adrienne, in her dream, had taken and made her own.
Red Shoes—Metatron, whatever he was—appeared as an ornate sea monster plated with dulled silver and lapis scales. “You?” He snarled, steam puffing from brass nostrils.
“Yes,” said the statue of Apollo, its marble lips moving but its eyes still fixed, still those of dead Louis.
“Sophia?” Adrienne asked.
“As he said, just a name. I am no more Sophia or Lilith than he is Jehovah. We are simply—the first. Those from which all others were born.”
“You were dead,” Metatron protested. “My children scoured the universe in search of you. You were not in it.”
The statue stood, became Crecy, Hercule, Nicolas, and finally—Leonhard Euler. “Yes,” Euler said. “I found a way— the philosopher Swedenborg, you know—when he made the dark engines, he made other things. And his student Euler— one of my children—we found a way together, to make me clay. To remove me from that place where we dwell. To render me mortal, and thus invisible to your children.”
“You sacrificed—you clothed yourself in matter?”
“To defeat you, yes.”
“Why? Why now, when things can finally be as they ought to be? When we at last have the power not only to rid ourselves of these pests and reclaim our stolen children but to break our very bonds?”
Euler laughed. “Now suddenly you believe again? If so, you know things are as they ought to be. Now you provoke change, and so change must happen. But not as you wish. Never that.”
“What can you do? I see you now. You have no power over me—you gave that up, to hide yourself.”
“I don't need power. Adrienne has it.”
“She has only what we gave her. Everything she has ever done came from us. You gave her the hand.” Metatron had become Red Shoes again, though this time dressed in the ridiculous finery that had once passed for “Indian” costume at the fetes of Versailles.
“Did I?”
“What do you mean?” It seemed to Adrienne that a certain wariness crept into Metatron's voice.
“Do you know, Adrienne?” the form of Euler asked.
“No. I thought … Uriel—you—gave me my hand, so …”
“No, think. You knew better once. For a moment. I tricked you into forgetting. At the time, I hoped it would never come to this.”
And then Adrienne did remember— everything she had glimpsed—and it all made sense.
“I made it,” she said.
“Yes. We don't know how. You made your son, too. I had no part in either.”
“Impossible,” Metatron said.
“Perhaps. But it is so.”
“Enough!” With a sudden extension, the figure of Red Shoes became the serpent wrapped around the world, whipping out. The monochord whined in protest.
But Adrienne's vision was racing ahead, now, the secret knots that bind the world unraveling before her eyes, showing her everything she needed to know. She gripped Nico's hand tighter.
“My son …”
“I see it all now, Mother,” Nicol
as said. “I see what you must do. What we must do.”
She was trembling violently. “I can't.”
“You must,” Sophia whispered, Euler whispered. “He will end it all if you don't— destroy creation. You must.”
“But it will kill my son.”
“Yes.”
Nico looked up at her, and suddenly he was not the child she had nursed but the Sun Boy, twelve years old, the same little smile on his face.
“They used me,” he said. “They took me from you and then lied about it. I don't care for that. So never fear, Mother, I shall start it.”
“Nico —” But then he yanked, and her own hand responded, and together they pulled.
And the universe shrieked a different note.
Oliver struck, his blade moving almost too quickly to see.
Almost. Crecy parried and sidestepped. Her parry was fast, and she feinted a fast cut, but her actual riposte was so slow a child could have dealt with it.
A child, but not Oliver. His speeding reflexes overlooked her laconic thrust as a real attack until it had buried itself in his forearm. He jerked in shock, not quite dropping his weapon. In that pause, Crecy changed tempo again, cutting with all the celerity she could muster.
He almost parried it anyway. There sounded the faintest belling of steel on steel, and then her blade bit through his collarbone, heart, and five ribs. She let go of the hilt and leapt away from him—needlessly. He dropped his own blade and tried to hold himself together by grabbing his shoulder.
“You're right, Oliver,” Crecy said, softly. “You are faster than me and stronger than me. But I am better than you.”
Oliver managed a weird little smile and a nod. His malakus appeared, twisted, and then went out as God seemed to blink. Panting, she stared around the room, which seemed somehow alien, as if she had never been there before. The opposite of déjà vu.
She shook the feeling, but things had changed. Oliver, still staring at her, fell forward on his face. The bald Indian and Tug lay in a very large pool of blood. Something had happened to Euler, too, for he lay on the floor, eyes closed. The Sun Boy stood where he had, rigid. His face was sweet, boyish.
He had no eyes. She reached to touch him and found his flesh had a texture somewhat like porcelain.
Adrienne, thank whatever gods might be, seemed unhurt, breathing normally. When Crecy patted her cheek, her eyes came slowly open.
* * *
Adrienne awoke, as she so often did, to Crecy's con cerned face.
“Veronique,” she said. “We still live.”
“Some of us do.”
“How is it—how—” Her right hand felt odd, heavy. She lifted it, and found she could not move the fingers.
“What?” And then she remembered. “Nicolas!”
“No,” Crecy said, placing her hands on her shoulder. “Do not. Somehow they—”
“No. We did it. It was my choice. I knew it would happen.”
“Knew what would happen? Adrienne, what did you do?”
She looked at her friend. “I destroyed the world,” she replied. “I destroyed—” And then a fist seemed to close on her heart, and at first she thought she was dying, as if her insides were cold-hammered iron made suddenly molten hot by the alchemy of a new world. She clutched at Crecy, buried her face on her friend's bloody shoulder, and cried. She cried for a very long time as the iron melted, and Crecy made soothing sounds and told her that she loved her, that everything would be all right.
A puff of smoke appeared on the soldier's chest and he threw up his hands, tripped back a few steps, and fell.
“Ben?” someone said.
He turned groggily. “I was looking for you,” he said stupidly. “I was looking for you.”
Lenka knelt by him. She wasn't wearing a hat, and her long brown hair, matted with mud, trailed down the front of her justaucorps. But her face was Lenka's face, her voice Lenka's voice.
“Listen,” he said. “Listen—I love you, and I—”
“No time for that,” she said. “Come on, we have to go. That thing is—” She broke off, staring someplace beyond him. He turned to follow her gaze.
The farthest trees were missing. They had been there a moment ago. And it was hot, incredibly hot, like standing in front of an alchemical furnace at its highest pitch. As he watched, more trees vanished, and beyond was nothing but a black wall.
Lenka yanked frantically at him, and together they got him to his feet.
“I love you,” he repeated.
“I love you, too, you great, thick idiot,” she said.
They made it a few steps, but she wasn't strong enough to hold him up, and his legs weren't working. They collapsed together, breathing hard.
“Go on,” he said. “Kiss me and go on.”
“You fool,” she said, and sat down by him. She took his hand, and they watched the black wall approach. It was hard to breathe and very, very hot.
And then, as they watched and gripped their fingers tighter, the darkness paused, and the wind died, and the trees stopped disappearing; and aside from the occasional gunshot in the distance, all was quiet.
They were still there an hour later, though Lenka had bandaged his shoulder with a piece of his torn shirt. Through the trees, the western sky was as orange as bricks in a kiln, illuminating a featureless wasteland that resembled black snow.
Night birds welcomed the moon. All but the most distant gunfire had stopped.
“Can you walk?” Lenka asked him.
“I can try.” He struggled up under her supporting arm, and together they limped along, this time with more help from him.
“Embarrassing,” he said. “I meant to rescue you.”
“Well, I can't mislike your intentions. Your part in things must have gone well.”
“I suppose, seeing as how the engine stopped. I left before things were completed.”
“To look for me?”
“Yes. I was … worried about you.”
“And as you see, you had no cause to worry. Is that all there was to it?”
“You know better, I think. I hope you do.”
She sighed. “Maybe I do, Benjamin, and maybe I don't.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I didn't put on this uniform to make you come after me or to punish you—but because it needed doing. I did not do it for your attention, and I will not do this sort of thing to try to catch your attention in the future. It must merely be me, Benjamin, that attracts you. Not my life in danger, not because you think I need you—but because you love me. If it can't be so, it can't, and I think I had best seek my own way.”
Franklin digested that a bit. “It may be we married too young,” he said at last. “A man is always wont to think that the best valley is over the next hill. Old men know better, I think, and remember the places where they ought to have rested. I've been foolish, Lenka. In all of the world there is no woman like you, nor ever will be. I doubted my luck. How could I have found the best so early? And yet ‘tis so. And I'm a bit lazy, too —I think once the garden is planted, it ought to grow again the next year without tilling, and—”
“Enough!” Lenka said. “Did you rehearse this?”
“Of course.”
“Just tell me you will treat me better and mean it.”
“I will treat you better.”
“I accept your word.”
“Good, for—” He stopped when she placed her hand over his mouth, he thought perhaps, to further hush him with a kiss. But then he, too, heard the voices approaching.
They hid behind a tree and waited, until they made out a few words in French. There, in the dim light, was King Philippe and twenty carabiners.
“By God, it is Benjamin Franklin,” the king said when they stepped forward. “Our wizard lives.” “I am honored His Majesty was so concerned,” Franklin replied. Philippe smiled. “I am concerned, dear sir, for you have my bottle of cognac. Is it with you, perchance?”
* * *
Red Shoes howled as his body stret
ched, as the sky receded and the Earth below tugged savagely at him. He exerted every ounce of his will and instinct to pull himself back together.
To no avail. Like a rotten cord, he snapped, and everything that was in him spurted out into the strange new air. He had wanted to end time, but time had ended him. He screamed his anger to the dispassionate stars as the serpent transfigured. He fell into wet, muddy darkness.
He lay there for a long time, twitching like a frog without its skin, gathering what was left of himself.
He was not alone. All around him shapes shifted restlessly, squirmed and squished against him in the mud. For ages, that was all that happened, until high above a light appeared. It hurt his eyes, burned his flesh.
But all around him, creatures made of mud began to struggle toward the light, like moths. Slowly, with aching pain and grief, they began to climb.
He commanded his spent body into motion.
How long the climb took he did not know, and it did not matter. But when they emerged it was into a world of light, to a hot sun beating down, and, like his brothers, he lay in the heat of Hashtali's eye, and slept. In his sleep, his skin dried, thickened, hardened as clay does in the fire. And when he awoke, it was to struggle again, to break the clay that entombed him, and to crawl, with blinking eyes, and finally stand, a man.
Thus we were born. Thus I am reborn, he thought.
He looked once more at the hole from which he had come and then, on legs as fresh and clean as the limbs of a new-molted cicada, still damp with the waters of the underworld, he walked away.
And his brothers, similarly new, went, too, each in a different direction.
Philippe raised his glass of cognac. “To King Charles XII of Sweden and Tsar Peter of Russia,” he said solemnly. “Though none of us reached our goal, they came closest in spirit.”
Ben clinked his own glass against James Oglethorpe's, then Nairne's, then Robert's, then Unoka's. He drank the amber fluid and found it both too strong and too sweet for his taste.
A faint breeze stirred the dust, and a black fog rose about their feet. Nothing remained of the ships, of the forest, the Taensa village, or the men and horses who had died here. Only dust, and the Earth itself.
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