Newton's Cannon

by J. Gregory Keyes

  “It's true,” Bracewell replied.

  “You've been here this whole time?”

  “No, of course not. I only arrived a short time ago, really. Still, it has seemed quite a long time. I do hold grudges.”

  “You were trying to kill me.”

  “Yes, and you should have cooperated,” Bracewell replied.

  “My arm's getting tired,” Robert grunted.

  “I don't know who you are,” Stirling called to Robert, “but if you back out of the door and leave, no one will hinder you. Keep your gun.”

  Ben blinked and then tried to hold his face steady. Something was coming up the hall behind Stirling, something wavering, hard to focus upon.

  “Generous as a whore on Sunday, an't you?” Robert sneered.

  “We have to get them out of the doorway,” Stirling sighed. “Else Vasilisa will see—”

  Suddenly the atmosphere above Bracewell's head condensed, gathered substance, and a red flame lit within it as it darted toward the shimmering in the hall. Bracewell cried out, and his head snapped around to follow his familiar. Ben heard a hiss at his ear, screamed as flame licked his cheek. His voice was drowned by the air breaking, and smoke stole his vision.

  20.

  The Face of Thetis

  In the Grotto of Thetis, Adrienne met Torcy as if by accident, finding him already there as she escaped the fearsome eye of the sun into its cool interior. Aquamarine light rippled gently from the ceiling and floor, making it seem possible that this was the dwelling place of the sea goddess Thetis, mother of Achilles, comforter of the resting sun. Beneath three darker arches in the grotto, statues of the goddess and her nymphs clustered around the weary Apollo and his steeds.

  “Are you alone?” Torcy asked.

  “No. Nicolas is just outside, watching for us.”

  “Good. My own servants are at a discreet distance. Have you been in this grotto since its construction?”

  “No. It has only been finished for a month, and as you know, I have been otherwise occupied.”

  “This is the second Grotto of Thetis, you know. The first was torn down forty years ago to make way for the Northern wing.”

  “I don't believe I did know that,” she replied.

  “You should inspect it closely. You may not get another chance.”

  His words prickled in her ears, but she obeyed him and walked quietly over to the statues.

  Apollo was Louis, of course. The statue of Thetis bore her own face.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” Torcy said. “I asked you to meet me here to give you a last chance. I cannot have you failing at the crucial instant. You see how the king adores you? Can you still help slay him?”

  “I won't falter,” she answered. “I can't.”

  “Then we proceed,” Torcy said, “for your method worked.”

  “Worked? What do you mean?” But she already understood.

  “You knew I would test it,” Torcy replied quietly. “It was a mercy, really. Poor Martin was entirely mad. He had to be moved from his own shit—”

  “By God, tell me no more,” Adrienne snapped. She had never seen Martin and had tried not to think of him as a human being, and now she had killed him, a boy whose only crime had been to be ill at the wrong time.

  “Come. His suffering has ended. Ours has just begun.” He handed her a wrapped package. “This is the device,” he said. “Have a care with it: There is no time to build another.”

  “What night?” she asked instead.

  “Tomorrow night, I think. Nicolas will know to come for me when he arrives. You must wait—”

  “I know what to do,” she said.

  Back in her room, she unpacked the device in front of Crecy. “If something happens to me, you must know how to use it,” she explained.

  “It doesn't look like a weapon,” Crecy observed.

  It was a translucent crystal cube, impaled by a key. Inside, a few gears could be seen, along with a looped silver tube that also projected several inches from the surface. Near this was a hemispherical depression large enough to accommodate the small silver orb that rested nearby. This second piece had a diameter of perhaps an inch.

  “It's not a weapon exactly. It will neutralize the effects of the so-called elixir of life.”

  “So-called?”

  Adrienne nodded. “Given all of the effects of the elixir on body and soul, I expected a complex formula. Consider what it has done: It cured the king of advanced gangrene and the gout; it restored his eyesight; it protected him from incineration by a discharge of energy.”

  “Could not all of these things be accomplished by augmenting some natural healing virtue of the body?”

  “What I understand is that these results weren't caused by the direct action of the elixir, since it is composed of only two things: water and a fine suspension of philosopher's mercury.”

  Crecy stared at her for a moment. “I'm afraid I don't see the significance of that.”

  “Philosopher's mercury is highly resonant with aether. It mediates between physical vibrations and aetheric ones. It is the key element in the aetherschreiber, transforming the motions of the pen into aetheric vibrations and then back again.”

  Crecy nodded. “And if one ingests philosopher's mercury?”

  Adrienne held up her hands. “I would have predicted that it would pass through the system, but it remains lodged in the body. Or at least this was the case with Martin. The result, somehow, is that those who drink this potion become like the chime of an aetherschreiber.”

  “You mean to say— You mean that—”

  “The king has been healed by someone elsewhere, his body manipulated by something or someone else.”

  “Do you see who looks out of the king's eyes, whom he mutters to in the night, who sends him vigor when he should be dead?”

  “No. This is all a surprise to me.”

  “What my device does is to search out the harmonic upon which the king resonates and interrupt it.”

  “Thus cutting him off from this force that animates him?”

  “Yes. While he is thus separated, he is susceptible to ordinary means of—” She paused, her throat constricting, unwilling actually to pronounce the words.

  “I will do the killing,” Crecy promised. “I will not have you bloody your hands.”

  Adrienne laughed harshly. “My hands will never be clean, Veronique. The king is merely an epilogue to my novel of death. I will have murdered a million souls.”

  “Surely murder implies some intent,” Crecy protested.

  Adrienne flopped into a chair. “If I inadvertently brought about the death of a single person, you would admit that I must accept some fractional blame?”

  Crecy shrugged.

  “Let us be absurd,” Adrienne continued, “and assume that hell's tithe for such manslaughter is only a thousandth of what it exacts for a cold-blooded murder. A million such deaths still add up to the murder of a thousand innocents—not counting the men I slew in the forest.”

  Crecy shook her head wonderingly. “You are the only person I know who would resort to mathematics to enhance her sense of guilt. I bow to you: You are the queen of blame.”

  “I accept the title,” Adrienne said lightly. If her calculations were true, and she was already a killer many times over, then why did she feel so sickened at the prospect of killing the king?

  Because whatever sort of monster he was, he loved her and he trusted her. Was it possible that Crecy was right that “murder” was defined by premeditative choice?

  Then Fatio and the king were the guiltiest of all, for they had plotted to cause death on an unbelievable scale.

  Versailles grew more beautiful each day, Louis reflected. In the past months, Versailles had become as he had always envisioned it, the perfect palace of the sun. And in two days, the flaming chariot of the sun was coming, and it would deliver his name to the heavens. He would reign a hundred years, and no one would ever forget hi
m.

  And the angel had promised him he would have a new heir— his true child—a miracle and the lord of all that France should be.

  God had even given him a chance to smite his tormentor, Marlborough. In two days, Marlborough would know who was king of France, and he would despair.

  So Louis thought as he walked the deserted length of the Hall of Mirrors, where soon he would be made a husband again before all of the world, so all would know his child.

  He flushed, and passion stirred in him. His flesh began to ache for Adrienne's embrace, his heart for the adoration of her smile. Still, he was master of himself. He did not hurry his pace, but went circuitously to her rooms through the War chamber where his own statue rode horseback, through the chamber of Apollo. His passion and need grew as he toured the chambers of Mars, Mercury, and Venus before—at last—he took himself down the Marble Staircase to where Adrienne awaited.

  “Hello, my dear,” he said as he entered, posing to display his excellent calves and gracious bearing to their best advantage.

  “Sire,” she replied.

  “One last time you shall be my mistress, and after that only my queen.”

  She smiled at him, a glowing, brilliant smile, more dazzling than any lover he had ever had—yet somehow a combination of them all. Smiling tenderly, he began to undress her.

  It isn't real, Adrienne told herself, as the king undid her bodice. Tonight she prayed more desperately for unreality than ever. It was almost as if her lovemaking with Nicolas had cleansed her body so Louis could degrade it afresh. She tried to wrap herself in her accustomed numbness. She tried to review the plan in her head, but her thoughts would not stay focused. She cringed at the smoothness of the sheets, the touch of the king's fingers, his choking perfume. She remembered her first time in bed with him, the awe and terror, and it came again, redoubled.

  He disgusts me. I loathe him. He deserves to die. She needed anger, revulsion, pain, but she couldn't find them. As he moved upon her, she began to sob.

  Louis froze. His blind gaze sought hers in the lamplight, searching for something it could not see. His face was so old, so drawn, as ecstasy fled it and a troubled look replaced it. For the first time in her life she saw Louis as an old, sick man, as much a victim as she.

  No. He had doomed a million people.

  Or had he?

  “Adrienne? Are you weeping?”

  But now her mind had found a focus.

  “Adrienne, please,” the king begged.

  She sobbed, her body contorted by her grief, but her brain raced. The patterns of numbers and symbols burst into her mind fully formed.

  “There is still time,” she gasped.

  “Time? Time?”

  “My lord, it can be stopped. I can stop it.”

  He rose up above her, face puzzled.

  “A million people, my king. I know you as Maintenon knew you. Think, please. She could not have borne this. You cannot bear it, though you think you can.”

  “Who told you this?” he asked slowly. “Did that idiot Fatio tell you?”

  “No. No—”

  “You presume?” Louis shouted suddenly. He grabbed her roughly by the arm, and suddenly fear surged through her. His strength was not that of an eighty-two-year-old man; his fingers bit like iron.

  “Who betrayed me?”

  “Sire,” she moaned, reaching to touch his face, “listen to me.”

  He closed his eyes for a moment, and then he said, in a perfectly reasonable tone, “It will save France, Adrienne. That is all I care for.”

  “It will destroy France, Sire. This comet is far more powerful than you have been led to believe—”

  He snarled, tightening his grip again. “You presume too much, I say again! How dare you speak of these things!”

  He twisted her arm nearly out of its socket, and she screamed. His mouth opened in astonishment and dismay, and a tear started from his eye. “Mademoiselle, forgive me,” he whispered.

  Before she could reply, a red tongue licked out of the king's chest, wagged at her, and was gone. He croaked, then jerked his arms wildly, releasing her. She shrieked and propelled herself onto the marble floor.

  The king tried to reseize her, but Crecy, who stood behind him, sword in hand, ran him through again.

  “God damn your soul,” she swore.

  “Do not touch me!” He gasped, blood bubbling in his throat. “For the love of God keep back from me! I am the king! Guards!”

  “Adrienne!” Crecy snarled. “Your device!”

  But Adrienne was paralyzed. Blood was everywhere—in her hair, spattered on her breasts.

  “Mademoiselle!” Louis implored, reaching for her again. “Tell them I am the king!”

  Crecy slashed the back of Louis'neck, but her sword shattered.

  “Adrienne!” Crecy shouted. A black angel appeared, wrap ping the king in its wings. The window exploded, and through it blew a gale of smoke and dancing balls of flame. In their midst stood Gustavus, a hideous expression on his alabaster face, a kraftpistole clenched in either fist.

  21.

  Magus

  Ben clawed at the floor with his fingers, hoping somehow to dig into the earth itself. He thought he heard more gunfire, but one whole side of his head thudded.

  Trembling, he raised up his eyes. Robert was some ten feet away, back against a wall, his sword up. He seemed to be staring at him. One of the two men who had been with Bracewell lay on the floor, belly up, breath coming in choppy whistles, blowing bubbles of blood. The other man was still on his feet, a short, heavy sword in his hands. He held it shakily, pointed at a man Ben did not recognize.

  He was perhaps twenty years old. His face was sardonic, with a cleft and thrusting chin. His lips were thin, compressed in pain, and he was frowning. But his eyes smoldered with a fierce, even manic intelligence. Ben had seen those eyes before, that frown. He wore a scarlet coat and waistcoat; blood visible on his white shirt and cravat. He clutched his shoulder where his wound seemed to be, but remained on his feet, glaring at Stirling.

  “Don't move, Ben,” a ragged voice said. Ben turned.

  Bracewell was on the floor, back propped against the wall. One hand was pressed against his sternum, blood streaming between his fingers. His metal hand held a pistol less than a foot from Ben's nose, hammer cocked. Bracewell's eyelids fluttered in pain, but they never narrowed farther than to slits.

  “What now?” Ben asked him quietly.

  “Now? Now?” Bracewell panted. He frowned as if that were the most perplexing question in the world.

  “Close that door,” Stirling ordered.

  “I'll cut down the first man who comes near the door,” Robert snapped.

  Stirling looked confused. His pistol was trained on the redclad newcomer, who, despite his wound and lack of weapons, somehow seemed capable of doing damage.

  Ben realized that Bracewell's familiar was nowhere to be seen. He also wondered what had happened to the wheezing man, whose wound was much too large to have been made by Robert's pistol.

  “Close the door, Guillaume,” Stirling repeated. Guillaume, apparently Bracewell's man, looked doubtfully at the tip of Rob-ert's sword.

  “No,” Guillaume said. “I don't think I will. You have the pistol—you deal with him.”

  Suddenly, Stirling struck the red-clad man in the face with the butt of his pistol. The fellow gasped, head slamming against the wall. Blood started from his nose.

  “Who the hell are you?” Stirling demanded, a tinge of hysteria in his voice. Ben suspected that some part of Stirling knew, just as he did, exactly who the man was.

  “Close the door, or I'll kill Ben,” Bracewell gurgled, blood leaking out of his mouth.

  “Ben,” Robert said, “his pistol is empty.”

  Bracewell's eyebrows went up as he and Ben simultaneously glanced at the empty powder pan. Bracewell cursed and swung the barrel at Ben's face. The pain was brilliant, like fireworks exploding. Ben hit Bracewell hard in the face. He s
wung again and again, as Bracewell squirmed, arms up to fend off the blows. Ben fell against him, and now they were hammering their forearms and elbows together in an attempt to hit each other. Bracewell was wounded, damn him. The pain in Ben's hands was severe, but he didn't care if he smashed all of his fingers—this was Bracewell, his nightmare, his brother's murderer. Suddenly, he found that he had hold of an ear, and he yanked and yanked.

  And then a blow from nowhere, driving into his belly. His body no longer obeyed him, trying to curl up into a ball, and a steel claw was fastened on his neck, starting to cut through. All he could see was Bracewell's face, nose bleeding, eyepatch ripped away to reveal an empty, whitened socket, his other eye a hellish flame of malice. Then half Bracewell's head was gone, and Ben was falling, the claw still around his throat.

  He tore it away frantically, and kicked across the floor. Wiping blood and brains from his face, sobbing and gasping for air, Ben tasted the gore on his lips and was violently sick.

  When next he lifted his head, it was to meet Vasilisa's concerned gaze.

  “God damn you, Stirling,” Heath said, holding a rag to the oozing wound on his forehead. “Why?”

  Heath and Voltaire had both been found bound and gagged in the orrery room. The Frenchman had some cuts and scrapes, but Heath had received a nasty blow to the head.

  Stirling didn't answer but glared defiantly at them. His hands were tied behind his chair, and two of Vasilisa's guards stood nearby armed with pistols. Vasilisa was playing surgeon to the man in the red coat who lay on the table of the meeting room. She had just dug the ball out of his shoulder and was now bandaging the cauterized wound.