The Shadows of God (40 page)

“By God, it is Benjamin Franklin,” the king said when they stepped forward.

“Our wizard lives.”

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“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 stretched, 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 Heating 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.

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And his brothers, similarly new, went, too, each in a different direction.

18.

Cognac and Consequences

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.

But above was a blue sky, and in the distance, trees and birdsong.

A black film settled on the surface of the brandy, but Ben raised his glass again. “To those gone and those who survive,” he said. “For their sakes, may we treat this new world more wisely than the old.”

“Hear, hear,” Philippe approved, and they drank again.

When the round was done, they contemplated one another for a moment.

“What now, Mr. Franklin? Tell us about this New World. Are we dead? Has the THE SHADOWS OF GOD

reign of Christ begun?”

Ben hesitated, toying with the empty glass. “I don’t understand much of it myself,” he admitted. “It is as strange a thing to me as to anyone—with the possible exception of Mademoiselle de Montchevreuil, to whom we should also drink a health. Where is she, by the way?”

“She was invited,” the king replied, “but begged to be excused. She seems much weakened by her ordeal. The same of our friend Red Shoes. But here.

Mr. Franklin—we will accept your best explanation of our deliverance, and you may amend it later as you learn more.“

With that proviso, Ben nodded. “The world has been changed. It is not the change foretold in Revelations, I think we can all agree. It is something much more subtle than that. Of certain facts we are already aware—the laws of science are not exactly as we knew diem.
Kraftpistoles
no longer work, nor do lanthorns, nor aetherschreibers, nor most alchemical devices. In terms of invention, we are set back to the year 1681, when Newton discovered the philosopher’s mercury. Matter and aether are no longer pliant to our will.”

“We might consider that a blessing,” Oglethorpe remarked.

“We must consider it so, for it is fact. What we do know is that the malakim are either destroyed —unable to exist—or so far removed from us as to no longer threaten our welfare. That, in itself, is worth the loss of the conveniences we have learned to live with.”

“I spoke more simply,” Oglethorpe said. “Gunpowder and bayonets work as well as they ever did, and are still terrible things. But the carnage they wreak is of a small sort compared to the arms we wielded in this battle. We are protected from ourselves, as well as from the malakim.”

“But who knows whether the laws of nature that rule now will allow even more terrible ones?” Thomas Nairne said.

“There is that possibility,” Ben replied, “though we can be optimistic that we have learned our lesson.”

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“Unless the laws that govern Man’s nature have changed, I rather doubt that,”

Philippe replied, “but I will try to be optimistic with the rest of you.”

“We shall see it put to the test,” Oglethorpe said. “The Pretender still sits on his throne in Charles Town, and Russia is surely is in chaos. There is still work to do.”

“But surely we can rest,” Philippe said. “Your men are welcome to stay here and grow strong, and from what I understand, the Pretender’s throne is an unsteady one. Without his underwater boats and flying ships and mechanical men, things will go harder for him.”

“No doubt,” Oglethorpe said. “But I, for one, cannot rest long. Azilia needs all of her sons, and I will soon return.”

“Apalachee the same,” Don Pedro replied. “But we have conquered the forces of Satan, my friends, and after that all things are easy.”

“And you, Mr. Franklin?”

Ben considered that. “I have a new world to explore,” he said. “Natural laws have changed, but they cannot have changed much. The Earth still spins about the Sun, fire still burns in the hearth. I note with interest that when my gravity-repelling devices ceased to function in the Swedenborgian airships, still those ships merely glided to the ground. There is much to explore here. But it will all be worthless if we do not learn to behave better. General Oglethorpe is correct in that. I would see the world free of tyranny. I would see peace. I will work toward that first, and to the unity of our allied nations.”

“A toast to peace,” Nairne proclaimed, and again they filled their glasses and drank. That was the end of the cognac.

Philippe regarded the empty bottle dolefully. “We might say that that was what remained of old France,” he said softly. “I think, now, that we need a new one.

Not a new bottle, but a new France. Mr. Franklin, you said you wished to rid the world of tyranny. I wonder if you would be interested in ridding France of her king?”

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“What do you mean, Your Majesty?”

“Even when I was the duke of Orleans, I had sympathy for the republican qualities of England. The crown has never sat easily on my head, and with the passing of Charles and Peter, all of the great old monarchies are dead. Yes, the Chinese still have their emperor and the Turks their sultan, but it is best to admit that the age of kings is past, I think. I should like to design a better system of government, but as my late wife was wont to point out, I am not a brilliant man. I shall need help.”

“I should be honored to help,” Ben replied. “But this is an unknown country for us all. We should proceed with caution.”

“Ha!” Oglethorpe replied. “It was not caution that won us the day here. We must be bold. We must declare our intentions.”

“I’m glad to hear you say that,” Ben replied. “For it is just that about which I’ve asked Monsieur Voltaire to speak to us a few days hence.” He rose. “And now, gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I wish to see my wife.”

* * *

“What was it all for, Veronique?” Adrienne asked, watching the sea birds wheel. “Nicolas, Hercule, my son—what did they give their lives for?”

“Why—for all this,” Crecy replied, sweeping one hand to the horizon.

Adrienne rubbed her cold, stonelike hand. “Yes. It is beautiful, isn’t it? I suppose that in time I will understand.” —

“I think you already do. Your own sacrifices prove that.”

Adrienne looked up in surprise.
“My
sacrifices? What were they? I didn’t make sacrifices but choices. Others paid for those choices.”

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“You aren’t going to start whining again?”

Adrienne shook her head. “No. You’re right. My son died for something.

Hercule died for something—a better world. By God, I will do what I can to see that they get it. That’s why I wanted to come out here —to remind myself.”

“Then you didn’t need me to answer your question.”

“I will always need you, Veronique. In this or any other universe.”

The redhead looked away—blushing?

“Do you suppose men are any different now that you have retuned the world?”

Crecy wondered, after a second.

“I doubt it. It would take more than a subtle change in the harmony of the spheres to affect the hearts and minds of—”

“No, you misunderstand. I meant
men.
In bed. Has this transmogrification of things made some substances, for instance, more hard, more enduring? Will the pleasure be greater or less?”

Adrienne laughed softly. “It’s been three days. I find it difficult to believe that you haven’t experimented in that field yet.”

“Well —I’ve been wondering. With the world remade, suppose…” She frowned.

“Suppose I am
virgin
again?”

Adrienne laughed softly and took her friend’s hand. “We are all of us virgin again, Veronique.”

“Damn.”

* * *

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“I want him buried like a Choctaw,” he told Minko Chito. “Like a warrior.”

“If you will sponsor it, it will be done,” the chief replied.

“I will sponsor it.”

“He must have been a good friend, this Na Hollo.”

Red Shoes nodded brusquely, looking at Tug’s possessions where they were laid out. A cutlass, a knife, the charm Red Shoes had made him once.

When Minko Chito was gone, he spoke softly to the corpse. It was raised a few feet above the ground on a bed of wood.

“Here are your things,” he whispered. “You may need them on your journey, so I leave them out for you. When the flesh of your body has rotted away, I shall hire a bone picker to clean your skeleton, and we shall bundle your bones in the House of Warriors. Then you will be free, and you may roam whatever seas you wish.” He paused. “I am sorry, my friend, that I can never say your name again. It as an odd name, but I liked to say it.”

Then he went back to his own fire, where Grief was waiting. He stared at the flames, waving away a bowl of food when she approached with it.

“Speak to me,” she said. “You haven’t spoken to me in three days.”

“I will take you home, if that is what you want,” he said.

“I am home. I am with you.”

“You don’t know me. You only know what! was, and I am not that anymore. I am not the great serpent, or even Red Shoes of the Choctaw. I am accursed.”

“You are a man,” she said. “A good man. Even filled up with evil, you were a good man.”

“I do not know what I am. I only know that I have nothing to offer you. All my life I have been a
hopaye.
I never learned to be a good hunter—there was no THE SHADOWS OF GOD

need. I have no house, no possessions, nothing.”

“Ah. So you want a Choctaw wife, that you may have those things? I understand. I have no property, so you want to be rid of me.”

“No. You don’t understand.”

“Make me understand.”

“I can no longer feel my shadow. It is hidden from me. And I have been a terrible thing, done terrible things. I cannot go on as before — I cannot see a new path.”

“I don’t pretend to understand what has happened to the shadow world —but the earth and sky seem the same to me. Water tastes the same. My heart feels the same. And your people still need you. You understand the white people as no one else does. You have the knowledge to make sense of the world as it is now. You have that responsibility, too. You are a coward, if you run from that.”

“My people cannot trust me.”

“They don’t know what happened to you.”

“But I know, and I know they cannot trust me. How can I put them in danger?

Evil does not leave a man, once it has lived in him. It leaves its mark forever.”

“Yours came from without, and now it is gone.”

Red Shoes shook his head slowly. “He is not gone. He is there, somewhere. He is not gone. None of them are—they are merely … different. And the things that made him welcome in me are not gone, and that is my real curse.”

“What of the things that made
me
welcome in you? Are they gone? Are they the same things?”

He looked at her, at her proud, defiant face. “No,” he said. “I love you still.”

“Then be my man. Pick up your burden, and let us go on.”

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“You still want vengeance?”

“No. I want
life
.”

He regarded her for a few long moments, trying to forget what he had seen, felt, been. Wondering if he could explain that the real problem was that after being a god, it was hard to be just a man-again, that a part of him longed for what he had lost, no matter how wrong it was.

He couldn’t explain that. He wouldn’t.

“There is a place I know,” he said, “near Kowi Chito. A place where someone who knew how to plant corn might raise a crop.”

She nodded at the fire. “I would like to see it,” she replied.