The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [1]
Though Adrienne never understood—or much cared about—the purpose of the research she was participating in, when a mysterious correspondent on the aetherschreiber offered her part of the solution, she immediately saw the implications and made practice from theory.
Thus together, Benjamin Franklin and Adrienne de Montchevreuil solved a mathematical problem and changed the world as profoundly as Newton had.
Each independently concluded that they had given Louis the XIV the weapon he needed to end his war with England. Each raced desperately to stave off disaster. Ben sailed to England, in hopes Sir Isaac could help. Adrienne turned to the dangerous intrigues of the French court.
Both failed.
Using their calculations, the philosophers of the Sun King pulled a comet from the heavens and obliterated London. But they hadn't foreseen the full consequences of their actions. Much of Europe was also devastated, plunging western civilization into a new dark age.
Ben was in London, apprenticed to Sir Isaac, when the comet began its fall. Seduced and kidnapped by Vasilisa Karevna, an agent of the Russian tsar Peter I, he watched in helpless horror as the center of the English Empire was destroyed. He lost a brother, many friends, and his innocence.
Adrienne—whose quest brought her to the very bed of the insane King Louis—lost much more; her true love, Nicolas, her virginity, and her hand. Then, in the aftermath of the comet, she made yet another discovery—she was with child, the child of Louis XIV.
Moving behind the bright world of matter, other forces were at work. In the spaces between atoms, certain beings who did not want humanity to possess the secrets of alchemy— beings who had subtly guided the course of human history— now began to be less subtle. However, unable to work directly in the world of matter, they used human agents to achieve their ends, posing as angels, demons, or djinni. The cataclysm precipitated by Ben and Adrienne was ultimately of their design, and they planned more damage to humanity.
Newton called these beings the malakim, naming them for the angels of the Old Testament.
The malakim moved carefully, offering their aid to certain philosophers, plotting the deaths of others.
Rescued from Karevna by Newton, Franklin continued his apprenticeship with the great philosopher, whose work had turned entirely to a science of the malakim. Adrienne, too, was seduced by their power. Her missing hand was mysteriously replaced with the hand of an angel, enabling her to see the very structure of the aether and of matter—and to alter it as she saw fit. Gradually, she became more sorceress than mathematician and learned that the malakim, too, were torn by strife. One of their factions desired to suppress humanity's search for knowledge. The other sought the absolute extinction of the race.
Meanwhile, the world plunged further into turmoil. Driven by ever-harder winters, Tsar Peter built a fleet of airships and embarked on a quest to conquer the weakened nations of Europe. Across the Atlantic, a Choctaw shaman named Red Shoes joined with the Sieur de Bienville, the pirate Edward Teach, and the Puritan minister Cotton Mather in an expedition to discover what had become of the Old World.
All were drawn together in a battle for the city of Venice. In that battle, Ben watched as Adrienne was forced to kill Isaac Newton. And for Adrienne there was another tragedy—her infant son, Nicolas, was kidnapped by the malakim.
Adrienne found a new home in Russia, as a philosopher in the court of Peter the Great, and Benjamin returned to the American colonies to settle in the city of Charles Town, South Carolina.
For ten years, an illusory calm prevailed.