The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [119]
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 clambered 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 …”
“Hah. Let me at ‘em.”
“As for me, I need to report to Nairne now—see what I can find out about everything else, and report that the ships are held down for the nonce.”
He gazed down through the lower windows. There were the ships; and there, like ants clustered to defend their queen, what appeared to be battalions of men. He studied the scene for a few more moments, then went to the opticon.
It took Nairne a few moments to appear.
“Mr. Franklin,” he said, his voice scratchy and metallic, not at all like the governor's real voice. The image, too, left much to be desired. Something Ben would have to improve. “So glad to see you are still alive.”
“That I am, Governor, and we've managed to hold ‘em on the ground for a time. Any news of the army?”
“They've made good headway, but with terrible losses. Those Swedenborg airships you modified did help,