The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [124]
Red Shoes grew, like the giant in the story of the Wichita priest. His feet sank deep into the earth; his head brushed the sky; his skin bloated with the pressure of the rattlesnakes and hornets that filled him up, stretching him toward the stars.
The world turned lazily about him, a disc of shadow and light.
Far below, he could see the meaningless little battle, the wrathful wind the Sun Boy had finally released. He remembered, long ago, telling Thomas Nairne the story of Wind, who killed his enemies and then went to sleep in the deep waters, promising that when he awakened he would sweep the world clean.
Well, Wind had awakened, but even he was as nothing to the stirring of the Great One. Himself.
None of that matters now, he said to himself. Adrienne had tricked the Sun Boy, stolen his fire, but he had tricked her, stolen hers.
I am the oldest there is. I am the youngest. I am every one of my lineage.
Now his thoughts became faces he did not recognize. Now his desires became scents he had never known. Now the clay that was his body itched so he wanted to throw it off.
And still he grew, watching everything that had once seemed so important dwindle, diminish, become a light smaller than a star.
But the real stars—ah …
Soon he would be able to reach to the ends of the universe, and all would be as before, water and stars, nothing between.
How much better this way. The Peace camp, at least, had done this one good thing: if he had managed to slay humanity earlier, this would never have been possible. And these little seeds they planted—no, not seeds, but eggs, like the sort that dirt daubers buried in their paralyzed prey—ah, how well he had turned them to his advantage.
And still she did not know. Still the Sun Boy was oblivious. And still time marched forward to its own end.
He looked and saw that it was good.
“What in the holy hell—” Franklin sputtered, as the ship rang like a bell and the deck fled from beneath his feet.
“The mines are gettin’ through again,” Robert said.
“Mines, my arse. That was no explosion. That was something big, smacking into us.”
“I don't see nothin'.” Tug grunted, looking—as they all were—around and out a window.
“Up above,” Franklin snapped. “They've done our own trick, vanished a ship and crept up on us.”
If they needed further confirmation of that fact, a sudden screech of metal against metal supplied it.
“Grapnels!” Robert said.
“Seal the hatches,” Franklin said, “now.”
Robert and Tug hastened to do so, but even as they did, Franklin noticed that the deck beneath their feet was beginning to get warm. They were through the aegis, whoever they were, which meant they could do all manner of things—melt steel, boil blood, release lightning.
He didn't figure on giving them the chance. He aimed the depneumifier up through the ceiling and fired it. Fired it again and again.
And, not too surprisingly, the ceiling suddenly creaked, as if a hundred tons of brick had been laid on it.
“Brace yourselves! I've robbed ‘em of motive power!”
“That means we're holding both them and us up!” Robert said.
“No, I wouldn't go that far,” Franklin replied, pointing down through the floor portal, where the Earth was growing perceptibly larger each second.
To make matters worse, the ship began tilting, first slowly, then quite quickly, onto its side.
“What in hell's name are you doing?” Crecy shouted, grabbing Adrienne and trying to shake her back to awareness.
“Saving our lives, at least for another few moments. We were already done, otherwise. I advise strapping our friends into the braces, and ourselves as well. I imagine this thing will flip all the way over.”
“If we live through this—” Crecy snapped in a promising tone.
Adrienne and Red Shoes were sleeping through it all, it seemed. They got them strapped in just in time. Once the craft had rolled onto its side, it flipped the rest of the way over quite quickly. The ceiling was now the floor, and they could no longer see how fast the ground was approaching. It couldn't be too fast—his belly wasn't all that light.
He opened the hatch