The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [3]
“Professor Swedenborg, with all due respect, I am the commander of this expedition in matters military. I need a better explanation than that. Why should I waste the lives of my men or trust our untested Indian and Mongol troops when we have that?”
The eye was nearly closed. Where it had passed nothing remained but white ash. Tens of miles of ash. No tree, no living thing, not even bones were left to tell that once there had been life where Swedenborg's dark engine had churned.
For answer, the sorcerer merely turned away, lost in whatever he saw behind those thick lenses.
Golitsyn leveled a frustrated gaze on the third person clutching the bow rail, the metropolitan of Saint Petersburg.
“Your Grace, speak to him. Get some sense from him.”
The priest pursed his lips and stroked his long gray beard. “What is there to say?” he asked. “Swedenborg has the angels. The blessed saints speak to him, not to me. It is as God wills it. But he has shown me glimpses—” The metropolitan shook his head. “It is too much for mortal man, even for the patriarch. That is why Swedenborg is mad. But it is a holy madness.”
“Everyone is mad,” Golitsyn exclaimed. “I am mad. I've betrayed my tsar and led an army into the wilds of America, for what? It's all lunacy.”
The metropolitan raised an eyebrow. “Neither I nor Professor Swedenborg had anything to do with that. You did what you did from lust for power, not from any desire to serve God. Swedenborg's motives are pure. My motives are pure. Yours have never been, and so it is not your place to question us.”
“But how can you be sure? How can you be sure this—this boy we bow to is really the child of God and not the devil? What is our purpose in this limitless desert? What care we for the American colonies, when we could have the empire of the Turk at our feet, the riches of China?
“How can—” He broke off, for Swedenborg was looking at him again. The professor was a soft-spoken, polite, gentle man, and yet the words that now issued from his mouth were clipped and grim, almost another voice altogether.
“Prince Golitsyn, you do not, cannot, comprehend what lies ahead. I can. The American colonies are the last refuge of the godless science. It is where the devil has dug his cave and built his watchtower. It is where he crafts his hideous strength into knives and guns. We are the chosen, the servants of the prophet, the champions of godly science. What more do you need to know?”
“And yet we consort with the ungodly,” Golitsyn argued. “What is godly in the gibbering idolatry of the Mongols or the pagan superstitions of the Indians?” He turned to appeal to the metropolitan. “Surely, Your Eminence—”
“All will come to God,” the metropolitan said. “Though they be pagan, still they have eyes to see. They recognize the prophet for what he is. Indeed, it seems that everyone but you sees that truth.”
“I—” Golitsyn's mouth went dry. Behind Swedenborg, something had appeared. It was the shape of a nude man, a silvery, translucent cloud. It had no face as such, but it had eyes everywhere. They winked and blinked on its palms, arms, belly, thighs. Pale blue and green eyes, all watching him, all seeing the darkness in his heart.
The thing leveled an accusing finger at him, but it was Swedenborg who spoke. “Stay on the path, Prince Golitysn. The apocalypse is done, and the world is ended. Now is only the sorting of things. All souls that do not follow me are damned. The prophet is my servant. Swedenborg is my mouth. The metropolitan is my text. I thought you were my sword. If you are not, I must forge another.”
Golitsyn dropped to his knees. “No. No! I am yours. I just don't understand why we can't use our best weapons, why we must keep them in reserve.”
“Because something remains,” Swedenborg replied huskily. “Something needs to be found. When we have it, there will be no need of the engines at all.”
“Then why—why—”
“You are a sword, Prince Golitsyn. Be content with that.”
It