The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [5]
“I don't know what happened to him,” Flint Shouting said. “I said I am no magician. Maybe a spirit ate him and walks in his skin. Maybe he was always a monster in human disguise, and fooled us for a time. I don't care.”
“But you saw what he did. If you are no magician, how will you kill him?”
For a moment, Flint Shouting's devilish old smile raced across his face again, and years fell from his features. “Carefully, Tsar. Carefully.” Then the frown returned, and he poked at the fire.
That seems to be the end of that, thought Peter. “How much longer before we reach New Paris?”
“That depends. I don't know. A few more days, a month. I don't know this river or its people very well.”
A crash in the underbrush was Tug returning.
“I reckon that'll be enough,” the big man said, dumping an armload of wood near them.
“As warm as it is, we hardly need a fire,” Peter commented.
“’Squitos. Wolves. Snake birds. Fire'll keep the bad things back. Well, some of ‘em.”
“I was just asking Flint Shouting how far New Paris was.”
“Y’ got me. I wish we'd get there, though. It's been too damn long since I had me a drink an’ a woman.”
“Watery rum and poxy whores?”
“Now I'd settle for a piss beer an’ a one-eyed grandma.” Tug grunted. “I reckon we'll get there in a couple o’ weeks, if we get no trouble from the Natchez. Last time me an’ Red Shoes went there, we were pretty welcome. Without Red Shoes …” He shrugged and looked sorrowful. Peter knew that Tug and Red Shoes had been friends for a long time. But Tug had seen the same things he and Flint Shouting had. “An’ what'll you do?”
“Me? Petition the French king. Raise an army. Take back Russia.”
“That same song?”
“It's what I have to do.”
“Why?”
“Because I am the son of Alexey. Because I am tsar. Because I took a nation that was nothing and made it the greatest in the world, and I will not be denied my place in it by warlock usurpers.” He paused for an instant. “Because they killed my Catherine. Because they took my ships.”
“Well,” Tug said after a moment, “New Paris ought t’ be fun, then. Me trying to find a lay that hain't a bowlegged crone, you tryin’ to raise an army—I don't know which of us dreams the bigger.”
Peter chuckled, and they began to talk about what they might find to eat.
Consider also the designe of the Apocalypse. Was it not given for the use of the Church to guide and direct her in the right way, And is this not the end of all prophetick Scripture? If there is no need of it, or if it cannot be understood, then why did God give it? Does he trifle?
—Isaac Newton,
Introduction to a Treatise on Revelation
Benjamin Franklin crouched low on hands and knees, pressing his face toward the ash gray soil. The forest surrounding him chirped, clicked, and hummed lazily in the soggy noontime heat.
A sudden rattling in the branches made him look up, for the forest had proven deceptive, these last few months. Sleepy it might be, but it dreamed of panther, Indian ambush, rattlesnake, and the corpse of Benjamin Franklin.
But it was only a flight of green parakeets, settling into a live oak. For the moment, the forest was not trying to kill Franklin. A Spaniard, this forest: disdaining to do much of anything between noon and three o'clock. So this was a good time to pry at the land's secrets. Franklin knelt a little lower, wishing the Coweta hadn't taken his hand lens when they tried to torture him to death. He needed it now. He continued his work with squinting eyes, sat up briefly, scribbled in his book, then peered back at the dirt.
When he heard the footsteps behind him, it was too late. Or would have been, if it hadn't been a friend.
“Reading our futures there, Sir Wizard?”
Franklin didn't turn. “Hello, Voltaire,” he said, the belated tingle of alarm fading. “They fascinate me. Look at them.”
The Frenchman crouched beside him, his long arms folded on narrow knees, a merry grin on a face that was mostly pointed chin. “I take it you mean the ants?” he said.
“Of course. See here, how