The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [72]
High above the battlefield, something else was forming, something Adrienne recognized. The keres was opening its wicked eye. For the moment it was nothing, just the nucleus of the vast, destroying storm it would become. But she recognized it.
For an instant she was paralyzed. She could not let Nicolas die. She could not let the keres spring to life. And her son's strange enemy was ignoring the waking god.
“The keres, Uriel. Stop it from forming!”
I—The pause went on, too long. Very well. Farewell, Adrienne.
Grimly, Adrienne stretched out her aetheric fingers to the heart of the maelstrom, where Nicolas lay dying.
Apollo!
He took me by surprise! The Sun Boy sounded desperate. He cinched my power, somehow. Many of my servants do not know me. I'm going to fail, unless I can form the dark engine.
That will slay us all, Nicolas.
Better that than this! I cannot fail!
Let me help you. I have power. Together we can stop your enemy.
I am the Sun Boy! The prophet!
I am your secret friend. Let me help you.
For torturous moments, nothing happened, and then matterless fingers closed in hers.
And there came a jolt, like a breath of God, and Adrienne saw a tree rising into the heavens. No, not a tree but a tower, Nimrod's tower— or Jacob's ladder—and high above, at the very top, a light that might be God, at long last might—
Then the images dissolved. Her son swelled like a thunderstorm, like a great wave of the sea; and she felt herself rushing with him, an arrow in flight, the charge of a huge cavalry. She saw the enemy in the woods as Nicolas saw him—a great horned man, shaggy, wrapped with serpents.
Satan! Nicolas cried. Lucifer!
They met, and the devil's power snapped. He was strong, yes, but Adrienne and Nicolas were more powerful than heaven.
Red Shoes blinked at the sky, not understanding at first. Not understanding why he was still whole and alive, why his enemy had withdrawn even as he tasted his flesh. His masterly plan had been destroyed at a stroke, his power scattered to the winds, the power of the snake within him snuffed to a mere glow. The hand of the Sun Boy had done all that. His power was without limit.
And yet Red Shoes lived. The Sun Boy had turned away, as if from a gnat. The airships had fallen from the sky, long lines of horizontal lightning and sputtering plumes of flame, one-eyes and Long Black Beings turned against themselves.
The iron people were under attack by someone else—a small fleet of ships, yes, but someone or something powerful came with them. In his otherworld sight, two spiderwebs now stretched across the sky. At the center of one was the Sun Boy, at the center of the other, the unknown. But whoever it was was connected to the Sun Boy in strange ways.
Once he had traveled with Blackbeard, the Charles Town king, and Thomas Nairne, who ruled that city now. Nairne had ventured that the enemy of his enemy was his friend. Blackbeard had scoffed.
Red Shoes agreed with Blackbeard. One man like the prophet was one too many. Two was two too many.
And he, of course, made three.
He shook back his pain—there were three webs, after all. He was still a spider, if a crippled one. Thinking him defeated, they had forgotten him. That would prove to be a mistake.
He noticed that the strands linking the two sorcerers were strengthening. Maybe he could be of some help, there.
As the serpent's power uncoiled, in the rushing colors that the aether made perceptible to Adrienne, Nicolas’ face appeared, and his eyes widened in shock. Overhead, Uriel screamed, and the keres whirled away into nothing.
You! Nicolas shrieked. I know you now! I remember you! You left me! You aren't my friend. You aren't my friend!
Nicolas, no! I helped you!
You tricked me. Destroyed my engine. You aren't my mother!
I am! You remember me, you say! They took you from me! I searched. All these years, I've searched.
No. And with that his face