The Shadows of God - J. Gregory Keyes [98]
“I couldn't tell you. You were their greatest fear— even I am not sure why. You were somehow their greatest fear and their greatest hope all at once. Even your son, I think, is secondary to you in their schemes. The malfaiteurs always wished to kill you. Only those who befriended Lilith saved your life.”
“Again we return to mythology,” Adrienne said, disgusted, though remembering the creature in the form of Nicolas and the name she claimed.
“Mythology is nothing more than a way of hiding knowledge, of encrypting it so that the malfaiteurs do not detect it. Don't you understand that, after all these years? They help us as they can.”
Adrienne waved her hand. “All this is moot, is it not? Whether there was a Lilith or an Athena, whether the friendly angels were ever really friendly. For, as I understand it, they are now long gone.”
“They aren't gone. They lead the army.”
“My point exactly.”
“No. Their original policies prevailed in the Old World. All that remains is this new one, and if they win here, they might appease those who wish merely to see us all destroyed.”
“So we either die or return to darkness.”
“One is better than the other,” Vasilisa said hotly. “You are a fool if you think otherwise. Ask any mother, any yeoman farmer, whether they would rather have life, and family, and love—or books on the gravitation of the spheres. Do not confound your particular obsessions with what is truly important.”
“And yet, as I understand, you labor here to stop the conquest of this New World.”
“No. I labor to stop the end of the world. The best hope of that is that their army succeed. If it fails, they will use the engines and all will die.”
“They have already used one. They sent it against us at New Moscow.”
“Bozhe moi,” Vasilisa whispered. “We have even less time than I thought, then.”
“Or less hope. I was communicating with one of your friendly angels, Vasilisa—he persuaded me to make this trek. He is dead, and none has come to replace him. Perhaps he was the only one.”
“No. There are others—the point is, the enemy does not know how many—”
Adrienne interrupted her with a laugh that sounded mad even to herself. “Even—angels don't know how—how— many angels dance— on the—head— of a pin?”
“What has happened to you?” Vasilisa asked, staring at her as one might stare at an unexpected boil on one's arm.
“I am learning a sense of humor, that is all. Go on.”
“The danger is near, that is all I meant to say. Franklin and I have assembled a device—it might work or it might not. At the very best, it will give us a little time to find our way to the final solution.”
“And what might that be?”
“Don't you know? They didn't tell you?”
“No. They seemed to think it best to keep me in ignorance. I suppose such habits are difficult to break, after a few thousands of years.”
Vasilisa closed her eyes for a moment. “I should not tell you this. Not if they did not.”
Adrienne uttered another weak laugh. “But you will, or you wouldn't have brought it up.”
“I— Do you know how I came into the tsar's service?”
“I never have known.”
“He was on a tour of his Siberian provinces. He found me buried up to my neck in the ground. I had been married, you see, when I was thirteen, to a man who took a great deal of pleasure in my pain. One day, when he approached me, I threw a pan of boiling grease in his face. It stopped his heart. So lawkeepers and the priest of our village took me and they buried me in the ground.”
“And the tsar saved you.”
“Yes, at the urging of his wife, Catherine. She was a daughter of Athena. They washed me of my nightmare, Adrienne. They made me clean and they taught me what is good, and they gave me power, something I never had before. You know how that feels.”
“I do,” Adrienne said softly. “And I'm sorry for what you went through.”
Karevna's gaze danced from point to point, as if afraid to settle. “I don't tell you this to get your pity. I just want you to understand—the Korai are everything to me, and I do not disclose our greatest secret lightly. I also care for you, whether you believe it or not, and I fear