Empire of Unreason (12 page)

As predicated, a knock came at the door, but despite the warning Franklin nearly jumped out of his skin. Feeling foolish, he tugged the portal open.

“Mr. Nakaso,” Franklin said, with some surprise.

Paris Nakaso bowed at the waist, dapper in coat and waistcoat. Nakaso was a black man, born, as Franklin understood him, in the African country of Angola. He had come as a slave to Charles Town, but had served as such for only two years before Blackbeard freed them. He was the single Negro member of the South Carolina Assembly.

“I hope the hour is not too late, Mr. Franklin.” Nakaso’s English was flawless but touched by a mysterious, almost musical, accent.

“Not at all, Mr. Nakaso. I thought to look you up soon, in any event. Come in and have a seat. May I offer you Madeira?”

“That would be delightful, Mr. Franklin.”

Franklin poured them each a glass, and they both settled into seats near the fireplace.

“I did not see you at the grand fete,” Franklin remarked carefully.

Nakaso smiled ruefully. “As a member of the Assembly, I tried to attend, but I was prevented.”

“Prevented?”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“I could not convince anyone, it seems, that I am indeed in government here.

Certain other members of the Assembly were no help to me, I’m afraid.”

“I’m sorry to hear that. You should have sought me out.”

“Perhaps. I have often considered you a fair man. When I proposed a more generous representation of Negroes in this colony, you were the only one who stood with me. And the work of the Junto has been—most—unexpected.”

“You know, I think, my feelings on the matter.”

“I do, or think I do.” He sighed and set his glass down. “Mr. Franklin, the hour is late, so you will pardon me if I come to the point. My people are afraid of this English king. They think he will put the old landgraves back on their estates and make us property again. Mr. Franklin, I have worn shackles— I do not like them. The next time I wear them, it shall be as a corpse.”

“You will not wear shackles again, not if I have anything to do with it.”

“Then the Junto is against this king?”

Franklin considered. “I cannot speak for them yet, but I think it safe to say that they
will
be, soon. I certainly am.”

“Then you will fight him?”

“If it comes to that. Hopefully our battles will be the sort won without bloodshed.”

“But if it comes to bloodshed, you will need my people to shed some. You will need us in arms.”

Franklin hesitated slightly. “We will need every man who wishes to be free, that is certain. I was, indeed, going to speak to you on this matter.”

“I’ll be brief. I can deliver them to you, but there are conditions.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“And what might those be?”

“The first is that they be properly armed.”

Franklin frowned. “There is no law that says Negroes may not bear arms.”

“Aye, but there are few who will sell to us.”

“Well, after the slaughter when you were freed—”

“We were freed in name. To actually gain that freedom, we had to fight. King Teach armed us—”

“Entirely in his own interests. You helped him overthrow the landgraves who would have resisted him.”

“I’m aware of that, sir. Even then, many fled to the margravate of Azilia, taking their slaves with them. Here you have a similar situation. If you want our aid in throwing off this Pretender’s yoke, we will need ready arms. More than anything, as a sign of trust.”

“That trust will be hard to come by, I fear.”

“Even so.”

“But didn’t you just tell me it interests you to fight the Pretender, to keep from being enslaved?”

“Of course. But there are—other options.”

“That sounds like a threat.”

“It is. I have been in communication with the Maroons, and with certain Indians of similar persuasion. I can deliver them, too—or I can set them against whoever wins here. Teach gave us our freedom—now we seek the means to keep it forever, Mr. Franklin. And for that we will need better representation in government. There are, after all, twice as many of us as there are of you.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

Franklin nodded, not missing that second, more subtle, threat. “I will see what I can do—it is all I can promise. What of your other conditions?”

“Other colonies—and the margravate especially—still keep slaves. Many of us have relatives in bondage. We would have them freed.”

“The other colonies have their own laws. I have no voice in their government, as well you know.”

Nakaso smiled. “After the coming war, I think the Junto— and thus you—may well be in a position to dictate terms in many places.”

“Only if we win. And you overestimate my importance. I can only assure you that my sympathies lie with you. I consider slavery an abomination and I will work to abolish it.”

“Not much of a promise.”

“I would be untruthful if I offered more. But consider this, sir. If what you say is true, if there
is
to be a war—and, God help us, that remains to be seen—and if the Junto will be a power if it wins—then you would do well to be with us, would you not?”

Nakaso nodded thoughtfully. “I—I must consult with others. I am not potentate.”

“Please let me know what you decide. Very soon now, a decision must be made. If I am to cast, I would prefer to know what sort dice I have in my hand.”

“I will speak to you again soon. Thank you for the excellent Madeira.”

“You are welcome, every bit. Be safe in your journey home.”

“I will.”

Franklin walked him to the door. When he opened it, it was to Robert’s arrival.

Robert nodded a greeting, which the black man returned.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“Ready’t‘ go?” Robert asked, when Nakaso was gone.

“More than.” Franklin sighed. “Let’s us see just how much more complicated matters can be.”

“Dawn in two hours,” Franklin said. “We’ll have to hurry.”

“V don’t really trust this thing, do y’r?” Robert asked, watching Franklin struggle into the heavy suit.

“I’ve tested it before.”

“Aye. An‘ nearly drowned when it sprung a leak. Why not let me go? Better I feed sharks then our best scientific.”

“I want to see this for myself. Now hush and help me get this helmet on.

Besides, turning the pump is the hard part.”

The longboat rocked as Robert fitted the round helmet onto the gasket cuff of Franklin’s diving suit. The moon had set, and it was cloudy besides. The only lights were those in Charles Town itself, some half a mile away. A lanthorn in their boat would shine across the waters like a beacon, and they could not risk being noticed out here.

Robert started working the pump as soon as the helmet was in place. Franklin listened for the hiss of escaping air. When he heard none, he went over the side of the boat, made certain none of his lines were twisted, and allowed the harbor to have him.

He sank slowly, air tube and lifting harness snaking behind him, patting the haversack to make certain it was at his side. Dreamlike he fell, until his feet touched softly into the mud of the harbor bottom. He figured himself some fifty feet down. The pump chugged reassuringly in his ear.

He turned slowly, seeing nothing. He had a lanthorn, of course, but opening that would be sure idiocy if what Euler suggested was true. Instead, he reached into his haversack and removed a specially treated sheet of glass. Holding it up EMPIRE OF UNREASON

to his faceplate, he turned again.

Halfway around, he froze in place.

It was the size of a small whale, the ship. He had missed it by thirty feet or so, coming down. It was shaped like a whale, too. The glass did not give him as good an image as he might hope, for it only brightened the atoms of lux passing through it.

Turning further, he saw another, and another. They seemed made of metal. He saw no windows, but certainly whoever was in them had some way of seeing out—perhaps even in the dark. He shivered suddenly, feeling as if he had blundered right into a school of sleeping sharks. If they awakened…

He replaced the glass plate in his bag and tugged lightly on the line. A moment later, the harness tightened and he began to rise. The darkness seemed all teeth, and he counted under his breath for something to do, to keep his mind off the sudden feeling of claustrophobia.

When he finally broke the surface and saw blurred stars, he felt like cheering.

Instead he scrambled up into the boat as quickly as he could.

Halfway up he felt nausea and mild flashes of cramping pain. He remembered this had happened before, though not as noticeably. He had gone deeper this time. Was there some malady in that? It bore investigation.

Fighting the unpleasant sensation, he uncoupled his helmet, shucked himself from the suit, then dressed in dry clothing as Robert rowed quietly back toward shore. He lay back wearily, explaining to Robert what he had seen.

“Euler said there’s forty of ‘em,” Robert said, his face invisible, but the shape of his head limned by the distant city lights. “Do y’credit it?”

Franklin nodded. “I do. They must fill the harbor and then some—with a hundred or more men in each. And if even a third of the rumors we hear of the Moscovado armaments are true, that stands as bad news indeed for Charles Town.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“And the rest of the colonies. Why this ruse, though? If the Moscovados have such sneak ships and armaments, what need have they of James?”

“I can think of good reasons,” Franklin said, taking the second set of oars.

“First off, this fleet underneath us must have cost a pretty penny. The hulls must be adamantium or something awfully close. They must breathe by liberating air from the water itself, and compressing it. If the Moscovado intelligence is any good at all—and it must be, for they’ve been in communication with their Tory friends here—then they know that we are far from defenseless ourselves, and no matter how tough those nuts down there, we’d likely crack a few. But now look where they have us, Robin. James sits in our statehouse, more than a hundred of his soldiers already on shore. More, he has whatever Tory and Jacobite troops there might be already here in the colonies. What if Thackery brought men with him from Virginia, in case things go badly? They’ve already come inside our defenses, Robin. I’ll wager even now, they have agents near each battery, ready to sabotage or commandeer them. No, we’re in a much tighter spot than if they hadn’t snuck in under the skirts of an English king. Add to that the certainty that under direct Moscovado tyranny, we would do nothing but rebel. As it is—if they can keep the idea of Russia distant or absent from people’s minds—they will encounter little resistance.”

“But now there’s us. And the Junto.”

“Yes,” Franklin replied tightly. “It’s not as if we didn’t plan for this sort of thing. I just despise that—”

Robert interrupted him by dropping his oars, yanking his
kraftpistole
from the bottom of the boat, and firing. Heat brushed Franklin as lightning cleft the air two yards from him. He turned to see what his friend had shot at.

Still haloed in yellow flame, it was shaped like a man but larger, a scintillating shadow rushing across the surface of the water.

“Aegis,” Franklin snapped. “It’s wearing an aegis.”

It came on, cooling and disappearing as it did so.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

Robert fired again, but this time the thing was so close the phlogiston billowed back at them, and Franklin felt his eyebrows singe as he yanked out the depneumifier and gave it its field test.

Something flared so brilliantly that it shone through Ben’s eyelids, which he had the presence of mind to close. He opened them to red spots and a man shape with four arms: two held aloft a glowing red sphere, while the other two reached for him. Its head was a smooth, silvery globe.

“Shoot it, Robin,” Franklin shouted, throwing himself back, away from the grasping steel fingers of the monster.

Lightning roared for the third time, but the awful thing came on. Desperately, Franklin pushed the contact on the depneumifier again.

The glowing red orb went out, and the metal man-thing dropped, suddenly inanimate, though red-hot and smoking. The water received it with a scalding hiss.

Gasping, Franklin rose.

“Your exorcister worked, it seems,” Robert observed.

“Hurrah,” Ben said weakly.

Robert looked down at his compass, uncapping a small lanthorn to see by.

“Uh-oh. There’s more out there. Can’t say how many.”

Franklin glanced at the shore, still far away. He shucked off his wet coat and began unbuttoning his waistcoat.

“What’r y‘ doin’?” Robert asked.

“We’ll have to run. I’m leaving my aegis to draw them.” He got the aegis off and inserted its key. It vanished. Franklin paused long enough to pry the boat’s plug out of its hole, and then quickly slipped on the Dutch-looking shoes that lay in the bottom of the boat. Robert donned his, and they both stepped EMPIRE OF UNREASON

from the sinking boat onto the water. The surface dimpled beneath the aquapeds, but it held them up.

Together they skated across the rough waters, casting frequent glances over their shoulders, wondering what invisible doom might be coming behind.

10.

The Iron People

Red Shoes saw the puffs of smoke before he heard the sound of gunfire. His hands twitched on the reins, but he kept steady. Only a sorcerer could hit them at such a range, and now that his shadowchildren were alert to bullets, only a very strong sorcerer.

“Keep still,” he told Tug and Flint Shouting. “Show them you aren’t afraid.”

“I
han’t
afraid,” Tug grumbled stubbornly.

The gunshots—there had been only two—were not repeated. But when they came much closer to the bend in the river, a few arrows dropped, all far from hitting them. Red Shoes frowned, and then suddenly urged his mount up the hill at a run. Behind him, Flint Shouting gave a loud whoop and followed.

As he crested the hill, a shaft came near, deflected only by the invisible cloak of his shadowchild. He saw the source immediately; a boy fitting another arrow to his string. Hejioted a second boy in a nearby bush. Two muskets lay on the ground.