Empire of Unreason (13 page)

Red Shoes regarded the boy quietly. The boy raised the bow, looking EMPIRE OF UNREASON

determined; but when Flint Shouting and Tug came up behind, he sagged. Red Shoes gestured for the other boy to come from his hiding place.

Flint Shouting snapped something in a language Red Shoes did not know. The boys looked a bit sullen, then replied. A brief conversation followed, while Red Shoes waited impatiently.

Finally, Flint Shouting looked over at him. “The boys are Awahi. They said that a day ago men came and killed many in their village. They survived because they were away hunting rabbits in the hills. By the time they returned, almost everyone was dead and some strange warriors were in the town. They hid until the men went away this morning. Then they saw us coming.”

“They are the only survivors?”

“No. There are a few women and one man, who is badly hurt. And another boy, who ran to another village for help.”

“Tell him to take us to his village.”

The village was just beyond the river bend, on a little rise sheltered by the hill.

Only a few cottonwoods rustled their greeting as they followed the boys in past a small field of knee-high corn.

The bodies lay where they had fallen, amongst six mound-shaped earth lodges.

Red Shoes counted twenty, only six of them men—mostly older men. Ravens were picking at them.

As they arrived, one old woman, a woman of perhaps twenty, and a girl a few years younger emerged from one of the lodges. The old woman looked at them, at the dead bodies, at the cattails crowding the riverbank. She muttered something, went into the lodge, and came back out with a hoe made from a stick and a buffalo scapula. She started shuffling toward the garden.

Flint Shouting asked her a question. She looked at him as if he were crazy and answered, a single short sentence, and continued toward the corn.

“She says she has work to do,” Flint Shouting translated. “I think maybe she’s EMPIRE OF UNREASON

lost her mind.”

Red Shoes rode toward the younger women and dismounted. “Ask her who did this,” he told Flint Shouting.

The Wichita asked and got an answer. He spoke with the young women and the boys for a few more moments and then straightened in his saddle. “Iron men,” he said, “with many muskets and long knives. They were of many tribes.

Some were Crow, some Black Shoes, some Snake People, some unknown.

Some were white, like Tug. They had captives—three men and a woman, all white.” He looked speculatively at Red Shoes. “She said they have heard of these people before. They come from the west, and grow as they come. Her people did not really believe it, but it seems it is so. They took all the food, except a few caches of last year’s corn they didn’t find. Like the boys, these women were out of the village when it happened.”

“I don’t understand,” Red Shoes said. “These iron men come from the west.

Does that mean they’ve passed already? The party we’ve been following was going east.”

Flint Shouting briefly spoke to the young woman again, then nodded grimly and turned back to Red Shoes.

“She says they are still west. They wintered in a large camp some twelve days’

ride from here, gathering strength. They sent out raiding parties from their camp. They may be moving again, but it works the same way—raiders come ahead, then return. Their path is thus cleared.” He paused. “She wonders if we can help them.”

Red Shoes pursed his lips. “Tell her we can’t.”

Tug started at that.“ Y‘ mean we’re just ridin’ on?”

“I feel we have to catch these men, Tug, the ones who raided the ship. It’s why we came out here. And I feel our time to do so grows short. We’re less than a day behind them. If we stop here—”

“But they’ll die.”

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“They sent a boy to another village. They must have kin there. My feeling is that if we stop here, many more will die.” He turned to Flint Shouting. “Tell her no.”

“
Kaaki ishtatata ‘uuhak
,” Flint Shouting said.

The woman snapped something else heatedly.

“What was that?”

“She asked if we could leave her some powder for the muskets, so she can go kill the men who did this.”

“We can’t spare any powder either.”

They rode the horses carefully at the walk, trot, and canter. They were in a hurry, but of the ten horses they had got from the Wichita and the four Flint Shouting had brought with him, they were now down to seven. They had a long way to go home, and Red Shoes did not want to run the beasts to death.

The stars rained icy light upon them, and he found his eyes drawn to their glow again and again, when he ought to be watching the horizon. The Choctaw didn’t talk much about stars, but Flint Shouting’s folk—and these other people of the plains—did. Stars were dreams; dreams were stars. Flint Shouting had endless stories about the stars coming to Earth in human form.

He supposed he could see why. This was not the same firmament he knew, this too-vaulted dome. The skies of Venice and Algiers had been closer to the one he grew up with. The only other place where he had known heaven to so threaten to swallow him had been on the open ocean. The stars had been too close there, too.

One of his shadowchildren returned, whispering of something ahead. He tried to understand what it had seen through its eyes, but the image made little sense. Though cut from a piece of his own soul, a shadowchild could only see in the otherworld. It could see the shape of spirit, but not of matter.

Red Shoes searched again for the scalped man, and thought for an instant he EMPIRE OF UNREASON

sensed him or the empty space that might hide him. Then the sensation vanished.

“Holy God,” Tug murmured. It was not an exclamation he used often. In fact, to Red Shoes it sounded more like an invocation than a curse.

A sentiment he could understand. In the valley below, campfires stretched for as far as he could see. His night vision made out tents by the thousands—the conical dwellings common to the folk of the plains, but also odd, squat rounded tents and huge, house-shaped pavilions like those he had seen in Venice and in the lands of the Turk.

Along with these were five Russian airships and three other machines shaped something like giant leaves. But more than that, he saw the glinting eyes of at least a hundred evil spirits, the things his friend Franklin called malakim. And, in all of that, something else, something singular. It shone through the rest like a fire. And though he had not the faintest idea what it was, he knew it was what he had come for. That, and a vaguer thing near it, a thing with the echo of a scream clinging to it.

Both were in the center of the camp, surrounded by perhaps five or six thousand men.

“What’s goin‘ on here?” Tug muttered.

“How much can you see?”

“Just the fires.”

“It’s an army. A big army, and not just Indians. Europeans, too. Maybe other nations. We can see better in the morning.”

“Aye. And they us.”

“I should think so. By morning we shall be in their midst.”

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11.

Seraph

“Good evening, Mademoiselle Breteuil,” Adrienne said softly, as the girl entered the observatory.

“I was told I would find you here,” the younger woman said.

“And, indeed, here I am,” Adrienne answered. “What can I do for you?”

“Ah, my lady,” Breteuil burst out, “Monsieur Linne submitted our proposal to the director—”

“And he told you that you must not proceed,” Adrienne finished for her.

Breteuil blinked. “Yes, Mademoiselle. But yesterday, you said—”

“I’m aware of what I said,” Adrienne assured her. “At the time, I was unaware of certain changes in policy regarding curriculum.”

“I don’t understand it. What’s worse, they said I was not to be allowed to study mathematics at all. Or pneumatology! I must confine myself to the study of herbal remedies!”

“Why do you suppose that is?” Adrienne asked.

“Because I am a woman. Monsieur Swedenborg said the mysteries of science are not for us. And yet you, Mademoiselle, are the foremost philosopher of the academy. When I asked about this, he said you were an exception.”

The girl was crying. Adrienne walked over to her, lifted her chin. “Why do you EMPIRE OF UNREASON

want to study mathematics, my dear? What would be so wrong with doing what the director says?

Or marrying someone, the young Linne—no, do not blush, I have guessed your affections. Why not be a mother and wife?“

“Because I love science, Mademoiselle, I crave it. I do not understand how you, of all people, can misunderstand me.”

“I don’t misunderstand you, Emilie. May I call you Emilie?”

“Of course, my lady.”

“And you must call me Adrienne, but not where the other students can hear.”

“Yes—Adrienne.”

“Have a seat on that taboret.” Emilie did so, and Adrienne pulled up a nearby stool.

“What is the nature of scientific philosophy, Emilie?”

“It is the study of God and his purposes, through the agency of his angels. It is the quest to produce the useful and the godly at once, to learn and to perfect ourselves.”

“Where did you learn this? Who told you this?”

“It is how we are tutored, as students.”

“Surely Maupertuis never said such a thing.”

“No. But his is an older philosophy, an ungodly one. He must be forgiven that.”

“Emilie, do you believe what you say? Do you accept that definition of science?”

The girl straightened her back, considering her hands as she crossed them in her lap. “No, Adrienne, I do not.”

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“Give me your own, then.”

She thought barely three seconds. “The nature of scientific philosophy is to discover things.”

Adrienne smiled faintly. “Is that so different from what you quoted a moment ago?”

“I think it is, though I cannot say why.”

“Let me add a bit, then. It is the discovery of things merely to know them, to see the true beauty of the world revealed, to appreciate the fullness of creation.

It does not matter whether something a king, a soldier, or a blacksmith would consider useful is produced. It does not matter whether angels or devils are involved. Do you know why I am here, peering through this telescope?”

“To see something?”

“I am regarding Jupiter. Come look. Tell me what you see.”

Emilie rose and put her eye to the ocular. After a moment she said, “I see a small disk with bands of color. I see two small points of light.”

Adrienne nodded. “With the aid of the malakim, I have seen much more of Jupiter. I have seen the tides flowing in his great cloud oceans. I have seen those pinpricks as moons.”

“I read your monograph on it.”

“And yet tonight I come to this poor tube with its curved mirrors. Why do you suppose that is?”

“I cannot guess.”

“The method of science is to observe. We observe, we experiment, we record the results. It all has to do with what we see, hear, taste, smell. Do you see my point? Do you see why my monograph upon Jupiter was worthless?”

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“No, Mademoiselle—ah, Adrienne. You observed and recorded what you saw, did you not?”

“I did not. When I look through this telescope, only light mediates that observation. My monographs were based upon what the malakim saw and then translated to me. Have you ever played the game in which a phrase is whispered around a circle—into this ear, then that? The object is the amusement of how distorted the phrase becomes. And in
that
game, there is no deliberate attempt to distort.”

“Are you saying the angels of God would lie?” The girl wrinkled her brow.

“Emilie, you must promise me you will not repeat this conversation. Not to Linne, not to anyone. Will you swear it tome?”

“Yes, Adrienne.”

“Emilie, there is no proof whatever that the malakim have anything to do with God. None. They might, indeed, be angels. They might be devils. They might merely be beings much like us who live in a different state. But that they come from God, we have only their word. Just as I have only their word as to the appearance of Jupiter’s moons. This crude telescope gives me truer observation than they ever could. Do you understand?”

“I think so. But I have read all of your work, and—”

“You have read none of my work.” Adrienne sighed. “I have wasted ten years of my life, and only now do I know it. Only when I am slapped in the face with it.”

She lifted a bundle of papers. “Here is my work, or all that is left of it. All done when I was younger than you. I think you will find one of them particularly interesting, for it concerns the mathematical nature of the malakim. It is unfinished, but I wish to finish it. I would like you to help me.”

“Me?”

“I think you retain a perspective I have lost. Read it and comment upon it for me. But do not show anyone. Keep it hidden, safe. Keep some half-written EMPIRE OF UNREASON

paper on cures for the gout handy to cover it with should someone enter the room. This is our secret work.”

“And Linne?”

“I shall talk to him as well. If he is willing, the two of you will continue with your project as you proposed it to me. But you must now do so secretly. It is dangerous; if discovered you could be expelled, or perhaps much worse. Think on it.”

“I do not have to, Adrienne,” Emilie said, her eyes blazing and quite tearless. “I do not have to.” She turned to go.

“Wait a moment, Emilie. I would like to tell you something else.”

“Yes?”

“That you should hold on to your love of knowledge. It is precious. It is dangerous for a woman, rare, but beyond worth.”

“Thank you, Adrienne. I’ve often wondered how you—I mean, they say—”

“What do they say?”

“When I was a girl, in France, I saw you once. At the king’s library.”

“I did not know that.”

“It gave me hope, Adrienne, to see a woman at such things. It made me think that there might be a way—”

“A third path,” Adrienne murmured.

“Mademoiselle?”

“When I was young, at the school of Saint Cyr, I fell in love with philosophy and mathematics. Yet girls there were not allowed to study more than the rudiments of either. But one of the teachers helped me, showed me how to EMPIRE OF UNREASON