Empire of Unreason (36 page)

“Yes, of course. I did not bring about the death of Irena. I do not
care about such things.”

“What do you care about?”

“I want you to find your son.”

“Why?”

“Because I cannot find him myself. Because he is in the hands of my
enemies, and yours as well. Because they will use him to ignite the
fires in the dark engines.”

“I should think you would want that,” she said. “The death of
reason, the end of our influence in your realm.”

“No. To destroy you is wrong. You are our children, in a way.”

“In what way?”

“I don’t care to explain that, nor do you need to know it. I want you
quiet, not dead. Like this garden, you are most beautiful when you
let nature rule.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

Now Adrienne laughed. “It would seem that to defy nature
is
our
nature,” she said. “For time and again, you must stop us.”

“You may be right. That is why we fear you so.”

“Who are you?”

“I have had many names.” The form shifted, clouded, and refigured
itself. Now it was Crecy. “You might call me Lilith or Sophia or
Mother. It does not matter what you call me. All that matters is
this: of all of my kind that exist, of all of the princes of the air—only
I remain loyal to your race. All of the others have fallen away.”

“Why? Why now?”

“Largely because of you. More because of your son.” Crecy stepped
into the shadows.

“Wait. I’ve been told before that my son is dangerous. But I’ve also
been told that the greatest danger is if we are together.”

“True. But that is also our greatest hope. Much more I cannot say,
just this: it
may
be in your power to save your race. But be assured,
you
certainly
hold the power to destroy it.”

The changing of bodies into light, and light into bodies, is very

conformable to the course of Nature, which seems delighted with

transmutations.

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

—Sir Isaac Newton,
Optics
1717

“I am going to die, so it makes no difference to me whether the

sickness or a man kills me. I know I am a bad man for having so

long a time concealed, in order to preserve my life, what I am

going to tell you. I am the cause of the death of my nation,

therefore, I merit death, but let me not be eaten by dogs.”

—Words of a Natchez temple guardian who polluted the Sacred
Fire, related in 1725

And there came two angels to Sodom at even…

—Genesis 19:1

James Oglethorpe held up his hand to halt the company, and put a
finger to his lips for silence. His hawklike gaze picked across the
Indian fields to the woods beyond.

“Hear that?” he asked the Indian next to him in a voice just louder
than a breath.

Tomochichi, the chief of the Yamacraw, shrugged his ancient
shoulders. “I’m getting old,” he murmured, “too many muskets
fired too close to my ears. What do you hear?”

“A horse, I think, running.”

“One of the scouts?”

“Perhaps. But one of ours or one of theirs?”

Tomochichi stared at the woods, until his eyes almost seemed to
glaze over.

“Spirits out there,” he said, “walking through the woods on thin
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

black legs.”

“Do they know we are here?”

“Not yet. I can hide us for a little while.”

There had been a time when Oglethorpe thought the old chief was—

however admirable in other ways—a superstitious savage. He had
left that time years in the past. The red men had always known
what philosophers like Franklin had only just recently proven
through the methods of science: that terrible things walked in the
world. When Tomochichi said something about spirits, it was best
to listen. Oglethorpe drew his pistol and lay it across his lap,
narrowing his eyes at the middle-distant trees.

1.

First Blood

An instant later, a rider broke into the clearing, riding as if the
devil were nipping at his mount’s tail. It was a Maroon, his face an
inky dot at that distance.

A few moments later his features, shiny with sweat, resolved. It was
Unoka.

“T’ey over’t‘ next hill.” The black man grunted.

“‘How many?”

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“March in column,”t’ree deep, maybe two arrow shot long. Four
hundred, maybe. T’ey hab’t‘ose metal men you talk about,
about’t’irty, I say.“

“Artillery? Flying ships?”

“I seen no o‘’t’at,” Unoka replied, perhaps a bit skeptically.

“Coming behind, then. This lot is just to soften us up. ”Tis clear
they mean to take Fort Moore. Very well, fellows, let’s soften
them

up. Captain Unoka, take about thirty of your men and drop down in
the tall grass on the right side of the trail.“

“Out in’t‘ open?” Unoka frowned. “You tryin’‘t’ kill us all so no
worries about us later?”

Oglethorpe locked gazes with the Maroon. He had known the fellow
would be trouble. His people were less given to taking orders even
than the Indians.

“You’re under my orders; you’ll do what I say.”

“T’ey my men.”

“Listen, you stinking, insolent—”

“The Yamacraw will take that task,” Tomochichi interrupted.

Oglethorpe bit back a comment to the Indian to mind his own
business. He wanted the Unoka to pay attention to him, damnit all,
not have someone else step up for them.

On the other hand, they didn’t have time for a protracted argument.

“Very well, Captain Unoka. Withdraw your men to the rear, if you
wish, and the Yamacraw will take your position.” He turned to his
aide, Jack Jones. “Tell Mr. Parmenter to deploy some rangers, as
well—fifteen should do.”

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He had
told
Franklin this would be useless.

He mopped his head with a dirty kerchief and took a deep breath.

Get ahold of yourself. You need your wits about you, now.
This
was America, after all, where trust was earned rather than given
freely. As irritating as it was, there was no particular reason for the
Negro to trust him. After all, Unoka had been taken like an animal
from his native country and brought here to work to death, hadn’t
he?

It would be hard to trust, after that.

Unoka drove that point home. “Where you goin‘’t‘ be, Lord English,
while’t’ey out’t‘ere wit’out no cover?” He gestured at the Yamacraw
entering the field.

Oglethorpe flashed him a contemptuous smile. “If you’re man
enough to find out, stay here by my side,” he retorted.

“Is so,”t’en,“ Unoka said. ”First I move my men back.“

“Do that. Perhaps you can find a nursery for them, somewhere in
the rear.”

The rest of the scouts returned. About half were Indians, the other
half Maroons. It perplexed him that the Negroes were brave and
willing to ride alone toward the enemy but not to stand and fight.

Trust, again, he supposed. As scouts they made their own
decisions. If death caught up with them, it was their own fault, not
the fault of a commander they didn’t know.

It was different with the Yamacraw. He had earned their trust over
the years. He even fancied they thought of him as a kindred spirit,
and he watched them take their positions with a certain pride.

From this raised prospect, he could just make them out as they lay
on their bellies in the grass. The Pretender’s men, coming from
lower ground, shouldn’t be able to see them at all.

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“Go back and get the devil gun,” he told Jack Jones. The young man

—just a boy really, fair haired and blue eyed— nodded vigorously
and rode to get the scientifical weapon Franklin had given them.

Then there was just the waiting, which in his experience was the
better nine tenths of any battle. He checked his weapons and
listened.

They heard the wetender’s forces long betore they saw them. They
were making no particular effort at silence, chattering in ranks as
they marched.

He would see that they soon learned to watch that. This wasn’t
Europe, and they weren’t fighting a European war.

The column appeared, led by two Indians—Cusabo?—and several
mounted men in bloodred coats. Behind them was a small company
of light horse—maybe forty men—and behind them the taloi. Unoka
could count pretty well—there were thirty of the automatons.

Watching their unnatural gait sent an unaccustomed thrill of fear
up his spine. Men he knew how to fight, but he hadn’t seen these
things battling the Turks and the French with Prince Eugene. While
Franklin had explained them, the young philosopher knew no
better than anyone else how they would figure in a skirmish. How
many bullets would it take to stop one? He hoped Franklin’s
depneumifier—the devil gun—would do its work. Where was Jones,
anyway?

The redcoats were halfway across the field—within shouting
distance—before they saw Oglethorpe and his horsemen, square on
the trail, just inside the noonday shadow of the woods.

An officer in front shouted, and the drums beat a halt. The column
came to good order; these men were well trained.

“Good day to you, sirs,” Oglethorpe called. “I am General James
Oglethorpe. Welcome to America.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“I am General McMinn,” one of the redcoats .returned, “and I
demand your surrender in the name of His Majesty James III.”

McMinn. He had served with a McMinn in Europe. Too bad he
couldn’t make out the fellow’s face from this distance.

“I can’t oblige you, sir. This is the sovereign territory of the
Commonwealth Province of South Carolina, and it is under my
protection. You may retreat or you may die. These are the choices I
give you.”

“The rightful king of England and her colonies recognize no such
state,” McMinn shouted back. “If you will not surrender, we shall
be forced to take your surrender with the sword.”

“As you wish, sir,” Oglethorpe replied. He kicked his horse, hard,
drew his pistol, and charged down the trail, the rest of his cavalry
spreading behind him like a raptor’s wings.

He almost laughed at the enemy’s reaction. The horse wheeled,
trying to form to meet a charge they should have expected but
hadn’t. Did they really think he would parley? Probably. The
column of foot, meanwhile, was for an instant paralyzed before
they scrambled forward into firing lines.

The first volley roared out, just plain old guns blowing blue-gray
clouds and lead balls. Most of these last thudded into trees behind
them, though one of his men let out an unholy shriek. If anyone
else was hit, they took it more quietly.

He could make out enemy faces now—some frightened, some
determined, most both. Their cavalry had finally gotten moving,
and he aimed his weapon very carefully at the lead man.

As he pulled the trigger, the Yamacraw and rangers rose out of the
grass at either side and lit powder, so that the field was suddenly an
alley, bounded by two walls of smoke and fire and ended by forest.

Men screamed and fell, and the forming lines milled once more
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

into disarray.

He didn’t have time to take any more of that in. His Fahrenheit gun
roared, spewing a mist of red-hot silver into the first rank of
horsemen. The jagged bolt of a
kraftpistole
missed him by a few
hairs, and he whispered a quick thanks to God almighty as he drew
his basket-hilted broadsword and cut down the first redcoat to
reach him.

The Pretender’s cavalry crumpled at the first charge, parting as if
by magic. The first line of infantry was still trying to fix their plug
bayonets when he swept into them, too, laying about with a sword
that was already gory to the hilt. He had another glimpse of the
column stretching back into the woods, trying desperately to find
targets in the smoke and grass. They fell, and they fell, and they fell.

After that, there were no more bullets in the front lines. The battle
went to bayonet, hanger, and broadsword. He noticed Unoka,
laying about with a pair of tomahawks. The savage wasn’t afraid to
fight, at least.

When they reached the taloi, things changed. Jets of flame
suddenly cut through the Colonial horse; the air filled with the
stench of burning hair and flesh. Some of it was his own— he felt
his eyebrows singe from a near miss—and he suddenly understood
something he should have guessed before.