The Shadows of God by J. Gregory Keyes

Author:J. Gregory Keyes [Keyes, J. Gregory]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: SteamPunk, Fiction, Fantasy, General
ISBN: 9781439501139
Publisher: Paw Prints
Published: 2008-06-25T14:00:00+00:00

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4.

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Defeat

In the middle heavens, three armies of angels clashed: the dark, strange forces from the forest, hidden by a mist; the bright avenging cherubim of Adrienne’s son; and her own pitiful array.

Through the clash, through the ferments of shattering matter and dissolving spirit, she saw Nicolas, and he was dying. His forces were collapsing around him, and fire ate toward his center. Airships fell from the sky and alchemical artillery burst asunder, split by the very energies that motivated them. Nicolas was losing the fight for his life.

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.

I am your mother.

No. They told me to expect you, but I didn’t recognize you. I thought you were my friend. But I have no friends.

They? Swedenborg? Golitsyn? They are liars!

They are my servants, Nicolas answered, as the angels are my servants. They cannot lie to me.

Adrienne! It was Uriel, shrieking again. At once her vision split, her son’s face fading as the ship reappeared. A sky full of flame, the steady thrumming of guns, lurching impacts of enemy fire. A nearby sailor shriveling in a cocoon of flame.

And the death, stooping on her. And Uriel falling upon the death from above, like God’s great hawk. The aether screamed about her.

Gritting her teeth, she strengthened the forces connecting her to Nicolas, but he was fighting her, withdrawing—and then, from outside, something grabbed, tripled the affinity between them and they slammed together, she and Nicolas. For an instant she saw his face again, and then for an eye blink saw through his eyes. She saw Swedenborg, a laboratory, a brittle-looking device—

Then white light. Uriel reappeared, his form shredding apart, but the death was not to be seen.

“I told you,” the seraph said faintly. “We are undone. I am undone.”

And he was. “Finish what we started.” He sighed, then fell apart. All her servants tore apart, as the ship beneath her lurched sickeningly.

She awoke to the world of matter, to screams of despair, the deck of the ship tilting. Two of the globes that supported it had flickered out and crashed amongst the crew. The other two were almost bursting. For an instant, her sense of deja vu almost paralyzed her: this had happened before, at the siege of Venice—when she had lost Nico the first time.

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