A Calculus of Angels (15 page)

They cut him loose, and he tried not to look at the ugly pucker where the iron A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

had touched him. He whooped some more and began a song, his head light and tingling. The man with the hot iron still stood there, unsure what to do.

“Well? Show us, Indian.”

That was when Red Shoes took the rifle barrel in his bare hands. He spun and swung it at Qwenus, imagining that his hands had simply become wood, that the smell was meat burning on a distant fire. He struck the “god” at the juncture of shoulder and neck. The barrel resisted coming away, fused as it was to the man’s flesh, but he managed it and swung again, catching another of the blind men who stood in ranks behind their leader. He swung it three more times before his body realized what he had done to it and brought down the night.

He awoke to pain, and a gentle up-and-down motion.

“What?” he muttered. He was cradled in someone’s arms.

“Aye! He wakes!” called the person carrying him. Through blurred vision, he made out Tug’s face.

Other faces crowded around him. He recognized Fernando and du Rue, closest.

“I’ve never seen nothin‘ like that,” Tug whispered, “what you did.”

“How are you?” Nairne asked.

“Not well,” Red Shoes replied.

“The wire on our cage just fell away,” Tug continued, enthusiastically.
“Then
we showed ‘em. I boosted Fernando out, an’ he threw down the rope. None of

‘em even noticed, they ’uz too busy watchin‘ you. Hell, most of ’em didn’t even stay for the fight.”

“Where are we?”

“Be still,” Nairne said. “And the rest of you leave him alone, you hear? He needs rest.” He turned back to Red Shoes. “We’re almost to the ships. Will you A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

live?”

Red Shoes nodded. It was difficult to move. Now that the madness was gone, he couldn’t imagine how he had picked up a hot gun barrel.

He had no intention of looking at his hands. He knew that given time he could heal them, though he guessed it would be months before he could grasp anything with real strength. But at least he was alive.

“Did anyone die?” he asked Fernando, after Nairne and the others fell away a bit.

“Aye. Some seven or eight English.”

“Any of them ours?”

“No. Saint-Pierre was shot, but only through the shoulder. He should live.”

“Good. Do we have any rum left?”

“No. The crazy Englishmen drank it all.”

“I hope Blackbeard gives me some, then. I shall need it very soon.”

“If he refuses,” Fernando promised, “I will strangle him.”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

The World is bound by Secret Knots
—Athanasius Kircher,
The Magnetic Kingdom of Nature

A Devil is a Spiritual and Rational Substance…

—Cotton Mather,

Wonders of the Invisible World
, 1693

1.

Comet

His skin was a coat of ice, thickening toward his bones. The night was cathedral windows stained only with the pale hues of the moon, mosaics of umbra and uncertain light filtering through the bare branches of the trees.

Curiously, those branches knit together tightly enough that he could not make out the actual source of the wan illumination. Ben did not know where he was or how he had gotten there.

Wandering aimlessly at first, now he began to make out vague geometrical shadows amongst the twisted tree trunks. Buildings, he realized with a start, or the remains of them.

He approached the yawning portal of one of the structures, its lintel framed in dead briars, the flagstones crumbling, barely evident beneath his feet. Inside, it was lighter, the luminescence of alchemical lanthorns coppering the walls. It was like discovering some lost Babylon—one of those cities in the desert that travelers to Arabic lands reported, visible one day, lost again the next, buried A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

here not by sand but by root and branch.

Wandering into a room, he saw his mistake, for amongst the cobwebs and tendrils dangling from the roof, dozens of metallic orbs spun lazily, suspended in air. In the center was one that radiated a dim light—that one was the sun, of course. He named the rest beneath his breath: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars—all the planets there, and amongst them, like airborne marbles, the moons and comets.

No antediluvian ruin, this. This was the orrery room at Crane Court in London, where he had become a Newtonian, where once this model of the solar system had been a tool for refining natural law. He gazed about with mingled horror and sadness.

Perhaps in response to that thought, something in the depths of the building stirred and scratched, something whispered his name, and he recalled that more than architecture had died at Crane Court.

He fled outside, recognizing other ruins—the coffeehouse where he had met his first lover, the Tower of London, the dome of Saint Paul’s. The Grecian Coffeehouse, where he had met Vasilisa, Maclaurin, Heath, Voltaire.

So it
was
a dream, for it was impossible that any stone of these buildings remained standing. But the terror was no less real, and he ran, beating at branches that grabbed him like bony fingers, murmuring indictments, as if every tree in this endless wood were one person whose death was his responsibility.

He ran, and he was running from Bracewell, he was running from the comet, every flight in his life twisted together, every cowardly motion he had ever made confounded. The faster he ran the denser the trees became.

At last another familiar house appeared, windows bright and inviting. It was his brother’s shop, back in Boston. He had run at last back whence he came.

His fear gripped him like gravity.

Gritting his teeth, he worked the latch of the door.

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There was James, grinning crookedly at him, the rusty stain still on his shirt.

James, his brother, dead, beckoning him in.

Of course it was a dream.

“I never meant for it to happen, James,” he whispered, sure he was meant to say something. “I never knew he would kill you.” But ghosts knew, knew intentions didn’t matter so much as results. James’ eyes mocked him, and through his brother’s features, Ben suddenly saw their father, as in an imperfect looking glass. He shrank back even before James licked his cracked lips and began to speak.

“Among the many reigning Vices of the Town which may at any Time come under my Consideration and Reprehension, there is none which I am more inclin’d to expose than that of
Pride”
James spoke the words glacially, sightless eyes fixed on Ben. His voice was familiar but strange—lacking breadth and character, human quality. And his words struck a sickening discord in Ben.

They were familiar, too.

“It is acknowledg’d,” James continued, “to be a Vice the most hateful to God and Man. Even those who nourish it in themselves, hate to see it in others.”

James, please,
Ben tried to say, but his tongue clove to the back of his throat, threatening to choke him. James spoke Ben’s own words—from one of the letters Ben had written as “Silence Dogood” for
The New England Courant,
James’ paper.

His brother blinked angrily and stood, finger stabbing outward like a pastor’s admonishing the congregation, voice rising. “The proud man aspires after Nothing less than an unlimited Superiority over his Fellow-Creatures. He has made himself a King in
Soliloquy;
fancies himself conquering the World; and the Inhabitants thereof consulting on proper Methods to acknowledge his Merit!”

His mocking tone boiled into fury, and Ben stood paralyzed as his brother suddenly lunged forward and slapped him, backhand, on the temple. He staggered against the wall, gagging as the sudden stench of rotting flesh filled his lungs. James stared at him, unchanged, save that the light had gone from his eyes, and with it all anger and passion. Slowly, his brother turned, went A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

back to the press, and began to work. Ben stood there, shivering, for a time, and then he left, weeping dream tears.

Outside, it was now brighter. The trees had opened a space, so that it was as if he stood in a wide amphitheater, the night sky at last naked for him to behold.

The heavens were bright, but not from moon or star. Instead was a brilliance, the apparent size of a fist, smudging a streak of ash all across the sky.

Shivering, he awoke to terrible cold and a jabbing in his ribs.

“Waken, sweetheart,” someone roughly cajoled.

Ben squinted his eyes open. He lay on cold stone. Robert towered over him, face pale in the light of a small lanthorn, hard toe of his shoe nudging again into Ben’s ribs.

“What in God’s name do you want, Robin?” Ben snapped.

“Now there’s ‘n ungrateful man,” Robert observed. “We save him from icy death an’ he only complains.”

“What?” Ben sat up, rubbing his eyes. Where was he?

It came back to him when he made out the gleam of brass and the chill, fuzzy blobs of stars above.

“Oh.” He grunted. “I must have fallen asleep.”

“What is this place?” a third voice asked. Ben glanced over to where Peter Frisk curiously examined a telescope.

“Good morning, Captain Frisk,” Ben managed, stretching his cold-cramped muscles. “This is the astronomical observatory of the Mathematical Tower.”

“I thought I’d begin here before starting with the boudoirs of the young ladies in Kleinseit,” Robert explained. “An‘ a good thing. A girl might’ve kept you warm enough to live until found, unlike that thing.” He gestured at the A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

telescope.

“Aye, and likely you would’ve become too distracted to carry on searching.” He rattled his head a bit. “I couldn’t have been asleep more than a few minutes,”

he continued. “And I would’ve wakened in a few more.”

Robert shrugged. “As y‘ wish. So the air is thin enough’t’ see through this night?”

“No. Damned and thrice damned, no.” He flung an angry gaze at the stars.

Which one was Prague’s doom?

“Y’r agitatin‘ y’rself, Ben,” Robert observed.

Ben rubbed his arms. “I’m not just up here from idle curiosity, Robin,” he muttered.“ ‘Tis happening again.”

Robert’s eyes widened, and his face went sober. “No.”

“Yes. The prisoner said so.”

“But how?”

Ben snorted. “That’s easily done. Stirling and Vasilisa survived. Probably the Frenchmen, too, whoever they were. Fools.”

“I don’t suppose you two would enlighten me as to what you are talking about?” Frisk put in.

“No offense, Mr. Frisk, but what brings you up here with Robert?”

“Oh. Well—”

“The emperor,” Robert interrupted, “decided that you needed another protector, and was well impressed with Captain Frisk.”

Ben eyed him, noting his bandaged shoulder. Of course he was grateful to Frisk, but didn’t the emperor have any damn sense at all? Despite having A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

helped them against the Muscovites, Frisk might easily be a spy. He knew that there were few guards or soldiers to spare, but this stretched the boundaries of wit.

Or maybe one of the “old men” had done this to him, hoping that Frisk
was
a murderer of some sort.

“Well, Captain Frisk, it appears that your desire for employ has been fulfilled.

What of your injury?”

“It was only a cut upon the flesh, no bones shattered, thanks be to God. And I am quite happy to be your guardian, sir.”

“I hope you shall remain happy when I delay explaining to you what Robert and I spoke of, for it will take some time to present to you.” He glanced around conspicuously. “Aside from that, doors and walls are fool’s paper.”

For an instant, Ben thought he saw a blaze of sheer indignation on the Swede’s features, but Frisk only nodded and said, “I am at your service, not you at mine.”

“Have you told Sir Isaac?” Robert asked.

“No. No, I came right up here…” He closed his eyes, seeing again the apparitions of his dream. “I had to
do
something, you see? Talking’s no good.”

He sighed. “But no luck. This is a simple optical telescope. What I have need of is an affinascope, like the one we had at Crane Court.”

“Build one.”

“I don’t know how, and Sir Isaac left the plans in London. I’ve begged him for the secret, but he won’t be bothered with it. It isn’t what
interests
him now.”

“But sure, wi‘ this new information—”

“Yes, well, we can hope, but he that lives on hope dies fasting. I will talk to him when he wakes, of course. How far the sunrise?”

A CALCULUS OF ANGELS

“An hour. But Newton has already risen. He sent us out to find you.”

“Oh. For what purpose?”

“He wants you to fetch something for him,” Robert answered, handing him a scrap of paper.

“What’s this?”

“The description of the thing, I suppose. He gave me the address.”

“Wonderful.” Ben hesitated. “What humor was he in?”

“What do you expect? He thinks you out carousing.”

Ben nodded. “And damned if I shouldn’t have been. I did no good here.”

The ghost of James had hit the mark dead center. He was all about his pride and vanity. The truth was, Prague was better off without his supposed help.

“Let us get this thing,” he grunted, “after which I’ll buy you both a breakfast pint. Where gang we to, Robin?”

“Judenstadt.”

“‘s’z it,” Robert said.

It was just a house, neither particularly large or small. Ben paused, realizing that he did not yet know exactly what it was he was after. He dug in his pocket and uncrumpled the note Robert had given him.

The Sepher Ha-Razim
it said.
A book of cabalistic formulae.
Below, scribbled in an untidy hand, was the name of the same book in Hebrew characters.

Ben rolled his eyes. Another one of
those
books. Prague was one vast storehouse of occult books—he spent half his time lugging tomes from one part of town to another. Early on, most of these had been histories and chronologies of ancient kingdoms, but in the past several months, Newton had A CALCULUS OF ANGELS