Tushcona yawned and followed Adanahoe. “Did he speak of the beasts with wings?” she asked as she passed them.
Woolford seemed to grow uneasy. “Why would you ask that?”
The woman seemed not to hear as she disappeared down the ladder. “They are creatures of the spirit world,” Custaloga explained. As he stepped across the moonlit deck, he looked into the sky as if he might glimpse the creatures, then spoke in afterthought before descending the ladder himself. “The four beasts had each of them six wings, and they were full of eyes and did not rest night and day.”
Woolford grabbed Conawago’s arm, as it to keep the Nipmuc from leaving. “Where did they get those words?” he asked in an urgent tone. Sagatchie, who had been watching the water, turned in confusion toward them.
Conawago shrugged. “The elders are famed for their memories of speeches. It is how the culture of the Iroquois is passed down. They are Black Fish’s words, from his dream, from his visit to other side. .” The old Nipmuc hesitated as he felt Duncan’s intense stare.
“You never told me,” Duncan said.
“I did not translate every word. I told you there were beasts guarding the original spirits.”
“And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him and they were full of eyes within, and they rest not night and day,” Woolford recited.
Conawago cocked his head. “You were at one of the other villages where Black Fish told his dream?”
“It is from the Bible, Conawago. A passage about the end of the world.”
Conawago began to shake his head as if in disagreement, then paused as he saw the way his companions gazed at him. “What book?” he asked the ranger in an uneasy voice.
“Revelation.”
“Revelation,” Conawago repeated in a whisper. His face clouded as he looked at Duncan. “I am sorry. I am an Old Testament man.” He seemed to grow weaker, and he lowered himself onto the stern bench. “The graves gape and let forth ghosts,” he said.
“Now is the time of night that the graves gape wide and let forth the ghosts,” Woolford recited. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Why would you and Adanahoe both-”
“Something else Black Fish said that night. Words he repeated all over the League.”
“Surely not,” Woolford said. “Why would he. .” His words drifted away as he looked from Duncan to Conawago’s ashen face. “What else?”
“When he started to relate his dreams it was like theater,” Conawago recalled. “But speeches before the Council often have a theatrical flair. At some of the smaller castles it was said there was a burst of yellow and red smoke in the fire which he leapt through. There is a certain expectation of drama. The words are supposed to be long remembered.” The old Nipmuc shrugged. “He started by saying it is time to be frightened because now the lion roars and the wolf howls at the moon.”
Woolford shook his head as if in disbelief. “Now the hungry lion roars and the wolf behowls the moon. Shakespeare again. A Midsummer Night’s Dream again. Next you’ll tell me he saw men with the heads of asses.”
Conawago’s voice grew small. “Men with the heads of horses were among those attacking the gods.” He looked up sheepishly. “Not many in the tribes have seen an ass.”
Water lapped at the side of the ship in the silence that followed. In the distance came the mocking cry of a loon.
“My God, the Delaware,” Duncan said, looking at Sagatchie now. “He was telling us before he died. He knew the boys in the Ohio, he said, and they liked to cheat. We thought it was just more raving. He was talking about the half-king. He was warning us!” He saw the confusion on Conawago’s face. “They gave you mushrooms to bring hallucinations,” he said to his friend. “The words spoken by Black Fish weren’t his words. Someone prepared a script for a disciple of the half-king to use with the League.”
“Someone at the Council saw through it, and killed him,” Woolford suggested.
“No. Black Fish was no great orator, or traveler to the spirit world. He had a good memory, as his uncle does, but also a taste for liquor. He was watched over by his companions in the red-eyed canoe. He was killed by one of them. He had found some rum and couldn’t be trusted to keep his secret. He was likely to boast that he was part of a ruse against the Iroquois League.”
“If men cannot be trusted before the Council,” Conawago murmured toward the water, “then the world indeed collapses around us.”
“It was meant to be his final performance,” Woolford said in a near whisper. “Spread the tale among the other castles, sow the seeds of fear, then finally present to the Council.”
“But shrines were destroyed,” Conawago pointed out. “More than the hand of man was involved. A sacred cave was buried when the mountainside above it shifted. I heard a sacred tree burst from the inside.”
“Either could have been done with gunpowder,” Woolford observed.
“Gunpowder doesn’t burn rocks,” Duncan said. “We saw it, at the mouth of the gods near Onondaga Castle. It was as if lava had risen out of the earth and melted the stone.”
“Certain gunners can burn rocks,” came a voice from the dark, “burn the earth, like the devil himself.”
Duncan looked about in the darkness for the speaker before realizing it came from the captain, still standing at the wheel.
“Beg pardon,” the officer said. “None of my concern.”
“How?” Duncan pressed. “How do you burn rocks?”
“Why with water, what else?” came the bitter reply. When the captain saw the insistent look on Duncan’s face, he called for the first mate to take the wheel and gestured them below.
A minute later they stood before the heavy door that marked the ship’s magazine. “Not just gunpowder in here,” the captain explained as he unlocked the hatch. “There’s always signal rockets and flares. But lately the navy board is experimenting with old recipes for Greek fire, the fluid that ignites with water and burns like the fire of Hades. Made of quicklime, saltpeter, sulphur, and bitumen, though the exact recipe is a secret kept by London. They heard rumors the French are equipping their fighting ships with it.”
“We need to see how you burn a rock,” Woolford said.
The officer seemed reluctant to go further. He sent for the gunner’s mate, who knelt at a wooden chest lined with straw. Inside was a smaller chest that was divided into a dozen smaller compartments, each of which was lined with sawdust. He carefully extracted a small glass jar. Duncan exchanged a pointed glance with Sagatchie. They had seen such a chest, in the red-eyed canoe.
Back on the main deck the gunner’s mate produced an old cracked ceramic bowl, a bucket, and a long grappling hook. He upturned the bowl in the bottom of the bucket and poured the jar’s acrid-smelling contents over it. “Ye paint yer rock like this,” the mate explained, “then toss on some water.” He quickly hung the bucket at the end of the pole and extended it from the ship’s side, over the lake. “Greek fire be like a viper. If y’er gonna release it git away fast.” As he spoke the captain used the ladle from the water butt to toss a few drops into the bucket. Instantly the bowl burst into white flame, and the mate lowered the pole to set the bucket adrift. “It has to burn itself out. Water just makes it angrier.” The bucket began to tilt, its molten contents spilling into their wake. They stared in uneasy silence as a narrow line of burning water traced their passage over the blackened lake.
It seemed Duncan had barely lain down when the pounding of feet overhead awoke him. He rolled off his hammock and was far enough up the ladder to hear the frightened shout that came from the lookout.
“Boat ahead, port bow!” came the call from the mizzentop. The sailor quickly corrected himself. “Vessels on the starboard and port bow!” he called to the deck. “Blessed Mary!” he moaned a moment later. “The buggers are everywhere!” he shouted in desperate confusion.