Saul of Sodom: The Last Prophet

  He gazed through the glazed roof into the red sky as he lay in his bed, cadaver-like. Six hours and not a wink of sleep, the sheets were barely ruffled. The room was enlarged by bareness and the sunlight was dim through the photochromic walls.

  He sat up with a low growl. The pain in his limbs had migrated to his core and he stroked away the ache in his abdomen, brought his legs over the side of the bed and rose with a stretch, and his sinews pried from his bones like Velcro. He had eaten very little in the last week, and found himself slowly working his way back to insomnia. It did not take long for the suspicion to form that the Commission may have been keeping his home under surveillance, and there were a good many more causes over which to lose sleep, not least among which were the nightmares, which had gotten even worse than before.

  The en suite was as large and lavish as every other room in the house with walls of chalcedony and jasper. Every first 20 minutes after waking from what little sleep his body could muster he would stand stone still under running water. The water poured over his hung head and neck, dripping off the tangled locks. He lifted his head up; eyes shut, and let the warm stream wash over his face.

  The water stopped. He dried off, stepped out of the bath, and came up to the wash basin, looking up at the mirror.

  It was the first time since Nova Crimea that he could remember looking at himself. He scarcely recognised the man in the reflection. The corporal reconstruction had erased about two decades, but the marks of trauma were still prominent. He ran his fingers from his crown to his chin, down the thin scars that ran around the dents of his orbitals and all along the left side of his body, across the deep sinews of his chest. His left pupil glowed red in the light from above the mirror. Then his fingers strayed over the collarbone, where the martial seal of the UMC had been restored.

  He scowled at the seal in the reflection, took a blade up off the counter and pressed the edge against the seal…

  Silence was broken.

  He flinched when the noise echoed down the corridors through the open doors and a trickle of blood began from his collarbone. He stopped. He listened.

  It was a voice, too indistinct for the words to be made out.

  He gently pushed the door of his room open and sidled, barefoot, over the threshold, into the corridor. His right hand glided over the open door, blade clutched and ready in his left. The voice became more distinct:

  “I really like green … the hills are so green here … not like back home…”

  His hand tightened around the blade, and as he approached the end of the corridor and peered over the corner, he clutched the blade by the edge and concealed it.

  The girl was on her knees, looking out through the glazed wall, talking, as it were, to someone and no one.

  “Saul doesn’t talk a lot,” she said, quietly. “Daddy was the same…”

  He approached her from behind, across the soundless carpet.

  “…No, I don’t mind,” she continued, casually. A gay smile unfurled on the corners of her sun-kissed cheeks. “Maybe he’s just shy. Mummy used to say that boys are shy with girls sometimes and…” When she saw his reflection in the glass wall, she spun around with a gasp and a muddle of strawberry blond hair over her eyes.

  “Hi, Saul.”

  He peered warily about.

  “Good morning…” he said.

  Naomi giggled, bright-eyed. “It’s not morning,” she said. “It’s sunset. See?” She turned around and pointed at the westward view: to the hills and ridges of green and heather violet, and evergreen trees poking out like pikestaffs from the land. The sun set over the faraway valley.

  “So it is,” he said, gazing out.

  The setting sun lit his eyes like flames. Night was falling. He looked down at the girl and the great moonstones looked back up.

  “Who were you talking to?” he asked.

  “A – oh…” The girl’s eyes were suddenly timid. “Umm … just … someone,” she hesitated.

  “Who?”

  She hummed pensively. “I d’know,” she said, turning her head from side to side. “But, I think he knows Mummy and Daddy.”

  “… He?”

  “Umm…”

  A loud squelching rumble suddenly sounded from her and she gasped and threw her hands over her belly. “Saul,” she murmured. “I’m hungry…”

  He walked over to the other side of the room and turned on the big screen. He had managed to find a nature channel the previous night, after an hour of filtering through all the global media networks, political broadcasts, war zone bulletins, pornography and everything else he deemed unsuitable for a child. The display came alive with a high-definition holographic rendering of the African Savannah.

  The girl turned and her gaping orbs brightened.

  “Lions!” She scurried to her feet and sprung off the floor twice and onto the settee.

  “You… like animals,” he noted.

  The little head bobbled. “I like to draw animals.”

  The girl’s eyes filled with delight when it seemed, for a moment, like he would sit with her, but the smile wilted when he walked on past and over to the freight chute.

  The green light over the conveyor doors signalled that freight was loaded. Inside was a fresh supply of vacuum-sealed and dehydrated food. He poured a portion of rolled oats in a bowl and mixed in some lukewarm water and sugar.

  “Here,” he said, placing the bowl before her.

  She came down off the couch and briefly studied the contents of the bowl before looking up. “Thanks,” she said, and started to poke at the contents with her spoon. The girl was a model of obedience, always seeming content with what she was given.

  He picked up the pack of cigarettes lying on the kitchen counter, shook it, opened and stared into the empty pack, certain he had had a few left in it the night before. He compressed the cigarette pack in a fist and glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the little head quickly jolt away.

  Just as he opened his mouth to speak, a bell chimed three times in quick succession and echoed through the house and his head jerked toward the front door.

  Not a sound or a movement as the echoes dwindled.

  Naomi’s eyes zipped about, anxious and confused, her mouth full of porridge.

  He sauntered up to the door just as the bell chimed a second time. On the wall beside the door, there was a small display and when the screen lit up, he breathed a half-relieved, half-nervous sigh.

  The door opened.

  “…I did not think that you would come.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  Celyn stood on the other side of the threshold. Her were arms crossed and there were daggers in her eyes. It had not occurred to him until that moment that it had been close to four months since they had last seen each other, yet he remembered the dream as though it were yesterday…

  “I am thankful.”

  “Don’t be thanking me so soon,” she said. “I don’t know why I’m here yet.” Celyn made to step forward and he, discretely, narrowed the space between the double-doors to keep the other side hidden from view. She stopped and regarded him with an askance look.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  “I am sorry,” he said. “I could not risk the Commission…”

  He faltered when he felt a nudge at the back of his knee.

  Celyn’s eyes narrowed and her arms uncrossed. “The Commission?” She lifted her head back and to the side and regarded him sideways again. “What are… you…” Her speech wavered as one of the doors gently swung open and her eyes journeyed down from his eyes to his legs, stopping on the little blond head peeping out from behind him, and the great, grey eyes gazing back up at her.

  “Hello,” chirruped the little figure standing below his knees.

  There was pin-drop silence.

  “Saul… who’s the lady?”

  Celyn’s gaping eyes did not allay for several minutes, even as she drifted in through the door in a trance and lowered int
o a seat at the kitchen table, her eyes fixed on the little girl across the hall. Not a word was uttered.

  Having got dressed, Saul sat across from her and quietly opened a fresh pack of cigarettes, took one out, and lit, peering up from time to time as he did so. Even as his own stare deepened, gliding up and down the side of her face, the strong, dark curves of her features, the smooth tendons of her neck down to the deep cleft line of her breasts, her eyes did not yield. He recalled the dream again…

  “Who is she?” Celyn broke suddenly with the long-delayed question.

  He broke his stare and shifted his attention away nervously.

  “Her name is Naomi,” he replied. “By civil calendar she is six years old…”

  “How is she here?” Celyn broke in again.

  “I brought her here.”

  She slowly turned a severe look upon him.

  “You found her in a warzone.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you brought her back?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Silence.

  “I do not know.” Hints of ire began to simmer in his voice. “I… do not remember.”

  “How the hell can you not remember?”

  When he did not answer, she leaned back and regarded him with fresh suspicion.

  “Did they clean you?” she asked.

  “No,” he rapidly answered.

  “Then what happened?”

  He hesitated at first, then, after another long silence, reached into his pocket and took out the neural canister. He placed it on the table in front of her.

  “Neurals?”

  “Overdose,” he said simply.

  There was a tense pause.

  “You OD’d on neurals?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t remember!” His fist beat down on the table-top and the sudden rise in his voice resounded through the house. When his shaking fist allayed, he noticed something in the angle of his vision.

  Little Naomi was standing just across from them, rigid with fright.

  “Wait in the upstairs room,” he said, averting the look in her eyes.

  After a long pause, the little Naomi quietly turned away without a word.

  “Close the door,” he added sternly, stopping her in her tracks.

  “… OK.”

  The little legs scuttled away.

  The girl scaled to the top of the spiral staircase two feet to each step at a time and his eyes stretched to their corners, following her until the sound of the closing door shut.

  “Naomi…” Celyn repeated with a snort. “A civy name if ever I heard one.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I do not remember anything after Nova Crimea,” he said, finally.

  Celyn glowered and looked away.

  “I am sorry,’ he said, ‘… about Malachi-”

  “He’s dead,” she snapped. “He doesn’t exist. He never existed. That’s how it works.”

  “Martial order.”

  “The world,” she corrected. “The universe doesn’t know, doesn’t care, about anyone or any damn thing. We’re martials; we live, we die, we pass through the system and when we’re gone, nobody knows; nobody ever knew or gave a damn. The ones who do are the ones who die first.”

  He did not miss that same shimmer in her eyes as before, the flash of irresolution.

  “I know that you are not like the rest of them.”

  “You don’t know shit about me.”

  “Why did you save my life?” he asked.

  Celyn fell silent. She looked away and glared ahead and into the depths of herself.

  “You had every reason to leave me to die” he said. “You did not. Why?”

  Still she remained quiet.

  “The Commission will not…”

  “Who – gives – a – fuck – about the Commission?”

  The irresolution instantly changed to wrath. He was silenced.

  “You know,” her voice took a sullen dip, “you keep talking about the Commission as though they’re the enemy, when the only thing you really ought to be afraid of right now is about three feet tall and hiding in your attic.”

  “I could not leave her to die.”

  “Why not?” She asked.

  A pause followed the question.

  “You’ve killed plenty of times before…”

  “In battles. In warzones.”

  “This war means no more to you than it does to me or anyone else in this world. Every life has its price. Everyone has its reasons for fighting. Maybe yours was to get the hell out of Dodge. Whatever the reason, we both know that that’s what another life is worth to you. So, what makes her life different?”

  He looked away with a frown, put the cigarette out and rose to his feet. “Maybe you do not understand,” he said.

  “No, I think you’re the one who doesn’t understand.”

  They remained locked in a war of gazes.

  “Help me out here,” she said, probing him with her eyes, “because as I recall, you hated this world so much you wanted to get out even if it killed you – which it damn near did. So, I’m curious. What exactly did you think you were saving this kid from by bringing her here?”

  “They were going to send her to a D.P. camp. She was alone.”

  “And now what? You’ll both live happily ever after?”

  He did not answer. The small issue of the distant future had, of course, occurred to him, and until that moment, he had succeeded in concealing from himself; the resolution that the problem would eventually resolve itself. Now that he was posed the question directly, however, he had no answer.

  Celyn leaned back in her chair, tapping the table-top with her fingers. “You can lie to yourself, but you’re not fooling me,” she said. “You didn’t bring this girl here to save her; you brought her here for you. Whether you want to admit it or not; she’s just a temp – a stand-in…”

  “For what?”

  “…For those.” Her eyes motioned toward the neural canister on the table.

  Both of their heads turned around and up when they heard the door open at the top of the spiral staircase. The little golden head poked out from behind the corner.

  “Saul,” called a small and dry voice. “…Can I have some water?”

  After a brief silence, he replied with a slow nod.

  The girl descended the spiral staircase, judiciously watching her every step, holding on to the railing with both hands. She tottered across the foyer and into the kitchen.

  He stood up, took a glass and filled it at the tap. Celyn kept her head forward, but he could see that her eyes were closely following the girl’s every movement, even as she scuttled up to him and stretched out on her tiptoes to take the glass, raised the cup to her mouth like a water jug and drank, and drank. Having emptied half the glass, she paused for breath.

  “What’s your name?”

  Celyn’s head revolved in line with her mesmerised gaze.

  “… What’s your name?” the girl asked a second time with the same melody.

  A long quiet followed. Celyn’s eyes flitted from Saul to the girl, who stepped forward beckoning her answer with a patient silence.

  “… Celyn,” she replied weakly, her voice softened to honey.

  The smile on the girl’s face brightened and she started to giggle.

  “Your eyes are pretty,” she said

  The woman-martial’s head tilted curiously to one side as the girl suddenly toddled toward her and started running her fingers through the long locks of her hair. She flinched and immobilised with fright. Her lips loosed, the lines on her brow receded and the emerald eyes shimmered. Her breaths started to shake.

  “I like your hair…”

  The girl’s touch worked like a subtle hypnosis which dispelled the instant she stopped to lift the glass back up to her lips. She drank the rest of the water, wiped her lips, then raised the glass over her head and set it on the table-top. br />
  “Thank you, Saul.”

  Naomi tottered off again, back up the staircase. The door at the top of the staircase shut and Celyn was left staring at the same spot where she stood seconds before.

  After a long pause, Saul spoke:

  “Will you help us or not?”

  Celyn blinked awake at the sound of his voice and faced forward. Her brow furrowed again. “What do you want from me?” she asked

  “Clothes, medicine, and a few other things.”

  “Where am I going to find clothes for –”

  “Duke will have everything ready for you,” he said. “You know where to find him. You need only pick up what we need and bring them here.”

  “There are amenities for that.”

  “No one whom I trust.”

  “Why don’t you do it yourself?”

  “Duke is on the other side of the city,” he replied. “I cannot leave her.”

  “Why don’t you tell him to come?”

  “I promised we would keep our distance,” he said. “He has done enough for me already.”

  “So have I.”

  “I know that,” he said. “But you are the only other person I trust.”

  She snorted. “I’m the only one you know.”

  He was out of answers.

  He pulled open a drawer, took out the two stacks of notes amounting to 10,000 dimitars and laid the notes on the table-top in front of her. “It is one delivery every four days,” he said. “If you want more money I can give it to you.”

  Celyn looked from the short stack of notes up to him. Her frown deepened. “It won’t work,” she said.

  He resignedly nodded, having nothing left with which to beseech her. “I understand,” he said, taking the money back. “I will find another way.”

  “Not that,” she said. “I mean this … All this. You and this kid. Whatever it is you’re trying to do; it won’t work. You’ll be begging them to clean you before the end.”

  That same contrivance from before was now noticeably absent from her voice. It unnerved him. “That will never happen,” he determined.

  “It already happened.”

  “I would rather take my own life.”

  Celyn snorted and shook her head. “And there it is…”

  She pushed her seat back, rose from her chair, stopped, turned and walked out the door.

  C. 5: Day 491