Saul of Sodom: The Last Prophet (25 page)

  
“Naomi!”

  
She disappeared into the wood, the vines swinging about in her wake.

  
“Ah, let the lass go.  No harm’ll come to her here.”

 
 Old Duke clipped off the end of a petit corona and hobbled out to the edge of
the plateau, casting his sights east along the valley.  He straightened out his
old back with a series of sharp cracks and a painful groan.  Thick clouds of
smoke streamed from his dry lips and followed the wind to the sun.  His heavy
head rose with the hull of his great chest and his breaths were weighty,
wheezing and wearied.  He had never looked so old.

 
 “Megstie me,” he sighed, “long syne since ah bin i’ these parts.  Fair sight.” 

  
Saul came up by old Duke’s side and took out a roll of notes from his inner
pockets. 

  
“I thank you for this,” he said.

  
Duke eyed the roll of dimitars and, somewhat grudgingly, took the money.

  
“Aye, well,” old Duke sighed, “wadnae dane it if ah warn’ deesp’ret.”

  
“Desperate?”

  
“Aye.”  Duke drew from his cigar and his brow knotted gravely.  “Dinnae think
the mess isnae ginnae last much longer.  Nae mo’ money comin’ in from the
civils … Commission dinnae give a toss nae more n’onie ither bodie.  These fawk
– they’ll jist leave any puir bastards teh die out n’ clean up ‘fore the rats
come.” 

  
“That is the way of this world.”

  
“Aye…  Nae mercy f’ th’ weak.” 

  
Duke’s voice declined into an incomprehensible grumble.  He huffed and puffed. 
He looked a broken man, a defeated man.  One could see the last vestiges of the
old world dying its slow death with the old ex-patriot, the last of a bygone
era in which life, like war, had been a struggle for forlorn self-superseding
causes once more binding than any law of man or nature.  Never had the image of
the lost struggle appeared plainer to him.

 
 ”Well,” said Duke, holding up the roll of dimitars and tucking them away, “this
should give us a wee bi’ more time a’least.”

  
He hummed wistfully and blew another cloud of smoke, rubbed his grizzled beard
and stared into the sun.  “Ah’ll be waitin’ when yer ready teh leave, lad,” he
murmured, somberly.  “Nae hurry burry.”

  
He waited silently, a moment of commiseration.  Then, seeing that old Duke might
prefer to be left alone, turned and went after Naomi.

  
He passed under the arching tree branches and swept away the hanging vines like
the strings of a beaded curtain.  The chaff of fireflies dispersed from his
path.  When the last curtain of vines swept away, he stopped, awed. 

  
He stood at the brink of a natural temple, received by the solitary warble of a
waking wren.  The wind stilled and the air enriched with lilies of the valley. 
Morning dew drizzled from the green branches and sparkled in sunbeams spilling
through a vast dome of interlocking trees, and the lofty trees roofed a serene
pool, surrounded by knolls and ridges, ascending higher and higher like the
walls of a pantheon.  Above the enclosure, the clear blue sky shone through an
oculus of golden red and green and mirrored in the glass-water.

  
A faint voice stole upon the peace: “…
I had a dream last night.
”

  
He looked to his right.  Naomi was crouched over the pool.  A gentle ripple
pulsed across the still water from the tip of her gently twirling finger. 

  
He approached her, quietly, and listened:  “… I dreamt about Dad and Mom…  I
think you were there too…”

  
The detritus crunched underfoot and the twirling finger rose from the glass
water.  She turned and flashed her radiant smile, then looked away, lifted her
closed eyes up to the oculus, whispering “I have to go now.  Saul is here  … Thanks
again for taking care of us… Tell Mommy and Daddy that I love them, wherever
they are.”

  
She opened her eyes again and stood and came toward him.

  
“I can leave you alone…”

  
“No, it’s OK.”

 
 Naomi set her sights high up, following the sunbeams to their source.

 
“Saul.”  She lifted a pointing finger.  “Can we go up there?”

  
He followed the aim of the finger up a sloping ridge.  A natural stairway
appeared to have been carved into the moss-covered rock.  The stairway was
gilded with light and the top of the ridge was concealed behind the treetops,
but it looked surmountable.

  
He carried her and her arms instinctively latched round his neck.  He lifted
her up to the edge of each crest of rock before climbing himself and repeated
the process until they were past the trees and stopped on the very peak of the
ridge, high above the valley. 

  
“Wow… it’s am-a-zing!” she marveled.

  
“Do not stand too close to the edge.”

  
Behind them, the woodland was spread out like an ocean of green speckled with
the red and gold of the imminent season.  Ahead, the great valley stretched out
to the Sodom skyline and an airship sailed overhead and became a solitary fly
among a swarm, hovering about the great Milidome in the centre. 

  
They sat upon a large throne of rock on the edge of the ridge.  Naomi settled on
his lap.  After a long and mystical silence, he regarded her with inquiry.

 
 “So,” he said, “has your friend told you his name yet?”

  
“No…”

  
Her answer was as a shamed confession.  The sidelong glance of shame on the
pale little face made his intent seem more roguish than he had wanted.  He
immediately hated himself for asking. 

  
“Well…” he said, “maybe he is afraid.”

  
“No, I don’t think that’s it,” she replied.  “I don’t think he
has
a
name.”

  
“Oh …  How is that?” he asked, with sudden and genuine interest.

  
“Well, Mommy and Daddy gave me
my
name,” the girl said.  “But, I don’t
think
he
has a mommy and daddy.”

  
“Really?”

  
“Yeah.  I guess he’s like… the phoenix.”

  
“The phoenix?” 

  
“Yeah,” she said.  “You know, the
phoenix
?  Mom told me about them
once:  Mom said that a phoenix has no mommy or daddy.  She said that for a
phoenix to be born, it has to die.  So, I guess, maybe he’s like that, because
phoenixes don’t have names either.”

  
He smiled at her vaguely.

 
 “Maybe,” he said.

  
There was a solemn silence.

  
“You … talk to him,” he said.

  
“Mhmmm.” The little head bobbled.

  
“What do you talk about?”

  
“Lots of things.”

  
“Does he talk to you too?”

  
She paused, thoughtfully.

 
 “Yeah,” she said.  “But it’s different…”

  
She spoke with such extraordinary frankness about the mysterious friendship
that for an absurd moment it actually seemed as though she were talking about
someone real. 

  
“How is it different?” he asked.

  
“Hmm…  Well,” she pondered, “…it’s not with
words
.”

  
“No words?”

  
She shook her head.

  
“How do you understand one another?”

  
The thoughtful silence was longer this time.  Then the girl looked up at him
and spoke, and the words rolled off her tongue: “You know how sometimes you
want to say something to somebody, but you can’t because you can’t think of the
words, and you wish that they could feel what you wanted to say, so that they
could understand without the words?”

  
He paused, and after long consideration, was shocked to find that he understood
her perfectly.

  
“Yes,” he said, with mild disbelief.

  
“Well… I guess I can do that.”

  
Naomi looked wistfully away once again. 

  
“Where is he – your friend?”   He surprised himself with the sincerity of his
question.

  
“I think he’s everywhere,” she replied.

  
“How can he be everywhere?”

  
“…I don’t know.”

  
Then, he asked: “Could you show him to me?”

  
“I don’t think so.”

  
He was oddly riled by her answer.

  
“How can I know your friend if I cannot see him the same way I see you?”

  
There was another long and thoughtful silence.  She hummed.

 
 “Well… he’s like…”   She slowly raised her hands in front of her face and
stared at them, bathed in the sunlight.  “I guess he’s like … light,” she said,
finally.

  
“Light?”

  
“Yeah … Light can be everywhere too, right?” she said.  “And you can’t really
see
light.  It has to shine on something else … right?”   Naomi held her sunlit
hands up in the air.   “See.  I – am – light,” she smiled.

  
A shudder of reverence rocked him to the soul. 

  
“…I see,” he said.

  
They fell silent again.

 
 “I didn’t know the city was so big,” said Naomi, looking out beyond the valley.
“Saul, where’s home?”

  
He lifted his head and set his sights toward the view of South Sodom, seeking
out the edges of Haven District.  He raised a finger pointed the northeast.   

 
 “Over there.”

  
The girl rose to her knees and put her hand over her forehead, straining to
see.

  
“It is far away…”

  
“I think I see it,” she remarked.  “Hey!” she burst with sudden excitement,
startling him.  “I have an idea!  This could be … our ‘place’.”

  
“Our … place?”  he repeated. 

  
The gay smile disappeared from her face and the little head hung.

  
“It’s silly,” she pouted.

  
He lifted her head up gently by the chin.

 
 “Tell me.”

  
She looked away bashfully and started swinging her dangling feet back and
forth.

 
 “Well...” she said.  “Close to the other city – where I was before – there was
a place just like this … It was high up in the woods over the city.  Dad used
to take me there.  You could see the whole city from there, too, just like
this.”

 
Her shimmering eyes widened with her melancholy smile.  “One day,” she
continued, “we were up there and, well … Dad and me made a promise…”

  
She paused again.   “We promised that if something ever happened to us – if we
ever got lost – that we would always come back to the ‘place.’  And that we
would wait at the place until we found each other again,” she said.  “… I know… 
It’s silly.”

  
“No,” he said sternly.

  
Naomi looked up at him and her smile wilted again.

  
“Alright,” he nodded.  “This will be our …
place
.”

  
She beamed.

  “Really?”

  
He palmed the top of her golden little head. 

  
“If you are ever lost, you will come here.  I will wait for you.”

  
“And
I’ll
wait for
you
.”

  
“Yes.”

  
“Promise?”

  
“I promise.”

  
She safely nestled her head in his chest for sanctuary.

  
They remained on the peak of the ridge until the sun climbed above the mountain
top and Naomi had been quiet a long time before he looked down again.  The
crown of her head appeared so much more ashen than he remembered.  She appeared
to have fallen asleep.  Then, she suddenly coughed two quick successive coughs,
then three long ones, then four.

  
“You are sick again?”

  
She stopped coughing and sniffled.

  
“No.  I’m alright, really…”

  
But a second later, she once again burst into fierce coughing, and he held her
little head close to him. When the coughing stopped, he lifted her head up. 
The moonstone eyes were drooping and pale and her little cheeks were sallow.

  
“You are not alright,” he said.

  
“I
am
a little tired,” she croaked.

  
He cradled her in his arms and stood up.

  
“Back a’ready?” said Duke, when he emerged from under the arching trees.

  
“We should go.”

  
The rear shutter rose again.  He laid Naomi back down on the padded bedding
among the pile of mannequins and stacked up the cargo to make sure she was
securely hidden before he drew the bed sheet over her.  She appeared to have
fallen asleep. 

  
The doors shut and the truck started up again and they started slowly down the
rough dirt roads. 

  
“Wit’s wrong with her?” asked old Duke.