Saul of Sodom: The Last Prophet
Read Saul of Sodom: The Last Prophet Online
Authors: Bo Jinn
B
ō
Jinn
©
Copyright 2014
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rights reserved to the author, in accordance with international, European and
domestic law of copyright, for the reproduction, distribution, circulation and
alteration of this work in any manner and under any name, including images
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and only if, the express written consent of the author is forthcoming in that
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citation.
Failure
to abide by these terms will result in immediate legal action.
The
following is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between fictional characters
and real individuals either living or dead is (for the most part) entirely
coincidental.
Illustration: Jess Hara {SAPRO} --
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-- connect via
www.saproartist.com
Cover Art: Diogo Lando --
[email protected]
-- connect via
www.diogolando.com
Typography by Kevin Beese -- BZ & Associates
Inc.
-- First Edition –
ISBN
978-1500922856
Divided Line Publishing
™
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For my mother
and father,
to
whose inspiration, faith and unconditional love I am as eternally indebted as
my hero was to his young heroine.
EPIGRAPH
“
I demonstrate in the first place, that the condition
of man in his most natural state is nothing else but a mere war of all against
all.
”
-
Thomas Hobbes,
The Leviathan
“
Love is such a priceless treasure that you
can buy the whole world with it, and redeem not only your own but other
people's sins.
”
-
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, words of the elder Zosima
in
The Brothers Karamazov
BOOK I
MARTIAL ORDER
The President stepped up to the mirror.
It had been a long time since she had last taken a good look at herself. The
silver lining of the clouds haloed the reflection of a vaguely familiar woman,
aged well beyond her years -- 46 to be precise, which, by the mean of the day, put
her on the fringes of youth. The furrows in her blanching skin had begun to deepen
around the sapphire eyes and her hair had whitened to platinum. The past year
had aged her more than the previous two score and five; effects hidden behind
layers of painstakingly applied coats of cosmetics. Politics compels even the
most humble to some degree of vanity, and just before public occasions, vanity
was quite mercilessly imposed upon her by a personal platoon of cosmetologists,
the last of whom were just leaving her room.
She was alone.
By the reckoning of some half-billion citizens across the eight nations of the
new Eden Accord, today was the greatest of all days. But the joy she should
have been feeling was stifled with a grief which had abided for at least the
previous two weeks leading up to that day. She drew nearer to the mirror and
dragged her fingertips over the sombre mien of her reflection.
There was a knock at the big double-door. A foot stepped over the brink. A
tall, dark and handsome man in quite normal house clothes entered and stopped
in the doorway.
“The autocade is here.”
“I’ll be down soon.”
“Nervous?” He entered, gently closing the door behind him.
“No, not really,” she replied, her gaze fixed ahead.
He slowly sauntered up behind her, slowing with each inch until his chest
gently touched her back. Two strong arms came around her and the long dark
hair brushed against her neck as he took breath of her and the warm hazel eyes
peered up.
“Madame President…”
She felt a tingle as the warm lips kissed her neck and she smiled a melancholy
smile.
“Don’t even think about it.”
“Just one kiss before my superhero goes out to save the world.”
“It will be a long, long time before that.”
“I still want my kiss.”
“Do you have any idea how many man hours it took to get me to look like this?”
She loosed his arms from around her, turned within his embrace and kissed him
gently on the lips, careful not to mar the work of her devoted beauticians. “Where’s
our little angel?” she asked.
“In her room. Drawing again.”
“Animals?”
“Always animals.”
“Animals are a good place to start.” She looked away and was silent. “There’s
that piece I’ve been meaning to finish. I’d like to work on it this evening.”
The glimmering sapphires wandered, forlorn. Her hands dropped and she turned
away with a sigh, massaging her temples. “What a year…”
“Yes. But it’s over now.”
“No,” she sighed. “I’m sure it won’t be over before I’m dead and buried.”
“It’s over
for now
.” He arched his head and put his lips to her crown.
“Come on,” he said, drawing open the door. “It’s time to go.”
“Not yet.”
“Shields has everything set to run like clockwork. Make his job easy for once.”
“I’ll be down soon,” she said. “I’ll only be a few minutes. Shields can wait.”
“The world too?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause of subtle commiseration.
“Alright,” he murmured, with a slow nod. “…She’s in her room.”
The door shut.
The sound of the footsteps fading down the hall prompted in her a sudden,
inexplicable urge to weep. She confined her tears with a deep breath and, once
she’d gathered herself, stepped out of her boudoir.
She wondered whether she would ever get used to the ostentatious halls of their
new home; an aversion to opulence borne through humble beginnings. There was a
strange and terrible fear that always accompanied the steady increments of
power, and the ascension had been rapid and sudden lately. The first prayer of
every day was that the burden be taken from her, and the more she prayed for it
the more power seemed to befall her like some providential paradox. She did,
however, have one very precious well of courage…
She sidled over the red carpet to the only open door across the corridor and
when she neared the door, a whispering noise sounded faintly from the other
side.
The door noiselessly opened into a small and untidy room. Loose sheets of
crumpled, unfinished sketches littered the floor among the bedding hanging over
the mattress. Across from her, seated at a desk the back of a small figure
bathed in a golden light, and a long cascade of golden hair fell over the back
of the chair and down to the floor, and the little back was arched forward over
the little desk as a little figure scribbled away whispering to herself,
bringing a vague smile to her face. Stepping into the room, the President trod
over one of the loose pieces of paper littering the floor and bent forward to
pick it up.
Silence broken, the little blue-eyed, rose-hued face turned around, startled
and cried:
“Mom!”
“My little artist. I came to see your latest work.”
The President came up by her daughter’s side.
“No!” The girl immediately threw her arms over her desk-top.
“What is it?”
“It’s… It’s not finished.”
“That’s alright. I can help you.”
The little girl blew a disappointed breath and the little blue-eyed face
sulked.
The President closely studied the drawing, and when she regarded the dozen or
so other sheets of paper, crumpled and strewn across the floor, it became
apparent that they were all the same attempt at the same indiscernible image.
“I don’t like how it looks.” The girl leaned back, reluctantly taking her arms
off the table-top. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”
She peered over her daughter’s shoulder.
“Is this what I think it is?” she asked, picking the unfinished picture up off
the desk and indulged her daughter with a long gasp of excitement: “A phoenix!”
The little head beamed and nodded.
“Miss Carmichael talked about them at school yesterday.”
“Oh, really? And what did she tell you?”
“She said… that they’re made of fire.”
“Yes… And, did Miss Carmichael tell you how a phoenix is born?”
The little head shook and the little blue eyes were wide with enthusiasm.
“Well…” The President put the drawing back down on the desk lowered into a
seat at her daughter’s side. “After a phoenix burns up and dies,” she
explained, “a new one rises from the ashes.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“They don’t have a mom and dad?”
The President shook her head.
“Then… how are they born?”
“A phoenix has to die to be born.”
“How can you tell if it’s a girl or a boy phoenix?”
“…You can’t.”
“Oh.” Her daughter looked up with a pout. “Mom, are phoenixes real?”
“Realer than anything else in the world… One day I want you to
be a
phoenix too.”
“
I
can be a phoenix?”
“Mhmmm… Anyone can.”
A loud rushing noise came from the outside as two aircraft hovered right over
the building. The beginning of the long line of vehicles from the motorcade
was visible through the bedroom window. The President gazed longingly into her
daughter’s eyes.
“I have to go,” she said.
“OK.” The little head bobbled.
“Promise me you’ll keep working hard on it, alright? I want this to be your
best work yet.”
“OK, I’ll try. Good luck today. Grandpa says you’re going to save the world.”
She smiled a smile that would at any moment break into tears and cupped her
hands around her daughter’s head, kissed the golden crown, then unwillingly
stood up and left the room.
Five men in black waited at the foot of the stairs. Front and centre among
them was a colossus of a man.
“Shields.”
“Madame President,” her chief of security saluted automatically as she
descended the last stair. Lt. Col. Lucas Shields was a model of austerity,
eyes almost always hidden behind a pair of opaque lenses. A smile rarely found
its way across his dark, substantial visage. “They’re waiting.”
“So I’m told.”
Without more ado, Lt. Col. Shields turned and proceeded down the hall and she
followed – two guards on either flank – through the hall and into the
vestibule, where the larger portion of her extensive guard detail waited beyond
the main doors, and the mobs from the global media beyond them. All the
members of the household stood at attention and she brought the procession to a
stop at the threshold just before the reaches of the media’s scopes where her
beloved stood waiting at the doors.
“I’ll see you later,” she said, nervously averting his eyes.
“I can still come with you…”
“No,” she asserted. “The event will be broadcast to more than half a billion
people. There are still a lot of pro-militarists around. I won’t make an
exhibition of my family.”
He was silent and she took his hand.
“I’m fine,” she said, softly, “I promise, I…”
“Madame President,” Shields broke in with a rumble.
With great unwillingness, she let go of the hand and was led through the main entrance,
shadowed down the path to the motorcade until the limo doors were opened. The
guards dispersed. She entered and the doors were promptly closed.
She scanned the great, opalescent façade of the manor, finding the window of
her daughter’s room, and she kept her eyes on the little golden speck right up
until the moment the motorcade began to move away in synchrony and the manor
disappeared.
Soon they were outside the limits of the presidential residence. The main
roads of the inner city were lined with throngs of people and the cheers rung
with furious elation:
‘
NOVUM MUNDI RESURGENT! NOVUM MUNDI RESURGENT!
’
The
great image of hope on flags and banners soaring high, tapestried all over the
city on high billboards and display screens; the flaming phoenix of golden-red,
circled with the eight stars of the eight nations of the new Eden Accord – the
symbol of the new world. The hollers and ovations were stifled through the
ballistic glass windows. The gathered crowds were a blur of racing thought and
soon the motorcade left the inner city and came onto the highway
en route
to
the Capitol Building.