Brimstone

Chapter Thirty-six

The sky was bright, so bright it was painful to look at it for more than a second. Saul ignored the pain. He lay back in Mara’s arms, staring and gasping for breath. There had been clouds in the sky once, but they were gone, burned away by the heat. Nothing stood between the surface of their moon and the searing heat of the sun. Saul coughed. It turned into a fit that seemed as if it might consume all that remained of his breath, and to make it worse, he began to laugh.

Mara shook him gently.

“Stop it! You need your strength.”

“For what?” Saul coughed out. “Oh, I had plans, didn’t I? The grand finale. Do you think they are still holding the entertainments in Admah? Do you think they have let out all the gladiators to roam the halls and find what pleasure they can in their final moments? Perhaps they are just fainting in their seats, giving way to the heat, or seeking one last cold drink. The party never ends, in Admah…”

“It has ended,” Mara said softly. “I think maybe it ended a long time ago. We’ve been parodying what we once were — going through the motions and losing ourselves in whatever sensation presents itself, but there is nothing new. Nothing has been new for so long I can’t even remember when the boredom first set in.”

“You were always quicker than the others,” Saul said. “You have seen things sooner, understood them better. And I? I have been the one who was blind. I had this vision, this final moment of glory that would make all of it worthwhile and usher us toward a higher realm.”

Deep, heaving coughs cut off his speech, and he doubled up in pain. Mara held him tighter, clutching him to her sweaty body and laying her head on his shoulder. Eventually the coughing passed. Saul laid very still, and Mara thought for a moment that he might be finished. Then he regained control, and continued.

“I wish that they had never come, Colonel Sheppard and his team. I wish that they had gone to any of a thousand worlds they might have enjoyed and left us to the façade of our brilliance. I had it worked out so carefully. It was going to be so…splendid.”

“It was never going to be splendid,” Mara chided him. “It was going to end. That is what we have all been seeking, even if we weren’t willing to admit it. There is nothing left on the road we chose so long ago. When our brethren took the higher road — the road to ascension, we chose to descend and see just how far down we could go. Over the past few days, the answer to that became too obvious, and we reacted poorly. We should have let them go. Maybe we should have gone with them, or turned the city away and traveled.”

“There was a time when that was still possible,” Saul said. “I can remember thinking about it — dreaming about it — standing in the conservatory and watching the stars and wondering why we did what we did day after day and night after night.”

“We did it for you,” Mara said. “You know that, and you knew that. We did it because you convinced us that it was the right thing to do. We believed in you when we knew deep inside that we should believe in ourselves and seeking our own fulfillment. It was the easy way — the entertaining way.”

“It was entertaining, wasn’t it?” Saul said.

“It certainly had its moments.”

Saul coughed again, and this time blood trickled from the edge of his mouth. He fought through the pain.

“It’s ironic,” he said.

“What?”

“This…” He tried to wave his arm, but it nearly sent him into another fit, and he grew still. “I wanted so much to see that last moment — to ride Admah into the next level of existence — to feel the heat wash over me and melt me and make me one with all the molecules of the universe. I planned it, I dreamed of it, and in the end…it was my inability to let go of the material world that cost me my own dream. If I’d just seen Sheppard and the others on their way — just kept my eyes firmly on the future. If I’d just understood how much it meant to me…”

He stiffened then and with a rasping gasp sagged against her. He was gone. Mara stroked his hair and watched his still face for a moment, then gently eased him off her lap and onto the parched ground. She stood, and found the effort almost more than she could bear. Turning, she saw that the guards who had accompanied them still waited. They leaned on trees or lay sprawled on the ground. The heat bore down and through them all.

“Let’s try to make it back to the city,” Mara said. “It won’t be much comfort, but it will be some. If Saul will miss the finale, it doesn’t mean that we all should.”

She began walking back toward the city. One of the guards, a tall young man with dark hair, stepped up beside her and offered his arm for support. She took it gratefully and, leaning on one another, they staggered back toward Admah. Behind them, the others struggled along as well as they could. They moved very slowly, and the city seemed to be miles distant. The air wavered with heat.

Very distantly, Mara was aware of the heat of the ground burning up through her shoes to the soles of her feet, and that her clothing clung to her, matted with sweat. She wished she’d brought water, knew it wouldn’t help, and kept on putting one foot in front of the other.

“Do you think,” she asked the guard through thick, parched lips, “that the bar will be open?”

They both laughed, and it nearly did them in. Then, without another word, they continued on toward the city.