The Tenth Saint (21 page)

Thirteen

G
abriel’s route took him southwest of Ubar along the edge of the mighty Rub’ al Khali desert. He traveled along the beaten path of the frankincense traders but hadn’t seen a caravan in some days. In this desolate place, his only company was his faithful camel. He missed the chatter of the women as they kneaded the day’s bread, the scent of the embers as he drifted off to sleep each night, the giggles of the children as they chased each other across the sands, the taste of strong bitter tea on his lips. Though he knew he had to move on, he felt the angst of separation from these people, his only friends.

The terrain had been the same for many moons— a great desert ocean stretching in every direction, rippling with waves of high dunes sculpted by the eternal dance of sand and wind. The color changed with each passing hour. Sunrise painted the sands in the electric ochre of raging flames. Late morning brought with it the warm rosy glow of a blushing virgin. In the afternoon the sand took on the hue of a lion’s hide. By dusk it turned brick red with long black fingers cast by the waning sun.

As the shadows deepened and the land succumbed to the inevitable darkness, Gabriel wrapped himself in his woolen blanket, which doubled as the camel’s saddle, and looked to the horizon for the rising moon. On one occasion, the orb, so close he thought he could touch it, emerged from the peaks of the sand mountains and illuminated the sky as if it were day. As brutal as this place was, it was a breathing, living being that embraced him.

His destination was the kingdom of Sheba. At the westernmost point of Sheba, Hairan had told him, he would find the port city Muza, the very end of Arabia. From there he would board a
baghlah,
a sailing ship that would carry him across the sea to the savage lands. Civilization seemed an eternity away as he walked, kicking up plumes of dust with his every step. After long days of hard travel, his feet had blistered and bloodied inside the sandals he had made long ago from scraps of dried sheep’s hide. His indigo robes had become brittle with dirt and dried sweat, and with no way to clean up he smelled like a combination of cured meat and stagnant urine. He had grown accustomed to the stench, as much a part of him as the graying beard grazing his collarbone, the deep lines mapping his tanned face, and the tangles of dirty blond hair well hidden inside his turban.

Gabriel didn’t know how many days he had been traveling. Counting was a Western inclination and of little use here, so he’d stopped marking time and let himself rise and fall with the sun and be carried by the simoom that blew hot and dry over the desert. Days and nights dissolved into one another like salt into water, until the morning he crossed the path of the Himyarites.

Gabriel walked past the caravan, where men sat in a circle drinking from small clay cups. He smelled coffee. The men were dark skinned and black bearded, their heads bound tightly with yards of white cotton. They stared at Gabriel with hard frowns, their looks betraying suspicion and anger, but they did not speak.

Gabriel greeted the tribe with a bow. Speaking in the Bedouin dialect, he said, “Hail, brothers. Where do you come from?”

The men looked at each other inquisitively, and one barked out some words that Gabriel did not understand.

There was no mistaking the man’s unfriendly attitude. He knew he would have to be careful, for these desert dwellers surely were looking for trouble. He lowered his head and hunched his shoulders, hoping his fellow travelers would interpret it as a gesture of submission and cease to be threatened by him.

The leader spoke. Gabriel picked up the Semitic word for
Roman
along with the contempt these men obviously felt for the white men from the West. Even filthy and weather-beaten, he did not look like one of them. His features and stature betrayed his foreignness. Clearly, that had a different meaning among these people than it had among the Bedouins.

“I mean no harm, wise brothers. I am not Roman. I have lived with Bedouins for many moons. My way is that of the nomad.”

One of the men spoke. Then another. The leader waved the other men down and turned to Gabriel, pointing at his camel.

Gabriel read the comment as a provocation but didn’t let it show. “He has been my friend through good days and bad.”

The leader rose, his bloodshot obsidian eyes staring at Gabriel with contempt. He spat on the ground and spoke gruffly as he attempted to snatch the camel’s reins from Gabriel’s hands.

It was plain to Gabriel that he could not avoid this confrontation with kindness. “I don’t care to part with my camel any more than you care to part with yours.” He straightened his body and looked down at the Himyarite. “Now I will take my leave. Safe travels, brothers.”

Leading his camel by its rope reins, he backed away from the group. As he walked toward the west, he could hear laughter and shouts behind him, the crass mockery of hooligans. He quickened his pace, eager to escape an altercation. But he knew his foes wouldn’t be satisfied with a peaceful farewell. He heard the shuffle of a djellaba behind him but didn’t turn around, hearing Hairan’s voice inside his head:
Let what will come, come. Fear is the enemy of men.

A massive weight hit his back, and he fell to his knees. An arm wrapped around his neck. A fist smashed his temple. A burly Himyarite turned him on his back and held his arms down while another drove a knee into his abdomen. Gabriel gasped for breath. Several fists descended upon his face, punishing him until he slipped out of consciousness.

When Gabriel regained his senses, he was shivering from the pain and loss of blood, his body broken. He tried to stand but fell in breathless agony. He gathered his knees to his chest to warm up. When that didn’t work, he dug a pit and dragged his body inside, covering himself up to the chest with sand, as he had seen the Bedouins do on especially cold nights.

The sandy tomb cradled him. For all the burden that lay atop him, he felt surprisingly weightless. He prayed silently.
God, if you have not left me, hear me now. I would rather be dead, dwelling with my beloved and our son in a place that knows not grief nor despair nor the ignorance of men. What hope is there here amid so much hatred? We were fools to think we could change anything. I beg you, let me be taken by sleep and never awaken. Let my body be covered with the eternal sands. Let my flesh nourish the scorpions and my bones calcify the land. And let my spirit escape this prison of consciousness that tortures me like a flesh-eating plague.

Exhausted from the confrontation and his own conflicting emotions, Gabriel fell into a deep sleep.

When the morning sun beat down on his face, he woke with a start. For a moment, he wondered where he was and how he had come to be there. Then, as the fog of sleep lifted, he recalled everything and regretted that the Himyarites hadn’t finished the job. He fought the cruel stabs of pain to rise out of his sandy cocoon.

He felt for gashes on his face and head and realized his nose had been broken, his forehead split open. The wounds were caked with dried blood and sand. A tooth was missing, and his lips were cracked like the flats of the Sahara in the dry season. He looked for his water bladder and saw it was gone, along with everything else—his camel, his possessions, even his makeshift sandals.

Though he trembled with rage, he didn’t have the strength to shout. He kicked the sand, but his feet couldn’t do the bidding of his brain and he fell gracelessly. His chest heaved, and he sobbed without tears.

Fourteen

B
y the meager lamplight, Sarah read and reread the pages of the codex to make sure she was not missing anything. A few words were unfamiliar, but she deduced a rough meaning from their context. Though the language was nebulous, almost cryptic in places, she could tell by the author’s urgent, grave tone that this was a warning. She sat back on the rickety chair and crossed her arms.

Daniel broke her concentration. “Enough of this suspense. What does it say?”

She shook her head. “Well, the theory about this being a prophecy is correct. I can say that much. Some of it is downright chilling. And some of it makes no sense at all.”

“Read it to me. We can figure it out together.”

Sarah read slowly, attempting to find the proper words in English. The ancient Greek language was so full of nuance and color it didn’t always translate easily. English simply wasn’t as textured, and the corresponding words often did not exist. She gave it her most valiant effort.

Sarah looked at Daniel intently, waiting for his reaction.

He was silent.

Tension hung thick in the room.

“The apocalypse,” he finally said, breaking the silence, “or some version of it. The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood. And the second angel sounded, and a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the creatures which were in the sea and had life died.”

“Revelation 8. There is also talk of a beast in Revelation, one that rises up out of the seas—presumably Satan.”

“Yes, but something doesn’t rhyme with the good book. This Gabriel says he left his destroyed world behind. That he was one of three who escaped … as if he was not merely a prophet but a man who had lived through the end of ends, as he calls it. Question is, when did it happen?”

“Something about it sounds awfully modern.” She turned the pages. “Look at this part:
he will rape her and dig into her core, sucking out the black blood that runs through her veins.
Doesn’t that sound like drilling for oil?”