The Relic Keeper

by Anderson, N David

  The Relic Keeper

  Copyright © 2016 N David Anderson. All rights reserved.

  For Ty

  N David Anderson is on Twitter @neildanderson

  Cover design by Rusty Apper

  Part I

  Renaissance

  1

  nothing

  no sound

  no light

  no darkness

  no temperature

  no feeling

  no time

  nothing

  far away…infinitesimally small…impossibly distant…incomprehensibly faint…a pin-prick of light started to glow accompanied by a high-pitched whining hum - similar to the noise of a human finger circumnavigating the rim of a wine glass. The two sensations provided a focus - a point of reference. They increased; the light in brightness and the sound in volume, and seemed to create a density, an area of gravity, pulling the senses towards them. This provided the backdrop for the unmistakable feeling of travelling, hurtling forward, increasing in speed towards the target of light. The sound became complex. No longer an ambient and monotone hum, but a series of pitches and noises, layers of sound with notes and textures. Like a tidal wave of noise it was nearing.

  The light/sound grew and came closer. What had originally seemed curious, then comforting, evoking reminders of what it was to feel, now started to seem threatening. The light was too bright, the sound too loud. The re-awakening of feelings started to testify that the sensation of travelling was not one of moving forward, but of falling - cascading helplessly and inevitably towards a single point. The sounds started to form into separate entities - voices, heard from a distance and unrecognisable, barking out comments, phrases, instructions…orders.

  A sensation crept in malevolently. It started low and moved up the body with a voracious appetite. It produced a memory; being dropped into an icy cold pool of water. The image existed in slow motion. A body slipping slowly into the liquid, which conducted the heat from the skin and left a sensation of burning cold. The voices stabbed incomprehensible phrases at each other that flowed in and out of reality like a radio trying to find a station against the buzz of a working day. prssre…ising…low…fld…got…kly…NOW! The light shone directly at the face, the sounds became less jumbled as the brain reconstructed them in a semblance of order almost forgotten. The cold moved rapidly across the body in a wave that created a single overriding feeling. Pain. Blood pushed its dreary way through dry veins and organs shuddered reluctantly to life like the parts of an engine that had lain idle for too long and were now required to turn, move, pump, pressurise…breathe.

  A new sound engulfed everything. A noise so consistent that it usually passes unnoticed. The noise of flowing blood, pushing its way in its relentless cycle. Above it was just discernible the sound of the voices, translated from sounds to words. Blood pressure stable…breathing…monitor…consistent…I think we've got him. The pain registered everywhere, from the intensity of the light to the hardness of the operating table. His eyes flicked open for a second before the brain shut down into temporary coma; the only condition it could currently deal with.

  And Mathew Lyal’s fall back to Earth was complete.

  2

  The April sun was low and the light it gave out was changing to a hazy orange glow that swathed the collected buildings of Fort Burlington, or Unit, as it had now become, and the low dry-stone wall in a warm luminescence. The cold grey of the modern composite concrete and period granite, out of which most of Unit was made, seemed less oppressive than usual. The dark oak doors of Hall #1 with their heavy neo-gothic design looked as if they really had been borrowed from some medieval cathedral, rather than an eighteenth century fort. This was the image that the designers had tried to give to the largest of the four halls that dominated the dozen buildings of the complex, but somehow the effect was always more enhanced by the last light of a late autumnal evening. A kestrel hovered above its piece of prey by one of the far ditches, somehow remaining steady in the growling wind that gusted in from the black water of the channel. Seeing an opportunity it swooped to the ground; its success or failure unseen by anyone. The weather was on the turn and added to the isolation of the fort. Built in part to repel a Napoleonic invasion that never materialised, the building held fast against the onslaught of weather that never let up in the ensuing two and a half centuries. At times like this Unit could almost have been a monastery.

  Deon slid around the side of Hall #1 to the refuse alcove that sheltered him from the prying eye of the internal watcher and perched himself on one of the miscellaneous boxes that always lurked there. He reached up and pulled himself onto the flat roof that overhung an unused door, and pushed back into the shadows of the corner. He still had almost an hour left on his shift, but he was bored and tired, as he always was after a session in the fields that surrounded Unit. He checked that there was no-one coming, and shook his autopipe out of its hiding place in his boot. He popped the small nicotine tablet into the pipe’s compartment, activated it, and took a long slow drag. He loved the feeling of the nicotine hit, as well as the danger of flouting the strict order. He inhaled deeply and held the vapour in as long as he could before releasing it slowly and deliberately upwards into the cool evening air.

  This was his favourite place. It was safe, and tranquil. It was secret. It was his alone. Above all, it was private, and this was the most precious thing to him in the communal lifestyle that Unit demanded of its inhabitants. From his position here he could see out past the fields that supplied Unit’s income and food, and across to the low green hills in the distance. A flock of birds made an inverted V-shape in the sky, and Deon felt the cool sweet air, scented from the wild plants that grew nearby, blow gently across his face. The countryside around Unit was beautiful, he'd realised some time ago, although they were strictly banned from exiting the confines of the complex. He often pondered what it would be like to walk across those hills, and to feel grass under his feet again. It sometimes seemed to him so unfair that all this was destined to be destroyed, and he felt a pang of longing that he would never again experience the outside world at first hand. He knew that God had a reason for wanting to destroy everything that He had created, but at times such as this it made little sense. The only joy Deon took from this knowledge was that if the world could be this beautiful, the one that he and the rest of the inhabitants of Unit would soon enter must be so much better. But it still seemed such a waste that everything he could see, hear, smell, touch and taste would be gone forever within four days.

  Justification, of course, was always easy to find. Deon had only to think back on his own past to see why God might want to eradicate humanity. The petty thieving and credit fraud that Deon had been involved in seemed at times a lifetime away, although it could be measured in a few years. But he worried sometimes that, for all its evil, he missed his old life at times. And more so recently, since he'd found the Truth. In his old life he'd have been merrily unaware of the Earth’s impending destiny, and would have been carrying on that course had it not been for the intervention of the Divine Temple of Jesus. He had found them (or perhaps, he wondered, they had discovered him) while he was involved in a series of petty criminal activities around south London. Back then he had felt that this was his vocation; to help himself gain a better life and prosper. It was certainly something that he was good at. Then he had been shown the Truth, and he now knew that his calling was to serve the Divine Temple of Jesus through its base at Unit, as time led up to the Day of Judgement. And of course it was largely through his past and the skills he’d learned as a sinner that he could serve Jesus best. He felt at times like a metaphysical oxymoron. It was a bittersweet irony that hammered in the need for his involvement in the greater plan.
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br />   And now it was almost here. And Deon had a part in it.

  That part was sometimes a mystery to him, though, even when it had been explained so very fully by someone like the Divine Caroline.

  “God requires that His people understand that there should be order to attain peacefulness and avoid chaos,” she had explained repeatedly to the newcomers to Unit. “It is our role to work for the good of our little community, and through those endeavours to show our piety. So it is my vocation to maintain a well-ordered community, and all of yours to add your physical and spiritual abilities towards the common good. Through this we can all ultimately share in the great common good that our Saviour will provide for us. I have been blessed with a vision from the Lord, and have had some of His many secrets revealed, the greatest of which I will share with as many people as will join me. We are the chosen ones who will be provided with eternal salvation, and it is our job to take as many as we can with us. So to this end you are required to aid in the working of our self-sufficient community, whilst Peter, Aaron and I the chosen Prophets that have been drawn here, must labour in the outside world to spread the word of the coming glorious day. Further, it is our responsibility to help those in need. In Mathew we hear Jesus’ thoughts on the evil of possessions when he said ‘Go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come and follow me. Verily I say unto you, that a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.’ And it is for this that we require both your physical and financial support.”

  God often seemed to choose unlikely people as His prophets, Deon had thought as he heard the community’s leader Caroline, quiet and diminutive, for the first time. But then also hadn’t Deon always felt that he had a calling? That God had for some reason chosen him as a tool, a shrewd, if petty, criminal, lacking the good looks and charm of the evangelists. Yes, this was something that he’d always known, and the Divine Temple of Jesus gave him the chance to act out his role in the greater scheme of things. He had, after all, always felt that his life had some greater purpose. Some aspects of the life at Unit did seem strange. That all of the disciples’ property had to be given up, and that only the chosen three Prophets were allowed contact with the outside world, for instance. But they had been shown how corrupt society was falling apart, and it remained a firm conviction that they were living in a modern Babylon, but had, through Caroline’s grace and visions, been shown the Truth. And it was hardly as if their leaders, if that was what they were, had exactly been indulgent. They had abandoned their lives and now had no objects from the physical world to show for it. Christ, Buddha, and Mohammed, had rejected luxuries. This was as it should be; as it had to be. “Sell your belongings and give alms”; it was one of the mainstays of virtuous living.

  Deon thought about the small wooden box, he had secretly tucked away in a wall compartment in a dank apartment in London. He’d been in two minds whether to bring it or not, but the strength of argument that the Disciples wouldn’t need any belongings had clarified it in his mind. Still, he hadn’t been able to give it up, or deposit it in the river - both of which he considered - so he had left it hidden; its secret sealed inside for all eternity. If God required that Deon keep it, He would surely let him know.

  Deon took a lug on the pipe. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and slowly exhaled, watching the smoke leave his body and disappear. One thing did bother him. If he didn’t follow the rules of Unit to the letter, was his salvation still certain? He had always struggled for property, and although he had given up almost all of what he owned, he had kept a few items. It just hurt too much to give up everything that he’d fought so hard for. The pipe and tablets, a key to his old lock-up, kept as a reminder of his past, and a small old c-pac that allowed him enough communication with the outside world to provide him with nicotine tablets, as long as he was careful. God, he was sure, would not mind these few pleasures.

  And of course he could always work harder.

  He enjoyed his main job at Unit; and he was good at it. However, on days like today, when he was due to work the fields surrounding the complex, exposed to the weather while the cooking team remained warm and dry, he resented the way in which many of the jobs were allocated. His regular position fascinated him though. He had landed the job of checking the records for the residents of Unit in order that their families may be saved. It had worried some people that while their salvation was assured, their relatives and ancestors were doomed. Caroline had explained that the Disciples had set up a system whereby the souls of their predecessors could be saved from purgatory, as long as their family line could be traced. And that was Deon’s job. He traced back the residents’ family trees, and spread the search wider so that those people still living could be contacted and given the chance to be saved. He often spent hours at a time staring at the ethervision screen in Hall #7, trawling through lists of names and addresses, facts and pictures, choosing the correct line that would save as many people’s souls as possible. It was, Deon thought, one of the most worthwhile tasks he had ever undertaken. He had performed tasks like this before, of course. In his old life he had wielded his skill across electronic bank accounts, and once he had as many of the details of interrelated accounts as possible, it was often an easy matter of targeting one account, contacting the holder, and then accessing a whole range of associated accounts through a little persuasive talk. And this history of credit fraud and scams made him an expert at tracing people. It all made sense when he thought about it - God had allowed him to fall into an evil and criminal way of life, in order that he could be prepared for his true role before Judgement Day. The salvation of the sinner was always a joy to God.

  He heard a noise along the main walkway and slid into the shadows of the corner. While God might be prepared to forgive his minor misdemeanours, he suspected that the Divine Caroline might be a little less sympathetic. He held his breath and tried to make no sound as two people passed by less than 8 metres from him.

  “Everything is prepared and the day is set,” said Caroline “And soon all of this will be gone and we can start again.” Listening to Caroline’s rhetoric, Deon felt awed at her absolute conviction of what was to come in four days’ time.

  “I’m impressed at the scale of order you’ve created”, replied Aaron. “We have truly excelled with our selection of disciples and their loyalty.” Deon nodded to himself. Everyone at Unit knew their place, their tasks and the reason for their actions. To the best of his knowledge there was only one person who ever flouted the rules, even slightly, and that was himself. As the two Prophets moved past him, Deon felt a chill down his spine and hoped that they didn't look up at his secret place, but he was safe, and the two moved on towards the main entrance. Aaron heaved his heavy pack onto his shoulder and started for the gate.

  “The Lord be with you,” he said.

  “And with you, Aaron,” Caroline replied. And with that Aaron marched purposefully to the gate and out of Unit toward the doomed work outside.

  Something puzzled Deon as he lay on his bed that night amid the sounds of the other inmates snoring and talking in hushed voices of miracles and the next life. His mind raced through the muddled gauzy haze that sometimes descended over him, making the world seem soft and uncertain. As many souls as possible needed to be saved, Deon knew that, but with so little time it seemed a risk to send Aaron out into the world recruiting. His trips often lasted weeks, yet if he were not back in time the world would end with Aaron in some unholy place. They all had to be at Unit when it happened; yet here was Caroline jeopardising one of her Prophets’ very soul. The more he thought of it, the more it unsettled him, although he dared not mention it to Caroline, who was not one to be questioned. He would make it his task for tomorrow to find out what job Aaron was engaged on, and if it seemed too dangerous for the time allowed, he would suggest to Caroli
ne that she call him back. This, he said to himself, was not to satisfy his curiosity, but to aid the salvation of a colleague, and he concentrated on this as he fell into an uneasy sleep.

  3

  Rei walked slowly and purposefully along the ward to room 133. She glanced at the medipac she held as she moved past the corridors and private rooms that spun off in every direction like the wings of a vast eighteenth century country estate. Her heels clicked loudly in the gloomy emptiness of the building; drowned out only by the hiss of the rain on the windows. That sound always annoyed her. There really was no need for glass windows in this day and age, she would say to herself, although she knew that it was money, and not technology, that forced the clinic to be housed in a building over one hundred years old, full of idiosyncrasies and the ‘mod-cons’ of the twentieth century. Back at home in Tsukuba, of course, all the buildings of this type and age had been demolished years ago. Perhaps she was getting a little homesick, or maybe she was just worried about this task. Perhaps it was getting near the time to return home.

  She scrolled down the medipac, flicking through pages that hovered in front of her. Maybe something had been missed, and in these final few minutes she would spot it. But she knew that this wasn't going to happen. All the tests were run, all the findings analysed, and all the options exhausted. Sometimes, she thought, there was only one answer to a problem, and whether you liked it or not, events could dictate to people. She hesitated outside room 133, thought about her opening line, and looked in.