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Saint John nodded. “That is what I see. That is what I believe is there.”
“But I—”
“And when you think about this world—when you imagine what this planet will be when the last of the heretics is gone, and when the last of us communes with our own blades so that our darkness joins with eternity—tell me, Brother Peter, what does this world look like?”
They were at the edge of the forest now, and they looked out on the vast desert that stretched away before them and vanished into the shimmering horizon. Brother Peter nodded toward the endless sand. “That is what I see, Honored One.”
“The desert?”
“The peacefulness. Empty of human pain and misery. Empty of struggle. Restored to the perfection of nature.”
“And all that man has made and built?”
“It will turn to dust. This world will heal of the infection that is man. The world will be whole and perfect again.”
They stood there for many minutes as they each considered this.
“Do you know,” asked Saint John at length, “that I always knew this day was coming?”
Brother Peter turned and stared at him.
“Mother Rose,” said the saint. “It was inevitable that she would betray me. It was ordained that it happen. Like in the Christian story of Jesus and Judas. The betrayal was always part of the plan. Judas was a good and righteous man for most of his life, but in a moment of weakness, or perhaps pride, he stepped off the path.”
Brother Peter nodded.
“For ordinary people,” the saint continued, “such a thing can be forgiven. It can be ascribed to human weakness. As with Thomas, who doubted, and Peter, who denied. Those are momentary weaknesses, forgivable sins.”
“But not Judas?”
“Not him for the Christians, and not Mother Rose for us. She is not an ordinary person. Neither are you, and neither am I. Why? We have looked into our minds and have seen the true face of our god.”
“The darkness,” said Brother Peter.
“The darkness,” said Saint John. “I fear that Mother Rose has turned away from the darkness and allowed herself to become seduced by the light. By this world. Not the pure world that will come, but the corrupt and infected world that existed before the Fall. I have long suspected that she enjoyed being in the flesh. She has become seduced by its illusion of power.”
“Yes.”
“It is why she has worked so hard to recruit new reapers.”
“But we need—”
“No. We have more than we will ever need. We have reapers in the thousands, and we have the Gray People in their millions. Mother Rose has never quite grasped that. Or rather, she has purposely ignored it. She wants people to stay alive.”
“Why?” asked Brother Peter, appalled by the very thought of it.
“For the same reason she has recruited so very many reapers.”
“And . . . why?”
Saint John smiled. “She wants to conquer the world, my son,” he said, “and then she intends to rule it.”
Brother Peter shook his head. “But she knows the darkness. She believes—”
“Don’t you think that Judas believed in the son of his god? Don’t you think that those people who flew planes into towers or strapped on vests of explosives believed in their god? There are misguided people in all faiths, and there always have been.” Saint John sighed. “Mother Rose has been very quietly recruiting from within the reapers. Brother Alexi, Brother Simon . . . others. The weak ones who think they are strong, but who long to be here rather than to truly be with the darkness. She will use them as her generals. They probably believe in her with their whole hearts. Some of them are quite lost. Others . . . well, there has always been corruption in any organized religion. Insidious people who exploit the honest faith of the masses. Mother Rose will use all that—faith, belief, greed, whatever tools she can find—and with those she will very likely conquer every settlement, town, and city in this country. She will make a kingdom for herself here on earth.”
He pointed into the desert.
“And I suspect she wants to make Sanctuary her Camelot, the seat of her power.”
