Conquest: Rise of the Fifth Horseman (The Fifth Horseman Series Book 1) (20 page)

Chapter Thirty Seven: Tower of Babel

And the depths of the
sea didst swell from the bottomless pit. Verily, thunderous waves didst crash
upon the land insomuch that they didst drown both of the wicked armies and the
last of the Nephilim…

–
Methuselah 11:12 –

Lily’s arrival late last
night was greeted with enthusiasm, and the many years she had studied Hebrew in
college seemed to finally be paying off. The Chief of the tribe of Reuben had
greeted her with a humble bow while reciting a prophecy about her arrival. She
felt humbled by their immediate acceptance of her.

Lily stared off into the
bright sunlight gleaming off of the swirling gusts of snow, having found
solitude with Tiamat on an ice shelf in the outskirts of the village. Though
her hosts had been extremely accommodating, she needed some time to process
everything. As she reached out and touched Tiamat’s scaly chest, her eyes
blurred again and she gasped for breath in reaction as the frozen tundra
transformed into what appeared to be an underwater ocean floor.

“Take me…” she sucked in
another gasp of breath as she mounted Tiamat’s saddle, “…to the surface.”

Tiamat kicked off and flew
into the frozen air. To Lily’s view however, it appeared that Tiamat was swimming
in the depths of the ocean. After several minutes they breached the surface and
Lily took a deep breath.

Didst I not say unto thee
that thou cannot drown in a vision?

“Yes, you did.” she took
another deep breath to calm her chronic hyperventilation, “But I almost drowned
as a child, so sometimes it’s difficult to overcome my phobia of it. I can’t
even let my face or ears get wet while I’m in the shower without freaking out.”

Tiamat continued to gain
altitude as Lily looked around. There was water as far as her eyes could see.
At first there seemed to be no signs of life until in a flash of brilliant
light a large wooden vessel appeared out of nowhere.

“Where did
that
come
from?!”

As they flew closer, she
recognized it was a massive boat shaped somewhat like an enclosed canoe. The
closer they got to the curious vessel, the larger it appeared. When they
finally reached it, she determined it was slightly larger than a college
football stadium. A man with a white beard stood on a platform near the center
of the vessel, and released a white dove into the air.

Verily, ‘tis Noah. Yea, Noah
was the second Seraph. The Ark thou dost see here ‘twas his Amulet. With the
Ark, he was able to transport thousands of species of animals and righteous
people from Earth to Zion for preservation from the flood.

Lily was stunned. She had
always imagined that the story of Noah and the Ark was a fictional bedtime
story for children.

Her eyes blurred and the
vision faded. The water disappeared to reveal a barren wasteland far below them.
As Tiamat descended, Lily recognized that the ground was covered in mud and
there was very little vegetation. As they flew northward, Lily spotted what
appeared to be the remains of a city buried in mud. A small group of people
were digging out the buried homes and looting them of whatever they could find.

“Who are these people?”

This is the family of Cush.
Verily, Cush was the grandson of Noah. They were exiled to the barren
wastelands of Earth after rebelling against God.

“But why?” she queried, “What
did they do?”

Together they had taken up
arms against Atlantis in an attempt to overthrow Noah. Cush was jealous of his
grandfather’s powers, and thought he could take them for himself by conquering
the throne. They failed in their attempt, and were cast out of Zion for their
acts of rebellion.

“So, these are the only
people left on Earth?”

Verily, the family of Cush
didst begin to repopulate the Earth. The rest of the descendants of Noah chose
to remain in the fertile lands of Zion for a time.

Lily’s eyes blurred again,
and the wasteland had transformed to reveal a lush green undergrowth and small
tree saplings had sprung up intermittently across the land. Below them she
could see a wide dirt road extending in a northwest direction.

“Where does this road lead?”

Alas, ‘tis the road to
Babylon and the second great machine.

“Wait...” Lily stammered, “There’s
another machine? Like the one underneath Atlantis?”

Verily, there is.

“Take me there.” she paused,
“...please.”

As thou dost command.

Lily felt a surge of
momentum as Tiamat stretched her wings and they rose higher into the sky. Lily’s
red hair billowed in the wind and she gasped with exhilaration. The land shrank
below them as they soared into the atmosphere.

Eight hours had passed as
they followed the road to Babylon from high above. In the distance loomed what
had first appeared to be a lone mountain in the middle of nowhere. As they got
nearer however, she recognized that instead it was a massive building that was
shaped somewhat like a mountain. An overpopulated city surrounded the giant
building and the huts extended as far as her eyes could see.

Yonder lies the Great City
of Babylon.

“What is that giant building
in the middle of the city?”

Yea, ‘tis the Great Tower of
Babel.

“Wait...
the
Tower of
Babel?!” she stammered, “As in the story in the Bible?”

I know not what thou dost
mean by Bible. I am not familiar with the customs of Earth. What, pray tell, is
a Bible?

“It’s an ancient historical
record of the Earth written and compiled by the Jews.”

Ah, yes. The ten tribes doth
have many scrolls containing their records that hath been passed down from
generation to generation. These ‘Jews’ you mention, pray tell could they be the
Lost Tribe of Judah? Yea, perchance the Lost Tribe of Benjamin mayest be interspersed
among them?

“Yes.” Lily corrected, “But
they’ve never been
lost
. The Ten Tribes are the ones who have been lost.”

Verily, I suspect this error
of judgment ‘tis caused by perspective. Yea, thou art from Earth. It wouldst
appear to thee that the Ten Tribes art those who wouldst be lost. Alas, the
perceptions of those in Zion hast been that the Two Tribes were regrettably
left behind to be slaughtered by the Assyrians. ‘tis pleasing to learn that
they hath survived.

The Tower of Babel loomed
ever closer. It was glorious to behold, and its size rivaled that of the City
of Atlantis to the south. On the roads below, thousands of men were marching
toward the great tower. She watched curiously for several minutes.

Alas, these are the armies
of Babylon who art the descendants of Cush.

“Why are they marching like
that?”

Yea, they are gathering to
the great machine in preparation for transport to Zion.

“Wait…” a realization struck
Lily, “The tower of Babel is a transportation machine? Just like Atlantis?”

Verily, my child. Cush and
his immediate family members were wroth that they had been expelled from Zion,
and they longed to return to its beauty and splendor. Cush passed this enmity
of Noah to his children.

“But how did they know how
to build this machine?”

After the flood, the family
of Cush didst slave away many painstaking years trying to dig out the old
cities from the mud.

Lily’s eyes blurred and her
surroundings changed again. The Tower of Babel had disappeared, as well all of
huts that had been surrounding the great tower. The lush landscape also
disappeared, again replaced by a barren wasteland. Not far to the east Lily
could make out the remains of another city buried in mud. She saw a lone man
digging out the mud, when the ground caved-in and he fell down into a hollow
opening. She could hear him screaming for help in an ancient dialect of Hebrew.

“We should help that poor
man!” Lily stammered without thinking.

Alas, thou are seeing
visions of the past. The young man thou didst see digging is Nimrod, the son of
Cush. ‘twas this moment that he didst stumble across the ancient King of Seth’s
tomb. He didst find many blueprints upon scrolls that had been sealed in glass
tubes and preserved from the flood. He didst also find small-scale replicas of
a transportation machine similar to the one beneath the City of Atlantis,
though they had been damaged from the flood and were no longer functional.
Nimrod
vowed to seek vengeance for his family’s suffering, and so he established a new
kingdom. Together they built the city of Babylon and began constructing a large-scale
transportation machine in the center of the city with the intent to bring his
armies to our land to conquer our beautiful kingdom.

Lily felt dizzy as her eyes
blurred again and the landscape transformed into a frozen tundra. Lily stared
up at the remains of the structure and immediately recognized that though it
was still massive and buried in a mountain of snow, it stood at only a fraction
of its original size. She also realized that they were at the edge of a
shoreline that hadn’t been there during her visions, and nearly half of the
Tower of Babel appeared to have broken off and fallen into the ocean. She
struggled to comprehend why the people chose to build such a magnificent
building on a beach.

“What happened to the rest
of the tower?” Lily asked as they flew closer to the base of the tower, “And
why did they build it on a beach?”

Yea, upon completion of the
tower, King Nimrod didst assemble his armies for battle and he activated the
machine. God was wroth with Nimrod’s evil intentions, so He didst cause a great
earthquake to divide the tower asunder. The great tower cracked in two, causing
the machine to malfunction and transport only a fourth part of the land
surrounding Babylon to this world. The land of Earth was then divided with
multiple successive earthquakes into multiple different continents. God
scattered his people and confounded their languages so that another machine
couldn’t ever be fathomed again.

As she continued to watch
the vision, a curious sight drew her attention. At the base of the Tower the
snow above one of the arches began to give way. Seconds later she saw a dark
figure emerging from the snow. As the figure climbed out of the pile of snow
and stood erect, she realized it was a man. Another man followed after, and
then another. Several minutes passed to reveal a hoard of people. Men, women
and children alike huddled together for warmth as yet more people continued to
climb out of the snow.

“Who are these people?”

Verily, thou seeth the
arrival of the Ten Tribes of Israel from Earth.

“But how is that even
possible?” Lily countered, “Biblical scholars have dated the story of the Tower
of Babel back to over two thousand years before Christ, but yet the Lost Ten
Tribes of Israel weren’t captured by the Assyrians until about four hundred
years before Christ. The timelines don’t even nearly coincide.”

Alas, thou art correct. When
the great tower didst shatter during transport, it didst leave behind an open
portal between Earth and Zion.