People of the Tower (Ark Chronicles 4) (21 page)

24.

They sat outside the wooden house, on the veranda in rocking chairs, Noah and Ham, two old men, one seven centuries and the other still over a decade from one hundred and fifty. They stargazed, Noah relating the story of one of the constellations and Ham the next. It was a game from Ham’s childhood, and it brought back pleasant memories.

After a time
, they simply rocked, the chairs and the veranda floorboard creaking.

“
More lemonade?” Noah asked.

“
No thank you,” Ham said.

Several hounds lay about, big brutes
. They yawned, watched their master or perked up whenever a strange sound occurred.

The donkey had gone to the barn with others of its kind
. In the house slept two visiting grandsons who had missed the excitement of Nimrod’s conquest. Ham had told his father about the terrible calamity. Noah had stroked his white beard while listening and brooded thereafter. Ham didn’t understand his father’s calm or that he asked no questions or for clarifications. For once, Ham went with it. For once, his father’s ways didn’t upset him. He enjoyed the peace of sitting here. He knew his father would think of something.

“
What are your plans?” Noah asked.

“
I don’t have any,” Ham said.

“
Reaching me was your only goal, eh?”

“
I couldn’t very well have gone back to Babel.”

“
You want me to go with you, is that it?”

Ham rubbed his jaw
. There it was. That was his thought: You beat me, well now I’m bringing my father. You’ll see what will happen now. He told Noah, “You overawed him last time.”

Noah stilled his rocking, poured himself more lemonade and sipped the sweet liquid
. “I didn’t do a thing last time.”

Ham considered that
. “Are you saying Jehovah did?”

Noah leaned over and patted him on the arm
. “After all these years, you’re learning to think before answering.”

“
Maybe you didn’t do anything,” Ham said. “But Jehovah worked through you.”

“
He can work through you. It’s not the prophet who matters but the Maker.”

“
I’m unworthy.”

Noah chuckled
. “We’re
all
unworthy.”

“
Maybe, but some of us are more unworthy than others.”

Later
, a bat screeched. The biggest hound raised its blunt-shaped head. Then the hound licked himself and soon settled back down.

“
Will you come with me?” Ham asked.

“
To Babel?” Noah asked.

“
We’ve got to stop Nimrod.”

“
What if he slays us?” Noah asked.

“
He can’t slay you.”

“
Me most of all.”

“
Then you won’t go?”

Noah took his time answering
. “I’m afraid, my son. I’m afraid that if I go, nothing will ever be the same.”

“
It’s already different.”

“
No,” Noah said. “Humanity is bent, its way crooked. But if I go to Babel as you suggest…”

“
What does Jehovah say?”

Noah nodded
. “Finally, you ask the right question. He says that I’m to go with you to Babel.”

“
When?”

“
Soon.”

The Angel of the Lord

1.

In a white gown, Hilda moved down the stairs of her Grandfather Canaan
’s house. She had been summoned, had therefore bathed and allowed one of the Singer attendants to apply malachite eye shadow. She no longer wore braids, but let her blonde hair cascade down her back.

Since Beor
’s death and her capture by Nimrod, she had become soft-spoken and downcast. She ate less and had lost weight, causing her robust figure to become thin and her cheeks to turn gaunt. These changes heightened her beauty, or so everyone told her. Some said she pined for Odin, who had been thrown into a pit. Others said she feared Nimrod’s boast that soon he would call upon her. During his heady victory over Shem and Assur, Nimrod had been too busy consolidating his position to threaten it with the hard-earned right of rape. Once the opportune moment had passed, Hilda took up residence among Beor’s brothers, the sons of Canaan, gaining protection from wanton ravishment.

The Singer, one of Semiramis
’s creatures, rapped lightly on the door, peering in, indicating that she should enter.

Hilda walked into a windowless room
. It was painted with mythic animals, while candles flickered on stands. At a low table, her handsome, olive-skinned Grandfather Canaan sat cross-legged. He studied a clay tablet and wore a blue robe.

He smiled
. “You’re looking lovely, my dear. Please, sit.”

Hilda
curtsied and sat across the low table, folding her hands in her lap.

Canaan
spoke banalities, perhaps thinking them pleasantries. It didn’t relax her, if that was his intent. She waited: she liked to think with the patience of a huntress. They didn’t let her see Great-Grandmother Rahab. They also made sure Rahab never witnessed the Singers in their wilder debaucheries and lewdest dances.

Hilda
wished her Grandfather Canaan would get to the point.

As if reading her thoughts
—the idea frightened her—he leaned toward her. “Do you know why I’ve summoned you, my dear?”

Hilda
shook her head.

“
It concerns your future.”

“
Who I wed?”

“
On no, Hilda, for I know you love Odin. I would never try to encourage you to marry someone you didn’t love. You’ve suffered enough for one round of life.”

Her perplexity must have showed.

“Do you wonder at my phrase?” Canaan asked.

Hilda
glanced at the symbols on the walls, the painted mythic animals.

He indicated his clay tablets
. “I’ve been engaged in research, my dear, a truly fascinating study.” His voice lowered. “The gods are chary in what they reveal to us. In truth, I think, because they are frightened about what we’ll learn.”

“
There is only Jehovah.”

Canaan
tapped his chin. “Even after the crushing defeat, you still hold to that out-dated notion, to that easily refutable lie. I’ve seen sights that allowed me to view reality as it is, not as I’ve been told it must be. The gods rose long ago, and yet…” He indicated the tablets. “There is a secret locked here that unnerves me.” He studied her. “Can I trust you?”

“
I’m too bewildered to answer.”

“
Yes. At first, the truth shakes the very foundations of one’s sanity. I attest to that. Hilda, I’ve stumbled upon something that radically alters anyone’s view. Did you know that once the gods were like us?”

“
I don’t understand.”

“
Once, the gods were flesh and blood. But through a long series of reincarnations, they evolved into what they now are.”

“
Re-in what?” Hilda asked.

“
Reincarnation,” Canaan said. “The soul departs a body upon death and waits to reenter anew. Slowly, one ascends or descends into higher or lower forms.”

Hilda examined her folded hands
. Her grandfather’s research, his wizardry, had driven him mad.

“
Do you realize what this revelation means?” Canaan asked.

“
Grandfather, how can you believe such nonsense? You were taught at Noah’s knee. You know the truth. What you say now…it’s the lies of evil angels.”

Canaan chuckled
. “You must rise above simple superstitions. I know your father, my favorite son, believed as you still do. But you must grow. You must learn to think for yourself. You are in Babel now. Events move at a rapid pace. If you would adjust to the New Order, a place of power can be won for you. But if you insist on holding to these delusions…”

Hilda
thought back to her time with Noah and seeing the Ark. That hadn’t been a delusion. “Why did you send for me, Grandfather? Not to discuss your findings.”

“
I’d hoped to persuade you regarding the present realities. You are a granddaughter of mine, and I am a lord of Babel. But the king…ah, Nimrod has requested you join the priestesses of Ishtar, that you be trained as our family representative.”

Hilda
shook her head. “I fear Jehovah too much to risk His displeasure.”

“
I thought you might say something like that. And in a way, I can’t blame you. You’ve long been under the spell of those who were deluded.” He picked up a tablet, his brow furrowed. “Hilda, you’re my granddaughter, my last link to Beor. Don’t think I would do anything to cause you grief. Believe me when I say that while I respect the king and his power, that I would never do anything that would put you under Nimrod’s control. This is about your father.”

“
What?”

“
I mean to see Beor’s line preserved. But if you can’t marry…”

“
Why can’t I marry?”

“
Certainly, Nimrod won’t let you marry Odin. And because you love him, who else would you want to marry?”

Her grandfather
’s craftiness was palpable. She waited.

“
If you can’t marry,” he said, “Beor’s seed dies out. “Unless, that is, you become a priestess of Ishtar.”

“
I don’t understand.”

“
As a priestess of Ishtar, you will be wed to the gods, and have children by them.”

It felt as if he
’d kicked her in the stomach. His gods were the fallen angels. Fallen angels had once mated with mortals, producing the Nephilim.

“
Once the Tower Temple is completed, each full moon a virgin of Ishtar shall ascend the steps and spend the night alone on the goddess’s bed. Perhaps Bel himself will appear. Nine months later, the virgin will deliver a holy child.”

Horror
made her stomach writhe. “You want a
demon
to impregnate me so I’ll to produce Nephilim children?”

“
You mustn’t become hysterical. Not all gods are ethereal.”

“
You’re mad.”

“
Nimrod also is a god. We’re all about to learn that in a few weeks.”

“
You want me to become the king’s whore?”

Canaan became earnest
. “A priestess of Ishtar is above such petty labels. Hilda, you must try to understand what I’m saying. The future has arrived. Leadership in the empire lies and will lie with those who have a proficiency in communicating with the gods. What I’m offering is a chance to leap ahead of everyone else. You will have spirit guidance and learn magic and divination. Then you will gain rank in the New Order and deliver to our line semi-divine children.”

“
Like Ymir, who died in the Flood?” Hilda asked.

“
There has never been a universal empire before. All humanity is bound together now. The king, practically a god himself, will wield the empire into a mighty force for the swift progress of all.”

“
How do Nephilim children fit into that?”

Canaan
frowned. “We are supposedly cursed as slaves to the sons of Shem and Japheth, and one might even think to Kush, Put and Menes. Now a path has opened that will ensure we are the masters. Wielders of secret power, lore-masters and astrologers, guardians of the spirit realm, we must grasp this opportunity, Hilda. We must grasp it before the others realize what’s at stake and do likewise.”

She struggled for calm
. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Canaan pinched his lower lip and shook his head.

“Jehovah didn’t allow this the first time. He surely won’t this time either.”

He inhaled sharply
. “It is better to hold the whip than to feel its lash. Either you are with us or you are against us.”

“
Untrue.”

“
Oh?” he asked, amused.

“
Either you stand with Jehovah or His wrath falls on you sooner or later.”

Canaan
regarded her, at last shaking his head. “I’d thought you wiser. Unless you readjust your thinking, I won’t be able to protect you. You may go. I have much to do in preparation of the Tower’s completion.”

2.

Odin stirred in the filth, in the cold slime of the pit. With his single eye, he gazed out of the hole in the earth. Stars twinkled and the night wind moaned.

Thirst had become his sole concern, a terrible urgency for something to slake his parched lips
. At one time, he had sipped the putrid brew he lay up to his chest in. For several days after, he had vomited and fever raged. It was during that time his left eye went blind.

The pit was an awful prison, a deeply dug hole in the earth filled with slop
, water and now his filth. Some days, they threw him weevil-infested biscuits or bones with rotting flesh. If they remembered, they lowered a bucket with brackish water. Long ago, his clothes had rotted off. Naked like a worm, he struggled in the mud, periodically drawing out his legs to peel off bloodsuckers. His beard and hair was matted, his body caked with slime.

Tonight
, he shivered, coughed and hoped they remembered the water bucket tomorrow. Days, weeks, months had passed. He wasn’t fat any longer. The skin of his belly hung loosely like old clothes. Yet in his one good eye shone…it wasn’t madness. It wasn’t hope. Knowledge, maybe, an understanding he had never had before. He called the pit the Well of Knowledge. He had sipped deeply from it, although it had cost him an eye.

The extent of his learning or perhaps it was the pinnacle
, was that Jehovah loved him. He knew because he felt closer to the Almighty than he ever had. Weeks of feverish prayer, of questions profound, mad and silly had been answered in whispers of the wind, in a bird whistling somewhere just out of sight, in the warm embrace of the sun at noon. Whenever he drank from the lowered bucket, he praised Jehovah. As he gnawed flesh from a bone, he thanked the Creator for seeing him alive yet another day. Long nights of thought interrupted his physical misery. Hatred against Nimrod softened as he realized the Mighty Hunter kicked against traces he could never overturn—for how could one hope to defeat Him who had sent the Deluge?

Odin
pondered the old tales, the Flood and that a world had been destroyed because of wickedness. He wondered too if Ham had escaped the battlefield. He prayed it was so, and when he felt closest to the Creator, he asked that somehow he could wed Hilda and leave Babel.

Truth came hard after that
. He’d die in the pit. But he didn’t curse Jehovah, although over half the time he felt like it. He forbade himself that pleasure, telling himself the cost was too high. When his moods darkened and he raged against Nimrod, Jehovah and life’s hard luck, he remembered his sins meant he was owed nothing. Noah’s teaching said Jehovah showed mercy because of grace and grace alone, and that someday Jehovah would redeem man with One from the woman’s seed.

“
I believe,” had croaked a parody of a man, and soon thereafter, his moods had turned less bitter and soul devouring.

Laughter now stole upon him, not his, but from someone outside the pit
. Odin heard the clank of armor and the snort of a donkey.

Torchlight flickered, and soon Nimrod the Mighty Hunter stood at the lip peering down
. He seemed like a giant, tall, towering and powerful, with the fate of the world in his hands.

“
How fare you, Odin?”

“
I’m alive.”

Nimrod grinned
. “Would you like to come out?”

Bold words jumped to
Odin’s lips, but the want of water dried them.

The Mighty Hunter squatted, thrusting the torch into the opening
. “I’m not sure what I see: defiance, hope or the glaring of a one-eyed beast. Do you want out or not?”

“
I wonder what it’s going to cost me.”

“
A beating,” Nimrod said.

“
Then I’m free to leave Babel?”

Nimrod turned to someone unseen
. A chariot rattled and soon the Mighty Hunter regarded him again. “You betrayed me, Spear Slayer.”

“
Yes, I did.”

“
Then you admit you deserve this?”

The torch lowered as
Odin considered the question. He saw Nimrod studying him. “Yes. I deserve this.”

“
You disappoint me, Spear Slayer. I would have thought none of my Mighty Men could be broken so quickly. Or do you think to gain my pardon this way?”

“
No.”

“
Oh? Why this certainty?”

“
You know nothing of mercy, Mighty Hunter. You’re a killer, a murderer.”

“
I’m the King of the Earth.”

“
A true king shepherds his people. He gives of himself so they grow and become better. You’re a hunter because all you know is how to take.”

“
I bring universal peace and safety from the beasts. These are gifts the people cherish.”

“
What about me then? I ask for nothing so grand. Food and water is what I crave.”

Nimrod laughed, and
Odin looked away, angry with himself.

“
I bring you knowledge, Traitor. Hilda will soon become a priestess of Ishtar.”

“
I don’t believe it.”

“
A pity. Because you’re going to be the instrument that convinces her.” Nimrod threw down a bag, which slurped into the mud by Odin’s chest.

Odin
dared fumble at the knots, finding bread, a leg of mutton and a jug of water. He frowned and looked up. “Thank you.”

Nimrod became thoughtful
. “Tell that to me in a day.”

Odin
hardly heard. He took a mouthful of water, swishing it, rinsing the dirt from his teeth. He swallowed and knew bliss. “Thank you, Jehovah.”

“
What was that?” Nimrod asked.

Odin
took another swallow, and tore off a hunk of bread.

“
You eat like a wolf, Spear Slayer. I only hope you remember how to fight like one.”