Heavens Before (37 page)

“May we close the door on him?” Khawm demanded from the left of the door. Without waiting for his father’s reply, he grabbed a great rope that was looped through iron rings in the base of the ramp and in the doorframe. Noakh motioned to Shem and Yepheth; they grabbed the ropes on the right of the doorframe, while Noakh helped Khawm.

“Pull!” Noakh commanded.

Annah held her breath, watching as they pulled. The ropes went taut, but the ramp door didn’t move. Akar cackled from his place outside. “Fools, you can’t even
close your door!”

“Child, let’s help them,” Naomi said to Annah.

But as they were reaching for the ropes, the door lifted. Annah gasped, staring, confounded.
The ropes are going slack, but the door is lifting. How can this be?

“Living Word,” Noakh breathed, releasing the rope.

The men were backing away now. Akar screamed from outside, “Wait, wait!”

Annah felt her mouth go dry. She couldn’t move. She could only stand there, staring as the great door shut slowly, gently, as if controlled by an unseen hand.
I’m not imagining this
, she told herself, still staring. She could no longer hear Akar’s screaming, pleading voice; the door had cut it off. A sudden burst of warmth emanated from the door, and the scents of resins and woods mingled, permeating the air.

“He’s sealing the door with His own hand!” Noakh exulted, gazing at the door, delighted as a young child. “Ah, Most High!” Then the warmth dissipated. Instantly, Noakh turned upon them all. “Hurry! Is everything fastened down? If so, then get to the upper level. Go! Go! Go!” He waved his hands, chasing Annah and the others away.

Shem seized Annah’s hand, pulling her away from the great door. She ran with the others.
Like sheep
, Annah thought, as they all scrambled up the central ramp. And, almost like sheep, they hurried to the same place, the area surrounding the faintly smoldering hearth.

For an instant, they all sat in pairs—husbands and wives together—looking at each other, still unable to believe what they had just seen. Then the pen began to quiver and vibrate. The tremors intensified, until they could do nothing but kneel, clutching the resin-coated
floor and each other. Ghinnah began to scream and cry. Sweating, Annah reached out blindly for Shem, thinking,
This is worse than any of the others
. Then Annah heard a vast, booming, echoing, cracking sound from beyond the windows above them, as if the earth and the sky were splitting and breaking into tiny, irretrievable pieces. Terrified, scarcely aware of her husband’s arms around her, Annah began to pray.

Twenty-Two

YERAKH LED Naham along the riverbank to the bridge, talking eagerly. “One thing is true of Annah: She won’t stay inside that Noakh’s lodge for very long. She likes to wander outside. All we have to do is watch for her.”

“You should have given her to me all those months ago when I asked for her,” Naham said, his voice deep and rumbling, a sneer on his broad, bearded face. “She’d be no trouble to you now.”

“Who would ever have thought she would be trouble,” Yerakh muttered darkly. “When you see her you won’t recognize her.” He paused at the bridge, stepping aside to allow Naham to go first. Naham eyed the bridge warily, then shook his head.

“You go first; that bridge is meant for an ordinary little man.”

“Really?” Yerakh asked, hoping to taunt Naham into crossing. “Are you thinking you’ll break this thing and fall in? Who’s the coward now?”

“Go first!” Naham commanded threateningly, flexing his huge fingers into massive fists.

Reluctantly Yerakh started over the bridge. Now his fears took on a voice in his mind, hissing Annah’s warnings to him with renewed vehemence.
You are a fool! You sheltered the Nachash. You killed your father. You willed the deaths of your mother, your wife, and your brothers, and now you seek the life of another. You are cursed!

The voice seemed to end, but a new thought occurred to Yerakh:
Your feet carry you to your death
. Shuddering, he paused on the resilient reed-and-rope bridge. The bridge shook, upsetting his balance. Without turning, he screamed at Naham, “Quit shaking the bridge!”

“I’m not shaking the bridge!” Naham bellowed from the riverbank. “It’s the earth shaking the bridge!”

As Naham was bellowing, the tremors of the earth increased, with groanlike sounds reverberating ominously from deep beneath the ground. All at once, Yerakh lost his footing and went sprawling on his belly, facing north, clutching the ropes of the bridge. Panicked, he looked at Naham, but the giant man was on his knees. Even his great strength was not enough to keep him upright. Yerakh heard an immense burst of noise resounding from the depths of the earth up to the very heavens. In that same instant, he saw impossibly vast geysers of water and plumes of deep gray smoke blasting up from the ground in the distance, tearing through the roseate sky, splitting open the heavens.

Yerakh stared upward, unable to scream, his horror was so great. An immense pattern of waves rippled east to
west through the skies above him, as if the heavens were made of water. The physical shocks of these rippling waves, paired with the shaking of the earth, caused the two eastern trees supporting the bridge to lurch threateningly above the now raging current—above Yerakh himself.

Terror-stricken, he clung to the bridge as it sagged into the current. The water dashed over his face, making him raise his head, desperately gasping for air. As he struggled to maintain his hold, Yerakh glimpsed Naham toppling into the white-crested waves. The giant man was swept downriver, howling, raging, all his strength useless.

Suddenly an all-encompassing roar filled Yerakh’s ears; the force of the water increased with the noise. Looking up, he saw his death coming: a vast, surging wall of frothing, muddied water, filled with shredded trees, fragments of reed lodges, and battered corpses—animal and human—all sweeping toward him from the north. He could only wait, screaming as the wall finally struck, ripping him away from the sagging bridge. The mighty trees leaning above him fell into the river, rolling and tumbling in the muddy surge, following him downriver. His arms and legs crushed and useless, Yerakh found himself snared among tree limbs in the rapids. He longed, in vain, for a swift and painless death.

Virtually every member of the settlement was gathered in the lodge of Sa-khar, to celebrate Tseb-iy’s marriage to Sa-khar’s only daughter, Yediydah. Standing near the doorway of the lodge, Ayalah watched the lean, black-bearded, narrow-eyed Sa-khar pronounce his formal
approval of the married couple. Though the bride was her sister-in-law, K’nan’s sister, Ayalah felt no love or loyalty toward Yediydah or any of her family. By now, K’nan held no attraction for Ayalah. He was a sulking, willful husband, a complete disappointment. Ayalah glanced at him.
Why did I ever want you? You’re nothing but trouble to me
. Contemptuous, she looked away from her husband, toward Yediydah and Tseb-iy.

Yediydah, lovely, pouting, and glistening with bride-gold purchased from Yerakh, shifted her gaze from her father to her new husband, the supposedly unattainable Tseb-iy. Ayalah almost laughed at Tseb-iy’s grim smile as he waited for the self-important Sa-khar to finish the marriage blessing.

Gloating, Ayalah leaned over to Haburah and the other wives of Naham and said, “Look at that fool, Tseb-iy. By his expression, I think he could spit embers.”

“I think he’s changed his mind already,” said Naham’s first wife, Shuwa, her dark eyes sparkling with malice. “Tseb-iy will keep that Yediydah guessing and looking to see where his affections will fall next, I assure you. She’s a fool to marry him.”

Naham’s second wife, Qetsiyah, laughed beneath her breath, nudging Shuwa with one slender, graceful hand. “You’re just angry that he has never looked at you. If it weren’t for Naham’s jealousy, you would have thrown yourself at Tseb-iy long ago.”

“May they be barren,” Haburah muttered darkly. “I should have killed Tseb-iy for scorning my mother.”

Ayalah smiled, deciding that she must encourage Haburah to take vengeance on Tseb-iy—it would be amusing. Suddenly, the earth wavered beneath Ayalah’s feet, startling her from all thoughts of Tseb-iy.

Haburah grabbed at Ayalah. “Outside, quickly, before the others trample us!”

Ayalah managed to scramble outside with her sister before the tremors jolted them to the ground. On her hands and knees now, Ayalah looked around, terrified. This shaking of the earth was the worst yet. The lodges were being jostled like loose bundles of reeds. Other members of the settlement were crawling out of the lodge of Sa-khar, unable and unwilling to help those still trapped inside. Shuwa had also managed to escape the teetering lodge. Like the others, she was unable to walk, the tremors were so fierce. Obviously scared, she crawled to Haburah and cried, “Where is our husband?”

Ayalah could not hear Haburah’s answer. A deep groaning noise rose from the earth, lifting into the heavens as an immense, distant fissure burst and spewed an endless protrusion of water and smoke upward, rumbling and crackling as it surged past the limits of the sky.
Annah
, Ayalah thought,
you knew this would happen! I hate you—and your Most High! I hope you die!

Ayalah gaped as boundless shock waves rippled through the sky from the east toward the settlement. The sheer power of these waves caused the lodges to tumble to the ground. Those trapped inside the lodge of Sa-khar screamed and wailed beneath the collapsing roof of the lodge.

“They’re dying!” Ayalah screamed.

“We’re dead!” Haburah cried, her gaze fixed on the darkening, churning skies. The usual rosy glow of the sky was gone, blotted out by smokelike billows of vapors. Sudden, terrifying streaks of white-blue light flashed downward from these billows, creating a terrible booming noise that shook the air as the tremors jarred the earth.

Stunned, Ayalah could only wait on her hands and knees, watching as muddied walls of water poured down from the dark, seething heavens. The falling waters pounded Ayalah, Haburah, the settlement, and its inhabitants, eventually washing them toward the surging river. Ayalah finally lost consciousness beneath the force of the waters, her life ebbing away. All traces of the settlement were scoured from the surface of the earth.

Its magnificent limbs whipped by the shock waves, its roots loosened by the tremors and the onrush of the waters from the river and the skies, the Tree of Havah creaked and swayed in the earth. At last, weakened and overcome by the power of the waters, the ancient tree groaned and fell into the rising current.

To the east of the settlement, the Nachash and her whisperers tottered outside when the first tremors hit. Hearing the rupturing of the earth and the crackling of the sky, the Nachash screamed, “Most High, will You destroy us? You!”

Shaken to her hands and knees now, the Nachash spat vigorously, her emaciated face defiant. But her whisperers wailed aloud as the shock waves struck, felling the trees to the east of their lodge. And the waters of the darkening heavens descended upon the Nachash and her whisperers, sweeping them away like dry, brittle twigs.