People of the Tower (Ark Chronicles 4) (2 page)

2.

Tall grasses waved along the mighty Tigris River. Stalks swayed in the breeze, whispering. The flowers dipped and rose in time to the wind’s rhythm. Several chirping black birds fluttered from one location to another, while a fox, leaping high, looked about before falling back into the depths of the tall grasses. The creature leapt up once more, looking again. When it landed, the fox fled east, making a soundless departure.

Minutes later
, two running youths passed the spot where the fox had leapt. The youths breathed heavily, if evenly. One was muscular and lean-hipped, the other sleek, his sandaled feet moving lightly over the plain as if he were a wild dog trailing zebra. From time to time, sweat dripped from their faces. One held a black elm lance, with a double loop of sabertooth skin wrapped around his fist. The other clutched an unstrung bow. Their eyes shone. For days they had run, sleeping little and eating less. Both concentrated on the task of moving.

The
man with the black elm lance, Gilgamesh, saw one thing in his mind’s eye: Sweet Opis hiding in the great southern marsh. Uruk had already looked for her, and had failed to find her. The thought frightened Gilgamesh. It terrified him. What if…he shook his head, flinging sweat from his face. Opis hid in the great southern marsh, waiting for him. His teeth flashed. It wasn’t a grin or a snarl. But his teeth flashed as he thought of reuniting with Opis, his beloved. He pitied Hilda, although he was glad that Nimrod had won. Yet how terrible to watch your beloved die before your eyes. He swallowed hard. Opis waited for him in the great southern marsh. He had to find her.

3.

They paddled the canoe through reeds as rain lashed them. Lightning flashed. Seconds later, thunder boomed. The rain fell harder, cold fat drops. Surges of water rose among the reeds like some gigantic leviathan. Then the reeds as well as bulrushes flattened because of the howling wind.

“
We must turn with the wind!” Ramses shouted.

W
ith a hood tied tight, Gilgamesh shook his head. He thrust his triangular-shaped paddle into the rising water. Their canoe rose with the swell and then down against as the wave passed. Gilgamesh thrust his paddle again.

“
This is madness,” Ramses shouted from behind.

For weeks
, they had searched the great southern marsh. There had been no sign of Opis. Gilgamesh had turned bitter, first against Semiramis for sending him north on his ignoble quest, then against Uruk for having driven Opis to this deed. Soon, he became bitter against Lud and his insatiable greed. Finally, he’d turned inward for listening to Semiramis. He should have outbid Uruk and he should have let Lud die.

Ramses shouted,
“We must turn—” A crack of thunder, a deafening boom, drowned out his words. The rain fell in sheets.

Hot tears coursed down Gilgamesh
’s face as he drove his paddle into the water. Then, in the surge of the latest wave, he saw a crocodile tumble past. Had such a beast dined upon his love?

His eyes widened
. He pointed. Ramses shook his head. Frenzied, Gilgamesh shoved his paddle into the water. Ramses seemed to understand. He rowed fiercely. Their craft struggled through the waves, the wind and the rain. Inch by inch, slewing first one way and then another, they crept through the swamp.

Then Ramses cried out
. He saw it too.

They dug the
paddles into the swirling water, and they plowed onto a reed island. The mat of reeds, lilies and other water plants had grown together, forming and fusing, as it were, into an island of vegetation. Leaping from the canoe, they dragged it all the way onto the island. Releasing it, they stumbled into a small hut, one woven from reeds. Gilgamesh was laughing and crying all at once. He picked up an ivory comb, a chip in it that he recognized.

“
Where is she?” Ramses shouted.

Terrible fear, like a spear into the guts, chilled Gilgamesh with the realization that she wasn
’t here. The hut was empty. Had the crocodile eaten her? “Opis!” Gilgamesh screamed. “Opis, Opis, Opis!”

Ramses grabbed him
. “She’s all right. She’s all right.”

“
Where is she?”

“
We’ll wait for her,” Ramses shouted. “We’ll wait until the storm passes. It’s madness to go on.”

So they crouched, waiting, the wind
, rain and thunder hammering the hut as they wondered what had happened to Opis.

4.

Hilda noticed that the closer they came to the northern slopes of Ararat, the better Noah became. Her father, on the other hand, worsened.

At every stop
, Beor sat as sweat beaded his face. She saw him massaging his stump. When she asked him if it hurt, he denied it, as if the question was ridiculous.

She wondered what it must have been like being the tribe
’s greatest hunter, a strong, proud, tough man, and then becoming hideously maimed. No one would have blamed Beor if had taken up a stationary role, that of a bronze smith or a tanner. He was a bronze smith, of course; perhaps the world’s best. Who else had armor like her father? But he only worked in the smithy to make weapons, tools and armor for his warrior tasks. It seemed insane for a peg-legged man to hope to be a great warrior. To attempt it took an unwavering will. That he had become a master archer was incredible. That men feared to face him weapon to weapon was a marvel, and that with his chariot he traveled over broader distances than hunters with two legs was almost a paradox. Yet…was an inflamed stump a symptom? Had his will received a blow that not even her father could endure?

Silence became his fortress
. He refused to ask anyone for help.

Noah
grew more powerful as they neared Ararat. Once they reached his farm, the difference became dramatic. A few weeks of culling snow-damaged vines, checking up on his flocks and re-training his hounds cured Noah’s cough. It saw the end of his fever and the return of his vigor. The patriarch of humanity, nearly seven hundred years old now, worked like a man of thirty. It baffled Hilda, and that bafflement replaced her grief.

She no longer slept
all the time or aimlessly wandered through snowy fields, weeping. She helped around the house, made candles, churned butter, dusted, carded and spun wool and crushed flowers, soaking the perfume into animal fat and then making it into ointment. Her father also helped Noah. Despite the inflammation of his stump, Beor worked tirelessly in the smithy. He chopped down trees, spitting them into rails. Then he dug postholes, crisscrossing the wooden rails between posts to make a fence or he hammered rocks, building small corrals for sheep.

The weeks passed
. Yorba and two others, with their wives and young ones, arrived with several oxcarts. They were all that was left of the Scouts. They too worked on Noah’s farm. They too seemed to be in limbo like her father.

One day
, Hilda took a break. She thought about the amber necklace. It had become a locus for so much evil, but she couldn’t quite bear to throw it away. She showed it to Noah.

They sat on the porch, on rocking chairs with blankets covering their knees
. On the steps, several bundled children played with kittens. The icy mountains of Ararat provided background.

Noah turned the necklace over
in his big hands. The fly caught in the middle bead seemed to capture his attention. His blue eyes took on a faraway look and he handed the necklace back.

“
Ham outdid himself,” Noah said. “It’s marvelous.”

Hilda remembered the day that Chin
, the son of Zidon, had given her the package.

“
Put it on,” Noah suggested.

Hilda slipped the beads over her head, setting them just so on her blouse.

Noah grinned. “You’re a pretty girl, Hilda. The amber suits you.”

Tears welled, for she thought of Gog, that they were to have been married
. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes.

Noah smiled, patting her hand
. For a while, they rocked in silence.

Hilda felt safe here
. Despite his fearsome appearance, his legendary strength and force of will, Noah was gentle in a way that only the truly powerful seemed to be.

Later that evening, after supper, as Hilda cleared the dishes and brought out a blueberry pie, her father brooded
. Yorba and the others had already excused themselves from the table.

“
Hmm, very good, Hilda,” Noah said.

“
Yes,” her father said, mechanically. Beor shoveled down bite after bite, hardly chewing, just swallowing pie as if it were a chore to get over with.

Noah seemed to inspect her father
. Hilda watched the interplay between the two. Noah wasn’t like any man she knew. How could he be? He’d lived for almost seven hundred years! Compared to the rest of them, it practically made him immortal. He had seen so many things, had lived at the height of the Antediluvian Era. Great Grandfather Ham always seemed so knowledgeable, so filled with hidden things and experiences. Noah was much more so, a mystery wrapped in an enigma.

At times
, she wondered if Noah could read her mind. He always seemed to know what she was thinking, seemed to understand her moods better than Great Grandmother Rahab ever had. Hilda shivered. How awful if Noah were evil. She tried to imagine a world filled with powerful, long-lived men, with centuries of knowledge to draw upon and strong with youthful vigor. What if Noah should rise up, if his white hair bristled and his blue eyes blazed with wicked wrath? What terrible deeds and malevolent plots could he devise, plans they couldn’t even conceive of because they were so youthful and innocent, not stepped in centuries of experiences and hard-won understanding. The feeling passed, and he seemed to simply be old Noah again, scraping his wooden dish with his fork, pressing the tines onto the pie crumbs.

Her father scowled
. He was bigger than Noah, even though Noah was a large man. Her father glanced sidelong as the patriarch scraped his chair around to study the fire. Her father opened his mouth and then closed it.

“
Babel troubles you,” Noah said.

Her father glanced at Noah in wonder.

Hilda hid her grin. She had the feeling that Noah perfectly understood her father.

“
The Tower particularly disturbs you. You wonder at its purpose.”

“
If only half of how they described it is true than the Tower will take years to build,” Beor said. “The question becomes why? Why expend so much effort when there are so many other things to do?”

“
The Tower is intriguing,” Noah said. “It excites interest. Perhaps therein is the reason for its construction.”

Beor considered that
. “Clearly they wish to draw others to Babel. At Festival, didn’t Nimrod invite everyone to join them?”

Noah sighed.
“Those who rebel against Jehovah always want others to join them. They are never secure unless the world does likewise, unless the world agrees with them. Worse than the Tower, is the angel, the one that claims to control the sun.” Noah stroked his beard. “Man’s great foe moves openly once again, which is strange. I had not thought humanity ready for that. Events move faster than in Antediluvian times. How is it that we have descended so quickly?”

Hilda wasn
’t sure what Noah was talking about.

“
When you speak of man’s great foe,” Beor said. “Do you mean the Serpent?”

“
Long ago, what did he promise Eve?”

“
Eh?” Beor asked.

“
In the Garden of Eden, the devil made Eve a fantastic promise.
Your eyes will be opened, and you will be like Jehovah, knowing good and evil
. All Eve had to do was eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The crafty devil. What was better than great wisdom? With the knowledge, Eve could become like Jehovah. Perhaps she could become a god herself. Such a subtle and alluring thing was, and is, wicked. In primeval times, in Heaven itself, the devil once yearned to replace Jehovah, to become a god. It is the ultimate sin.”

As he spoke,
Noah’s eyes seemed to blaze. Or was that the fire’s light reflecting from them? “The devil loves to tempt men, using the same blasphemy that felled him. Yet the prince of evil seldom puts things so bluntly. First he tempts with the seemingly delicious thought that we can know hidden things, that through them we can become wise and powerful.”

“
What does the Tower have to do with that?” Beor asked.

“
Did you listen to them at Festival?” Noah asked. “Their great goal was and is to raise civilization. They hunger for it. The idea that they have been cheated, that they must struggle and strive to regain that which was lost consumes them. The hint being that Jehovah has taken from them, through the Flood, what by rights they should have. Therein, I suspect, is the Tower’s allure.”

Beor scratched his head
. “You’ve gained this understanding because they desire to rebuild civilization?”

“
That and this appearance of the angel they worship,” Noah said. “I understand their twisted logic. By thanking the angel, they supposedly thank Jehovah. That is nonsense, of course. It is a ploy they use to trick the unwary and the simple.”

“
They?” Beor asked. “Who are
they
exactly?”

Hilda sat up
. She heard a new note in her father’s voice.

“
I speak of the plotters,” Noah said, “those at the heart of the rebellion. Nimrod, Kush—the display of Jehovah’s power frightened him. The question is: did the display frighten Kush into obedience or will he strive even harder for deep knowledge?”

Beor plucked at his beard
. “What you say makes sense.”

“
I’ve bemused you with these tales of the devil and his ancient offer of knowledge, that he uses what seems so good in order to bring about such evil.” Noah brooded. “I think a little trip is in order, for both you and Hilda.”

Beor asked,
“A trip where?”