Hagar’s green, steady eyes held the younger woman’s gaze. Without breaking eye contact, she brought out a slender, small object and shot upward what appeared to be a single laser pulse.
Over a mile above them, the sky brightened as the beam hit something, and there was a brief rumbling sound. Slowly, the darkness returned as the light dissipated and spread outward toward the far edges of the world.
“Strong as a cast-metal mirror,” Hagar said softly. “Behold: the canopy of heavens.”
Lee pressed a hand to her throat, eyes wide.
“It is a solid, colossal canopy,” Hagar answered the question in the other woman’s eyes. “Stretching for many hundreds of miles every which way. Freshwater is stored above the canopy and per the discretion of the deities may come down as rain on various locales. The land mass we stand upon is buttressed with a foundation, while the primeval water below breaks through to the surface and form lakes, springs, and rivers. Above the canopy is the divine realm, underneath it is the common realm, where we are at.”
“We are inside a giant construct,” Lee said weakly, feeling numb. They were not in any sort of ripple. This was no Earth. It appeared they had stumbled on a world where the events of the Bible and its cosmology were the literal truth.
Hagar gave her a bitter smile. “I like to think of it as a fishbowl—as Noah must have reasoned out,” she said. Her voice regained its strength. “All El Supremo had to do is open wide the casement windows at the dome, unseal the wellsprings of deep, and sit back.”
She fixed Lee with a level gaze. “This is a world ruled by deities, and the supreme one is Yahweh. Here, in this place, he is real, and watching.”
“Oh, great God in heaven.” Lee heard herself whispering hoarsely.
“You can say that again. About one and a half miles up.”
Lee turned away, looking at nothing for a long time. “How do you know all of this?” she asked. “Come to think of it, you have suspected something of the sort the moment the ziggurat came within sight.”
Hagar nodded soberly. “Aye. I’ve heard of this world.”
“How do we get out of here?”
“That’s the thing.” Hagar kicked at the ground, creating a small explosion of dust and rocks. She looked at the other woman glumly. “I don’t think there is a way out.”
Chapter 13
They sat there for a while as Hagar mulled over the dire straits they were in.
At last, Hagar came out of her reverie. “Lee,” she said. “Lee, there is only one thing to do.”
“Why do I get this feeling I am not going to like it?”
“We have to petition Yahweh in person—and convince him to facilitate for us a way out of this world.”
Lee swallowed the lump in her throat. “Talk to…God?”
“Not just talk, Lee. We have to do a first-class bullshit job and suck up to him so badly, the thought of it literally makes me sick to my stomach.”
“And then?”
“And then we cross our fingers that he will go along with it. And not incinerate us.”
“Well, in that case we better start praying,” said Lee miserably.
They looked at each other and burst out with laughter tinged with hysteria. Lee tried to shake her head in disgust, but the laughter kept bubbling up.
“I can feel his presence,” said Hagar after their laughter died out. “His attention is set hundreds of miles that way.” She motioned toward a dim ridge in the far distance. “This is where we have to journey. Once there, we would attempt to gain audience with Yahweh.”
“I think I can imagine what is our destination, what territory we need to travel to.” Lee summoned the ghost of a smile.
Hagar returned the smile. “Meanwhile, I have shielded our thoughts from any probing deity, Yahweh or any of the others.”
They descended the long staircase.
“Is this a land of…giants?”
“There are rephaites about,” acknowledged Hagar. “However, humans make up the vast majority,” she assured Lee. They reached a stair landing. “Luckily for us, I have emergency reserves of weapons, gold coins, dried food, and whatnot.” As Hagar was talking, her attire underwent a change until she was veiled, wearing sandals and an ankle-length tunic.
“Veil, really?”
“Golden-haired, youthful, and without male company?” Hagar looked at her askew. “Absent a veil, I might as well carry a flashing neon sign for bride abductors.” She then sighed and pulled the veil down, wearing it like a shawl. “On second thought, a veil may mark me a prostitute.”
“What do I get to wear?” Lee asked as she stripped off her clothes, handing them over to Hagar. Seemingly out of nowhere, the other woman produced a toga-like dress. “Nice, respectable clothing, O elder one.”
Lee sniffed. “If I am an elder, what does that make you?”
The blonde girl looked at her innocently. “Come on, grandma. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
They descended the next flight of stairs.
Lee glanced at the other woman a few times. “What the hell happened as we were about to cross over to Brazil? It was as if something had taken control of the Brazilian slaves.”
Hagar compressed her mouth into a thin line, troubled. “When you first told me of your experience, I brushed it off,” she admitted as she kept on walking. “Now I am thinking we got a lucky break—departing Earth when Aratta showed up. Someone, or as I increasingly suspect, something is after us. Something powerful beyond anything I could counter. We will have to deal with it when and if we get back.” The two of them reached the ground level and were out of the ziggurat. “But first thing first, yes?” said Hagar and jerked her head toward the distant hills. Their long trek was about to begin.
As they traveled, the hours turned into days, and the days turned into weeks. But each day brought them closer to their destination: Yahweh’s seat of power.
They passed through an endless number of villages and small towns surrounded by cultivated fields and orchards. On three occasions, they ran into bands of highwaymen. Twice, they were able to stay hidden. Once, they were detected before they had a chance to get off the road—to the great misfortune of the bandits. Hagar disposed of six, and Lee put her years of martial arts training to good use and brought down the last thug. However, for the most part, the trip had been uneventful. With some unmarked silver coins, Hagar secured food and lodging. While as often as not they managed to find someone who gave them provisions for the journey, asking nothing in return.
After one month of travel, the two were about two dozen miles away from the territory of Bnei Yisra’el when they stumbled on a site of utter desolation.
“Look at that!” exclaimed Lee in astonishment. It was as if all color was rubbed off the earth and the world turned monochromatic. The vast expanse must have formerly held thousands of small houses. Now, it was soot-covered and bleak.
Hagar tugged on Lee’s arm. “We’ve got company.”
A white-haired, older woman and a half dozen men were walking toward them.
“Trouble?”
“I don’t think this band intends on abducting us, but stay vigilant,” said Hagar. “They are not merely curious. They want something.” She raised her hand in greeting. The approaching people returned the gesture and some of them tied their donkeys to a nearby tree.
Lee eyed the short swords buckled about their waists. The people appeared rough. Nomads.
Hagar looked pointedly at the wasteland. “What happened here?”
“Until twenty years ago, this was the city of Rabbat Ammon,” said the woman with the white hair. “Now it is as you see, and the Ammonites are no more.” Her eyes were fierce, and she radiated wiry strength. The elder beckoned, and two of the men pulled out a few rolled blankets and laid them out in an area clear of thorn bushes. She sat down and motioned
to the two women. Hagar gave Lee a slight nod, and they joined the older woman. The men reclined around, forming a semicircle.
They all dined on fig cakes, pistachio nuts, and almonds. Leather bladders containing water were passed around.
The elder smoothed down her long skirt. “The Ammonites were an affront in the nostrils of their patron god, Kemosh, and the land spewed them out. Hereafter, Yahweh deeded the territory in lease to his own people, the Yisra’elites. Yet, four life-spans will come to pass before the land cleanses itself from the evildoing of the former tenants, the Ammonites. Until then, the fat of the earth is gone: the soil will not yield grain, the trees will bear no fruits.”
“This is not simply a wasteland,” said Lee, glancing at the desolate area around them. “Someone methodically decimated everything here.”
“There is that. Bnei Yisra’el put this city under kherem.”
Irrevocable divine writ. Hagar’s thought reached Lee, explaining. Nothing is spared. Once a kherem is decreed by a god, as eagles swoop, his people put to the sword men and women, infants and children, oxen and sheep.
Lee shuddered. “Why?”
The old woman’s eyes flickered with surprise. “Least the Yisra’elites be tempted by the Ammonites and give their fealty to another god, which they have entertained on two occasions.” She cackled with glee. “About two millennia ago some of Bnei Yisra’el courted the god Resheph. In response to this display of unfaithfulness, Yahweh wanted to waste his people with famine, strike them with blight, and wipe them out—if not for the thought that gnawed at him. The surrounding nations may claim this annihilation as their own, and all would think Yahweh was too weak to protect his people.”
“What do you reckon would have happened had the Ammonites sought to strike a peace treaty with the Yisra’elites?” inquired Lee.
The elder’s chuckle was devoid of humor. “Yahweh made sure this would not happen. He hardened the Ammonites’ hearts so they would forcefully resist the Yisra’elites, who, in return, would slaughter them with no quarter given.” Her eyes were sharp and assessing. “You are not like other people,” she stated.
“Neither are you.” Hagar laid down the water bladder. “Who are you, people?”
The nomads exchanged glances. “We are Bnei Seraphim,” their silver-haired leader said at last. She studied Hagar and Lee for any sign of recognition. When they showed none, she asked, “Have you read in the Book of Yashar what transpired in a tree park out east, in Eden?”
“Maybe,” Hagar said noncommittally, although she immediately recognized the reference to Adam and Eve at the Garden of Eden.
The female chieftain said, “Not far from the land of Nod, el elyon, the supreme god, planted a tree park, which was his place of rest. Adam and Khavah were set as stewards, ‘to till and preserve it.’ El elyon allowed them to eat from all the trees of the park except the tree of knowledge, warning Adam that ‘on the day he ate from it,’ he will be ‘doomed to die.’” The words flowed out smoothly, as if they were uttered countless times before.
“But the seraph knew it to be a lie and said so. It asserted el elyon had known that on the day the humans would eat of the tree, their eyes would open, and they would become as gods—with the power to discern good and evil. In other words, acquiring the ability to make moral choices and develop laws and precepts on their own.”
The older woman studied their faces intently and was satisfied. They appeared as undaunted as she had expected they would be. It had been wise of her to approach them. And soon, she would make them an offer they could not refuse. Ought not refuse. “Thereafter, the female took a fruit from the tree of knowledge and ate; she handed some to the man who was with her; and he also ate. And their eyes opened. Realizing what had transpired, el elyon said to the heavenly host, ‘Now that humans have become like one of us, knowing good and evil, they may reach out and take as well from the tree of life—and live forever.’ Feeling threatened, el elyon expelled the two humans from the tree park and set kruvs to guard its entrance.”
The elder added, “All the same, they did eat from the tree of knowledge. What was done could not have been undone, right?” The two women nodded in agreement. “Hence, the City and Tower of Bavel happened.”
“We visited its ruins,” offered Lee.
“The Tower of Bavel was the second most monumental thing that has occurred,” said the elder woman. “The only time we humans dared lift our heads, dared to be anything more than slaves to the dictates of the deities. Then el elyon and the heavenly host came down and stamped out the uprising, dispersing us. Never again people would aspire to reach so high.” She concluded, “Humans have been cursed to live their lives with the capacity to reason and be the agents of their own destiny, but without the possibility to exercise it—on pain of exile or annihilation.”
One of the men spoke, “The deities are at odds with one another, but they will rally around one thing: humans need to know their place or else the world order, as the deities have instituted, will come tumbling down.”
“Thereafter, a secret society came into being,” resumed the old woman. “One pledged to uphold the light of free choice and firsthand thinking. We are the Bnei Seraphim. Once in a great while, we find a lost soul who wanders about, and we make them an offer.” She helped herself to a dry fruit. “Some seek us out as they committed unnatural deeds and fear for their lives. Others come to us because they wish to pursue their own independent thoughts without fear of being stoned to death for heresy.”
She chuckled a bit. “Yahweh brought the Yisra’elites out of slavery all right.” Her voice was sharp with sarcasm. “Yahweh said: ‘Let my people go so they may serve me,’ and ‘They are my slaves, whom I brought out of the land of Mitzraim.’ Yah did not lead them out to set them free.”
“No, he did not bring them out to be free,” said Hagar acerbically. She looked more flustered than angry. “Free?” she asked rhetorically. “Free to do what? To starve? To have no land to call their own? To have their men killed, their virgins sold into slavery, and their women’s wombs shut? Because these are the only freedoms available in this world without having a patron god.” Hagar picked up a stone and flung it afar. “Oh, in the crevices and hidden recesses of the world, fifty or two hundred people can eke out a living without patronage of a deity. But millions of people?”
Heavy, tense silence greeted her words.
“Are you claiming we are on a fool’s errand?” asked the woman. A cold look entered her eyes.
Hagar drew in a long breath. “No. No, I am not.”
The elder fixed her with a probing gaze and eventually nodded, mollified. “For the gods,” she said, “the ideal man is Avraham, the man who was willing to unconditionally follow orders and slaughter his own son with a cleaver, no questions asked. For us, the ideal man is a thinking man. We may live our lives in caverns and burrows, as you suggested, but we are free to be. We preserve the spark. We think. We question. We dream.”
She eyed the two of them. “We have been tracking you for a couple of days. By the look of it, you’re from afar and alone. Join us.”
“We are honored,” said Hagar and meant it. “Yet, we are but sojourners and seek to depart this world.” The moment she uttered these words, she realized how preposterous it must have sounded.
“Depart this world?” The woman was genuinely bewildered.
“We don’t…belong here.”
Bewilderment turned to anger. “Is this fantastic suggestion of another world your way of turning down my invitation?”
“Let it be,” Hagar said and rose to her feet.
“I cannot,” replied the elder, also rising. Her eyes hardened with resolve. “I am sorry then.” Now that those two foreigners were aware of the existence of their secretive society, they could not be permitted to leave. She could not chance it. The welfare of her people was at stake.
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��I am sorry, too,” replied Hagar, inclining her head slightly in a gesture of respect.
For a long minute neither women moved but regarded each other as if carved from stone.
Like a coiled snake, the Seraphite struck out with a hand now holding a long knife. And almost at the same moment, she screamed in pain, the knife dropping from her hand under a viselike grip of Hagar, who hoisted the elder and threw her half dozen paces away—where she crumpled with a moan, eyes fluttering and unfocused.
The radiance emanating from Hagar’s face vanished.
The men had recoiled in utter terror and shock. They now flung themselves down, their faces pressed against the dirt in abject submission.
Silence.
“Your lives are spared,” Hagar stated. No one was foolish enough to raise his head. “We will leave in peace,” she added. “You will not be following us.”
“Yes, bat elohim,” intoned the oldest, his face to the ground.
“The two of us are travelers from beyond this world. And soon we will depart. Your secret is safe with us. This I promise.”
The two left behind the dazed Bnei Seraphim, who had never expected to encounter a divine being and live to tell about it. It was nothing short of a miracle, albeit of a different sort.
Lee and Hagar made love that night and afterward laid next to each other, peering at the stars and the embers of their small bonfire.
“Hagar, what did that woman mean when she said Yahweh deeded the land in lease to the Yisra’elites?”
“People here don’t own slices of the world; they’re all tenants.”
The Earth Hearing Page 12
