"Why have you come?"
"Come? I didn't come. Tiglah's father and brother kidnapped me, and I suspect you put them up to it."
Rofocale said, "I am not asking why you are here, in this tent. I am asking why you and your brother chose to come to this oasis."
"It was a mistake," Sandy said, as he had said to Tiglah.
Rofocale again stretched out his hand, again touched Sandy on the knee. Sandy had had frostbite one winter, and this was how it had felt. "If it was a mistake for you to come, why do you not leave?"
Sandy said, slowly, deliberately, "We will leave when it is time to leave."
"And how, then, do you plan to leave?"
How, indeed? "We will know that when the time comes."
"You do not belong here."
"No. I belong with Noah and his family."
Rofocale made a noise like a mosquito shrill. "You do not belong here on this oasis. There are no giants like you in this time and place. Why do you not have wings?"
"We fly in planes and spaceships."
"What?"
The nephilim did not know everything. Sandy said, "We have machines that fly."
"Can you leave the planet?"
"We have gone to the moon. We fly among the stars."
"You?"
"I am too young," Sandy said. "My father has made several space flights."
"Did El send you to torment us?"
"What do you think?" Sandy asked.
"You are not of us, the nephilim. Neither are you, I think, of the seraphim."
"No. We are human beings."
"Mortals?"
"Yes."
"Then why have you come?"
"It was a mistake," Sandy said again.
"Would you like me to take you out of this place, this little tent?"
"No."
"They will come and kill you."
"Perhaps."
"Noah is unwilling to give up his vineyards."
"He is quite right. One does not give in to terrorists."
"You are foolish. I could give him a message, if you like. If you ask him, I think he will give up the vineyards."
"I wouldn't ask him."
"Then you will die."
"You'd like that, wouldn't you?" Sandy asked. "Perhaps you'd like to kill me yourself?"
"I will leave you. You are insolent."
"Why don't you like us, my brother and me?"
"You do not belong to our world. You will cause trouble. I think you have been sent to cause trouble to the nephilim." Rofocale rose. Energy crackled in the air, so that Sandy's skin prickled, and a mosquito flew away.
In a few minutes, Tiglah came in. "Did he tell you?" She was giggling. In the light slanting from outside, the dimple in her chin seemed a cleft.
"That your father and brother plan to kill me, yes, he told me."
"Not that." She was consumed with laughter.
He saw nothing funny. "What, then?"
"About Noah."
"He said that Noah is unwilling to give up his vineyards."
"No, no, not that, either."
"What, then?" He was irritated at her giggles.
"Noah is building a boat. A boat!" Her laughter peeled out.
Sandy sat up. Asked, carefully, "Why is he building a boat?"
"An ark, he says." Her laughter was derisive. "The nearest sea or river is moons away."
"Then why is he doing it?" Sandy asked.
"Who knows."
"Is he building it by himself?"
"Oh, no, it's a very big boat. I mean, hugely big. His sons are helping him. He says it is going to rain!" Her laughter jarred against Sandy's ears. "We have rain only in the spring, and then not much. He is the laughingstock of the oasis."
Sandy sat, alert, watching her.
"Rofocale thinks he may be building it to get rid of you. A boat where there is no water is silly."
"I'm hungry," Sandy said.
"Oh, I've brought you more food."
"Then just leave it with me."
She pouted. "You don't want me to sit and talk with you while you eat? I'll unbind your hands and feet."
"I'll manage." Sandy flexed his muscles so that the thongs looked tight. "I need to think."
"About the silly ark?"
"About a lot of things."
"Well... all right." She left the tent, returned with a bowl of stew. "You're sure you don't want me to stay?"
Sandy was firm. "Quite sure. Give up, Tiglah. Go."
Pouting, she went.
He sniffed at the stew. Ugh. It was spoiling. He pushed it aside, worked his hands out of the thongs, unbound his feet. If Noah was already building the ark, there was no time to wait. Dangerous or not, as soon as it got dark, Sandy would leave the tent, head for the desert, try to find out where on the oasis he was being held, and head for whichever was nearer, Grandfather Lamech's tent or Noah's.
Then he lay down to rest and wait for nightfall.
"They have gone too far," Noah said, "taking our Sand."
The family was gathered back in the tent, retreating from the heat of the sun.
Ham said, "You're certainly not going to give them the vineyards!"
Noah shook his head. "I told them that I would not. But now--I have already turned one of the older vineyards that needed replanting into a lumberyard. What difference will the vineyards make if they are all covered with water?"
Ham said, "We are helping you with this idiocy, Father, because you have asked us to. But surely you don't believe that there will be that much rain?"
"That is what I have been told."
Shem had returned from hunting, and was sitting on a pile of skins with Selah next to him. "You're sure it was the voice of El?"
"I am sure."
Elisheba suggested, "It couldn't, maybe, have been the voice of a nephil?"
"I know the voice of El from that of a nephil."
"They mimic very cleverly."
"El is El. If one of the nephilim tried to sound like El, then El would tell me that."
Matred looked up from her stewpot. "When will the rain start?"
"When the ark is ready."
Shem said, "What about our sisters and their husbands and their children?"
Noah wiped his hands across his beard. "I am to make a window in the ark, and set a door in the side, with lower, second, and third stories. El told me that I am to bring in animals of every kind, and my wife, my sons, and their wives."
Oholibamah's voice was sharp. "What about Yalith?"
Noah shook his head sorrowfully.
Shem protested, "But it's going to be a big boat, Father! Surely there's room for more than just the eight of us."
"Animals," Noah repeated, "of every kind, so that, when the flood waters abate, there will be both animal and human beings to repopulate the earth."
"I don't believe any of this," Ham said. "But if it should come to pass, I will give my place on the ark to Yalith."
Oholibamah looked at him in grateful surprise.
"Nonsense," Anah said. "When you build this ark, and nothing happens, how are you going to face everybody?"
Noah stroked his beard. "I obey El."
"And our twins?" Oholibamah asked. "What about them?"
"And where is the Sand?" Elisheba asked.
"Japheth and the Den will surely find him," Noah said. Selah raised her trunk and bugled. "And if they do not return with the Sand by sunrise, I will change my mind. I will give them the vineyards. When the flood waters abate, I will plant new vines."
Ham said, wonderingly, "You really believe that there is going to be a flood! We don't have enough rain, even in the spring, to be any use. If it weren't for our wells, there would be no oasis."
Shem asked, "Has our father ever made a fool of himself before?"
"No," Anah replied. "But there's always a first time."
Admael the white camel crossed the length of the oasis to where Sandy was imprisoned. It was at the farthest end o
f the oasis, as far from Noah's tent in one direction as was Grandfather Lamech's in the other. Admael did not go up to the tent, but folded himself down on the ground a few yards away, to wait.
Adnachiel the giraffe grazed on some tender leaves, stretching his long, golden neck. High up in the tree, sleeping during the daylight hours, sat Akatriel the owl, his head hunched into his feathers.
Together they waited.
Japheth and Dennys followed Higgaion, who trotted, zigzagging back and forth, from the outlying edges of the oasis to the desert, scenting, shaking his head so that the heightening sun glinted against his curved tusks, scenting. Back and forth. Into the oasis. Onto the desert.
"The sun is high," Japheth said. "You must find shade, Den."
Dennys shook his head, stubbornly. His body gleamed with sweat.
Japheth looked at him with concern. "We're not far from Grandfather Lamech's tent. Perhaps we'll find Adnarel there, and we could ask him for help."
Relieved, Dennys panted, "Fine." Higgaion was staggering with exhaustion. There had been no sign of Sandy.
Higgaion led the way back to the oasis, his energy renewed now that they had a destination. Japheth was untired, jogging along, breathing easily. Dennys was grateful for his own long legs; without them, he would not have been able to keep up.
As they approached Grandfather Lamech's groves and could see the dark shadow of his tent, Higgaion trumpeted and quickened his pace, so that Japheth was running. When they reached the tent, the heat seemed to intensify, and their shadows were dark and squat. Higgaion paused, pointing with his trunk to light flashing off something half buried in the sand by the tent flap.
"Adnarel!" Dennys cried. "Oh, Adnarel!"
Japheth bent down and lifted the scarab beetle out of the sand, stroked it gently with one finger, and it seemed to burst from his hand, and Adnarel stood before them, blazing gold.
"Oh, Adnarel," Dennys cried, "Sandy never came home after he gave Noah the camel! We don't know what's happened to him!"
Adnarel bowed gravely, listening, saying nothing.
Japheth said, "I worry that he may not have gone wherever it is of his own free will."
Adnarel turned to Japheth. "Explain what you are thinking."
"Since he didn't follow my father to Grandfather's tent as he said he would do, then I am afraid that perhaps someone..." His voice trailed off.
Adnarel's wings glittered. "You are thinking of Tiglah?"
"It was Anah's suggestion..."
"No," Dennys contradicted.
"We know she's a seductress," Japheth said.
"No," Dennys repeated. "Sandy would never have gone off with Tiglah, with Grandfather dying. Never."
Adnarel nodded. "Of course. He would not have disappeared of his own volition."
"Then where is he?" Dennys demanded.
Adnarel raised his wings, slowly lowered them. "What are you doing to try to find him?"
Japheth did not know of the visit of Tiglah's father and brother to Noah's tenthold. "We are all searching, but we have found no trace anywhere."
Adnarel looked at the two young men, eye to eye with Dennys, down for Japheth, small and lean and strong.
Japheth continued: "Sandy cares about Grandfather Lamech. He cares about his brother. It is not in his character to go off at such a time."
"Nephilim," Adnarel said softly.
A ripple of concern rolled across Higgaion's flanks. Japheth said, "That's what we were afraid of. But even they couldn't make him vanish completely, could they?"
"They are masters of illusion," Adnarel said. "They can make any part of the oasis look like someplace else. They can disguise odors. That is why Higgaion's scenting was to no avail."
"But where do you think he is?" Dennys's voice soared with anxiety.
"I think the nephilim have used human greed. I suspect that some of the less pleasant people of the oasis, perhaps the men of Tiglah's tent, have taken him and put him in some little-used tent and are asking some kind of ransom for him. They are acquisitive, but they don't like to work for what they get, and they would be easy to tempt into doing whatever the nephilim want."
Dennys raised his head as he heard the strong beating of wings, and a pelican plummeted out of the sky, and then Alarid stood beside them. "The nephilim are afraid of the twins." His wings shook silver.
"But why?" Japheth asked. "The twins are good."
Adnarel and Alarid touched wing tips. Adnarel said, "The nephilim fear what they do not understand. Did Higgaion go all the way across the oasis with his scenting?"
Japheth nodded.
"To the far end?" Alarid asked.
"Yes."
"Try once more. This time, go straight across the length of the oasis and concentrate at the farthest point. They will have taken him as far away from Noah's tents as possible."
"And they're not likely to have gone in the direction of Grandfather Lamech's tent," Alarid added.
Higgaion's stringy little tail flicked.
Japheth said, "The sun is high. The Den cannot cross the oasis at full noon without getting the sun sickness again."
Both seraphim looked at Dennys, already red and sweating. "You are right. The Den will stay here, in Grandfather Lamech's tent, for the afternoon rest. One of us will stay with him, in case..." Adnarel did not finish.
Alarid said, "And we will see to it that he gets to Noah's tenthold before sundown. Whether you find the Sand or not, you must be home by then."
Higgaion raised his trunk in an impatient trumpet.
"We'll go," Japheth said. He looked up at the seraphim, asking in a low voice, "Are you worried?"
Gravely they acknowledged the question.
In the dark heat of the prison tent, Sandy slept fitfully, dreaming a confusion of meaningless dreams. Tiglah was tying his thongs tightly and shoving a bowl of spoiled meat at him. His nostrils twitched.
It was not Tiglah's smell. It was not even the smell of rancid goat meat. He opened his eyes and saw only a small dark shadow, felt something soft nudging him. He reached out his hand and touched something firm and curved. Moved his hand along whatever it was, until his fingers felt a roughness. It was a tusk, broken off at the point. His eyes adjusted to the dim light and he saw that he was touching a mammoth, not Higgaion or Selah, both of whom were sleek and well fed, with polished tusks, but an underfed mammoth with stringy hair, and one tusk broken off just at the point, the other slightly farther up. It was nudging him with the tip of its trunk.
What the mammoth wanted of him he was not sure. But it was apparent that it meant him no harm, and that its overtures were friendly. Sandy began to stroke the shaggy head, then ran his fingers over the ivory tusks. This little beast had obviously been abused, so it was likely that it came from Tiglah's tent. He was grateful for the company. Perhaps a mammoth, even a mangy mammoth, would be helpful when night came, not so much helpful in the actual escape as in finding Noah's tenthold.
"Now," he said to the mammoth, fondling the fan-shaped ears, "if I only had a unicorn, then I could get out of here." He stopped. Then: "Hey. I didn't think of a unicorn before, because basically I still don't believe in unicorns."
Dennys, he remembered, had summoned a unicorn after Tiglah's father and brother had nearly killed him, dumping him into the garbage pit. It wasn't easy for Dennys to believe in unicorns either, but when he had to, he did.
If Sandy could believe something as outrageous as that he and Dennys had actually landed in the pre-flood desert, and that they had become so close to Noah's tenthold, especially Yalith, that they were like family, and if he could believe that he was now petting a mammoth, why should it be hard to believe in a unicorn, even if it was what Dennys called a virtual unicorn? His mother believed in virtual particles, and his mother was a scientist who had won the Nobel Prize for discovering particles so small they were scarcely conceivable even with a wild leap of the imagination.
"What'll I do?" he asked the mammoth, who responded by cuddling
closer to him.
If Sandy left the tent on his own, they would be lying in wait for him--Rofocale, if not Tiglah's father and brother--and they would not hesitate to kill him. Even night would not provide enough cover, with the brilliance of the stars illuminating the oasis.
"The problem is," he said to the Mammoth, "that I always have to see things to believe in them. But, after all, I have seen unicorns, two of them. I have seen them, therefore I can believe in them."
The mammoth reached with its trunk to touch, softly, the boy's cheek. In his mind's ear Sandy seemed to hear, "Some things have to be believed to be seen."
"Unicorn!" he whispered, and the mammoth slipped its trunk into the palm of his hand. "Unicorn, please tend to life. Please tend to be."
Against the darkness of the tent came a starburst of light, and a unicorn stood, trembling, beside him.
"Oh, you are!" Sandy cried. "Oh, thank you!" He held out his hand. The unicorn came to him with silver steps, folded its delicate legs, and lay down, putting its head in Sandy's lap, so that the light of the horn flowed over the scraggly little mammoth, who lifted its head gratefully. Sandy fondled the silvery mane, soft as moonbeams. "Now what?" he asked the two disparate creatures.
The light of the horn glittered, but neither unicorn nor mammoth answered him.
"If I could fall asleep," Sandy mused, "or stop believing in unicorns, then you would lose your tendency to life and go out, and take me with you, the way you took Dennys. The problem is that now I believe in you. And as long as I believe in you, you'll continue to be, won't you?"
The unicorn nuzzled him, as affectionate as the mammoth.
"As long as I stay with you," Sandy whispered, "I think I'm safe, because I'm absolutely certain that Tiglah couldn't come near you, or her father or brother. But if they try to, and you go out of being, will you take the mammoth and me out of being with you? If we don't take the mammoth, they'll hurt him again. So will you take us?"
It was a rather intimidating thought. He had asked Dennys how it had felt the two times he had gone out with the unicorn, and Dennys had answered that it hadn't felt at all. But perhaps, Sandy thought, that might have been because Dennys had sunstroke and a high fever. Then he remembered Grandfather Lamech--or was it Japheth?--telling him that unicorns never lost anybody.
He put one arm about the unicorn, the other about the mammoth, and waited. This was a far better plan than going with Tiglah, or trying to cross the desert alone.
"You see," he said to the two creatures, who pressed confidingly against him. "When the time came for me to do something, I knew what to do, and I did it."
Many Waters Page 19
