Noah

by Mark Morris

Somebody knew he was here!

  He shook his head, desperate to clear it, to take stock of the situation. Why was he feverish? It was his leg, wasn’t it? Something was wrong with his leg. Waves of heat were flowing from it, pulsing upward through his body. He had injured it, hadn’t he? Yes. He remembered now. He had injured it when the Watcher had exploded.

  He looked down.

  His leg had been bandaged. It was no longer a clean bandage—blood had seeped through, staining the material—but it had been carefully applied and secured, all the same. And next to his makeshift cot, which had been positioned out of sight behind rows of wooden compartments—each of which contained one or more sleeping reptiles—was a loaf of bread, some dry fruit, a jug of water.

  It was only then that he realized how hungry he was. He snatched up the food, began to devour it, and then took a long drink of water.

  How long have I been here? he wondered. Hours? Days?

  He ate and drank his fill, and then, carefully, taking care not to jolt his injured leg, he peeled back the stained bandage and examined his wound.

  It was terrible. Worse than he’d remembered or realized. The flesh was mangled, burned, stripped away.

  He lay back, exhausted, sweating, teeth chattering. Who had been looking after him? Noah? His wife? One of the children?

  The boy perhaps. The one who had been so proud to carry his axe. What was his name?

  He couldn’t remember. His mind was so dark, so confused.

  He closed his eyes, and within seconds had slipped back into a fitful, feverish sleep.

  * * *

  As always, Japheth woke listening to the rain.

  He liked it. It soothed him. It was the last thing he heard every night, and the first thing every morning.

  Most of the time, during the day, he didn’t hear it. There were too many things to do, too many people to talk to.

  But when he was alone he liked to sit and listen to it. He thought that if he listened hard enough, he might one day hear the voice of the Creator speaking to him, just as He sometimes spoke to Father.

  Reaching beneath his pillow, Japheth pulled out a small triangle of metal, part of a broken blade he had found in the clearing one day, before the rains had come.

  If mother found out that he had it, she would probably try to take it from him. She didn’t like weapons.

  But Japheth didn’t use the blade as a weapon. He used it merely to record the days.

  Each day when he woke up, he put a fresh scratch in the wooden floor beside his bed, and that was what he did now.

  Another scratch, next to the four scratches that were there already.

  The fifth scratch.

  The fifth day.

  * * *

  It was the cries for help that drew Shem and Ila to the huge hatchway door. Shem untied the knots in the thick ropes that secured it, and together he and Ila heaved it open.

  They stepped out on to the top of the ramp. The rain was still pouring relentlessly from the endless shifting bruise of the sky. The gray sea through which the Ark drifted was pockmarked with droplets, twitching and jerking like a living thing. The cold wind plucked at their layers of clothing, and Ila shivered and huddled into Shem, who wrapped her in his arms and held her tight.

  Not all of the mountains had been submerged. Not yet. The tallest few still jutted above the surface of the ocean, their peaks forming rocky, barren islands. The shrill cries for help, desperate and heart-rending, were coming from one of those islands. Ila and Shem saw that despite the rain the craggy rock was coated with ice, and that the dozen or so people clinging to it were thinly dressed, shuddering, their skin blue-white with cold.

  They were not soldiers. They were a family group—or at least they seemed composed of the remnants of several families. There were a few men, a few women, and half a dozen children.

  The men were waving their arms, the women holding out their hands in supplication, or gesturing at their thin and bedraggled children as they begged for mercy. All eyes were on Shem and Ila, and she could see the blend of desperation and hope on their faces.

  “We’ve got to help them,” she said.

  Both of them jumped as a gruff voice spoke behind them.

  “No.”

  They turned as one. Noah was standing there, a brooding presence, his face grim. He eyed the small knot of survivors with suspicion and resentment, almost as if he believed they had been put there to test his resolve.

  “We could throw out ropes, drag them—” Ila began.

  But Noah cut her off. “I said no!”

  She quailed in the face of his anger, but Shem persisted.

  “You can see they aren’t soldiers, Father. They’re just people. There’s room.”

  Noah was immovable as granite. “There is no room for them.”

  The Ark drifted away from the island. When the people realized there was no help forthcoming they began to scream and wail. Full of guilt and pity, Shem and Ila watched as a man leaped into the sea, followed moments later by a woman, and both of them tried frantically to swim toward the Ark.

  But the pair were too weak, and the sea too cold, too rough.

  Before they had covered even half of the distance, both sank beneath the waves, and were lost.

  * * *

  Although the Hearth was warm and cozy, and the rugs and cushions that the family sat on were comfortable, dinner that night was a somber affair. Only Noah and Japheth ate with anything like enjoyment. The rest of the family picked unenthusiastically at their food, while casting glances at Noah that ranged from disappointment, to disgust, to—in Ham’s case—downright hatred.

  He had rejoined them a short time before, and though Naameh had tried to make him feel welcome, he persistently refused to speak.

  For all of them, conversation was minimal, perfunctory. The atmosphere was laden, heavy and awkward. Noah ate steadily, and when he had finished, he gently placed his plate on the floor at his side. Only then did he look up, his gaze focusing on each of them in turn before he spoke.

  “Soon everything we know will be gone,” he said. “All that is left of Creation will lie within these walls. And outside—just the waters of chaos again.”

  His voice was calm. No one said anything in reply. Noah’s gaze shifted. He looked directly at Ham, who started, then looked away, then made ready to leave.

  “Please,” Noah said, raising a hand. “You’re angry. You judge me. But listen, Ham. Let me tell you a story. It is the first story my father ever told me. The first story his father told him.” He looked around at them all, then his voice grew quieter. “And it is the first story I ever told you. All of you. Listen to it one more time, and then judge me.”

  Ham, who had half-risen to his feet, sighed and sat down again. Noah nodded, a silent gesture of thanks.

  “In the beginning,” he said, “There was nothing…”

  He leaned across and covered the tzohar lamp that was lighting the room with a cloth. The room went dark. The shadows gathered around them. In the gloom the clattering of the rain and the howling of the wind seemed closer and more mournful than ever.

  Noah’s voice was rich and soft, but it cut through the wailing of the storm.

  “Nothing but the silence of an infinite darkness.”

  Perhaps it was only coincidence that caused the wind to diminish and the rain to lessen at that moment. Perhaps it was something else.

  “But the breath of the Creator fluttered upon the face of the void, whispering, ‘Let there be light’.”

  Noah uncovered the lamp again, and the shadows went away, scuttling like spiders into the nooks and crannies.

  “And light was,” he said. “And it was good. And light separated itself from darkness, and darkness from light. And this was the First Day.

  “And the formless light took on substance and shape. A Second Day.

  “And the world was born. Our beautiful, fragile home. A great warming light nurtured its day—a sign for seasons, for days and
years.

  “And a lesser light ruled the night. And there was evening. And morning. Another day.

  “And the waters of the world gathered themselves, waters unto waters. And in their midst emerged dry land. And it was good—for the water was pristine and the land rich and fertile.

  “Another day passed. And the ground put forth grasses and trees… the boldest flowers, the sweetest fruits. Not just our tiny forest in a lonely corner of a dead world, but a thick blanket of green and growing things, stretching across all Creation.”

  * * *

  Noah’s voice was soothing, lilting. It rose and fell with the cadence of poetry. Sitting cross-legged, his belly full and his thoughts a little woozy, Japheth stared up at his father’s grizzled, bewhiskered face, and he saw it all in his mind’s eye—the world rising from darkness, the seas gushing forth, forests blooming and dying and blooming again.

  As the words unfolded, so they turned the boy’s thoughts into pictures. Into life.

  “And the waters too swarmed with life,” Noah continued. “The great monsters of the deep that are no more.

  “And the multitudes of fish who still swim beneath the seas.

  “And soon the sky was streaming with birds.”

  He swept his hand through the air above his head, and Japheth saw the birds there. A million designs. A million colors. Beautiful, exotic, breathtaking. A miracle of Creation.

  “And there was evening. And morning. A Fifth Day.”

  Noah paused, looked around at his family. Japheth smiled at him. Noah smiled back. He continued.

  “Now the whole world was full of living beings, each after its kind. Every thing that creeps. And every thing that crawls. And every beast that makes its way upon the ground.

  “And it was good. It was all good. There was light and air and water and soil. All clean and unspoiled. There were plants and fish, fowl and beast. Each after their kind, all part of the greater whole. All in their place, and all was in balance. It was paradise. A jewel in the Creator’s crown.”

  Noah paused. His face turned from rapturous to grim in an instant.

  “And then came Man.”

  In his mind, Japheth, who had heard this story many times, saw the first man. He knew that the first man’s name was Adam, and that the first woman’s name was Eve, and that they had walked in a garden called Eden.

  As his father continued, Japheth barely heard the words. He knew the tale so well that he retreated into himself, and simply watched it unfold in his head.

  He saw Adam and Eve walk side by side, their skin shimmering with a magical, internal light, a pure glow that obscured their features and concealed their nakedness from each other. He saw them walk toward the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, both of which spread their branches into the world, and both of which glowed, too.

  He saw Adam pick something up from the ground. A snakeskin. The same snakeskin given to Methuselah and passed down to his son, Lamech. The same snakeskin that Japheth knew would now belong to his own father if the warrior king, Tubal-cain, had not killed Lamech and taken it.

  He saw the snakeskin crawl up Adam’s arm, saw Adam stare at it in awe. Jaspeth watched the snake that had shed the skin, black with four red eyes and a forked tongue, slither up the Tree. Saw Eve watch the snake as it coiled along a branch toward the apple.

  “The Creator gave us a choice,” Noah said. “Follow the temptation of darkness. Or hold on to the blessing of light. Our birthright.”

  The apple hung upon a quivering twig. It began to glow with life, with vitality, with promise. Japheth saw that Eve was drawn to it.

  He saw Eve’s hand reach up and pluck the forbidden fruit from the Tree. He saw the twig recoil. Saw Eve bring the apple to her mouth…

  And the world slipped into darkness.

  Japheth blinked. Looked up at his father. Noah was still talking, his voice a low, soothing rumble.

  “They ate from the forbidden fruit,” he said. “Their innocence was extinguished.”

  Noah’s voice became serious, almost dull with grief. He spoke of two brothers, Cain and Abel. Of how Cain killed his brother, striking him down with a rock.

  And from that act, violence begat violence, and soon two mighty armies were thundering toward one another, racing into battle across a war-torn plain.

  “And so for the ten generations since Adam, sin has walked within us.” Noah’s voice was bitter now. “Brother against brother. Nation against nation. Man against Creation.”

  He slumped forward, as if defeated. “We murdered each other. We sucked the world dry. We did this. Man did it. All that was beautiful, all that was good, we destroyed.”

  His family stared at him. Noah sighed, and looked up.

  “Now it begins again. Earth, air, water, plant, fish, bird, and beast. Paradise returns. But this time… this time there must be no men. If we were to re-enter the garden, it would only be to destroy it once more. No. The Creator has judged us… Mankind must end.”

  Japheth’s gaze flickered from his father’s face. He looked at the rest of his family. His mother had tears in her eyes. Shem and Ila were holding hands. Ham’s face was cold.

  He looked back at his father.

  His father was looking at Ham.

  “Shem and Ila will bury me and your mother,” he said gently. “Ham, you will bury them. Then Japheth will lay you to rest.”

  Now Noah turned his attention to Japheth. The boy stared up at him with wide eyes.

  “You, Japheth, will be the last man. Until in time you, too, will return to the dust. And Creation will be left alone. Safe. Beautiful…”

  His voice dwindled to silence. For a long moment no one spoke.

  * * *

  Then Noah sighed, stirred himself. He raised a conciliatory hand toward Ham.

  “I’m sorry for that girl,” he said. “Truly I am.”

  Ham’s response was curt, his voice tight.

  “She had a name.”

  Noah inclined his head, acknowledging it. “I’m sorry,” he said again. “For her and for you. But we have been entrusted with a task much greater than our own desires. We must—”

  But Ham didn’t wait around to hear any more. He jumped to his feet, ran across the room to the door, and disappeared into the darkness.

  No one said anything. Shem and Ila averted their gaze. Naameh lowered her head into her outstretched hand. Only Japheth continued to stare at his father.

  Noah sat back with a weary grunt. He closed his eyes.

  Then, but for the endless rain, there was silence.

  18

  THE SICKNESS

  Ham peered around the reptile deck. All was as it should be. Sleeping snakes were entwined together like sleek coils of rope, or were draped across the branches of the artificial trees like jungle vines. In the wooden compartments that had been especially designed for them slept lizards and turtles of all shapes and sizes. The larger creatures—the crocodiles and alligators, the jungle dragons—slumbered wherever they could find a space, their great ridged backs rising and falling gently.

  There was no evidence to suggest that anything had been disturbed, nothing to indicate that their unofficial passenger, their stowaway, had yet woken. Ham wondered if Tubal-cain was dead, whether the injury to his leg had proved too much for him. He wondered how he would feel if that turned out to be the case. Angry? Disappointed?

  Relieved?

  He stepped off the main walkway and picked his way between the masses of sleeping reptiles, toward the huge hive-like construction against the inner wall. He made his way over to it, following an unerring path. It had taken Ham a long time to drag Tubal-cain’s body far enough out of sight that he was at least reasonably confident that it would not be found. The hole in the wall of the Ark had bothered him a little, but he had done his best to patch it up, in the hope that neither Shem nor his father would notice it.

  Finally he reached Tubal-cain. The great warrior king lay motionless, his body in shadow. A fist of dr
ead clenched in Ham’s belly.

  Is he dead?

  Ham leaned over him and was relieved to hear him breathing. He looked down at Tubal-cain’s wound and grimaced. The bandage around his leg was drenched with pus and blood.

  Opening the satchel at his hip he took out a number of items and laid them beside the prone figure one by one—some small cloth bags full of herbs, some food, some fresh bandages. He was bending over to place the last item on the floor when the man’s eyes snapped open. Ham jerked backward, but not quickly enough. Tubal-cain’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist, clamping it in an iron grip.

  Ham stared at him in terror, his mouth so dry he was unable to speak.

  Tubal-cain opened his mouth. His voice was a croak.

  “Noah. Your father. Does he know I’m here?”

  Ham shook his head rapidly, and managed to find his voice. “No. I haven’t told him.”

  Tubal-cain’s eyes narrowed.

  “Why are you helping me?”

  Ham didn’t answer at first. He averted his eyes from Tubal-cain’s burning gaze.

  “There was a girl…” he muttered. “I wanted to bring her to the Ark… I tried to bring her…”

  “And he stopped you…” Tubal-cain’s words came in a low rasp.

  Ham looked up. He saw understanding, perhaps even compassion, in the warrior’s eyes. He nodded.

  “And now you want revenge,” Tubal-cain said.

  Ham thought about it. Was that what he wanted? Revenge against his father? At last, almost against his will, he gave a single curt nod.

  Tubal-cain smiled and relaxed his grip on Ham’s wrist.

  “Then you shall have it,” he said.

  * * *

  Within the Hearth, Shem entered the tent that he shared with Ila, to find her huddled, knees up to her chin, her arms wrapped around her legs. Tears shone in her eyes and glimmered on her cheeks. He dropped to his knees beside her and wrapped her in an embrace.

  “What’s the matter?”

  Ila drew a deep, shuddering breath. Her voice wavered. “Do you think it’s true? That deep down we are all wicked?”

  Shem took his time before answering. Finally he said, “I don’t know. But I do think that you and I are blessed.”