Angels at the Gate

by T. K. Thorne

  “Take box only.” Raph says, “A worthless thing inside.”

  “It is yours, eh?” The head raider signals, and the box, unopened, joins the pile of goods stripped from Philot and the other donkeys. I am not surprised when they take the camels, but horror stabs my heart when the head raider strides to me with a rope and loops it around Nami.

  I start forward as he drags her away, but Danel’s strong arms grab me and hold me back. “He will kill you, Adir,” he whispers harshly in my ear. “Do not be an idiot.”

  Nami turns her head toward me with a whimper but, half-strangled, she cannot fight the man.

  As if my misery is not complete, Raph, too, is taken, stripped of his hidden knives, his hands bound behind him, and forced to mount one of the camels, who protests loudly at having to kneel and then rise with his weight added to her burdens.

  Mika steps forward in protest, “He my brother. Take me where you take him.”

  The raider eyes him. “I do not wish for another mouth to feed. Or should I kill you?” he asks with no change in his voice, as though asking if the day will be hot.

  “No!” Raph shouts from the camel. “He lies. He my servant.”

  The raider shrugs and turns his back on Mika. In two steps, he is beside his stallion and mounts with a graceful leap. With ululations of triumph, the raiders turn their chariots, leading our camels and goods, and disappear into evening gloom.

  We are left with the donkeys and our clothes, and I am left with a desert in my heart.

  CHAPTER

  15

  She sobs through the night; tears stream down her cheeks. Among all her lovers, there is no one left to comfort her. All her friends have betrayed her and become her enemies. Judah has been led away into captivity, oppressed with cruel slavery. She lives among foreign nations and has no place of rest. Her enemies have chased her down, and she has nowhere to turn.

  —Lamentations 1:2,3

  I BURY MY FINGERS INTO PHILOT’S coarse, upright mane to still their trembling. Raph is gone. I am a woman who has opened her arms in anticipation of embracing her lover, only to discover he has dissipated into smoke. Not that I have ever had a lover and, at this moment, it seems doubtful I ever will. My heart is torn between losses—Nami and Raph.

  But a glance at Mika’s stony face reminds me I am not alone in my abandonment, though for long moments, not a muscle on his face or lanky frame moves.

  Danel is the first to speak. “We have our skin intact, and the donkeys. It could be worse.”

  Only then does Mika turn and, for a moment, I wonder if he will pull a dagger and slay Danel right in front of us, but he only says through tight lips. “Who were they?”

  Danel frowns. “Horse people. Hurrians and foreigners.”

  “Where have they taken my brother? And why?”

  His question goes unanswered. I, too, do not understand why the Horse People are raiding this far south and who the charioteers with them were, but a sudden realization shakes me from my shock. “They came from the direction of Lot’s tents!”

  Danel exchanges a glance with me, and I know he understands my agreement that things could indeed be worse. My trembling has spread to my legs.

  “I will take a donkey and ride ahead,” Danel says.

  My need for action courses through me like a flash flood through a wadi. I wish for Dune’s swift legs. “I will ride with you.”

  “No,” Danel shakes his head with the same finality of Father’s hand slicing the air. Then his face eases a bit. “I need you to manage the rest.”

  I start to insist, but he says, “Adir, my father is also at the camp. I will ride quickly, I promise.”

  I swallow and nod.

  From the corner of my eye, I see Mika striding toward his donkey. “I am going after my brother,” he says, taking up its halter rope.

  “Do not be a fool!” Danel calls. “They have taken all our water. You will not last a day where they go without water. You can resupply at Lot’s tents. It is not far.”

  Mika hesitates and then, seeming to understand he cannot help his brother if he is dead, nods.

  I pick up my camel stick and wave it at the donkeys. “Hiya! Hiya!”

  Mika goes ahead. His long strides would have soon taken him beyond our sight, but it is clear from his frequent stops where he squats and examines the ground, he is not merely leading us to Lot’s encampment, but making certain we follow the trail the raiders left. This only confirms my fears. I push the donkeys, my heart squeezed between concern for Raph and for my father. Nami is a prized animal. They will not hurt her, but I miss her already.

  WHEN WE NEAR Lot’s encampment, I race ahead. The raiders have been here. Goods are scattered; goats and people mill in confusion. I run to father’s tent, my legs clumsy with dread. Danel meets me before I can enter, grasping my shoulders.

  “Is he all right?” I demand, panting.

  For a moment, his eyes cannot meet mine. “Chiram fought them,” he says. “My father was wounded too.”

  Wounded too. The words are unreal. Blood drains from my head, leaving it as light as air, and my knees wobble.

  “Zakiti is … bad, Adir,” Danel warns.

  I start to tear from his grip to enter the tent, but he holds me. “He is not here.”

  “Where?”

  “In the tent of the strangers.”

  How I get there fuzzes in my mind. Only when I duck into the shadows of the tent, do the sharp edges of reality re-form. A woman I do not know kneels beside my father. When she looks up, her eyes are thick with sympathy.

  I drop to my knees at his other side.

  Slowly, he opens his eyes, though neither of us has spoken of my presence. “Adir?” His hand lifts, seeking, and I grasp it with both of mine.

  Amazed that even now, he protects me with my boy-name, I manage, “I am here, Father.”

  His eyes are curtained with film. I hold his hand tightly, keeping him here with the strength of my grip.

  He tries to speak, but coughs; a spittle of blood edges his lips.

  “Do not speak,” I beg.

  For a moment, his eyes grow fierce again. “I will,” he rasps. “And you will listen.”

  His features blur. “I am listening, Father.”

  “Take my knife.”

  “No.”

  The woman pulls the dagger from his belt, holding it with both palms cupping the blade, presenting it to me as Zakiti’s first-born son. It has a silver-worked hilt and bronze blade, curved at its tip. All my life it has been in my father’s sash.

  I take it, but it is not real. None of this can be real.

  “Go to Abram,” Father says. “Obey Sarai.”

  I nod.

  “Swear to me.”

  I swallow. “I swear to you.”

  “Swear by our god.”

  “I swear to you before our god.”

  “Name him.” He insists.

  My father asks me to do this on his dying breath. I cannot refuse him. “I give my oath by the name of El-Elyon.”

  “Remember that your name means “strength.”

  His eyes close then and warmth fades from the rough hand enfolded in mine.

  IT SEEMS A long time later Mika enters.

  The woman has gone. I sit alone with my father, still holding his dagger.

  “Adir?”

  The voice seems to come from afar, some distant place I used to know.

  “Adir.”

  I blink at him, and my mind belatedly puts a name to the sunburned face. Mika. El’s man. The angel who held blue fire in his hand. His face, which has never showed emotion of any kind, softens, and there is aching in his beryl eyes. “Your father fought in tent ours.”

  My father fought the raiders because Mika and Raph were guests, charged to his care by Abram, but not only guests—sacred visitors. Holy men. Messengers of our god.

  Anger churns in me.

  “My father is dead because our god chose to honor us with you!”

&nbs
p; He bends his head. “I sorrow.”

  “I do not want your sorrow. I want my father!”

  “I know.”

  “How do you know? How could you know?”

  He looks to the tent’s far wall. “My brother,” he says, reminding me of his own loss.

  “It is not the same. He is alive.” I cannot see for the fury that rises in me like a sandstorm. “My father is dead.”

  Without another word, Mika backs out of the tent.

  I LIE, SLEEPLESS, on my pallet, seeing only my father’s face before me, even when I close my eyes—especially when I close my eyes. Once, my hand even lifts of its own accord to touch it, that beloved face with its sun-creviced lines and gray-flecked beard, with its stern eyes that melted when he thought I did not see them on me.

  Vaguely, I remember the woman coming in to check on me, but she only runs the back of her hand softly across my cheek and does not disturb me.

  Finally, I rise, gathering my belongings and find Philot. His cool nose and soft muzzle graze my face. His breath is a familiar comfort. I load him quietly, taking all the water and food he can carry.

  I have given an oath to my father, but there are things I must do first. I must find my husband-to-be, my dog … and my father’s murderer.

  CHAPTER

  16

  For his friend, Enkidu, Gilgamesh

  Did bitterly weep as he wandered the wild.

  I shall die, and shall I not then be as Enkidu?

  Sorrow has entered my heart!

  —Epic of Gilgamesh

  WHEN I RETURN TO THE place where the raiders found us, the moonlight is bright enough that I can follow the tracks. They first go west and then south. Philot and I follow, moving quickly in the night’s cool and on through the morning, resting only when the sun is high.

  The following evening, we approach the place where the dry wadi from the Zin Valley spills into the Vale. Turfs of grass cluster in the folds cut into the hills by spring and winter floods. This is the only way through the mountains to the west. Once across the mountains, they could go straight to the sea or perhaps they would turn north to the King’s Road or south. I find traces of a camp and the droppings of the horses and camels that lead along it. To get through the steep cliffs, we must travel in the middle of the wadi, through the growth of blue-silver and dull green plants waiting for the gush of water that will descend upon them. It is still spring; there is a possibility of rain. If it does rain, water will sweep down from the higher ground, often with no warning. The chance of this is higher in the winter, but as soon as we are able to travel beside the wadi instead of in it, I do so.

  Of course, without the fresh water near Sodom and floods in winter and spring, the land below the Dead Sea would be barren. It is, I suppose, the gods’ way to grant boon with a price. But Lot is fortunate to have rich lands to graze his herds. Before my birth, Abram let Lot choose where to take his flocks after their men came to blows over a grazing dispute.

  Grazing is no minor matter in the desert. Many battles have been fought over who has the right to graze land or drink from wells. This I learned early at my father’s side. We have traveled often with nomad guides, and I learned desert ways from them. Father said I swallow knowledge like a thirsty camel. A thirsty camel can drink a well dry, so I know many things.

  Unfortunately, there are also many things I do not know, and I miss my father more than my tongue could ever explain. I am adrift in a wasteland far drier than the one of hard brown dirt and stone my feet tread.

  At night, I lie on my back without making a fire. The cold is a welcome pain, and I want to see the stars. It is said when tears dry, only salt remains. I have wept enough to salt the sky. My dried tears stare down, glimmering in the endless dark of the night.

  Around me, the desert awakes—the soft call of a distant owl, a scuttle of rodent through the stunted, twisted shrubs, the beat of my own heart. I am surrounded with life, yet so alone.

  In one sense, Abram, Sarai, Hagar, Ishmael, Lot, and his family are all my family, but in another, deeper sense, my father was my only family. Even when I disappeared for a time from his presence, I was back soon at his side; he was always the center of my dance. I cannot believe he is gone. My mind knew he would not always be with me, but not my heart, not any part of me that lived day to day. In the same way, I know I will die someday, but my body does not truly believe it. I stare up into the stars, and the same thought circles—I will never see him again. Never hear his voice chiding me for some disobedience, some recklessness. Never feel his strong arms around me.

  I remember when he lifted me into them after my fall from Dune, and how he carried me next to his chest, as if he would tuck me there against the world, against anything that might try to harm me. I thought I was dry of them, but tears run down my temples, into my hair and then onto the ground that drinks them greedily. Water is not a thing to be wasted in the desert.

  IN THE FOLLOWING days, the trail grows more difficult to follow, as shifting winds gnaw at the soil or the riders pass over the hardpan, leaving only droppings or some sign of a camp. I use the skills I learned in negotiations to observe every detail of the land. The land speaks if you listen, but always I hear my father’s voice in my mind asking—What is the right question?

  The right question is not, where is the path they took? Nor even, where are they going? The right question is, “Why?” Why did those warriors come to Lot’s tents? And why Hurrians? They took little from the tents. What were they looking for? Was it the chest Mika and Raph carried? Why take Raph too? My questions spawn too many other questions, and the ache and numbness of my loss keep any answers from my grasp.

  I want to stop and rest, but it is better to move steadily because of the flies, although at midday I must seek shelter from the battering heat for me and Philot, and I try to sleep in the shadow of a shrub.

  The Hattians of the north believe the sun is a goddess, but Egypt’s Ra is male. Whether god or goddess, the sun shows no mercy here.

  Mercy.

  Do any of the gods care about such things, or only that their contracts and agreements are fulfilled? I saw the gods of Ur once on their stage in the Great Temple. I could not tell anything about what the stone images thought or were doing, though it was explained they were going about their daily lives, waited on by servants who seemed to know when they wanted to eat or love or sleep. I wondered how the priests could tell such things.

  Our tribe’s god does not wish to be confined to a stone image. So I wonder, what does he look like? What if he speaks to me through Raph? Will I have to fall down at the feet of my husband?

  A little bubble of laughter rises from the pit in my chest. “Philot,” I say aloud, and my little donkey turns his head at the sound of my voice. “Do you hear the concerns I have? My love is so only in my mind. He does not even know he has my heart, and may not wish to. And worse, he is taken from me to unknown places by unknown people, and yet here I lie worrying what to do if El speaks through him.”

  Philot chews on a turf of grass, as if considering my comment.

  I trust my safety to Philot’s long ears and keen nose, and I close my eyes, but it is a long, long time before my mind slips from the grip of grieving and allows sleep to quiet it.

  A WET SENSATION in my left ear awakens me. For a moment, I see only a vast, blue dome and think my grief has pulled my spirit from my body and cast it into the sky. The wetness in my ear moves to paint a stripe along my cheek. Against that endless blue background, a nose appears, a black, moist nose followed by teeth that gently grasp my chin and release it. Nami!

  I sit up and hug her neck, feel the beat of her pulse, the silk of her coat beneath my fingers, and somehow her presence, the life within her, stirs the deadness from my heart. She is alive and so, I am alive.

  As when she found me in Lot’s house, a strand of leather dangles from her raw neck. She looks very pleased with herself. Despite her obvious hunger, she takes the piece of salted meat I pull from
my pack with great gentleness.

  I can think a bit better now, and I consider returning to Lot’s tents and letting Chiram take me to Abram and Sarai, so Nami will be safe. But images of my father dying and Raph taken prisoner are burned into my mind, and I go on. I am not being disobedient to my father and my oath, just postponing when I will honor it.

  The land climbs steeply upward. We come upon a settlement where Egyptians mined copper. The mine is abandoned now, but a few families have stayed. I stop at the cistern, and a woman hauling water tells me she heard mounted men pass the night before. Nami and I follow the direction she indicates.

  The wind and hard dry ground have stolen most of the raider’s trail, and so we move very slowly, searching for any sign of an encampment or tracks of camels or horses. When the camel prints were fresher, I studied them. A desert man can tell much from a spoor—the age of the animal, the weight of the load it carries, and, of course, whether it is of his own herd. He can tell from its droppings and the smell of its urine when it last drank water and what it has fed upon. I do not have such skill, but one of the camels has an in-turned stride, and I am certain we are following the same beasts we bought outside of Sodom.

  The land is brown as long-buried bones, dusty, full of hills, valleys, and stone. Nami, not impressed by my pace, runs ahead, sometimes disappearing from my sight. The second day after her return, she gallops back to me from her scouting, her entire body speaking excitement.

  Wondering what she has found, I leave Philot and follow after her. At the wadi’s edge, she stops and looks back to see if I see what she does. It is almost midday, and dark clouds are forming far ahead of us. A dust demon whirls by, and I move quickly from its path. Ill fortune to see one, much less be touched by it. A storm is coming or perhaps even now dropping its burden of rain, and that is no time to be near a wadi. Still, Nami is practically dancing in place, and I follow her down into the dry gulch.