People of the Tower (Ark Chronicles 4)

by Vaughn Heppner

  Death, Ham thought. It came to every man. “You must go back,” he told Rahab.

  “No,” she said. “Where you go, I will follow.”

  “Good,” Noah said. “Let’s start.”

  They waded into the drunken crowd, shoving aside revelers. Noah wasn’t gentle with anyone that bumped him. He pushed and knocked out of the way men and women, those twirling, dancing and singing with glazed eyes.

  Ham practically trod on his father’s heels. He expected people to turn and shout with recognition. But they didn’t. They danced, consumed with their unholy passions. None thought to see, to look up at the man who sent them reeling. Ham frowned. Not everyone seemed that drunk. He saw Zidon laughing, and beside him, Put shouted in exaltation. Several of his granddaughters twirled around him, and he was shocked to see that they had disrobed from the waist up.

  “What’s wrong with them?” whispered Rahab.

  “They’re mad,” Ham said. “They’ve become possessed.”

  “Why don’t they see us?” Rahab said.

  “Perhaps folly blinds them.”

  “No,” Noah said over his shoulder. “Jehovah is with us.”

  Ham debated grabbing one of the revelers and shaking him, trying to make the man see him. Then he realized how stupid that was. For what if the man did recognize him and shouted warning to the rest? He contended himself with following his father, now and again thrusting a dancer away from Rahab lest she be crushed.

  Noah grunted. He stood at the Tower’s base.

  Ham looked around, images burning into his memory.

  Noah lifted his staff and struck the Tower, beginning to lay his curse.

  15.

  Inside the temple tiled with blue stone and with blue-green faience, Hilda wept as she sat upon the couch.

  The inner room was large and circular-shaped, with candles mixed with frankincense set in silver holders providing smoky, incense-laden illumination. She coughed from the fumes, and with her fingers, she touched her hair, glancing up. High on the ceiling had been painted the zodiac, only horribly changed from the one first created by Father Adam, Seth and Enoch. The Virgin, Virgo, the first sign, had become the Queen of Heaven, and she looked remarkably similar to Semiramis. At the end of the zodiac Leo, the great sidereal lion, had become the mighty King of Heaven, which was the sign of Nimrod and resembled the Mighty Hunter. Between Virgo and Leo, each of the other signs had also been transformed, invested with the personalities of gods or angels, the heavenly host.

  The Luciferian host! These dark gods, these fallen angels, promised occult mysteries and demonic power, anything that the mind of man might conjure. This was the Gate to Heaven, the road of working to and recapturing paradise lost. Yet to Hilda staring up at the satanic images, it seemed instead like the yawning path to the abyss. Astrology was the way of doom and destruction.

  Bizarre and lurid paintings blazoned the temple’s walls, too frightful and disgusting to stare at for more than a moment.

  Hilda shuddered as she sat upon the fine couch. She ran her palms over the rich linen, colored a deep purple. How costly and expensive this was. Beside her stood a golden table, upon which stood a pitcher of wine and two silver goblets. Otherwise, the great room was devoid of furniture. Red tiles on the floor, porphyry, cunningly fitted together, gave the room a final, sinister feel.

  Hilda wore sheer garments and had a painted face, with her hair perfumed, curled and teased into a beautiful mass. She felt like a whore, a harlot, and she hated herself for it. What would her father have thought? What would Odin think?

  She wept, spoiling her beauty.

  It had been a long and lonely walk up the ramp. People had cheered and saluted drunkenly. They had shouted as she walked up what they called the holy mountain. For many days, she had learned about Bel, Ishtar and the many new strange stories that went with these vile constellations.

  Uncle Canaan had become strange, as had her cousins. She feared that the worst days of the Antediluvian Age were upon her, that bene elohim would descend and force her to bear a Nephilim child. Yet what could she do about it? If she refused, Odin would die.

  She bowed her head and wept, unhearing of a silent tread.

  “Hilda, Hilda, why do you weep? This is a glorious night. One that I’ve long awaited.”

  She lifted her head.

  Nimrod wore red robes, with a single-horn crown on his head. His eyes shone and he grinned in his manner of old.

  “What are you doing here?” Hilda asked. “Only the chosen priestess of Ishtar and the gods may enter this night.”

  “But I am a god. Surely you know that.”

  “No. You said before—”

  Nimrod moved to the couch, sitting beside her, taking one of her hands.

  She hadn’t the strength or will to resist.

  “Surely you can’t believe that I would share you with Bel.” With his fingertips, Nimrod brushed her cheek. “You’re so desirable, Hilda. You’re beautiful beyond words.”

  “You slew my father,” she whispered.

  “That was a sad day. But Beor stood in my way. What else could I do?”

  “So now you plan to rape his daughter?”

  The grin widened. “It doesn’t have to be that way.”

  She turned her head.

  He, with his strong fingers on her chin, turned it back. He had magnetic eyes, powerful, compelling…majestic in a terrifying and strange way.

  “If rape is the only way I can have you, Hilda…” He smiled, and with a brush of his hand slipped a strap from a shoulder. “You’re so beautiful.”

  Commotion, sound, came from the temple entrance. Nimrod frowned, glancing around.

  Hilda wondered if Bel had come to fight with Nimrod for the right of bedding her. She turned to see, wondering what a bene elohim looked like.

  A wild-eyed man in a hood and a coarse cloak strode into the room. He bore a spear.

  “Odin!” she cried.

  Nimrod leaped to his feet, hissing, drawing a curved dagger.

  Behind Odin jogged Gilgamesh with a shield and a glittering, long-bladed knife.

  “Cut him down, Gilgamesh!” shouted Nimrod. “Kill him!”

  A hard smile spread across Gilgamesh’s face. The two warriors approached the Mighty Hunter.

  Understanding filled Nimrod. “Treachery!” he shouted. He dragged Hilda upright, maneuvering her before him like a shield, his dagger ready.

  She stifled a sob as Nimrod’s iron-strong fingers pressed into her flesh.

  The king shuffled obliquely, as if to flank them. “Strike me and she dies.”

  Gilgamesh lunged. Nimrod threw Hilda. She flailed and struck the shield, knocked aside, spinning and falling, seeing Nimrod jump to Gilgamesh’s side. The warrior shifted, but Nimrod was fast, astonishingly quick. His curved dagger flashed. Gilgamesh grunted. Nimrod leapt back, blood dripping from his blade.

  Gilgamesh crumpled to the floor, the shield clanging against the tiles.

  Odin roared and heaved his spear.

  With her head ringing from the shield buffet and her fall, sick with certainty that Odin would die next, she yet saw the spear fly true. Nimrod twisted. No man should move that fast, with such uncanny reflexes. Yet Odin was the Spear Slayer, a Mighty Man for a reason. The bronze head, razor-sharp, parted cloth and flesh before it flew on, clattering to the tiles, skidding, gouging porphyry.

  The Mighty Hunter clenched his teeth, fury blazing from his eyes. Hurt, wounded, dripping blood, he uttered a war cry.

  Odin drew a knife and roared likewise. Bronze blades clashed, sparks flew. Once, twice, three times the blades screeched and notched together. Then Nimrod cried out in exhalation, slashing, and his knife-edge cut Odin’s shoulder to the bone. The Spear Slayer spun away. Nimrod’s foot lashed out, kicking Odin in the head.

  Odin thudded onto the tiles, blood leaking onto the already blood-red porphyry.

  Nimrod snarled with delight.

  Hilda, who had backed away during th
e short clash, knelt, picking up Odin’s spear.

  Nimrod must have heard her even as he stooped to slice Odin’s throat. He spun cat-quick, yet not fast enough. The spearhead sliced his side, scraping bone, blood pouring from the cut. His hand blurred as he backhanded her.

  She dropped to the floor; consciousness fleeing as Nimrod staggered to the temple entrance.

  16.

  Ham watched Noah strike the Tower as his father intoned an awful curse. It seemed as if Noah tried to dash the gopher-wood staff to pieces against the baked bricks. The ancient patriarch who had built the Ark rolled out the heavy words, each time punctuating it with a loud crack of his staff.

  “Look,” Rahab said, with her arms around Ham’s waist. “Look at the people.”

  Ham’s hand ached from clutching his cudgel for so long and so hard.

  Whack! Noah cursed the Tower more.

  “Ham,” said his wife. “Look at the people.”

  His eyebrows creased together.

  “The crowd, Ham. Look at the crowd.”

  Ham tore his gaze from Noah. The singing had become discordant. Nonsense words rose all around him. It seemed as if in their drunken revelry the people had forgotten how to talk. That slowed their dancing and twirling and shouting and laughing and the throwing up of their arms and the grabbing and kissing of any that pranced past them. Some grew red-faced; others frowned, while a few jabbered in seeming shock.

  “What’s wrong with them?” whispered Rahab.

  Ham shrugged, and he clutched his cudgel even tighter.

  Whack! His father’s staff hit again.

  Ham turned toward his father, wondering what Noah had just said.

  The old patriarch roared out garbled words, strange and foreign, making not a bit of sense.

  Ham feared to interrupt his father. So he bent his head, listening to Noah.

  Whack! More nonsense words, meaningless, like monkey chatter.

  “Rahab,” Ham said. “What’s Noah saying?”

  Her arms tightened around his waist as she peered into his face.

  “Listen to Noah,” shouted Ham.

  She did. Then she looked at him. “I don’t understand him.”

  Terror hit like a kick to the stomach. Hadn’t the angel said something about one language? An awful foreboding caused Ham to turn back to the crowd. The singing had stopped. The people shouted at one another. He stepped to the nearest man, a Japhethite, Scyth by name. The man shouted at Zidon, who shouted back. Neither made any sense. Both spoke gibberish.

  “What’s going on?” Rahab asked. “I don’t understand anybody.”

  “I understand you.”

  Rahab’s eyes grew wide. “Yes! That’s right.”

  Noah stepped back from the Tower, closer to Ham. The white-bearded patriarch wiped sweat from his brow. Great weariness filled his blue eyes. Noah spoke gibberish.

  “I don’t understand you, Father.”

  Noah spoke again, making no sense.

  “Is this part of the curse of Jehovah?” Ham asked. “Does no one understand each other?”

  Noah shouted at him.

  “That’s not going to help,” Ham said.

  Noah paled. Understanding, shock and something like awe filled his leathery face. The old patriarch gazed upon the crowd.

  So did Ham and Rahab.

  Fights broke out. People shouted. A few of the folk ran screaming from the plaza.

  Ham felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. He and his father looked upon one another. Noah spoke. Ham said, “You must be speaking another language.”

  “Or we are?” Rahab said.

  As soon as she said, it made grim sense. Noah, as the righteous man of Jehovah, probably spoke the original language. He, Ham, as a formerly great drunkard, no doubt was the one who spoke a new and strange tongue.

  Noah held out his hand.

  Ham took it so they shook hands.

  Then Noah pointed north. He slapped his chest and pointed north again.

  Tears welled in Rahab’s eyes.

  Noah smiled sadly, and he hugged Ham. He squeezed the breath out of him. Ham hugged back. Did this mean that he and his father could never speak to one another again? The dreadfulness of it filled Ham with sadness and sorrow.

  Noah let go. He hugged Rahab.

  By now, shouting, raving and dangerous fistfights had broken out around them.

  Noah lifted his staff, and he nodded at Ham and Rahab.

  “We’d better follow him,” Ham said.

  “Yes,” Rahab said.

  The three of them waded into the screaming crowd, with Noah’s gopher-wood staff licking at any who tried to bar the way. Ham fought as the rear-guard, twice cudgeling a spit-foaming man raving out of his wits. It felt as if the world had gone mad, drunken on sin-fueled insanity.

  17.

  Hilda stirred on the temple floor. Every time she blinked, it felt as if spikes had been driven into her brain. An awful sense of doom filled her, a terrible certainty that this place was about to be destroyed.

  She sat up, and she groaned, holding her hurting, throbbing head. She crawled to Odin sprawled on the red tiled floor. Tears dripped from her. “Please don’t let him be dead. Please, Jehovah.”

  She stroked his red hair. “You came for me,” she whispered. “You saved me from Nimrod. Oh, Odin, if you’re alive let us be man and wife. Let us be as one this instant.”

  As if he heard her—perhaps her words woke him—Odin stirred.

  “Lie still,” she warned. “Let me check your wounds.”

  “Hilda?”

  “I’m here, my love. I’m here.”

  As he turned over onto his back, she saw that Nimrod’s knife-cut hadn’t slashed anything vital. Using a cloth, she bound his side and helped him sit up.

  “Can you walk?” she asked.

  “I think so. But my vision is blurry.”

  She peered into his eye as she recalled Nimrod’s vicious kick. “I’ll guide you down.”

  “How’s Gilgamesh?”

  She crawled to him. Her own head yet throbbed. The governor of Erech’s wound was worse. A lot of Gilgamesh’s blood had pooled around him. Then the terrible sense of urgency returned, squeezing her, compelling her. They had to get out here, out of the temple now!

  “Gilgamesh,” she said, touching him.

  He groaned.

  She gulped, and she tried to bind his wounds, to stop the leaking of his life-fluids. Odin was beside her, his thick fingers checking the wound.

  “It’s bad,” Odin said. “It’s soaked half his tunic.”

  Gilgamesh opened his eyes. He whispered.

  Hilda bent near.

  “What’s he saying?” Odin asked.

  She wanted to shake her head, but that would hurt too much. “I don’t understand him. He must be groggy, disoriented.”

  Odin looked down at Gilgamesh. “We have to go,” he said, slowly, as if for a child. “Can you walk?”

  Gilgamesh frowned, almost as if he couldn’t understand them.

  “We can’t stay,” Hilda said.

  “Agreed,” Odin said. “Nimrod will send killers after us.”

  She hadn’t thought of that. She was more worried that something dreadful, something unexplainable was about to happen—soon!

  They eased Gilgamesh to a sitting position. He croaked words that made no sense.

  “Save it,” Odin said.

  Gilgamesh lifted a shaky hand, clutching Odin’s wrist. He spoke again, seemingly more clearly, without slurring. It still made no sense.

  “Later,” Odin said. To Hilda, “Help me get him to his feet.”

  He was heavy for such a lean man.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Odin said.

  “We must hurry,” she said. The sense of impending, sudden and certain destruction had become close to unbearable.

  18.

  The hair on the back of Shem’s neck rose as terror coursed through him. All was dark in his cell under the palace. Yet it felt a
s if a presence was with him, a majestic and awful being, dangerous beyond words.

  “Hello?” he asked.

  Nothing. Dreadful, hideous silence, as if he stood in a midnight swamp with a monstrous crocodile ready to devour him.

  Shem trembled and couldn’t stop, and he no longer had the will to speak. He bent his head and pressed his clenched fists against his mouth. He fought for self-control and his shaking had become paralyzing. Majesty beyond words, power and presence—Shem slid onto his belly, his trembling worse than if he lay naked on a glacier.

  In an instant, it was gone! The wretched feeling passed.

  Shem lay gasping. He wondered if his internment into this present and continual darkness had affected his senses, warped his judgment and slowly turned him crazy. Sweat drenched him.

  He rose to his knees, deciding to fall onto his mat and sleep this off. But the terror of seconds ago had disoriented him. Which way was the mat? The darkness in his cell was absolute. So he crawled, feeling with his hands, shuffling on his knees. One shuffle, two, three, four. Was he simply imagining moving as he stayed in one spot? His cell was five strides by five. He should have bumped into the wall by now.

  He straightened as he kept shuffling his knees, feeling out with his hands. Terror crept back as he kept shuffling, shuffling—his left knee struck the wall and he fell forward. Which was impossible. In that moment, he knew that he had gone insane. Then his hands landed hard, surprising him, shocking him back to reality at the jolt to his shoulders. He felt…he frowned severely. Confusion filled him. Until he realized—

  These were steps! Then…

  He turned, feeling around with his hands, swinging them until his hand knocked against… He felt what had to be an open door. Yes! Yes! The cell door was open.

  But…a chill swept through him. Who had opened the door? The imagined presence of a moment ago? Imagination doesn’t open doors.

  Shem gulped, realizing now that his feelings were similar as to when he had visions. This had to be of Jehovah. He was certain of it. Had an angel been in his cell? He scowled, berating himself as he began to crawl up the stairs.