The Days of Peleg

by Jon Saboe

  He tensed suddenly as he heard movement in the grass outside the opening. Someone or something was walking heavily through the underbrush, and Peleg pressed himself against the side of the cave to be in the shadows as much as possible. Peleg could see the stalks vibrating in reaction to footsteps, and suddenly a large form cast a shadow that grew against the waving curtain of grass.

  A very large person was pressing towards the cave. The gait was definitely too heavy to be Bernifal, and its movement indicated that this intruder knew exactly where he was going. The shadow grew larger and distorted as its steps became more forceful.

  Suddenly the silhouette shrunk, and the tall blades of grass divided as the intruder pushed into the cave opening.

  Peleg choked back a yelp as he suddenly recognized the outline of the intruder. He pressed himself harder against the wall, trying to become invisible, but the man took another step into the room and sniffed twice.

  “Ah, Peleg,” said the voice that Peleg had hoped never to hear again. “I’m glad you made it here safely.”

  Peleg remained immobile against the cave wall and said nothing.

  Shem moved directly towards him.

  “You’re not seriously attempting to hide, are you?” he asked. “I could smell you from far outside the cave. And although you’re wrapped in that smelly blanket, the heat from your face illuminates this room like a light-house.”

  Peleg realized he had been holding his breath and exhaled. He was angry and felt betrayed by Bernifal.

  “I see you’ve left your cave kingdom,” said Peleg sourly. The need to treat Shem with caution was somehow lessened now that he was on the surface. “What happened to force you up into the real world?”

  Shem laughed, irritating Peleg further.

  “A mutiny, actually,” he said calmly. “Our people have been hunted and hiding underground since the Time of the Confusion, and they will no longer tolerate simply defending themselves.”

  He moved over and sat on the rock where Peleg had slept earlier.

  “You may recall the angry debate which I quelled as we walked topside to the food preparers?” he asked and then continued without waiting for a response. “They wanted to develop an offensive to go against Sargon and his allies, but I asked them to be patient until I had determined the end of the Zeh-ra lineage. And since the Creator had brought you to me, I was certain that it was only a matter of months before we would succeed!”

  His voice rose.

  “There is nothing more important!”

  Even in the filtered lunar light, Shem’s eyes glowed cat-like, with fanatical fervor.

  “But last night they rose up,” he continued heavily, his voice sliding from exhilarated excitement to deep sorrow within the single sentence. “The entire war council of the Gutian Defense Force voted to banish me, and I was given two hours to leave the community, never again to enter any of our complexes.”

  It was a tone of deep personal anguish, and Peleg was afraid that Shem’s emotional pendulum would now swing into sobbing. For a brief moment, Peleg actually was sorry for him and felt a slight remorse for his initial greeting. The silence stretched out as Peleg envisioned the large man grappling with the loss of everything that he had lived for—but then Peleg found his compassion turning into a perverse glee as he considered that, perhaps now, Shem knew what it felt like.

  A sharp laugh broke the silence as Shem somehow miraculously regained his original excitement.

  “But the Creator always has better plans than I could possibly make,” he said with unmistakable happiness, his voice rising. “We shall follow the lineage of the Zeh-ra ourselves! When the desires of the Creator are made known to the latest in the line, the knowledge of Zeh-ra will not vanish. The curse will be removed!”

  He stopped suddenly and sniffed, looking towards the opening.

  “Bernifal arrives,” he said.

  “He was the only one I could trust,” Shem continued, more quietly. “I managed to get a message to him and asked him to extract you and meet us in this decoy-cave. I trust your trip here was uneventful.”

  Peleg started to respond about the flight—and the fight—but before he could say anything, Bernifal burst through the grasses in front of the opening and into the room.

  When he spotted Shem, he called out and dropped what he was carrying. He rushed to Shem, and they exchanged hearty hugs, backslaps, and kisses on the cheeks. Even in the cave’s darkness, Peleg watched the exchange, made comical as the small, wiry Bernifal reached upward and tried to wrap his arms around the tall, large Founder.

  Peleg listened as they spoke in their own language. He could understand nothing, but at one point, Bernifal became very animated, and Peleg could tell that he was describing the fight which had occurred during their escape. At one point Bernifal thrust his thumb into the air and spoke a solemn phrase, after which he and Shem burst into laughter for several minutes.

  Suddenly, Bernifal gave a look of dismay and began frantically patting at his clothing as if looking for something. Eventually he looked up at Shem and shrugged, a very sad look on his face.

  The conversation was over and Bernifal returned his attention to the items he had dropped. He gathered them and went to the small fireplace where he ignited the kindling and coaxed the small flames into a roaring cooking fire.

  In the new light, Peleg saw that Bernifal had killed three small rabbits, and he was now in the process of preparing them on spits, which stood next to the fireplace. Along with the rabbits was a skin filled with water which he passed to Shem who drank deeply. Shem then stood up and walked over to Peleg, who still had not moved from the wall, and handed the skin to him with a smile.

  Peleg was suddenly aware of how thirsty he was, and he tipped the bag up over his head and drank from the spigot. He sucked the water in as fast as his swallows would allow, and he only quit when he had to take a breath. His eyes were closed as he enjoyed the cool water, and when he opened them, he saw the smiling face of Shem reflected in the firelight.

  “What happened to Bernifal?” Peleg asked, feeling somewhat bloated as the large volume of water collected in his stomach. “Did he lose something?”

  “Yes he did,” answered Shem. “Apparently his flute fell from its holster during your skirmish back in Haganah. It was very special to him, but he can never return to retrieve it.”

  Peleg nodded, but had one more question from watching their exchange.

  “And what did he say when he held up his thumb and you both started laughing?”

  Shem grinned. “Bernifal said, ‘Where the thumb goes, so goes the head.’”

  He raised his own thumb.

  “This is a phrase that Bernifal always taught his students during unarmed combat training. If you can gain control of your opponent’s thumb, whichever direction you twist it, your opponent will reflexively jump in that direction—headfirst. When Bernifal twisted that man’s thumb towards the sides of the corridor, the man obligingly drove his own head into the wall.”

  Shem finished with a light laugh. Peleg joined him briefly, until he remembered he was still angry.

  He took another sip from the skin, then hurriedly returned it to Shem while he tried to rekindle some of the bitterness he had felt upon first seeing him.

  “How is it, that, no matter what happens, you can always rationalize with some version of ‘The Creator planned it’?” he asked in a voice much more snide than he had intended.

  Shem just smiled and said, “The Creator knows the future, and plans accordingly.”

  Peleg choked at the obvious inconsistency, but kept quiet.

  They both walked towards the fire where Bernifal was slowly turning the spitted rabbits. They sat on the ground and were soon lost in individual thoughts as they stared into the fire. Peleg was glad his eyes no longer hurt from the light.

  Suddenly a question burst into Peleg’s mind, and before he knew it, he verbalized it.

  “Does this Creator have a name, or is he just called �
�Creator’?”

  Shem shook himself out of his reverie and nodded slightly.

  “Yes, He does,” he answered. “But we avoid its use for fear of familiarity.”

  He smiled gently.

  “But the name by which He calls Himself is Yahweh,” he said, finally. “It is generally reserved for personal use only.”

  Peleg returned to staring into the fire. He was suddenly overcome by relief as it suddenly dawned on him that he was free. He had spent months belowground, all the while fearing he would spend the rest of his life there. That possibility had now vanished, but it was just at this moment, while staring into the fire, that the reality sank in. He now had a clear path towards home—and he should be ready to take advantage of this when the opportunity presented itself.

  Another question came unbidden into his mind and tumbled out of his mouth.

  “What exactly did you mean when you said, ‘We shall follow the lineage ourselves’?”

  Shem turned quickly towards Peleg, a look of grave intensity on his face.

  “Why, we are traveling to Uruk to find your son, Reu!” Shem flashed a huge smile that anticipated an identical response from Peleg—which did not come. “We must follow the lineage, and there is no better place to begin.”

  He paused with a frown.

  “Of course, it will be dangerous. In addition to Sargon’s patrols, there are also roaming thieves, and the occasional bands of uncultured.”

  Peleg was surprised at that word. Apparently it was one that Alapar had taught Shem. Occasionally, groups of people would choose to live far from the cities, wanting nothing to do with the structure and safety that a strong, cultured city provided. It was, however, a very impolite term—almost an epithet. It certainly did not apply to the farmers, herdsmen, craftsmen, and traders who lived outside of the cities, whose constant interaction (rent and taxes) was deemed vital to the city’s prosperity. The uncultured were malcontents. However, people with manners simply referred to them as outsiders.

  But his surprise was quickly replaced with excitement. They were going in the direction of his homeland! As long as his captors were traveling in the direction he wanted to go, there was no reason not to stay with them. In fact, traveling with this big, crazy man, and a combat expert like Bernifal probably increased his chances of arriving safely. He could choose some later date to break away and head for Ur.

  A wave of contentedness settled over him as he watched the rabbits roast. Perhaps he could still return to the Citadel and resume his life. He would find Reu-Nathor and present him with a verbal report of their expedition. He would even find Inanna and let her glean what she could from his account.

  He would be reunited with his wives and discover which of his children had been accepted into the Citadel. He could resume his teaching and studies, and he would surely be given a place of high honor as someone who had returned from the Great Discovery.

  “Unfair!”

  A terrifying flashback to the nightmare that had started this day interrupted his thoughts, making him jump. He took a breath and tried to calm his heart. He would not let that hallucination bother him now.

  But he had to concede that one aspect of that event did disturb him somewhat.

  It didn’t seem like his own imagination could have conjured up such a dream. However, if some form of visitation had actually happened, it meant that some of Shem’s beliefs might also be true.

  “Wake up!”

  Peleg twisted around to see Shem standing over him, reddish reflections flickering across his face from the lingering coals in the fireplace.

  “We have a great deal of distance to cover today,” Shem said. “There is a place of refuge about eight days from here, and we must arrive there as quickly as possible.”

  Peleg groaned silently. He had been enjoying the best sleep that he could remember since the demise of the Urbat. Probably because it was his first sleep with fresh air.

  The delicious memory of roast rabbit lingered in his mind. In addition to being a close combat specialist, Bernifal was also an expert with herbs. Serug would have loved him.

  He rose, shook his head, and collected his bearskin. Bernifal was stamping out the remainder of the fire while Shem stood in the center of the cave, holding his two bags.

  Peleg started towards the opening, but Shem stopped him.

  “This way,” he said, pointing to the back of the cave where Peleg had noticed the small archway, but had decided not to explore.

  Bernifal finished with the fire and began arranging everything so that the cave appeared exactly as they had found it. He picked up a small spit, hefted it like a javelin, and then turned and grinned at them. Shem barked something impatient at him, and Bernifal stopped grinning and headed into the back hallway still carrying the spit. Shem followed and beckoned to Peleg, who went in after him.

  It was a tight, winding corridor which was nothing like the walkways back in Haganah. It was humid and dirty, and Peleg could feel roots and pieces of hanging moss brush against his head and face.

  Fortunately it didn’t last long. Soon some light could be seen, and within a few more paces, they emerged through some underbrush out onto a brilliant green hillside.

  He brushed himself off as his eyes adjusted. The sun was just rising to their right, and it splashed light on a beautiful hill covered with wild flowers that loomed across from them. A small valley, covered in a fine fog (which masked a noisy brook) lay before them, and far in the distance to his left, he saw a large mountain range. He squinted slightly and saw that the tips were a bright white—a sharp contrast to the purplish green beneath. It reminded him of some of the first mountains he had seen on the polar continent.

  He turned around to find they had just emerged from the base of a small cliff which jutted out from the side of a large mountain. He tipped his neck upward, but was unable to see the top from his current vantage point. He stepped back slightly, forgetting he was standing on a hillside, and would have fallen backwards on his head if Shem had not caught him.

  He had not seen such a large open space since his fall from Zini, and it took him a moment to adjust his frame of reference to encompass the enormity of his view. He took a deep breath and found himself focusing on the wildflowers across from them—shimmering with light as the sun continued to rise. Brilliant yellows, deep blues, and fiery purples assailed his eyes which had seen virtually no color during his time underground. Strips of deep red twisted up the hillside, while tufts of green leaves pushed through in small patches. A crown of full evergreens topped the hill, and also defined where a larger, white-tipped mountain emerged from behind.

  A nudge from Shem brought Peleg back to his immediate surroundings. He pointed towards Bernifal, who was scampering away from them along the hillside.

  “We must move quickly,” he said. “Follow him.”

  Peleg followed, with Shem behind him, as Bernifal maintained a straight, lateral path across the side of the mountain, which neither went up the hill nor down into the valley, forcing them to walk awkwardly. They continued at a brisk pace for several hours, straight into the sun as it continued to rise overhead.

  Peleg’s legs began to ache. He had learned to walk on a heaving ship deck, up and down rocky mountains, and even maintain his balance while walking across a layer of slippery šeg. But walking sideways along a hillside where he wished one leg was longer than the other was becoming very uncomfortable.

  Shem said nothing as they walked, seemingly deep in thought. Peleg suspected that it might have something to do with Shem losing the people he had led for so many years.

  Bernifal stopped suddenly and pointed to a large bank of evergreen trees which created a large covered area just slightly uphill from where they were. He spoke something sharply to Shem, and then dashed directly downhill.

  Shem pointed up to the trees and said, “We’ll rest under those trees for a while.”

  Peleg nodded and he and Shem headed uphill towards the trees. Bernifal had long s
ince disappeared into the foliage below. Peleg hoped that this stop would also include some food, since he hadn’t eaten anything since last night’s rabbit.

  They sat down under the trees and Peleg ventured a conversation.

  “You seem uncharacteristically quiet today,” he said with a slight grin, making sure he didn’t offend him.

  Shem lifted his head slightly without looking into Peleg’s eyes and nodded with a shrug but said nothing.

  A wave of genuine sympathy welled up in Peleg.

  “I truly am sorry that your people turned on you like that,” he said. “It must be difficult to lose the community you’ve led and worked with for so long.”

  Shem looked up, surprised.

  “Difficult?” he said, his voice rising. “Difficult?” he repeated, staring into Peleg’s face. His arms flew up in the air. “I lost a whole world once! Losing the respect of a group of people who no longer want you is trivial.” His hands began to wave in exasperation. “Difficult? I’m better off …”

  He stopped as Peleg’s concern registered. He also realized that his words weren’t entirely convincing.

  “I appreciate your kindness,” he said, sincerely, then broke into a large smile—the first all day.

  “But now I have you!” he said, eyes gleaming. “Nothing else matters, now!”

  His huge grin brought the word ‘manic’ back to Peleg’s mind.

  “I would probably have spent the rest of my life in those caverns,” Shem continued, “if the Creator had not brought you to me. I truly felt as though I had failed in my task and I was despairing.”

  He quieted suddenly, moving closer to Peleg.

  “I had told the Creator that I was giving up—and would do nothing else,” he said as if confessing something. “I told Him, ‘You must do something, because I am finished’.”

  Shem leaned back and grinned again.

  “As soon as I said this, you arrived.”

  Peleg groaned inwardly. This man simply could not talk without mentioning the Creator.