“Why?” Ham asked.
Rahab wept quietly now, while Noah, the righteous preacher of Jehovah, stared him down.
“Ten rooms,” Ham said, finally.
“We’ll start here,” Noah said. “Hand me the other jugs.”
A terrible fear welled within Ham. How would he pass the time without wine? Imprisoned with thousands upon thousands of animals and with just the eight of them—
“Ham.”
“Please, Father. Leave me several for the worst times.”
Noah looked away and Rahab’s crying grew louder.
“I won’t get drunk. I promise. Just… just enough to dull the…”
“No wine,” whispered Noah.
“You don’t understand!” cried Ham. “I-I-I need help.”
Noah squared his shoulders. “The sooner we start the sooner we can get back to work.”
Hate flashed deep within Ham. He wouldn’t forget this. Oh, no. But… not for anything would he want to be outside the Ark. And if he didn’t hand over the jugs… would his father push him outside?
For five long days, nothing had happened. Ham had his doubts anything would on the seventh. But he reached over the sacks and began to draw out his carefully hoarded supply of wine.
8.
Depravity reigned around the Ark. As flames flickered at the many bonfires and as the stars winked down in delight, the men and women of Chemosh celebrated in mad intoxication. Lewd songs mixed with screams of debauchery and lasciviousness. Eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die had changed to fornicate and gorge before the judgment. Sodom and Gomorrah would never be as bad as this night. When the children of Israel danced before the Golden Calf, it would only be in shadowy imitation of what occurred on the sixth night after the door to the Ark had closed.
An orgy of demonic mirth howled to the heavens. Every base impulse was given free rein. Celebrate for the last godly man was gone! At last, the Earth was free of Jehovah, was free of every restriction of His Spirit. The salt of Noah, of the preservation of man, had left, had hidden itself in the vast vessel of wood and pitch.
King Laban lifted a chalice of gold and flashing gems. Queen Naamah reeled at his side, while Ikkesh and Bera whined, chained like dogs.
Laban threw back the wine so it dribbled down his chin and stained his royal garments. “We have won!” he shouted, his glazed eyes filled with unholy zeal.
From all around him in the darkness there sounded flutes, cymbals and singing. And as the people threw away whatever last shred of restraint they might possibly have retained, the rest of the bene elohim descended into them. Wickedness fell like a shroud. The evil spirits and men commingled in fiendish iniquity. The enormity of the antediluvian corruption reached its fevered pitch. They abandoned themselves to vilest immorality; to devilish, foul, perverted, unregenerate, baleful, reprobate blackest sin. Like beasts they howled, chanted and praised their unholy lords of darkness who walked among them.
“Victory!” screamed Naamah, her hands clenched at the stars.
“This way,” Laban said. He dragged his two prisoners and together with the queen staggered to the bonfire where Par Alexander and the Prophet Zohar argued. The philosopher, a tall, stoop-shouldered man with short silver hair and huge staring eyes wore his toga in a disheveled fashion. In a rich, persuasive voice, he argued against long-bearded Zohar.
“No, no, no,” Par Alexander said peevishly. “It is merely wish-fulfillment.”
“You cannot be as daft as that,” Zohar thundered. “The gods walk among us this night. So rejoice and be glad.”
“How can I be glad when all life is futility and meaninglessness?” Par Alexander asked.
“Are you serious?”
“Don’t you understand by now? If the ancient legends are true, then all life began in the flux of the warm wind against the primordial ice. An accident caused all this.”
“But what of the gods?” said Zohar.
“Bah,” Par Alexander said. “Creatures of power, perhaps, but not gods, you fool. They too came from the ice. Ice everywhere and the warm winds from the light caused vapors that formed clouds. From the clouds sprang the original one and the great cow to feed him. There was no earth then, no heaven above. The cow conceived the gods, and they slew the original one and formed the earth from his body. So I ask you. What if the wind had blown differently? Then no cow would have formed and no original one. It is all meaningless.”
“No, no,” argued the prophet. “We will become gods in our next incarnation.”
“An afterlife?” the philosopher asked. “That is simply more illusions because you aren’t strong enough of mind to see that everything is meaningless. You still cling to your crutch. We started from chance and are headed into nothing. We were a mere accident that runs its course and then sinks back into the vapors from whence it came.”
“Now I am afraid that I must call you the fool, as distasteful as pronouncing judgments as I am,” Zohar said. “The gods walk among us this night, for finally we are rid of Noah and his ilk. With real freedom mankind will now blossom into what he was always meant to be.”
“Which is nothing,” Par Alexander said.
“Nothing?” the prophet asked.
“The universe is a joke.”
“No, only matter is evil, and that is where you are blind, about such things as you can see and touch. But once in the supernatural realm—don’t you understand? Spiritual things are pure!”
“Spiritual things are always pure?” Par Alexander asked, arching an eyebrow.
“By their nature they must be,” Zohar said. “Only matter has potential for evil.”
“So these gods of yours are pure, isn’t that what you’re saying?”
“Yes, yes,” said Zohar. “They must be pure because they are spirit beings. The logic of it is overwhelming.”
“Enough,” King Laban said. “Come. We have other game afoot.” Jerking the twin chains, forcing Ikkesh and Bera along, Laban led the others to the Ark.
“Why here?” asked a worried Zohar.
“Do you fear, old man?” Naamah mocked.
“He fears because he’s a religious fool,” Par Alexander said. “But I know that all this is a joke.” He picked up a stick and thumped it against the Ark. “Noah! Are you hiding in there, Noah? What do you think now that you know that all this is meaningless?” Par Alexander hammered until sweat slicked his narrow features.
“Let us get back to the party,” Zohar said.
“No,” Laban said. “Let’s all shout at Noah. Let’s all bang on the Ark.” The king kicked his prisoners. “You as well.”
So for several minutes Laban and Naamah, Ikkesh, Bera, Par Alexander and the Prophet Zohar hammered on the Ark. They shouted abuse, screamed and demanded that Noah come out.
“I want you to feel my caresses,” Bera shouted.
“I wish to speak with you again, Uncle,” the king mocked.
“Send me your son Ham,” Naamah screamed.
“This for your hospitality,” Ikkesh said, spitting on the Ark.
Then each paused, for on the horizon, far, far distant, the sun peeked up for a new day, the seventh since the door to the Ark had closed. As each had done every day, they involuntarily looked up, checking for rain.
9.
Jehovah saw how great man’s wickedness had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. Jehovah was grieved that he had made man on the Earth, and His heart was filled with pain. So Jehovah said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the Earth—men and animals, the creatures that move along the ground and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.”
Thus in the realm above, where thrones were set in place, the Ancient of Days took His seat. His clothing was as white as snow. The hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming, with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. A river of fire was flowing, coming out from before Him. Thousands upon thousands
attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The court was seated and the books were opened.
“THE TIME HAS COME,” said He on the throne, in a voice like seven thunders.
Each lesser being fell from his throne and bowed before the Ancient of Days. Trumpets pealed. Lightning flashed, and from around the central throne came the cry: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is and is to come!”
A mighty angel approached the throne. He was robed in a cloud, with a rainbow above his head; his face was like the sun and his legs were like fiery pillars. To him was given a seal.
“GO, AND BRING DESTRUCTION TO THE EARTH.”
The mighty angel departed the glory of Jehovah, bearing a seal of great sovereignty and dreadful woe. With it, he departed Heaven on a thought and traveled through the waters surrounding the Earth. The invisible vapor canopy that kept out the Sun’s ultraviolet rays and caused the air under the stratosphere to be still and serene was thick and filled with incredible volumes of liquid protection. Thus rains never lashed the Earth, for winds never raced from high pressure to low pressure systems, because all was pressurized equally over the face of the Earth. From the North Pole down to the South reigned a semitropical paradise, all of the same temperature. Lush vegetation filled the planet almost like the first days in Eden. There were no deserts, no snowfields, or wastelands. All was plentiful. Nor did mighty oceans fill up two-thirds of the Earth. Small oceans, dotted about the planet like lakes, provided millions more acres for homes and fields than ever the world would know again.
All this the mighty angel saw as he raced on his dreadful errand.
From hidden crevices and black shadows, the legions of dark angels witnessed his journey. For many more of the evil spirits had refrained from entering the bodies of mortals than had dared, like Azel, to abandon their realm for another and thus produce Nephilim offspring. Satan, their lord, bade the legions to let the angel pass without a fight. For the dark one sensed that the armies of Heaven were armed and poised for instant war—for battle the likes of which the universe had only seen once before, when he and his hosts had originally been driven from the Mount of God. He could hinder the mighty angel only at great peril; perhaps it would even set off the final battle. That day, the day he would play his secret trump, was not yet. So Satan waited and watched, along with his legions of celestial rebels.
Thus, down through the planet’s crust went the mighty angel, armed with the seal handed him from the throne.
He knew that on the primordial second day of creation that the waters had been separated into two. So, even though no rains touched the Earth, it was green with life, as it never would be in such profusion again. The great deeps supplied this moisture. Within the Earth, in vast subterranean reservoirs, chambers and lakes seethed the masses of water where in later days it would lie in the seven ocean basins. In an intricately complex system of underwater rivers and springs and fountains, this great deep was interconnected together. Guarding these reservoirs, these subterranean chambers were natural valves, governors and conduits first installed on the days of creation. But none of the waters would flow unless pressure drove it. That pressure, or the cause of it, had also been installed on the first days of creation. Heat. The molten core of the planet radiated incredible heat. That heat supplied the pressure, driving the waters upward toward the surface. Like a vast engine, as long as the core was hot, the molten gut of the planet churned the great deep and propelled it into action. Year after year, the wonderful system sent life-giving water to the surface, controlled by the natural valves, governors and conduits, and fed again by under-waterfalls and drainage systems at the bottom of the many small oceans.
The mighty angel dove through the rocks and to the center mass, to the angels that had dominion over the heat engine, watching and controlling it throughout the many years. The mighty one, who dwarfed the others, handed his awful seal to their chief. The chief opened it and read the dreadful contents.
“This instant?” the chief asked.
The messenger from Heaven, from the very throne room of God, waited precisely seven seconds. “Now,” said he.
The chief angel of the great deeps turned and shouted orders. As one, the angels stoked the molten core.
Temperatures rose dramatically, more than the insulating layer in the deeper crust could take. In one subterranean chamber after another and all around the planet, calculated to act in uniformity, pressure grew at a phenomenal rate. The first fountain cracked and pressurized fluid surged through the point with incredible fury. Other boundaries quickly weakened; the natural valves, governors and conduits were given more than they could handle. Mere minutes after the seal had been broken, a worldwide chain reaction occurred. The first surface cleaving took place.
Great gouts of water shot skyward.
In the Earth, the racing molten core also caused explosions that cracked the very mantle. Some of the water in the deepest chambers drained downward and poured onto seething lava. That touched off yet more explosions, violent and furious. Volcanoes grew in moments, geysering and spewing ash and dust high into the stratosphere, up into the vapor canopy that so beautifully protected the planet from the Sun’s harshest rays. That in turn—the dust and ashy particles—caused microscopic bits of water vapor to coalesce onto the dirt. As they grew and became heavier, water droplets formed. A chain reaction thus occurred here. Soon, the first drops dripped earthward. And then the chain reaction tipped the balance. The windows of the heavens opened. The water of the vapor canopy poured down. For the first time since the Creation, it rained upon the Earth.
10.
Ikkesh, Bera, Par Alexander, the Prophet Zohar, Queen Naamah and King Laban gazed skyward as the ground trembled.
Staggering, they cried out to one another. Ikkesh tripped and dashed his forehead against the Ark, falling backward. Par Alexander tripped over him, spraining his right wrist as he tried to catch himself. Bera snarled in baffled rage. Queen Naamah flinched as she saw a fountain of water funnel out of the ground like a whale spouting from its blowhole. King Laban went rigid with fear as a drop of water splashed against his cheek.
Others paused in their riotous debauchery. The ground no longer trembled, but shook violently in the world’s first earthquake. Wagons turned over. Fires winked out. Tents collapsed. It began to rain, to lash with a great downpour, a cloudburst upon the celebration.
“It’s happening!” screamed Zohar, water drenching his long white beard.
“No, no,” moaned Par Alexander, who covered his head from the pelting. “This is impossible.”
“Noah!” howled Ikkesh. “Noah, let us in!” He leaped to his feet and hammered at the Ark for admittance.
“Noah, open the door,” Queen Naamah cried. “Ham! Ham! It is I, your beloved!”
“Fools!” Laban shouted, who did his best to ignore the rain lashing against his face. “We have to help ourselves.”
The shaking had stopped, although their clothes were soaked and dark clouds billowed in the sky. It was a depressing sight, the worse because until this moment there had never been a cloud. As rain poured, the others peered at the demon-haunted king.
“Kedorlaomer,” Laban said. “Where are the nearest boats?”
“Boats?” asked the small nomad, terror etching his face into a grotesque mask.
“If there’s a flood we must ride it out,” Laban said.
“But Noah said that Jehovah will destroy the world with this Flood,” Zohar said.
“So Noah has predicted this strange event,” argued Laban. “That doesn’t mean he’s right in every particular.”
“Doesn’t it?” Ikkesh asked. “No, I think it does.”
“Look,” Bera shouted.
A vast throng of people, screaming and staggering as another earthquake hit, rushed for the Ark. Like an avalanche of flesh, they ran for the only place of safety.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” Laban shouted. “It’s either that or be tramp
led by the herd.” He grabbed Naamah by the arm and dragged Ikkesh and Bera by the chains clamped to their necks.
Kedorlaomer glanced at the Ark and then at the mob bearing upon them. “Wait for me, Sire.”
King Laban, energized by Azel, smote any that dared come close to him. But they kept coming, screaming, pleading, sobbing and the rain pelting them unmercifully. So Laban drew his sword, slashing to the right and to the left. He snarled and roared awful curses, shaking his bloody sword at the heavens and hewing until blood and water dripped from him in equal portions. Ymir joined him with his axe. The two of them thus opened the way for the others through the crying, wailing mob. And when they were through, they sprinted to the pavilion for the supplies they needed. Laban vowed to survive this madness no matter what he had to do.
11.
“Ham,” Rahab screamed. “Ham! Ham!”
He jumped out of his straw-filled cot and staggered against a sea chest. His shin exploded with pain. He clutched it and fell as the Ark swayed and shook. Through the walls, creatures brayed or bawled in mind-numbing volume. He scrambled up, the throbbing in his shin forgotten.
Husband and wife clutched one another.
Rahab sobbed, her face pressed against his shoulder.
Terror gripped Ham, and unbelievable gratitude that he was inside and not outside.
Timbers groaned. A plate clattered across the chest, moving on its own accord. It shattered against the floor. Then, as suddenly as the shaking had started, it stopped.
They listened. They heard animals and a strange thumping, a constant drumming.
“What is that?” Rahab whispered.
“Rain?” Ham asked.
Rahab stared into his face. “No. That sounds like people trying to hammer their way in.”
“The army of Chemosh,” Ham said.
“Oh, husband, what are we going to do?”
He grabbed her hand. They ran out the room and staggered down the corridors. For the first time Ham realized that it was a good thing the passageways were cramped. They couldn’t move much side to side, couldn’t bump and crash hard enough to hurt themselves. Boards groaned and creaked with strain, as the giant ship swayed because of another earthquake.
Wives of the Flood Page 19
