Ham gripped his son’s smooth hands, so unlike the rough paws a winter of digging had given him.
“She breathes but remains unconscious,” Canaan said, dropping his gaze. “I can’t raise her. Neither can Kush, Nimrod or Semiramis.”
“Raise her? What was he talking about?
“Please. You must come before it’s too late.”
In a daze, Ham climbed aboard the chariot. Canaan lashed the donkeys, and the chariot rattled along the dirt road. A growing headache and a welling fear for his wife made it a dreadful journey.
As they drove, Canaan told him that Rahab had been sick for months. They prayed for her often, and tried to raise her spirits. She had swooned several times before, but had never remained unconscious for so long.
“What’s that mean?” Ham asked.
A wary look made Canaan seem like a ferret. “Well, she didn’t swoon exactly.”
“What then?” Ham said. “Make sense.”
“There were times we couldn’t wake her.”
“That’s not swooning, but something else entirely. What’s wrong with you boys? Why wasn’t I fetched right away?”
Canaan studied the path.
Ham grabbed a fistful of the fancy robe, ready to tear it off.
“Nimrod felt—”
Ham roared at the name, releasing the robe, barely keeping himself from hurling Canaan off the chariot and lashing the donkeys until they bled.
The leagues passed in silence. The wild terrain gave way to cultivated fields and pleasant groves. Finally, the proud city of his sons rose up. Horns pealed from the walls. Soon, they drove through the Lion Gate. Some of the houses seemed bigger than before. They took a turn down a different lane and Ham’s eyes widened.
The Tower was huge. It stood in a wide plaza, a vast open area, really. They had already raised the first level over five cubits high. Thousands of bricks—hundreds of thousands of glazed, kiln-burnt bricks—Ham blinked, staggered at the work this represented. Were they mad? This thing was a monstrosity. The base was square with brick piled on brick. Even now, men staggered up a ramp with baskets, the headbands helping to stabilize the load on their backs.
At five cubits high, the Tower already dominated the city. It made everything around it seem like a hovel of huts.
Ham tore his gaze from the thing. He noticed people going past that he didn’t recognize.
“Festival worked,” Canaan told him. “The others have already started immigrating here.”
Meaningless, meaningless, motes scattered by the wind, thought Ham. What was wrong with his wife?
Canaan cracked the whip and took another turn. Children screamed, running out of the chariot’s path.
Ham frowned. Canaan didn’t drive him to his house, but aimed at a large clay cube he’d never seen before. It too had been constructed out of glazed bricks. The cube was square, two stories tall and wide.
Canaan yanked the reins and the donkeys almost collapsed as they halted before broad clay steps leading into the cube.
“This way,” Canaan said, tugging Ham.
Ham grabbed Canaan. “This isn’t my house.”
“We brought her to the temple,” Canaan said. “We thought to revive her by our arts.”
Unease filled Ham as they hurried up the steps into the cube, running through a small door, the only entrance he could see. They hurried down a dim corridor that smelled of incense and then stepped into a torch-smoky hall. It was big and spacious, with bizarre paintings on the walls. Angels with wings bore swords, pictured bulls with man-faces and eagle’s wings soared around the moon. Painted stars glittered everywhere, while a man-creature with a jackal’s head held scales, one end of the scale clustered with people, the other with a bleeding heart.
“What are those?” whispered Ham.
“Powers and principalities,” Canaan said in a hushed voice. “We’ve learned so much, Father. You would be amazed.”
Ham groaned. Rahab lay on a brick slab, a blanket pulled up to her chin. Porphyry-stone the color of burning coals made up the tiles around the slab. He staggered to her, touching her cold cheek, her clammy forehead. Like a prune, wrinkled and sucked dry of life, she slept as a wraith of what she had once been.
“Oh, Rahab,” Ham whispered. “Won’t you sit up and greet me with a kiss?” Tears trickled down his cheeks, sunburned by a winter in the reservoir.
“We called to her spirit,” Canaan whispered.
Wiping his eyes, Ham peered at his son, at the costly garb and the…powers and principalities painted on the walls. The feel reminded him of Antediluvian Chemosh.
“Did you try praying to Jehovah?” Ham asked.
Canaan winced as if slapped.
“We used our arts, Father, I promise you that. We called…” Canaan moistened his lips. “It’s been a busy year. You built the reservoir, while Nimrod and Semiramis have taught us much. Not even the eternal fire could warm mother’s blood. Then, despite what the others said, I knew we must summon you.”
Ham shuddered, and he avoided looking at the painted angels and bull-men. Weariness filled him. Noah had been right. When had his father ever been wrong? He drew aside the blanket.
“What are you doing?” Canaan asked.
Ham scooped up his small wife. She breathed shallowly, and a flutter indicated her heartbeat. It was so soft, much too frail. She was skin and bones, nothing more than a wraith. Tears dripped from his eyes as he carried her, with Canaan dogging his side.
“No, Father. We must ask the War Chief’s permission to take her.”
“You ask him,” Ham muttered.
Canaan clutched an elbow. “I caution you. She’s your wife, but our mother, the mother of the Hamites.”
A hollow, hurtful laugh—searing his tender throat—caused Canaan’s hand to drop away. Ham carried Rahab out of the evil hold. He turned down dusty streets with small mud homes, heading for his own. As he neared it, puzzlement filled him.
“There used to be houses here,” he told Canaan, who had remained with him.
“We tore them down to make room for the Tower,” Canaan said.
Ham glanced around, searching. “Where’s my house?”
Canaan looked away.
Ham realized then his offspring had torn down his house with the others. He ground his teeth. They had stolen his home while he’d toiled in the reservoir. Where had Rahab lived? Where had she slept? Indecisive, holding his dying wife, Ham turned away as sons, daughters and grandchildren and now great-grandchildren ran after him. They called him. He couldn’t hear their words, what they actually said anyway. It was just noise washing against him. He took one step at a time, recalling Noah’s words: “Take who you can out of Babel.”
He headed for the Lion Gate, with a host trailing behind him. They whispered among themselves, although no one dared to bar his path.
“Grandfather.”
Ham recognized Nimrod’s voice. It sounded quite imperious. For a moment, Ham could have sworn the face of Ymir appeared ghostlike in his mind’s eye.
“Leave me,” Ham said as he clutched Rahab to his chest. He staggered out the gate, going a hundred paces beyond. There he sagged to his knees, weeping over his wife, tenderly smoothing her silver hair.
Her eyelids fluttered.
“Rahab?” he asked.
“Ham,” she whispered.
“I love you,” he said, brushing her cheek. “I’ve always loved you.”
She gazed into his eyes, hers filmed. The light-of-life in her eyes flickered lower. A smile curved her cracked lips. Then, her eyelids closed and her breath stilled as she died.
9.
At midnight, Ham and Kush reeled around the Tower, with stars glittering in the heavens. A leathery jug with a wooden stopper passed between them. Palm-wine trickled down their throats as, in turn, they upended the jug.
“Leave me some,” Ham said.
Kush was very drunk. He grinned as he drank. Wine spilled against his teeth, staining his beard and drip
ping onto his robe.
Scowling, Ham snatched the jug from him.
Hiccupping, Kush said, “Don’t worry. There’s more if we want.”
Ham guzzled. He didn’t know what to do now that Rahab was gone.
Kush solemnly raised his head, pointing at the night watchman peering down from the Towerin-construction. “What do you want, boy, a taste?”
The night watchman and his lantern retreated out of sight.
Drunkenness tried to hold Ham’s emptiness at bay. What lingered threatened to cause him to scream at the heavens, to grab a sword and hew all Babel to death. Instead, to drive away the pain, he said, “I thought they forbid the watchman to come down at night. That on oath, whoever is watchman must remain up there until morning.”
“That’s right,” Kush said.
“Why?”
“Because the Tower is sacred.”
Ham glared at the Tower. He yearned to kick it, to leap upon it like a beast and rip away brick after brick. He guzzled more wine instead, panting as Kush tore the jug from him.
“Leave me some,” Kush said.
Ham swayed as Kush drank.
“The night watchman paces the Tower section by section,” Kush said, rambling. “He keeps his lantern close to the bricks, scraping up pigeon droppings and depositing them in a pouch. We must prevent pollution, you understand. In the morning, the watchman gives the pouch to Canaan or me, who hand it out as holy manure, guaranteed to increase a field’s yield.”
Ham grunted. It sounded like a sham worthy of the Tower.
They stumbled over stray bricks left by the workers and knocked shoulders. With tears leaking from his eyes, Kush took Ham’s arm and told a story about Rahab.
The boy had loved his mother. Who hadn’t loved Rahab? If anyone ever spoke ill of her, Ham vowed to stick a knife into the man’s guts. Even Nimrod had spoken glowingly of her. The War Chief had presided over Rahab today, making it a citywide occasion. Tomorrow they would burn her on a pyre, her ashes saved in a jar.
Ham was glad now that after the ceremony Kush had pulled him aside and pleaded he come to his house to toast Rahab’s memory. Kush had said that tonight they should forget their differences.
The boxing story resurfaced as they reeled around the Tower. After that, they staggered in silence. The last dregs sloshed at the bottom of the jug, but both men seemed disinclined to end the night by draining it.
Panting, Ham leaned against the baked brick wall and cradled the jug like a baby.
Kush swayed, blinking, a weird smile appearing and then disappearing.
“What?” Ham slurred.
With his finger, Kush brushed the side of his nose, as if he knew a great secret. His full white beard and its streak of wine-stain and, with his palm-softened features, he seemed wise, philosophic and sage.
“You look like a mongoose with a mouse,” Ham said.
Kush glanced both ways before he said, “Listen.”
“What?”
Kush shuffled closer, his eyes glazed. “A secret,” he whispered. “It’s hidden knowledge.” He licked his lips, looking about before he bent nearer. “Using it, I could have predicted my failure versus Noah. The foray was doomed from the beginning.”
Ham found it difficult to concentrate. “That’s nonsense,” he said.
“Listen,” hissed Kush. “We’ve cracked the code.” His eyes shone. “I’ve cracked it. The marvel is that none of the old ones ever did. Makes you wonder. In fact, I suspect they knew all along but selfishly kept it to themselves.”
Ham glared drunkenly at his boy.
Kush blinked owlishly, stroking his wine-stained beard. Drunkenness had stolen the harshness from his features, leaving him looking ocular and profound.
“What do you see?” Kush said, pointing at the crescent moon.
“The night sky.”
“Right. Stars, planets and other heavenly bodies.”
“So?” Ham asked, drooling because of numb lips.
“So? he says. Listen. That isn’t really what you see.”
Ham squinted up at the stars.
“The heavens are filled with outlines of men, women, animals, monsters and other objects. Each of the outlines holds a set number of stars.”
“Ah,” Ham said. “You mean the constellations.”
“Yes. Forty-eight star groups, forty-eight figures and forty-eight constellations.”
Ham continued squinting. He knew the legends, had been fed on them since he first started talking. In the heavens, the sky, the Sun took twelve equal steps throughout the year, changing the positions of the nighttime star-groupings. This zoad or walk or going by steps, like a ladder, had been named the Zodiac. Each month a different group of stars came into prominence, hence the twelve signs. It began with Virgo the Virgin and showed the figure of a prostrate young woman, with an ear of wheat in one hand and a branch in the other. The fourth sign was Scorpio the Scorpion: the figure of a gigantic, noxious and deadly insect with its tail and sting uplifted in anger, as if striking. The last, the twelfth sign was Leo the Lion: the figure of a great lion, leaping forth to rend, with its paws over the writhing body of Hydra, the Serpent, which was in the act of fleeing.
Each of the major signs had three decans. The decans of Sagittarius the Bowman for instance were Lyra, an eagle holding the lyre, as in triumphant gladness; Ara the Altar, with consuming fire, burning downward; and Draco the Dragon, the old Serpent, winding himself about the pole in horrid contortions. The decans of Aries the Ram were Cassiopeia, the woman enthroned; Cetus the Sea-Monster, closely and strongly bound by the Lamb; and Peruses, an armed and mighty man with winged feet, who carried away in triumph the cut-off head of a monster full of writhing serpents.
After Adam and Eve’s terrible fall from grace, Jehovah gave them special revelation. The Serpent and its seed would war throughout the ages and lose against the woman and her seed. This knowledge, Jehovah wished everyone to know. What Adam learned, and what he observed in the heavens, he passed on to Seth and he in turn taught his descendant Enoch. Long lives allowed them to study the night sky at leisure, and living at the same time for hundreds of years, they pooled their knowledge, observations and revelations. They invented the Zodiac as a primeval and constant source of the great story of man’s coming Redeemer.
Even drunk to the point of idiocy, Ham could recite the Zodiac and what the various decans meant. Three “Books” made up the story. Each book contained four chapters. Thus, Book One was The Redeemer Promised. Its chapters were Virgo, Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius. Each decan along with the main sign meant that four points made up each chapter. Book Two was The Redeemer’s People, made up of chapters Capricorn, Aquarius, Pisces and Aries. The last book was Redemption Completed, the chapters Taurus, Gemini, Cancer and Leo.
In essence, the story foretold a coming Savior who would be bruised but victorious, defeating Satan, and then taking His people with Him to Heaven.
“Oh, the Antediluvians were clever,” Kush said. “Adam, Seth and Enoch, they hid as much as they revealed. But others watched. Others saw what happened and listened in on conversations held long ago. Not all secrets have been buried under the mud of the Deluge.”
Ham wiped spittle from his beard and shook the jug, wondering if he should drain it.
Kush chuckled, absorbed with his guile. “Nimrod and Semiramis delve deeply. So does Canaan. But I, ah, I have long sought the hidden things. So to me has been revealed…secrets.”
“Secrets?” Ham slurred. “What secrets?”
With his superior smile, almost a smirk, Kush brushed the side of his nose. “The old lore tells it like this. Jehovah said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and for years.’”
Ham nodded, reciting drunkenly, “Jehovah is the Maker of the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the constellations of the south.”
“Yes,” Kush said. “It is deep lore. Yet ther
e is deeper still. As Nimrod has learned, and I in my secret studies have learned, angels are given tasks. One of those tasks is to move the stars, the planets and thus the constellations.”
Ham shrugged.
“No,” Kush said, “don’t dismiss it. It means everything.”
Ham shook the jug, listening to the last dregs slosh.
“Angels move the stars and the wandering planets,” Kush said. “They are under Divine injunctions. The moments have meaning. More than that, which star a man is born under controls his fate. What he does on certain days is fixed by which constellations are in ascension. But don’t think anyone can decipher such lore. Oh, I have scrolls, Father, carefully written, deeply studied and now compared against the knowledge of the ancients. The angel of the sun teaches us, he teaches me.”
Ham blinked, wondering if any of this was important.
“Charts, lines, stars and birth-dates,” Kush said. “It all has bearing.”
“Bearing on what?”
“On a man’s horoscope,” Kush whispered.
Ham shivered, and for a moment, he seemed swathed in darkness. He rubbed his eyes until he saw the stars again and Kush’s evil grin.
“Astrology,” Kush said, with a drunken wave indicating the heavens. “The old ones understood the power, but they only revealed to posterity bits and pieces. Now we’ve unlocked their secrets.”
“You’re babbling.”
“No. I studied Nimrod’s chart. He’s a Leo, the Lion, the King and the Conqueror. Yes, I’ve delved deeper into the art than any one else in Babel. I’ve studied my own chart. I never could have succeeded against Noah during the weeks before and after Festival, or during either. The stars predicted failure and predicted Nimrod’s rise.”
Ham frowned, with a sharp pain in his belly. He massaged his gut.
“Neither Nimrod nor I have made the secret known,” Kush said, “but we will, in time. Only the inner circle knows about it now. Astrology is one of our secret powers, one of the reasons why we will win. The others will flail at the wrong times, while we, from now on, will strike at the best moment. And when the Tower is finished…” Kush squinted. Wheels moved slowly in his mind, it seemed, changing Kush’s features at each turn. “You can keep a secret, can’t you, Father?”
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