“Kill the old one!” a woman cried, by her makeup, beauty and costly apparel, a Singer.
“Nimrod will surely reward the person who first stones Shem,” a man shouted beside the woman.
“No,” said someone else. “He speaks for Jehovah. Leave the patriarch alone.”
“Semiramis speaks for Ishtar, a goddess!” another person cried, one with a conical hat, signifying her as a priestess.
Gilgamesh slipped past Semiramis and whispered to Shem. “You’ve stirred up a riot. Is that what you want?”
Shem’s shoulders deflated as he shook his head. “It’s no longer a matter of what I want. You’ve seen to that. This is in Jehovah’s hands.”
“You’re wrong,” whispered Gilgamesh. “It’s always in our hands.”
“Take him, Uruk,” Semiramis said. “Bring this blasphemer to my husband. Let the Mighty Hunter judge him.”
The War Chief hesitated a moment longer. Then he bellowed at his men, “Shield wall!”
The big men faced the crowd and locked shields as they drew long-bladed knives. Uruk took the remaining steps and reached for Shem.
“I wouldn’t do that,” warned Gilgamesh, his hand on an ornate dagger hilt.
Uruk recoiled, his upper lip curling, revealing yellowed teeth.
Several people in the crowd cheered Gilgamesh.
“The Queen has commanded me,” Uruk said.
“Gilgamesh,” Semiramis said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Stand back. Let the War Chief do his duty.”
Gilgamesh frowned.
Shem and he traded glances. “I’ll go with him,” Shem said. “Otherwise, I think there will be a riot.”
Gilgamesh yet hesitated.
“I said stand back,” Semiramis said.
Stubbornness flared in Gilgamesh’s eyes.
Uruk dared to put a hand on Shem, “Are you coming peacefully?”
Gilgamesh growled low under his breath.
“No,” hissed Semiramis, softly. “As you love me, stand back.”
Shem’s eyes widened. This woman was indeed Naamah reborn.
Gilgamesh wilted, and he nodded, taking a step up from Shem.
Shem turned to Uruk. “I’ll go with you. But you had better unhand me or a riot will start for certain.”
Uruk glanced at the crowd. Many glared at him and shoved closer. He removed his hand and hissed at the patriarch. Shem stepped among the warriors of the shield wall, and together they waded through the crowd. The warriors marched through twisting lanes and up wide brick steps, into a palace. Soon Shem stood before King Nimrod, who judged the case from his Dragonbone Throne. Kush sat in council with the king, together with Javan, the War Chief and Canaan the Magician.
“You’ve heard the charge of blasphemy against the gods and admitted to all of them,” Nimrod said.
Shem shrugged. He looked haggard, with bags under his eyes. The power of his words seemed to have left him.
“I still don’t understand why you didn’t stay in Akkad,” Canaan said. “You broke the terms of your parole.”
“He already told you why,” Kush said. “He thinks Jehovah spoke to him. That he had to obey the Voice.”
“Undoubtedly, Jehovah did speak to him,” Nimrod said. “It’s a last gasp before the end.”
Shem looked in wonder. “How can you be so foolish? Go to Mount Ararat if you don’t believe the Deluge destroyed the Earth. Examine the Ark.”
“Destroyed?” Nimrod asked. He glanced about. “This room doesn’t look destroyed to me. What do we walk on daily if not the Earth? Besides, we aren’t debating the actuality of the Deluge. We know it happened.”
“How then can you dare to stand against Jehovah?” Shem asked.
“Didn’t Jehovah promise never to send a Flood again?” Nimrod asked. “Isn’t that why we have rainbows?”
“Yes,” Shem said. “But even that isn’t the point. What happens after you’re dead? When your spirit departs the husk of your body, when the flame of life leaves your outer shell? Jehovah will judge you and send you to Sheol, the Lake of Fire.”
“So you say, old man. My gods say otherwise.”
“Then it’s true,” Shem said. “You’ve spoken to Satan, or to other fallen angels.”
“Of course it’s true,” Kush said. “I know you’ve heard how Bel appeared to the king before Babel was built. Why do you pretend to show surprise?”
“How could you boys have been so foolish?” Shem asked. “You know what happened in the Antediluvian Age. What you’re doing is insanity. It will bring the judgment of Jehovah upon you.”
“Enough!” Nimrod eyed him haughtily. “You say Jehovah is first, and I suppose you think He’s omnipotent. I say He’s been able to play a trick or two, but that isn’t the end of the game. If Jehovah is all-powerful, why does Satan still stand? Why does your Jehovah allow evil to exist, as you call it, if He has the omnipotent power to destroy evil? Either He desires to destroy evil and lacks the power or He’s lying about the wish to destroy it.”
Shem shook his head. “I can’t give you a complete answer, but you’re wrong. It’s a mystery why Jehovah allows evil for a little time.”
“A little time?” Nimrod sneered.
“Perhaps not as we mark time—but perhaps as we will mark it later in eternity. Think on this. Jehovah always was. Surely, to One such as Him time is very different than for us. Evil…” Shem shook his head. “It is a mystery why a holy Jehovah has allowed evil for this span of time. I suspect the possibility of evil was allowed, to allow us the freedom of choice. For if evil was impossible, how then could there be a choice?”
Nimrod snorted. “That’s an illogical answer worthy of a mystic. Mystery. Freedom of choice. Bah. Jehovah has lied to us. Jehovah claims He is holy and cannot stand sin, yet He allows it to exist. That is a sign of less than total power to anyone with the understanding to see. If I hate something, I stamp it out. Then there is this notion that Jehovah loves us, or He loves you his special ones, at least. And yet, Jehovah has allowed Babel to thrive. Why didn’t Jehovah protect you and yours during the Battle of Nineveh? The reason why is simple. There’s a war in the spiritual realm and Jehovah is losing. How can I tell? Babel thrives, as I’ve said. I have conquered you and not you me. And we have thrown off the yoke of Jehovah’s tiresome ways. Bel and Ishtar guide us, and Lucifer the Light Bearer will win and we will thereby win with him.”
The color drained from Shem. “You have sealed your doom, Mighty Hunter.”
Nimrod rose from the throne and snatched up his mace.
“It’s dangerous to kill him,” warned Canaan.
Nimrod hesitated.
“You are the dread sovereign of Babel,” Canaan said, bowing. “His words cannot harm you.”
Kush said, “Perhaps it would be wisest to send him back to Akkad, with a warning that if he ever sets foot in Babel again, certain of his favorites will be impaled. In another few years, after the people are fully accustomed to the new ways, then put him down if you still desire it.”
Nimrod resumed his throne. “No. Shem will stay in Babel, in the palace.” He grinned. “He will stay with the rats in a room I’ve had built in the lowest chamber.”
Shem wondered if that was a euphemism for the grave.
“Take him away,” Nimrod said.
8.
The gloomy chamber depressed Shem. It was under the palace as Nimrod had said. Uruk had opened a trapdoor and ushered him down a small spiral staircase into the earth. With a key, he had unlocked a heavy door and shoved him in.
Most of the time, it was pitch-black. When they brought him bread and water, his jailers used a torch and they gave him a lit candle. When the candle guttered out, he sat in darkness. He heard little other than his own breathing. His cell was five strides by five. With him were a reed mat and blanket, a bucket and several lumps of melted wax. He prayed, slept, ate and shuffled back and forth in his five by five cell. After several sleeps, he developed a cough, so he had something ne
w to listen to.
Then one day after a meal of barley porridge, he heard the upper trapdoor creak and the sound of a man treading the stairs. The key rotated in the lock and on stone hinges, the door opened.
Nimrod set down a stool, sitting in the doorway. The king wore hunting clothes and his single-horn crown. “Please,” Nimrod said, “sit.”
Shem moved to his mat, sitting cross-legged, using the cell wall as his backrest. He coughed wetly.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Nimrod said.
Shem shrugged.
Nimrod studied him a moment longer. He smiled. It was radiant as of old. “You’re unlike your brothers. My Grandfather Ham is a drunkard trying to reform with occasional flashes of glory. At times, he surprises you and then later he sits in his house carving his elephant ivory, seeming to have no care in the world. Japheth poses and brags about his wisdom. If you don’t praise him often enough, he frets and sulks in silence. But you have visions. You seem to take everything in stride. Now I’ll admit that you don’t come up with interesting inventions and cunning artifices. Ham, as I said, surprises one with his insights and brilliance. But it’s meteoric, flashes, burnouts.”
Shem’s cough turned into hacking. He spat phlegm into the bucket.
“You’re different than your brothers. You understand more about the spirit world than the rest of us.”
Shem shrugged again.
Nimrod rested an elbow on his knee, stroking his chin. “You’re more like Noah. And in that sense you trouble me.” The king patted his sheathed dagger. “Part of me says, kill him and be done with it. The other half suggests caution, that perhaps I should glean information out of you. That you might help me discover in what ways Lucifer lies to me. I doubt the prince of angels gives me the whole truth.”
“After that you’ll kill me?”
“You could join us,” Nimrod suggested.
Shem smiled.
“Isn’t joining us than better than death?” Nimrod asked.
“No.”
“So you truly believe in Sheol, this Lake of Fire?”
“I do.”
“Because Jehovah said so?”
“Exactly.”
“What is it like having Jehovah talk to you? I’ve only heard Bel and Lucifer.”
“Listening to Jehovah makes your belly sink and your knees weak. It makes you feel dirty, small and insignificant. Then you thrill to have the Creator agree to speak with you. It’s the most marvelous thing in the world.”
“Better than sleeping with a beautiful woman?” Nimrod asked.
“Of course.”
Nimrod considered that. “Lucifer showed me the beginning. It was awesome, as you say. I saw the angels at their birth, or at their evolution.”
“Their what?”
“The angels evolved.”
“What does that mean?”
“Lucifer says its means they were self-created.”
Shem snorted, which brought on another bout of coughing. He shook his head. “He is the prince of liars. Jehovah created the angels.”
“Jehovah certainly seems powerful. Yet…when the other gods are ranged against Jehovah, who will win?”
“Jehovah.”
“How do you know that’s the truth?”
“Who brought the Flood?”
Nimrod rubbed his chin. “Jehovah says to us, don’t do this, do that, serve me in such and such a way. It is very tiresome.”
“Jehovah is the Creator. It is His right to do as He pleases. Consider, has your spear ever complained how you use it?”
“Of course not.”
“Neither should we complain how Jehovah uses us. He fashioned us just as you or some spear-maker fashioned your spear. Only Jehovah did more than that. You had to find wood and smelt ore to make bronze. Jehovah, out of nothing, made the substance out of which He fashioned man.”
“That’s an interesting thesis. But I am not a piece of wood or bronze. I am a man.” Nimrod grinned. “Soon I am to become a god.”
“No. Soon you are to die.”
Nimrod scowled.
“You are like mist in the field. The sun or a strong gust of wind will make you vanish. You are like the grass that withers, dies and is thrown into the fire. Trust Jehovah and live. Defy Him and you will find yourself pitched into the Lake of Fire.”
“No!” roared Nimrod, leaping to feet. “I am Nimrod! I am the Mighty Hunter! I will not bow my neck to some tyrant even though he threatens me with terrible perils. I will war against Jehovah. Even better, I will gain allies, have gained allies, and with them I will storm Heaven and unseat Jehovah from his throne. Then freedom will reign. Why do you think I have built the Tower? Out of sheer megalomania? That’s what many think, but they are wrong. It is a staging area, a mystic link to the other realm, to the spirit world. Lucifer himself will come down and teach man wisdom. He will help us fight.”
“You are a fool, Nimrod, a dupe of Satan. Think well on what happened in Eden.”
“I have, old man. Adam and Eve gained insight. Before that, they were buffoons, playthings and toys for Jehovah. Then Lucifer opened their eyes and they knew good and evil. Yes, Jehovah drove them out of Eden, because he feared this new man. But soon, soon, old man, Jehovah will have to pay for his arrogance, for his bluster and tyranny. Soon mankind will arise with dreadful powers and Heaven itself will shake. And I, Nimrod, will lead the charge. My throne will last forever. None shall topple me. This is what I have been promised.”
“By the prince of liars, which means you have a fool’s bargain.”
Nimrod’s hard eyes narrowed. “Call me a fool again and I’ll kick you to death.”
Shem looked away.
After a time, Nimrod picked up the stool. “Perhaps a day or two without food will clear your senses. People say fasting is a useful endeavor. We’ll talk afterward.”
The door slammed. The lock turned. Footsteps grew fainter and the trapdoor above thumped shut.
9.
The Glorious Day of Celebration of the completion of the Tower and the temple atop it neared. As ordered by Nimrod, people poured from the four cities of the north and from the cities in the plain of Shinar. They thronged the streets, staying with friends or relatives, marveling at the splendor of Babel. The great city seethed with activity as anticipation of the day rose. Feasts, wine drinking and dancing, the nightly festivities primed them for what some whispered as the coming grand debauch. They wore colored woolens dyed bright red, purple, yellow and green. During the day, they trooped past the mighty monument in the plaza, seeing the work of the hands of men, impressed, awed and certain now that their name would shine throughout eternity.
The Tower of Babel arose seven imposing levels or terraces, a man-made mountain, some said in imitation of the Holy Mount of Heaven. The bottom terrace was painted white, and each succeeding level was black, red, white, orange, silver and gold. On the peak, reached by three sets of stairways, stood the temple, the holy shrine, of enameled blue bricks. The proud Tower of Babel filled hearts with dreams of glory, of might, of staggering possibilities. A civilization had fallen, but now one rose up that would dwarf the ages. The Age of Man, of heroes and builders, was upon them. Like a beacon, the Tower beckoned them to achieve greatness. Here we stand, humanity, proud, bold and assertive.
Flanking the main ramp were two tall, leather-covered objects. They had appeared one morning after a night of enforced curfew and constant wagon creaking and the lowing of oxen. Three times the height of a man and guarded hourly by warriors, the people wondered what lay under those tied-down tarps.
In the middle of the morning a few days before the celebration, a worried Minos tiptoed through one of the palace’s hidden corridors. He held a golden lyre under one arm and wore a purple tunic and a garland of flowers in his curly hair. With a wary look that a rat stealing upon a cat’s saucer of milk might have, he approached a door and lightly rapped upon oiled wood.
The door opened suddenly, almost instantly, and a
n angry Semiramis ushered him into a room full of flowers in colorful vases, with perfumed furs kicked into a corner. She wore a sheer piece of linen that ill-concealed her beauty, with her hair piled high and held in place by several ivory combs.
“Why didn’t he show?” she snapped.
“His wife arrived yesterday,” Minos said. “He sends his sorrows and asks that you understand.”
“Did he sleep with her?”
“Sister,” Minos said soothingly. “Uruk saw to that. I’m told Opis shudders if Gilgamesh even glances at the bed while she’s in the room.”
Semiramis fretted with a smooth cord that bound her slight linen slip. “It’s a pity any of that had to happen. I don’t rejoice in it.”
“Of course not,” Minos said.
Semiramis glanced at him sharply. “I’m in no mood for your mockery.”
“You don’t think I feel similar regret? Plotting a rape, gathering the scoundrels needed for it and then harming an innocent girl… It’s a terrible deed, and your conscience has enough weighing it without this added insult. Fortunately, a single cup of poison can clear everything. Away, guilt! Away, conscience! The thought is breathtaking.”
“One day you’ll go too far, dear brother. I promise you that.”
His grin was crooked. “It’s lucky for me then that you break every promise you’ve ever made.”
Thoughtful worry replaced her rage. “Have I misjudged you, little brother? Does your nerve crack?”
Minos turned away, and he began to pace.
“Look at me, Minos.”
He sat on a stool and set down his lyre. It seemed that his hand trembled.
“I shouldn’t have asked for your help in this.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Minos said.
“He mustn’t suspect.”
“Don’t you think I know that? My blood freezes every time he looks at me. Then I tell myself: All he can think about is godhood, about his coming apotheosis. He can’t tell that my hand shakes, or that my notes are sour, that his Singers misstep their dances because of it. But some of the Singers frown at me as they twirl about him. Oh, yes, they know because I’m constantly wiping sweat from my forehead and because I stink like a reeking warrior.”
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