Noah (26 page)

Noah blinked up at him, helpless. Tubal-cain grinned again, enjoying his victory.

“The Ark is mine,” he gloated. “The beasts are mine. Your women are mine. I will build a new world. In
my
image.”

He paused a moment longer, wanting to watch as his words registered in Noah’s mind. He wanted to
see the anguish, the horror, the terrible sense of loss fill Noah’s eyes before he brought the spear down and watched those same eyes glaze over in death.

But suddenly he sensed a flash of movement on his left-hand side, and a second later an icy numbness began to spread through his body. It blossomed from his heart and seeped into his limbs, which all at once felt incredibly heavy. Try as he might, he couldn’t prevent his arms from dropping to his sides, or the spear from slipping from his nerveless fingers. His legs gave way and he dropped to his knees. As the coldness crept into his brain, dulling his thoughts, he looked down and saw the shiv buried in his chest. His lifeblood, his heart’s blood, was pumping from the wound that it had made.

He looked up again—his head feeling so, so heavy now—and saw Ham standing there. The boy had his hand outstretched and partly open, as though he could still feel the shape and weight of the shiv in it. He looked shocked by what he had done, but also fiercely proud.

Summoning up his last vestiges of strength, Tubal-cain reached out, grabbed the boy’s hand and pulled him close in an almost fatherly hug. Fumbling with his other hand, he removed the snakeskin from around his neck.

He pushed it into Ham’s hand.

“Now you are a man,” he croaked.

He looked into Ham’s eyes and curled his lips into a final terrible grin.

Then he died.

* * *

Every time his head pulsed, more blood oozed from it and his vision went gray and blurred at the edges. Noah still had enough of his wits about him to see and understand what had happened, though. He sat up slowly. He was hurting all over. He felt a hundred years old. Ham was looking down at Tubal-cain’s body, the snakeskin draped limply across his outstretched hands.

Noah spat blood from his mouth.

“Ham,” he rasped.

Ham looked at him. His face was blank.

“Her name was Na’el,” Ham said. “She was innocent, father. She was good.”

Without waiting for a reply he turned and walked away.

Noah watched him go. He didn’t try to call him back.

So this was what it had come to—the Ark ruined, many of the animals injured or dead, his middle son a murderer, and his eldest son determined to defy the Creator’s wishes, whatever the cost.

Noah’s heart felt heavy with grief as he rose wearily to his feet. He saw the knife lying in a puddle of water on the floor, where it had fallen. He limped across and picked it up.

Then, leaving Shem lying unconscious with blood on his face, he shuffled from the room.

N
aameh had taken the brunt of the impact on her back and right hip, crashing into the far wall of the Hearth with such force that she knew she would be stiff and aching and black with bruises by the following morning. But the babies were unharmed, which was all that mattered.

Once the Ark stopped shuddering, she rose to her feet, crossed gingerly to the tent, and slipped inside.

Ila, still awash in her own sweat and birthing fluids, had slid along the floor, but instead of shooting out of the entrance she had slammed to a halt against the canvas wall. When Naameh entered she was in the process of dragging herself across the floor and back to the dubious sanctuary of her saturated, blood-smeared bedroll.

Naameh limped across to her, knelt down with a wince of pain, and opened her arms, presenting the new mother with her babies.

“They are beautiful, my darling,” Naameh said softly. “Twin sisters.”

Ila looked up at Naameh, desperation in her eyes.

* * *

Despite all that had happened, Noah’s single-minded determination to fulfill the Creator’s wishes had not deserted him. Hunched, battered and wounded, he dragged himself, step by painful step, up each ladder and along one corridor after another.

* * *

Naameh was standing like a guard outside the entrance to the Hearth when Noah appeared. She stared at him in horror as he limped steadily toward her. His face was swollen and bloody, his clothes torn and wet and disheveled. He had been in a fight, and a terrible one at that. Her heart clenched.

“Shem!” she cried, her voice shrill with alarm. “What have you done to Shem?”

Noah ignored the question. He glared at her.

“Move away,” he growled.

He was almost upon her now. Naameh raised her hands defensively.

“It’s a boy!” she cried. “
A boy!
”

Noah halted, stared at her, scrutinizing her face. “If that was true, you would not sound so desperate to make me believe it, nor look so fearful.”

He stepped forward and swept out an arm, brusquely pushing her aside.

Naameh stumbled and fell, howling in pain as her already bruised hip made contact with the hard wooden floor.

Without so much as a backward glance at her,
Noah shoved open the door of the Hearth and clomped inside. Japheth was sitting against the wall, clutching his knees. He looked up fearfully as his father entered.

Ignoring him, Noah crossed to Shem and Ila’s tent and pulled back the entry flap. Inside he saw bloody bedding, and bowls of equally bloody water. But there was no sign of Ila and her offspring.

He turned to Japheth, scowling. “Where is she?”

Japheth quailed.

Naameh, having picked herself up, followed her husband into the Hearth.

“They are
twins
, Noah!” she cried. “Beautiful twin girls. You can’t kill two of them!”

Noah opened his mouth to ask again where Ila was, but before he could do so he heard the thin, high wail of a baby. It came from somewhere above him. He looked up at the ceiling.

“No,” Naameh begged. “Please.”

* * *

Noah emerged from below deck, climbing out on to the roof of the Ark. The island into which the vessel had crashed was on his right, waves lapping at its shore. His attention, however, was wholly focused on the slight figure at the far end of the deck, her back to him. She was looking out to sea, as if contemplating diving off the edge and going for a swim. Her light brown hair was blowing in the wind.

Noah sighed and drew the knife from his belt. He began to limp toward her. As he got closer to Ila he could hear her sobbing, loudly and uncontrollably. As if sensing their mother’s misery her babies were crying, too.

“Ila,” he said, his voice gruff but not unkind.

She turned slowly. The babies were swaddled in blankets, one in the crook of each of her arms. Her eyes and nose were red from weeping, her face wet with tears.

“Please, Noah,” she begged. “Please. These are my children. Your granddaughters.”

Noah stepped forward. Gently but firmly he reached out and tried to pry one of the newborns from her grip. Ila shook her head, resisted, gripping the child more tightly. It began to wail, to scream, and then its twin sister echoed it.

“Forgive me,” Noah said, but he continued to try to wrest the child from her grip. She clung on, doggedly, desperately.

“Please, child,” Noah said, raising his voice above the screaming infants. “You cannot stop me. Don’t make it more distressing than it already is.”

Ila, still sobbing, began to nod. “All right,” she wept, “all right.”

Noah paused, waited. Ila took a deep, shuddering breath. She sniffed hard, swallowing her tears.

Finally, as though she was offering her own arms to be hacked off at the elbows, she slowly held the babies out toward him. As soon as they felt themselves becoming detached from the warmth of their mother’s body, however, they began to squeal all the louder.

With an almost animal-like moan of pain, Ila pulled the babies back to her breast.

Noah scowled. “Now!” he said. “There is nothing to be gained in delaying this.”

“I know, I know,” Ila whispered, tears still running down her face. “I cannot stop you. But please…”

She forced down her distress. For the sake of her
babies she tried to compose herself, to appear calm.

“They’re crying,” she said softly. “Don’t let them die crying. Let me calm them. Please? I won’t stop you, it’s just… let them be at peace.”

She looked at him so beseechingly, so yearningly, that there was a part of Noah, deep down, which wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her, too. However he forced his face to remain stern.

He nodded.

Ila flashed him a look of gratitude. She began to hum. And then, gently, she started to sing.

“The moon is high

The trees entwined

Your father waits for thee

To wrap you in his sheltering wings

And whisper you to sleep

To wrap you in his welcome arms

Until the night sky breaks

Your father is the healing wind

That whispers you to sleep

It was the lullaby Noah had sung to her, many years before, when they had been held captive in the Watchers’ pit and she had been feverish, recovering from her wound. Noah felt emotion welling up in him, but he forced it back down. The wails of the infants dwindled to whimpers, and then eventually to silence. They gazed up at their mother, as if in wonder.

Calm.

At peace.

At last Ila stopped singing. Silent tears were streaming down her cheeks, reflecting the light from
the sky above, shining like liquid fire. She stepped toward Noah and held out her arms, offering her babies to his knife.

“You do not need to see this,” Noah said. “Go inside.”

But Ila shook her head.

“No. I will hold them, keep them quiet. But do it now. Do it quickly.”

Noah stared into her eyes for a long moment, then he gave a single curt nod and stepped forward. He raised the knife. Its blade flashed in the sun.

Ila stared up into Noah’s bruised and blood-smeared face. Neither defiant nor calm, but stoical, choosing to accept for the simple reason that she could resist no longer.

Time seemed suspended. Noah stood with the knife upraised.

The babies stared trustingly up at him.

Noah’s hand began to shake. The blade of the knife vibrated.

Then his granite reserve crumbled. He groaned, sobbed. Tears began to pool in his eyes and run down his face, into his beard, mingling with the blood. His shoulders slumped. He staggered backward, his arm sinking to his side. He opened his hand and the knife clattered on to the wooden deck.

“I can’t,” he moaned. “I won’t.” He looked up at the sky, as if directly addressing the Creator. “I cannot do this.”

He began to stumble away just as Shem, his face equally bloody, followed by Naameh and Japheth, scrambled up out of the hatch and onto the roof.

“Ila,” Shem shouted, and he ran to her, past his father, who he completely ignored. He reached Ila
and his daughters and threw his arms around them. Naameh and Japheth rushed up to them, too, bypassing Noah, who was still stumbling, still weeping, his head down, his shoulders slumped in defeat.

He disappeared back down into the Ark, like an animal seeking the sanctuary of its burrow. As he did, the gray-white clouds above the little knot of hugging, weeping, laughing people suddenly parted, and for the first time in weeks, months, sunlight streamed down, golden and warm, illuminating Shem and Ila and their babies as they clung together.

Japheth stared up in wonder. He gazed at the blue sky breaking through the hazy cloud cover as if he had never seen anything so vibrant in his life. And then he spotted something else. A white speck against the blue. It seemed to be drifting toward them, getting closer.

He felt a tingle of anticipation. After the raven had returned again with nothing in its claws, Japheth had made his way down to the avian deck. He had awakened another bird, and set it free.

Could this be…?
He shielded his eyes.

Yes! Yes it is!

“Mother!” he shouted, pointing. “Mother, look!”

Naameh’s head snapped up, her face full of alarm. She glanced toward the hatch, as if afraid that Noah had come back, that he had had a change of heart. And then she saw that Japheth’s arm was raised above his head, that he was pointing straight up into the sky.

“What is it?” she asked, shielding her eyes with her hand.

“It’s my bird,” Japheth said. “My dove. It’s come back!”

The white dove circled the Ark and then slowly wheeled toward them. Japheth extended his arm and the dove settled on it. It was holding something in its talons, which it gladly relinquished to Japheth.

“What is it?” Ila asked.

It was Naameh who answered.

“An olive branch,” she said.

* * *

Gouged into the cliff face was a cave, which faced out across the vast ocean. Islands dotted the ocean, green and abundant, blossoming with new life. Above the cliff birds wheeled and let loose their raucous cries, their nests, full of eggs, abundant among the rocky crooks and crevices.

Others had built their homes in the remains of the Ark itself, while below, deer and other animals grazed on the grass and scrub. The sky was clear and bright, a pure white sun beaming down from its zenith.

The man who sat outside the cave, a warm breeze ruffling his long, dirty hair, was oblivious to the beauty around him. He was drinking rough wine that he had made on a simple wine press, using grapes from one of the many clusters of vines that had sprung up on the island.

He drank and drank. He drank to forget. His thoughts were nothing but darkness, and his heart was heavy with shame and regret and sorrow.

Once he had had a family. Once he had known love, and faith.

But no longer. Now he had lost everything. Now there was only emptiness.

* * *

It took Ham a while to find his father. When he did, he felt nothing but disgust.

Noah was lying unconscious on a muddy rock shelf inside a cave high up on the cliff face, naked, filthy and snoring. Empty wine jugs were scattered around him, many of them broken. Insects were crawling in his long gray hair and matted beard, and his scrawny, starved body was covered with dozens of small bruises and contusions, some of which looked to have become infected.