Noah Primeval (Chronicles of the Nephilim) (22 page)

Methuselah sighed with sadness. “Because I foolishly found my significance in being loved by her, rather than in us both being loved by Elohim.”

Noah put his arm around his grandfather.

Methuselah said, “I wish you had met her. You would have loved her. You are a lot like her. Full of life, zeal, and a good warrior
.”

Noah said, “It is hard to imagine: ‘Grandmother, the giant killer.’”

They laughed. “Let me tell you,” said Methuselah, “She was a giant killer in bed too.”

“Grandfather,
you are telling me too much,” said Noah lightheartedly.

Methuselah chuckled, “Sorry.” He treasured his memories of the passion of his youth and the oneness that glorified God.

“Why have you not killed Behemoth?” asked Noah, referring to the source of his unhappiness.

Methuselah completed Noah’s sentence slyly, “Yet.”

Noah looked at him curiously.

Methuselah explained, “While we reside in this valley, that vile creature acts as a guard dog for our security. I would be a fool to settle my score without consideration of the consequences. But when the wrath of Elohim comes, I will have my satisfaction.”

Noah wondered if he meant that Elohim’s wrath would
be
that satisfaction or if Methuselah still had designs on the beast. He did not want to feed the hurt, so he avoided asking.

It had taken years to prepare for building the tebah. Methuselah had led the tribe as they grew of age
. He patiently taught them the construction skills they needed to build the box. They had honed their talent by building elaborate village homes of wood that provided the added blessing of luxurious living. They found a peculiar tree of very hard wood in the valley they called “gopher wood.” It was a long process to cut down the trees and create long, cured and glued planks. The boards were then sealed with a prime coating of tree pitch. The pitch was made by bleeding the sap from pines, burning the pine wood into charcoal, grinding that to powder, and mixing that powder into large vats of boiling pine resin. They then painted the wood with the tree-made pitch to seal it with an initial coat
.

The day Noah took charge of construction, they had already built the skeletal structure for the box based on the directions of the holy writ given from God to Noah
, and then to Methuselah on leather. Everything stood ready. They needed only to begin the process of final construction. It could be completed within months if things went well
.

They had perfected a means of
holding the beams together by pounding wooden pins into them. They had found bitumen pits nearby for the final layer of pitch to cover the wood of the completed box with a one or two inch thickness. Noah drove them hard to finish quickly, but he never asked of any man what he was not willing to do himself. Often, men sought him with some question to be answered, only to find him hammering in wooden pegs or helping to saw a plank to fit better. They all worked in shifts from sun up to past sundown, using torches made from the bitumen pitch after dark fall
.

As Noah looked out onto the valley from the top of the box, he remembered what Uriel had said when they first arrived, how it had looked like Eden. He pondered what it was like for the Man and Woman to be in such communion with Elohim, their fellow creatures, and the world around them, full of splendor and glory. He wondered what it would be like to be in Elohim’s presence and the presence of his divine council of ten thousands of holy ones surrounding his throne and worshipping in the Garden that was his temple. He grieved over how the primordial sin of the first pair had plunged them into darkness, and separated them from their Maker, the Most High, and how the world could have all gone so wrong so quickly
.

It was crazy to be building a huge barge like this in the middle of the Zagros Mountains
, leagues away from any river or body of water. But Elohim said he was going to judge the land and all its inhabitants and this would be his vessel of salvation; this tebah. Elohim had become sorry he had created mankind, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth, and the land was filled with violence through them, and the violence raised its voice to the ears of Elohim in heaven. So he had determined to make an end to all flesh. He would send a deluge of water to blot out man whom he had created from the face of the land, man and all the animals in its wake. This floating box would be Elohim’s redemption of a righteous few. Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.

I
nside the barge, the structure was organized into three decks lined with a multitude of pens. Ventilation was a long top housing that ran the length of the box, a roofed opening a cubit high, with a hatch for bad weather. The people wondered why the boat was so large, far exceeding the capacity for their few hundred bodies on board. Then Noah told them that God was going to bring animals of every kind from the remotest parts of the land in pairs and in sevens to reside on the boat with them. They did not believe this, until the day when animals of all kinds started to arrive in the valley in numbers, ready to board the box. The carnivores were surprisingly domesticated and would not eat flesh, instead grazing like the herbivores beside them. Methuselah joked that Uriel had hypnotized them with magic. Lions, tigers, and wolves lounged right next to lambs, oxen, and camels. It was another miracle but it would not be the last
.

How would they take care of the refuse of all these animals filling up the box? Their excrement alone would pile up within days and create
toxic fumes that could kill all the life on board. Tubal-cain and Jubal created a way to use the waste to their advantage. They built a large, closed-off holding tank at the stern of the boat that rose through all three floors. They had discovered that the gases released by the rotting defecation were flammable. So they created a piping system from the refuse tank throughout the craft. Small holes in the pipes allowed them to light the releasing gas. This created a perpetual light source for as long as the animals defecated, which would be as long as Elohim had them on the boat.

What caused Noah the most consternation was the change in the heavens. The earthquakes shook the pillars of the earth and went wide enough to even rattle the pillars of the firmament. The sky
changed colors. Even the sun would turn blood red as it set in the gates of the West. Noah noticed an increase of storm clouds on the horizon, distant thunder portending a coming apocalypse. But this was not a time to brood. They finally finished the construction of the box and filled it with the animals.

It
was a time to celebrate.

Ham slipped quietly through the underground tunnel between the two temples. This was not the tunnel for temple staff. It was one of the secret passageways known only to him and few others. He was on a covert mission. The tunnel soon joined a passageway into the temple hallways near Lugalanu’s private staff quarters. He looked both ways. It was clear. He scurried up to a locked door and softly rapped on the wood with a deliberate coded knock. A young maidservant opened the door and let him in.

Ham’s words were immediate and frustrated, “Mother, please.”

Inside, Emzara stood with three fugitive slaves, each carrying small bundles for travel. They saw Ham and withdrew in fear.

“Now, see, my son,
you have frightened them. It is all right, children. Ham will not betray you.”

Ham
snapped testily, “Do not be too sure of yourself. Three fugitives at once? Must you tempt fate so?”

“These three are images of God and they have names. Ham, meet Rami, Biran and Hannah.
”

The first two were young men. Hannah was pregnant. The three bowed before Ham, who gave Emzara an angry look.

“My given temple name is Canaanu, mother.”

“
Oh, do not fret yourself,” said Emzara. “It is not a sin for them to know the true identity of their liberators, the house of Noah ben Lamech.” They knew Ham was the holy sanga, the administrative priest just under the ensi high priest. Ham had received the promotion earlier and was being groomed to become the ensi under Lugalanu
.

Ham nodded awkwardly. He
did not hate them, but he was not used to treating servants as special human beings in God’s image as his mother did. In his understanding, slaves were but shadows of men who were in the image of kings, and only kings were in the image of the gods. But that was an ongoing dispute he had with his mother and it was not going to be settled any time soon.

“Mother, every time I visit you in secret, I endanger my temple status. But you increase my peril when you smuggle out servants like this. You know what the penalty is.”

Emzara knew. The penalty was death, quick and sure, without legal proceedings. She remembered Alittum’s horrible demise, but thought it was worth the rescue of the innocent.

“I am helping them to freedom and new life,” replied Emzara, “away from
here
.” Her words came bitterly. “Here” was still not in her heart and soul as it was in Ham’s.

She strode past Ham,
drawing the fugitives along. At the door, she handed them each bread cakes. They wrapped the cakes and placed them in their bundles. She looked at each of them and gave them an embrace and a prayer, “May Elohim guide you and protect you to safety
.”

She opened the door and checked for clear, then led them out into the hallway. Ham followed her, irritated.

“Why can you not accept your place in this world?” he whispered harshly to her.

“Because we are not of this world, you and I.”

“
This
world,” sputtered Ham, “has granted us riches, privilege, royalty. Would you prefer being a wandering nomad in the wilderness?”

Emzara stopped in the middle of the hallway and glared at Ham with moist eyes. She did not say a word, but he knew what she thought. Of course she would prefer to be so.

“Forgive me,” said Ham. “Your past is not my own.”

He could see she
held back a torrent of emotion. “You are the son of Noah ben Lamech, son of Enoch,” she said.

“I am the
adopted ward of Lugalanu, priest-king of Anu.
He
has raised me.
He
has been a father to me.”

“
Your father
ended in Sheol by the hand of Lugalanu.”

Emzara continued onward
, as if walking away from him.

H
e followed after her with zeal and complaint. As much as he loved her, Ham could not understand his mother’s hardness of heart. In the world they inhabited, men killed other men in war and took their wives with every battle. The fact that Lugalanu would not force her and waited for her was nothing short of grace in Ham’s understanding
.

“He has begged for your forgiveness. Sought atonement. But you have spurned him.”

Emzara’s heart had bled for her son from the day he was taken from her. She did not hold it against him. How could he know the goodness that was hidden from him? She had taught him of Elohim as best she could with the few visits she could get through the years. But what chance did she have with a system of idolatry that controlled his every waking moment from the education he received to the entertainment he imbibed? Nevertheless, she knew he was in God’s image. She knew he had a conscience. He was Ham
ben
Noah
.

“We become the choices we make in this life, Ham. I pray you consider the choices you are making—and their consequences,” she whispered.

Ham sighed. She had that look that could penetrate his soul. It was at moments like this that he would question everything he knew. Though she was a bit crazy, she had something deep inside her that was utterly and truly real. And he wanted it. But he just could not forsake the life he had worked so hard to achieve, a life of such royal pedigree and future. And for what? A phantasm of a man who was supposed to be his father, and a god who did not show himself but only spoke to foolish prophets?

They
arrived at the secret passageway and moved the stone enough for Hannah to slip through with her pregnant belly.

B
efore they could continue, they heard hurried footsteps down the hall. Ham reflexively pushed the stone closed as they turned to face a dozen temple guards pointing spears at the four of them.

Ham gathered his confidence and chastised the guards, “What is the meaning of this foolishness? Down with your weapons! I am the
sanga priest.”

T
hey did not put down their weapons. They jammed the blades closer to their throats and chests.

Lugalanu marched through their midst and up to the new captives. He looked disappointedly at the slaves who had already wet themselves with fear. “I was wondering where you two were,” he said with
sarcasm.

“Take them…” he was interrupted in his words by Emzara’s look. He
almost said “take them to the block,” the chopping block where their heads would roll from their shoulders. Instead he said, “Take them away.” Emzara’s goodness still had a way of melting him
.

Three guards moved the slaves roughly away as Lugalanu led the others down the hallway to his own quarters.

It
seemed like an eternity to Emzara, She wondered if they were being led to their execution. Instead, they found themselves alone in Lugalanu’s private quarters.

H
e turned and stared silently at both Emzara and Ham, as if they were a couple of children about to be punished with the rod. But this was far more serious. Not a rod but an axe would be their fate.

Finally,
Lugalanu spoke up, “I will not report this to the gods. Neither of you will be executed.”

A shock
went through both Ham and Emzara. He was sparing their lives?

Indeed
, he was sparing their lives. Lugalanu had been waiting for this one thing. He could not have asked for a better opportunity than to catch them both in such a compromising position, placing them at his mercy. Quite frankly, he was tired of being merciful. He knew Emzara had been having secret contact with Ham throughout the years. He knew that Ham loved her and would not turn her in for her treachery of freeing slaves. But for Ham this was surely a loyalty to blood, rather than treason to the gods. Besides, revenge against Elohim’s Chosen Seed would not be complete in death, but in conversion of his seed. It had been to Lugalanu’s advantage to let them develop their secret familial love for one another.

“In seven days
’ time, we will celebrate Akitu,” he said. “Canaanu will be initiated into the high priesthood. You will no longer call him Ham.” He looked with firmness at Emzara. “And you will consent to be my loyal and willing wife.”

T
hen it all made sense to her. In order to save Ham’s life, Emzara would without question give her own, even if it was to such humiliation and defilement. Ham would perform his duty completely, to protect his mother. Lugalanu would own them both. It would not be a true willingness of her own, but she knew it would be close enough for Lugalanu’s purposes, after all these years. Emzara’s eyes went moist with tears. What had she done?

Akitu was the New Year harvest festival that began on the first of the year in the month of Nissan
. It consisted of twelve days of ritual and celebration. It was a time for the priest-king to have his scepter of power renewed by the gods, as well as time for the initiation of priests. Ham would become the ensi high priest below Lugalanu at this very festival, but one week away.

This year was going to be a special Akitu. The pantheon of gods
planned to come from all the cities of the plain and meet in Erech in divine council—the seven who decreed fate. The Tablet of Destinies would be brought out and the gods would decide the fates for the coming year. They were also bringing their armies to encamp around the city, fully dressed for war. Why? Was this just for pageantry or did the gods have plans they had not yet revealed?

Another earthquake shook the temple. Dust fell on Emzara’s head from above. It seemed the very foundations of the earth were being shaken. Did these signs in the sky above and the earth beneath have something to do with this
gathering?