People of Babel (Ark Chronicles 3) (3 page)

5.

Nimrod and the Hunters built a large mud-brick hall named the Barracks. Like all such dwellings, first a mound had been shoveled into place and allowed to dry, the theory being that such protected the house from possible flood and damp earth. Then, brick by brick, cemented with liquid clay mortar, the walls were raised. Lastly, palm tree planks overlaid with palm leaves formed the roof, which was covered with a layer of mud.

Wind and rainstorms, unfortunately, washed away mud and caused leaks
. To repair the leaky roof, men had to plaster on more mud. To quick-dry and flatten this new mud, or to simply dry out the old after a rain, a large rolling stone was left on the Barracks roof.

Many such dwellings had dirt floors
. Nimrod tiled the Barracks with brick flooring. In the Barracks lived the Hunters, a few of them with their newlywed wives.

Semiramis presently moved alone through the dark halls and corridors
. Nimrod and a band of Hunters had left two weeks ago. He had made Gilgamesh her watchdog. She smiled. Poor Gilgamesh, he was dying to have Opis, but now he was a maid for Nimrod’s wife.

She greeted Gilgamesh in the main yard: a dirt field surrounded by a brick wall, with straw targets at the southern end.

Today, he had promised to take her gazelle hunting.

They headed inland, away from
the cultivated fields and canals. Two other Hunters joined them. Gilgamesh explained how they would swing out in a wide arc to beat sticks and scare gazelles toward them. They reached a desolate region of scrub, thorns and dusty grasslands. The two beaters jogged away with several hounds, leaving Semiramis and Gilgamesh alone on the treeless plain. The sun neared noon. Heat waves shimmered on the horizon.

“
Must we march in the heat of day?” she asked.

Gilgamesh mopped his forehead
. His scarlet headband was already soaked with sweat. “It’s hot, but at least the lions won’t bother us. They’re busy seeking relief in the shade.”

“
I wish we did the same.”

He pointed
at a thicket. “We can wait there, I suppose.”

Soon they crouched in
the shade.

“
Can I sip from your waterskin,” she asked. “Mine’s empty.” Gilgamesh passed his over and Semiramis sipped, dropping something into it, capping it and shaking the skin. He raised his eyebrows.

“
Honey drops,” she said. “Try it.”

Gilgamesh
uncapped the skin and guzzled. He nodded, but the water tasted no different.

She asked about Opis
. He shrugged.

“
No, no,” Semiramis said. “I’d like to hear.”

Gilgamesh
talked for a while, frowned, and touched his forehead.

“
Do you feel dizzy?” Semiramis asked, sliding closer, studying him.

“
I do.”

“
I know why.”

He lowered his hand, looking at her
. Her smile was sly and intoxicating. She was beautiful.

“
There’s a little green fly from the delta marsh. A very special fly Deborah told me about. I crushed and mixed it with herbs and date-palm honey.”

Gilgamesh
brought up the waterskin.

“
Those weren’t honey drops, my handsome hunter, but a love draught to loosen your restraint.”

He noticed how near she was, the smell of her perfume and the way her lips parted.

“How you must ache to hold Opis,” Semiramis said. “How you must long to kiss her, to have her.” Semiramis touched his forearm. “We’re both lonely, and both…” She squeezed his forearm. “The love draught is impossible to resist.”

Her eyes were fire.

“Am I not beautiful?” she whispered.

Gilgamesh’s
senses roared. And because of the potion, he told himself, whatever happened wasn’t his fault.

They embraced.

“I’m yours, Gilgamesh,” Semiramis whispered.

His stirred passions, the roaring of his senses
—Gilgamesh gave a great shout and tore away from her. “I can’t, I can’t!” he cried. He bolted, confused and guilty. After a league of running, he collapsed on the dirt. Would Nimrod kill him? What if Opis found out?

Motion in the distance warned him of
someone’s approach.

Gilgamesh
crouched, working over in his mind the adage of the anger of a woman scorned. It was empty in this interior country, with only vultures wheeling overhead. If he killed Semiramis—“No!” He felt sick at his murderous thoughts.

He rose to greet her
. She searched his face. She was so beautiful. Lust rose in him, but he fought it down.

“
Oh, Gilgamesh,” she said, taking his hand. “I am well pleased.”

“
What?”

Semiramis
laughed as if she were a naiad of the grasslands. “I but tested your love for Nimrod. Oh, you have surpassed my fondest hopes. Now, I can trust you. Please forgive me for doubting you, and for putting you through such a bitter test.”

He frowned
. He had thought about killing her. “No, Semiramis. I ask forgiveness. I thought… I don’t know what I thought. How could it have been anything but a test?”

“
Noble Gilgamesh,” Semiramis said, with a bitter smile. “Let us forget this incident and return to the hunt.”

6.

Nimrod returned from the north with a raft of mighty cedars. He sought out Ham, reminding the patriarch of the stories he used to tell of an Antediluvian tribe that made giant outrigger canoes.

“
You have your reed boats,” Ham said.

“
They’re not good enough for deep-sea voyages.”

“
Why bother with that?

“
To explore,” Nimrod said. “To outdo the exploits of the sons of Japheth, who, they say, went to the Far North and saw strange sights and returned with secret treasures. Might there not be lands beyond the delta-marsh filled with nuggets of gold or copper ores?”

Under Ham
’s direction, and with adzes and axes, Hunters hollowed out the two biggest cedars. With sturdy but flexible planks, Ham joined the two giant dugouts, making a catamaran. He spread reed mats onto the planks and made a deck, and in the center of the deck, he built a post for a small sail. In the bow and stern of each dugout, Ham built watertight compartments, there to store jerky, dried fruit and clay jugs of water. With a bow drill, he fashioned holes in each dugout’s sides, screwing in short wooden struts and stretching oiled awnings as shelter from the wind, rain and sun. Lastly, he fixed leather loops or tholepins onto the outer side of each dugout and slid five oars through them to an outrigger.

With t
he vessel finally built, Ham named it the
Odyssey
.

As Nimrod selected his crew, growing lyrical on the joys of adventure, of exploring the unknown and of the possible treasures, a company of notables urged Ham to guide the youngsters
. Ham declined, citing two reasons: First, his bad hip precluded him from taking rugged journeys. Second, ever since surviving the Ark, he loathed the idea of sea travel.

“
But that’s just it,” Nimrod said one day by the boat. “Who among us has spanned the world like you? Who knows more about ship-handling than you?”

Ham snorted
. “For a year, I sat in a barge that slid wherever the tides moved us. That’s my
ship-handling
expertise.”

“
What fools you are,” Deborah later told Nimrod. “Convince Rahab that Ham should go. She’s the only one who can persuade him when his mind is made up.”

Nimrod took her advice, and soon thereafter Ham reluctantly agreed to join them.

Several days later, they tested the oars and sail and found the
Odyssey
a maneuverable little ship. As they cruised down the Euphrates, the fifteen-man crew accustomed themselves to it.

In the delta marsh
, Ham kept them in the fastest flowing channels, avoiding swamps and canebrakes and trying to stay out of stagnant lagoons. They spied many birds, although the migratory ones had left for summer breeding grounds.

On the fourth day, in the afternoon, they crossed the sea bar and headed toward a vast expanse of water
. Everyone but Ham marveled at the sight of waves and a distant horizon where sea met sky. The young men shouted and pointed out how deep the waters seemed.

“
It’s horrifying,” Enlil whispered, as he peered into the green depths.

Gilgamesh swallowed hard
. Waves, small ones according to Ham, thumped against the boat, making it rise and fall. Anu fell overboard. The Hunters laughed as they hauled him back aboard.

Leaning over, cupping his hand, Gilgamesh tasted the water
. He spit it out. Salty, just as Anu said.

“
We should turn back,” rumbled Uruk, who sat in the middle of the reed matting.

Ham chuckled
. “The sight of a real sea wets your breeches, eh? Now imagine what it’s like when you’re out there and a storm roars over you.”

They glanced at the old man with leathery skin
. He swayed with each swell, perfectly at ease as he laughed.

“
What do you think lies beyond the horizon?” Nimrod asked.

Ham shrugged
. “We’re not going to explore like that, straight across the sea. No, my boy, we’re going to hug the land like lubbers.” Ham pointed to his right, at a sandy shore. “To oars!”

The young men scrambled to obey
as Ham drew Nimrod aside. “Here’s your first lesson as captain. Whenever things look bleak or your men grow panicked, give them something to do. It takes their minds off trouble.”

That night
, as the sun went down, they made landfall on the sheltered southern shore of an island. They explored it the next day and found nothing of note. So they set sail again on the Bitter Sea, as some of them called it, or the Sea of the Rising Sun, as Ham said. For several days, they bobbed along the ocher shores, occasionally landing to search for gold or malachite or salt licks. Mostly, they found salt marshes, desert and crawling sea turtles.

On the fifth day on the open sea, Ham checked their water supply before telling Nimrod,
“Either we find fresh water in the next few days, or we must turn back.”

They had gained their sea legs
by now, and the sun had bronzed each of them. They often marveled at fat sea cows, laughed at sporting dolphins and shivered when the dark shape of a shark glided under the boat. Hundreds of various fish lived in the Bitter Sea and coral reefs near shore never failed to amaze them.

The next afternoon
, limestone cliffs and dusty, green date palms stood out to sea. They rowed to what Ham called an island, albeit a large one. On a sandy beach, they drew the ship ashore. Unlike the salt marshes and deserts, this island abounded in date palms and lush vegetation.

“
It doesn’t make sense,” Nimrod said. “Why is this place different?”

Gilgamesh found an
artesian spring. It bubbled out of clean rocks. The water was cool and created a small stream to the sea.

When shown, Ham stood transfixed.

“It’s just like you told us how it used to be in Antediluvian times,” Gilgamesh said. “How fresh water bubbled out of the earth.”

“
I thought the Deluge destroyed such things,” Nimrod said.

Almost reverently Ham cupped his hands into the water, drinking
. “This is the Blessed Land,” he intoned. “I name thee, Dilmun.” He told them about an island in the Old World that had been known for its Eden-like gardens.

For several
days, they trampled through tall flower fields and park-like groves of palm trees. Uruk discovered wild onions better than he’d ever tasted. He filled a sack with them to grow in Babel.

On a sandy shore, many
leagues from the boat, men dug up leathery eggs bigger than two fists pressed together. That night, they ate their fill of eggs.

Stars shone and logs popped in the fire
. The Hunters leaned against rocks or lay on grass, full.

“
What do you suppose laid those eggs?” lean Gilgamesh asked.

“
A giant turtle,” Nimrod said.

Ham didn
’t think so. Some sort of giant sea-beast certainly, but one he hoped they didn’t meet. He pondered on the situation between Gilgamesh and Uruk. He liked Gilgamesh. Uruk bragged too much and laughed coarsely at rude jokes.

The next day he took aside Gilgamesh, Enlil and Anu
. “Gather rocks,” Ham told them, “about this big, and load them into the boat.” When they asked him why, he said as an experiment.

So as the others
marched about the island, the four of them manhandled the ship into the water. By dint of hard rowing and careful use of the sail, they brought it over a coral reef a quarter league from shore.

“
Below lies treasure,” Ham said, “treasure to help Gilgamesh win his bride.”

The three Hunters glanced at the visible reefs below.

“Coral is sharp,” Ham said. “A touch can make you bleed. If that happens, we must leave.”

“
Why?” Anu asked, a handsome lad with a quick smile, the best loved among them.

“
Sharks.” Ham grinned at their discomfort and outlined the plan.

Soon thereafter
, each Hunter stripped down to a loincloth, dagger and a goat-hair bag tied around his waist. Each tied a rock to a foot, took a deep breath and slipped overboard. Visibility was excellent as Ham watched them descend ten, twenty, twenty-five feet to the sea floor. There, each drew his dagger and pried and cut oysters free. Each soon slipped his foot from the rock and shot to the surface, gasping.

An afternoon of it
exhausted them. Ham dragged the lads aboard and threw cloaks over each as they shivered.

“
Those are treasure?” Enlil asked dubiously, eyeing the gray shells littering the boat.

“
Perhaps,” Ham said.

“
Only perhaps?” Anu asked.

Ham took out a dagger and pried open the first oyster, a mollusk
. He cut out the meat, throwing it into a clay pot. The rest of the shell he threw overboard.

“
Where’s the treasure?” Gilgamesh asked past chattering teeth.

“
There wasn’t any this time,” Ham explained. He showed them how to open the shell, and oyster after oyster fell to their blades. Each time, they found nothing but meat.

“
You tricked us,” Enlil said later.

“
No,” Ham said. “I remember—”

“
Look at this!” Gilgamesh shouted. “Is this what you’re talking about?” He held up a smooth round gem with a creamy color, a strange luster.

“
Ah,” Ham said, as Enlil and Anu sucked in their breath. “Yes. You’ve found a fish-eye.”

“
A what?” Enlil asked.

“
A fish-eye,” Ham said, “one of the most precious of gems.”

“
It’s beautiful,” Gilgamesh whispered.

Anu shook his head
. “Gems are rocks. So what is this doing in an oyster? How did it get there?”

“
Fish-eyes are formed when dew drops filled with moonlight fall into the sea and are swallowed by the oyster,” Ham said.

Anu looked at him
, openmouthed.

Ham laughed, patting him on the back
. “I don’t really know how they get there, but isn’t my explanation as good as any?”

For an answer
, the three young men resumed prying open oysters.