People of the Tower (Ark Chronicles 4) (3 page)

BOOK: People of the Tower (Ark Chronicles 4)
13.07Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

5.

 

Icy winds howled as snow crunched underfoot. Noah wore a warm cloak and a hood, and whenever he glanced at them, the frost frozen on his eyebrows made them even whiter. Beor gasped, the white puffs of air jetting out of his mouth whipped away by the wind and hurled over the mountaintops, or so it seemed to Hilda. Her father’s peg leg made it a grueling journey as the wooden shaft sank into the drifts. Her father toiled manfully, never complaining, simply gritting his teeth and plowing headlong after Noah. She found it easier. Sometimes the drifts hardened to such a degree that with her lighter weight she climbed upon them and ran on the surface, hurrying ahead to see what lay next.

They trekked
up Mount Ararat.

The weather bid her recall
Odin, the fat fool. He had told her about his journey to the Far North and the Ice Mountains. She had met him years before at Noah’s house. Odin…back at Festival he had risen as if from out of the very ground and into their hidden camp, startling them all. Gog… “May he rest in peace,” she whispered. Gog had wrestled him, and foolish Odin, although handy with a spear, had soon found himself with the other Hunters in the cage. She furrowed her brow, only now realizing that he’d never used the bronze head of his spear, just the butt end. He hadn’t meant to kill any of them, just free his companions. She shrugged, forgetting about Odin and letting thoughts of Gog slip away.


It’s just a little farther,” shouted Noah, grabbing her father’s arm.

They toiled upslope: past drifts
and shrieking wind. Why had Noah taken them here? To see the Ark, he’d said. But why did that matter?

For another hour
, they plowed on, topping the slope and dragging themselves down a narrow path. Dark clouds roiled overhead, and Noah kept shouting encouragement, tugging her father along. Then her father tugged back, his features haggard, and Noah urged them under an overhang where the wind didn’t shriek and tear at their clothing. Noah passed out hunks of bread, kept from freezing because he’d carried the loaf in a sack next to his skin. After eating, Hilda stuffed snow into her mouth, letting it melt before drinking. Noah had told them that to swallow snow straight was too much of a shock to the body. “Always let it melt first,” had been a dictum Noah repeated many times.


Huddle together,” Noah said.

They did, and Noah unpacked a heavy blanket and threw it over their heads
. In the small confines of the blanket, with the two bearded men exhaling hot breath and rubbing their hands, Hilda gained a modicum of forgotten warmth.


Keep stamping your feet,” Noah said, his voice as close as if he lay his head next to hers on a pillow. “Keep rubbing your hands. Don’t stand still. Up here you can freeze to death in perfect comfort.”


Why bring us up here?” Beor asked past chattering teeth.


To hear my tale,” Noah said.


Couldn’t you have told us in the house?” Beor asked.


I’ll let you judge later,” Noah said. “For now I want you to stamp your feet and rub your hands and listen to what I have to say. It has a bearing on the question you asked before about the Tower.”


Now I’m sorry I ever asked it,” Beor said.


Alas,” Noah said. “That often seems to be the case with the best questions.”

Noah then
launched into an old tale, a story from the Antediluvian Era. It started with Cain, which was going back pretty far, thought Hilda. Cain, the firstborn son of Adam and Eve, had also been the first to start his own religion. He came to Jehovah not as Jehovah decreed, with an innocent lamb slain for his sins, but with the fruit of the field. Cain toiled in the ground cursed by Jehovah, and after stabbed by thorns and with blistered hands, he brought Jehovah his best. Cain had worked his way to Jehovah. He had taken what would forever be known as the
way of Cain
. He tried to purchase Jehovah’s favor through his best effort. For Cain it was with his best fruits and grains, first grown in the ground by hard labor and then harvested by the sweat of his brow. He rejected Jehovah’s revealed way. Sacrificing a lamb, ah, so bloody and crude and barbarous, and showing that man’s sinfulness required something that man himself would never be good enough to pay for—it was an insult to a proud man, and Cain was very proud.

When
Jehovah refused to accept Cain’s best—no one can work his way to Jehovah. He would have to be perfect, and no one is perfect—Cain rose up and slew his brother Abel. Abel’s sacrifice, an innocent lamb, had found favor with Jehovah. This, Noah said, showed that those who rebel against Jehovah always hate those who obey Him. Abel was also a prophet and warned his brother of his sinful path. Abel paid for his warning with his life. The event also showed a prophet’s fate. The way of Cain—a man of the world—warred against the way of the Spirit of Jehovah, against a man of the spirit. In any case, Cain gained his awful curse and went out from the presence of Jehovah. He dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden, and he never returned to Jehovah.

Cain became the first apostate
. He had known Jehovah, but had fled from Him. Cain also defied Jehovah’s curse. Jehovah said he would be a restless wanderer. But Cain built the first city, named Enoch after his firstborn son. With this city, Cain began a new thing. He attempted to build an artificial paradise in replacement for the one man had lost in Eden. Jehovah promised heaven to those who followed Him. Cain wanted his rewards here and now, not in some fabulous future. Cain searched for knowledge, for luxury, anything that made the world comfortable, that helped him escape endless toil.


Wait a moment,” interrupted Beor. “Do you mean it’s wrong to make new things, to build in order to better one’s lot?”


No,” Noah said. “Things are seldom wrong in and of themselves. It is the
reason
why one does something that is critical. By his actions, Cain said to Jehovah,
Keep your paradise. I’m building my own
. Thereafter, his inventions had a rebellious cast. They were efforts to replace Jehovah, to show that he was no longer in subjection to Him. You must always remember, Beor, that man was made to commune with Jehovah, to know Him and to interact with Him. To love the Creator with all your strength, heart and mind is the great purpose for each of us. To try to replace that purpose with anything else is sin, and it is also folly.”


I don’t understand,” Beor said.


Consider,” Noah said. “You were fashioned by the Great Creator to love Him, to communicate with Him, to long for His presence. To know Jehovah, Beor, that is your deepest longing. Nothing else can fill that longing, nothing else satisfies. How noble is that quest, how pure and mighty. Think of it. You and I are beings who seek the highest thing. Trifles cannot satisfy our longings. Sensual pleasures, power over our fellow man, the acquisition of things, these are babbles, toys, trifles. Our spirits yearn to know Jehovah. To place these mundane things before me as enticing items is really an insult. That is why I say it is folly to run after anything else other than what Jehovah has created us for.”

Hilda was breathless,
as her heart soared. She never realized humanity’s greatness before. She’d heard such things, of course. But to have Noah practically in her face telling her made the hearing more real. Imagine, knowing Jehovah…what an awesome goal. To know Him who had made all things, who knew all things, who was pure love and holiness… It awed and frightened her. She closed her eyes and prayed in her mind:
Thank you, Jehovah. You are so marvelous and generous. Help me to understand better
.

Her father merely nodded, and he indicated that Noah should go on with his tale.

“Cain, as I said, tried to defy Jehovah’s curse: that he would be a wanderer over the Earth. Cain was building a city named Enoch, but Cain never finished it. He was driven away before that.


Enoch finished the city built in his name. Enoch ruled there. From him descended the ungodly line of Cain. They followed the wicked way of Cain, trying to substitute their own works in lieu of obedience to the will of Jehovah. The years passed and the line of Cain, as descended from Enoch, the kings of the city, went from Irad, to Mehujael, to Methushael, to Lamech.


Irad, as you know, means
wild ass
, and that it what he was, a wild ass of a man, unruly, proud and ungovernable. In his time, they still knew about Jehovah, but like a wild ass Irad lead them further and further from the truth, delving as it were deep into the wilderness of sin. Mehujael is an odd name:
blot out that Jah is Jehovah
, but like all their names it was apt. During his rule, men turned their backs on Jehovah, deciding to forget about Him, to teach contrary
truths
to their children. Evil waxed strong and men sank into depravity. The growth of sin was so fast that it startled them, gave them pause. The next king was Methushael, his name meaning:
they died inquiring
. They searched in vain for answers they had already thrown away. Nod and the city of Enoch especially had become a godless realm. The rebellion begun by Cain had brought bitter fruit.


Yet it is important to understand that behind these rebellious actions moved the devil, the evil prince of the power of the air,” Noah said. “In ways I do not understand, the devil is able to whisper into our hearts, to stir us to sin. That is not to say we do not do our actions ourselves. We do. But there is a power of evil at work on the Earth, a grim power that plots with undying wisdom. The devil was given more wisdom at his creation than man. Nearly 1600 years has passed from Adam’s creation to the Flood. In those 1600 years, the devil has gained a keener understanding of men than he first had. He has refined his methods against us and grown subtler.”


We’ve been taught about the devil,” Beor said testily.

Noah smiled
. “Of course, forgive me.”


I haven’t heard all this,” Hilda said. “It’s very interesting, and it’s also frightening.”


Remember, Hilda, that while Satan has had these many centuries to increase his understanding and power, Jehovah is omniscient and omnipotent. Jehovah is never surprised and never really, when you think about it, learns anything new. He already knows everything. He is all-knowing and has all power, and He, in His time, will utterly defeat the devil.”


Why doesn’t Jehovah defeat the devil now?” Hilda asked.

Noah shrugged.

“You don’t know?” Beor asked.


I do not,” Noah said. “It is a mystery. That is why I’m a man and Jehovah is God. Some things, He has not seen fit to tell us.”


Will Jehovah ever tell us?” Hilda asked.


Perhaps,” Noah said, “and perhaps not. We shall see.”

They thought about that, until Hilda asked,
“What happened after Methushael?”


Ah,” Noah said. “Yes, during Methushael’s reign they inquired after Jehovah, asking all the wrong questions and looking for the answers in all the wrong places. Then a most evil king rose up: Lamech.”


Isn’t that name of your father?” Beor asked.


It is,” Noah said. “But this Lamech was born in the seventh generation. He was the seventh from Adam. He was a contemporary of my Great Grandfather Enoch, the seventh from Adam in the godly line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve.”


The man Jehovah translated to Heaven?” Beor asked.


That’s right,” Noah said. “Jehovah took my Great Grandfather Enoch to be with Him in Heaven, without Enoch first having to die. Jehovah did it when Enoch was 365 years old.”


Why did Jehovah do it?” Hilda asked.

Noah gave her an enigmatic smile
instead of an answer.


You don’t know?” Beor asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”


Correct,” Noah said.


What about this evil Lamech?” Hilda asked. “What happened next?”


Yes,” Noah said. “That age or rule began as one in moral disorder. Now Lamech means
powerful, conqueror or wild man
. And wild, powerful and a conqueror was this Lamech. He broke the old morality of one man taking one wife. He took two wives: one named Adah and the other Zillah, which means
ornament
and
shade
respectively. They were both very beautiful and enticing women. Thus, out of lust, Lamech began polygamy. He is known as the first poet, or as the first recorded poet with the first recorded poem. Lamech slew a man for wounding him. In verse, which became known ever after as
Lamech’s sword-song
, he recited to his two wives his proud achievement:


Adah and Zillah, listen to me;

wives of Lamech, hear my words.

I have killed a man for wounding

BOOK: People of the Tower (Ark Chronicles 4)
13.07Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

The Birthday Lunch by Joan Clark
Alone Against the North by Adam Shoalts
The Bad Decisions Playlist by Michael Rubens
Seeing Red by Kathryn Erskine
Rusty Summer by Mary McKinley
Mariners of Gor by Norman, John;
Rose of Tralee by Katie Flynn