Time Quintet 04-Many Waters (12 page)

“What’s wrong, then?”

“I have to stay with the Den,” Yalith whispered.

“I know you’re taking good care of him. But Oholi is there, too, isn’t she?”

“She—she is Japheth’s wife. She has to be in her own tent. She tells me what to do, but—“

“Little sister,” Mahlah said. “Don’t be foolish.”

Yalith looked down at her long, straight toes. Blurted out, “I don’t care about Eblis as much as I do about the Den and the Sand.”

“What!” Mahlah was scandalized.

“You heard me.”

“But we don’t know if they’re even human!”

 “We know that the nephilim are not,” Yalith retorted.

“They’re more than human,” Mahlah said proudly. “The two—what are they? twins?—they seem subhuman.”

“No,” Yalith protested. “They’re human, I know they are.”

“Giants human?”

“Yes.”

“And you think if you start going out with giants, human or no, our parents wouldn’t be upset?”

“Everybody loves them ...”

“Yes? Anyhow, they’re too young, much too young.”

“I know that.” Yalith hung her head even lower. “But I think that, where they come from, years are counted differently than here. And I would be willing to wait.”

“For which one?” Mahlah demanded.

A slow flush spread across Yalith’s cheeks. She still thought of the twins as one person divided into two places.  “I saw the Sand first, in Grandfather Lamech’s tent. and I have helped bring the Den back to life when he was nearly dead.”

“That is not enough reason for this stupidity. Eblis can give you anything you want.”

“Even if I want the twins?”

”Don’t be a fool,” Mahlah snapped, and jumped down from the wall as Anah and Ohoiibamah came toward them, Ohoiibamah carrying a small jar.

“Well, Mahlah.” Anah looked at her pointedly. “Are you getting ready to move into your own tent?”

Mahlah smiled a secret smile and tossed her head so that the dark hair glinted in the light. “I will not have a tent. I will have a house, a house of white stones.” She drew back as a snake uncoiled at her feet, spreading a jeweled hood. “Ugiel—“ she gasped-

For a moment of mirage, the snake seemed to uncoil upward, to raise great lavender wings, to quiver with white skin and amethyst eyes. Then the mirage was gone and the snake undulated across the path and disappeared into a clump of scrubby palmettos-

Yalith reached for Oholibamah’s hand.

Anah gave Mahlah a malicious smiie. “Is he playing tricks with you?”

Mahlah raised her head proudly. “Ugiel comes to me only when I am alone.” She turned back to Yalith, asking in such a low voice that she excluded the others. “If it were not for the young giants, would you go with Eblis?”

“I don’t know,” Yalith said. “I don’t know.”

Mahlah spoke in a louder voice. “Tell our parents I’ll be sure to let them know when I’m married.”

“Couldn’t you bring yourself to tell them, beforehand?” Yalith begged.

Mahlah shrugged. “We’ll see. I have to go now.” And she turned back to the low white house and shouldered her way through the tinkling curtain of beads.

“Let’s go,” Anah said. “I have other things to do.” And instead of dawdling as she had done on the way in, she strode off impatiently.

Oholibamah spoke calmly. “It’s really very good of Anah, and of Tiglah, too, to get the ointments for us.”

“They aren’t doing it for nothing,” Yalith said. “I gave them all my share of the figs, and the crop was good this year. And you gave them all your almonds.”

Oholibamah stated a known fact. “Anah and Tiglah don’t know how to do something for nothing. That’s how they are.”

“But Mahlah wasn’t like that,” Yalith protested. “She’s changed. I don’t know her anymore.”

She jumped as a rat scuttled across her toes. Again there was a flickering of height, of wings and brilliant eyes, and then there was only the sleek body of the rat. Yalith thought of the dragon/lizard Eblis, who could offer her more than she could dream. And then she thought of the twins, of Sandy bowing to her in her grandfather’s tent, of Dennys sitting with her at night—Dennys, who was able to understand the language of the stars.

And she knew she would never go with Eblis.

She turned, to see tears in Oholibamah’s eyes. “Oholi,” she started in surprise.

Oholibamah reached up to wipe away her tears, smiled her quick smile. “This morning I saw my face reflected in the water jar. Oh, Yalith, little Yalith, I love my father, and now I don’t know it he is my father, after all.”

Yalith took her sister-in-law’s hand. “If you love him, he is your father, no matter what.”

Oholibamah nodded gratefully. “Thank you, little sister. I needed to hear that.”

“You are my brother’s wife,” Yalith continued, “and my friend. And if—well, if the nephilim are related to the seraphim, which my father believes, then you are like the seraphim.”

“Hurry up,” Anah called, and beckoned to them imperiously.

 “We’re coming,” Oholibamah said. And they hurried toward the central section of the oasis, where Noah’s vineyards were, and his grazing grounds, and his tents. And where Dennys was waiting for them.

The moon set, its path whiter than the desert sands dwindling into shadow. The stars moved in their joyous dance across the sky. The horizon was dark with that deep darkness which comes just before the dawn.

A vulture flew down, seemingly out of nowhere, stretching its naked neck, settling its dark feathers.

Vultures are underestimated. Without us, disease would wipe out all life. We clean up garbage, feces, dead bodies of man and beast. We are not appreciated.

No sound was heard and yet the words seemed scratched upon the air.

A scarab beetle burrowed up out of the sand and blinked at the vulture. —It is true. You help keep the world clean. I appreciate you.

And it disappeared beneath the sand.

A crocodile crawled across the desert, lumbering along clumsily, far from its native waters. It was followed by the dragon/lizard, who stretched his leather wings, showing off. A dark, hooded snake slithered past them both.

A small, brown, armored creature, not much bigger than the scarab beetle, skittered along beside the snake. —We are invulnerable. We have survived the fire of the volcanoes, the earthquakes that pushed the continents apart and raised the mountain ranges. We are immortal. We cover the planet.

A bat, brighter than gold, swooped low over the cockroach. —You are proud, and you can survive fire and ice, but I could eat you if I had to. I hope I never have to.

And the golden bat soared high, a bright flash against the dark.

A tiny mimicry of a crocodile, with a blunt nose, a skink scrabbled along beside the crocodile and the dragon/lizard.

I am small, and swift, and my flesh is not edible and causes damage to the brain. I am the way that I am. That is how I am made.

On the skink’s back, a flea tried to dig through the armored flesh. —I, too, am the way that I am.

A shrill whine cut across the clear air. A mosquito droned. —I, too. I, too. I will feast on your blood.

A small, slimy worm wriggled across the sand, leaving a thin trail. A slug’s viscous path followed. —I am not like the snail, needing a house. I am sufficient unto myself.

A red ant crawled along the dragon/lizard’s wing, and held tight as it tried to shake the biting insect off. A rat, sleek and well filled, wriggled its nose and whiskers and looked at the vulture’s naked neck. —I, too, eat the filth off the streets. I eat flesh. I prefer living flesh, but I will take what I can get. I, too, help keep the world clean.

No sound was heard. Like negative light, the words cracked the desert night.

The twelve oddly assorted creatures began to position themselves into a circle.

The nephilim.

Oholibamah lay in Japheth’s arms on a large, flat stone a short walk into the desert. So intent were they in each other that they did not notice the lion pacing past them, the pelican flying high in the sky, the scarab beetle coming out of the sand.

“My beloved,” Japheth whispered into the pearly shell of Oholibamah’s ear. “My mother spoke to me about it long ago. If you have nephil blood, it explains some of your healing power.”

“But I don’t know—it isn’t certain—“

Japheth covered her mouth with his. Then pulled back just enough to say, “You are my wife, and we are one, and that is all that matters.”

And they were one. And it was good.

Yalith left the tent and went outside to wait for dawn.  She had spent over an hour working at Dennys’s scabs, carefully pulling off those which were loose enough. Most of the oozing sores had healed. More and more of Dennys’s care was given over to her, as Oholibamah could trust her to do what the boy needed. Oholibamah, after all, had duties in her own tent.

Matred prepared meals for the boy, soups, and mashed fruits which were soft enough for him to swallow.

“But what do we do with him when he is well?” Noah asked his wife.

“He is our guest,” Matred said. “We ask him what we can do to help him.”

“He wants to go home,” Yalith said.

“Yes, but where is home?” her mother asked.

Now Yalith crossed one of her father’s vineyards, went to the small grove that the women used. and relieved herself, then walked on until she came to where the desert lapped whitely against the oasis. She picked up a handful of the fine sand and rubbed it against her palms, between her fingers, to clean them.

The moon had set, and the dawn stars were low on the horizon. She would take a long nap the next day during the heat of the sun. Often, the best sleeping was done then.

In the coolness just before morning she liked to go sit on one of the great exposed rocks and rest, and listen to the slow song of the setting stars. Lamech, her grandfather, had taught her how to listen to the stars. Only Yalith and Japheth, of Noah and Matred’s children, could understand the celestial language.

Matred tended to think it a waste of time. “I have too much to do, keeping tent. How else would I keep the soup pot full for the poor who come to us for food? Who would keep the manticore from eating Selah if I didn’t have boiling wine to throw in its ugly face? Who would see to it that the great auk’s eggs aren’t stolen? Who else dares to speak to the gorgons and griffins? And what with everybody’s appetite, I never have a chance to get away from the hearth.”

Yalith did her fair share of the work, and now she was doing most of Mahlah’s, too, but she needed time to herself, to listen to what the stars might have to say. Her father heard a Voice in the vineyards, but it seemed to Yalith that in the quiet dawn there were voices all around her, waiting to speak, waiting for her to hear. When the birds woke and started their orchestra, the other voices would be quiet. She was filled with a vague sense of foreboding, but she had to come and listen.

When she was not listening for whatever it was that was going to be spoken, she found her mind sliding to thoughts of the twins. As she spent more time with Dennys, nursing him through the chills and fever of his delirium, she saw that the twins might look alike but they were definitely not one boy in two skins.

The twins were often the topic of conversation in the big tent in the evenings—how they were alike, and how they were different. It was generally accepted that they must be some strange breed of giant, from the other side of the mountains. Although they were immensely tall, they were also unbelievably young.

“Fifteen, he told me,” Matred said one evening when it was she who had taken the lamp to Grandfather Lamech, and some of her special broth to Sandy. “Fifteen,” she re-peated to the others in the big tent. “At fifteen, our men are still children. The Sand and the Den are not babies. I simply do not understand.”

“The Den is certainly not a baby,” Yalith replied. “Now that he is getting better, he is full of questions. He wants to know what the herbs are that the pelican puts in the water, and what the salves are made of.”

“The Sand,” Elisheba said, “wants to know where the salves come from. They are certainly full of questions.” She laughed her hearty laugh and told them that Sandy had wanted to know who ran the oasis. Was there a mayor?  Or a selectman?

The words had no meaning. Elisheba had told Sandy that those who sought power were greedy, wanting gifts, and bribes, and willing to steal from the poor. “Shem hunts for us all, and I help with the winemaking,” she said contentedly. “That is enough for us. We have plenty to eat, and to give to those in need. Matred is a good mother to us all, with her fine sons and daughters.”

“Mahlah and Yalith are not married yet,” Matred prodded.

“They are still young,” Noah said.

“I thought the Voice told you—“

“Not about Mahlah and Yalith. They should have time to grow up.”

“I think,” Matred said pointedly, “that Mahlah is grown up.”

Yalith sat on the cool, starlit stone, the echoes of the evening’s conversation still in her ears. She wondered if Matred had noticed the swelling of Mahlah’s belly—

Mahlah, whose betrothal to the nephil was not yet acknowledged by her mother.

Yalith was so deep in thought that the stars had to hiss at her to get her attention.

6  Adnarel and the Quantum Leap

Yalith looked up and saw a circle of strange animals. In the center of the circle stood Mahlah, looking pale and frightened. Her dark hair covered her breasts, her body.  Yalith started to cry out, to leap up and go to her sister, but it seemed that a firm hand came across her mouth, held her down on the rock.

The cobra uncoiled, hood spreading, swaying as though to unheard music, then stretched up and up into the loveliness of lavender wings, and amethyst eyes that reflected the starlight. “I, Ugiel, call my brothers. Naamah!”

The vulture stretched its naked neck, until great black wings and coal-black eyes in a white face were revealed.

“Rofocale!”

A shrill drone, a mosquito whine, and then there stood on the desert a nephil with wings of flaming red and eyes like garnets.

“Eisheth!”

The crocodile opened its mouth, showing its terrible teeth. It appeared to swallow itself, and vomit forth a tall, green-winged, emerald-eyed nephil.