Wayward Son (12 page)

“But why didn’t you tell Amanda and me what to expect in the chamber?”

The archaeologist shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t want to sound premature,” was all he said. “But now matters are different. I learned late last week from a friend in the land office here that an international company is in the process of purchasing this site. They have also filed a mineral claim for anything found below ground. They are scheduled to take title tomorrow. Then they say they will turn around and donate it to the Getty Museum.”

“So
that’s
why you sent her in on a Sunday!” exploded Juan Carlos. “This is nothing more than a treasure hunt! You want the diamonds, if they are really there, and Amanda is your way of getting them. You don’t give a damn about her safety!”

“Calm yourself!” Silvio rejoined. “Nothing could be further from the truth. Who knows if there are really any diamonds? Besides, I think you are allowing your feelings for Amanda to get in the way of clear thinking. She is obviously highly resourceful and should be perfectly fine. Nevertheless, Amanda’s safety is paramount. If she’s not out by noon, I’ll do as you ask.”

“Where is this fresco now?”

“Safe back at the Naples apartment. The only people to know of its existence are Renata and Carmelo. And now, you.”

Juan Carlos stared at the ground with a perplexed frown etched on his face. He could not bring himself to look at his grandfather.

“Now let’s get back to the site,” Silvio said. “Carmelo and the other team members may think we’re keeping something from them.”

As they began to retrace their steps, there was a chime on his mobile phone.

CHAPTER 11

City of Enoch

WITH THE PASSING YEARS, the city grew more and more prosperous. When his grandson was on the verge of manhood, Tutok assembled the shadowy council of elders that made all the community’s important decisions. Ill and frail, he formally designated Cain as his successor. A grateful council gave its assent and voted to change the name of the city. Henceforth, it would be known as Enoch.

Cain was thus confirmed as the founder of a dynasty. There was little doubt that Enoch would become the de facto ruler of the city after his father, and his descendants would inherit after him.

As Enoch’s wealth expanded, so did its population. Cain estimated that, fifty years after his arrival there, the city was home to half a million people. Travelers flocked to Enoch from distant lands. Legends of instant riches held them in thrall. Enoch, it was said, was the land of heart’s desire.

Wealth was not the only magnet, either. One could live life with no restraints imposed by legal or moral codes.

Through the generations that followed, Enoch experienced astonishing advances in technology and culture. Cain took full advantage of the city’s expanding ranks of scholars and engineers, soaking up their knowledge and mastering its applications for the civilization he ruled.

And so Enoch embarked on an ambitious building program. Giant, water-powered mills rose up to grind grain, and numerous flood control projects greatly expanded the arable lands. Cain expanded the markets to facilitate trade and constructed stadiums and communal public baths of an unprecedented scale. He commissioned an observatory to study the heavens and refine the calendar, and he ordered a great library built so that knowledge could be stored and disseminated. Cain also enlarged Tutok’s mansion to become a royal palace.

As a leader, Cain was careful to avoid nepotism, always seeking to allocate responsibilities by merit rather than family ties. Yet, some of Enoch’s remarkable advances were ushered in by Cain’s own descendants. Of these, perhaps the most significant was a son of the sixth generation who introduced metallurgy to the city. Cain was quick to exploit this development, building large foundries for the production of weapons, armor, and mining tools, thus cementing Enoch’s economic and military dominance over a wide region.

Shortly after Tutok’s death, Cain and Ushar had moved into the palace as his heirs. Enoch, their firstborn son, lived with them until he reached manhood and took a wife. Then Enoch and his family occupied the adjunct pavilion that had been the house of his parents. Ushar had five other children by Cain. He had even more progeny by his other wives, but he resided with Ushar because their union suited him.

Then came the time when Ushar passed childbearing age. Cain gave this little thought. His own vigor seemed undiminished. Many women offered themselves to him, if only to share in his aura of wealth and power.

From time to time, the voice in his night visions would demand his gratitude, but Cain ignored it.

Yet one night a different voice resounded in Cain’s dreams. A voice he had not heard for many years, but one that he could never forget.

“What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground! Now you are cursed and banished from the soil, which has swallowed your brother’s blood. No longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work! From now on, you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth. And I will give a sevenfold punishment to anyone who kills you. I will set a mark on you to protect you from those who would kill you.”

A homeless wanderer? But he had foiled that curse, had he not? He lived in a mansion. He ruled a city wealthy beyond the people’s wildest dreams. And what difference did it make if he could not farm the soil? Others farmed it for him. Furthermore, of what use was God’s so-called mark of protection? Armies marched at his command, and slaves trembled at his word.

He prepared to return to sleep, yet a small corner of his razor-sharp mind was troubled by something unusual.

It was doubt.

***

The next morning, as Cain ambled over to a fig tree in the courtyard to pick breakfast, Ushar stared at him, perplexed at her husband’s youthful appearance. How could it be, she asked herself, that he did not seem to age? She knew of his other wives and children, and she had taught herself to accept his “wandering” from the marriage couch. But while Ushar, now entering her five hundredth year, was beginning to look old and gray, her husband appeared virtually the same as on the day of their wedding two centuries earlier. Had he some secret he was not sharing with her? Had Lorac, as so many others had speculated, really blessed Cain with knowledge of a fountain of youth? She pondered these questions, but said nothing, wishing to avoid the wrath of his temper.

For Cain, that day marked the beginning of a weeklong absence from the city. His project was a thorough inspection of the fortifications, as well as paying a visit to several remote outposts. Enoch had become a militaristic state, and its armed aggression against its neighbors required a constant state of readiness in case of counterattack.

Accompanied by his generals, Cain was eager to see personally the progress that had been made on the “reapers”—a system of large, scissor-like metal cutting arms that projected from the city’s gates. These arms had been designed to form slashing machines that could destroy an enemy force that attempted to enter the city. During his inspection tour, Cain lodged with a series of powerful landowners, whose plantations surrounded the countryside outside the city.

On his third evening away, Cain was at the home of a clan leader who had also designed several of Enoch’s new
aqueducts
, when an urgent message arrived. A young man whose facial resemblance to Omak was unmistakable was ushered into Cain’s presence. Omak was long dead, but Cain had never forgotten how the older man had helped him. Now, here was Yorak, one of his grandsons, earnestly requesting that he be allowed to speak with Cain in private.

“Leave us,” Cain said as he waved the servants and guards away.

“Sir,” said Yorak in a low voice. “Omak held you in great respect. He commanded all of us to aid you. I hope you will not be angered at my warning.”

“What is this warning?” Cain asked with a frown.

“Yesterday a new caravan arrived in Enoch. The travelers claimed they were traders from a settlement in the west. They said they had heard an ancient legend about a man named Cain, a man who had murdered his own brother.”

Yorak’s voice trailed off, and he shifted his feet nervously.

“Go on,” said Cain firmly.

“The coincidence of the name seemed surprising. But there is something else. Some of these travelers were seen at the palace. The Lady Ushar was said to have given them an audience.”

“To what purpose?”

“I cannot say, sir. Yet why would the lady speak to anyone bringing such a malicious charge?”

“Why, indeed,” replied Cain in an undertone. “I thank you for this news, my friend. You must tell no one of our words together.”

Yorak placed his right hand over his heart, bowed silently, and left the room.

Cain suddenly recalled the soothsayer’s prophecy he had previously dismissed: “These women will doom the men they marry.” Now he could take no chances. However incredible Ushar’s betrayal might be, he thought with grim irony that Enoch’s success, and his own, had probably played some part in it. But that couldn’t be helped now. His return to the city would have to follow a different script from the one he had planned.

Two days later, Cain sat alone in his palace in Enoch. His trusted guards had arrested Ushar, rounded up the traders, and secured the residence. Cain could not bring himself to order Ushar’s execution. She was the mother of his firstborn son. And she was Tutok’s daughter. Besides, with no clear proof of treachery, the supreme punishment would have been impolitic. He therefore pronounced a sentence of exile for life. She could, he told her, make her bed with the traders she had befriended.

CHAPTER 12

City of Enoch

IT HAD BEEN A speedy victory. The forces of the land of Ergot had been no match for Cain’s veteran troops, and Enoch had prevailed in a matter of weeks, rather than months. Ergot’s defeat meant that Enoch would now control the largest and most productive silver mines in the region, as well as thousands of new slaves to work them.

Cain had launched this military venture shortly after a visit by Ergot’s economic emissary, who had been sent to Enoch to propose, for the first time, an increase in the exchange price of silver. The visitor had explained to Cain’s ministers how Enoch’s accelerating consumption was creating production bottlenecks at the mines and requiring diversion of laborers from other sectors.

“How much do they want?” Cain asked Samek, Enoch’s minister of trade, as they walked along a balcony overlooking the city.

“They are asking 15 percent, majesty. The good news is they indicate a willingness to fix these terms for ten years.”

Cain knew as well as anyone that the proposed terms were reasonable enough, but the mere thought of adding to a neighbor’s prosperity sparked a fit of jealousy. Yet, as he returned to his throne room, his face and voice betrayed nothing to Samek of the rage that welled up within him.

“Ask them to give us thirty days to think the matter through,” he told the emissary.

Precisely one month later, Ergot received its answer, personally delivered through its gates by Cain and fifty thousand elite invaders.

***

As the first citizen of Enoch, Cain now exercised unquestioned authority. Part shaman and part military leader, he had now ruled the city for centuries. For the most part, his contemporaries accepted and even lauded his seeming immortality as validating the efficacy of his communication with the spirit world. All of Enoch’s original citizens were long dead, but Cain was able to convince the newer generations of his skill in communing with the weather spirit Lorac—a relationship that closely linked their fate to his “powers.”

Thus, at the celebration of the victory over Ergot, he was accorded special honors. As Cain’s war chariot drew to a halt, his fifth-generation descendant
Lamech
ceremoniously placed a crown of laurel on the commander’s head and a solid gold chain with a medallion of lapis lazuli around his neck. Lamech’s son
Jubal
, whose inventions included both the harp and the flute, led hundreds of musicians in a joyous serenade. A delegation of Enoch’s wealthiest and most influential citizens then escorted Cain to his palace. During the parade, Cain reveled in his role as the ruler of the known world’s most powerful kingdom. There was nothing more important in life than the love of wealth, power, and fame, he thought. Basking in Enoch’s praise, he was the possessor of all three.

What made it even sweeter was that he’d done it all himself.

As the nobles prepared to depart, Cain asked one of them, a trader named Marek, to stay behind. Marek was a descendant of Omak, whose family had always enjoyed a special relationship with Cain. Trading was Marek’s profession, but his most important duties, in fact, were to keep Cain informed about all that transpired in Enoch. To this end, Marek administered a staff of several hundred trusted informants. The covert organization was tantamount to a secret police force.

When the two men were alone, Cain began as he always did.

“What news, my friend?” he asked.

“The city has been mostly quiet since you departed for Ergot,” Marek replied. “But there were several instances of discontent concerning isolated food shortages from the recent weak harvests. Further, your kinsman Lamech has caused some disturbance. It seems he killed a man in a drunken brawl. Nothing remarkable there. But then he boasted publicly of the killing. He said that if any of the dead man’s clan dared to attack him in revenge and killed him, that person would be punished, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.”

“That was not wise of him, Marek,” Cain noted impassively.

“No, sir, but the real concern is the tale Lamech has been spreading about the harvest failures. He asserts that your relationship with the spirit Lorac has been at the root of the problem. He suggests that you are using Lorac to augment your own vitality and youth at the expense of the city’s prosperity. According to Lamech, you are draining Lorac of his power to produce ever greater harvests. While most people think that Lamech is simply arrogant, I must tell you that he is attracting a following with some of his generation.”