People of Babel (Ark Chronicles 3) Read online

  “Everyone knows I do.”

  “Yet you don’t have the means to acquire her as a wife.” Semiramis smiled. “Gilgamesh, if I can’t help my best friend in his most trying hour, then what good am I to you?”

  “I’d be a thief.”

  “Don’t say that. You’d be helping Hilda and, by that, helping Beor. Don’t you owe Beor a debt?”

  He blinked at her.

  “You’re the quickest witted among the Hunters. Surely you see the truth of what I’m saying.”

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s called self-delusion.”

  She rose, smiling, swaying to him and draping her arms onto his shoulders. “I want to help Hilda. I want to help you. Bring me the necklace, and you will have Opis as your wife. Minos has already agreed to guide you. Thebes and Olympus will also help.”

  He felt himself weakening, even though this was an evil plan. “What would I tell Nimrod?”

  “I don’t care what you tell him. Tell him you want to apologize to Beor. The point is that there’s no one else I can turn to. Won’t you help me help Hilda and, at the same time, help yourself?”

  He took her arms from his shoulders and stepped toward the door. He felt hot, and sweat seemed to leap onto his face. “Yes,” he heard himself say. “I’ll get you the necklace.” Then he stumbled out of the room and down the stairs, wondering if he would ever be able to escape this feeling of loathing.

  5.

  “Whatever you do, don’t tell Gilgamesh that you plan to kill Beor,” Semiramis told Minos the next day. They stood on the practice yard, Minos sending arrows into a hay-backed target. “Gilgamesh is too noble to stoop to assassination.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Minos said. “He’s willing to steal, why not judicial slaying? Besides, we can’t keep this secret from him. We’ll need his help to kill that monster.” Minos aimed. With a twang, released an arrow, which caromed off the target. “Beor isn’t like other men.”

  “Nor are you an archer.”

  Minos frowned at the bow. “It has a warp in it, I swear. It’s a cheap trinket.”

  “You fool. I gave you one of Nimrod’s own, crafted by Put himself.”

  “Put is overrated as a bow-maker. Either that or he cheated your husband.”

  “If you’re wise, you’ll keep such opinions to yourself.”

  Minos grunted, drawing out another arrow. “I know what you mean. These sons of Ham all think themselves master craftsmen, better able to build anything than anyone else.”

  “That’s because they do build better. They’re all like Ham that way.”

  “Nobility of thought is what I crave,” Minos said, aiming carefully, sending this arrow thudding into the target.

  “Your high ideals are to your credit,” Semiramis said. “Just don’t tell Gilgamesh your plans concerning Beor or you’ll lose him and then I’ll lose the necklace. And for heaven’s sake, don’t tell him he’s stealing the necklace. He’s removing temptations from Hilda.”

  “Hard-headed Gilgamesh believes that?” Minos asked.

  “No man is hard-headed in matters of the heart.”

  “I am.”

  “Yes, and you’re not a man. You’re a spoiled brat with an angel’s face.”

  “Please, I’m growing faint from you praises, sister. Mercifully heap no more upon me.”

  “Was there anything else you wanted to ask?”

  “Yes. What do we tell Nimrod? Why am I returning to Japheth Land?”

  “Because you wish to visit some of your cousins and convince them to move to Babel,” Semiramis said. “He’ll believe that because his father lusts after every soul he can pack into the city.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Kush is secretive,” Semiramis said, “so I’m not sure. But I think it has something to do with the angel.”

  Minos looked troubled. “Tell me truthfully, did Nimrod really see an angel?”

  “Can you doubt it?”

  “Sons of Ham aren’t fanciful enough to devise such a tale, I’ll grant you,” Minos said. “But what I don’t understand is why Jehovah would send an angel to Nimrod.”

  “Because Nimrod is a man amongst men,” Semiramis said, “which is why we can’t tell Nimrod our plan. It wouldn’t fit with his ever-changing concept of nobility.”

  Minos gave Semiramis a strange look before he drew another arrow and fitted it to the bowstring.

  6.

  All the Hunters and twenty other young men marched north along the Euphrates. They moved through a bleak plain as winter winds howled upon the pack train of donkeys and flanking hounds.

  With his head bent against the wind, Gilgamesh led a string of plodding beasts. Enlil trudged beside him, listening as Gilgamesh unburdened himself concerning the amber necklace.

  Enlil finally shook his head. “Your plan is flawed.”

  “Normally, I’d agree,” Gilgamesh said. “The difference is what I bring to the task. I’m the Ghost Stalker.”

  “Yes, in the fields during a hunt, but not in a house as a feat of thievery. A house, Gilgamesh, and then into a girl’s bedroom. And not just any girl’s bedroom, either, but Beor’s daughter. You’re mad if you attempt this.”

  “The madness of it is my strength.”

  “That’s irrational,” Enlil said. “If you stopped for a moment to listen to yourself, you’d realize the meanness of planning a theft has corrupted your thinking.”

  Gilgamesh spun around. His eyes were bloodshot, his features haggard and drawn. In a torrent, words spilled out of him. “I can’t turn back now, Enlil. This is my last chance. My last hope. I must dare, be audacious, bold.”

  “Boldness, yes,” said Enlil. “But the only reward for this sort of lunacy is an early death.”

  Gilgamesh’s eyes seemed haunted. “Will you help me? I need someone I can trust.”

  “If you asked me to ride a boat again and sail to Dilmun and there face the leviathan, I’d say yes. But to creep into a village as a thief…”

  “I take no pride in this,” Gilgamesh said. He made a bony fist, staring at it. “I can slay Uruk, that’s an option, too. Yet he is a Hunter, a brother of the spear, even if I hate him. This theft, as you say, it stays my hand from a greater evil.”

  Enlil put his palm on Gilgamesh’s shoulder. “Tell Nimrod what you’ve just told me. Your passion in this will sway him to your side. He will convince Uruk to step aside for you.”

  Gilgamesh laughed bleakly. “And if Uruk shows like passion?”

  Enlil shook his head. “Uruk knows nothing of that. He thinks only of crushing, of dominating, of subduing. What stirs in your heart, my friend, will win Nimrod to your side. Then Opis will soon lie in your arms.”

  “No. I cannot risk it.”

  “The risk you’re taking now is infinitely more deadly.”

  “I know,” whispered Gilgamesh. “It’s my last hope.”

  Through his nose, Enlil drew a sharp breath, turning away. Finally, he nodded. “I’m a fool for saying this. But I’ll help you. What else can I do in my brother’s hour of need?”

  Gilgamesh gripped Enlil’s arm, before turning back into the wind, dragging his donkeys after him.

  The journey north went apace. In a week, they reached the wooded hills, unpacked their axes. All over the forest, sounds of thudding blades, cracking timber and crashing trees rebounded and echoed. Nimrod was delighted with Minos’s idea to goad other sons of Japheth into migrating to Babel. That Gilgamesh wished to join them surprised him, until Gilgamesh said that some of Minos’s cousins lusted after cheetah pelts, of which he’d brought several to trade.

  “I understand,” Nimrod said.

  Uruk learned of this, and he told Nimrod that he, too, wished to spy out the Lands of Japheth.

  “Both my captains going?” Nimrod said. “No. Besides, I don’t want to hear of the two of you quarreling and one of you knifing the other. Your desire to go seems unnatural except as a plague to Gilgamesh, and that I find deplorable.”


  “I love the girl,” said Uruk. “Perhaps it unhinges my thinking.”

  “Ah, Uruk, men misunderstand you. They see a brute, a warrior with a savage visage, and they think that love cannot beat in your breast. I know the folly of that. Yet I counsel you to win the game fairly. Let Gilgamesh acquire the goods, if he can, while you counter-offer. Anything else demeans the Hunters.”

  Uruk backed out. Later, one-eyed Obed asked to go.

  “Why?” Nimrod asked suspiciously, knowing that Obed was one of Uruk’s confidantes.

  “Thebes says there’s this girl…” Obed went into a long-winded explanation. What made his story plausible was that, years ago, during the exile to Shinar, a she-wolf had mauled him. The wolf had slipped into a temporary camp and attacked him while sleeping. Small Obed had awful facial scars and an eye-patch because of that attack, and, in spots on his head, no hair grew, but ugly scars. Since then he had looked for a wife, but with no success. If Thebes now said there was one for him in Magog Village…

  “Go,” Nimrod said. “Go with my blessing.”

  Obed thanked him profusely, saying that Zimri would join him.

  When Gilgamesh learned that Obed and Zimri planned to join, he considered the implications. He thought several nights long, twisting and turning, hardly able to sleep as prowling owls hooted in the pines. Finally, with his eyes red-rimmed and his cheeks gaunt, Gilgamesh confronted Minos on the top of a forested hill, with the thin tributary of the Euphrates far below.

  “I’m not going,” Gilgamesh said.

  “Scared, are you?” Minos asked.

  Although they were the same size, Gilgamesh poked Minos in the chest, backing him against a fir. “The difference between you and me, Singer, is that I shot Beor in the shoulder and knocked him onto his arse, while you fled from him and got pitched onto your face.”

  Minos tried to brush aside the jabbing finger.

  Gilgamesh jabbed harder. “I’m not going.”

  “Then you’ll lose Opis.”

  Gilgamesh shook his head.

  “Think about what you’re saying,” Minos said. “Semiramis offers you silver and gold, enough to outbid Uruk.”

  Gilgamesh sneered. “You’re not going to Magog Village to tease your cousins to Babel. You mock our city even as you’ve run to it for safety.”

  “Gilgamesh,” Minos said, his shifty eyes unable to look at the finger pinning him to the tree. “My mockery isn’t meant in truth. I but jest, perhaps too much, I’ll admit. I truly do go along to Magog Village to—”

  Gilgamesh jabbed his finger several more times. “Why are you bringing Obed and Zimri?”

  Minos spread his hands. “Why not?”

  Gilgamesh grabbed Minos by his tunic. “No more games, Singer. I want the truth.”

  Minos wouldn’t meet Gilgamesh’s stare. “The truth is that Thebes hates one of his cousins in Magog Village. The idea of ugly Obed playing court to her tickles his fancy.”

  “Why do you go?”

  Minos leered, at last looking up. “I’ve a cousin I miss, a very pretty and accommodating girl, if you know what I mean.”

  Gilgamesh searched his face. Minos wasn’t brave, he knew that much. “You’d better be telling the truth.”

  “I have no reason to lie to you.”

  “Humph,” Gilgamesh said, letting go. “All right. I’m sorry I had to get rough. I thought…”

  “You’re nervous. I understand. I’m sorry I said you’re scared. I know you’re not.”

  “We’ll leave tomorrow.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Minos said.

  Together they started down the hill. Minos glanced at him once, staring at him with malice.

  7.

  Nestled at the bottom of a steep valley and beside a winding mountain river stood the famed village of Magog, second son of Japheth. Tall firs grew on the mountain slopes, with bare oak and ash rising like skeletons in the valley snow. A stout wooden wall surrounded the gabled houses, lean homes with high, peaked roofs, decorated with delicate woodcarvings: swirls, suns, stars and the outlined shapes of bears, wolves and vast-horned deer. Totems carved with marching men or scenes of the storm-tossed Ark or fabled giants stood before each house. The lanes were straight, narrow and clean, devoid of pigs, hounds or manure. The pigs rooted outside in the snow, hunting for acorns, watched over by boys with sharp sticks, while the dogs were leashed or kept in wooden kennels, obediently taught to only bark at strangers.

  People wore warm woolen tunics or well-made leather jackets, with breeches sown with thread swirls and tiny silver bells. The men wore hoods, the women woolen scarves, and the children clattered about in wooden shoes. In small smithies, hammers rang on beaten bronze, while wood smoke rose from stone-made chimneys. Within the homes, women wove or carded wool or churned butter from an overabundance of milk.

  The sons of Magog were skilled axe-men and had already become famed as cattlemen. They spoke of searching for horses and spreading east to a vast plain, there to drive chariots constructed in the old Antediluvian manner. Since his coming, Beor had taught them the finer points of bronze work, and they admired his courage and listened to his warnings of far-off Babel. Most of all, they delighted in the Scouts ridding their valley of wolves and snow leopards, and how the Scouts roamed farther a-field for deadlier beasts of prey. A few of Magog’s grandsons had joined the Scouts on those forays, the leader among them named Gog, a strong-limbed lad with blond hair down to his broad shoulders.

  Hilda presently raced out of the house as a copper bell rang. She sprinted down a lane, laughing, joining others who ran with her to the center Village Square. Men and women formed a large, jostling circle. Hilda ran to her father, who stood apart with several Scouts, slender fellows leaning on spears. Beor seemed more like a son of Magog than he did a son of Canaan. He, like Magog’s sons, was barrel-built, wide, with a thick beard, rather than slender and beardless like the Scouts around him. Perhaps because of his peg leg, Beor had gained weight, becoming even more massive. He balanced easily on his peg leg, with his arms folded across his chest.

  “Where’s Gog?” Hilda asked, standing on her tiptoes. “I don’t see Gog.”

  Beor moved aside a nephew, making room for Hilda in the inner circle. The entire village circled the main square. It was a sandpit cordoned off with embedded logs. Magog stood in the pit. He was only a year younger than Kush, a big man with a red beard and with flashing blue eyes. On either side of him, there stood a man swathed in a cloak and bare-footed, even though snow patches lay on the ground. The first man was taller, a generation older and the wrestling champion of the village. He had a mashed nose. The second man—

  “Gog,” breathed Hilda. She waved and shouted his name.

  He looked up, grinned and waved back.

  People caught the exchange. Most smiled and nodded, wondering how long until Gog, Magog’s favored grandson, married Beor’s daughter.

  “This is a bout for supremacy,” Magog said. “To see who will represent us next year at Festival.”

  “Oh, Father,” a worried Hilda asked, “do you think Gog has a chance? His opponent is such a brute.”

  “There’s always a chance,” Beor said, “although I wouldn’t bet anything of value on him. For ten years the champion’s cunning and wicked strength has felled all comers.”

  Worrying her lower lip between her teeth, Hilda watched the sandpit. The older, taller wrestler, with an ugly face like a lump of clay, doffed his cloak, exposing heavy muscles and a thick stomach. Old welts rose on his skin and his chest was hairy like a bear’s chest. Then Gog let his woolen cloak drop from his shoulders.

  Hilda sucked in her breath.

  Gog had thick muscles, but without the fat, and on his chest and upper arms were swirls in blue woad, matching his intense blue eyes. He saluted the champion, who pounded his chest with an oak-like fist, several of the gnarled fingers once broken and badly reset.

  Magog stepped back, shouting “Let the match begin.”


  A trumpet rang out, a blast of warning from the parapet. The watchman on the wall blew twice more. When everyone looked at him, he let the horn dangle from the cord around his neck, and he cupped his hands, shouting, “Strangers approach! There are seven men bearing spears. They wear the garments of Babel.”

  8.

  Old Magog sat on a stump in a clearing outside the village. He kneaded his bristling beard, with his hairy, red eyebrows thundering together. Behind him stood many of his sons and grandsons, with axes and daggers hastily thrust through their belts and with hoods thrown over their heads. Beor stood on Magog’s right, his eyes hard on Gilgamesh, who stood to Magog’s left. Scouts and Hunters stood behind them.

  “I want no part of the quarrels of the sons of Ham,” Magog said at last. “And you, sons of Javan.” Magog shook his head. “What’s the purpose of your coming here? To bait Beor?”

  “We have no ill will towards Beor,” Gilgamesh said. He touched the scar on his neck. “We hope he feels likewise. Once, out of the shadows in the Zagros Settlement, an arrow cut me from a man who wished me dead, likely a son of Canaan. But that’s in the past and forgotten,” Gilgamesh said, looking at Beor.

  Beor shook his head. “I have no quarrel with Gilgamesh, even thought he’s a spawn of Nimrod, his right hand man, quick with a bow and with feet swift to shed blood. Gilgamesh’s methods, at least, are straight as an arrow to the shoulder.” Beor leveled a thick finger at Minos. “That one, however, that one is slippery like an eel, a snake in the grass, pretty-faced like a girl and black-hearted like a hyena. He tried to rape Hilda.”

  “That’s a lie!” Minos shouted. “The girl—”

  “Spear!” Beor roared.

  A Scout stepped forward, handing a spear to Beor, who grasped it and cocked to heave it through Minos’s heart.