People of the Flood (Ark Chronicles 2) Page 14

  The sound of picks striking stones, of shovels pitching gravelly soil and the clacking wooden wheels of barrows filled the night air. Women with water jugs and words of encouragement went among the sweaty workers. It was their second sleepless night of digging.

  “Water, Grandfather?”

  Sweat left runnels on his chalky skin and his mouth was parched. He accepted a ladle from Semiramis, noting her dark curls and her intoxicating smile.

  “More?” she asked, as he slurped the wooden ladle dry.

  He nodded.

  “You’re working harder than the young men, Grandfather.”

  He grinned, taking his time now as he sipped. How smooth her skin seemed. “May I ask you a question?” she said. “A serious question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you think the others are still alive?”

  “Eel and Nimrod?”

  She took the wooden ladle and plunked it back into the jug.

  “I should think so,” he said.

  Her fingertips brushed his forearm as she stepped closer, her perfume strong, her face anxiety-ridden. “Did Nimrod really charge a dragon?”

  He watched the way her lips formed words. Beautiful.

  “Grandfather?”

  He shook his head, forcing himself awake, alert. “It happened as I’ve said.”

  “Nimrod charged the dragon?” she asked. “To save Beor…and Geba?”

  “Yes.”

  She gripped his forearm with surprising strength, searching his eyes.

  “Could he have been killed?”

  “Anyone near the dragon risks death. It’s a monster, Semiramis.”

  “Then why did he do it?”

  “He was a hero.”

  Her frown deepened, as if he spoke gibberish.

  “You would have been proud of him,” Ham said.

  Her head swayed back. “Me? Why me particularly? Why would I have been proud of Nimrod?”

  Ham realized his mistake, and he wondered what Rahab had said to Semiramis concerning adultery.

  A few voice emerged from the din of noise. “Father, there you are. We’ve been looking all over for you.”

  Urbane Canaan was as unlike his son Beor as anyone could be. Smiling—he was always smiling, even now when disaster threatened the settlement. He hugged Semiramis. “Lucky for us, Beor survived his ordeal. Lucky for you.”

  “Yes, Father,” she said. To Ham: “Do you think Eel or Nimrod will slay the dragon?”

  “No,” Canaan said. “They merely delay it. We must slay it. Father, we’re holding a meeting. We’d like your advice.”

  “I’ve told you all I know,” Ham said. “So I’ll keep digging. I’ll encourage the others by it.”

  “That’s very noble,” Canaan said. “But Kush has a new idea, and we need your opinion.”

  Ham raised his eyebrows. It had been a long time since either Canaan or Kush had wanted his advice. He jammed the shovel into the dirt. Then he said goodbye to Semiramis as he let Canaan help him out of the trench.

  16.

  The elders and Ham met in Kush’s log house, beside the hearth. On a table lay bread and a flagon of wine. Tapestries hung on the walls, while hawk-eyed Put, a lean, angular man, stared at the fire. Geba, Rosh and the Twins had been his sons.

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Kush asked.

  They discussed the Rainbow Promise, the one Jehovah had given them the day they came out of the Ark and Noah had sacrificed to Him. Jehovah had said that animals would fear men.

  “Was the dragon exempted from the promise?” Menes asked. He was the tallest of Ham’s sons and slender, with regular features, a long, straight nose and magnificent eyes.

  “Of course not,” Ham said.

  “Does the promise still hold true, then?” Menes asked.

  “Do you doubt the word of Jehovah?” Ham asked.

  “Doubt?” rumbled Kush. “I don’t think it’s a matter of doubt. Look at what the dragon did.”

  Put turned from the flames, his eyes smoldering.

  “The promise regarding the dragon turned out to be useless,” Kush said.

  “It was worse than that,” Canaan said. “The Rainbow Promise dulled us into complacency.”

  These kinds of discussions gave Ham a headache. How could his sons imagine Jehovah was a liar? But then they had never been on the Ark. They hadn’t seen an angel. They hadn’t seen Noah cowing down giants.

  “The question, however, is moot,” Canaan said. “The dragon, according to father, is coming. So we must figure out how to kill it. Kush.”

  Kush clasped his hands behind his back. With his white beard and dour features, he seemed more like a patriarch than Ham ever had. “We’ve decided to use one of your suggestions, Father.”

  “Mine?” Ham asked.

  Kush turned brooding eyes on Canaan.

  “About naphtha, bitumen and pitch,” Canaan said. “Kush has the ingredients. They’re stored in buried jars. What he lacks is the exact measurements, the proportions to make brimstone.”

  Brimstone? Ham had never told his sons about brimstone. Years ago Japheth, Shem and he had decided that certain knowledge was better left on the other side of the Flood. Armies, especially besieging ones, had often built catapults and flung brimstone over the walls. The inflammatory missiles blazed as if stolen out of Sheol. Buildings burst into fire, so did people. No. Better, the three of them had agreed, to leave such horrible knowledge in the Antediluvian Era.

  In the ensuing silence, his four sons watched him. Did they hold their breath?

  “Father?” Canaan asked.

  “When did I tell you about brimstone?” Ham asked.

  Kush glanced sharply at Canaan.

  Canaan cleared his throat, smiling, brushing his hands across his pants. “Don’t you remember that time you banged your head on a rock?”

  “What rock?” Ham asked.

  “You were…” Canaan’s smile widened. “You drank a lot that night. Then you went out hunting, even after we begged you not to. Just as we’d feared, you slipped and banged your head, and I found you in the morning. You raved, I’m afraid. You spoke about naphtha and bitumen, among other things.”

  Ham rubbed his forehead, at the knot that had never gone completely away.

  “You said it was a deadly weapon,” Kush said.

  “Very deadly,” agreed Canaan. “You told us to keep it a secret.”

  Ham stared at his feet. He couldn’t remember, and yet he couldn’t believe he’d tell his sons about brimstone even if he’d been drunk to the depths of his being. But if he hadn’t told them… Japheth and Shem never would have. Certainly none of their wives or Noah had. Who else could? Who else in the New World had been in the Antediluvian Era?

  “Forget about brimstone,” Ham said.

  Kush took a deep breath.

  Canaan strode to Put, putting a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “How can we forget, Father? We must slay the dragon before it slays us, slays more of our children.”

  “You don’t need brimstone for that,” Ham said.

  “But we do,” Canaan said. “We need everything we can get our hands on.”

  “Especially if the Rainbow Promise is worthless,” Kush said.

  “But the trench,” Ham said. “The trench and the—”

  “Do you want more of your grandsons to die?” Canaan asked. “Would you rather believe a failed promise than help your own flesh and blood?”

  Ham wouldn’t look at them. Had Jehovah truly failed them?

  “We can’t afford more deaths,” Put said, his eyes shiny.

  Ham dearly loved Put, in some ways the best of his sons. The words came reluctantly. “Very well, but I alone will mix it. Agreed?”

  “Yes,” Canaan said. “Agreed.”

  17.

  Ham slept fitfully, unable to get the idea of him talking about brimstone out of his mind. He drank too much. At least his wife said so. And sometimes he had blackouts. But would he have talked about that deadl
y substance?

  As he lay beside Rahab, he sensed the approach of dawn. So he rose and fumbled in the dark for his clothes.

  “Ham?” mumbled his wife.

  “Go back to sleep,” he said.

  “How can I sleep when it sounds as if a bull is crashing about in our bedroom?”

  “Sorry. I’ll be outside as soon as I can find my cursed boots.”

  “They’re on your side of the bed on the floor. Remember? Your feet were too swollen last night. So I tugged your boots off for you.”

  Ham muttered his thanks, finding them and plopping onto a stool. Usually he flung his boots near the door.

  “I hope you’re not going to dig again,” Rahab said. “Your back was so tight last night, I nearly wore out my fingers massaging it.”

  “I want to encourage the others. You know I’ve always hated rulers that gave orders but never lifted a finger to help.”

  “If you truly want to help, you should build an altar like your father did and teach our children how to pray.”

  He held his first boot ready as he sat on the stool. “What?”

  “Don’t be cross. It’s just a suggestion.”

  “That I should be more like Shem?”

  “Would it hurt to pray more?” she asked.

  “You know I’m not comfortable making a religious spectacle of myself.”

  “Oh, certainly not,” she said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Nothing. I’m going back to sleep.”

  Ham shoved his foot into the boot, fumbled around for the other one and when he had it, he turned again and stared at the bed. “So I should build an altar in the middle of the settlement and camp there on my knees. That’s what you’re suggesting?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Noah liked showing off, Rahab. That’s why he built his altars on tops of mountains. That’s why he made a production of always walking up to it. Look at me, he was saying. I’m the holy man.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Shem was no better. Always praying, always talking about Jehovah. Those two were showoffs, peacocks, religious charlatans.”

  “How can you say that? Noah built the Ark at great risk to himself and to his family, at the terrible price of public humiliation.”

  “Rahab, you know how thick-skinned he was. Nothing bothered my father.”

  “You don’t really believe that.”

  Ham shoved his other foot into its boot, stood up and stamped them on the floor.

  “All I’m saying is that there’s too much disrespect toward Jehovah among our children,” she said. “Too much flippancy. Somehow, we have to change that.”

  “Don’t you understand, Rahab? Our children have a quiet faith. It’s deep-rooted, not so out in the open, so showy like my brothers’ faith.”

  Rahab sat up, the headboard creaking. “A dragon is loose. It ate four of our grandchildren. Oh, Ham, I have a bad premonition about this. We must turn back to Jehovah before it’s too late.”

  “What do you mean: Turn back?”

  “Kush and Canaan don’t believe in Jehovah.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Have you been listening to them?”

  “Rahab—”

  “Do you believe in Jehovah?”

  “How can you ask that?”

  “I never hear you pray.”

  Ham thought about his short prayer when the dragon had chased Geba and Beor. With a shock, he realized he hadn’t prayed to Jehovah for… for a very long time.

  “Your sons take after you,” she said.

  “I have my faults,” he admitted. “But I entered the Ark, didn’t I? I trusted when a world mocked Jehovah’s warnings. I believed then, and I believe today.”

  “Then build an altar. Teach your sons and grandsons about Jehovah the way Noah taught you.”

  “I… I can’t. Religious spectacles aren’t my way.”

  “But drunken ones are?”

  He stiffened.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  He took a deep breath. “I have work to do. Like you said, a dragon is loose.”

  “What more can you do now than pray?”

  “Kush has a plan. And he needs my help.” He fled the bedroom lest she say more. Fumbling in the kitchen, he found cheese, bread and a gourd of water, and after a quick breakfast, he strolled outside. He would pray more, he decided. And he would pay closer attention to his sons. But she had no right to say what she had about his drinking. So he was a little boisterous after a glass of wine. He wasn’t dead yet and didn’t plan on acting like a corpse. Men shouted when they drank. He shrugged. Rahab was a good wife. Maybe she had become a little too outspoken… He would overlook that fault and she would simply have to overlook his drinking bouts.

  The stars blazed and the cool mountain air whispered past the dark houses. A dog or two raised its head from where they slept in the doorways. From a small corral bleated sheep.

  He saw that Anom the son of Menes was already up. Clean-shaven Anom held a stick with precisely marked off measurements in one hand and a line and plum-weight in the other. He was in charge of the wall and the trench-dirt dumped against it. The dirt there had already been graded into a ninety-degree angle, so it seemed like a ramp. Anom loved to build, and the bigger something was supposed to be, the better. It was his genius that had made the log walls as stout as they were.

  A different man hurried toward the center of the settlement. Ham came after him.

  He was Zidon, the eldest son of Canaan. He was in his early forties and was slender and engaging like his sire. Zidon had the fast smile, the way with women and the wit. He was unlike his brother Beor, who truthfully was an anomaly in the family. Zidon wore a tunic and a silver-gilt belt and sandals. His dark hair shone in the firelight of the settlement’s main pit. Like many of Canaan’s sons, Zidon was smooth-skinned and beardless.

  Ham caught up with him as Zidon eyed the logs collected for the needed machine.

  “Ah, Grandfather,” Zidon said. His normally smooth forehead was creased with lines. “I’ve been wondering about the gears you spoke about.”

  “Yes?”

  “Here, I’ll show you.” Zidon held a rolled-up parchment against his leg. He unrolled it, showing Ham the charcoal sketch he’d drawn yesterday. It was of a skeleton-like contraption with gears, windlasses and skeins and a sling-tipped throwing arm. Zidon tapped the gears in the sketch.

  “You said make them out of gopher-wood.”

  “That’s what they did in the Old World,” Ham said.

  “The trouble is, we don’t grow gopher wood here.”

  “Hmm. Oak gears would probably snap under the strain.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Zidon said.

  Ham scratched his cheek. “Use bronze.”

  “I thought of that too. But whoever carves the casting molds… It will take great skill to match the various gears, and if they don’t match, they’re worthless. My other worry is where to get this bronze, or to find someone to supply their hoarded tin. For if it’s a copper gear or too copper-like…”

  “Right,” Ham said. “If the gears bend under pressure, the entire process will grind to a halt.”

  “Which makes the catapult useless,” Zidon said.

  Ham considered that. “I’ll chisel the molds.”

  “Granted you’re the best bronze-smith,” Zidon said. “But I thought you made brimstone today.”

  Ham scowled. “Does everyone know about it?”

  “Let Kush chisel the molds. While you mix brimstone, I’ll make the catapult.”

  Ham continued scowling. “This particular kind of catapult is called an onager.”

  “A wild ass?”

  “If you can make it as I’ve sketched, you’ll see why.”

  18.

  Ham fingered the leather stacked in sheets. The hides had been scraped down to almost papery thinness as per his request.
He worked in a hastily erected tent outside the settlement. Three wooden barrels stood beside three wooden tables. Naphtha, bitumen and pitch were respectively stored in each barrel. He wouldn’t need a quarter of the pitch, but all the naphtha would be used. As a precaution, there was no fire in the tent, no braziers or torches, and the tent stood well outside the settlement in case of spontaneous combustion. He didn’t want to accidentally burn down the settlement and thus do the dragon’s job for it.

  One table held the skins, another needles and thread and twisted wicks and, on the third, he would do the mixing in stone bowls. Carefully, using a wooden spoon, he began to add the first substance. He worked from a memory on the other side of the Flood, and he tried not to breathe too deeply as he handled naphtha.

  Later, he sewed the papery-thin skins together, with the brimstone mixture in each and a wick soaked with bitumen and smeared with pitch sticking out. It was delicate work, exacting and tiring. He didn’t stop for lunch, and when Kush knocked on the tent pole, he told him to go away. He had tied the flaps shut from within and with complex knots. Canaan hailed him several hours later.

  “Not yet!” shouted a hoarse Ham.

  He only wanted to do this once, one time. To foil them in their quest of learning the exact mixture before they knew how hard he would try to stop them. And he wanted them far away when he tried to sneak the unused pitch outside. He would bury it. Not because they would never be able to find pitch again, but to confound them when they studied what amounts he hadn’t used. Once they destroyed the dragon—if it could be—he would burn the remaining brimstone balls. That so they couldn’t take them apart and study the Sheol-making substance.

  Kush would rage. But Ham would be true to the vow he took with Japheth and Shem. The tribe’s existence was at stake, so he felt he had to make the brimstone. But afterward…

  “Father,” Kush said, knocking on the pole. “I’m coming in.”

  “Not yet,” Ham said.

  “You’ve been in there too long, Father. We’re worried about you.”