People of the Tower (Ark Chronicles 4) Page 18

  Hilda examined her folded hands. Her grandfather’s research, his wizardry, had driven him mad.

  “Do you realize what this revelation means?” Canaan asked.

  “Grandfather, how can you believe such nonsense? You were taught at Noah’s knee. You know the truth. What you say now…it’s the lies of evil angels.”

  Canaan chuckled. “You must rise above simple superstitions. I know your father, my favorite son, believed as you still do. But you must grow. You must learn to think for yourself. You are in Babel now. Events move at a rapid pace. If you would adjust to the New Order, a place of power can be won for you. But if you insist on holding to these delusions…”

  Hilda thought back to her time with Noah and seeing the Ark. That hadn’t been a delusion. “Why did you send for me, Grandfather? Not to discuss your findings.”

  “I’d hoped to persuade you regarding the present realities. You are a granddaughter of mine, and I am a lord of Babel. But the king…ah, Nimrod has requested you join the priestesses of Ishtar, that you be trained as our family representative.”

  Hilda shook her head. “I fear Jehovah too much to risk His displeasure.”

  “I thought you might say something like that. And in a way, I can’t blame you. You’ve long been under the spell of those who were deluded.” He picked up a tablet, his brow furrowed. “Hilda, you’re my granddaughter, my last link to Beor. Don’t think I would do anything to cause you grief. Believe me when I say that while I respect the king and his power, that I would never do anything that would put you under Nimrod’s control. This is about your father.”

  “What?”

  “I mean to see Beor’s line preserved. But if you can’t marry…”

  “Why can’t I marry?”

  “Certainly, Nimrod won’t let you marry Odin. And because you love him, who else would you want to marry?”

  Her grandfather’s craftiness was palpable. She waited.

  “If you can’t marry,” he said, “Beor’s seed dies out. “Unless, that is, you become a priestess of Ishtar.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “As a priestess of Ishtar, you will be wed to the gods, and have children by them.”

  It felt as if he’d kicked her in the stomach. His gods were the fallen angels. Fallen angels had once mated with mortals, producing the Nephilim.

  “Once the Tower Temple is completed, each full moon a virgin of Ishtar shall ascend the steps and spend the night alone on the goddess’s bed. Perhaps Bel himself will appear. Nine months later, the virgin will deliver a holy child.”

  Horror made her stomach writhe. “You want a demon to impregnate me so I’ll to produce Nephilim children?”

  “You mustn’t become hysterical. Not all gods are ethereal.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “Nimrod also is a god. We’re all about to learn that in a few weeks.”

  “You want me to become the king’s whore?”

  Canaan became earnest. “A priestess of Ishtar is above such petty labels. Hilda, you must try to understand what I’m saying. The future has arrived. Leadership in the empire lies and will lie with those who have a proficiency in communicating with the gods. What I’m offering is a chance to leap ahead of everyone else. You will have spirit guidance and learn magic and divination. Then you will gain rank in the New Order and deliver to our line semi-divine children.”

  “Like Ymir, who died in the Flood?” Hilda asked.

  “There has never been a universal empire before. All humanity is bound together now. The king, practically a god himself, will wield the empire into a mighty force for the swift progress of all.”

  “How do Nephilim children fit into that?”

  Canaan frowned. “We are supposedly cursed as slaves to the sons of Shem and Japheth, and one might even think to Kush, Put and Menes. Now a path has opened that will ensure we are the masters. Wielders of secret power, lore-masters and astrologers, guardians of the spirit realm, we must grasp this opportunity, Hilda. We must grasp it before the others realize what’s at stake and do likewise.”

  She struggled for calm. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Canaan pinched his lower lip and shook his head.

  “Jehovah didn’t allow this the first time. He surely won’t this time either.”

  He inhaled sharply. “It is better to hold the whip than to feel its lash. Either you are with us or you are against us.”

  “Untrue.”

  “Oh?” he asked, amused.

  “Either you stand with Jehovah or His wrath falls on you sooner or later.”

  Canaan regarded her, at last shaking his head. “I’d thought you wiser. Unless you readjust your thinking, I won’t be able to protect you. You may go. I have much to do in preparation of the Tower’s completion.”

  2.

  Odin stirred in the filth, in the cold slime of the pit. With his single eye, he gazed out of the hole in the earth. Stars twinkled and the night wind moaned.

  Thirst had become his sole concern, a terrible urgency for something to slake his parched lips. At one time, he had sipped the putrid brew he lay up to his chest in. For several days after, he had vomited and fever raged. It was during that time his left eye went blind.

  The pit was an awful prison, a deeply dug hole in the earth filled with slop, water and now his filth. Some days, they threw him weevil-infested biscuits or bones with rotting flesh. If they remembered, they lowered a bucket with brackish water. Long ago, his clothes had rotted off. Naked like a worm, he struggled in the mud, periodically drawing out his legs to peel off bloodsuckers. His beard and hair was matted, his body caked with slime.

  Tonight, he shivered, coughed and hoped they remembered the water bucket tomorrow. Days, weeks, months had passed. He wasn’t fat any longer. The skin of his belly hung loosely like old clothes. Yet in his one good eye shone…it wasn’t madness. It wasn’t hope. Knowledge, maybe, an understanding he had never had before. He called the pit the Well of Knowledge. He had sipped deeply from it, although it had cost him an eye.

  The extent of his learning or perhaps it was the pinnacle, was that Jehovah loved him. He knew because he felt closer to the Almighty than he ever had. Weeks of feverish prayer, of questions profound, mad and silly had been answered in whispers of the wind, in a bird whistling somewhere just out of sight, in the warm embrace of the sun at noon. Whenever he drank from the lowered bucket, he praised Jehovah. As he gnawed flesh from a bone, he thanked the Creator for seeing him alive yet another day. Long nights of thought interrupted his physical misery. Hatred against Nimrod softened as he realized the Mighty Hunter kicked against traces he could never overturn—for how could one hope to defeat Him who had sent the Deluge?

  Odin pondered the old tales, the Flood and that a world had been destroyed because of wickedness. He wondered too if Ham had escaped the battlefield. He prayed it was so, and when he felt closest to the Creator, he asked that somehow he could wed Hilda and leave Babel.

  Truth came hard after that. He’d die in the pit. But he didn’t curse Jehovah, although over half the time he felt like it. He forbade himself that pleasure, telling himself the cost was too high. When his moods darkened and he raged against Nimrod, Jehovah and life’s hard luck, he remembered his sins meant he was owed nothing. Noah’s teaching said Jehovah showed mercy because of grace and grace alone, and that someday Jehovah would redeem man with One from the woman’s seed.

  “I believe,” had croaked a parody of a man, and soon thereafter, his moods had turned less bitter and soul devouring.

  Laughter now stole upon him, not his, but from someone outside the pit. Odin heard the clank of armor and the snort of a donkey.

  Torchlight flickered, and soon Nimrod the Mighty Hunter stood at the lip peering down. He seemed like a giant, tall, towering and powerful, with the fate of the world in his hands.

  “How fare you, Odin?”

  “I’m alive.”

  Nimrod grinned. “Would you like to come out
?”

  Bold words jumped to Odin’s lips, but the want of water dried them.

  The Mighty Hunter squatted, thrusting the torch into the opening. “I’m not sure what I see: defiance, hope or the glaring of a one-eyed beast. Do you want out or not?”

  “I wonder what it’s going to cost me.”

  “A beating,” Nimrod said.

  “Then I’m free to leave Babel?”

  Nimrod turned to someone unseen. A chariot rattled and soon the Mighty Hunter regarded him again. “You betrayed me, Spear Slayer.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Then you admit you deserve this?”

  The torch lowered as Odin considered the question. He saw Nimrod studying him. “Yes. I deserve this.”

  “You disappoint me, Spear Slayer. I would have thought none of my Mighty Men could be broken so quickly. Or do you think to gain my pardon this way?”

  “No.”

  “Oh? Why this certainty?”

  “You know nothing of mercy, Mighty Hunter. You’re a killer, a murderer.”

  “I’m the King of the Earth.”

  “A true king shepherds his people. He gives of himself so they grow and become better. You’re a hunter because all you know is how to take.”

  “I bring universal peace and safety from the beasts. These are gifts the people cherish.”

  “What about me then? I ask for nothing so grand. Food and water is what I crave.”

  Nimrod laughed, and Odin looked away, angry with himself.

  “I bring you knowledge, Traitor. Hilda will soon become a priestess of Ishtar.”

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “A pity. Because you’re going to be the instrument that convinces her.” Nimrod threw down a bag, which slurped into the mud by Odin’s chest.

  Odin dared fumble at the knots, finding bread, a leg of mutton and a jug of water. He frowned and looked up. “Thank you.”

  Nimrod became thoughtful. “Tell that to me in a day.”

  Odin hardly heard. He took a mouthful of water, swishing it, rinsing the dirt from his teeth. He swallowed and knew bliss. “Thank you, Jehovah.”

  “What was that?” Nimrod asked.

  Odin took another swallow, and tore off a hunk of bread.

  “You eat like a wolf, Spear Slayer. I only hope you remember how to fight like one.”

  3.

  Cymbals clashed, flutists piped wild melodies and the Singers twirled before Nimrod the Mighty Hunter as he leered upon them from his Dragonbone Throne.

  Months of unbridled victory celebrations and dark nights in the temple, learning new secrets and new depths of occult wisdom, had left a visible mark upon the king. Still quick as a panther, with supreme athletic grace and rock-hard thews, an insidious smoothness of fat yet clothed those muscles. His handsome features were no longer so youthful and carefree, but showed shadowy lines of debauchery and cruelty. And his eyes, once filled with mere cunning and raw ambition, a fierce will to power, now blazed with the black flames of megalomania, a certainty that indeed he was like a god.

  As the dancers swirled and clapped their hands, as their tanned legs flashed before him and they smiled over their shoulders at him, promising whatever he desired, he recalled the heady prophesies of Lucifer. Earth had been shackled to his desires. All who had dared stand against him, now lay prostrate or had hidden themselves far away at Mount Ararat.

  Nimrod frowned at the thought. Noah yet remained. Perhaps a team of assassins should pay a visit to the seven hundred year old patriarch.

  The Singers shouted his name, and the piping grew wilder.

  Lust grew as the lascivious dance enflamed his passions. With godlike pretensions came godlike appetites. Lucifer had promised him dark secrets and unlimited power—if he had the will to complete the metamorphosis that had begun when he had long ago devoured the dragon’s heart. First shackle the Earth and then the Celestial Realm would beckon. The Stairway to Heaven was no idle term. If while upon the Tower he dared channel the united meditations of all people into himself, then he could achieve apotheosis.

  Apotheosis was the transformation of a man into a god. Lucifer had told him how to achieve it. At first, Nimrod had distrusted the Light Bearer—there remained a reservation or two still. He wondered if the chief of the fallen angels played him false. But those doubts had primarily been before the battle, before he’d wondered if Noah would show up as once he had at the fields outside of Festival to display the power of Jehovah.

  “Jehovah has grown afraid,” whispered Lucifer. “He marshals the hosts of Heaven not to attack us, but to defend the ramparts of his Celestial Domain. You are not aware, perhaps, how vitally important your actions are here on Earth, how Heaven reverberates with them. When the Tower is complete, when you link our realms together, then we will be able to pour into you the forces needed to finalize your metamorphosis.”

  Nimrod knew Lucifer hadn’t told him everything and that there were pitfalls. But was he not the Mighty Hunter, one like a god? Let any being, man, devil or angel, underestimate him at their peril. Nimrod felt the change. He knew that he could become a god. In that respect, Lucifer had given him the truth!

  These heady thoughts were like wine, making him drunk on the possibilities. He stood, and he clapped in time to the tune.

  Minos sat on a stool, his nimble fingers playing reed pipes that thrust out of his mouth. The poet’s eyes glowed and his dark hair was in disarray as his head bobbed and wove. He jumped up, kicking his legs and dancing with the Singers, twirling, playing and seeming to laugh at them even as he caused the girls to dance faster and faster.

  “Play, Pan, play!” shouted Nimrod.

  The piping was like a whip and a drug. It drove the Singers to ecstasy, and in their frenzy, they shed their garments until Nimrod himself leapt among them, choosing which of them would know this day his fierce embrace.

  Later…when he returned to the throne room, a trumpet pealed and a warrior announced the approach of his mother Deborah.

  As Nimrod lounged upon the throne, he adjusted his leopard skin cloak.

  Deborah wore a white gown as befitted her religious station, and she wore a veil. She surprised him by kneeling, bowing and waiting as one in prayer.

  “Rise, Mother. Sit on this stool by my feet.”

  He had ordered the bodyguards outside and had forbidden Semiramis or any of her maidens to loiter in the hidden halls behind the throne.

  His mother sat quietly, folding her hands in her lap, awaiting his pleasure.

  Nimrod wished his father could be as pliant. “I appreciate your promptness,” he said.

  “I left the instant your messenger arrived. Your man Uruk was kind enough to give me refreshments as I waited in the antechamber.” She eyed him. “This may seem odd, but while I waited it seemed as if music played here. It wasn’t a stately melody, but sensual and unbridled as if debauchery took place. What could account for such a bizarre manifestation? I knew that you couldn’t be within. No son, no matter how exalted, could keep his mother waiting when he’d summoned her so urgently, or at last kept her waiting for the mere purpose of indulging his baser appetites. I thus suspect that I had an auditory vision, but for the life of me I cannot understand its significance.”

  The impassiveness of his features never changed. His mother was pliant, but only to a degree.

  “How is Grandmother Rahab?” he asked. “Has she adjusted to her new life?”

  His mother’s eyes seemed to burn. Then she dropped her stare, becoming demure. “Your Grandmother Rahab worries about Ham, and she wonders what goes on in the palace. I’m careful no one tells her.”

  Nimrod laughed, not in a pleasant way, but in an ugly manner, like a hyena that has come upon a cripple gazelle.

  “I have no desire to anger the Mighty Hunter,” his mother said sardonically. “But someone has to warn you. I gave you birth, and from my breasts you fed and I was the one who taught you to walk. Perhaps as importantly, I am loath to sit back and wa
tch as Semiramis topples you from power.”

  “What does asking about Grandmother Rahab have to do with my wife?”

  “Do you believe because you don’t hear them that rumors and secret whispers don’t swirl around you?”

  He shrugged.

  “No. I don’t believe you’re indifferent. Otherwise, you wouldn’t hide in the palace. I suspect a king who truly didn’t care about what his subjects thought would copulate like a dog in the street instead of in his chambers.”

  Anger blazed in his eyes.

  His mother dropped her gaze. “I know. I shouldn’t have said that. No one can tell you anything anymore without risking your rage. If you want a mother’s advice…”

  “Go on.”

  “Nimrod, there is no one like you. You have often proven that. Yet now you gamble unnecessarily. If you wish to turn the Singers into your private harem, that’s your own affair. But don’t wave it in Semiramis’s face. Send her far away, perhaps to Nineveh, maybe even as far away as the fires of Sheol.”

  He laughed.

  “Once you adored her and spent time with her. Now Semiramis burns with jealousy and will find some way to stop you from rutting with the Singers.”

  Nimrod banged the arm of his throne. “Enough!”

  “I know. You think you’re invincible. You think you have a solemn pact with the gods. But the gods hate a man who reaches too high. They search out ways to humble him, usually with disastrous results for him and his kin.”

  “Has Semiramis done something to upset you?”

  “I am your mother. I fear for you. Study her and watch her reactions, watch how she watches you. Don’t you realize that she’s sick with fury at what you do?”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Do you even sleep with Semiramis anymore?”

  For a moment, he wondered if danger did lurk in Semiramis’s dark heart. He smiled. Without him, Semiramis would fall from power. So he wondered what had driven his mother to plot against his wife. Then it became obvious. His mother jockeyed for position. He was the sun, they the creatures who derived their sustenance from him. “I shall consider your words,” he said.