People of the Tower (Ark Chronicles 4) Read online

  “Yet it is important to understand that behind these rebellious actions moved the devil, the evil prince of the power of the air,” Noah said. “In ways I do not understand, the devil is able to whisper into our hearts, to stir us to sin. That is not to say we do not do our actions ourselves. We do. But there is a power of evil at work on the Earth, a grim power that plots with undying wisdom. The devil was given more wisdom at his creation than man. Nearly 1600 years has passed from Adam’s creation to the Flood. In those 1600 years, the devil has gained a keener understanding of men than he first had. He has refined his methods against us and grown subtler.”

  “We’ve been taught about the devil,” Beor said testily.

  Noah smiled. “Of course, forgive me.”

  “I haven’t heard all this,” Hilda said. “It’s very interesting, and it’s also frightening.”

  “Remember, Hilda, that while Satan has had these many centuries to increase his understanding and power, Jehovah is omniscient and omnipotent. Jehovah is never surprised and never really, when you think about it, learns anything new. He already knows everything. He is all-knowing and has all power, and He, in His time, will utterly defeat the devil.”

  “Why doesn’t Jehovah defeat the devil now?” Hilda asked.

  Noah shrugged.

  “You don’t know?” Beor asked.

  “I do not,” Noah said. “It is a mystery. That is why I’m a man and Jehovah is God. Some things, He has not seen fit to tell us.”

  “Will Jehovah ever tell us?” Hilda asked.

  “Perhaps,” Noah said, “and perhaps not. We shall see.”

  They thought about that, until Hilda asked, “What happened after Methushael?”

  “Ah,” Noah said. “Yes, during Methushael’s reign they inquired after Jehovah, asking all the wrong questions and looking for the answers in all the wrong places. Then a most evil king rose up: Lamech.”

  “Isn’t that name of your father?” Beor asked.

  “It is,” Noah said. “But this Lamech was born in the seventh generation. He was the seventh from Adam. He was a contemporary of my Great Grandfather Enoch, the seventh from Adam in the godly line of Seth, the third son of Adam and Eve.”

  “The man Jehovah translated to Heaven?” Beor asked.

  “That’s right,” Noah said. “Jehovah took my Great Grandfather Enoch to be with Him in Heaven, without Enoch first having to die. Jehovah did it when Enoch was 365 years old.”

  “Why did Jehovah do it?” Hilda asked.

  Noah gave her an enigmatic smile instead of an answer.

  “You don’t know?” Beor asked. “Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Correct,” Noah said.

  “What about this evil Lamech?” Hilda asked. “What happened next?”

  “Yes,” Noah said. “That age or rule began as one in moral disorder. Now Lamech means powerful, conqueror or wild man. And wild, powerful and a conqueror was this Lamech. He broke the old morality of one man taking one wife. He took two wives: one named Adah and the other Zillah, which means ornament and shade respectively. They were both very beautiful and enticing women. Thus, out of lust, Lamech began polygamy. He is known as the first poet, or as the first recorded poet with the first recorded poem. Lamech slew a man for wounding him. In verse, which became known ever after as Lamech’s sword-song, he recited to his two wives his proud achievement:

  “Adah and Zillah, listen to me;

  wives of Lamech, hear my words.

  I have killed a man for wounding

  me, a young man for injuring me.

  If Cain is avenged seven times,

  then Lamech seventy-seven times.”

  “What’s that part mean about Cain being avenged seven times?” Hilda asked.

  “When Jehovah first cursed Cain, he wailed that it was too heavy a price for his sin. Any man that found him would kill him.” Noah grew thoughtful. “Jehovah said He would punish any man that slew Cain with vengeance seven times harder than what Cain was receiving. So Lamech, in his pride, said that he was in a sense even more terrible and mighty than Jehovah. He was punishing a man seventy-seven times, that for merely wounding him.”

  “This Lamech reminds me of Nimrod,” Beor said.

  Noah studied Beor. “As I said, Lamech set up a new moral order: polygamy. Out of it grew a new age of marvelous discovery. The lawlessness of Lamech, in terms of his disobedience to the ways of Jehovah, produced fruit. This fruit at first seemed grand and wonderful, the most revolutionary seen on Earth.

  “Lamech’s first wife, Adah, bore him two prominent and important sons. The first was Jabal. Now you must remember that this was the first age of man. It began with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Jehovah had slain animals to give them skins to wear. Our technology today is less than what men had at the end of the Antediluvian Age. But our technology is greater than what men had in Lamech’s time. We have the advantage of knowing what is possible. Back then, they groped in the dark to invent things my children only reinvent. In any case, Jabal invented tents. You may laugh at that, but until an idea is hatched it is a mysterious and hidden thing. Until that time, no one even considered such things. Now you may wonder: what’s so special about tents?”

  “I hate living in tents,” Hilda said. “Your house is much better.”

  “Thank you,” Noah said. “Well, to answer the question you must remember how nice the world was then. We never had snow and howling winds in Antediluvian times. In fact, we had no winds to speak of. So Jabal in his tents lived pleasantly. But the reason for his tents was this. He became the first cattleman, the first true nomad. Jabal was its inventor, its creator and its teacher. Abel had kept flocks of sheep, for wool and as sacrifice. But in the first age, men weren’t allowed to eat meat. This particular command of Jehovah’s the line of Cain ignored. They ate meat. Jabal developed a new science, a new lifestyle. At first, he cornered the market of it. Cattle meant not just cows and bulls, but camels, donkeys, horses and such. He boasted that he no longer tilled the ground with the sweat of his brow. Instead, leisurely, as a king of the plain, he feasted on the fat of the land.

  “Jabal’s brother Jubal had a different outlook. He took after his father Lamech as a poet. To rhyme verses and tell stories delighted Jubal. Yet he wished to captivate people with his stories, to ensnare them with his thoughts. Now here is a very mysterious thing. We have hints that the devil, as Lucifer, the light-bearer, first led Heaven’s angels in song to Jehovah. My Grandfather Methuselah always believed that the devil whispered these next inventions to Jubal. Such may be the case. I don’t know. What I do know is that Jubal invented the harp and the flute; he invented stringed and wind instruments. Jubal entertained people with his songs and with his music. He didn’t praise Jehovah with them, but enticed men with wicked thoughts. Love of things and lust for women was always at the heart of his songs. With the harp and flute, he helped inaugurate new modes of thought, bringing wild abandonment in sexual license and murderous thoughts of vengeance. People eating their fill of meat and with time and luxury listened to these provocative songs. Wild melodies stirred the passions as only music could and can.

  “The third and final prominent son of Lamech was Zillah’s child. You’ve heard of his name before: Tubal-Cain. His namesake ruled the city of Enoch and the land of Nod when the Flood struck the Old World. The first Tubal-Cain was a huge man, powerful and cunning, with strange thoughts. He learned to smelt ores, and in the world’s first smithy, he worked bronze, brass and iron. He made chariots, that awful tool of war, and he forged swords and spears as well as spoons, forks and nails. He stunned the world with his inventions as no one has since. He gave his father the weapons that so overmastered him that Lamech boasted that he was more powerful than Jehovah. It is hard to imagine a world without metallurgy and then a man exploding it upon them. With Tubal-Cain’s weapons, the men of Nod went on a spree of conquest and butchery, drenching the age in blood, setting the stage for the next dreadful move on the devil�
�s part.

  “Civilization in all its splendor had descended upon the world. It transformed everything, and it spread the wicked ideas of the men of Nod. A revolution had taken place, ushered in by Lamech’s boys. It ripened humanity for the fallen angels. It readied mankind so that Naamah, the sister of Tubal-Cain, could dare to plot the foulest move of all.”

  “What?” Hilda whispered, her eyes wide.

  “Naaman as you’ve heard was very beautiful and sly. She was also the mother of divination. She broke through the bound Jehovah had and has set between the physical and spiritual realms. She sought counsel through forbidden channels, learning to speak with the sons of Jehovah, with the fallen angels, to commune with them and through them predict certain events. Fearful and wicked rites took place, too terrible to speak about. Soon, men avidly sought her, seeking to know future things. Yet her next move was the more terrible. She called the fallen angels to her, to appear in bodily form. Then did the sons of Jehovah, the bene elohim, have union with the daughters of men. Through them were born the Nephilim, the heroes of old and the wicked men of renown.”

  “Like Ymir?” Beor whispered.

  “Like Ymir,” Noah said. “But my point is this. Lamech ushered in civilization. It was a civilization in rebellion against Jehovah. How noble it sounded at first. How proud Lamech was of his children: Jabal the cattleman, Jubal the music maker, Tubal-Cain the artificer and Naamah the spellcaster. They changed the ways of man. They transformed society. And they helped set the conditions for the worst depredations of the demonic realm, first brought on by Lamech’s daughter Naamah. An excess of food gave them time for leisure, leisure to practice evil. Malevolent modes of music captivated their thoughts, running their imaginations along the lines of the composer. In this instance, he was a rebellious man far along the path of the way of Cain. New weapons and tools of war helped unleash a wave of spilled blood that made Cain’s slaughter of Abel with a raised rock seem practically infantile. Yet what lay at the root of all this? The devil’s plots, of course.”

  Beor’s eyes gleamed. “Is that what you think is going on with the Tower?”

  “I do,” Noah said. “I do because they preach against Jehovah’s will. Consider. Jehovah told us to fill the world with people. They say, No, let us all live in one place together in universal peace. What is their lure? Why, to raise civilization to the old heights. It isn’t in an endeavor to subdue the Earth, as Jehovah commanded Adam, but a self-centered desire of rebellious men. I believe that the devil is behind their goal. That he plots in some subtle manner to unleash the old horrors upon the Earth.”

  “More bene elohim?” Beor whispered.

  “Perhaps,” Noah said, “or perhaps something worse.”

  “What could be worse?” Beor asked.

  Noah shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not the devil. His knowledge is much greater than mine. I would never think to match my wits against his. No. My only hope is to obey Jehovah, to rest on His promises. Let Jehovah war against the devil, for only He is strong enough to defeat him.”

  “That makes sense,” Beor said. “But why bring us all the way up here to tell us this?”

  Noah grinned.

  It reminded Hilda of Ham. In that moment, Noah looked just like his youngest son.

  “Come,” Noah said, “I’ll show you.”

  6.

  Hilda bent her head against the icy wind and struggled after Noah, following his path through the snow. She found it difficult to believe that the Ark had ever landed up here. How could all the animals have been unloaded in this dreadful weather? For that matter, she found it difficult to believe that the Earth had ever been covered with water. Where had all the water gone to then? Why didn’t the water cover all the Earth now? Noah claimed that deep chasms and canyons had been made for the excess water to drain into. In the Old World, the oceans hadn’t been as deep as they were now. Perhaps it was so, yet it seemed unlikely, thought Hilda. How could a ship hold all the world’s animals? The Earth teemed with beasts. It swarmed with sparrows, hawks, crows, bats, locusts, wasps, flies, worms, snakes, rats, jackals and hordes of antelopes, elephants, wolves, cattle, donkeys, cats and dogs. She became breathless just thinking about it. Could a mere one hundred years of breeding cause such an explosion of beasts?

  With the wind shrieking in her ears, Hilda followed Noah’s broad back. She hurried, using him to shield her from the worst of the stormy weather. Old Noah seemed invincible up here, where at Festival with his cough and fever, he’d been a shell of a man. She glanced back. Her father’s face was pale with exhaustion, made more so perhaps because of his shaggy black beard. He lifted his peg leg. Like a spear, it sank into a drift. Then he plowed through the drift and repeated the process. She pitied her father and marveled at his determination.

  “Oh,” she said, bumping into Noah’s back.

  He regarded a wall, one that towered before them. The wall was a part of a mountain.

  A few moments later, her father stood with them. With his gloved hand, Beor brushed tiny icicles off his eyebrows.

  “You look lost,” Beor wheezed.

  Hilda glanced at Noah. Frost iced his eyebrows and beard just as it did her father. Noah seemed like a creature of the snow, a monster that lurked in these dreadful mountains. He seemed perplexed.

  “We should keep moving,” Beor shouted.

  The wind whistled down the snowy wall. At times, puffs of snow followed, as if the mountain sneezed on them.

  Noah lurched suddenly, at the wall, using his gopher-wood staff to wipe at it.

  Hilda and her father traded glances.

  Noah kept at his task. Then he lumbered back to them. He shouted at Beor. “Do you have your axe?”

  “What’s wrong, Noah?”

  “Give me your axe.”

  With his furry mittens, Beor fumbled at his belt, at last drawing a hatchet.

  The icicle-bearded patriarch went back to the wall, chopping at it. It seemed a futile gesture. Steam rose from him. He kept hammering, ice chips flying.

  “What’s he doing?” Hilda asked.

  Her father shrugged.

  “Why doesn’t he bring us to the Ark?” she asked.

  Beor frowned, and he glanced at her again. “Where is the Ark?”

  “Up here somewhere,” she said.

  “Yes, yes, but where? Wouldn’t snow cover it?”

  She glanced sharply at Noah. The old patriarch hammered at the…it was an ice wall, a glacier!

  Noah peered into the hole he’d chopped. He whirled around. “Hurry! Come here.”

  Hilda crunched through snow. Billows of misty breath pumped out of Noah’s mouth. He had thrown his hood back. Steam rose from his head.

  “You must squint,” Noah said, “and then peer into the ice. Look where I chopped.”

  Hilda hurried there, and she squinted. Excitement stole her breath. Dizziness threatened. Deep in the ice was wood, the planks of a ship.

  “It’s the Ark,” her father whispered.

  Goosebumps rose over Hilda. The Ark. She had heard the stories all her life. In fact, the giant barge’s voyagers were her great grandparents. She had heard the stories all her life and half disbelieved them, or found them hard to believe. It was such a fantastic tale. Yet here it was. This ship had sailed from the doomed Antediluvian World, carrying in its belly the entire world’s supply of surviving animals.

  She swallowed a lump down her throat.

  That meant Jehovah had destroyed a world with water. The Flood had happened. She had always known that, but to see the Ark… Lamech and his children—Jabal, Jubal, Tubal-Cain and Naamah—had changed a world through a new civilization. They had lifted man from the Stone Age and into the Bronze and Iron Age. Strange melodies and songs had fired the imaginations of men, played on instruments never heard before that moment. The songs, wild, passionate and oh so enjoyable, had plowed the minds of men, preparing them for a world infested with demonic invaders. Because they had plenty to eat, leisure tim
e and boredom, they had turned to nefarious deeds. They had brought on themselves the judgment of All Mighty Jehovah.

  “We must stop them from building the Tower,” Beor shouted.

  “You must warn them,” Noah said, “or at least speak to those who will listen.”

  “That’s what I’ve been doing,” Beor shouted. “It got me kicked out of Japheth Land.”

  “No,” Noah said. “You’ve warned people against Nimrod. As a warrior, you’ve stood against another warrior. With the power of hatred, you’ve gone as a messenger. What I’m saying is that you go in the love of Jehovah. You must go as a prophet, a preacher of righteousness. You must warn people of a coming doom not brought about by Nimrod, but by the old Serpent, the devil.”

  Beor peered into the hole. He shook his head. “I’ve never been a preacher of righteousness. I’m just an angry man, as you’ve said, plotting for revenge.”

  “It’s time to be a prophet,” Noah said, “a preacher of righteousness.”

  Hilda and her father looked at the Ark again.

  Finally, Noah shouted, “We have to head back.” He pointed at dark clouds. “There’s going to be a blizzard. We have to leave before we’re buried with the Ark.”

  The three of them turned from the glacier, turned from Mount Ararat, and began the long trek back to Noah’s house on the northern slope region.

  7.

  A month later, Beor and the others, in lumbering oxcarts, trundled up and down denuded hills—forests reduced to a thousand stumps. Beor in his odd gait led them, with serenity on his face.

  Hilda stared at the sun. It burned. And she cried out in surprise as the nearest oxcart creaked over a stone, causing the overburdened cart to lurch, making the pots, pans and pottery implements on top clatter and clank and threaten to fly out. One of the pulling oxen peered over his shoulder at the noise. Then it returned to trudging one plodding step at a time.

  Calmed by the beast, Hilda stayed her switch, yawning soon, wishing it wasn’t so unseasonably hot.