Quest for the Ark

by Taggart Rehnn

  Another tense wait followed, during which some heated debate arose about barging uninvited inside the place, a motion promptly quelled by the Countess. “Didn’t you say that, whenever Severian wants to contact you, he can get inside your minds and speak to you?” she asked Tony, Haim and David.

  “Yes,” the three admitted.

  “Then I fail to see why should he not be able to do the same now, or whenever it’s time. And if Lilith is the Mother of his entire kind, she, being likely even more powerful that him, should also be able to reach inside our minds, should she so wish. This is my castle, and my rules: no barging uninvited. When Lady Lilith wishes our company, she or Severian would invite us in,” the Countess commanded.

  A few heartbeats later, the door opened, on its own. “Please approach!” a message formed in everyone’s mind, as if spoken by a deep, if very feminine, voice; a voice that sounded old, incredible old, and the same time, curiously eager to share whatever that might be with the now thunderstruck and rather apprehensive humans.

  Lilith had the appearance of an unusually tall, statuesque woman of very dark hair, with golden eyes, skin as pale as polished alabaster under the moonlight, long fingers ending in perfect long nails, an odd texture, not unlike diamonds. She was dressed in an iridescent toga, of simple cut—yet made of something that, at the same time, seemed silk and metal—held by a very thick belt perfectly demarcating a narrow waist, a generous bosom and uncommonly voluptuous hips. An unsettling vision, her overall benevolent demeanor didn’t in the least conceal the power she exuded.

  Having no intention to beat around the bush or time for empty flattery, she silenced everyone with a simple hand gesture, and spoke: “My child has called on me, and I have answered,” Lilith began. “I am the First that Ever Was; the First that still Is, the First Mother of all the Undead. And I see that you, although not my children, have need of my knowledge, for the Wind Furies had arisen. Fear not: Wisdom has guided your choice. Defying many interdictions, many centuries ago, my children crafted this link, to call on me in times of dread and need. Had you destroyed it, your chances of understanding what is happening now and how to stop it would have been very small; and the likelihood of any of you being able to stop it, probably nil.

  So you can understand current events, I shall remind you of three rather ancient Mesopotamian stories, stories some of you have heard, only distorted by the centuries. You know them as ‘Inanna and the Huluppa Tree’, the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’, and the ‘Descent of Innana’.” Sól recognized them instantly. Lilith nodded acknowledging her, and then went on. “The first is cute and was later distorted: from Inanna growing a tree to make furniture, to then making Inanna my alter ego, over centuries transformed into the snake who, in Paradise, tempted Adam and Eve into eating the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. This deformation essentially implies that knowledge is evil—forced humankind out of Paradise—and ‘me’, a female, expecting equality with Adam—a man, since we both were made of earth “admah”—made me a heretic, who uttered in vain the sacred Tetragrammaton, and flew into the skies, to be chased by angels; and then, eventually caught, promised to only devour babies, and such nonsense.

  That is as Hebrew folklore goes. In Mesopotamia, things were even worse. In the ‘Epic of Gilgamesh’ I was fulminated by Gilgamesh’s dashing charms, and essentially wanted him desperately—but he had supposedly spurned me, for being a whore. So I supposedly forced my sister’s husband to attack him and his friend; and they started killing people by the hundreds; and then, being and incorrigible daddy’s girl, I went to the underworld, to visit my sister, and give her my sympathies for her husband’s death—which ‘I’ had caused; only to end up naked, humiliated, judged for his death, and turned into a rotten piece of meat hanging from a hook. But then, having preemptively sent my servant to tell my father—if I didn’t return after a specified time—that he should rescue ‘me’, he supposedly did so, leaving ‘my sister’ Ereshkighal, fuming, in hell, widowed, and unable to get justice. In this story, since nobody but messengers can leave Hell once they enter—unless someone else takes their place—Ereshkighal had demanded someone replace ‘me’; and, again, after checking my close servants and such, since ‘my husband’ Dumuzid (see ‘Adum-uzid’ anyone?) was lavishly clothed under a tree (other versions say: sat at ‘my throne’; it’s always back to trees and furniture, I guess someone among storytellers was an interior designer) gets taken down from his paradisiac surroundings, and thrown down in Hell to be roasted. That would make ‘me’ what some of you would call murderous bitch—a demon, the sort of lady none of you would want to meet on a dark alley.

  In a sense the absurdities added after the Babylonian Captivity by the Jews are ‘logical’: the Euphrates and Tigris, called Phirat and Chidekel, plus two others, Pishon and Gihon, are the rivers in Paradise on your Genesis 2:10-14, are they not? The gala-tura and kur-jara, in the ‘Descent of Inanna’ are flying and sexless, like angels; and they are made of dust—in the Sumerian story, taken from under Enki’s nails. Do not forget that according to the Sumerians, when the lesser gods complained of having to work too hard to create things, Namma, the primal mother, stuck some mud in her womb and created humans. And all that, anecdotal that it is, I’ll let you make your own conclusions by whichever means you choose about your Bible.

  Now, to the important part, in the Akkadian version of ‘Inanna’s Descent’, ‘I’ supposedly went to the doors of the Underworld, dressed for success—so I could, of course, disrobe like a courtesan thereafter—and screamed hysterically to the gatekeeper, in rhyme of course, something like: “If you don’t let me in, I shall shatter the door and brake the bolt, I shall crash the door post and tear the doors asunder, I shall raise up the dead and the dead shall eat the living, and there shall be more undead than living.”

  Only, I never did such thing either.

  But, as always, there is some truth woven into legends: I was made of earth and given the breath of life, very long ago. And so was my brother. And we were observers in this Divine Creation. However, injudiciously, we gave humans more knowledge than we should. And humans in possession of knowledge are, indeed, capable of unspeakable evil. So, as divine punishment, my brother and I were sent away to the netherworld.

  And there, only one of us was given a chance to escape, which would require uttering the Sacred Tetragrammaton seven times, a ‘trick’ that would work only once. My brother insisted I do it, and I agreed. So he is still there, in Hell. And he is what misogynistic Mesopotamians called a ‘she’, Ereshkighal.

  Having escaped Hell, my punishment was then made even worse: I am now able to open the doors of the Netherworld and let my brother leave; but, if I do, the evil that lives there, the suffering and horror that thrives there, would transform my children into the blood thirsty animals your humans assume we are, animals who shall perish by preying upon themselves, once they exterminate the last humans.

  This is the real curse I brought upon my brother and myself.

  So I now do what I can to preserve human herds on Earth, even if you burn forests to raise cattle and extract wood as if there were no alternatives; and pollute rivers and oceans or fish them dry, as if there were no alternatives as well; and hunt animals to make trophies of their heads; and kill one another at the drop of a hat, over greed, lust for power, and inane disputes. In short, your kind works very hard to deserve being relocated to Hell.

  Every so often, you humans become horribly vile—vile enough to, well nigh, create perfect conditions for those doors to come crashing down, to open on their own. Having been forced to witness your species committing untold atrocities, I really should by now be weary of helping your kind.

  Over many millennia following my brother’s—and my own—fall, I much prefer to exercise restraint, studying your kind from afar. But very seldom do I either punish your wanton savagery, or, even more rarely, try to save you from your own perfidy and idiocy.

  However, you are my children’s nourishment. So, to
protect them, in case your abhorrent behavior could threaten an end to universal equilibrium, I once devised ‘a ruse’: Whispering into someone’s ear just enough knowledge for this golden sheet to be inscribed, I have given you the means to save yourselves before the Gates of Hell should collapse.

  This precious golden sheet was once very badly misunderstood in Qumran,” Lilith continued, pointing at the now carefully flattened gold scroll. “So, fearing its awesome power, those who inscribed it, reverently rolled it, together with three old splinters of “admah” unlike any others, and hid it. This gold sheet, they knew, only the innocent and pure of heart, could use to call on me for help—and only, when facing real danger.

  A pious man who found those precious objects, was so terrified by their might he had a silver cylinder made and engraved, a cylinder to contain them, to store them under faux floors, double walls, piles of cloth, undamaged. Then it became a precious family heirloom— one so revered, so feared, generation after generation kept it, but rarely dared mentioning to anyone but the person who should inherit and keep it.

  Came then the Nazi regime. During it, someone, somehow, realized that if enough tortured souls were to be stirred up into a frenzy—the rage of the betrayed, the ire of the sheep, call it whatever you want—a power like none ever known to this world, incomprehensible but immeasurably destructive, would be unleashed.

  Enter Alois Miedl, the German banker in Amsterdam who became Hermann Göring’s favorite “art dealer”—and also, those Jews who so efficiently helped Nazi take inventory and confiscate all the possessions of those sent to gas chambers. They took the cylinder from Czechoslovakia to Hungary, and from there, to Rumania, where Ceaușescu thought he could use it to make an impression, an irresistible gift to curry favor. But his gift was, alas, rebuked—‘returned to sender’, as it were. Then, the sender, perhaps having learned about its fearsome but incomprehensible power, decided to give it back to its righteous keepers.

  And now you found it, and my child, Severian, used it to call me.

  Now comes the crucial part: among my children, like among you human, there are the good, the bad, the ugly and the evil; and among them, there are those who resent having to exist in the shadows, like lepers in Antiquity, or rich drug dealers in Florida.

  Vampires, while far more powerful than humans, are nonetheless incapable of overcoming the tyranny of the Sun. And, among some of my children, every so often, arise some who believe that, once the doors of the Netherworld come down, my brother would be a conqueror—not ‘a housewife’, like me—and make vampires rule over humans. Tired of living in the shadows of the Underworld, they assume, He would break open the secret power of the shadows, the antidote to the light, and give the means for vampires to bask in sunlight unharmed. Then my children would have complete dominion over the human herd—not so unlike how you humans treat sheep. Their favorite ‘talking point’ is that humans ‘sometimes turn other humans into sheep-like herds, slaughtering them for profit’, thus wasting nourishing human blood ‘for the sake of pointless shiny objects’. And this is what has led us to these unexplained winds and the desecration of restless souls.

  Once the last of those winds are unleashed, by herding souls—smearing the blood of the undead, to trace the ‘symbol of origin’; the ‘stickman’ you found everywhere—should the three splinters in this cylinder be taken to the ‘point of origin’, the doors of the underworld would, indeed, come crashing down. The ‘marriage’ the scholars speak about when studying the golden calf, would thus be consummated—and Humankind’s punishment would then have to befit that of the adulterous ‘married woman’.

  My brother’s punishment would then be to end this humankind we tried to help; and mine, to see my children exterminate all humans, become beasts—and finally, in desperation and hunger, devour one another. This would bring no new dawn of the undead, but the tallying of all sins and the damnation of all sinners, living, dead and undead. It would be what you humans sometimes call the End of Days.”

  “Have you not warned the others, O Mother?” dared ask Severian.

  “Alas, my child,” replied Lilith, “there is no reasoning with power-hungry vampires. They infiltrated Himmler’s circle to create the conditions for this to happen. They influenced minds to create the ‘sheep herds’. Nowadays you have tyrants herding humans like sheep again—cruel, craven sheep, who could inflict horrors on other humans for the pleasure of watching them suffer, even at the cost of destroying themselves and their own families.

  But this is all I can say to prevent this from happening: otherwise, I would be an instrument of preventing my own punishment. Any attempt on my part to do so, might result in untold destruction and suffering, among both humans and the undead. Hard though it might be for humans to comprehend, there are far worse things than Hell.

  However, you are in possession of all that’s required to prevent this calamity. It’s laid out in the contents of the silver cylinder.

  Retrace your steps. Think about possibilities you have pondered. In your minds, I can see that some of you have been very close to finding a way to stop this. That gives me hope. But, sadly, that is all I can say.

  Now, if everyone else could be so kind, before I go, I would like to share a moment alone with Severian,” Lilith finished, with a very subtle yet regal wave of her right hand.

  The Countess immediately understood the urgency and amplified it, with a slightly more pronounced cocking of her own head and a swift tug on Tony’s wrist, guiding him towards the exit. The others took the hint and immediately followed suit.

  The castle’s cameras only partially registered what happened once Lilith was left alone with Severian. After grazing her own wrist with one of her golden nails, she stretched her arm and Severian bent over the bleeding wound, seemingly to drink from it. The others then didn’t know then, but Lilith had just provided him with a much simpler means of calling on her for help next time.

  After that, Severian bowed to her, the lights at the entire castle briefly went out, and, finally, when power came back, Lilith was gone.

  Not so unlike wild animals in the Serengeti, everyone who had left stampeded back into the laboratory, to ask Severian endless questions, with almost everyone speaking at the same time. Annoyed, the Countess silenced the ruckus with a very regal wave of her own hand. “One at a time, s’il vous plaît,” she admonished the group, and quickly restoring order.

  “This was really strange,” mumbled David, clearing his throat.

  “I see it in your mind,” replied Severian. “You believe Lilith, a being you have trouble comprehending, older than time cycles you can fathom, did speak…all too casually for such a uniquely ancient creature. You fear again some sort of elaborate deception.

  Let me spell it out for you, so you understand things better: I am old, and she, infinitely older. To us, you humans are essentially either prey (criminals, those who suffer and beg for release from untreatable pain; enemies, when you try to attack us; collateral damage, during some fights; or snacks we might take, if we desperately need to feed, and there is nothing else nearby that could sustain us—‘the thirst always wins’ has been said so many times saying it sickens us), or children (sentient beings; sentient, yet so young you need things to be explained as plainly as you would a toddler, so you understand them). The Mother has treated you as children, not as prey. Depending on the prey, our saliva can produce an anesthetic to numb the pain, we can employ mind control to prevent our prey from resisting or feeling pain, or we can do the exact opposite, as comeuppance for the vile and vicious—and none of that has befallen to you, even though your dared doubt the Mother’s intentions. In other words, you insulted Her and were not punished.

  So: do not feel ‘disappointed’ the Mother did not speak like some Shakespearian character. She tried to be clear, plain, so you could understand,” Severian pointed out, lightly tapping his index on the counter. Then he lightly shook his head. “You all have been privileged witnesses of a most unique eve
nt. And you all have survived it, unharmed—a far more infrequent outcome. Count your blessings and shed your idiocy.

  Now, we should go back to something we discussed before: the cloth, and the stones, and protecting these slivers of the Tables of the Law.”

  “The cloth and the stones you say? Well, the clusters of three stones will have to be in the same relative positions as those extermination camps, and I presume in the same orientation; but then, the cloth would have to have ‘cardinal points’…” said Tony.

  “Assuming the head is the North….” mumbled David.

  “Oh, no! No, David! You cannot be serious! In the middle of the atarah lies the North, is that what you want to say?” struggled to say Haim.

  “Well, this all seems to revolve around punishing us for our faith in some form. It would be fitting that the cloth that frees us from this monstrosity be one that is sacred to us…” David replied, splaying his hands.

  “A tallit, I suppose a tallit gadol, would be large enough…but I don’t know. Could this be a trap, a demonic trap, trying to make us, of our own volition, desecrate what is not in itself sacred, the tallit per se, but the tzitzit and the 613 mitzvahs of the Torah? Mustn’t vampires let those who want to become vampires choose themselves of their free and unperturbed volition to be turned? Isn’t it true, Severian, that you could not turn into a vampire someone you hypnotize to make him or her ask to be ‘turned’?” asked Haim, rather tentatively.

  “You are confused, rabbi. That is the difference between progeny and slaves. To have a child in the blood, you would be correct. But I could, with total impunity, force any human to request I turn them into my slave—what your movies call ‘familiars’: almost a vampire, that only under special circumstances could become a full fledged undead.