by Bryan Davis
Roxil’s head wagged back and forth. “I am dizzy. Something made me ill.”
“I felt it, too.” He gazed back at the tower. As the flames tightened around the huge ziggurat, the remaining dragons continued fanning it toward the direction it leaned. Finally, the entire structure toppled with a thunderous crash, sending a tremor that shook the ground under their claws.
Roxil heaved a tired sigh. “We did it!”
“Yes, we did.” Makaidos kept his eyes on the sky. A dragon had broken off from the troop and was heading their way. “Do you recognize him?” he asked.
Roxil angled her head toward the gliding figure. “No, and I sense something odd about him. Is it danger?”
“It is similar to danger. I am not sure what it is.”
The dragon landed with a soft touch, following the dredged path the other two dragons had plowed. His powerful red wings fanned a brisk wind in their faces, forcing Makaidos to blink. When his vision cleared, he gazed at the familiar face. He backed away a step, unwilling to believe what his eyes were telling him. He sputtered a drizzle of fire as he spoke. “Fa. . Father?”
The dragon dipped his head. “I am glad you recognize me, Makaidos. It has been many years since the day Hilidan and I fought the Watchers and the fountains of the deep erupted and swept us all away.” He raised his head again and stared at Makaidos, his eyes flashing red. “But your father, Arramos, lives.”
Makaidos took another step back. “How can you know about Hilidan? I have not mentioned his name to anyone since the day of the flood.”
“Because I was there. . Son.”
“How did you survive? And why have you waited so long to show yourself?”
“It is a long story, but for now, we must be reacquainted.” Arramos bowed toward Roxil. “I want to get to know my descendants.”
Roxil bowed in return. “I am glad to meet you, Father Arramos.”
Makaidos shook his head. “This cannot be. The Maker told Master Noah that every creature not aboard the ark was killed. The Maker is never wrong.”
“Of course the Maker is never wrong, but Master Noah has made his share of mistakes. I am sure you have heard the gossip that Ham spread about his drunken exposure.”
Makaidos winced. “I have heard.”
“And you must admit that evidence of my death is sorely lacking, for I am standing here right now.”
Roxil flapped her wings, pushing her body toward Arramos. She intertwined her neck with his and looked back at Makaidos. “He has to be your father. I no longer feel any danger at all.”
“I do.” Makaidos took yet another step back. “More than ever.”
Arramos pulled away from Roxil and stretched his neck, bringing his head close to Makaidos. “My son, I fought alongside you against the tower. I scorched King Nimrod while he held the dragon’s bane and weakened your daughter. If I had not, you would both have fallen to the spearmen.”
“Dragon’s bane? What is that?”
“A gem that some call a candlestone. It weakens dragons by absorbing their light energy.”
Makaidos couldn’t maintain eye contact. He gazed toward the mountains. “Shem and Japheth told me you were on Nimrod’s side, one of his enforcers.”
“I was infiltrating as a spy. The sons of Noah would not have learned who captured the girl from their village if I had not leaked the information to them.”
Roxil thumped her tail on the ground. “Father! Why are you being so rude? He is obviously who he says he is.”
“He certainly appears to be, but I sense great danger. The Maker has given me a gift that I cannot ignore, and I trust him and Master Noah before this evidence that I cannot yet fully comprehend.”
Arramos lowered his voice. “Makaidos, it is important that I reestablish my leadership over our family. You know this to be true. Your sons who flew with me around the tower have agreed to join in our battle against humankind.”
“But you always taught me that we were created to serve the sons of Adam.”
“I did.” Arramos’s eyes flashed brighter than ever, but he lowered his voice even further, growling under his breath. “Time after time men have spat in the face of the Maker. Even after a cleansing flood, they have corrupted themselves again. Building a tower of pride, they have driven a fist into the Maker’s nose. The time has come for dragons to take their place as rulers of the planet.”
“I. . I cannot believe what I am hearing. There is too much to think about. The danger I feel is overwhelming.”
“You have already lost Goliath.” Arramos waved a wing at Roxil. “Will you lose the rest of your family because of a feeling you get when I am near? Did I not teach you logic? Will you defy all reason because of your faith in a man who drinks himself to the point of shame? Where is your discernment?”
Makaidos glanced all around. As a cloud of smoke from the burning tower began obscuring the sun, a shadow fell across his eyes. “A shroud of darkness surrounds me. It would be foolish to deny what I have learned in the light. That is the chief rule of discernment.”
“The time of darkness has ended my son. You may follow me if you wish, but do not make yourself an enemy.” With a great flap of his wings, Arramos lifted into the sky and sailed toward the fallen tower.
Roxil glared at Makaidos, thumping her tail even harder. “Father! Do not be a fool! Mankind is not worth losing your own father.”
Makaidos roared. “Silence! You have no idea what you are saying. You have not seen what I have seen through the centuries!”
Roxil scowled. “Living longer does not always make a dragon wiser.”
Makaidos lifted his tail, ready to strike, but he let it fall. His daughter had long since passed the stage of youngling discipline. He shuffled closer to her. “Roxil, what has happened to you? You have never been so disrespectful toward me.”
“I have always respected you, even when I thought your patience with the foolishness of men made you appear to be a fool yourself. Respect is why I held back my opinions for so long, but now I am of age to make my own choices.” Roxil turned her head toward the sky. “Look, Father. My brothers. . your sons. . are following Arramos toward the mountains. Will you join us?”
“Us? You cannot be serious!”
“I am.” Roxil stretched out her wings. “No sensible dragon would hang her life on the words of a drunken ark builder.”
Makaidos firmed his jaw. “Your mother will be on my side.”
“She is too weak to oppose you. She has always been weak.”
Makaidos snorted a stream of fire at the ground near Roxil’s tail. “You have no idea what you are saying! Your mother is a great warrior. Do not cast insults simply because you are too young to have seen her in action! She has spent the last century populating the world with dragons and raising up a new brood of warriors!”
Roxil flapped her wings and lifted slowly into the sky. She circled him once and dipped her head in a solemn bow. “Good-bye, Father.”
A tear dripped from Makaidos’s eye and fell to the ground. Roxil strayed from her path for a moment before zooming toward the other dragons as they disappeared in the growing haze.
Clasping her hand on her chest, Mara breathed a sigh. “You startled me.”
Sympathy tinged Morgan’s voice. “I apologize, but I wanted to comfort you.”
Mara drooped her head. “How can I be comforted? My first visit to the land above was a disaster! King Nimrod got so mad at me, I thought he would kill me, and he kept talking about needing blood, so it seemed for a minute like he was going to sacrifice a baby. But then dragons came and destroyed the tower, and everything in it burned. Mardon said all the world’s knowledge lay in the first floor, and now it’s gone forever!”
Morgan caressed her cheek. “You have had a frightful experience, but not all is lost.” She curled her finger. “Come with me.”
Morgan walked toward a narrow opening at the side of the cavern opposite the one they had entered. Mara rose slowly, and, as she followe
d, Morgan spoke in haunting tones. “I know a great disaster has befallen the upper world. Tell me, Mara, what did you see?”
As they passed into the tunnel, darkness enfolded them. Mara slowed, but the floor seemed smooth enough. “I saw dragons. Lots of them. And they breathed fire at the tower until it burned.”
“I see.” Now in total darkness, Morgan’s voice sounded like a sad song, like the dirge Naamah taught the girls to sing when one of them died in the chasm. “Did the fire spin like a whirlpool as it consumed Nimrod’s tower?”
“It did! How did you guess?”
“And did the tower sink into the ground like a rock in a pool?”
“Part of it sank, but more than half of it started tipping over. It was so tall, I was afraid it would fall on me, so I went through the portal before it fell.” A strange tingle crawled along Mara’s skin. “How did you know?”
The tunnel brightened slightly, enough for her to see Morgan’s eyes directly in front of her own. Sudden fear froze Mara in place. She held her breath, unable to move a muscle.
Morgan’s face showed no emotion. “You fancy yourself a scientist, a lover of knowledge. Do you not?”
Mara pressed her lips together and gave her a quick nod.
Morgan swept her arm toward the source of light, another cavern that lay just beyond the end of the tunnel. “Then allow me to show you how I knew.” She strode into the cavern, her black dress flowing in a swirling draft.
Feeling surged back into Mara’s legs, and she rushed to catch up. When she entered the cavern, she stopped and leaned back, barely able to take in the amazing sights. The ceiling reached higher than any of the trees in the upper world, so high that she could see only a vague grayness in the upper reaches. Spinning to the side, she located the source of light, a blazing column that stretched to the ceiling’s highest point. The energy in the column rotated, casting off blue eddies of light that twirled in dancing pirouettes until they fizzled into nothingness.
Morgan stood at the center of the cavern next to a massive circular building that stretched from one side of the seemingly endless chamber to the other. A set of broken, charred doors lay open, leading to the building’s anteroom. A ring of statues surrounded something in the center, their arms raised as if saluting it with hailing praises.
Mara gasped. “The. . the tower?”
Morgan pushed on one of the doors. It toppled over, smashing to the floor at her feet. She jumped back and waved away the dust, coughing. “What’s left of it.”
Mara ran to the doorway and peered into the anteroom. Now close enough to the statues, she finally recognized what the robed men and women were saluting. “A tree?”
Morgan strutted inside and motioned for Mara to follow. “Yes, a very special tree. I’m sure you read about it in Mardon’s library. Adam and Eve first discovered wisdom by eating its fruit.”
“I did read about it, but I thought it was destroyed in the flood.”
“It was, but I am. .” Morgan covered her mouth and coughed again. “Excuse me. I mean, one of my dear old friends is a seed collector, and she saved a few seeds from the fruit. I planted them, and this tree was the only one that sprouted.”
“That must mean your friend was on the ark!”
“Yes, and you know her quite well. Did you ever read the name of Ham’s wife?”
Mara drew in a quick breath. “Naamah was on the ark?”
Morgan crossed her arms over her chest. “One and the same.”
Mara gazed at the tree and whistled. No wonder the statues seemed to be saluting! It was the descendant of the original tree of knowledge!
As Morgan approached the center of the room, she lifted her hands toward the ceiling, her voice echoing in the massive chamber. “The entire museum celebrates the wisdom of mankind and his pursuit of knowledge, so it’s fitting that the original source of that knowledge should grow here, the progeny of wisdom’s first blossom.” She stopped at the tree and caressed a red, pear-shaped fruit that dangled from a low branch. “As you explore all the wonders here, you, too, will enjoy the fruits of wisdom.”
Mara stopped at the statue of a tall, stately woman and caressed her smooth marble knee, a knee that seemed ready to bend at the sight of the tree, rooted in a circular planter that lay flush with the surrounding floor. Since the branches spread out ten feet in each direction, only a few paces separated the fruit from its marble-clad worshippers.
As Mara drew closer, the Ovulum in her pocket grew hot and stung her thigh. She halted. Was it angry? Giving a warning? She took three steps back. The egg cooled, but she didn’t want to pull it out. Morgan probably thought she had given it to Nimrod, and it was better if her mistress didn’t know where it was.
Morgan cocked her head to one side. “Is something wrong?”
Folding her hands behind her, Mara shifted back and forth on her feet. “I don’t know. I just felt something strange when I got near the tree.”
“Something strange?” Morgan’s eyes flashed red, but the rest of her face stayed calm. “Eating the fruit is the first step toward true wisdom. The strangeness will fade soon enough.” She held out her hand, her fingers beckoning Mara to come.
Mara took a step, and the egg heated up again, but not quite as hot this time. She halted and gazed at one of the statues. “I’m not hungry right now. Maybe tomorrow.”
A crooked smile spread across Morgan’s face. She folded her hands, and her tone became overly sweet. “If you don’t eat the fruit, my dear, you will forever stay an ignorant freak of nature.”
Mara bit her bottom lip. Tears crept into her eyes, but she didn’t want to cry. She had to change the subject, and fast. “How did the tower get here?”
Morgan drilled her with a piercing stare, but after a few seconds, she seemed willing to give up on the fruit issue, at least for the time being. “It must have come through a dimensional portal,” she said, pointing at the tall shaft of light outside the tower. “The only way they’re created is by a vortex of light energy, so I guessed that the dragons’ fire must have been swirling. Since the green portal faded and a blue one formed here, I think the path between the dimensions actually moved, shifting the lower portal to this room and the upper portal to the midst of the fire around the tower. My guess is that a lower portal’s color change indicates a positional change in its exit point up above.”
“How did you know that the tower sank?”
Morgan looked up at the ceiling. “Only the lowest section of the tower came through the portal, so with the foundation missing, what could the rest of the tower do but sink or fall?”
Mara followed Morgan’s line of sight and saw shelf upon shelf of scrolls, hundreds of them, even thousands. Dozens of wooden ladders rose almost to the domed ceiling, close enough to each other to allow access to every shelf. Quite a number of scrolls also lay on the floor in haphazard piles. Mara let out a contented sigh. “So can I start reading the scrolls right away?”
Morgan shook her head. “Your journey threw you off schedule. It’s time for your sleep cycle. When you wake up, we’ll decide how to split your working hours between your control room duties and your new studies here. Mardon will be too busy to return to our world for quite some time, so I will be your primary instructor.”
“But will Mardon want the scrolls back?” Mara asked. “If he has a lot of work to do, he’ll probably want them.”
“The fool is lucky he’s still alive, and if not for the quick transport of this piece of the tower, none of the scrolls would have survived anyway.” Morgan picked up one of the scrolls that had fallen to the floor and rolled it open. “Besides, the language would be gibberish to him. He wouldn’t understand a single word.”
“What?” Mara peeked around Morgan’s arm and read the first few lines, an introduction to the biography of a man she had never heard of. “I can read it. Why can’t they?”
Morgan rolled the scroll back up. “As soon as the new portal appeared, I went through it to see what created it. I
came out in the middle of a dwindling ring of fire, apparently the center of the tower’s original location. The tower had already fallen, and the people were in total chaos, babbling incoherently to each other.” She laid the scroll in Mara’s hands. “It seems that people speak a variety of new tongues now, and they don’t understand normal speech, that is, the language of these scrolls. Since dragons were still attacking the city, I only stayed a few seconds. I came right back and hurried to the old portal, hoping you had found your way home. Fortunately, you used the pathway before it moved.” She swept away a pile of broken marble with her foot. “This disaster has caused a huge displacement in the barrier between our two dimensions. In fact, the portal’s shift from green to blue light tells me that it might not even lead to Shinar any longer. I haven’t figured out what changes we’ll experience, but it will be interesting to see how time passage here compares to the world above.”
Mara unrolled a few inches of the scroll. “First a flood and now a fire. Why does Elohim want to destroy everything?”
“There will be plenty of time for questions and answers. As you read the scrolls, I’ll be here to teach you. But for now, you must go to sleep.”
She hugged the scroll to her chest. “May I take just this one with me tonight?”
“I didn’t get to read it,” Morgan said, touching the end of the scroll. “I don’t want you to study something you’re not ready for.”
Mara frowned and laid the scroll back on the floor near the doorway. When she straightened, Morgan placed her hands on Mara’s cheeks. “Now feel the tension of the day melt from your thoughts,” Morgan said. “You have toiled in the lands above, and your mind is swimming in a flood of new discoveries. Rest, my child, and let yourself float above it all. Think only of warm springs and sweet fig cakes, and everything else will wait until morning’s call.”
Morgan’s cool fingers felt heavenly. Mara really did feel very sleepy. She wanted to ask if Mardon was still fighting the dragons, but the question seemed too difficult to speak. “Okay,” she said, yawning.