Noah

by Mark Morris

  And they had the tzohar cannons, too. Already Noah had seen several Watchers sent reeling by well-aimed fireballs. One Watcher, who had already been struck twice, was clearly weakened. His body was almost hidden beneath a blanket of men who were clambering all over him, slashing him with swords and stabbing him viciously with homemade pikes. His six arms were flailing, plucking off the occasional assailant and hurling him aside, but whenever one man was cast away, there was instantly another to take his place.

  Then one of the warlords moved into position, armed with a tzohar cannon. He shouted an order, and suddenly the men crawling over the Watcher’s body began to retreat, dropping to the ground. The next moment a fireball erupted from the cannon, hitting the Watcher full in the face, this time from close range.

  Part of the huge Watcher’s head was ripped away in an explosion of stone and fire, and he crashed to the ground, dead. Through the roar of the rain, Noah heard a ragged cheer from the giant’s assailants. But then the cheering turned to consternation, and then to cries of alarm.

  The men gathering around the Watcher’s fallen body—like insects attracted to carrion—began to back away. The Watcher’s chest had started to glow. And even more astonishingly, the vertical sheets of rain which were falling on and around him suddenly began to bend, to pull back, as though creating a funnel that led directly to the heavens.

  Then the cries became screams as, with an earsplitting crackle, a single bolt of lightning shot up out of the Watcher’s chest and into the black, rain-lashed sky. It hung there like a rope of light connecting the world of men to the heavens, lighting up the white, gaping faces of Tubal-cain’s army like a million candle flames. Their screams of panic intensified as the Watcher’s body suddenly exploded into thousands of pieces, sending men flying in all directions.

  For a moment the fighting stopped, Watchers and men gazing in astonishment as something white and pure and brilliant began to rise from the debris of the body.

  Og, Samyaza, and the other Watchers recognized it immediately, and then Noah knew what it was. It was the Watcher’s true form. It was their brother as he had been before falling to the earthly plain, transformed once again into an expanding pillar of pure energy. Somewhere within the column of radiance, six great wings unfurled.

  And then the Watcher was gone, shooting up into the black sky almost too swiftly for the eye to perceive, his route back to the heavens collapsing behind him, filling with darkness and rain once again.

  For an instant after his ascension, nobody moved. The horde was silent.

  Then Samyaza raised his head.

  “The Creator brings him home!” he bellowed. “Our redemption is secure!” He let loose a wild, ululating cry of victory, of exultation. One by one, the other Watchers joined in.

  And then, as one, they waded forward, fighting with abandon now, crushing and smashing Tubal-cain’s men aside, cutting a swathe through the ranks.

  * * *

  Naameh descended a wooden ladder leading to a narrow corridor that was on the same level as the reptile decks, calling her son’s name.

  Huddled in a pile of fresh leaves at the base of one of the artificially constructed “trees,” surrounded by sleeping snakes, Ham heard her but did not respond. Instead he shuffled further down into the leaves, pulling them up and over his body, concealing himself.

  * * *

  Samyaza swept his huge stone fists left and right, yelling in fury and triumph. Men crawled all over him, stabbing and slashing and pummeling at his stone flesh, gouging him away piece by piece.

  He plucked them off, as if they were mosquitoes feasting on his blood, and crushed them in his hands or hurled them through the air. He felt multiple points of pain from their attack, but after seeing his brother called home, it was as nothing to him now. This earthly body, ugly and heavy and ponderous, was a burden, an abomination.

  One way or another he would be rid of it soon.

  * * *

  Noah rushed into the Hearth. Shem, Ila, and Japheth, wide-eyed with fear, looked up at him.

  Noah saw that Shem held a spear.

  “Protect your mother,” he ordered. “Protect them all.”

  Shem nodded.

  * * *

  Shielded by his wedge of troops, Tubal-cain took careful aim with his tzohar pipe-gun. The biggest and ugliest of the Watchers was clearly their leader. If Tubal-cain could put him out of action, then it was possible the others might lose heart, and thus their protective line might crumble.

  Once he had found what he thought was the correct angle, Tubal-cain slammed the pipe-gun against the ground. Instantly the tzohar inside it ignited, and a fireball arced across the clearing, above the heads of his army.

  The fireball struck the Watcher square in the chest, causing it to stagger backward. As the glare died away, Tubal-cain saw that the giant’s chest continued glowing. The rock carapace there looked soft, and slightly molten.

  Determined to press home his advantage before the Watcher could recover, Tubal-cain dropped the pipe-gun, grabbed a pike from one of his soldiers and charged forward, roaring at people to get out of his way. Sure enough, a channel opened in front of him, at the end of which stood the still-groggy Watcher.

  Tubal-cain was almost upon him when the creature seemed to sense danger. With a roar it swung a colossal fist toward him, but the swing was wild, uncoordinated, and Tubal-cain evaded it easily. Ducking under the blow, he aimed the point of the pike at the still-glowing wound in the Watcher’s chest and thrust forward. The pike slid through the molten rock easily, as if it was no more substantial than mud.

  The Watcher screamed and spun about, the reaction so sudden and so violent that Tubal-cain was taken by surprise. Still gripping the end of the pike, he was flipped high up into the air and swung around. He clung on for dear life while the giant’s body crashed to the ground. As the gargantuan stone form became still, and men swarmed over the Watcher’s body to finish the creature off, Tubal-cain let go of the pike shaft and allowed himself to drop.

  Suddenly all he could think about was how the other Watcher’s body had exploded with light. He didn’t want to be around when that happened again.

  * * *

  Samyaza felt the pain from his chest wound expanding within him, filling him. He was aware neither of the men crawling over him, nor of his own body. The pain reached a crescendo, and then he felt himself dwindling, sinking beneath it, falling toward darkness.

  “My Creator,” he whispered with the last of his failing strength, “have mercy on me.”

  And then there was light.

  * * *

  Noah, back at the top of the ramp, saw the rain bend away from Samyaza’s body, saw his stone flesh glow and then explode as a crackling, twisting lightning bolt rushed out of it, ascending to the heavens.

  The next moment the suggestion of a magnificent being, so radiant, so effulgent that it was almost impossible to focus upon, swelled from the shattered debris of stone and clay.

  And then, like his fellow Watcher before him, Samyaza was gone.

  * * *

  Tubal-cain was still trying to push his way clear of the Watcher’s prone and stricken body when it exploded with light. Caught on the periphery of the blast, he felt white-hot pain rip through his leg, and then he was flying through the air.

  * * *

  Og watched the light escort Samyaza home. Looking around he saw that other Watchers had fallen now, too, parts of their bodies shattered, sheared away, men crawling all over them.

  The battlefield was full of the dead and the wounded. Rivers of blood threaded their way across the waterlogged ground that was fast becoming a river, a sea.

  With so many Watchers down, Tubal-cain’s men were starting to flow through breaches in the wall. As they moved toward the Ark, wading through water up to their knees, Og chased them down.

  But there were too many of them. And the Watchers were dying, one by one. There was an explosion of light as another of his brothers was called home.


  And then another.

  And another.

  Soon only Og was left. Against the flowing tide of men, slow-moving though they were as the water rose to their thighs, he was helpless. He ranged this way and that, cutting them down, driving them back where he could. But he knew he couldn’t protect the Ark forever.

  “Watcher!”

  He was facing the Ark, having run down another group of Tubal-cain’s men, when the shout came from behind. The rain was so thunderous that the word seemed like a part of it, as if it had been formed from the deluge itself.

  He swung around. Behind him, advancing upon him, was one of Tubal-cain’s warlords at the head of a phalanx of troops. He was holding a fireball cannon, which was aimed in his direction.

  “You are alone, Watcher,” the warlord sneered. “You have lost.”

  Og shook his head in grim satisfaction. “No. It is you who have lost.”

  He looked toward the Ark and saw Noah standing at the head of the ramp, making ready to defend it. He raised a hand in farewell.

  “Goodbye, son of Adam.”

  Then, before the warlord could fire on him, he reached round to his own chest with his six hands and tore himself open.

  For a split second there was unbelievable pain.

  As he was engulfed in fire, he spread his arms wide.

  And then suddenly there was no more pain.

  There was only peace.

  And light.

  * * *

  “Safe journey, my friend,” Noah muttered, as Og—the true Og—rose resplendent from the misshapen burden of rock and clay that he had been forced to drag through the world of men. Noah stared into the light until it vanished, and then he lashed a rope around his waist and secured himself to the Ark.

  With the Watchers gone, he was the last line of protection. He watched a swell of men splashing toward him, converging like sharks hungry for a meal. Calmly he reached back through the narrow gap of the open hatchway and retrieved a homemade spear which he had leaned up against the wall. He had hoped he wouldn’t have to use it, had hoped the Watchers would be able to hold Tubal-cain’s army at bay until the Ark was set afloat.

  But it was not to be.

  Clearly the Creator had other plans. Whatever they were, Noah trusted that all would be well. Aside from the Ark, and his family, and the birds, mammals, reptiles, and other creatures that had been entrusted to his protection by the Creator, Noah had his faith. And whatever hardships lay ahead, it was faith that sustained him, that gave him strength and influenced his every decision.

  He remained calm as the first of the men, a small knot of drenched and exhausted refugees, reached the base of the ramp. They plowed through waist-high water to reach it, then began to clamber up and across the slippery logs on hands and knees, like shipwrecked men washed ashore on a deserted island.

  Noah watched them for a moment, and then his attention was distracted by a commotion somewhere in the center of the clearing. He looked that way and saw that a section of waist-high water was beginning to froth and bubble as if propelled upward from below.

  Immediately he realized what was happening. This was the fountain that had first appeared from the seed he had planted ten years ago, and had been bubbling ever since. It was the fountain that had saved his life when Samyaza had been about to strike him down—the fountain from which all other life in the forest had sprung, and from which runnels of water had spread across the world like lures to entice the birds and animals to the Ark.

  The water from the fountain was surging higher now, spuming into the air to break and scatter in frothy white droplets. Some of Tubal-cain’s men were veering around it, looking at it uncertainly. Others were simply ignoring it.

  But then suddenly, with a mighty rushing roar, the fountain erupted, became a geyser, a torrent. Propelled by unimaginable pressure from deep within the earth, it shot thousands of feet into the sky, puncturing the clouds, clashing with the rain that was gushing in the opposite direction, and creating a horizontal wave of water, a mid-air deluge that expanded outward in all directions.

  Many of Tubal-cain’s men, who had barely given the bubbling fountain a second glance, stopped to look up at it. Judging from the fearful expressions that Noah could see on their faces, they wondered what this new phenomenon might signify. After a moment’s contemplation, they resumed their progress, moving yet faster through the water, eager to reach the Ark, where they no doubt hoped to find safety.

  For several seconds the fountain gushed alone, and then, to the alarm of those plowing doggedly forward, the water around them began to bubble and froth again. It did so first in one place, and then another, until—within a matter of seconds—the individual maelstroms linked together to form a shallow but churning sea which batted men this way and that, as if they were just playthings.

  And then another geyser erupted from the surface of the water and, like the first, shot thousands of feet into the air. The forces that propelled it were so unbelievably powerful that men were sent hurtling into the sky as if they weighed next to nothing. An unfortunate few, those who were right over the geyser when it erupted, were instantly pulverized, whereas others on the periphery were torn apart.

  There was instant panic, the water churning not merely with natural forces now, but with men clawing and kicking their way through it in renewed desperation to reach the Ark.

  Another geyser erupted, and then another, and another.

  Men, and parts of men, were sent spinning through the air in all directions. Soon there were dozens of geysers, hundreds, maybe more. Noah saw them expanding outward, erupting from the forest, sending uprooted trees and assorted debris high into the air.

  It was hard now to tell whether the rain was falling upward or downward. It was coming from all directions, meeting and clashing, like two vast armies with a single purpose. Twisters of water spun and weaved, connecting the sky to the ground. They were powered by such immense and ancient forces, and moving at such incredible speeds, that it was as if they were composed, not of water, but of spinning blades.

  Whatever flesh they touched was instantly shredded.

  * * *

  Amid the carnage, injured though still alive, Tubal-cain tore the shirt from a nearby corpse. He dressed the deep wound in his leg as best he could, tying the shirt tightly around the burned and mangled flesh to slow the bleeding. Despite this, he had lost a great deal of blood and suspected that he was still doing so. Submerged waist-deep in cold, churning water, it was difficult to tell. The limb had gone almost completely numb, and was nothing more than dead weight that he was dragging behind him.

  All around, men were panicking, screaming, thrashing, but the king remained calm. He had realized that if he was going to survive this ordeal, he needed two things. One was luck, and the other was to keep his wits about him. He watched as geysers continued to erupt, as the water level continued to rise, as his men were either ripped apart, wounded so badly that they died of their injuries, or drowned.

  The warrior king’s plan had been to take the Ark from the front. To destroy the giants, storm up the ramp, smash down the hatchway, and quell any resistance. Now, though, he decided to change tactics. Many men were heading toward the ramp. Indeed, some were even beginning to claw their way up it. But many more were unable to reach it, such was the crush of humanity.

  Tubal-cain could see the panic there, could see how desperate people were to get out of the water. He could see that they were fighting, thrashing, scrambling over one another, that there was no discipline, that it had become every man for himself. So terrified and single-minded were they, this rag-tag army of his, that he doubted whether they would even listen to him, if he were to join the throng.

  He decided, therefore, on a different course of action, on attempting to seek another point of entry. Fearsome warrior though he was, he had not achieved his lofty position through brawn alone. He was a thinker, too. A tactician. No true king could survive for long without such qualities. />
  Around the side of the Ark, still clinging to its outer walls, was a wooden lattice of scaffolding, which had been erected by Noah and his Watcher friends. Tubal-cain dragged himself through the water toward it, and once he was there he used it to haul himself up and out.

  Free of the water, he paused for a few minutes to regain his breath and a little of his strength. Almost immediately his wounded leg started to throb, and he looked down at it. The makeshift bandage was still wrapped tightly, but the material was no longer white. It had turned a washed-out pink, indicating that the wound had been bleeding almost continuously.

  Indeed, even as Tubal-cain watched, fresh blood—almost black beneath the dark, churning, rain-lashed sky—began to bloom through the material, forming bigger and bigger spots. Before his eyes, these coalesced into a single dark mass. He took a deep breath, shook water from his dripping beard, and looked up at the sheer, wooden wall of the Ark.

  It towered above him, dark and forbidding, but at least he had the scaffolding to aid his ascent. Using his arms and his good leg, he began to climb.

  * * *

  He was about halfway up when the Ark, which was beginning to bob and roll a little on the increasingly choppy water, suddenly lurched in a particularly strong swell. The scaffolding, which had already become rickety and unstable due to the shifting ground beneath it, gave an almighty creak and began to fall slowly sideways.

  Desperately Tubal-cain snatched one of the two war axes from his belt, drew back his arm and buried the blade as deeply as he could into the wooden wall of the Ark. The scaffolding collapsed beneath him, leaving him hanging there, clinging to the shaft of his axe with one hand, suspended fifty feet or more above the water.

  Reaching down with his free hand, he carefully pulled the second axe free of his belt and, moving quickly and efficiently, began to hack away at the wall of the vessel.

  * * *

  Ham jerked awake, alerted by a thwacking sound. He lay for a moment, listening.

  Is someone chopping wood?