Abraham Allegiant

by Brian Godawa

  As Uzal launched himself from the chariot wheel at Nimrod, Terah exploded and hit the flying Uzal midair with his blade, stopping the momentum and bringing the two of them to the floor.

  Uzal was dead, the sword buried in his chest.

  The crowd that swarmed the library to find him would catch Ophir in minutes. But he would not be caught alive, for he slit his own throat rather than face the hideous torture that would surely follow his capture.

  It had all happened so fast.

  Semiramis was in the chariot next to Nimrod. She had to play dumb so she pretended to lose her mind and she started to climb out of the four-wheeled boxy chariot, screaming. She was pulled back in by the ever-cool Mardon who held her with comfort — another theatrical pretention as there was not a sliver of compassion or comfort in Mardon’s soul.

  Terah grabbed the reins and raced Nimrod’s chariot ahead to the Esagila where healing priests might save his life.

  The other gods had drawn their weapons and scanned the horizon for enemies. But none were forthcoming. It was a conspiracy against the king alone. It was common in this world, and to be expected. There were always rebels with revolutionary intentions. The goal was to smoke them out and kill them before they could organize. These two evidently worked alone.

  The Stone Ones were able to hold back the excitable crowds from becoming a rampaging mob of fear. The crowd of flesh and blood was no match for their weighty unmoving rock.

  Marduk took a position to speak after a herald blew his trumpet.

  The crowd finally calmed down.

  Marduk bellowed to the masses, “Your king is alive and well! He will be healed by the magi and shamans of my temple! He is in good hands! Let us string up the bodies of these traitors. BUT the ceremony must go on!”

  The masses roared in approval.

  There was no way in Sheol that Marduk would let anything interrupt the opening of the portal to the heavens. There was already a funnel cloud forming over the ziggurat Etemenanki. He could see the Convergence was almost upon them. The four winds had kicked up and the sky was getting dark. The time was at hand.

  Marduk was not sure that Nimrod was actually alive. He did not care. Nimrod was dispensable. The pantheon was not.

  Ophir’s and Uzal’s bodies were tied to the chariots of Marduk and dragged down the street to the entrance of Etemenanki.

  The gods made it inside the temple complex and shut the gates on the public.

  They made their way up the stairway to heaven to engage in their hieros gamos orgy with the hierodules of the temple.

  The people outside hung what was left of the bodies of the conspirators on poles. They had lost some arms and legs, and their flesh had been peeled off from being dragged down the street. They were bloody masses of flesh and bone that the festivalgoers celebrated in a frenzy. Some even ate chunks of their flesh as a means of communion with the gods.

  Deep in the temple of Esagila, the healing priests cared for Nimrod. He would have permanent scars. But he would not die. It was not even close. He bore countless scars from countless battles. These would merely be two more. The shoulder wound was minor. The archer assassin must have been aiming for the head and missed. The throat wound was a bit more complicated. The arrow missed his carotid artery, but nicked his vocal chord on its way out. For now, he could not talk, but when he did; he would have a raspy edge to his voice that he would carry with him to the grave.

  Terah entered. He had stayed outside after he dropped them off at the temple. But he returned now with two severed heads of the conspirators. Showing them to Nimrod.

  He said, “They are slaves. I saw the brand marks on their bodies before I took their heads.”

  Semiramis blurted out, “Get eyewitnesses to identify them. Find out their motives and who they are connected to.”

  “Yes, my queen.”

  Nimrod reached out and grabbed Terah’s arm.

  “Thank you,” he said, “for saving my life.”

  Terah said, “I guess even Naphil kings are mortal,” and left them.

  That phrase stung Nimrod. His memory flooded with his past journeys to Mount Hermon, the forest of Humbaba the Terrible, through the underworld, and to the mystical island of Dilmun — all in search of the ever-elusive immortality — only to conclude that he would die. All the bitterness and anger raged up in him.

  That will all be behind me shortly, he thought. The gods have promised me immortality and full godhood when this day is done.

  Semiramis approached Nimrod and touched him with affection. “Leave the inquisition to me, my love. I will track down and personally disembowel anyone who has a connection to the assassins — after I have tortured out their information.”

  Nimrod noted her eagerness, not a characteristic he would connect to her affections for him. He glanced at Mardon, who was soulless as always, probably daydreaming triggered by Semiramis’ mention of torture.

  Mardon was actually thinking how he might get away to Haran to find that voluptuous little flesh pot Sarai.

  A healer shaman finished bandaging the neck. Nimrod commanded with a scratchy voice through painful words, “When Terah returns, have him assemble the entire golem army of Stone Ones around the ziggurat base. I will meet them there.”

  Nimrod left for the ziggurat.

  Since the gods were going to be glorified in a transformational shift of worldwide proportions, they decided to conclude their sexual orgy in the Etemenanki shrine with a sacrifice of the human participants.

  At a certain moment in the carousing, Marduk announced, “Let us join the feast!”

  In preplanned response, all the gods took the throats or femur arteries of their sexual partner and sunk their fangs into them with abandon.

  They had received plenty of animal blood from the daily sacrifices of the festival, but there was something more delectable about human plasma. They drank their fill and bathed in the blood until the corpses were pale skeletal versions of their former selves. The naked scaled bodies of the Watcher gods were shining with the glittering of full-orbed emotional release. It was what happened when their passions flared. They were the Shining Ones, and the pupils of their unblinking reptilian eyes widened to take it all in with relish.

  Then they turned on one another, and poured out their lust in debauched indulgence. It was an orgy of the gods. It was heights of pain and pleasure only divine beings could achieve.

  The sound of a large gong and the feeling of rumbling earth brought Marduk out of his delirium of excess.

  He pulled his arm out of Enki’s anus and stumbled to the edge of the shrine to see what was going on below.

  A crack of thunder resounded overhead. The funnel cloud was swirling above the shrine.

  Below in the huge courtyard of Etemenanki, the entire army of ten thousand Stone Ones assembled and stood to attention at the command of Terah. Beside him stood Nimrod with bandaged throat, who oversaw the complete entourage of every magician, every sorcerer, every astrologer and omen diviner in Babylon surrounding the ziggurat with ritual incantations.

  The temple towered over them. It was three hundred feet high, a small mountain, a cosmic mountain. Soon to be the new home of the gods, and an occultic portal from which they might storm heaven.

  It was time.

  The other gods joined Marduk in sympathetic magic with the sorcery below and began their own incantations and spells.

  Across the river, Abram and Mikael could see the spout of the funnel cloud reaching down to touch the shrine. A flurry of winds surrounded the entire complex. Loose animals around them were braying, barking, and bleating as if to warn everyone of something.

  The spout kept coming closer and closer to the congregation of the gods. The transformation of the ages was about to begin.

  The spout touched down on the shrine. Contact was made between heaven and earth.

  But then what happened was not anticipated.

  Instead of the portal opening up for more Watchers to come down, Abr
am saw all the gods in the shrine sucked up into the whirlwind.

  He looked at Mikael, who laughed heartily.

  It was the opposite of what they had expected.

  But before Abram could process what he saw, they felt the earth rumble beneath their feet. They saw the land before them rise up like a rug being shaken.

  The outer walls got hit first. They disintegrated under the impact. Abram could hear the screams of terror from the multitude of people across the river inside the city gates.

  Then the earthquake hit the ziggurat Etemenanki and split it almost in two. The top half of the structure crumbled and fell down upon the Stone Ones below, burying them in an avalanche of rubble. But the bulk of the temple remained in tact with a huge crack through its core.

  Abram could not see it, but the golemim who were not pulverized by the falling brickwork became victims of the concussive shock wave and collapsed into piles of rubble as well.

  A pathway of destruction and carnage made its way up the city and devastated the palace and Ishtar Gate. They were reduced to mounds of painted bricks and broken bodies.

  Then as quickly as it had fallen upon them it was gone. The funnel cloud retracted to the sky and the storm vanished.

  And everything was eerily still.

  Except for the cries of pain and misery from human victims throughout the city. Countless thousands were dead, half again as many injured. They were bruised, cut, maimed, and crushed by the debris of mud brick and stone that now lay across the city.

  The bridge crossing the river to the Processional Way had collapsed into the river. Some survivors were swimming across the water to get away from the cursed city.

  Abram and Mikael ran down from the ridge and helped the dozen or so fleeing refugees to safety on land.

  But then Abram noticed something strange. One of the refugees spoke to him, but it was meaningless babbling. Abram thought the poor fellow was in shock and speaking nonsense until he heard another refugee cry out and yell more nonsense into the air. This one sounded different from the other.

  As they walked along, helping calm the refugees, he noticed that they all spoke in strange words he had never heard.

  “What is going on?” Abram asked Mikael.

  “El Shaddai has confused their language so that they may not understand each other’s speech,” he said.

  “Why would he do that?”

  “To divide their unity and disperse them over the face of the earth.”

  And then it came clear to Abram what El Shaddai had done. He would not destroy the world again with water, but he would protect his plan against a world of unified rebellion. All across the city, survivors from various cities were trying to communicate with one another. But because they had miraculously been given different languages, they could not understand one another and could barely help one another.

  Mankind was supposed to multiply and fill the earth. But instead they had congregated in this city of Babylon to become one in evil. But with the separation of languages would come a dispersion, a massive separation between peoples that would divide them and spread them abroad over the face of the earth. Diversity would bring chaos and separation, but in a strange way, it would save the world from becoming a whirlpool into a singularity of unstoppable evil.

  Abram thought of a play on words and said to Mikael, “It is no longer Babylon the great, the eternal city, but Babel, because there El Shaddai confused the language of all the earth. And from there El Shaddai dispersed them over the face of all the earth.”

  But this was not the only consequence that had occurred in heaven and on earth.

  Chapter 31

  In the heavens above the waters, in the very divine council of Yahweh Elohim, the Bene ha Elohim, the Sons of God, had returned to surround his chariot again with glory and praise.

  The trisagion was pronounced, “Holy, holy, holy, is Yahweh Elohim Almighty. Who was and is and is to come!” Their voices were like the sound of many waters. The Cherubim that upheld the throne chariot expanded their many wings and Yahweh Elohim took his seat as the Ancient of Days.

  Before the council stood the rebel Watchers, still naked and awash in human blood and their own excrement, their shame dripping from their members. The satan took his position as their defense attorney across from the enigmatic Son of Man. Normally, Mastema in his role as the satan, was a prosecuting attorney. But in this case, he had become the collective bargainer for this despicable union of corrupt hoodlums.

  But there would be no testimony or cross-examination. Today was a summary judgment from on high.

  The Son of Man addressed the Watchers on trial, “This day, Yahweh Elohim has given over the peoples of the earth to their depravity. He has divided mankind and has given the nations their inheritance. He has fixed the borders of the people according to the number of the Sons of God, those Watchers who have remained on earth. All of humanity has incorrigibly worshipped false gods, so false gods will be their inheritance.”

  Marduk thought to himself, Is he actually giving us the nations to rule over? What is the fine print? What is he not telling us?

  The Son of Man continued, “Yahweh Elohim has allotted the fallen host of heaven to all the peoples under the whole heaven. Mastema, the satan will be the designated trustee and executor of the inheritance. The nations are your allotment. Divide them amongst yourselves.”

  The Watchers were shocked at the concession.

  Marduk whispered to the satan, “There are seventy of us, plus some of our fallen angels. I want first choice.”

  “Do not worry,” snapped the satan, “You will get yours, Mr. ‘King of the Gods.’”

  He said that title with sarcastic exaggeration. Marduk could crush him, but the satan had all the legal power to cast Marduk into Tartarus if he made a wrong move. Tartarus was the lowest most impenetrable region of Sheol the underworld.

  Then the Son of Man said, “But Yahweh Elohim’s portion will be his people. Jacob will be his heritage. He will have a people of his own inheritance.”

  There it is, thought Marduk. The qualification. The tiny little print at the bottom of the covenant tablet that indicated Yahweh Elohim’s selfish grab for glory. But wait a minute. He only gets one nation of people?

  The satan said what Marduk and everyone else was thinking, “Who exactly is Jacob? And what will be his people’s allotted heritage of land?”

  The Son of Man said, “That will be revealed in due time. They will be a people of my choosing, a remnant who will inherit the land that they will ultimately conquer.”

  “That is not fair!” squealed the satan. “You are going to give out an entitlement of land and then just take it away when you want it? That is not a fair share!”

  The Seraphim bellowed out with their many-faceted voices, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell within!”

  “Oh, please,” griped the satan. “Now, you are contradicting yourself. First, you allot to us peoples and lands, and then you claim ownership over it all?” He knew full well that was not a contradiction. Their inheritance was no more than a temporary loan.

  “And why will you not tell us who this Jacob is? What are you trying to hide? Do you have some dirty little secret you are afraid we will find out and use to discredit you?”

  The Seraphim said one last thing, “Thus saith the Lord,” and Mastema and the entire group of fallen Watchers were sucked back down into a new funnel cloud that deposited them, not back in Babylon, but back on their Mount Hermon in Canaan. It was here where they would begin the arduous task of parceling out their allotted territories under the authority of the seventy Sons of God.

  • • • • •

  Nimrod had picked himself out of the debris of the fallen tower. He saw all around him that the golem army of Stone Ones that secured his power over the earth had been smashed into piles of rock. Their spells were forever useless now, locked up in the jaws of lifeless boulders.

  Most of his
astrologers and sorcerers and magicians were dead in the fallout, and everyone around him was now speaking different languages. He could not command those to whom he could not speak or whom he could not understand. There were dozens of different dialects and none of them could understand each other. They would disperse to start a new life all over the earth. There were a mere few hundred citizens whose language he could understand.

  Babylon would not be transforming into anything soon. It was decimated; not just structurally and in human lives, but more importantly in essence. It was no longer the center of the world. There would be no mountain of the gods, no golem army.

  No more empire.

  Nimrod’s cosmos was shattered into a million pieces.

  He knew the Creator had cursed him. He had sought to make a name for himself as a Mighty Hunter flaunting in the face of El Shaddai himself. He sought to make a tower that reached to the sky, linking heaven and earth. That tower collapsed. The city would take decades to repopulate and rebuild the ruins.

  But it was cursed and he would not be rebuilding anything.

  His queen Semiramis and son Mardon were still alive, which felt like the penultimate punishment to Nimrod.

  Even Marduk had abandoned him. He was nowhere to be found. The mightiest king of the gods would no longer protect Nimrod.

  He had lost everything but his life.

  There was nothing worse for a great ruler than being demoted in rank. If he had died in the disaster, he would be remembered as a great ruler who went out in a blaze of glory. To be killed at the height of one’s power would forever burn that reputation into history like a kiln-fired brick. But to lose everything and go from world potentate to petty victim was the cruelest of all humiliations.

  This El Shaddai knew what he was doing.

  But Nimrod would not give El Shaddai the pleasure of committing suicide. Nimrod would fight back. He would rebuild his forces and then he would set his heart upon one and only one goal for the rest of his life: To hunt down and destroy El Shaddai’s Chosen Seed, Abram. This despicable tool of a reprehensible divinity had escaped Nimrod’s grasp when he was born, defied Nimrod’s power and glory when he survived the furnace of fire, and had become the curse that brought the downfall of Nimrod’s very own kingdom of Babylon.