THREE
Japheth’s sister Yalith
When Yalith left her grandfather’s tent, she hurried toward home, near the center of the oasis. At her side she had a small pouch of darts, similar to Japheth’s, but instead of the miniature bow she carried a small blowpipe. The arrows were tipped with a solution which would temporarily stun but not kill a predator, even one as large as the manticore. The manticores were strong and bad-tempered, but not intelligent or brave. She feared the manticores less than she feared some of the young men in the town, and she kept a dart in her hand in case she needed it.
After leaving the grazing grounds around Lamech’s tent, she walked through one of his groves that led her onto the desert of white sand lapping against brown grasses. Wherever there were not enough wells to provide for irrigation, the desert took over. But she preferred walking across the desert to the dusty, dirty paths of the oasis. Stars were bright against the velvet black of sky. At her feet, a late beetle hustled to burrow itself under the sand until morning. To her right, high in the trees of Lamech’s groves, the baboons were chittering sleepily.
She looked toward the horizon, and on an outcropping of rock similar to the one the earthquake had made when Sandy and Dennys met Japheth and the mammoth Higgaion, she saw the shadow of a supine form. She looked to make sure it was a lion, then called softly, “Aariel!”
The creature rose slowly, languidly, and then leapt down from the rock and loped toward her, and she saw that she had been deceived in the starlight, for it was not a lion but one of the great desert lizards, called dragons by most people, although its wings were atrophied and it could not fly.
She stood frozen with anxiety on the starlit sand, her hand holding one of the tiny arrows. As the lizard neared her, it rose straight upward to a height of at least six feet, and suddenly arms were outstretched above the head; the tail forked into two legs, and a man came running toward her, a man of extraordinary beauty, with alabaster-white skin and wings of brilliant purple. His long hair was black with purple glints, and his eyes were the color of amethysts.
“You called me, lovely one?” He bent down toward her tenderly, a questioning smile on his lips, which were deeply rosy in his white face.
“No, no,” she stammered. “Not you. I thought—I thought you were Aariel.”
“No. I am Eblis, not Aariel. And you called, and here I am,” his voice soothed, “at your service. Is there anything you want?”
“Oh, no, thank you, no.”
“No baubles for your ears, your lovely little neck?”
“Oh, no, thank you, no,” she repeated. Her sisters would think her stupid for refusing his offer. The nephilim were generous. This nephil could give her everything he had offered, and more.
“And all of a sudden you have changed,” he said. “You were a child, and now you are not a child any longer.”
Instinctively, she folded her hands across her breasts, stammering. “B-but, I am a child. I’m not nearly a hundred years old yet…”
He reached out one long, pale hand and softly pushed her starlit hair back from her forehead. “Do not be afraid of growing up. There are many pleasures ahead for you to taste, and I would help you to enjoy them all.”
“You?” She looked, startled, at the glorious creature by her, light shimmering like water from the purple wings.
“I, sweet little one, I, Eblis, of the nephilim.”
No nephil had paid attention to her before. She was too young. Then she saw, in her mind’s eye, the strange young giant in her grandfather’s tent. She was no longer a child. She did not react to the young giant as a child.
“There are many changes to come,” Eblis said, “and you will need help.”
Her eyes widened. “Changes? What kind of changes?”
“People are living too long. El is going to cut the life span back. How old is your father?”
“He must be, oh, close to six hundred years. Middle-aged.” She looked at her fingers. Ten. That was really as far as she could count accurately.
“And your Grandfather Lamech?”
“Let’s see. He was very young when he had my father, not quite two hundred years old. He, too, has lived for very long. His father, Methuselah, my great-grandfather, lived for nine hundred and sixty-nine years. And his father was Enoch, who walked with El, and lived three hundred and sixty and five years, and then El took him—” Involved in the great chronologies of her fathers, she was not prepared for him to unfurl his great wings and gather her in, enveloping her in great swirls of purple touched with brilliance as with stars. She gasped in surprise.
He laughed softly. “Oh, little one, little innocent one, how much you have to learn, about men’s ways, and about El’s ways, which are not men’s ways. Will you let me teach you?”
To be taught by a nephil was an honor she had never expected. She was not sure why she was hesitant. She breathed in the strange odor of his wings, smelling of stone, of the cold, dark winds which came during the few brief weeks of winter.
Enveloped in Eblis’s wings, she did not hear the rhythmic thud as a great lion galloped toward them across the desert, roaring as it neared them. Then both Yalith and Eblis turned and saw the lion rising to its hind legs, as the lizard had done, leaping up into the sky, a great, tawny body with creamy wings, gilt-tipped, unfurling and stretching to a vast span. The great amber eyes blazed.
Eblis removed his wings from around Yalith, hunched them behind his back. “Why this untoward interruption, Aariel?”
“I ask you to leave Yalith alone.”
“What’s it to you? The daughters of men mean nothing to the seraphim.” Eblis smiled down at Yalith, stroking his long fingers delicately across her burnished hair.
“No?” Aariel’s voice was low.
“No, seraph. A nephil may go to a daughter of man. A nephil understands pleasure.” He touched a fingertip to Yalith’s lips. “I would teach you, sweeting. I think you would like what I can give you. I will leave you now to Aariel’s tender ministries. But I will see you again.” He turned away from them, toward the desert, and his nephil form dropped into that of the great dragon/lizard. He loped away into the shadows.
Yalith said, “Aariel, I don’t understand. I thought I saw you on the rock. I was sure it was you, and I called, and then it wasn’t you, it was Eblis.”
“The nephilim are masters of mimicry. He wanted you to think it was I. I beg you, little one, be cautious.”
Her eyes were troubled. “He was very kind to me.”
Aariel put his hand under her chin and looked into her eyes, clear and still childlike. “Who would not be kind to you? Are you on your way somewhere?”
“Home. I took Grandfather Lamech his night-light. But, oh, Aariel, there is a strange young giant in Grandfather Lamech’s tent. Japheth carried him there. He has a terrible sunburn. He can’t be from anywhere around here. He says he is not a giant, and I have never seen anyone like him. He is as tall as you are, and his body is not hairy, it is smooth like yours, like the nephilim, and his skin, where it wasn’t burned red, was pale. Not white, like the skin of the nephilim, but pale and tender, like a baby’s.”
“You seem to have observed him carefully,” Aariel said.
“There’s never been anyone like him on the oasis before.” She flushed, turned slightly away.
Aariel asked, “What is being done for his burn? Does he have fever?”
“Yes. Higgaion is keeping him sprayed with cool water, and they are going to ask a seraph what to do for him.”
“Adnarel?”
“Yes. The scarab beetle.”
“Good.”
“He is not one of you, this young giant, and he is not one of the nephilim. Their skin burns white and whiter in the sun, like white ash when the fire has burned fiercely in the winter weeks.”
The creamy wings trembled, the golden tips shimmering in the starlight. “If his skin burns, he is not of the nephilim.”
“Nor of you.”
&nb
sp; “Does he have wings?”
“No. In that, he is like a human. He seemed very young, though he is as long as you, and thin.”
“Did you observe his eyes?”
She did not notice the twinkle in his own. “Grey. Nice eyes, Aariel. Steady. Not burning, like—not giving out light, like yours. More like human eyes, mine, and my parents’ and brothers’ and sisters’.”
Aariel touched her gently on the shoulder. “Go on home, child. Do not fear to cross the oasis. I will see that you are not harmed.”
“You and Eblis. Thank you.” Like a child, she held her face up for a kiss, and Aariel leaned down and pressed his lips gently against hers. “You will not be a child much longer.”
“I know…”
He touched her lips again, lightly, and a moment later a large lion was running lightly across the desert.
Yalith turned onto a sandy path through a field of barley. At the end of the path was a stone road cutting through white buildings of sun-baked clay, low buildings, built to withstand the frequent earth tremors. Some of these low buildings contained small shops for baked goods, for stone lamps, for oil; there were shops with hanging meat, shops with bows and arrows, shops with spears of gopher wood. Some entryways were curtained with strands of bright beads, which tinkled in the evening breeze.
Out of one of these came a nephil, his arm around a young woman who was gazing up at him adoringly, leaning against him so that her rosy breasts touched his pale flesh. Her glossy black hair fell down her back, past her hips; and the eyes with which she regarded him were the deep blue of lapis lazuli.
Yalith stopped in her tracks. The girl was Mahlah, Yalith’s sister, the only girl besides Yalith to be in the home tent. Their two older sisters were married and lived in another part of the oasis with their husbands. Mahlah had been away from the home tent a great deal lately. Now Yalith knew where she had been.
Mahlah saw her younger sister and smiled.
The nephil smiled, too, graciously acknowledging Yalith.
Before they came out of the shadows, Yalith thought he was Eblis, with a sense of shock and betrayal. But in the full starlight she could see that his wings were much lighter, a delicate lavender. She could not tell what color his long hair was, but it, too, was lighter, and seemed to have an orange glow. He had a sinuous, snake-like curve to his neck, and hooded eyes.
He smiled again, tenderly. “Mahlah will stay with me this night. You will let your mother know.”
Yalith blurted out, “Oh, but she will worry. We are not allowed to stay out at night…”
Mahlah laughed joyously. “Ugiel has chosen me! I am his betrothed!”
Yalith gasped. “But does Mother know?”
“Not yet. You tell her, little sister.”
“But shouldn’t you tell her yourself? You and—”
“Ugiel.”
“But shouldn’t you—”
Mahlah’s laugh pealed again, like little bells. “The old ways are changing, little sister. This night I meet Ugiel’s brethren.”
The nephil stretched a soft wing about Mahlah. “Yes, little sister. The old ways are changing. Go and tell your mother.”
Yalith turned, and they watched her go, fingers waving at her in farewell. At the end of the street she heard footsteps and turned to see a young man following her. She reached for a dart and put it in her blowpipe, but he disappeared around the corner of a building.
The low white buildings gave way to tents, each tent surrounded by the land of the dweller, at first the small plots of the shopkeepers, then groves and fields, sometimes many acres. Along the path she saw sheep, goats, camels grazing. Grapes were ripe on the vines.
Her father’s tent was a large one, flanked by several smaller tents. She hurried into the main tent, calling out to her mother.
* * *
It was the smell that brought Dennys back to consciousness. His nostrils twitched. His stomach heaved. There was a smell of cooking, smoky, rancid. A smell worse than the rotten-cheese smell of silage which clung to the farmhands near home. A smell far stronger than that of the manure spread on the fields in the spring; that was a fresh, growing smell. This was old manure, rotting. A smell that made the urinals in the lavatories at school seem sweet. And over it all, but not covering it, a cloying smell of perfume and sweat, body sweat which had never been near a shower.
He opened his eyes.
He was in an enclosed space, lit by the moonlight pouring in through a hole in what seemed to be some kind of curved roof, and by the equally brilliant light which poured from a unicorn’s horn. The silver creature looked around, sniffing, pawing the dirty earthen floor. At its feet, a mammoth cringed.
Dennys almost cried out, “Haggaion!” But this mammoth was not the one who had accompanied Japheth. This mammoth had matted fur on its flanks, and it was so thin that the skeleton showed through. Its eyes were dulled, and it seemed to be apologizing to the unicorn.
Staring at the unicorn, still unaware of Dennys, were several small people. But, just as the mammoth was unlike Higgaion, so these people were unlike Japheth. They smelled. The men’s bodies were hairy, giving them a simian look. Their goatskin loincloths were not clean. There were two full-bearded men, and two women, naked except for the loincloths. Both the women had red hair, and the younger woman’s hair was so vivid it almost seemed like flame, and some care had been taken with it. The older woman was wrinkled and discontented-looking.
The unicorn’s light flashed against the younger woman’s green eyes, making them sparkle like emeralds. “You see!” she cried triumphantly. “I knew our mammoth could call us a unicorn!”
The light in the horn dimmed.
The younger of the two men, who had matted brown hair and a red beard unkempt and spotted with food, snarled at the girl. “And now, dear sister Tiglah, that we have a unicorn in the tent, what do you want of it?”
The girl approached the unicorn, her hand held out as though to pet it. The horn blazed with blinding brilliance, and then the tent was dark so suddenly that it took several seconds for Dennys’s eyes to adjust to the moonlight coming through the hole in the roof.
The men roared with laughter. “Ho, Tiglah, you thought you could fool us, didn’t you?”
Even the older woman was laughing. Then she saw Dennys, who was struggling to his knees. “Great auk, what have we here?”
The redheaded girl gasped. “A giant!”
The older, bowlegged man approached Dennys. He held a spear, and Dennys, gagging from the stench in the tent, felt an overriding surge of fear. The man nudged him with the spear, so that he fell back onto a pile of filthy skins.
The man flipped him over, using the spear, which scratched but did not cut him. He felt the tip of the spear as it was drawn lightly along his shoulder blades.
“Is this one yours, Tiglah?” the younger man asked. “I thought you were seeing a nephil.”
Tiglah looked curiously at Dennys. “He’s no nephil.”
The older woman stared. “If he’s a giant, he’s a baby giant. He can’t hurt us.”
“What will we do with him?” Tiglah asked.
The brown, hairy man withdrew his spear. “Throw him out.” His voice held no particular malice. Dennys was just a thing, to be disposed of. He felt two pairs of hands lifting him, as the younger man helped his father. The mammoth whimpered, and the older woman kicked at him. Certainly, Dennys thought, anything would be better than this horrible smelling place full of horrible little people.
There was a brief whiff of fresh air. A glimpse of a night sky crusted with stars. A smoky redness on the horizon, like the light from some enormous industrial city. Then he felt himself being flung, thrown, like offal. He felt himself rolling down a steep incline. He gagged. Vomited. He had been thrown into what was evidently a garbage dump. It was even worse than wherever he had been before.
He managed to pull himself up onto his knees. He was in some kind of pit. There was an overwhelming stench of feces, of rottin
g flesh. He did not know what else was in the pit with him, and he did not want to know. Frantically he scrambled up the side, climbing, slipping on bones, on ooze, on decaying filth, sliding back, climbing, sliding, slipping, scrabbling, until at last he pulled himself out and up onto his feet and stood there tottering, filthy and terrified.
There was no sign of Sandy. No sign of the unicorn. Or of Japheth and Higgaion. He had no idea where he was. He looked around. He was standing on a dirt path which bordered the pit. Beside it was his rolled-up bundle of clothes. On the other side of the path were a number of tents. He had seen pictures of bedouin tents in his social-studies books at school. These were similar, though they seemed smaller and more closely clustered. It was probably from one of these tents that he had been thrown. Beyond the tents were palm trees, and he staggered toward these.
He needed to shower. Did he ever need to shower! He carried with him the smell of the pit. He ran, barely keeping himself upright, to the grove of palms. Beyond these he could see white. White sand. The desert. If he could only reach the desert, he could roll in the moon-washed sand and get clean.
“Sandy!” he called, but there was no Sandy. “Jay! Jay!” But no small, kind young man appeared. “Higgaion!” He shuddered. If he never saw any human being again, he would not go back to the tent where he had been poked at with a spear, and from which he had been thrown, like garbage.
Racing, he was suddenly out of the grove of palms and sliding in sand. He fell down, rolled and rolled, then picked up handsful of sand and rubbed it over himself, wiping off the slime and filth of the pit. He pulled off his turtleneck and flung it away. Rolled again in sand. His underclothes were filthy from the pit and he tore them off, flinging them after the turtleneck. He did not even realize that he was scraping off his own sunburned skin, so eager was he to get clean. The sand was cool under the daisy field of stars, and he took off his sneakers and socks, flinging them after his clothes. They would never be clean again. He rubbed more sand on his feet, his ankles, his legs, not even realizing that he was sobbing like a small child.
The Wrinkle in Time Quintet Page 57