In the pitch blackness, he mounted the stairs using his hands to feel his way along the walls. At the top, a thin sliver of light shone through the crack at the bottom of the door. Here, the voices were easier to make out, although he could tell they were coming from a distance farther away than the other side of the door.
“You don’t need to take every garment you own,” Malluch said.
“If I have to live in a tent for who knows how long, I’m going to be comfortable,” his wife snapped back.
Shechem’s knees buckled, and he fell against the wall of the staircase. How could it be? Negotiating the corridor, he’d figured early on the passage from his wife’s dressing room was leading back to the palace. But Malluch? Shechem had been a loyal friend and servant to him for over three hundred years. He’d saved his life at the garden. How could Malluch be the one to betray him?
He leaned against the wall, occasionally reaching to wipe mucus from his nose. Then, like a candle being blown out, his emotions turned. He felt his face flush and clamped his teeth together. He clenched his fists so tight, the fingernails dug into his palms.
He drew his sword and reached for the door, only the moisture on his hands caused the handle to slip through his fingers. It stopped him from acting on impulse and gave him a moment to think.
Were he to charge in now and kill him, he might not be able to convince his wife of her husband’s treachery before she summoned the guards. And even if he did, what if she didn’t care? In either case, he would be forced to silence her to protect himself, a decision he didn’t want to make. She had, after all, been made to play the fool also.
Shechem wiped away a tear on his cheek. The rising water! He composed himself and started back down the stairs, bridling his impatience to keep from stumbling in the darkness. He grabbed his torch on the way through the secret room and descended the staircase on the other side. This time, his feet hit water on the third stair. He continued down until his chin touched the surface of the water, and still he hadn’t reached the bottom of the corridor. He would have to swim back.
Struggling to tread water holding a torch or with a sword on his belt was near impossible. So he placed both on the stair nearest the corridor ceiling, hoping the torch would light at least part of the way for his return. With the sound of leaking water urging him on, he dove headfirst into the cold, wet abyss.
Thankfully, his swimming skills hadn’t abandoned him after all these years. Despite the cold and the diminishing light behind him, he estimated he had reached the halfway point in less than eighteen parts. But when he brushed against the ceiling, he recognized the corridor was filling faster than he thought. He quickened his pace, shortening his stroke to keep from scraping his arm again.
Shechem’s satisfaction with his progress evaporated when turbulence in the water pushed him off course, slamming his body against the left wall. Beneath the surface, rocks and dirt from the opposite side crashed into his legs. Fear embraced him watching the corridor disintegrate. His body floated to the ceiling, a buoy in the rising water. An instant later, it covered him.
Before going under, he managed to steal two things: a final gasp of air and a glimpse of light at the end of the passage. Now, he hoped he could hold onto both until he reached the staircase. The final leg of the journey he would have to navigate blind.
He fought to master his fear. Panic was his enemy, and it would cause him to expend at a greater rate the precious oxygen stored in his lungs. So instead of reaching and kicking for speed, Shechem pulled himself through the water in short, synchronized strokes. He groped the water in front with one hand, while pushing over and through the rocks and silt piling beneath him with the other. Was he headed in the right direction? Or had he been driven off course toward a dead-end void by the disturbance of the crumbling wall? He would need the answer soon because his lungs were about to burst.
With two more labored kicks, Shechem’s fingertips touched something solid, a horizontal ninety-degree corner. He released the air from his lungs and mounted what he hoped was a staircase. If it wasn’t, or if it had somehow become blocked above him, his next breath would be water.
His head breached the surface, and he continued up the staircase into his wife’s dressing room. He ran to the far end and stopped, taking in huge gulps of air. All the while, water poured from the doorway into the room. He hurried out.
“What happened to you?” Claudia said when he approached her in a hallway of the palace.
“What do you mean?”
“It took you over an hour to check an empty house? And look at yourself. I know it’s pouring outside, but really. You look like you bathed with your clothes on.”
“I was outside longer than expected.”
“What happened to your sword?”
His hand fell to his empty sheath, and he deliberately screwed on a puzzled look. “I fell on my way back to the palace when my foot stuck in the mud. I must have lost it then. I’ll draw another from the armoury.” At that moment, he was thankful he’d left the sword behind. In his state of mind, he feared the temptation to use it on his wife would be too great.
Chapter 65
Two weeks had passed since the banging outside the ark had ceased, replaced by the sound of lapping water. Noah had noted its daily rise up the sides of the hull. It wouldn’t be long before they’d be waterborne.
One evening at twilight, he and his family sat down to a meal on the second deck near their quarters. There was a shudder. The ark listed slowly left, then right, drawing gasps from the women and toppling two pitchers of water and all the cups. Everyone put their palms on the deck to steady themselves, and the sound of animals stumbling in their pens or crying out resounded from below.
“Is it an earthquake?” Ham said.
“No, son. We’re being lifted by the water.”
Timbers squeaked, and a scraping sound came from several places along both sides of the ark.
“What’s that?” Ariel said, latching on to Shem’s arm.
“The shoring rubbing against the hull as the ark is being raised. It will stop soon.”
But after about seventy parts, the scraping continued. All heads followed the sound of the screeching planks. Except for Ariel. Her lip quivered and her eyes grew wider, so wide Noah feared they might burst from their sockets. She covered her ears.
A moment later, she pushed out of Shem’s arms and ran across the room toward the exit. Noah grabbed her. “I’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “Please, let me out.”
“Where would you go?” he said.
“Father, I’m sorry, but I can’t stay in here any longer. Please, let me go. I’d rather drown with the others than be locked in here.”
Miryam came up from behind and put her arm around her. “You don’t mean that, dear.”
Ariel whirled sharply. “I do mean it, Mother. I’m suffocating in here. This is my last chance to escape.”
“Being in here has been tough on all of us. But that’s no reason for you to sacrifice yourself.”
“Isn’t it? I can’t sleep. I can barely eat. I feel like I’m going crazy. Can death be any worse?”
Noah pulled Ariel back to him, fixing his gaze on hers. “You can’t leave. And you mustn’t die.”
“Wh—“
“God chose you for salvation for a reason.” He gently turned her to face the others, bending in close to her ear. “You three are the mothers of a civilization. You’re the new Eve.”
Tears stained the tops of Ariel’s cheeks. “Let them be the new Eve. I don’t want the honor.”
Noah motioned for Elisheva and Shiphrah to join them. “Go with your mother and take Ariel to the window for some fresh air. At least until we’ve cleared the shoring.” On their way out of the room, he pulled Shiphrah aside. “And keep a close watch on her. Make sure she doesn’t try to climb out.”
* * *
Shechem marched toward the top of a hill where Malluch gazed toward Eden some forty furlongs to the sou
thwest. What he must be thinking, standing there in the pouring rain watching floodwaters engulf his city.
Shechem was, of course, thinking of murder, and had been ever since finding his wife’s secret room two weeks ago.
Should he do it now? He could get away with it. All the people were huddled safely inside their tents. He could clasp his hand over Malluch’s mouth and run him through with a single thrust from behind. All that would be left would be to roll his body down the hill and allow the roar of the storm to cover any final death throes.
Instead, he came up beside him. He cringed watching the wall he’d labored over for fifteen years crumble into the waters like a dune disintegrating in the wind.
Pitched tents littered the hill, and across each of the higher ones on either side. Despite his personal woes, he was pleased so many of Eden’s citizens had made it to safety. Until just a few days ago, they’d shared the hills with a variety of animals fleeing the same rising tide.
Now, only the horses and donkeys that’d carried them to safety remained. Malluch had ordered the destruction of all the wild animals in retaliation for losing his army. Shechem estimated his recruits had butchered thousands.
“There goes the palace,” Shechem said. The spire to the magnificent structure toppled over, disappearing in the swirling flood.
Malluch stared at the city with arms folded, rain pouring off the end of his protruding jaw. “Commander.”
“Yes, my lord.” Though he’d given the response a thousand times, the title now burned on his tongue. He no more considered the man his lord than the hill they were standing on. And an expression he’d uttered out of respect for over a hundred years had overnight become profane.
“You think the Preacher is still alive?”
He paused to consider his response, careful again not to reveal too much of what he knew. “Probably. Even if Bohar succeeded in destroying the ark, the Preacher is smart enough to have made plans for an alternate escape.”
“I hope he is.”
“Why?”
Malluch’s head swiveled to him. “Oh, I think you know, Commander. Twice now he’s escaped me. And the nightmares. You remember. The ones that came back after having disappeared for all those years. They continue to haunt me. Will I ever truly know peace until I’ve looked upon his dead body?”
Shechem couldn’t believe it. With the world drowning around them, his betrayer remained obsessed with his hatred. He decided to change the subject to something more pressing. “Tomorrow we should head for the mountains.”
Malluch turned back toward Eden, sighing heavily. “If we must.”
Chapter 66
A week later, Shechem stood outside Malluch’s tents on the side of a mountain surrounded by his army watching the chaos below.
Hundreds fought in the pouring rain over diminishing numbers of supplies and positions of elevation along the hillside. Bodies littered the landscape or floated in the waters, most the result of these fracases, others dying at their own hands. For whatever time he had left, he was certain he would not forget the image of dozens of men on their knees, slumped over their swords. Some had the bodies of their slain families around them.
To his left, a man rolled down the hill in front of him and cried out. He was followed by a leather bag that broke when it struck the ground, scattering gold coins. It was a scene he’d seen repeated numerous times in recent days, with the rich attempting to buy food or a higher place on the mountain. Laughter greeted most of the attempts, but one arrogant and persistent barterer had his jaw forced open and the coins stuffed into his mouth.
“Try eating that,” one of his tormenters had said.
Until a few days ago, Shechem’s recruit army had been successful in quelling most of these disturbances. But after losing over sixty men to mobs swarming them for their weapons—weapons which they’d then turned on each other—he suspended all policing operations. His soldiers’ job now was to protect the governor and his family.
It was an order he had loathed to give, but did so out of a sense of duty more than anything else. He also couldn’t take the chance Malluch would be killed accidentally in an uprising, robbing him of his opportunity for vengeance.
With the day’s light fading, the violence below subsided. If it followed its usual pattern, the fighting would cease overnight and resume when daybreak revealed to those at the bottom the threat of encroaching waters.
A touch of a hand on his shoulder spun him around to face Malluch, cloaked beneath the hood of his tunic. “Let’s take a walk, Commander.” He led Shechem to a place overlooking the far side of their tents, away from the soldiers and other prying ears. “Tell me, how many people would you say are left on these mountains?”
He scanned the mountain range. “About eight thousand.” When Malluch didn’t respond immediately, Shechem saw the wheels turning in his head again. “You’re not thinking of—”
“Look down there, Commander. What do you see? How long do you think it will be before they come to take our place on the mountain?”
“But they’re our own people. Relatives. Friends.”
“Not any more. Now they’re just animals fighting for the right to survive.”
“Surely, there must be another way, my lord.”
“Each day the waters rise and the land shrinks.” Malluch studied the mountain. “By the time we reach the top, there won’t be room for all of us.”
“But murdering our own citizens?”
“And how many men did you lose in the last few days in confrontations with those citizens?”
“More than sixty.”
“Leaving you fewer than 540 to protect us.”
“Yes, but they are armed.”
“Armed.” Malluch snorted. “Commander, what do you think would happen if those eight thousand people decided to rush us right now?”
“We’d probably be overrun.”
“Exactly. And what do you think the men below are thinking right now?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sure you do. They’ve lost more than three quarter their number on the journey from Eden. You and your men represent the last guardians of civil authority on earth. If I were them, I’d be thinking of ways to overpower you while they still maintain an advantage in numbers.”
“But we don’t know for sure.”
“Don’t we? Think about it, Commander. And be honest with yourself. We need to act. Now.”
Once again, Shechem found himself conflicted by a decision he could neither avoid nor escape. This wasn’t the massacre of three thousand slaves or the even the ritual sacrifice of two hundred children. This was the murder of eight thousand of his fellow countryman and the thought left a rancid taste in his mouth.
But what could he do? If he refused, the governor would simply give the order to one of his captains, bypassing him completely. Maybe even have him eliminated.
He could kill Malluch right there and hope his men held a stronger allegiance to their commander than to him. But then killing him wouldn’t change the reality of what was transpiring below. Unless the rains stopped, his men would eventually be forced to kill to protect themselves or be overrun by the mobs. With a deep sense of regret, he conceded the inevitable. “What’s your plan?”
“Five hundred forty soldiers and eight thousand people. That’s roughly fifteen people per man, give or take. Can your men handle that number?”
He wanted desperately to say, “No,” that the odds were too extreme, his soldiers too green, or their chances of being detected too great. Anything to put a stop to this madness. But it wouldn’t do any good. “They can handle it.”
“Of course, a good number of these are going to be women and children.”
Shechem cleared his throat, straining to keep his emotions in check.
“You’ll want to wait until well after midnight and the camp is asleep. Night and the drumming of the rains will provide cover for your men to sneak into the tents. Be sure your soldiers target the men
of each family first. A firm pass across the front of the throat with a knife or sword will discourage screaming.” Malluch lifted his chin as though searching the heavens. “Oh, how I wish Bohar was here.”
“You want them to kill all the women and children?”
“Commander, I’ve known plenty of women able to wield a sword or a young man a knife. But for now, in addition to their own families, have your soldiers spare any children under the age of six along with their mothers. Kill the rest.”
Shechem couldn’t maintain his composure any longer. He shook his head.
“Unthinkable?” Malluch said. “Not really. In fact, it might be a more compassionate fate than awaits the rest of us.”
“How’s that?”
“Two weeks from now, we may all find ourselves at the top of this mountain with the waters swirling around our feet. At that moment, I suspect the mothers of those spared will wish their children had perished quickly with the others.”
“Then why bother to spare any of them?”
“There’s always the possibility the rains could stop. If so, we’ll need at least some women and children to seed the new world.”
Shechem went off to meet with his commanders and plan another slaughter, after which he spent the remainder of the evening alone in quiet contemplation. But he couldn’t get the governor’s last words out of his head. Compassionate? Wonder how compassionate he’d find the firm pass of a sword across his throat.
For the first time, he even considered ending his own life in addition to Malluch’s. Leave the problem of dealing with the end of the world to one of his captains. What kept him from doing it? Was his sense of self preservation that strong? Or was he simply a coward? Three times during the evening and early morning he got out of bed to summon his commanders to cancel the order, only to back out each time.
By the time he got up a fourth time, it was too late.
Two hours past midnight, his men snuck out to do the unthinkable.
* * *
The next night, Shechem awoke to a waterlogged back and the sound of his wife and every other woman in camp screaming. He scampered to the entrance to their tent, to where water dribbled in from the outside. “Gather our things. I’ll be back shortly.” He threw on his tunic and walked out.
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