by Brian Godawa
Enoch stood silent, watching them. He had made known his displeasure with Methuselah’s interest in the girl, so this display was a bit off-putting to him. But he could see the happiness in his son’s whole body. It reminded him of his own happiness when he had realized he was in love with his own precious Edna so many years ago.
Methuselah set Edna down and she apologized for her inappropriate display of public affection. Everyone laughed and applauded her. She gave an impish glance at Enoch, her future father-in-law.
Enoch could see that they were two of a kind. Even he could not stay disagreeable. He smiled. But deep in his heart, he longed for his beloved, the only true thing on this earth. And she was now gone forever.
A deep yearning came over Methuselah that he never experienced before. His soul hungered for union with her soul, his body hungering to become one with hers.
They had better get to Sahandria quickly.
Chapter 14
It took Enoch’s family about two weeks to navigate the Tigris to the Diyala river about 80 leagues up into the Zagros. Their trip was uneventful. Enoch prayed that Utu had more important things to do than track down a single apkallu sage and his family, who would probably be dead in the wilderness anyway. He knew Utu well enough to know that the god would not waste his energy micromanaging such minuscule issues. What was one less puny human to worry about?
The missing Nephilim sent after them were a different matter. They would be missed eventually. Enoch hoped that when they failed to return, Utu would believe them to be rogue outlaws who took their chance to run to the hills when freed from the confines of the city. It would be a reasonable explanation for their disappearance. It had already happened with many Nephilim.
Enoch’s party left their boats at the river’s end. They had all forgotten the miracle of the changed river course within hours of steering upstream. After a few days, they had begun wondering if their memories had failed them and the river had always flowed north. But as soon as they ran their boats aground, the current suddenly turned back south.
Enoch fell to the ground weeping in repentance.
Methuselah noticed Enoch had been doing a lot of weeping lately, usually for his lost Edna. He wept mostly at night, when everyone else slept. He also prayed much more. Too much. It seemed to Methuselah that his father sought escape by plunging even further into his spirituality in order to avoid facing the pain of this earth. Methuselah felt that pain was more reliable and real than the hope and promises of the heavenlies. After so deep a betrayal by the gods, how could he shift his allegiance to this new god Elohim without question? Elohim’s emissaries had saved them, it was true, but for whose sake? Methuselah felt more like a pawn in an invisible spiritual game of wrestling powers. He did not feel as if he had much of a choice in the matter. The worst thing about the situation was all the secrets and mystery. It made trust seem so uncertain.
Methuselah trusted the experience of his senses. The strength of a belly full of food, the contact of a handheld mace with an enemy’s skull, and the touch of his beautiful betrothed Edna. These things he could know with resounding certainty. He found it more difficult to trust the vagaries and uncertainties of invisible gods, disappearing angels, and unanswered prayers and petitions. This Elohim would have to prove himself trustworthy with a bit more rigorous confirmation to get Methuselah’s attention.
Edna more willingly believed in Elohim’s beneficence. When the river had returned to its natural southward current, she wondered how many other miracles they would take for granted with such lack of gratitude. The provision of food to fill their bellies? More salvation from the enemy’s mace? The devoted love of a man with a woman? The conception of a new human life? The birth of a child? It seemed everything kept pointing back to Methuselah in her heart. She watched him lead the group with authority. She thought of him tenderly soothing her fears, dreamed of his strength and humor. She simply wanted to make him happy and build a home together.
Methuselah kept thinking about doing only one thing with Edna, and it was not building a home.
• • • • •
They traveled another thirty leagues through the valley of Havilah and the Mannean plain until they finally stood upon the volcanic fields of Mount Sahand.
Enoch felt humbled by the majesty. Everyone stared across the stark expanse in silence. The snow-covered dome of the Sahand volcano stood about eight thousand cubits, the highest peak in the region. The mountain range included a dozen other volcanic heads along the ridges. It looked like a fortress wall of rock with volcanic guard towers. Lake Urimiya spread sparkling to the west.
Enoch’s soul moved deep within him, knowing that on the far side of Mount Sahand lay the valley of the Garden of Eden, that no man dare approach. This would be the closest anyone could ever come to the legendary paradise. A tribe of Cherubim guarded its perimeter, to keep the descendants of Adam away.
They stood before a vast terrain of igneous rock. Not a soul in sight. A dead wasteland. Enoch wondered where the Adamites were, those forgotten people and their patriarch that they were supposed to find? Did Elohim have his directions correct? Obviously not. There was not a sign of life for leagues around. Tribes of any size always left traces of their presence, and they could see no trace of any human presence in the area but their own.
They would have set up camp and begin their survey of the area first thing in the morning. Enoch hoped that he had not wasted his and everyone’s time after all.
They pitched camp a third of a league onto the barren landscape to avoid surprise by any approaching enemies. There was nowhere to sneak up on them in a three hundred and sixty degree arc. Anyone who tried to crawl their way toward the camp would shred their clothes and flesh right off their bodies from the sharp porous bedrock and rubble strewn about.
Enoch limited the nightwatch to two details of three guards. He made sure to keep Methuselah on the far edge of the men’s camp for his watch detail. It would keep his son from the tempting position of easy access to Edna in the women’s camp. Methuselah was an honorable young man, but at his age passionate urges could be so strong that even honorable young men could go temporarily mad and make decisions they would regret when cooler heads prevailed.
The midnight hour came, and Methuselah could not sleep. His thoughts burned of Edna, piercing his brain with a hammer-like pounding. At least it kept him awake for his watch duty. Unfortunately, it also distracted his attention.
He did not catch the first soft sound of scraping in the rocks near him. But the second time the sound flew by, he heard it. He looked up. A full moon lit the landscape. There was nothing out there. Still, he was uneasy. He reached down and picked up his mace, intending to practice some moves with it.
When he brought it up, he stopped in silent shock.
Just seconds before, the horizon had shown no life for miles around. Now the shadows of a hundred dark figures surrounded the camp. The shapes stood upright like men, but had antlers and horns like wild animals. They formed a living fence of shadow-like spectres roundabout. Where had they come from? It was as if they materialized out of the rocks themselves. Were they phantasms, shades of Sheol? Or worse, shedim, demons?
Before Methuselah could shout a warning, all the figures held up branches with pots on them and smashed the pots with their weapons. The resounding echo woke everyone up in terror. Women screamed, men grabbed their weapons. A frightening ring of fire surrounded them and they became disoriented. The figures had carried torches hidden in pots. The camp was taken entirely by surprise and now Enoch’s company was completely vulnerable, like a man asleep with a blade at his throat.
Chapter 15
The dark shadows of the night were not demons, they were men. But they were not entirely the same kind of men that Methuselah and Enoch and all their lineage produced. They seemed more apelike. They walked upright, but were hairier than usual, with a stocky, robust musculature and pronounced brows and jaws. They wore animal skins and headdresses created
from the game they hunted, thus creating the illusion of supernatural denizens in the night.
As the strangers guided them in the dark, Methuselah learned why he had not spotted them creeping up on the camp, and why they seemed to emerge from the rocks themselves. They had emerged from the rocks. They were troglodytes, cave dwellers. They now led Enoch’s clan through fissures and portals into the volcanic earth below their feet.
Their torches lit the way through a labyrinth of carved passageways.
Edna was already confused and thought how easy it would be to become lost amidst these tunnels. She could see the troglodytes knew the way like the back of their hand. Then she thought of Methuselah’s hand, and how strong and manly it was, yet how it could caress her with such affection. She pushed that thought out of her head. She had to be all there. She had to be ready for action.
As they walked down the incline, Methuselah was disgusted with himself. Here they were, their lives in danger, captive to a tribe of primitive apemen, not knowing if they would help them or eat them, and all he could do was to stare at the pleasurable way that Edna’s hips moved as she walked in front of him. What on earth was happening to him? He could not think straight. He shook it out of his mind. He had to be ready for action.
Enoch could tell they were going deep into the earth. The slope of the shaft was steep at first, but then tapered off as they neared their destination, which seemed to be an untold number of cubits below ground.
They passed through a guarded portal into a large cavern. Enoch gasped at what he saw. They stood on a ledge overlooking a vast space. As large as the palace in Sippar, about two hundred cubits in diameter and seventy cubits high, it was more than a mere natural cave. It had been carved and shaped into a palatial interior, with a vaulted arch ceiling and columns around the perimeter. How could these primitive apemen create such sophisticated architecture?
Below them, dozens of apemen, apewomen, and apechildren busied themselves at a marketplace. They all stopped and stared up at the captives descending the stairs into another passageway entrance. One of the apechildren pointed up at them and whispered something to its mother. It occurred to Enoch that he should probably not call them apemen. It might offend them. Their adult males appeared strong enough to crush his skull if they wanted to.
They passed other hallways and arched entrances. They saw more neighborhoods of dwellings and communities. By the time they reached their destination, Enoch calculated that this city was easily as big as Sippar, but entirely underground. He now started to think that perhaps he should not call them apemen because they might very well be more sophisticated than the city dwellers of the plains.
They stopped before a huge pair of cedar doors. The leader of their party pulled on the bell rope hanging beside the entrance. A beautiful bell clang sounded out. In answer, the doors opened from within.
The leader, a robust older soldier, turned to Enoch and spoke. “People rest here. Leaders come with me.” This was the first he had spoken since the capture of the clan.
“Methuselah,” said Enoch.
Methuselah jumped to his side. They followed the soldier into a large reception area. The beautiful space had been adorned as a garden. Large oak and cedar columns lined the walls like trees. Flowing green drapes were hung with pomegranates embroidered on the hem. Various sparkling jewels bedecked everything. This was not merely a garden, it was a sacred underground temple.
Methuselah thought about pointing out to his father the earthly imagery used in a spiritual sanctuary. But a voice interrupted his thoughts.
“Enoch, my son! What took you so long!”
Enoch and Methuselah turned to see an old man and woman walk out of a side entrance.
They were both at least a good eight hundred years or so old. The man’s stately but bent posture tempered the flashing white hair on his head. The woman’s hair shone white as well, but she carried herself with the grace of royalty. She led the man by the arm. They both had a sense of carrying the weight of the world upon them.
Then Enoch and Methuselah saw why she was leading him. It was not that he was more frail than she, but because he was blind. His eyes were glazed over with a foggy whiteness.
“Father Adam?” Enoch said. He realized his mouth hung open and he closed it.
“And mother Havah,” Adam replied with a smile. “Do not be disrespectful, lad.”
Years of cave dwelling had not been good to Adam, on his body or soul. Enoch thought Adam had taken on a resemblance to the troglodytes over whom he obviously ruled. Perhaps being out of the sun had its negative effects on the human body.
Enoch embraced Adam fiercely. “It is you! I never thought I would ever meet you.” Then he hugged Havah with tenderness.
“Yes, here I am in the flesh. Are you not going to introduce me to your companion?” Adam said. He could not see, but he had highly attuned his other senses to compensate for the lack of sight.
“Dear, dear, Enoch,” Havah said with a loving sadness.
“Oh, pardon me,” said Enoch, “This is my son Methuselah.”
“That would be your great-great-great-great-great-great grandson,” retorted Methuselah.
“Oh? And with a sense of humor, too. It does my heart good to hear you, my great-great-great-great-great grandson,” said Adam with what would have been a twinkle in a seeing eye. “I cannot see you, but I can smell you.” He grinned impishly.
They laughed. They were in need of a bath. It had been some time since their last contact with moving water.
Methuselah hugged Adam. He could feel a quivering sigh of sadness in Adam’s arms, a regret of lives not shared.
Then Methuselah embraced Havah. She whispered to him, “Methuselah, you shall outlive us all.” That struck him as a bit odd, out of place. Maybe she had lost some of her wits in her old age.
Adam said, “You have both come a long way, and with your family. It must have been a difficult journey.”
“Just at the start,” said Methuselah, knowing he was putting it mildly.
“Well, then, let us break bread to celebrate your safe delivery,” said Adam. “Gabriel and Uriel told me of your approach to Sahandria. We have much to discuss.”
Chapter 16
The cave dwellers laid out quite a spread before Enoch’s family. Though they lived in an underground world, Adam’s troglodytes were adept at growing fruits and vegetables in secret gardens in the foothills within hiking distance of their residence. They spread a sumptuous banquet before the weary travelers. Skilled hunters, they supplemented the produce with mountain goat, gazelle, ibex. Anything with hair, they could catch and kill. Enoch chuckled at the discovery that even isolated from the rest of civilization, they still managed to make beer and wine. The drink of the gods never eluded humanity.
The extended family finished the meal and left the elders of the tribe to discuss their matters. Enoch, Methuselah, and a handful of others talked about the quarters that were put aside for their people. They did not know how long they would stay, but they would prepare their clan to adjust to their new residence until Elohim revealed otherwise.
Adam sat with Havah next to him, listening to the conversation. She never left his side. They were inseparable, and not because he needed her guidance with mobility. They were all alone in the world, and they only had each other. Despite the community of love around them, they would always have a pain too deep, a woundedness, that separated them from everyone and everything in this world. So they clung to each other with a subtle desperation.
Watching them, Enoch thought Mother Havah was a bit too controlling over Father Adam in his weakened state. But he did not intend disrespect, so he kept his mouth shut.
Adam sat back and belched. He muttered, “Excuse me, my little Ninti, Lady of the Rib.”
“You are pardoned, my little Man of Red,” Havah remarked wistfully.
Methuselah overheard it and his heart warmed. So old grandfather and grandmother liked giving affectionate nicknames. It mu
st run in the family. He longed to touch his little Pedna Pedlums.
Enoch mused, “What is it like, Father Adam? The Garden. I have longed to know.”
Havah watched Adam sadly as he gave a deep sigh. He could not get it out of his mind anyway. He might as well paint the picture burned into his heart and soul.
“Exactly as you would think. That is, like nothing you could imagine,” he said. His eyes, though dull and without vision, brightened. He could see it all as clear as day before him.
Adam spoke with a hushed awe, “The lush valley is bounded on three sides, the Sahand and Bazgush mountain range in the south and the Savalan and Kush ranges in the north, and in the west, Lake, uh, the lake…” His memory lapsed.
“Lake Urumiya,” said Havah. She finished his sentences, corrected his errors, and filled in when he forgot. He showed no sign of irritation. In fact, his descendants had the impression he would not even try to talk without her.
“Yes, yes, of course, Lake Urumiya. It makes for a perfect shelter from the harsh climate that we all know so well. The westerly winds from the great sea bring a warm rain for the dense vegetation in the valley. Every fruit tree known to man thrives there. Whole orchards, and vegetables and nut-bearing trees as well. And plenty of grapes of the vine, let me tell you.”
Methuselah raised his chalice. “More wine to make the heart glad!” Everyone laughed.
His words conjured a vision of the Garden for his listeners. They could all see it. And they realized it was good for his soul to have a moment of respite from the heavy burden that lay upon him.
Adam turned solemn again. “And rich red soil,” he said ever so slowly, treasuring every word as he felt the earth running through the fingers of his mind.
Havah reached out and rubbed his arm. He held her hand on his arm and continued, “Hot springs of water in rolling meadows. Ice cold waters pouring down the mountains into the river that flows through Paradise and empties into Lake Urimiya.”