Ark

by J. J. Wilder

  “Why?” My mind was not working properly. I could not understand why we would go to Noah’s home.

  “Think, Princess: you ran away from Sin-iddim, and he will not let that go. He will send soldiers to Bad-Tibira to search for you, and if your father knows where you are, he will hand you straight back to that monster. In any of the cities in Sumer you are known, so we risk discovery anywhere we might go.

  “I do not know any other trade besides war, and I haven’t enough money to support us without finding work. I cannot leave you alone long enough to escort some fat nobleman from one place to another. Besides which, you are injured. It will be months before you’re well enough to even walk on your own, much less learn to survive alone in a city while I’m gone.” He shook his head and sighed. “No, Princess, the only place we have a chance to see you well again is my father’s farm.”

  A bolt of anger seared through me. “Stop calling me that.”

  “Stop calling you what?” Japheth twisted on the bench and shot me a quizzical look.

  “Princess—I am not a princess anymore, and I am most certainly not a queen. I am just . . . Aresia.”

  “Aresia, then,” Japheth said, reaching behind himself and squeezing my ankle.

  I found a measure of comfort in his touch, but something was bothering him—I could feel it radiating off of him in palpable waves.

  “What is wrong, Japheth?” I asked.

  “Nothing.”

  I did not believe him, not for a second. “Do not lie to me—I am not blind.”

  Japheth clicked his tongue and snapped the reins to get the onagers moving more quickly as we hit an upward incline, and once again he was silent so long I thought he wasn’t going to answer me.

  He chuckled mirthlessly, and then sobered again. “It’s my father . . . I’ve never gotten along with him very well. I left home when I was young. I was still a boy, really, but I was sick of his rigid morality, his unbending devotion to Elohim . . . everyone else had to believe the way he did, everyone had to live the way he commanded, and his word was law, no matter what. I could not live with him, so I left.”

  More silence, and then he continued.

  “Looking back I realize the problem is, we are very much alike, my father and I. We argued all the time, and neither one of us would bend. I’m the same way, even still. More so, now that I’m a grown man. Then I was rebellious because that’s just how children are, and it’s still true now—I just can’t make myself give in to anyone. It’s what got us into this trouble in the first place. If I had been sensible about things, in the very beginning, I would’ve left Bad-Tibira, I would’ve forgotten about you and moved on. You would’ve found a decent husband among the Nephilim. You would never have agreed to marry Sin-Iddim if it hadn’t been for me.”

  I shook my head, unable to find a response to his words.

  “Japheth . . . it is not your fault,” I said. “Not . . . not entirely. It is mine too. I wanted you, and I would not allow anyone to deny me. I knew seeing you was dangerous. If not for me, you would never have come to my father’s attention. So . . . the fault is mine as much as it yours.”

  Japheth sighed, scrubbing his face with his hands. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. We must walk the path set before us.”

  His words saddened me, and he seemed resigned. Silence settled over us for many miles, both of us lost in our thoughts. The day dragged on, and the miles passed behind us, and I slept as much as I could. Japheth passed me a wineskin and meal-cakes, the kind of provision a soldier carries with him on marches to battlefields, wheat and barley packed into small discs and baked with honey. They were crunchy and filling and slightly sweet, but difficult to eat.

  Night drew down upon us and Japheth finally pulled the wagon off the road into a turn-off that seemed to be designed for this purpose. There was ring of stones around a deep pit, filled with charred hunks of palm wood and ash, and a small pile of logs near the fire.

  Japheth left me in the wagon bed and knelt beside the fire pit, stirring the ashes to find a bed of dull orange coals. Blowing on the embers and slowly adding bits of kindling, the flames flickered to life. He added a few larger sticks and then, as the fire grew, he added a single full-sized log. Returning to the wagon, Japheth slid his arms around me and effortlessly lifted me from the wagon, setting me on the ground near the wagon wheel, my feet facing the fire. The onagers were freed from their harness and staked to the ground a few feet away, bags of grain tied around their noses.

  Then he dug in a basket in the back of the wagon and produced several jars of salves and herbs, as well as some food. The salve he put on my injuries, and the herbs he ground up and mixed with some water from a jug, which he then heated over the fire and bade me drink. The food was simple, some dried meat, a mix of dried fruit and nuts, and some hardened bread. Nothing fancy, but enough to fill our bellies.

  After seeing to the animals and stirring the fire, Japheth finally stretched out on the ground next to me, piling his cloak beneath his head. I watched him fall asleep, his breathing evening out almost as soon as he closed his eyes; it took a lot longer for me to finally fall asleep.

  I stared up at the silver wash of stars and the waning moon; palm trees waved their broad leaves in the soft breeze, a tiny stream nearby trickled in the distance, which I realized must be an offshoot of the Euphrates. It was peaceful, here, so far away from Larsa and Bad-Tibira, away from Father and Sin-Iddim and the palace and soldiers . . . it wasn’t silent—the night was filled with trilling toads and croaking frogs, chirruping crickets, night birds winging above my head, black shapes against the stars flitting in pursuit of insects—but it was peaceful.

  I thought of Irkalla and all she had done for me, what she had suffered for me. Elohim, be with her, I prayed. I hated that I could do nothing to repay her, that I could not even thank her.

  Absent was the threat of men seeking me, as well as the fear of my father’s temper and the fear of Sin-Iddim’s cruel hands. The thought of my erstwhile husband sent shivers down my spine; I wanted to believe I would be safe with Japheth at his father’s home. Fear won out, however . . . Sin-Iddim would not rest until I was found. He would, as Japheth said, send soldiers to Bad-Tibira. Might he go so far as to scour the countryside? It seemed unlikely; there was simply too much area to cover. More likely, Sin-Iddim would accuse Father of going back on his word, of spiriting me away.

  Would there be war between the cities once more, this time over me? They were proud, cruel men, my father and Sin-Iddim.

  I realized something, lying there beneath the stars: no matter what the future held, I did not possess the courage to return to my old life, even if it did mean war between Larsa and Bad-Tibira.

  We left the camp at dawn. With every mile that passed, Japheth grew ever more tense. I watched his shoulders tighten, watched the corners of his eyes narrow, and noticed his fingers clench white around the reins.

  I tried to reassure him, but he refused to respond, only shaking his head, black curls bouncing against his forehead. At length I fell silent and allowed him to brood in peace.

  Something had changed in Japheth, I realized. He was different. Gone was the brash, confident, arrogant man I’d been swept up by. This Japheth was sour, curt, introspective. I didn’t like him much, but what could I do? I didn’t know how to draw him out of his shell, what questions to ask. Indeed, I myself had changed, and I knew it. I had no desire to speak of what I’d endured, I only wanted to forget, to put time between me and the memories; perhaps Japheth was going through a similar process of trying to forget. Whatever the case, Japheth spoke little as we traveled, and if his sour silence hurt, I also understood it, for I had little to say myself.

  Boredom set in quickly as league after league, hour after hour, passed in total silence.

  We turned off the main road near sundown, breaking away to head due west. The smaller side road was narrow and very rugged, sending lances of pain through me at every turn of the wheels. I ground my t
eeth against it for as long as I could, but eventually a cry broke loose, and then I could no longer contain the whimpers.

  The sound of my tears brought Japheth up from his torpor, and he turned to glance at me with concern.

  “It is not far now. The farm is just over that rise,” he said, pointing ahead.

  I lifted up, gasping at the effort, to look ahead. The land drew itself up into a steep hill, cutting off our view of the land beyond the horizon. I settled back down and closed my eyes, willing the throb of my knitting bones to ease. After a while I felt the wagon tilt as we began the upward journey. Japheth called encouragement to the onagers as they struggled with the steep upward grade. I felt myself sliding downward, gripping the sides of the wagon to hold myself in place.

  It should have been a simple thing, holding myself in place as we traveled up the hill, but it took every shred of my strength. I pinched my eyes shut, my teeth grating at the effort, my heart pounding.

  At long last the hill leveled out and the wagon pulled to a stop. I heard Japheth climb out of the wagon and whisper praise to the onagers.

  Then I heard a soft curse of surprise from him, followed by a word breathed in awe.

  I struggled to turn around, but couldn’t. I was slumped against the back of the wagon, fighting tears of pain.

  “Japheth? What . . . what is it?” I managed.

  He didn’t answer. He simply turned and lifted me from wagon, holding me in his arms to show me the view of his father’s farm.

  What I saw took my breath away.

  What I saw appeared to be a boat of some kind, massive enough to plow the starry waves of the very heavens. It was a skeleton only, a spare shape of struts and spars and curving ribs, but the scope of it, the size of it even from this distance of many miles was enough to stun me into breathless silence.

  We stared for many minutes, awed.

  “What in all the names of God is my father building?” Japheth whispered, more to himself than to me.

  9

  Favor Found

  “But Noah found favor with the Lord.” Genesis 6:8

  Noah, son of Lamech, son of Methuselah, was a frightening man. His beard was long and black, shot with streaks of gray, the tip brushing his belly. His curly black hair, so like Japheth’s but long and unkempt, was tossed in the ever-present breeze, brushing across his eyes as he stood before the mountain-sized construction, a mallet in one hand and a thick, gnarled staff in the other. He wore a short knee-length, sleeveless tunic belted with a thick strap of leather. He was burly and tall, towering nearly half a cubit above Japheth, his shoulders as wide and heavy as an ox’s, his arms thick and hairy, his chest as broad and round as a barrel of wine; he could wrestle an aurochs and win. Noah was an imposing man, even to me, a Nephilim. His eyes were as blue as Japheth’s but immeasurably older and sparking with wisdom. They pierced me like hurled spears.

  He did not have to speak a word for me to know he hated me.

  I could see this even as we approached. I sat next to Japheth in the wagon’s seat, holding myself erect through sheer force of will. Noah’s eyes narrowed as we neared him, until they were slits of blue that flashed with sparks. I refused to cower underneath his gaze, but I wanted to. Even Japheth kept rolling his shoulders back and straightening his spine, as if he too felt the weight of Noah’s disapproval.

  “Your father is . . . fearsome,” I whispered, as we approached.

  Japheth sighed. “Yes,” he agreed.

  Japheth’s mouth was pressed into a thin line. I was quickly realizing the enmity between him and his father went deeper than he had let on. He wasn’t merely tense—he was afraid. I had seen him face my father’s men without blinking, and I had seen him kill men without so much as flinching, and he prophesied my father’s death without fear, but now, at the prospect of seeing his own father, Japheth seemed to be nothing so much as terrified.

  Japheth tugged on the reins and the onagers slowed to a stop in front of Noah. Two other men stood behind Noah, one with a stack of planed and sanded boards in his arms, the other with a bucket of pitch. Both of these men shared Noah’s black curls and blue eyes, making them Japheth’s brothers, I assumed. They paused mid-motion as we approached, shock on their faces.

  Stepping down from the wagon, Japheth squared his shoulders and faced his father; neither man spoke for long, tense minutes.

  “Father,” Japheth began. “It’s been . . . a long time.”

  Noah remained silent, twisting the staff in his fist so the tip dug into the grass. “Japheth.”

  It was odd, Noah’s greeting. It was not a welcome, not a greeting, and not a question. It seemed like nothing so much as an empty statement, a bare, spare acknowledgement of his son’s presence.

  “I . . . I know there’s much we have to discuss, and I don’t expect an eager welcome, but . . .” Japheth trailed off, ducking his head and toying with the ear of the onager munching grass next to him. “I hope . . . I was hoping we can . . . stay here, for at least a few days. Aresia, she’s hurt . . . she needs time to recuperate.”

  Noah’s jaw worked slowly, grinding his jaws together, and his eyes fixed on me, his upper lip curling. “You bring a Nephilim here? To my home? Who is she? Why have you returned after so long?” Noah’s words came in a flood, his voice deep and booming and rough.

  Japheth looked back at me, and then to his father, as if wondering what to tell him, suddenly seeming at a loss. Japheth, so deadly and graceful and fearless on the battlefield, was afraid of his father.

  I gathered my breath and my courage and stepped out of the wagon. I couldn’t stop the gasp and whimper of pain as my ribs protested the movement. My legs wobbled, and I used the strong, broad backs of the onagers to support myself as I shuffled gingerly next to Japheth. He wrapped his arm around my waist and held me upright.

  “I am Aresia, daughter of Emmen-Utu, King of Bad-Tibira,” I said with all the strength I possessed, but it still came out breathless and soft.

  Noah’s face contorted in rage. “You bring to me the daughter of that—that godless savage? You sully my lands with the spawn of that monster? Have you gone mad, Japheth?” His voice shook, trembled.

  “I know, Father. I know the enmity you harbor for Nephilim, but—”

  “No, you foolish child. You don’t know. You know nothing.” Noah spat on the ground, a thick gobbet of saliva splatting into the dust. “Leave now. She is not welcome here and neither are you.”

  “Father, please—just listen to me. She’s not like him . . . Aresia is not guilty of the sins of her father.”

  “She is a worshipper of the false gods.” Noah turned away from his son. “And so are you, probably.”

  “No, Father. I . . . worship Elohim—I found Him, and I have returned to you. Please, Father,” Japheth caught his father’s sleeve, a simple act, but coming from a man so proud as Japheth, it was an abject plea. “Give us a chance.”

  I took a wobbling step, shaky as a newborn calf. “Please, Noah. We have nowhere else to go. I will tell you my story if you wish, but . . .” Noah stepped back from me, as if my mere proximity made him ill. “I do not worship my people’s gods any longer. I—I have heard the voice of Elohim. He spoke to me—”

  Noah lunged at me, spitting rage. “Do not blaspheme the name of The One God!”

  He seemed about to strike me but wrenched himself away. His hatred was palpable and powerful, and I wondered what had happened to cause such ire.

  “I speak the truth! I heard His voice. He . . . he spoke to me, when I was dying.” I wavered on my feet, unable to stand any longer. Japheth caught me and lowered me to the ground.

  Just then, an older woman approached, her hair as black as her husband’s and sons’, but it was straight and fine, and her eyes were deep brown, kind and wide. She was beautiful, in the faded way of a woman who was once a glorious beauty and had aged well. She strode up to Japheth without pause and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close in a tight embrace. Japheth sto
od stiff for a moment, and then slowly relaxed, hands finally lifting to return the embrace. He held her for a moment and then attempted to pull away. The woman shook her head and pulled him back in. I heard her murmur something to him. Japheth shook his head, tried again to pull away, and the woman—his mother, obviously—held tight once more, her shoulders trembling.

  I expected Japheth to push her away, but he didn’t. He turned his face to the sky, as if beseeching his One God, and I saw a tear trembling in his eyes. He blinked hard, fighting the tears as his mother kissed him on his cheek, first the right and then the left. Then she took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead. Tears coursed down his cheeks.

  “You came back. My son has returned.” She rounded on Noah, eyes blazing. “How dare you turn him away, you stubborn old bull? He is our son, our eldest child. He has returned, and we will welcome him with open arms. Now, Japheth, who have you brought with you?”

  I tried to rise to my feet but couldn’t.

  Japheth knelt down and lifted me up, holding me in his arms like a child.

  “Mother, this is Aresia; Aresia, this is my mother, Zara.”

  Zara touched my blackened eyes with a gentle, practiced touch, ran her finger down the line of my broken nose, prodded my ribs. “Oh, child. Who did this to you?” The question was rhetorical, it seemed, for she continued speaking without giving me pause to answer. “Bring her into the house, Japheth. Ham, fetch me water and heat it. Shem, slaughter a sheep so we may feast your brother’s return. Noah . . . you go away, and stay away until you can see fit to welcome your son properly. Speak to your God and learn forgiveness.”