The old woman handed her torch to the younger woman and rushed to Aizarg.
Sarah thought she saw pity in her eyes. “Please,” Sarah beseeched her. “He’s hurt.”
The old woman squinted at Aizarg’s wound. “My eyes are not what they use to be, but I think he will live if we can get him down and staunch the bleeding.”
“Thank you, thank you!” New hope sprung in her heart. Maybe she could get this kind woman to listen.
These are just people. Are they servants of the Narim?
“Don’t thank me,” the old woman said dryly. “Any mercy shown now may be taken by the law later.” She took Sarah’s hand and placed it against Aizarg’s chest. “Hold him here and don’t let him slide or shift. I will break the end of the arrow and then we will slide him straight off.” She looked up at Sarah. “Do you understand?”
Sarah nodded vigorously. “Yes!”
The old woman froze, transfixed on Sarah. “Shem, bring the torch closer.”
“Mother, it’s too risky!”
“Bring the torch closer.” The old woman spoke with a low, flat voice. Her expressionless stare locked uncomfortably on Sarah.
Shem leaned in with the torch, his eyes nervously scanning the hall. “I dare not bring it closer, mother.”
The old woman reached out and touched Sarah’s hair. Then she snatched off Aizarg’s kaffiya. His white hair tumbled down over his bloody shoulder.
The old woman threw the kaffiya to the ground and backed away, almost tripping over Aizarg’s staff. The old woman knelt down and picked it up. She cried out in pain and forcefully cast it down. The staff bounced and rolled into the shadows under the hall.
The old woman shook and blew on her hand. She stared at Sarah with ice where only moments ago dwelt pity.
“Kill them,” the old woman said.
“Mother?” The man named Shem seemed genuinely shocked.
“It is the law,” she said coldly.
Sarah fell to the old woman’s feet. “I beg you, we came for help! We have traveled so far, do not forsake us!”
Shem hesitantly began to pull back his bow.
The woman with almond eyes whispered to the old woman, “Emzara, perhaps we should wait for Father. He might...”
“It is not Father’s law, Arathka!” The old woman called Emzara snapped. “It is God’s law!” She pointed at Sarah. “They are intruders and have brought death upon themselves.”
Sarah didn’t see hate in the Emzara’s eyes. She saw fear, the same fear she saw in Aizarg moments ago.
Shem notched his arrow and pointed it at Sarah’s heart. This time his arms were trembling.
“Who knows the law so well they can dispense justice so quickly?” A deep voice boomed around them and echoed off the canyon walls. Sarah looked all around, trying to find its source.
A form materialized around the voice and stepped out of the darkness. “God wrote the law in all our hearts, but it is I who dispense justice.”
A Narim!
Taller than even Aizarg, he towered over them all, including the two men and two women who followed him. His hair wasn’t white the way an old man’s hair might be, but snow white like Sarah and Aizarg’s. It flew about like a mane, his bushy beard and eyebrows equally wild.
He wore a leather apron, covered in grime and wood chips, over a bare chest and a plain, Hur-style wrap. His thick arms were like tree trunks, his mighty chest like the iron bands binding the Kupar Bridge. In his right hand he carried a massive axe made of strange, gleaming white metal. His face flushed pink as if he’d been working. His hazel eyes burned through Sarah’s flesh and laid her soul bare.
Sarah bowed at his feet, her forehead to the ground. “Please, great Narim, spare us. Please, save my father. We’ve come seeking your help.”
The white-haired man reached over and gently lowered Shem’s bow, to Shem’s obvious relief, and handed him his axe.
“What do we have here?” he said casually. He knelt down and lifted Sarah’s chin. “What is your name, child?”
“Husband, I beg you! Do not speak to them!” Emzara hissed.
“Hush, woman! I see their hair,” he chastised her. “Its color is obvious, but its meaning is not, so calm yourself.” He turned his attention to the men and women gathered around them.
The torchlight cast giant black shadows against the Great Hall that seemed to surround and bear down upon Sarah and Aizarg.
“Move those torches away, or we’ll have so much light the Hur-po will think the sun is rising!”
The group took a few steps back and the Narim returned his attention to Sarah.
“Look at me. What is your name, child?” he repeated.
“Sarah,” she said through her tears. “I’ve come here with my father, Aizarg, Uros of the Lo. We seek the aid of the Narim.”
“The Lo?” The Narim man said in genuine shock. “I’ve heard of them, but never seen one before.” He stroked his beard and studied Aizarg, whose eyes were closed and head rolled over to the side.
Sarah feared this Narim, but she didn’t see any malice in his eyes.
“Do the Lo know this place is forbidden?” he continued. “Did your father ask the Hur-po what happens to those who violate the Black Fortress?”
“Yes,” Sarah sobbed. “Yes, we knew, but you are our only hope!”
“Hope for what? Why did you come here, knowing it would lead to your death?”
“Please, husband!” Emzara interjected. “Haven’t we heard enough? The law is the law!”
The Narim turned to the old woman. “What is it you fear?”
“Them!” Her eyes flashed. “Though why, I know not.” She wrung her hands. The young women surrounded her and tried to give comfort, but Emzara kept her arms tightly wrapped around her shoulders. The young men looked to one another with deep concern.
Sarah sensed their discomfort at her and Aizarg’s presence. They are afraid of us.
The Narim held up his finger, signaling his wife to be quiet. “Sarah of the Lo, tell me why you and your father came here.”
It all rushed out at once. Over the next few minutes, Sarah told them the tale of their journey. The Narim knelt before Sarah, listening intently without expression or reaction.
As she spoke, Emzara broke down and fell to her knees, sobbing. The other women supported her, but their faces were pale. Zedkat began to cry, too.
Sarah was thankful they were at least listening. Perhaps now they would help Aizarg. Every few minutes she glanced over at his motionless form and her desperation grew.
“These are signs and omens,” Sarah said as she came to the end of her tale. “The animals have fled, the fish are gone! Our holy woman says the gods have abandoned the world and you hold the key to our salvation. My father has seen these omens. He can tell you more. Won’t you help him?”
The Narim stood.
“Your gods did not abandon you, Sarah. They betrayed you. They have been judged by a greater power and have been found wanting. These gods...” he spat the word out, “...will suffer a terrible wrath for their sins. All the world shall suffer with them. Your tale heralds this coming judgment.”
Hope and dread raced through Sarah. Here were answers to their questions, and perhaps the key to their survival.
Sarah put her hands together pleadingly. “Then you can help us?”
The Narim’s face turned to stone as he signaled to the men who accompanied him. “Get me a large stump off the pile and bring it here.”
One of the young men leaned in and whispered, “Father, if what she said is true, can’t we just let them go? Won’t the law take care of itself?”
“Judgment passed here will be quick and merciful. There will be no such mercy beyond these walls.”
“No!” Sarah’s stomach suddenly dropped. She knew they were being condemned. She sprang to Aizarg and threw herself over him. “We’ve broken no law! We only wanted your help!”
The two other men dragged a flat, heavy stump into the
ring of torches. The Narim took his axe from Shem and placed it next to the stump. The young women wailed and covered their faces.
Don’t let it end like this!
“Please...” Aizarg called weakly.
Shem and the young woman named Arathka gently pulled her toward the stump. Sarah fought with all her strength, but they easily overpowered her. Even through her tears and terror, she saw their dejected expressions. They did not relish this task.
“Your father is suffering, and for that I am truly sorry,” the Narim said as he approached Aizarg. “I also regret that we cannot help you. The law is the law. There are no answers here, only those who do God’s work...” he shook his head with genuine sadness. “...and obey God’s law.”
“Please...” Aizarg croaked again. The Narim held one hand against his chest and snapped off the arrow with the other. Then, as carefully as possible, he slid Aizarg off the arrow. Aizarg clenched his teeth and groaned. The Narim then gently lowered Aizarg to the ground.
The Narim strode over to the stump and hefted the axe. “Bring him here,” he said to the other men and motioned to Aizarg. “Take Sarah around the side so she won’t have to witness this.”
“No!” Sarah screamed defiantly as anger replaced fear. “If you plan to execute us, we die together. If this is what your god calls mercy, then the hell with him...and you!”
She saw the impact of her words on the Narim’s face. Sarah did not know why, but suddenly she felt pity for this powerful being about to end her life. She recognized the look in his eyes.
Fate.
The old woman jumped up and snatched Sarah by the arm. “You will not talk to him that way!” She reared back to slap Sarah. The Narim gently removed his wife’s grasp from Sarah’s forearm. “There will be no wrath here! Let her be angry at God. She is entitled to that.”
Aizarg reached up for the white-haired man. “Please...” he beseeched again. “I must know...” His voice and his strength were rapidly fading.
The Narim stepped back to Aizarg and knelt down on one knee. “Speak your last words and be at peace, man of the Lo.” The Narim placed his ear near Aizarg’s mouth.
Sarah couldn’t hear what Aizarg said. She closed her eyes and sagged between the arms of her captors as the last of her hope drained away. Resigned to her fate, but not at peace with it, Sarah regretted not meeting her new mother or brothers. Mostly, she wanted to be in Ood-i’s arms one more time.
She was also thankful Ezra did not enter the Black Fortress. Maybe he will find happiness among the Lo.
Sarah heard the crunch of the Narim’s sandals on the gravel and knew he had stood up. It won’t be long now. She thought of the pile of cleaved kupar wood and the Narim’s mighty arms and powerful axe.
I will not suffer.
“Father?” one of the men said.
She opened her eyes. The Narim stared at the Great Hall in shock. He stumbled backwards from Aizarg and snatched a torch away from one of the men.
“Father?” the man repeated. “Are you all right?”
The Narim ignored him and strode parallel to the Great Hall. He held the torch up high and gazed up at the hall. Soon, he ran back and forth along its length, caressing the black surface with a wild expression, as if he’d never seen it before.
“Father, the torch! You are very close, be careful!” another of the men shouted.
“I see it! Why didn’t I see it before?” The Narim fell to his knees and dropped the torch to the ground. “It stood before me as plain as the mountains and yet I could not see!
Emzara ran after her husband, full of concern. The man and woman holding Sarah released her and ran after Emzara. Sarah dashed to Aizarg and tried to stanch the bleeding with his kaffiya.
“Father, speak to us. You are frightening us,” Shem beseeched the Narim.
“After 120 years, this stranger has shown me the very will of God!”
Emzara grabbed his face and shook him hard, tears of fear running down her face. “Tell me, Noah! Tell me God’s will!”
“When God commanded us to the mountaintop,” he stuttered. “He did so with the promise to deliver us from His judgment when He cleansed the world of the Fallen. I thought that is why He sent us here, so we would be safe from the deluge.”
Terror flashed in the old woman’s eyes. “We will not be safe up here? He will not deliver us?”
He kissed her hands and held them to his cheek. “Yes, Emzara! Yes! But this isn’t merely an ark, a shelter of boards and nails, in which we will hide from the coming storm!”
Emzara shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
“It is a vessel, a mighty vessel God will lift from the mountaintop and carry away.” Noah’s voice boomed. “He will cover the mountains and drown the world in the doing!”
Emzara, wife of Noah, looked back at the great wooden structure with a blank stare, seeing it anew. The magnitude of the coming cataclysm dawned on her and she began to scream.
Sarah heard everything. The God of the Narim was about to flood the world and even cover her beloved mountains. There would be nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. She now shared Aizarg and Setenay’s terrible vision.
Sarah placed her head against Aizarg’s chest and cried.
25. Conversations With A Narim
The ark was built long before Noah laid the first chalk line. Its keel set when my mother’s kind spawned a race of demigods and its planks were laid when Noah’s ancestors were exiled from the Garden.
The story of the ark is the story of three fallen races: the immortal Nephilim and Narim, and the mortal Tall Men. It was for the folly of immortals that the Tall Men would suffer.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
Someone kissed him. More specifically, someone repeatedly licked him, and that someone smelled very bad.
Aizarg cracked open one eye and found himself face-to-face with the goat, who only took a passing fancy with his face before she tried to eat his blanket.
“Jasmine, you infernal beast!” a strange woman’s voice scolded. A woman in a gray wool robe appeared at the edge of his vision and struck the goat with a stick. “Off with you!”
The goat bleated a protest before bounding away.
Where am I? Surrounded by darkness, his foggy mind grasped for something familiar.
Sharp pain radiating from his right arm assaulted Aizarg as he reached up to rub his eyes. He winced and opened his eyes again.
Other than the pain in his shoulder, Aizarg reclined comfortably next to a roaring fire. Covered with a thick blanket, a soft straw layer provided a cushion beneath him and his head rested on a rolled blanket.
“Water,” Aizarg croaked.
The woman knelt over him with a dripping gourd. She looked familiar, as if he’d seen her in a dream. Perhaps Sarah’s age, she possessed a child’s large, soulful eyes. She placed her hand behind his head and lifted him slightly. She held the gourd to his lips and he drank greedily.
The cold water sated his thirst and woke his memory. He pushed the gourd away and tried to speak.
“Where is Sarah?”
“You mustn’t get up. I don’t want you to tear the stitches.” The woman slid slightly to the left and nodded in the direction of the fire. There, Sarah and Ezra lay snuggled under a blanket fast asleep.
How did he get here?
An iron tripod stood over the fire. A wonderful aroma floated up from a ceramic pot hanging from its hook.
“I am Zedkat, wife of Shem. I am a healer and tended your wounds.”
Aizarg placed his left hand against his forehead and tried to remember what happened as Zedkat continued to talk.
“Please, do not be angry at my husband, he was only trying to protect us.” She looked about and then leaned closer to Aizarg, her childlike eyes wide with wonder. She whispered quickly, bouncing from question to question, statement to statement, like a toddler.
“Your daughter said you are not from Hur-ar. Your face was hurt, too. Did someone h
it you? I haven’t seen anyone from beyond Hur-ar since I married Shem. Father Noah was building the wall back then.”
Aizarg opened his mouth several times to answer, but she didn’t pause long enough to give him a chance. “Did you see any of the women in Hur-ar? Do they really paint their faces? I can’t imagine that. Shem says I am pretty enough without painting my face. What color do you think would look good on me? If I could paint my face one color, it would be rose red, like the sunset over the valley. I like roses, but father won’t let us grow them in here. He’s says there isn’t enough sunlight...”
“Zedkat, that will be enough,” a deep, rumbling voice chided from somewhere behind him. Zedkat lowered her head.
Aizarg rolled his head around, searching for the voice.
“Perhaps our guest is hungry. Have you offered him food between your ramblings?” the voice said.
“No, father,” she raised her eyes to Aizarg. “My apologies, are you hungry?”
“Yes, I am very hungry.”
She turned her back to Aizarg for a few moments and turned around holding a wooden bowl full of something steaming.
From Aizarg’s right, a white haired man stepped into the firelight. Wide of chest and full, the giant of a man wore a plain grey robe similar to Zedkat’s. Aizarg didn’t think the young woman a Narim, but this man might be.
After being shot Aizarg remembered little, but this man’s voice sounded familiar.
Zedkat helped Aizarg sit without too much discomfort. The pain in his arm prevented him from holding the bowl, so she used a wooden stick with a flat end to feed him. The simple, yet effective tool intrigued Aizarg.
A journey of wonders, great and small.
Made from some type of crushed grain with generous chunks of tender meat, Aizarg never tasted stew so rich and satisfying (though he would never tell Atamoda that).
Aizarg swallowed as fast as Zedkat spooned it. “Not so fast,” she giggled. “I don’t want you to get sick. Here, drink some water.” Aizarg felt a light wave of nausea as the heavy, rich food hit his empty stomach.
As food and water nourished his aching limbs, memories slowly coalesced in his mind. Soon, everything came back to him.
Black Sea Gods: Chronicles of Fu Xi Page 32