Many Waters Part 31

"And she doesn't look any older than we do. How would we prove her age to the school authorities? And i she is a hundred years old, and we bring her back to our time, what would happen? Would she shrivel all up and be ancient and die of old age?"

"Why are you thinking of all the bad things that could happen?"

"We have to think of them. If we love Yalith."

"Maybe it would be all right."

"And maybe it wouldn't. Maybe what we should do is stay here with Yalith and wait for the flood."

"I'm not willing to give up that easily."

"It's not easily."

"But we have to do something!"

Maybe, for once, we don't, Dennys thought. "There's time yet," he said. "Maybe something will come to us, but it will have to be something real."

"Hey," Sandy said. "I'm not sure anymore what's real and what isn't. I mean, nephilim and seraphim!"

"I believe in a lot more than I used to," Dennys said. "Even i we're not supposed to change the story, we're changed, you and I."

"We are, oh, we are. And what about Yalith?"

"Wait," Dennys said. He did not tell Sandy about his talk with Alarid. Or what the wind had shown him. Or that the stars had told him to have patience, and wait. Wait.

The new moon was once again a crescent in the sky-Ripened, filled out to a sphere. Dwindled and diminished. Was born again.

Noah sent j.a.pheth and Oholibamah to warn the people of the oasis of the impending flood.

Ham asked, "What's the point? They ail know you're building this big boat. They all know you're expecting rain out of season."

Noah was stubborn. "They have a right to be warned. To prepare. And who knows-if they repent, then perhaps El will not send the flood."

"If there's no flood," Ham said, "people will laugh at us even more than they're laughing now."

Anah looked troubled. "I do not think the people of my tent will repent, They are very angry."

Noah said, "They must be given the chance,"

When j.a.pheth and Oholibamah returned from their trip about the oasis, they had been laughed at, spat at. j.a.pheth had an ugly bruise on his cheek where an angrily thrown stone had hit him.

Even Noah and Matred's older daughters and their husbands had met them with scorn. They laughed at j.a.pheth's earnest warning, and complained of being made to look like fools because of Noah's folly. Seerah had thrown a bowl of mash at them and screamed at Oholibamah to leave her alone. "And don't you come near my babies, you nephil woman."

j.a.pheth had put his arm protectingly about his wife and taken her away.

Hoglah's husband had threatened to strangle them if they kept on spreading stories of flood and doom throughout the oasis. "It reflects on us," he said. "Don't you see how you're making us look with this idiocy? Can't you just keep quiet about Noah's delusions?"

j.a.pheth and Oholibamah left the oasis, to go home by the desert. Oholibamah began weeping, strangely, quietly.

j.a.pheth stopped, putting his arms around her. "My wife. What is it?"

Oholibamah struggled to stifle her silent tears. Said, "If it is all true, what El has told your father, if there is to be a great flood, then our baby will be born after-" She choked on her tears.

j.a.pheth's face lit with delight. "Our-"

Oholibamah leaned her head against his strong shoulder. "Our baby. j.a.pheth." Suddenly her tears turned to laughter. "Our baby!"

The result of the attempt to warn the people of the oasis was that now they gathered about the perimeter of Noah's land.

The desert wind rose hotly. Noah's eyes were fixed on the ark. He tried to ignore the catcalls and hoots of the mob.

Grimly, Matred heated wine to the boiling point. "I prefer to use it on manticores, but if they try to hurt my husband, I will make them sorry."

Ham slunk into the tent.

"What are you doing here?" his mother demanded.

"I'm tired of being laughed at."

Matred spoke fiercely. "You go right back out and help your father."

"He's insane."

"Whatever he is, it's your place to be with him. And with your wife. She's not too proud to work, and carrying your child, too." Matred smiled. There would be three babies coming. She brimmed with joy.

"Can't you stop him, Mother? He's a wild man, his eyes blazing, his beard whipped by the wind, his- Can't you speak to him."

"I have spoken," Matred said. "Go out to him. Now." Reluctantly, Ham went out into the glaring sunlight, the burning wind. The muttering, jeering crowd was larger, as the people of the oasis gathered to stare.

Noah's hands were black with the pitch with which he was coating the ark.

A stone was thrown. It missed its mark and glanced harmlessly against the dark wood. Sandy and Dennys left the ark and walked with deliberate steps toward the mob of little people. Dennys did not put down the plank he was sanding. Sandy still held the stone he used for a hammer. Neither boy threatened in any way; nevertheless, the people drew back slightly. Sandy spoke in a commanding voice. "No stone throwing."

Dennys stood as tall as possible, looming over the small men in the foreground of the crowd. "Go home. Back to your tents. Now." His voice was a deep, man's voice.

There were advantages in being taken for giants. Slowly, the crowd dispersed.

Yalith sat on her favorite starlit rock, huddled over as though for warmth. She was not aware that Oholibamah had joined her until the other woman put her arm about Yalith's shoulders.

Tears sprang to Yalith's eyes. "Twin Sand and twin Den-" Her voice trailed off- Oholibamah finished for her. "As soon as the ark is built, they will have to leave. To go to wherever it is they came from."

Yalith choked down a sob. "Twin Sand has asked me to go with them."

Oholibamah drew back in surprise. Said, "It is a solution I had not thought of."

"Then-what do you think?"

Oholibamah looked at the sky, intently, listening. Then she shook her head.

Yalith, too, looked heavenward. "The stars have never told me wrong."

Oholibamah spoke thoughtfully. "I do not know why it is not the right solution for you to go with our twins. I know only that I hear the stars, and I agree. There is some-thing here that we do not understand. But do you hear the stars? They are telling you not to be afraid."

A soft wind brushed past their cheeks, murmuring, "Fear not. Fear not. The pattern will be perfected."

"I wish-" Yalith whispered. "I wish Grandfather Lamech was still alive. I wish that El had not told my father to build an ark, or that the rains were going to come."

"And-our twins?"

Tears slid down Yalith's cheeks. "I cannot wish that they had never come to us- Or that I had not become a woman."

Oholibamah held Yalith, rocking her like a child. "I, too, am afraid, little sister. I am carrying my j.a.pheth's child, and I am afraid for the future. I am afraid of the terrible flood, and all the death and anguish it will bring. Sometimes I am even afraid of Noah, he seems so wild. But I trust j.a.pheth. I trust the stars. I trust El. I trust that all this will be for good."

As the stars slid slowly toward the horizon, the sky paled, flushed with soft colors. A burst of joyous birdsong filled the air around them, and the baboons began to clap their hands.

The ark was nearly finished.

The twins talked at night in the tent, whispering in the dark. During the day they were never alone, and not everybody slept at the same time in the afternoon.

"We haven't seen any of the seraphim," Sandy said. "Not for days."

"Nor the nephilim," Dennys added.

"I'd just as soon not see the nephilim. Particularly Rofocale."

Dennys said, "Every once in a while I think I see one. Or at any rate, when I see an ant, or a worm, I get flickers of color behind my eyes, reds and oranges and blues and purples. But they don't materialize."

"I need to see one of the seraphim," Sandy said. "I need to see Adnarel. I thought maybe the scarab beetle would come with Higgaion, but I haven't seen him."

Dennys said thoughtfully, "I don't think it means that he's stayed at Grandfather Lamech's. The only time I've seen a seraph when there were a lot of people around was when Grandfather was buried, and they all came Otherwise, it's been only when there are one or two people. And what with building the ark, and staying in Noah's tent we're always with a gang. Maybe somehow we should slip away for a little while tomorrow and go out to the desert, just the two of us."

"Good thinking," Sandy said. "But why wait for tomorrow? We don't want to go in the heat of the day, and we'd be missed any other time. Noah and Matred are always checking on us. They're afraid one of us might be kidnapped again. So why not go now?"

"Right now?"

"Why not? We're both awake."

"Let's go."

"Don't wake Higgaion."

"Or Selah."

"Or-"

"Shh."

They slipped out quietly.

But not so quietly that Yalith did not hear them. She felt a vague disquiet. Rose from her sleeping skins and followed them.

"Kkk. They come."

"Hsss. This is what we've been waiting for."

"Szzz. At last."

The nephilim slid out of their animal hosts, raising wings turned dark by night, so that the stars were hidden.

The little mammoth woke with a jerk from a dream of being beaten by Tiglah's brother. Nudged Selah, who nudged Higgaion, who reached toward the twins, and felt only sleeping skins. Snorting in alarm, he padded across the tent toward Yalith's sleeping skins. She, too, was gone. He glanced toward Noah and Matred, both sleeping quietly.

Selah trumpeted, softly, so that only the mammoths heard, and pointed her trunk toward Higgaion's ear. The scarab beetle was there, a small, bright jewel against the grey earflap.

"What should we do?" Higgaion's eyes queried. c.o.c.ked his head as though listening. Then he gestured to the other two mammoths with his trunk, and they followed him as he hurried out of the tent and ran toward the desert.

The twins were nearly surrounded before they realized what was happening. The circle of nephilim was closing in on them, slowly, deliberately. The sharp odor of stone and cold filled their nostrils.

Sandy felt as though a hand was pressing hard on his chest. He shouted at Dennys, "Quick!" and flung himself out of the not-quite-closed circle.

Dennys followed, pus.h.i.+ng through purple-dark wings that nearly stifled him. "Run!"

The twins' reflexes were swift, but the nephilim were swifter.

Again the circle started to form around them, and it was as though the breath was being squeezed out of them. Sandy ran, head down, like a battering ram, between Rofocale and LIgiel. Dennys rammed Eblis.

But the twins were only two, and the nephilim were many, and sure enough of their powers to proceed with deliberation and without haste. In their rush to get free of the circle, the twins had run in the opposite direction from the oasis. Now they were too far away to think of making a dash back to Noah's tenthold.

The circle of nephilim drew closer.

Yalith saw.

"Aariel!" she screamed. "Aariel!"

The golden lion bounded across the sand, past Yalith, until it was between two of the nephilim, keeping the circle from closing completely.

Came a strange pounding, and then Admael the camel galloped white as moonlight across the desert, inserting himself into the circle. A flutter of wings overhead became visible as a pelican, diving down, broke the circle again.

And three small grey bodies hurtled into the circle, blowing sand and water into the faces of the nephilim, who burst out of their formation in a rush of brilliant wings.

The lion, camel, pelican, with an upward leaping of light, became the radiant beauty of seraphim.

Sandy and Dennys ran to them, ran faster than they had ever run before. Alarid caught Sandy, and Admael held Dennys.

The nephilim sprang angrily into the sky, saw Yalith.

"Her!" Eblis cried. "I want her!"

But Aariel reached her before the nephil. Swift as Eblis was, the seraph was swifter. He enfolded Yalith in gilded wings.