Noah Read online

  “No!” she screamed. “You won’t take them!”

  The man swung around, causing the children to stumble and cry out in pain. “We have no choice.”

  “But they’re my children! I’m their mother. You’re their uncle. It is our duty to protect them.”

  “I can get a good price for them from Tubal-cain’s soldiers,” the man retorted. “I can get bread and meat. Without it we’ll starve.”

  The woman shook her head, crying. “It’s too high a price to pay.”

  The man, unmoved by her protests, kicked out at her as she tried to pry his fingers from around her son’s arm, causing her to reel back in pain and sprawl in the dirt.

  “The boy will join Tubal-cain’s army. It is a good life. And the girl…” His lip curled. “…She will have her uses, too.”

  “No,” the woman sobbed, holding out her hands, “please. You know what they’ll do to her.”

  “At least she’ll survive,” the man said. “The boy, too, if he’s careful. If I don’t do this, we’ll all die.”

  And with that he turned and stomped away, dragging the squealing children behind him and leaving the woman, his sister, sobbing in the dirt.

  Noah was sickened. He would have liked nothing better than to bury a knife deep between the man’s shoulder blades. But he held back, and reminded himself that this incident was no more than an example of all that the Creator wanted to eradicate. Perhaps, he thought, the Creator was even showing it to him in order to test his resolve, his strength of character, his ability to remain focused on the true and ultimate goal.

  So instead of challenging the man, Noah followed him and his two charges, eager to assess the full extent of Tubal-cain’s operation. Trailing a dozen or so paces behind, through a winding series of passageways between tightly packed tents, shanties, and lean-tos, Noah was appalled at the level of squalor, poverty, and degradation that was revealed to him. The starving, desperate, filthy people were worse than rats and often twice as vicious, many of them watching him with beady, hostile eyes, many of them squatting shamelessly in their own filth.

  He saw the bodies of the dead lying sprawled in the street, left where they had fallen, many naked because their clothes had been stolen, some bearing terrible wounds. He saw a young woman being attacked and raped by four men, her screams for mercy going unanswered. He saw men fighting, children being beaten, a couple rutting openly on the mud-churned ground, in full view of anyone who happened by.

  They reached Tubal-cain’s compound, which was surrounded by a wire fence covered with wicked barbs, beyond which Noah could see the king’s warlords putting new recruits through their paces. By this time, he felt hollow with despair. But the many terrible sights that he had witnessed made him more positive than ever that the Creator was right, that mankind was wicked beyond redemption and should be swept from the world. Noah had no doubt that even the children, innocent victims though they seemed, had been seeded with corruption. Those seeds would, in time, inevitably bloom and blacken their souls, poisoning them with the cruelty and hatred of their parents as their innocence shriveled and died.

  A gap in the fence of the compound, guarded by soldiers, was being used as a trading post. Many families were milling around the soldiers, offering their sons and daughters in return for food and water. Though the people were desperate and starving, and many of the children, especially the girls, were crying and pleading, the soldiers laughed, treating it as a game. They hand-picked boys they thought might serve as soldiers in Tubal-cain’s army, handing out small portions of bread and meat to their parents in return. And they pawed and leered at the pretty girls, some as young as eleven or twelve, ignoring their cries of distress.

  Noah watched from a distance, horrified by the callousness of both the parents and the soldiers. He watched terrified boys being hauled away to be turned into fodder for Tubal-cain’s army, and sobbing girls being shackled even as their parents gnawed gleefully on the small portions of bread and meat and fruit they had been offered in exchange for their children’s lives.

  It was only as he saw another father, a tall, bewhiskered man, approaching with two pretty daughters, that Noah was reminded of his own reason for being here. He slipped his hand into his pocket and closed it around the purse containing the tzohar, readying himself to make a trade of his own.

  Before he could do so, however, a commotion broke out near the gate, perhaps an argument over a trade or a scuffle for food. Noah heard screams and shouts, saw fists flying. He was jostled as the crowd behind him surged forward, encouraged by the raised voices, the sudden eruption of violence. Some of the people around him seemed to become angry for no reason, yelling at the soldiers by the gate, then shoving and goading their immediate neighbors, as if challenging them to retaliate. Despite all of it, the soldiers were desperately struggling to maintain order.

  Two men ahead of Noah broke into what appeared to be a spontaneous fight, punching and clawing at each other, and within seconds other people were joining in, drawn to the melee like flotsam being sucked into a whirlpool. It was alarming how the level of hostility and aggression seemed to rise exponentially, spreading through the crowd like an infection.

  Noah wondered if what he was seeing was the inevitable result of long pent-up resentment caused by a lifetime of misery and poverty and degradation, or whether violence had now simply become endemic in all of mankind, and required only the slightest provocation to bring it to the fore.

  Whatever the reason, there was no indication that the situation was going to subside. To the contrary, it escalated with alarming speed, like a forest fire spread by a stiff wind. There was a creak and then a crash as part of the fence surrounding the compound gave way. The crowd surged again, shrieking in triumph, baying for blood. Although he did not succumb to the frenzied aggression that seemed to be affecting everyone around him, Noah was nevertheless caught up in the headlong rush, unable to prevent himself being swept toward the gates among the crush of people.

  He tried to keep his head above the crowd as he was buffeted this way and that, hoping that he would eventually find a way to escape the madness.

  As he was pushed closer to the collapsed fence he saw soldiers with clubs and swords and axes, desperately fighting a rearguard action. Then, to his horror, he saw more soldiers running from the compound, holding a striped gazelle above their heads. The gazelle—which had presumably been caught on its way to the Ark—was wriggling and kicking, bleating in panic, but to no avail. When they reached the gates where their colleagues were attempting to fend off the frenzied mob, the soldiers hurled the terrified animal into the crowd. Immediately there was another surge, although this time it was toward the gazelle as it scrambled to its feet among the mass of starving refugees and tried to make a break for freedom.

  The creature stood no chance. The mob, diverted from their attack on the soldiers—who were now rapidly retreating, closing the gate and hammering the damaged fence posts back into place—leaped on the gazelle en masse, bringing it down. The animal screamed as the crowd clawed and pummeled and yanked at it, literally ripping it apart. Noah was sickened as he saw people reeling away from the heaving knot of humanity, covered in blood, holding chunks of dripping meat in their hands.

  But even the slaughter of the gazelle did not satiate their blood lust; in fact, it seemed only to feed it. With the creature dead and the soldiers out of reach, they fell on each other, clawing and screaming and tearing.

  The crowd around Noah thinned as everyone surged toward the center of violence. He backed slowly away, utterly sickened. For some reason he himself was not targeted for attack—it was as if he was invisible.

  He felt the mud sucking at his boots and looked down. To his horror he saw that the ground was red.

  A young boy broke from the melee, coated in blood from head to toe, a chunk of meat in his hand. He dipped his head and tore at the meat with his teeth. But then a dozen more people, equally blood spattered, their eyes wild, broke from the th
rong and fell on the boy as they had fallen on the gazelle, tearing at him not just with their hands but with their teeth, as well.

  Noah spun away, unable to look, the boy’s screams ringing in his ears. His gaze alighted on a woman, her hair matted with red, crouched on the ground, gnawing on a human hand. Then a man smashed her in the back of the head with his fist and snatched the hand from her. Soon several people were fighting over the hand, and over other lumps of flesh, too—flesh that looked all too human.

  Noah’s eyes darted over the crowd, taking in horror after horror. Everywhere he looked he saw people chewing, their mouths full and drooling blood, their darting, rat-like eyes full of shame, paranoia, and gluttony.

  If this was a lesson, then he had learned it. If it was something that the Creator wanted him to see, then he had seen it. He stepped forward, half-raising his hand, unsure exactly what he was about to do, but knowing only that he wanted no more of this. He wanted to stop it somehow, to put it from his sight.

  But just as he was about to shout, his gaze was drawn to a figure in the crowd—one who seemed stronger than the rest. Little more than a flailing blur of movement, the man was fighting his way through the throng, hammering aside his fellow men as if they were little more than children.

  Noah had a feeling that the man—whoever he was—was aware of his presence and was heading deliberately in his direction. Full of apprehension but curious, too, he watched and waited as the figure smashed his way forward. The man’s face was hidden, his head down like a battering ram, his arms swinging, his legs kicking and stomping.

  At last he burst out of the crowd, directly in front of Noah. Grabbing a lump of dripping meat from the man beside him, and punching the man unconscious without a qualm when he tried to protest, he raised the meat to his mouth and took an almighty bite. There was a spray of blood as the strong man jerked back his head, tearing flesh from the bone. As he chewed ravenously, blood and grease dripping from his chin, his eyes fixed on Noah.

  Noah stared back, appalled beyond words.

  Impossibly, the man looked like him.

  * * *

  Noah cried out in shock, and all at once he found himself alone inside the compound, standing in the heart of Tubal-cain’s camp. In one corner a foundry—in which metal was smelted to create weapons of war—gouted flame and smoke. In another corner there was a pit full of slaughtered animals that stank of death and offal.

  Turning this way and that, Noah suddenly realized that flames were sprouting not just from the foundry, but from the entire camp. The makeshift dwellings were all on fire, and looking up Noah was horrified to see burning bodies, twisting and writhing as they plummeted from the heavens like falling stars about to engulf the world in flame…

  This was the wickedness in all men, manifested in horror beyond any he had ever witnessed before.

  Without thinking, he began to run.

  * * *

  He regained his senses on the edge of the forest, still running. His heart and head were pounding, his blood rushing through his veins. He felt hot, feverish, as if he had been poisoned—and so he had, in a way. He had been poisoned by the iniquity of Man. He fell to his knees, and as if it had been he himself who had gorged on the meat, he vomited into the grass, emptying his stomach.

  Afterward he sat gasping and choking, enervated by his experiences, hot tears of rage and despair trickling from his eyes. Little by little his shock and despair subsided, and as it did so a new resolve hardened inside him. Using his hands he wiped the tears from his cheeks, the drool from his chin. He took a deep breath and rose a little unsteadily to his feet.

  What he had seen was beyond terrible, and although it had shaken him to the core, it had focused his mind, too.

  Slowly he began to trudge back toward the Ark, and toward his family. The Creator had shown him the way, and he knew now what was expected of him.

  * * *

  By the time he arrived back at the Ark, Noah was surprised to find that a pink dawn light was suffusing the sky. He had no idea how much of what he had seen was reality and how much a vision—or more specifically, an insight into Man’s true nature, which the Creator had allowed him to share. Despite the early hour, Naameh, Ila, and the boys were sitting on the ramp, waiting for him impatiently. They all scrambled to their feet as he strode toward them.

  “What happened?” Naameh asked breathlessly, but Noah ignored her, instead gesturing around the clearing at the tools and the various household items lying on the grass.

  “All this should be inside by now,” he barked. “The storm is coming.”

  The family, and several of the Watchers, too, gaped at him as he stormed past them. And then, recovering his wits, Ham ran after him, catching up to Noah as he reached the foot of the ramp.

  “Father,” he said, grabbing Noah’s arm. “What about our wives? Where are they?”

  Noah spun around, his face like thunder. “There will be no wives!” he snapped.

  Ham froze. His face fell. He looked for a moment as if he might burst into tears.

  “What do you mean?” he bleated. “Why not? You said the Creator would give us what we need.”

  Without even breaking stride or turning his head, Noah shouted, “Enough! Help your brother!”

  Almost on the point of tears, but furious, too, Ham put on a spurt of speed. He caught up to his father again halfway up the ramp, and grabbed the trailing end of his shirt.

  “No! Listen!” he protested. “You can’t do this, Father! You can’t! How am I supposed to be a man?”

  “I said help your brother!” Noah roared, and with a jerk of his shoulders he yanked himself free of Ham’s grip.

  But the boy was not about to be dismissed so easily. This time he grabbed his father’s shirt in a two-handed grip.

  “You can’t!” he cried, almost sobbing now. “I hate you! You want me to stay a child.”

  Myriad emotions chased themselves through Noah’s mind. He felt guilty for breaking his promise to his son, and he felt genuine pity and sorrow for the boy. But overriding those feelings was a profound sense of horror at what he had seen, and of what he would be letting into the Ark, and ultimately back into the world, if he brought any part of Tubal-cain’s camp back here with him. Difficult though it might be for his family to accept, Noah absolutely believed—more than that, he knew—that in order to preserve and protect the world, and to save those he loved, he had to be utterly ruthless.

  Yet expressing all of that to Ham was beyond him right now. He still felt too raw, too traumatized by his terrible vision. He needed time to be alone, to be calm, to collect his thoughts.

  Still Ham clung to him and wailed at him and told Noah that he hated him. Noah responded with anger and violence. Without thinking, desperate to escape his son’s clutches, he swung around and roughly shoved the boy out of his way.

  Ham staggered backward and fell down on the ramp, stunned but relatively unhurt. He glared at Noah, his expression changing from shock to fury, even hatred.

  Noah felt shame at his outburst, but he said, “No. I am asking you to be a man and do what needs to be done.”

  Ham glared at his father a moment longer. Then he turned and began to run, across the clearing, toward the forest.

  “Ham!” Ila called after him, but the boy ignored her.

  Noah, standing halfway up the ramp, opened his mouth as if about to say something, then abruptly turned and walked away, heading into the Ark.

  Ila touched Naameh’s arm.

  “You speak to Noah. I’ll find Ham.”

  Naameh nodded, and Ila turned and hurried after the boy.

  * * *

  In his workshop, Noah tossed a piece of tzohar into the furnace and watched it ignite. He sat slumped, like a man overburdened and exhausted, though his eyes, which reflected slivers of firelight, were hard as stones, betraying no emotion.

  Naameh ghosted up from behind and sat down next to him. She leaned forward a little, looking into his face, but he didn�
��t acknowledge her.

  “What happened out there?” she asked softly.

  For a moment he didn’t answer, and she was preparing herself to ask the question again, more insistently this time, when he muttered, “It’s all of us.”

  His lips had barely moved. If she hadn’t heard the words she almost could have believed he hadn’t spoken at all.

  “What is?” she asked.

  He stirred, sighed, then turned his head to look at her. It hurt her to see him so defeated.

  “I was wrong. We were wrong. We were selfish and arrogant. But He showed me. The wickedness is not only in them. It is in all of us.”

  His words were like a judgment upon them all, a sentence of death from an unforgiving magistrate.

  “There is no wickedness in our children, Noah,” she said. “Only goodness. Shem’s loyalty. Japheth’s kindness. Ham’s integrity. They are good men. They would be good fathers.”

  He shook his head. “Shem is blinded by desire. Ham is covetous. Japheth lives only to please. I am no better. And you? Is there anything you would not do, good or bad, for those three boys? We would both choose to kill in order to protect our children.”

  “Yes,” Naameh agreed, exasperated.

  “We are no different. We were weak, and we were selfish to think we could set ourselves apart. We will work, complete the task, and then we will die the same as everyone else.”

  She scowled, irritated by his obstinacy, and a little frightened, too. Fear made her voice harsher than she intended.

  “These are our children, Noah,” she insisted. “Can you show them no mercy?”

  He looked down at the palm of his hand.

  “The time for mercy has passed,” he said stubbornly. “Now our punishment begins.”

  Abruptly he stood, grabbed his tool belt from a nearby workbench, and marched toward the short wooden ladder that led down onto the main walkway of the deck below. Naameh listened to him walking away, the thudding of receding footsteps on the wooden boards, and then she slumped forward, lowering her head into her hands. She felt distraught and angry. If only her husband would talk to her, instead of bearing the burden alone and making decisions for them all, with neither consultation nor explanation. She had suggested more than once that perhaps the Creator’s messages could be interpreted in several ways, but Noah had consistently refused to entertain the notion.