Morgan caressed her cheek. “You have had a frightful experience, but not all is lost.” She curled her finger. “Come with me.”
Morgan walked toward a narrow opening at the side of the cavern opposite the one they had entered. Mara rose slowly, and, as she followed, Morgan spoke in haunting tones. “I know a great disaster has befallen the upper world. Tell me, Mara, what did you see?”
As they passed into the tunnel, darkness enfolded them. Mara slowed, but the floor seemed smooth enough. “I saw dragons. Lots of them. And they breathed fire at the tower until it burned.”
“I see.” Now in total darkness, Morgan’s voice sounded like a sad song, like the dirge Naamah taught the girls to sing when one of them died in the chasm. “Did the fire spin like a whirlpool as it consumed Nimrod’s tower?”
“It did! How did you guess?”
“And did the tower sink into the ground like a rock in a pool?”
“Part of it sank, but more than half of it started tipping over. It was so tall, I was afraid it would fall on me, so I went through the portal before it fell.” A strange tingle crawled along Mara’s skin. “How did you know?”
The tunnel brightened slightly, enough for her to see Morgan’s eyes directly in front of her own. Sudden fear froze Mara in place. She held her breath, unable to move a muscle.
Morgan’s face showed no emotion. “You fancy yourself a scientist, a lover of knowledge. Do you not?”
Mara pressed her lips together and gave her a quick nod.
Morgan swept her arm toward the source of light, another cavern that lay just beyond the end of the tunnel. “Then allow me to show you how I knew.” She strode into the cavern, her black dress flowing in a swirling draft.
Feeling surged back into Mara’s legs, and she rushed to catch up. When she entered the cavern, she stopped and leaned back, barely able to take in the amazing sights. The ceiling reached higher than any of the trees in the upper world, so high that she could see only a vague grayness in the upper reaches. Spinning to the side, she located the source of light, a blazing column that stretched to the ceiling’s highest point. The energy in the column rotated, casting off blue eddies of light that twirled in dancing pirouettes until they fizzled into nothingness.
Morgan stood at the center of the cavern next to a massive circular building that stretched from one side of the seemingly endless chamber to the other. A set of broken, charred doors lay open, leading to the building’s anteroom. A ring of statues surrounded something in the center, their arms raised as if saluting it with hailing praises.
Mara gasped. “The . . . the tower?”
Morgan pushed on one of the doors. It toppled over, smashing to the floor at her feet. She jumped back and waved away the dust, coughing. “What’s left of it.”
Mara ran to the doorway and peered into the anteroom. Now close enough to the statues, she finally recognized what the robed men and women were saluting. “A tree?”
Morgan strutted inside and motioned for Mara to follow. “Yes, a very special tree. I’m sure you read about it in Mardon’s library. Adam and Eve first discovered wisdom by eating its fruit.”
“I did read about it, but I thought it was destroyed in the flood.”
“It was, but I am . . .” Morgan covered her mouth and coughed again. “Excuse me. I mean, one of my dear old friends is a seed collector, and she saved a few seeds from the fruit. I planted them, and this tree was the only one that sprouted.”
“That must mean your friend was on the ark!”
“Yes, and you know her quite well. Did you ever read the name of Ham’s wife?”
Mara drew in a quick breath. “Naamah was on the ark?”
Morgan crossed her arms over her chest. “One and the same.”
Mara gazed at the tree and whistled. No wonder the statues seemed to be saluting! It was the descendant of the original tree of knowledge!
As Morgan approached the center of the room, she lifted her hands toward the ceiling, her voice echoing in the massive chamber. “The entire museum celebrates the wisdom of mankind and his pursuit of knowledge, so it’s fitting that the original source of that knowledge should grow here, the progeny of wisdom’s first blossom.” She stopped at the tree and caressed a red, pear-shaped fruit that dangled from a low branch. “As you explore all the wonders here, you, too, will enjoy the fruits of wisdom.”
Mara stopped at the statue of a tall, stately woman and caressed her smooth marble knee, a knee that seemed ready to bend at the sight of the tree, rooted in a circular planter that lay flush with the surrounding floor. Since the branches spread out ten feet in each direction, only a few paces separated the fruit from its marble-clad worshippers.
As Mara drew closer, the Ovulum in her pocket grew hot and stung her thigh. She halted. Was it angry? Giving a warning? She took three steps back. The egg cooled, but she didn’t want to pull it out. Morgan probably thought she had given it to Nimrod, and it was better if her mistress didn’t know where it was.
Morgan cocked her head to one side. “Is something wrong?”
Folding her hands behind her, Mara shifted back and forth on her feet. “I don’t know. I just felt something strange when I got near the tree.”
“Something strange?” Morgan’s eyes flashed red, but the rest of her face stayed calm. “Eating the fruit is the first step toward true wisdom. The strangeness will fade soon enough.” She held out her hand, her fingers beckoning Mara to come.
Mara took a step, and the egg heated up again, but not quite as hot this time. She halted and gazed at one of the statues. “I’m not hungry right now. Maybe tomorrow.”
A crooked smile spread across Morgan’s face. She folded her hands, and her tone became overly sweet. “If you don’t eat the fruit, my dear, you will forever stay an ignorant freak of nature.”
Mara bit her bottom lip. Tears crept into her eyes, but she didn’t want to cry. She had to change the subject, and fast. “How did the tower get here?”
Morgan drilled her with a piercing stare, but after a few seconds, she seemed willing to give up on the fruit issue, at least for the time being. “It must have come through a dimensional portal,” she said, pointing at the tall shaft of light outside the tower. “The only way they’re created is by a vortex of light energy, so I guessed that the dragons’ fire must have been swirling. Since the green portal faded and a blue one formed here, I think the path between the dimensions actually moved, shifting the lower portal to this room and the upper portal to the midst of the fire around the tower. My guess is that a lower portal’s color change indicates a positional change in its exit point up above.”
“How did you know that the tower sank?”
Morgan looked up at the ceiling. “Only the lowest section of the tower came through the portal, so with the foundation missing, what could the rest of the tower do but sink or fall?”
Mara followed Morgan’s line of sight and saw shelf upon shelf of scrolls, hundreds of them, even thousands. Dozens of wooden ladders rose almost to the domed ceiling, close enough to each other to allow access to every shelf. Quite a number of scrolls also lay on the floor in haphazard piles. Mara let out a contented sigh. “So can I start reading the scrolls right away?”
Morgan shook her head. “Your journey threw you off schedule. It’s time for your sleep cycle. When you wake up, we’ll decide how to split your working hours between your control room duties and your new studies here. Mardon will be too busy to return to our world for quite some time, so I will be your primary instructor.”
“But will Mardon want the scrolls back?” Mara asked. “If he has a lot of work to do, he’ll probably want them.”
“The fool is lucky he’s still alive, and if not for the quick transport of this piece of the tower, none of the scrolls would have survived anyway.” Morgan picked up one of the scrolls that had fallen to the floor and rolled it open. “Besides, the language would be gibberish to him. He wouldn’t understand a single word.”
“What?” Mara peeked around Morgan’s arm and read the first few lines, an introduction to the biography of a man she had never heard of. “I can read it. Why can’t they?”
Morgan rolled the scroll back up. “As soon as the new portal appeared, I went through it to see what created it. I came out in the middle of a dwindling ring of fire, apparently the center of the tower’s original location. The tower had already fallen, and the people were in total chaos, babbling incoherently to each other.” She laid the scroll in Mara’s hands. “It seems that people speak a variety of new tongues now, and they don’t understand normal speech, that is, the language of these scrolls. Since dragons were still attacking the city, I only stayed a few seconds. I came right back and hurried to the old portal, hoping you had found your way home. Fortunately, you used the pathway before it moved.” She swept away a pile of broken marble with her foot. “This disaster has caused a huge displacement in the barrier between our two dimensions. In fact, the portal’s shift from green to blue light tells me that it might not even lead to Shinar any longer. I haven’t figured out what changes we’ll experience, but it will be interesting to see how time passage here compares to the world above.”
Mara unrolled a few inches of the scroll. “First a flood and now a fire. Why does Elohim want to destroy everything?”
“There will be plenty of time for questions and answers. As you read the scrolls, I’ll be here to teach you. But for now, you must go to sleep.”
She hugged the scroll to her chest. “May I take just this one with me tonight?”
“I didn’t get to read it,” Morgan said, touching the end of the scroll. “I don’t want you to study something you’re not ready for.”
Mara frowned and laid the scroll back on the floor near the doorway. When she straightened, Morgan placed her hands on Mara’s cheeks. “Now feel the tension of the day melt from your thoughts,” Morgan said. “You have toiled in the lands above, and your mind is swimming in a flood of new discoveries. Rest, my child, and let yourself float above it all. Think only of warm springs and sweet fig cakes, and everything else will wait until morning’s call.”
Morgan’s cool fingers felt heavenly. Mara really did feel very sleepy. She wanted to ask if Mardon was still fighting the dragons, but the question seemed too difficult to speak. “Okay,” she said, yawning.
Pulling Mara along, Morgan walked to the portal and scooped out a handful of energy. After forming it into a ball of pale blue light, she placed it in Mara’s palm. “This will be enough to light your way to your quarters.” She kissed Mara on the forehead, an icy cold kiss. “Sweet dreams.”
Mara held the ball in front of her and hurried through the tunnel. It tickled her skin, helping her stay awake as she kept her eyes fixed on the path. Finding her coif in the original portal’s chamber, she grabbed it and stuffed it into her pocket, still thinking about the scrolls. Fighting sleep, she turned back toward the tower. Morgan hadn’t exactly said the scrolls were forbidden, had she?
Cupping her hands around the glowing ball and letting only a little light seep through her fingers, Mara hurried back to the tower. Keeping watch for Morgan, she found the scroll next to the door, tucked it under her arm, and retraced her steps, hustling through the tunnels as they wound their way back down toward the laborers’ hovels. As she neared the corridor leading to the growth chamber room, she slowed. Should she stop and check on her spawn? No. Naamah took care of him. Besides, the light wouldn’t last long enough to feed him.
By the time she arrived at her hovel, the ball had dwindled to the size of a pebble, spritzing tiny blue sparks on the stone floor as she sat in her dugout. She tried to unwind the scroll, but holding the ball made it almost impossible. She only managed to reread the lines she had already seen.
T
HE WORDS OF THE BLESSING OF
E
NOCH, WHEREWITH HE BLESSED THE ELECT AND RIGHTEOUS, WHO WILL BE LIVING IN THE DAY OF TRIBULATION, WHEN ALL THE WICKED AND GODLESS ARE TO BE REMOVED
.
Paili’s voice drifted over from her own dugout. “Pretty ball!”
“It is pretty,” Mara said, “but I wish it were brighter.” The ball suddenly blazed, casting a sheet of radiance across the scroll. As Mara tried to read the tiny words again, the light dimmed, finally blinking out and leaving the hovel dark. She tightened the scroll and laid it close to her bed. Probing the darkness with a hard stare, she tried to see if any light trickled in from Elam’s room. Nothing. He was probably asleep by now.
“Mara stay?” Paili yawned. “Mara not go away?”
“Yes, Paili. I’m here for the night.” Mara took off her dress and folded it into a pillow. She curled to the side and pulled her sheet up to her shoulders. As she scooted herself into a comfortable position, a lump in her pillow poked her ear. She dug into her dress, withdrew the Ovulum, and held it in front of her eyes. In the darkness, only her fingers could identify the egg that had caused so much trouble in the upper lands.
Caressing its smooth glass brought an odd sense of comfort, soothing warmth that seemed to wash over her like a long soak in the sulfur baths. She brought the Ovulum even closer to her eyes, hoping to see a glimmer of the red light that had appeared before. What could possibly be inside that could bring both grief to a king and peace to her soul? Could a god actually live inside this thing? Why would a god even want to speak through such a small, seemingly fragile object?
Drawing it as close to her lips as possible without smudging the glass, she whispered, “Elohim?”
Paili groaned, but Mara couldn’t tell if she was awake or not. She pulled the sheet over her head and whispered again. “Can you hear me?”
There was no answer. No glow. The egg felt cold and lifeless in her hand. Chilling sensations traveled through her arms and settled in her mind like unfriendly strangers following her in the darkness. Loneliness. Emptiness. Betrayal. Morgan’s awful words echoed in her mind. “
Freak of nature.
Ignorant freak of nature.
”
Mara ran her fingers through her hair her stark, white hair that made King Nimrod’s eyes bulge. New tears emerged, and she tried to sniff them back, but they dripped down to her cheeks, her freakish pale cheeks.