Ark Read online

  Ark

  JJ Wilder

  Contents

  Foreword

  Glossary and Pronunciation Guide

  1. Nephilim

  2. The Wickedness Of Man

  3. Filled With Violence

  4. Bone Of My Bones

  5. Wipe Them Out

  6. Sorrow

  7. Dust To Dust

  8. Noah

  9. Favor Found

  10. Ark

  11. The Covenant

  12. All Life

  13. The Seventh Day

  14. The Windows Of Heaven

  ARESIA’S SONG

  Also by JJ Wilder

  Foreword

  The story of the Great Flood as told in Genesis chapters 6–8 is one that has long fascinated me. The details were so few, and as a child my vivid imagination left me wondering what it must have been like to be Noah, or one of his sons, to build this enormous boat completely on faith, to watch animals come seemingly of their own accord, to witness Earth flood. I wondered, and I wondered, and I wondered, and finally, I decided to put my imagination to work and explore the story by trying to write it.

  Another aspect that has always intrigued me occurs within a few sentences in Genesis chapter 6 that hint at a culture of half-angels, the bastard children of other-than humans who once walked this earth. Known as the Nephilim, I have always wondered about them and their society, at their world so deviant, so vile, so violent that it was wiped away wholesale.

  Ancient cultures such as the Sumerians, the proto-Chinese of the Far East, South American peoples, the aborigines of Australia, and the great seafaring races in the islands of Indonesia all have oral and written stories of a great flood. Historical, geological, and archeological records all bear out this story. What’s more, these records and stories are all from the same general epoch, which just happens to coincide with the timeline set out in the book of Genesis.

  This is not a religious novel; it isn’t even necessarily spiritual. It is a fantasy, a fictional novel placed in an historical setting, within the context of a Biblical story. It is not meant to inform anyone’s beliefs, to challenge anyone’s worldviews, nor is it attempting to communicate a larger message. Don’t believe in a worldwide flood? That’s OK. Then consider this story nothing more than fantasy, like Game of Thrones or Lord of the Rings.

  Whatever you believe I hope you enjoy reading this book because it is, and has been and will continue to be, a fascinating story for me.

  Glossary and Pronunciation Guide

  TERMS and PLACES

  Cubit: an ancient unit of measurement, equal to 1.5 feet. (Pronunciation: CYOO-bit)

  Nephilim: a race of people mentioned in the Bible as being the resulting offspring when angels took human women as wives; Nephilim are described as the “mighty men of old, heroes of renown.” My physical description of them is purely fictional and imaginative. My placement of them in the context of Sumerian history is also fictional, and a literary liberty. If the Nephilim were real, they probably would have predated even Sumerian society, which was merely the first culture to produce cities for which we have ruins and records, rather than the first true culture or society. It is entirely possible, if you ask me, that there were earlier cultures for whom no record exists, and left no ruins for us to find. (Pronunciation: NEH-fih-leem)

  Sappara: a real weapon used in ancient times. It is similar to an axe, being primarily a chopping weapon. The Egyptians used a similar weapon called a khopesh; the sappara was only sharpened on the convex side, meaning the outer side of the curve, whereas the Egyptian khopesh was sharpened on both sides. (Pronunciation: SAH-pah-rah)

  Onager: A species of ass or donkey native to Asia and the Middle East. (Pronunciation: OHN-ahj-er)

  Aurochs: an animal like an oxen, only much, much larger, now extinct. (Pronunciation: Awr-ox)

  Bad-Tibira: A real, historical Sumerian city. There are physical ruins in Iraq, southeast of Baghdad and northwest of Basrah, but my descriptions of the city are fictional and products of my imagination; the other cities mentioned in this book are also historical locations, all located mostly in modern day Iraq. (Pronunciation: Bad Tih-BEER-ah)

  Anu, Ereshkigal, Inanna, Ninurta, Enil, etc.: gods of the Sumerian pantheon. There are too many to list or describe here, and many of them have several names and appear in the pantheons of similar or related cultures, such as the Akkadians and Babylonians. Wikepedia has an extensive section on Sumerian gods, for those interested. The gods of this epoch are so vast in number that they make the pantheons of the Greeks and Romans seem minuscule in comparison.

  Kur: the Sumerian underworld. (Pronunciation: Koor)

  Ziggurat: A stepped pyramid, common in Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian, and similar cultures. Also found in South America and other early civilizations.

  PEOPLE

  Aresia: The only daughter and youngest child of King Emmen-Utu; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: Ah-REE-zee-ya)

  Japheth: Oldest son of Noah; a human. He is mentioned in the Bible, but there is no indication as to the birth order of Noah’s sons, so making him the eldest is a bit of a literary liberty on my part. (Pronunciation: JAY-feth)

  Noah: Japheth’s father, builder of the ark. (Pronunciation: NO-ah)

  Emmen-Utu: King of Bad-Tibira, Aresia’s father; a Nephilim. He is a real, historical figure, although in historical records his name is En-men-lu-ana, or Emmen-Luana; I changed his name to sound more masculine to modern readers. (Pronunciation: EH-men OO-too)

  Irkalla: Aresia’s maidservant, and only friend; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: Ihr-KAH-lah)

  Kichu: Oldest son of King Emmen-Utu, crown prince of Bad-Tibira; a Nephilim; not a historical figure. (Pronunciation: KEE-choo).

  Dummuzi: A son of Emmen-Utu; not a historical figure; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: Doo-MOO-zee)

  Algar: A son of Emmen-Utu; not a historical figure; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: AL-gar)

  Immuru: A son of Emmen-Utu; not a historical figure; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: ee-MOO-roo)

  Zin-Suddu: A son of Emmen-Utu; not a historical figure; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: Zin SOO-doo)

  Zara: Noah’s wife, Japheth’s mother. Only the men are mentioned by name in the Bible, so she is a fictional character; a human. (Pronunciation: ZA-rah)

  Neses: betrothed to Japheth; daughter of Namus; a fictional character; a human. (Pronunciation: NEH-seez)

  Sedele: Shem’s wife; daughter of Namus, Neses’s and Sedele’s sister; a fictional character; a human. (Pronunciation: SEH-deh-lah)

  Ne’eletama: Ham’s wife; daughter of Namus, Neses’s and Sedele’s sister; a fictional character; a human. (Pronunciation: NEH-leh-tah-mah)

  Enkidu: personal bodyguard to Emmen-Utu, captain of the king’s personal guard; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: Enk-EE-doo)

  Sin-Iddim: a real, historical king of Larsa; his name is also rendered Sin-Idnim; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: Sin id-EEM)

  Zidan: Japheth’s best friend, and a fellow mercenary and warrior; a human. (Pronunciation: ZEE-dahn)

  Urugan: a human merchant. (Pronunciation: oo-rooh-GAHN)

  Mesh-te: High Priest of Ereshkigal in the city of Ur; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: Mesh TEY)

  Argandea: King of Uruk, a fictional character; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: ahr-GAHN-dee-yah)

  Lugash: A general from Larsa; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: LOO-gash)

  Mirra: a healer in the city of Larsa; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: MEER-ah)

  Sannin: a Nephilim male mentioned by Mirra. (Pronunciation: San-in)

  Jorin: a Nephilim male mentioned by Mirra (Pronunciation: JORE-in)

  Dagan: General from Larsa; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: Dah-gahn)

  Amar: Crown prince of Uruk, slain in battle by Japheth. (Pronunciation: Ah-MAR)

  Uresh: a warrior o
f Larsa; a Nephilim. (Pronunciation: YOOR-esh)

  Namus: Noah’s business partner, transported crops from Noah’s farm to Bad-Tibira; Neses’s father; a human. (Pronunciation: NAY-muss)

  1

  Nephilim

  “. . . The sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful; and they took wives for themselves, whomever they chose . . . the Nephilim were on the earth in those days . . . those were the might men who were of old, men of renown.” Genesis 6:2–4 (NASB)

  Bad-Tibira, Ancient Sumer, circa 2400 B.C.

  Normally, the feel of the brush running through my hair was relaxing. It was always the last thing my maidservant, Irkalla, did for me before I retired to my bed. The soothing strokes through my glossy auburn hair, Irkalla’s quick, sure fingers dancing and tugging and untangling, her voice often lilting in some song, a lullaby or a hymn to Inanna . . . I was frequently half asleep before Irkalla even finished.

  Not tonight.

  Tonight, nothing could relax me. I could not eat, could not sit still, and could not stop my fingers fidgeting. My rooms were close to the throne room, which meant even with the doors pulled shut I could hear the cries and screams and pleas of Father’s latest prisoner. I sat in that throne room tonight, attempting to appear unaffected by the ugliness and gore, and the screams as the human prisoners begged for mercy or for death. Tonight, I could not do it any longer, and I begged my father to excuse me. Yet even back in my rooms, there is little escape, for I can still hear him.

  “Highness,” Irkalla said, “Forgive me, but . . . you aren’t yourself this evening.”

  “How can I be, Irkalla?” I waved a hand toward the throne room. “Father has another human prisoner. I hate this. He’s had the poor creature for days.”

  She tugged the brush gently through the tangle, loosening the snarl until the brush swept through easily once more. “I know. It’s terrible. Small mercy it may be, but I heard one of the guards saying the prisoner won’t last the night.” She stroked through my hair a few more times. “Perhaps I could bring you a sleeping draught in some wine?”

  I nodded. “Very well.”

  I stood up, examining myself in my polished bronze mirror. My auburn hair fell in long, smooth, glossy tresses down around my shoulders, wavering around my elbows. My eyes glowed golden, like all Nephilim’s eyes did, and my skin was faintly luminous as well, a golden shimmer as if the radiance of the sun burned within me, somehow. Clad in only a thin shift, my body was clearly visible, my hips, my trim waist, my generous bust. I knew men considered me beautiful—among Nephilim men it was generally accepted that I was the most beautiful woman in Bad-Tibira, and those few humans who have looked upon me and left the palace alive, well . . . to them, I am a goddess.

  I could see Irkalla behind me, still fully clothed in a servant’s plain dress. Despite the roughspun nature of her garments, Irkalla was very nearly as beautiful as I, or so whispered the other servants and guards. She was truly lovely, with golden hair the color of sunlight on wheat, fair skin with only a faint shimmer of Nephilim luminosity, and wide, expressive eyes whose golden glow was muted by her lineage—the more human ancestry a Nephilim possessed in his or her bloodline, the more muted the glow. Irkalla was striking, with sharp features, a strong bearing, and a generous figure. Suitable, I supposed, for a maidservant to a princess.

  She smiled at me in our reflection and then swept gracefully from the room to prepare my sleeping draught. I settled myself in my bed, but I was still restless and discomfited. I doubted even with the herbs to hasten sleep I would find much rest.

  Despite the sleeping draught, the screams kept me awake. The prisoner kept calling on Elohim to help him, to save him, but Elohim was silent, and his pitiful pleas to The One God only enraged my father all the more. I wished I could go to the poor prisoner and tell him he might find release in death, if only he would cease his cries to The One God.

  My father hated Elohim. He hated any mention of His Name, and the prisoner only ensured the worsening of his torture by his ceaseless yowling of that hated name. If he had called on our gods, on Enki or Inanna, Father might have ended his pain with one swift blow to the head.

  When finally the prisoner fell silent and went to meet his One God, I was relieved.

  It was late and still sleep did not come. As I lay among my pillows and gazed out the window at the stars above, my mind began to drift and, unaccountably, I thought of my father.

  As a powerful Nephilim king, Father hated humans. Compared to our race, he said, they were short and small and weak. He held their brief lives in contempt, and claimed that anyone who did not live at least 200 years was no better than an animal. We, the Nephilim, sons and daughters born when the gods mated with humans, were extraordinarily tall of stature and long-lived—men stood at least five cubits tall, and we women four and half, and we lived many, many hundreds of years, whereas the tallest human male stood shorter than even the most stooped old crone, barely clearing four cubits at most, and most of them died after a hundred years, if not less.

  Father said humankind did not deserve the earth, and so he relieved them of it, one person at a time. He was not a kind man, my father the king. The name of King Emmen-Utu was known far and wide, spoken with respect and whispered in fear. Even the other Nephilim Kings treated him gingerly, stepping carefully in his presence.

  As his daughter, it was no different for me. He was no kinder as a father than he was as a king.

  My brothers were of little help. They were strangers, mostly, all of them much older than I. As men and royals, they were busy with war and politics and bedding women. I had five brothers: Kichu, Algar, Immuru, Zin-Suddu, and Dummuzi. Algar and Immuru were generals in Father’s army, leading raids against other cities and defending our borders. Dummuzi, as the youngest, was still in training, and thus lived in the soldier’s barracks.

  Only Kichu, as the eldest and thus crown prince, was ever nearby, and it was he to whom I was closest. His rooms were near mine, and he was often about helping Father run the city and resolve arguments. Wandering around the palace during the day, I often saw him in a garden or in the hallways, and we might have walked together, chatting amiably.

  I wish I could have said I loved my father, the king. The sad truth, however, was that I hated him. Every night I laid my head to the pillow and said a prayer to Enki and to Inanna, and I asked them to strike him down in his sleep.

  Alas, they were callous gods, and did not heed the cries of mere mortals such as I, even a Nephilim and the daughter of a king.

  My father might not have loved me, and he might not have doted on me, or showered me with gifts, but at the least, he did not confine me to my rooms, and he had not married me off to some fat old King in a far-flung corner of the land. He had threatened it many times when I’d angered him, but I think he secretly regretted and still mourned the death of my mother, and he kept me around as a kind of penance. If Father and my brothers were any example of husbands, I wanted nothing more than to live alone.

  But the suitors kept coming.

  Inanna spare me, they came in droves. Burly, swaggering, hairy hulks, all of them, weighed down with gold and silver and jewels, swinging their spears and scratching their groins and grunting like apes. They stormed the palace, ate our food and drank our wine and tumbled the palace whores, and then they had the gall to try and woo me with the whore’s kohl still smeared on their faces. I would have rather been hung from the palace gates than to marry one of them.

  My only refuge was out beyond the palace walls, down near the temple and among the rabble and the humans. They fascinated me, these short-statured and short-lived men and women. They scurried about like mice fleeing storm waters, but they were resilient and determined. Even the poorest seemed to find more joy in the simplest of things than my father and brothers did in their fine clothes and expensive wines. Even the poorest of them were kinder than my people. They were weak, yes, and they lived lives as short as mice, but at least they treated each other
with something like decency.

  The palace was a high-walled monstrosity of kiln-baked brick occupying the center of Bad-Tibira. The walls extended hundreds and hundreds of cubits north to south, and it was half as wide as it was long. The walls of the palace itself stood a dozen cubits high and were wide enough that three men could walk abreast from watchtower to watchtower, which were spaced every twelve to fifteen cubits along the wall.

  Within the walls was a maze of lush gardens and wide hallways and echoing chambers, and everywhere you looked there were knots of royal guards striding imperiously, hobnailed sandals cracking against the floor, spearheads glinting in the bright sun, and officials scurrying here and there alone and in twos and larger groups, conversing importantly and gesticulating and often shouting. Occasionally, courtiers and messengers and petitioners made their way inside from the palace gates situated across the mammoth echoing courtyard.

  Once through the palace gates, you were faced with that courtyard, a gaping expanse of brick walkways and towering buildings to the left and to the right. Lines of stoic, unmoving, silent guards stood at each doorway. Groups of other guards marched in formation across the courtyard only to stop at one end and pivot to pace back.

  Crossing that courtyard was an intimidating experience, with statues of Enlil and Inanna watching you, guards staring you down as if probing your soul for ill intent, your footsteps loud in your own ears, the courtyard so large it took minutes of walking to go from the outer gate to the inner gate.

  The inner gate was a huge arch of hand-hewn stone, heavy and imposing, carved with the likenesses of Utu the Sun God, and Lord Enlil and Lady Inanna. Three guards stood on either side of the gate, watching every step you took and every breath you drew. More guards stood on the inner walls, pacing the perimeter of the inner royal sanctum, bows drawn, arrows nocked.