Uriel had seen Behemoth. Uriel was there at the creation and was privileged to be a part of the morning stars who sang praises to Elohim when he laid the foundation of the earth, struck its line, determined the measurements and sunk its bases. He had gloried when Elohim created a firmament in the midst of the waters to separate the waters above from the waters below. He watched with awe as Elohim made the waters swarm with great sea monsters like Rahab and Leviathan, and let the earth bring forth living creatures according to their kind, creeping things and beasts of the earth, including Behemoth. The irony was not lost on him that creation was both wonderful and fearsome.

Uriel yelled, "Run for your life!" and kicked his horse.

Noah wondered if he was jesting again.

The colossal beast broke out of the forest near them. The hair on Noah's neck stood up and a shiver of terror surged down his spine. The creature was the size of a tall building, and it ran after them at full speed, the ground shaking beneath its trampling feet.

Noah only got a glimpse of its monstrous ugliness. In a flash, he galloped for his life after Uriel. All he saw was its huge trampling legs, its tail like a cedar tree, an ugly hump, and its bull-like head. Uriel was right. It was as terrible as a sea dragon on land.

The gargantuan gained on them.

Noah could see Uriel bearing straight for a vine covered wall of the rock bluff. He wondered what the angel was doing, placing them between a rock wall and a hard place.

Uriel yelled to him, "Trust me!"

Noah saw Uriel disappear into the wall vines without smashing to pieces. It was a hidden entrance. He glanced back to see Behemoth was almost upon him as he split the vines with his horse. The monstrosity hit the narrow opening and it felt like the entire mountain around them rattled. Uriel was right again. The beast was much too huge to fit through the pa.s.s. Thank Elohim.

Noah stared back at the raging creature. He could see one of its eyes was destroyed and laid over with scars.

Noah had learned of Behemoth from Methuselah. He never forgot the story his grandfather told him of the day he lost his precious wife Edna to this hideous monster. The creature protected its territory with ferocity. When Methuselah, Edna, and Noah's parents had first discovered this location, they did not know about Behemoth. It had attacked and killed Edna. Its size and strength were so overwhelming that Methuselah had only had the chance to blind it in one eye with a javelin before escaping into the pa.s.s. Nothing could pay back the devastation this monster wrought upon Methuselah. The event broke him. He was never the same again. At least Methuselah had been able to leave a permanent scar to remind the monster of the man who planned to one day return and kill it.

But Behemoth was still alive.

Noah wondered if that meant that Methuselah had not made it back here as they had agreed. It did not bode well for Noah's plans. Had Methuselah been killed by this land dragon?

They arrived at the end of the pa.s.s, where it opened up to the Hidden Valley. They both gasped, looking out onto a world seemingly lost in time. A lush valley of plants, trees, and animals spread before them, a place that could only be described as a jungle paradise.

"It reminds me of Eden," said Uriel.

"If it was," said Noah, "I would be dead by the sword of the Cherubim." He chuckled to himself, and they entered a pathway through the foliage.

Uriel knew it was coming, but did not antic.i.p.ate such hostility.

A young warrior swung out of hiding on a vine. He knocked Noah off his horse to the ground, pushing Noah face down to the earth.

Uriel was off his horse in an instant. He stopped still when he saw the warrior with a dagger to Noah's throat. Beyond that first one, three others stood with bows drawn on Noah and Uriel. These warriors were good. They were trained well in stealth. They obviously had heard Behemoth's announcement of approaching intruders. They wore animal skins and they were all young, only about a hundred years old or so.

Lying on the ground, Noah stopped struggling when he felt the edge of the blade against his throat in a tight hold.

The warrior was strong. He belted out to his comrades, "They seem human enough!"

The lead archer spit through his aim, "Of course they do, Shem. Clever disguise for clever abominations."

Noah's eyes went wide. Those words were familiar; the name, the voice. He tried to get a better glimpse of his captor. "Shem? Shem ben Noah?"

It confused the young warrior with the dagger. The archer's surprise gave way to recognition.

Noah looked up at the young man with arrow aimed at his heart. "j.a.pheth?" he pleaded.

j.a.pheth, ever the impulsive one, responded first. "Father! I did not recognize you!"

Shem lowered his dagger, and turned Noah around. They looked into each other's eyes. No further doubt remained that they were father and son.

"It has been so long." Shem wrapped Noah in a big bear hug.

j.a.pheth dropped his bow, ran and jumped onto the two of them, and they tumbled to the ground in a family wrestling match.

They rolled to a stop on the jungle floor.

"We thought you were dead!" shouted j.a.pheth.

Noah looked them up and down with pride. "You have grown into such fine warriors."

"Uh, Noah," interrupted Uriel.

The three of them looked over at Uriel, still under the aim of the archers.

"May I request you share some of that familial love?" Uriel joked.

"Forgive me," laughed Shem. "Men, put down your arms."

The archers lowered their weapons with sighed relief.

"Father, where have you been?" asked j.a.pheth.

"That is a long story," said Noah. "And I am hungry."

The warriors led Noah and Uriel to a large clearing in the center of the valley. As they broke through the jungle brush, Noah and Uriel stopped. The sight took their breath away. There were elaborate wooden homes, a couple hundred strong, scattered around in a small village, with families going about their business. A sight that amazed Noah towered behind the village. It was a huge wooden skeletal structure about three hundred cubits long by fifty cubits wide and thirty cubits high. A huge pile of cut, trimmed and cleaned trees, enough to build a small city sat within walking distance of the ma.s.sive construction.

"Tebah?" said Noah.

Methuselah, Tubal-cain and Jubal ran to them from the village, shouting greetings.

They exchanged long overdue embraces, grabbing each other's wrists. Noah could not keep his eyes off of the structure.

"You are building the box?" he asked.

"Your sons and tribe are," said Methuselah, "in your name."

Methuselah pulled out a piece of leather with scratchings all over it. He handed it ceremoniously to Noah.

"You gave me the directions before your little vacation in Sheol all those years ago. Must this old man shame your dullness of memory?"

Noah grinned widely and hugged Methuselah again. "Old man, I missed you terribly." He looked at Tubal-cain. "I trust my cousin here has kept you in your place with his molten word and wit."

Methuselah harrumphed. "My dirty loin cloth, he did. I am too nimble for such a corpulent whale."

"I fear our feeble senior has lost more than his reproductive organs," retorted Tubal-cain, circling his finger around his skull in a "crazy" gesture.

"I must say," Methuselah changed the attack, "I am impressed to see that your guardian angel has actually done his job for once in protecting your obstinate rump."

"It's good to be back with family," snorted Uriel, and they all laughed.

Uriel said to Methuselah, "I believe it was you who told me many years ago, you would like to retire here."

"Elohim has granted my wish," said Methuselah.

Noah looked around at the village. "Do not tell me," he said, "all these villagers are the remnant orphans of my tribe grown of age?"

"You have been away for a hundred years," Uriel reminded him.

j.a.pheth added delightfully, "Elohim did say to be fruitful and multiply."

Suddenly, a small tremor shook the valley. It made them solemn again.

Tubal-cain said, "I have been timing them. They are increasing. Fortunately the mountain range around us absorbs most of the rattle, but out on the plain is another story."

"Birth pangs of Elohim's wrath," said Noah, repeating the words he had heard Uriel tell him in Erech.

Shem said, "We have been preparing the materials and waiting for you to return as Patriarch to finish your calling."

Noah looked at Shem's belt to see the leather case holding the whip sword Rahab at his side. He saw Betenos' bow on j.a.pheth's back. Noah said to his sons, "I did not fulfill my promise to train you in your grandparents' weapons."

"Considering the nature of your delay, father" said j.a.pheth, "we forgive you."

Methuselah interjected, "I did the best I could."

Shem concluded, "We are trained, we are speedy, and we are ready."

Noah looked at them with proud tears of joy. "Well, then, let me finish my calling."

"First," said Methuselah, "I want to show you something."

Methuselah took Noah alone to an ancient terebinth tree by a small brook in a dark corner of the forest. They stood before a pile of rocks placed by the tree long before. "Terebinth," said Methuselah. "They are considered sacred objects of communication with the divine.

"This is where she sleeps," he continued. "Your grandmother Edna. My happiness. It has been good for me to be back. It has reminded me that one day, we shall be united again."

Noah asked, "Why did you never remarry, Grandfather?"

Methuselah sighed with sadness. "Because I foolishly found my significance in being loved by her, rather than in us both being loved by Elohim."

Noah put his arm around his grandfather.

Methuselah said, "I wish you had met her. You would have loved her. You are a lot like her. Full of life, zeal, and a good warrior."

Noah said, "It is hard to imagine: 'Grandmother, the giant killer.'"

They laughed. "Let me tell you," said Methuselah, "She was a giant killer in bed too."

"Grandfather, you are telling me too much," said Noah lightheartedly.

Methuselah chuckled, "Sorry." He treasured his memories of the pa.s.sion of his youth and the oneness that glorified G.o.d.

"Why have you not killed Behemoth?" asked Noah, referring to the source of his unhappiness.

Methuselah completed Noah's sentence slyly, "Yet."

Noah looked at him curiously.

Methuselah explained, "While we reside in this valley, that vile creature acts as a guard dog for our security. I would be a fool to settle my score without consideration of the consequences. But when the wrath of Elohim comes, I will have my satisfaction."

Noah wondered if he meant that Elohim's wrath would be that satisfaction or if Methuselah still had designs on the beast. He did not want to feed the hurt, so he avoided asking.

Chapter 23.

It had taken years to prepare for building the tebah. Methuselah had led the tribe as they grew of age. He patiently taught them the construction skills they needed to build the box. They had honed their talent by building elaborate village homes of wood that provided the added blessing of luxurious living. They found a peculiar tree of very hard wood in the valley they called "gopher wood." It was a long process to cut down the trees and create long, cured and glued planks. The boards were then sealed with a prime coating of tree pitch. The pitch was made by bleeding the sap from pines, burning the pine wood into charcoal, grinding that to powder, and mixing that powder into large vats of boiling pine resin. They then painted the wood with the tree-made pitch to seal it with an initial coat.

The day Noah took charge of construction, they had already built the skeletal structure for the box based on the directions of the holy writ given from G.o.d to Noah, and then to Methuselah on leather. Everything stood ready. They needed only to begin the process of final construction. It could be completed within months if things went well.

They had perfected a means of holding the beams together by pounding wooden pins into them. They had found bitumen pits nearby for the final layer of pitch to cover the wood of the completed box with a one or two inch thickness. Noah drove them hard to finish quickly, but he never asked of any man what he was not willing to do himself. Often, men sought him with some question to be answered, only to find him hammering in wooden pegs or helping to saw a plank to fit better. They all worked in shifts from sun up to past sundown, using torches made from the bitumen pitch after dark fall.

As Noah looked out onto the valley from the top of the box, he remembered what Uriel had said when they first arrived, how it had looked like Eden. He pondered what it was like for the Man and Woman to be in such communion with Elohim, their fellow creatures, and the world around them, full of splendor and glory. He wondered what it would be like to be in Elohim's presence and the presence of his divine council of ten thousands of holy ones surrounding his throne and worshipping in the Garden that was his temple. He grieved over how the primordial sin of the first pair had plunged them into darkness, and separated them from their Maker, the Most High, and how the world could have all gone so wrong so quickly.

It was crazy to be building a huge barge like this in the middle of the Zagros Mountains, leagues away from any river or body of water. But Elohim said he was going to judge the land and all its inhabitants and this would be his vessel of salvation; this tebah. Elohim had become sorry he had created mankind, for all flesh had corrupted their way on the earth, and the land was filled with violence through them, and the violence raised its voice to the ears of Elohim in heaven. So he had determined to make an end to all flesh. He would send a deluge of water to blot out man whom he had created from the face of the land, man and all the animals in its wake. This floating box would be Elohim's redemption of a righteous few. Noah did all that the Lord commanded him.

Inside the barge, the structure was organized into three decks lined with a mult.i.tude of pens. Ventilation was a long top housing that ran the length of the box, a roofed opening a cubit high, with a hatch for bad weather. The people wondered why the boat was so large, far exceeding the capacity for their few hundred bodies on board. Then Noah told them that G.o.d was going to bring animals of every kind from the remotest parts of the land in pairs and in sevens to reside on the boat with them. They did not believe this, until the day when animals of all kinds started to arrive in the valley in numbers, ready to board the box. The carnivores were surprisingly domesticated and would not eat flesh, instead grazing like the herbivores beside them. Methuselah joked that Uriel had hypnotized them with magic. Lions, tigers, and wolves lounged right next to lambs, oxen, and camels. It was another miracle but it would not be the last.

How would they take care of the refuse of all these animals filling up the box? Their excrement alone would pile up within days and create toxic fumes that could kill all the life on board. Tubal-cain and Jubal created a way to use the waste to their advantage. They built a large, closed-off holding tank at the stern of the boat that rose through all three floors. They had discovered that the gases released by the rotting defecation were flammable. So they created a piping system from the refuse tank throughout the craft. Small holes in the pipes allowed them to light the releasing gas. This created a perpetual light source for as long as the animals defecated, which would be as long as Elohim had them on the boat.

What caused Noah the most consternation was the change in the heavens. The earthquakes shook the pillars of the earth and went wide enough to even rattle the pillars of the firmament. The sky changed colors. Even the sun would turn blood red as it set in the gates of the West. Noah noticed an increase of storm clouds on the horizon, distant thunder portending a coming apocalypse. But this was not a time to brood. They finally finished the construction of the box and filled it with the animals.

It was a time to celebrate.

Chapter 24.