Eye of the Oracle

chapter 10

FORBIDDEN FRUIT

Nimrod strode away, snatching a shield from another soldier as he jumped down the stairs to the courtyard. Tears welled in Mara’s eyes. The mother with the baby had fled, so at least the king wouldn’t murder that one. But would he find another? A new volley of flames struck the side of the roof, setting it on fire.

Mardon took Mara’s hand and pulled her to the side of the portico. He knelt and lowered her veil over her eyes. “Hurry back to the portal. The gatekeeper will be gone, so you shouldn’t have any trouble. Remember to get a firebrand and wave it in a circle over your head. I’ll come back as soon as I can.” He rose to his feet and nodded toward the gate. “Now make haste!”

Mara pressed her hand over her pocket to keep the Ovulum in place and ran toward the gate as fast as she could. The sun’s cruel rays stung her arms, and the gravel stabbed her feet, but her eyes felt safe behind her veil. When she reached the gate, the guard was gone, just as Mardon had predicted. Standing on tiptoes, she turned the latch’s dial through its combination of clicks and pushed open the iron door.

She found the grassy path back to the woods and gazed at her shadow as she ran. Though no one followed, she imagined a hundred other shadows closing in on hers, Nimrod and his people, bloodthirsty wolves who would gladly kill the weak and innocent.

When she passed between the two tall rocks, she found the stack of logs, but the fire had gone out. She picked up a long stick and stared at its charred, smoking end. What now?

She dug into her pocket and caressed the egg. Would it know what to do? If it spoke for a god, it would have to. But would it speak without Nimrod or Mardon around?

She pulled out the egg and showed the stick to it. “I need fire to go back home. What do I do?”

The eye appeared again in a soft crimson hue. Its voice was gentle, and it spoke without rhyme or verse. “You are an oracle of fire. Stand in the circle and call for flames. They will come to you.” The eye then quickly faded away.

Mara squinted at the glassy shell, now dark and lifeless. “An oracle of fire? What’s that?”

The Ovulum said nothing.

“How do I call for flames?”

Again, no answer.

She shrugged her shoulders and returned the Ovulum to her pocket, then stepped into the center of the portal circle. “Okay,” she said, holding the stick high. “Here goes.”

Closing her eyes, Mara spoke into the air. “Flames, come to my firebrand!” She opened her eyes again. Feeling a gust of wind and the sudden coolness of a mammoth shadow, she looked up. A big red dragon swooped low, its wings fanning a buffeting breeze that whipped her dress against her legs. She ducked her head, but it didn’t attack. It just turned and headed toward the tower. She mopped her brow with her veil. Had the dragon seen her? Would it come back?

She brought down the stick. The end was ablaze! Had the dragon breathed fire on her stick? She pulled up her veil and searched the skies. Several dragons circled the tower’s midsection, blasting it with torrents of fire. Much of the building had been set aflame, and the wind from the dragons’ orbit began spinning the fire into a flaming vortex, a blazing tornado that wrapped the tower in a mantle of orange.

The tower sank heavily, a third of it dropping below the ground. As the upper portion continued to burn, one of the dragons faltered. Its wings flapped weakly, and it fell to the ground. The flaming tower followed, first leaning, then toppling straight toward Mara.

She raised the stick and waved it in quick circles. Instantly, a spinning curtain of light surrounded her another tornado, but this one of pure green radiance. Her mind spun with it, and she felt a falling sensation, like sliding down a feeder spring into Lucifer’s Pool. Seconds later, the falling stopped and the cavern appeared, still shaded in green and magnified a dozen times. She took a long step and turned back toward the column of light, the portal Morgan had used to send her to the upper lands. The bright shaft flickered, then faded to a weak glow.

Her eyesight returned to normal. The cave was almost completely dark dismal and lonely. She tore the coif from her head and threw it to the stone floor, then dropped to her knees and cried. As her tears flowed, images of the glorious tower passed through her mind. She wondered at all the scrolls that must have filled the shelves of the museum histories, genealogies, scientific journals, technical drawings but now they all burned in the dragons’ flames. Not only that, her visit to the upper world was a fiasco, and Nimrod and Mardon probably blamed her for the collapse of the greatest creation mankind had ever seen. Now she would probably never get to go back, never get to leave the darkness, the torture, the loneliness of the dismal caverns. And, really, it was all because of the dragons.

She pounded her fist on the floor. “Dragons!” she yelled. “Curse those dragons! May they all die in their own fire!”

As she continued weeping, a gentle voice drifted by her ear. “You have learned much, haven’t you Mara?”

Mara leaped to her feet and spun around. A dark silhouette loomed, casting its shadow over most of the chamber. Morgan!

Makaidos poured a torrent of fire into the spinning column of flames, beating his wings to fan the cyclone as he wheeled around it in a tight orbit. Shutting off his fiery jets for a moment, he glanced back at a smaller, trailing dragon. “Aim lower, Roxil! The fire feeds upward on its own!”

Roxil blasted a volley of flames at a gap in the twisting inferno, igniting a pair of soldiers with arrows fixed on bows. Another soldier, standing on a staircase above the other two, threw a spear. With a quick reach, Roxil snatched the spear right out of the air with her claws and slung it back at its owner.

“My daughter, the warrior!” Makaidos yelled. A glimmer near the base of the tower caught his eye, and a sense of danger pulsed through his body. Feeling weaker, he pulled away from the doomed tower. It had already sunk to about two-thirds of its original height, and since the base had resettled at an angle, the whole structure leaned awkwardly. “Come, Roxil!” he shouted. “We are done here!”

Roxil’s wings faltered, and she began sinking toward the ground. Makaidos banked hard and dove toward her. As he neared the tower’s foundation, he noticed a man raising something shiny in his hand. Danger once again inflamed his senses. Feeling weaker by the second, he flew under Roxil and pushed up against her body, matching the beating of his wings with hers as he barked out a stroke rhythm. “Up! Down! Up! Down!”

Flying more steadily, but still descending, the two dragons glided away from the tower toward an open farm. Crash-landing in a vineyard, they tumbled and slid to a halt, plowing a deep furrow and squishing hundreds of ripe grapes. Makaidos scrambled upright and helped Roxil to her haunches. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Roxil’s head wagged back and forth. “I am dizzy. Something made me ill.”

“I felt it, too.” He gazed back at the tower. As the flames tightened around the huge ziggurat, the remaining dragons continued fanning it toward the direction it leaned. Finally, the entire structure toppled with a thunderous crash, sending a tremor that shook the ground under their claws.

Roxil heaved a tired sigh. “We did it!”

“Yes, we did.” Makaidos kept his eyes on the sky. A dragon had broken off from the troop and was heading their way. “Do you recognize him?” he asked.

Roxil angled her head toward the gliding figure. “No, and I sense something odd about him. Is it danger?”

“It is similar to danger. I am not sure what it is.”

The dragon landed with a soft touch, following the dredged path the other two dragons had plowed. His powerful red wings fanned a brisk wind in their faces, forcing Makaidos to blink. When his vision cleared, he gazed at the familiar face. He backed away a step, unwilling to believe what his eyes were telling him. He sputtered a drizzle of fire as he spoke. “Fa . . . Father?”

The dragon dipped his head. “I am glad you recognize me, Makaidos. It has been many years since the day Hilidan and I fought the Watchers and the fountains of the deep erupted and swept us all away.” He raised his head again and stared at Makaidos, his eyes flashing red. “But your father, Arramos, lives.”

Makaidos took another step back. “How can you know about Hilidan? I have not mentioned his name to anyone since the day of the flood.”

“Because I was there . . . Son.”

“How did you survive? And why have you waited so long to show yourself?”

“It is a long story, but for now, we must be reacquainted.” Arramos bowed toward Roxil. “I want to get to know my descendants.”

Roxil bowed in return. “I am glad to meet you, Father Arramos.”

Makaidos shook his head. “This cannot be. The Maker told Master Noah that every creature not aboard the ark was killed. The Maker is never wrong.”

“Of course the Maker is never wrong, but Master Noah has made his share of mistakes. I am sure you have heard the gossip that Ham spread about his drunken exposure.”

Makaidos winced. “I have heard.”

“And you must admit that evidence of my death is sorely lacking, for I am standing here right now.”

Roxil flapped her wings, pushing her body toward Arramos. She intertwined her neck with his and looked back at Makaidos. “He has to be your father. I no longer feel any danger at all.”

“I do.” Makaidos took yet another step back. “More than ever.”

Arramos pulled away from Roxil and stretched his neck, bringing his head close to Makaidos. “My son, I fought alongside you against the tower. I scorched King Nimrod while he held the dragon’s bane and weakened your daughter. If I had not, you would both have fallen to the spearmen.”

“Dragon’s bane? What is that?”

“A gem that some call a candlestone. It weakens dragons by absorbing their light energy.”

Makaidos couldn’t maintain eye contact. He gazed toward the mountains. “Shem and Japheth told me you were on Nimrod’s side, one of his enforcers.”

“I was infiltrating as a spy. The sons of Noah would not have learned who captured the girl from their village if I had not leaked the information to them.”

Roxil thumped her tail on the ground. “Father! Why are you being so rude? He is obviously who he says he is.”

“He certainly appears to be, but I sense great danger. The Maker has given me a gift that I cannot ignore, and I trust him and Master Noah before this evidence that I cannot yet fully comprehend.”

Arramos lowered his voice. “Makaidos, it is important that I reestablish my leadership over our family. You know this to be true. Your sons who flew with me around the tower have agreed to join in our battle against humankind.”

“But you always taught me that we were created to serve the sons of Adam.”

“I did.” Arramos’s eyes flashed brighter than ever, but he lowered his voice even further, growling under his breath. “Time after time men have spat in the face of the Maker. Even after a cleansing flood, they have corrupted themselves again. Building a tower of pride, they have driven a fist into the Maker’s nose. The time has come for dragons to take their place as rulers of the planet.”

“I . . . I cannot believe what I am hearing. There is too much to think about. The danger I feel is overwhelming.”

“You have already lost Goliath.” Arramos waved a wing at Roxil. “Will you lose the rest of your family because of a feeling you get when I am near? Did I not teach you logic? Will you defy all reason because of your faith in a man who drinks himself to the point of shame? Where is your discernment?”

Makaidos glanced all around. As a cloud of smoke from the burning tower began obscuring the sun, a shadow fell across his eyes. “A shroud of darkness surrounds me. It would be foolish to deny what I have learned in the light. That is the chief rule of discernment.”

“The time of darkness has ended my son. You may follow me if you wish, but do not make yourself an enemy.” With a great flap of his wings, Arramos lifted into the sky and sailed toward the fallen tower.

Roxil glared at Makaidos, thumping her tail even harder. “Father! Do not be a fool! Mankind is not worth losing your own father.”

Makaidos roared. “Silence! You have no idea what you are saying. You have not seen what I have seen through the centuries!”

Roxil scowled. “Living longer does not always make a dragon wiser.”

Makaidos lifted his tail, ready to strike, but he let it fall. His daughter had long since passed the stage of youngling discipline. He shuffled closer to her. “Roxil, what has happened to you? You have never been so disrespectful toward me.”

“I have always respected you, even when I thought your patience with the foolishness of men made you appear to be a fool yourself. Respect is why I held back my opinions for so long, but now I am of age to make my own choices.” Roxil turned her head toward the sky. “Look, Father. My brothers . . . your sons . . . are following Arramos toward the mountains. Will you join us?”

“Us? You cannot be serious!”

“I am.” Roxil stretched out her wings. “No sensible dragon would hang her life on the words of a drunken ark builder.”

Makaidos firmed his jaw. “Your mother will be on my side.”

“She is too weak to oppose you. She has always been weak.”

Makaidos snorted a stream of fire at the ground near Roxil’s tail. “You have no idea what you are saying! Your mother is a great warrior. Do not cast insults simply because you are too young to have seen her in action! She has spent the last century populating the world with dragons and raising up a new brood of warriors!”

Roxil flapped her wings and lifted slowly into the sky. She circled him once and dipped her head in a solemn bow. “Good-bye, Father.”

A tear dripped from Makaidos’s eye and fell to the ground. Roxil strayed from her path for a moment before zooming toward the other dragons as they disappeared in the growing haze.

Clasping her hand on her chest, Mara breathed a sigh. “You startled me.”

Sympathy tinged Morgan’s voice. “I apologize, but I wanted to comfort you.”

Mara drooped her head. “How can I be comforted? My first visit to the land above was a disaster! King Nimrod got so mad at me, I thought he would kill me, and he kept talking about needing blood, so it seemed for a minute like he was going to sacrifice a baby. But then dragons came and destroyed the tower, and everything in it burned. Mardon said all the world’s knowledge lay in the first floor, and now it’s gone forever!”

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.


THE WORDS OF THE BLESSING OF ENOCH, 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.

Like the voice of an angry ghost, Nimrod’s words came back to her. “The temple worshippers would love to get their hands on you.” She grimaced at the thought. She had read enough to know what he meant.

Mara hugged the Ovulum against her chest. Confusing thoughts tumbled like flying ash. Whom should she trust? Nimrod seemed good for a while, but why would he want to kill her, or worse, little babies? Mardon was willing to kill the babies for him, but he also rescued her. Morgan was friendly some of the time, but she gave Nimrod something he needed to kill dragons, and the dragons were Elohim’s friends. One thing was certain, Morgan, Nimrod, and Mardon all hated Elohim.

And why not? Elohim flooded the world and killed almost every creature on earth. He sent dragons to destroy the tower and the city, and now the people couldn’t even talk to each other any more. But if Elohim was evil, why would he bother saving eight people on the ark? If he was good, it would make sense for him to war against Nimrod, if Nimrod was evil. Still, they could all be evil, and they’d all do anything to get power, even killing everyone by flooding the world. If only Elohim would just talk to her, maybe he could help her make sense of it all.

She threw the sheet off. Maybe she could warm the Ovulum up and make it work. She rubbed the glass surface vigorously with both hands, waited a few seconds, and looked again. Nothing.

Mara grumbled under her breath. Elohim had spoken to her before. Why didn’t he want to speak now? Was he just too busy? Or maybe she did something wrong, and he was mad at her.

She pushed on the top of her head with her hand. There was just too much to think about! It felt like her brains were about to explode!

She laid her head on her dress and sighed. For some reason, she still wanted to hold the egg close, so she pressed its cool glass against her cheek and nuzzled her dirty pillow. As her mind wandered toward sleep, a low voice whispered in her ear. It was so soothing, she didn’t want to wake up to see if it was real. If it was a dream, she wanted to keep dreaming, imagining that a gentle stranger cared enough to speak to her.

“Sapphira Adi,” it sang. “You are Sapphira Adi, a gem as beautiful as the clearest sky, and your value to me is greater than any gem in all the world . . . Sapphira Adi.”

Mara smiled and whispered, “Sapphira Adi,” then drifted off to sleep.