Many Waters Part 6

"They are beautiful-"

"Beautiful, yes. But they will make changes, and not all changes are good."

I don't want things to change, Yalith thought- And then, in her mind's eye, she saw again the young giant who had bowed to her in Grandfather Lamech's tent, and who was unlike anybody she had ever seen.

Matred continued: "Change is, I suppose, inevitable, and sometimes it brings good things." She looked across the tent to her oldest son, Shem, who was sitting with his wife, Elisheba, eating some of the grapes from the vineyard which were not pressed for wine but kept for the table. Shem was pulling one grape at a time from the bunch, and throwing it to Elisheba. She would catch each grape in her open mouth and they would both laugh with pleasure at this simple, sensual game. It seemed amazingly young and romantic for this stocky, solid couple. "Elisheba is a great help to me. And then, j.a.pheth's wife-"

Yalith looked to where a young woman with softly curling black hair against creamy skin was scouring a wooden bowl with sand. The young woman looked up and waved in greeting. Matred said, "She comes to us from another oasis, and with a strange name."

"0-holi-bamah." Yalith sounded it out.

"Look at her," Matred commanded.

Yalith looked again at her sister-in-law. Oholibamah was fairer of complexion than Yalith or the other women, even fairer than Ham. Her hair and brows were blacker than the night sky, a rippling, purply black. When Ohotibamah stood, she was nearly a head taller than the other women. And beautiful. She always seemed lit by moonlight, Yalith thought. "What about her?" she asked her mother.

"Look at her, child. Look at her."

Yalith was shocked. "You mean you think she-"

Matred shrugged slightly. "She is the youngest daughter of a very old man." She held up the fingers of both hands. "More than ten years younger than her brothers and sisters. I love Oholibamah as though she were my own. And if Oholibamah was indeed sired by a nephil, then great good has been brought into our lives."

Yalith looked at Oholibamah as though seeing her for the first time. After Yalith and Mahlah, Oholibamah was the youngest woman in the tent, younger by several years than Elisheba, Shem's wife, or Anah, Ham's wife. All three of Yalith's brothers had married at unusually young ages, and all three had grumbled at having to take on domestic duties so soon. Shem had protested, "But we are too young to marry. I'm the oldest, and I've barely reached my first hundred years."

His father had replied, "There is a certain urgency, my son."

"Why? And how will you find wives for us when we are so young?"

"You are fine-looking men," the patriarch a.s.sured him.

Ham had joined in. "But why the rush, Father? What is this urgency you speak of?"

The patriarch pulled at his long beard, which was beginning to show white. "Yesterday, when I was working in the vineyard, the Voice spoke to me. El told me that I must find wives for you."

"But why?" Ham protested. "We're young, and we need time."

"There are changes, great changes coming," the patriarch said.

"Is the volcano going to erupt?" Shem asked.

"If the volcano erupts," Ham said, "wives won't do us any good."

Their father told them only that the word of El had come to him in the vineyard, and that El had given no explanation.

Elisheba and Anah were easily found for Shem and Ham. The patriarch had a reputation as an honest man. He had the largest and best vineyards on the oasis, and fine flocks of goats and sheep. The fame of his wine had spread to many other oases round about. Matred was a woman of unquestionable virtue and beauty, and her girth attested to her skills as a cook. It was a privilege to marry into her tent.

j.a.pheth was young enough so that no one stepped forward. His face was still smooth and beardless. His body hair was no more than soft down. His eyes were friendly and guileless. But he was on the threshold of manhood. His father went off on his camel one day, and came back with Oholibamah.

j.a.pheth had been at the well, getting water for the animals, when he saw a young girl on a white camel, a young girl of fair complexion, with dark hair tumbling richly against her ivory shoulders. His eyes met Oholibamah's eyes, dark as the night sky between stars, and his knees became fluid. She slid off the white camel's back and came toward him, slender hands outstretched. Their love was a bright flower, youthful, and radiantly beautiful.

Oholibamah. 0-holy-bamah. A name as strange as her moonlit beauty. But soon it flowed easily from their lips.

Oholibamah was Yalith's first real friend. They were not far apart in age, both of them barely out of childhood and into womanhood. They were alike, too, in their un-likeness to the others. They saw and rejoiced in what most people of the oasis never noticed. Both liked to leave the tent at first dawn to watch and wait for the sun to rise over the desert, delighting in the calling of the stars just before daylight. It was during one of her dawn walks that Yalith had met the great lion who was the seraph Aariel, and on another walk, when she had persuaded Mahlah to join her, that she had introduced Aariel and Alarid the pelican to her sister. But once Oholibamah came, Mahlah preferred to sleep in the morning.

So Yalith and her youngest sister-in-law would slip out quietly. When the great red disk of day pulled above the white sand, and the stars dimmed and their songs faded out, scarab beetles who had slept under the sand during the hours of the dark came scuttling up into the light. At the edge of the oasis, the baboons leapt from the trees, clapping their hands and shrieking for joy at the rising of the sun. Behind them on the oasis the c.o.c.k crowed, and in the desert the lions roared their early-morning roar before retreating to their caves to sleep during the heat of the day. Yalith and Oholibamah shared a silent and joyful companions.h.i.+p.

Now, in the warm and noisy tent, Oholibamah beckoned to Yalith. "Have you eaten?"

"No." Yalith shook her head. "I meant to eat with Grandfather, but 1 forgot all about food because there was a strange young-"

Ham interrupted her, calling out from the pile of skins on which he was reclining. "I have a headache, Oholi. I need you."

Oholibamah said sharply, "Let Anah rub your head. She is your wife."

"Her fingers do not have the touch that yours do." And, indeed, Oholibamah had a reputation for having healing in her fingers.

She was still sharp. "If you don't want a headache, don't eat and drink too much." She turned away and went to the cook pot, ladled some stew into a wooden bowl, and handed it to Yalith. The mammoth left Matred and came and nudged Yalith's knee.

"No, Selah," Yalith scolded. "You know I won't give you anything more to eat. You're getting fat." She deftly picked pieces of meat and vegetable from the bowl and ate them, then raised it to her lips to drink the broth. It tasted wonderful, and she realized that she was very hungry.

Beside her, Oholibamah sighed.

"What's the matter?" Yalith asked.

The mammoth moved to the older girl, who scratched its grey head. "I was walking through the town this morning. We needed some provisions. One of the nephilim came out of one of the bathhouses, smelling of oil and spices, and stood in my path." She paused.

"And?" Yalith prodded.

"He said that I was one of them, one of their daughters."

Yalith glanced at her mother, then back at Oholibamah. Thought of Eblis and his glorious purple wings. "Would that be so terrible?"

"It is absurd. I love my parents. I love my father."

Yalith had never seen Oholibamah's parents. And how would she herself feel if someone suggested that her father was not, in fact, her father? But now that Matred had put the thought in her mind, it was easy to believe that Oholibamah had been sired by a nephil. She had gifts of healing. Ham was right about that. Her voice when she sang was beautiful as a bird's. She saw things no one else saw.

But then, Yalith reminded herself, she, too, was different, the seventh child of her parents, and she knew quite well who her parents were, and that they had been disappointed when they had had a fourth daughter instead of a fourth son.

"Did you hear me saying that Mahlah is betrothed to a nephil?" she asked Oholibamah.

"Yes, I heard. Mahlah likes pretty things. The wives of the nephilim live in houses of stone and clay, not in tents. I'm sure Mahlah feels proud to have been chosen."

"What do you think about it?" Yalith asked.

"I'm not sure. I'm not sure what I think about the nephilim. Especially if-" She broke off.

"And the seraphim?" Yalith asked.

"I'm not sure what I think about them, either." Oholibamah pressed her fingers against her ears as Ham started to shout.

For a small man, he had a powerful voice. "Selah, come here! If Oholibamah won't help me, then I need a unicorn!"

Anah said crossly, "You know a unicorn can't come near you."

"It doesn't have to come near," Ham grunted. "They can cast their light from any distance. It's only the light I need."

Anah muttered, "You need more than that."

"Yalith! You can call a unicorn. Or Selah! Call me a unicorn!"

A sudden flash of light made them all blink. It was as though lightning had somehow managed to get inside the heavy hides of the tent, perhaps flas.h.i.+ng down through the roof hole.

"Getaway!" Ham cried. "Who are you!"

He was not referring to the unicorn, which stood glimmering in the tent. On the skins right by Ham lay a very young man, with raw, sunburned skin, and eyes glazed with fever.

Matred peered down at the boy. "How did he get here? Ham, is he a friend of yours?"

Ham looked totally bewildered. "I've never seen him before."

"What is he?" Shem demanded.

The patriarch, who had been chewing on a mutton bone, looked at the boy. "Another kind of giant," he said disgustedly.

Oholibamah said, "Whoever he is, give him air. Don't crowd around. Look, he has sun fever. Oh my, he looks terrible."

Elisheba, Shem's wife, peered at the boy. "If he's a giant, he's a very young one."

Yalith managed to push between Matred and Oholibamah so that she could see. She shrieked, "It's my young giant!"

"What's that, daughter?" Matred asked. "You've seen him before?"

"In Grandfather's tent, when I took him his night-light." '- The patriarch scowled. "If my father, Lamech, doesn't want a giant in his tent, why should I have him in mine?"

"Oh, please. Father," Yalith begged.

"You've really seen him before?" Oholibamah asked.

"When I brought Grandfather Lamech his night-light," Yalith repeated, "there was this young, sunburned giant in his tent." She looked at the fevered young man. "I'm not sure this is ... Where's j.a.pheth?"

The tent flap was pushed aside, and j.a.pheth came in.

"Why, here I am, looking for a unicorn and-"

Selah raised her trunk and trumpeted.

"Why!" j.a.pheth exclaimed. "I've been looking all over the oasis and there's one right here! And-so is the Den, the one I've been looking fort" He dropped to his knees.

"Great auk. Is he alive?"

Oholibamah ordered, "Move back, all of you." She put her hand against Dennys's bare chest. "He's alive, but he's burning with fever."

Anah moved back slightly, pus.h.i.+ng her red hair away from her face with a dirty hand. "Is he a seraph or a nephil?"

Yalith shook her head. "He doesn't have wings. Oh. j.a.pheth, I'm glad you're back. He is the other one, isn't he, the one you were looking for?"

"Yes," j.a.pheth said. "But he looks burned nearly to death."

Oholibamah pressed her hand against the reddened forehead, wincing at the heat of it, turning to look for the unicorn, who had almost dimmed out of being. "Unicorn, can you help?"

The unicorn's outline sharpened, and it bent toward the flushed boy, and light flowed from its forehead, cooling the burning skin.

Ham pushed up from his pelts and blundered toward the unicorn. "Me. I need help. I feel sick. Help me." His fair hair was stringy with sweat. The even lighter hair on his chest held drops of moisture.

Again there was a flash of light, and when they could see again, the unicorn had disappeared.

"Idiot." Anah's green eyes sparked. "You know you can't get near a unicorn."

"Meanwhile," the patriarch said, "how are we going to get rid of this half-baked giant?"

"My dear," Matred protested, "surely we should show him some hospitality."

"My good father, Lamech, evidently threw him out of his tent," her husband retorted.

"No, Father!" Yalith protested. "You don't understand! There are two giants, and Grandfather has the other one in his tent and is taking care of him."

"I don't know what you're talking about," her father said. "How can there be two of these peculiar giants?"

"Oh, Father, if only you'd go to see Grandfather Lamech!"

"I will have nothing to do with coddling the old man. Or his strange giants. We have enough troubles without sick giants being added to them."

Yalich knelt beside Oholibamah and looked at the boy, who lay breathing shallowly, eyelids twitching slightly. Yalith reached out a tentative finger and touched the boy's flushed cheek. "You're not Sand? You're his brother?"

The reddened eyelids opened slightly. "Dennys. Dennys." Then the boy flung his arm over his face, as though to ward off a blow. His limbs began to shake convulsively.

"What's happened?" j.a.pheth demanded. "Somebody's hurt him. And he doesn't recognize me."

"He's afraid!" Elisheba's voice was shocked.

Shem protested. "Surely Grandfather Lamech couldn't have hit him!"

"Never," j.a.pheth defended swiftly.

"Not Grandfather!" Yalith spoke at the same time.

"El! His skin is rubbed raw!" Oholibamah exclaimed.