Excerpt

Of all her grandchildren Methuselah was the most favored, I the least. I wondered sometimes if GrandMother didnt blame me for the death of her daughter. I had twisted around inside, Eve said, and she had to cut me out to save me.

I heard her say, too, I was a little rebel like Cain. In retrospect her words were right but the emphasis was wrong. I was a little rebellious, compared to Cain.

True, we shared interests: wenching, fighting, gaming, drinking. But I did not believe in these pastimes like Cain. He deified them and others, some much much worse. Cain made gods of his pleasures and established himself as one. A demigod, a man-god he was, the most gifted of men except Adam, and he roamed the earth at this time. He roamed a long time.

But there is only one God and he is not Cain. Nor does He require statues to himself like Cain. I learned early on how idols can burn you. My God is Jehovah Elohim, The Lord God. First Man called Him El.

I believe. I have always believed. I do not always obey.

- - - - - -

I tested Eves patience and Enochs prophesy when I was very young. It was eight hundred years ago, 1000 A.E., the thousandth year After Eden. I was thirteen.

We took a holiday along the wide sand bank of the River Eu. We were north of the Great South Sea, south of Adams city, Eridu. Between lay a narrow and dangerous strip of jungle. King Seths guards had inspected the beach for nasties and declared it safe. My family swam and ate, then settled down under the tent canopy for a nap.

I couldnt sleep. GrandMother snored.

The guards were looking out at the blue expanse of water, which stretched a few miles north of the sea and was really more a bay than a river. Boat-size Things with teeth were known to cruise up the river. And, occasionally, a swarm of sea cobras or a Cainite or Sea Peoples slaver. At our backs, between the city and the sea, lay the swampy jungle.

Bare feet and soft sand are made for sneaking so off I went. Away from the water. Not far at first. Just behind the canopy and up over a dune. I rolled down it. Then sat against a half-buried log and brushed the sand from under my arms because I had chafed myself there.

The log was hollow and quivered. There was a knothole by my elbow. I peered inside.

Green eye met red eye.

We blinked.

The log quivered more and I drew back. The animal scurried out the open end. A long brown lizard. I didnt think about its red eye until later.

I gave chase. Grabbed its tail. It squealed and folded and snapped at me and I let go.

It reared up on its two hind legs and raced toward the thicket that marked the high-water stage of the river.

Again I gave chase, forgetting also that this was a two-legged lizard. With red eyes.

It dove into a screen of branches that touched the ground and I dove after.

It was cool and murky in there, in that nest of red-eyed lizards.

The commotion stirred the youngest whose eyes were still closed. They strained their necks and opened their snouts for food. They smelled like puke.

The bigger ones scampered toward a tree trunk. Some climbed it. A leathery head with a long snout and hot coals for eyes peered from behind it. Then the rest of her appeared. A long neck, a thick scaly body, bony arms, powerful legs, a ridged tail. An agitated tail.

A tyl. A demon-lizard from the north. One of those wild things grown-ups threaten you with at bedtime. The kind that get you if you dont do as youre told.

I was on all fours. Her chicks were mewing and spewing around me. Something cracked under my knee...an egg.

She reared back.

Time to go.

She fanned out her wings. They were all hide and bone, those wings.

I bolted.

Big hoary tyls were called dragons. This one was still a tyl and obviously young and pretty...to another dragon.

Not to me!

I made it to the top of the dune, looking back as I ran. She didnt follow. Scrambling down the dune and screaming Tyl! Tyl! I thought I had it made.

I didnt.

Tyls are smart and have chameleon qualities. She knew the men would slaughter her babies. So she hid as many as she could.

Then she came after me.

She blew out of there like the core from a volcano and grabbed me with talons passed down from the harpies of hell.

She sailed over the beach party and up, up, and I heard Methuselah order the archers to hold, lest they hit his brother.

Arrowing her was possible. Both of my archer nephews, Lamech of First Earth and Nimrod of Second, could have hit her.

I struggled and kicked and she told me to settle or shed turn me to puke and feed her young.

I puked instead.

She sailed east sometimes skimming the bottoms of clouds. What I thought were piles of cotton are just mist! The wind was at our back, she said she was making good time.

We flew over the River Eu, then across the breadth of a lush green land she said was Maer. The land was much like El. Finally, near sundown, we reached the River Tiger.

She flew low and showed me the striped things of the Tiger. There were huge fish with whiskers whose eggs were sweet to eat. And sharks. And giant crocs who could sink a boat with their teeth or swamp it with their tail.

Cousins, she said, of the crocs. Her speech was part voice and part hiss, her breath a mix of carrion and sulfur.

She swung north and flew along the east bank of the river. The land below was harsher than El and Maer. It was a hilly rocky land with patches of green in the valleys.

There were lots of holes in the hillsides and some people worked and some whipped and black smoke rose from every town.

Smelters she said, and masters and slaves.

We flew just beneath the clouds and these were dark and grainy with the soot from the towns.

It was a bleak land, Nod.