The Descent of the Gods

Tomb

When Tubal finally woke, days had passed since the attack on Nod. His body, with the treatments the angels had administered, had fought the poison and infection. As the fevers had raged through his body, his mother Zillah had not once left the house, and had hardly left his side, sleeping beside his bed.

Never before had Naamah saw her mother as vulnerable as she did now. As long as she could remember, Zillah had been a distant, powerful figure in her life, her father's life, and in the city government itself. She had picked slaves and concubines for Cain - she was their master, and often a harsh one.

But when Naamah left the house each day to busy herself in the activities in the city, she saw a new side to her mother. A woman brought to her knees and stripped of all pretexts when confronted with the inevitable death of both her children on the same day. Naamah had always felt that her stepmother Adah was more of a mother-figure than her own mother. But now, for the first time, she saw Zillah as just a woman who loved her son.

Stepping outside her home, her slave Maori close behind her, Naamah wondered how long this change in her mother would last. Would her mother go back to being the stern woman she had always known? Would any of the tenderness she displayed now remain?

When Naamah and Maori reached a street running alongside the citadel walls, they joined people scurrying about energetically. Since the angels had come, something had seemed to spark inside the Cainites. They had faced annihilation, and then had been miraculously saved and told they could become something great. 

Eagerly, the Cainites sprang into action, following the angels' orders with pride and purpose. The work gave them a feeling of new meaning - of destiny. And this helped them put aside their grief. Almost all had lost sons and fathers in the battles with the Herabites. But now they felt as if their deaths had not been in vain.

And just as suddenly, it was fashionable to speak reverently of 'the Creator' in Nod. People who had only ever spoken that name accompanied by spittle, now they could be found speaking about the powerful diety in the sky. They had very little to say about Him, because they still knew very little about Him. Those who had heard more were able to speak more intelligently about the Almighty God who had created the world in six days and had rested on the seventh. 

Naamah, who knew by heart every story Cain's wife had told her about God, would have chuckled to hear them try to look knowledgeable about a God they had only just a few days ago taken any interest in. But to her, it was not funny. It seemed wrong.

She and Maori had joined teams of people cleaning the streets of bodies in the first days after the attack. Usually Enoch had joined them. The work had been vile. Dead Cainites were buried respectfully on the downstream side of the island. Herabite bodies were simply thrown into the river to float downstream.

On this particular day, Naamah had determined to visit the tomb of her great great grandmother, Cain's wife. Although small, the tomb was one of the most spectacular edifices on the island. When his wife had died, Cain had ordered that her place of burial would be magnificent. White stone had been mined across the river, and floated over the to the island in order to construct the white sepulchre that Naamah stood in now.

Nearby, a bony old man sat in the fresh earth of new graves. She couldn't see his face, his head was hooded, and he was staring out across the Euphrates river. He was still as a stone. 

Maori stopped, looking at the old man for a moment curiously. 

"Probably mourning a lost son," Naamah said under her breath.

"Or sons," Maori replied, and they turned their attention from the old man to the tomb in front of them.

The Herabites had even desecrated this place. They had known where Cain had lain his beloved to rest. A band of them must have targeted her tomb when landing on the island. No one lived on the downstream edge of the island where the graves were. There could be no other reason that Herabites had come here except to insult Cain as viciously as they could imagine. 

Naamah was horrified as she surveyed the ways the Herabites had desecrated the tomb. Words and symbols had been smeared onto the walls that made her sick. She spared no time though, and immediately began washing the white stones clean again.

Close to an hour later, the horrific markings were almost completely purged from the old woman's tomb. Naamah's back ached. Suddenly, there was a low, strong male voice behind them.

"Here you are."

Naamah and Maori turned to see Azrael and Sariel there. The voice had been tender, the angelic faces were gentle. 

"Your brother is awake, he is asking for you," Azrael addressed Naamah.

Naamah jumped up to race back to the city, but then stopped and looked at the tomb. The work was not yet finished.

"Go, I will finish here," Maori urged her. Naamah thanked her, and followed Azrael back to the city. In her haste and excitement, she didn't realize that Sariel did not return with them.

The old man watched as Sariel remained by the tomb as Azrael and Naamah left. He noticed that the girl was trying to appear casual as she continued with her work in the angel's presence. Sariel at last walked toward the girl as she worked and dropped to his knees beside her. He grasped a cloth and began scrubbing the stone along with her. 

The old man was astonished, but not as surprised as Maori. She scrubbed another moment, and then stopped, turning to the angel, overwhelmed by feelings she could hardly reconcile. 

"My lord!" She said through clenched teeth. "What are you doing?"

"Helping you," was the simple reply.

"Why?" Maori responded in exasperation. 

He put the cloth down calmly and faced her. His eyes bore into hers as he replied.

"Because now I can."

Maori stared at the angel in disbelief for what felt like an eternity. The angel smiled, almost sheepishly.

"I watched you from my own realm, Maori. I helped as much as I could. But I couldn't do much from there to help you here. I'm here now. I can help you now. I can protect you."

Then the tears sprang forth, and Maori collapsed under the weight of Sariel's genuine compassion. No one knew her past, and few would ever know more than a couple vague details of the horrors she had endured in her short life. And to face such gentleness and kindness from an angel? It was too much for her to understand.

The old man was glad he had worn a tattered cloak while visiting his wife's tomb that day, otherwise he would not have been able to hide the mark on his face from them. They had ignored him, but as the angel wrapped the girl in his powerful embrace, the old man smiled as a wicked plot was hatched in his mind. 

Cain suddenly knew how he would wreak his vengeance on the Watchers for what they had done to him. He now knew that Tubal-Cain, his namesake, would recover from his wounds. While Tubal lived, Cain knew he could not give up his throne.