Ham said, wonderingly, “You really believe that there is going to be a flood! We don’t have enough rain, even in the spring, to be any use. If it weren’t for our wells, there would be no oasis “
Shem asked, “Has our father ever made a fool of himself before?”
“No,” Anah replied. “But there’s always a first time.”
Admael the white camel crossed the length of the oasis to where Sandy was imprisoned. It was at the farthest end of the oasis, as far from Noah’s tent in one direction as was Grandfather Lamech’s in the other. Admael did not go up to the tent, but folded himself down on the ground a few yards away, to wait.
Adnachiel the giraffe grazed on some tender leaves, stretching his long, golden neck. High up in the tree, sleeping during the daylight hours, sat Akatriel the owl, his head hunched into his feathers.
Together they waited.
Japheth and Dennys followed Higgaion, who trotted, zigzagging back and forth, from the outlying edges of the oasis to the desert, scenting, shaking his head so that the heightening sun glinted against his curved tusks, scenting. Back and forth. Into the oasis. Onto the desert.
“The sun is high,” Japheth said. “You must find shade, Den.”
Dennys shook his head, stubbornly. His body gleamed with sweat.
Japheth looked at him with concern. “We’re not far from Grandfather Lamech’s tent. Perhaps we’ll find Adnarel there, and we could ask him for help.”
Relieved, Dennys panted, “Fine.” Higgaion was staggering with exhaustion. There had been no sign of Sandy.
Higgaion led the way back to the oasis, his energy renewed now that they had a destination. Japheth was untired, jogging along, breathing easily. Dennys was grateful for his own long legs; without them, he would not have been able to keep up.
As they approached Grandfather Lamech’s groves and could see the dark shadow of his tent, Higgaion trumpeted and quickened his pace, so that Japheth was running., When they reached the tent, the heat seemed to intensify and their shadows were dark and squat. Higgaion paused, pointing with his trunk to light flashing off something hall buried in the sand by the tent flap.
“Adnarel!” Dennys cried. “Oh, Adnarel!”
Japheth bent down and lifted the scarab beetle out of the sand, stroked it gently with one finger, and it seemed to burst from his hand, and Adnarel stood before them, blazing gold.
“Oh, Adnarel.” Dennys cried, “Sandy never came home after he gave Noah the camel! We don’t know what’s happened to him!”
Adnarel bowed gravely, listening, saying nothing.
Japheth said, “I worry that he may not have gone whereever it is of his own free will.”
Adnarel turned to Japheth. “Explain what you are thinking.”
“Since he didn’t follow my father to Grandfather’s tent as he said he would do, then I am afraid that perhaps…” His voice trailed off.
Adnarel’s wings glittered. “You are thinking of Tiglah?”
“It was Anah’s suggestion …”
“No,” Dennys contradicted.
“We know she’s a seductress,” Japheth said.
“No,” Dennys repeated. “Sandy would never have gone off with Tiglah, with Grandfather dying. Never.”
Adnarel nodded. “Of course. He would not have disappeared of his own volition.”
“Then where is he?” Dennys demanded.
Adnarel raised his wings, slowly lowered them. “What are you doing to try to find him?”
Japheth did not know of the visit of Tigiah’s father and brother to Noah’s tenthold. “We are ail searching, but we have found no trace anywhere-“
Adnarel looked at the two young men, eye to eye with Dennys, down for Japheth, small and lean and strong.
Japheth continued: “Sandy cares about Grandfather Lamech. He cares about his brother. It is not in his character to go off at such. a time.”
“Nephilim,” Adnarel said softly.
A ripple of concern rolled across Higgaion’s flanks. Japheth said, “That’s what we were afraid of. But even they couldn’t make him vanish completely, could they?”
“They are masters of illusion,” Adnarel said. “They can make any part of the oasis look like someplace else. They can disguise odors. That is why Higgaion’s scenting was to no avail.”
“But where do you think he is?” Dennys’s voice soared with anxiety.
“I think the nephilim have used human greed. I suspect that some of the less pleasant people of the oasis, perhaps the men of Tigiah’s tent, have taken him and put him in some little-used tent and are asking some kind of ransom for him. They are acquisitive, but they don’t like to work for what they get, and they would be easy to tempt into doing whatever the nephilim want.”
Dennys raised his head as he heard the strong beating of wings, and a pelican plummeted out of the sky, and then Alarid stood beside them. “The nephilim are afraid of the twins.” His wings shook silver.
“But why?” Japheth asked. “The twins are good.”
Adnarel and Alarid touched wing tips. Adnarel said, “The nephilim fear what they do not understand. Did Higgaion go all the way across the oasis with his scenting?”
Japheth nodded.
“To the far end?” Alarid asked.
“Yes.”
“Try once more. This time, go straight across the length of the oasis and concentrate at the farthest point. They will have taken him as far away from Noah’s tents as possible.”
“And they’re not likely to have gone in the direction of Grandfather Lamech’s tent,” Alarid added.
Higgaion’s stringy little tail flicked.
Japheth said, “The sun is high. The Den cannot cross the oasis at full noon without getting the sun sickness again.”
Both seraphim looked at Dennys, already red and sweating. “You are right. The Den will stay here, in Grandfather Lamech’s tent, for the afternoon rest. One of us will stay with him, in case . . .” Adnarel did not finish.
Alarid said, “And we will see to it that he gets to Noah’s tenthold before sundown. Whether you find the Sand or not, you must be home by then.”
Higgaion raised his trunk in an impatient trumpet.
“We’ll go,” Japheth said. He looked up at the seraphim, asking in a low voice, “Are you worried?”
Gravely they acknowledged the question.
In the dark heat of the prison tent, Sandy slept fitfully, dreaming a confusion of meaningless dreams. Tiglah was tying his thongs tightly and shoving a bowl of spoiled meat at him. His nostrils twitched.
It was not Tiglah’s smell. It was not even the smell of rancid goat meat, He opened his eyes and saw only a small dark shadow, felt something soft nudging him. He reached out: his hand and touched something firm and curved. Moved his hand along whatever it was, until his fingers felt a roughness. It was a tusk, broken off at the point. His eyes adjusted to the dim light and he saw that he was touching a mammoth, not Higgaion or Selah, both of whom were sleek and well fed, with polished tusks, but an underfed mammoth with stringy hair, and one tusk broken off just at the point, the other slightly farther up. It was nudging him with the tip of its trunk.
What the mammoth wanted of him he was not sure.
But it was apparent that it meant him no harm, and that its overtures were friendly. Sandy began to stroke the shaggy head, then ran his fingers over the ivory tusks. This little beast had obviously been abused, so it was likely that it came from Tiglah’s tent. He was grateful for the company. Perhaps a mammoth, even a mangy mammoth would be helpful when night came, not so much helpful in the actual escape as in finding Noah’s tenthold.
“Now,” he said to the mammoth, fondling the fan-shaped ears, “if 1 only had a unicorn, then I could get out of here.” He stopped. Then: “Hey. I didn’t think of a unicorn before, because basically I still don’t believe in unicorns.”
Dennys, he remembered, had summoned a unicorn after Tiglah’s father and brother had nearly killed him, dumping him into the garbage pit. It wasn’t easy for Dennys to believe in unicorns either, but when he had to, he did.
It Sandy could believe something as outrageous as that he and Dennys had actually landed in the pre-flood desert, and that they had become so close to Noah’s tenthold, especially Yalith, that they were like family, and if he could believe that he was now petting a mammoth, why should it be hard to believe in a unicorn, even if it was what Dennys called a virtual unicorn? His mother believed in virtual particles, and his mother was a scientist who had won the Nobel Prize for discovering particles so small they were scarcely conceivable even with a wild leap of the imagination.
“What’ll I do?” he asked the mammoth, who responded by cuddling closer to him.
It Sandy left the tent on his own, they would be lying in wait for him—Rofocale, if not Tiglah’s father and brother —and they would not hesitate to kill him. Even night would not provide enough cover, with the brilliance of the stars illuminating the oasis.