CHAPTER ONE
Fire in the Night
I gripped the bars of my cell window hard, as the pitch of the scream, that rang out differently from the other raucous cries in the night, told me that the last of my kindred had fallen prey to the debaucheries of a monster’s will . I would be the last of them to fall prey to the demon Emperor.
My time to meet the same fate as my kinsman would come tomorrow night.
Loud catcalls and jeers of delight sounded out loudly in the night air, a night that held no hope in it for me. I stepped from the bars and sat down on the floor of the cell.
I would be the last of my father’s household to see the light of one more day.
It had been over a year since our capture by the king of Babel, the mighty Nimrod. They had come in the night, with a force that we simply couldn’t hold out against.
The young and old, and all the women had been put to death that night. Only the best fighting men had been spared.
Why Nimrod had spared us and none of the children or even the women of our people had been a mystery at first, only for us to bitterly discover out later. We had been spared in order to provide both an amusement for him as well as a human sacrifice to his false deities.
By day we had been forced to fight as slave warriors in the gladiatorial arenas of Babel, where every manner of bloodsport could be found displayed with unnatural fervor. Many of my kindred had fallen there in the dusty sands of the arena.
Those of us that had remained alive had been the best of the best or at least the lucky ones to have survived or so we had thought anyway. It was then revealed upon the conclusion of the games that Nimrod was going to throw a feast to celebrate the destruction of the proud clan of Shem, as the sons of Shem were more righteous of spirit than the other sons of Noah and had resisted the most against the tyrannical rule of Nimrod over all mankind.
One by one to mark the days of his feast he had slain one of the survivors of the arena wars. The feast he had prepared was also to commemorate his one-year anniversary since succeeding in the morphing over of his physical human form into that of a giant sized aberration of his former self in homage to the corrupted seed of the rephaim, the sons of fallen angels and human women.
Through what manner of sorcery he had welcomed in such a host of darkness as to utterly transform his outward appearance into that of a giant was not well understood and indeed who in their right mind would want to. The days like they had been before the great flood had once more become dark as every atrocity was performed in like manner to the ways of those who had provoked God’s wrathful destruction of the entire earth, less than two centuries before.
Since becoming a giant Nimrod had gained a giant’s unnatural appetites and had embarked upon the gory undertaking of splitting man after man apart with his shaft that had grown in the same measure of form as the rest of his body had. Any righteous God fearing son of Noah was his target, as even now in the night the work continued with the creation of a city unlike any other.
A city that was being built in direct defiance of the Creator of Heaven and Earth. A city with a tower at its center.
A tower that in its conception contained all the secrets of man’s history from the great time before when the flood waters had consumed the face of the earth with water until all but one man’s family had died. I and my kindred were of that man’s lineage through Noah’s son Shem and yet Nimrod also descended from Noah through Noah’s son Ham.
He however had become something else. The people that worked night and day upon the city were of all three sons, but most notably they were of Ham.
Instead of being appalled by Nimrod’s many sorceries the people of the city had worshiped him like he was a god for his achievement of becoming like the giants of old. They knew only full well, though that there was a God in heaven with the power to once more, end all life on earth as He had almost done before.
This was why they worked of one accord upon the city and its great tower both night and day. They knew that their time was short, but the desire to become like gods themselves drove them with reckless zeal to work harder and harder with each day that came.
It was a literal manifest destiny to complete the tower and reach into the heavens and invade the very throne room of the Creator. Upon doing so it was their twisted belief that by forcibly sodomizing the Creator, Himself, that man would gain in like attribute and have access to all the powers of the Creator.
In ode to this belief, night after night, Nimrod practiced upon mankind what he intended to do to his own original Creator. I shook my head in the darkness of my cell as my mind and spirit rejected the blind arrogance of misbelief that was so rampant within this city of fools and demons.
To think that after only a mere hundred and fifty years since the great deluge that had wiped out seven angelic kingdoms and their vassal states all experiencing a golden age of advancement in power and knowledge that those resurgent post-flood remnants of mankind would be so quick to return to the sins that had brought upon the earth its utter ruin was incomprehensible. And yet it was so.
Babel stretched for miles around in every direction and it alone sat as the single most prominent city on earth. With oneness of spirit its freeborn citizens rejected the God of Heaven and refused to step away from their hell fated rebellion against His authority over them.
I knew though that this rebellion would come to a stop. I knew deeply that the Creator would not be mocked by aspects of His own creation without dire consequences following close behind. All of mankind should know that by now, but it was as if most men were blind and only clearly saw the path of their own wants and desires.
No pre-flood giant or angelic father, of far greater stature and power than what Nimrod had attained for himself, had held out against the Creator’s wrath and even so, no upstart of an emperor like Nimrod could hope to achieve even half the effort those in the time before had put forth in order to at first stop God and then when all attempts had failed had simply tried to escape the deluge, only to fail again.
Despite all their great power those giants and angels had failed and even as they had so even this city was doomed to follow in their footsteps. I wouldn’t see that day happen though, but it did give me a measure of peace to know that at some point I and my fallen kinsman would be avenged of what had befallen us in this place.
Tomorrow was the last night of the festival. Tomorrow was also when the great tower would be completed.
The next day Nimrod would invade heaven, but by then I would have met the same dishonored fate as all my other kinsman had.
“No, Alon. You will not.”
My head came up so sharply in the dark that it smacked off the stones behind me. In startled fear I gazed about the darkened cell only to dimly pick out the outline of a cloaked individual standing by the door of the cell.
He had the appearance of a man, but he was not a man and as if in answer, he spoke, “I am a messenger sent by the Most High. The Almighty is coming down to view the city. Its iniquity will not stand before Him, for He is righteous. Come now, there is not much time.”
His hand waved and the barred door of the cell seemed to open of its own accord. Dry mouthed I stumbled up to my feet.
Shaking uncontrollably, I approached. The angelic messenger turned and passed through the doorway and I followed in a daze after him.
The guards, what about the guards?
They were asleep!
Every one of them snored loudly at their positions. Shaking even more I followed the personage of the angel that faintly glowed out into the night air until we came to be beyond the confines of the arena grounds.
Even in the dark of night I could see by the cast-off lights of the city that clouds of turbulence were beginning to form overhead. The Almighty, Himself, was coming down!
I would be consumed alive!
In terror I started to fall to my knees.
The grip of the messenger’s hand was strong upon my shoulder, “No, righteous son of Shem it will not be so. This night will see the end of this fallen city’s purpose that is true, but not that of mankind. Too long has the communication been open to both change and challenge what the Creator has purposed for man. After this night you will but meet one man that will understand your tongue and he in return yours. Together you must form an alliance for the world of men will be fractured apart and no man will understand his neighbor and the tampering of the flesh with that of both angels and beast alike will be forbidden even as the means of manipulation will be silenced until the time of the end, but that is a very long time from now. This man’s daughters will be wives for your sons, and his sons will be husbands to your daughters. Go Alon, head away from this place and go by the way of the Great Sea to a faraway land, a land beyond the setting sun. Everything you have need of will be provided. Keep the ways of the Creator and worship no false graven image, or profane your flesh and spirit as the people of this place have. Call upon your Creator and He will hear you and make a way for you. Go now for He is driving all of mankind out upon the face of the earth this very night.”
Unsteadily I backed away from the messenger, only to see him rise up in the air and become part of another group that numbered into a great many. Fire was beginning to show in the sky and crying out I turned and ran in fear for my life.
I, Alon, the last one of my clan and the champion of over fifty fights of personal combat ran as hard as all my being would allow. Streetscapes were a blur as I ran down them at breakneck speed and then the cooler air of the forest struck me, but I did not stop running.
A shockwave of overwhelming power ripped through the ground and caused me to stumble. I fell head over heels and with great gasping heaves for air I took in for a moment the sound of an uproar of discordant sounding voices from the city behind me.
The sound was utterly terrifying. I could still see the great city, but the voices raised in fearful consternation were strange to my ears.
It was even as the angel had said it would be. Of an even firmer belief now in the Ancient of all Days I got to my feet and continued to flee for my life into the night.