Your maker failed to teach.
For wisdom comes when laws of old
Are swept like spiders’ webs,
And minds like yours discover truth
In life’s new flows and ebbs.
For how can wisdom’s laws be true
When taught from books to squires?
Experience stands as wisdom’s tool
To guide you through the mire.
O let me in to teach you songs
That come from heaven’s lights.
You’ll never fail to conquer foes
And rule o’er kings and knights.
For man corrupts and soils his own;
The world will die again.
His lust for blood and gold and flesh
Destroys what dragons mend.
Makaidos clenched his eyes shut and pawed at the streaming mist. “Do not listen! It sings foul words!”
“Too late. I heard every syllable.”
“Then do not heed them!”
“I knew that much! But how do we get rid of the mist? It is blinding me!”
“Close your eyes!” Makaidos shot a blast of hot gasses in the direction of Thigocia’s voice. “Can you see now?”
“Yes! Your turn!”
Makaidos kept his eyes closed while hot air, smelling of burning sulfur, bathed his face. His vision cleared, and a wisp of black fog brushed by his ear, singing one last phrase before streaming toward the sea. “I will be back for your son.”
Makaidos blasted a flood of fire at the retreating blackness, but it was too late. The fog danced over the water and disappeared like evaporating mist. “If you dare come back,” the dragon bellowed, “I will melt your songs into screams of agony!” He turned to Thigocia. “Any harm done?”
“No. No song could ever turn my heart from the Maker.”
“Did you hear anything else, I mean, after the song?”
“No. Only the song.” Thigocia nudged Makaidos’s wing and snuggled under it. “What did you hear?”
Makaidos glared at the island’s shore. “Just a bully’s taunt. Malicious words are just noises in the wind.” He extended his wing over Thigocia’s body and stroked her flank. “With our danger sense getting strong again, we will be alerted if the mist tries to return.”
Thigocia rubbed her cheek against Makaidos’s neck. “You need not tell me about the taunt, if that is your wish, but I am curious.”
“I wish not to tell. Too much information can be dangerous.”
“Is the truth ever dangerous?” Thigocia asked, stretching to look into her mate’s eyes. “Even too much of it?”
Makaidos avoided eye contact. “If it is more than our hearts and minds can manage, yes.”
“I will remember that. Too much information can be too taxing on our brains.” Thigocia turned her ears outward. “The mist sounded like many voices. Do you have any idea who they were?”
“Yes. Although they drowned in the flood, their evil spirits must have somehow survived.”
“The Nephilim?”
Makaidos shifted his body toward the ark. “I have to warn Noah.” He stretched out his wings and tried to lift off the ground, but they faltered and fell limply to his flanks. He sighed and raised his brow. “It seems that my strength won’t fully return until we build our regeneracy domes. Will you walk with me?”
She shuffled to his side and nudged his ribs with her snout. “As if you could stop me.”
Ham pushed the tent flap open and ducked inside. A single candle burned near his father’s mat, barely enough light to see two elongated lumps on the opposite side of the tent. “I think I know where it might be,” he whispered.
Shhh!” Naamah warned, following him. “Just take it and leave.”
As Ham’s eyes adjusted, he could distinguish the shapes of his father and mother sleeping peacefully, their arms interlocked. He stopped suddenly, then stepped back. “He’s. . he’s uncovered.”
Naamah laid a hand on his back. “What did you expect? The wine was strong.”
Gazing at Noah, Ham smirked. “The great man of God, drunk and naked. Now who’s bringing shame to the family?”
Naamah pushed him forward. “Just take it.”
Ham skulked to his father’s side and fumbled through the clothes that lay on the ground. Ah! Chereb! He picked it up, but his father’s robe came along with it. He pulled at the knot that tied the sword to the robe. “It’s stuck!” he hissed.
Noah stirred, his eyes blinking. Ham froze and waited for his father to settle, hoping his drunken eyes wouldn’t see clearly. When he seemed to rest quietly again, Ham tiptoed back to Naamah with the robe. “I can’t unfasten it.”
“Just bring it all!”
Ham and Naamah slipped out of the tent, but just as they turned toward their own tent, Shem and Japheth hailed them from a distance. Ham held the robe and sword behind his back while Naamah clawed at the knot. Just as Ham’s brothers drew near, Naamah whispered, “I have it. I’ll hide it under my robe.”
Shem nodded a greeting. “Visiting Father?”
“Yes.” Ham shifted his weight and glanced back at Noah’s tent. “He seemed ill when he retired, so I thought I’d check on him.”
“Just some bad wine,” Japheth said, laughing. “He’ll feel better in the morning.”
Shem glanced around Ham’s side. “What are you hiding back there?”
Ham pulled Noah’s robe around. “I went into the tent, and Father was. . well. . uncovered.”
“So you took his clothes?” Japheth snatched the robe away. “What are you up to?”
“Well, I was just. .” Ham crossed his arms over his chest. “It’s none of your business.”
Shem grabbed Ham by the throat. “You’ve humiliated father for the last time!”
Ham caught Shem’s wrists and wrestled his hands away. “I didn’t go in there to shame him!” he said, pushing Shem back. “He was already uncovered when I went in.”
Japheth shook the robe at him. “Then why did you take this?”
“Naamah was cold.” Ham turned, but Shem took a fistful of his sleeve and spun him back around. Ham scowled at him. “What now?”
Japheth laid a hand on Shem’s wrist. “Let him go. Father will deal with him later.”
Shem jerked his hand back and raised his finger near Ham’s nose. “Father told me that anyone who brings corruption back to this earth will be under God’s curse. If you are the corrupter, Father will have no choice but to pronounce the curse on you and your descendants.”
Ham turned again and stalked away. “Come, Naamah.” Refusing the temptation to look back, he strode through a pasture and crested a low hill next to Noah’s vineyard, his wife hustling to stay at his side. When he was sure they were out of earshot, he stopped and turned to her. “Where is it?”
Naamah clutched a fold at the front of her robe. “Right here.”
Ham peered over Naamah’s shoulder at Shem and Japheth as they approached Noah’s tent. His brothers had draped Noah’s robe over their shoulders, and they were walking backwards into the tent’s opening. Ham shook his head. “The fools! They still believe in that old tyrant.”
Naamah touched his arm. “Don’t worry about them. They don’t know what we really did.”
“They’ll know soon enough. When Father wakes up, they’re sure to tell him that I had his robe, and he’ll figure out that I took Chereb.”
“Then you must leave before the wine wears off.” She pulled the sword from her robe and laid it in his hands. “I’ll follow with Canaan and our belongings later.”
“You heard what Shem said. If Canaan is here, and I’m not, Father might curse him in my place.”
“I will soothe your father’s anger.” She stood on tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. “Now go.”
Ham folded his robe around the sword. “We will meet at the third hill past the dark forest. Do you remember the glade next to the river?”
“Yes, of course. Look for me there at sunset on the third day.”
Ham nodded and hurried through the vineyard.
With Shem and Japheth standing at the entry, Noah paced back and forth inside his tent, his hands behind his back. Shem pushed open the flap. “She’s here,” he said.
Naamah walked in, carrying her sleeping one-year-old in a blanket, her eyes darting all around. With the bundle almost too big for the petite woman to manage, she briefly dipped one knee and nodded. “What may I do for you, my masters?”