The shining angel flashed a wicked smile. “Since you are the aggressor, I invite your first volley.”
Shachar lunged at him, her teeth bared and her nostrils flaming. Samyaza dipped under her jets and latched on to her tail as she passed over. With a mighty spin, he slung her in the direction of the sword. The dragon crashed to the ground and slid next to the hilt. As she lifted her wobbly head, her eyes seemed glazed and distant.
Samyaza zoomed to her side and grabbed the sword. With a dramatic thrust, he plunged the blade into the dragon’s underbelly. Shachar let out an ear-piercing shriek and writhed in the grass. “Coward!” she screamed. “Deceiver!” She spat out a weak ball of fire, but it rolled past the towering Seraph as he backed away.
When the dragon’s throes settled down, Samyaza grasped the hilt of the sword and withdrew it from her body, jumping away from a gush of fluids. He glared at the bloody blade and dropped it to the ground. “Disgusting creatures!” With a flap of his wings, he lifted into the air and disappeared in the blanket of clouds.
Shachar opened her mouth as if trying to speak. She twitched for a moment, then heaved a final sigh as her eyes slowly closed.
Lilith and Naamah ran toward the dragon. Lilith snatched up the sword and wiped the blade on the grass. “Samyaza might not be able to use this,” she said, turning the blade over to clean the other side, “but if I can find the secret behind its flame, it could be a powerful weapon indeed.”
She propped the blade on her shoulder and strode through the gateway, now unattended by angel or dragon. Naamah followed, gazing at the devastated garden. Knotted trees with bent crowns and twisted branches plagued the endless fields of dry grass. On one squared-off plot, leggy bushes hunkered over a tangled mess of tall weeds and thorny vines. Hundreds of thistles raised bristly heads among row after row of dwarfed fruit trees and shriveled vegetables. Naamah let out a low whistle. This was no paradise, no land of perfection, despite the claims of her childhood songs.
Lilith tramped down to the bottom of the hole where the tree once stood. She stooped, pinching a sample of soil and drawing it close to her eyes. “Not a trace. Not a root or seed anywhere.”
Naamah noticed a glinting speck in the dirt. “Here’s something!” She plucked out a smooth white pebble, barely as large as her fingertip, and handed it to Lilith. “Could this be a seed?” she asked. “It looks like a pearl.”
“It could be.” Lilith knelt where Naamah found the pebble and used her finger to stir the soil, a mixture of moist brown dirt and a strange white paste. “Here are two more.” She collected them and slid all three into her pocket. “We’ll keep them for posterity.”
“Posterity?”
“Future generations. I don’t know how long it takes to grow a Tree of Life, but I intend to find out.”
Lilith gazed toward a path that led into a stand of skinny oaks. “The other tree should be in that direction,” she said, pointing.
As she headed toward the wood, she swiped Samyaza’s sword in front of her as if fending off an invisible enemy or perhaps testing its weight and balance. Naamah had to jog to keep pace with her sister. Lilith’s stern expression told her it wasn’t a good time to ask questions, so she just stayed at her side, taking in the sights of loss and waste in the massive garden.
After following the path through the trees, they arrived at a glade. In the center of a circle of grass, a tree, heavy with red, oblong fruit, stood tall and lush. Lilith strode right up to the nearest branch and called out, “Lucifer, my lord and master, I bring you vital information.”
A fresh breeze flapped Lilith’s dress as she stood in stoic silence, the tip of the sword touching the ground in front of her. The wind crawled up Naamah’s legs, bringing her a chill. The pain in her stomach had settled, but a new queasiness took over. Something foul drew near, worse than a fetid carcass. Whatever it was seemed to seep through her skin and into her heart, making it slow to a few, sickening thumps.
Soon, a gentle hissing joined the shush of the wind. A long, thick snake slithered out onto the branch and rested its head near a bobbing fruit. Lilith extended her arm and pushed her hand under the serpent’s belly. Bearing scales like sun-baked leather, black hexagons meshed with olive green, the snake crept along Lilith’s pale arm. Its tongue darted in and out from its triangular head as it spoke in a slow, threatening cadence. “If you have come to tell me about Naamah’s customer, you have come in vain. While I am in this cursed condition, my disciples sneak in through the garden’s western gate. One of my agents overheard your conversation and reported the news about this boat builder.”
“So that’s what we heard in the bushes,” Lilith said. “It was a spy.”
The snake flicked its tongue, touching her cheek with its forked points. “I send spies on my enemies and my followers, especially followers as ambitious as you.”
As the snake wrapped a coil around Lilith’s neck, she lifted her chin and swallowed hard. “And how shall we use the information, my lord?”
The snake maneuvered its head in front of Lilith’s eyes, wavering back and forth in a hypnotic sway. “I sent my agent to speak to my servant, Lamech, son of Mathushael. I have ordered Lamech to adopt Naamah into his family. Naamah’s new brother, Tubalcain, knows Ham and will offer her to be Ham’s wife.”
“His wife?” Naamah said, crossing her arms over her chest. “Ham is a regular customer, but that doesn’t mean I want him for a husband!”
The serpent’s head shot toward Naamah, its fangs extended as it bit the empty air just inches in front of her eyes. Naamah staggered backwards, catching one of the tree’s branches to keep her balance. Recoiling over Lilith’s shoulders, the serpent hissed, “Either marry him or die!”
Naamah shivered in the tree’s shadow, holding her stomach again as the fierce pain stabbed her insides.
The serpent turned its flaming red eyes back to Lilith. “Ham’s father will recognize your name, so you must change it before you meet him. We cannot allow him to know who and what you are.”
“Of course, my lord.” Lilith kept her head tilted upward. “Do you have a preference?”
“Choose whatever pleases you. I will arrange things to make your new name work.”
Lilith smiled. “As you wish, my master.”
The serpent’s tongue flicked again. “I have news about the sword.”
Lilith lifted the blade. “The secret to its flames?”
“Yes. The sword is designed to detect the nature of the hands that grasp it. The flames shoot from the blade only if the hands are innocent and undefiled. Of course, the Cherub who guarded the Tree of Life was holy, so he was able to use the blade’s protective shield over the tree.”
Lilith ran a finger along the blade. “And Samyaza’s hands have been deemed corrupt.” She gazed at the grip, wiggling her fingers around it. “Can the sword be fooled into thinking it is being held by holy hands?”
“Perhaps. It has no thinking process of its own. It merely responds to how it was forged.”
Lilith studied the etchings in the blade’s silvery metal. “Who are the two dragons doing battle in the design?”
“I am one of them, and I struggle with a dragon who is to come, a warrior who will fight with me to become king of the dragons. Michael etched that symbol when he gave the sword to Samyaza and commissioned him to find and protect the holy dragon who would come to try to conquer me.”
“I see,” Lilith said, nodding. “So this king must have holy hands in order to defeat you.”
“Yes. But since this usurper could be a human representative for the dragons, our goal is to corrupt every family line, whether dragon or human, with the seed of the fallen ones. But, beware. Elohim has already hatched a plan to thwart ours. I know little more than a code phrase one of my disciples overheard ‘oracles of fire.’”