chapter 18
THE NEW TOWER
Ashley groaned and held on tightly to Karen. Compared to riding Thigocia, flying aboard Roxil was like careening around the hairpin turns on a malfunctioning rollercoaster. The younger dragon’s inexperience promised a meal-losing adventure. With every gust of wind, she corrected her angle without regard for her passengers, giving them hair-raising dips and swings through the misty skies. The three riders could barely speak during their ordeal, choosing instead to pray for calmer winds and settled stomachs.
After a half hour of low swoops to check for Walter’s marks and quick upswings to search on a wider plane, Sapphira pointed at the road far in the distance. “Ashley! I see them! I see Walter and Gabriel!”
Ashley glanced at the two young men. Even though they looked tiny from so far away, the sight brought a surge of joy. “Thank God!”
Karen spoke through two fingers pressed over her lips. “Thank God is right!”
“I’ll let them know we’re coming!” Roxil spewed a blast of fire and zoomed to the ground, pulling up sharply to land between Walter and Gabriel. Not bothering to wait for Roxil to make a neck stairway, Karen slid down the dragon’s side, deftly avoiding her wing. She staggered toward the guardhouse and leaned against the wall, her fingers still pressed against her lips. Suddenly, her eyes bulged, and she jumped back, pointing at the broken window, “Who’s that man? He looks dead!”
“He is dead.” Walter reached up to help Sapphira and Ashley as they negotiated Roxil’s sloping neck. “He’s a power company guard, and I’m wearing his coat. I think a Naphil strangled him.”
“Is the Naphil here?” Sapphira asked. “Is it Chazaq?”
Walter took the shoulder bag from Sapphira and pointed past a mangled fence. “The Naphil’s in there. It’s not Chazaq, but you’ll never guess who else we saw.”
Sapphira’s eyes brightened. “Mardon?”
“Well … yeah. I guess it wasn’t so hard to figure out.”
Walter and Gabriel took turns as they told the story of what they saw inside the power plant. Gabriel provided a glowing account of Walter’s bravery as he climbed up to the generator and tried to play the role of lumberjack, but Walter elbowed Gabriel’s ribs and said he was exaggerating. When Walter concluded with a description of Mardon’s power grid and his mention of the tower, Sapphira turned pale.
“What’s wrong?” Gabriel asked.
“He’s really doing it.” Sapphira cupped her hands as if molding clay and formed a miniature tower of fire between her palms. “He’s building a tower to Heaven just like his father tried to do.”
“But it didn’t work.” Ashley gazed at Sapphira’s tower. Her eyes followed the fiery spin. “How could anyone believe in building any kind of structure that could reach Heaven? It’s impossible.”
“But since that time,” Sapphira countered, “Mardon has learned about inter-dimensional travel. He knows that an energy vortex can break through the barriers. Maybe he thinks this power grid will create a cross-dimensional tower that can actually reach to Heaven.”
Gabriel twirled his finger. “But doesn’t it have to spin?”
“True,” Sapphira said. “I’m not sure how he’s planning to do that.”
Ashley leaned against Walter and stroked her chin. “Since these giants have already been, in essence, magnetized in an antigravity environment, given enough electromotive force, he could use them as a giant magneto, but he already has all the current he needs, so he could also be making an enormous electromagnet.”
“What good would that do him?” Walter asked.
“I couldn’t explain it unless you’re familiar with quantum mechanics and gravity theory.” Ashley straightened and moved her hands in a wide circle as if she were rubbing a huge ball. “He could be creating a massive gravitational black hole that wouldn’t just break through the dimensional barrier; it would eliminate it and draw the two dimensions into one.” She finished with a clap of her hands.
“That explains a lot,” Sapphira said. “If Roxil, Gabriel, and Mardon all have their bodies back, the same bodies they had while in Hades …”
“More than a lot.” Ashley pointed at Sapphira. “It explains everything! The giants have already combined Hades and our world! The first step was to bring Mardon back, and that worked, so now …” She tilted her head upward. “Heaven’s next.”
Walter pulled out his sword. “So that’s why Excalibur doesn’t work. Billy told me it gave him trouble while he was in Hades. I’d try again with the blade, but after you stick a screwdriver into an electrical outlet and fry your fingers, it’s pretty stupid to stick it right back in.”
“Dragons have knocked the tower down before,” Sapphira said, “maybe they can do it again.”
“I was there.” Roxil shuffled closer. “We did it with a firestorm.”
Sapphira let a brief plume of flames rise from her palm and spun it around. “Could you do it again? Could you make another firestorm?”
“By myself?” Roxil shook her head. “I could torch a giant if he lets me get close enough, but I could never duplicate what we did at Shinar. We had more than a dozen dragons there.”
“But would it work?” Walter asked. “Do we want to risk stirring the pot?”
“Good thinking.” Ashley tapped her finger on her chin. “It might create just the vortex Mardon needs, but I can’t know for sure unless I have data. I need to know the electrical output at every site and the distances between them.”
Walter nodded toward the power plant. “I think the panel displays in the control room show all that.”
“Okay,” she said, looking down the service road, “lead me to it.”
He pulled the handheld computer from the bag and showed it to her. “Would this help?”
“I won’t have time to program it to do the necessary transforms.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I really need Larry, but I’m not sure I can get hold of him, so I might have to do all the calculations in my head.”
“What shall I do?” Roxil asked. “I likely will not be able to follow you.”
Walter put the computer back in the bag. “Give us five minutes, and we’ll be inside. Then fly over the dam and start closing in on the giant. If he sees you and doesn’t do anything about your approach, that might mean he actually wants you to shoot fire and create the vortex.”
“I see,” Roxil said. “Bait the Naphil and hope for a revealing of his purpose.”
Walter opened the front of his coat and tightened his scabbard belt. “If he does fight, I’ll try to give you ground support, maybe distract him somehow.”
“I hope I have not lost my reflexes,” Roxil said as she unfurled her wings. “It has been many centuries since I last went to battle.” She lifted up on her haunches and, beating her leathery canopy against the moist breeze, rose into the air.
Walter and Gabriel led the way to the power plant, while Ashley walked between Sapphira and Karen, still weak and dizzy. She refrained from talking, trying to recall her studies on quantum physics and the set of formulae she used for the electromagnets she built for the transluminators in the underground lab.
She shuffled her feet, kicking pebbles along the way. Could she do it? The calculations were so intensive, she had relied on computers to sort it out, though she did have to write the programs in the first place. Obviously she had the knowledge, but was that all she needed? Could her intelligence be the second widow’s mite, the latter of the two gifts she should blend with faith and offer to God? She pulled the other penny from her pocket and held it tightly in her hand, her uninjured hand. There was only one way to find out.
Walter led them down to the spillway level and through a wide corridor. “If we go in there,” he said, pointing at the hole the giant had ripped in the wall, “we’ll find Mister Ugly in the turbine room perched on top of the generator, but this hall to the right should keep him from seeing us.”
They walked down a dim corridor and entered a large office where flashing monitors greeted their eyes. Walter pointed at a display on one of the head-high rectangular boxes. “That’s the power grid readout.” He turned and touched the shorter desklike control panel that faced the monitors. “I think Mardon used these gizmos to control it.”
Ashley gazed at the panel, then, alternately looking at the controls and the display, began making slight adjustments to the dials. “I can change the categories of data and the scales,” she said, “but I don’t see anything that actually controls the power.”
“Yeah,” Walter said, “that’s what Mardon told us.”
“But the different screens could give me all the data I need to figure out what’s going on.” Ashley nodded at the bag on Walter’s shoulder. “Could you dig out the bricks and the photometer? I want to see what kind of energy they produce. Mardon’s older technology might give me clues about his new stuff.”
“Sure thing.” He placed the seven bricks at Ashley’s feet and set the photometer on the control desk. “Anything else?”
“Sapphira,” Ashley said, “can you set them in a line and turn them on when I need them?”
“Glad to.” Sapphira picked one up and depressed a button on its side. The brick let out a low hum, and a diode on one end emitted a thin blue light.
Ashley read the beam with her photometer. “Hmmm. Visible seems normal, but there are other frequencies to check.” She did the same for the second brick and memorized its photometer readout.
“Want me to find a pencil and paper?” Gabriel asked.
Ashley raised a finger to her lips. “Shhh! I have to do it all in my head.”
Walter leaned close to Gabriel and whispered. “You stay with Ashley. I’m going to peek outside and see if Roxil’s out there yet. It’s been almost five minutes.”
“Sounds cool. Sapphira and I can handle Mardon if he shows up.”
Karen grabbed Walter’s arm. “Can I come with you?”
Walter glanced over his back at Excalibur’s hilt. “Give me a minute to make sure the coast is clear.”
When he left the room, Sapphira picked up the next brick in line and pressed its power switch. “This one’s ready.”
“Thanks.” Ashley managed a weak smile. “Can you hold them up while I analyze the beams? I’m feeling kind of puny right now.”
Ashley read the data, then looked up at the ceiling. “Okay, the gamma readout makes sense, but when I plug it into the formula …” She grabbed a fistful of hair with her wounded hand and pulled it hard. “There’s a constant missing in the formula. What is it?”
Sapphira held the brick with the red diode close to the photometer. “You can’t do this alone, Ashley.”
She released her hair, leaving a bloody smear. “I couldn’t reach Larry. I already tried.”
“I don’t mean Larry.” Sapphira’s eyes once again blazed. “I think you know exactly what I mean.”
Ashley looked up at her and stared. “If you mean have faith, that’s what I’m trying to do.”
“I know you’re trying.” Sapphira laid a hand on Ashley’s cheek. A ripple of fire rode along Sapphira’s forearm and crept into her hand. “You have been trying all your life.”
Ashley closed her eyes. Heavenly warmth radiated into her cheek and flowed throughout her body, loosening her muscles and draining her tension.
“Relax, Ashley, and let Jehovah work through you. Faith asks that you let his power flow, not your anxiety, not your fears, and not your sweat. His power.”
Ashley took a deep breath and opened her eyes. “Thank you. I think I understand.”
“Psst!” Gabriel waved at Sapphira. “We have company!”
Ashley and Sapphira swung around. A man wearing an old tunic walked into the control room, his hands behind him. “Well, well,” he said, smiling, “this is a surprise indeed!” He bowed toward Sapphira. “I never thought I’d see you again, Mara, but I must say, I am truly delighted. Your extremely long life is a grand tribute to our success in genetic technology.” He drew near and extended his hand toward her head. “If I may, I would like to see if”
Sapphira swatted his hand away. “You may not see anything, Mardon.”
Gabriel stepped in front of Sapphira and pushed Mardon away.
Mardon’s sandals slipped on the tiled floor, but he backpedaled quickly and regained his balance. As he bent over to adjust his sandal, he laughed nervously. “The winged boy is chivalrous, Mara, but I only meant to check your scalp for deterioration. Our quest for knowledge is never over.”
Sapphira’s voice sharpened. “I am Sapphira Adi, a daughter of Jehovah. I am not your science experiment anymore.”
Mardon held up his hands. “Very well. I meant no harm. But if you are a daughter of Jehovah, as you call him, you should welcome my pursuits. We will see your father face-to-face very soon.”
“We figured out what you’re up to,” Sapphira said, “and it’s crazy. Do you think Jehovah can’t stop you?”
“Stop me?” Mardon chuckled. “God has long wanted to fellowship with man, but my father and I failed to bring God and man together in Shinar because we insulted him by assuming that a physical tower could reach to his glory. Now that I have identified the dimensional barrier separating us, I am eliminating it. Far from stopping me, this is exactly what he wants.”
Ashley read the photometer as she scanned the final brick. “If God wanted that to happen, he would have broken down the barrier himself.”
“Nonsense,” Mardon replied. “Elohim uses men to carry out his work. He called a man, Jesus, to break down the spiritual barrier, and now he has called another man, me, to break down the final, physical barrier.” He peered at Ashley’s work. “What are you doing with my bricks?”
She scowled at him and shoved the brick to the side. “A science experiment.”
“The bricks are worthless now,” Mardon said, wagging his finger at them. “They have no power over the Nephilim.”
Ashley waved the photometer at him. “They told me what you’re up to. All that radiation and magnetism over the years turned your giants into power generators. They are capable of making a gravity void that can rip the dimensional boundary.”
“Quite right, and due to my genetic engineering, they are immune to the electrical charges as well as weapons like Excalibur. When the grid is fully maximized, Heaven and Earth will be joined in one dimension, and I will ascend my new stairway to God’s kingdom.”
Sapphira stalked toward him. Flames mixed in with her snowy hair, making her look like a walking torch. “And you’ll get struck dead for your arrogance.” She pressed her finger into his chest. “Then God will flick you back to Hades with his fingertip. Everything you’ve done will be destroyed.”
Ashley pointed the photometer at Sapphira and shifted the dial through the different wavelengths, mentally noting every readout. The numbers looked familiar, very familiar. Shuffling the new data through her mind, she combined them with the readings from the bricks, crunching numbers madly until it felt like her brain was about to explode. Suddenly, everything clicked—the bricks, Sapphira’s flames, Mardon’s numerical code in the scroll—it all made sense.
“Death no longer has any power,” Mardon said. “I have already united Hades and Earth. The dead are now alive again and spreading across the globe.” Mardon pushed her away with a condescending tsk, tsk. “How little you understand. The first covenant was one of laws, which people could not obey because of their blindness. They could not see Elohim, so they had no concept of the Lawgiver. Jesus brought the second covenant, one that opened the spiritual eyes of those who believed. But even Jesus said that few people can find it. The path he provided is invisible, and billions are lost because they cannot clearly see the way.”
While Mardon railed on, Ashley noticed Karen edging toward the door.
“My tower, on the other hand, creates a new path, a third covenant, allowing people to see Elohim with their own eyes. Now the entire world will know and understand when they behold his majesty. Surely the salvation I bring will gladden Elohim’s heart as we inaugurate a covenant of full revelation. He will usher me to his side as he did Jesus, the author of the second covenant.”
“You’re mad!” Sapphira shouted. “God wants people to seek him by faith, and you’re shredding the only veil that makes faith possible!”
“It’s worse than madness,” Ashley said, glancing at Karen as she cracked the door open. “If the gravity vacuum causes a lunar shift or even a change in Earth’s orbit around the sun, millions or even billions of lives could be lost.”
Mardon shook his head. “I have already proven the opposite. When I brought Hades and Earth together, far from killing billions, I brought people back to the world of the living.”
“How did you do that?” Sapphira asked. “You had no tower.”
He pointed at Sapphira. “I used you. Every time you crossed between Earth and Hades, you created a small void between the dimensions. Left alone, it would have dissipated, but I created a permanent link, an inter-dimensional rope that pulled the living and the dead closer together every time a void appeared.”
Sapphira raised a hand to her cheek. “I caused the problem?”
“Unwittingly, of course, but, indeed, the merging of two dimensions was fueled by your actions.”
Throwing the door open, Karen ran outside. Her cries for Walter died away as the door closed again.
Mardon stalked toward the exit. “I believe I will check on my giant. Chazaq will be here soon to join him for the final step.”
“I’d better follow him,” Gabriel said, flapping his wings as he scooted across the floor.
When Ashley and Sapphira were alone, Ashley opened her hands and showed her palms to Sapphira. Each had a deep, bloody wound the size of her pennies, both with copper-colored smears encircling them.
“What does it mean?” Sapphira asked.
Ashley’s lips trembled. “It means I gave up my intelligence.”
“You did what?”
“I figured out how we might be able to stop Mardon.” Ashley shook her head slowly. “But my brain choked so hard, it doesn’t work anymore, like my intelligence drained away.”
Sapphira took Ashley’s hands and clasped them inside her own. “You’re just exhausted. After healing Roxil and making all those calculations, you really are drained.” She caressed the gemstone in Ashley’s ring with her thumb. The gem’s color had paled to a pearly white rather than its normal deep red.
“Ashley,” Sapphira said shakily as she released her hands. “Look at your rubellite.”
Ashley gave her a weak smile. “I know. I kind of thought that might happen.” She displayed her palms again. “I gave my widow’s mites to God, and my dragon powers are gone.”
Karen spotted Walter in a huge open area and dashed toward him. “Mardon spilled his guts!” she called. “We know what’s going on now!”
“If you can tell me in about five seconds, do it.” He pulled out Excalibur and pointed it at the drizzling sky. “Roxil’s coming, and I might have to help her.”
Karen spoke rapid-fire. “He’s making a gravity vacuum that’ll destroy the barrier between Earth and Heaven so he can become some kind of messiah. Ashley says if we don’t stop him, he might kill billions.”
Walter glanced at the door to the control room. “Here comes Dr. Delusional now.” He took Karen’s hand and hid behind a concrete pillar. “Stay here. So far Roxil’s just been stalking from the clouds. I saw her peeking out to check on the giant, but she hasn’t had a chance to see if he’s going to take the bait.”
Mardon scuttled back toward the wall the giant had punctured to get into the turbine room. He stood in the opening, glancing between the turbine and the exit, apparently waiting for someone.
Karen brushed her dampening hair back from her eyes. “Maybe Roxil’s more scared than she was letting on. Remember she was worried about facing the giant alone.”
“You’re right. I’ll go ahead and try to distract Mr. Ugly, and maybe she’ll be able to get closer.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Work on his ego. I’m betting that he can’t resist a challenge.” He waved toward the control room door. “Look. It’s Gabriel. He’ll watch over you.”
“Wait! I heard Mardon say that those magnetic bricks made the giants immune to the electrical charge.” She pointed at herself with her thumb. “Maybe I’m immune, too. Why don’t you let me climb up there and whack his legs off?”
“But they were in those chambers for years and years. You were there for what? Two hours at the most?”
“Maybe, but”
“The answer is no!” Walter grasped her arm tightly. “You got it?”
Karen firmed her lips and nodded. What else could she do? As long as Walter was in charge, there wasn’t much choice. Besides, he’d proven himself so many times and against such impossible odds, he could do it again, couldn’t he?
Gabriel arrived, breathless. “What’s going on?”
Walter guided Karen toward Gabriel. “Keep her safe, okay?”
“You got it!” Gabriel spread a wing over Karen’s shoulders. “By the way, Mardon said Chazaq’s coming.”
Walter rolled his eyes. “Great! Just what we needed.”
While Walter stalked away, Karen eyed Mardon until he ducked through the opening to the turbine room’s antechamber. When he disappeared from sight, she turned her attention back to Walter. He marched out into the middle of the open-air room and shouted. “Hey, Mr. Giant!”
The Naphil glared at him, his red eyebeams landing on Walter’s chest. “What do you want, little man?”
“I want to issue a challenge.”
Karen caught a glimpse of Roxil out of the corner of her eye, just her head peeking out of the clouds. She had circled behind the giant. Would she close in now that Walter had his attention?
The giant laughed. “How could a runt like you possibly challenge me?”
“Well, not a challenge to you directly. I heard that Chazaq is your commander and that he’s coming here.”
“He is my commander, and I expected his arrival.” The shafts of light emanating from the Naphil’s fingers grew slowly brighter. “So what?”
“If I can defeat him in one-on-one combat, will you surrender?”
“My surrender would be quite a prize for you. What could you possibly give me that is of equal value if you lose?”
“I’ll be dead, and Excalibur will be yours.” Walter spread out his arms. “What else could you want?”
The red eyebeams swept across the floor and landed on Karen.
“No!” Walter’s face flushed bright red. “No deal!”
Gabriel planted his feet in front of Karen. “Over my dead body!” He pulled a dagger from his belt and held it high.
“And over my dead body, too.” Walter lifted his sword. “She is not a bargaining chip.”
“She is my choice, and Chazaq is now here to trample over your dead bodies.”
Walter spun toward the sound of stomping feet. Chazaq hunched as he walked through the anteroom’s punctured wall, but when he came out into the open area, he straightened to his full height and marched closer.
Mardon had to step quickly to stay at his side, his head only as high as Chazaq’s elbows. “What are you two talking about?” Mardon asked.
“Nothing of consequence,” the other giant said. He aimed his eyebeams at Walter. “The boy is a nuisance. I suggest that Chazaq dispose of him immediately.”
“With pleasure.” Mardon nodded toward Walter. “Chazaq, break him in half and bring the sword to me.”
Gabriel stepped in front of Chazaq. “You’ll have to go through me first.” Beating his wings, he jumped high and swiped at Chazaq’s face with his dagger but missed. The giant swung a fist. Gabriel darted back just in time, then struck again, this time plunging the dagger into Chazaq’s eye. The giant roared and smacked Gabriel with the back of his hand, sending him flying toward Karen.
Karen tried to catch him, but his body flew by too quickly. Gabriel crashed into the pillar and sprawled around it.
Chazaq yanked out the dagger and threw it to the ground. With a hand covering his eye, he stalked toward Gabriel, screaming, “I will crush every bone in his body!”
“No!” Mardon shouted. “He is harmless now. Get the sword!”
Chazaq veered away from Gabriel and marched again toward Walter.
“Gabriel!” Karen knelt at his side, trembling as she pulled him away from the pillar. “Are you all right?”
He didn’t answer. She laid a hand on his cold cheek and pressed a finger against his throat. “Come on! Give me a pulse!”