The Descent of the Gods

Slander

"How can I be who he wants me to be?" Enoch heard Naamah say as they both watched the army leave the city.

"You already are," Enoch replied. "And I think Azrael knows that more than most."

"What do you mean? I'm trembling at the very thought! Tubal is angry, I know it. He was meant to lead our people, not some... some girl!" She replied, spitting out the final word as if it were a curse.

"The night I first set eyes on... on Nod," Enoch said slowly. "I saw something that I never thought I would see. In spite of who her world told her she was, a girl stood up against all the might of her people in order to try save them. Your brother didn't see what I saw. If he had, he would know what I know... what Azrael knows - that you would rather face death than to see your people fall. And according to other stories, you would even fight for the dignity of a slave." Enoch nodded in Maori's direction.

"No matter who told you to be quiet, you could not hold back from doing what was right," Enoch said earnestly. "That's who Azrael needs - someone who will not be like Cain. Someone who will do what is right, even when it hurts. Maybe you can't see yourself sitting upon that throne, but I can." 

Enoch couldn't see her face, her hair had fallen forward over her eyes. But he noticed the slight movements of her shoulders, and he knew she was weeping. 

"Are you all right?" He asked. She nodded, but didn't show her face.

"Will you help me?" Her voice wavered as she asked. "I don't know who else I can trust if I'm alone. Please don't leave me too."

Enoch's heart jumped into his throat. He was quiet, looking out over the massive expanse of the Euphrates river that separated him from the shores that would lead to his own village. He longed to return. 

"Bring them here!" Naamah said, reading his mind.

Enoch laughed grimly.

"I guarantee that I'm the only Sethite you will ever see remain willingly within these walls."

"So you will not stay, even to help me?"

"Would you leave your family unprotected here?" Enoch said. When she shook her head, he sighed. "Neither can I leave mine. I've been gone too long already, but the time is drawing near that I return as well. I'm sorry Naamah, I have no obligation to Nod."

She composed herself, straightened her hair, and wiped her red eyes. She stared across the river in the direction that Azrael had left. When she spoke again, her voice was firm.

"I won't be alone." And she left Enoch alone on the wall with the setting sun. The rest of Nod had returned to their evening rituals, but one Cainite had remained nearby. Enoch did not notice the hooded figure approaching him.

"Do you hate me?" 

Enoch turned, surprised by the intrusion, but then even more surprised as the speaker lifted a ragged hood from his old, wrinkled, and marked face. 

Cain - the man who watched as his mother was slain. The man who had hacked his father's limbs to lifeless bits. Cain stood there, looking small and fragile, very unlike the memory seared into Enoch's mind from when he was a child.

As much as Enoch tried, he could not reconcile the memory with the dirty old man standing before him now. Cain looked him directly in the eyes. There was still a fire there.

"No," Enoch finally replied, turning away and looking back toward the river, which was now golden in the setting sun. 

Cain joined him in admiring the view, but Enoch noticed his eyes were fixed on the same point Naamah had last looked at - the point where the angels had vanished from sight into the forest.

"Our new gods." Cain stared out over the river. Cain's words angered Enoch. 

"Servants ... Sons of God - not gods. They are called sons because they were made by God. He brought them forth, just as Adam was brought forth by God's own breath," Enoch said vehemently. "We do not worship them!"

"Gods among men nonetheless," Cain said, shrugging. "As was I when the sound of my name made men tremble. But the earth is the realm where all gods fall from grace. What was great is made low, and what was worthy of adoration is ruined past redemption."   

Cain's candor was unnerving. Why had he come?

"What do you want? Why do you tell me these things?" Enoch asked nervously.

"Here, their goodness may not prove eternal." Cain replied.

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you hear Herab's words today?" Cain replied. "They came of their own will, to perform their own will among us."

"Lies!" Enoch practically shouted. "Herab is your mortal enemy! You would believe his lies?"

"Tell me, from the stories Seth told you," Cain replied. "Would this be the first time mankind was deceived by an angel?"

Enoch did not answer. He remembered very well the story of how one of the greatest angels in heaven lusted after God's throne. There had been a terrible war in heaven... But this was very different! How dare Cain compare Azrael to the prince of darkness? 

Enoch didn't trust himself to talk. He was certain that, although disposed and cast out as Nod's leader, Cain was not an enemy he wanted to have. Enoch turned his back on the old man, and leaped down from the wall.

"They've gone too far!" Cain shouted after him. "They've taken things not theirs for the taking. There will be consequences!" 

Cain watched Enoch disappear into the tangle of mud huts that was Nod.

"And you  Enoch are going to reveal their true nature to the world."