The Tree of Life (Lost Civilizations: 3) Read Free Page B

a lamenting chant.
    She hated the First Born and their Nephilim offspring. Earth belonged to the men and women Elohim had made. Earth had not been fashioned for these invaders from the Celestial Realm. It had not been fashioned for the offspring of the invaders who had remained, after their fathers the bene elohim had been dragged to some nether confinement until the great Day.
    Adah concentrated as she strummed her lyre. Playing the chords…. She looked up at the wallowing grain ships from Dishon behind them. From a distance, and in the shadows of a darkening sea, they seemed like a pod of surfaced whales. Their beauty struck Adah so her heart hurt.
    Nar Naccara’s bireme pulled ahead of the grain ships as sailors shouted and pointed out other sails.
    Adah stood up and slung the lyre onto her back. Carefully, she picked her way across the galley, soon coming to a rail near the prow. She squinted and spied Carthalo on the horizon. The great city jutted into the Suttung Sea like a gigantic thumb.
    “Many ships and merchants are bound for Carthalo,” Lord Uriah said, as he joined her at the rail. With the coming of night, the sea had become glassy-smooth. It allowed the bireme extra speed and they seemed to skim across the water.
    “These ships carry the goods of the world,” Lord Uriah said, as if bemused. “They carry goods from Ir, Iddo, Caphtor and Elon, to say nothing of all the items produced within the bounds of the Suttung Sea.”
    During her days in Poseidonis, Adah had grown accustomed to monumental architecture. But she’d never seen anything like Carthalo. Back then, she’d thought Atlas Harbor the busiest in the world. During the height of the summer-heat, barges had disgorged marble from mainland pits. And long lines of dejected slaves had marched off the cargo ships, heading in streaming lines to the furnaces, there to fuel the fires with their souls.
    Nar Naccara’s bireme led his flotilla, joining a throng of ships across the calm green sea in front of the Circa Harbor. There were large grain ships, some even bigger than the Tiras and the Gisgo had been. Harbor boats, which seemed nothing more than rowing shells, towed the various grain ships. There were many coastal traders with their billowing sails of various hues: red, green, blue and yellow. Many of them looked like sister ships of the Falan , while others had lateen sails and rakish prows. There were also hordes of fishing vessels. The largest had two masts. The smallest was a man in a boat pulling two oars. Many rode low in the water, packed with fish. A faint fishy odor accompanied the breeze.
    The city captivated Adah. She closed her mouth, shook her head and glanced at Lord Uriah.
    “Amazing, isn’t it?” he asked.
    “H…how is this possible?” she asked. She knew how Yorgash would have accomplished it, with tens of thousands of naked slaves driven by whips and white-hot branding irons. Through cruelty and fists, Yorgash’s slave masters might have created what she saw. But Lord Uriah said Shining Ones had built Carthalo.
    The City of the Shining Ones looked as if the Earth had spewed a massive volcano straight out of the seabed. As they neared, the walls seemed to be granite, not lava. It must have once been a huge granite mountain. With picks, chisels, or who knew how, the Shining Ones had leveled the mountain. They had hollowed out its mighty base. The city possessed gargantuan walls, perhaps unbreakable walls. Like busy ants, mule-pulled and auroch-yoked carts and wagons traveled across the top of the walls in both directions. Adah rubbed her eyes. It was a fortress city, a rock of a city, a mountain.
    “Yes,” Lord Uriah said, to her questioning look. “The top of the wall is one of the city’s main thoroughfares. Countless ramps lead up to it. The unique route saves space inside for dwellings, palaces and the marketplace.”
    Lord Uriah pointed. “It might be hard to see now, but the city possesses a single bridge linking it