Chapter 34

“Africa? Are you serious?” Bones asked. “That sounds totally wrong.”

“Hear me out. It’s not as crazy as you might think.” Dima sat down in the armchair facing Maddock and Bones and placed her translation on the table in between them. “First of all, we’ve got the translation. It says the ark came to rest in the mountains of Meri. Meri and Meru are often used interchangeably to describe a particular mountain in Africa.”

“But is that enough to go on? Words can change form,” Bones argued.

“That’s hardly everything. Just hear me out. First of all, there’s a strong scholarly tradition that Noah was, in fact, African, perhaps even nobility. We know he was the grandfather of Kush, from whom the nation of Kush got its name.”

Maddock nodded. Kush was an ancient African kingdom located in present-day Sudan.

“What’s more,” Dima continued, “many nobles in that time kept menageries with male and female specimens for breeding purposes, so Noah might have simply led his own menagerie into the ark. And the rulers during that period controlled the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, and Lake Chad, and they used the various waterways as their roads. Noah would have been quite familiar with boats.”

Bones rubbed his chin. “It’s thin.”

“Not as thin as my patience will be if you keep interrupting me.” Dima shifted in her seat, crossed and uncrossed her legs, and folded her hands. “What if I told you there’s only one place in the world that claimed to be Noah’s homeland? It’s called ‘Borno’ or ‘The Land of Noah’ and it’s located in the center of Africa, near Lake Chad, in fact.”

Bones nodded but didn’t interrupt this time.

“The African connection rang a bell with me, and I did a little research. Listen to this Nigerian flood story.” She took out her cell phone, tapped the screen, and began to read.

“The first man, Etim 'Ne, and his wife Ejaw came to earth from the sky. At first, there was no water on earth, so Etim 'Ne asked the god Obassi Osaw for water, and he was given a calabash with seven stones. When Etim 'Ne put a stone in a small hole in the ground, water welled out and became a broad lake. Later, seven sons and seven daughters were born to the couple. After the sons and daughters married and had children of their own, Etim 'Ne gave each household a river or lake of its own. He took away the rivers of three sons who were poor hunters and didn't share their meat, but he restored them when the sons begged him to. When the grandchildren had grown and established new homes, Etim 'Ne sent for all the children and told them each to take seven stones from the streams of their parents, and to plant them at intervals to create new streams. All did so except one son who collected a basketful and emptied all his stones in one place. Waters came, covered his farm, and threatened to cover the whole earth. Everyone ran to Etim 'Ne, fleeing the flood. Etim 'Ne prayed to Obassi, who stopped the flood but let a lake remain covering the farm of the bad son. Etim 'Ne told the others the names of the rivers and streams which remained and told them to remember him as the bringer of water to the world.”

Maddock had to admit he was intrigued by this new piece of information. “Obviously the minor details are different, but that’s the only flood story I ever heard, before we found the Book of Noah, that is, that connects stones with flood mythology. I suppose the actual events of the Book of Noah could be the source of that legend.”

“And the difference in the number of stones can be attributed to storytelling techniques,” Dima agreed. “Seven is considered a powerful or lucky number in many cultures.”

Maddock tried to picture a map of Africa in his mind. Chad lay in central Africa, while Tanzania, where Mount Meru was located, lay in the east. “But how do you get from Lake Chad to Mount Meru? That’s a long way. I suppose if it were a worldwide flood.” He shrugged.

“That’s unlikely, given the archaeological record.” Bones held up his hands. “Sorry, I figured I’m allowed to talk now.”

Dima ignored him. “Remember that Noah lived at a time when the Saharan region, and much of Africa for that matter, was experiencing a wet period, so the boundaries of the major waterways were different than they are today. According to studies done of satellite imagery, Lake Chad, or Mega-Chad as they refer to the old incarnation of the lake, was once a massive body of water. It covered an area at least five times the size of Lake Superior with depths of two hundred to six hundred feet. It’s believed to have extended hundreds of miles beyond its current boundaries, even encompassing Lake Victoria and beyond. It’s a little over two hundred miles from the center of the Chad Basin to Mount Meru, so it’s not impossible that the water could have reached the mountain itself. Add a major flood to that, and there’s no reason the ark couldn’t have settled somewhere on the slopes of Mount Meru.”

“I’m not trying to give you a hard time here,” Bones said, “but we’re stringing together evidence from different parts of Africa, which is a pretty big place. How confident are you that the Book of Noah is accurate? We’ve already seen some differences between it and the Bible story.”

Dima nodded. “Obviously, we won’t know until we investigate, but you can’t deny it’s the best lead we have. The Trident must also believe in its worth or else they wouldn’t be coming after it…and me.”

Maddock sat back and let it all sink in. It was a lot of new information to process.

“There’s something we haven’t considered, Maddock,” Bones said.

“What’s that?”

“Stones with mysterious powers. We’ve seen that before, and it wasn’t the power of God at work.”

Maddock nodded. On several occasions, he and Bones had encountered such stones, and had reason to believe their origins were not supernatural, though not of the earth.

“Would you two care to fill me in?” Dima asked.

Maddock quickly summarized a few of their exploits and the discoveries they had made. “Of course, that’s not to say there aren’t items out there with miraculous powers. We’ve found a couple of those, too.”

Dima sat slack-jawed, staring at the two of them as if she expected them to admit it was all a joke. Finally, she let out a weary sigh and shook her head. “You’re really not winding me up, are you? You’ve really seen this stuff, or at least you believe you have.”

“Come on, now.” Bones reached into his pocket and pulled out his stone. “You watched Maddock use this to take control of the mind of an animal. You’re really going to tell me you don’t believe in the supernatural? Heck, you’re a Noah researcher, which tells me you’ve always been a believer on some level.”

Dima looked down at her hands, which she held folded in her lap. “A dreamer more than a believer. I guess I hoped to find proof of God but expected to find a much more pedestrian source of the myth. Which is looking like it wasn’t that much of a myth after all.” She looked up, her eyes cloudy. “What I didn’t expect was to learn that little green men were behind it all.”

“That’s not at all what we’re saying,” Maddock reassured her. “Even if these stones didn’t come from God in the way the story claims, they got their power from somewhere, and what they do is nothing short of miraculous.”

“I suppose. But why didn’t you two tell me about all of this before?”

Maddock grinned. “Would you have believed us?”

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