Angelopolis A Novel Page 0,52

progress against the Nephilim,” Vera said, struggling between the loyalty she felt toward her employers at the Hermitage and the deep respect she had for her mentor. “We are working toward the same end.”

“A prudent answer, my dear,” Azov said, clearly proud of Vera’s diplomacy. “Come, give me a kiss. I’m thrilled that you have finally come to visit me here, where I am most in my element.”

Vera stood and went to Azov. As she kissed his cheek she felt anxious to seem every bit the accomplished angelologist she had become. She turned to the artifacts piled on the table. “These must be your finds from the bottom of the Black Sea.”

“Correct,” Azov said, picking up a piece of pounded copper. “These objects are from a settlement that was begun within the first four hundred years of the postdiluvian period, during Noah’s lifetime.”

“That seems like quite a few lifetimes,” Vera said.

“Noah lived to be nine hundred and fifty years old,” Sveti said. “By the end of this period, he would have been middle-aged.”

“We located the village a little over twenty years ago,” Azov continued, “and have been doing underwater excavation since then. It hasn’t been easy, as we don’t typically have the kind of equipment and resources that high-profile exploratory divers have, but we’ve managed to pull up a number of intriguing objects to support our most recent hypothesis.”

“Which is?” Vera asked.

“That Noah was not only charged with protecting the various species of animals, as is believed in biblical lore, but that he was protecting the plant life of the planet as well. His collection of seeds was extensive. When the rain stopped, he cultivated and preserved these plants for future generations, making certain that the precious cellular energy of ancient times was carried forward,” Azov said.

Vera toyed with the latch on her satchel, wondering if she should wait to give Azov Rasputin’s album. She was keenly aware that the plants pressed inside represented a similar kind of energy, and that Azov would find them fascinating.

Sveti stood, went to a cabinet, unlocked it, and removed a fat spiral notebook, the pages wrinkled, as if they’d been drenched in water and dried in the sun. “There are multiple tales of what happened to Noah after the water levels descended,” she said. “By some accounts he planted grapes and produced wine. By other accounts he became the most significant farmer in history, planting all the seeds himself. Others believe he distributed the seeds to his sons, and that they took them to different continents, where they planted and cared for them.”

“The regeneration of the world’s flora and fauna would have taken thousands of years,” Vera said. “I thought it was just a myth that he did it alone.”

“Of course,” Azov said. “But within myth there is often a seed of reality.”

Azov stood and, taking Vera’s hand, led her to a giant glass case against the wall. The case was empty save for pieces of driftwood of various sizes resting upon the shelves.

Azov pointed to the pieces of wood. “These are tablets that we believe belonged to Noah. They were discovered by Ballard’s team on an underwater ridge off the coast of the Black Sea, on what was once the shoreline of an ancient freshwater lake that existed before the Bosporus broke. The settlement there was later subsumed by a second level of flooding, perhaps as large as the first flood, and was destroyed. We posit that Noah left the settlement too quickly to take the tablets. He may have lost them during the second flood, or he may have left them on purpose; there is no way to be certain. He traveled to the border of what is now Turkey and Bulgaria, and here he planted the seeds and raised the animals that he had carried in the ark. It was here, on our coastline, that the new world began.”

“Or was dispersed,” Vera added.

“Exactly,” Azov said. “Noah’s sons—Shem, Japheth, and Ham—migrated to different regions of the world, founding the tribes of Asia, Europe, and Africa, as we all know from our beginning tutorials in angelology. We also know that Japheth was killed by the Nephilim, and his place on the boat was taken by one of their own, thus ensuring that the creatures continued to exist after the Flood.”

“What was not known,” Sveti cut in, “is that Noah kept records of everything—the Deluge, his journey on the ark, records of his sons’ wives and children, even records of the propagation of the