Abraham Allegiant (Chronicles of the Nephilim Book 4) by Brian Godawa Page A

king’s scholar and scribe.
    Sinleqi droned on in his monotonous voice reading from the freshly engraved tablets, “ Marduk , as Anu, his father called him from his birth, who with the flood-storm his weapon, vanquished the enemy; Murukka , creator of all, who rejoices the hearts of the Anunnaki; Marutukku , the refuge of his land, city, and people; Barashakushu , of wide heart and warm sympathy; Lugaldimmerankia , the lord of all the gods of heaven and the underworld…”
    Enlil started to get drowsy. Sinleqi’s prattling was dreadfully long and redundant. It went on for what seemed an eternity with names, epithets, and etymologies that served to say the same thing over and over again. How great Marduk is, how glorious he is, what a wondrous and gracious god he is, blah, blah, blah. It reminded Enlil of the pretentious self-aggrandizing Ishtar. These two were complimentary whores of power.
    Not like him. He began to plan in his mind how he might manipulate them to face each other in a contest of megalomaniacal egos. Maybe they would destroy each other and the assembly would be better off when they did.
    But what if by some strange twist of fate, they partnered up together? Then the very pantheon itself would be in jeopardy. Enlil tried to put the horror out of his mind as he concluded his participation in the vainglorious enthronement ceremony.
    When they had concluded the official transfer of the Tablet of Destinies and the crown to Marduk, Anu led the assembly of gods and men in a vow of devotion.
    “We pledge our fealty and worship to the gracious Marduk, king of the gods!”
    Everyone human and divine repeated the words that would usher in a new era ruled by a new chief deity.
    When all was performed and done, Marduk concluded the ceremony with a simple pronouncement. “And now we shall build Babylon, the gateway of the gods.”

Chapter 9
    The process of creating bricks for the building of Babylon began even before the lake was fully drained. It would take some weeks to seal the entrance to the Abyss and then finish the canals and dredging and finally filling in of the lakebed with rock and soil.
    In the meantime, Nimrod conscripted the entire workforce and slave force of tens of thousands for the laborious task of making bricks. They would work on the city, the wall, and the temples simultaneously. There were two kinds of bricks; sun-dried bricks for most of the homes, shrines, and inner walled areas, and kiln-fired bricks for the outer walls and most importantly for the temple-tower, Etemenanki and Marduk’s complimentary Esagila.
    The ziggurat Etemenanki was the largest of its size in all of Sumer and Akkad. It would take a year of round the sundial labor to build it. Since the structure functioned as a cosmic mountain upon which the gods would descend from heaven, it was a solid structure with the shrine of deity on top and a stairway down its front. The inner base was made of sun-dried bricks, but the outer layer was made of kiln-fired brick. Firing bricks took more time and effort, but created a more durable hardened ceramic block that could withstand outside forces such as wind, rain, storm, battle, and floodwaters.
    This was deliberate on Nimrod’s part, because he carried in his memory the legendary Deluge that swept away the antediluvian world with all its achievements of gods and men. He had rebuilt some of the cities and temples over the ruins of the old. He had seen the devastation first hand. And he had visited his distant kin, Noah, and was told of the Creator Elohim, and his vindictive judgment on mankind that was the origin of the Great Flood. He rejected this despotic deity and his capricious controlling obsession from on high. How dare he make mankind and the angels, and then demand sniveling toe-licking slavery.
    Contrary to this monolithic tyranny was the pantheon of gods who watched over mankind from Mount Hermon. This divine assembly of Watchers was willing to share power, to elevate man