TC32

In Kemen the land is also the sky, and if the eyes of world-dwellers were more keen nothing would remain hidden from view. In the uttermost south there was a plateau nine leagues across and it was clear that forests and lakes dotted its table-top summit as they did many other lands in the hollow world. Yet a sheer precipice of hardest stone ringed the great plateau, rising three miles above a bed of rugged lesser mountains that in turn rose another mile above the flats. The Wall of God was made all the more unassailable by a lip overhang around the very cusp of the summit rim that no one could negotiate even with iron spike and rope.

Avram was a youth of just twenty years, in the full flower of his strength, and like many dwellers on the shore of the Aramel Sea he was skilled in casting little nets to catch fish, and he was deft in trapping small game, so he could live off the land itself as he made his away across the wild areas of Kemen. This he did in the aftermath of the death of Terah.

A road fit only for four feet or two, but for no wheels, lay at the base of the Wall of God in a rough ring that nearly encompassed the entire plateau. Yet where the River of Shalem rushed forth this rude path veered far from the face of the Wall of God through the surrounding foothills. There the stream was bridged by hopping over scattered rocks, but no man, nephil, or lan had ever followed the river along its uppermost vale. Avram discovered a veritable museum of waterfalls lay that between the flats and the Wall. There were places where the stream cut a deep chasm through trackless stone and even Avram was compelled to veer away from it.

For the entire autumn Avram picked his way upriver, making only a little progress each day. Frequently he was plunged into the cold water or forced to ram his way through the brush on the steep slopes cut by the stream.

A pool lying at the bottom of the highest cataract ever seen by human eyes in Kemen marked the end of the fishable waters. Yet Avram ascended ever higher, until the last glimmer of the sun was cut off by the upper lip of the Wall of God. He reached the very face of the Wall and saw before anyone ever did how the uppermost waters of the River of Shalem tumbled down a misty cataract that was many fold higher still than the one far below.

And Avram spied a rough track that ascended behind the ribbon of the waterfall by countless switchbacks which were, it seemed, made by no living hand. The track looked entirely natural, as though it had formed solely by erosion and chance, yet to Avram’s keen eyes it continued without a break.

As Avram ascended he was perpetually drenched and cold, for there was no sunlight to warm him, and Kemen’s autumn was drawing on to winter. Near the summit the path bent to follow the stream where it cut a deep cleft in the Mountain of God. At last Avram saw how it emerged from a lake in the very center of the great summit plateau nearly fourteen miles from the rim.

The white avatar of El awaited him there, standing upon the rocky shore of this high altitude lake. Avram fell upon his face, partly in reverent prostration and partly from exhaustion. El awaited in great patience until Avram stirred once more. The man’s ascent had been a great deed on the very edge of what it was physically possible for any world-dweller to do.

El said, “Adanite youth, I am El, co-eval in Kemen with Indra and Belial and Shemhazai. But in the other world, origin of all living things even in Kemen, I rule absolutely. I bid you welcome you as the first world-dweller to reach this land of Anshar. What are you named among your people?”

“I am Avram, a day laborer, son of Terah and Ma’or.”

The face of El’s avatar was featureless with no eyes nor mouth, yet see and speak she could do. She pointed across the lake to a dwelling made of glass and wood.