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
animals he herded. He had seen one world pass away and another begin. He had been chosen by God
to live while the rest of the world perished. It only makes sense that he would write about what he
had experienced.” She opened the notebook she’d pulled from the cabinet. “My work before I began
this project was in ancient languages, and so it has fallen to me to assist Azov in his attempt to
understand the contents of Noah’s tablets. This page,” she said, indicating a script that Vera found
inexplicably familiar, “is a copy of the words found on that tablet there.” She pointed to a fragment of
wood lying in the case. “It is a record of the seeds Noah carried onto the ark.”
“These are Noah’s memoirs?” Vera asked.
Azov slipped on a pair of plastic gloves before reaching into the case and removing the tablet.
“This piece of wood,” he said, “is one of over five hundred tablets we recovered from a village
submerged 350 meters below the surface of the Black Sea. They were bundled together and stored in
a casket. Carbon dating shows that it is nearly five thousand years old.”
“I’m sorry, but it is really difficult to believe,” Vera said, slipping on the pair of gloves Sveti
offered before taking the wood from Azov. “Any organic material would disintegrate rapidly under
water.”
“On the contrary,” Azov said. “The composition of the Black Sea created ideal conditions for
preservation. It is essentially a dead sea. Although it was once a freshwater lake, saltwater from the
Mediterranean spilled into it, creating an anoxic climate. The organisms that might eat wood or other
degradable materials are absent. Artifacts that would have disappeared within a millennium are still
intact, as if frozen in time. It is an archaeologist’s dream.”
Vera ran her gloved fingertips over the crevices. The tablet was light, made of a hard durable
wood, with strange symbols stamped into it. Glancing at Sveti’s notebook, she realized that the
symbols had an uncanny resemblance to the scribbling in Rasputin’s album. It took all of her restraint
to refrain from confirming the match immediately. “So you are saying that you believe these tablets
are not simply from that period of Noah’s life, but that they were written by Noah himself?” Vera