Stumbling, he splashed into shallow water. He had run down past the end of the stairs and fallen into the room of the sliding stone, and there was water higher than his knees. He stood up and saw Damqiya and Ahuni, two fellow miners, just noticing him. They stood in front of the stone, which already blocked the exit.
“No!” he cried.
“They closed it!” screamed Damqiya. “They did not wait!”
“Are there others coming?” shouted Ahuni, without hope. “We may be able to move the block.”
“There are no others,” answered Hillalum. “Can they push it from the other side?”
“They cannot hear us.” Ahuni pounded the granite with a hammer, making not a sound against the din of the rushing water.
Hillalum looked around the tiny room, only now noticing that an Egyptian floated facedown in the water.
“He died falling down the stairs,” yelled Damqiya.
“Is there nothing we can do?”
Ahuni looked upward. “Yahweh, spare us.”
The three of them stood in the rising water, praying desperately, but Hillalum knew it was in vain: Yahweh had not asked men to build the tower or to pierce the vault; the decision belonged to men alone, and they would die in this endeavor just as they did in any of their earthbound tasks. Their righteousness could not save them from the consequences of their deeds.
The water reached their chests. “Let us ascend,” shouted Hillalum.
They climbed the tunnel laboriously, against the onrush, as the water rose behind their heels. The few torches illuminating the tunnel had been extinguished, so they ascended in the dark, murmuring prayers that they couldn't hear. The wooden steps at the top of the tunnel had dislodged from their place and were jammed farther down in the tunnel. They climbed past them until they reached the smooth stone slope, and there they waited for the water to carry them higher.
They waited without words, their prayers exhausted. Hillalum imagined that he stood in the black gullet of Yahweh, as the Mighty One drank deep of the waters of heaven, ready to swallow the sinners.
The water rose and bore them up, until Hillalum could reach up with his hands and touch the ceiling. The giant fissure from which the waters gushed forth was right next to him. Only a tiny pocket of air remained. Hillalum shouted, “When this chamber is filled, we can swim heavenward.”
He could not tell if they heard him. He gulped his last breath as the water reached the ceiling, and swam up into the fissure. He would die closer to heaven than any man ever had before.
The fissure extended for many cubits. As soon as Hillalum passed through, the stone stratum slipped from his fingers, and his flailing limbs touched nothing. For a moment he felt a current carrying him, but then he was no longer sure. With only blackness around him, he once again felt that horrible vertigo that he had experienced when first approaching the vault: He could not distinguish any directions, not even up or down. He pushed and kicked against the water but did not know if he moved.
Helpless, he was perhaps floating in still water, perhaps swept furiously by a current; all he felt was numbing cold. Never did he see any light. Was there no surface to this reservoir that he might rise to?
Then he was slammed into stone again. His hands felt a fissure in the surface. Was he back where he had begun? He was being forced into it, and he had no strength to resist. He was drawn into the tunnel and was rattled against its sides. It was incredibly deep, like the longest mine shaft: He felt as if his lungs would burst, but there was still no end to the passage. Finally his breath would not be held any longer, and it escaped from his lips. He was drowning, and the blackness around him entered his lungs.
But suddenly the walls opened out away from him. He was being carried along by a rushing stream of water; he felt air above the water! And then he felt no more.
Hillalum awoke with his face pressed against wet stone. He could see nothing, but he could feel water near his hands. He rolled over and groaned; his every limb ached, he was naked, and much of his skin was scraped raw or wrinkled from wetness, but he breathed air.
Time passed, and finally he could stand. Water flowed rapidly about his ankles. Stepping in one direction, the water deepened. In the other, there was dry stone—shale by the feel of it.
It was utterly dark, like a mine without torches. With torn fingertips he felt his way along the floor, until it rose up and became a wall. Slowly, like some blind creature, he crawled back and forth. He found the water's source, a large opening in the floor. He remembered! He had been spewed up from the reservoir through this hole. He continued crawling for what seemed to be hours; if he were in a cavern, it was immense. He found a place where the floor rose in a slope. Was there a passage leading upward? Perhaps it could still take him to heaven.
Hillalum crawled, having no idea of how much time passed, not caring that he would never be able to retrace his steps, for he could not return whence he had come. He followed upward tunnels when he found them, downward ones when he had to. Though earlier he had swallowed more water than he would have thought possible, he began to feel thirst, and hunger.
And eventually he saw light and raced to the outside.
The light made his eyes squeeze closed, and he fell to his knees, his fists clenched before his face. Was it the radiance of Yahweh? Could his eyes bear to see it? Minutes later he could open them, and he saw desert. He had emerged from a cave in the foothills of some mountains, and rocks and sand stretched to the horizon.
Was heaven just like the earth? Did Yahweh dwell in a place such as this? Or was this merely another realm within Yahweh's creation, another Earth above his own,,while Yahweh dwelled still higher?
A sun lay near the mountaintops behind his back. Was it rising or falling? Were there days and nights here?
Hillalum squinted at the sandy landscape. A line moved along the horizon. Was it a caravan?
He ran to it, shouting with his parched throat until his need for breath stopped him. A figure at the end of the caravan saw him and brought the entire line to a stop.