The Lost Garden: The Complete Trilogy Read online

  Knight removed his glasses and used his remote to go to the next slide. There, the name of the first river appeared: Pishon. “There have been many theories associated with the location of the Garden of Eden. A common one is called the Northern Theory, which places the Garden of Eden in the eastern mountains of Turkey, a location, I might add, that some claim is the final resting place of another Biblical enigma, a certain ark built by Noah. Those who favor the Northern Theory point to the fact that the Bible states the river that flowed from Eden separated into four rivers. Well, these researchers have simply traced the Tigris and Euphrates back to its present-day source: the mountains of Eastern Turkey. Other than vague satellite images of ancient river systems, there is little other evidence pointing to this area as the location of the Garden of Eden.”

  Knight paused in his narrative and found himself again standing in the section of the assembly hall directly facing the raven-haired woman. He seemed to have her entire attention. He squinted through the dim lights, but it was pointless. For now, the woman remained a mystery.

  “Another popular theory, called the Southern Theory, holds that the Garden of Eden has, in fact, been located under the present-day Persian Gulf that forms marshes along a one hundred and twenty-mile stretch of land in southern Iraq, where both the Tigris and Euphrates come together. The river Hiddekel, as mentioned in the Bible is, of course, the ancient name for the river, Tigris. However, the other two rivers, the Pishon and Gihon, cannot be located in this region. Scholars conveniently change the names of other rivers to match these two. Major geographical features like massive riverbeds don’t just disappear from the transitory effects of normal erosion. Even the great riverbeds on Mars have, in fact, survived for hundreds of thousands of years.” Knight stopped and focused his attention on a handful of students seated in the front row. “I’ve been to these marshes in the region called Shatt al-Arab in southern Iraq. This is no paradise, unless your idea of heaven on earth is sweltering heat and unbearable humidity and mosquitoes the size of hummingbirds.

  “Both the Northern and Southern Theories, along with more radical ones, fail to bring together, under one geographical region, all the clues from the Bible.” Knight paused for a sip of water. “They fail, but I will not. Tonight, I will show you that such a region exists. Tonight, you will discover with me the true Garden of Eden. But first, are there any questions?”

  Dozens of hands shot up. Knight smiled and picked a young man a few rows back. He was wearing a red baseball cap, backward.

  “Yes, you,” said Knight, meeting his eyes.

  “You assume, Dr. Knight, that the clues in the Bible are correct. I think most historians will agree that the Bible is a collection of myths and should be looked upon as allegorical. You seemed to have based your entire career on proving the validity of mythological stories. Maybe some stories are best left as the myths they truly are.”

  Knight had heard the arguments hundreds of times before. “Most historians assumed the legend of Troy was a myth, just a wild flight of fancy from Homer, that is, until it was found by Robert Carter, over a hundred years ago. History is written in a mythological medium, which was common for the times. It does not mean that it does not contain real facts. Truth be told, I consider the Bible a historical document, just like the writings of Herodotus or a text of Ramses II. The Bible should not be dismissed by historians because it is a religious text. Thank you for the question,” said Knight, smiling at the young man and turning away. He let his smile linger on the audience. “I think we can all agree on the fact that, until we have done our research, we cannot know fact from fiction. Well, ladies and gentleman, I have done my research. Let me present to you my discoveries.”

  ***

  Jessima IL Eve smiled inwardly. She didn’t care whether or not anyone in the room agreed with his arguments. What pleased her was Evan Knight’s deft and relaxed handling of a potential quandary. This was a good asset to have. The more she watched, the more she liked him, although she still had her doubts.

  As she watched him stroll comfortably across the stage, she was more than aware that he looked too often in her direction. She figured it was her imagination, until she actually started watching him more carefully. More often than not, he made a full stop and lingered longer directly in front of her wedge of the lecture hall. There were many such wedges that branched off from the central stage. And it wasn’t that he stopped in her general direction, it was that he seemed to be looking directly at her.

  She shifted in her seat. For the first time in a long time, she actually felt uncomfortable under a man’s gaze. She thought it was impossible that he knew her. No one knew her. At least, no one outside of the sisterhood. She was uncomfortably aware of the way her chair seemed too close to the row in front of it. She wanted to slide down a little lower, but it was useless. She towered above the girl in front of her.

  Calm down, sister, she told herself. He is only a man.

  She had often been forced to go out into the real world and she had attracted the attention of many men. However, guardians were destined for lives of solitude. No one took mates. She was surprised that she was thinking about it now.

  Dr. Evan Knight gave her one last lingering stare and then stepped away again. Jess listened intently to his lecture. “The Pishon and Gihon rivers are the biggest mystery, as to the location of the Garden of Eden. Okay, so let’s get into it. Was there or was there not a Pishon River; and if so, where? The answer is that it did exist. The British scholar, Reginald Walker, was the first to find the missing Pishon and Gihon rivers. In northern Iran, there is a river called the Kezel Uzun. The word ‘kezel’ means golden. So, in effect, it is the Golden Uzun. How can Uzun be the same as Pishon? The answer lies in the transcribing of the Iranian language into Hebrew. The Iranian letter ‘U’ becomes a ‘P,’ so the river named Uzun is transcribed as Pishon.”

  He paused, and Jess saw that many in the crowd were busily making notes, while others regarded the historian lecturer with either open amusement or skepticism.

  Knight continued, “The next puzzle is the Gihon River. At the time of the Islamic invasion of Persia in the seventh century, Arabic geographers referred to the Aras River as the River Gaihun. The ancient name of the region, through which the Gaihun flows, was called Cush. There’s even a mountain in the area called Kusheh Daugh, the Mountain of Kush. I believe that the Gaihun-Aras and the Biblical Gihon are one in the same, and that the region is the real Cush of Genesis. The Euphrates mentioned in the Bible is the same Euphrates today. From its sources near Lake Van in Turkey, it flows for over sixteen hundred miles into the Persian Gulf. The ancient Hiddekel River is the Hebrew name for the River Tigris. It descends from the Zagros Mountains in Iran, and journeys over twelve hundred miles to the Persian Gulf.”

  There, thought Jess. He’s looking up in my direction. He’s not looking anywhere else and he has not stopped at any other location, other than behind the podium.

  To her amazement, she found her heart beating a little faster, as if she were about to engage in battle.

  “I believe, then, that we have found the four rivers mentioned in the Bible. So, where do these rivers flow from? When you find that, you find Eden.” He paused and collected his notes from behind the podium. “Our story continues with British archaeologist, David Rohl, who happened upon an ancient Sumerian cuneiform clay tablet held by the Museum of the Orient in Istanbul. The tablet describes a five thousand year-old route to Eden. In 1997, David Rohl did something fantastic. He set out from the Iranian town of Ahwaz, near the northern tip of the Persian Gulf, with only his jeep and a companion.”

  Knight stopped behind his podium. “This is taken from the Jerusalem Report: ‘They traveled north toward Kurdistan through what Rohl calls “lawless” terrain, trusting luck to avoid the various guerrilla factions active in the region. Rohl followed a route documented in the Sumerian cuneiform epic, “Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta,” which had supposedly been taken five thousand years earlier
by an emissary of the Sumerian priest-king of Uruk. The emissary had been dispatched to Aratta, on the plain of Edin—it was known to the Sumerians as a land of happiness and plenty—to obtain gold and lapis lazuli to decorate a temple that Enmerkar was building in Uruk. The cuneiform epic describes the dutiful emissary’s three-month trek on foot via seven passes through the Zagros Mountains, to the foothills of Mount Sahand and his successful procurement of the required valuables. Rohl believes that the ancient Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians all knew of an earthly paradise that had once lain beyond what they called the Seven Heavens. For them, Eden was still very much an earthly place.’”

  Knight stopped reading, and looked up. “Ten miles from the sprawling Iranian industrial city of Tabriz, as you descend a narrow mountain path, you see a beautiful alpine valley, with terraced orchards on its slopes, crowded with every kind of fruit-laden tree. This is a land not found on modern maps. In fact, each map places it in a different location. The Biblical word gan—as in Gan Eden—which means ‘walled garden.’ The valley is walled in by towering mountains. The highest of these is Mount Sahand, a snow-capped extinct volcano that Rohl identifies as the Prophet Ezekiel’s Mountain of God, where the Lord resides. Cascading down the mountain is a small river, the Adji Chay, the name of which translates from local dialects to mean ‘walled garden.’ The locals still hold the mountain sacred, and attribute magical powers to the river’s water. That is, if you dare venture upon it.”

  Jess sat up straighter.

  “As legends have it, spirits protect the mountain and those who venture to it are often not heard from again. The mountain is protected, they say, from the ancient Cherubim mentioned in the Bible.” He moved over to his Bible again. “After Adam and Eve had fallen from God’s grace, he cast them out of the garden of Eden. Interesting enough, God found it necessary to protect his garden, the only place mentioned in the Bible where He freely walked among men. ‘So He drove out man and He placed cherubim at the east end of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which flashes back and forth, to guard the way to the tree of life.’

  “Making the case for Eden even stronger, Rohl says that he found the land of Nod, which the Bible describes as East of Eden. Nod was Cain’s place of exile after the murder of his brother, Abel. Today, the area is called Noqdi. But it doesn’t end there because a few kilometers south of Rohl’s Nod, at the head of a mountain pass, lies the sleepy town of Helebad, formerly known as Kheruabad, which means ‘settlement of the Kheru people.’ Rohl believes that this name could be a permutation of the word ‘keruvim’ that is translated as Cherubs. The Cherubs were a tribe of fearsome warriors whose token was an eagle or falcon, often tattooed on shoulders and backs. Interesting enough, it is thought that the Cherubs used women as warriors, and in fact, the women were held in higher esteem. Some of these women, according to the Sumerian cuneiform, were referred to as the Daughters of Eve. The Cherubs are gone, but their legends lived on in the eyes of the locals who feared their wrath, and thus, the wrath of God.”

  Jess smiled. The man had done his homework. There were those who were slowly working their way to her holy mountain. The discovery seemed inevitable. It was one of the reasons she was here today.

  “I will take some questions now,” he said.

  “Dr. Knight! Dr. Knight!”

  Many more hands shot up this time. Knight chose one woman. “Dr. Knight, perhaps you would like to tell us your own theories on Eden. After all, you’ve only mentioned the research of others.”

  Knight hesitated. Jess was intrigued. It was the first time that he had shown any signs of doubt. He shrugged as his bright smile appeared again. Jess, to her annoyance, was beginning to enjoy that smile.

  “Yes, I believe the story does not stop there.” He found his remote and moved forward through a few slides, until he had a detailed map of Northern Iran. Dr. Knight turned his back to the crowd and walked toward the projected image. He stared at it. When he spoke, it appeared that he was speaking to himself, although his voice was still clear over the lecture hall speakers. “Why were the Cherubim put in place to the east of Eden? The Bible says to guard the Tree of Life.” Knight turned and regarded the audience. “Where, then, is the Tree of Life? And what exactly is its significance?”

  Another lady spoke, this one sitting in the front row. “I assume, Dr. Knight, that you have a theory.”

  He smiled. “Yes. I do have a theory.”

  “Would you care to share it with the rest of us?”

  Jess found herself on the edge of her seat.

  ***

  Knight knew the woman asking the question: Dr. Rosalind Barnett, one of his harshest critics. She had publicly lambasted his last paper in a rebuttal of her own. It would do her a lot of good, he figured, for her to let loose a little, and get off his back. She raised an eyebrow with a mischievous gleam in her narrowed eyes.

  Knight smiled warmly at her and shrugged. “I have tentatively suggested that the Tree of Life, as mentioned in the garden, might still be in existence today.”

  The crowd responded in a variety of ways. There were gasps and laughter heard. “Why would you think that, Dr. Knight?” prodded Dr. Barnett. Knight wished someone else would take the floor.

  He did not answer immediately because he knew they would not understand the real reason. After all, he had seen the Tree of Life in his dreams. He had walked among the Garden of Eden in his dreams with his beautiful raven-haired escort. He had also dreamed of holding the flaming sword that guarded the Tree of Life. His dreams haunted him with their insistence, ultimately leading him to search for the garden himself and to be obsessed with it in every facet of his life.

  He most definitely did not admit to them, or anyone, his most guarded secret.

  Instead, Dr. Knight said, “I feel the Eden story is not a myth. I feel it is a warning to the human race. One that bears dire consequences if it is not heeded.”

  “What is the warning, Doctor?”

  “The Tree of Life is much more important than we can possibly know. Safeguards have been put into place to protect it. Man is supposed to stay away.”

  “Or else?”

  “Or else suffer the destruction of all life on Earth.” That got the audience’s attention. Some started shaking their heads and slinging their backpacks over their shoulders. He knew most of them must have regarded him as a nutcase. He didn’t care, because in his dreams, he saw the destruction of the tree. He saw the Earth stop spinning on its axis and saw the life-force drain from the planet.

  Knight surged forward. “I believe Dr. Rohl did find the Garden of Eden in that alpine valley, ten miles from the city of Tabriz in Northern Iran. But I feel he only found a section of the garden. There is indeed more to the story. Something might lie hidden in the area. And that something is the true Garden of Eden, where the Tree of Life resides.”

  “And the flashing sword of fire, as well?” She was mocking him.

  Knight hesitated. “Yes. And the flashing sword of fire.”

  ***

  “It’s always fun to hear you speak, Dr. Knight. I can’t say I agree with everything you have to say, but you sure make an interesting case. A hell of a showing!”

  This statement came from the department head of the University of Long Beach’s Department of History, Lloyd Pearlman, a big man who had ambushed Knight the moment he had made his closing remarks. Knight had received a round of applause. People had stood and crowds had gathered. Before he could make a beeline for the back of the lecture hall, Professor Pearlman cornered him along the edge of the stage.

  “Well, you know me, Lloyd. I never take the easy way out, especially when there’s a chance of me looking like a fool.” As he spoke, Knight scanned the thinning crowd. The raven-haired woman should have been quite noticeable. He saw the way she had kept adjusting her seat, trying to get comfortable. It was a problem Knight had had his whole life, dealing with his own six-foot, five-inch frame.

  “I don’t know about looking like a fo
ol, but I guarantee you that most people left here entertained.”

  “That’s me. Just a traveling sideshow.”

  Pearlman slapped Knight heartily on the back, knocking the historian forward. Knight did not take his eyes off of the thinning crowd.

  “You looking for someone, Evan?” asked Pearlman’s pretty wife, who walked up and embraced her husband.

  “Yeah, Penny, you could say that,” said Knight. “If you two would excuse me?”

  “Of course. See you across the street at the bar, right?” asked Pearlman.

  Knight had almost forgotten. He had agreed to meet in an informal setting with many of the local historians for an evening of good fun. At least, that was the plan. They would spend the evening attacking his views until they got too drunk to give a damn anymore.

  “Yes, Lloyd. Wouldn’t miss it for the world. Hey, I’ll see you two there.”

  A crowd of students had formed behind Pearlman. Some were holding his latest book, In Search of Eden, hoping for an autograph. Knight pretended not to see them. Holding his briefcase, into which he had haphazardly jammed his lecture notes as fast as he could, he skirted the growing crowd of students and supporters. He quickly made his way up through the lecture hall, taking the steps two and sometimes, three at a time. He apologized profusely to those he was forced to squeeze around. His eyes never stopped looking for her, but he was afraid he had missed her. The ambush by the Pearlmans had cost him a chance to meet his dream woman.

  You’re being silly, he told himself. How could your dream woman be real?

  Knight knew that was a logical question that should have an obvious answer. He had long ago lost his grasp of what could and couldn’t be real. The woman he had seen tonight could have fit the description, but this wasn’t the first time he had jumped the gun. Throughout most of his life, any particularly tall, black-haired woman had set his mind and heart racing, until he could see the woman was not the beauty of his dreams, a woman he knew to be a warrior, by the way she dressed and handled her sword.