I won’t go into the minutia of my time with Lamech. I told him my story and he was as flabbergasted as anyone. He was fifty-five years old, so quite young, barely on his own, and a bachelor, though engaged. I was able to stay with him until his marriage the next spring. Seth himself came to the wedding and it was with him that I would go to Edom to see his father. My time with Lamech was not unpleasant though I did find it trying at times. I grew so flummoxed once at his astonishment at how “normal” I was in spite of being raised by savages that I only spoke to him with grunts and hand gestures for a month. For the most part though, we got along well as I learned how to farm and live in the mountain climate.

I also grew fond of Betenos. She taught me how to spin yarn and weave cloth from wool. I had learned how to weave flax from my mother but I was eager to learn this new variant and Betenos was just as eager to teach it. The months passed, spring arrived, and everything came to a standstill for the wedding. Lamech, being the grandson of the great Enoch, king of Atlantis, naturally had visitors from all over Edom and it was an event that lasted a solid month. Every patriarch save the first father and Enoch were present. Red was old and in no shape to travel. It was rumored that he would die of old age. I wondered how something like time could possibly kill someone though I have seen it many times since. Enoch, however, had an Atlantean device that would create an image of him, like a reflection of where he really was. I couldn’t go near it without enduring extreme pain, but I was amazed by it all the same. No one else had any problems with Atlantean technology, just me. I didn’t think much of it, but I was sure to stay away from that machine. I was surprised that Lamech had none of the devices in his home. He tended to avoid them and lived a very simple and quiet life. I found that even among Edomites Atlantean devices were not trusted. They were used, certainly, but only sparingly. I came to understand that even though they did make many aspects of life easier they didn’t make life any better. Different, but no better or worse except to me. They made my skull ring like a bell whenever I got close. Needless to say, I kept my distance.

I was in my fifteenth year when the wedding took place and it was the first I had ever attended. The traditions were different than what I was raised with, but back then nothing had deviated very far from its origin. The human family was only nine hundred thirty years old after all. I was excited to be included in the groom’s party as we walked to the bride’s house. Lamech was the man of the hour and therefore unreachable. Also he walked with the projection of his grandfather that I couldn’t get anywhere near. Near the end of the line of men I felt the chill of the night air seeping through my robes. The air was thick like in my old home but cold like that in the crater, the combination was a chill that soaked through everything and ate your warmth from the inside. I doubted I would ever get used to it. I shivered in my robes and breathed through my numb fingers, but there was no improvement.

“Just keep moving, young one,” the man beside me said. “We will be out of the cold soon.”

I looked up into his old wrinkled face and tried to place it with one of the hundred names I had heard over the past week.

“Are you the boy that brought the news of Lamech’s treachery?” the man asked.

It was a testament to how well I had been living that it took me a moment to connect his words with the event that had brought me there seven months before. “Yes,” I said uncertainly, then remembered my manners. “Peace to you Elder. I am Namir, son of Roulan.”

“Roulan,” the old man mused. “You don’t mean the son of Irad?”

“Yes, by adoption.” The words came far too easily to me now.

The man barked out a short laugh. “I suppose you have seen some things in your short years. I am Seth.”

“Seth, son of the first father,” I said in shock.

He smiled and nodded. I should have suspected with how old he looked. At that time there were maybe a hundred people in all of Eden that were close to his age. “I’m sure you have witnessed more than me by far,” I said, trying to recover my dignity.

“Yes, many things,” he conceded, “but not what you have. I have seen nothing of my brother Cain and little of his descendants for all my long years.”

“I don’t know much about the other families,” I said. “We lived far from anyone else by the western sea.”

“I suspect even that will be plenty to talk about on our journey to Edom,” he reassured. We began our procession, at last, and joined the other half of the town and visitors. There were other young people there but I kept to myself. I was relieved when the wedding, festivities, and banquet ended. That night, or more accurately early morning, when Lamech left I was under the stewardship of Seth and after only one day of rest from our revelry I began a new stage of my journey.