Preface:The ninth century B.C., like the world today, was a world of ideas. And, like today, many of their ideas were wrong. Their world was flat. Remember? The land, sea and sky were the center of the universe, with a sun revolving around providing light and warmth while spooky Luna waxed and waned in a sea of twinkling lights watching from the heavens; the mountainous snowy peaks descending into ravines, gorges, gullies, and across valley streams to rivers emptying into various seas full of surprises from strange creatures and people. The bronze-age world was dominated by power centers supporting agricultural activities around walled cities connected by primitive roads, trails, and rivers traversing wide deserts, rugged mountains, large forests, and challenging climates. The power centers grew naturally in size and scope, building armies to protect outcrops and trading posts and seize the resources needed to remain viable, run by powerful, mostly autonomous rulers who made their own rules and broke them as they aged.Malevolence reigned. Like permanent gems in a phantom crown, narcissism and paranoia pressed many a despot's mind to pursue unsustainable if not unattainable dominions. Insatiable appetites for conquest shaped and reshaped already fluid borders making life unpredictably dangerous for ordinary people, particularly in the outcrops. The Mid-East powers in the transition from bronze to iron included Egypt, Philistia, Judea and Israel, Syria, and Phoenicia to the Southwest; Chaldea (Babylon) in the South; Mede and Persia in the East; the tribal barbarians of the Caucasus in the North; Scythians to the Northeast above the Caspian Sea; and Phrygians and Lydians in Anatolia, with smaller, mostly vassal states and ephemeral nomadic shapes jarring the puzzle at any given time. In the region's center lay the large and powerful Assyrian kingdom led by Shalmaneser III. Just north of Assyria were the Nairi tribal provinces, most of which recently coalesced into the federal, theocratic kingdom of Urartu, centered around a large lake called Van, ruled by king Aramu from the capital, Arzashkun, on the lake's northwest shore. The roots binding the peoples of the Levant to their related ancestors in the tree of life were twisted and strained; untrunked in the cambium. What had become less obscure throughout the Mid-East was the prospect of Assyrian hegemony. A Canterbury Tales for the dawn of the Iron Age, this story follows Urartu's march to self-identity in the shadow of its menacing neighbor, Assyria. It starts out hopeful enough—an annual jubilee of unity coincides with a long heralded deliverance of Mosaic proportions. It being 847BCE, though, pride, child abuse, adultery, cannibalism, greed, murder, euthanasia, arms dealers, bitter clans clinging to existence, and jealous nobles seem only to challenge the mercy of the attendant deities, placing the protagonist (an atheistic thug) face-to-face with his past, present, and a card-carrying member of antiquity's pantheon of self-righteous despots. The story's arc will be familiar to many. In stratum homonymic, the title and story, while not a mirror reflection, parallel the 'Good Book' many of us grew up with, and I'd be lying if I called it coincidental. In this regard, you may identify with the mannerisms, moods, and motives of the main characters, from the addicted Urartian king to the neighborly heroine, simultaneously seeking home and revenge, and from a superstitious, pagan priest who breaks everything he touches, to our mother-loathing antagonist, Shalmaneser, looking for wisdom in all the wrong places.Speaking of wisdom. It's defined many ways. I prefer the Book of Job's—although, predictably, I've not seen them all—as it allows us to understand how our emotional reactions to a book of characters might change when viewed through another lens. With that, I hope you enjoy what follows.