by K. T. Tomb
“Isn’t it just speculation that Sheba would have had any knowledge of what became of the seal?” Phoe asked.
“That would be true, except for the fact that the Pillar of Sheba was returned along with some other items to the queen upon Solomon’s death.”
“So why look in the Sudan? Why not go to Ethiopia?”
“Because of the Coptic language that makes up the Codex of Berlin. Yes, it came from Egypt, but the Copts were throughout the region, which stretched from Cairo all of the way to Ethiopia. You are familiar with the Coptic Churches of Ethiopia, right?”
“I am,” she replied simply. Less than a year before, she had gone to one of those churches in Lalibel in order to authenticate the replica Ark of the Covenant that was kept there. It hadn’t been one of her favorite trips. She didn’t feel like going into any further detail. Everyone knew that she had been called in to make the authentication and her name was in headlines all over the world. She, however, didn’t feel it was necessary to boast about it.
“Following Sir Wellcome’s theories and given some of the items that both he and our new excavations have unearthed, we not only have reason to believe that the Pillar of Sheba is there, but that we may have already uncovered it. You’re certainly welcome to join me on my trip to Sudan to verify it.” The invitation was oily thick. “I’ve actually put together a binder with copies of Sir Wellcome’s maps and notes so that you can be brought up to speed. So, what do you say, shall we link up?”
“I’m sorry,” Phoe replied, beaming, “I only work alone or with people that I know.” She snatched up the offered binder, eager to get away as soon as possible. “Shall we be on our way back to London, then?”
“But aren’t you interested in seeing the gardens, Miss Phoenix?” Professor Whitherby frowned. He wasn’t in nearly as great of a hurry to get away from Picton Castle as Phoe was.
“Some other time, perhaps,” she smiled. Over my dead body. If I have to stay here a minute longer, I’ll vomit for sure. “I’ve got a flight that I need to try to catch in the early evening.”
Chapter Five
Though Professor Whitherby had been able to convince her to stay for tea, to be cordial and all, they had gotten away as soon as it was physically possible to break the talkative teacher away from his audience and, more or less, force him into the car.
Miraculously, the professor was mostly silent on the way back to the airport. Phoe didn’t think that it was possible, but he seemed to have talked himself out. She, on the other hand, had dived right into the binder with the maps and notes that Guy had prepared for her.
It would have been much easier to agree to be guided by what Guy already knew; however, even if he hadn’t been creepy, she rarely worked with anyone outside of family and the same team members that she’d grown to trust. Much of what she did was shrouded under a cloak of secrecy. Someone breaking that secrecy might not only jeopardize whatever job they were doing, but it might get someone killed. They had been lucky so far and she had every intention of causing their luck to hold fast.
It was a quiet trip back to Venice and the house that was finally beginning to feel like home. Even Jonathan seemed to be keeping to himself about his own thoughts or, he was simply maintaining the utmost in confidence, like a professional. There were too many eyes and ears in public places that might relay an “overheard” conversation to the wrong people. The answer to what was keeping Jonathan quiet, revealed itself only moments after they walked through the door and collapsed in kitchen chairs. Jonathan opened the door of the refrigerator, rummaged around a bit and then closed it without taking anything out.
“There is something that has been bugging me about this whole thing. I mean, I felt it even stronger today.” Jonathan struggled with putting his thoughts into words. “There’s just this odd, subdued feeling hanging around all of this. I don’t know if it’s because of what happened in Marseille or if there is something else, but… I don’t know, I just feel something weird.”
“Like your head is packed completely full and you’re tired and depressed and almost dizzy?” Phoe had been having similar feelings, but had kept them to herself.
“Like a really evil foreboding,” he continued, coming up with a definition that satisfied them both. “This sounds totally stupid, but there’s like this feeling that the world could end at any second. It’s weighing on me heavily and I’m trying to break out of it. Do you know what I mean?”
“Wouldn’t have anything to do with the world going off its rocker all of a sudden, would it? I mean mass shootings, suicide bombings, planes blowing up in the sky are a little much, you know?”
“And nearly being a victim of one of those,” he whispered.
They really hadn’t had a chance to talk about the attack in Marseille. It had shaken her too, but she hadn’t been able to put those feelings into words. Life and death had hung over their heads in the thick dust and cordite smoke, and then, with no time to process what had happened, they hurried off in opposite directions.
Phoe would never shake from her memory the terror that she’d seen in Jonathan’s eyes. In fact, ironically enough, the incident was beginning to draw them closer together. To say that the experience was a blessing for their relationship was reaching some, but at the same time, there seemed to be a new kinship—almost a fear of being separated—developing.
“You know, we’re probably not going to get a chance to talk about this much once the rest of the team arrives,” Phoe warned.
“When do they arrive?” Jonathan asked.
“I’m expecting them in the morning. No doubt, they’re already in the air and on their way here.”
Though they were exhausted, the two of them sat talking about the things that had come between them and how they regretted some of the things that they’d said or done. With the air clear, they even began to reminisce about things that they did when they were kids. With the early hours of the morning warning them of the lack of sleep that was coming, they finally went off to bed, knowing that Peter would do his level best to be there banging on the door before the sun had even gotten a chance to clear the horizon.
True to form, at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m., the sound of incessant and violent pounding dragged Phoe out of the first peaceful sleep she’d had in days; albeit the fewest number of hours. Wrapping a robe around her, pushing her feet into the thick, fuzzy slippers that she loved and with her eyes barely open, she shuffled to the door ready to give Peter a sound cursing. In fact, she started the cursing before she even got to the door.
“You fuckin’ idiot! You couldn’t wait another three hours or even two hours. Hell, I’d take just one more hour! But, no, gotta get started early,” she mocked. “Like fuckin’ artifacts that nobody has seen in 3,000 plus years are going to go anywhere…”
She opened the door in the midst of the last sentence and cut off her tirade when she saw Alfred Guy Phillips the Fourth standing in her doorway. Though she wanted to see him even less at that time of the morning than she did Peter and the rest of the crew, the shock of it all found her speechless.
“A pleasant good morning to you too,” he chuckled.
When she found her voice, it wasn’t nearly as cordial sounding as it had been in Picton Castle the day before. “What the hell are you doing here? I already told you that I work alone or only with people that I know and trust.”
“But I’m the best chance you have at getting your hands on Solomon’s Seal. I’m well ahead of where you are even after studying. I’ve been there already. I know what I’m doing and we’d make a great team.”
“I don’t want to be a team,” she replied. Her lack of sleep as well as her revulsion of him was a bad mix at the moment. “There is something I left out about my working alone. I only work with people that I know, trust and like. So, no, you and I are not…”
“I’m afraid that we are,” a third voice added to the conversation. “Just got a call from Simon telling us to include him.”
“O
h, shit, Peter, no, please tell me that you’re just screwing with me,” she moaned. Not only had her sleep been interrupted and would not be regained until God only knew when, but she was being forced to work with someone that repulsed her.
“Good morning, beautiful,” he laughed. “Pleasant as ever in the morning, I see.”
“Fuck you,” Phoe said, turning away from Peter and Guy and going in search of wherever she last saw her phone. She was going to call Simon and remind him about her rule of who she worked with.
“Peter.”
“Guy.”
The two had introduced themselves before the rest of the crew came tagging in behind them. That certainly meant an end to her sleeping. “Next thing you know, they’ll be wanting me to make breakfast for them,” she grumbled.
She located her phone, plugged in and charging in the kitchen; unfortunately, however, Simon wasn’t answering her call. “The bastard knows,” she grumbled some more as she shuffled back to her room and the waiting shower that would bring her to a state of full consciousness, though not likely be able to improve her mood.
To Phoe’s surprise, however, the thrill of being out in the field again and the effects of the shower actually did put her in a better mood. The talk with Jonathan the night before had been very pleasant and she’d regained a good feeling about their relationship. That, to be sure, was a major factor in her improved mood as well. If that hadn’t been enough, Peter and the gang had a full, delicious breakfast waiting for her in her own kitchen when she arrived. Maybe it wasn’t going to be as bad as she thought.
Chapter Six
It was easy to figure out why the Seal of Solomon had encouraged a massive following within the world of the occult.
Apart from the biblical accounts of Solomon’s reign in Israel, there were significant amounts of legends and poems that spoke of mystical powers held by the wise king. One such story had not only launched Sir Henry Solomon Wellcome’s search for the Pillar of Sheba, but had certainly given rise to an entire series of legends that had had an enormous impact on the medieval world and even before.
The story—which Guy had shared with Phoe from the Berlin Codex, and consequently became the major topic of discussion amongst the team members as they flew to Sudan—told of how the queen, having been subdued by deceit and mystical powers, was forced to give Solomon a pillar on which all earthly science is inscribed. The legend told of how Solomon sent a demon that was under his command to instantly fetch the pillar from Ethiopia and his already renowned wisdom and sorcery only grew stronger by it.
“Is this stuff even real? It sounds like a lot of hocus pocus to me,” Jeremy commented. “I mean, this all reminds me of Arabian Knights or something like that. Why does Kessler want this thing anyway?” Being a computer geek and typically given over only to things that were logical, he was a little bit unsettled about going off on what seemed a great deal like chasing the wind.
“Dude,” Jonathan put in, “you should have seen all of those seals in Guy’s dad’s collection. You want to talk about hocus pocus. There were things there that would make people fall in love with you and prevent you from being poor and make enemies into friends and all sorts of crazy stuff.”
“The Bible never talks about Solomon being a sorcerer or having any sort of magical powers,” Eric added. “So where did all of this come from?”
“Sir Wellcome seemed to think that Sheba started most of the stories and poems. No doubt, by allying herself with such a powerful force, she too gained strength to expand and keep control over her kingdom. And, of course, if you think about it, when things get retold over and over again, they tend to have a number of embellishments added to them to make the telling and consequently the teller that much more exciting.” The smug tone that Guy used wasn’t as pronounced as it had been at Picton Castle.
Being included on Thalia’s team had actually seemed to subdue some of Guy’s arrogance and he wasn’t as intolerable as he had been before. Having him spread out between so many people lessened the force of his creepiness, but, she also surmised, the inclusion might have been a remedy to someone who wasn’t usually included in groups or easily accepted by others. Though it still rankled to be stuck with someone who was not a part of her team, Phoe decided to try and give him the benefit of the doubt; besides, there was no denying that he knew his stuff when it came to Sheba and Solomon. She settled in, listening to the discussion and eventually found herself dozing. In fact, they had to awaken her when they landed.
“I think it really is the pillar!” Habib was out of the van that had come to pick up the team and shouting at Guy before he had even fully descended the stairway of the jet. “It’s amazing! You have to see it! Hurry! Hurry!”
“Easy, Habib,” Guy responded. His condescending tone returned. There was no doubt that he had been a very eager and apt student when learning how to deal with the peasantry. “We will get there soon enough. Besides, what would you know about the authenticity of the pillar?”
Though Guy downplayed Habib’s excitement, he was just as eager as his underling to take in the sight of a treasure that had eluded his great, great grandfather. Phoe was pretty certain that there would be no living with him afterward, especially as he lorded his superiority of both social status and intellect over everyone on the team. However, she was pleasantly surprised that he seemed to be eager to get down to business and working out the interpretation of the pillar and what significant details might be discovered from the artifact that would lead them closer to Solomon’s Seal.
The column was quite large and required at least two men to carry it, though four were often employed just to be certain that it was handled carefully.
“That must have been one hell of a demon,” Jonathan said, brushing his hand on his jeans as both Phoe’s team and Phillip’s team prepared for the job of translating the Coptic text on the pillar.
It was hours of intense concentration, often broken up by heated discussions about a particular character’s significance or how it related to the characters around it, before Peter, who had remained relatively silent, spoke up. “I’ve got something here.”
The announcement made everyone stop and pay attention to what he had found.
“What you got, Peter?” Phoe asked.
“It seems to be a poem.” Peter read off the translation that he had arrived at and then summarized it. “Basically, it speaks of the Riddle of Riddles asked of Solomon by queen Yesaba of Kash.”
“Is Yesaba the same as Sheba?” Jonathan asked.
“It can be translated that way,” Phillips responded. “Kash was what the Egyptians called the lower Nubian nations, basically, what we know as Sudan.”
“Does that mean that Sheba was from Sudan and not Ethiopia?” Eric asked.
Phoe remained silent and listened. She’d discovered that when she listened to her team’s discussions, she was often able to piece together all of the parts and create the whole picture.
“Actually,” Peter replied, “Cush, the area the Bible talks about, could have been on either side of the Red Sea either in the Arabian Peninsula or North East Africa. Kash and Cush might become confused with each other.”
“But you have to assume that the biblical Cush would be where the descendants of the eldest son of Ham who was the son of Noah. And, you can’t discount the fact that one of Cush’s decedents was named Seba. It’s hard not to see that Sheba follows Seba and that places her on the Arabian side of the Red Sea in the land of Seba,” Eric pointed out.
“Wait.” Phoe jumped in. “We’re getting way off track here. What difference does it make where Sheba was from? It appears that she held a great deal of influence over the whole area. To the Egyptians, it would have been Kash and Sudan, but as someone mentioned before, with her wealth, it is entirely possible that she ruled on both sides of the Red Sea. However, I’m not hearing anything about Solomon’s Seal or even anything that hints of its existence. We can translate and discuss what is on this pillar for months, but t
o me, it’s a dead end. It’s a significant find, but for our purposes, a dead end. I think we need to pull off of this and concentrate our efforts elsewhere.”
Guy, who had taken a call on his cell phone just as the discussion was beginning to heat up, interrupted. “We’ve got something else that we might want to check out.”
“Yeah, what you got?” Phoe turned toward him and sighed. Besides running low on sleep and having not yet shaken the feeling of impending doom, she was frustrated. She wasn’t sure that the Seal of Solomon ever actually existed. If it did, it certainly wasn’t related to the Pillar of Sheba in any way. So, when she turned toward Guy, whom she had learned to tolerate, she wasn’t at all confident that what he was about to announce had any value or relevance to the wild goose chase that Simon had sent her on.
“Another of my excavations has turned up something pretty significant in Ethiopia,” he said beaming. “We might have just discovered the source of the Queen of Sheba’s wealth.”
“Again, a significant find, but I don’t see how it’s going to help us find the seal,” she sighed. The fact that she was irritable and out of sorts bothered her. What is wrong with me? I just feel so burdened. “I think we should get some rest and then go check out your mine. If you don’t mind?”
“You can sleep when you’re dead,” Guy quipped.
“That eternal rest might come sooner to some than to others,” she muttered.
Chapter Seven
The London Times
A British excavation team, led by Alfred Guy Phillips the Fourth of Picton Castle in Wales, has struck archaeological gold with a discovery that may solve the mystery of where the Queen of Sheba, of biblical legend, derived her fabled treasures.
