Knowing the block lay in Jerusalem certainly tightened the net, but there would still be countless walls to search, countless carved blocks within each.
“What’s this?” asked the girl, pointing to the illustration.
“Stone,” Hannah answered in her best teacher’s voice. “It’s called a stone. Can you say—”
“What’s this?” the girl said again, pointing to the same image, more insistently this time. Hannah looked closer and realized the girl wasn’t actually pointing to the stone. She was pointing at something beside the stone in the picture. Something small, like a tiny object that had been shoved into the crack between this stone block and the next. In fact, it looked just like…
“Clooney, is that what I think it is?” She handed him the journal, pointing out what the girl had found.
“It looks like a folded piece of paper,” he said, “or a note that someone tried to hide in the wall.”
How did Hannah miss this? It was so obvious now that it had been pointed out. And she knew exactly where it was.
“This carved block is from the Western Wall,” she said. And it made perfect sense because the Western Wall was built on the same site as King Solomon’s temple.
Solomon was the first Jewish king to build a temple there. It was destroyed, then rebuilt. Then destroyed again, and rebuilt a last time by King Herod. But when the Romans invaded Jerusalem nearly two thousand years ago, they pulled everything down and scattered the huge blocks. Of the temple that was once the Jews’ holiest site, only one wall was left standing. It came to be called the Western Wall, and for the last five hundred years, Jews had gathered before this wall
to pray.
Over time, an unusual tradition developed. Those who came to pray at the Western Wall wrote their prayers upon paper, like a secret note to God, and then pressed the folded message into the seams between the stones of the wall. Today, more than a million notes a year were tucked into the Western Wall. So many notes that they had to be regularly cleared out to make room for more.
Hannah remembered the first time she had seen the Western Wall. It was such an odd sight, that towering battlement with bits of paper of every imaginable colour literally bursting from its seams. The tradition of hiding notes to God would have been the same in Julien’s day.
“Next stop,” said Hannah. “The Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem.”
r
The car dropped them off outside Zion Gate, and it was a short walk into the Jewish Quarter. They passed through the newly installed security gate, complete with metal detectors and soldiers with machine guns. After a brief moment of anxiety, Hannah passed through the checkpoint. The soldiers had their hands full with the line up. They simply peeked at the camera in her backpack and handed it back, saying nothing more. Moments later she and Clooney entered a large plaza, fronted by a tremendous stone rampart. The
Western Wall.
Even from a distance Hannah could see the countless bits of colored paper outlining the lower stones like grout. There were hundreds of people before the wall. Many pressed their foreheads to the huge stones, their mouths whispering silent prayers. Others read aloud from the holy Tanakh. Most of the men present were orthodox Jews in their identical black suits. Seeing hundreds of men together in one place, all dressed the same, always reminded Hannah of an M.C. Escher picture.
The wall was sectioned off, so that men prayed on the left and women on the right. “We’ll have to split up,” she said. “Remember, we are looking for a carved block that is shaped just like this.” She pointed to the illustration in the journal.
Clooney tapped the side of his head, assuring her that he had memorized the image, and then went left. Hannah kept the journal before her and joined the women praying on the right. She went straight to the wall and began her search. The gender partition wouldn’t have been here in Julien’s day, so she had just as much chance of finding the stone
as Clooney.
It didn’t take long. Over the last two hundred years, the blocks hadn’t changed, and within a few minutes Hannah had found the stone. There were far more notes in the seams now than when Julien had drawn his illustration, but she was definitely, without a doubt, standing before the same stone he had drawn.
She checked the numbers Henri had written beneath the illustration.
f2.2 500 100
She adjusted the settings on her camera to match. She snapped the photo. She took a step back from the crowd and glanced left and right to ensure no one else was looking.
She pressed the review button and looked at the photograph.
This was the most interesting one yet. There was the carved block, same as in the illustration. Beneath the image of the block appeared a horizontal line, as though Julien had underlined it with a ghostly marking pen. But there was more. Beneath the line, he had placed an arrow pointing down.
And beneath the arrow, one word: Sulaymāni.
Hannah didn’t even need to ask Clooney this time. She knew Sulaymāni was the Arabic word for “Solomon.”
Khātim Sulaymāni. Which was the same as “Emblem + Solomon.”
So they were looking for Solomon’s emblem. Got it. She supposed this meant the hidden treasure would have a special mark, or symbol, to show whom it belonged to. That seemed reasonable to Hannah. She left the women’s prayer area and waved her arms till she had Clooney’s attention.
He came running over. “Did you find it?”
She nodded. “We’re looking for Solomon’s emblem.”
“Can I have a look?”
They studied the photo together, trying to puzzle out the rest of the clues. Clooney agreed it looked like Julien had underlined the block of stone and then added beneath it an arrow pointing down.
“Could Julien be saying the treasure is under the wall?” asked Clooney.
“Of course!” she replied. “We are standing before the last remaining wall of King Solomon’s temple. And this clue says the emblem marking his treasure is just beneath.”
“But how do we get under the wall?” asked Clooney, glancing up at its great height.
Hannah pointed to a vending booth. “We buy a ticket,” she said.
“A ticket?”
She nodded. “To enter the tunnels beneath. They run the length of the wall. All we need is a ticket, and we can take a guided tour.”
They purchased their tickets and five minutes later were joining a group of tourists out front of the entrance leading beneath the Western Wall. A tour guide soon introduced herself and began by explaining a bit of the tunnel’s history.
“If you will all follow me,” the guide said, “we will now descend the first flight of steps and begin our tour beneath the Western Wall, the last remaining wall of King Solomon’s
temple.”
As they started down into the murky depths of the tunnel, Clooney suddenly halted on the steps, staring wild-eyed at Hannah, “The Emblem of Solomon,” he said.
“Right,” she replied. “Solomon’s emblem. That is what we’re looking for.”
He shook his head, as though he’d just realized something. “How did I miss this?”
“Miss what?” demanded Hannah.
“The word Khātim,” he said. “It means emblem, or symbol. But it can also be translated as seal.”
“The Seal of Solomon? You mean…” Hannah couldn’t believe what he was saying. “You mean the Seal of Solomon? The famous ring worn by Solomon himself?”
Clooney said, “It’s one of the greatest legends in Islam. I knew it all sounded familiar. I should have realized
right away.”
“Hang on,” said Hannah, charging back up the stairs toward the surface until her phone had reception. She did an Internet search for Seal of Solomon.
Instantly, page after page of information popped up. She scrolled through the browser, astounded at how
many articles and websites were dedicated to this topic.
1. “Understanding the Seal of Solomon”
2. “Khātim Sulaymāni in Islamic Lore”
3. “Ten Things You Didn’t Know About
The Seal Of Solomon”
The list went on. She couldn’t believe it.
Hannah needed look no further than the first page to discover the Seal of Solomon was indeed a legendary ring worn by King Solomon. The ring was supposedly imprinted with the name of God and set with four jewels, which were given to King Solomon by angels. And most interesting of all, the ring was considered the source of King Solomon’s wisdom and even gave him magical powers.
Hannah was thunderstruck. This changed everything. Absolutely everything. The map. The treasure. Nothing was as it seemed.
“Clooney,” she said, her voice trembling with excitement. “We are not looking for King Solomon’s treasure.”
He met her eyes, slowly nodding in understanding.
“We are hunting for the legendary ring of King Solomon. A magic ring.”
“This is amazing,” he said. “You know what, Hannah?”
She shook her head.
“You,” he said, “are more fun than any girl I have ever met in my life.”
She chuckled.
“And this should definitely be a movie,” he said. “And you and I are definitely going to be the stars.”
But Hannah was distracted. She was still thinking about the Seal of Solomon, and that Henri must have known. As Henri plodded through the map, one location at a time, he would have learned that the map led to wisdom, a magic ring of wisdom, and not the famed horde of temple gold. But did the Cancellarii know this as well?
Hannah quickly scanned the rest of the article.
The ring was made from a mixture of iron and brass. A six-pointed star had been pressed into the metal, alongside the ‘Most High’ name of God. In addition to wisdom, the ring gave Solomon power over the four elements and genies as well. The Seal of Solomon, the article read, was primarily an Islamic legend. But Hannah was surprised to discover the legend occurred in ancient Hebraic and Christian lore too. It appeared all three of Jerusalem’s main religions could be traced back to King Solomon and tied together with the legend of this very ring.
Hannah looked at Clooney. For the second time that day his differing background, having been raised as a Muslim, had given them the key information they needed to decipher the map. And she thought she was the archaeologist here…
“You know,” she said. “We make a good team.”
“Which reminds me. Do you recall an agreement we once had? Something about a kiss?”
“No time for that. Come on, we have a tour to catch!”
They raced down the steps until they reached the cluster of tourists. They were crowded around the guide, who was at that moment pointing to a large block in the wall.
“Over here,” their guide was saying, “is the largest stone in the entire wall. It’s called the Western Stone. It weighs 520 tons, making it one of the largest blocks of stone ever used in construction. And it was carved and placed here two thousand years before the existence of modern machines.”
While the woman pointed out other interesting facts about this tremendous stone, Clooney whispered, “Let’s see the next illustration. I want to know what we are looking for.”
Hannah opened the journal to the fourth image. According to the journal, somewhere down here in this tunnel was another tunnel, leading off from the first. Except this second tunnel appeared blocked off. As though someone had built a wall to prevent passage. Beneath the illustration, in addition to Henri’s three numbers, he had scrawled a brief note to himself. He simply wrote: The cave.
The cave? The illustration looked nothing like a cave. What was Henri referring to?
As the guide led them deeper into the tunnel, describing points of interest along the way, Hannah used the flashlight on her phone to keep one eye on the journal, checking for anything along the way that matched Julien’s illustration.
“Is that it?” asked Clooney.
“Not even close. What about over here?”
“No. That looks more like an ancient toilet.”
“Please keep up!” the guide called back to them. The cluster of tourists was now several metres ahead, gathering before a niche in the wall.
“Sorry, coming!” Clooney called back. “We better keep up, or she might throw us off this tour.”
When they arrived, Hannah and Clooney found themselves stuck behind the group, unable to see. They could hear the guide’s voice describing something on the far side of
the tourists.
“Behind me,” the guide announced, “was once a tunnel that branched off and led all the way to the Temple Mount, where the arc of the covenant was once kept in King Solomon’s temple. The arc was very important to the Jews because it supposedly carried the laws given to Moses by God. As you can see,” she continued, “the tunnel has been filled in. It was blocked off about a thousand years ago. But because it was the closest the Jews could get to Solomon’s original temple, and the place where the holy arc was kept, many Jews came here to this very place to pray. This place may have had another name long ago, but today,” she said, “we simply call it the cave.”
Clooney nudged Hannah, and she nodded right back.
“Shall we continue?” suggested the guide. “Now down this hall, you will find…”
As the herd of tourists trundled off, eager to keep pace with their guide, Hannah was given her first glimpse of what lay hidden behind them.
And there it was. The cave. Which was no cave at all, really. She was looking upon a second tunnel blocked off with stone.
“This is it!” said Clooney. “Hurry! Before the guide notices we’re gone.”
Hannah shined her flashlight on the journal. Beneath Julien’s illustration, she saw Henri’s numbers.
f1.8 100 6400
She adjusted the three settings according to the code. She snapped the photo.
“Bam,” said Clooney, gazing at the photo. “There it is. Another arrow.”
This arrow was different though. Instead of pointing down, like the arrow in the last photo, this arrow appeared to point directly into the photo, away from the viewer, leading them deeper into the tunnel in the picture.
Except there was a wall before them. A wall they could not pass.
“Didn’t that woman say this wall was built a thousand years ago?” Hannah asked in confusion.
Clooney nodded. “That would mean it was here when Julien sketched it as well. It doesn’t make sense. Why would he create an arrow here, if the tunnel is blocked off?”
“Wait a minute,” said Hannah. “What if Julien is simply telling us to follow the tunnel, to go where it goes? And the guide already told us where it goes…”
“It goes to the Temple Mount!” cried Clooney. “You’re a genius! Julien is sending us to the Temple Mount. That’s where the next clue is hidden! But what’s wrong Hannah? You look like you’ll be sick.”
Hannah looked at him. She opened the journal and showed him the next illustration. It was the image of a gigantic stone sitting in the floor of a shrine. There was only one place this could be.
“The Dome of the Rock,” he said. It was the oldest Muslim shrine, sitting right in the middle of the Temple Mount. “It’s the next clue. And you aren’t allowed inside the Dome of the Rock because…”
“I’m not a Muslim,” she said, finishing his sentence.
Just as the Western Wall was an important place of prayer for Jews, the Dome of the Rock was Jerusalem’s most sacred shrine for Muslims. They believed their prophet, Muhammad, had ascended to heaven from that very stone, and so they built a gigantic gold-covered dome over the rock to
house it.
The Dome was visible fr
om just about every point in Jerusalem. Hannah had seen it from the outside countless times. Her problem was that no non-Muslims were allowed inside. The last time a group of Jewish pilgrims and tourists attempted to enter, the Palestinians protested, and riots broke out. If Hannah tried to enter the Dome of the Rock to photograph the ancient stone, it could get serious, fast.
So how would Hannah decipher the map if she wasn’t allowed inside the golden Dome?
“I can see two choices,” said Clooney. “First choice, you give up.”
“That will not happen.”
“Second choice. You let me enter the Dome of the Rock and take the picture of the stone. I’m a Muslim. They won’t even blink an eye.”
Hannah shook her head. “Henri gave me the map. It’s up to me to do this. Besides, you don’t even know how to use my camera.”
“But you’ll never get in. And if you do, you’ll probably be arrested. The Temple Mount is patrolled by the Waqf.”
“The Waqf? What is that?” she asked.
“They’re the Islamic religious authorities in charge of the whole Temple Mount area, which includes the Dome of the Rock. Their job is to make sure people like you don’t create trouble.”
“Can you sneak me past the Waqf? And get me into the shrine?”
“Hannah, this is serious. If you get caught, they’ll bring in the police.”
Hannah didn’t need Clooney to explain that police meant Andrepont. And Andrepont meant the Cancellarii. Sneaking into the Dome would be both dangerous and tricky.
“There is a third option,” said Hannah. “I could ask for Professor Weisman’s help. She is an archaeologist at the university. She knows many people. Maybe she can get me into the Dome.”
Hannah and Clooney hurried back to the surface. Standing in the plaza before the Western Wall, she called Professor Weisman. Upon hearing Hannah’s voice, the professor heaved a sigh of relief. She said Hannah could not imagine how worried she had been. Hannah apologized for their abrupt departure and began to update the professor on their discoveries, when Professor Weisman interrupted her.
“Hannah, we should not discuss any of this on the phone. It is far too dangerous. Come to my office, where we can talk safely.” They were about to hang up, when the professor added, “Oh, and Hannah,” she said. “Bring the journal…”
Hannah and the Magic Eye Page 8