Arnulf was more than willing to answer. He had in fact, I thought, brought us to his study specifically to tell us. I wondered abruptly if anything he said was his real concern, or if he had created a story to distract us from something else.
“It’s believed,” began Arnulf, “and this, I must stress, is only a rumor, that King Solomon’s Pearl has been found again.”
IV
If the story was created for our benefit, at least the Pearl had not been, for King Haimeric too seemed to have heard of it. “But I didn’t think it could be found,” the king said slowly. “I’d always heard that it had been hidden inside a golden box, inside a sealed amphora, inside a locked cabinet, inside a sunken ship, in the deepest rift of the Outer Sea.”
“That’s right,” said Arnulf, “hidden by the Ifriti a thousand years ago. But if an Ifrit had hidden it in the sea, he might be able to find it again. And the story I have heard is that it is now somewhere in the East, and that someone has located its hiding-place.”
“And what is this Pearl?” asked Hugo.
“Since no one has seen it for a thousand years,” said Arnulf slowly, “we have only story and legend. But the legend is that it is an enormous, flawless black pearl, permeated from its creation with the forces that shaped the earth, and which the Queen of Sheba brought to King Solomon as a wedding gift. Something of such perfection, something of such historical significance, would always be beyond price.
“But there is more. King Solomon, it is said, imbued this Pearl with all his wisdom and magic. It gives power to those who hold it, so that they will always prosper, that their setbacks will be only temporary, and they will in the end find their hearts’ desire.”
The room was silent for a moment except for the crackling of the fire. The candle flames were reflected in the absolute black of the windows.
“But if it’s so priceless,” said Hugo at last, “why doesn’t the royal Son of David still have it?”
“The Captivity of Babylon,” said Joachim. I wondered how much of this he had already heard.
Arnulf nodded. “Exactly. The Sons of David after Solomon long had the Pearl, but when their city was sacked and the Children of Abraham were taken as slaves to Babylon, the Pearl was lost to them.”
“This doesn’t sound like a very reliable magical object to me,” I said, “if it let them all be enslaved.”
“It’s years since I heard about it,” said King Haimeric slowly. “But my impression was that the Pearl was stolen from the royal treasury, and that Babylon attacked shortly thereafter.”
“The Bible tells us,” commented Joachim, “that King Zedekiah had broken his covenant with the Lord.”
“Others have also suggested,” said Arnulf, “that the Pearl would only aid its owner as long as that owner acted from the purest of motives. We have so little information. But the story one hears most often is that this flawless pearl did have a flaw. It would always aid the people who held it, sometimes for a year, sometimes for five centuries. But sooner or later its powers would fail, only to be revived in the hands of someone new.”
I leaned back in my chair and shivered in spite of the fire’s warmth. Something out of the old magic, created long, long before modern wizardry had begun to shape and channel the forces of magic with reliable and reproducible spells, something carrying both enormous powers and a fatal flaw …
“Solomon himself,” Arnulf continued, “in all his wisdom, is said to have locked up the Pearl late in his life and refused to touch it again. For centuries after it was first stolen, the story goes, it kept appearing and disappearing around the East. From Babylon, it was taken deep into the inner desert by nomads. It was stolen and stolen again a hundred times, and every time it was stolen its flaw was revealed sooner. For a century, the governor of the imperial city of Xantium held it, and his city flourished beyond all others in power and in wealth. But then it was lost again, until it appeared again in the hands of the Prophet’s nephew-brought to him, I have heard, by an Ifrit. And the People of the Prophet flourished in might, and the caliphs held the Pearl for two hundred years.
“But after two centuries, either the Pearl began again to reveal its flaw, or the very desire for its power drove men mad, for fratricidal wars broke out among all the People of the Prophet. And it was then that the last of the caliphs renounced both its power and its perils, by sending the Ifriti to hide it deep in the sea.”
Arnulf fell silent. For several minutes we thought our own thoughts, until a log settled in the fireplace with a sharp crack. I looked toward Ascelin. I was still wondering if any of the magic I knew would be at all useful, but he looked as though he had reached some sort of decision.
But Hugo spoke first. “But what is the connection of the Pearl with you, and Father Joachim, and things disappearing into thin air?”
Arnulf looked uncomfortable. I wondered if what he was about to tell us was a lie. “It’s the caravans,” he said after a brief pause, “not just mine, but many of the luxury merchants’. Stories are running wild throughout the East that whoever found the Black Pearl is trying to smuggle it into the western kingdoms. All of us therefore have had to put on extra guards.”
The story was not just running through the East, I thought. It had already reached the lord of the red sandstone castle.
“We could understand it if our caravans were just being attacked by bandits-bandits have been a feature of the luxury trade as long as it has existed. Silks, spices, saints’ relics from Xantium-we all have to deal with them. Why, just last fall, when I wasn’t more than a week’s ride from here, I myself was set upon by bandits, though the knights with me fought them off successfully.
“But my caravans, at any rate, haven’t merely been attacked. I’ve had repeated messages from my agents in the East, and there seems no obvious answer. Several of my caravans, four of them as of last month, have simply disappeared.”
He paused again, and when he continued it was so quietly we had to lean forward to hear him. “Men and animals were left standing, but the wagons and goods were gone. They said there was an abrupt rush of air, and then my caravans were gone without a scrap remaining. Only,” and his voice dropped even lower, “only there was always a sign dug into the hard sand and stone of the road. The sign of the cross.”
“Ifriti,” said Ascelin into the ensuing silence.
Arnulf shook his head. “I don’t think so. Ifriti could certainly carry off a caravan without a trace, but they would not mark where they had been with a Christian cross. I’m not sure the Ifriti recognize the power of God at all, and if so they probably follow the Prophet. That’s why,” flicking his eyes toward Joachim, “I’d hoped my brother the priest would have some ideas.”
None of us had any ideas-or at any rate any ideas we wanted to tell Arnulf. But Ascelin, back in our chambers later that evening, seemed convinced he knew what had happened.
“He’s got Solomon’s Pearl here in this house,” he said, low and intense. We were all gathered together in his room-all of us except, again, Joachim.
“Can you sense it, Wizard?” asked King Haimeric.
I tried for a moment, then shook my head. “I don’t find any indication of a magical object here in the house, but that might not mean anything. Any natural object with a spell attached to it is still a natural object, and the spell itself is hard to recognize unless it’s actually active.”
“If he’s got it,” said Dominic, who had been very quiet all evening, “then he’s hoping to get the might of the Church to help him keep it.”
Ascelin nodded, a quick motion with his chin. “That’s why they suddenly asked back the brother they virtually threw out all those years before.”
“Wait a minute,” I protested. “I don’t think they threw him out. They may have quarreled over business ethics, but Joachim decided himself he wanted to be a priest. He and his brother write each other fairly regularly, even if he hasn’t been here since he went off to seminary.”