“So I went. I traveled around the country, to many places where scholars have never been.
“At Lake Tana, in northwest Ethiopia, there are many old monasteries. These places have changed little in hundreds, thousands of years. Christianity came early to Ethiopia… to Axum. It was one of the earliest Christian countries in the world.
“Lake Tana, like this crater, is over a mile above sea level in the northwest part of Ethiopia. From the lake’s southern end, the Blue Nile cascades down a magnificent waterfall to start its seventeen-hundred-kilometer journey to Khartoum in Sudan, where it merges with the White Nile.
“The lake itself is seventy-five kilometers long and sixty kilometers wide. It is dotted with some thirty-seven islands, many with ancient monasteries and churches that contain valuable religious icons and manuscripts. I visited every single one of those enclaves and learned much. They have not only documents and items that relate to their own faith, but some that are much, much older.
“Christianity first spread to the area around the lake in the fifth century A.D. and is now the dominant religion, but there are also communities of Muslims, Jews, and Animists. Many of the people around the lake and on the islands make a living from fishing, still using papyrus reed boats very similar to those depicted in the pharaohs’ tombs of ancient Egypt.
“But even before Christianity, Islam, and Judaism came to this part of the world, there were other faiths. Like many early peoples, the ancient people of Axum worshiped a sun god. Even long after Christianity came to Axum, the Queen of Sheba was reported to be a sun god worshiper. Although she is known now only as the Queen of Sheba and her visit with King Solomon is well recorded, her original title was Queen of Sheba and Axum.”
Lago sat on the bumper of the Land Rover, mesmerized by this information as Mualama continued.
“The people of Axum also worshiped other, older gods. In places, there is a strange mixture of these ancient worships and the Christian church. I also learned that someone else had visited all these places before me over a hundred years ago. It took me a while, but I finally learned the identity of this strange white man… Sir Richard Francis Burton. Yet there was no record of these travels in his official biographies. I realized that Burton had led a secret life, and I wanted to know why. I wanted to know what he was searching for in the same places I was traveling to.”
“Which was?” Lago asked.
“I think he was looking for a key.”
“A key to what?”
“You know, of course, about the Ark of the Covenant?” Mualama suddenly asked in turn.
Lago nodded. “There are rumors, unsubstantiated, that the Ark… if it exists… is in Ethiopia.”
Mualama laughed. “See how even now you still guard what you say? ‘If it exists’?”
“Does it?” Lago challenged him.
Mualama shrugged. “I don’t know. But I suspect something that people have called the Ark does exist.
“The Kebre Negest… The Glory of Kings… is the document that was written during the realm of King Menelik I, the offspring of Sheba and Solomon. It states that when Menelik was a young adult he traveled to Jerusalem and visited his father, Solomon. He returned home to Axum accompanied by Azarias, the son of the high priest Zadok, and brought with them the Ark of the Covenant and placed it in St. Mary of Zion Church in Axum.”
“I’ve heard that, but no one has ever taken a picture of the Ark,” Lago said. “It seems like if it was there, it would be one of the greatest archaeological and theological discoveries of all time and people would want to publicize it.”
Mualama chuckled. “You are thinking like a westerner. Have you ever been to St. Mary of Zion Church?”
“No.”
“Do you know anyone who has ever actually been there?”
“No.”
“So these rumors were not enough to make you travel to check them out and you want to be an archaeologist?” Mualama did not wait for an answer. “Thus it is so with many things. There are rumors. Someone says: ‘Someone should do something! Someone should check this out!’ And they think someone else has, but the truth be known, no one does.
“I have been to St. Mary of Zion Church,” Mualama said. “As Burton went in 1877. His biographies said he went to Africa to search for gold, as his finances were desperate, but that is not what he was looking for. Money was not important to him. The search for the truth was.
“At the church there is one monk, each generation, who is given the responsibility to care for the inner sacristy of the church. No one but that monk ever goes into the sacristy.”
“That’s a nice technique to keep the mystery alive,” Lago said, stung by the old man’s comments.
Mualama tapped the object he was sitting on. “This mystery… the Airlia… lasted for a very long time while people laughed at things like UFOs. Meanwhile, the Americans were test-flying those craft, the bouncers, at their Area 51 for decades.” He wagged a finger. “Do not be so quick to deride things you know little about. I have been to the church, and I spoke with the monk. You have not.”
“Do you think the Ark is in it?” Lago asked.
“I spent two weeks there.” Mualama seemed not to have heard the question. “The monk told me there were very few visitors. Maybe half a dozen each year. Amazing, isn’t that? There are rumors of what even you call a great discovery and only a half-dozen people travel there each year. And no one who had stayed as long as I.
“I’m afraid I was a little obnoxious. I pestered the poor old man every day with my questions. I wanted to know every legend, every story, everything he could tell me. And he did talk to me, finally.”
Mualama’s eyes were unfocused as he remembered. “One night we sat in the church’s courtyard, under a very old tree, and he spoke until the sun rose in the east. He told me strange things and hinted at others, some that he was afraid to speak openly about. Then he had to go to his meditations.”
Mualama snapped to, smiling at Lago. “No, I don’t think the Ark is in the church, because the monk told me it wasn’t. Not directly, but in so many words, he let me know that the Ark had once been in the church. But only for a short while. I think the Ark has traveled to many places.”
Lago leaned forward. “Where is it now?”
“Ah, he would not tell me that. But I knew from what he said that it had been moved and that the church was now a blind, designed to confuse the trail. He also gave me clues, places to look for more information. Not directly, but I listened carefully, sorting through all he said, connecting his words with other rumors, legends, I have learned about. I went to England and searched through the source material on Sir Burton. And I found more clues, leading me places.
“And that is what I have been doing for the past twenty years. Looking here and there. Taking a small piece of information from one place and adding it to another. Like bread crumbs from the past, I have followed Sir Richard Francis Burton around the world. I think the manuscript we have, written in a long-dead tongue, tells of Burton’s journeys and what he learned. I think I can combine it with what I learned following his trail to have a most interesting tale. We will have to get it translated.
“I, too, went to Lake Tana and visited all of the monasteries. On the island of Dega Estefanos, I went to a very small monastery, cut in the side of a cliff, over three hundred meters above the surface of the lake. You can get up there only if the monks inside lower you a rope. I had to wait four days before they allowed me up.”
Mualama paused.
“And?” Lago pressed.
“That is where I found the parchment that told me this site existed. The legends I have studied say the Ark is hidden inside a place called the Hall of Records and that a key is needed to get inside the Hall.” Mualama stood. “And now that we have rested, let us see what we have found.” He ran his hands along the seam while Lago watched over his shoulder. Mualama staggered back as the lid suddenly swung open, two hydraulic arms smoothly laying the top back.