“Well, her miners clearly cut too deep, hit the dark XM deposits and started mutating,” Hank said. “So did her priests, and then finally the queen herself.”
Conrad nodded. “So that’s when she decides to see wise King Solomon in Jerusalem for some supernatural help. She’s heard all about the Ark of the Covenant in his Temple, which is sitting on the biggest portal in the known world. She shows up with her pile of gold, frankincense and the like.”
“Yep,” said Hank. “And I’m thinking Solomon told her to build the jungle portal to disinfect her people, which she did, then sealed the place up and left. She would have forbidden her subjects to disclose the dark XM portal or anything else about the wisdom of Solomon. She probably returned to her palace at Meroe and never left after that. But some kind of stonecutter — one of her masons or Solomon’s — probably wanted to record a way back to the mines. So he cut a coded relief to make a map, which was what my illuminated illustration of the Queen of Sheba was based on.”
Conrad looked up at the stars over the cove. Virgo was sure shining bright tonight. “Wow, I guess we both found what we were looking for.”
“You mean my banking theory about Solomon, the gold-laundering alchemist?” Hank laughed. “I stand by my theory. Einstein called compound interest the greatest secret of the universe.”
Conrad said, “I’ll grant you that.”
“And I’ll grant you that the two portals we found in Africa could well be your legendary Pillars of Creation,” Hank offered. “The crater portal could be considered the natural — as in fallen nature — Pillar of Chaos. And the nearby portal made from Solomon’s tech, the one that ends up in the jungle, that could be considered the man-made or artificial Pillar of Order.”
Conrad could see that. “You could almost call them the Pillars of Good and Evil, like the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden.”
“Or its inspiration,” Hank said. “But now we’re heading off into Serena Serghetti land.”
“Don’t I know it,” Conrad said darkly. “But if the truth behind the Queen of Sheba was supposed to be some big secret, why include it at all in the Bible?”
“To remember.”
“Remember?”
“Yeah. It means nothing to the uninitiated. But to those who study the arcana, the metaphysics, it’s a tangible reminder of the wages of sin.”
The barmaid had finally returned with Conrad’s pint, which sloshed pleasantly onto the table. “But who gets to know the truth?”
“Those who are smart enough to go looking for it between the lines, in what’s not said.” Hank raised his glass of rum.
“Cheers to that, mate,” Conrad said, clanking his glass against Hank’s. “It sure was a hell of a trip. How about another round?”