He smiled at the clerk, whose face was frozen in a disapproving expression, and leaned into Remi.
“Next time I suggest it, hit me on the head with a brick.”
CHAPTER 14
When Sam called Selma, she sounded excited. “I’m glad you called. You must be psychic. I was just getting ready to touch base. I’ve got some research I want to send you, but I wanted to tell you about it before I did—give you the background.”
“Well, I’m here. Shoot.”
“I dug around, as you requested, and quickly discovered that there’s almost no information online about the Solomon Islands that doesn’t relate to World War Two, mineral rights, or tourism. So there isn’t exactly a wealth of data to sift through.”
“That never stopped you before, Selma.”
“Of course not. Anyway, once I exhausted the Internet, I switched to making calls to people who might know something about Guadalcanal history. Turns out most of those are in Australia and New Zealand, which isn’t surprising since those are the nearest developed countries.”
“Right . . .” Sam said, his tone mildly impatient. If Selma noticed, she gave no indication.
“I contacted some friends in Sydney and it turns out that one of the foremost experts on the islands is actually in Adelaide. An anthropology professor at the university there, Dr. Sylvester Rose. Anyway, I called him and we had a long chat. Very nice man.”
“I’m glad you got along,” Sam said, hoping she would cut to the chase.
“Turns out he spent years summering in the islands, collecting data about the cultures, documenting their habits, recording their lore. I asked him about anything that might be relevant to cursed bays or sunken ruins and he said it rang a bell but that he needed to go back through his logs and review his notes—nothing immediately came to mind. That was yesterday. Today he called me back and said he’d located the section he was looking for and that he’d send it over.”
“That’s great, Selma. So you have it?”
“Yes. I wanted to read it to you.”
He closed his eyes. “There’s never been a better time.”
“Okay, here goes. ‘One particularly obscure legend appears to have been taboo to discuss, but as with most forbidden stories, the prohibition made it all the more alluring for those wishing to buck the status quo. Thus it survives, albeit with the taboo intact. It was recounted to me by a medicine man, a healer in the highlands of Guadalcanal who lived a hermetic life away from the surrounding tribes. I was introduced to him by the tribal chieftain of the neighboring village, who held him in enormous regard. Our initial meeting became an annual one until he passed away in 1997. He told me the legend on our last night together the prior year.’”
Selma paused to clear her throat. “‘Many generations before the white man appeared when the island was only our people, a great king arose to lead us. This king was a sorcerer who could command the gods of sea, sky, fire, and earth to do his bidding. He rallied the disparate tribes and created a powerful island nation. He was both feared for his prowess in battle and beloved for his benevolence and wisdom in deciding difficult social and moral questions. His name was Loc, and during his lifetime his name became the most revered in the kingdom.’”
“Interesting. First I’ve heard of it,” Sam said.
“Here’s where it gets good. ‘In a time of plenty, King Loc announced that he would build a royal complex the likes of which had never been seen. For many years his subjects labored to fulfill his ambition, quarrying limestone and dragging enormous blocks over rollers from the mountains to the sea. On the eve of its completion, King Loc took a wife—the most beautiful woman in the islands, daughter of a powerful chieftain from Malaita. It was said that to see her face was akin to gazing at the sun, so great was her beauty, and the king forbid anyone from looking directly at her. It is thought that this is where the cultural taboo against looking at females came from.’”
“I just thought that was shyness,” Sam said.
“Apparently not. ‘The following morning, the heads of all the island tribes were to gather at the site of the new complex for a weeklong celebration. For months the king had been collecting tribute from traders and his tribes and adding it to the vast treasure secreted in the royal palace. The celebrants came heavily laden with gold, jewels, and other tribute. When the column arrived at the site, the king was parading his riches in the sun, his high priests and wife nearby. The gods were so offended by this display of arrogance from a mere human that the earth shook as never before, destroying the compound as though it were made of sand, and then the sea god sent a wave the size of an island to erase any trace of the site. Most of the visiting dignitaries were lost in the destruction, only a handful survived. Those who did agreed that the gods had made their will known and that the survivors’ atonement would be to live as they had before the king came to power. As punishment for the king’s sins, his name was never to be spoken again and his palace and temples were to be forgotten, the site damned as a cursed place.’ That’s the end of his entry.”
“So the Solomon Islands’ primitive culture is a direct result of that event? All progress erased in one fell swoop?”
“That’s how I read it. But one thing that struck me was that a treasure is mentioned as though the amassing of riches was a big part of the affront to the gods, the clear message being that wealth is also to be avoided since it brought calamity with it.”
“A treasure. Well, I’ve never been one to shy away from a challenge. I wonder how much of the legend is real and how much invention?”
“The professor had no way of knowing. Because it was forbidden knowledge, he had no secure way of corroborating it, and the medicine man swore him to secrecy. He couldn’t very well go asking around after giving his word or nobody would have trusted him ever again. He’d spent a decade building his standing in the community with his regular trips and he didn’t want to destroy that trust, so he kept quiet about it.” Selma paused. “But no secret lasts if more than one person knows about it. There has to be someone else the medicine man told—or, more obviously, someone told him originally—and that someone may well have told others. If you haven’t heard anything after turning over rocks there, it might be pretty obscure, especially as generations die off and the new ones aren’t interested in the past.”
Sam nodded to himself. “Yes, the islands have undergone a big change since the war. Our other problem is that such a small fraction of the population speaks English, so we’re limited to the few that do. That’s mainly the residents of the capital.”
“Well, now you know everything I do. The professor said he’d be more than happy to speak t
o you by phone if you wanted to pick his brain. I’ll forward his number when I send the scans.”
“Do you think it would do any good?”
“I got the impression he told me everything he knew. He wasn’t at all evasive. To him, this is all just academic interest. I didn’t tell him you’d found the likely site of the king’s palace.”