The Smuggler's Seal

The Broken Law

"What's the big deal?"

"This piece Jacobi.  This piece doesn't even officially exist."

"It exists."

Mattson turned to Ghaihani.  "Where did you find it?" 

"In Hammurabi's city of Babylon," Ghaihani's eyes glimmered with malevolent pride, "where else?"

Mattson wanted to ask more, like how he had acquired the piece, but Jacobi nudged him quiet. Pushing a man like Ghaihani too hard was a dangerous undertaking, and Mattson let it rest. The piece was obviously stolen. Probably looted straight from the desert sands. Most of the pieces in the room probably were, but it would do him no good to point it out.

"Now gentlemen, you have the seal?" Ghaihani asked, impatience creeping into his voice.

"Yes, yes," Jacobi jumped to open his satchel and removed linen coverings to reveal the small brown seal. Holding it like a vial of poison, he delivered it into Gaihani's waiting hand.

A sharp intake of breath belied Ghaihani's excitement as he held the seal aloft and scrutinized its engraved surface.

Mattson got his first good look at the seal and his own breath caught in his throat. It was the seal of Qingu.

"Exquisite. You know what this is gentlemen?"

Mattson nodded, he had spent many years studying the seals of the Gods.

The majority of cylinder seals belonged to kings and men of importance: Governors, judges, priests, businessmen and the like. They were used as personal signatures, rolled across wet clay to impart a signature per se.  A small fraction of cylinder seals depicted the Gods of Sumer in their duties and powers. And of that small fraction an even smaller fraction belonged to the very Gods of Sumer themselves.

"Come."

They followed Ghaihani to a lit glass display case on a far wall and he pressed a code into the control panel beside it. Mattson noted the extra security, additional to the armed guards. He noticed the inch thick, probably bullet proof glass that slid away into the steel surrounding walls and approached as he was motioned forward.

A tingling sensation prickled his scalp as he recognized the lines of showcased cylinder seals spread out like a family tree. Apsu and Tiamat, the creator Gods of Sumeria, and their ranks of children and progeny: Lahmu and Lahamu, Anshar and Kishar, and more generations below them, Inanna, Marduk, Ereshkigal and Nergal. Row upon row they spread out, dozens of them.

And recessed behind them, far enough Mattson almost didn't notice, was a large golden tablet, covered in strange markings. His knees almost buckled before a spreading coldness froze them rigid. It was his tablet, his first find, stolen the very night he unearthed it and here on display. He finally knew the mastermind behind the theft. He finally knew.

His thoughts ran wild, fuzzy half formed memories of the morning he woke up to find the dig site ransacked, the storage lockers broken into. He'd gone nearly mad searching for the missing gold tablet, accusing colleagues and workers and tearing around the site like a man possessed before finally collapsing, exhausted in the scorching desert sun with nothing but his developed pictures to prove the tablet ever existed.

The searing memory was in sharp contrast to the ice that flowed through his veins now, a cold, glacial anger, directed at the wizened old man in front of him. He could annihilate the man. Strike him down right now, except for the half dozen armed guards stationed around the room, their fingers resting heavy on triggers. Better to keep his cool contained if he wanted to live past this moment.

"This gentlemen completes my collection," Gaihani placed the stolen Qingu seal into the last empty space in the case and caressed it fondly. "Only one seal was made of the Dead God. But I needed it to work the incantation."

"He who holds the Seals of the Gods and the Tablet of Destiny, his words shall have the power of Anu." Mattson recited the passage from the golden tablet from memory and the pieces of a puzzle clicked inside his head.

"Very good Dr. Mattson. I thank you especially for this discovery." Ghaihani smirked. "I take it by the expression on your face you know what I possess here."

No, Mattson thought, absorbing the incantation engraved on the tablet, the now full collection of God Seals. No it can't be. His jaw quivered with a shuttered breath and he didn't dare speak a word.

"Your restraint is admirable Doctor Mattson. I interpret that as authentication of my collection. Thank you. And now it is time for you gentlemen to leave. My men will see to your arrangements."

Wild thoughts darted through Mattson's head. He couldn't leave this treasure here. The power Gaihani possessed in this collection was tantamount to Genesis and the Apocalypse rolled into one, the power to create and destroy with a word. He had to do something, but five armed guards marched toward him, their gun barrels leveled straight at him, and his heroics were instantly quelled. Dead men could save nothing, and he had no doubts these men would kill him in a second given any reason. Best to follow the rest of the seals and try to save them at least.

The men were led back outside and packed into the back seat of an unmarked car. One of the armed guards sat in the front, his weapon poised as they sped through the downtown streets of Amman on their way to the international airport. Mattson seethed in the back seat but he remained a statue, one wrong move could be his last.