Ta’am and Vohu Manah

The next morning, the city went to work, but before they started out, they took out their oilstones and sharpened their knives and axes and daggers. They kept their weapons close at hand and their eyes on the horizon. Instead of talking about walls and ceilings and cisterns, they discussed vantage points, defensive positions, and the feasibility of boarding the ships and pulling offshore.

Ta’am asked Vohu Manah, the magician, to meet him at the forge.

“I wish to build a small magic box to give to someone as a gift,” he explained.

“I had such a box,” Vohu Manah said, “but it was washed away in the storm at sea. I did not build it, but I can show you how it worked.”

After much discussion of false bottoms and disappearing coins, Ta’am sketched a design on papyrus according to Vohu Manah’s description.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have time to build it now,” Ta’am said. “The Priestess is planning a ritual ceremony, and I must build a cauldron for the temple, so the box will have to wait.”

“Tell me, then,” Vohu Manah said with a wink, “who will receive the magic box?”

“Oh, that’s a secret.”

Vohu Manah slapped Ta’am on the shoulder. “Come now, you can tell me!”

“Well…”

“Trust me!”

“You won’t tell anyone?”

“Never!”

“Okay, then. The box is for Amaal.”

Vohu Manah grinned, nodded knowingly, and patted his heart. “It will be our secret!”

Meanwhile, the Priestess instructed the masons to build a high circular wall to hold a cauldron for the new temple. She ordered the carpenters to build two high, wooden platforms, one on either side of the cauldron, with stairs going up. She sent out an official order to Ta’am and the other smiths. Working all day and well into the night, they hammered the copper plates flat and welded them together into an enormous pan similar to the cauldrons that stood at the temples in Tyre, Kition, and Kommos. In the early hours of the morning, they carried the pan up the hill and laid it firmly atop the high circle of stones. She ordered the temple maidens to heap the pan with dry juniper branches and firewood and chunks of sticky pine resin. The Priestess dismissed everyone except for Ta’am who stayed to finish the remaining details. When the cauldron was finally done, he returned to the forge and threw the papyrus showing Vohu Mannah’s magic box into the fire. “Sorry, Amaal,” he said quietly as he watched it burn, “this is one gift you must never receive.”

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