The Stone Heart

By Paul Chapman

Pablo and Paquita scraped a living in a small valley on the south coast of Spain Until things started to change for the better ,but Pablo did not know why. What caused the ethereal music that they often heard.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Paul Chapman
• Release date: Dec 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310407031

Paul Chapman

Paul Chapman was born in Lincoln England. Employed as a shepherd for 7 years then moved to the Isle of Skye. He sailed from England in 2006 on a one way trip never to return . His poems catalogue his life on land and sea'

Book preview

The Stone Heart

Paul Chapman

Published by Paul Chapman at Smashwords

Copyright 2013 Paul Chapman

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold

or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person,

please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did

not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to

Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work

of this author.

Discover other titles by Paul Chapman at Smashwords.com

The Stone Heart

PROLOGUE…

The night sky over Tyre was lit up and the stars fell from the heavens as people cowered in their houses. They prayed to their god Baal-Hammon, and offered sacrifices, pleading for him to intervene on their behalf. Then with a great crash the meteor was hurled to the earth. In the crater in the desert, near Tyre, the priests of the grand temple of Baal-Hammon searched for his gift to mankind. The priests had found the stone heart of their god, still warm, and carried it to their temple.

790 BCE SOUTHERN SPAIN

The bireme softly nudged its wooden bow onto the shingle of the secluded bay on the Mediterranean coast of southern Spain. It was 790bce and the bireme had sailed from the city of Gadir, or as it is known today Cadiz, that the Phoenicians had founded on the Atlantic coast nearly 300 years before. The Phoenicians were traders and were making settlements and trading posts along the coast of the Mediterranean. They prized the purple dye that was made from the molluscs called murex, 1200 molluscs were needed to make just 1.5 grams of the dye, and it was valued higher then gold. The dye would be used to colour the robes of the royal family in the capital city of Tyre in Phoenicia, and later the robes of the Caesars of imperial Rome.

More importantly they needed silver. It was with this metal and with nothing else that they had to pay the Assyrians their tribute, the Assyrians prized this metal above all other things. The mountains of southern Spain were rich with silver and mines had been dug along the Rio Tinto. They would trade glass, wine, olive oil and painted pottery. They had invented the potter’s wheel and how to paint the pots, so now the pots were the finest you could buy in the known world.

They had no interest in conquering the indigenous people, solely to trade with them. The passengers on the bireme were mainly tradesmen and settlers, but there was one person who had other plans. Arak a priest from the temple of Baal Hammon in Gadir and had been sent with the commission to build a temple to their main god Baal Hammon, the god of the sky and vegetation, in the new settlement.

Arak was considered young to be a priest in the temple and the older priests had thought he was too impetuous and at times outspoken. The high priest had decided that perhaps a few years away from Gadir might mellow Arak.

He and his acolytes worked carefully, it had to be perfect, setting up a small wooden alter and placing on it the statue of his god, the statue was hollow and in a small chamber inside the statue the priest placed the stone heart of his God. The acolytes prepared a goat for a sacrifice. They cleansed it, then anointing the goat with perfumed oil, sprinkled its life blood on their alter.

Arak had never heard his god speak, never heard him demand a sacrifice, or for that matter anything, although he was a priest, he