Jonathan moved his torch away.
The two smaller crystals continued to glow. He brought the beam back, then covered it with his hand. Silver light remained on the carved fingers beneath the object.
“Tell me you’re both seeing that.”
“Yes,” Mara said.
Daniel leaned closer without touching it.
Pieter was still near the entrance, examining the fitted walls and the ceiling above the tomb. From where he stood, Jonathan’s shoulder concealed most of the object.
“I need to get someone down here,” he said.
Jonathan turned reluctantly.
“Yes. You do.”
Pieter glanced towards the passage.
“There’s equipment at the surface. Better lighting. We’ll need to record the entrance before anybody else comes through.”
“I can start photographing the chamber.”
For a moment Pieter considered taking them back with him. Then he looked at Jonathan’s camera and the small notebook already open beside it.
“Stay here. Don’t go any farther, and don’t move anything.”
“Understood.”
“I mean it.”
Jonathan nodded.
Pieter left with one final look around the room. They listened to his footsteps retreat along the passage, then heard the scrape of his clothing as he squeezed through the narrow section beyond.
Jonathan waited until the sound had faded.
He turned back towards the tomb.
“Right.”
Daniel looked at him.
“Right what?”
“I would like somebody to explain why the jewellery is lighting up.”
Mara stepped back first.
The crystal nearest her dimmed.
She stopped.
“Daniel.”
He had seen it too.
Jonathan moved his torch between her and the object, as though there might be a wire stretched across the space.
Mara took another step. The crystal went dark. The other remained bright.
Nobody spoke while she approached again. At roughly the same distance from the tomb, the light returned.
Jonathan looked at Daniel.
“Your turn.”
Daniel backed away. The second light faded, leaving only the first.
He came forward.
It brightened.
Jonathan lowered the torch.
“Well, that’s fairly clear.”
“What is?” Mara asked.
“It’s reacting to you.”
He approached the tomb himself, placing his free hand near the frame without touching it.
Nothing changed. He tried the other side. Daniel watched him.
“Perhaps it doesn’t like the hat.”
Jonathan had taken it off before putting on his helmet. He looked towards the canvas bag where it was now folded.
“I’m pleased you’re finding this entertaining.”
“I’m not.”
The answer was quiet enough to stop the exchange.
Daniel looked down at the object.
“I’d just rather it was.”
Jonathan studied him for a moment, then nodded.
“Fair enough.”
There were five smaller crystals.
Jonathan counted them twice, recording their positions in his notebook. The larger stone sat slightly raised in the centre, held by a frame so finely made that he had to lean close to distinguish its separate parts.
Two of the outer crystals glowed. Three did not.
The central one remained pale and opaque.
“Could it be powered by heat?” he murmured.
“From over there?” Mara asked.
“No.”
He wrote something, crossed it out and turned to a fresh page.
Daniel crouched beside the tomb. The frame curved beneath the object, forming a shallow cradle around its underside. There were no visible screws or joins, but he could sense how the sections had been fitted.
Unlike the sealed entrance, this arrangement wasn’t resisting anything. It was waiting to be used. The thought troubled him because it arrived fully formed. Jonathan noticed where he was looking.
“Don’t.”
“I haven’t touched it.”
“Let’s preserve that situation.”
Mara turned towards the walls.
Away from the object, the figures became easier to study. She followed the central person through several scenes: standing between armed groups, facing a cluster of seated figures, kneeling beside somebody stretched on the ground.
The other people were drawn with enough variation to suggest individuals rather than a repeated pattern. Their positions changed. The central figure did not.
There was something in the posture that made her look back at the tomb.
“Jonathan.”
He followed her gaze.
“The person on the lid?”
She nodded.
“Possibly the same person,” he said. “We’d need to examine it properly.”
“Why put that thing beside their hands?”
“Because it belonged to them, perhaps.”
Daniel stood.
Both smaller crystals brightened as he came closer.
“But it’s reacting to us.”
Jonathan looked between the carving and the object.
“Yes.”
For the first time since entering the chamber, he seemed uncertain what to write.
Daniel reached towards the frame.
Jonathan caught his sleeve.
“What did I just say?”
“I want to see whether it moves.”
“We were specifically told not to move it.”
“I mean the frame.”
“That distinction won’t comfort anyone.”
Daniel stopped. Jonathan released him, and for a while they stood in silence.
Mara could hear a faint sound beneath their breathing. She thought at first it was water somewhere beyond the walls. Then Daniel turned his head slightly.
“You hear that?”
She nodded.
Jonathan looked up.
“Hear what?”
The sound was too low to describe as a note. Mara felt it at the base of her throat more than she heard it.
Daniel lowered his hand, moving it farther from the object. The sensation eased. He brought it closer. It returned. Jonathan watched.
“What’s happening?”
“I’m not sure.”
Mara had begun to recognise that answer. Sometimes it meant Daniel understood nothing. Sometimes it meant he understood something so instinctively that he hadn’t yet found a way to explain it.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“Does it hurt you?”
“No.”
His fingers settled lightly against the outer frame. Jonathan drew breath to object, then stopped. The two smaller crystals sharpened to a clear silver. Daniel’s expression changed.
“What?” Mara asked.
He kept looking at the object.
“I don’t think it’s for me.”
Jonathan frowned.
“What makes you say that?”
Daniel shook his head. The certainty was stronger than the words available to him.
Someone was missing.
He couldn’t have explained whether he meant from the room, from the object or from something inside himself. For a moment the absence felt as definite as an empty chair at a table.
Mara put her hand on his arm.
The low sensation deepened.
Daniel looked at her, and she knew he had felt the same thing.
Jonathan saw the silver appear faintly in their eyes.
This time he didn’t ask them to explain.
Across Johannesburg, Lindiwe was sitting beside a closed window when she lifted her head.
The man who had brought her there was in the next room. She could hear him moving papers across a table, followed by the brief metallic sound of a drawer being shut.
Her shoulder still hurt. She had been trying to find a comfortable position without admitting that she needed help.
Now the pain seemed less important.
She looked towards the door.
For several seconds she was certain somebody had arrived.
Not a knock. Not footsteps.
The expectation of seeing someone she knew.
She stood before remembering that standing too quickly hurt. Her breath caught, and she steadied herself against the windowsill.
The man appeared in the doorway.
“What are you doing?”
She looked past him.
“Is somebody here?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
He glanced towards the front of the house, then back at her.
“What did you hear?”
“Nothing.”
His attention sharpened.
Lindiwe struggled to explain. There had been a feeling, warm and unexpectedly familiar, as though she had spent a long time alone and someone had finally come to collect her.
It was already fading.
“I thought…”
She stopped.
The man waited.
She looked towards the window again. Whatever she had sensed was beyond the room, beyond the street outside.
For an instant she knew which way to turn.
Then that certainty disappeared too.
“You need to sit down,” he said.
Lindiwe obeyed slowly.
He remained in the doorway after she had settled, watching her with an expression she couldn’t quite read.
In the chamber, Daniel lifted his hand. The glow softened. Jonathan looked towards the passage, checking for Pieter’s return.
“We need to talk about what just happened.”
Mara was still watching the central crystal.
It hadn’t lit.
Yet the feeling it had given her lingered: the same quiet certainty Daniel had struggled to describe.
“This belongs to somebody else,” she said.
Jonathan looked down at his notebook.
He had written the number of crystals, their arrangement and the order in which they had lit. Below that, he had begun a sentence about possible explanations.
He drew a line through the sentence.
“Then,” he said, “I think we’d better find out who.”