Jonathan looked towards the passage again.
“We haven’t got long.”
Daniel was still beside the tomb. The two smaller crystals glowed softly, illuminating the dust around the frame.
“What happens when they take it away?” he asked.
Jonathan looked at him.
“It goes somewhere secure. It’s recorded, examined—”
“By people who won’t see what we’ve seen.”
“That doesn’t give us the right to take it.”
“I know.”
Daniel’s agreement left Jonathan with nowhere comfortable to put the argument.
Mara studied the object. The strange sense of somebody missing had faded, but she could still feel where it had been.
“At the museum,” she said, “those men knew we’d opened the pendant before you told anybody.”
Jonathan turned towards her.
“Yes.”
“And you still don’t know who they were.”
“No.”
She looked towards the entrance.
“If we tell everyone what this does, how long before somebody else comes for it?”
Jonathan rubbed a hand across his mouth.
He had spent years handling objects whose importance lay partly in where they had been found. Removing one without recording it properly destroyed information that could never be recovered. He had said as much to students, visitors and Daniel more times than he cared to remember.
Now Daniel was watching him, waiting for him to apply the rule.
Jonathan looked down at the glowing crystals.
“I don’t like this.”
“Neither do I,” Mara said.
He glanced at her. She didn’t look eager or triumphant. She looked frightened.
That made the decision harder.
Jonathan photographed the recess without the artefact, then measured its position against the carved hands.
He wrote carefully, recording more than he needed because the act of doing so allowed him to delay what came next.
Daniel waited until he had finished.
“Can I lift it?”
Jonathan nodded.
“From beneath. Both hands.”
The frame came free without resistance.
Daniel held it while Jonathan opened his canvas bag and removed the hat.
Mara looked at it.
“Finally.”
Jonathan gave her a tired glance.
“I’m delighted it’s proving useful.”
He folded a clean cloth around the object, placed it inside the hat and settled both deep in the bag. The crystals continued to shine through the first fold of fabric, then disappeared beneath the second.
With the bag closed, nothing distinguished it from the one he had carried into the cave.
Jonathan kept his hand on the fastening.
“We’re not keeping it.”
Daniel nodded.
“We find out what it is. We find out who it belongs to. Then we decide how to put this right.”
“Agreed,” Mara said.
He looked at each of them before lifting the strap onto his shoulder.
“And nobody else hears about it.”
They were studying the wall when Pieter returned.
Two colleagues followed him carrying lights and equipment. The chamber filled with voices, the scrape of cases being lowered and the sudden brightness of a lamp directed towards the ceiling.
Mara stepped aside to let them work.
One of the newcomers stood still when he saw the tomb. Another began asking Pieter about the entrance.
Jonathan answered questions about the markings. He described how they had recognised the symbol, how Daniel had noticed the fitted stone and where it had moved.
He said nothing about the silver line. Nothing about the crystals. His bag remained against his hip.
When somebody asked whether they had touched anything, Jonathan felt the weight of it pull against his shoulder.
“The entrance,” he said. “That’s how it opened.”
Daniel looked down at the floor.
Mara kept watching the wall.
By the time they reached the surface, Jonathan had agreed to return the following morning to help compare the chamber markings with the copy from the pendant.
He stood beside the car while Pieter thanked him.
It should have been the best moment of his professional life.
He had helped discover something extraordinary. His colleague was delighted. There would be photographs to study, arguments over its age and significance, perhaps years of work.
Instead, he was thinking about the bag. Pieter offered his hand. Jonathan shook it.
“We’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Yes,” Jonathan said.
None of them spoke until they were back on the road.
Their driver asked whether the visit had been worthwhile.
“Very,” Jonathan said.
Mara watched the land passing the window. Daniel sat beside her, his dusty hands folded between his knees.
The bag rested on Jonathan’s lap.
After several miles, Daniel leaned towards him.
“You all right?”
Jonathan looked at him.
“No.”
Daniel nodded. He didn’t try to make the answer easier. That helped. Jonathan adjusted the bag, making sure nothing pressed against the wrapped frame.
“For the record,” he said quietly, “this was not the part of Indiana Jones I had in mind.”
Mara looked back at him.
“The paperwork?”
“The theft.”
Daniel glanced towards the driver, who was concentrating on the road.
“Could you say that a little louder?”
Jonathan closed his eyes briefly.
Mara almost smiled.
Then she looked at the bag, and the smile faded before it reached her mouth.
Whatever they had done, they had done it together.
As the hotel came into view, Daniel felt the change first.
He turned towards the window.
A car was parked within sight of the entrance. A young woman sat in the passenger seat, watching them approach.
He met her eyes.
Beside him, Mara stopped moving.
The feeling from the chamber returned, but the absence at its centre had changed.
Someone was there.