The sand in the collapsed area had not yet fully stabilized. The wind blew gently along the slope, pushing grains of sand downwards, and the slope was slowly subsiding.
Marto and Cobra, accompanied by Minos, Krishna, and a few other sun-tanned, sturdy fellows, skillfully deployed the detection plates at the edge of the collapsed zone.
Detection cables were pulled from the transport crates, their stakes sinking one by one into the loose soil, extending obliquely, like spider threads tightly encasing the skeleton of a sleeping giant beast.
Cobra, while firmly stretching a cable, hummed a tune from nowhere, but his gaze frequently darted towards the two Marshall soldiers standing not far away.
"Signal established!" Krishna shouted in Libélin in my direction, after connecting the last cable.
"Received!"
I was crouched under the temporary sun shelter, the radar image slowly forming on my computer screen.
Circles of semi-transparent blue lines appeared, gradually constituting the three-dimensional structure of the underground cavity.
I tilted my head and zoomed in on an area of the screen with my fingertip: "This structure... looks a bit like an ordinary living space."
"There shouldn't be a sarcophagus," Cyclops said, leaning over. "If this lower layer isn't compartmentalized, we should be able to rule out ritual use."
"The proportions of this pit... could it be baths?" I pointed to an oval depression at the bottom of the image. "There are also pipes, extending to the southeast."
He nodded slightly.
But this calm lasted only a moment.
The military officer, who had been standing aside in silence, suddenly spoke in a cold voice in Félagnien: "Is the scan complete? Can we start now?"
The rounded vowels of the Félagnien language rolled in my ears like rusty copper balls, a dull, piercing sound.
I looked up, my gaze briefly meeting his. His right hand was casually tapping the holster of his service weapon at his belt, the leather and metal producing a faint "click." The other soldier stood beside him, arms crossed, an indefinable smile playing on his lips, as if waiting to see a farce unfold.
"Not yet," I replied, forcing myself to keep a calm tone, a smile masking my inner displeasure. "For the area right under our feet, the data is just beginning to form an image. To get the complete structural information, it will take two or three days at the very least."
"Two or three days?" The military leader raised an eyebrow, his tone suddenly hardening. "Are you kidding me?"
The air tensed like a metal wire, vibrating with a sharp, silent tension. Cobra slowly stood up, his hand naturally falling to the handle of the iron shovel beside him, his muscles tensing slightly. Marto and Minos exchanged a look, discreetly moving closer to the detection plates. Mimir, tiptoeing, crouched behind a large rock, adjusted his aperture, and discreetly zoomed out his lens.
Baba Yaga, posted on a dune a little further away, still had her hands in her pockets, but her gaze, sharp as a blade, was fixed on the officer: "There are only two of you now. If it comes to a fight, we'll win for sure."
The officer's walkie-talkie suddenly emitted a shrill crackle: "What's the situation over there?"
An invisible smell of gunpowder hung in the air. The soldiers' gazes swept over our group, like hyenas that had scented blood.
Just when the tension was at its peak, Anubis's voice sounded from behind us: "Couldn't you... start the rescue excavation now? Everything has collapsed like this."
I turned and saw him; he had approached the edge of the collapse without me noticing, a traction strap in his hand, inspecting the carabiner.
Without waiting for my reply, he gave a slight push-off and, agile as a leopard, slid down the rope to the bottom of the hole. His movement was clean and precise, the dust rising behind him in a slight arc.
The shadow at the bottom of the hole engulfed him; only the faint sound of disturbed sand could be heard. He was half-kneeling, carefully clearing the superficial layer of earth and rubble with a small trowel, extracting a few objects.
"What on earth is he doing?" I asked Cyclops in a low voice.
Cyclops didn't answer, merely staring at the bottom of the hole, looking perplexed.
Anubis looked up, quickly took a few photos with his phone, then held up the object in our direction.
It was that imago – white marble, shining with a faint, cold glow under the sun. Its face seemed to have preserved only the moment of sleep: eyelids lowered, lips slightly pursed, an expression of such peaceful gentleness it was almost vacant. The surface bore slight traces of erosion, but the contours remained sharp. Last night, it was impossible to distinguish the details, but now, in daylight, one could see how strikingly beautiful this imago was.
Then, Anubis tucked the imago under his arm and climbed out of the hole using his hands and feet. Sand cascaded from his boots.
"I can make you an offer," Anubis said, turning to the officer, his tone as relaxed as if he were haggling at a market. "Just for this piece, three hundred thousand Félagnien currency. If it's sent to the high seas auction house, at the big end-of-year auction, top buyers might go up to five hundred thousand, or even higher."
The two Marshall soldiers stared at him, their gazes mixing doubt and covetousness. The one who seemed to be the leader frowned, his lips moving slightly, as if he wanted to protest but couldn't find the words.
Anubis gave a sly smile, like a fox. He rotated his wrist slightly, letting the imago reflect a cold, white gleam onto the officer's face: "Of course, you can also take it away yourselves right now and handle it. However..." His voice suddenly grew colder. "...selling this kind of artifact illegally outside of Marshall, you might get scammed out of everything, or even... lose your lives."
A gruff voice came through the walkie-talkie: "Just keep an eye on them. Let them continue."
Cyclops turned his head slightly and said in a low voice to Anubis: "Thanks."
Anubis gave a wry smile, tilted his head towards Cyclops, and replied in a low voice: "You're welcome. To educate these kinds of people, it's like with children: you don't explain, you 'show' them little by little what to do."
At that precise moment, the lower-left corner of the screen suddenly jumped.
My gaze sharpened; I quickly returned to the control interface. In the radar image, an extremely irregular three-dimensional structure had disappeared after a brief flicker. I recalled the data segment, zoomed in, and reran a scan.
This echo was abnormally clear, yet as disordered as a system failure. An extremely irregular reflection texture slowly appeared, like ramifications extending from the depths of the earth, or like the remains of some polygonal system. It was not a linear construction, nor did it correspond to a conventional geological structure. It was a superimposed, intertwined, biomimetic but asymmetrical form...
"Did you see?" I turned to Cyclops.
He approached, frowning, squinting: "The image is incomplete... but this isn't a natural collapse."
I thought for a moment, took the treasure map out of my side pocket, and spread it on the table next to the radar image.
"Look at this area." I pointed to a corner at the bottom of the image. "The place where we are currently might only be the periphery of the entire structure... like an outer city."
Cyclops scrolled the image down several levels and nodded.
"Below," I continued, "it looks like a system of natural spaces – or rather, an artificial labyrinth that has borrowed the logic of geological cavities."
"A labyrinth?" he repeated in a low voice.
"Yes, it's possible." I frowned, my gaze fixed on these passages that intersected and extended like blood vessels on the screen.
"If it's an underground exploration, our current preparation is far from sufficient. If we want to proceed, we'll have to enter the heart of the labyrinth, redo the wiring, add atmospheric pressure monitoring equipment."
Anubis approached us and said in a low voice: "Show me the treasure map."
I opened the tablet and handed it to him. He looked at it for a few seconds, frowning.
"Have you ever thought that this symbol... might not be a lily flower?"
Cyclops adjusted his glasses and zoomed in on the tablet image, examining it at length: "Isn't it a gladiolus?"
Anubis replied in a low voice: "Fritillaria imperialis... it could also be a snake's head fritillary, its head bowed. I wonder if it isn't indicating a direction?"
I was stunned for a moment, a blurred image flashing through my mind: "You mean the center of this map might be pointing to something deep within the labyrinth?"
"How did you think of the fritillary?" I insisted.
"Earlier, while walking around the island, I discovered quite a few interesting plants. There's a field of fritillaries over there, their heads bowed against the wind, as if pointing in a specific direction. Guess what, wouldn't that be the entrance to the labyrinth?"