We hunted with the dogs like that every day, and after more than ten days in a row, I felt I had almost grown used to that rhythm cut off from civilization. Windblown sand, firelight, the blood of prey—those things had become ordinary. I didn't want to linger any longer, so I said goodbye to the people at Red Creek Hollow and went back to the city with Carter.
We didn't go anywhere after getting off the train, and went straight to Deadeye's shop. The shop was still tucked inside an unremarkable building in the old district, with the display window filled with old objects of complicated provenance. Deadeye looked the same as always, dressed plainly, speaking gently, never drawing attention to himself, yet in this line of work, his judgment was worth more than any label—especially that false eye.
The moment Deadeye saw us, he paused the deal in his hands and showed that half-sincere smile: "The fact that you two came back alive is good news." Carter almost immediately wanted to take out the gold mask to ask about a price. He had acted calm the entire trip, but every night he made sure the piece was still in the bag. Deadeye raised his hand to stop him: "Don't display high-value pieces in the front room. This isn't a place to talk business. Back room."
In this business, no one says directly where a piece comes from, and no one asks too closely. What truly matters is never its origin, but whether it can stand within a legitimate transaction structure, and whether someone is willing to pay for the story behind it. While speaking, Deadeye had just sold two respectable-looking porcelain pieces to a European collector, who seemed quite enthusiastic. We didn't ask the exact price, but from the look on Deadeye's face as he closed his ledger, the deal had gone very well for him. After the transaction ended, Deadeye locked the money into a drawer and said lightly, "The market likes certainty, and it also likes mystery. The key is balancing the two." He looked up at us: "Now, tell me what you brought back."
We entered the back room, and once the door closed, Carter opened the bag and took out the gold mask, placing it on the table.
The light fell across the metal surface, the tone steady, the edges precise, the compression lines clear. Deadeye did not speak immediately; he brought his real eye close to examine it, then turned the mask over to inspect the hammer marks and the edge finishing, and lightly tapped the metal surface with his fingers. He stayed silent longer than usual. "The technique is cold-hammered, with no modern welding traces, the gold-silver ratio oxidized naturally, the ornament compressed distinctly, with a complete ritual structural logic. Something like this would be wasted on a metal dealer."
I asked him, "How much?"
Deadeye set the mask back on the table: "I can connect you with a private collector who is building a thematic project on Indigenous tribal civilizations. He isn't buying for exhibition, but to construct a collection system. As long as the background narrative holds, the price won't be low."
"How much?" Carter asked directly.
Deadeye named a number. The room went quiet for a moment. The number was far higher than we expected.
Carter didn't smile immediately, he only nodded slowly: "High risk, high return." Deadeye looked at him: "You're lucky. Pieces at this level are not common on the market." I didn't say anything. When we brought that mask up from underground, we had almost not brought our lives back with it. Money was the result, not the reason.
A few days later, the deal was completed. The mask was packed into an unmarked metal case and taken away by the buyer's representatives. At the moment the wire transfer cleared, Carter stared at his phone for a long time.
Deadeye said he once had a familiar colleague who also made a living in this line of work, and in the early years dealt mostly in small items—arrowheads, old coins, seals, cigarette tins, military insignia and similar pieces—but later the man stopped doing that and went to North Africa to work desert sites, and now he had made a fortune.
"North Africa? Selling sand?" Carter asked.
Deadeye laughed once: "Not sand. The Sahara."
Deadeye set his glass down and said the man specialized in desert trade-route sites. The ancient caravan routes that crossed the sea of sand—salt, gold, ivory, slaves—moving from oasis to oasis, forming the arteries of empires. Later maritime routes rose, overland trade declined, the desert advanced, and towns were swallowed one by one by wind and sand. "Some of the earliest abandoned cities there aren't even marked on maps anymore," Deadeye said, "what lies beneath the sand isn't a few stones, it's an entire civilization."
Carter frowned: "And that sells?"
Deadeye lifted his glass eye and looked at him: "Of course it does. Especially with a story attached." He said that mummies, caravan relics, and ritual masks excavated there, once labeled with the words "Lost City," could fetch high prices in European and American collector markets. Some museums were even willing to fund dedicated exhibitions for fully preserved desert burial structures.
"Think about it," Deadeye continued, "run an advertisement—'Lost Caravan City of the Sahara'—who wouldn't want to see that? Caravans swallowed by sand, oases dried up, empires fractured, gods abandoning the land—this kind of narrative is worth more than gold." Carter and I listened without speaking immediately.
Deadeye added, "The desert mummies there are preserved even more completely than those from high-latitude regions, dry to the point that the bones look as if they were just sealed. Locally they may be historical remains, but overseas they become cultural heritage."
Carter snorted: "Market narrative premium."
Deadeye nodded: "Exactly. The object is only the vehicle; the story is the asset."
I asked him, "Are they still digging there?" Deadeye said, "Not publicly; semi-legal surveys, private expeditions, research projects funded by collection foundations. On paper it's cultural preservation; in practice it's screening high-value assets." He paused. "Speaking of which, now that you mention it, something comes to mind—deep in the Sahara, there's a region called the 'Black Sand Belt.'" His voice lowered slightly. "It used to be a node oasis along the trans-desert trade route, and then it suddenly vanished. No war records, no epidemic records, just that the caravans stopped appearing. Some say sandstorm; others say subsidence."
"Subsidence?" Carter raised an eyebrow.
Deadeye looked at me.
"The entire oasis sank several meters, as if something hollowed it out from underground. Those who went back later saw only a ring of black dunes, like a boundary. Local guides refuse to approach." He stopped and did not continue. "The area is now listed under protected status, but a few years ago a private survey team went in and did not all come back." The room suddenly fell silent.
Carter smiled slowly: "High-risk market."
Deadeye nodded: "High-return market."
I didn't respond, only lowered my head and looked at the gold mask on the table. Desert swallowing cities, trade routes broken, ground collapsing—those words began to overlap in my mind with the structures we had encountered before. Deadeye finally said: "Aren't you two looking for something truly large? If you really want scale, the Sahara is cleaner than the forest. Sand does not rot; it buries."