Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 5 Part 6

PART IV

CRETE

"Some 3500 years ago, a cataclysmicevent wiped out the flourishing Bronze Age Civilisation on Crete in the Aegean sea. The obvious culprit is a volcano on the island of Santorini, which is known to have erupted at that time.
The eruption on Santorini must have been one of the biggest bangs in history...The most destructive eruption in modern times occurred in Indonesia in 1883, when a volcano on the island of Krakatoa exploded. But the crater left behind at Santorini is four times as large as that on Krakatoa. Vulcanologists estimate that the ancient volcano ejected 2 to 3 times as much ash and rock.. Parts of the Cretan coast experienced waves up to forty metres high..."
- New Scientist

That night he tracked the African coast eastward in his balloon, catching the winds. He wasn't cold, as the basket was kitted out with blankets, clothing, as well as food and other supplies.
The next morning, he finally pushed northward, crossing the Mediterranean sea. He passed over the southern coast of Crete, causing many to stop and look into the sky. The northern coast, however, was quiet.
Here, Indy finally brought the balloon down, in a grassy hollow near the coast. It was a soft landing, the yellow canvas billowing down over him as he stepped out of the basket. He walked up the hill, the grass wet and dewy beneath his feet, and came to a set of stone stairs, gleaming white in the early sun. He had reached the ancient city of Knossos.
It seemed to be as good a place as any to start. Knossos was founded around 3500 BC, and quickly became the principal city of Crete. Its renown spread across the Mediterranean, as one of the principal cities of the Aegean civilisation. The culture of Crete at that time was the Minoan culture, one of the most enduring of the Mediterranean cultures.
Knossos was the palace city of the legendary King Minos, son of Zeus, who featured heavily in Greek mythology. Greek legend had it that at Knossos, King Minos had Daedalos build a labyrinth underneath the palace. Inhabiting the labyrinth was a fierce man-beast with a bull's head and a man's body, who killed all who entered. Legend also had it that this creature was the result of the union of King Minos's wife, and an animal, a punishment from the Gods intended for Minos. Zeus, king of the Gods, was himself held to have lived in a cave known as Dictaeos, near Knossos, for most of his youth.
Indy had, during his career, studied the Greek mythology and, as had many others, concluded that the legend of King Minos had its grounding in fact, as Crete was supreme amongst the civilisations of the Aegean region. The Palace of Knossos was an example of this, enhanced as it was by brightly painted frescoes of people, landscapes and animals.
The rise of Knossos continued, until the year 2000 BC, when it was the principal city in the lands of the Aegean sea. Only three hundred years later, however, a massive earthquake levelled the city and caused massive damage to the Palace. This date, 1700 BC, also marked the end of the one phase in the history of Crete. Though the original palace was virtually destroyed, the new dynasty work began almost immediately on the next. The rebuilt Palace of Knossos was created to a far more elaborate scale: it rose three or four stories high and contained many extensive rooms and passages, including a luxuriously decorated throne room. Curiously, many of the paintings and murals that dotted the palace depicted the sport of bull-leaping, a precursor of bullfighting. The Minoans of this age were well educated, with a complex mathematical and philosophical base of knowledge.
The destruction of Knossos came at the hands of the warmongering Mycenaean civilisation of Greece in 1400 BC. The rest of Crete soon followed as Minoan civilisation collapsed. Knossos was no more.
Several things had led Indy to Knossos. The first reason was that the hole in the Crete mural had been centred on Knossos. Also, Knossos was simply the finest, most advanced of all the cities of Crete - so where else would you look to find influences of Atlantean culture?
The second was the chronology of Knossos. Plato gave a figure for the Lost Kingdom existing ten thousand years ago, but as Hermocrates wrote in his introduction, this could be either one thousand or one hundred thousand years ago. The former figure fitted in well with the history of Knossos, given its rise in 3000 BC and eventual fall in 1400 BC. In particular, the earthquake which levelled the palace in 1700 BC was interesting - could it have been an aftershock of the destruction of Atlantis?
The third, admittedly slim reason, was the connection between 'tall horns', and the obsession of Knossos with bullfighting, and indeed the Minotaur legend. Indy had always held that if you sifted through the soil of legend, you found grains of truth. It was a tenuous link, to be sure, but tenuous was better than none at all.
The last reason was that Knossos was still a city of mystery to archaeologists. The site was first excavated in 1900 by Sir Arthur John Evans, who uncovered the Royal Palace. He and later archaeologists discovered up to three thousand stone tablets, containing scripts of a language named (by the archaeologists) Linear A and Linear B. Neither language had been deciphered, making the contents of the tablets a complete mystery. Did the tablets contain the distilled wisdom of Atlantis? Sophia would say yes. Indy wasn't so sure.
The labyrinth of King Minos had not, yet, been discovered. Legend had it that the layout of the labyrinth was based upon a mural upon the floor of the Palace. This mural had been found, but not the labyrinth itself. Sir Arthur John Evans worked the site from 1900 to 1906, and continued his work in the area until early 1935. Now Indy was here, a mere two months later.
He came to top of the stone steps, and found himself in the remains of an open air courtyard. To his right were several large thick slabs set into the hillside. Indy caught a glimpse of a stone spindle. To his left, a dirt path led the way to the ruins of Knossos. In front, on the far side of the courtyard, the land sloped down again to the coastline, and a small pier. The sea beyond was calm, pale blue and inviting. Indy took the dirt path, passing several upright stone slabs. Sea breezes blew at salt shrubs by the path. From this vantage point, he could see both sides of the peninsula.
The path wound around hills and low passes. Indy was wondering about the mythology of the Greek gods. Could it be possible that they were just Atlantean figures? Who was Nur-Ab-Sal? He didn't get anywhere. It was all speculation, anyway - he still hadn't found anything super-interesting.
The path was widening. He passed a rocky knoll on the right and there, before his eyes, lay the ruins of Knossos. Indy spotted a suspended rope bridge which spanned the path and led to a rocky outcrop spanning the city. He walked over to a set of stone steps which came to the bridge. He'd be able to see the whole ruins from up there.
Indy walked along the rope bridge warily. It swayed under his feet, but remained firmly seated. On the other side, he walked along the top of the ridge for several metres, passing over dirt, rocks, and masonry slabs, until he saw an instrument up ahead. He stopped to examine it.
"A surveyor's transit," he said, looking at the metallic object mounted on a tripod. "Must have been left here by Evans' group." It still looked to be in good shape.
He turned and looked down on the ruins. Evans' team had done a good job. Dotting the ground were small, hut-like buildings, some complete, others half broken down. Remnants of some steps and stone pillars remained. Everywhere was evidence of the dig: planks laid down to span certain gaps in the ground, timber shored up out of the way, piles of stones and gravel. Indy's attention, however, was caught by two tall horns which jutted out of the ground, isolated from all the other buildings or rooms.
"Just like on the mural at the lesser colony," he breathed. They looked like the town centrepiece.
Having seen enough, Indy turned back and recrossed the rope bridge. Climbing down the steps toward the dirt path, he realised he'd been right. Knossos was the Greater colony. Indy considered the implications of this, as he walked under the rope bridge toward the ruins.
First of all, what was he looking for? The answer, of course, was in the Lost Dialogue: a Moonstone. Both the Moonstone and the Sunstone were needed for entrance to the Greater colony itself.
Indy looked around. The ruins were even more spectacular at ground level. To think that, thousands of years ago, this was the seat of high civilisation... "Here we are in the ruins of Knossos," muttered Indy.
He surveyed the ruins. If he was going to look for the Moonstone, he might as well start by going through the rooms. Maybe Evans missed something, or didn't know how to interpret it correctly.
The first room he came to was partly covered by a dirt slide. Inside, the walls were coloured by a garish grey, maroon and blue scheme, made no better by having faded. There was a small painting of a Minoan on the wall. The floor was completely empty.
He left and tried the next room, a few metres away. Much the same.
Indy continued in this pattern, walking deeper into the ruins, and closer to the horns. Sometimes the ruins had cracked pots, or piles of masonry rubble: Indy scoured through these, but got nowhere.
This was some palace the Minoans had, thought Indy wearily, as he walked out of another half destroyed building. He was starting to tire, but the next room he came to engaged Indy's interest immediately. "Hey...what's this?"
He was looking at an ancient, faded mural on the inside wall, which was different to all the other side-on portraits they'd seen. The flaky paint of this one resembled the picture of Crete in the Lesser Colony.
"Looks like an ancient diagram of some kind," said Indy, thinking through the possibilities. "There's a bull's head, horns and tail. The lines appear to converge on that circle. Could the circle be one of the stone disks?" He knew where the horns were. But where was the head and tail? Indy hadn't seen anything resembling those.
Just his luck not to have a helpful spirit guide like Nur-Ab-Sal.
He understood what the diagram meant fairly well. One line went from the bull's head, past the left horn, to the circle. The other line went from the bull's tail, past the right horn, and also to the stone circle, forming a triangle. So if he found the bull's head and tail, and lined those up with the horns, he'd be able to triangulate where the circle was. And the circle? Indy was betting it was one of the stone disks. Using the surveying transit, he shouldn't have much trouble with that step. But where were the head and tail?
Indy walked outside, where it was starting to get quite hot. He walked firmly over to the bull horns, stood under them and looked up. The horns loomed against the perspective. Indy estimated a height of five metres. There was no way they could have survived so long, exposed like that. Clear evidence of Atlantean engineering? Indy reserved his judgement.
He looked around at the ruins. For the first time, he noted the large piles of stone and rubble heaped around the site. Rather than be evenly distributed along the ground, as you might expect, the rocks were piled up in small cairns about one and a half metres high.
Indy walked over to the stone cairn nearest the left horn. He started pulling away the dusty rocks, suspicious. Bronze gleamed out. Indy pulled the rocks away faster, exposing more and more of the metal statue. Soon, he had uncovered almost all of the bronzed structure. At the top of the statue, a bushy tail poked out. This trailed down to a concentric spiral in the ground, partly hidden by rubble. Clearly the statue had been discovered by Evans, but covered by a stone cairn for safety.
Indy looked over at the right horn. Another pile of stones was nearby. Quickly he ran over and started pulling down stones. Sure enough, a bronze head was soon poking out at him. It reminded him of speculative illustrations she'd seen of the Minotaur.
Five minutes later, a hotter and red-in-the-face Indy set the surveying transit down beside the head statue. That thing was heavy. He peered through the eyesight, turning the lens around until he had the edge of the right horn lined up. He studied the patch of ground behind the horn which lined up with the transit, then picked it up and carried it, sweating, over to the other statue. Indy set it down and repeated the process, this time for the left horn.
He stood up. Both surveying lines pointed to a single distinct feature: a pile of rocks near a shrub. The lines triangulated just in front of them. Indy walked over to the rocks, a little tense. A defining moment was looming. Indy knelt down, took out the ship rib, and started to dig into the ground. It made a half-decent makeshift shovel.
After a minute Indy had gone down a foot in the soft soil. Moments later, there was a dull tap.
Indy scraped the soil out of the hole. He'd hit stone. He brushed away the soil with the ship rib, holding his breath, and finally was able to pry out a stone disk. It was slightly smaller than the stone disk, also had a hole in the middle, and had lunar images carved onto the outer circumference.
"A Moonstone," breathed Indy. He studied it for a while, then put it away with the Sunstone. He stood up, a bit out of breath. It was time to head off. Specifically, back to the courtyard and the stone spindle he'd seen. Maybe it opened up one of those stone slabs set into the hillside.
He walked back along the path. The excitement was flowing in Indy's veins like few times he could remember. He could smell it. And it was big. He walked in silence, as fast as possible without appearing to be actually running. Thus it was not long before he emerged once again in the sunny open courtyard. The sun had risen quite a way since he was last here. Indy walked over to the stone spindle in the ground. It was about an inch wide, and three inches fit - hard to see if it wasn't so regular. He placed the Sunstone and Moonstone onto the spindle - again a perfect, tight fit. Indy aligned the morning sun with the tall horns etched into the pavement, and then consulted the Lost Dialogue.
"...with the noon sun riding above the full moon..." read Indy. He rotated the Moonstone so that the image of a full moon was directly above the image of the noon sun on the Sunstone. He paused to take a deep breath, then pushed the spindle.
The central stone slab swung outward, grinding noisily against the paving. "What do you know?" said Indy. "A secret door." Well, that settled it, Indy noted with satisfaction. The Nazis couldn't have been here yet.
It had been a worry to him last night as he floated along the African coast. For all the talk of Kerner returning, that dig was definitely abandoned. And for all the resources Hitler seemed to be putting into this effort, they wouldn't give up unless they'd found something beyond imagination.
What that might be, Indy didn't know. All he knew was that Crete was probably the Greater Colony, so if the Nazis were anywhere, they were here.
But it seemed they weren't here. So as Indy picked up the Sunstone and Moonstone, his heart was lightened somewhat. Still, he wasn't completely sure. Something told him they weren't far away.
The Sunstone and Moonstone nestled snugly in his jacket, a comforting weight. He looked up and into the passage behind the slab. Leading down into grey darkness was a set of stone steps. And coming up them, looking quite irate, was a German guard.
Indy froze. The guard, old and stocky, strode out into the sunlight. "You're trespassing on occupied territory! I've got orders not to let anyone pass."
"I'm a secret agent in disguise," said Indy quickly. "Let me pass." It wasn't a very good line, but that soldier had startled him.
The soldier did not look satisfied. "We've already got one Amerikanner working for us. That's about all we can stand." He grimaced.
American? What American would help the Nazis? "An American working for you?" asked Indy. "Who's that?"
"Doctor Fraulein Hapgood, that's who," said the soldier. He didn't notice the effect this name had on Indy, who felt like he'd been hit in the gut. Sophia working for the Nazis? Come on...
The soldier grimaced again. "She's a hellish vixen, but when coaxed she can be very useful." The words heartened Indy. It sounded like Sophia wasn't working voluntarily, and was giving them some trouble. Good for her.
He was done with this idiot. "Out of my way, sauerkraut." he said grimly.
"You need a lesson in respect, Mein Herr!" proclaimed the soldier. Unfortunately for the soldier, he was a pathetic boxer. He didn't bother to duck, or sidestep, or wait until Indy was vulnerable to attack. He simply waded in, fists swinging indiscriminately. It was child's play for Indy grab the soldier and throw him on his back. While the soldier struggled on his back, Indy picked up a rock and struck him in the head. The soldier went out like a light.
Indy searched the soldier. Nothing useful. He sighed, and looked to labyrinth entrance. He had a new mission: a rescue mission.
Was he ready for the labyrinth?
Was he ever. Indy stepped boldly into the darkness.

The stone steps led down into the deeps. Indy kept count of about fifty before the passage began to level out. It continued in this vein for a short distance, before Indy came out in a small antechamber, emerging wide eyed. Once he was satisfied there were no Germans around, he started to relax.
Indy looked around - the chamber led to an open brass door. Through it, Indy could see passages branching off left and right. Indy started - he could see them. How? Where was the light coming from? It was lighter than a night of full moon down here.
He ruffled his hat, confused. So, the legend of a labyrinth under the ruins of Knossos was true! Hardly anyone reputable put credence in that hoary myth. The legend of Atlantis wasn't any more far fetched. Its truth was starting to seem more and more possible.
Where was the last stone disk? Where was Atlantis? Waiting for him behind that door?
Indy looked around the room. To the right, the floor seemed to have fallen away completely. Indy thought about looking over at the chasm, then decided against it. By the main passage, some stone from the outside courtyard was strewn about. Indy was still having trouble with where the light was coming from - maybe cracks in the ceiling?
No way. They were too far down.
Indy looked left, and down, at a stone slab by the floor. Now what were these? Nestled on the stone slab, the main items of interest, were what looked to be three stone heads. From where he was, and in this light, which was admittedly poor, the carving looked to be of a fairly low quality.
Indy was crouched down and looking at the three stones. The busts looked familiar. "I think I recognise these. Yes! They're Greek gods!" He pointed at the bearded head on the left. "That one there is Zeus, that one is Apollo, and that one on the right is Ares." He looked thoughtful. Maybe this wasn't the Labyrinth. Maybe it was Dictaeos instead.
Well, whatever it was, it needed stone disks for entrance, so there must be some Atlantean connection. It didn't look good at the moment, but he'd find something before too long. If the Germans weren't ahead of him.
He picked up one of the heads, to test its weight, and was somewhat surprised when the stone slab rose slightly.
The brass door rattled a little, and lowered slightly.
Watching the door intently, Indy picked up Apollo. The door rattled again, and fell, this time slightly lower. Indy put Apollo and Zeus back.
A counterweight door system! These Minoans were surprisingly advanced. Most evidence pointed to counterweight systems being unknown until 300 BC.
Indy knew the answer to that conundrum. This wasn't Minoan. It was Atlantean.
Hopefully there was more to show for it than a door. He gave one last look at the three Greek Gods, then walked over to the brass door. The ground under his feet was dusty, and slightly damp. And there was a faint smell, wasn't there? Not brass, but something more organic.
Out in the passageway beyond, Indy could immediately see there would be problems. There was a passage to his left, a passage to his right, and a set of stone steps leading to another passage above. Each looked as likely as any other.
Indy hesitated only a moment. "Right."
He headed over to a low archway, which appeared to have been dug out of the stone and then propped up by stone slabs, like the ones in the courtyard outside. Indy ducked his head as he passed through, and emerged into a small antechamber, about four metres wide and five metres high.
"Dead end," he said, disappointed. He looked at the far wall - it appeared to have been bricked up. He walked over and looked at the mortar. Testing its strength, he couldn't even get it to scratch. They may as well have never dug out the passage to begin with.
That left two, thought Indy. He retraced the way back out and to the left passage. The archway here was higher - he could walk through at full height.
And there was noise - a thin, running sound. Indy emerged into the wider cavern, and saw a small underground stream, running from an outlet high in the left wall to a small hole directly in front of them, about five metres away. The smell here was stronger - almost putrid.
Indy walked over to the hole and peered down, curious. He could see nothing. It was curious - presumably the Germans were down here somewhere, but he couldn't see head nor tail of them.
He got up again, and walked past the stream to a passage at the far end of the cavern. He was slightly put off by the displaced majesty of the place. The cavern was large, nearly twenty metres high, the kind of place that dwarfed your presence. It was clearly man made. And there must be hundreds of places just like it, if this really was the Labyrinth of Knossos. Yet for all the signs of occupation, it might have well just been a natural cave system.
Indy entered the darker connecting passageway. There was something wrong here - and Indy couldn't place what it was. Traps? Ravines?
Who needed them when you had the Minotaur?
Indy paused in the next stone room. There was a narrow passage on the far side, and steps leading up to another level of tunnels. Absurdly, he was fearful, of something far older than Nazi terror. On reflection, you couldn't really blame him. Indy had believed for a long time that Atlantis, King Minos, the Labyrinth, and so on were all myth. The Minotaur was myth. Was it true too?
For the first time, Indy wished he'd brought Sophia along. He imagined how the conversation might go: "So, where do you think the Minotaur is?" he would ask, in a confident, jokey voice.
Indy could picture the reaction clearly, even in the dim light. Sophia would give him a hard Look. "Minotaur? Don't tell me you believe that old fairy tale."
"Fairytale?" Indy would respond loudly. "You've been prancing on about Atlantis for weeks and suddenly the Minotaur is a fairy tale?"
"Well, obviously," Sophia would say. "Punishment from the Gods for not sacrificing a bull - bull! The Atlanteans never demanded sacrifice from the other Aegean civilisations. They were above such superstition."
"Oh good," Indy would say happily. "I'm very reassured."
The imagined conversation was not much comfort. He wondered where Sophia was now, and what she was doing.
He walked over to the far passage, and peered through. Apart from a small, dark blue pool of, well, it looked like water, there was nothing else of interest. Another dead end.
Indy shrugged, and walked over to the stairs. The echo of his footfalls on the smooth stone rang out sharply, clearly distinguishable. Indy winced with each step he took. But there was no sign of human occupation, and nothing came to the noise, man or beast.
Here at the top of the stairs, another passage led out. Indy strode through the arch. The tunnel widened here, and there was a door set in the side. Unlike all the other doors he'd come to, this one was emphatically blocked by a heavy stone block. For this reason, Indy immediately knew he had to get through.
He shoved the door. It sure was heavy. He pushed it several times, each time getting a maddeningly faint response, so that he was never sure if he'd moved it any or not. He shoved; did he just hear it groan in protest? Indy pushed again. This time, there was definite movement. A small crack on the doorframe was exposed to air. Indy leant and pushed with all his might. Come on, fall over!
Screaming with effort, he finally toppled the door. "Bingo!" said Indy, as it hit the ground with a heavy thud that must have been heard throughout Crete. But no-one came.
Indy stepped through. He was disappointed. This room had three sections. The far side and the near side were fine, both with doors leading away. The middle, however, was a stone chasm three metres wide that neatly separated the two.
There was no hope of him jumping that. Indy hesitated, then turned back. He resumed his original path.
As he emerged on the far side, he stopped in his tracks. There were no passages leading off from here. The room was not that deep, maybe five metres in total. But only two of those had floor. Indy looked down. In front, and to either side, the stone dropped away sharply, into a chasm of unguessable depths.
He drew in breath sharply. The Minoans couldn't have built this. Not in a thousand years.
That wasn't what worried Indy, though. What really had caught his attention was the first signs of real human habitation. A chunk of crumbling stone masonry. And a clump of bones by the doorway. Indy knelt down and examined the bones. He could see two skulls. They weren't fully intact - indeed, one appeared to have been crushed by unthinkable pressure.
Very few of the other bones appeared to be intact. Some were even bent into wholly knew shapes, which had only the most passing resemblance to Homo sapiens.
"Dead end," said Indy humourlessly, turning a skull over in his hand, then returning it to the ground. He wasn't in the mood for Shakespeare. Bones of previous explorers, no doubt. No doubt at all.
Indy turned and started retracing his steps. He could already feel the adrenaline in his system.

Before too long, he made it back to the first chamber. There was no internal discussion of which way to go this time - they only alternative he had was up.
The passage at the top of these stairs was different. Not propped up by stone blocks, but circular, as if tunnelled out by giant man eating gophers. Indy had a fleeting image of a giant man eating gopher gnawing its way through the Labyrinth, and despite himself, had to laugh. The sounded strange in the dead air, but not unwelcome.
The room this chamber led to was small. Several stone pillars stood in one corner, marked with strange symbols. Indy walked over to them and looked at the images. As far as he could tell, and the images were unfamiliar, it appeared to be some sort of calendar. And at the top, the stylised image of a bull.
Indy was looking at the options. A passageway on the left, which lead off into an even dimmer area. And the ground sloping down to a passageway on the right, and the hint of a large open space beyond. Looked like right again.
Through the tall passage he went. Looking at the ground, it may have just been his imagination, but the path seemed to be worn somewhat.
Emerging from the far end of the passageway, Indy whistled. No wonder. He appeared to have emerged in a multi-level plaza. The air smelt cleaner, and the floor looked almost swept. From here, the top floor, two more passages lead away. A lower second floor lead to another passage. And at the bottom, three more passages. And, standing slightly higher than a man, what appeared to be a statue. Intrigued, Indy walked over. Yes, it did appear to be a statue. A marble carving of the head of Jupiter was set onto a slab of granite three metres high. Set against the granite was a marble slab, at about Indy's height. There was a slit in the granite, which appeared to be designed to allow the marble slab to move up and down.
Indy looked at this, and then he looked at the passageway beside it. It was blocked, by a bronze grilled door - exactly the same door as at the entrance to the Labyrinth.
The doorway was another counterweight. And this was just a rough guess, but Indy felt pretty confident it had been set to operate at the same weight as the entrance door." He grasped the grills of the door and tried to lift it anyway. Nothing.
Indy let go and looked at his hands - they were free of rust flakes. Curious. It looked like he'd have to head back to the start and getting the busts. Those things looked like fifty pounds each, and he still hadn't explored as far as he could. And he couldn't put it off, because sooner or later the Nazis would get them for him.
Indy looked at the other two passages. He might just check what was through here first. He walked over to the right passage.
When he emerged at the far side Indy looked up, gasped with shock, and fell over.
It was certainly bull like, you could say that. Whatever its creators had been thinking of, bulls were certainly high on their agenda as they set about their masterpiece. It was tall and intimidating, maybe four metres high and one metre wide, and that was before you took the stone pedestal it stood on into account. It had the head of a bull, the body of a man, and it was made entirely of stone.
Gradually Indy realised he was not in any immediate danger. He pulled himself up, face red despite there being no-one around to see. Now he was glad Sophia wasn't along - he could just imagine her hearty laugh. All the same, he was pretty glad about the non-existence of the Minotaur. For all he knew, this was the original Minotaur.
He'd seen it was a statue even before he hit the floor, but the nervous reaction was faster. He looked at the statue a bit closer, now that he could do so without losing his footing. Mind you, it still looked pretty fearsome. If Indy was a superstitious type of person, this was a statue he'd go out of my way to make an offering to.
Indy walked over to the Minotaur, climbing the steps so he was directly underneath. He used to wonder why Minoans were so obsessed with bull headed figures. Looking at this heavy beast, Indy still wondered. He craned his neck to look at the head. It looked heavy - very heavy. And slightly loose.
Needing something manly to do to restore his ego, Indy uncurled his bullwhip and whipped it at the neck of the statue, releasing all his pent up anxiety and aggression. There must have been more there than he thought - the neck of the statue proceeded to crack, and the crack spread in a most alarming manner.
The head of the Minotaur wobbled, and fell forward.
Indy ducked to one side as the massive head slammed into the stone step beside him. There was a massive booming sound, as of a cannon firing. Indy felt the shockwave up his spine.
The head didn't explode in thick shards. Instead, it somehow held together as it bounced up, presumably out of a thick patch of dirt, and clunked its way down the steps. Bouncing off the last step, the head proceeded to land on the stone below, and come to a rest. The floor sagged.
Indy walked over, curious.
The impact of the stone head seemed to have defined a stone slab within the ground, about two metres by two metres. But if this was sagging, what was the stone resting on?
Indy thought of the bronze door. He thought about it carefully, then stepped onto the stone slab.
There was a grinding noise of stone on stone as the slab beneath him shook, and then began to grind its way downward
"A primitive elevator of some sort," noted Indy, his head already sinking below floor level. The foot of the elevator was opening into a cavern much larger than the room above. And there was a rushing sound - Indy looked to his right, and saw an underground stream - possibly the underground stream, as seen earlier. By now his head had passed through the stone shaft and he could see clearly into the cavern. The elevator was supported by stone columns on either side of the slab.
It was Mr Otis who was generally credited with inventing the elevator, Indy remembered as he neared the bottom. With a jolt, and a crushing sound from below, the slab came to a stop. Well, this was his floor. He stepped off the elevator. The ground here was softer, and slightly wet. It was springy beneath his boots.
Indy felt a rush of air behind him, and turned to see the elevator returning to the surface. "Hey, wait! That was my ride!" he cried. The elevator continued to rise. "Oh, darn," said Indy. He had a look around his new home.
There was something not far away.
A skeleton. A skeleton, moreover, dressed in khaki shirt, brown pants, woollen socks, shoes, and safari hat. A skeleton still possessed of fragments of flesh and skin. This was a recent explorer. Indy suddenly had a nasty suspicion who it was.
Before he had even reached the body, he knew. His old friend Professor Sternhart. It looked like he starved to death. Indy felt slightly sick. He knelt down at the thin corpse, which appeared to be holding a note in its right hand.
Professor Sternhart knew a lot more than he'd let on, but it hadn't been enough. Indy's predicament was brought home sharply. He'd starve too if he didn't find a way out of here.
Indy reached out and gently took the note from Professor Sternhart's hand. He peered down at his thin, neat handwriting, hard to read in the gloom. He read Sternhart's final words out loud.
"'I am convinced the Map Room lies beyond the chasm I couldn't cross. If only I weren't trapped down here..."
Indy shivered. Too bad for Sternhart. He'd come a long way. Indy placed the note on the ground, and looked toward Sternhart's feet, where he noticed a thin wooden walking stick. Indy reached over and picked it up. It was eerily regular.
While he stared at the stick, Indy finally heard the background noise he'd been exposed to for several minutes. It was coming from his right, near the elevator, and sounded like running water.
Indy walked over to the elevator and looked at the waterfall. Its thin strands of water had a soothing, hypnotic effect. Indy stared at it for several minutes before he saw the chain hanging behind the waterfall. He immediately put two and two together. "The elevator counterweight!" he said softly.
There was a small space behind the falling water. It was just large enough for Indy to fit through. Pausing for a moment to consider his options, Indy stepped through the water.
A sheet of ice cascaded over him and he was soaked before he got through the other side. "I hate getting wet," said Indy, shaking the water off. He looked at the chain. It was damp, but not overly so. He looked upward. The shaft extended seven metres up, where the chain disappeared over a clump of rocks on the shaft wall.
Indy got a handhold on the chain, and leapt upward. Taking care to keep a firm grip, he slowly winched himself upward. A minute later, Indy was scrabbling at the top for purchase. Any hope of getting up the counterweight shaft dry had long since, for lack of a better term, evaporated. He was soaking wet. And very cold. Finally, after much cursing, he was able to pull himself up into a narrow horizontal passageway. Dragging himself through the narrow tunnel, he pushed aside some small rocks to emerge once more in the temple of the Minotaur. It looked a lot less impressive without its head. And there it was, sitting on the elevator, which had returned to its rightful position.
Indy stood there for a moment, catching his breath. For a moment he didn't know what to do. It seemed all of his options were finally used up. Then he remembered the gate, and returned to the plaza area.
Indy looked at the bust of Jupiter. Now what's behind there? he wondered. We'd been planning to open the gate, hadn't we?
Indy looked at the third level door, assessing the possibilities. It wouldn't be as hard as he'd thought to find his way back, mainly because his footprints were still visible in the still dust, as if deposited on some lunar surface. But what if the Nazis had come back?
He decided to go for it. Nothing good ever comes of brooding.

Fifteen minutes later, a warmer, nay hotter Dr Jones stretched his trembling muscles to hoist Apollo onto the shelf with his mates, and as his fingers broke contact the bronze gate swung up. Indy looked through into a dim passageway, which then turned right to new pastures. Small trails of dust blew over his feet.
In the entrance room, with the sea just audible from above, Indy was relieved to find not a soul in attendance. The stone heads turned out to be lighter than expected, and he was able to carry all three back in the one journey.
Now, Indy walked into the open passageway, around the corner, and came to a Y junction. The path on the left sloped upward, and was slightly larger. The path to the right continued on at a level. Indy chose to go left. He was now using Sternhart's walking stick, and marvelling at how well it balanced his motion.
The path curved left, and right. In one corner, another set of bones. Another unlucky explorer? Who else knew about this place? Indy bent down to examine the loose collection. The bones crumbled even as he touched them.
Indy shrugged, and kept walking to the far side of the tunnel. Here, there seemed to be a doorway. Indy walked through and ... was surprised again.
No Germans (where were they?). Directly in front of him, the ground was split by a stone shaft plunging into the darkness. Its shape was regular, almost square. And hanging above the shaft, looking like the meanest punching bag ever devised, was a stone counterweight. Indy, taking a closer look, saw that a chock of wood had been wedged to hold the counterweight in place.
This wasn't the only notable feature of the room, however. For a start, this really was a room, not just a natural cavern or cave. Indy could see bricks set into the walls on either side. There were also decorations. Set into the walls were numbers of carven mosaics, featuring what else, but bulls. Sixteen sets of eyes glared down on Indy from their elevated place in the centuries.
But even these failed to hold Indy's attention for long. What had really caught his interest, from the moment he walked through the arch, was a small stone table on the far side. On the table, gleaming dully in the dim light, was a small golden box. Behind it was just a tunnel, leading to a large open door. Indy wasn't interested in that, he was caught by the box. It almost seemed to be casting a faint golden glow on its surroundings.
He looked at the chasm. It was just, just, too long to jump. Maybe if he freed the counterweight... Using Sternhart's walking stick, Indy poked at the chock, which popped free and tumbled down into the darkness. There was a faint echoing clank as it hit the bottom not soon after.
Indy was looking at the counterweight. It shook slightly, the chain creaking as it supported the movement, and was still. No elevator magically appeared from below.
"Shoot," said Indy. The bulls looked at him disapprovingly. "But ... hey, what if..."
Indy turned briskly and left the room, powering his strides with the walking stick. Maybe, that other path at the Y junction led to the bottom of the shaft. Maybe it did. And if it did, then that meant ... well, he'd work out what it meant when he got there.
Having reached the junction, Indy took the lower path and was pleased to find it sloping down gently. Once again, Indy was wondering ... natural or man made? He still couldn't tell.
Another low stone arch, and suddenly Indy emerged at what had to be the bottom of the stone shaft, because he could see the base of the counterweight hanging above. Below and next to the counterweight, a smooth and regular stone square. The elevator. Right next to the elevator, a stone head about four metres high.
Indy was taken aback. Looking at the piece, it did appear similar to the Minoan work he'd seen at the dig site. The statue was a carving of a young, almost boyish face, with a straight nose and bald head. The eyes, each about the size of Indy's arm, had no pupils. The mouth appeared to be pursed shut, except for a small cleft right in the centre. Indy knelt down and peered into the hole, and saw nothing.
The head was positioned so as to be looking right at the elevator. Obviously he had to do something with it, but what? Indy picked up Sternhart's stick and poked it around in the mouth, hoping to trigger something.
He did more than that. Pushing the stick as far as it would go, there was a sudden crack sound as the end was seized by unknown hands inside. Indy's hold on the stick was broken as it was pulled into the mouth with sudden force. There were further crunching sounds. Splinters sprayed out of the small opening.
"Hey!" said Indy, annoyed with the loss of the stick. Then a low throaty rumble came from the statue. With sudden, effortless ease, the elevator began to rise.
Indy looked up, and saw the counterweight falling beside him. The shaft was shorter than he first thought ... maybe six metres high. They were rising quickly, too - he could already see the room above, and the gold box casting its faint glow over the surrounds.
The elevator stopped. Like that. Smooth. Flush level with the floor on either side. Indy cared little for this, he was walking slowly toward the box.
Indy's face began to glow golden as he came closer. From here, he could now see the tiny filigree carvings on the edges of the box, which was perhaps half a feet in width and length. Now against the table, Indy reached out hesitant, trembling hands toward the box. His fingers grasped the edge, which felt almost slick.
Indy gently, slowly, carefully, raised the box, which was a comfortable, hefting weight. Nothing seemed to happen. Grinning, Indy tucked the box into the folds of his jacket.
At which point the entire room shook. A crashing rumble reverberated in the tight space. Small shards of rock fell from the ceiling, raising clouds of angry, disturbed dust. Indy looked around, startled.
The elevator was dropping - already it had disappeared from view. Indy could see the top of the counterweight, still rising. Before Indy could react, however, there was a low, massive thump behind him.
Indy looked up into the passage behind the small table. A smooth two metre boulder had dropped into the tunnel at its rear, and was now rolling down the smooth incline, gaining deadly speed. Each time it bounced, dust and rock fell from the ceiling. Small shards of stalactites and stalagmites were obliterated as it rolled past.
"Oh ..." Indy began, and realising he could either run, or die, Indy turned and pelted for the elevator. With a sinking heart, he realised he'd never make the jump - and, if he did manage to somehow grab the other side, the boulder would obliterate him on its way through. So instead Indy ran to one side of the shaft, where the counterweight was nearly finished its ascent. The floor was shaking, and the air behind was pushing at him as Indy reached the edge and leapt into space. He hit the counterweight, which swung out alarmingly, and clung for dear life.
Beside him the boulder slammed into the elevator shaft. The far edge of the shaft buckled and cracked from the strain. There were a few more crashes as the boulder dropped down, and then a final explosion as the statue encountered something unexpected. That left Indy, stranded on a tree trunk sized counterweight two metres from either side of the tunnel, swinging back and forth.
Indy's hands began to slip on the smooth stone - there was nothing to grip. His body was sliding, slowly but surely, down a two metre counterweight hanging over a six metre drop.
Indy took one hand off the counterweight and fished around in his jacket. He began to slip faster. He pulled out the bullwhip. Rocking the counterweight as much as he dared, Indy drew back his arm and cracked the whip at a brick jutting out from the wall by the door.
It smacked into the brick, curled, and caught.
Releasing his hold on the counterweight, Indy swung into space. It might have made a decent swing in other circumstances, but this particular time Indy's feet clipped the top of the shaft. He tumbled and fell into thick blankets of dust.
Indy paused there for a moment, and caught his breath. A large stone fell from the roof and slammed into the dust by his head. Indy coughed. There was another rumble, from who knows where within the labyrinth, and more stone fell. A stalactite hit his back. Pebbles were raining down his neck. Indy decided it was maybe time to get moving again. He jumped to his feet, snapped the bullwhip off the brick, and ran to the archway.
It crumbled and fell behind him as he emerged into the winding tunnel. Here, at least, there didn't seem to be any mortal dangers. Indy pelted along the tunnel, past the Y junction, and emerged with a cloud of dust for company back in the plaza. Indy caught his breath again, nailed it to a large post, and took out the golden box, now that he had the time to examine it a bit closer.
It wasn't glowing any more. Slightly disappointed, Indy prised the top off the box.
"Well, whaddya know?" said Indy. Nestled in the interior of the box, which seemed to have been lined with lead, were two orichalcum beads. The significance of the lead lining didn't escape Indy. He remembered Sophia talking about a German quest to smash the atom. Sophia... Indy was getting really worried about her. He wasn't finding anything down here, Atlantean or German. He was thinking about her a lot, these last few hours. And he thought about that necklace she wore, the one with the orichalcum residue.
Indy put the box away. Now he really did seem to have run out of options. Sternhart had seemingly come up against this problem too - what was the chamber he couldn't cross?
Indy had an idea. That chasm behind the closed door. Maybe he'd missed something. Getting there through the labyrinth was simple, once he remembered where the door actually was. He stepped over its fallen girth, and had a good look around.
As he'd thought before, the chasm was too wide to jump. Not especially deep, but deep enough to discourage climbing down then climbing up the other side. Indy looked at the walls flanking the chasm. Maybe he could climb across that way.
The walls, unfortunately, were sheer. But on the right hand wall, jutting out, was a square chunk of stone about a foot long. Indy wondered if the outcropping was secured firmly; it seemed to be, but you never could tell.
He wondered about this because he now knew how to cross the chasm. Indy came to a decision, and uncurled his bullwhip. He flicked it at the stone spar, then in a motion so quick and smooth you'd miss it if you blinked, swung the gap and landed easily on the far side. The whip pulled loose of the stone with a single sharp tug. Indy curled it up. It seemed he had two doorways to choose from here. Indy paused and listened.
Yes, there they were again - voices. Far too faint for Indy to make out the words, the language or even the gender, but unmistakably voices. They were coming from the right hand door. It was this door Indy chose, moving stealthily forward.
The passage twisted around in the darkness for some way, before coming to an open area markedly different from the labyrinth Indy had been hiking through the last few hours.
The walls here were stone, but straight and rectangular. The floor was paved with stone, and swept clean. The ceiling was flat. It was a genuine room. There wasn't much in the way of furnishings, just two upright stone blocks, about the size of the door Indy pushed over. Beside them was a passage. Indy walked in and peered down the passage. It was very long, rectangular, and straight as a die. At the end of it, Indy could see two German soldiers chatting away nonchalantly. Indy caught fragments of speech: "...strange necklace..."
Even as he passed the passageway, the talking stopped abruptly. "What's that?" said one of the soldiers, very audibly. Indy, now hidden from view on the other side of the passageway, heard footsteps approaching. He looked around for cover, and eventually hid behind one of the stone blocks.
The soldier came out of the passage, and looked around. Indy, catching faint glimpses of his uniform, saw the guard stop right in front of his hiding block. Right away Indy hurled his whole body against the stone.
Slowly, amazingly silent, the stone block toppled. The soldier had no forewarning at all, and was struck in the back by an unstoppable weight of stone. He crashed to the ground with a sick, muted splat. The stone block made hardly any noise at all.
"Scratch one Nazi," muttered Indy. He glanced down the passageway: no-one was coming. Indy searched the body of the unlucky soldier, then went fearlessly down the passageway.

When Indy finally reached the exit point of the passageway, he saw that it was back to natural geometry and ominous blue ponds. Standing here, in a small space beside a set of stone steps, was a suspicious, but pretty stupid looking soldier.
"Shouldn't you be with the other foreign adviser?" he said to Indy. "And where's Hans?"
"Other foreign adviser?" prompted Indy. Perhaps this idiot might help him find her.
"Ja, that obnoxious Hapgood woman - she's somewhere around here." The soldier stared at Indy. "How do I know you're really part of Kerner's expedition?"
Indy punched the unprepared the soldier on the chin. "You don't," he said as the soldier crumpled to the ground. Indy searched through his clothes, but found nothing.
The way on led up a steep flight of stairs to a mezzanine level, then to a doorway. The doorway opened up at a busy crossroads area, judging by all the footprints in the dust. Four new exits left this area. Indy listened, but he neither saw nor heard a thing.
The first doorway Indy tried led to a narrow shelf over a steep precipice. Standing guard on the shelf was another German soldier. "Hey, you!" he said as he saw Indy. "No civilians allowed in here."
"Now wait a minute," said Indy, all innocence. He had hit upon a strategy. Act as if he had every right to belong here, and the soldiers would get all confused and he could beat them up. The gambit he tried here was much simpler. Indy stared down and pointed. "Hey, your shoelace is untied."
"Where? Hey, these boots don't have laces..." Too late. Indy had already struck. The German soldier was in a terrible position, right next to the precipice, and he had no room to avoid Indy's attack. Several swift punches later, the guard was in night-light land. Indy turned around and took the second door. Not only was this a dead end, it was also unoccupied.
Indy tried the third way. It sloped upward, coming to another, much larger waterfall. There was a German infantryman standing alertly by the waterfall. "What are you doing here?" he asked Indy.
"Hans sent me," said Indy.
The soldier's eyes narrowed. "You expect me to believe that?"
"Believe this!" said Indy as he attacked. This time the German was not caught unawares, and put up a good fight. But Indy had the initiative. Always attack first - that was his motto.
Nevertheless, his hands were pretty tender and he had a blooming bruise on his chest by the time the soldier finally fell to the ground. Indy caught his breath and went on.
After just a few twists and turns, the tunnel widened, providing just enough space for a German guard. "Come forward, you!" he said as he saw Indy. Indy obliged. "Explain yourself and be quick!" He seemed poised to snarl.
Even by Nazi standards, this guy was an irritant. "I'm looking for a patsy," said Indy, "and here you are."
"'Patsy'?" echoed the guard. "What is this 'patsy'?" Indy grinned - the insult didn't translate. And the German was uncertain - instantly Indy ran forward and attacked.
His first punch sank deep into the chest muscles. The German fell back against the wall, so Indy punched him in the cheek and the chin. Caught against the stone wall, his head received two concussions at once. Very quickly, his consciousness fled his battered body.
Indy went on his way. The passage twisted more (it seemed to be coming back in a U shape), and was still inclined upward. Finally he came to a doorway, and the space beyond widened. He was on a platform. About eight feet below the platform was another section of tunnel, dotted with chasms and ravines, and guarded by an extremely tough looking soldier. He was looking left and right in an alert manner, but not up. Indy's presence was completely unknown to him.
Indy crept forward, until he was standing right above the guard. Something prevented him from leaning directly over the guard - a hanging column of rock, almost six feet long, which tapered at the bottom to a very nasty point. It looked loose. Indy reached out a hand and touched it.
The stone column rocked, and suddenly broke free. It plunged down, directly into the guard. Literally into. Indy turned his eyes away as the soldier's scream was cut off before it even began.
Indy lowered himself down to the lower tunnel level. Looking right, he saw the crossroads area. So this must be the final door. To his left was another doorway. Indy threaded his way around the various holes in the ground, before making it through the doorway.
The ground here was smoother, and soon split in two. Indy could hear voices again - just the single voice, rather. It was raised in song. "Oh, when I go a-wandering, among the mountains high." It was not a pleasant voice. This was the voice of a hard-core beer drinker.
Whoever it was, he had an enormously loud voice, and sounded very happy. He yodelled, throwing together scraps of song from all over the place.
The noise came most prominently from the left passage. Indy braved it, skipping down the steps. Eventually the passage widened, and there was someone standing at the far end, in the junction where the right hand passage joined back up again.
He was bald, weighed probably about twice as much as Indy, and all of that was muscle, most of it concentrated in the biceps and pectorals. Indy saw this because the man was wearing a yellow singlet, showing his superb physique off to good effect.
Indy tried to duck back, but he was spotted. "You there, Amerikanner!" shouted the huge guy. "Kommen Zie... I won't hurt you."
Strangely enough, Indy believed him. This guy didn't seem like a regulation German soldier, in his manner as well as his dress. Probably he was just hired help, told to guard a certain doorway from intrusion.
Indy came a little closer.
"Know any good drinking tunes?" asked the guy. His name, unknown to Indy, was Arnold. He was actually getting pretty bored. He'd been here a long time, long enough to run through all the tunes he could remember.
Indy's guess was that this guy knew nearly every jolly sea shanty in the book. He looked incomplete without a tankard in his hand.
"Maybe," said Indy guardedly. "Let me think. Uh... Ninety Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall?"
Arnold beamed. "Say, that's a good one! Now be on your way."
Indy didn't need a second invitation. He made speed back the way he came, and didn't stop until he reached the junction. Those Germans certainly didn't skimp when it came to guarding things. That behemoth could probably hold off a whole platoon.
Indy had no idea how he was going to get past. He wandered through the right passage, hoping it might be unguarded. Nope - as he'd suspected, the tunnel merely joined up again at the doorway. This tunnel was curious, however - no steps, or jagged turns, just a smooth, gently curving path downward, direct to the singing German.
There was a ledge, just at the side here. Perched precariously on the ledge was a six foot wide boulder, almost perfectly smooth. Indy stared at it for a long time, until he finally got an idea.
He heaved at the boulder with all his might. It was too heavy for him to even budge. He'd need some leverage to get this baby moving. Indy took out the ship rib, and jammed it under the boulder.
Indy pulled. The rib snapped, but the boulder rocked. First one way, then the other. It began to roll, in precisely the wrong direction. Gathering momentum, it smacked into the nearby doorway, jamming tightly.
Whoops, thought Indy. He was trapped. The only way was down - to the singing guard. And if seeing Indy for a second time, coming from a different direction, didn't make him suspicious, then he was dumber than Indy gave him credit for.
Indy pushed at the boulder, but just as before it refused to give. He sighed, and walked carefully down the slippery slope. "Putting on the Ritz," sang Arnold heartily.

He was nearly at the junction when he was spotted. "Achtung!" Arnold shouted. Indy came forward, stopping just out of reach.
But Arnold didn't want a fight. "Know any more songs?"
Indy thought quickly. "Yankee Doodle Dandy?"
"Never heard of it," said Arnold. "Now I'll have to amuse myself by tearing your head off."
Indy backed away. "Try singing, 'So long, it's been good to know you'," he said, before turning on his heels and running. Pretty soon he was confident that the guard wasn't following - for one, the earth wasn't shaking (although his heart was).
Back up at the top of the junction, Indy tried pushing the boulder from the far side. It remained stubbornly in place. He needed another lever. Indy searched around for a while, and eventually found one.
It was the wedge-shaped stalactite which killed a Nazi soldier. Indy pulled it out, grimacing, and tried jamming it under the boulder. He pulled upward.
The stalactite held together. And it was lifting the boulder, successfully. Indy heaved, and suddenly the boulder was free. It rolled down the slope, slowly at first but gaining lethal momentum. The tunnel guided it on, the boulder bouncing from wall to wall but always rushing onward.
Arnold sang: "Yodle-odle-URK!"
There was a somewhat muffled thud, then silence. "Ouch," said Indy. Cautiously, he went down to survey the damage.
Arnold's body was jammed up against a wall, battered and bloody but still recognisable. His face bore an extremely surprised expression. The boulder had rolled away and was somewhere nearby.
Indy searched the body. In one pocket he found a couple of orichalcum beads, which Indy put in the lead-lined box. There was something else too, which Indy could not for the life of him work out. A fish, carved from amber and dangling on a string.Amber - that sounded familiar. Indy looked through the Lost Dialogue, and found an interesting sentence: Wise men carved strange devices out of amber to search for the metal [orichalcum].
This fish was pretty strange. Indy tried an experiment. He held one bead in his left hand, and suspended the fish from his right. The fish swivelled around for a while, indecisive, then suddenly stopped, and even pulled upward a little, so that it stared straight at the bead.
It worked. An orichalcum detector - that might be useful. Indy put the bead back in the lead lined box, then thought of something. Why hadn't the fish pointed at him earlier? Indy shut the box and suspended the fish in mid air. It rotated slowly, and continued to rotate slowly. As far as it was concerned, there was no orichalcum nearby.
Well, well. It seemed the box somehow shielded the orichalcum. Indy's suspicions about radioactivity were confirmed. The now unguarded doorway beckoned, but Indy turned and walked back the way he came. He held the orichalcum detector by his side, watching it like a hawk.
He was looking for Sophia Hapgood. Apparently she was "around here somewhere", and Indy was betting she still had her necklace. This orichalcum detector might pick up the residue.
When he got to the top of the junction, the fish stopped swirling aimlessly and pointed downward, at a narrow crevice near Indy's feet. Indy knelt down and listened - not a sound.
"Anybody home?" said Indy softly. An echo of his voice returned from the crevice, but nothing else. "HEY, DOWN THERE!" shouted Indy, as loudly as he damn well could (all the Nazis around being unconscious or dead).
There was a rustle of movement, somewhere not far below, and a yawn. "Indy, is that you?" said a sleepy voice. It was Sophia. "I was asleep."
"What a strange echo," marvelled Indy. "It sounds just like Sophia."
"Ha ha," said Sophia sarcastically. "I'm laughing. Now get me out of here!"
"Okay, sit tight." This could turn out to be difficult, thought Indy. "How deep is that pit, anyway?" he asked.
"About fifteen feet, I'd say," said Sophia.
"How about a passage somewhere?"
Sophia looked around. "I can't see one."
"Have you got any ideas?" asked Indy.
"If you had a short piece of rope, I could probably reach it."
Indy mentally smacked himself. He did have a short piece of rope, of a kind. Indy uncurled his bullwhip and let it trail into the crevice.
Hands caught it and tugged. Indy pulled back, as Sophia climbed out of the pit. She reached the top, brushed herself down and looked at him. "Thanks," she said, tossing her hair. It was still as red and full as ever, although perhaps a little dirty.
"I guess you finally got on Kerner's nerves, huh?" said Indy.
"I don't want to talk about it," said Sophia. "But look what I found down there!" She held something in her hand, a stone.
Indy took it, and gasped. "The Worldstone Sternhart nabbed in Tikal!" But how had it gotten here? According to Sternhart's note, he hadn't made it across the chasm.
"Well, what should we do now?" asked Indy.
"Let's just look for a way out of here," suggested Sophia. It seemed like good advice to Indy, and he remembered the doorway formerly guarded by Arnold.
"Follow me," he said, leading her down the stairs and to the doorway. They both put their shoulders to the stone and pushed.

There are many, many rooms in the Labyrinth. Though Indy had encountered less than two score, he was right when he thought there might be hundreds of rooms, tunnels and passageways.
No longer are all of these accessible. There was a time when every room in the Labyrinth could be reached from any other room. Now, much of the Labyrinth has been shut off by tunnel collapses, and other such rock movements. Many others are kept secret behind massive boulders. These rooms and many more lie undiscovered, forever containing their unknown secrets.
One such room is the Map Room. There are larger rooms in the Labyrinth, so large that even 'cavern' perhaps falls a bit short. There are more impressive rooms. But the Map Room is alone in its design.
The Map Room is about ten metres square. Four doors branch off from it, though we are not interested in them. What interests us is the floor.
There is, in a circle about eight metres in diameter, a small, intricate model of a city. Actual houses, buildings and even trees are all laid out in carven granite. It is a most unusual city, separated as it is into three concentric circles, each isolated from the other by a flat moat. One might gaze in wonder a long time at this city, so detailed is it. But one's curiosity would be immediately piqued by the centre of the city, where there is not one building. Only a raised stone circle one metre in diameter, with a stone peg at the very centre. Perhaps, one thinks, that's the sundial.
But one would not have such an opportunity to think, because the Map Room has never been discovered. It sits alone, in pristine silence, forever destined to...
"Uhhhh!"
The sounds of rock on rock, scraping rudely.
"Come on door, move!"
The door rocked on its base and fell into the Map Room, crashing against the floor.
"Whoops," said Indy. Sophia joined him as they walked in.
Indy ruffled his hat. "Well, either Atlantis is a lot smaller than we thought, or we've found some kind of map, or scale model."
"Laid out in three concentric circles! Exactly as Plato described!"
"Amazing," said Indy, looking at the city.
"I'll say."
Indy looked at the centre of the city. "Looks like a job for the stone disks," he said as he walked over, careful to avoid stepping on anything fragile.
Let's see, it was morning light on tall horns, full moon above noon sun, and ... hmmm, dying orbs plummeting into the eastern sea. That's east sea above setting sun...
Indy pushed the spindle.
Green light. Indy turned, and saw a statue by the edge of the city. It looked like the statue in Caswell Hall. Its eyes were glowing a bright green, and it started to speed around the perimeter of the city. As it passed, buildings rose and fell in its wake.
Indy and Sophia watched, stunned.
The statue had completed two circuits when it stopped and span on the spot. A door behind them suddenly opened. The statue died.
Indy and Sophia looked at the door. Another tunnel. Where did this one lead? Indy knelt down to pick up the stones, then walked over to the door. He looked at Sophia. "Ready?"
"Lead the way," said Sophia. Indy did so.

There was daylight here. After hours and hours in this maddening twilight, she sunlight was refreshing water by comparison.
The daylight came from a gap about six feet wide and six feet tall in the stone. Beyond it was a secluded beachfront, and the waves of the Mediterranean. They were at sea level.
Set on the floor in front of the exit was a stone pointer, roughly triangular and pointing outward. Sophia saw it and peered at the writings. "According to the inscription," she said, "the arrow on this pedestal is pointing north towards the Lesser Colony of Atlantis!"
Indy looked out to sea. "The nearest landmass up north is the volcanic island Thera."
Sophia looked at him. "Well, then... that's our next stop!"

Next Chapter